11.7.13 Hillsdale Collegian

Michigan’s oldest college newspaper

Vol. 137, Issue 9 - 7 Nov. 2013

Metaxas named commencement speaker Caleb Whitmer Editor-in-Chief Eric Metaxas will deliver this spring’s commencement address, the Provost’s office announced on Tuesday.

Metaxas is a well-known writer of many genres and mediums, including children's literature and television, as well as popular theology and history. His biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer went on to be a New York Times best-seller in 2011.

Senior class president Josh Andrew said the class officers – who, with President Larry Arnn, selected Metaxas – were looking for someone who could “speak to us without knowing us.”

Metaxas, Andrew said, has formed his life around the pursuit of truth, meaning he should be able to say something Hillsdale students want to hear on commencement day.

“More significantly, he wrote for Veggie Tales,” Andrew said.

Born in New York City in 1963, Metaxas graduated from Yale University in 1984. He’s written book and movie reviews, essays, and poetry for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Christianity Today, National Review Online, and First Things, according to his website.

For Veggie Tales, he wrote the book “The Pirates Who (Usually) Don’t Do Anything” and the film “Lyle the Kindly Viking,” in addition to other stories, for the faith-themed animation company.

Besides Veggie Tales, he’s been involved in several other children’s media companies, including Rabbit Ears Production, which produced videos, books, and radio programs.

In 2007, HarperOne published his book “Amazing Grace,” a biography of British abolitionist William Wilberforce and companion book to the movie of the same name.

He’s written a series of popular apologetics books, the first of which was titled “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God (but were afraid to ask).” His biography of Bonhoeffer, titled “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy,” received numerous awards and critical acclaim.

The senior class officers began their search for a speaker collecting suggestions from the student body. They deliberated over the list with President Larry Arnn, and, relatively quickly, decided that Metaxas was their guy.

Senior Vice President Garrett Holt said the class officers intentionally sought a speaker who was not a politician.

“Hillsdale can be very political or apolitical, in a sense,” Holt said. “Politicians can divide that a lot.”

Andrew said he hopes the speech will reach beyond economic and political structures to a discussion of the end that those means point to: happiness.

Student Fed to hold elections

Sessions wins in tight mayoral race Taylor Knopf & Hannah Leitner City News Editor & Collegian Reporter

“It will be a nice, fresh start on council,” he said.

“I’m happy how everything turned out otherwise.”

Along with the mayoral Mayoral candidate Scott election, there were also Sessions defeated his sole competitive races for the poopponent Brian Watkins by sitions of city clerk and the 40 votes in the Hillsdale city councilperson for ward IV. general election held on Nov. In the tight race for city 5. clerk, Robilyn Swisher deWith 4,962 registered feated opponent Amy Engvoters in Hillsdale, only 16 land by 23 votes. Patrick percent — 790 people — Flannery won councilpershowed up at the polls Tuesson for ward day.

Sessions IV by 39 votes defeated Watkins against his op415 votes to 375. ponent William “I want to Arnold.

City thank all the resicouncil candents who supdidates Adam ported me and Stockford voted for me,” (ward I) and Sessions said, reEmily Stackported The HillsDavis (ward dale Daily News. —Mayor-elect III) ran unop“I will represent posed and will the residents of Scott Sessions begin their first the city of Hillsterms on city dale to the best of council. Ruth my ability, and in doing so, I Brown will continue to serve will bring a new leadership as councilperson for ward II. style. I know with the newlyReading and Litchfield elected city council members, also held voting for mayors we will all work together for and councilpersons for their a better Hillsdale.” communities.

Sessions’ priority as mayOn the Reading ballots, all or is to work with the council candidates ran unopposed, to repair the streets. Watkins, allowing for Mayor Tracy though disappointed, said he Donihue to retain his seat as is ready and willing to work mayor, and council members with the new mayor towards Emma Everett and Albert their common goals.

Wheeler will keep their seats “I think as long as Sessions on city council. A total of 55 does what he says he’s going Reading residents visited the to do and works with every- polls Tuesday. body on council issues, we Of the total 227 voters will be fine,” Watkins said. who cast Litchfield ballots, Watkins will continue to 99 voters elected Ed Smith, serve in his position as ward who defeated his opponent I, and he said he looks for- Doug Smith in the race for ward to the rest of his term mayor. Councilpersons Don with the new members of Bannick, Rick Siebert, and council.

O.R. Smith ran unopposed.

“I will represent the residents of the city of Hillsdale to the best of my ability.”

(Courtesy of Eric Metaxas)

“If you can speak to that, then you are doing what humans should do,” Andrew said. “And I think Metaxas will do that.”

Provost David Whalen said that while his exposure to Metaxas is limited, certain things about the man are apparent, such as his gift of “ready humor” and “genuine wonder.”

“He is captivated by the vision of Christians who exercise their faith in impossible, hostile, and heroic circumstances.

He has captivated others with this vision as well,” Whalen said. “The odds are that there is something to be learned from this man.”

Grads create admissions iBook Sam Scorzo Assistant Editor

omore Lucia Rothaas are running for secretary, sophomores Marie Wathen and Jordan Finney are running for treasurer, junior Student Federation elec- Heather Lantis and sophomore tions will be held next Monday, Tyler Warman are running for Tuesday, and Wednesday from vice president, and junior Ari11:45a.m.elle Mueller is 1:00 p.m. in running for the Grewcock president unopStudent Union. posed.

According to “I adore her. vice president She’s wondernominee junior ful,” Rothaas Heather Lantis, said. every student Te i g e n should go vote. agrees that “Student Fed Mueller will wouldn’t exist if more than satisit weren’t for the fy the position chunk of money of president. handed to it by “She’s rethe administraally competent. tion. That monShe’ll do a ey comes out Junior Arielle Mueller is great job,” Teiof every single unopposed for president of gen said. student’s budget. Student Federation.

Senior DaThey all have a (Courtesy of Arielle Mueller) vid Wilhelmvoice in Student sen, outgoing Fed whether president of Student Fed, hopes they choose to use it or not, and his time in office has helped imthis is their opportunity to elect prove Student Fed. people to use their money wise“My goal was to continue ly,” Lantis said.

Junior Annie Teigen and sophSee Student Fed A3

Hillsdale College Admissions published an interactive iBook for the iPad for prospective students and friends of the college to download.

“We don’t know of any other college in the country that has this, so we feel we’re on the cutting edge of communication,” Director of Admissions Jeff Lantis said.

The 32-page iBook opens with a video introducing its reader to Hillsdale’s campus and leads to a table of contents where the reader can choose from one of 13 sections to read.

“We basically encompassed the material from a bunch of different brochures and put it all on the iBook, so instead of having a handout for financial aid, one for sports, one for Greek life, it’s all represented in the iBook, and each page is very interactive with slideshows and videos on each page,” co-creator Jon Lewis `13 said.

It all started with two Hillsdale students sitting next to each other in Professor of Business Law David Paas’s entrepreneurship class.

Q&A Warren Smith The associate publisher of World Magazine talks anti-Christian bias in the media. A2

Halloween Costumes Students throw off the ties and pull out the masks for halloween parties. B4

Battle of the Bands Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia’s annual philanthropy event kicks off on Nov. 9. A3

Novels of November Students tackle National Novel Writing Month, writing an average of 1667 words a day. B1

Kate Patrick Collegian Freelancer

www.hillsdalecollegian.com

Hillsdale grads Jacob Mueller and Jon Lewis stand with their new Hillsdale College admissions iBook. (Sally Nelson/ Collegian)

Lewis, a junior at the time, and Jake Mueller, a sophomore, partnered up to create a business for the class. They spent the semester working on a publishing business, Phalereus Publishing.

Instead of ditching the idea after the project was due, they continued to develop it.

Now, two and a half years later, the two Hillsdale graduates sit next to each other in their office at 43 North St. in downtown Hillsdale. This fall, not only have they partnered with Bryan

Springer, an art instructor at Hillsdale, but their first major project for the new direction of their business was recently published: the Hillsdale College Admissions Viewbook iBook.

“Jake and I both enjoy a lot of different aspects of learning, so it’s been a lot of fun working on this together,” Lewis said.

Lewis said their business was first intended for classical publishing. They published a few books, including “The Ethics of Freedom,” by Professor of Busi-

ness law Bob Blackstock. The duo asked Springer to design the cover.

“They wanted to rely on someone to create the graphic design, so we started talking about working together more often after I did Blackstock’s cover,” Springer said. “They brought me in as more of a consultant, but made me part-owner as a way to show their commitment towards me.”

However, the owners were inspired to transform their business after Kraig McNutt, vice president for digital and new initiatives, came to them with the idea to publish the “Constitution Reader” in iBook format.

After transforming the “Reader” into an iBook, they realized the potential in enhanced book publishing.

In the summer, the marketing department was working with admissions to find more ways to reach out to prospective students, when McNutt came up with the idea to turn the Viewbook into an iBook.

After winning the approval of Lantis, they went to work on the project. It was finished within three weeks, and on Oct. 4 the Viewbook was published.

“We’re very excited,” Lantis

See iBook B4

INSIDE

(Courtesy of Warren Smith)

Take marine biology Company’s move brightens city’s What are you going to do with economic development outlook your summer? A5 A6 Hartzell moves to Hillsdale

(Courtesy of Dani Morey)

News........................................A1 Opinions..................................A4 City News................................A6 Sports......................................A7 Arts..........................................B1 Features....................................B3

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7 Nov. 2013

Q&A: Warren Cole Smith Warren Smith is vice president of the World News Group and associate publisher of World Magazine, the largest Christian magazine in the United States.

He spoke on campus as a guest of the Hillsdale College English Department and the Dow Journalism Program on Oct. 16. The topic of his talk was “Confronting the Anti-Christian Bias of the American News Media.”

Compiled by Kate Patrick.

Associate Publisher of World Magazine Warren Smith spoke on campus Oct. 16 on the topic of confronting antiChristian bias in the media. (Courtesy of Warren Smith)

Which would you say is more important for Christian journalists: presenting the truth or presenting all angles of an issue so the reader can decide?

That they present the truth — we call that biblical objectivity.

The mainstream media will often want to present all sides, and yet if you examine that approach even a little bit, you realize how ridiculous that idea is. Let’s take, for example, the Nazi Holocaust.

Do you really think that it is reasonable and valid to say that the

Nazi Holocaust had some positive benefits for population control or for medical experiments?

Is it worth saying that the Holocaust or the imprisonment of people unjustly somehow had some good? I think most reasonable people would say the answer to that question is no. If we look at that idea of presenting all angles of an issue, we know that it’s not valid. The question is, what is the source of truth? For the Christian, the source of truth is God’s revelation to us. God’s revelation comes in the form of the Bible and the Incarnation, the person of Jesus. At World magazine, we pursue the idea of biblical objectivity rather than, say, the Fox News “fair and balanced” approached or the secular media’s approach, which is neither fair nor balanced.

What would you say is the mission or the highest end of a Christian journalist?

I think that telling the truth is a big part of it. Storytelling is a very high calling for a Christian journalist. It’s often not persua-

sive to say abortion is wrong. It might be true, but it’s not persuasive. It’s often more persuasive to say, “Here’s Jane. When Jane was 17 years old, she found herself pregnant and not married. She chose to keep her baby and not have an abortion. Fast forward 20 years, she has a beautiful son.

There have been ups and downs in her life, but she doesn’t regret keeping that child.” That story is more compelling, more convincing, and more persuasive than the assertion “abortion is wrong.”

Telling stories is an important part of what I believe a Christian journalist is supposed to do.

Christian journalists tell the truth, and they shouldn’t avoid telling the hard truths. But the calling of a Christian journalist is really a call to being a storyteller, a storyteller who is directed by the truth of Scripture. We call that “biblically directed storytelling.”

What advice would you give to Christian writers?

First and foremost, my advice would be to develop a sound Christian worldview. Develop

your own personal spiritual life.

Learn how to think Christianly.

Developing an appreciation for and an ability to articulate ideas relating to truth and liberty — whether you are a journalist or a consumer of journalism — I think is what Hillsdale College and a Christian worldview is all about. That will allow you to go out into the world and be able to discern truth from error. Secondly, I would say that if you’re a writer, you should write. Get good at it. Practice at it. Even if nobody is reading your writing, you’re getting practice. It’s like running laps. No one has to see you, but you’re still getting stronger.

Are there any writers that you think Christian journalists should take notes from?

I think Christians and Christian journalists should pay attention to good storytellers, journalists or not. I’m a big fan of Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy. Among current writers, I think Bret Lott is really excellent.

Delta Sigma Phi looks to reclaim fraternity house Chris McCaffery Assistant Editor

The Delta Sigma Phi fraternity could move back into their house at 139 Hillsdale St. as soon as next fall semester, but what the men need to do to make that happen is still unclear.

“These guys need to earn it back,” Dean of Men Aaron Petersen said. “There’s a real possibility they miss the mark, but if there’s ever been a group of young men to take that hill, it’s these guys.”

DSP lost its fraternity house, occupied from 1977 until January 2012, after the Hillsdale College administration grew concerned about the party culture that the house seemed to permit and encourage.

“These guys had a shift in culture, and their big block to improving was the negative traditions and distractions that the house itself fostered,” Petersen said.

Senior Joe Snyder, DSP president, agreed and lamented the effect losing the house has had on DSP. “There were a lot of years leading up to it. Lots of guys acting like ‘Animal House’ — we’re kinda paying the price for that,” Snyder said.

Snyder said that the lack of a permanent home has been hard on the fraternity, making it hard-

er to grow together as a group as well as impacting recruitment.

DSP picked up 10 new pledges this year, which is less than in previous years. It also makes fraternity events hard to hold, like the annual haunted house.

“The fact that we have a central location to hang out, to eat meals with your brothers — that’s how you get closer to people as a team, as a family,” Snyder said. “It was just kinda an escape, a place where you could go and hang out with each other.

Now we’re spread out all over campus.”

According to Petersen, DSP was removed partly so the fraternity could focus on the foundations of their brotherhood.

“I took away the food, the place, the party, and said ‘what are you guys about?’” Petersen said. “Delta Sigma Phi’s Achilles’ heel is that they don’t take fraternity seriously.”

Snyder claimed they’re well on their way to living up to Petersen’s challenge.

“The focus was just setting a good foundation. Over the past two years we’ve done a lot to bring this chapter back,” he said.

Exactly what standard the fraternity will need to surpass to move back in — and even then only on a yearly basis, with no kitchen at first — is undecided.

DSP will receive a preliminary review by its national orga-

nization in December, which will be the first indication if they’ve managed to surpass minimum national standards. The national fraternity looks at campus involvement, academics, philanthropy, and other factors to determine a score out of 100 for each chapter.

“When it started out, I didn’t know how they’d get it back. I originally said three to five years and that nearly gave them a heart attack,” Petersen said. “I’ve always been firm that we’ve got to give them time away. That’s what they need.”

In the past three years, the fraternity has been improving their score: a zero three years ago became a 44 and then a 72. A score of 80 is the minimum, but Petersen says he wants more than the minimum from the chapter.

“My expectation to all my chapters here is to be exemplary chapters, to our standards and to their national fraternity,” Petersen said. “They have not been exemplary.”

After ousting DSP, the college renovated the house to restore it to the school’s standards for housing, said Chief Administrative Officer Rich Péwé in an email. The college spent more than $100,000 fixing structural damage including electrical problems, hardwood flooring, and carpeting, repairing the exterior wood ornamentation and

Kappa stomps out hunger Shane Armstrong Collegian Freelancer More than 80 people came together last Saturday to stomp out hunger.

The annual Kappa Kappa Gamma Swamp Stomp to stomp out hunger took place at Hayden Park on Oct. 2. Individuals and teams from Hillsdale College and citizens from all around Hillsdale County attended to compete and encourage each other as they took on the two-mile obstacle course.

Money collected from the Swamp Stomp and proceeds from the Kappa Kappa Gamma silent auction on Wednesday were donated to local food pantry King’s Kupboard. The total amount raised from both events was over $1,000.

The builders of the course were able to learn from last year’s race and improve the course to make it more challenging for the participants.

“The best part about this year’s race was that the obstacles were improved from last year,” Kappa member Mary Kate Kibbe said.

Junior and member of the Pi Beta Phi team Katie Kinell said that her favorite obstacle on the course was the three big dirt mounds with mud pits behind them.

“It was high energy and low pressure. Even though it was cold, it was a lot of fun,” Kinell said.

There were more than 80 Sophomore Kellie Fairbanks and her dad participated in participants in the race, a large Kappa Kappa Gamma’s Swamp Stomp on Oct. 2. Kellie took first place in the women’s division. (Courtesy of Kellie Fairbanks) increase from last year.

“Because we did the event last year, I think there was that Kappa Kappa Gamma Gamma, I would like to thank more awareness about it and will definitely host the Swamp everyone that participated in we were able to get more peo- Stomp again with the same fo- this year’s events” Kibbe said. ple to come,” Kibbe said. cus on helping to combat hun- “Be sure to come out again Kibbe also said feedback ger. next year to help fight hunger from participants was so good “On behalf of Kappa Kappa for the community.”

Delta Sigma Phi Fraternity lost their chapter house in 2012 after the college administration grew concerned about the culture surrounding the building. (Sally Nelson/Collegian) landscaping, and purchasing furniture.

The house was made into a men’s dormitory, the Watkins house, to keep revenue flowing and the house occupied.

The college’s involvement with Greek housing began and grew in the 1920s under President William Spencer, who started the policy of college-provided and maintained residences.

The John Cook house was purchased by the college in 1977 for DSP as a way of preserving the historic building, built in

1863 by wealthy local banker John Cook for his large family.

The debt to the college was assumed by the fraternity, as was the case with the five other Greek residences owned by the college.

Among other uncertainties is what will happen to the men currently living in the Watkins house.

“What I haven't been able to figure out is that in July, the coming summer, they’re going to hear back, and I’m going to have already assigned guys to the Watkins house,” Petersen said. “I

Convocation Results

don’t want to punish all the guys who live in the Watkins house.”

Current resident assistants of the Watkins house declined to comment. Sophomore Will Gage moved into the house this year and says that he understood the temporary status of the dorm when he moved in.

“I love the guys that are there right now, but I came there with the understanding that it’s a kind of temporary thing while DSP is not living there,” he said. “I’m okay with and understand what they’re doing.”

– Daugherty award: Assistant Professor of German Fred Yaniga

– Sorority scholarship cup: Kappa Kappa Gamma (GPA: 3.378)

– Fraternity scholarship cup: Sigma Chi (GPA: 3.382)

– Athletic scholarship cup: Women’s volleyball (GPA: 3.428)

– All-school GPA for spring 2013: 3.239

– Women’s: 3.304

– Men’s: 3.165

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A3 7 Nov. 2013

Phi Mu Alpha plans music battle for charity Sarah Albers Collegian Freelancer

With a lineup including a band called “The Electric Psychedelic Pussy Cat Swingers Club,” this year’s Battle of the Bands promises to be, well, electrifying.

Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music honorary’s annual Battle of the Bands fundraiser will begin at 7:00 p.m. Nov. 9 in the McNamara Rehearsal Hall.

The event has undergone several changes this year, including an increase in price of admission.

Senior David Krueger, president of the honorary, said that the ticket price increased this year to help fund this year's battle as well as Phi Mu Alpha events to come.

“Battle of the Bands is our number one fundraiser – it'll help us buy things like a piano for next year's piano smash, meet and greets, and other events that we sponsor on campus,” Krueger said.

In addition, Phi Mu Alpha is donating a larger sum to charity. In past years, only the winning band was given a prize. This year, however, the runner-up will be getting a prize as well.

“Last year we only had a first prize, which was $100 donated to a charity of the winning band's choice,” sophomore Jack Shannon said. “This year, since we're putting on a bigger event, we decided to give out more prize money. So we're still giving out $100 to the first band and now $50 to the second place band's charity of choice.”

Another change is the battle's panel of judges. Professor of Political Economy Gary Wolfram, Professor of Music James Holleman, and Professor of Economics Ivan Pongracic have been Battle of the Bands fixtures in past years. This year, Holleman returns to the judge's table accompanied by James Brandon, professor of theatre, and Dan York, professor of biology.

Despite the alterations, members of Phi Mu Alpha believe that the Battle of the Bands will continue to be a strong tie for the rest of campus to Hillsdale's musical community.

“This brings students together in support of their peers, who are in turn putting a lot of effort into presenting something worthwhile for the community,” sophomore Matthew Sauer said.

The score difference between Hillsdale's forensics team and the runner-up at a tournament hosted

by Marietta College last weekend was 70 to 21.

Hillsdale won six out of 12 events at the tournament outright, with finalists in four more. Those victories, along with high rankings by every member in preliminary rounds, contributed to the overall score of the team.

“Mission accomplished,” team captain junior Brandon Butz said. “This is what we were waiting for – what we were leading up to all semester.”

Held Nov. 2-3 in Ohio, the tournament pitted small liberal arts colleges against each other.

Having competed extensively against teams from larger state schools, Hillsdale's team members felt prepared for a competition that many on the team described as “a more apples-toapples comparison.”

“It was very clear that we were the big apple,” Butz said.

He said he was pleased to see that every member of the team contributed points toward the final score.

“Overall our team is enjoying universal success among all its members,” he said.

As of now, six of the team's nine members have qualified to compete in at least one event at the National Forensics Association's national tournament in April.

“I don't think it could have gone much better,” Assistant Director of Forensics and Debate Matthew Warner said.

Junior Christopher Landers led the team in number of awards, taking home a first place trophy in four different events, second in another, and third in a duo speech with junior Kenneth ManyariMagro, who also won three more awards in different events.

Landers attributes his success

to hard work and lots of practice.

He said if he makes a mistake six minutes into a speech he is practicing, he will start over from the beginning. He makes sure to do every speech exactly right from start to finish at least once every day.

“I don't just practice from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. I practice until I get it right,” Landers said.

But for him, it's a love of the sport that drives his hard work.

“I absolutely love forensics.

It's my favorite thing I've done here,” he said. “It's tough, but it's rewarding.”

Warner commented on Landers’ work ethic.

“He's a very serious competitor,” Warner said. “He has a real and true desire to be the best at what he does. And that's reflected in his preparation for the tournament and the results.”

Landers, who transferred from Grove City College in Pennsylvania after his freshman year, said the team here is more competitive and forms a tighter group of friends, who call themselves the “forensics family.”

Senior Andrew Montgomery placed first in Extemporaneous Speaking and won three other awards. Sophomore Josiah Lippincott, in his first year competing, won three awards in addition to a top novice award. Butz won first in After Dinner Speaking and third in Impromptu Speaking. Finally, freshman Erin Graham took home two awards.

Warner attributed part of the team's success to the fact that they usually face a much higher level of competition at state schools.

“Intentionally giving ourselves a very, very difficult schedule allows us to be exceptional when compared to other liberal arts colleges,” Warner said.

Landers compared it to NCAA athletics, saying if Hillsdale College and the other teams at Marietta are equivalent to a Division III school, Hillsdale's team has been playing against Division I

The women of Niedfeldt Residence will embrace the Christmas spirit early as they help prepare for Operation Christmas Child’s annual PackA-Box party at College Baptist Church.

Hannah Wolff, sophomore resident assistant, organized the event. They decided to help with Operation Christmas Child last year as they brainstormed for dorm events, she said.

“I grew up doing Operation Christmas Child and I love it,” Wolff said. “I thought that would be a really good interactive kind of event for the dorm to do. There are quite a few events all culminating with sending the boxes off.”

Operation Christmas Child, a non-denominational national organization, packs shoeboxsized boxes full of toys and toi-

Student Fed From A1

what was passed on to us and improve upon it,” Wilhelmsen said.

“The big goal was to bring a little bit of accountability to try and figure out where money was going if it was being spent properly within the lens of what students

7:30 – Virginia and the Woolf 8:00 – Frisky Falcon and the Stiff Mishap 8:30 – The Josiah Young Band

9:30 – Electric Psychedelic Pussy Cat Swingers Club

Last year, the John Taylor Family Band performed at the Battle of the Bands.

10:00 – The Rod and Cones

(Sally Nelson/ Collegian)

and II teams all semester.

However, some of the other teams at the tournament have also competed with bigger schools.

What really sets the team apart, Warner said, is the preparation students gain from Hillsdale's core.

“Forensics is an extension of the liberal arts education, so it makes my job easy,” Warner explained.

Hillsdale's debate team has also fared well this season – much better, in fact, than Assistant Professor of Speech Matthew Doggett and Captain and senior Ian Hanchett had expected. By early October, all five regular members of the team had qualified for the NFA national tournament.

“Considering we thought this was going to be a pretty bad, sort of rebuilding year, I'm very pleasantly surprised with the fact that, three tournaments in, everyone's qualified,” Hanchett said.

“It's beyond my wildest hopes for what I would have expected this year.”

Doggett said in an email that despite being a small team that only takes three or four students to a lot of tournaments, the team has averaged four trophies a tournament.

Hillsdale's debate team won overall in their first tournament of the season, where Hanchett also took first in Lincoln-Douglas style debate. Freshman Graham Deese and sophomore Taylor Wessel have both won novice tournaments since then.

The forensics team has a tournament Saturday, Nov. 9 at Central Michigan University. The next weekend, the forensics and debate teams will travel together to Bowling Green State University to compete.

They still have several tournaments in front of them this season, but both the forensics and debate teams are now eagerly looking forward to the national tournament in April.

OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD Emily Shelton Collegian Reporter

7:00 – The Forester McClatchey Band

9:00 – Juliet

Debate smashes at tourney Daniel Slonim Circulation Manager

Battle of the Bands Lineup:

letry essentials and ships them to children internationally.

Most recently, Si Robertson of “Duck Dynasty” shot a video promotion advertising for the collection week of Nov. 18-25.

Sue Reed, Relay Center coordinator for Hillsdale County’s Operation Christmas Child and member of College Baptist Church, has been in charge of directing the Pack-A-Box party since 2006.

“Pack-A-Box party was a suggestion that Operation Christmas Child made to churches across the country, and I just kind of ran with it,” Reed said. “We set up the church like a general store and then people start with their shoebox and put in the necessary items.”

Volunteers pack a bar of soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, and a washcloth in every box, then fill the rest of the space with toys and hard candy. Reed said she hopes to fill 200 boxes at the Pack-A-Box party.

The women of Niedfeldt will be sorting through the donations on Thursday evening and Friday afternoon before the Pack-A-Box party begins.

Junior RA Katie Summa said the Niedfelt RAs thought it best to choose a philanthropy event that would focus on service instead of relying on collections.

“We, as an RA team, wanted to build a bridge between the college and the community that centered around service. By going to College Baptist, it shows that we support them and allows our girls to experience a part of the community that they may not have yet,” Summa said.

Wolff said they still encourage people to donate items.

“We encouraged girls to make boxes of their own, but we were not sure about how we were going cost wise,” she said.

“We decided volunteer time instead of actual shopping would be the best way.”

wanted. We wanted to be as good stewards with the money as we could, be as accountable as we could, and do as much good with it as we could.”

Outgoing junior representative Casey McKee, who is not running for re-election, sees his time on Student Fed as “an excellent exercise in putting to use

some of the principles of government.”

“Being on Student Fed forces you to really learn how to work with other people and to deal with the conflicts that arise,” McKee said. “It was also a lot of fun, and I got to know some of the people on the Fed very well, which made it enjoyable.”

10:30 – John Taylor Family Band

Klaus offered teaching gig Jordan Finney Collegian Reporter Through the years, Hillsdale College has hosted visiting professors such as Mark Steyn, Sir Martin Gilbert, and Victor Davis Hanson. Now, there’s a chance a former president might join the ranks.

Following his Oct. 10 speech at the Rebirth of Liberty and Learning Gala, former President of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus said he would consider teaching at Hillsdale in the future, but would be busy founding an institution during the 2013-2014 school year.

According to Provost David Whalen, the conversations between Klaus and the college administration have not progressed to the point of determining a set salary it would pay Klaus or the amount of time he would be on staff.

“It is not unusual for Dr. Arnn to explore ways of securing talented and distinguished people to come for a spell to teach. I am not aware of any ‘struck deals’ with President Klaus, but I am sure he would have much to teach, and our students much to learn from him,” Whalen said.

Hillsdale has approached Klaus on several different occasions about him coming to teach at the college, College President Larry Arnn said.

While Klaus has expressed

interest in teaching a course at the college in politics, history, or economics, he is also currently founding an institution based in the Czech Republic, Whalen said. Klaus hopes that his institution will promote liberty and free market econom-

ing a long line of distinguished visiting professors from the tops of their respective fields.

For example, Mark Steyn, an internationally-renowned author and columnist, has taught a two-week seminar for journalism students each spring.

In addition, the military historian and author Victor Davis Hanson has offered an annual month-long seminar for students interested in the history of war.

Finally, Sir Martin Gilbert, a leading 21st century historian and Winston Churchill biographer, has given two-week seminars on Churchill for students interested in politics during the fall semester.

There is much (Anders Kiledal/Collegian) speculation among professors and stuics, sharply contrasting current dents about which type of policies embraced by European course Klaus would teach and Union leaders, namely German whether or not he would be able Chancellor Angela Merkel. to do so on an annual basis in “I am trying to limit my the future. overseas travels right now, but In the meantime, Whalen I do hope to visit this country, said the college will actively and especially your college, continue its communication more than I have the past few with Klaus, in hopes that the years. I like it here,” Klaus said. relationship between Hillsdale As a result, Klaus is busy and the former president will and unable to be away for the continue to grow. upcoming school year, but “I am going to give him could very well join the Hills- some help with his organization dale staff sometime in the fu- and will therefore be in touch ture, according to Arnn. with him from time to time,” Should he decide to join the Arnn said. college staff as a visiting professor, Klaus would be continu-

Bio speech draws crowd Natalie deMacedo Assistant Editor

Walking through magical woods on an early spring day, spotting an ancient deer skull, donning heavy clothing and burning things – these are the perks of being a conservationist, according Matt Shultz of the Michigan Nature Association.

Some 30 people arrived in Strosacker 200 on Oct. 28, eager to hear about the importance of conserving plant life. The crowd of mostly biology majors and professors had a vested interest in the preservation of natural habitats.

Hillsdale’s Conservation Club hosted Shultz, said senior Lydia Wassink, president of the club.

She said Shultz is the first speaker the club has invited to Hillsdale, but they hope to welcome more in the near future.

Shultz warned the students that conservation is not for someone who wants instant gratification.

Assistant Professor of Biology Jeffrey VanZant, who has connections with Shultz, introduced him.

“There is work to do. Like pulling garlic mustard in mosquito infested wetland,” VanZant said, invoking personal experience.

Shultz encouraged students to know what natural environments are supposed to look like.

“If you don’t know what success looks like, how are you going to get there?” he said.

Shultz discussed the disconnect between children and nature which the technological age we live in causes. Daniel Kish, senior and service project coordinator of the Conservation Club, expressed how important it is to make children see that science is not boring.

“The Michigan Nature Association gets the younger generation involved in conservation, so we don’t lose those gems in nature,” Kish said.

Shultz said once biodiversity

Veterans Organization to host panel

is gone, it cannot be brought back. He pursued conservation instead of pollution control because he thought, with enough money, anything can be cleaned up. However, biodiversity cannot be reestablished.

One of Shultz reasons for pursuing conservation was his wife.

“My wife is getting a Ph.D. – I am protecting nature for her to study,” he said.

Junior Greyson King, Conservation Club fundraising coordinator, said he considers conservation a hobby.

“It is a selfish thing – I think it’s pretty, so I’m going to maintain it,” he said.

Kish said he loves hunting and the only way to continue his hobby is to preserve the habitats of the animals he hunts.

Shultz said conservation goes beyond economics or beauty – his concern is what is right.

“We need to do this because it is the right thing to do,” he said.

The newly-formed Hillsdale Student Veterans Organization will be hosting a panel “Is War Moral?” at 5 p.m. on Nov. 12 in Phillips Auditorium.

“You could basically say that every soldier that goes to war has to wrestle with this issue of ‘can I kill someone else, is that ethical,’” said Nathan Seither, senior and vice president of the group.

The panel will feature pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church and U.S. Army Infantry veteran the Rev. David Reamsnyder, Hillsdale College Chaplain and former U.S. Navy Chaplain Peter Beckwith, and Professor of History Brad Birzer. Associate Dean of Men and U.S. Navy veteran Jeffery Rogers will be moderating.

According to senior Matthew Duquette, president and co-founder of the group, each speaker was chosen for their particular experience, authority, or expertise about the topic, and are free to explore the issue from any perspective.

–Chris McCaffery

OPINION 7 Nov. 2013 A4

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Bookshelf

The opinion of The Collegian editorial staff

Campaigning for homecoming court is most definitely not fetch.

It’s like wearing a “This is your girlfriend’s shirt” T-shirt.

No one is convinced when you have to declare your own game.

If someone else campaigns for your monarchy, however, it’s not only perfectly normal but also expected for someone popular enough to deserve wearing the crown.

Game can always recognize game.

Somehow, the same stigma

Special to the Collegian

Grieder does Texas for progressives Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right: What America Can Learn from the Strange Genius of Texas $26.99

From the Archives:

Isaac Morrison Student Columnist When I was but a wee high school student, I went with my church’s youth group to a charity event called One Homeless Night. We attempted to sleep on flattened cardboard boxes underneath Interstate 4 to simulate the experience of a homeless person. With the thundering traffic, looming lights, and dirty discomfort, I didn’t get a single minute of sleep.

So, naturally, that’s what comes to mind when I consider life after college.

Maybe it’s just me, but fail-

Jonah Goldberg Syndicated Columnist Many of the president’s supporters are in barely concealed panic over the fact that he didn’t tell the truth when he was selling the Affordable Care Act. In an oft-repeated vow, he told the country that “if you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”

This was, by any commonsense measure, a lie. It was a lie because President Obama understood that one of the central aims of the Affordable Care Act

mately a year and a half ago, Blacks United was able to obtain a house for its various activities. So far one of the major occupations has been the maintenance of its house popularly known as the “Ethnic House” or the “Black House.”

The kids on the campus will surely remember the Soul dinner they ate on Oct. 10. The credit for this goes to the Blacks United. The women cooked and decorated to add variety to the routine of Saga food.

October 19, 1972

what the representatives decide worthwhile; their choices effectively define much of campus life. And if we learned anything from the extra money that current Student Fed leaders tracked down this semester or the Tower Light drama in the spring, it’s that the people we elect make real change. If you attend The Well and want speakers that work, find a candidate to represent you.

So campaign away, Student Fed hopefuls. Tell us what you plan to do.

ure is easy to imagine. With the job market so bad, prospects for after school can appear grim. I know friends who, despite their academic excellence and overall capability, worry that they’ll never realize anything close to the careers they desire. This doubt comes from many sources, including experience with friends and family struggling with layoffs and fruitless job searches. News media bombard us with reports on the struggles of young Americans to shake off their debt and start substantial careers. Nothing like images of disaster and distress to inspire someone to take life by the horns.

It was such reports that inspired a miniature emotional breakdown in me not too long ago. I’ve heard all the English major jokes (yes, I would like fries with that), but they stop being so funny when I think about the very real, very close future.

I’ve joked since high school that I aspire to live in a box outside a Taco Bell, but maybe that isn’t

such a bad contingency plan.

That’s why I think of that One Homeless Night. It gives me an example of the worst case scenario. No job, no home, no life, no hope.

It’s not very likely to happen, I tell myself, but what if it does? It happened to those people we were helping. All of those “what ifs” begin to stack up, and I want to give up, a feeling I assume others experience as well.

Then I remember the flip-side to that scenario. There we were, hundreds of church kids, giving money to the Orlando Union Rescue Mission to help people turn their lives around. There were those formerly destitute families, testifying to their changed fortunes. There was that hope, that understanding that it’s almost never impossible to find help and work toward improving even the bleakest circumstances.

This should give all of us angst-ridden seniors some perspective. We worry so much

We must boldly go forth and try to conquer the world, even if it fights back.

After all, what’s the worst that could happen?

about all this work paying off, about getting the lucrative or meaningful career we aim at. We forget that, if that doesn’t happen right away, it’s not the end of the world. Yes, the world is a scary, unknown place, but we should not shrink from it. We must boldly go forth and try to conquer the world, even if it fights back. After all, what’s the worst that could happen? If One Homeless Night was any indication, it involves hardship, but hardship cushioned with other people’s love, even people that don’t know you.

With the hard work we’ve done and the character we’ve built, we should be assured that there’s a place in the world for us.

It might not be what we initially imagined, but it will be there.

At the same time, we should be humble and realize our stressors could be much worse. We’ve been granted an extremely enviable opportunity to be outstanding men and women in the world, and that alone should dampen our pride and inflate our gratitude.

As Hillsdale’s true mascot, Aristotle, said, “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” And as another great philosopher said, “You can’t always get what you want.”

Here’s to the impending doom of graduation, whatever it may bring.

OBAMA HEALTH LIE FREAKS DEMS

Blacks United Organization Flourishes At Hillsdale

In a predominately white campus of Hillsdale, Blacks United represents the black power on campus.

Black students have always been in a microscopic minority at Hillsdale. Precisely because of this they have felt a need for a student organization which would provide them with a social and cultural outlet. The need resulted in the Blacks United, an organization conceived 4 years ago purely for the benefit of the black minority on campus.

According to Jerome Hanley, the chairman of Blacks United, the organization has flourished. Approxi-

students with our money. Even though our campus is small, the responsibility entrusted to Student Fed representatives remains large. Those running should campaign because of what they want to accomplish and win because they have advertised that coherent agenda, not solely because of popularity (real or imagined).

The representatives we elect manage roughly $100,000 a year, with $80,000 of this going directly to publications. The remaining 20 grand is spent on

Here’s to the impending doom of graduation

John Walsh

In her new book, “Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right: What America Can Learn from the Strange Genius of Texas,” the quality of author Erica Grieder’s narrative inverts the progress of Texas.

Texas began as an unpromising territory peopled by opportunists and grew to become “one of America’s genuine powerhouses.” But Grieder’s book unfolds in the opposite manner, beginning with a compelling thesis and sharp writing, but ending up sinking into a warm bath of progressive admonition.

As a native Texan with a sharp mind, Grieder begins with promise. Her nominal aim is, of course, to defend Texas to America. And she starts by presenting a fairly balanced perspective: “The cheerleaders dismiss Texas’s inequities, its glibness, its hubris. The state’s critics minimize Texas’s entrepreneurial ethos, its openness, its confidence.” While there are sections that lean to the left, they’re matched by effusive praise of Texas. But therein lies the catch.

Recall that the premise of the book is defending Texas to America. If the author claims to be defending Texas to America, while weighing liberal perspectives against Texas’ own perspective, one starts to suspect that she equates America with liberal ideology. Her language supports that idea: “[E]ven if the nation is tired of Texas, the state shouldn’t be ignored.” Or again, “people have been wondering: ‘What on earth is the matter with Texas?’” I’m speculating, but I don’t think most conservatives want to fix Texas; I think they want to move there.

As entertaining as it is to nitpick, her lack of balance does not cripple the book. If she stated outright her real premise — a liberal Texan defending Texas to other liberals — I would have much less to complain about. In the final analysis, I can tolerate her apologies for the socially conservative aspects of Texas because they fit this real thesis. Moreover, her writing is crisp and provocative, and her positive outlook defies the pessimism that dominates political writing.

Ultimately, the real problem with the book was the penultimate chapter entitled “Tweaking the Model.” Grieder continues to defend Texas while simultaneously throwing its unique paradigm under the bus. After citing an example of a successful entrepreneur, she states: “Low taxes and predictable regulations had played a role, of course, but so too had public-sector investments in education and in infrastructure.” In other words, she implies that government has a significant role to play in spurring innovation and economic growth, something that does not mesh well the Texas Model — “low taxes, low services” — she discusses earlier Citing Texas’ low per-student funding, Grieder then proceeds to suggest increasing spending on education reform, funded by nothing other than raising the minimum wage.

This, she claimed, would help the poor because, “No matter how low your cost of living is, if you’re making $15K a year, you’re poor. ” I immediately objected. But reading on, I found she tried to pre-empt my objection with the singlemost astounding sentence in her entire book: “The usual objection to such a suggestion is that raising the minimum wage has an adverse effect on employment, but the demand for minimum-wage workers is closely tied to population, and Texas has never had a shortage of population growth.” I’m not an economist, but I am fairly certain her claim amounts to saying that a minimum-wage increase won’t hurt employment because wages are going to rise anyway.

In the end, except for accidentally undermining the good parts of Texas, Grieder defends Texas well to a progressive audience. She clarifies the broad history and recent developments in Texas entertainingly enough to be worth reading even for a conservative. In short, the policy recommendations were worthless, but I liked the rest.

extends to those who campaign for Student Fed. Too often, we view people who campaign with a specific, motivated platform as overly-political tryhards. We scoff at their enthusiasm for a microcosmic democratic process whose direct influence on our own lives we deem dubious, perhaps even nonexistent.

But the Mjölnir-esque gavel of Student Fed does in fact wield an immense impact on campus, as the primary means of student government at Hillsdale. Moreover, they do so on behalf of

The Uses of a Liberal Arts Education

By Forester McClatchey

was to squeeze out the individual insurance market (and the small business market), forcing those Americans on to the HealthCare. gov exchanges. You can’t force people out of one insurance product and into another while simultaneously letting them keep their plan. That’d be like a car salesman promising a great price on a new vehicle if you trade in your old one, while still promising you can keep your old car.

This simple fact of logic is causing many liberals to flee for what they believe are rhetorical safe harbors.

The first refuge is that he was simply being “unclear.” The “White House could have been clearer in laying the groundwork for this political argument,” writes The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., says, “I think we should have been more precise.” The New York Times’ Editorial Board says, “Obama clearly misspoke when he said that.”

In most dictionaries, misspeaking is defined as a slip of the tongue. Is it really misspeaking when the president repeats a poll-tested pledge dozens of times, often reading from prepared remarks on his teleprompter, straight into the camera? Is it really a slip of the tongue when the White House puts out videos and talking points centered on this false claim?

Obama wasn’t telling the truth unclearly; he was telling a false-

hood very clearly. When he said “no matter what,” it even left the impression that, if in some unforeseen way the law did cause people to lose their plan, he would remedy the situation. (If that were so, the White House would support congressional efforts to let people keep their plans.) The “period” in “you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period” means no ifs ands or buts. Now we are getting a barrage of “buts.”

On Monday night the president grasped for a rhetorical do-over. “Now, if you had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you can keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law passed.” Except for the fact that’s entirely untrue, it’s pretty persuasive.

The most popular alibi is, “Yes, people are losing their plans, but they’re getting better ones.” The New York Times and the president have embraced this line. But even that isn’t necessarily true.

Some people already know they don’t think the new plans are better. In many cases, they’re more expensive with higher deductibles and stiffer co-pays.

Better for the consumer and better for bureaucrats or progressive social planners don’t always mean the same thing.

Even if turns out to be true, as Obama insisted in Boston last week, that the majority of Ameri-

cans will get better coverage than they had before, that’s no rebuttal to the charge the president lied.

If a landlord promises you can keep your dog when you move into an apartment, but then after you sign the lease he takes your dog and replaces it with a stuffed one, he wasn’t telling you the truth. The landlord’s view that the new dog is better (“No mess! No noise!”) is utterly irrelevant to the question of whether the landlord lied -- and it doesn’t make you a fool for preferring your old dog, either.

It’s good that liberal supporters of the law admit that what the president said wasn’t true, even if they can’t bring themselves to call the president a liar. But they might want to think a bit about the standard they are establishing.

Do they really want to say it’s OK for presidents to lie if it is for a good cause? Surely, some presidential lies are painfully necessary. (Franklin Roosevelt lied quite a bit in the lead up to World War II.) But Obama’s lies (including his promises that the Affordable Care Act would “bend the cost curve” down and that the average family would save $2,500 a year in health care costs) were in the service of partisan legislation that has never been popular.

Many liberals forgive Obama for his noble lie. I doubt they’d be as forgiving if a Republican president similarly lied to impose an unpopular partisan agenda.

A5 7 Nov. 2013

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Don’t fear the beaker: science and math matter Joshua Mirth Special to the Collegian I am at the wrong school.

Hillsdale is a place focused on the liberal arts, on the ideals of literature, philosophy, art, and reason. I, on the other hand, am a math and physics double-major — hardly typical here.

While those subjects may seem horribly pragmatic and insignificant compared to the deep, human ideas found in the humanities, I believe that mathematics and natural sciences are an essential part of a true liberal arts education, and one that too many of my peers have ignored.

To understand the purpose of the liberal arts, let us briefly consider their history. In medieval universities, seven subjects were taught as liberal arts: rhetoric, logic, grammar, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. To even a casual observer, the latter three are clearly scientific fields, and logic is nowhere more strict than in mathematics. Likewise, musical education consisted of learning theory as well as

artistic skill — and music theory was geometry — ratios and shapes — applied to sound (think, for example think of Pythagorean tuning).

In the early Renaissance, Petrus Paulus Vergarius defined the liberal arts as “those studies...by which we attain and practice virtue and wisdom.” While the Renaissance added history and other humanities to the liberal arts curriculum, it did not discount math and science. Vergarius declared mathematics “weighty” because it possessed “a peculiar element of certainty”, and called scientific subjects “a most delightful, and at the same time most profitable, study.” Indeed, the inherent beauty and delight of math and science is one of the best reasons to study them. If you have not

beheld with wonder Euler’s Identity, or understood how Fourier series describe sound waves, you are missing some of the most beautiful of God’s creations.

And yet, sometime between the Renaissance and now, mathematics and science have been relegated to the realm of technology and practical applications. We have remembered Locke, but ignored Newton, studied the Founding Father’s politics, but forgotten Benjamin Franklin’s contributions to the understanding of electricity, learned about human action from Mises, but not the action of time and space from Einstein. In our understanding of our Western Heritage, we have discarded one of its most revolutionary components: science.

Many of the important “big questions” humans have always asked are now informed by scientific discoveries.

This is unfortunate, not only because these things are beautiful, (and I believe Hillsdale students are better equipped to see this than most), but because understanding them is necessary to understanding our place in the modern world. Whether it be climate change, evolution, or a subtler issue such as the ontological implications of mathematical set theory, many of the important “big questions” humans have always asked are now informed by scientific discoveries.

This is where many Hillsdale students run afoul. Without a firm knowledge of science, it is difficult to seriously engage these issues. For example, following a meeting of the Gadfly Group, I heard a conversation in which it was remarked that “Quantum Mechanics is a failure of empiricism”. Scientifically speaking, this is ludicrous. The quantum mechanical wave description of reality is perhaps the most well-verified theory in all of science. In fact, without it modern life would be totally different (every device containing a computer processor depends upon it). Now, the metaphysi-

cal implications of quantum mechanics are much less clear, and potentially rather unsettling. We ought to take that as a reason to study and understand the theory more deeply, so as to allow it to cogently inform our philosophy. However, too often we consider a rudimentary understanding acceptable. To anyone with a more rigorous knowledge, this renders one’s viewpoint foolish.

You need to understand the Schrödinger equation to speak intelligently about Schrödinger’s cat.

That is why I am studying math and physics at Hillsdale. I want my knowledge of rigorous, technical subjects to be moderated by a deep understanding of literature, philosophy, and art.

And that is why you ought to challenge yourself, step beyond the simplistic introductory science classes and discover the beauty of science and mathematics.

It will deepen your understanding of the universe, and develop “those highest gifts of body and of mind which ennoble men” — which, after all, is the reason to study the liberal arts at Hillsdale.

(Photos by Anders Kiledal)

Everyone should take marine biology

by Victoria McCaffrey

As I swim through a school of silvery tarpons, I see a manta ray nestled in the sand below me. Through the sparkling ocean haze, I soak in the breathtaking coral reef to my right and begin to circle it once again, my swim fins propelling me through the water. The vast abyss of the ocean to my left does not distract me while I focus on identifying the spectacular organisms swaying and swimming before my eyes. Finally, I resurface for air. The glory of Cheeca Rocks below me is still visible through the crystal water, and Indian Key, a ghost town island deserted since 1880, lies not to far from my snorkeling sight. After breathing in a few gulps of the salty sea air, I submerge once again below the waves.

This is definitely a flashback to last summer. The palm trees, the greenish-blue water, the tropical fish, and gently swaying patches of seagrass are certainly not something you would see at Lake Baw Beese this time of year, or any time of year for that matter. These memories of marine biology will be with me forever and, as the year progresses and the weather becomes colder, I often reflect on my three-week stay on Long Key.

In fact, there is not a time when I remember the Hillsdale College marine biology trip without fondness and nostalgia, and I know my classmates— as well as those of years past—feel exactly the same way.

The J.N. Roth Marine Biology Station is endowed with a set of dormers, a lab, about an acre of palmspeckled land, the E. Jared Veldheer research vessel (donated by the Oakland Raiders player himself), and, of course, a set of kayaks.

Students take morning classes in the lab and snorkel or collect specimens during the day. At night, between rounds of shark fishing — not mandatory, but highly recommended — students dedicate their lab time to a research project that analyzes the health of the Zane Grey Canal. There is also plenty of free time for running, fishing, sunbathing, and napping when students are not working or experiencing some of the Keys’ finest restaurants and sights, including a day trip to Key West.

One of my favorite aspects of marine biology is the fact that it is open to all kinds of students. I find it amazing to watch students from a variety of majors

Christie: good for NJ not US Melika Willoughby Special to the Collegian

When New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie hosts a town hall meeting, attendees can count on two things: flaring tempers and off-color language.

At a town hall in May, the Republican governor defended post-Superstorm Sandy measures to build protective sand dunes along the Jersey shore.

While most homeowners accepted government compensation for portions of their land, others refused, fearing that under government control, tourist traps—not protective dunes—would arise. What did Christie think of their accusations?

“I have no interest in taking your property,” Christie responded. “I have no interest in building anything other than a dune…Any knucklehead neighbor of yours that says: ‘Oh, Christie comes in, there’s going to be showers, a bathroom, a hot dog stand.’ Bull****!

That’s what it is!”

In a state where citizens have a reputation for brash behavior, it seems fitting that on Tuesday, Christie won reelection by a resounding 22.3 percent.

Many in the national GOP establishment are now speculating that Christie’s feisty rhetoric, bipartisan legislative efforts, and sustained popularity will enable him to unite their fractured party by topping the 2016 presidential ticket. But there is one fundamental flaw with this theory: America is not New Jersey.

These polls are making the faulty

assumption that what works in the Jersey Shore will work in the Sun Belt, Western Plains, and Great Lakes states.

For this reason, Christie should not be the Republican presidential nominee for 2016.

Christie’s Republican-red politics are faux-bold when held next to the blue of New Jersey. During his re-election campaign against state Sen. Barbara Buono, Christie supported a minimum wage increase of $1 implemented over three years. This government interference with private enterprise violates the primary principles of the free market and the Republican Party. Christie’s infraction, however, appears less invasive when compared to Buono’s support for a ballot initiative affecting an immediate increase, with automatic future increases tied to inflation.

With eyes toward a run at the presidency, Christie has long engaged in national political discourses. Christie’s passion-driven rhetoric and progressive-lite policies led him into a public tussle with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.

Breaking Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment (thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican), Christie called Paul’s national-security policies “esoteric” and “dangerous.” During the recent government shutdown, Christie publicly decried GOP leaders, saying, “get the government reopened, stop monkeying around, and get back to work...I’m out there in the field, people have no patience for this stuff. None.”

Presidential candidates must be likeable — just ask Mitt Romney.

Christie’s verbal harpoons like “arro-

gant SOB,” “idiot,” and “crazies” are ready for the next political opponent, reporter, or citizen who raises his ire.

This combative approach appeals to citizens of New Jersey, whom Christie describes as “angry, nasty people.” It will not, however, motivate the average Midwestern soccermom to pull the lever. And his liberal use of “god” simply to add gravity to a statement won’t fly in the Bible belt.

The Governor, as he dubbed himself in campaign materials, does, admittedly, have an upstanding record on taxes. He promised during the 2009 election not to raise taxes. Unlike the panoply of politicians who have promised the same, Christie delivered. Not only did he keep taxes at the same rate, he decreased overall spending, and maintained a balanced budget for three years. But the GOP should know that strong economic policy is not enough to win the Oval Office.

Many arguments for Christie’s nomination are recycled claims that were used last election cycle to propel Mitt Romney to the forefront. We tried the single-track message of fiscal sanity and it failed. We tried running an East Coast Republican governor boasting a record of bipartisanship with a Democrat-controlled legislature and it failed.

We tried nominating a candidate with a disposition for government-sponsored healthcare and that too failed. The Republican Party cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of 2012.

Christie is right for New Jersey, but he is the wrong GOP presidential nominee in 2016.

mon humanity is an innocuous, perhaps even beneficial, sentiment; people are, indeed, people too. But this year’s articles (so far) exceed that mild exhortation. In their consensus, we are not merely to limit these distinctions’ distracting us; rather, we are to ignore them altogether, hold hands, and join in singing Styx’s “The Grand Illusion.”

Yet this simplistic view rejects the importance of our disparities. These distinct social roles make us who we are, and the campus, what it is. To look past them, therefore, is to impose a conformity of abstract sameness. And in seeking this, our campus anti-stereotypists make an argument at least as old as the French Revolution, as Edmund Burke identified its animating spirit: “All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns and the understanding ratifies as

necessary to cover the defects of our naked, shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our estimation, are to be exploded…”

In Burke’s view, one ought not to abhor but rather to embrace societal variations, and to stifle the impulse to strip members of the community of their social clothing and create a theoretical, pure individual. To divorce man completely from his surroundings is to reject reality and substitute a superficiality of one’s own; our differences, paradoxically, allow us to relate to each other more fully by helping to define and fill in the contours of our humanity.

Jettisoning our communal clothing to be socially naked in the eyes of our fellow man is far too facile, and actually prevents us from understanding one another in the particular as opposed to merely as humans in the abstract. For if we are not Fundies, not Sigma Chis, not Saga workers, what, then, are we?

Students want us to get naked Jack Butler Assistant Editor

This year, many students in the Opinions section have challenged us to resist judgment and stereotypes.

They’ve urged us to recall that “in the end, we’re all—first and foremost— Hillsdale students” and that fundies are “really just like you.”

Just last week, one student pointedly asked “when did we all decide that the job defines the person? What gives anyone the notion that they have a right to look down on someone else because of how that person happens to earn their livelihood?” and another reminded us that “[i]t is critical that Christians treat broken people with love and acceptance, no matter what physical defects they have or what they may have done in the past.”

Preventing differences from distracting us completely from our com-

experience the Keys’ beauty and diversity together, and there is nothing like studying in a warm, sunny environment after a long Michigan winter.

It is quite clear that marine biology alumni like me consider this trip the opportunity of a lifetime. But what is the best part for professor of biology Anthony Swinehart, our beloved marine biology professor who has been frequenting Long Key since 1987? His response: “What I love most is that marine biology is an opportunity to see the practical value of the information learned in the classroom. Suddenly it becomes really exciting because you see the value of what you learn in class with real-world applications. There are no distractions for the students—no TV, no going out to bars. Just living and working together and playing together and focusing on one subject.”

And there you have it. Amidst the hustle and bustle of the college years, there still remains a haven for those desiring adventure, beauty, and education.

What are you going to do with your summer school experience?

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Dear Editor, I hope that the Collegian Editorial staff will forgive me for having an opinion that is neither supported

by Augustine, Homer, or any one of the Founding Fathers, but it does not take a wise man to find last week’s article offhand and startlingly thoughtless. This article exhorts students in its title to “Resist Blind Student-Body Solidarity,” a worthy message meant to encourage care and contemplation in coming together as a community. Yet, written beneath this title is not a helpful message or an intelligent discussion of the events surrounding the coning of Dr. Arnn but a careless and half-sarcastic rebuke.

Apart from maligning the quoting of great men, generalizing the student-body as a blind and purely reactionary mob unified only by hatred, pretending that all student reactions to the events were based upon rumors, and denying the right of students to even form opinions of the events, the greatest sin of the article is to complain about the lack of rational discussion while refusing to provide any of it. Instead of facilitating a discussion of the events in order to inform ignorance and prevent further “mobbish reactions,” the article refuses outright to do so saying “We don’t have the full story and frankly, we don’t want it.”

What a baffling phrase to appear in a newspaper! This refusal necessitates the continuance of the ignorance the rest of the article declares repulsive. What is unexplained will continue to be unexplained because the authors seem to view their job to be that of admonishers instead of informers.

I am not saying that I want to hear the details of the events. I understand that some things are best handled privately, that the studentbody does not have the right to know everything that goes on behind the doors of Moss Hall, and that the Collegian is limited on the subject matter that it can report. However, the Collegian is the main informer of student opinion on campus and, as such, if its Editorial Staff is not allowed to report on a subject then I urge it to think twice about the reasons for student-body ignorance before accusing that same body of being “blind.”

Respectfully, Joel Calvert ’16

Dear Editor, I would like to take exception to an idea mentioned in the article “Van Andel Endows Graduate School” (31 Oct. 2013). The article includes the quotation “Hillsdale is one of the last stands for the republic.” It would be more accurate to think of Hillsdale as one of the first beachheads in what will be the successful battle for the republic.

Speaking for myself, I have no interest in participating in “last stands,” and I suspect few others do, either.

To the contrary, I teach at Hillsdale so that I can contribute, in my own small way, to the restoration of the republic, the successful defense of individual liberty, and the return to strictly constrained government. If there’s to be any “last stand,” I’m happy to let it be a last stand for progressivism and socialism.

Certainly I do not mean any disrespect for Mr. Van Andel, who has both my admiration and my gratitude, nor for Ms. Braun (in the article, Ms. Braun attributes the above quote to Mr. Van Andel). But given that these are somewhat dark times for those of us who believe in individual liberty, it is of particular importance that we all expunge defeatism from our thinking. Our mindset ought to be one of pushing ahead in confidence. After reading the Collegian article (which otherwise was rather hopeful), I reread the first installment of Paine’s “The American Crisis” and Churchill’s first speech to Commons. Both were written in far more desperate times; certainly both men recognized the dire circumstances and had no illusions about the difficulties ahead. Yet there’s no “last-standism” at all in their writings, not a shred, but rather references to “glorious triumph” and “victory at all costs.” These are good examples to emulate.

Today we’re in the midst of the death throes of statism and collectivism, not the triumph. We also have great difficulties ahead. But I respectfully suggest that all of us who are concerned about the current course of the country push ahead in confidence to change it, and leave worrying about “last stands” to our opponents.

Sincerely, Charles N. Steele, Ph.D. Associate Professor Herman and Suzanne Dettwiler Chair in Economics

CITY N EWS City replaces

www.hillsdalecollegian.com

A6 7 Nov. 2013

Hartzell expands production to Hillsdale Maceala Bennett Assistant Editor

Hartzell Veneer Products LLC’s decision to move its business to Hillsdale is viewed by many as a boost for the city’s economic growth.

Hartzell decided to move its production from Benton, Ark., to Hillsdale, Mich., to be closer to suppliers and customers. After choosing to open its plant in an existing building at 282 Industrial Drive, Hartzell began business in June with limited production and moved to full production in September.

Ward Harris, Hartzell Veneer Products general manager, said that the company decided to move its production north since that is where most of the company’s customers are located.

“Back in the day, we had customers all over the country,” Harris said. “Slowly, a lot of the customers in the South went out of business or overseas to Asia, and eventually, we ended up in Arkansas losing business.”

By moving its production ramp to Hillsdale, Hartzell has improved its average delivery time by 50 percent.

“Our products and prices were to establish and expand operagood, but we decided to move so tions here,” said Brian Watkins, we would stop losing business,” Hillsdale city council member.

Harris said. “In Hillsdale, we can Mary Wolfram, Hillsdale ecohave a product to a customer in a nomic development director, day, often cutting lead time from said Hartzell is unique because it two weeks to four days,” Harris made the first move in contactsaid. ing the city regarding its interest Hartzin moving ell Vehere. Afn e e r ’ s “It’s a morale booster for us to be t e r w a r d , p r i m a r y able to say that a company came all she and business City Mani n c l u d e s the way from Arkansas to establish ager Linp r o d u c - and expand operations here.” da Brown ing pieces organized — Councilperson Brian Watkins like faces, informaskins, tion to and edge send to banding for commercial and resi- the company about the town and dential doors. It also sells com- potential tax abatements and ponents for doors and architec- eventually showed the employtural plywood. ees around town.

Hillsdale’s leadership is ex“We wanted them to be atcited about what Hartzell’s move tracted to the city,” Wolfram means for improving the city’s said. “So we went out to eat and economy. In addition to relocat- showed them houses as well as ing employees from Arkansas to schools in the area.”

Hillsdale, who are buying, leasEight Hartzell employees ultiing, or renting property, Hartzell mately decided to relocate with has added 30 hourly and salaried the company. jobs for which it’s interviewing “I brought them up on two many Hillsdale residents. separate trips, and Mary was “It’s a morale booster for us right there the whole time,” Harto be able to say that a company ris said. “I could tell them a lot came all the way from Arkansas about the business, but Mary

sold them on the city. “ Most of the families were anxious about moving to the colder climate.

“I tried to prepare them as much as I can for the winter,” Harris said. “These people have never had to own a coat or a pair of boats, so I offered to talk to their families and a lot of them embraced it.”

Although the move has involved a lot of changes for the employees and their families, Harris says they are happy to be here.

“We’ve had huge support from the city,” Harris said. “It’s been a big adjustment, but it’s been great.”

Wolfram hopes that Hartzell’s positive experience with the city will encourage more businesses to move here.

“It would be very odd for a company to randomly decide to locate its business in a small town in the midwest,” Wolfram said. “Our best economic development tool is word of mouth by businesses who are happy here and recommend Hillsdale to their associates.”

Note: Since this story was reported, Hartzell Veneer Products replaced Ward Harris as general manager.

2013 HILLSDALE CITY ELECTION RESULTS Mayor: Scott Sessions

(Anders Kiledal/Collegian)

Ward I: Adam Stockford Ward II: Ruth Brown Ward III: Emily Stack-Davis Ward IV: Patrick Flannery City Clerk: Robylin Swisher City Treasurer: Susan Arnold

Hillsdale county supports 4,000 local veterans Amanda Tindall Assistant Editor

During the Vietnam War, when the military draft called upon all men who were not students in good standing at a college or university, Hillsdale community’s reservoir of young, able-bodied working men was bled dry.

Because of the massive draft in the 1960s during the Vietnam conflict, there are 4,000 registered veterans in Hillsdale county, 1,800 of which served during Vietnam. That’s almost half the population of the city of Hillsdale.

In addition to those who were called to serve their country, many others volunteered.

“That’s one of the reasons why I went in,” Vietnam Army veteran Bill Oteney said, “It got to the point where I didn’t have any friends left. And I thought, well, ‘I can’t do this. If they’re going, I got to go.’”

In the Hillsdale community, where the median household income is approximately $31,000, many veterans need support or assistance financially or medically.

The Hillsdale County Veterans Affairs office has raised awareness for their work, and their presence is highly demand-

ed.

“When I first started here, we only got about five to six calls a week,” Hillsdale County VA Director Ken Benge said. “Now we’re getting upwards of 15 to 20 calls a day.”

Many of those calls come from the 4,000 registered veterans in Hillsdale County, and that number doesn’t include all the veterans in the area.

“The actual number of veterans in the county is probably much larger than that, but people

ferent branches, they had differing specialties, and many received different reactions to their service. Their lives following the military also varied.

One member of the American Legion at Post 53 in Hillsdale, John Gambill, who fought in the Air Force during Vietnam, received rousing applause from hundreds in an opera house upon his homecoming in San Francisco, a city infamously known for its anti-war sentiments.

“The whole place just got on

“You turn on the television and vets are being honored at football stadiums. They’re being given a whole lot more respect than they were given during our time period.”

— John Gambill, Vietnam Air Force veteran don’t always register,” Benge said.

The majority of registered veterans in the Hillsdale community are those who have served in the armed forces during the Vietnam War. Out of the 4,000 registered veterans in Hillsdale County, there are currently 1,800 from Vietnam, 600 WWII, 900 Korea, and 300 from the Gulf War. Each one of those soldiers had a different experience. Even though they all diligently served their country, they served in dif-

their feet,” Gambill said. “There must have been a couple hundred people there, and I didn’t pay for a drink the rest of the night.

You hear all these stories about how bad these Vietnam vets are treated, but I didn’t experience that one bit. I might have been lucky.”

Many soldiers, like Gambill, came home and were able to apply their specialties to the job market, but others had a difficult time finding work and supporting their families.

For those who served but have struggled in civilian life, the VA office of Hillsdale County helps show respect and appreciation by assisting those who need a hand.

“We help out low income veterans,” Benge said. “Those who may need help with rent and mortgage, gasoline, and groceries. We pay heating bills, some places we’ll help them with their taxes, and healthcare. By low income, I mean anyone who has insurance and has a job is not eligible.”

The Veteran’s Affairs office is fully operational now; it was previously only open part time.

Benge will set up those veterans who need healthcare assistance with the office in Ann Arbor, which can provide transportation to those who do not have any.

Currently, there are three homeless veterans registered with Veteran’s Affairs in Hillsdale county, Begne said, and the Veteran’s Affairs office is trying to do everything possible to help.

“I think that since [Vietnam], there’s been a 180 degree turn,” Gambill said, “You turn on the television and vets are being honored at football stadiums.

They’re being given a whole lot more respect than they were given during our time period.”

fountain Graceanne Warburton Collegian Freelancer

For the past few weeks, the water fountain outside of the Hillsdale court house has been shrouded by a brightly colored orange fence to protect its undergoing replacement.

The decision to replace the fountain was made in response to leakage discovered in late May. “The fountain was losing about a thousand gallons of water per day,” Courthouse Facility Director Randy Finley said. “Once that was discovered, the commissioner decided that it should be replaced, so that is the one you see out front right now.”

The new fountain is designed to be an exact replica of the old one.

“It looks just like the old one,” Finley said, “only it’s been set at a different angle to improve visibility from the street.”

The original court house fountain was built 31 years ago as a beautification project using a Michigan Council for the Arts grant and funds from a citizen-run scrap iron drive.

“We were able to commission a sculptor from Adrian to design the fountain,” said Ellenor Leutheusser, chairwoman of Keep Michigan Beautiful. “In that way, we kept it all pretty local.”

According to Leutheuser, each aspect of the fountain is intended to commemorate a different characteristic of Hillsdale.

“The circle in the center represents the forest, the center is for the American Indian population, and the bottom represents Hillsdale’s hilly terrain,” she said.

Another important aspect includes the five jets of water on each side of the fountain, which are meant to symbolize the five rivers—The St. Joseph, Kalamazoo, Grand, Maumee, and Raisin—that run out of Hillsdale and into Lakes Michigan and Erie, according to Leutheuser, as well as local historian and author Dan Bischer.

An article from the Hillsdale Daily News published a day after the fountain’s dedication ceremony on Oct. 2, 1981, reported the positivity with which Hillsdale received the new fountain, praising it as a symbol of the towns people’s “friendliness and willingness to do things for themselves.”

The Courthouse fountain is not to be confused with the proposed fountain for City Hall, which will be installed using private contracting sometime in the near future.

Kathy Newall, TIFA board member and committee chair for beautification projects, said that this fountain will not have a modern design, because it is supposed to return City Hall closer to its original blueprints from the 1830s.

Vanished Hillsdale

Dawn Theater: no more live entertainment Taylor Knopf City News Editor The historic Dawn Theater is closing its doors to public live entertainment, but the theater will still be available to rent for private events.

“The theater is not closing,” said co-owner of The Dawn Theater Marcy Horton. “That is an illplaced rumor.”

The cost of live entertainment licensing and the lack of public interest have caused the owners, Jeff and Marcy Horton, to close the theater to live public entertainment and transition back to the privateevent format they used before.

“I think the economy had a lot to do with it. There’s just not a lot of people in the area that have disposable income to go out and see a show. They are fairly expensive to put on,” said The Dawn Theater manager Peggy Williams.

“I hate to say there was a lack of support, because it sounds negative, but truly we really did have a lack of support in Hillsdale.”

Williams said that during the

past live productions, approximately half of the audience was from outside of Hillsdale. The Hortons and Williams agreed that bring in live bands just was not profitable for the theater.

“We found that having musical events occur, that there wasn’t enough local interest to make it worth the cost of bringing in bands to perform,” Marcy Horton said.

“So we went back to our original format, which was to be an event venue.”

Jeff and Marcy Horton bought the theater in 2008 after it had been vacant for four years. They restored The Dawn to its former glory, which first opened in 1919, and made it available to the public for private events.

Marcy Horton said that people have rented the theater for a variety of events: reunions, high school proms, private and corporate parties, weddings and receptions, birthday and holiday parties, etc.

The theater has a full bar, movie screen, projector, and sound system available for private events if desired.

The land on which Broadlawn, home of Hillsdale College presidents, now sits used to be the home of the Beta Alpha Delta fraternity, an organization which no longer exists on campus. Beta Alpha Delta was a local fraternity organized in 1924 by a group of men formerly known as the American Commons Club, according to a 1935 issue of the Hillsdale Collegian.

In April of 1935, the local fraternity decided to join a larger national fraternity, Sigma Delta Rho. However, the reorganized chapter was not destined to succeed. In a September issue of the Hillsdale Collegian, it was reported that the fraternity had disbanded.

“Conditions arose which seemed to the executive committee to make it necessary to close the chapter. The actives and alumni have sold their furniture and the house has been turned back to the college,” it said.

The administration quickly demolished the building and began construction of Broadlawn. When Broadlawn was completed less than a year later in the summer of 1936, no trace of the defunct fraternity remained.

-Compiled by Shaun Lichti (Ben Block/Collegian)

www.hillsdalecollegian.com

FOOTBALL FALLS SHORT Scoreless second half ruins Chargers

Looking at the positive side of the game, the coaching staff selected offensive lineman and senior Patrick Ryan as the offensive player of the game.

The Grand Valley State Coach Otterbein explained that University Lakers needed a 17-0 Ryan “played solid” and he gave second-half run to defend their credit to the entire offensive line home turf against the Hillsdale for steadily improving throughChargers last Saturday night. out the season.

The Chargers losing streak on “Those guys (the offensive the road against Grand Valley line) are playing at a pretty high increased to nine games as they level, though they don’t get a lot fell 31-21. of ink and press,” Otterbein said.

The Chargers got out to a The Chargers will finish strong start in the first half. They the season with a pair of home established their offense via the games.

The first, this Saturday running game. Senior quarterat 1 p.m., will be against the back Sam Landry, Michigan Tech Unisenior Isaac Spence, versity Huskies. The and sophomore Wade past two weeks, the Wood all found the Chargers’ opponents end zone on the have been high in ground in the first two athleticism. Michiquarters. The success gan Tech, however, with the run allowed will attempt to win the Chargers to use with grit and physithe pass to move the cality. ball down the field Coach Otterbein throughout the half. remarked on their Head coach Keith resilience: “To play Otterbein said the and live up there, team executed their you need to be game plan perfectly in pretty mentally and the first half. physically tough.”

“We played great He added that the on both sides of the Huskies’ “formula ball,” Otterbein exfor victory is very plained. similar to our own.”

Coach Otterbein The Chargers will himself succeeded look to outpace the with a few unconHuskies in energy ventional calls. The and toughness. The Chargers gained a first contest between down on a reverse these hard-hitting pass from sophomore Jake Richter to Senior quarterback Sam Landry (center) pushes through Grand Valley defend- squads should be Landry, as well as on ers to score the Chargers’ third and final touchdown of the loss. (Photo Courtesy a tight match-up.

Aaron Schepps Collegian Freelancer

a fake punt that saw defensive lineman and

SPORTS A7 7 Nov. 2013

senior Nate Bundy rush for ten yards.

The Chargers never trailed in the first half, going into the locker room with a 21-14 lead.

The second half was a different story. The Lakers held the Charger offense to a mere 104 yards. The Charger defense had trouble getting off the field, while the offense struggled to convert third downs and continue drives.

Otterbein explained that the defense had “been giving up way too many big plays.” The Chargers had trouble slowing down the many offensive weap-

ons of the Lakers: Quarterback Heath Paring, wide receiver Jamie Potts, and a talented backfield made up of Chris Robinson and Michael Ratay.

By the end of the third quarter, Grand Valley tied the game.

In the fourth, they scored ten unanswered points that proved to be the difference in the game.

Speaking of the second half, Coach Otterbein said that the Lakers “made the key plays at the critical times.” Untimely penalties, sacks, and turnovers stunted the Charger drives as they attempted to keep pace with the Lakers.

of Olivia File)

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL TRAVELS TO TEXAS Nathanael Meadowcroft Collegian Freelancer

Tomorrow evening the Hillsdale College Women’s Basketball team will tip off their season against St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas. It’s the first leg of a back-toback in the heart of the Lone Star State.

“We’re looking forward to playing out there and attacking the challenge of playing two teams we don’t know very well,” head coach Claduette Charney said. The team can’t wait to get back on the floor.

“It’ll be fun, just because we’ve been practicing against each other for so long now,” senior Angela Bisaro said. “We’re looking forward to the competition down there, and we’ll be playing some good teams, so we’re just hoping to see how it goes, obviously give it our all and get some wins.”

Following the two games in Austin, the Chargers will face off against Olivet College in an exhibition game on Nov. 12 at 7 p.m.

Then the team will travel to Springfield, Ilo. to take on McKendree University and Illinois-Springfield, concluding their nonconference schedule.

As for conference play, Charney’s goal for the team is clear.

“We are obviously looking to win as many games as possible and reach the conference tournament, first and foremost.”

The team has been working hard towards that goal coming into this season, especially emphasizing one particularly important thing: defense.

“We have to defend,” Charney said. “We have to defend and rebound, and we have to get better at it, every day.” The players are fixed on improving defensively too.

“Coming together on defense and communicating is going to be huge for us,” Bisaro added. “We have so much talent on

The Charger women’s basketball team ends a recent practice with a huddle and cheer. (Anders Kiledal/Collegian)

this team that if we can bring it together as a whole and really just be one collective group we can do some really great things.”

Of course, playing well on the offensive side of the ball will be important too, and there’s no doubt as to whom the x-factor is: Junior Megan Fogt is coming off of a stellar sophomore year, in which she was named Second-Team All-GLIAC. “A lot of our offense revolves around what Megan [Fogt] does,” Charney said.

Still Fogt only wants to get better.

“A lot of my contributions to the team came from the block,” she said, “so this summer and this preseason I’ve been working a lot on developing my outside game a little bit too.” Charney also sees perimeter play as crucial for this season.

“Our perimeter shooting is going to be key, we return Marissa DeMott and Abbey Lovat, and both those players, especially Marissa being a senior, help spread things out, have a good ability going to the basket and shooting from the perimeter, so we’re looking for our perimeter game to be a lot better this year than it was last year,” she said.

There’s no doubt that the Chargers have the potential to make it to the conference tournament, but it’ll take improved defensive play and a well-executed offense.

The Chargers hope those things will be on full display tomorrow night and throughout the season.

BOX SCORES

Football

Volleyball

Hillsdale College: 21 Grand Valley State: 31

Hillsdale College: 3 Saginaw Valley: 2

Scoring Plays

Hillsdale College: 3 Lake Superior State: 0

Isaac Spence 4 yd run (Steven Mette kick) Wade Wood 8 yd run (Mette kick) Sam Landry 3 yd run (Mette kick) Weekly Leaders Rushing: Spence 8-53 Landry 13-43 Jack Wideman 6-40 Passing: Landry 19-33-0-182 Receiving: Joe Srebernak 4-44 John Haley 1-35 Tackels: Tim Moinet 7-3 Devin Moynihan 7-3 Sacks: Bryan Siegert 0.5-4 Tyler Jenks 0.5-3

Hillsdale College: 3 Northwood: 0 Season Leaders Kills: Emily Wolfert (236) Caitlin Kopmeyer (155) Lindsay Kostrzewa (145) Assists: Alexis Waugh (462) Marissa Owen (316) Digs: Caitlin Kopmeyer (299) Sydney Lenhart (274)

THE MAN BEHIND CHARGER BLUE Walker Mulley Collegian Freelancer A former Charger football player runs the Charger Football fan site, Chargerblue.com, as a “passion project.”

Andy Losik ’94 has been singlehandedly posting links to information about the Chargers, as well as his own coverage of games, since 1998, according to the site.

“I couldn’t stop if I wanted to now,” Losik said, which is good because the site has a devoted following. Its supplementary Twitter account has 626 followers.

“I think our guys check that as frequently as any site about Division II football,” Nate Shreffler said of the team. Shreffler is the Charger’s offensive coordinator and offensive line coach, and played Charger football with Losik.

“It’s a source of information for everyone involved in the program, from kids up through parents and fans,” Shreffler said.

The team even steers recruits to the site, Shreffler said.

Losik is not only a devoted Chargers fan— “You’re not gonna find a guy who bleeds more Charger Blue than Andy,” Shreffler said— but also an elementary infotech teacher in the Hamilton Community School District in Michigan. He uses the skills he develops working on the site to better teach his students. He can experiment with new techniques on Chargerblue.com without affecting his students, he said.

Losik started the website to curate what little Division II

football information was available on the web at the time.

He had always been interested in sportswriting, but when he attended Hillsdale, there was no journalism program. The site was a way for him to contribute to the school.

“As an elementary teacher I don’t have a lot of disposable income I can donate to the college, but I do find a lot of time,” he said.

As time went on, he kept up with the latest technology.

When he started the site he had to program everything manually in HTML. Now he can update the site from his phone using Google’s Blogger, he said.

In the summer of 2007, he started a Chargerblue.com store on CafePress, selling custom Charger football merchandise.

He uses the revenue from the store to pay for bandwidth and to buy merchandise for himself and his family. One year he donated a season’s worth of profits to the family of a recently-graduated Charger football player whose mother was very ill.

Losik said he appreciates that the college has allowed him to use their logos on the merchandise he sells.

“They’ve been very agreeable,” he said. “Other schools would not be so agreeable.”

Losik also said he appreciates the education he received at Hillsdale, which has equipped him well to handle changing technology.

“Hillsdale taught me how to learn,” Losik said.” That’s the most important thing.”

Volleyball rally past SVSU, lose to Northwood

Monica Brandt Collegian Reporter

On Tuesday night, the Chargers were defeated at home by the defending conference champion, Northwood University.

Hillsdale College had a slow first set, allowing Northwood to make a 13-point run, and losing the set 7-25.

In the next set, the Chargers did not allow Northwood to score points as easily. Each team had scored 15 points before Northwood started to take the lead. The score remained close until Hillsdale eventually lost the set 23-25.

The Chargers lost the third set almost just as narrowly, 21-25.

Going into Tuesday’s game, Hillsdale had come off of a successful weekend, defeating Saginaw Valley State University on Friday and Lake Superior State University on Saturday.

Hillsdale started the match against Saginaw Valley by losing the first two sets 23-25 and 20-25.

“We were under-activated in the first two games,” redshirt freshman Sam Siddall said.

After the six-minute break between the second and third sets, the Chargers came back and won the last three sets, 25-13, 25-18, 15-11, in order to win the match “We came together, and the coaches talked to us about how badly we needed to win this game and wanted to win,” Siddall said. “We came out guns blazing.”

Head coach Chris Gravel changed the lineup going into the third set, putting in a new libero,

outside hitter, and back row. Junior Alexis Waugh said the “fresh legs on the court” helped change the momentum.

Junior Kat Vael smashes the ball against Northwood University on Tuesday night. (Carsten Stann/Collegian)

“The changes gave them something else to

think about besides just the match,” Gravel said.

He explained that this helped take the pressure off of the team, so they were less focused on the need to win every set in order to win the match.

Senior Caitlin Kopmeyer had 20 digs, 12 kills, five block assists, and no errors.

Sophomore Marissa Owen had 35 sets and 12 digs.

Siddall was put into the game in the fourth set, and had eight kills, six of them in the fourth set.

“Watching my teammates kill it in the third game,” Siddall said, “I really wanted to go in and help my team to a win.”

Hillsdale swept Lake Superior 25-17, 25-23, 25-21 on Saturday.

“Our opponent really came to play,” Gravel said.

Waugh said Lake Superior usually upsets one big team a year, and had yet to do that this season, meaning the Chargers had to bring their game.

Freshmen Briana Herr and Erin Holsinger started Saturday’s game and played their best games to date.

Herr had eight kills, eight blocks, and a .500 hitting percentage.

Holsinger had 9 kills, and a .750 hitting percentage.

“They played really well,” Waugh said, “and I hope they remember this as the defining moment of their freshman year.”

Hillsdale has four home games left. This weekend, they play Northern Michigan University at 7 p.m. on Friday, and Michigan Technological University at 5 p.m. on Saturday.

“It’s really important that we win these two

matches pretty convincingly,” Waugh said.

Hillsdale is 9-5 in the conference, and 14-11 overall.

“We’re kind of the underdogs right now,” Waugh said. “We will use that to our advantage.”

Junior Lindsay Kostrazewa hits the ball into Timberwolve defenders in the first set of the Charger loss. (Carsten Stann/Collegian)

7 November 2013

(Anders Kiledal/Collegian)

Charger Sports

BASKETBALL PREPARES FOR SEASON

CHARGERS DROP LAST TWO EXHIBITIONS game and finished the half down 9.

But from then on it was all Hoosiers.

The Chargers were outmatched physically, Tharp said. Indiana took full of its athletic advantage, The Chargers concluded their preseason outscoring trio of games against Division I schools Hillsdale 38-12 with two losses early this week. in the paint.

Indiana University defeated Hillsdale But the loss 79-39 on Monday night – just 24 hours after aside, Tharp the Chargers fell to University of Toledo in and Dezelski the final seconds of overtime in a Sunday said getting to night game, 85-84. play in Assem“It was an incredibly hard-fought game,” bly Hall was coach John Tharp said of the Toledo loss. special.

“Like two fighters sitting in the middle lane “Very few throwing punches at each other.” people in the Both teams came out shooting hot on world get to Sunday: they both entered the half shooting play a game 50 percent or better. in Assembly After the tip off, the two teams traded Hall,” Tharp baskets for a while, then Toledo pulled said. “And I ahead by 7. But Hillsdale hung with the think that’s a Division I school, pulled back ahead, and memory our entered the half up 40-36.

Sophomore Lucas Grose (21) shoots against players will The lead changed 15 times throughout University of Toledo defenders last weekend at Savage Hall. always have.” the game and eight times in the first half (Photo Courtesy of Lyndsay LaCourse) The Chargers alone. Besides one tie, Hillsdale managed to welcomed in keep their second half lead until 6 minutes finished the game with 29 points and hit five new players to the team this season: left in regulation. eight of nine three-pointers in the process. two tranfers, two freshman, and one former Senior forward Tim Dezelski put the Senior guard Brandon Pritzl added 14 and football player.

Chargers up 2 after splitting free throws senior forward As of Wednesday night, the men’s two minutes Tony Nelson basketball team had only practiced 14 times left in the game, another 12. together. But in those practices, combined but Hillsdale “We just didn’t with the three exhibition games, Dezelski couldn’t hold execute a couple said he thinks the team is starting to gel.

Toledo. Rocket late-game situa“It takes a couple weeks to get into the guard Justin tions,” Dezelski rhythm of the game,” Dezelski said.

Drummond said. “But that’s They’ll open the 2013 season next week, dunked the ball why we play these and they’ll do so relatively healthy. with 40 seconds games now so that Senior guard Darius Ware is out of the left and the the games that lineup with an ACL injury, and junior guard game went into count in the reguCody Smith is dealing with some tendonovertime, the lar season we’ll itus. But Ware will be back in December score tied at 74. execute.” and Smith will play through his injury, The offensive Twenty-four Tharp said. storm continhours later HillTharp said they haven’t figured out their ued in the extra sdale suited up starting lineup for the first game yet. The period. A threeagainst the Indiana coaches, he said, will decide on all that by pointer from University HooSaturday. senior guard siers in their third The Chargers play at home on Nov. Derek Schell and final exhibi13 against Lourdes University. The game put the Chargers tion game. begins at 7:30 p.m. up 4, leaving the Tharp described Chargers with a Hillsdale as minute to hold “crushed” in that their lead. game, although But they the Chargers did couldn’t quite open it on 13-2 do it.

The Rockets Sophomore Kyle Kooper shoots a free throw run. They held at the legendary Assembly Hall, home of the onto their lead hit three free until around 13 throws, Hillsdale Hoosiers. (Photo Courtesy of Lyndsay LaCourse) minutes into the missed two, and Caleb Whitmer Editor-in-Chief

Toledo guard Julius Brown hit a jumper with 1 second left to hand Hillsdale their second exhibition loss of the pre-season.

Dezelski led the Chargers in scoring. He

Hillsdale Academy stops using college buses Macaela Bennett Assistant Editor

In order to fully comply with Michigan’s K-12 transportation regulations, Hillsdale Academy will no longer use certain Hillsdale College vehicles for traveling to athletic events and is relying on parents to take their kids to games.

Prior to this change in October, Hillsdale Academy’s athletic coaches all had chauffeurs’ licenses and drove students to games in two or three different college vehicles. Because most of the college’s vehicles do not comply with K-12 transportation regulations, the Academy has chosen not to continue using them.

Mike Roberts, Hillsdale Academy athletic director, said that this compliance was in no way forced upon the school, but was only instituted to ensure the safety of students.

“When you’re transporting K-12 kids and you’re using any vehicle that transports more than 10 kids, there’s a certain specification that every vehicle has to have for safety, like steel reinforcements,” he said. “Never have we felt that we put the kids in an unsafe situation with what we’ve been doing.”

Roberts said that he began looking into the transportation regulations after “getting grief” from the Lenawee Christian School transportation supervisor who said they would like to use similar buses but didn’t think they could.

“This took me down the line of starting to ask more questions,” Roberts said. “We called the state looking to see what is really needed, and as we researched it, we realized that we would like to get in this fullcompliance situation. This isn’t because of an accident, worry, or trying to cut the transportation budget. Once we learned more about K-12 transportation, we decided to change, and it’s a positive thing.”

On Oct. 3, the Academy sent out an email and letter informing parents of the situation, and Roberts addressed the student

body, explaining why the students would no longer be traveling to games in the college’s buses.

Upon receiving the email, Amy Miller, a parent whose children play sports at the Academy, said she was surprised.

“One of my favorite things about the Academy’s athletic program was that kids can participate and it doesn’t rely on parent driving,” Miller said.

“It certainly makes you think harder about whether or not your children can participate if they are dependent on parent drivers.

It might throw a monkey wrench in the system.”

Miller also said that her children had enjoyed being able to spend time with their teammates on the bus before games.

Neal Brady, Hillsdale Academy head men’s soccer coach, said the players didn’t complain about the new transportation method, but that he believes it hinders players’ mental preparation for away games.

“In terms of creating a pregame atmosphere, part of that is the drive and having community with your team,” Brady said. “Because quite often the margin of victory is so narrow, you want to take care of all the minor parts of the contest, and a lot of that is before the game and getting your mind in the right position. When you have kids driving or in a passenger car, it’s just not the same.”

Brady said that the change did not greatly affect the team this year because it was enacted with only three weeks left in the season, but he hopes the Academy will find a way to transport the team together in the future.

Roberts said that the Academy is hoping to use college vehicles which do fully comply with K-12 transportation regulations soon.

“As the college addresses their own needs, they’re hoping to buy another bus and we’re looking to then again have a bus back in our use,” Roberts said.

“We’re excited about having everyone together one day. That’s part of the junior high and high school athletic experience.”

Charger Chatter: J.P. GURNEE

Senior economics major J.P. Gurnee has played tennis for over a decade. His passion for playing has turned into an assistant coaching job for the women’s tennis team, due to Hillsdale’s lack of a men’s tennis team.

Tell me about your tennis background.

I played a lot of tennis in high school. I started playing tennis when I was 12. So I was really

into it, and all throughout my high school, I did tournaments and traveled around the Midwest with my little brother. I’m from Midland, Mich., which was Tennis Town, USA, like two years ago I think. We have this huge arena – a 16 indoor court arena – in our town, which is weird because our town is pretty small. My little brother played and we played together a lot, so that’s kind of what started it. And I really like the individual aspect about it. You know, you can learn so much from tennis; people really don’t understand that. You have to go out there, and you’re on your own. In high school tennis, you’re not coached. So, when you go to these tournaments, you’re out there on your own, and you have to learn how to fight and self-correct. You learn who you are; you learn how to compete. I think it’s the greatest thing ever.

So, how did your position as assistant women’s tennis coach come about?

I wanted to continue that, so when I got here – there’s no men’s varsity tennis team, which is a huge bummer – I talked to the athletic director. He got me in contact with Nikki Walbright who’s the head women’s coach, and we had kind of an interview-chat type thing. She said I could help out as the assistant coach.

When did you start that coaching job?

That was my sophomore year.

The team actually just started my sophomore year, so this was the third year now. So I’ve been involved since the start.

How does it feel to be part of the beginning and early years?

Feels great. I think the team has done especially well for being a year one team, year two team, year three team. We’ve done really, really well all three years. The first year, we didn’t really have many super experienced players, so we’ve done

really well. It’s been good. I think Nikki does a really nice job and has done really well the last three years. She was coach of the year for the GLIAC Conference last year. She’s doing awesome, and I think the girls really respect her.

Have you had trouble balancing coaching and school? Or is it a similar time commitment as being on a team?

I think so. I go to all the practices, and I string racquets from time to time, too. And then all the matches. The matches are actually pretty time consuming, especially on weekends.

Some weekends, we play three matches in a row, so matches take – well this year, we had some that were five hours long.

There are some time constraints, but it’s not so bad. It’s actually really nice too because it breaks up your day, you get a little exercise, you get to hang out with friends.

How do the girls feel about having a fellow student as

their coach?

I remember I felt a little strange about it at first because when I was a sophomore, I was coaching some of the girls who were older than I was which was kind of strange. But I think it has been fine. They’ve been really good about it. The biggest thing is when you’re watching a match and when you’re playing a match, it’s totally different. When you’re in the middle of the game, you don’t see things that sometimes someone watching can just easily tell.

Sometimes I can just help them out by pointing something out that’s kind of obvious that they might not see.

How do you feel about the lack of a men’s tennis team, and is there potential for one in the future?

It’s a huge bummer, but it’s been okay for me because I’ve made the best of it by getting involved with the girls team, which has been really great.

Will there be one in the future?

I think it seems like there might be maybe in the next few years, but I don’t have anything confirmed about that.

-Compiled by Kelsey Drapkin

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www.hillsdalecollegian.com

7 Nov. 2013

Tracy Brandt

1667 words a day: students tackle National Novel Writing Month Abigail Wood Arts Editor

(Shaun Lichti/Collegian)

Stoldt and Smith both said that is the beauty of the project.

“It’s a lot easier than academic writing,” Stoldt said. “This is just a rough, first draft.”

Smith added that in an environment where she is cramming so much writing into so little time, her characters sometimes “get away from” her.

“My first year I had very little idea of what I was going to write going into it,” she said. “After about 7,000 words, I realized I hated one of my primary characters, so I killed him off. Then he ended up showing up again, completely of his own

volition. Mutant fish got involved.”

Another year Smith said she had to insert herself into the story to intervene and tell the characters that they weren’t doing what she needed them to do.

“An emu randomly appeared,” she said.

Stoldt leans toward a more structured approach, but endings can still be surprising.

“I tend to plan out until the end and leave the end open to be whatever,” she said. “I thought my first novel was going to end happily, but the main character ended up blind. This year I left it open.

Library gives extra books to students Amanda Tindall Assistant Editor Library: a place to borrow books, so you don’t have to buy them.

But the Hillsdale College Mossey library has a stash of free books –– books that you don’t have to bring back –– and it’s available to anyone.

“Most of the books that are available are donated by patrons, friends of the college,” Library Director Dan Knoch said. “The library is always getting books, and we don’t want them to go to waste.”

Many of the books that are donated get added to the Mossey Library collection, but those that don’t are added to the free book stash.

“A lot of them are obsolete, so there’s a new edition, or duplicates,” senior student library worker KC Ham said. “We had a professor who

passed away a little while ago, and a lot of the books donated recently were from his collection.”

Because many of the books people donate are conservative works, the library won’t add a good portion of them. Knoch said he checks the circulation to decide if he wants to add a book to the collection.

“Some books I won’t add if people don’t check them out a lot,” Knoch said, “Sometimes I’ll add a third or fourth copy. All the Hayek, Mises, and Kirk sometimes have circulation as high as 20.”

Knoch also takes into consideration the quality of the books. Many have been in basements, some of which, perhaps, were flooded, so the books are often moldy or mildewed. As Knoch said, “It’s just not a pretty picture.”

Some students who know about the free books take full advantage of the great books at their disposal.

Senior Carl Vennerstrom often picks up some

of the free books, and uses them for different things.

“I read some of them,” Vennerstrom said.

“Some of them I get just to put on my coffee table, like one called ‘In Search of Sodom and Gomorrah.’ Some that are really old or first editions I’ll sell on Amazon.”

“He makes so much off of that,” senior Josh Andrew interjected.

“My favorite book is probably ‘In Search of Sodom and Gomorrah,’ actually,” Vennerstrom said. “There’s this really fat man on the cover in a yellow scuba suit. It’s actually about archeology.”

Knoch said students can pick up the free books on a first-come-first-serve basis.

If you’re the first one there, you might get a great biography about Condoleezza Rice. Or a book with a picture of a fat man in a yellow scuba suit. atindall@hillsdale.edu

Broadening the collection

Library purchases approximately 5,000 books a year Teddy Sawyer Assistant Editor

Every Monday the library staff and a variety of professors approach the library with bated breath and a special spring in their step, excited for the new shipment of books arriving to augment Hillsdale College's Mossey Library’s growing collection.

“Collecting for the library is really fun. We get a shipment every Monday, and every Monday is like Christmas,” Library Director Dan Knoch said.

“We even have professors stop by on Mondays and ask because they want to know whether the new shipment arrived.”

Each year, the library purchases approximately 5,000 books to add to its collection, in addition to the frequent gifts of collections and selections of books, the corpus is constantly growing. The collection keeps up no works from dissertations to children's book to media resources, such as CD's and DVD's.

The effort to maintain the necessary material for the college is spearheaded by Technical Service Librarian Maurine McCourry, guided by the suggestions of professors, other librarians, catalogues, and students.

“Our first priority is the books that faculty suggest,” McCourry said. “They mostly suggest books for the curriculum but often books for their research as well or to support the research of their students.”

The library has a link set up on the catalouge website for professors and students to recommend books, and they use various review publications, such as “Choice,” to keep track of new influential books and scholarly materials.

The library staff as a whole follows the publishing and scholarly review publications to choose materials.

“We rely on faculty suggestions a lot, but the library staff reads reviews on a regular basis and we select from what we know about the curriculum and what we read in reviews. We also ask the students for recommendations,” McCourry said.

Maintaining the collection is a constant effort, as they must continue ordering books, stay within the budget, but also make the budget last for the whole year. McCourry said they aim not to overspend their budget while using as much on books as possible.

“I had the acquisitions and cataloging job up until 2000. It's a great job – I loved it,” Knoch said.

“Oftentimes suggestions are very esoteric and specific to a field, and you have to ask whether the library needs it, but ultimately the answer is yes.

Sometimes we wait until after a few suggestions before we purchase things, but generally we get what the professors recommend. They are the experts in their fields.”

Knoch is in charge of the gifts given to the library, and sorts which books can be kept and which are either not applicable, un-needed, or not in good enough condition to be added to the collection. What doesn't get added to the collection is put on the free books table.

“Duplicates, a lot of paperbacks, or books that aren't in good enough condition aren't kept,” he said. “One of the biggest issues is smelly books.

We can't put books in the collection which aren't stored well because they can smell like mold or mildew.”

While sorting books, both the gifts and for purchase, the librarians bear in mind what books could use more copies and which regularly are used by students and faculty.

“We look at Inter-Library Loan a lot to see if there are any we think we should add to the collection,” McCourry said. “And we use the same processes for DVDs. We don't read as many reviews on media materials, but we take a lot of input from the college community and try to keep stocked the films of Oscar winners and those being discussed

awood@hillsdale.edu

Hillcats to

perform faculty jazz recital The HillCats –– the Hillsdale College Fac-

ulty Jazz Ensemble –– will be performing this Friday, Nov. 8 at 8 p.m. in Phillips Auditorium.

No tickets are required, and the event is free to all who wish to attend.

The ensemble will be playing the music of Billy Strayhorn, a famous jazz pianist and composer who worked side by side with Duke Ellington. The program includes eight tunes including “Take the A Train” and “Lush Life,” two of Strayhorn’s most famous works.

Special guest Sunny Wilkinson, an accomplished and talented jazz vocalist, is also performing with the HillCats. In one song, she will partner with Director and Teacher of Music Chris McCourry to sing the song “Lean on it.”

The band features five regularly appearing members: Lecturers in Music Jonathon Gewirtz and Arlene McDaniel play the saxaphone and piano, respectively. Lecturers in Music Larry Ochiltree and James “JB” Ball keep the rhythm on drums and bass guitar, respectively. Finally, McCourry completes the jazz sound with his instrument, the trumpet.

Lovers of great music, swing dancers who cannot get enough jazz, and more are welcome to attend the free HillCats concert this Friday for a live jazz experience.

-Ben Block

Movie review: ‘Ender’s Game’ Micah Meadowcroft Assistant Editor

Sophomore and student employee Luke Frerking shelves books in the library.

(Hailey Morgan/Collegian)

a lot.”

Not all of the works that the community suggests are ordered, but those that fall beyond the budget are often put off to the next year.

“The basic criterion we have is that they support the curriculum, and there have been very few when they don't fit this,” she said. “Our recommenders have very good taste.” tsawyer1@hillsdale.edu

The visually stunning mediocre highlight reel of a great book.

That is the “Ender’s Game” movie.

Based on the novel by Orson Scott Card, the film will neither thrill fans of the book, nor will it cause them to swear to kill the director with a dull plastic spoon. Viewers unfamiliar with the story will encounter a heavy-handed, hurried, but mostly coherent and beautiful sci-fi movie.

The film’s script sets the tone for the entire film. It strings together the best lines from the book along a chain of mostly competent, sometimes stilted, dialogue.

Screenwriter Gavin Hood, also the director of the film, can’t seem to decide if he wants to beat his audience over the head with the book’s great lines or be so subtle that even the most obsessive Card fans will barely catch the references.

Hood’s script can’t seem to decide which subplot of the novel to emphasize, so every problem moving the movie forward feels forced. For those viewers already familiar with the book, this may not prove a problem. But

See Ender B2

{

“Why am I not hearing keyboards?”

Thus goes the NaNoWriMo refrain, or so says junior Maggy Smith. She and senior Gwen Stoldt are the municipal liaisons for National Novel Writing Month in Hillsdale, Mich., which means they organize the write-ins that help NaNoWriMo participants stay on track with their goals. The writers meet in the formal lounge from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., Friday evenings.

“We get a bunch of people together and we write, talk, and yell at each other to write,” Stoldt said.

NaNoWriMo is an annual, month-long contest that challenges participants to write a 50,000-word novel in the month of November. The challenge focuses on quantity rather than quality with the intention of helping aspiring authors finish a first draft. Once November ends, writers can edit and revise. Smith said NaNoWriMo isn’t about the nitty-gritty details.

“You’ve got that story in your head,” she said.

“You may have never thought yourself good enough or capable of doing something big, but this says you just need the time, the dedication, and the deadline.”

“We write with literary abandon,” Stoldt added.

In fact, “literary abandon” becomes a practical necessity. Each writer has to complete an average of 1667 words a day — a heavy load on top of Hillsdale academics.

“You don’t sleep,” Stoldt said.

Generally the novels that result from NaNoWriMo are peppered heavily with mistakes, but

I’m doing a bunch of reincarnations, so when I get bored I can kill my characters off and start over again.”

A forum at nanowrimo.org helps foster this kind of creativity. After creating a writing profile, aspiring authors gain access to forums that offer pep talks, help for students, a place to post complaints, and even a source of practical answers to writing questions.

Well, practical is relative.

For instance, if you are curious how to poison someone, the forum helps answer that. Curious about the physics of flight on the back of a pterodactyl? Fear not. NaNoWriMo forum writers are happy to answer.

There’s even a forum on the website devoted to different “dares:” make a kitten show up on a character’s doorstep, insert a gnome in every chapter, have a character end every speech with “according to the prophecy.”

“You water the NaNo tree with dares,” Smith said.

A Hillsdale-specific dare and inside joke for NaNoWriMo writers is the annual attempt to most creatively kill off a character modeled after Stoldt.

“Last year, KC Ham killed me off in every chapter,” Stoldt said, laughing. “She was writing a story that had multiple universes. She killed me off in every one.”

The website for NaNoWriMo offers information about the novel-writing community in the Hillsdale area. According to it, there are 129 writers participating. According to a graph available to NaNoWriMo writers, Hillsdale community has currently produced 138,505 new words. But don’t blink. That number is growing fast.

ARTS

7 Nov. 2013 B2

www.hillsdalecollegian.com

Dave’s Dolce Vita

Dave’s undoubtably has the best selection of quality wines in town. Dave’s wines are also expensive, even for a wine sho. The average price sits at about $20, which, unless it’s a special occasion, is too much for the average college student (particularly me). Nevertheless, some treasures can be found here. If you are looking for affordability, look to the California and French sections.

I had a delicious 2005 Brownstone Shiraz the other day for under $10, and Dave’s also offers some wonderful Bordeaux blends that sit under $15. Don’t be afraid to poke around for awhile and maybe splurge a little extra if you find something really good.

Kroger

{

Robert Ramsey

Where to get

good wine, locally One of the most common complaints I hear of the town of Hillsdale is that it’s a boring, uncultured hole. As I’ve found out, this couldn’t be further from the truth. While it’s not (insert larger, affluent city with a state university and thriving economy), the town has a remarkable number of cultural layers which one can uncover to find some great products, particularly of the alcoholic variety. This week, I will be talking about wine and looking at the offerings of four different establishments.

As a precursor to going out and buying great wine, I ask you to do two things. First, go out and read up on wine varietals and vintages for 15 minutes. While everyone has heard of Merlot and Cabernet Savignon, often some great, more obscure varieties exist on the shelves and a little knowledge of a good year and a good region can often go a long ways. Secondly, if you have a smart phone, go download a free app called Vivino. It allows you to scan wine labels and then give you reviews on the bottle. This has helped me on many an occasions, and Vivino can quickly turn 15 minutes staring at the wine shelf into three.

Rite Aid Pharmacy Rite Aid is a strange place to buy wine because of its tendency toward corporate mediocrity, yet it still turns up a few really great wines every time I go in. Again, you’ll want to look for the varietals that are less common. I found a 2009 Ergo Rioja for $8 (!) as well as a 2011 Da Vinci Chianti for $12. Rite Aid will frequently have clearance sales on their wines, at which point some great deals can be had.

Broad Street Downtown Market Broad Street easily has the best selection of American wines in town, and, next to Dave’s, the most consistent quality. Their California wines are great, and with quality selections in all price ranges, it can be hard to go wrong. It is here that I would advise to select more common varietals, as Broad Street carries several affordable, quality labels. They also carry a surprisingly great selection of quality meads, sherries, and ports, which may seem strange but are worth a try. While the local Michigan wine section seems appealing, do not be tempted. God made good Michigan wine; it’s called beer. Also, if you are looking for foreign wines, Broad Street can be sadly lacking at times.

While Hillsdale is by no means the wine capital of Michigan, with a little work some great wines can be found. The more you learn, the easier the good ones are to find.

Ender

More like a

{From B1

MOVIE

A review of ‘Beyond: Two Souls,’ the new, narrative-syle video game starring Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe Marcus Hedenburg Collegian Reporter

Quantic Dream’s Playstation 3-exclusive, “Beyond: Two Souls” is a peculiar outlier in today’s video game industry. It looks more like a movie and defies many of the conventions held sacred in other games.

There are no health kits or level-ups. No free-roaming exploration. No heads-up display. No rooms filled with infinite waves of bad guys that have to be defeated to progress to the next level.

Instead, “Beyond” plays like an interactive movie that lets you make choices that affect the path the story takes in a “choose your own adventure” type of way.

In fact, the genius of “Beyond” is that you don’t need to have ever played a video game at all. It doesn’t ask you to “win.” It only asks you to sit back and enjoy participating in a story.

Reminiscent of old point-and-click adventure games of the ‘90s, “Beyond” gives you very little influence on character and camera movement. And with no fixed control scheme, the game opts for contextual button prompts on-screen that correspond to certain actions you can take. Consequently, player-controlled sequences transition almost seamlessly into cutscenes.

And with the game being fully motioncaptured and starring Ellen Page (“Juno”) and Willem Dafoe (“Spiderman”) as the leads, you’d be even less to blame for confusing “Beyond” with a film.

Because of this limited gameplay interaction, story takes precedence over all else. It’s a game that asks how you confront despair, and more importantly, how you cope with death.

The story chronicles fifteen years in the life of Jodie Holmes (Page), from her early childhood to troublesome adolescence, and ultimately, to her confrontation with death as an adult. Since birth, Jodie has exhibited supernatural powers because of her link to a paranormal entity known only as Aiden.

Aiden can never leave Jodie’s presence, and his sole purpose is to protect Jodie at all costs, even if the means are destructive to others. When you’re not controlling Jodie, you float around as Aiden, who can physically interact with much of the world. His actions usually boil down to mind controlling others, choking, removing obstacles, eavesdropping through walls, triggering flashbacks, and more.

Although Jodie has no direct influence over Aiden, he often does as she asks. During Jodie’s childhood, however, Aiden becomes increasingly troublesome. Fearing

OK, so here is the method for buying good wines at a large grocery store chain. First, eliminate all the white wines. The store assumes that these will be bought by women looking for something sweeter (I’m sorry, but it’s true) so only tries to stock bottles which fulfill this requirement. Then eliminate the two bottom shelves of the red section. While on rare occasions a decent bottle under $7 will show up, it’s extremely rare and usually not worth the gamble.

Finally, get rid of the merlots, cab savs, and pinot grigios. While these varieties can be good in other places, the store knows that because of the wellknown names of the grapes these bottles will sell regardless, and thus the necessity for quality is not there as much, or they will attempt to make you pay out the nose. Now, you should be left with lesser known varieties, and this is where the gems are. Our own dear Kroger currently stocks some great Malbecs for under $10 (don’t forget the Kroger card!) as well as some Italian wines from Tuscany. As a final note, never ever purchase a Bordeaux or other French wine from Kroger. These fall into the “will sell because of the branding” category and are always terrible.

Sony Computer Entertainment

for their safety, Jodie’s parents leave her in a governmental research facility led by Nathan Dawkins (Dafoe).

During her time growing up in the facility, Nathan becomes her father figure. And though he genuinely cares for her, she is ultimately his lab rat. She’s afforded no normal life and serves more as a tool than a person.

As Jodie learns to control Aiden, the government learns of rifts into an “Infraworld” that contains spirits like Aiden. Unfortunately, many of those happen to be deadly, and after accidentally opening a rift, the government calls upon Jodie to close it.

This sparks the interest of the CIA, which quickly drafts her into service against her will. Realizing that she’s being used, Jodie flees and embarks on a search for her place in the world.

Her life is a miserable roller coaster.

Whenever a glimmer of happiness appears, it’s immediately snuffed out by the cruelty of those who wish to abuse her. Her

We need more games like ‘Beyond.’ Narratives in games will never mature if they are constrained to justifying why you have to shoot thirty guys every time you enter a room.

only lasting relationship is with Aiden, and yet she does not know who or what he is.

What then is the point of living when one has nothing to live for? That’s the harrowing question the game asks with thought-provoking choices concerning life and death.

Through these choices, Jodie becomes entirely molded to the player’s attitude, creating a powerful experience unique to each player. Some of these choices are as minor as choosing whether Jodie responds sarcastically or aggressively to a question. Others can be as colossal as deciding between life and death for certain characters.

Aiden’s interactions in particular can be a lot of fun when his actions lead to scenes with different outcomes. A romantic date for Jodie could go perfectly if you let Aiden observe idly. Or perhaps you hate the guy’s guts and cut the date short by wreaking havoc in the room.

Several students watching me play gasped at my decision to use Aiden to exact revenge on teen bullies at a party who locked Jodie in a closet. I saw no harm at first –– until a knife somehow landed in one bully’s arm and the house burned down.

For another player, that scene never happened. Perhaps Jodie was graciously forgiving and just left. Choices like these make for a very personalized experience.

And because there is no “game over” in “Beyond,” the experience becomes even more personalized. If you screw up, the story adapts. Your mistakes become Jodie’s mistakes and your decisions can lead to radically different conclusions to Jodie’s story.

Another wonderful thing about “Beyond” is that it can even be experienced in cooperative play with a friend. In this mode, one player controls Jodie while the other controls Aiden.

Much of “Beyond’s” emotional impact is owed to the fantastic performances by Page and Dafoe. With the help of motion-capture, every tear and raw emotional outburst from Page’s vulnerable performance, coupled with the almost lifelike visuals, makes the game incredibly lifelike.

The game also features a riveting and heart-pounding musical score composed by Lorne Balfe and Hans Zimmer, who have previously collaborated on games and movies such as “The Dark Knight,” “The Bible,” and “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.”

Those not interested in storytelling might find “Beyond” difficult to enjoy because of the limited interaction you’re afforded in the moment-to-moment gameplay. And though controlling Aiden gives you a little more room to explore, don’t expect the versatility of “Grand Theft Auto” here. It’s largely a guided experience.

Despite some incredible action set pieces, most of the game’s ten hours is spent on dialogue and interactions that seem mundane by other game’s standards (You get to cook Asian Beef. Not joking).

And that’s OK because we need more games like “Beyond.” Narratives in games will never mature if they’re constrained to justifying why you have to shoot thirty guys every time you enter a room.

Granted, the story’s supernatural elements sometimes plunge into absurdity, but it always remains intensely personal to the player. We all experience loss, and like Jodie, wonder what lies beyond. If there truly is a beyond, why stick around in this grimy, unforgiving world? The Jodie in my story was a fighter. I wanted her to live so badly because there’s more to life than the grime. There’s also a light at the end of the tunnel that’s worth fighting for.

Few stories have made me tear up like “Beyond.” I’ve never cared much for the debate over whether games are art, but if this isn’t art, then it’s pretty damn close. mhedenburg@hillsdale.edu

those encountering this world of illegal third children, an international government and space fleet, genius preteens going to military school in space, alien invasions, and psychotic videogames (actually, who isn’t familiar with psychotic video games?) for the first time will find the film rushed, disjointed, and disorienting.

The awkwardness of the script somewhat minimizes the disparity between the acting skills of the movie’s lead and support cast by dragging both down to mediocrity.

Minor characters, and even important ones, like the titular Ender’s sister Valentine, played by Abigail Breslin, are often flat, cookie-cutter interpretations of their characters.

The cast’s principals breathe some life into their

out of Mazer Rackham in the brief period he appears on screen.

The film is visually stunning. The art and design of a not-so-distant future is both beautiful and believable. The costumes, sets, and special effects all stand out and indicate a commitment to craftsmanship in the creation of the universe Card wrote about in 1985. Alien architecture, a space station housing a school, a null gravity battle room, these all look right.

Even the psychotic videogame looks just like it should.

Hood set a monumentally difficult task before himself when he decided to adapt “Ender’s Game.” Viewed through the eyes of a child and the military personnel around him, the book is heavy and dark. It spans years and explores far too many sub stories and philosophical themes to be translated entirely into a single movie.

In this case, it required what appears to be a horrendously intimidating, focused adap-

Summit Entertainment

one-dimensionally scripted roles. Asa Butterfield, whom you might recognize from his brilliant performance in 2011’s “Hugo,” plays Ender Wiggin in the film and brings some of the clashing innocence and wisdom of the character to life. However, there are still scenes that neither he nor Hailee Steinfeld — nominated for an Academy Award for her breakout role in “True Grit,” and playing Ender’s friend Petra Arkanian — can make convincing.

Harrison Ford plays Colonel Graff, a man of deep moral complexity in the novel, as a one-dimensional military crank. Thankfully, Viola Davis, Oscar nominated for her role in “The Help,” plays Major Anderson with refreshing grace and gentleness in the few scenes featuring her, and the incomparable and always delightful Ben Kingsley creates a compelling character

tation. Characters had to be combined: Ender couldn’t start as a 6 year-old, so he and the other children are adolescent throughout. Of course, the novel’s plot needed trimming; this is a movie.

Hood gave a good effort.

There have been great movie adaptations of contemporary authors’ sci-fi and fantasy books; “Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince” was one, “The Hunger Games” another. Both recognized the limitations of a two hour film, embraced them, and found a focused version of the key events of the book to represent on screen.

Hood almost finds that balance. Almost. Instead, he produced a glossed summary of the book that never quite clicks.

It will have to do. mmeadowcroft@hillsdale.edu

Hillsdale from a veteran’s view Emma Vinton Collegian Reporter

Heroes walk Hillsdale’s halls. They eat the same pizza at lunch, use the same classrooms, and see the same flag flying over campus day in and day out.

They know better than anyone what “strength rejoices in the challenge” and “pursuing truth, defending liberty” mean. They have pursued it in sweat. They have defended it in blood. And they have rejoiced in the challenge.

They mostly prefer to stay out of the way. They don’t like talking about themselves much. But when you talk to any veteran on campus, they will give you lists of other men whom they claim are the greater heros. They are all on each others lists though.

Senior Matthew Duquette was a member of the infantry in the United States Marine Corps. He attended boot camp in San Diego, then attended the Camp Pendleton School of Infantry in Southern California.

Duquette saw combat both in Iraq in 2007 and in Afghanistan in 2009.

“But Iraq was a lot quieter when I was there,” he said, as he held his baby son.

“It certainly gave me a greater perspective on things, as far as things that really matter,” Duquette said. “A world perspective on how good we have it here. It helped me complain less.”

During his fourth and final deployment in Afghanistan, Duquette wrote letters to his now wife, Julia, who was a student at Hillsdale.

The first time he came to visit, he realized that this college was different.

“I knew before, but certainly from time in service, that there was something special that made America exceptional,” Duquette said.

“After then seeing the proof of what makes us different from other places, I wanted to come here specifically to learn about the origins and real differences that made us better and made us special. And then also to learn things that we need to do to preserve what makes us different and better.”

Duquette realizes the importance of Veteran’s Day in reminding the American people of the sacrifices necessary to preserve and defend the country.

“Veteran’s Day is important because the whole reason that people join the military is to keep the evil-the people that would like to destroy the American way of life-at bay...so that Americans can grow

iBook

{ From A1 said.

The iBook has the same sections as the current Viewbook, such as student life, academics, and sports, but goes into more depth on each subject with added pictures, videos, and documents. The page entitled “Beautiful Settings,” which shows off Hillsdale’s campus, is brand new to the Viewbook’s pages. The iBook ends with contact information to schedule a visit to campus as well as a link to apply to Hillsdale.

Springer described it as a very “collaborative process.”

“Normally several handouts are given to prospectives and it can be pretty overwhelming, but now, it’s all right there,” senior and student ambassador Aaron Tracey said.

A favorite feature amongst those who have viewed the iBook is the interactive map. Instead of just viewing a map that names each building, the iBook reader can click on any building on the map and is given a 3D panoramic shot where they can zoom in any direction

Spotlight

B3 7 Nov. 2013

www.hillsdalecollegian.com

up not living in fear.” His son squirmed in his arms.

Sophomore Michael Aavang served in the Marine Corps for five years. He chose that branch because of the challenge.

“It was the hardest. That’s literally why,” he said. He said the moral and physical courage taught in the Corps distinguishes a Marine from someone else.

Aavang attended the Marine boot camp at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. He saw combat in Iraq when he was stationed there from December 2008 to the end of August 2009. In the Corps, Aavang was a Military Operations Specialist. He also held a

“Hillsdale is on the backs and shoulders of men and women, some of whom have given the ultimate sacrifice.”

-Jeffery Rogers, Associate Dean of Men number of both combat and noncombat related billets, which are a Marine’s secondary jobs. One of his billets was as a Marine Corps Arts instructor.

Before joining the Marines, Aavang studied philosophy. He said he was basically the liberal intellectual type who didn’t know anything about how the world actually worked.

But in his time in the Marines, Aavang experienced life in different countries.

“I got knowledge of how other countries live...just the feeling you get in the air walking around,” he said. to tour the grounds.

“It’s basically a self-guided tour of the different facilities on campus,” Lantis said. “My favorite part is seeing the reaction of students and parents when they open it; we hear a lot of ‘wow’ and a lot of ‘amazing,’ when they see it.”

Lantis and Tracey brought the iBook with them to show it off to prospective students at a college fair in Toledo three weeks ago.

“Other schools had iPads out and the prospectives could just slide through pictures, but with ours, they were able to virtually walk around our campus,” Tracey said.

Lantis said it’s a great recruiting tool to get students to visit campus, which he added is the most important aspect of college recruiting.

And for the students who are too far away for a campus visit, Tracey said the iBook will “definitely give them a better feel for Hillsdale’s campus.”

Although he said he was very happy with the iBook, McNutt said this is just version one.

“The hope is to continue to invest in more versions. We would include more specifics about the core and different majors, and even

Aavang heard of Hillsdale from chaplains whom he was close to in the Marine Corp. He toured and loved it right away. Aavang realized that many people take for granted how special American government really is.

“I had just spent five years bleeding and sweating and watching really good people die for seemingly no reason. I can’t let that happen for no reason...the immeasurable sacrifice made by all the Marines I knew, I must make sure it means something,” he said.

Aavang found that the education at Hillsdale was the best foundation to do that. He lamented the fact that the erosion of military strength stems from a generation that thinks it is morally supposed to be a victim rather than to defend themselves.

“What they don’t realize is that there is a time and a place for righteous anger and for violence,” Aavang said. “The decline of military strength is systematic. It starts in the culture absolutely,” The Marine Corps draws from a strong warrior culture in history.

For him, Veteran’s Day is not a time for social events, not merely for “hot dogs and hamburgers and beer.”

“It’s a time of reflection, a time to reconnect with that brotherhood,” he said.

Chief Jeffery Rogers served in the United States Navy. His office is plastered with military posters. There are dog tags hanging from a hook, and a picture of his wife wearing his white naval uniform.

Rogers said that the principles of honor, courage and commitment which are so fundamental at Hillsdale are the same core values of the Navy and Marine Corps. He said that, in the Navy, he raised his right hand to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.

“That is what we teach here,” Rogers said. “The icon for Hillsdale College is this building: Central Hall. But it should be that soldier out there. We want soldiers...to know what they believe and why they believe it. We want a respectful nation that honors, has courage, and is committed.”

Rogers said that the students at Hillsdale College are patriotic; even those who have not served understand and respect. He said that we should still do more. Students should strive for academic excellence and service of others because the way has already been paved by veterans.

“Veterans have paid the way,” he said. “There is no excuse for failure. Hillsdale is on the backs and shoulders of men and women, some of whom have given the ultimate sacrifice.”

more panoramas,” McNutt said. “They did a great job and I look forward to giving them more opportunities.”

McNutt said the marketing department plans to use marketing tactics to take advantage of the huge audience of iPad users.

“We sent out an e-blast announcing to 10,000 that if they have an iPad they can download this iBook for free and it would be a wonderful opportunity for them to see campus different than just watching video or reading a publication,” Lantis said.

With the new version of Apple, iBooks will soon be available on all Apple desktops, which will allow for an even larger target audience.

As for Phalereus Publishing, they are in the process of rebranding and hope to have a new name and logo by Jan. 1.

After that, they plan on expanding their services of publishing to more colleges and businesses.

“Creating these iBooks is comparable to app development but cheaper and faster,” Mueller said. “It’s a great communications tool and businesses are always looking for new ways to communicate to their customers and clients. There’s a huge potential for growth, we just have to market it well and get people excited about it.”

Overheard at Hillsdale: the best of the week

“I never take my phone into the bathroom because I don’t want someone to figure out how to hack my phone and then see me naked!”

- Anonymous

Jon Lewis holds the newly published iBook where students can see pictures of campus, facts about Hillsdale and more.

“Dr. Pongracic was on fire at the faculty round table. It was just like his class without the expletives.”

- Martha Ekdahl

(Sally Nelson/Collegian)

Monday night Football at Johnny T’s Bistro!

3 HD big screens $1.50 PBRs $4.00 pitchers $1.00 off well drinks Progressive chicken wings starting at 8:30 $0.30 each, up $0.10 each 1/2 hour

B4 7 Nov. 2013

www.hillsdalecollegian.com

Spotlight

Halloween hits Hillsdale Students dress up for a night of candy and fun

Kate Patrick Collegian Freelancer Students treated the Hillsdale campus to clever costumes at the Halloween parties last weekend. At the Simpson Halloween Bash, sophomores Ben Strickland and Eric Walker dressed up as senior Spencer Bell.

“When you have the option of being one of the most attractive men on campus, why would you not take it?” Strickland said.

Strickland and Walker mimicked Bell’s facial expressions and mannerisms.

Sophomores Becca French, Christina Lambert, Phoebe Kalthoff, and Mary Agnes Geiger “baa-ed” in almost every word they spoke as they pranced through the Simpson basement, covered in cotton. Close behind them trailed sophomore Elizabeth Green, their “shepherd” wearing a cotton beard and carrying a staff.

“We’re ‘The Pretty Good Shepherd and Flock of Sheep.’ We couldn’t call ourselves ‘The Good Shepherd’ because that would be blasphemous,” French said.

Freshmen Dani Morey and Josh Shaw went as Pepper Potts and Tony Stark from “Iron Man.” “When I wake up in the morning, I want to look like Robert Downey, Jr.,” Shaw said.

“Don’t we all?” Morey said.

While posing for a picture with Morey, Shaw got into character.

“We just need four more women if we want to be authentic,” Shaw said, referring to Tony Stark’s womanizing ways.

Shaw and Morey posed with freshman David Whitson, who used clown makeup to create the Joker from the “The Dark Knight.”

“I’ve been in theater so many years I can do it myself,” Whitson said, referring to his use of clown makeup.

At the Halloween Swing Dance, seniors Joelle Lucas, Rachel Cook, and Brianna Walden applied zombie makeup to Regency gowns to create a costume they called “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”

“My mom had made all these Pride and Prejudice dresses and I decided they should be used for something other than the Regency Ball, so I decided zombies,” Lucas said.

Overall, Halloween on campus was a success, evidenced by the imaginative costumes gracing the parties.

At the Tree House Halloween party, sophomore Micah Meadowcroft dressed up as Dracula.

“The Tree House always throws the most excellent party no matter the occasion, and their Halloween Bash was no exception,” Meadowcroft said. “The costumes were extraordinarily creative and fun, and I am confident that a delightful time was had all around.”

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(Sally Nelson/Collegian)

(Ben Strickland/Collegian)

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(Courtesy of Ben Strickland)

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1 1. Seniors Joelle Lucas, Rachel Cook and Brianna Walden went as Pride and Prejudice Zombies. 2. Freshmen Dani Morey and Josh Shaw dressed up as Pepper Potts and Tony Stark. 3. Sophomores Eric Walker and Ben Strickland went as junior Spencer Bell. 4. Senior Rachel Heider and freshman Elly Guensche went as Bridget von Hammersmark and Lana del Ray, respectively. 5. Freshman David Whitson dressed as the Joker.

(Sally Nelson/Collegian)

(Courtesy of Dani Morey)

Elizabeth Green Who or what inspires your style?

“Mary Agnes Geiger on Tuesdays.”

Describe your fashion sense in five words or less.

“Churchill. Tree. Juice. Mouse. Salem.”

What is your favorite item of clothing?

“My blue and white nautical sweater from the Women’s Commish sale.”

What is the most embarrassing thing you own?

“Let’s just say it’s sleepwear, polka-dotted, XXL, I made it...and we’ll leave it at that.”

What is your favorite place to shop?

“Our very own Hillsdale Salvation Army.”

What is your biggest fashion pet peeve?

“When people forget to wear shirts underneath their overalls.”

campus chic - Compiled by Casey Harper - Photos by Ben Strickland

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