‘Kiss Me, Kate’ The 1950s musical turns Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” into a Broadway-style musical this weekend. B1
Michigan’s oldest college newspaper
Mock trial goes undefeated at regionals
The Las Viegas Comedy Club Hillsdale alumnus Warren Viegas ’15 is hoping to start the first dedicated comedy club in Goa, India. B4
Vol. 140 Issue 20 - 2 March 2017
Airport expansion The Hillsdale Municipal Airport seeks sponsors for ambitious expansion concept. A6
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Trump hires James Sherk ’03 as labor adviser
By | Joshua Lee Collegian Reporter Hillsdale College’s mock trial A team broke school records Saturday and Sunday, when it went undefeated in the regional tournament in Cleveland, Ohio. The A team claimed the first place trophy, after four threehour-long rounds against some of the highest ranked mock trial teams in the country, including those of Notre Dame and Cornell universities. It was the first time a Hillsdale team went undefeated at regionals, senior co-captain Jon Church said. The victory sends Hillsdale to the Opening Round Championship Series next month, one step away from the team’s goal of making it to nationals. The regional tournament was held at the Cleveland Justice Center, where Hillsdale’s mock trial hasn’t had the best luck in the past. “We’ve competed well at other venues, but this place has always been a curse for us,” Church said. “But we finally broke the Cleveland Justice Center curse, and we couldn’t have done it in a better way.” In addition to the team’s win, the tournament also recognized two students on the A team for their performances. Junior Anna Fair Mathes received an All Region Witness Award with a perfect 20 rank score in which all the judges independently placed her first
among the competition. “Judges are looking for credibility and likeability,” Mathes said. “I play the character with a lot of emotion since she claims to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I don’t cry on the witness stand, but I make it look like it.” Church also received an All Region Attorney Award. “I am really excited by the way we performed,” Church said. “Winning at regionals is great for the team and for our program. Advancing beyond regionals means Hillsdale is at least in the top 25 percent of teams in the nation.” The A team consists of mostly upperclassmen, except for freshman Carson Waites, who plays the main defendant. “It’s been really impressive to see Carson take on such a big role on our team,” Church said. “He has a knack for picking holes in the other team’s case theory, and that is really helpful.” Waites said it is an honor to be competing with Hillsdale’s best. “I am surrounded by teammates who are really good at what they do,” Waites said. “I am excited to do my part in helping us win.” Hillsdale’s C team also competed at the tournament but fell short of advancing. “Our team is made up of freshman, who, for many of them, it is their first time doing mock trial,” freshman captain
Andrew Simpson said. “Our goal was to take away as many ballots as possible from other teams, and we did just that.” Freshman Jenny Sanclemente of the C team received an Outstanding Witness award. She earned 19 of 20 ranks — a great gift on her 19th birthday. After the A team won the regional tournament, Hillsdale received its second bid to the Opening Round Championship Series, or ORCS, March 24-26 in Hamilton, Ohio. Hillsdale’s B team also earned a bid to ORCS at its regional tournament Feb. 19 in Joliet, Illinois. Two bids is the maximum a college can receive. “Sending two teams is a big deal for our program,” Church said. “It will be a huge advantage to work together and see each team compete. We are feeling really good going into this next tournament, but we know we will have to beat the best teams in the nation in order to advance further.”
The American Mock Trial Association released changes to the case the teams will perform at ORCS. “AMTA makes these case changes to see how you respond to them,” Mathes said. “Sometimes they can really mess up your team’s case theory, so we will have to work as a team to be prepared for ORCS.” ORCS is one step from nationals. Hillsdale will need to rank in the top six teams of 24 to advance to the rounds in Los Angeles, California. “Our program has been preparing all season to make it to nationals for the first time,” Church said. Despite the competition, mock trials members said they are up to the task. “Our team is getting really good at what they do, and we all know the challenges we will face at ORCS,” Waites said. “But we are really good at rising up to the level of our competition.”
By | Tim Pearce, Josh Paladino, and Nic Rowan Collegian Reporters
Last week, 45 Hillsdale students attended CPAC with the Hillsdale College Republicans, where many heard from conservative leaders, including Trump; saw protests; and encountered the alt-right spokesman Richard Spencer. Shortly after Spencer entered President Donald Trump addresses the the convention Conservative Political Action Conference on hall at CPAC, seFriday. Peyton Bowen | Courtesy curity guards esfight against it. corted him out of the building. “What I’m trying to conCPAC spokesman Ian Walserve and also restore is those ters told National Public Raoriginal arrangements — the dio that CPAC officials ejected best in human history,” Arnn Spencer from the conference said of the Constitution.
because he was perceived as a disruptive force. “A major event like CPAC should be open to sharing ideas and debating one’s opponents in a civilized way,” Spencer told The Collegian. “I purchased a ticket and acted in a polite and courteous manner, and many journalists and attendees alike were interested in my ideas. Those who initiated my expulsion had the perfect opportunity to challenge those ideas but chose to ban them instead.” Before being escorted out, Spencer watched Arnn address the conference around 10 a.m. Spencer criticized Arnn on Twitter, saying Arnn was a “nice gentleman” but that his “fuddyduddy” approach was insufficient because “we live in revolutionary times.”
-Compiled by Kaylee McGhee in Lane 124 for the Dow Jour- immediately either for him or nalism Program. against him. That’s not how How does faith play a role it should be. We shouldn’t be in politics? losing friendships over who is What I’ve been struck by president. We have this disorover the election is the level of dered relationship with poliinstability in the country right tics where we want the person now, including among people in office to be our savior. We of faith. We didn’t have good don’t need that. Rather, we all candidates to choose from. But need to step up. Our immedifor those with faith, whoever’s ate reflex when something goes in office, pray for the guy. Pray wrong is to look for a law to fix for the people in office, wheth- things, but you can’t undo evil er you agree with them or not. and the poisons in the human Yes, let’s have substantive de- heart. bates, but let’s have them with What do you think about love. Weirdly, this situation Trump’s relationship with — the bipartisan unhappiness the press? with politics — has given us the I think one of the fascinatopportunity to be more cre- ing things is that it seems like ative with coalition building. a large part of the population is How can Trump promote watching a reality TV show. As faith and love? I tune in here and there, there’s That’s not necessarily his this entertainment aspect that job. It’s the job of everyone else. the press is playing into. Trump He is trying to strike a more is the villain, Bannon is the optimistic tone, though. After villain, Kellyanne Conway is he was elected, people were the villain. That all makes for
good TV — substantive policy discussions don’t. But politics should be hard work, not entertainment for the populace. Everyone needs to take a few breaths and be more reflective on what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. What are some things that can be done to fix Trump’s relationship with the press? The mainstream media has exaggerated the press’s limited access. Not all news organizations are going to be allowed into press conferences. That’s just the way it is. So the media is feeding into this misunderstanding, and it isn’t helping anything. Everyone needs a reality check and even an education on how the press works. If we don’t understand that, we’ll never fix it. The transparency of this administration is very helpful, though. The constant cameras fixated on Trump and those See Lopez A3
Hillsdale College’s mock trial A Team — (back row) sophomore Natalie Taylor, junior Anna Fair Mathes, senior Jon Church, sophomore Mark Compton, freshman Carson Waites, senior Hannah Norman, (front row) senior Lindsey Redfern, senior Cheyenne Trimels, and senior Kristiana Mork — earned first place Sunday at the regional tournament at the Cleveland Justice Center in Ohio. Hannah Norman | Courtesy
By | Thomas Novelly Editor-in-Chief Another Hillsdale College alumnus has joined the ranks of graduates working in President Donald Trump’s administration. James Sherk ’03 began serving as a White House labor adviser a couple of weeks ago. “It’s a tremendous professional privilege and a great chance to make a lasting change in America,” Sherk said in an interview with The Collegian. “I’m going to work as hard as I can to take advantage of this opportunity.” Sherk, a labor economist and researcher at the Heritage Foundation for the last seven years, has been working with the White House Domestic Policy Council since the end of January and was also part of the Labor Department’s transition team following the November election. He served as temporary appointee for the Department of Labor, as well. “I know James well and his family. I knew him well as a student and have kept in touch, especially while he has worked at Heritage,” Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn said in an email. “Impressive young man — always very solid and productive.” Sherk is now one of five Hillsdale graduates confirmed to be working within the Trump administration. “Hillsdale students are smart and hard working,” Arnn said. “And they learn a lot about the
world. Maybe that is why they get hired in high places.” When Sherk was a student at Hillsdale, he served in the Student Federation, participated in the JRR Tolkien Society, and was a member of Hillsdale’s debate team. He also had a regular byline in The Collegian, frequently writing opinion pieces about the 2000 election, George W.
James Sherk ’03 is a labor adviser to President Donald Trump. James Sherk | Courtesy
Bush, immigration policy, and economics. “My economics education was tremendously beneficial,” Sherk said. “It’s helped my career in numerous ways and has proved useful on a day to day basis in my role with the Domestic Policy Council.” In an article titled “Drop it: Congress’ stimulus folly,” Sherk wrote that it’s not the government’s job to stimulate the economy and create jobs because it primarily doesn’t understand it. “ O n e See Sherk A2
CPAC 2017 features President Arnn, President Trump NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — In a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 23, Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn discussed the roots of conservatism and claimed that President Donald Trump, at least in his rhetoric, has stayed true to it. Arnn spoke about the first principles that define conservatism, namely that all men are created equal and that governments are instituted to secure the liberties of all individuals. He argued the administrative state is the greatest threat to this equality and liberty, but he said he believes Trump will
Lopez talks love and law
John Miller | Courtesy
Kathryn Jean Lopez is a nationally syndicated columnist and the editor-at-large of the National Review Online. “KLo,” as she is known online and on talk radio, is most known for her commentary on faith and public life, human dignity, and feminism. She serves on the Archdiocese of New York’s ProLife Commission and is a graduate of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Lopez speaks Thursday at 8 p.m. Follow @HDaleCollegian
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Spencer missed Trump address the conference about 24 hours later. Trump spoke to a full-capacity crowd Friday morning, reiterating his commitment to campaign promises on policy, while fueling his feud with the media. “One by one, we’re checking off the promises we made to the people of the United States,” Trump said. “We will not stop until the job is done. We will reduce your taxes, we will cut your regulations, we will support our police, we will defend our flag.” Geraldine Davie, 76, from Virginia — who lost her 23-year-old daughter in the terror attacks on 9/11 — complimented Trump’s position on ISIS and found the “vintage
Trump” speech to be the perfect balance of entertainment and information. “That morning altered my life forever,” Davie said of 9/11. “I have not seen anybody in this country stand up to radical Islam like this president, and he is to be commended for that. I will follow him and make sure he stays on that trajectory and keeps us citizens safe.” About 20 demonstrators stood outside the conference and protested Trump and his policies, while the president spoke. The group came from Prince George’s County Democrats, said the group’s leader, Jessica Semachko, 33, from Mitchellville, Maryland. The demonstrators criticized Trump’s immigration
See CPAC A2
Students sit in the hallway of the lower level of the Grewcock Student Union Tuesday night, during one of two tornado warnings issued by the National Weather Services that evening. Philip H. DeVoe | Collegian Look for The Hillsdale Collegian
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In brief: IDF soldiers ChiHop serves up discuss unity pancakes, in Israeli wishes military
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By | Tim Pearce Assistant Editor
Chi Omega is holding its annual pancake breakfast Saturday from 10 a.m to 1 p.m. at its sorority house. Tickets to “ChiHop” are $5, with all proceeds going to the MakeA-Wish Foundation. The proceeds go toward the sorority’s combined funds from other events to send $6,000 to Make-A-Wish. That amount pays for the wish of one child with a life-threatening illness. “We raised $1,600 last year and we are trying to match that this year,” Chi Omega philanthropy chair Claire Gwilt said. After holding two fundraisers in the fall — Volley for a Wish and Chi O Comedy Night — Gwilt said Chi O has raised around $2,700 so far this year. ChiHop will feature four different kinds of pancakes: plain, chocolate chip, gluten free, and the Chi O special, strawberry and banana. The $1,600 goal matches the record for the most money raised by the event, after the sorority increased the event’s ticket price from $3 to $5. “The $2 increase helped raise $600 more,” Gwilt said. Chi Omega has raised money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation since 2001 when the foundation became the sorority’s national philanthropy partner. “It’s been a really good experience working with MakeA-Wish,” Gwilt said. “I’ve been raising money for Make-AWish since elementary school, and getting the chance to come here and raise money for Make-A-Wish has been a real blessing.”
Sherk from A1
By | Hannah Niemeier Culture Editor The Israeli Defense Force shows that Israel’s diverse population is united in protecting the country, two IDF reserve soldiers said in a presentation Sunday. Their tour of America, sponsored by international nonprofit StandWithUs and brought to Hillsdale College by the Students for Middle Eastern Discourse, gave an inside look into service in the Israeli military, which brings together Jews, Muslims, and others to defend Israel. Hillsdale was the last stop in a two-week tour for Mohammad, a Bedouin Arab, and Ashager, an Ethiopian Jew, who joined the IDF at age 18 to fulfill their mandatory military service as Israeli citizens. Their last names are being excluded for security reasons. “The state of Israel is not just for Jews. It is for my people, too,” Mohammad said to an audience of about 50 people. “We feel a duty to serve and protect our state.” The state of Israel is nearly 20 percent Muslim, including 350,000 Bedouin Arabs, many of whom have cooperated with and protected Jews since the conflicts surrounding its founding in the early 20th century, Mohammad said. In his three years in the IDF, Mohammad served in the Search and Rescue unit of the military. After finishing his service in the IDF, Mohammad joined the checkpoint authority and later studied political science at the University of Haifa, which has a student body half Jewish and half Muslim.
Mohammad and Ashagar, two Israeli Defense Forces reserved soldiers, and Sebastian Parra, StandWithUs’ Midwest campus coordinator, pose with the Israeli flag in the Searle Center. Rachael Reynolds | Collegian
“ The Arabs and Jews study side by side in the university,” Mohammad said. “This could only happen in a democracy like Israel. For me, this is Israel. Arabs and Jews work, study, and serve in the army together.” Ashager’s family moved to Jerusalem, after experiencing persecution in its native Ethi-
“You’ll have the son of the CEO of Coca-Cola and the daughter of a cleaning lady serving together. The army is a great equalizer.” opia, and she said her family’s story echoes that of many other families in Israel. “You think my story is unique, but I promise it’s not. That’s why we have so much diversity in Israel,” Ashager said. “And the place you see it the most is the IDF. Everyone
is coming together to defend our state. You’ll have the son of the CEO of Coca-Cola and the daughter of a cleaning lady serving together. The army is a great equalizer.” Senior Hannah Fleming said the stories of Ashager and Mohammad helped her think about how life in Israel affects her, especially after traveling to the country with other Hillsdale students in January. “I have a tendency to get super focused in on what’s happening here and now, but this helped me to reconnect with Israel and think about it more,” Fleming said. “I appreciated their honesty about problems like racism in Israel, but they’re open to talking about it.” For Ashager, a former officer in a paratrooper reconnaissance battalion, the IDF is one of the equalizing — and unifying — forces between diverse groups, she said. “People have an image of the army as militaristic, and we do what we do to protect Israel,” Ashager said. “But the other side is the people. It’s a mirror of our society.” And this unity is necessary for a country threatened on all sides, she said. “It’s 45 minutes from where I live to Gaza,” Ashager said. “The West Bank is an hour from Jerusalem. This is what I mean by protecting ourselves.”
A2 2 Mar. 2017
Nesbitt wins it big as Michigan lotto commissioner By | Katie J. Read Assistant Editor Aric Nesbitt ’02 hit the career jackpot, when Gov. Rick Snyder appointed him as the Michigan lottery commissioner on Feb. 17. “I thank Aric for his continued service to the great state of Michigan,” Snyder said in a press release. “He has served many years in public service, and I am confident that experience will suit him well in this role.” Nesbitt’s new post follows three terms of service in Michigan’s House of Representatives, where he served as majority leader for the last two years. As commissioner, he said he will oversee the lottery’s overall functions, develop long-term plans to advance it, and ensure the integrity of the system. Nesbitt said he hopes the lottery will bring in more revenue under his leadership, an increase that would benefit students of Michigan public schools, as all lottery profit goes to the School Aid Fund. “My main goal is to make sure that the School Aid Fund continues to grow and that Michiganders have a responsible way to game,” Nesbitt said. Nesbitt said his initial reaction to his appointment was excitement and humility. “I was excited about the new challenge,” Nesbitt said. “I was humbled by the governor’s confidence in my abilities to run an organization of this size.” Nesbitt said the lottery brought more than $800 million of funding to public schools last year, more than $100 million more than its revenue in 2015. Without the Michigan Lottery, he said, the state would source this funding through sales taxes, which would increase from 6 percent
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) appointed Aric Nesbitt ’02 as the state’s lottery commissioner Feb. 17. Aric Nesbitt | Courtesy
to 6.6 percent. During his time at Hillsdale College, Nesbitt studied economics and politics, and met Professor of Politics Mickey Craig through his classes. Nesbitt said Craig challenged him to consider politics in both philosophical and practical settings. Craig said Nesbitt was an excellent student at Hillsdale and spoke highly of his work at the state level. “Nesbitt was very valuable as a liaison between the state House and governor’s office,” Craig said in an email. “He worked out many compromises between the conservatives in the state House and the more moderate governor,..The governor really appreciated his good counsel and named him to his latest position.” During his six years in the Michigan legislature, Nesbitt said he helped the state pay down long-term debt, passed balanced budgets early, invested in roads and infrastructures, and increased the state’s savings account. With a resume like that, Nesbitt said he knows gambling won’t be the key to success for most. “If you don’t play, you can’t win,” Nesbitt said. “But it’s hard work that gets you ahead.”
major reason the government cannot stimulate the economy out of a recession is the information problem; quite simply, the government cannot know enough about the workings of the economy to accomplish the plan for its growth,” Sherk said. “The government does not and cannot possess the knowledge necessary to attempt to plan America’s economy.” After graduation, Sherk worked as a labor analyst and policy fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., where he spent numerous years researching and critiquing minimum wage laws, labor unions inflated influence in the workforce, and former President Barack Obama’s labor statistics. Matthew Spalding, associate vice president and dean of educational programs at the Allan P. Kirby Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship, previously worked with Sherk at the foundation and said he will be a great asset to the Trump administration. “He spent a lot of time on labor research and knows it well,” Spalding said. “He is an outstanding addition to the Trump administration. He’s a very good appointment.”
New volunteer program leadership sets GOALs By | Emily Blatter Collegian Reporter Freshman Marie Johnson will serve as next year’s GOAL Program Coordinator, GOAL leaders announced Feb. 14. Johnson will step into her role, after the current coordinator, junior Allison Deckert, takes over for graduating senior Alexis Garcia as the GOAL Program director. “I think it’s vital that students don’t just spend all their time on this 400-acre square of land their entire time here,” Johnson said. “I think it’s so vital that people get into the community and see what’s really going on out there. How can you sit in a classroom and learn about the good, the true, and the beautiful and not actually figure out how it applies to real life?” The director is responsible for the GOAL Program’s public relations, managing the leaders of the 23 individual GOAL programs, and communicating with both college leaders and the community. The coordinator works behind the scenes,
sending emails, writing the weekly newsletter, receiving weekly reports from the leaders, and approving volunteer hours. Deckert said as director, she hopes to foster more collaboration among the leaders of the individual GOAL programs. “I would like to see the GOAL leaders as more of a team rather than separate, independent entities,” Deckert said. “They’re all striving for the same goal, but they’re doing it all separate from each other right now. So it would be cool to see them sharing ideas and troubleshooting and brainstorming together.”
Deckert will also prepare Johnson to take over as director. “I’m excited to get to know her and work with her,” Deckert said. “It was an incredibly hard decision, because all of the applicants were so well-spoken, and they all had great ideas. In the end, we really liked Marie’s vision for the GOAL Program and some of the specific ideas that she had.” Johnson said she wants to continue growing the GOAL Program and get more students involved. She said she hopes to organize a school-wide volunteer event, giving students across campus a chance to volunteer, even if they are not regularly working with a GOAL program. “There’s always room for growth,” Johnson said. “There’s always a need in the community, whether we haven’t found it yet or haven’t found a way to meet it yet.” Johnson helped start a program similar to GOAL, when she was in high school. The organization collected all the
policy and his attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. “We heard on Tuesday that President Trump was going to be speaking at the CPAC conference, and we felt it was important that people from the community shine a light on the real Trump agenda of militarized immigration raids, repeal of healthcare — the impact that will have on our community,” Semachko said. On Friday afternoon, just hours after Trump spoke, Hillsdale College partnered with Facebook, the Leadership Institute, and Townhall Media to hold a mixer for millennials. “We are all part of encouraging the younger folks here to dream big and to help each other and support each other because what they do and who they are are what make this country great.” Townhall’s external relations director Amanda Muñoz said.
By | Nicole Ault Collegian Reporter More rooms, a gaming space, and a fire pit may soon come to Galloway Residence, according to Associate Dean of Women Rebekah Dell and Chief Administrative Officer Rich Péwé. Plans for a large-scale renovation of the dorm are “very far along,” Dell said, noting that the dorm has undergone updates but no major renovations since its construction was completed in 1949. She said leaking pipes and electrical wiring need particular attention. “In general, the wear and tear on the building is to the point where fixtures and finishes need to be replaced instead of being repaired,” Dell said. Péwé said construction could begin as early as January 2018 and completed for the fall 2019 semester, though an exact timeline is uncertain. Dell said the renovations
would be extensive, similar to the recent makeover for Mauck Residence. Plans involve installation of new plumbing, electrical wiring, and air conditioning as well as faux wood flooring and new paint for the bedrooms. Bathrooms will undergo full renovations, and the dorm will have room for four more men, increasing maximum occupancy from 88 to 92. Dell said the college is adding three bedrooms and a community bathroom to the main floor, and the lower level will transform into a gaming room with a kitchenette and a study room. Plans also include expansion of the common space on the second floor, which will feature a full kitchen, fireplace, and TV. Dell said there will be a small lounge and study area on the third floor, too, and a fire pit on the outdoor patio. The dorm will be “masculine but inviting,” Dell said, noting that she plans to implement a Charger color scheme
with grays, blues, and browns. Senior Chris Pudenz, head resident assistant in Galloway, said he is excited for the renovations’ potential to improve the social atmosphere in the dorm. “We’ve had to be creative with Galloway events for the past several years, because currently we don’t have a very large gathering space,” he said. “I’m excited for any growth in the dorm community.” The college is considering building a new residence hall on Union Street, though those plans are in the conceptual stages, Dell said. Péwé said the new dorm may be a men’s or women’s residence, and, if built, it could house Galloway residents while their dorm is being renovated. “We are not sure about finances yet, but we want to be ready, if it’s a good option,” Péwé said. After Galloway, Péwé said, the college hopes to renovate
CPAC from A1
Junior Allison Deckert will take over as GOAL Program director next year. Allison Deckert | Courtesy
Freshman Marie Johnson was selected as next year’s GOAL Program coordinator. Marie Johnson | Courtesy
school’s volunteer opportunities in one place, making it easier for interested students to find and join programs that fit their interests. “I saw a lot of small, independent volunteer organizations,” Johnson said. “There were all sorts of little clubs, and classrooms would do soup drives, and just all sorts of cool little things that I thought should really have a place to shine.” Johnson said she hopes to help Hillsdale’s GOAL Program shine, too. For Deckert, the GOAL Program has defined her college experience, she said.
“Having the chance to step into somebody’s life, and give them something that they need and couldn’t otherwise get, and experiencing their gratitude is so unlike anything else here,” Deckert said. “Being able to live outwardly focused, that’s the essential part of volunteering for me: getting outside my own head and seeing that other people have needs besides my own.” Deckert added that acts of service put a Hillsdale education to action. “I see volunteering as a natural extension of what we’re doing in the classroom at Hillsdale,” Deckert said. “When you’re studying the liberal arts, you’re learning through history, politics, and literature classes about what it means to live a good life. You’re learning about virtues like passion and courage and strength and wisdom. All of this knowledge is really good to have, but it doesn’t really benefit us or mean anything unless we put it into action.”
More rooms, gaming space planned for Galloway
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Galloway residents hang out in the lobby of the dorm built in 1949. Nicole Ault | Collegian
Olds Residence, though not as extensively. Dell said renovating the bathrooms in Olds would be the biggest priority, noting that the residence has undergone smaller renovations to update rooms and furniture in the past 10 years. She and Péwé also said Waterman and Whitley residences will receive smaller makeovers as needed to keep them up to date. Péwé and Dell emphasized that keeping the dorms in good condition has always been a priority. “The residence life experi-
ence is so important, especially on a campus when a greater portion of our students are coming from out of state,” Dell said. “We are very intentional about increasing the amount of community space, because that’s where you learn and grow. That’s where the liberal-arts classroom is put into practice. Any time that we can invest in spaces that encourage that type of development of community — the exchange of ideas, sharing of one’s life — then we’re building a successful space.”
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A3 2 Mar. 2017
$100 million and 1,000 proposals later, Thompson retires from I.A.
By | Nicole Ault Collegian Reporter At her retirement party, Sharon Thompson is never alone. Dressed in a bright pink top that’s as cheery as her disposition, she can’t leave her corner as people keep approaching her, eager to chat, reminisce, and express their gratitude. Her popularity is a testimony to her character and her 16 years of service as a proposal writer for Hillsdale College. “She’s been a really valuable person for our institutional advancement team and for the college,” said John Cervini, vice president of Institutional Advancement. “And she can become a friend to anybody.” Thompson said she is retiring to spend more time with her husband and delve into volunteer activities, after working for the institutional advancement department since March 2001. She’s on vacation now until her official retirement on March 31, she said, so she’ll have spent a full 16 years at the college. During that time, Cervini estimated, Thompson has helped raise more than $100 million for the college and has written more than 1,000 proposals — as well as thank-you letters, brochures, and reports to donors. “I like to write, and fundraising doesn’t bother me, because I’m never asking for myself,” she said. “I’m asking for a college that makes a huge difference. It’s a privilege to ask people to support the school when you want to promote its mission.” Although most students don’t interact with Thompson, whose office is tucked away in Moss Hall, they’ve benefited from her work; her proposals have requested funding for programs, buildings, equipment, and scholarships. These include proposals for Imprimis, Hillsdale Academy, the Barney Charter School Initiative, and the Dow Journalism Program scholarships. Thompson was
also the head proposal writer writer, too, Kilgore added. its mission, and attention to defor the Allan P. Kirby Jr. Center “That’s an accomplishment,” tail,” he said. “The combination for Constitutional Studies and he said. “Everyone on this cam- of those and other traits really Citizenship in Washington, pus appreciates good writing. made her a joy to work with D.C., and as part of that job, That’s something she scores and someone who was able to she said, she wrote reports to high on in a category that ev- excel in her job.” donors about students involved eryone on campus thinks matKreinbihl added that in the Washington-Hillsdale ters a lot.” Thompson has volunteered Internship Program and the Thompson, who studied faithfully at her church, LitchGeorge Washington Fellowship communications at Spring Ar- field United Methodist, “helpProgram. bor University, said she takes ing the less fortunate in the Thompson said her first pleasure in writing. community.” successful proposal brought in “I love words,” she said. Thompson said she coormoney for the football score- “And I like to craft a compel- dinates children’s ministries, board: “I thought that was kind ling proposal that people will teaches an adult Sunday school of fun, because I like football.” take seriously — foundations class, and sings and plays piaNoting that she is especially as well as individuals.” no for the worship team. When passionate about education for Her favorite part of working her church had an organ, she children, Thompson said one at Hillsdale, she said, is “feeling played it, as well. of her favorite causes for which as though I’ve contributed in a Thompson said she plans to to write proposals and reports small way to the success Hills- stay involved in her church and is Hillsdale’s charter school ini- dale College has experienced delve into other volunteer projtiative. Phillip Kilgore, the pro- under Dr. Arnn.” ects, once she retires. Her husgram’s director, said ThompCraig Kreinbihl, director band is also retiring, and she son’s work has been invaluable of institutional advancement said she wants to spend more to the program, adding that on the East Coast, said he be- time with him, as well. she was the second person he came friends with Thompson, Cervini said Hillsdale will would talk to — after Presi- while he worked as director of miss Thompson. dent Larry Arnn — if anything operations at the Kirby Center “She’s a good representative newsworthy happened with the from 2013-2015. Thompson of the quality of the people that initiative. brought knowledge and skill to work at Hillsdale College,” he “The thing that’s so impres- her work writing proposals and said. “She’s dedicated to the sive about her is how attentive reports for the center, Kreinbi- mission and a real team player. she is to the details,” Kilgore hl said. A very fine person. We’ll miss said. “She makes sure the mes“Sharon brings a cheerful her.” sage to the donors is accurate spirit, a love for the college and and represents the project to them as well as possible. That care for the message is really important.” Kilgore recalled that when he first met Thompson, she was on crutches because of a leg injury, and he noticed how persistent she was about getting around. “She was not going to let it get her down,” he said. “That’s reflective of her whole attitude Proposal writer Sharon Thompson speaks with Linda Moore at Thompson’s retireabout things.” She’s a good ment party on Friday in the Dow Leadership Center. Nicole Ault | Collegian
International Club offers fun and educational cultural experiences Purim costume party on Friday
Students teach lessons in 9 foreign languages
By | Katie J. Read Assistant Editor Hillsdale College’s International Club relaunched its foreign language lessons this semester, offering nine languages students can only learn outside of the formal classroom at Hillsdale. The club also has tutors for students who speak English as their second language. Although the foreign language program dwindled in past semesters, International Club President junior Ema Karakoleva said, it is putting this facet of the club first. She said she wants to respond to the demand from students wanting to learn tongues not taught in Hillsdale’s classrooms and sees a special opportunity in students practicing a new language with peers who hail from the country where that language is spoken. “When you learn a language from someone from that country, not only can you learn the vocabulary and the grammar, but you can also learn about the culture,” Karakoleva said. “You learn details you can’t always pick up from a book.” The classes will include Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Hebrew, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Swahili, and Ukrainian. In addition to the foreign language lessons, International Club Secretary senior Andrea Sommer, Secretary and Language Class Coordinator senior Rebekah Molloy, and senior Rachel Molloy are tutoring students who learned English as a second language. Rebekah
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things to know from this week
-Compiled by Brendan Clarey
Molloy said she and her colleagues will help ESL students with a range of issues, f r o m crafting emails to their professors to proofreading their essays. K a r a - Junior Ema Karakoleva tutors sophomore Anna Timkoleva, a mis in Bulgarian. Katie J. Read | Collegian Bulgarian student, said she hopes the tions. “Hospitality is a big thing club will help all ESL students improve their English. There in our culture, like it is in most are 28 international students cultures,” Hmieida said. “But Arabs take it 10 steps past what on campus. International Club tutors they need to. They’re very hoshold lessons in A.J.’s Café, of- pitable with their food and fering both group and one-on- their kindness to their guests.” Rebekah Molloy said learnone sessions. The teachers and ing even a little of the languagstudents organize lessons, according to their mutual avail- es offered by the International Club tutors will challenge ability. International Club Vice Hillsdale students to grow — President sophomore Nour especially because Hillsdale Ben Hmieida teaches Arabic only teaches French, German, and has three students com- Greek, Latin, and Spanish as mitted to lessons, which will well as a few courses in Hebrew. “Words are all we have,” Rebegin soon. Although Arabic is her mother tongue, the Libyan bekah Molloy said. “You look native speaks English fluent- at the world in a different way ly, having lived in the United through different languages. States since she was 11 years Language is an incredible way to embrace different cultures.” old. Students interested in signHmieida said she starts her beginners by teaching the Ara- ing up for the International bic alphabet, before advancing Club’s lessons can email Reto common vocabulary and bekah Molloy at rmolloy1@ colloquial phrases. She also hillsdale.edu. shares information about the culture of Arabic-speaking na-
ISIS releases propaganda against China The Islamic State group released a video targeting China on Monday depicting Uighur fighters vowing to retaliate against the religious repression in the Xinjiang. ISIS published propaganda two years ago calling for Chinese Muslims to fight for the caliphate.
Three dead in the Midwest, after Tuesday’s tornadoes Tuesday’s storms shook much of the Midwest, as nearly a dozen tornadoes and high winds left three people dead along with much damage. In some places, hail reached the size of a baseball. The warm weather is being blamed for the severity.
The 2016-2017 Lamplighters — seniors Elise Clines, Jessie Fox, Larissa Clark, Bilyana Petkova, Kyra Rodi, Hannah Andrews, Alexis Garcia, and Hannah Flemming — gather for a mixer with candidates for the women’s honorary. Madeline Barry | Collegian
The lasting tradition of Lamplighters By | Anna Timmis Collegian Reporter Lamplighters, the senior women’s honorary on Hillsdale College’s campus, is celebrating the induction of its new eight members at the Honors Ceremony on Saturday. Founded in 1949, Lamplighters was established at Hillsdale to recognize outstanding women and to stand as a counterpart to the men’s honorary, the Mortar Board. The current senior members selected junior women based on the four pillars of the honorary: character, scholarship, leadership, and service to the community and college. “The honorary says, ‘You are one of these eight outstanding senior women who exemplify these traits,’” Fleming said. “It’s how we were picked, and it’s how we pick the new members.” Lamplighters inherit charm bracelets from alumnae. The bracelets have 12 charms with the names of 12 past Lamplighters who had the bracelet. At the end of the year, the women remove the oldest charm and send it with a letter to the alumna Lamplighter. Junior Madison Frame said she is excited to join the honorary with a rich tradition. “I think the emphasis instead of being on sisterhood is more on a tradition or a heritage, and you’re passing on the tradition of women who have come before you in Lamplighters,” Frame said. “That was meaningful for me, because there have been several seniors as well as upperclassman from the past two years who I know and respected a lot, really looked up to who were mem-
bers of Lamplighters.” Junior Rachel Watson, a new inductee to the honorary, said it was an honor to be recognized by prominent leaders on campus. “It’s really cool to see that group of women and how diverse they are and seeing that all the outstanding senior women nominees were Lamplighters and half of the President’s Ball court women were Lamplighters,” Watson said. “Seeing people recognized by this group but also by the entire campus, that’s been impressive and humbling.” This year, the honorary is discussing ways to increase its involvement with the student body. President Larissa Clark said she hopes to give a luncheon for underclass women to share advice and encouragement. “Larissa’s vision is to take ourselves off a pedestal,” Fleming said “We want to talk about the things we’ve struggled with in college as well as the things we’ve learned.” This year’s Lamplighters also assisted with the Women’s Commissioners Sale in the fall, which raises scholarship money for Hillsdale College students, and held a mixer in the spring for women who qualify for the 3.4 GPA requirement to get into Lamplighters. Then in 12 years, each member of the 2016-2017 Lamplighter circle will receive a charm with their name on it accompanied by a letter from a future Lamplighter. “It’s a way for past and present Hillsdale women to be connected in honoring character, scholarship, service, and leadership,” Christina Lambert ’16 said.
Lopez from A1
for that decision. The important thing to remember is people weren’t given the freedom to really make a choice. We didn’t have good candidates to choose from, but that doesn’t mean Trump won’t be able to do some good things. There is nothing comfortable about politics right now. This is a good opportunity for us to get beyond our normal partisan comfort zone.
By | Morgan Channels Collegian Reporter Hillsdale College’s International Club invites campus to a costume celebration of Purim on Friday at 7 p.m. in Mauck Residence. Purim, a lesser Jewish holiday, commemorates the defeat of Haman’s plot to kill the Jews, according to the Book of Esther. Freshman Shavit Rootman, who was born and raised in Israel and celebrates the holiday every year at home, suggested the club hold a Purim celebration. The club encourages students to dress in costumes as is custom in Israel. The biblical story tells of several uses of hidden identities: Esther wore a disguise in her palace; Mordecai hid his identity, when he came to the town of Shushan; and God sent his angels in disguise. The club’s faculty advisers, Professor of French Sherri Rose and Professor of Spanish Carmen Wyatt-Hayes, will judge a costume contest from 7-8 p.m. The winner gets a $25 Amazon gift card. “Dig deep into your closets, and see if you can come up with something creative, mysterious, or humorous,” Rose said. International Club President junior Ema Karakoleva said she hopes the event will expose students to a new aspect of another culture. “You may not be familiar with the annual Purim street party in Tel Aviv,” Rose said. “This is a fun opportunity to participate in one of the most spirited holidays in the Jewish tradition.”
around him can be seen as a good thing. What are your thoughts on Trump’s presidency thus far? I’m grateful for some things Trump has done, but I’m also uncomfortable with his use of executive orders. National Review famously didn’t endorse Trump, and we received lots of grief and congratulations
Trump addresses Congress for the first time President Donald Trump addressed Congress Tuesday night, addressing his plans to revamp health-care legislation, immigration laws, and tax laws. He spoke for an hour about the achievements in his first 40 days in office.
Oscars host announces wrong best picture The Academy Awards on Sunday saw perhaps one of the worst screwups in the history of the Oscars, announcing “La La Land” had won best picture instead of “Moonlight.” A PricewaterhouseCoopers accountant handed Warren Beatty the wrong envelope.
Hillsdale Royals
Senior Christian Wiese, crowned President’s Ball king on Saturday, dances with President Larry Arnn’s wife, Penny. “Winning was fun, but seeing so many people that I care about in one room was the highlight of my night — and while I was worried about stepping on Mrs. Arnn’s feet, she was very gracious,” Wiese said. Matthew Kendrick | Collegian
Senior Bilyana Petkova, crowned President’s Ball queen on Saturday, dances with President Larry Arnn. “I wasn’t expecting it since all the candidates are brilliant and amazing women,” Petkova said. “It was such an honor to be selected.” Matthew Kendrick | Collegian
Google introduces YouTube TV to replace cable Google is launching a new internet subscription service called YouTube TV, a replacement for cable, the tech giant revealed Tuesday. The service will cost $35 a month and offer 40 channels normally found on traditional TV.
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A4 02 Mar. 2017
For on-campus students, longer building hours are a must Newsroom: (517) 607-2897 Advertising: (517) 607-2684
Online: www.hillsdalecollegian.com Editor in Chief | Thomas Novelly Associate Editor | Kate Patrick News Editor | Breana Noble City News Editor | Philip H. DeVoe Opinions Editor | Jo Kroeker | Anders Hagstrom Sports Editor | Jessie Fox Culture Editor | Hannah Niemeier Features Editor | S.M. Chavey Design Editor | Grace DeSandro Web Editor | Evan Carter Photo Editor | Madeline Barry Senior Writers | Andrew Egger | Nathanael Meadowcroft | Ramona Tausz Circulation Managers | Conor Woodfin | Finn Cleary Ad Managers | Adam Stathakis | Aidan Donovan Assistant Editors | Stevan Bennett, Jr. | Jordyn Pair | Joe Pappalardo | Josh Paladino | Katie J. Read | Tim Pearce | Brendan Clarey | Madeline Jepsen | Michael Lucchese Photographers | Ben Block | Catherine Howard | Emilia Heider | Jordyn Pair | Luke Robson | Andrea Lee | Lauren Schlientz | Madeline Fry | Nicole Ault | Nina Hufford | Rachael Reynolds | Sarah Borger | Zane Miller | Hannah Kwapisz | Sarah Reinsel Faculty Advisers | John J. Miller | Maria Servold The editors welcome Letters to the Editor but reserve the right to edit submissions for clarity, length, and style. Letters should be 450 words or less and include your name and number. Send submissions to jkroeker@hillsdale.edu before Saturday at 3 p.m.
In praise of the unplanned morning By | Madeline Fry Columnist Perhaps you should have emerged from bed, recycling the weeklong drudge of get up, get dressed, get ready. Go up the hill, show up for classes, study. But you stayed cradled in your sheets because it was the weekend — I know you’ve done this at least once because we all have — so I offer to you a piece of advice regarding this Saturday slumber: embrace it. Leisure, unprogrammed downtime, is a hallmark of civilized society. We engage in activities for their own sake, not for any benefits they afford, because we value our happiness. Our ability to transcend work and spend our time creatively is one of the things that makes us human. Animals recreate, of course: Otters wrestle and slide down rocks like water park attractions. Elephants caress and chase each other while bathing in mud. But leisure offers us more than pleasure. We pursue what we love in our spare time because it makes us happier and teaches us to live fuller lives. One hundred some years ago, George Eastman invented the Kodak camera and founded the Eastman Kodak Company. A historychanging entrepreneur has no time to squander, but Eastman spurned his long work hours to spend months at a time traveling Europe. A friend described him as “absolutely alcoholic about music” after he spent six days in New York City visiting a dozen different operas, theaters, libraries, and museums. “What you do in your working hours determines what you have,” Eastman told his employees. “What you do in your play hours determines what you are.” Rather than defining themselves in the off-hours, high-achieving people (I’m looking at you, Hillsdalians) are prone to suffer from a common malady: relying on work and personal performance
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to derive meaning from life. Twentieth-century philosopher Josef Pieper argues as much in Leisure: The Basis Of Culture. “Leisure is only possible when we are at one with ourselves,” Pieper says. “We tend to overwork as a means of self-escape, as a way of trying to justify our existence.” Leisure, however, is not important merely as a means to define and refine us. It also serves a counterintuitive function: boosting our productivity. It may be tempting to work harder to achieve more, but studies show this plan can backfire. We call this burnout. The Academy of Management Review calls it a “stress syndrome,” and I call it sitting in Purgatory, staring at your laptop screen, and willing your brain to process cohesive thoughts while your right eye starts twitching. Burnout is linked to depression, according to the APA, and depression, by nature, retards output. Leisure, then, offers a solution to anxiety, cynicism, and emotional drain. A change may be as good as a rest, but an unplanned morning is both rest and change. Make sure to distinguish between leisure and free time. There is a difference between frittering the morning away on Facebook, wondering two hours later where the time has gone, and choosing to spend hours on a single pursuit. Determine what you love, not simply what you don’t mind doing, in order to pursue it wholeheartedly. It’s Saturday morning. Your blanket sweeps about you as the ripple in a pond, and your ankles clutch socks that escaped in the night. A cup, white-porcelain and chipped, fills with coffee and steams like mist in the dawn. You get up and enjoy a leisurely breakfast, or shut your eyes and curl back up in the sheets.
The opinion of the Collegian editorial staff
When Hillsdale College Security started finding sleeping students in the Grewcock Student Union at 3 a.m. when it closed and after the administrators received reports that nothing really happened in the union for its last open hour, they decided to close the union at 2 a.m. instead. Although Grewcock was rarely well-populated at 2:30 in the morning, the hour from 2 to 3 a.m. was vital, both for studying and for connecting with other students. Some administrators have contended that building hours should be limited in order to prevent students from staying up too late. While it’s rea-
sonable not to condone late or sleepless nights, a student finishing up (or starting) a research paper the night before it’s due is probably going to lose some sleep, regardless of building hours. For the 75 percent of students living on campus, the only option is dorm studying, but research from the Centers for Disease Control indicates that studying near bed can be counterproductive. “It comes highly recommended that activities like studying, reading, and any other type of work or stress-related activity not be done while in bed,” an article based on the research says.
More importantly, closing buildings on a campus with single-sex dorms limits those vital 3 a.m. conversations. Theologian John Henry Newman wrote in “The Idea of a University” that residence is one of the most important aspects of a university, even more important than the classes. “When a multitude of young men, keen, open-hearted, sympathetic, and observant, as young men are, come together and freely mix with each other, they are sure to learn one from another, even if there be no one to teach them,” Newman wrote. Dorm conversations can be fruitful, but students need another location
for these conversations as well. The earlier closing time has posed a problem for the Collegian as well. In the past, when Collegians were brought to campus around 4 a.m. there were still custodians and security guards around to open the door. Now, there’s a dead time at the union, and the Collegian has been dropped off outdoors to sit in unpredictable weather for several hours. Collegian problems aside, students deserve longer hours at the union for high-quality studying and even higher-quality conversations.
The conservative movement has abandoned its principles By | Josephine Von Dohlen his conference appearance. In response, Ben Sasse tweeted: Collegian Reporter “PREDICTION: not the last time Friday morning, 7:13 a.m., @realdonaldtrump will abandon the doors opened at the conservatives”. Conservative Political Action In an official statement Conference, CPAC, in National regarding his 2016 cancellation, Harbor, MD, where attendees Trump’s representative said, raced into the Potomac Ballroom “Mr. Trump would like to thank for spaces closest to the main [American Conservative Union stage. Some had been waiting in Chairman] Matt Schlapp and all line since as early as 5:30 a.m. to of the executives at CPAC and see President Donald J. Trump looks forward to returning next address conservatives for the year, hopefully as President of first time as President. the United States.” One year prior, all Republican Trump’s wish came true: the presidential candidates attended President affectionately said, “I CPAC 2016 — with the exception love this place, I love you people,” of Trump — who cancelled his to the crowd standing, cheering, appearance just days before, and clapping in jubilation. announcing via Twitter that he So has the conservative would attend a rally in Kansas movement changed, or has and Florida to advance his Trump proven himself a political campaign instead. conservative? CPAC 2016 attendee William With Trump’s victory of the Temple from Georgia had White House, conservatives planned to lead a walkout during seem to have abandoned their Trump’s scheduled appearance, principles that moved them National Review reported — a to disapprove of Trump just dramatic contrast with the warm months prior. welcome Trump received this Each year, CPAC conducts a year. straw poll of attendants, asking Despite the apparent dislike of a variety of different questions, Trump by many conservatives gauging the crowd on various attending CPAC 2016, attendees political preferences. This year’s were not pleased with Mr. results showed that 47 percent of Trump’s decision to cancel
attendees believed that things in the United States had gotten off track, but 86 percent responded that they approve of the job that Donald Trump is doing as president. In 2016, Donald J. Trump received 15 percent of the straw poll votes for first choice of presidential candidate, then receiving 9 percent for second choice presidential candidate. This shows that less than 25 percent of conservatives at CPAC 2016 considered Donald Trump as a first or second choice candidate. Surprisingly, the 2017 CPAC straw poll results stated that 80 percent in attendance agree that Donald Trump is realigning the conservative movement. Back in 2016, CPAC attendees had the opportunity to listen to presidential candidate after presidential candidate beg for their vote as each fought for the claim to be the more conservative candidate. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a 2016 Republican presidential candidate, spoke to CPAC 2016 and said, “I want to offer you some e nt hu s i a s m a n d
optimism today and tell you no matter what is happening there, the conservative movement is alive and well in states throughout America”. But it isn’t. The conservative movement has lost its ground and is blending toward a mainstream Republican party approach. President Trump addressed his absence from CPAC 2016 in his speech this year. “I would have come last year, but I was worried that I would be at that time too controversial,” he said. “We wanted border security, we wanted very very strong military. We wanted all the things that we are going to get but some people considered it controversial. But you didn’t think it was controversial.” But the conservative movement is no longer the same. CPAC 2017 was a party for those celebrating the electoral college, rejoicing in the Donald Trump presidency, and not for the “Ronald Reagan Conservatives” who may have attended the year before. Ms. Von Dohlen is a sophomore studying American Studies and journalism.
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Reform Medicaid by simplifying its reimbursement process
By | Evan Carter Web Editor Washington pundits expect House Republicans to introduce legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act following their recess this week. In leaked documents obtained by POLITICO, it appears that this legislation will roll back Medicaid spending, which in Michigan covers over one million lowincome families or families with members that are physicallydisabled who otherwise couldn’t afford healthcare. The Medicaid portion of the health-care debate is sure to be contentious and partisan, but while Congress debates the issue it shouldn't forget about small communities like Hillsdale County, where almost 26 percent of the community receives Ms. Fry is a junior studying some sort of Medicaid benefits. Any changes to Medicaid French and journalism. spending will affect not only the entitlement recipients, but also their health-care providers by forcing them to learn a new entitlement reimbursement system. Larger health-care systems can accommodate these changes, while smaller providers struggle to keep up with the changes, often forcing them to consolidate with larger health systems. The Medicaid reimbursement system is a mess and Congress can reduce the strain of the second major-overhaul of Medicaid in the past 10 years by simplifying the Medicaid reimbursement process for health-care providers.
Health-care consolidation decreases the quality of care for smaller communities like Hillsdale, tying formerly independent health-care providers to larger, centralized health-care systems that are far removed from the communities they’re serving. While Hillsdale Hospital remains independent, Ruthanne Sudderth at the Michigan Health and Hospital Association said there is evidence to suggest that the ACA going into effect in March 2010 stimulated this consolidation trend. According to Hillsdale Hospital’s Organizational and Business Development Director, Jeremiah Hodshire, the changes to Medicaid and health-care policy over the past 10 years have made it increasingly difficult for small hospitals to stay independent. Within the past five years, both the Community Health Center of Branch County and Monroe’s Mercy Memorial Hospital System were purchased by ProMedica Health Systems of Toledo and Jackson Allegiance Health merged with the University of Michigan Health System. “Our sustainability in the future is about local people using us — not thinking since they go to the University of Michigan or that they go to a larger health system that they’re going to be better,” Hodshire said. “In fact, that’s not true. Our quality scores are greater, our outcomes are better.” In Hillsdale County, 2,800
additional people received coverage under the Medicaid expansion that went into effect after the state enacted the federally-funded Healthy Michigan Plan in 2014, according to the Michigan Health and Hospital Association. Any changes to Medicaid at the federal level will not only affect these 2,800 individuals, but will also affect health-care facilities such as Hillsdale Hospital, which receives 60 to 70 percent of its income comes from Medicare and Medicaid recipients. “What Washington and Lansing do to reform health-care or to change it has a significant impact on our operations and if we’ll be around,” Hodshire said. “When we say we’re not for profit, we go beyond that — there’s no profit at all and we operate on almost no margins.” If Congress slashes Medicaid without measures to simplify the rules and regulations surrounding the government’s reimbursement payments to health-care facilities, it will be difficult for small hospitals like Hillsdale Hospital to take on the expense of complying with yet another Medicaid payment structure re-write. Receiving reimbursements from the government is so complicated that it takes a knowledge of thousands of reimbursement codes and requires staff whose only job is to get the health-care facility reimbursed for the care they provide to patients. File a claim wrong and the facility doesn’t get
paid. At Hillsdale Hospital, a portion of a $45,000 grant it received from the state will pay for a “Medicare boot camp” which provides training to staff on how to handle Medicare and Medicaid claims. This is before any further changes to federal health-care law. “In their ignorance, they passed [the ACA], which unfortunately has left on the shoulders of small hospitals to try and figure out, ‘what do we do now,’” Hodshire said. “It’s convoluted at best.” Simplifying the claims process would be a start in reforming the entitlement and would save health-care providers a significant amount of money without requiring any cuts to staff or services. These savings could then be passed onto patients through less expensive hospital visits. Health-care isn’t a right, but with many small communities like Hillsdale County where a quarter of the population is on some form of Medicaid, any changes to Medicaid spending could result in loss of coverage for citizens and increased compliance costs for health-care providers. “It’s tough business right now; health-care is very difficult to navigate,” Hodshire said. “The ever-changing landscape of the bureaucracy of the federal government is a job in itself.” Mr. Carter is a senior studying politics and journalism.
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Stop Ariana Grande
Take student union music back from Top 40 By | Katie J. Read Assistant Editor Think back to this morning, when you walked from the classroom buildings to the Union. Fresh out of a lecture, you were probably entertaining milk-and-honey visions of ancient Athens or daydreams of Dante and Beatrice. Then you pushed open Grewcock’s double doors and the shock of popstar Ariana Grande singing “Side to Side” wrenched you from your fantasy. Again. It’s time to toss the worst of the Top 40 trash that plays in the Grewcock Student Union. This is the music of frat parties and stale montages, not the soundtrack of earlymorning review sessions or late-night conversations. All
of us indulge our fancy for pop culture — I’ll admit that I’ve got most of Justin Timberlake’s repertoire committed to memory. But when SiriusXM pumps the union full of ugly, repetitive tracks, it promotes the same thoughtlessness Hillsdale teaches its students to overcome. Luckily, our musical predicament is an irritating oversight with an easy fix. The monitors who manage the Union’s front desk also run its sound system, but they aren’t the culprits: “The Student Union desk workers only control whether the radio is on or off,” sophomore desk monitor Jordyn Pair said. “We have no control over what is playing.” When it’s on, the radio usually plays SiriusXM’s
“Hits 1” station, which cycles through the latest hits from the kings and queens of bubblegum pop. The tunes of Ariana, Timberlake, and Taylor Swift belt out the hits that financed their newest mansion, they make the Union a feel like high school prom. Yikes. While the radio station has edited all the four-letter words from these angsty ballads, the content of these tunes promote vile messages. In the chart-topper “Side to Side,” for example, Ariana drops this poetic shoutout to her latest lover: “I’m talkin’ to ya/ See you standin’ over there with your body/ Feeling like I wanna rock with your body/ And we don’t gotta think ‘bout nothin.’” Lovely, right?
This would be less of a problem if the Union was populated only by its 9 p.m. crowd — students strung out on stale coffee and greasy carbs. But a lot of other people visit the Union. Prospective students imagine themselves reading up on the great works of the Western World aside the fireplace, while their mothers picture their precious babes falling for an equally conservative student over ice cream at AJ’s (what they don’t know about Hillsdating won’t hurt them). Donors tour this lodge-like hang out before they snap a quick pic with Winston and clean out their wallets at the bookstore. Professors trudge down the steps into the cafeteria for lunch. Their tiny kids run wild in velcro shoes.
Embracing gender-deviant people’s societal roles hormonal levels, chromosome By | Garaidh Dunkerley types, and reproductive Special to the Collegian organs. Gender, as used here, pertains to personal and A video of Ben Shapiro cultural interpretations of an graced my Facebook feed individual’s societal role based in which he purportedly upon preconceived notions of “destroys transgenderism” masculinity and femininity. Though not true of every during a Q&A session with an audience member. I clicked to human society, gender is watch, noting the predictable typically an interpretation routine that plagues many of sex as it informs societal speaker-audience contentions roles. A nurturing personality, instance, is often — nervous question, witty one- for line response, laughter, repeat thought effeminate due to until bored or screaming the prevalence of nurturing at each other. (To Shapiro’s persons of the female sex; credit, he’s pretty good at one- similarly, aggression is seen liners.) When he says, “You’re as masculine. A culture may not a man if you think you’re then define a role for females a man” or “For all of human as caregivers and males as history, ‘boy’ meant ‘boy’ and warriors. Such a categorical ‘girl’ meant ‘girl,’” there’s an unwillingness to recognize that the present conflict dances around a simple, definitional disagreement. This worryingly predominant style of smug, one-liner debate isn’t just lazy, but unproductive and dangerous. A productive conversation necessitates we start talking about how we talk about distinction would be pointless gender; that we cease bickering if everyone interpreted their about the number of genders, sex through the same ideas of boy scouts, and bathroom masculinity and femininity, bills. It is clear that neither but humans are weird. Alternative gender systems liberals nor conservatives are sharing a vocabulary, resulting to the Western binary exist in definitional entrenchment, and could inform a better hackish psychoanalysis, and conversation. There is evidence dubious moral reasoning. that some societies, such as Most damningly, the current the Yoruba people of West gender debate largely ignores Africa, did not have a gender the core issue: we do not have a system prior to colonization universal, cultural schema that by European powers. Of those protects non-binary gendered cultures that did conceive of gender, many used sex persons in the United States. A better discussion begins as an anchoring point, but by defining sex and gender. also understood masculinity Sex is the property by which and femininity differently organisms are classified from the West. The Navajo into male and female in people conceived of ‘man’ and accordance with physiological ‘woman’ in a manner similar characteristics such as to us, but their 3rd and 4th genders called nádleeh, or
‘two-spirits,’ do not translate to the Western binary. Similarly, Indian culture has a conception of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ but also a third gender, hijra, encompassing eunuchs, intersexed individuals, and culturally effeminate males in general. In particular, the hijra demonstrate that there was a respectable role for effeminate males in India. Their existence is documented as early as the 8th century and, though fallen from grace since the colonial period, they boast a distinguished history. Hijra served as royal counsels, guards for noble women, and fulfilled a sacred role as devotees of the mother-deity
"If we are to embrace and protect all our citizenry, we might start by expecting humans to be the messy, non-dichotomous, featherless bipeds they are and discuss accomodation." Bahuchara Mata and Shiva. To this day, they perform blessings at festivals, births, and weddings through song and dance. One could argue that the hijra and nádleeh suffered collectively from psychological illnesses. Yet the contemporary notion of mental illness necessitates dysfunction. Being a hijra in pre-colonial India would not be dysfunctional, but advantageous precisely because they held a respectable societal role. Yes, the suicide rate for the American transexual community is much higher than the standard population, plausibly because transexuals lack a societal role and thus a sense of purpose in American society, or that American
culture predominantly stigmatizes transexuals. It goes without saying that a non-binary person is deviant, but they can only be called dysfunctional in a cultural context that makes no allowances for deviation from dominant gender norms. In short, cultural context can make deviance a source of distress, a necessary second criteria for mental illness. With more than 700,000 Americans who cannot, for whatever reason, conform to the Western gender binary, personal beliefs concerning gender are subservient to a greater need. Many of these people are homeless, forced by circumstance into prostitution, and unable to find legitimate work or shelter. We could argue over whether they are confused, immoral, or attention seeking — we could also argue about our favorite colors and ice cream flavors. In light of the hijra and nádleeh, how could we maximize the utility of deviant-gendered individuals in society? By defining roles for certain persons, they become more likely to contribute to order and prosperity. In spurning them, society fails to assign them a role, decreasing the likelihood they might contribute to or benefit from society. History suggests that integration of deviant-gendered persons into the fabric of culture is neither inexpedient nor unprecedented. If we are to embrace and protect all our citizenry, we might start by expecting humans to be the messy, non-dichotomous, featherless bipeds they are and discuss accommodation.
And who sings backup to all this activity? Nasally, auto-tuned voices screeching overhead about their thoughtless sexcapades and subsequent heartbreaks (I’m looking at you, TSwizzle). Hillsdale College prides itself on adherence to principle and celebration of higher thought. We have got to turn off the music that promotes debauchery as it echoes throughout the center of student life. Listen, I’m not suggesting we swap Ariana and her ilk for an equally-irritating playlist of goody-goody Christian music. And I’m not saying we should crank up the volume with hours of Rachmaninov’s piano concertos on loop, even though that’s a sacrifice for me
— I’ve got it bad for Sergei. Perhaps an a couple of SAB student employees should aggregate and update playlists of upbeat music that doesn’t celebrate hookup culture. Maybe we could even feature Hillsdale’s own radio station, 101.7 FM, in the later evening hours when it’s quiet enough to hear the shows produced by our fellow students. The options are plentiful, and, more importantly, the options are cheap. Whatever we do, though, we have got to stop playing “Side to Side.” It’s been stuck in my head for weeks. Ms. Read is a junior studying French and journalism. Wikimedia Commons
Talk money to me:
Take out fixed-rate student loans
By | Kate Patrick Financial Columnist When the Federal Reserve raised interest rates in December, it announced its plans to continue this trend as the economy improves, which means taking out private loans to pay for college just got trickier. Hillsdale students beware: because the college doesn’t accept federal loans, you can’t get a federal student loan with a permanently fixed rate to pay for your tuition. That means you’re limited to private loans, and deciding which ones can be confusing and terrifying. Based on the Fed’s behavior, you should apply for only fixed-rate student loans for the near future — the interest rates of variable-rate loans will fluctuate with the market based on the Fed’s benchmark. Because the Fed is committed to raising rates in the growing economy, variable-rate loans are riskier, and will probably require bigger payoff payments once you’re out of school (and no one wants that). Even though variable-rate loans could potentially have lower interest rates than a fixed-rate loan, right now that isn’t likely. Adjunct professor of finance Joe Banach told The Collegian that variable rates are most affected by current market trends, and that for now, they’re rising. But it’s not a one-way relationship: if the Fed raises interest rates, the market will assume that the economic forecast is good. Consequently, shareholders will buy more shares of companies, companies Mr. Dunkerley is a junior will take more risks and make studying English and more or bigger investments, and potentially there will be mathematics.
more initial public offerings (which means more companies will go public and sell shares of the company in the stock market). Banach added that it is wise to avoid variable-rate loans right now, because the market and Fed consensus is that rates will continue to go up. Fixed-rate loans have fixed interest rates that won’t fluctuate over time, so when you take out a fixedrate loan, you know exactly how much you will pay off per month after you graduate. “Over time the variable rate will probably be higher than the fixed rate,” Banach said. If you already have a variablerate loan, or several, Banach said it is wise to start making small payments on your loan’s principal — that is, the original amount you borrowed. That builds confidence in your ability to take charge of your money, even if you’re only making payments of $25 per month. “You have to think about what brings you confidence, it’s a psychological thing,” he said. “That way you can see what can be done, and that gives you the confidence to pay it off later.” While not every college student can afford to make even small payments on their loan principals, the point is to take charge of your financial situation and make sure you’re taking steps to ensure some financial stability when you graduate. Start by avoiding the variable-rate loans for now, and pay attention to the market if you already have them. Ms. Patrick is a senior studying history and journalism.
GOP cannot afford to silence dissent By | Nathanael Cheng Special to the Collegian The Hawaii State Legislature currently has six Republican representatives and no Republican senators. Soon, the legislature may lose another Republican. Representative Beth Fukumoto, a Republican from Oahu’s District 36 and former minority leader in the state house, is considering switching parties due to concerns that her party “has become less and less tolerant of diverse opinions.” Fukumoto, like many Republicans around the country, has vocally criticized President Trump for his “sexist” remarks made throughout the campaign, arguing that such words have “no place in the Republican Party.” At last year’s Hawaii GOP convention, audience members booed after she expressed her worries about Trump during her speech. Fukumoto’s refusal to back down on her concerns came to a head earlier this month when her fellow House Republicans voted to remove her as minority leader. During a contentious debate on the floor of the State House, Republican state representative Bob McDermott accused Fukumoto of doing nothing but “attack [her] own party.” In response, Fukumoto said, “It is my belief that I can no longer remain a member of a party that punishes dissent.” Now, Fukumoto is considering switching to the
Democratic Party. This is not unique in Hawaiian politics. Many in Hawaii believe conservative Democrats can accomplish more in the deep blue state than those who carrying the stigma that goes with being a Republican. However, if Fukumoto becomes a Democrat, she will contribute to the ever shrinking number of Republicans in the Hawaii Legislature. Setting aside the peculiarities of Hawaiian politics, this episode demonstrates an important point for the Republican Party as a whole: Going forward, the GOP cannot afford to silence dissent within the party. The GOP always included people with diverse opinions. Abraham Lincoln in his “House Divided” speech of 1858 described the Republican Party as composed “of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements ... gathered from the four winds.” Even today, Republicans come in a variety of different stripes, from social conservatives to fiscal conservatives, from libertarians to moderates. As Charles Kesler, a professor of government and political science at Claremont McKenna College, pointed out in last semester’s CCA on the political party system, the Republican Party differs from the Democratic Party in that it has historically shied away from acting as a party. Historically,
Republicans regarded coalition-building distasteful and avoided appealing to special interest groups. Rather, the GOP brought together these discordant factions through the common bond of a belief in individual rights and liberty. Silencing different views within the party will only go to destroy the very character that makes the GOP what it is today. Admittedly, Rep. Bob McDermott may have had a point when he criticized Fukumoto for not representing the party. As a representative, she should try to represent the best interests of her constituents or party members. But as Edmund Burke argued, representing the best interests of the people does not include kowtowing blindly to their every expressed sentiment. “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion,” Burke said. The GOP must maintain a measure of unity and efficacy, but not through silencing dissenting voices. In an increasingly intolerant society filled with safe spaces, Republicans owe it to their party and to their country to allow everyone to be heard. Mr. Cheng is a sophomore George Washington Fellow studying politics.
A Whorlwind of activity | By Joel Haines
Dear editor, To the ladies in white who sat in solidarity during President Trump's Feb. 28 Address to Congress: In America, white symbolizes purity. Purity, a noun defined as freedom from guilt, reflecting innocence and chastity, connotes high standards of conscionable morality. The American Heritage Dictionary also
notes purity as the degree to which color is free from being mixed with other colors. The Japanese and Amish wear white exclusively for funerals. What was this political sorority's intent? Perhaps a deeper awareness haunts the consciences of the White Jacket women, causing them to wander in their sleep, like Lady Portia, trying to rub away the bloody stains for which many of them (along
with darker jacketed males & females of Congress) have voted. The American people expect nothing less from Congress than actions and votes of integrity. We, too, pledge our integrity with our forthcoming vote in 2018. We must work together. United we stand. Sincerely, Lorna Busch
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Penny Swan announces intention to run for Ward 4 city council seat By | Jo Kroeker Opinions Editor
Mockup of the proposed Hillsdale Municipal Airport terminal. Jason Walters | Courtesy
Multi-million dollar concept proposed for Hillsdale Municipal Airport expansion By | Thomas Novelly Editor-in-Chief A set of concept designs shared exclusively with The Collegian showcase plans for a $3 to $8 million expansion for the Hillsdale Municipal Airport, including the additions of a restaurant, museum, and pilot shop. “We want to get together some sponsors, donors, and aviation enthusiasts to help build and incorporate an educational element into this terminal,” Airport Manager Jason Walters said.” This is all an initiative to develop and design a terminal that is self-sufficient so it can be a lifetime building.” The Hillsdale Municipal Airport is managed by Walters and his company Patriot Aviation, a relatively small organization, with five full and part-time employees. Despite only serving 1,000 to 1,500 landings and takeoffs a year, Walters said he is optimistic that he can fund the ambitious airport project with the help of sponsors to avoid dipping into public funds. “The taxpayer dollars that go to this will be used strictly for service management and grant insurance compliance,” Walters said. “This is an outof-the-box initiative to find a way to eliminate the burden on the taxpayers.” Since becoming the airport
manager last year, Walters said he has lead a series of improvements at the airport, including the renovation and remodeling of the existing terminal and securing $800,000 in funds from Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to replace the existing parking area for aircraft. By hosting a Fly-In on September 11 for military helicopters and World War II-era planes, Walters helped to promote the airport’s presence in Hillsdale. “These improvements will allow the airport to be better used to promote new business opportunities by improving transportation options,” City Manager David Mackie said. “Additionally, we’re hoping these improvements will entice others, who use the airport, to participate in the city’s plans to privately develop and maintain a new multi-use terminal.” Most recently, the airport acquired a Cessna Skyhawk plane to use for flying lessons, costing $130 to $150 an hour. But Walters said he wants to do more. While the addition of a restaurant and a museum to a rural airport may seem unusual, Walters said it will promote aviation in the community. “Almost anyone that lives and breathes aviation will tell you the same thing. Promoting aviation involves promoting all aspects of it,” Walters said. “You inspire young, future
ACLU contacted over ‘In God We Trust’ decals By | Kaylee McGhee Assistant Editor After the Hillsdale County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the decision to place “In God We Trust” decals on the Hillsdale County Sheriff Office’s vehicles in a Feb. 28 meeting, a Hillsdale resident contacted the American Civil Liberties Union. The HCSO recently placed the controversial national motto on their vehicles, leading some citizens to voice their concerns about whether or not the government has the right to support a specific religion. Hillsdale Sheriff Tim Parker made the decision to place the decals on HCSO’s vehicles and, even after backlash from some members of the community, he believes the majority of the county supports his decision. “I’ve had overwhelming support for this decision,” Parker said. “I’ve only had a couple of negative calls.” The BOC’s unanimous approval, he said, is proof of that. This approval, however, has been called into question by some troubled citizens. “They’re a little late on it,”
Hillsdale resident Tia Spratt said. “How can you vote on something already decided?” Spratt said the BOC should have been consulted before Parker acted, because then citizens would have been able to voice their concerns. In a poll taken on the community Facebook page Hillsdale’s Hot Debates, 72 percent of those who took the poll said they “loved” the new slogan on HCSO’s vehicles. Regardless of this support, Spratt said it is important to protect all religions, and because of that she contacted the ACLU. The motto “In God We Trust,” regardless of whether or not it is the national motto, does not represent everyone, she said. Parker, however, said the ACLU will not change anything. “Just because one person is offended and unhappy doesn’t mean this is going to change,” he said. Parker stands by his decision and believes the decals are a good thing for not only the HCSO, but also the county. He said he will continue to stand by it, even if the ACLU gets involved. “Good luck,” he said.
pilots by getting them active and involved. It’s a Fly-In with Army, Black Hawk helicopters and a Chinook troop transport that is impressionable to that young child. When you look at museums, it’s all connected to that.” The tentative plan according to Walters’ concept designs is to house two vintage planes in a spare hangar, one military plane and one transport or passenger plane. “The museum will provide proof to the average person that aviation is right there and it’s achievable,” Walters said. “It will inspire, educate, and entertain. The appreciation for aviation grows when you have static displays to ponder and discuss.” In addition to the museum, Walters said that the construction of a restaurant will not only be an appeal for more pilots to visit the airport, but that it will also bring people from the community to experience aviation. “The concept for the restaurant is to put in a small diner-style restaurant in the terminal, which is popular for many other terminals,” Walters said. “Not only does it provide a reason for people to fly in, but it also gets people in the community involved so that they can see planes take off and land as they are eating.” Walters said interested
restaurant owners would be able to lease out the space, and all the serving and cooking equipment would be provided for their use. While Walters said the overall vision has received acclaim from city officials and local business owners, some residents are cautious. Jeff King — a pilot and founder and former member of the Airport Advisory Committee to the Hillsdale City Council — said the vision for the terminal is impressive, but safety concerns should be foremost. “I feel it’s a good vision and I’m glad that they have private sponsors to fund it, but I have ongoing concerns that the city cannot afford to properly maintain the airport,” King said. “As a pilot, what matters most to me is safety and usefulness of an airport.” Constructing the whole vision as seen in the concept drawings would be great, Walters said, but he wants to prioritize the right aspects of the airport. “Even if we don’t raise enough to build all of it, we intend to raise enough to build a terminal and educational components,” Walters said. “We would take away things that wouldn’t generate revenue or be a good return on investment.”
Blueprints for the expansion concept showing, from left to right, the overall floor plan and the first floor of the terminal. Jason Walters | Courtesy
Hillsdale resident Penny Swan, who has only missed one city council meeting in the last three years, has plans to run for city council in Ward 4 this November. Swan said she wants citizens to feel good about local government and that, currently, residents do not feel they have a voice because the council is swayed by the hospital, the college, and big businesses. A self-proclaimed ‘real citizen without an agenda,’ Swan said she aims to combat local government apathy by attending meetings, forming groups, sharing information, and being active on social media. Patrick Flannery, one of the two current representatives, will finish his first term in 2017, but has yet to announce whether he will run. He could not be reached for comment at print. Swan adopted the “It’s the People” slogan from the sign debate last fall as her mission statement for her campaign, a way of demonstrating to voters that she aims to reopen the council to the people. “The college is a part of what makes ‘It’s the People,’” Swan said. In approving the new signs that read “Historic Hillsdale: Home of Hillsdale College” quickly rather than correctly, however, she said the college shut the people out. While a fan of the free concerts and plays, Swan said the college could do more for the city, especially since it makes use of municipal services like streets and fire engines without paying taxes on some of its property. The college pays property tax on non-college properties that fulfill the college’s mission. Swan also pledges to “take a hard look at every penny,” al-
ready taking it upon herself to read the sometimes-175-page proposals the city council puts together. In particular, she disagrees with the the decision of the city of Hillsdale’s tax increment finance authority (TIFA) to purchase the Dawn Theater and the Keefer House. “We can’t fix the streets, so why are we spending money on dilapidated buildings?” she said. According to Jeff King, Swan’s focus on economics is a step in the right direction for a council that has been distracted for the last six to seven years. King is a resident of Hillsdale County who knows Swan through political and civic involvement. He said Swan will focus on the projects the council will take on that sound good but may cost more. “They’re boring but they make the town survive,” he said. He also said Swan recognizes that one of Hillsdale’s most important issues is its economy, which needs a sound industrial base following the damage NAFTA did in the last 20 years. “The whole college debate is a side-show,” he said. “It’s not so much the college that’s the problem — it’s a great thing to have, but it can’t support a community.” He said he aligns with her generally conservative, limited government ideas, and even though the council is technically nonpartisan, he wants to see his opinions represented on a politically divided council. “When it comes to the local economy, hard, tough decisions will have to be made as to the direction of the town,” he said. “Penny is a good person to help those decisions. It’s not going to be easy or popular, but they have to be made.”
Community baseball signups open for 2017 By | Alexis Nester Collegian Reporter Registration for Hillsdale community baseball and softball is now open for Hillsdale residents. The cost is $50 and games begin May 23 and end in mid-July, which is when t-ball and coach-pitch baseball leagues for those under the age of eight begin. Games are played at Field of Dreams. “Baseball pulls family and community together,” Recreation Director Michelle Loren said. “Field of Dreams is packed every night during the summer.” Players will be divided among four baseball leagues:
‘Willie Mays,’ for ages eight to ten; ‘Reese,’ for ages 11 and 12; ‘Sandy Koufax,’ for ages 13 and 14; and the newly-formed ‘Mickey Mantle’ league for ages 15 and 16. Both boys and girls are welcome to join the baseball teams, though the Hillsdale County Recreation Center does offer two girl’s softball leagues: ‘Pee-Wee,’ for ages eight through ten; and ‘Minors,’ for ages 11 through 14. The recreation center hosts four tournaments every summer. According to Loren, these tournaments attract players and teams from Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and even Canada.
Winona statue sent to bronze caster in Cleveland By | Madeleine Jepsen Assistant Editor The statue of Winona, the daughter of Potawatomi chief Baw Beese, has been sent to the foundry for bronze casting. The final sculpture will be unveiled in Mrs. Stock’s Park this June. Until then, children in the community will have an opportunity to learn about Hillsdale’s history and the Winona statue through a coloring page distributed to local schools and youth councils. Over the weekend, sculptor and alumna Heather Tritchka went to the Studio Foundry in Cleveland, Ohio, where she worked on the details of the wax sculpture made from a mold of the original clay she sculpted in Hillsdale. From there, the wax will be used to form a porcelain mold, which will be used for the final bronze statue. Hillsdale students will be able to get involved in the Winona statue project while waiting for the statue unveiling with coloring pages distributed to all the area schools. Tritchka said one school, Will Carleton Academy, even wrote her a thank-you note for the coloring pages, which are being incorporated into the school’s
art classes. Will Carleton art teacher Sarah Sessions said the coloring pages have been well-received by students, who are able to color them during the free-draw time at the end of class. Tritchka said the coloring page, which features an image of Winona based off her sculpture as well as some historical background on Winona, will help introduce children to the area’s Native American history. “The whole idea is just to get the kids familiar with the piece and learn the history,” Tritchka said. “We thought this would be a fun way to introduce this to the kids, through a visual they can color and work on.” Some students will also have an opportunity to join a student council for elementary schoolers and middle schoolers, as well as an advisory board comprised of five to seven high school students, Tritchka said. The first meeting will be Mar. 23, and will be an opportunity for one or two local students from each school to serve as ambassadors for the Winona project. “The student council will be a little more focused on giving them the history of what we’re doing so they can take that back to their schools,” Tritchka
The torso of the Winona statue prior to being sent to a bronze caster. Madeleine Jepsen | Collegian
said. The council meeting will also feature a keynote speaker, Professor of History Bradley Birzer. He will give students background on the French-Native American culture that affected the language, clothing, and religion of the area. Birzer said the French and Native American cultures blended together through the friendly relationship between the French Settlers and the local Potawatomi. High schoolers on the advisory board will have more of an opportunity for direct involvement in the planning of
the Winona statue and future projects. “We’ll work with them on more of the detailed planning to get their perspective on what would be most successful,” she said. “Also, just to teach them what it takes to have an idea and follow it through, and have them be a part of that process.” Though the Winona statue will not be placed in the park until June, Tritchka said student involvement in the project will help the community come together and learn more about the history of the Hillsdale area.
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A7 2 Mar. 2017 Buffalo stand in the mud on Tom Lennox’s farm. Julie Havlak | Collegian
Buffalo roam on farms in Hillsdale County By | Julie Havlak Collegian Reporter
Top to bottom: Terrell Daniels (L) and Dana Daniels (R) pose while Terrell Daniels feeds one of his buffalo, Tom Lennox poses with buffalo in a pen on his farm, and Dana Daniels feeds a buffalo through a fence. Julie Havlak | Collegian
Spooked and mulish, the buffalo calves huddled in the dark, somewhere in the back of the trailer. They weren’t coming out. Banging on the outside of the trailer hadn’t worked, so, after a few beers, Tom Lennox and his buddy decided Tom was going in. Tom sidled along the wall of the trailer, thinking that if he gave them a little encouragement, the calves would run out. He quickly discovered he was mistaken. He found himself being kicked around by calves who will eventually weigh up to three thousand pounds, stand six feet tall, and pack immense strength. When Tom came back out of the trailer, his buddy took one look at him and suggested they have another beer. Tom decided the calves were coming out whether they liked it or not. So he went back in, this time armed with a piece of plywood. The buffalo didn’t like that much, either. “I was younger then, so I could do what I wanted to, and I thought I was just as tough as they were. But they are tough, a lot tougher than me, even back then. I found that
out,” Lennox, Jonesville resident and owner of Stone Field Farm, said. “It was a learning experience for me, but now I know pretty much everything there is to know about buffalo.” Thirty years have passed since then, and Lennox now owns a ranch with over 35 heads of American bison — buffalo is the slang for bison. He has started five herds for other farms as well. Lennox and his bisen have come to terms — when he goes out to feed them, they trail after him inquisitively. Lennox is saving the buffalo from extinction — by eating them. Before the European settlement of America, millions of buffalo once thundered across the Great Plains, from Texas to Canada. However, by the turn of the century, settlers had shot an estimated 50 million bison, thinning the immense herds down to a few hundred animals, according to National Geographic. By the time President Theodore Roosevelt made protecting American bison a national priority, the species teetered on the verge of extinction. But in the 1970s, the bisen unwittingly rumbled into a renaissance. Their meat is healthy, and it became a fad with those who could afford to
City residents and officials analyze state of Hillsdale at Rising Tide meeting By | Katie J. Read Assistant Editor Hillsdale residents ranked Hillsdale College and Hillsdale Hospital as the greatest strengths of the city and the pervasiveness of hard drugs in the community as its most damaging threat during an assessment for Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s Rising Tide initiative on Tuesday night. The attendees also ranked the city’s lack of vocational training as both its foremost weakness and under-utilized opportunity, along with their concern that too many young people are leaving the city. The forum was hosted by Place & Main, the company Snyder hired to create Hillsdale’s Rising Tide economic framework, and more than 40 people gathered at the Hillsdale Community Library to participate. The meeting aimed to collect community input through an evaluation of the Hillsdale’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats — information that Place & Main will compare to hard data when it generates a plan to revitalize and stabilize Hillsdale’s economy. “We’re in the process of conducting an economic strategy for the city of Hillsdale,” Borgstrom said. “As part of this strategy, we want to engage the community and try to get your perspective on what you think needs to happen in Hillsdale.” Out of a long compilation of the city’s assets, which included water quality, Baw Beese Lake, and the public safety department, Hillsdale College and Hillsdale Hospital emerged as the city’s strongest assets based on a poll of meeting attendees. Place & Main Principal Joe Borgstrom said he sees this section of the exercise as the most valuable because of its positivity: “Part of the reason
we do this is for folks to see the strengths they have. They identify the core strengths and the core weaknesses of the community.” When community members transitioned to cataloging the city’s weaknesses, several people in the room shouted the same answer at once: “the streets.” The vote confirmed the resident’s dissatisfaction with roads and infrastructure. That category demanded only a slight majority of the votes, however, with the lack of a skilled workforce coming in second by one vote. Forum attendees discussed this concern throughout the meeting, highlighting the need for vocational programs within Hillsdale. The room also voted the coordination of industrial training and development of skilled-worker programs as the highest-priority opportunity for the city. “One of the things that resonates with me that I see in my new role in Lansing is a huge acknowledgement of vocational education,” Hillsdale State Representative Eric Leutheuser, R-Hillsdale, said. “We are looking at reprioritizing our budget into skilled trade.” Borgstrom approached the topic of threats last, and specified that, in this context, the room should identify threats to Hillsdale that they cannot control. He said, noting the thunderstorm outside, the weather could pose a threat to Hillsdale’s economic success and stability. The city council, however, does not because citizens can vote them into or out of power. This category was represented by far fewer ideas compared to the other three. Like the city’s main weakness, the first mentioned in the brainstorming session for threats also commanded the most votes: Hillsdale residents are highly concerned with the presence of hard drugs in their community.
“Drugs are going to be a threat to the middle class… and we really need our middle class,” Resident Susan Smith said. Attendees also saw the rate at which young people leave the community as a threat to the city’s success, a problem that drew in the most votes after drugs. According to the city’s Action Strategy document, the Rising Tide program aims to help 10 at-risk communities reach economic stability by attracting business investment and talent. In 2015, Snyder selected Hillsdale because it exhibits high poverty and vacancy rates, and low labor participation. The city also showed an opportunity for change and resilience, which contributed to its eligibility for the program. “This program is not meant to be a check from Lansing to a town,” Leutheuser said. “It’s meant to provide a change agent and provide an outside assessment.” Tuesday’s forum followed a meeting of City leadership held in late November of last year. Those in attendance complete the same evaluation residents executed at the library, and recommended the assessment be opened to the community. “It’s interesting how there’s a lot of good will. People want this to succeed,” Leutheuser said. “When people are coming up with perceived weaknesses or threats, people responded by saying ‘we can change this, this is in our control.’” This ownership was evidence by not only the high attendance and participation at Tuesday’s meeting, but also by the enthusiasm voiced by community members throughout the Rising Tide exercise. “This is a great community,” Smith said. “I will never leave Hillsdale County.”
pay twice as much for meat as beef. Bison became profitable. Lennox was among the farmers who met the rising demand for bison meat. He started his herd because he admired the buffalo as a child. The Daniels family also joined the ranks of the ranchers after they inherited their herd when they purchased The Buffalo Ranch. Dana Daniels, 47, and Terrell Daniels, 49, keep 18 buffalo less than eight miles away from Lennox’s own ranch. Keeping buffalo is a radically different enterprise than raising cows, as both Lennox and Daniels learned the hard way. If provoked, buffalo can jump six feet into the air, run at speeds up to 35 miles per hour, and smash through metal fences. They are immensely strong, fiercely loyal, and frustratingly stubborn, said Lennox. “When we took over, we tried to do the nurturing effect because my wife is a school teacher. It’s kind of hard to make a 3,000 pound animal go somewhere he doesn’t want to go,” Terrell Daniels said. “[At first] we hollered, we screamed, we snapped whips, we shot guns, and then we figured that that wasn’t getting us nowhere. It was actually causing us more damage.”
By ‘damage,’ Terrell Daniels meant mishaps such as when a bison jumped onto and over the hood of his truck. Like Lennox, the Daniels’s ultimately resorted to bribing and enticing the bison with food. Lennox turns a profit from the buffalo by processing three to four buffalo a year for meat, selling breeder cows, and selling the bones to Native American artists. The Daniels’ ranch only processed one buffalo a year. They used the buffalo as a tourist attraction by giving customers wagon rides to the buffalo herd, where they can feed the buffalo, said Dana Daniels. “Some of them absolutely love the buffalo, others are totally grossed out because the buffalo will slobber all over your hand,” said Dana Daniels. The bisen barely covered the cost of the winter feed, and so their horses were The Buffalo Ranch’s main source of revenue, Dana Daniels said. “This has never been a money maker. We hope to cover our costs, but it takes her and me working full time to make sure this place is still running,” Terrell Daniels said. “It is for the kids. She works in a classroom, I work in an office. This is enjoyable for us, and as long as it stays enjoyable, we’re fine.”
The emergency and main entrance to the Hillsdale Hospital, which was named a top 100 rural hospital in the U.S. in February. Evan Carter | Collegian
Hillsdale Hospital named one of the top 100 rural U.S. hospitals By | Evan Carter Web Editor Hillsdale Hospital was named one of the 100 top rural and community hospitals in the U.S. in Becker’s Hospital Review and received a $45,000 incumbent worker training grant from the state this past month. The Michigan Works Southeast grant will fund training for the Obstetrics unit on a new fetal monitoring system, training to update administrative staff on changes in Medicare and Medicaid billing, and emergency nurse trauma care training. Hillsdale Hospital’s designation as the only trauma hospital in the county also makes this training crucial. Hillsdale Hospital is not a trauma center, but it seeks to stabilize trauma victims, sending them to another health
care facility if surgery by trauma-trained doctors is necessary. “Where we were once as a small rural hospital, ranked in the lower portion of the nation, we are now what you would call a ‘top box hospital,’” said Hillsdale Hospital’s Director of Organizational and Business Development Jeremiah Hodshire. “We take honors like this as a recognition of the hard work of our staff.” Hillsdale Hospital is one of seven in Michigan to make the list of 100 top rural and community hospitals in Becker’s. The list was compiled by the National Rural Health Association’s Rural Health Policy Institute, iVantage Health Analytics, and the Chartis Center for Rural Health using the criteria of risk management, staffing quality, patient outcomes, patient satisfaction,
and operating cost. “In a rural community, it’s hard to find that good mix,” Hodshire said. “We offer everything from surgical services, to inpatient psychiatric unit, to oncology services, to home care. We have several off site campuses, so we’re very in tune to the needs of this community.” According to LeDena Fredette of Michigan Works Southeast, her organization uses state funds to provide grants to companies so they can provide training to their existing employees as a part of Governor Rick Snyder’s initiative to get more Michigan residents working. “It’s necessary to utilize these grants to keep staff up to date on technology,” Hodshire said.
A8 2 Mar. 2017
www.hillsdalecollegian.com
Sports
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Baseball
Men’s Basketball TUESDAY, FEB.
Hillsdale
84
28
SATURDAY, FEB.
Ferris State
87
Track and Field
Results
Feb. 25-26 GLIAC Indoor Championships Men - 4th - 82 pts Women - 2nd - 96.5 pts
16 ptS, 5 aSt, 2 Stl 14 ptS, 3 aSt, 2 Stl 12 ptS, 4 reb, 3 aSt 12 ptS, 4 reb, 1 aSt
Upcoming
Mar. 9-11 NCAA Championships At Birmingham, Al. 11:30 AM
ELLINGSON TO COMPETE AT NATIONAL SWIM MEET
Track from A10 was the favorite, but mile races at conference are really weird. We tend to go out really slow and close hard. So I just had to be ready for that and put myself in a place to make a move the second half of the race and making sure that no one else would get around me. Thankfully I was able to hold everyone off.” Gatchell has earned two All-American titles and is well-acquainted with the meet. “Nothing is guaranteed,” Gatchell explained. “You just have to approach it as another opportunity, but you have to be ready to hurt and race hard.” The distance medley relay — run by Gatchell, Eldredge, Schwannecke, and freshman Nick Fiene — took first in the GLIAC. Their season-best time of 10:00.63 earned them the No. 18 national ranking, but will not go to the national meet. The men’s 4x400 relay of freshman Nate Eldredge, junior Lane White, Clark, and senior Ty Etchemendy placed third with a time of 3:18.27, meeting the provisional standard. They are ranked 19th nationally. Junior Jared Schipper be-
this major event. Kirner said Ellingson has increased her yardage in training to about half of a normal workload. He said they also spend a lot of time specifically training for her main event, the 100yard breaststroke. This involves high-speed swimming and race-pacing activities, but she is still given adequate active recovery between. “She has certainly worked very hard and matured as a swimmer, allowing herself this fabulous opportunity,” Kirner said. Ellingson discovered her victory while surrounded by
Bellarmine
00 10
Men’s Tennis
Results
Feb. 25 Hillsdale - 0 at Grand Valley - 9
Feb. 26 Hillsdale - 0 at Ferris St. - 9
Upcoming
Mar. 3 at McKendree 5:15 PM
Feb. 26 Hillsdale - 1 Southern Ind. - 11 Hillsdale - 4 McKendree - 3
Mar. 4 at Ill.-Springfield 11:00 AM
Upcoming
Mar. 9 at Minn. Duluth - 6:00 PM at Minn. St. Mankato - 8:30 PM Mar. 10 at Wilmington - 1:00 PM at Truman - 6:00 PM
Members of the softball team huddle before taking the field at the Midwest Region Crossover tournament. Sarah Klopfer | Courtesy
her team at the pool. Fellow teammate junior Theresa Smith tackled Ellingson in a celebratory hug on the deck. “I literally screamed and ran around the pool deck. I was jumping up and down. My coach ran down saying, ‘You’re in! You’re in!’ and I swear to God, I teared up and started crying,” Ellingson said. “It was just one of the greatest moments I’ve ever experienced.” Nationals will be hosted by the University of Alabama at the Crossplex in Birmingham, Alabama, on March 7 through 11.
Sophomore Anika Ellingson swims the breaststroke at a meet this season. Anika Ellingson | Courtesy
Softball struggles in Indiana By | Madeleine Jepsen Assistant Editor
came GLIAC champion in the pole vault. He vaulted his season best and provisional height of 16 feet, 10 inches. Schipper sits comfortably in the No. 7 spot going into nationals and has been working his way out of a slump in the past couple meets. “It finally felt like I figured out what I was doing wrong and fixed it,” Schipper said. “I was doing bad all season because I was trying to get on the wrong poles and it finally made sense to me.” Schipper expressed how strong of a year this is for the event, since his best height this season would have been ranked second in previous years. “I’m a little bit more relaxed. I feel a little less pressure,” Schipper said. “This year, I’m ready to just have fun.” In the jumps, freshman Merrick Canada took eighth in the long jump with his jump of 22 feet, 4.5 inches — his personal best. In the triple jump, Etchemendy placed fifth and met the provisional standard with his jump of 47 feet, 5.25 inches. Junior David Chase competed in the men’s heptathlon and placed fourth overall after earning 4734 points in the multiple events, also meeting the provisional standard.
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Feb. 25 Hillsdale - 8 Ky. Wesleyan - 14 Hillsdale - 5 Bellarmine - 9
Mar. 8-11 NCAA D-II Championships at Birmingham, Al.
Hillsdale
Mar. 5 at McKendree - 12:00 PM at McKendree - 2:30 PM
Bellarmine
Results
Upcoming
Nine-year-old Anika Ellingson didn’t quite realize what she was diving into when she first started swimming during her childhood summers. Now a college sophomore, Ellingson swam her way to NCAA Division II National Championships for the first time. During the GLIAC championships in early February, Ellingson swam two qualifying times: one in the 100-yard breaststroke and another in the 200-yard breaststroke. To qualify for nationals, a swimmer must land in the top 27 times in the nation for a specific event. Ellingson placed fourth in the conference in the 100yard breaststroke, swimming a time of 1:02:87, which beat her own school record. She also qualified for nationals in the 200-yard breastroke by one one hundredth of a second. This is a different story from last year, when Ellingson missed the mark by .02 seconds, placing her one spot shy of qualifying. Head coach Kurt Kirner said he is proud of Ellingson and all the work she has accomplished. He is working with her on preparing for
Mar. 4 at McKendree - 12:00 PM at McKendree - 2:30 PM
Bellarmine
Softball
Swimming
By | Morgan Channels Collegian Reporter
SUNDAY, FEB.
Upcoming
05 06 Hillsdale
StatS Nate Neveau Stedman Lowry Nick Czarnowski Ryan Badowski
Hillsdale
25
Now that the GLIAC conference meet is over, ten athletes will train for nationals. The meet will be hosted in Birmingham, Alabama, March 9-11. However, training will not change for the individuals as the goal has consistently been to peak during championship season. Now the priority is recovery, maintenance, and mental readiness. The GLIAC meet was just a rehearsal for nationals, Kearney said. Hillsdale track and field has recently cultivated a tradition of placing in the top three at the NCAA Division II national meet. On the women’s side, Hillsdale earned national runner-up the past two seasons. “Our goals are never different — we’re always going to try to be excellent, always going to do our best,” Kearney said. “Even when we were runner-up, we never talked about a title or the podium or anything like that, we just talked about performing to our best ability. That is our expectation. If we are performing our best and doing everything we can, then we are going to do well. Trophies and all that stuff will come with it.”
Struggling against 30-degree weather and wind gusts up to 33 mph over the weekend, the Chargers softball team went 1-3 at the Midwest Region Crossover tournament in Evansville, Indiana, dropping two games Saturday and splitting two games on Sunday, finishing with a win. Sophomore second baseman Amanda Marra said hitting came alive Saturday, and batters came through with well-timed hits with runners on base. Ultimately, though, the Chargers lost 14-8 to Kentucky Wesleyan and 9-5 to Bellarmine. “Saturday was rough,” senior catcher Cassie Asselta said. “Our hitting was better than it had been, but if we’re going to score eight runs, we can’t give up 14.” Against Kentucky Wesleyan, Kastning went 3-for-4 with two doubles, three runs scored, and two RBIs. Over the course of the weekend, senior center fielder Bekah Kastning hit .571, with an additional two RBIs against Bel-
larmine. Marra and freshman outfielder Victoria Addis both went 2-for-4 against Bellarmine, bringing in two runs each. Junior third baseman Kelsey Gockman hit a two-run single, while sophomore outfielder Katie Kish went 2-for-3. Head coach Joe Abraham said the two main factors in the weekend’s losses were defensive errors and pitchers getting behind in counts. “Defensively, we’re just simply making too many errors on the field,” he said. “Part of that is pitchers falling behind hitters makes it tough to play defense.” After a five-inning 11-1 loss to Southern Indiana, where the only hit was sophomore first baseman Haley Lawrence’s home run, the Chargers rallied for a 4-3 victory over McKendree. All four of the team’s runs came in the bottom of the second inning with a tworun single from freshman Sam Catron and a two-run double from Kish. Freshman pitcher Dana Weidinger allowed only one earned run against McKendree. Abraham said the win against McKendree was typical of how the team wins games. “The one big inning will
beat the few small innings almost every time,” he said. “You can afford to give up a solo home run when you’re not giving runs away otherwise.” This weekend put the Chargers at 4-5 overall, but Abraham said the past nine games against above-average teams has provided valuable experience for a half-freshmen team. Asselta said the team was able to dial in and refocus for the game against McKendree, allowing the team to finish the weekend on a strong note. “Even though we were down after losing those first three games, the fact that we were able to pull it together and find ourselves as a team for that last game is what matters,” Asselta said. “We play a family sport, so if not everyone’s on their game, it can compile and get out of hand, but it’s pulling everything back together that proves the quality of the team, and we were definitely able to do that.” Next, the softball team will play 14 games over spring break in Clermont, Florida, before beginning conference play at home against Findlay Mar. 25.
Emily Oren to run at USA championship By | Evan Carter Web Editor
Hillsdale alumna and ninetime NCAA Division II national champion Emily Oren ‘16 will run the two mile at the USA Track and Field Indoor Championship this Sunday in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This will be Oren’s first time competing at the USA indoor championship, and she will be racing some of the world’s best middle-distance runners, including Shelby Houlihan, who placed 11th in the 5K at the 2016 Rio Olympics. “I’m really excited,” Oren said, “a little nervous, but not too nervous, because every time I’ve run at this stage, I’ve done terribly, so I feel like I don’t have anything to lose going into it.”
Emily Oren races at the Meyo Invitational at Notre Dame. Dawn Oren | Courtesy
A9 2 Mar. 2017
www.hillsdalecollegian.com Eric and Gordie Theisen look on together during a Hillsdale College baseball game last season. Eric Theisen | Courtesy
BEYOND THE BACKYARD
Eric and Gordie Theisen team up to coach the Hillsdale College baseball team By | Thomas Novelly Editor-In-Chief
Top to bottom: A 29-year-old Gordie Theisen (left) and a 3-yearold Eric Theisen (right). Father and son duo takes the field during a Chargers baseball game. Eric Theisen poses with his father after a high school baseball game. Eric Theisen | Courtesy
In a ritual as old as the game itself, fathers and sons have played catch with two leather gloves and a dirty baseball in the backyard. But one day, it stops: fathers will grow old and sons will grow up, leaving the gloves to collect dust. Head baseball coach Eric Theisen and his father, assistant baseball coach Gordie Theisen, however, have managed to capture time in a bottle. The father and son duo have been coaching the Charger baseball team for the last four seasons, and spend every single day around the sport that has formed their close relationship. “Sometimes I need to take a minute and realize how lucky I am,” Eric Theisen said. “Most people don’t get to spend this time with their dad — sometimes they are gone or not in the picture. That time is important, and I have to remember to not take it for granted and realize that he’s a big part of my life. We share an office together. It’s all day everyday.” After playing baseball for Illinois State in college, Eric played professionally in Brussels and Traverse City, but eventually found his way into coaching at Siena Heights University and then as the assistant coach at Hillsdale in 2010. Two years later, previous head coach Paul Noce stepped down, paving the way for Eric to take over. His first order of business was filing the assistant role, and he had only one man in mind. “My dad was the head coach at Siena Heights for 16 years, and then he was the pitching coach at Adrian College for nine years,” Eric said. “So once I got the head job here, I didn’t think of anyone else. It was a pretty easy hire.” Gordie Theisen was hired
on, and the man who taught the head coach how to play was now going to be his assistant. Some things just stay in the family. Baseball was in Gordie’s blood and he said it was sure to be in Eric’s blood, too. “My dad was a big sports guy, especially baseball,” Gordie said. “To be honest, I probably didn’t have a choice in which sport I wanted to play when I was a kid. And, in all honesty, I assumed Eric would be playing baseball too, just because I was around it with my job all the time.” Gordie has worked primarily with pitchers throughout his coaching career, including his son. When Eric was a baby, Gordie said he would put a small hacky-sack in his left hand hoping he would throw it back to him, but he would always place it in his right instead before throwing it back. To this day Eric still throws right handed, despite his father’s early attempts. In Gordie’s 16 years as the head coach at Siena Heights, he not only earned 341 career victories, but he saw his son grow from a boy into a man on their campus field. “I just remember running around the indoor fieldhouse at practices and my Dad would yell at me to get out of the way and not get hurt,” Eric said. “I was just a kid hanging around college athletes with baseballs flying all-around.” When Gordie would drive to his 6 a.m. practices, he said he would often take a fastasleep Eric with him. Gordie wouldn’t want to wake him when he pulled up to the ballpark, so he’d pull the truck into the fieldhouse and let him snooze in the car. Gordie also took Eric on recruiting trips across Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois. But no matter the destination or the time of day, Gordie said Eric would
always want to play catch. “One thing I’ve always said to parents is that you shouldn’t force your kids to go out and play catch with you,” Gordie said. “Thankfully, I never had to do that with him. He was constantly bugging me to go and throw. Even when we were on the road recruiting, he would make sure we had two gloves and a ball. I didn’t have to encourage it, he just wanted to keep playing all the time.” Eric and Gordie still get to play catch as coaches at Hillsdale. During games, Gordie said he calls the pitches, and Eric stands by third base, giving signs to runners. According to assistant baseball coach Michael O’Sullivan, a 2016 graduate and former Chargers infielder, the chemistry of the two is evident to all of their players. “They go back and forth strategizing throughout the game,” O’Sullivan said. “There’s father-and-son banter, a lot of love, and some sparks every now and then.” After leaving Siena Heights as the head coach in 2003, Gordie worked for the Adrian Bulldogs as their pitching coach. According to the Hillsdale Athletics’ website, during Gordie’s time there he coached three straight Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association Pitchers of the Year. Because of Gordie’s specialty with pitchers, and Eric’s overall vision for the team, they work well together. “We do a pretty good job of leaving each other to our responsibilities,” Eric said. “I don’t mess with pitchers too much, which is nice. But I’m constantly bouncing ideas off of him about lineup possibilities, substitution possibilities, pitching changes. It’s nice to have him around to bounce stuff off of and to continue to learn from.” Last season was one for the
books. Eric was named GLIAC Coach of the Year, and led the Chargers to the a new single-season program record with 32 wins as well as a berth in for the NCAA Division II Midwest Regional Tournament for the first time in the program’s history. When asked what makes him so proud of his son, Gordie said it’s seeing him grow up to be the best man and coach he can be. “My proudest moments are now seeing him relate to players and all people,” Gordie said. “He treats them well, and he has great communication skills. When you’re a parent and your kid is 18, you wonder who they’re going to grow up to be. That was no different when he was 18, but to see the person he has become has been awesome.” Eric said he couldn’t do it all without his Dad’s sense of humor and positive nature. Gordie is somewhat superstitious and has some classic rituals on game days. Before every game he tweets out a lyric from a Bruce Springsteen song, and if they’re on a winning streak he will wear the same shirt or socks as the previous game — after he washes them, of course. “He’s kind of a like a buddha,” Eric said. “He’s very positive, encouraging and uplifting. It’s cool to see how he blends his competitiveness with all that. The best lesson he ever told me was to love and feel it all.” While the Chargers baseball team has a big challenge ahead of it after last year’s record season, Eric said he’s just happy to take his assistant coach’s advice to love and live in the moment every step along the way with his dad. “You don’t want to get to the end of the road and realize you never appreciated it while you were in it,” Eric said. “That’s what I try to remind myself of.”
Tennis swept by Grand Valley Lakers and Ferris State Bulldogs By | Scott McClallen Collegian Reporter Hillsdale men’s tennis dropped two matches to two undefeated teams on the road last weekend. The Charger’s fell to the Grand Valley Lakers 9-0 on
Feb. 26. Hillsdale lost several close matches, but were ultimately crippled by freshman Milan Mirkovic’s injured finger. “Mirkovic attempted to play, but I had to pull him from doubles. Grand Valley is a stronger team than us, and it was a night game, which is irregular,” head coach Keith
Turner said. At No. 2 singles, Sophomore Justin Hyman lost a third-set tiebreaker 11-9, while junior captain Dugan Delp and Hyman were defeated 8-9 at No. 1 doubles. Sophomore Jerry Hewitt replaced Mirkovich at No. 6 singles, falling 6-1, 6-2. The Chargers also lost 9-0
to the Ferris State Bulldogs, who are ranked No. 1 in the Midwest and 20th in the nation. In addition, they finished 3rd in the GLIAC last season. “We played the two toughest teams on our schedule. We played competitively, but were down one of our best players,” said Delp. “Everyone below Milan had to move up the line-
up.” Delp and Hyman were barely beaten 9-7 at No. 1 doubles, and freshman Julien Clouette was defeated 5-7, 6-2, at No. 5 singles. “Ferris performed better than Grand Valley. We were competitive, but still a man down,” Turner said. Hillsdale, now 3-3, will
face Mckendree University on March 3, and University of Illinois Springfield March 4. “Last weekend’s matches gave us good motivation for the teams we play this weekend,” Delp said.
BASEBALL STRIKES OUT IN KENTUCKY, GOES 0-3 By | Stevan Bennett Jr. Assistant Editor
Every season is a process, and every young team will have its growing pains. This weekend, the Hillsdale College baseball team experienced the harsh side of both of these realities. On Saturday, the Chargers met the Bellarmine Knights in Louisville, Kentucky, where they dropped both ends of a doubleheader, 6-5, 7-1. On Sunday, the Knights completed the weekend sweep, coming away with a 10-0 victory over the Chargers, dropping the Chargers to 1-6 overall. Coming out of the weekend, the message from head coach Eric Theisen was clear: it’s time to return to the fundamentals. “We did expect some growing pains,” Theisen said. “It’s a learning process, but we just have to learn a little quicker.” In the series opener, both teams plated a run in the first,
with the Charger run coming on an RBI single from senior Ethan Wiskur, who returned to the lineup in a DH capacity this weekend after missing the team’s first weekend of play due to a broken hand — an injury he sustained in the last Charger football game of the season. Hillsdale pushed two across in the top of fifth, before the Knights responded with four in the bottom half. A tworun home run from sophomore catcher Steven Ring tied the game in the sixth, but the Knights secured a walk-off win in the bottom of the eighth. Junior captain Will Kruse took the ball in the game, blanking the Knights in frames two through four, before exiting the game after 4 1/3, having allowed five runs — four earned — while striking out seven. Freshman Jeff Burch took over for Kruse, tossing three innings of two-hit ball, allowing only one unearned run. Theisen said the team’s
pitching was solid throughout the weekend, but added that they still need to work on raising their effective pitch counts. Five Chargers had a hit in the game, while sophomore shortstop Colin Boerst added two RBIs. In game two, the Chargers scored one in the top of the first on a leadoff home run from Boerst, but failed to push another across for the rest of the game. The Knights were scoreless until the third, where they exploded for five runs. Senior Joe Chasen and redshirt-freshman Joe Hamrick combined for 3 1/3 innings of relief, allowing one earned. Junior second baseman Alex Walts and sophomore Christian Rodino each had one knock in the affair, and Ring added three hits of his own, on his way to receiving a GLIAC Hitter of the Week honorable mention. “It was good to see (Ring) have some good at bats. He had the two-run home run in the first game to tie it, which
was huge.” Kruse said. “CB, Colin Boerst, has been hitting the ball well. As guys get more ABs, we should start putting together more runs, which will be a plus.” When the two teams returned to play on Sunday, all of the scoring went Bellarmine’s way. Despite only out hitting the Chargers 11-8, the Knights were able to use timely hitting and three Charger errors to coast to a 10-0 win. Of the 10 Bellarmine runs in the game, only five were earned. “Obviously it doesn’t feel good to lose, and especially to get swept,” junior captain Ryan O’Hearn said. “We know we’re a better team than we are playing like right now, and so that’s the frustrating part. But we trust ourselves, and we know we can come back around, because we know the potential that we have, and we know how we can play this game. After 10 Hillsdale errors on the weekend, the Chargers plan to start at the base and work their way up, to be sure
they are taking care of the little things. “We’re going to practice playing catch,” Theisen said. “I’ve always said that playing catch is to baseball as skating is to hockey…I read on the way home that ‘greatness is in the dirt.’ We’ve got to get back to that foundation — to the dirty work.” O’Hearn said the team started Tuesday’s practice working on footwork on throws, fielding exercises, and simple pitchers’ fielding practice. One interesting parallel is between this year’s squad and the early years of the class of 2017. A parallel which makes Theisen call this year’s team a “flashback.” “This is familiar. It’s three years ago familiar, but it is,” he said. “There is no question that we’re very talented right now, but talent can only go so far.” Theisen said the team will also focus on its general preparedness heading into games, so they can arrive to the field ready to focus only on the
game. “We’re playing like a young team and playing anxious,” he said. “Part of the reason for that is that we’re not freeing ourselves up enough with our preparation to only worry about the game.” The Chargers will look to rebound this weekend, when they travel to Lebanon, Illinois, to face the McKendree University Bearcats in a fourgame set. The veteran Bearcats will also enter the weekend of play with a 1-6 record. Theisen said his team is up for the test of a bounce back. “They’re not happy. We’re not happy and they’re not happy,” he said of his players and the coaching staff. “They know we have some work to do, but there is no doubt that they’re up for it. And it’s not only them that has to get back to the basics — it’s us in the office too...it’s back to the dirty work all around — making sure that we have clear standards and expectations.”
Charger Father and son team up to coach Gordie and Eric Theisen are the assistant and head coach of the Hillsdale College baseball team. A9
Softball goes 1-3 in Indiana The Chargers competed at the Midwest Region Crossover tournament in Evansville, Indiana, this weekend. A8
Anika Ellingson swims her way to national meet Sophomore Anika Ellingson will be the sole Charger competing at the national meet. A8
Anika Ellingson | Courtesy
Eric Theisen | Courtesy
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Sarah Klopfer | Courtesy
TRACK AND FIELD SENDS 10 CHARGERS TO NATIONAL MEET
At the team’s final GLIAC meet, the women’s squad placed second while the men placed fourth By | Jessica Hurley Collegian Reporter
In it’s final GLIAC Indoor Track and Field Championships, the Hillsdale Chargers gave quite the farewell. Coming out of this weekend, Hillsdale will send 10 athletes to the national championships. “As a whole, it was a really good last indoor GLIAC championship. Everyone performed
really well and gave their best effort,” assistant coach Samantha Kearney said. On the women’s side, the Chargers put up 18 provisional performances, placing second overall. The men’s squad took fourth overall, earning 13 provisional marks. Senior Molly Oren won the 3,000 meter, running her personal best of 9:36.45, earning the No. 8 spot on the national list, ensuring her fourth trip to the national meet.
Junior Hannah McIntyre became the GLIAC champion in the 5,000-meter run. Matt Kendrick | Collegian
“I felt really strong in both races and really confident,” Oren said. “I didn’t expect to win it, but I just felt really good and the pace wasn’t too hard.” With top runners like Emily Oren graduated, Molly Oren said she and her peers have had to step up this year and make things happen for themselves. “I feel fine doing the 3K and DMR double,” Oren said. “I did it last year and this year I feel like I’m better suited to do it because I did it at GLIACs and I’m more confident in it.” Oren, a three-time All-American, aspires to be All-American in both events at the national meet. Junior Hannah McIntyre came in second with her time of 9:41.20. McIntyre is ranked fifth in the event nationally. McIntyre was also the GLIAC champion in the 5,000 and hit the provisional standard for that event, as well. She ran her season best time of 16:45.67, and is ranked sixth nationally for the event. The three-time All-American will head back to the national meet to compete in the 3000, 5000, and distance medley relay. Junior Tori Wichman placed second in the 200 with her time of 25.12 seconds. Junior Ashlee Moran placed fourth, running her season best of 25.32. Both hit the provisional mark for the event. Senior captain Allison Duber placed third in the 400 with a season-best performance of 56.56. Duber and Wichman will both head to nationals in the event. In the 800, junior Hannah Watts ran a provisional time of 2:16.44, placing eighth.
Tanner Schwannecke placed first in the 800-meter race at the GLIAC championship meet. Evan Carter | Collegian
In the women’s mile, Hillsdale earned three provisional marks. Sophomore Allyson Eads came in fourth with her time of 5:00.98, freshman Arena Lewis placed fifth, running 5:01.05, and junior Amanda Reagle finished eighth with a 5:03.68 performance. Eads, Watts, Oren, and freshman Lorina Clemence teamed up for the distance medley relay. The Chargers took third with their provisional time of 11:52.30, which qualifies them for the national meet. The women’s 4x400 relay placed second with a season-best time of 3:51.35. The squad, comprised of Wichman, Duber, Moran, and junior Fiona Shea, are ranked
20th nationally. In the pole vault, senior Alex Whitford took second and will head to the national meet ranked ninth. Hillsdale’s two All-American weight throwers contributed two more provisional marks. Senior Dana Newell placed sixth overall with a throw of 60 feet, 8.75 inches, and is ranked 11th nationally. Junior Rachael Tolsma took eighth with her throw of 60 feet, 5.25 inches. Tolsma is ranked 17th going into the national meet. The men’s team scored 82 points, earning fourth place overall. Sophomore Tanner Schwannecke was the GLIAC champion in the 800 with his
time of 1:55.03. Schwannecke is ranked 19th in the nation. Junior Nathan Jones came in seventh. In the 60-meter dash, senior Todd Frickey — who is ranked 16th nationally — took fifth with a time of 6.88. In the men’s 400, junior Colby Clark placed sixth, hitting the provisional standard with his time of 49.19. In the men’s mile, senior Caleb Gatchell won with his time of 4:14.11 and freshman Joseph Humes took second his time of 4:15.24. Gatchell will run at the national meet ranked 19th. “It felt really good,” Gatchell said. “I knew on paper I
See Track A8
Basketball falls to Ferris 87-84, knocked out of tournament “They were able to get out By | Nathanael Meadowcroft and run, and that’s when they Senior Writer did their best work,” Lowry said. “We weren’t able to keep The Hillsdale College men’s them in the halfcourt well basketball team outplayed enough in the second half and the top-seeded Ferris State they made shots.” Bulldogs for most of Tuesday The Bulldogs tied the game night’s GLIAC Tournament at 64 with 8:14 remaining, quarterfinal matchup, but it but the Chargers respondwasn’t enough in the end. ed with a 12-4 run to take an Despite shooting 66 percent 8-point lead with 4:39 remainfrom the floor and leading by ing. Once again, the Bulldogs as many as 15 points in the sec- pushed back. ond half, the Chargers couldn’t Over the next 2:20, Ferkeep down No. 17 Ferris State ris State went on a 10-1 run and were eliminated from the to take its first lead since the GLIAC Tournament 87-84. opening minutes of the game. “It was just a tough, tough Ferris State’s Markese Mayway to lose,” junior guard St- field made back-to-back shots edman Lowry said. “It felt in the final minute to give the like we were going to win the Bulldogs an 84-81 lead, but whole game, and they went on sophomore guard Nate Neveau a run and got hot in the second responded with a 3-pointer to half, which they do a lot. We tie the game at 84 with five secjust didn’t make enough plays onds remaining. down the stretch.” Rather than call timeout, The Chargers dominated Ferris State immediately inthe first half, shooting 75 per- bounded the basketball and cent from the floor (21-of-28) moved up the court. Guard while holding Ferris State to 44 Drew Cushingberry pumppercent shooting. Junior guard faked a desperation heave Ryan Badowski and sopho- from just inside the half-court more forward Nick Czarnows- line and drew a 3-shot foul ki were both 4-for-4 from the with 1.4 seconds remaining. field in the opening period, Cushingberry sunk all three as Hillsdale took a 47-34 lead free throws, and the Chargers into the locker room. didn’t have enough time to re“We were really smart of- spond. fensively in the first half,” head “We just had a few too coach John Tharp said. “We many live turnovers down the ran the floor and we ran really stretch. But we kept on scorgood offense. That’s what you ing — we just weren’t getting have to do against a team like enough stops,” Tharp said. that — you’ve got to control “That’s just a tough way to go the tempo, and we did that.” out. The bus ride home was Hillsdale held onto its siz- very quiet. It was just dead siable lead for the first six min- lent.” utes of the second half, but Tharp said the loss left his Ferris State took advantage of team feeling “numb.” some careless possessions. The “There’s not a lot of thought Chargers led 55-41 with 13:49 going on, but I think we all remaining, but the Bulldogs deep down knew that we had rattled off a 12-0 run over the an opportunity to keep on next 3:18 to cut their deficit to playing,” Tharp said. “We just 2 points. Hillsdale committed didn’t make enough plays three turnovers in that stretch down the stretch.” and committed 12 turnovers Despite the loss, Tharp was overall in the second half. proud of his team’s effort.
“We played hard,” Tharp said. “I told them in the locker room, ‘Keep your heads up. You represented us. That’s how we play and that’s what we do around here.’ And that was kind of it at that moment.” Six players scored in double figures for Hillsdale. Neveau led the Chargers with 16 points and 5 assists. Lowry scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half, and Badowski and senior center Rhett Smith each had 12. Czarnowski and sophomore forward Gordon Behr added 12 points and 10 points off the bench, respectively. The Chargers made 36 of their 55 field goal attempts (66 percent). “You look at it statistically, and we really put ourselves in a position to win that game,” Tharp said. “And we just didn’t.” Czarnowski and Behr both enjoyed strong finishes to the season, which bodes well for the Chargers heading into the offseason. “I’m not a big moral victories guy, but a lot of guys like Czarnowski and Behr played really well and started playing really well towards the end of the season, so that’s good going into next season,” Lowry said. With the defeat, the Chargers finish their final season in the GLIAC with a 15-12 overall record. Next year, the Chargers will compete in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference (GMAC). One of Hillsdale’s major tasks this offseason will be to familiarize itself with its new conference opponents. “We’ll begin to learn more about these other schools and start watching some film on these opponents,” Tharp said. “We’ll start figuring out what we need to do, but we’ll start with us. We’ll do a pretty good self-reflection on everything within our program.”
Sophomore forward Gordon Behr added 10 points off the bench during the Chargers loss to Ferris State on Tuesday evening. Brad Monastiere | Courtesy
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Elena Creed | Collegian
‘Kiss Me, Kate’: Adaptation of Broadway musical brings back the Bard By | Brendan Clarey Assistant Editor
1948 was a crazy year. It was the year Harry Truman won against all odds, one of the greatest upsets in American history. Porsche made its first car. Andrew Lloyd Webber was born. And it was the year “Kiss Me, Kate” hit Broadway. Today we have our own presidential upset, Porsche has an SUV, and Webber has made his own popular musicals. A lot has changed since 1948, but “Kiss Me, Kate” is still around with the same energy. The musical, which opened on campus last night, has enjoyed many revivals since its debut almost 60 years ago, when it won the Tony Award for Best Musical, the first time that award was given. It has since won another Tony Award for its Broadway revival in 2000. “Kiss Me, Kate” contains all of the elements of a Broadway musical, Director James Brandon said. It keeps to the classic Broadway sound, with saxophones and strings and strains of upbeat dance tunes throughout, by way of a unique self-awareness provid-
ed by the cast of a Baltimore er Players performance. and Hillsdale’s performance theatre producing a musical “You need a lot of people thanks to guest choreographer adaptation of “The Taming of who can act, sing, and dance,” Philip Simmons, Associate the Shrew” by William Shake- Brandon said. “Often people Professor of Musical Theatre speare. can’t do all three.” and Dance at Eastern MichiIn the dressing rooms and But Hillsdale students rose gan University. backstage, the relationships to the challenge. One such example of killamong cast members create “There are 22 students on er choreography comes from conflict that bleed into their stage, 16 in the pit orchestra, freshman Isaac Johnson, who performance. Lilli Vanessi, and about a dozen backstage,” stars in the song “Too Darn played by junior Glynis Gilio, Brandon said. Hot” and lights up the stage and Fred Graham, played by The best numbers in the with his graceful and passionjunior Jonathan Henreckson, musical take place in Balti- ate performance as Paul, Fred are a divorced couple who more, behind the scenes of Graham’s assistant who hates work together and play Katherine and Petruchio in the adaptation. It is through the fiction of theater that the reality of their romance is brought to light through their performance in “The Taming of the Shrew.” Shakespeare’s misogyny is not softened in the adaptation to Broadway, and the treatment of women even in 20th century Baltimore mirrors the farcical understanding of marriage that underpins the original play. It is in this bleak world that Gilio shines in her Juniors Jonathan Henreckson and Glynis Gilio perform a performance of “I Hate Men,” scene from ‘Kiss Me, Kate.’ Elena Creed | Collegian a song set in Italy as she plays Kate. She is convincing yet musical theater, where the the heat because it’s too hot to controlled, carefully choreo- audience can get a feel for the hang out with his lover. Along graphed yet carefree. She is struggle and jubilation of the with him, the cast delivers a Kate and Lilli at the same time actors, rather than in the sti- delightful dance that really — no easy task. fled atmosphere of the staged brings out the Broadway feel Gilio’s is not the exception, adaptation. The show excels of the musical through the but the rule of Hillsdale’s Tow- in seamless choreography, high-energy yet mesmeriz-
ingly clean choreography over what sounds like a condensation of the best show tunes. Senior Gianna Marchese, who plays Lois Lane, and junior Mark Naida, who plays Bill Calhoun, both sell their characters through songs of passion in their own fashion: Marchese with her silky voice in her song “Always True to You in My Fashion,” and Naida with his whole being wrapped up in wooing Lois in “Bianca.” The gangsters who get involved in the already difficult relationship between Fred Graham and Lilli Vanessi pay tribute to the Bard in “Brush Up Your Shakespeare,” where they expound extemporaneously on the excellencies of knowing classical literature in order to impress the fairer sex. The song’s title is also sound advice for anyone who has not seen “The Taming of the Shrew” — much of the drama of the musical is wrapped inside the adapted play. Even a quick peek on Wikipedia before attending may help readers better understand what is going on because Shakespeare’s language can be hard to understand at times. While it doesn’t have as much adult content as the department’s 2015 performance
of “The Drowsy Chaperone,” “Kiss Me, Kate” has enough misogyny and language to offend some sensibilities, but overall, the musical keeps with the spirit of Shakespearean sexual humor and a traditionally comical view of love and marriage. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, there is an abundance of puns based on Shakespeare’s work, so the viewer’s Hamlet from literature classes in high school may finally pay off. Despite the nods to literary genius, the point is to not analyze the play, but to take it in and appreciate it for what it is. “The music is annoying, and the plot is just really silly, but it’s still entertaining,” Naida said. “I hope we can make people both laugh and smile.” Though the show runs for nearly three hours, it passes quickly as a result of the energy radiating from the cast and the pit orchestra in perfect tandem which will continue every night this week at 8 p.m. with a matinee showing Sunday at 2 p.m. From the bright colors of cheerful choruses, down to the incandescent box lights that surround the stage, “Kiss Me, Kate” is Broadway through and through, with a few tips on taming the shrew.
Esolen’s new book hopes to raise American culture ‘Out of the Ashes’ By | Hannah Niemeier Culture Editor
Alumni return to recruit teachers at job fair By | Jessie Fox Sports Editor
See Ashes B2
CULTURE CORNER
REFLECTIONS ON LEN TEN TRADI TIONS Junior Amalia Hansen: I like to meditate on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary during Lent, which tell us the story of Christ’s passion and death. These mysteries remind us of God’s great love for usso great that his only Son died for our sins. One of the mysteries is the Scourging at the Pillar, from Matthew 27: 24-26 when Jesus is handed over to be crucified Freshman Nathan Grime: I appreciate the different feel in church services that the Lenten season brings compared to other times in the liturgical calendar. The transformation from Lent to Easter is also really neat — it’s a time of reflection and solemnity. Senior Mackenzie Mahdasian: While I am not a Catholic, I try to participate in Lent each year, to grow closer in my relationship with Christ. In years past, and again this year, I am giving up work on Sunday! Honoring the Sabbath has allowed me to spend more time in the Word, in prayer, or simply in quiet time, instead of dreading my school work.
makes a serious effort to mold well-rounded students. In addition to mandatory core classes in subjects like Latin, logic, and rhetoric, Garceau said she spends 20 minutes every Monday teaching her homeroom class about character. “We’ve done a lot on bullying, a lot on stereotypes, empathy, compassion towards others, and different types of mindsets to help yourself grow,” Garceau said. “We say, ‘We want to make you smart and we want you to know all these things, but we also want you to be a good person.’” Holt said his fifth graders learn a lot about character through the literature they read. When his class read “Don Quixote,” Holt said his students disliked Don Quixote in the beginning of the book, but were “visibly sad” when he was ridiculed later on. “I asked, ‘Why are you guys sad?’ And a little girl raised her hand and said, ‘Well, Mr. Holt, I think it’s because we’ve spent so much time with him and he’s become our friend by this point. We know him and we see his thoughts and we understand him,’” Holt said. “We want to show them that you need to be able to understand everyone with that same comprehension. You should take what you’re learning in literature and apply it to real life.” Holt said many of his 9- to
nightmare, and he doesn’t leave any stone unturned in his jeremiad: Esolen’s ghost story reaches from the inner workings of Americans’ minds — embroiled as they are in our identity-politicsand feminist-movement-fueled confusion — all the way to the empty churches that echo with the loss of the ultimate end of human education and creation. Esolen has recently come under fire from students and colleagues at Providence College for his prophecies of doom about the state of modern education, particularly in a response to a column for the Catholic Crisis Magazine in which Esolen argues that the current preoccupation with “diversity” above all else impoverishes study of the liberal arts:
Hansen | Courtesy
One year ago, Danielle Garceau ’16 attended her third and final Classical School Job Fair at Hillsdale College. Or so she thought. After accepting a teaching job at Rocky Mountain Classical Academy just two days after last year’s job fair, Garceau started teaching middle school mathematics in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Last week, she returned to campus for her fourth job fair. This time, however, the roles were reversed for Garceau and the 16 other alumni who returned to work Hillsdale’s ninth Classical School Job Fair on Feb. 23 and 24. A total of 46 schools were represented, and 133 students interested in classical school teaching attended. Earlier this month, Garceau approached Christianna Fogler — her school’s headmaster — and asked if she could attend the job fair. “I wasn’t even supposed to be here,” Garceau said. “I told her that I would love to go back because I know so many people who want to go into teaching, and she said, ‘Oh my gosh, yes, why didn’t I think of this first? You’re going.’ But it’s so weird. I feel like I’m here as a student.” Since her junior year of high school, Garceau has known she wanted to teach. When she arrived at Hillsdale as a freshman, however, she didn’t know the college had eliminated its education major. “I almost transferred,” Garceau said. “But I talked to
people and they said, ‘No, you want to be a teacher here.’ The people who are here who will help you with teaching all believe in Hillsdale and the classical education.” Garrett Holt ’14 — who returned for his second Classical Job Fair last week — was a history major, and although he said it’s often assumed history majors will teach, Holt’s “epiphany moment” happened three years ago, as a senior attending the classical school job fair. “I remember coming to the job fair and talking with all of these principals or teachers about education and history and learning and literature and all of these things that I love to talk about,” Holt said. “I realized this is what I could spend the rest of my life doing.” Holt accepted a fifth-grade teaching job at the Atlanta Classical Academy in Atlanta, Georgia, two weeks after the job fair. Holt’s friend Aaron Schepps signed on in Atlanta just as Terrence Moore, former professor of history and current advisor of the Barney Charter School Initiative at Hillsdale, signed on to serve as principal. “I was deciding between a couple schools further north… Aaron told [Dr. Moore] I hadn’t signed anywhere yet, and so I received an email from him asking if I’d be interested in coming to Atlanta,” Holt said. Three years later, Holt returned to work his second Classical School Job Fair as an alumnus. Garceau and Holt said each of their charter schools
Young teachers met with Hillsdale students at last week’s job fair. Joanna Wiseley | Courtesy
Anthony Esolen’s plan for saving American culture is as incendiary and inspiring as its governing metaphor — a phoenix rising out of the ashes of what he sees as a decimated society. But it may be just as mythical. Out of the Ashes, the latest book from Providence College English professor, author, Divine Comedy translator, and 2017 Hillsdale College commencement speaker Anthony Esolen presents a vision of the state of American culture and education that is nothing short of apocalyptic. His solution for a post-mortem America is a nostalgic shot in the dark — Americans should call up the ghosts of teachers and educational systems past to resurrect a cul-
ture centered on local churches, small classical schools, and pickup games of baseball. And though I can’t pitch a baseball to save my life, Esolen’s enchanting picture of an America reborn in city parks and backyards tempts me to believe it’s worth a try. But before he can sell readers on his grassroots vision, he must open their eyes to their accustomed wasteland. He opens as a Virgil to his readers’ Dante, walking his readers through the empty halls of their own hometowns: our libraries are empty, their copies of Dante, Shakespeare, and Alexander Pope long left unread. Our ballparks are deserted as young boys play on computers inside. And our colleges do not teach students to refurbish the homes of their minds with virtue, curiosity, and faith. Seen through Esolen’s eyes, America lives in a cultural
See Job Fair B2 Compiled by Katie J. Read
Culture www.hillsdalecollegian.com
B2 2 Mar. 2017
in review this week . . .
‘The Kingdom of Speech’: Wolfe’s ‘New Journalism’ is getting old style and anecdotal critiques of these anti-heroes’ excesses, Wolfe emerged as the leading force behind an emergent style of reporting called “New Journalism.” New Journalists disregarded the “just the facts ma’am” style of reporting standard among mainstream media outlets and instead told their audiences highly personalized stories that placed greater emphasis on truths about society than a factual record of events. Wolfe pioneered this style along with a few other New Journalists — most prominently Joan Didion and Hunter S. Thompson — to reinvigorate the now-popular journalistic essay form. By burying fact in vivid personal experience, they skipped the boring stuff and just told true stories. Tom Wolfe speaks at the White House Salute to American Authors in 2004. Wolfe mastered his form with the Wikimedia Commons
By | Nic Rowan Collegian Reporter BAM! A right cross to that sniveling Charles Darwin and his socalled “Theory of Evolution.” Then … WHAP! A slap to Noam Chomsky and his sycophantic band of MITdesk-bound Darwinian linguists. That’s the conceit of “The Kingdom of Speech,” New York Citybased journalist Tom Wolfe’s 2016 book which argues that it is language, not natural selection, that distinguishes man from the animals. Unfortunately, “Kingdom” is not worth reading. Wolfe’s abilities have diminished in recent years — not surprising for an 85-year-old well into the twilight of his career. The once-great chronicler of post-sexual revolution American life has become as desk-bound and dislocated from reality as the people about whom he now writes. It was not always this way. In the 1960s, Wolfe would travel the country looking for the weird and destitute, and then became famous for writing needling social commentary
Anthony Esolen’s book was published in January. Amazon
“Why is intellectual diversity not served by the study of a dozen cultures of the past, with their vast array of customs, poetry, art, and worship of the gods?” he writes in his essay, polemically entitled “My College Succumbed to the Totalitarian Diversity Cult” by a Crisis editor. The essay led to a rebuke from the president of the college and a petition to remove Esolen from his job — which, as Esolen points out, shows a telling lack of interest in diverse views on the part of Providence College members. But perhaps Esolen does lean too heavily on polemic. Esolen has brought various levels of declamation into his pleas for the resurrection of intellectual culture throughout his career. For example, his “Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child” is Esolen at his preachiest with his pseudo-satirical tract about education for young children. But Esolen, a teacher at heart, uses humor to more positive effect elsewhere; his “Ironies of Faith: The Laughter at the Heart of Christian Literature” allows him to show off the culture he hopes to resurrect — one that can afford to take itself lightly, centered as it is on Divine Light. The more Esolen focuses on praising his much-beloved classic stories, the more clearly his voice sings out — and through him, a glimpse into literature and learning
“The once-great chronicler of post-sexual revolution American life has become as desk-bound and dislocated from reality as the people about whom he now writes.”
as he would have them. His translations of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” are not to be missed for their music or their honesty to the Italian language. The introductions and footnotes show that Esolen’s mind is attuned to the harmony of Dante, one of the world’s most lively, expansive poetic minds. Esolen is at home here, recreating in English Dante’s medieval world with its ordered holistic view of eschatology, morality, poetry, and spirituality. This reconstruction of worlds is the strength of Out of the Ashes, as well — not only does Esolen lay out a blueprint for rebuilding what he sees as an empty culture, but he takes care to furnish the place, as well. He adorns the book with references to stories from the literature he teaches in his English classes. For students familiar with the great works of the Western tradition, his references to Homer, Dante, Pope, and the poetry of Protestant hymns will be welcome guests and points of light in an otherwise dark polem-
“Esolen calls Americans to take their towns back — the city halls, the schoolhouses, the impromptu baseball games, the country parishes, and the lending libraries .”
1970 essay “The Radical Chic,” a story about a dinner party the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein held for the militant racial equality group, the Black Panthers, in his New York apartment. Socialites of Bernstein’s ilk believed it was fashionable to support radical causes that “normal” people dared not touch. Wolfe’s essay blasts the Bernsteins of Upper East Side hypocrisy — while ostensibly embracing the Black Panther cause, they masked their own cultural racism by importing white servants from South America to replace the black ones that were common in swanky Manhattan apartments of the skills required to go on a fishing trip for the afternoon? Have you ever thought about the social skills boys are learning when they play a game of baseball? What are the names of the trees that you walk past as you get in your car for work? Perhaps his most ardent cry is to institutions like his own: Esolen would see new colleges in the classical education tradition — small, Christian ones that make the pursuit of education again a conversation between friends. He has his models: Patrick Henry College, Wyoming Catholic College, and Hillsdale College get shoutouts for their small size and focus on the liberal arts. Are Esolen’s solutions practical? Workable? Maybe not, but they are tempting as ideals, and his warnings about our separation from the world and people around us ring true, harsh as they may be. In an ideal world, Esolen could leave behind his strident calls to action and focus on the work he does best: teaching and translating the stories he loves without “Out of the Ashes”’ defensive edge. Perhaps it is enough that Esolen allows us to hope with him as he attempts to raise the phoenix of American culture from the ashes. Esolen’s is a small and precious idyll, a modern pastoral: “Think of it, everyone — preachers, parishioners, choristers, artists.”
ic. For others, the stories can serve as a recommendation list of the works that Esolen finds most essential and enlightening. How, then, does Esolen reconstruct American culture? Through avenues familiar to many Americans — literally. Esolen calls Americans to take their towns back — the town halls, the school houses, the impromptu baseball games, the country parishes, and the lending libraries. For readers tempted to look down their noses at the quaintness of such an existence in a world that is too “complex,” too far “developed” for such rustic pleasures, Esolen includes a page or two of Esolen teaches at Providence Colpointed questions that can lea to lege in Rhode Island. Amazon some soul-searching: Do you have
Coffeehouse turns down the volume for student musicians By | Nic Rowan Collegian Reporter The music fraternity Phi Mu Alpha will host its Coffeehouse acoustic music night on Saturday, March 4, from 7 to 10 p.m. This is a schedule change from the advertised March 3 performances. Event organizer junior Jacob Hann said Coffeehouse allows him to live out the fraternity’s mission to encourage musically talented students to perform publicly. “Coffeehouse lowers the intensity, turns down the volume, and gets people up on stage,” he said. “I think it’s a good way to ween people into the performing arts.” Although Coffeehouse is a semesterly event held on Parents Weekend right now, Hann said there is enough student interest for it to occur more frequently and he hopes Coffeehouse will become a monthly occurrence. “The day I put out the sign-up sheet, it gets filled. That tells me students are interested in performing,” he said. Student acts said they like how Coffeehouse gives them the opportunity to share music live with their friends and let parents be a part of campus culture. “I like getting out and performing live,” freshman Matt Montgomery
Job Fair from B1
11-year-old students are already concerned about getting into a good college, so it’s important to show them the real meaning of learning. “It is getting them to realize there’s something inherently good about learning. It’s not just because you can get into a good college,” Holt said. “Part of it is saying that we are here not only to know facts, but to understand. They’re so used to the idea of the test. We want them to learn about human nature — about the good things.” Senior Hannah Fleming, who attended her fourth job fair this year, said she’s been drawn to teaching since she was a little girl admiring her elementary school teachers. Fleming said she has narrowed down her prospects for a job, and that she would like to teach at a Lutheran classical school. “I love the fact that you’re educating a whole person,” Fleming said. “You’re not just teaching them to be good at math or how to read ... With the Christian school side, I like that you’re educating that you’re a sinner and Jesus died for you. I like that you can bring in the faith aspect, as well, because just virtue alone isn’t going to
WikiCommons
Ashes from B1
about the American character. In one of his early essays, “The Pump House Gang,” Wolfe dives into West Coast surfer culture and presents the lazy excesses of 1966 La Jolla, California. That So Cal laissez faire oozes through Wolfe’s writing — careless punctuation, unexplained uses of slang, vivid stories about the Windansea beach that were never entirely factual — all in service of imprinting Wolfe’s vision of modern America on the eyes of his readers. Those kids outracing the waves on the golden California beach are fleeing from the future, from structured families, from the bondage of a never-ending class struggle … into the vain hopes of eternal youth, dreading that passing glance in the mirror when one stray gray hair pops out ... Wolfe would go on to recreate the lives of 1960s counterculture titans like Playboy magnate Hugh Hefner and Ken Kesey, the proto-hippie author behind “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Because of his brash
the day. The essay stirred the reading live among his characters and tell public, and the phrase “radical chic” true stories. It seems Wolfe can only has since entered everyday speech to write messy opinion pieces and awkdescribe a hypocritical activist. wardly sexual novels that read like Wolfe turned his journalistic skills a bad parody of his past brilliance. to fiction in the 1980s and wrote “Kingdom” is no different. For all “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” a Dick- of swipes and jibes at the literati of ensian novel — both in length and the Theory of Evolution, the book is scope — about New York City’s un- nothing more than the product of a derbelly. The story follows Sherman bad day in front of the computer. McCoy, a “master of the universe” … But don’t dwell on Tom Wolfe’s but really nothing more than a WASP current work. Read “The Bonfire bond salesman who lives on Park of the Vanities.” Read “The RadiAve., cheats on his wife — who was cal Chic.” Read “The Pump House older than him, but hey, she was rich Gang.” When he writes well, Wolfe — and sets off a scandal that rocks all captures the grotesque American of New York. longing for status and comfort — To write the novel, Wolfe im- and has us laughing at our insecurimersed himself entirely in New York ties the whole way. life. He sat in courtrooms for weeks, followed Wall Street workers’ daily routines, and explored all five boroughs of the city. Wolfe noted everything — even down to the fact that colorful sneakers were becoming commonplace on subway commutes — to produce a novel that captured the corruption and grittiness of New York in the 1980s. “Bonfire” had a lasting impact on American culture. Since its publication, movies like “Wall Street” and books like “American Psycho” have closely examined the corruption and inanity of American urban society which Wolfe had so painstakingly researched. And like the phrase “radical chic,” Sherman McCoy’s self-proclaimed title has become a byword for the self-obsessed and powerful. A recent example: Early in Martin Scorsese’s 2013 film, “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Jordan Belfort gloats to the audience about how stacking penny stocks has made him a “master of the universe.” Since “Bonfire” however, the qual- Tom Wolfe’s most recent book was ity of Wolfe’s work has decreased. As published in 2016. Amazon he ages, he no longer can go out and
said. “I think live performance is the most meaningful way to share music with other people.” Montgomery performed as a solo act at last year’s Coffeehouse. This year, he and his band, Radical Free Whale, will play a full acoustic set. Senior Kaleb Molina, who has played Coffeehouse events since his freshman year, said he liked the chance to play for a diverse audience in a relaxed setting. “You get to establish a rapport with the audience,” he said. “It’s also great to showcase campus culture for parents.” In the Fall 2016 semester, Coffeehouse coincided with the Parents Weekend mixer, which led to some rambunctious antics after the performances. To prevent a repeat, Hann arranged to move Coffeehouse from Friday to Saturday. Hann said he hopes to resolves scheduling issues in the future because he believes that when the two events were held together both parents and students showed more interest. “I had never seen so many people sitting there actively listening to student acts,” he said.
get you very far.” Fleming said she wants to teach elementary school, so she paired her education minor with an English major. While Holt graduated with a history degree, Garceau majored in mathematics (she said was the “weird person” in high school whose favorite class was AP Calculus) and volunteered at Mary Randall Preschool every week. Although she originally wanted to teach kindergarten, Garceau said she is able to teach seventh and eighth grade math without a teaching license. Garceau said she has loved teaching middle school, to her own surprise. “I was expecting terrors, to be honest, but they’re great,” Garceau said of her pre-teen students. “They’re sassy, but they can take the sass back.” Holt said he is sure he wants to stay in the education field, and he has loved teaching fifth grade. “I love how much you can influence the kids at lower primary or secondary school level,” Holt said. “I want to stay in education to some degree, but I don’t know what that looks like. I love teaching, but I would love to be a dean of students, or a vice principal.”
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B3 2 Mar. 2017 Edward Elmer “Doc” Smith, founder of the space opera subgenre and author of “The Skylark of Space,” worked at the Stock Mill in Hillsdale, Michigan. The American Miller
Historic Hillsdale author revolutionized sci-fi By | Chandler Lasch Collegian Reporter What do space opera, doughnuts, and Hillsdale have in common? E. E. Smith. Edward Elmer “Doc” Smith is often considered the founder of space opera, a subgenre of science fiction much like a soap opera set in space. Smith wrote the first space opera novel, “The Skylark of Space,” in 1920 while working as the chief chemist for the F.W. Stock & Sons Mill in Hillsdale, Michigan. Smith was born May 2, 1890, in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. In 1914, he graduated from the University of Idaho, where he studied chemical engineering. The following year, he began writing “The Skylark of Space” with his neighbor, Lee Hawkins Garby. Garby had suggested that Smith write a story that takes place in outer space, but when he worried about his ability to write characters, and especially romance, Garby offered her help. “The Skylark of Space” stars the daring Dick Seaton. The story begins when Seaton accidentally creates a workable space drive from a recently-discovered chemical “X”, and begins building a spaceship called Skylark. The villainous Marc “Blackie” DuQuesne kidnaps Seaton’s fiancée, holding her ransom for the “X.” When DuQuesne mistakenly blasts far away from the solar system in his own ship, Seaton chases after in the Skylark to rescues his love. The story continues in de-
scribing their strange extra-terrestrial encounters as they make their way back to Earth. Smith went on to earn both his masters degree and Ph.D. in chemistry from George Washington University. In 1919, Smith, his wife Jeanne, and their son Roderick moved to Hillsdale. Smith worked at the Stock Mill as chief chemist, specializing in doughnut mixes. The monthly journal “The American Mill” described Smith as the manager of the mill’s complete laboratory on Dec. 1, 1921, calling him “a skilled chemist who not only tests the wheat and flour in the ordinary ways to maintain quality, but has also done much experimental work with the various mill streams.” Smith returned to writing “The Skylark of Space” during this time, and finished it in early 1920. Over the next seven years, he sent his novel to publishers without success. In 1927, Smith discovered the
series was published as a collaboration between the two. Within a month, Sloane commissioned a sequel, which Smith began writing alone. The first installment printed with an enthusiastic editor’s blurb which read, “Perhaps it is a bit unethical and unusual for editors to voice their opinions of their own wares, but when such a story as ‘The Skylark of Space’ comes along, we just feel
Pohl praised “The Skylark of Space” in his introduction to the 1991 edition of the book. “With the exception of the works of H. G. Wells, possibly those of Jules Verne — and almost no other writer — it has inspired more imitators and done more to change the nature of all the science fiction written after it than almost any other single work,” he wrote. Throughout the 1930s, Amazing
“With the exception of the works of H. G. Wells, possibly those of Jules Verne — and almost no other writer — it has inspired more imitators and done more to change the nature of all the science fiction written after it than almost any other single work.” science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, and sent his work to the editor, T. O’Conor Sloane. Sloane accepted the novel immediately. Amazing Stories began printing “The Skylark of Space” in August 1928 as a three-part series. Smith split his profit with Garby and the
as if we must shout from the housetops that this is the greatest interplanetarian and space-flying story that has appeared this year. Indeed, it probably will rank as one of the great space-flying stories for years to come.” Science-fiction author Frederik
Stories published three more works by Smith, including “Spacehounds of IPC” and “Triplanetary,” the first book of his popular “Lensman” series. Despite his success, Smith could not afford to be a full-time writer. In 1936, he left Hillsdale and moved
to Jackson, Michigan, where he became the production manager at Dawn Donuts. Seven years later, he was promoted to the head of the inspection division at Kingsbury Ordinance Plant in LaPorte, Indiana, but was fired the following year. He soon returned to his doughnut-mix roots at J.W. Allen in Chicago, Illinois, where he remained until his retirement in in 1957. Throughout this time, Smith continued writing, and published more science-fiction stories before his death in 1965. His popularity in both the United States and the United Kingdom continued into the ’80s. “E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith’s are among the most widely and persistently popular works of science fiction ever written,” Smith’s biographer Joe Sanders wrote. “Their appearances as magazine serials caused waves of approval; their publication in hardcover by a specialty publisher won a new generation of fans.”
Food for Thought: The secrets to success his classes the past couple their futures that they often years so they can hear his do not get from lectures and methods of creativity and textbooks,” Grigor Hasted, thinking-outside-the-box to director of alumni and corpoKirk Cordill ’92 stood in solve problems. rate advancement, said in an front of a classroom packed “I’ve been after him all email. with students and professors along, but he was working Cordill moved to Germany of economics, all waiting to in China. With his remark- not knowing the language. hear from the youngest BMW able career and achievements, He started his pre-workday CEO to date. People filed in he is perfect to speak for my studying German grammar even after the speech started, classes,” Blackstock said. and vocabulary, learning 30leaning against the back wall “Everything this guy touches 60 words a week. Cordill said and lining the sides of the accelerates.” he had to learn around 600 classroom. Cordill pensively Blackstock said he be- words to have basic conversalooked out at the crowd sitlieved campus would benefit tions, and even more to meet ting where, 25 years ago, he hearing about Cordill, espe- BMW’s standards. sat as a student. This year, he cially regarding his China ex“Cordill was always taking returned with an MBA from perience. Blackstock reached risks, accepting challenges, the University of Notre Dame, out to Nanette Hoberg, man- sticking his neck out, and five languages under his belt, ager of alumni events and working hard,” Blackstock records, and senior Victoria said. “BMW was trying to enTran, president of Enactus, ter the Chinese market, and to collaborate a Food-for- had already failed twice, so Thought luncheon while Cor- they sent him. He had become dill was on campus. the go-to guy for bad situaHoberg took over the Food- tions.” for-Thought program two Cordill took over BMW’s years ago. She works with certified pre-owned program Hillsdale faculty to bring as so that their leased cars would many speakers with as many not choke out their new car career paths to campus as pos- market. sible. “He thought, ‘Wouldn’t “Alumni talks resonate you rather be driving a threewith students because you can year old BMW than a Honda?’ track their steps to success, And he gave BMW two record Kirk Cordill ’92, BMW’s youngest CEO to date, spoke at a Food-forfrom major to goals in life, so years,” Blackstock said. Thought event at Hillsdale College. Monica VanderWeide | Courtesy students can learn about difCordill retired from being ferent career paths,” Hoberg president of BMW financial along and with other people, said. services in Woodcliff Lake, Chicago, Illinois. The next Food for Thought and respectfully debate other Food For Thought, former- New Jersey, to become the points of view,” Cordill said. ly know as executive-speak- dealer principal of BMW speaker will speak April 6. “You don’t have to be the “Hillsdale’s logic and rhetoric er luncheons, started in the of Schererville in Chicago, Businessman Kirk Cordill ‘92 spoke at a Food-for-Thought event on 1980s “to help students with known for their “drive it like smartest person in the room, courses help with that.” campus. Nanette Hoberg | Courtesy observations and advice about you stole it” billboards across but you have to be able to get good liar because you’re an actress.’ ley Summer Theatre’s production of LaVoie said she is still open to re- inal justice system,” said Gilio, who And that I feel like is the complete “Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story.” turning to acting, although she has plans to pursue a career as a prosfrom B4 opposite of what theater is,” she “They run the rehearsals just like a passion for middle school and at- ecutor. “I think there’s a lot of corsaid. “When you come into a the- they do in New York,” LaVoie said, risk communities. ruption in it that I would love to fix. ater, you’re going to see some truth “so I got a taste of what it would be And although she is minoring in I think it takes a lot to stand in front about the human experience. When like if I had gone to New York.” theater, Gilio, too, has decided pur- of a courtroom and argue your case. you are cast in a show, you are given LaVoie is a non-denominational suing a professional acting career is I think it also takes a lot to stand in a role, and it is your job to show the Christian, and said it was her faith not a role she would like. front of a thousand people and do truth of that role. I think theater is that influenced many of her acting “I have a big passion for the crim- whatever you’re doing on stage.” Both said that acting has given them empathy and better understanding of people. “In order to be a good actress, you need to be able to fully put yourself in someone else’s story,” LaVoie said. “It helped me learn about different people because I had to be that person. I couldn’t act that person; I had to be that person.” important because in many cases it decisions. Uncomfortable with nushows the audience a mirror. It pro- dity and sexual scenes, LaVoie said vides a peek at truth.” she also wanted the ability to choose For other actors on campus, how- her outfits and turned down roles she ever, the theater reveals a different “felt had no sense of redemption in, truth. stories that were dark and completeFreshman Christa LaVoie found ly void of any good.” the professional performing arts As a result, she said, she got a Junior Glynis Gilio has performed in world after a photographer who reputation for having moral boundprofessional theater. Facebook worked with her suggested she find aries in the acting world and was and spoke highly of her. an agent. nicknamed “Pooh Bear.” “She has abilities that really only “I was kind of hesitant about it “I still miss the adrenaline and come with experience,” he said. all,” said LaVoie, who joined the thrill of a thousand people being in “She is not in the raw-discovery professional-performing-arts world the audience, but I think this expestage.” at age 16. “Faith is really important rience really made me grounded in Although she has done on-screen to me, and I was very cautious about who I am,” she said. “I needed to work, Gilio said she prefers the the- pointing things towards myself.” have a firm line. When you’re acting ater. Theater, she said, is about truth. LaVoie began doing catalog mod- as so many different people, you re- Freshman Christa LaVoie has performed professionally in a number of different “Everyone used to say to me eling and eventually was cast as ally need to be confident in who you shows. Christa LaVoie | Courtesy growing up, ‘You must be such a Maria Elena Holly in Spokane Val- are off-stage.”
By | Scott McClallen Collegian Reporter
and 10 years of international business experience. Cordill said he came to give back to Hillsdale, and to give students a snapshot of a potential business career. “I was given no road map, no instructions, or prep courses; just a one-way ticket to Beijing, which proved to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Cordill said in his speech Tuesday. “I learned from it that anything is possible, but nothing is easy.” Blackstock taught Cordill business law in the early 90s, and stayed in touch ever since. Blackstock said he has brought Cordill to speak to
Acting
“When you come into a theater, you’re going to see some truth about the human experience. When you are cast in a show, you are given a role, and it is your job to show the truth of that role. I think theater is important because in many cases it shows the audience a mirror. It provides a peek at truth.”
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B4 2 Mar. 2017
The art of the laugh Alumnus performs comedy in India By | Abigail Liebing Freelance Writer On Feb. 10, professional stand-up comedian Warren Viegas ’15 had his first filmed half-hour comedy special in Goa, India. “We had a sold-out show with 1,000 people, so it was truly incredible,” Viegas said. “Better than I hoped for.” This may be his first filmed special, but Viegas is no stranger to comedy. He said he grew up loving comedy, and according to the Goan Everyday, over the past two years he has performed more than 300 comedy shows as a stand-up comedian. Born in Mumbai, India, Viegas said he would watch
disarming disposition,” Spica said. Viegas began doing some casual performances around campus while he was a student, and even performed at the comedy club, the Laugh Factory. Viegas encouraged other casual comedic performers on campus, like Spica, to form a sort of club. “Warren thought that all of us writing should perform our own live routine so that we could see live audience reactions to our own material and provide each other with feedback and criticism in order to improve our writing,” Spica said. Unfortunately, he said the club eventually dissolved after Viegas and many of its
loves political comedy. “My uncle is a writer and makes political films, so between reading his books and going to Hillsdale College, I developed a fascination with American politics,” he said. Viegas said he thinks he is a bit too young to be doing the political comedy act yet. He said a political comedy act is hard to tour, and not many people want to hear a 24-yearold ranting about the government. Instead, he focuses his act on other aspects of life. “I prefer to joke about the absurdities in daily life, relationships, and ramen noodles,” he said. “Perhaps one day I’ll be screaming about the government.” Though comedy makes
“I prefer to joke about the absurdities in daily life, relationships, and ramen noodles. Perhaps one day I’ll be screaming about the government.” any comedy that he could get his hands on growing up. He said he has been inspired by many great comedians, including Sacha Baron Cohen, Louis C.K., and John Oliver, but Russell Peters was his main inspiration for stand-up comedy. “Russell Peter’s special, ‘Outsourced,’ was my first introduction to stand-up comedy, and that changed everything,” Viegas said. Viegas came to the United States for his undergraduate education, and studied marketing management at Hillsdale College. While on campus, Viegas began exploring stand-up comedy. Senior Joe Spica said Viegas’ friendly laugh matched his personality. “He laughs often and heartily, and possesses a warm and
members graduated in 2015. Viegas also worked for a brief time on John Oliver’s Emmy-winning late night show, ‘Last Week Tonight.’ “When asked of my ‘contributions,’ I mention that I got coffee for the guy that got coffee for the guy that got coffee for the guy that got coffee for John,” Viegas said. Now, Viegas is touring and performs almost every night in Goa, India. With a degree in marketing management, Viegas has become interested in the business part of comedy and has plans to start his own comedy club. “I’m hoping to start Goa’s first dedicated comedy club, The Las Viegas Comedy Club — a pun on my last name,” Viegas said. Viegas said he particularly
people laugh and has the appearance of lightheartedness, a career in comedy is not for the weak and requires dedication and hard work, Viegas said. He emphasized that successful comedians are quick on their feet, know how to network, and “have a tremendous work ethic.” Additionally, Viegas said aspiring comedians must have enthusiasm and perseverance in pursuing the art of the joke. “A thick skin is important for comics because no one is exempt from bombing, and it happens a lot in the beginning,” Viegas said. “You have to be a real comedy nerd, and pretty obsessive about the art form to do this as a career.” Alumnus Warren Viegas ’15 is performing in Goa, India, as a comedian. Warren Viegas | Courtesy
Authenticity, truth, and professional theater By | Jordyn Pair Assistant Editor
Junior Glynis Gylio performed as a professional actress in “Christmas Carol,” “Violet: A Musical,” and even re-enactments of “America’s Most Wanted.” Facebook
For junior Glynis Gilio, the stage is like home. Gilio started acting professionally at age 9 in a production of “Christmas Carol” at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. She has since starred in productions like “Violet: A Musical” with Bailiwick Chicago Theater, participated as an extra in “The Lake House,” and even appeared in re-enactments on the television show “America’s Most Wanted.” “I started acting when I started breathing,” Gilio said. “My mom was always very encouraging. It was really something my sister and I really always had a passion for.” At Hillsdale College, Gilio has been cast in “Almost Maine,” “The Misanthrope,” “The Drowsy Chaperone,”
“Twelfth Night,” and most recently, “Kiss Me, Kate.” She said her most memorable production, however, was “Violet: A Musical.” Cast at age 15, Gilio was involved with the production for four years, and even performed at the Joseph Jefferson Award show, which recognizes theater excellence in the Chicago area. What she says she’ll never forget, though, is the casting process. The show needed a child and adult version of the same character. During her callback, Gilio was told she had already been cast in the role of young Violet; she was just there so they could match the adult actor to her. “For any actor, that’s a chilling moment,” she said. Professor of Theatre George Angell worked with Gilio during “Twelfth Night”
See Acting B3
Freshman Christa LaVoie has done catalog modeling as well as professional acting. Christa LaVoie | Courtesy
Alex Miller
By | Scott McClallen Describe your style? Button down with a tie. It doesn’t take any longer than throwing on a T-shirt and a pair of joggers, so I like to look sharp.
Where do you shop? I spend a lot of time at Express — that’s 80 percent of my wardrobe. Also Calvin Klein, American Eagle, Abercrombie, and on occasion H&M, but not too much.
What is your favorite thing to wear? I like button downs, Chino pants, and sweaters. That will be subject to weather change.
Which era’s style do you wish to return to? I like where we are at. I just think there’s something to be said for professionalism. I think at such an academicallydriven institution like Hillsdale, we have a reputation to uphold, and I think that we do dress substantially better than other colleges.
Who are your fashion icons? The economics department, namely Charles Steele and Gary Wolfram. Also Sam Grinis, who is an anomaly in himself. Scott McClallen | Collegian
Scott McClallen | Collegian