Swarthmore Phoenix, November 4, 2021

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VOL. 152 NO. 8

Churchill ’22

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November 4, 2021

Athlete of the Week Meet Aiden Cantine of Cross Country

Sharples, Public Safety Among Campus Organizations Suffering from Understaffing Gidon Kaminer Staff Writer

O

ver the past few months, industries such as food service, hospitality, trucking, retail, and more have been having a difficult time hiring employees, finding themselves in an unprecedented labor shortage that has befuddled businesses. Job openings are at a record high as businesses look to reopen from

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Kohlberg Coffee Bar Commons Saturday League of Legends Worlds Final Viewing 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

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COVID-19 shutdowns — in July 2021 there were 10.9 million job openings reported. Yet, in that same month, there were only 8.4 million people who were unemployed and seeking work.

Sharples has been hit hard by the worker shortage. “We’re struggling to operate on a daily basis,” said Dining Services Director Linda McDougall in an interview with The Phoenix.

There are currently four full time benefits eligible positions and 15-20 part time positions that are not currently filled, which means about 210 hours are not covered in total from full and part time.

The Science Center Cafe and Essie Mae’s are also struggling with a scarcity of part time employees.

Kohlberg Coffee Bar is the only dining establishment currently fully staffed.

Public Safety has also been feeling the effects of the worker shortage. Currently, there is one full time officer position and two part time officer positions that are not filled, as well as two shuttle driver positions that are available.

The worker shortage places tremendous strain

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on Sharples staff, who must make up for the deficit in hours by working overtime and taking double shifts.

“We are very lucky that many staff are willing to work additional hours,” said McDougall.

“But at some point they’ll get burned out, too.”

Fall Break was a welcome respite for staff who have been stretched thin, since most Sharples employees were able to take almost the full week off to recuperate.

Director of Public Safety Mike Hill lauded his staff for similarly filling in the deficit of hours. Hill wrote in an email to The Phoenix about the current Public Safety staffing levels.

“In some instances staff gave back vacation days or worked extra hours to ensure proper staffing levels,” wrote Hill. “Everyone pitches in … to maintain a minimum of three staff per shift, which translates to two individuals responding to calls and one person working the communication center.”

As it has been for businesses across the country, the current shortage has been unprecedented.

“I’ve been here thirty one

years and I’ve never experienced a situation like this,” McDougall said. In the past, Sharples would occasionally be down one person, a deficit that could easily be covered by the other employees. But a deficit of over 200 hours of work a week has been difficult to make up for with current employees.

Opinions abound on what the causes and consequences of the labor shortage are. The Washington Post refers to the shortage as “The Great Reassessment,” the phenomenon of people rethinking their career trajectories and seeking out more desirable jobs.

This reassessment has been especially prevalent among lower-income workers who have been working on the front lines of the pandemic under extreme conditions.

While some have painted stimulus checks and unemployment benefits as causes of the labor shortage, recent economic research

by Arindrajit Dube et al. shows only a negligible increase in employment between states that withdrew unemployment benefits early and states that maintained generous benefits throughout the pandemic.

McDougall suspects that many of the people who might be interested in working at Sharples are instead looking for jobs in logistics centers, warehouses, and other industries that are less front-facing. This is a trend that has been observed in the food service industry as a whole, as workers fear the perceived instability of the industry, which was roiled by waves of shutdowns, instead seeking jobs that seem more stable and require less interaction with customers.

Additionally, a recent policy change no longer allows Sharples to employ high school students who are under eighteen, which has left several part-time positions open that would usually be covered by these high school students. McDougall has been trying to encourage Swarthmore students to work for Sharples in parttime student positions, but has not had much success finding student employees.

McDougall has been trying to stress the benefits that working at Sharples offers to employees, especially when compared to other continued on A2

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Photo Courtesy of Anatole Shukla for The Phoenix

Cooper Series Events on HeLa Cells Emphasize Importance of Bioethics, Honoring Henrietta Lacks’s Legacy Anatole Shukla Editor-in-Chief Henrietta Lacks, a Black mother of five who passed away in 1951 at 31, has saved more lives than nearly anyone in history. She has helped eradicate polio, create the HPV vaccine, and discover that humans have 46 — not 48 — chromosomes.

She is in the National Portrait Gallery and has been to space. Yet, before the 2010 publication of Rebecca Skloot’s “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” few knew that she existed.

Lacks discovered in 1951 that she had a “knot” in her cervix — an adenocarcinoma that would metastasize throughout her body and take her later life that year.

Unbeknownst to her, a physician at Johns Hopkins named George Gey took cells from her cervical tumor and cultured them. Lacks’s were the first-ever human cells that grew and multiplied indefinitely outside of the human body. Her cells, known as HeLa cells, became the first immortal cell line. Medical researchers in the 1970s then collected cells from Henrietta’s children and experimented on them without informing them as to the purpose of the research.

Despite her cells saving countless human lives and producing profits for the private sector, the Lacks family has still not seen a single penny of compensation from pharmaceutical companies.

From Oct. 19 to Oct. 22, the Cooper Series, in conjunction with the biology department, Writing Center, and Black Cultural Center among other campus entities, hosted a series of events titled, “Informed Consent, Privacy, and Social Justice: A Conversation Surrounding HeLa Cells.” The Series, funded by the William J. Cooper Foundation, “provides a varied program continued on A3

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Understaffing, continued from A1 jobs in the restaurant industry. She has been stressing that restaurant chefs need to work long odd hours in a frantic environment, often late at night, on holidays, and every weekend. Sharples offers a better deal, she explained: employees have consistent pay of at least $15 an hour, time off for Christmas and New Year’s, often have weekends off, get better health benefits, and work in an environment that is more supportive and collaborative. A recently hired cook, she said, decided to work at Sharples instead of at a restaurant because he recently had a child — working at Sharples, he can get home before nine every night, whereas at a restaurant, he would still be in the kitchen long afterwards.

The college-wide minimum wage increase to $15 which occurred over the summer has not had a noticeable effect on increasing the number of applicants, and the college is not currently looking to increase the wages



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of

Sharples employees.

Similarly, Public Safety has begun hiring “Garnet Guides,” Swarthmore students who work for PubSafe by receiving calls at the call center, opening doors for students locked out of their rooms, escorting students, and more. PubSafe has hired two Garnet Guides thus far, and is looking to hire thirteen more this semester. The Garnet Guide program was not conceived as a response to understaffing concerns (it was announced in February 2021), but Hill is “confident that these positions will be a huge benefit for the students, the team, and the campus community.”

McDougall has been trying various methods to recruit new employees. She has put ads on Facebook, Nextdoor, Handshake, and various online platforms.

She has reached out to vocational schools and student employment offices at various colleges in the area. She has even reached out to the career office at Ridley High School to get

18 year old seniors to apply for part time positions, and has placed yard signs all around the county. She has also removed the cover letter and resume requirement from the application portal, among other efforts to make the application more accessible to applicants who might not have much experience with applying to jobs or with computers. Yet so far these efforts have not succeeded much in enticing new applicants. “I’m trying to be optimistic,” said McDougall, “but I open up my application pool and nobody’s applied in weeks.”

Thanks to the efforts of Sharples and PubSafe staff, students have for the most part not felt much of an impact from understaffing.

The pizza bar in Sharples is not in service this semester due to lack of staff, and occasionally Sharples serves meals with disposable dinnerware when the dishwasher is not operational.

Due to the increased volume of dinnerware ending up in the compost, the Office

of Sustainability has found itself needing to hire more staff to sort the compost.

McDougall worries that current conditions might not be sustainable for too much longer. She wondered aloud, “If you’re used to offering some level of service then where is it fair for us to cut back?”

The brunt of the impact of

understaffing has been felt by staff, who day in and day out work to maintain the same level of service despite the deficit of employees.

The new dining hall will bring with it new possibilities for dining, but it will also require additional staff to work the various cooking and serving stations that will be available to students.

Photo by Best Chantanapongvanij for The Phoenix

Construction on Dining and Community Commons Project Underway for Fall 2022

Sadie Smart Staff Writer

What was once a tranquil arboretum campus has given way to loud and disruptive construction work. Students who make their way towards the academic buildings for class in the morning walk past piles of mulch, chain link fences, and construction equipment, and are rerouted around Magill Walk because of the deep ruts that cut across the walkway. These drastic changes to Swarthmore’s campus are because of the Dining and Community Commons Project, which has been ongoing for the entire year.

The project includes the building of a new dining hall behind Sharples, the first phase of the construction of a geothermal exchange plant, and the

Photo by Mairo Yamano for The Phoenix

renovation of Sharples to make it into a community commons. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Program Manager and Senior Project Manager Susan Smythe reported that the Dining and Community Commons Project will cost about $55 million and is being funded by a combination of gifts and borrowing.

Students will hopefully be able to reap the benefits of this extensive construction project soon.

In an email to The Phoenix, Smythe described the timeline of the project.

“We will actually complete the new dining portion of the project in the late spring or early summer of ’22, so that it is open for students’ return in the Fall of ’22,” wrote Smythe.

She added that the Community Commons portion

of the project will take an extra year to complete, and Sharples will be reopened as a student space in Fall of ’23. The geoexchange system will take a little longer to finish.

“The geoexchange plant and well field will be constructed in phases, with the first phase targeted for completion in 2024 and subsequent phases to be complete by 2035,” she wrote.

Once completed, the geoexchange system will provide hot and cold water and a heating and cooling system powered by renewable electricity.

“The geoexchange system captures heat that is removed from campus buildings during summer cooling and stores the heat deep in the earth to be extracted for heating the cam-

These new stations will focus more on “exhibition cooking” and cooking to order, and thus will require more specialized higher trained staff. McDougall hopes that the new work environment will offer employees more opportunities to connect with students and to feel pride and excitement about their work.

pus buildings in the winter.”

Currently, the college uses fossil fuels for heat in the winter and electricity for air conditioning in the summer. This geoexchange system will replace that old system and be part of Swarthmore’s plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2035. The new system will serve all academic buildings, most residence halls, and many athletic, student service, and administrative buildings. The only places not targeted to be heated by the geoexchange system are places not on the immediate campus, including residence hall Mary Lyon.

The project has necessitated the closure of Magill Walk because the college will eventually place the geowell portion of the geoexchange system underneath Parrish Lawn. In order for the well to be connected to the new dining hall, pipes that cut across campus must be installed while construction of the new dining hall is still ongoing.

Although the completion of the entire geoexchange system is years into the future, the college believes the pipes will be finished in early December and Magill Walk will reopen then.

As these drastic changes occur, students have mixed reactions towards the new dining hall. Some are tentatively excited to have a new dining hall on campus, especially if it clears up some of the problems that Sharples has during dinner and lunch rushes.

“I’m curious to see what the new layout of the din-

ing hall will be, and I’ll be really happy with it if it clears up some of the crowd that Sharples always ends up with,” said Erin Kelly ’24.

Other students feel more neutral about the new dining hall on campus, owing to the fact that they don’t yet know if it will be better than Sharples.

“I’m excited to see what it ends up looking like, but I’m not super excited if it’s just Sharples two. Like what’s the difference?” asked Molly O’Sullivan ’24.

The lack of readily accessible information about these construction projects is a contributing factor to some students’ lack of enthusiasm for the new facilities.

“I think it’s really inconvenient and it takes like ten times as long to get where you’re going, and I don’t even understand what the point is,” O’Sullivan added.

For some upperclassmen, the massive construction project the college is undertaking is also a source of melancholy.

“It’s kind of sad that everything about this campus is changing so fast,” said Alex Malcombe ’23.

Many older students on campus are ambivalent about the construction projects, mostly because they won’t be around to actually use these new facilities. They must deal with the disruptive campus construction, but will never benefit from the new buildings.

This project has necessitated the closure of a portion of both Magill Walk and

the path that winds up to Sharples from the duck tunnel. Chain link fences block these usually well traveled paths off to students and also enclose many of the trees around campus to protect their roots from the construction equipment.

The closure of these paths ultimately means there is only one direct, paved path that cuts up through the entire campus, and depending on where students are coming from, that might make their walk on campus longer than usual.

More than anything, students are excited for the inconveniences surrounding construction to be over.

“Making it so that half the ways to get home are cut off just sucks,” lamented Malcombe.

“It’s super inconvenient,” said Cisco Velasco ’23. “You have to plan more to go anywhere because it takes a good fifteen minutes to get up campus now.”

While the prospect of the giant construction project being completed gives some students a sigh of relief, Smythe cautioned that construction will almost certainly continue long past the completion of the Dining and Community Commons project.

“Construction is a normal part of campus operations, [and] will continue in various campus areas. Ongoing campus infrastructure replacement is required to replace the legacy carbonintensive heating and cooling distribution,” she wrote.

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HeLa, continued from A1 of lectures, performances and exhibitions which enriches the academic work of Swarthmore College.” The events included a screening of the film “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” starring Oprah Winfrey, a lecture

by Rebecca Skloot and Lacks family members Jeri LacksWhye (granddaughter of Henrietta) and Shirley Lacks (daughter-in-law), a writing workshop with Skloot, and a discussion panel with the Lacks family members.

Dawn Carone, an assistant professor of biology at Swarthmore who specializes in genetics, applied for Cooper Foundation funding for what eventually became this series of HeLa-focused events. Carone uses HeLa cells both as a teaching tool for her genetics class and in her own research, which focuses on regulation of a genome sequence called Human Satellite II in cancer cells. She and biology Department Chair Nick Kaplinsky originally applied for funding in 2019, but decided to postpone the events due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an interview with The Phoenix, Carone said, “This story about Henrietta Lacks in her family and the cells that were taken from her is actually something that I teach in my genetics course. And so we decided to [apply for Cooper Foundation funding], but it’s so important and so timely that we wanted to bring it to the whole community.”

The lecture and discussion with the Lacks family on Thursday night began in LPAC cinema with a reading from Rebecca Skloot before the Lacks family members gave a presentation about the impact of the acknowledgement of Henrietta’s contributions for their family. Lacks and Lacks-Whye gave a presentation outlining how the family’s life has changed since 2010, when “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” was published.

Photos shown in the presentation included those of the Lacks family at the Emmys when “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” was nominated for Outstanding Television Movie, Henrietta Lacks Health and Bioscience High School (“HeLa High”) in Vancouver, Washington, and a life-size bronze statue of Henrietta at the University of Bristol in the UK in Oct. 4, 2021, marking the 70th anniversary of her death.

In the discussion following the lecture, Skloot and the Lacks family members answered questions from the audience. All three women gave different answers as to what the most shocking aspect of Henrietta’s story has been for them.

Lacks-Whye answered that the most shocking aspect of Henrietta’s story has been “to know the tremendous contribution she has done for the world … not only as a medical phenomenon, but as a woman … [and] how she

has helped so many people in so many different ways.”

Lacks answered, “That so many different names were given to her before we found out her real name,” referring to how the public would often mistake Henrietta’s name as Helen Lane, Helen Larson, and Henrietta Lakes before Skloot’s work introduced the world to the woman behind the cells.

Skloot shared that after the publication of the book, she used her first royalty check to establish the Henrietta Lacks Foundation, a charity that provides education, healthcare, and emergency expenses to individuals who have unknowingly or unwillingly contributed to scientific research. Such individuals include family members of Lacks, descendants of victims of the Tuskegee syphilis studies, and the human radiation experiments.

Many individuals who read the book and were moved by the contribution of Henrietta Lacks donated, including a woman who survived cancer because of HeLa cells and donates one dollar a month because it’s all she can afford.

No pharmaceutical companies who have made millions of dollars off of Henrietta, however, have contributed.

Skloot attributed her surprise about the biomedical industry’s pathetic response to the Henrietta Lacks Foundation to the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013, which, in her words, “made a lot of institutions start looking more aggressively at their practices.”

This cognizance, however, did not extend to righting one of the most prominent instances of medical racism and exploitation in history.

The writing workshop with Skloot and later discussion panel with the Lacks family members took place on Friday in Singer 033. During the writing workshop, which was really a lecture, Skloot spoke about how she became a writer. Before deciding to become a science writer, Skloot dreamed of becoming a veterinarian and worked as a veterinary technician for a decade to support herself.

She fell in love with writing during a creative writing course that she took to fulfill a foreign language credit. She first learned about Henrietta Lacks in a community college biology course as a teenager.

When her professor spoke about Henrietta, he knew little about her other than that her body had produced the first immortal cell line and that she was a Black woman.

Over a series of years, Skloot, desperate to learn more about Henrietta, searched through encyclopedias and the early internet to learn more about her. Encyclopedias forewent mentioning Henrietta altogether, whereas some textbooks called her “Helen Lane.”

Eventually Skloot found a series of articles from the seventies about the Lacks family,

who only found out two decades after Henrietta’s death that her cells were still alive and being sold for twentyfive dollars a vial while they received nothing. She tracked down the phone number of Deborah Lacks Pullum, Henrietta’s youngest daughter who was only a few months old when she passed away of cervical cancer, and called her. That phone call became the basis of the project that would become “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” which focuses as much on the cells as it does on Lacks Pullum’s journey to find out more about her mother.

Lacks Pullum passed away in 2009 before the publication of the book. Nevertheless, her legacy continues both in the book’s pages, the film, and the inspiration that her tireless search for information gave to the people around her.

“I’ve never met anyone who was more inspiring to me than Deborah,” Skloot said at the lecture and discussion on Thursday night.

“I’ve never seen anyone fight to learn something more than she fought.”

Lacks-Whye added, “My aunt was finally getting information instead of people taking information from her.”

Lacks-Whye and Lacks spoke more about Lacks Pullum’s legacy at the discussion panel, moderated by Nina Robinson ’23, Megan Wu ’23, and Moey Rojas ’22.

Lacks-Whye told the audience about her aunt’s habit of always carrying a dictionary to look up works that she didn’t know.

“She had that much confidence in herself,” LacksWhye said. “My aunt used that dictionary as a way of trying to learn more.”

Both Lacks-Whye and Lacks are outspoken advocates for medical autonomy and bioethics, and are accomplished in their own right. Lacks helps patients advocate for themselves, while Lacks-Whye works in the domestic violence unit of the judiciary system of Baltimore City. Audience members also asked the Lacks family members extensively about their partnership with

Jeri Lacks-Whye and Shirley Lacks

the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a collaboration which requires researchers to apply to a six-member panel including Lacks-Whye for full access to the genomic data of HeLa cells.

Some members of the Lacks family are currently suing Thermo Fisher Scientific, a pharmaceutical company that generates about $35 billion in annual revenue, in Baltimore federal court for selling HeLa cells without approval from or payment to the family. Lacks and Lacks-Whye stated during the discussion that they are not involved with the lawsuit, and that members of the large Lacks family have varying perspectives on how to carry on Henrietta’s legacy.

Despite the systemic injustices that the Lacks family has experienced on behalf of the biomedical industry that continues to profit from HeLa cells without compensating the family, Lacks and Lacks-Whye choose to retain a positive outlook about how Henrietta’s cells are helping people.

“Henrietta was here for a reason,” said Shirley. “I believe … Henrietta was born to save mankind.”

“We try to look at the positive side of how she is helping so many people … millions of people worldwide,” said Lacks-Whye. “She is the one who was chosen to save millions of lives.”

Skloot said during her writing workshop that she is currently working on a book about the murky ethics and reality of animal research, especially pertinent because the workshop took place in a building where animal research actively takes place.

To some students at Swarthmore, the insight of the Lacks family members and Skloot highlighted a lack of ethical awareness in biological sciences that permeates not only the biomedical industry, but also curricula at colleges like Swarthmore which claim tohaveprogressiveethicalstances.

Camryn Slosky ’22, a pre-med student majoring in neuroscience, spoke in an interview with The Phoenix about her dissatisfaction with the bioethics



curriculum at Swarthmore.

“I think it is such a complicated issue that professors and students alike are wary of talking about it, because they’re worried that their specific stance is not correct, or will rub someone the wrong way,” she said. “I think it’s a really important conversation and discussion to have … because especially with biological sciences, you are oftentimes interacting with living organisms.”

Slosky emphasized that it is so important to highlight stories like Henrietta’s because the Lacks family’s story is not an isolated incident of researchers flouting bioethics for scientific clout.

“This is not the first time this type of stuff has happened and it continues to happen. In the current time period, oftentimes scientists will be like, ‘Well, that was in the past. We’re past that now.

And we know more now.’ But we really don’t. We’ve made some strides, but not many.”

Student discussion moderator Nina Robinson approached the topic of the events from a different perspective, being a gender studies and medical anthropology prospective major with a minor in biology. She said that while the anthropology department’s curriculum on bioethics and informed consent is thorough and engaging, she has yet to see that type of engagement with ethics from the biology department.

“It’s not that [a lot of biology professors are] not trained to think about medical ethics, or other related subjects,” she said. “It’s just not in their mind. But I don’t think they can change the curriculum to head into medical ethics, because it gets away from the point of biology. So then I guess you have this sort of philosophical debate about the role of ‘hard sciences.’”

Robinson also spoke to the importance of S.T.E.M. professors acknowledging that even “hard” physical sciences can evolve to change our fundamental understandings of the world.

“I think Amy Vollmer does a good job of acknowledging that what we think is true

about the world can change at any time. … When you’re any kind of professor, you have to be able to acknowledge that what you’re teaching is an opinion. And I think that it’s really hard to do that when you’re teaching a class where you’re like, ‘This is the way the cell cycle works.”’

Carone said that one of her main takeaways from the Cooper Series events was seeing how the Lacks family uses Henrietta’s story to educate others about bioethics and medical autonomy.

“I was really just blown away with how that pride [about HeLa cells] was exuded in the Lacks family members … and how much they really wanted us to continue this story so that people know about Henrietta Lacks,” she said. “Because there have been some major violations of that family’s privacy, but they’re using this as a way to educate others so that it doesn’t happen again in the future.”

Robinson said that the way the Lacks family was so down to earth in spite of their immense social responsibility as Henrietta’s descendants and very public advocates for medical autonomy stood out to her.

“They’re definitely in a very unique position of social power where it was sort of inherited, and they also come from a family that has no social power,” she said.

“They are regular people.

They’re not professors.

They’re not medical professionals. They are mothers, and daughters, and they are just trying to help people.”

The discussions with Skloot and the Lacks family members have renewed Carone’s interest in teaching the story of Henrietta Lacks as part of Swarthmore’s genetics curriculum.

“I think that every year that I’ve taught genetics … I increase the amount of discussion and the focus that we have on HeLa cells, and I think that this has only renewed my interest in doing that, but also made me think about maybe new ways that we can … bring in a little bit more of the human aspect.

Photo by Anatole Shukla for The Phoenix

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Crumb Cafe Opens for First Time Since Spring 2020 Eva Nahass Staff Writer

The Crumb Cafe has been a popular late-night food stop for students over the past few years but went dormant after COVID-19 shut down Swarthmore in the Spring of 2020. This Fall, Crumb opened its doors once again. Beginning with a soft opening on Oct. 6 with a limited menu and the hours of 9-11 p.m., Crumb’s reopening was a huge success.

The Phoenix spoke to the staff of Crumb Cafe about the reasoning behind the soft opening, and their thoughts on its success. Kali Blain ʼ22, one of Crumb’s Co-Head Directors, told The Phoenix that there were two primary reasons for the soft opening.

“Half of the current student population has never been on campus when Crumb was open, so you have the current freshmen and sophomores who have never experienced [it],” she said. “We wanted to give them a taste of what Crumb would be like and drum up more interest.”

“We also wanted to get some people to apply to work at Crumb … we don't have as many returning staff as we normally would,” Blain continued.

Kiara Rosario ʼ22, the cafe’s Booth/Drink Director, told The Phoenix in an email that she was nervous about the soft opening.

“I honestly was a little

nervous about the soft opening. We were working with a limited staff. Since there aren't many late night meal options in the area, especially that will serve fresh, hot food after a certain time, I knew that it was really exciting for a lot of people that we were bringing back a late night meal option. I expected a long line and we definitely had that all throughout the night,” Rosario wrote.

Michele Schremp ʼ25, who went to the soft opening, described her experience to The Phoenix in an email.

They struggled to understand its pull to Swarthmore students before she visited.

“It seemed cool, but I honestly couldn't envision it, or why people seemed so nostalgic for it,” they said on their thoughts before seeing Crumb Cafe for herself.

After getting a chance to go, Schremp decided they liked the coffee shop-esque environment of Crumb Cafe.

“The food was good.

Sharples felt like some kind of bustling coffee shop (which I had sorely missed), and I got to use a meal swipe instead of dining dollars … I loved the vibes of the space: the music, the art, the way people were sitting in front of their laptops and not working.”

Blain said that the soft opening went mostly according to plan, with the exception of an overwhelming number of milkshake orders.

“We were just too swamped because we didn't

expect so many people to come and … just order milkshakes. Usually, more people order food than they would milkshakes, but there wasn't as much food ordering so the booth was really swamped, which is why we had [to close the kitchen early].”

During the soft opening, the line stretched out of the room and across Sharples.

Schremp explained that they considered leaving when she saw the line, but ultimately decided to wait it out.

“It was so crowded! We nearly left because the line was so long, but I think there was a certain level of ‘I came for a milkshake, I will most certainly be leaving with a milkshake’ among me and the people I was with,” she wrote.

According to students’ emails to The Phoenix, Crumb Cafe was known to underclassmen on campus, even prior to the soft opening.

Jenna Takach ʼ24 told The Phoenix that she’d heard about it from upperclassmen.

“I had heard of the Crumb Cafe prior to posters going up, since I have a couple of upperclassmen friends who talked about it. I heard about it mainly in the context of friend group traditions, and I learned that it was a pre-COVID ritual for Garnet Singers to flock to Crumb after our Wednesday night rehearsals,” she said.

Schremp also had

prior knowledge through upperclassmen.

“I had heard of it through upperclassmen talking about it, how it had closed during Covid and hadn't opened since. A lot of people were excited for it to open again — specifically for the boba,” they explained in an email.

After fall break and a week to train new employees, Crumb Cafe opened with regular hours (from 9 p.m - 12 a.m.) on Oct. 25, 2021.

In an email to The Phoenix, Rosario explained that she thought the opening went rather well.

“The general opening has gone pretty smoothly. I'm director of the booth and have enjoyed working with everyone and they all have been doing great! All of the employees at Crumb are the reason we can do this and they have been amazing.”

Takach decided to go to Crumb Cafe after rehearsal and shared her experience with The Phoenix.

“When I first saw it, my immediate reaction was to marvel at how cute it was. But it really was a lot like I expected! There were people talking and laughing, music playing, and it just had such a relaxed atmosphere in general. I decided to go because I needed to unwind after [The Kai’s the Limit] rehearsal (and I think that was a very good decision).”

Because Crumb Cafe had been closed since before the COVID-19 pan-

This Crossword Has No Theme

13 Teenage worry 14 Overly loyal follower 16 Savannah scavenger 17 Abbott and Costello

question 18 Waterfowl 19 Could be Amber, perhaps 20 2020 video game movie

ing but also very humbling when people say things like ‘oh my god is Crumb getting open,’” Blain said.

Rosario shared a similar sentiment.

“The best part of working at Crumb for me would be the environment. It's generally very laid back and we try to make decisions as a team as much as possible and since we are studentrun and staffed, everyone is super understanding.

Honestly, the worst would just be the timing, though it's not a huge issue for me.

Shifts are from about 8:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., so after a long day it can be pretty tiring. When nights are busy, though, this time flies.”

According to both Blain and Rosario, there has been a small issue with staffing, and Crumb is still hiring in order to be open every day during the week.

“We have some trouble with staffing. Last Saturday [Oct. 30], we couldn't open since we just didn't have enough employees. If anyone is interested in working at Crumb, we are still hiring!”

A beloved part of Swarthmore, the Crumb Cafe has fed many students hours after most food options have closed. Despite staffing problems, Crumb has come back as strong as ever with a returning audience of nostalgic upperclassmen and new students ready and willing to partake in the tradition.

By Alex Lehner

23 Enter key output 24 Could be "of letters" or "about town" 25 Wheel speed 28 Holy dessert?

32 Men's bodybuilding award, for short 33 FDA fast-track 34 One way to be knocked down 35 Blue, spiky, and fast 38 White and brown, for OM 40 Choose 41 Arabian leaders 42 Rascally speedster 45 Famous mayor 46 What many conquistadors would say they were after 47 GTA IV metro 48 Threshold location 50 Big Apple team 51 Reason for a prank 53 chi 54 Star character of hit SEGA franchise 60 Good place for some R and R 62 Therapy org.

Across 1 Clothes line 5 HQ of many shoguns 8 Fill to the brim

demic, the Cafe has had to restructure its goals for the future. According to Blain, Crumb is hoping to potentially streamline their ordering process.

“Pretty much like the G.E.T. app, like how you can order ahead, sort of doing something like that to streamline the whole … process. So that was supposed to be implemented, or start being implemented after we came back from spring break of 2020 but we never came back … there might be other technological things but … I don’t want to set anything in stone,” she said.

Rosario focused more on steadiness when asked what Crumb’s goals are for the future.

“I think a big goal that we're all working towards is maintaining consistency night to night on all of our drinks and foods and to reduce the wait time for customers,” she said.

Both Blain and Rosario agree that the best part of working at Crumb is the environment.

“I think it's the environment … it's a very welcoming experience … Working in the environment with people can be very stressful but it's also very rewarding. If you make friends with the people who are there and also just meeting people eating food because you get to eat whatever you make … also just hearing people be excited and like this is sort of as a director like it's very daunt-

Down 1 Pillar of Islam 2 Repeated word 3 Soon, quaintly 4 Someone you shouldn't shoot 5 Ms. Havisham's ward

6 Someone heading to the pearly gates 7 Bigger than Lincoln 9 Cooking fat, in Middle English 10 Classroom activity 11 Largest college in the Silver State 12 Frisking motion 15 Fell like a stone 21 As well 22 Rat someone out, infor mally 26 With "del Sol," central spot in Madrid 27 "Cory in the House" star

28 Piece of diamond 29 A place for busy bees 30 Dark magic 31 Setup for prayer 36 Org. behind Perseverance 37 Leave a mark 39 Part of a word 43 C conversion function 44 A few, in other words 49 Radio sign-off acronym 52 Salt-N-Pepa song 55 Answer to Urkel's catch phrase 56 Abbreviation on a paper 57 Swedish cottage cheese 58 Repeated word

Campus Journal

PAGE A5 

ARTS FASHION FOOD LIVING PHILLY PROFILES STYLES

It’s the Little Things that Count Elena Lee Campus Journal Editor

I

think we can all agree that these past couple weeks have been rough.

Midterms combined with a constant stream of depressing news have certainly not filled my life with sunshine and rainbows, and I’m sure the same holds for many of you. But I don’t want to gripe about what you already know — midterms stink, Congress doesn’t ever get anything done, the earth is burning up, etc.

Instead, I want to give us a chance to vent about the little-acknowledged, tiny, annoying things that build up to make a mediocre day terrible, and to acknowledge the moments of joy and happy surprises that can momentarily lift us out of the unappetizing stew of reality. Without further ado, here are the top ten candidates in each category, as selected by a panel of random friends I polled independent experts.

Top 10 Tiny Annoying Things that Make a Bad Day Worse You attempt to log into Moodle only to find that your 30 days of automatic duo-authentication are up.

Sighing, you dig around in your backpack for your phone, only to discover that you left it in your dorm room. You then proceed to curse Duo 2-Factor Authentication, insult its mother, and vow vengeance upon its descendants.

You waltz into the bathroom, towel and shower caddy at the ready, only to discover that someone has taken YOUR shower. Okay, technically it’s a communal bathroom, but you have STAKED YOUR CLAIM to this shower. It has the best hook placement and is situated at the perfect distance from the door so that you can retain some semblance of privacy from people wandering in. You can try to take a shower in a different stall, but it just won’t be the same — and probably someone has neglected to clean their hair out of the drain.

You set aside time in your busy day to actually do your laundry, only to find upon opening the washing machine that you have accidentally used the one that doesn’t spin the clothes properly, leav-

ing them sopping wet and throwing off your perfectly planned timing. It will now take at least three dryer cycles to wring out the excess moisture, and you have class in a mere hour and fifteen minutes.

You are relaxing at a sunny table in Sci courtyard when you realize at three in the afternoon that you have forgotten to do your COVID test. The prospect of rushing down to Worth to have a q-tip stuck in your nostril is not exciting.

You are extremely sleepdeprived and promise yourself you will get to bed early, as you are all caught up on work. Somehow, you manage to waste time until you go to bed at two a.m. despite having accomplished nothing useful.

Self-loathing subsequently increases exponentially.

You attempt to order a Kohlberg sandwich, reserving it three days in advance on the GET app (an arduous task in itself) just to make sure, only to find upon arrival that all of the sandwiches are gone. You eye every passing student grumpily, certain that they snatched the sandwich that was rightfully yours away from your rumbling stomach.

You drop your mask. With the inside down. On a particularly grimy bit of floor.

In a hurry, you head to Sharples to grab a quick meal before running off to a meeting. But the person in front of you is standing just far enough to the left to prevent you from actually taking a helping of the only dish you want.

You wait, seething, as they chat with their friends, pile seemingly every single topping atop their plate, hesitate, go back for more, look around at the options again, and then finally, finally move away enough so that they’ve stopped blocking the carrots.

Your hands are full with several packages and a couple takeout vessels from Sharples when you arrive at your dorm room. Too late, you realize your OneCard is stuffed in an obscure compartment of your backpack … or possibly your jacket?

Or maybe you lost it somewhere? Chaos ensues and your carefully stacked burdens stand no chance of remaining upright.

Photo by Anatole Shukla for The Phoenix

You receive an email about free food — your favorite food, no less. The next moment, you realize you have class then and that the food will definitely be gone by the time you can escape class. Since the only reason to come to college is for the free food events, you begin to question the meaning of your existence.

Top 10 Tiny derful Things Make a Day

Wonthat Better

You wake up early and see the sunrise over Mertz field with mist rising off the grass as rosy light illuminates the trees.

You go for a walk in the Crum and catch a glimpse

of the cute fox who likes to ramble around there.

Sharples happens to have leftovers of your favorite dessert (looking at you, rice pudding and Hope’s Cookies)! You promptly fill a tupperware up to the top with delectable sweetness.

You come across Benedicta, a wonderful EVS tech who works in Wharton, and exchange a sunny “hello” and a smile. It is officially a good day.

You are wandering through Shane Lounge and encounter a table of unexpected free food. It is free no longer, for you have now taken it prisoner in your stomach.

You have stored some tasty

leftovers in the communal dorm fridge and no one has taken them. Your faith in humanity is restored.

You encounter a friend you’ve been meaning to catch up with for a long time. The two of you grab a meal together, and it is a far superior experience to eating Sharples takeout alone in your room.

You and your friends manage to snag a coveted group study room in McCabe.

You proceed to get no actual studying done but have a lot of fun anyway.

The filter of the water bottle station you frequent most often has been replaced so that the light

is now a friendly green rather than an angry red.

You happily fill your water bottle, content that you will not contract typhoid.

Your professor brings their dog to campus. A cuteness overload ensues.

You can now die happy.

There you have it: the unspoken grievances of Swarthmore exposed as the insidious, good-mooddestroying influences they are, and the unsung joys that can uplift the mediocrity of existence. If any of you have experienced these things, I salute you as a fellow sufferer — and a fellow beneficiary — of the small annoyances and pleasures of the college experience.

THE PHOENIX CAMPUS JOURNAL

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We Are More Together Now Olivia Smith Campus Journal Writer

The other day, the coldest day so far this term, I couldn’t help but notice pairs of friends all over campus walking arm-in-arm, holding each other tight. I noticed as they sprang in uniform steps through the redwood alley or floated blissfully into Sharples. As we enter fall and eventually winter, I can’t help but reflect on my previous cold seasons here.

The isolation I encountered over last fall and winter caused me to notice the setting sun more acutely.

At night, my apartment felt like a Hollywood movie set; the view from my windows was depthless and blank, like someone had placed a black board against each pane. Every creak echoed, highlighting the single pair of solitary ears that heard them.

When the stillness was too much to bear, I would leave my apartment for a nighttime walk through the Ville.

I took a liking to watching people through the window at Renato, or sitting near the Chester Road overpass as cars loudly pressed past me.

And when I’d become too tired to care for even the subtle stimulations of Swarthmore’s main street, I’d stumble home and into bed.

Eventually, I built a ritual to acknowledge night’s hastening arrival. After work but before complete darkness, I would spend some time outside or near a window, standing in the midst of the day’s fading light. I returned always to a primal reassurance: even if I knew nothing else, I knew at least that the sun would rise again on a fresh, new day. Tomorrow there would be energy, tomorrow there would be time, tomorrow there would be light. It wasn’t lost on me that what I was building was a ritual towards hope, but it wasn’t exactly hope for anything specific, just a quotidien optimism that time continues, having similar effects tomorrow as it did today.

I write this entry not to lean too directly into the depths of melodrama, though I’d argue that it’s not always such an unpleasant place to be. We can give ourselves no better freedom than the allowance to feel our fullest feelings. There, we learn

Jan Toorop, 1892

to love our deepest parts.

Through the long winter shadowed by the pandemic, I learned how to be a more-whole person. We are told by many that college will have this effect on us, but it took me a year outside of academic pursuits to realize what I was missing. Now I see myself comfortably as my own com-

pany and my own sustainer.

Again, the days will grow shorter; I think we can already feel it. But we are responding with a special type of physical closeness that I suppose we’ve all been missing. We no longer hesitate to embrace one another, we tell each other to sleep well, and we answer the “how are you doing?”s with more at-

tention to detail, more care for the emotional worlds we’ve each been wandering for the last eighteen months.

Much has changed since last winter: we are safer, we are more together, and I no longer feel an urge to take my nightly stalk through the ville. While I have given up my morning routine of pour-over coffee and listen-

ing to the news in exchange for a resigned feeling of being rushed and forgetting to shower, I share my space and time with wonderful new friends and steadfast old ones. And each day, I am given the beautiful gift of watching my community walk arm and arm, as close to one another as they can possibly be.

Act 2: Saturday Night Freaking Sucks Don Nguyen Staff Writer

[On the Saturday night before class begins, the blue skies are slowly fading along with the sunset, casting a long shadow against the windowsill. Tonight, Don’s room is illuminated by a strong yellow, and together with the album “Evermore” by Taylor Swift playing softly from a phone on the nightstand, it invokes an ambient atmosphere. Don is furiously scribbling on a blue binder full of papers with blank musical staves and scales.]

Don: “UGH! How do I keep doing this? I corrupted my previously blank Google Calendar for this week of Fall Break with 2 reminders a day, flawlessly separating my homework into manageable bits per day. Because I like to read (what’s not to like about confusing Upper and Lower Egypt for the millionth time and learning about the intricate societal ramifications of dance I never thought were a thing?), I got those readings done! But when it comes to actually doing work, I can’t progress past putting my pencil on the paper and then calling it a day. I expected to get so much more done with all this free time; how am I here grinding on Saturday night for the sixth week in a row?”

(Don’s writing slows down, his pencil now finishing the last stroke on

Page One of his workbook exercises. He sighs with a whiff of frustration, looking tired and guilty. With a perpetual frown, Don closes the binder, and he half climbs, half hops into the striped black and white bed. Don promptly reaches over to his right and turns off the yellow room light.)

(With his back resting on the wall to the side of the bed, Don picks up his phone and again swipes right endlessly in four-second intervals. The whites of his eyes are red against the shine of the phone screen, but his pupils are unnaturally still and look almost glazed).

Don: “Isn’t it funny how I said last week that I didn’t need to post pictures of me posing with friends or upload a stream of stories about my everyday life to prove that all my attempts in my life are yielding results? Here I am, a week later and still pretty behind on work, taking a ‘break’ at 10 p.m. to again ride the waves of Instagram’s notifications. I’m pretty disappointed in myself, not gonna lie. When you know what you shouldn’t do and you still do it.”

(Don suddenly turns towards a random direction, seemingly on impulse. The bed creaks as he makes the abrupt shift in his sitting position towards the end of the bed closest to the room’s door.)

Don: “Hey, is the ‘camera’ in position? Testing … testing? Yes, I know you all are eavesdropping on my personal conversations. I’m definitely not just imagining that I am speaking to a crowd who all happen to fit within one cubic foot of hardwood floor a couple inches from the end of my bed. Anywho, now that I finally gave you formal permission (you guys sorta did sneak in without pre-registered authorization, but it’s fine) … Wait, never mind. I already gave everyone who reads the Campus Journal section of The Phoenix permission by sharing the Google Doc in which I definitely didn’t just write a conversation with myself for the purpose of getting feedback of my editor bosses (In every sense of the word “bosses,” I mean that with a note of appreciation and dare I say affection. They give me too many edits, but the fact that they care so much to really fill up every page with edits; I’m very appreciative.)

Anyways, moving away from the chills left by he who reflects and shares way too much sometimes, what do you guys wanna know about me or just talk about?

(Whatever Don is seeing, he nods slightly and holds up the index finger of his right hand up in the air. ) Don: “I’m gonna stop you right there, let me get out of bed and practice my Tap Dance routine. No, I don’t

actually get out of bed to practice dancing (usually with my sneakers because tap shoes make too much noise) routinely at 10:10 p.m. every night. I get to say I do, however, because everything I’ve written so far has been entirely up to my discretion and I need to include some ‘background action text’ to prevent these paragraphs from becoming an immovable word block of needless length.”

(Don proceeds to scooch towards the edge of his bed, subsequently climbing down. After fitting his feet into his bedtime slippers, he walks over to the part of the room that neither he nor his roommate can claim complete dominion over because it’s on the border of each of their territories. He wants to let you know he is at a loss for enough varying onomatopoeias to truly capture all the magic rhythms and sounds of tap dancing.

Don does his thing, possibly annoying his neighbors while also hoping that they are all deep sleepers.)

Don: “What’s that? You guys can’t answer because you’re behind a mile of Parrish Beach, too many trees, and the bastion of walls known as your residence hall buildings? No? Oh, you’re saying it’s because you all are characters in a narrative featuring me as the only perspective? Good point, I forgot. Well, this is quite awkward. In a panic

Photo by Anatole Shukla for The Phoenix

that I will not describe, I propose an alternative plot progression here! I’m getting tired and am about to nod off. It was simply delightful having diligent, nosy spies like you all to keep me company tonight, whether you sprang from my brain as I drafted my future autobiography or collectively tried to solicit my uncomfortable feeling at always feeling watched by no-good eyes. Of course I won’t end my conversation so abruptly at the end of the next period. Hence, I will say that I’m quite enjoying this experience and am probably about 51% likely to piece together Act 3.

There, you’ll meet a famil-

iar warrior and [I ran out of pseudo-spoilers that don’t spoil the upcoming plot].”

(Don, satisfied that Google Docs automatically saves your progress, begins to turn off his Windows laptop. The arrow cursor moves gingerly to the Punnett square start button.

The author definitely didn’t include this sciency reference just to look smart to his audience. Look, my defense is that writing is like acting: you must live the soul of your character’s truths and stretch the drama a bit sometimes.)

(He slowly clicks on the … and … down … )

ARTS

PAGE A7 

Artist of the Week: Lydia Churchill ’22’s Deep Relationship with the Arts Claire Ottenstein Arts Writer

G

rowing up and attending an artfocused school in France, Lydia Churchill ’22 has always found art meaningful. Lydia is a dance minor and political science major, in the a capella group Grapevine, and is involved in theatre.

She is also in Senior Company this semester, one of the capstone project courses for theatre majors.

Lydia reflects on her childhood dance and musical theatre experiences fondly. Her parents fostered a love of art for her

Photo by Isabelle Titcomb for The Phoenix

and her two brothers.

She and her little brother were in an amateur performing arts company together, and all three siblings regularly had guitar jam sessions. Art was not only a way for her to connect with her brothers, but also a way for her to connect with French culture.

Growing up as a ballerina in France was a way for Lydia to engage in French communities, as she made many French-speaking friends through dance. “[Dancing in France] was a special space where I felt really bonded to

my peers as well as so much gratification because dance — it’s great.”

Because dance and art were emphasized so much more for Lydia growing up, coming to Swarthmore–where art is not at the forefront of extracurricular activities, but is more balanced with athletics–was a culture shock.

Although Swarthmore is not known for being an athlete-type school, there is still a greater emphasis on sports here than in the town or even the schools Lydia attended in France.

Culturally,

sports do not play the same role in France. Coming to the U.S. and seeing how students dedicate so much of their time to sports was new to Lydia.

“Culturally they didn’t play the same role” Lydia said of sports in France compared to the U.S., “where you wake up really early, go to sports practice before school, then do more sports after school.

And I feel like art for me played that role instead.”

Although her parents encouraged Lydia and her brothers to be active, her parents priori-

tized arts education over sports, and each sibling learned an instrument.

“I liked dance as my sport,” Lydia said.

During her freshman spring at Swarthmore, Lydia was taking three dance courses when she got tendinitis in her hips from dancing, which made her rethink her relationship with both her body and dance. After this injury, Lydia realized she needed to be healthier in terms of how she danced.

“Mastering it [a healthy relationship with dance] was a wake up call of my relationship with ballet because that is an art form that specifically pushes your body in ways that are very unnatural” and notes that a lot of strength conditioning is needed in order to safely do ballet.

Getting injured was a wakeup call for Lydia. She decided to be more mindful when dancing and to not push herself too much in any form of dance. Before her injury, ballet was her favorite; however, she notes that ballet comes with a lot of pressure, as it is taught very traditionally. During her recovery, she took a step away from ballet. This semester Lydia is taking Taiko and is enjoying it very much.

“It was really refreshing to immerse myself in a new art form,” Lydia said. “[Taking Taiko] is so liberating and not taking ballet this semester has been really liberating, too.”

Dance is both an escape and a complement to Lydia’s academic studies. Last semester, under the advisory of Shaundra Barnstorm, Lydia led an Inclusive Excellence Fellowship with Sarah BurnsEve ’23 called Powering the Narrative Through Art. Through co-leading this project-based program, she learned about marginalized identities and social justice within art and dance.

“I think sort of backing up and seeing the big picture of art as a discipline, dance as a discipline, through a very critical lens was a really big part of my art journey.”

She observed an abundance of dance styles that broadened her view of dance.

“There’s so many other dance forms [besides ballet, which until then had been her primary mode of dance]. Art forms out there that are just as technically challenging, impressive, and amazing.”

Lydia infused dance into her studies by taking a history of western dance course and a class called Arts and Action with Pallavi Chakraborty, and she now views dance differently.

“I think being a Swattie, you’re given tools to look at things more critically and with an eye for equity…[she has been] looking at art more critically and [focusing on] whose voices are being heard and whose art is prioritized, which identities are marginalized from art, and how art is such an important form to vocalize a lot of injustices.”

Along with dance, Lydia notes that interacting with theatre connects deeply with her personal life.

Lydia describes theatre as a way that makes her reflect on her own interactions with others, as a lot of questions in a character analysis are questions that actors can also ask themselves, such as questions regarding a character’s relationship with others and their intentions.

Lydia reflects on a specific rehearsal of “The Night of Themes” in 2019 that impacted her relationships at that time: “I was going through some stuff [regarding] personal relationships, and specifically that rehearsal was such a great escape for me … I felt myself identifying with my character in a lot of ways, and that led me to reflect on a lot of my decisions or my interactions with others in a way that was really meaningful.”

Through experiencing art at Swarthmore, Lydia is now more mindful with her relationship with her body, has a broader view of the myriad forms of dance and how it interacts with society, and uses it as a way to work through anything occurring in her life.

THE PHOENIX ARTS

PAGE A8



Original Student Musical “The Kai’s the Limit” Celebrates Student Passion, Queerness

Anatole Shukla Editor-in-Chief

Powell Sheagren Staff Writer The last time Swarthmore saw a football team on its campus was the year 2000.

After the team won just five games in five years and at one point had the longest losing streak in America, the Board of Managers decided to cut the football program to create more opportunities for incoming students with other passions. This lack of football changed on Friday night with the premiere of “The Kai’s the Limit,” an original comedy musical written by Marie Inniss ’23 and Hannah Sobel ’22, which prominently features the sport.

The show opens with Kai (Addie Klingbeil ’24), a junior at a small liberal arts college uncannily resembling Swarthmore, waking up early in the morning every day so that they can practice trumpet for a marching band that does not exist. When their best friend Sam (Mrinali Taskar ’22) compels them to get over marching band, Kai reaches the conclusion that the college will only allow them to start a marching band if they have a football team to accompany it. Logically, Kai then starts a football team, collecting a ragtag group of players. These include Sam’s love interest Lilli (Clare Mulligan ’25), a junior named Bif who has not spoken to a single person other than his mom since getting to college but longs Photos courtesy of Michael Nutt

to see his name in lights (Reid Mansur ’23), and a girl who crusades against the team until they promise to provide compostable balls, i.e., heads of cabbage (Whitney Grinnage-Cassidy ’24).

The team, full of passionate liberal arts students whom Sam has tricked into thinking they are playing for an unintelligible intellectual reason, faces one major obstacle: Kai knows nothing about football. Bif steps up and takes over the role because his father is a football coach, and he and Kai become close friends. Meanwhile, Kai and Sam have a falling out because Kai outs her as a lesbian to Lilli before she is ready to come out herself, and she is tired of their selfish behavior. The show comes to a head before the team’s first game when Kai tries to trick them all into becoming a marching band on top of a football team, and all of the players think the plea is a joke. Compost Girl ultimately reveals that all of the players are musicians in the same band class and have been practicing marches, a deus ex machina which allows Kai’s marching band dreams to come true. The show ends with positive resolutions for all of the characters, with Bif seeing his name in lights, Sam and Kai making up, and Sam and Lilli confessing their feelings to one another with an onstage kiss.

“The Kai’s the Limit” was an impressive accomplishment, especially considering that everyone in the cast and

production crew was students. With a dynamic lighting rig, live music, and a full ensemble, it was abundantly clear how much effort and passion went into the show from the writing to the tech.

The musical understood its audience — Swarthmore campus community members — extremely well, making light of “toxic aspects of liberal arts education” such as nonsensical controversies, and students trying to sound smart by using big words they don’t understand. Abetted by the actors’ energy, all of the jokes were genuinely funny and landed on a primed audience.

Sobel’s composing brought life to an alreadyentertaining musical, the music notably involving both traditional live theatrical instruments (piano, drums, and bass) and brass instruments more closely associated with marching band. “Bif” and “Bif Reprise,” specifically, had a hook that evoked band marches and was so catchy that I (Anatole) haven’t been able to get it out of my head for days. Most impressive were songs such as “I Love Football” and “Samthem,” which featured multiple characters singing in tandem to the same rhythm, emphasizing their togetherness.

Taskar and Mansur gave standout performances, respectively stealing every scene they were in. Taskar’s performance as Sam was so solid that it was surprising when the show’s program stated that “The Kai’s

the Limit” is her first musical production since eighth grade. She played a realistic yet whimsical “straight man” (even though her character is a gay woman) to Klingbeil’s Kai, her own ridiculous denial about being gay balancing out her character’s ideological realism. Mansur also delivered an incredibly endearing performance as Bif, drawing cheers from the audience the second his character appeared dancing in his room in glittery pink robe. Additionally, though Grinnage-Cassidy plays a minor role with a character who doesn’t even have a real name, her gorgeous singing voice and upbeat acting proved that there are no small parts, only small actors.

Moreover, “The Kai’s the Limit” is one of the rare musicals that actually gets better in Act II. Act I mostly revolved around Kai tricking people into loving football, a plot which, while undeniably entertaining, was more exposition than commentary or character development.

Act II, on the other hand, focuses more on the relationships between Kai and Sam, Sam and Lilli, and Kai and Biff. I (Anatole) found myself groaning during Act I when Kai declared themselves “the expert on all things queer,” an exhausting rhetoric which serves only to gatekeep people from the LGBT community. It was so refreshing when Sam not only calls them out on their bullshit (with regards to both tricking people into playing foot-

ball and outing her before she’s ready to come out), but also sets healthy boundaries by telling them that though she will support them, she needs time to forgive them.

Act II also delivered some payoffs that left the audience smiling and cheering. The first was during “Bif Reprise,” during which the lights projected “BIF” onto the stage, realizing his dream of seeing his name in lights. Moreover, when Sam and Lilli overcame being “oblivious lesbians” and confessed their feelings to each other, their onstage kiss was a perfect alleviation of the tension between them throughout the entire musical. Both payoffs make it crystal clear that though on the surface “Kai” is a musical about marching-band-related hilarity, it is at its core a musical about celebrating queerness. Though queerness and pain are inextricably linked, it is so important that there exists media that also shows queer happiness without any of the characters having to suffer solely because of their gender or whom they love. “Kai” does this very intentionally, with a nonbinary protagonist who never has to justify or explain their gender, two lesbian characters who end up happy together, and a queercoded male character who is celebrated for his duality in loving both football and music. The results are uplifting.

One aspect of the traditional musical experience which “The Kai’s the Limit” failed to deliver, however, was exciting choreography.

The show’s choreography had some standout moments, like Bif’s dance moves in his character theme “Bif,” and a brief tap number in Act II’s “Bif Reprise.” In songs involving the full ensemble, however, the choreography was repetitive and not particularly compelling. The simple choreography specifically stood out due to the musical being centered around elaborate, complex, and crisp movement, which was not represented in the show.

The musical also did not effectively utilize the power of its ensemble, a variety of Swarthmore students who were cast this semester rather last, like the four principal actors. The ensemble appeared only in four songs, mostly to emphasize the joke that students at liberal arts colleges don’t know how to play football. Because of the sound mixing on the stage, it was often difficult to hear what the ensemble was singing. Though it was possible to understand the general gist of the songs, the instruments overpowering the singers’ voices meant that many of Sobel’s lyrics

disappeared into the sound.

To Inniss’s, Sobel’s, and choreographer Jenna Takach ’24’s credit, writing music for and choreographing the movements of fifteen people is easier said than done.

Finally, though “The Kai’s the Limit’’ is an admirable pun, the title is a misnomer.

Kai, despite being the eponymous protagonist, is the least interesting character in the show. Between tricking wellmeaning albeit pretentious students into joining a football team and their manipulative behavior towards Sam, they’re not someone the audience can conscientiously root for. Their tunnel vision towards their goals gives them a lack of depth compared to characters like Sam, Bif, Lilli, and even Compost Girl, who all have lives and feelings outside of their hobbies. Though the Act II song “The Kai’s the Limit” (roll credits) is a sweet moment for Bif and Kai to discover each other’s true passion for music, the Kai is ultimately not the limit. Though their passion led to the founding of the team and the marching band, the true “limit” lies with every person willing to follow them as a leader.

Though Sam, Bif, and Lilli’s character arcs reach natural and exciting conclusions, the high-concept premise of the musical — Kai starting a football team so that they can have their marching band — does not come to fruition in a compelling way.

It works as a comedic device that all of the football players have been musicians the whole time unbeknownst to Kai, but the abrupt revelation does not match the more emotionally-driven tone of the second act. It is difficult not to think that at this point the story was blocked into a corner, this deus ex machina being the only way to resolve the story.

Nevertheless, the other two payoffs bore fruit, and that’s not a number to sneeze at.

Overall, “Kai” was a wonderful way to introduce musical theater back to Swarthmore’s campus after the past year and a half’s theatrical drought. During the three virtual semesters, the COVID-19 pandemic sapped possibilities for students to participate in extracurriculars along with student motivation. In this, “Kai” is a much-needed return to form both in content and in and of itself. One special aspect of small LACs is that students are big fish in a little pond, not vice versa, and (with the motivation) there are countless opportunities to go forth and create. “The Kai’s the Limit” is a timeless reminder of the importance of doing just that.

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“The Kai’s the Limit”: A Q&A with Creators Marie Inniss ’23 and Hannah Sobel’22

Anatole Shukla Editor-in-Chief

Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Anatole Shukla: How did you decide to team up on writing?

Marie Inniss: I was gonna write everything and then I found out I can’t write music. And I was just on the phone with [Hannah] and I was like, ‘Oh, this sucks! I can’t write music!’ and [Hannah was] like, ‘I can write music.’

Hannah Sobel: I’ve never written musical theater before, but I’ve been told that the various kinds of songs that I write when I’m just writing songs on the piano, or ukulele, pop songs or whatever sound more musical theater-y than normal pop songs do so I was like, ‘That’s probably something I could do.’ And then we just kind of did it.

AS: Can you tell me more about the writing and composing process and how long it took from the point you started writing to when you had a finished book and started casting?

MI: I started January 2020. And then I didn’t write for a couple of months and the pandemic started, and I had time …

We finished the first draft by the end of that summer.

HS: Which was very different than what happened on stage. I think I hadn’t finished all the songs. And then we did a reading of it on Zoom.

MI: And we asked for feedback.

HS: And then we edited everything, and I think the almost final draft happened last spring semester ... because that’s when we were starting to cast.

MI: [I was] still editing as we were casting. My final final version was from August of this year. And that was when I was like, ‘Okay, I can’t edit anymore.

Just stop. We’re done.’

AS: What are some things that changed between the first draft and what we saw on stage?

HS: Bif wasn’t part of the original idea or concept at all. We just needed another character and Marie was like, ‘Okay, there’s a guy named Bif now. And he doesn’t talk to people.’

And then we were trying to explore this character Bif, and I was like, he needs to be like a dancer/singer.

MI: All I knew is that he existed and he didn’t talk. At first. Yeah, it took me forever to figure out why. Like, why not? Why

not? I just put this guy in and he doesn’t talk, and I don’t know why. And then I was like, puns. [Bif did not speak for his first three years of college because kids in high school always made fun of him for making puns of his name, like “bifficult.”]

HS: I think we liked Kai a lot more [in the final iteration]. … Kai was just an asshole all around.

And then eventually, we realized we needed to redeem them in some way.

So we gave Kai more of an arc. Kai really didn’t have much of an arc before.

AS: Marie, you wrote in the program for the show that you grew up in a marching band family and you were disappointed coming to Swarthmore that we don’t have a marching band, so how much of the musical was based on your own experience versus total fiction?

MI: Before I got here, I had a plan. I was like, ‘I’m going to get there and I’m going to start a marching band and it’s gonna be great.’ I was talking to someone else who had been a color guard person and he was like, ‘I’ll team up with you.’ It was gonna be a whole thing. And then we got here and like just didn’t happen because …

HS: Swarthmore crushes your dreams.

MI: Yes. It crushes your dreams, but also I was

busy with other stuff happening. It just wasn’t on the forefront of my mind.

And then I got into theater and I was like, why start a marching band if I could just write a show about starting a marching band, and then I still get what I want, sort of.

AS: What were your favorite and least favorite parts of working with a cast and production crew that was all students?

MI: My favorite part is how committed everyone was. First of all, the actors were always early to everything. It was bizarre, actually. Swat seven? It was like Swat negative 30. But everyone was really committed to making it a good show and showing up and also having a good time. So that’s something I liked about it.

HS: This was really big and new for everyone.

At least for me, because I’m learning to [conduct and direct music] and I’m also writing music. This is the safest I’ve ever felt teaching people music.

So I really appreciated the cast for doing that for me and picking it up.

AS: Is there anything you would go back and change about the show if you could?

HS: The original was for a full wind We were getting so pushback on like,

music band. much ‘Wait,

you want an ensemble of like twelve people? You want fifteen people singing on a stage without masks?’ … [The show] was scored for twelve people, trumpets and trombones, and I had to rescore it in the middle of the summer because people blowing into instruments on a stage was not going to happen. So it was piano, double bass, [and] a synth that was playing on the ‘Full Band ‘setting.

MI: We like to play it safe here. So the theater is never very big, like the shows we put on here. Everyone acts like it’s because ‘Oh, we’re a small school. We don’t have a lot of interest.’

But we had so many people audition. We had to reject people and we didn’t want to. There’s this attitude of like, ‘Oh, look, if it’s too many people, it’s too hard.’

AS: What inspired you when composing these songs, Hannah?

HS: It really depends on the song. All the gay songs were easy for me because they were just based off of middle school lesbian Hannah trying to figure it out … I was just writing a lot of music at the time, like, over the pandemic. That’s when I really started to compose things. So I just feel like I had so much music in me that it was pretty easy to come up with a concept, especially when I had this play in front of me.

AS: In your perspective, how do you think the show went and what kind of reception did you receive?

MI: It was a good, good weekend. I mean, it really just came together.

HS: I didn’t realize it would come together so beautifully. … I think a lot of that feeling is happening now. We were so stressed up until Sunday, really just trying to make everything perfect.

And making sure everyone was on the same page.

MI: I did cry because it looked so good. And I was like, this is it. This is amazing. … I think in the eyes of the adults, we did a major thing because our cast was so big and it was a musical.

HS: There were just so many moving pieces.

MI: There are a lot of moving pieces and I was annoyed at the beginning of the semester because there were a lot of adults telling me ‘Oh, you should just do a staged reading, it’ll be so much easier.

You realize how hard it is what you’re trying to do?’

And I’m like, I don’t understand why I wouldn’t do something because it’s hard. … I’m just confused by this notion that if it’s hard you should not do it.

AS: What does it mean to you to have created a piece that celebrates not only queerness but also queer happiness, especially for lesbians?

MI: When I decided to write a musical, I didn’t know what it would be about, but I said there has to be lesbians. And that was a no brainer… Just because there isn’t enough representation. It’s annoying.

HS: That’s why we didn’t want to have a typical male lead, like Kai’s nonbinary ... Also, like, I write music based on me, and it can be very loosely based on me … things that I’ve felt and things that I’ve experienced, and I don’t understand straight people, and therefore could probably never write a song from a straight person’s perspective.

MI: I want[ed] this to be a happy show with happy lesbians. Happy, happy, happy. The world is a terrible, depressing place, and I’m not in the mood for that.

AS: Is there anything else I should know?

HS: There’s the real-life Kai [Jamal Dillman-Hasso ’15], ... who tried to start a marching band. Andrew Hauze told me about him. … He, many years ago at Swarthmore, attempted to start a marching band without a football team and succeeded in doing so and then he was really into Polish marches… Everyone got to marching band practice, he passed out the music, and everyone was like ‘What?’ And Swarthmore to this day does not have a marching band.

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“Knives Out” (Maybe the Best Way to do Social Commentary is Through a Murder Mystery)

Dani Gomez Columnist

I briefly mentioned “Knives Out” in my last review and I’ve been too busy to watch anything new since “Locke and Key,” so I’m happy to use this as an excuse to talk about one of my favorite movies. “Knives Out” is a murder mystery film written and directed by Rian Johnson and starring an ensemble cast which includes Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Lakeith Stanfield, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell, and the late Christopher Plummer. It was released on Nov. 27, 2019 to critical acclaim and impressive box office numbers, and holds a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

“Knives Out” centers around the Thrombey family, whose mystery-novelwriting patriarch is found in his room the morning after his 85th birthday with his throat slit. Though originally ruled a suicide, the death of Harlan Thrombey raises the eyebrows of a private investigator named Benoit Blanc. Eventually, Benoit Blanc and Harlan’s nurse, Marta Cabrera, discover the true cause of Harlan’s death.

Photos courtesy of T-Street

Dani’s Thoughts (Spoilers Ahead): First and foremost, I need to talk a little bit about representation. Ana de Armas, the Spanish-Cuban actress who portrayed Marta Cabrera, explained that she almost didn’t answer the casting call for her character at first when her agent offered it to her because it went something like, “pretty, young, Latina nurse.” According to de Armas, Rian Johnson insisted that Marta would not be a stereotype, that she would not be sexualized, and that her character was central to the story.

All of these promises came true. I am impressed beyond words that Johnson, a white man with no Hispanic heritage, was able to create a character who spoke so powerfully to my identity as a Venezuelan immigrant. The few scenes with Marta’s sister and mother are so precious to me that I sometimes watch them on repeat aside from the rest of the movie itself. They often remind me that I often don’t feel a lack of representation in film until I actually see myself represented. Certain small moments, such as Marta’s mother saying “Y con quien voy a hablar?”

(And who would I talk to?)

remind me so strongly of my own mother that I cried the first time I saw “Knives Out.” Marta and her family are written with the kind of respect that I do not often see.

Secondly, let’s talk about the Thrombeys. With the exception of Harlan (Christopher Plummer), they’re all pretty terrible people. The first interview scene reveals (in a way that’s both hilarious and a little heartbreaking) how gleeful each family member is to tear the others down in front of a police detective, presumably only days after the death of a close family member. The will reading scene hammers home the absolute shallowness that pervades the entire family; they care for nothing except accruing more money even though they are all evidently wealthy and perfectly secure. The individual interactions that they have with Marta show how manipulative they all are, and how entitled they feel to Marta’s kindness despite their own terrible behavior. Then there’s Meg (Katherine Langford), who’s set up to be more sympathetic, and her betrayal of Marta’s family’s immigration status -- a move I find so unforgivable that I can easily tell you who my least

favorite Thrombey is. It isn’t the alt-right troll, the murderer, the Trump supporter, the girlboss, or the Gwyneth Paltrow knock-off, though all of them are awful in their own entertaining ways. It’s Meg. If you wonder why I rage at white performative activists, analyze how much damage Meg does to Marta simply because of the small chance she might have to fill out the FAFSA for her next school year. Meg is just as dangerous as any Karen and this movie makes no qualms about this fact. 11/10.

The plot of “Knives Out” holds up almost as well as its stellar characters. It’s gutsy to reveal the killer within the first quarter of a movie where the identity of the killer is, in theory, the crux of the matter. And yet the final reveal that it was Ransom (Chris Evans) who changed the medications in Harlan’s bag and furthermore, that Marta instinctively knew which medication was the correct one without looking at the label, does not feel either contrived or purely for shock value. I love movies and shows that I can enjoy even more during subsequent rewatches, and some of the little narrative details in “Knives Out” show *chef’s kiss* excellent writing.

For example, Walt mentions that Harlan’s story plots popped into Harlan’s head fully formed. The audience gets to witness this in real time as Harlan comes up with the plan to exonerate Marta while he is, theoretically, dying. A more subtle revelation is that Ransom, who is set up to be a parallel character to Harlan, evidently comes up with the same plot when driving around after the party. He simply chooses to play the role of the villain. Speaking of Ransom, it cannot be at all coincidental that Chris Evans (of good guy Captain America fame) was cast as the young and conventionally attractive villain. Ransom is aware of his privilege both as a wealthy white man and, I think, as an attractive one. The movie seems to be aware that the audience will want a reason to believe he’s a good person, especially when he offers to help Marta. This makes the realization that he’s the true antagonist much more powerful. And his “Yeah I killed Fran but I guess I didn’t” speech went viral for a reason. Chris Evans absolutely (pun intended) killed it.

At face value, “Knives Out” is an engaging murder mystery with a pretty airtight

plot. What truly elevates this movie, however, is the commentary which underlies the entire story. Marta faces microaggression upon microaggression throughout the movie. Is she from Ecuador? Brazil? Uruguay? Don’t ask the Thrombeys; they wouldn’t know (but they would quote “Hamilton” at the drop of a hat if pressed.)

These microaggressions, for the record, are not simply present for the movie to show the writers’ awareness of the existence of racism.

They serve to characterize the manipulative and shallow nature of her employers.

These are characters who openly admit knowledge of their privilege. Think of Walt (Michael Shannon) trying to intimidate Marta by threatening her mother or Ransom’s fearlessness about being arrested for something as insignificant as arson. The dynamics of the family are toxic in every way and juxtapose themselves clearly against Marta’s good soul. I also love that though Marta also does a few questionable things, such as impeding Blanc’s investigation, the movie never tries to paint her as villainous for having the audacity of self-preservation. (Actually it’s not even self-preservation, since this is all for her family).

All in all, I love “Knives Out” because if I were to guess, the prompt that Rian Johnson set out to answer was not as straightforward as: “Who murdered Harlan Thrombey?” Instead, Johnson chose to use the mystery to explore the dynamics that excessive wealth, privilege, and unaccountability create. And he did so in a much more successful way than a lot of movies that are ostensibly about wealth, privilege, or the immigrant experience often do. This movie has something for everyone: humor, mystery, really wellanalyzed social commentary, and perhaps a moment of reflection for people who see themselves or their actions represented by the Thrombey family members.

It’s also worth acknowledging that “Knives Out” stood out against a trend of big budget Hollywood films as an entirely original story -- not a remake, not a prequel/sequel, not a new spin on an old story. My one teeeeeeny criticism is that in attempting to make the movie PG-13, Rian Johnson wrote in some weird curse word replacements. (“What the hell” sounds a lot better than “What the shit,” which I have never heard anyone say.) But even this little quirk is more endearing than anything else.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

OPINIONS

PAGE A11

Sameer Halepoto Opinions Writer

T

his is a response piece to “Should Swarthmore Really Be Having Fireside Chats With Goldman Sachs?”

It’s common for virtuesignaling students to throw shade at finance, investment banking, and other related fields. Advocating for the college to restrict these events is just the latest reminder of how far the practice has come at this college.

Banishing fireside chats with investment and consulting firms will not protect students from the evils of these industries. It won’t even mean that the percentage of students pursuing jobs in these fields will be reduced. Rather, it will further ensure that these fields continue to be a closed party for the wealthy kids.

Moreover, preventing or under-promoting recruitment events will not stop students born into wealth from going into investment banking. Those students already have inside tracks to jobs at Goldman Sachs.

These fireside chats are an opportunity for underrepresented students to get their feet in the door. It is an opportunity for them to shine in front of executives at these firms. Preventing such events will only add to the exclusivity that these fields are marred with.

Swarthmore students need access to more, not less, of

these events to make themselves visible to these firms.

Closing off potential career options purely on the basis of ethical concerns is a privilege that low-income students often do not have.

Given how sought-after consultants and investment bankers from top firms like McKinsey and Goldman Sachs are on the job market, it is no surprise that these firms are popular among students looking to maximize their earning potential. Not everyone has the means to put on a superhero cape and save society. Prioritizing breaking your own cycle of poverty is no deal with the devil.

As evidenced by Swarthmore’s lagging rate in sending students to investment banking, we don’t have an issue with too many students going into finance.

Given the significant student interest, it is likely the number of students heading into the field will continue to hover around 12 percent — even if the college does not promote such events.

One of the college’s main responsibilities to its students is to disseminate opportunities equally, given its focus on supporting students from all walks of life.

Precluding career opportunities based on an arbitrary and frankly hypocritical (just go look at the sources of our endowment) moral compass for its students would be grossly overstepping its

boundaries. Let’s not give the administration another means to unilaterally decide what’s best for students.

The solution here is not to shush the finance talk.

Doing that would only further diminish the limited pool of recruitment opportunities on campus.

Rather, the way forward is to bring in resources and equitably spread knowledge of other professions alongside investment banking and finance. To do this, Career Services needs to be held to a higher standard.

We wouldn’t be having this conversation about protecting students from the evils of finance if there were sufficient recruitment from other industries as well. In fact, this fireside chat was not even organized by Career Services; it was organized by a student who interned at Goldman Sachs this past summer.

Many similar information and recruitment sessions are organized by student clubs like 180 Degrees Consulting and Redefine Her Street, not Career Services.

A simple cost-benefit analysis is especially helpful in realizing the stakes here.

What do we gain from turning down Goldman Sachs?

Perhaps a moral victory over the evil investment banking and finance empire and an honorary badge of righteousness. But at what cost?

Well for one, these fields are going to continue on

— with or without Swarthmore recruits — and students will only miss out on these valuable (and scarce) networking opportunities.

It is hard enough to find jobs as it is. Getting even one offer in today’s ultra-competitive environment is a big relief. To turn down lucrative offers over ethical concerns is not something most students can afford. We cannot afford to sit on our high horse and poo-poo careers we deem to be unethical.

For some students, losing out on a lucrative job may mean being riddled with student debt the rest of their lives. For international students, it may mean having to leave the U.S. due to not being able to find an employer willing to sponsor a work visa. Given their already limited pool of potential employers and a litany of laws they must adhere to while in the U.S., being picky is not a luxury international students can afford. It is often the big firms who hire international students and not everyone’s favorite non-profits.

Making collective judgements on labor-supply decisions that are inherently individualistic is a slippery slope that we should all avoid. There are better ways of realizing our mission of positively impacting the world than to purge Swarthmore of harmless fireside chats with Goldman Sachs.

w

PHOENIX

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Yes, Swarthmore Should be Having Fireside Chats with Goldman Sachs

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Follow the Money & Show Me Your Math: The Need for Financial Education Keton Kakkar ’20 Editor Emeritus

This is the first in a series of opinion pieces about ways to begin reimagining education in the 21st and 22nd centuries.

The purpose of this exercise is to jog the minds of those reading, and to begin launching some questions for further study and review. These essays are the general reflections of an alumnus of this college and this newspaper. They, however, remain my views and mine alone. In some cases, the views offered in this series likely differ from policy I would enact if I myself were writing the rules.

That seems natural to me. The desire here is for spirited inquiry, discussion, and debate.

I propose that Swarthmore College should incorporate rigorous financial education

into its curriculum. By this I mean that all students upon graduating from Swarthmore should be required to have a mastery of the basics of economic reasoning: how to read a balance sheet, how to think about investments, and how to evaluate the costs and benefits of policy proposals.

This, in my view, could be accomplished by requiring one good course on the subject, which students could opt-out of by passing a test, much like they do for their language or swimming requirements.

You may balk at this proposal. It is my hope in this essay to persuade you of its necessity.

It may seem obvious that an institution which emphasizes civic engagement ought to ensure its graduates know how money works. Af-

ter all, it is pretty difficult to reason about why things are, or how things might be, in modern civil society without understanding costs, investments, and capital markets.

The classic retort to the proposal of taking financial education seriously at a place like Swarthmore is that financial education is ‘vocational’ in nature, and therefore not in line with the college’s mission of Liberal Learning (where the “liberal” does not connote the political sense of the word, but the classical sense, more closely meaning “free inquiry”).

To understand why financial education is not built into the backbone of Swarthmore’s ethos, despite its utility and place in the canon of historical knowledge, it is worth taking a tour through the col-

lege’s history. What are the liberal arts, really? And what do people think of them as?

What are the Liberal Arts?

At the risk of being reductive, let me say simply that the Swarthmore model of education derived from the Oxford tutorial system, was influenced strongly by the German and then American research university, and finally was distorted by a series of changes in requirements and broader trends across academia as a whole. Such distortions are the topic of a further essay, but for now it should suffice to propose that all curricula require revisiting after a certain period of time. Why do we make the choices we do? And why not make them differently?

Swarthmore developed around the idea that there ought to exist research for the sake of research. One theory underpinning Liberal Learning is that there exists such a thing as knowledge in the world, and however impractical or useless that knowledge is to learn, it is worth devoting energy to discover, understand, and pass along. Sometimes this knowledge remains useless to know about, however interesting it might be: Should we classify Pluto as a planet? Why or why not?

But sometimes this knowledge cures disease or paves the way for atomic weapons.

Swarthmore gathers together brilliant research scholars and encourages them to pursue their work while supporting the mission of educating the next genera-

tion of thinkers and scholars.

It should continue to do this.

But somewhere along the line, this idea of research for the sake of research, or, as it’s sometimes thought of, “the usefulness of useless knowledge,” was distorted into an argument for devaluing knowledge that is of immediate utility. Somewhere along the line, vocationalism became sneered at. Just think, for example, of some of the grumbles about coding that one occasionally hears among humanists of a certain generation.

The problem is that such devaluing is wrong semantically, historically, and practically.

The pursuit of knowledge for the sake of knowledge is an inclusive pursuit. Nothing about taking that mission seriously necessitates

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PAGE A12



Financial Education, continued from A11 simultaneously devaluing knowledge that is pursued for the sake of utility. The two can coexist. Indeed they did. The initial purpose of the Liberal Arts proposal was to carve out a little room among all the applied knowledge for some theoretical pursuits; not ever to dismiss applied knowledge altogether.

For example, the study of engineering, perhaps the most practical and applied of the sciences, has been a distinguished and integral part of the college for a very long time.

Additionally, the example of an institution similar to Swarthmore might be relevant here. The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, an institution that was led and shaped by the Swarthmore president who had the most lasting influence on our curriculum, in fact placed value on applied knowledge. Though the center was devoted solely for the pursuit of advanced research by established academics, many of its leading scholars applied the knowledge they were pursuing at the Institute toward commercial work at Bell Labs, one of the 20th century’s premier R&D companies. Theoretical knowledge and knowledge applied for vocational purposes used to go hand in hand.

Last, it is a mistake to think that the pursuit of knowledge only goes in one direction, flowing from theoretical to applied to vocational. The drafters of the US Constitution, for example, were not solely academicians. They worked as surveyors and lawyers, farmers and printers. It is not a coincidence that we say they “framed” the constitution: that is what it is called when one lays the foundation of a house.

Financial Education as Vocational Learning?

The idea for this essay formed after I learned about a particular policy the college

has in place for transfer students, namely, that students who transfer into Swarthmore are not given credit for accounting courses taken at their previous institutions.

The stated rationale for this inane policy is that accounting is a vocational course. Never mind that the college itself appears to offer one financial accounting course, or that many courses offered at Swarthmore College could be considered vocational in nature, like computer science, mechanical engineering, lab biology, and painting. Additionally, many individuals who graduate from Swarthmore College in non-vocational subjects go on to make the research and teaching of those subjects their actual vocation. When you consider these facts, the dismissal of accounting on vocational grounds seems to be wanting in analytic rigor.

But nevertheless, let us engage with the idea that all courses at the college have to be of a “liberal arts” nature.

The Liberal Arts defense of accounting and financial education is simple: Accounting is a research method. It may be clear that it is a research method employed in the discipline of economics. But it is also central for understanding politics, literature, or history: what, for example, do the ledgers of the slave trade tell us about the history of the Atlantic? Well, to answer this question, one first has to be able to read a ledger.

The college’s existing stance toward financial education points to something more pernicious, however, than illogic on the part of those who designed the curriculum all those decades ago. The unstated but banal reason for why accounting is discredited is, to put it simply, elitism. (And, if the curricular philosophies of the 1920s were not wholly detached from the college’s other policies, then perhaps some residual anti-semitism as well.)

Historically a school of

Sidewalk Politics Zahara Martinez Opinions Writer

One night, I was talk​ ing with my friend on the walkway leading out of Essie’s and toward Parrish.

She was on the grass, and I was standing right on the boundary between the grass and the sidewalk. We were cackling together, presumably over something dumb, when a small group of white kids who’d just come out of Essie’s brushed past both me and my friend, not acknowledging us. It was as if they had gone out of their way to bump into us despite the infinite amount of space available to them on the sidewalk. My friend and I went through all the possibilities of how they could

have not noticed us, quickly ruling each out. There was no way they couldn’t have heard us — we both grew up in Caribbean families and consequently are very loud women. There was no way they couldn’t have seen us — we were very close to a lamppost, and my friend was wearing very eye-catching pajamas. Eventually, we realized that they simply did not care to pay attention.

Afterwards, as we went on fuming about this irritating encounter, we gathered that both of us, me especially, have had multiple encounters of this type, mostly with white people. I used to brush them off, thinking that maybe the specific white people around me who grew up in the suburbs

Photo by Anatole Shukla for The Phoenix

trust-fund babies and facbrats, Swarthmore would likely have had no need to teach its students how to think about money: their parents would do that for them, as, in fact, mine did for me. When I was eight years old, my father sat me down and taught me how to read a spreadsheet and calculate compounded interest. He learned the basics of economic reasoning from his own father, who lifted himself out of abject poverty by selling street goods as a teenager in 1940s Kabul. Those lessons from my father remain some of the most interesting and important things I’ve learned in my life, my time at Andover and Swarthmore included.

Though the Swarthmore of today educates perhaps more than its fair share of modern McCabes and Clothiers, it has also very nobly committed itself to the education of a broader swath of youth. But seriously committing to inclusivity re-

quires reconsidering what students might or might not be presumed to know before entering the ivory tower.

For first-gen and low-income Swarthmore graduates to be well-situated for the material challenges of life, they ought to be equipped with the tools to understand how they can get ahead in the economic game, and be able to support their families and communities when they enter the workforce. The college should take seriously the mission of using education as a tool for financial and community uplift. After all, it is not a coincidence that the words for liberal learning and economic liberalism are one and the same: Functioning, market-based liberalism has enabled an extraordinary degree of individual liberties and liberal learning over the last three centuries, the opinions of your armchair-Marxist dorm-mate notwithstanding.

Beyond, however, the importance of financial educa-

tion at the college for solidifying the class-mobility of its lower-income students, the incorporation of financial education into the Swarthmore curriculum will also allow Swarthmore to fully live up to its stated mission of engaged scholarship and civic engagement.

One imagines that in 2021, the faculty of the college are eager to find ways to discourage the Instagram activism and lazy, rhetorical politics we have seen so much of in the last decade.

One way to do this is to give students the tools to properly analyze the issues they care about in a way that will enable them to work toward implementable and effective solutions. These tools will inevitably require studying finance, as some of the most challenging and complicated problems in modern civil society — like ameliorating poverty or achieving fair wages for laborers — often require nuanced analyses of

costs and benefits. (There’s a reason, presumably, that it is called collective bargaining.)

I propose that Swarthmore College provide financial education in pursuit of Liberal Learning. The course could partner with the Lang Center to make the most of Swarthmore’s mission of engaged scholarship, and use real life case studies as an example.

Such an approach would be in line with the Liberal Arts mission of pursuing epistemic truth, and yield immense other benefits to students as well.

The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg used to ask: "What is the difference between a bookkeeper in Brooklyn and a Supreme Court justice?" And her answer was: "One generation."

Many people view this as a lesson on the power of the American dream.

Unsurprisingly, I view it as a lesson on the power of bookkeeping.

didn’t understand sidewalk etiquette, something which had been drilled into me at an early age as a native of Newark, New Jersey. I found, however, that my other black friends who live and attend schools in predominantly white places have many similar stories to share.

There was no ambiguity in the situation outside Essie’s: these kids could have walked anywhere on the wide pathway, yet they decided to not move around me and my friend. Curious to see if I was crazy, I looked online and found an article in the Daily Northwestern titled “Are the sidewalks at Northwestern too White, too?” written by Kenny Allen. Not only did the author and their friends, all African American, share

the same experiences I had, but they were also able to articulate a theoretical framework in line with the strong opinion I’ve had for years.

During the Jim Crow Era, an informal rule that black people had to follow was stepping off the sidewalk when a white person passed. If they didn’t, it often had fatal consequences.

It is also important to note that although Jim Crow laws were explicitly upheld in the South, this social law was recognized all across America. We all mimic our parents, who’d mimicked their parents and so on, so it makes sense that not yielding to fellow passersby is just a social behavior passed down through many generations.

The article also discussed

sociologist Bedelia Nicola Richards’s quiz to determine whether one’s university is racist, which includes five questions, the first of which is: “Which group or groups feel most at home on the campus and which ones feel like (unwanted) guests?” I think we all know the answer to that question. Also, spoiler alert: Swarthmore definitely fails this quiz, but that’s another story for another day.

People of color are perpetually on high alert because of this feeling that we are imposters and/or unwanted guests, primarily in academic spaces, so not having one’s personal space respected on a wide sidewalk, which is just common courtesy, doesn’t make things better.

People’s lack of accommoda-

tion towards those that don’t have the same background or mindset as themselves bleeds into so many other aspects of Swarthmore life: I have a multitude of stories about Swat professors telling kids of color, kids going through tough situations, and/or kids who struggle in a certain subject that many of their wealthy counterparts had already been well-educated — to give up.

No one is saying that if you bump into or brush up against a person on the sidewalk as a white person, you are automatically racist. Every person does that sometimes. I’m just saying that if that is a recurring habit for you, learn to give people space and move out of the fucking way.

THE PHOENIX OPINIONS

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We Are Experiencing a Public Health Crisis, and It’s Not Coronavirus Oliver Hicks Opinions Writer

There’s a virus afflicting our country that has claimed the lives of more Americans in the last 50 years than all of our wars combined. It is equivalent to having one year’s worth of a COVID-level pandemic nearly every decade, yet it has been routinely ignored by influential lawmakers.

This virus has nothing to do with our immune systems: it is our toxic gun culture.

Approximately one in three Americans own a firearm (a statistic that has remained consistent for decades and is much higher than those of comparable nations).

Astoundingly, those one in three Americans own 40% of the total civilian-owned firearms in the world, which translates to more guns than people in the United States.

Why so many guns? Nearly two-thirds of owners say it’s for protection. Yet, while we own significantly more guns than comparable nations, our crime rates are about the same. In fact, instances where guns are actually used for protection are rare; less than 1% of actual crime victims report using a gun in self-defense (and those interactions are often exaggerated). For those who claim guns deter crime, the data doesn’t look much better: studies show that crime rates drop when it is harder to get a gun, not easier.

The virus is not a crimeridden society that requires guns for safety; it’s that too many Americans believe in the illusion of one.

If our misguided beliefs about guns are the virus, then gun violence is the resulting disease. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, Americans are 25 times more

likely to die from a gun homicide than their counterparts in other developed nations. We are ten times more likely to commit suicide with a firearm (which accounts for 60 percent of all gun deaths).

And we are simply more vulnerable to harm from ourselves or family members when a gun is in the home — intentional or not. Consequently, over 100 Americans are killed by a gun every day, with another 230 shot and wounded. In the last five years, we’ve averaged nearly 40,000 gun deaths annually.

Addressing gun violence is not a matter of good guys with guns fending off bad guys with guns. Addressing gun violence is recognizing that guns are a problem to begin with — one that manifests in different ways.

For young Black men in impoverished urban neighborhoods, it might be the daily threat of homicide when

they leave their house. For wWhite folks in rural communities, it could be the increased likelihood of suicide when experiencing depression with a gun in the home.

For women everywhere, it’s the lingering fear of injury when their abusive partner owns a lethal weapon.

The reality is that guns are the means of violence, not the prevention. They are the disease, not the cure.

As we move past what has been a multi-year, earthshattering pandemic, it’s worth remembering the sobering lessons of our ongoing battle with coronavirus: public health threats cannot be denied — they do not solve themselves. To combat gun violence, we must similarly acknowledge it.

The cure to this disease is challenging misinformation and rectifying our national conversation. The responsibility for doing so is shared

by all levels of government, the media, law-abiding gun owners, and citizens everywhere. We cannot allow gun advocates to conjure up the image of musket-wielding patriots or gun-toting cowboys to rationalize the presence of firearms in our society. Instead, we must be driven by data to demonstrate the inherent risk of guns and by a genuine concern for the safety of our neighbors to take action.

This is the only way to create a healthier ecosystem in which guns can still exist.

After all, we might find there can be a healthy dose of guns in our society — the solution should be driven by data just as much as by ideology. But what must be understood is that regardless of one’s chosen lifestyle or opinion of the second amendment, people are dying and we have a civic duty to stop it.

There is hope in the long

“Squid Game”: More than Just a Show? A Breakdown of Netflix’s Letter to Investors.

Saumya Raj Columnist

For Netflix (NFLX -2.17%), recovering from the post-pandemic slump is proving a complicated plot line. (For those who are unfamiliar, NFLX is the stock symbol for Netflix on ​​ Nasdaq, a global electronic marketplace for buying and trading securities.)

Wait, backtrack. Netflix’s valuation dropped after the pandemic era of binge-watching shows?

How does that work?

Netflix’s Letter to Investors, April 2021 — the Post-pandemic Slump According to Netflix, the company did so well last year that it was hard for this quarter to compare. "We believe paid membership growth slowed due to the big COVID-19 pull forward in 2020," Netflix said in its letter to investors. Netflix gained a stunning 16 million subscribers in the first quarter (January to March) of 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic forced people to stay home. It’s pretty hard to top a number that large.

In the first quarter of 2021 (January to March), the streaming service added far fewer new customers than Wall Street expected, missing even its own forecast by millions of subscribers.

The following quarter (April to June) was expected to be even more challenging. Netflix saw a gain of just one million new customers, a fraction of the 4.44 million projected by their analysts.

This dismal growth re-

sulted in Netflix shares sinking 11% in after-hours trading to $489.28, wiping $25 billion off the company's market capitalization in New York trading.

Overall, its stock has risen a mere 27% over the past year compared to a 63% increase in the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC).

Netflix defended its low performance, stating that it did not believe competition changed materially this year or impacted its new sign-ups "as the overforecast was across all of our regions." Netflix was also optimistic that production delays caused by the pandemic in 2020 will "lead to a 2021 slate that is more heavily second half weighted with a large number of returning franchises," which would increase business.

Netflix’s investors remained hard to impress.

Then “Squid Game” came in and turned the tables.

Netflix’s Letter to Investors, October 2021 — the Success of “Squid Game” On Sept. 17, 2020, Netflix debuted the sleeper hit South Korean survival drama "Squid Game," which has given Netflix’s stocks (NFLX) a lift. For the few brave enough to not have been peer pressured into watching it, "Squid Game" is a dystopian series in which contestants desperately in need of money play deadly children's games to win cash prizes. Netflix revealed last Tuesday that 142 million households of subscribers watched the show in its

first four weeks, making it Netflix's most-watched TV show ever. Netflix co-Chief Executive Officer, Ted Sarandos, conceded at a Code Conference last month that “Squid Game”’s success took even the company by surprise. In its third-quarter (July to September) report, Netflix revealed that viewership for the show in the first four weeks blew past the 82 million who watched the company’s previous record holder, “Bridgerton,” in its first four weeks.

After markets closed on Wednesday, Netflix announced that it had added 4.4 million new subscribers in its most recent third quarter (July to September), exceeding expectations. The company also earned $1.4 billion in profit, up from the $790 million earned during the same period in 2020. Furthermore, revenue jumped up 16% to $7.4 billion.

Netflix now has 213.5 million subscribers globally, surpassing the streaming service's own expectations as well as those of analysts around the world. The company has also forecast that it will gain an additional 222 million subscribers in the fourth quarter (October to December).

The increase in subscribers immediately sent the company's stock up by as much as 2% in after hours trading before going negative by nearly the same percentage as the night went on.

Netflix plans to keep cashing in on the "Squid Game" craze as it launches apparel and toys tied to its

content. "Demand for consumer products to celebrate the fandom for 'Squid Game' is high and those items are on their way to retail now," Netflix wrote in the letter to shareholders. But other disclosures in the earnings report are pushing investors to lock in recent profits.

Shares, which hit an all-time high earlier this month, are down 1.9% in premarket trading. Netflix has added roughly 70,000 subscribers in the United States and Canada. While an improvement from the second quarter's loss, it also signals that the market has become increasingly saturated.

Netflix has maintained a wide subscriber edge in a crowded streaming market that includes rivals Walt Disney Co. DIS, -0.37%, Apple Inc. AAPL, +0.34%, AT&T Inc. T, +1.25%, Comcast Corp. CMCSA, +0.87%, Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -0.84% and ViacomCBS Inc. VIAC, -0.51%. But with a Photo courtesy of Netflix

fresh batch of wildly popular content joining “Squid Game” this quarter, including new seasons of previous hits “The Witcher,” “Money Heist,” and “Tiger King,” Netflix is expected to storm back the rest of the year.

Does this mean now a good time to invest in Netflix?

The question of whether to invest in Netflix seems to have divided investors between those expecting a rosier outlook given the popularity of “Squid Game” and those whose companies have opted for a more muted view.

Jim Cramer at CNBC advised investors to buy shares of Netflix, arguing the stock’s post-earnings decline is creating an attractive purchase point. “When you see Netflix pulling back after a very robust set of numbers and lots of price-target boosts, where management laid out a compelling long-term strategy, you need to look at it as a

list of diseases we’ve cured over the years — it’s comforting to note how long it has been since we were worried about smallpox or polio. A public health approach rooted in data and empathy, supported by engaged stakeholders, and leveraging proven solutions is a good place to start.

Universal background checks, red flag laws, and gun licensing are all solutions already supported by most Americans. Of course, there are other issues, too.

Dismantling the NRA’s massive pro-gun lobby and supporting more funding for gun violence research are prime examples. But our goals are no longer as outlandish as they once seemed.

This virus is deadly, but we have recourse. A public health approach to guns can change minds, laws, and culture. It’s time to get healthy.

It’s time to beat this virus.

gift ... to buy, not sell,” the “Mad Money” host said, after the streaming giant closed Wednesday’s session down 2.17% at $625.14 per share.

Morgan Stanley’s Benjamin Swinburne took a similar view, even though the company’s results and outlook were “as ‘in-line’ as it gets for Netflix,” in his view.

“That does not diminish the importance of validating the move in shares and future growth potential,” he wrote, given the heavy enthusiasm heading into the report.

Other analysts seem to have less upbeat views, with Deutsche Bank’s Bryan Kraft stating, “While, on the one hand, we share the market’s enthusiasm toward Netflix’s very strong 4Q content slate and the optionality it brings to 4Q net adds; on the other hand, we think a 4Q subscriber beat is already more than priced into the stock.”

And as always, the only way to tell is with time.

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Thoughts on Apple’s October Update Zachary Gillette Opinions Writer Apple Inc. held its fourth event of 2021 on Oct. 18, revealing new software and hardware installments to add to what has already been an impressive 2021 collection for the tech giant. Apple’s first event of the year was in April and showed the introduction of AirTags and improvements to the iMac, Apple TV, and models of the iPad Pro. The Worldwide Developers Conference in June marked the second event of 2021, where the company showcased a number of updates to iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and macOS. September marked the third event, at which Apple emphasized refreshed models of the iPhone with bonus renovations to the iPad, iPad mini, and Apple Watch.

Apple’s first three events introduced AirTags and showcased a number of updates to the iMac, Apple TV, iPad, iPad Pro, iPad Mini, iPhone, and Apple Watch. Perhaps the most anticipated updates of the year, however, were seen during last month’s event, when the company announced revolutionary updates in the lineage of the MacBook Pro along with modest upgrades to AirPods and HomePod mini.

Beginning with the third installment in Apple’s wireless earbuds line, the new AirPods 3 showed a notable improvement to the second generation AirPods with the addition of spatial audio.

A feature that previously had only been available to Apple’s more premium AirPods Pro and AirPods Max, spatial audio claims to create a more immersive listening experience. Visually, the new AirPods received a revamp, making them look quite similar to the AirPods Pro save the absence of the silicone ear tip that is included in the Pro model. Otherwise, besides a slightly improved sound quality due to the replacement of drivers, the alteration of the Force Sensors on the stems to improve control of listening, and the ad-

dition of sweat and water resistance, the AirPods 3 stayed roughly the same as the previous model. With a current price point of $179, they are $50 more than the second generation AirPods and $70 less than the AirPods Pro. Personally, I believe that the AirPods 3 are not worth their price point. The addition of spatial audio is certainly an improvement from AirPods 2, but it does not dramatically change the quality of the listening experience such that it is worth $50 more. The other alterations I mentioned are merely tweaks to the Airpod’s usability, and ultimately do not offer significant changes to the listening experience. Because of this, I would pick the AirPods 2 over the AirPods 3 and save $50, rather than cough up the extra money for features I can live without.

Cost not being a factor, the AirPods Pro are still Apple’s best earbuds, though AirPods 3 certainly surpasses AirPods 2 for second place for the reasons mentioned above.

Compared to the new AirPods, the additions to the HomePod mini line were even more limited: Apple simply added blue, yellow, and orange designs to join the white and space gray colors that had previously been introduced. These new colorways cost the same $99 as the two original colors.

There is really not much to opine about in terms of the HomePod Mini, besides the obvious fact that the new colors have the benefit of allowing a more customized aesthetic in one’s home.

It is also worth noting that Apple added a new Apple Music subscription option along with the new AirPods and HomePod mini called Voice. As the name might suggest, the Voice plan only allows users to voice control Apple Music features. Of course, this concept is not ideal for users who would prefer to queue their music visually on their screened devices such as iPhone, iPad, and Mac, but could potentially be popular for those who utilize non-screened

devices such as HomePod mini and AirPods and those with visual impairments.

At a price of $5 per month, the plan is among Apple’s cheapest Music plans, but is also one of the most limited.

Though the AirPods and HomePod mini additions piqued the interest of viewers during the event, the MacBook Pro was indisputably the star of the show.

Put simply, Apple’s newest Pro version of their popular MacBook laptops received substantial upgrades in both usability and performance.

Beginning with updates to the screen, Apple slightly expanded the display by reducing the size of the surrounding bezels, reduced the top bar to a less intrusive notch around the webcam, and improved the overall quality of the display. Apple also enhanced the built-in speakers and webcam and added new ports on the side of the machine to improve user workflow. The keyboard was also remodeled to replace the old touch bar with real, fully-functional keys.

On the performance side, the MacBook Pro expanded on its new M1 chip by unveiling the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips. Like the base M1 chip, these new chips are designed

by Apple to work seamlessly with Apple’s other hardware

and software, giving them a leg up on the old Intel chips that MacBooks have used in the past. With increased numbers of CPU and GPU cores compared to the base M1, these new chips are simply a more powerful version of the M1 that allow for improved performance when doing computationally-demanding tasks. As expected, the new MacBook Pro also allows customers to choose between various sizes of memory and SSD storage, ranging from 1664GB and 512GB-8TB respectively. While the new 14in and 16in MacBook Pros are certainly great machines, they come at a significant price, and the base model for the smaller machine starts at an astronomical $1999.

To me, the new MacBook Pro is clearly Apple’s most capable MacBook ever. With the powerful new M1 Pro and M1 Max chips, as well as new ports and improved screens, the MacBook Pro might be a great option for those who frequently do audio, photo, or video editing, computationally-demanding coding, and the like. For just about any other computeruser, however, the processing power of the MacBook Pro is unnecessary, meaning that more affordable machines are probably a better

choice. For example, I would recommend the MacBook Air, which starts at $899 for students and $999, for everybody else. I believe that nearly all students fall under the latter of these two categories, although I wouldn’t blame Swatties for picking up the sleek new machine if their budget permits.

In any case, customers should know a few additional things about MacBook computers before making a purchase. For one, Apple doesn’t make it easy to upgrade a machine’s parts once it is assembled. This means that it is often a good idea to overshoot the amount of memory, SSD storage, and processing power you choose for your MacBook, giving yourself a bit of headroom if you need it in the future. Sure, there is always the option to buy an external GPU or SSD drive if need be, but these solutions pose an inconvenience to users that could make the cost of buying more memory or storage in the first place worth it — I personally would rather pay more for additional memory and storage in my device than save a couple of bucks and have to worry about remembering my external setup each day.

Also worth noting is that despite the MacBook Pro’s new processing capabilities,

it still is not the best at running video games. Simply put, for the price of a MacBook Pro, users could get a high-end gaming PC that would be significantly better in gaming performance than a regular computer, or even a decent gaming laptop if portability is an issue.

Ultimately, I believe that the MacBook Pro will continue to be the machine of choice for computer scientists and creators, since the integration of Apple’s hardware and software is hard to beat. The AirPods 3, though not a substantial upgrade in my opinion, are still a reasonable choice for Apple fans who want a quality pair of wireless earbuds. I find it hard to imagine that anyone cares about the HomePod Mini, but undoubtedly someone is excited about the new blue, yellow, and orange colorways. As has always been the case for Apple products, the question of to buy or not to buy will come down to price: how much are you willing to pay for a higher-end product, the features of which you may or may not need?

The answer to this question is unique to each individual, so it will be interesting to see just how many Swatties tote new MacBook Pros and AirPods in the coming months.

Photo courtesy of Apple

GIVE US BACK PRE-COVID ONECARD ACCESS

EDITORIAL

Columnist Zachary Robinson ’20’s piece on Swarthmore’s COVID-19 plan last week pointed out Swarthmore’s persistent, restrictive OneCard policy that bars students from entering dorms in which they do not live and buildings that were previously accessible 24/7 like Sci and Parrish. The policy even prevents The Phoenix Editorial Board from accessing our own office 24/7.

What was once an implicitly temporary policy implemented in the 2020-2021 COVID-19 school year has now been extended indefi-

nitely. There is no clarity on what societal conditions are necessary such that the draconian policy is retracted.

Universal OneCard access is crucial for the type of social, open, and welcoming campus that Swarthmore should strive to be. Students should have access to the full breadth of facilities and student life available to them regardless of their departmental affiliation or housing-portal lottery outcome.

Limiting student movement to their designated academic and residential zones reinforces the notion of students existing within Swarthmore to fulfill their limited and specific function. Swarth-

more students should not feel as though they are meant to and can only learn through their classrooms and academic environments.

Learning most definitely extends to social interactions students have in Science Center Commons, Parrish, and the dormitory spaces.

Swarthmore College, in its essence, is an entity that manifests itself through its community members — we make up the college and we make up the college experience. By barring us from each other, the college is holding back a large portion of the experience we expected to receive since the day we accepted to matriculate.

The COVID-19 concern about student transmission of the virus as a result of universal One Card access, while compelling in the 2020-2021 school year, is clearly less pertinent in a school year with unlimited student access to common buildings like Science Center, Singer Hall, and the mask-off zones of Sharples and Essie’s. Students are already congregating in classrooms and dining zones, and stopping a Wharton resident from entering Willets just defers their close social interactions to other, more crowded locations. Moreover, shutting off 24/7 access only increases the pos-

sibility of unsafe situations for students who are out late at night and could need a safe, warm, well-lit space for any reason. Shutting off 24/7 access to The Phoenix’s office does not make any sense since we regularly use our office past midnight, the closing hour, to provide an essential public good for the college. We are effectively trapped in the office to get our weekly print paper out on time. Working around restricted OneCard access is a universal impediment that benefits nobody, and deprives Swarthmore students of their essential freedom of mobility. While we sympathize with the intention

behind COVID-19 concern and their corresponding policies, a return to Swarthmore’s pre-COVID Universal OneCard access is not a public health risk, and crucial to the Swarthmore experience.

SPORTS

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Solskjaer the Survivor: Manchester United Manager Lives to Coach another Week Jacinta FernandesBrough Opinions Editor

A

lmost exactly a year ago this week, I shook hands on a bet with a friend who was convinced that Manchester United Manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer would be fired by the end of the month. Personally I was hoping our manager would at least make it to Christmas at that point.

Fast forward a year, and the conversation has not changed much.

Solskjaer’s three-year reign at United has been a constant back and forth between glimpses of potential brilliance interspersed with, frankly, absolute 90-minute disasters. (Our most recent 0-5 loss to Liverpool springs to mind.)

Yet, United currently sit at fifth in the Premier League table only three points off third place Manchester City, is top of their Champions League group, and only

recently ended their 29game unbeaten run away from home, an English league record. So what is happening with Solskjaer and his team?

In domestic competition, United entered the 2021-22 Premier League season in the conversation as potential title contenders. This is a discussion in which the United name rarely appears anymore, sitting eight points off first place with team performances that, on average, do not rise to the level of football on display from Chelsea, Liverpool, and City this season. Often conceding first in games, United have come from behind to win an impressive nineteen games under Solkjaer’s tenure. But while a last minute comeback is always exciting, in the interest of chasing silverware, it would be nice to see our back line keep a clean sheet with a little more consistency.

To give credit to Solskjaer, United enjoyed an impressive Europa

League run last season, making it to the final before losing a painful penalty shootout to the Spanish team Villareal. The shootout set a record for most number of penalty kicks in a UEFA competition, ending after United goalkeeper, David de Gea, missed the 22nd penalty of the night. United’s start to their 2021 Champions League campaign, however, has been shaky, losing their opening game to the Swiss Young Boys (a team I could not place on a map before we played them). United also fell behind on the scoreboard to Atalanta, a Seria A fifth place team, both when playing them home and away before coming back in the last minutes of each game to win and tie. Thankfully, United beat Villareal in their first meeting since the previous year’s Europa League final in a satisfying taste of revenge (although a last second 95th minute goal was required).

With two round-robin games left to play, we

are currently top of our Champion League group.

This inconsistency from Solskjaer’s side is perhaps best encapsulated by United’s Premier League results from the past few weeks, which saw us lose 5-0 to Liverpool in a humiliating performance at Old Trafford, only to turn around and post an impressive 3-0 win against a good Tottenham side the following weekend. In a team that is bursting with world class players, Solskjaer seems unable to come up with the right formation and style of play to best capitalize on the talent at his disposal.

On the topic of personnel, at the center of attention is, of course, the recent arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo. With nine goals in eleven appearances across all competitions, Ronaldo has snatched several dramatic last minute victories for United since his return; his goal scoring ability is unquestionable. His inclusion in the

starting lineup, however, has caused other issues.

Given the abundance of attacking talent at United — Rashford, Greenwood, Cavani, Sancho (Martial no longer even gets a look in) — Ronaldo’s arrival means more minutes on the bench for others.

Additionally, at 36 years old, Ronaldo simply does not have the ability to high press for 90 minutes. He employs a playing style that conserves his energy for bursts of speed into the box, pressing little and often dropping deeper to receive balls to feet from midfield. At the same time Solskjaer is struggling to settle on a dependable defensive pairing in the midfield, currently alternating between a FredMcTominay or PogbaMatić partnership. This unfortunate combination of a weak, individualistic pressing style (there often appears to be little tactical cohesion between our strikers) and an easy to pick apart midfield has been a constant issue

for United this season.

Whilst fans’ public clamoring for Solskjaer’s replacement rises and ebbs with the weekly emotional rollercoaster that comes with supporting United at the moment, the manager appears to retain firm support from the club’s board. I am not personally a fan of the rotating door style of hiring and firing that characterises a manager position at any elite European football club, but given the lack of team cohesion, identity, and playing style at United, I would not be opposed to a Solskjaer departure.

Notable Players: Nora Blodgett ‘22 led the team, finishing in thirteenth place and earning All-Conference honors.

Rose Teszler ‘23 finished with a time of 24:16.5, followed by Alina Irvine ‘25 who finished with a time of 24:40.9.

four, the Garnet scored in the first and third frames, securing their advancement to the semi-finals for the second time in the history of Swarthmore field hockey. The Garnet will next face Johns Hopkins on Friday, November 5, in Baltimore.

goal, rebounding a shot

by Bless Tumushabe ‘23.

Centennial Conference and will face McDaniel College on Friday, November 5, in Westminster, MD.

ington College. Scoring 122.5 points, the Garnet won their fourth meet in a row. Swarthmore women’s swimming will next travel to Chicago, IL on Friday, November 5, for the University of Chicago Invitational.

Field Hockey Swarthmore: 2, Haverford: 1

Notable Players: Martina Kampel ‘23 scored the Garnet’s first goal in the last five minutes of the first quarter. Katherine Kohn ‘25 scored Swarthmore’s second goal, securing the Garnet win.

Weekend Recap Ally Scheve and Anna Suh Sports Editors

Men’s Cross Country This past Saturday, Swarthmore men’s cross country competed in the Centennial Conference Championships in Cockeysville, MD. Finishing in fourth place, the Garnet averaged a time of 27:10.

Swarthmore’s top two finishers were seated in the overall top fifteen. The Garnet will next compete in the NCAA Regionals on Saturday, November 13.

Notable Players: Aidan Cantine ‘23 led the Garnet, finishing in fourth place in the event with a time of 25:50:9. Atticus Hempel ‘25 finished in eleventh place with a time of 26:23:9.

Women’s Cross Country Swarthmore women’s cross country also finished in fourth place in the Centennial Conference Championships.

Competing this past Saturday in Cockeysville, MD, the Garnet tallied 121 points. Swarthmore women’s cross country will next compete in the NCAA Regionals Saturday, November 13.

This past Saturday, Swarthmore field hockey defeated conference rival Haverford College. Winning the game 2-1, the Garnet secured a position in the Centennial Conference postseason for the first time since 2000.

Notable Players: Katherine Kohn ‘25 scored the opening goal for the Garnet in the 40th minute of play. Samantha Meacock ‘22 scored the game winning goal, assisted

by Chelsea Semper ‘22.

Swarthmore: 2, Haverford: 0 Swarthmore field hockey is now in the midst of the Centennial Conference postseason, winning another game this past Tuesday against Haverford College in the opening round of the tournament. Seeded at number

Men’s Soccer Swarthmore: 2, Haverford: 1 Playing in Haverford, PA, Swarthmore men’s soccer faced Haverford College for their final game of the regular season this past Saturday. Both teams scored a goal in the second half, leading to an overtime where the Garnet secured the victory. Such a win secured the Garnet’s fourth seeded position within the Centennial Conference postseason.

Notable Players: Brandon Cramblit ‘24 scored the Garnet’s first goal in the second half, assisted by Woojin Shin ‘22. In overtime, Stathis Kalathias ‘24 scored the game-winning

Swarthmore: 1, Gettysburg: 2 Last Tuesday night, Swarthmore men’s soccer took on Gettysburg in the #4 seed vs. #5 seed game of the Centennial Conference Tournament.

After ending the second half tied one a piece, the Garnet entered overtime.

Unfortunately, the Bullets won the game in the first half of overtime ending the Garnet’s Centennial Conference Tournament run. The team will hope for an at large NCAA bid this upcoming Monday.

Notable Players: Bless Tumushabe ‘23 scored the Garnet’s only goal in the second half, assisted by Leo Hecht ‘23.

Women’s Soccer Swarthmore: 0, Haverford: 1 This past Saturday, Swarthmore women’s soccer finished out the regular season in their game against Haverford College. The Garnet fell to Haverford in double overtime after two halves and an initial overtime of no scoring. However, Swarthmore women’s soccer is seeded as third in the

Notable Players: Kim Kockenmeister ‘23 and Samantha Barnes ‘22 tallied three and two shots, respectively. Nora Greer ’24 recorded five saves in goal.

Volleyball Swarthmore: 0, Haverford: 3 This past Saturday, Swarthmore volleyball fell to Haverford College in straight sets. This final game of the regular season determined which team would be awarded the number two seed in the Centennial Conference postseason, rendering the Garnet as the third seed.

Swarthmore Volleyball will face Haverford, once again, this coming Saturday, November 6, in the Centennial Conference Tournament in Baltimore.

Notable Players: Kaylee Zhang ‘24 and Jordan Perry ‘24 each recorded thirteen kills. Sierra Tyson ‘24 tallied twenty-one digs.

Women’s Swimming This past Saturday in Chestertown, MD, Swarthmore women’s swimming defeated Wash-

Notable Players: Vivian Guo ‘24 won the 1,000yard free. Georgi Mathews ‘25 won the 200-yard free.

Men’s Swimming Swarthmore men’s swimming also traveled to Chestertown, MD, facing and defeating Washington College. The Garnet countered Washington College’s 66 points with 139 points. Swarthmore men’s swimming will also travel to Chicago, IL on Friday, November 5, for the University of Chicago Invitational.

Notable Players: Horace Shew ‘22 won the 200-breast, 100-IM, and 200-back. Dylan Torrance ‘22 followed Shew in the 200-back, placing second.

THE PHOENIX SPORTS

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The Philadelphia Eagles Stand in Second Place in the NFC East Division Through Week Eight

Asha Bhuyian Staff Writer

Through the first eight weeks of the NFL regular season, the Philadelphia Eagles’ three wins and five losses may seem unimpressive. However, the Eagles remain in second place in the NFC East behind the 6-1 Dallas Cowboys. While their record may not compare to the teams that lead other divisions, Philadelphia still has the opportunity to improve throughout the latter half of the season and vie for the divisional title.

After falling in two consecutive losses to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Las Vegas Raiders in late October, the Eagles picked up a 44-6 win on Oct. 31 over the Detroit Lions. Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts collected 103 passing yards and 71 rushing yards. Running backs Boston Scott and Jordan

Howard each scored two touchdowns in the win.

The victory and offensive surge arrived at the right time for Philadelphia. The Eagles still have plenty of time left in the season to make a run for the divisional title and the postseason, but they will have to gain momentum later in the season to accomplish this. Five out of the Eagles’ last six games are divisional matchups.

They will play a winnable divisional schedule starting with the 2-6 New York Giants on Nov. 28 followed by the 2-6 Washington Football Team on Dec. 19. Philadelphia will then have to face both the Giants and Washington Football Team again on Dec. 26 and Jan. 2, respectively.

Finally, the Eagles close out their regular season on Jan. 9 with an exciting home matchup versus the Dallas Cowboys.

If the Eagles are able to

maintain their performance against the Lions and collect wins in a number of these divisional games, they will remain in contention for the NFC East divisional title. Throughout November, the Eagles will also face the Los Angeles Chargers, who post a 4-3 record in the AFC West, the Denver Broncos, who post a 4-4 record in the AFC West, and the New Orleans Saints, who post a 5-2 record in the NFC South. These non-divisional matchups against teams with high win percentages will provide the Eagles with the opportunity to show their skill and to catch up to Dallas in the standings.

If the Eagles are able to pull off a few upsets versus the Chargers and Saints and defeat their divisional rivals, the Giants and the Washington Football Team, the most important game for the Eagles will be against

the Cowboys at the end of the regular season.

Dallas already earned a decisive victory over the Eagles with a score 41-21 loss on Sept. 27, but since that game, the Eagles have improved their offense, posting a 2-2 record throughout the month of October.

In order to catch up to Dallas, the Eagles will need stronger defense to support Jalen Hurts as quarterback. Hurts, playing his second season in the NFL, played remarkably well in some of the Eagles’ close games, but he will need the defense to limit scoring by the opponents. In the recent win over the Lions, Hurts has all of the offensive and defensive support, particularly from linebackers T.J. Edwards and Davion Taylor, safety Marcus Epps, and defensive tackle Milton Williams. The Eagles’ will have to rely on stronger performanc-

es from both offensive and defensive players.

The postseason is still not out of reach for the Eagles, but the best way for them to qualify would be by winning the division. The Eagles’ current record of 3-5 would not be enough to earn a wildcard spot amongst teams with better records. Philadelphia must also be wary that the 2-6 New York Giants and the 2-6 Washington Football Team are only one game behind. The outcomes over one week of play have the potential to shift the rankings for the entire NFC East division.

Halfway through the season, the rankings across all conferences in the NFL can and will change as the postseason approaches. It is the hope that the Eagles will be a team that becomes a hopeful postseason story as the season continues if they continue to improve their offense and defense.

WEEK AHEAD Nov. 5 Women’s Soccer at McDaniel College Women’s Field Hockey at Johns Hopkins University Men’s Swimming at D3 Shootout Women’s Swimming at D3 Shootout Nov. 8 Women’s Volleyball vs Haverford College at Johns Hopkins University Men’s Swimming at D3 Shootout Women’s Swimming at D3 Shootout Nov. 9 Women’s Basketball at Widener University

Athlete of the Week: Aidan Cantine ’23 Anna Suh Sports Editor This past weekend, Swarthmore men’s cross country competed in the Centennial Conference Championships, finishing in fourth place. Traversing the 8K course in Cockeysville, MD, Aidan Cantine, a junior from Sammamish, WA, led the Garnet to success. Finishing in fourth place, Cantine earned All-Centennial Conference honors. Cantine and the Swarthmore men’s cross country team will next compete on Saturday, Nov. 13, in the NCAA Regionals.

Anna Suh: What attracted you to Swarthmore’s cross country program?

Aidan Cantine: I was attracted to the program’s emphasis on a balance between academics and athletics. This gave me the opportunity to pursue my academic focuses while also receiving a fulfilling athletic experience. I liked being able to participate in a competitive conference while achieving the academic goals I set for myself each semester.

AS: What is your major and why?

AC: After taking intro to computer science my first semester, I realized I really enjoyed the strategic problem-solving process programming projects

involved. After taking a couple of other computer science classes, I knew computer science was the field I wanted to focus my studies in, so I declared my major in that subject.

AS: What have been your personal and team goals for the season?

AC: My personal goal for this season has been to improve my previous best times for each crosscountry course when I ran them two years ago. Our team goals this season have been to do well in our conference and to beat teams that we have been close with over the last few years.

AS: What is your favorite thing to do with the cross country team outside of practices and meets?

AC: My favorite thing to do with the team outside of meets and practices is to eat dinner together. A big part of our team culture is having our meals together, and the conversations that happen at Sharples are always entertaining and sometimes even a bit enlightening.

AS: What are your preand post-meet rituals?

AC: The night before a meet, I always like to eat pasta and get lots of sleep.

I also tend to hydrate a lot, beginning the days leading up to the meet. Shortly

before the race, I always do dynamics and make sure to fit in some strides.

Post-race, I usually go on a two-mile cooldown, do a stretching routine, and then support my teammates in the following races.

AS: What is the most important lesson that you have learned from your time on the team?

AC: The most important lesson I learned from my time on the team is that running matters beyond just the time. I’ve formed so many important relationships with coaches and teammates, which has helped me develop as an athlete and a person as a whole.

AS: What has been your favorite moment of the season thus far?

AC: My favorite moment of the season so far has been seeing a teammate running very well — leading the race in first place — through the first mile of one of the 8k races.

Photo courtesy of Swarthore College Athletics

AS: What are your goals for the NCAA regionals?

AC: My goal for the NCAA regionals is to run a well-executed race and to finish competitively within the field of athletes.

AS: Favorite Sharples bar?

AC: Definitely pasta bar.

Photo by Cynthia Shi for The Phoenix