Hillsdale Collegian 1.18.18 by The Hillsdale Collegian

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Vol. 141 Issue 14 - January 18, 2018

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Caitlin (third from left) and Tyler (second from left in back row) Horning ‘06 donated Donna the triceratops to Hillsdale College. Anthony Swinehart | Courtesy

‘Donna’ the Triceratops comes to Hillsdale’s Fisk Museum

‘Mostly complete’ skeleton makes Hillsdale the smallest dinosaur museum By | Madeleine Jepsen Science & Tech Editor A 66 million-year-old triceratops skeleton joined the collection of the Daniel M. Fisk Museum of Natural History in the Strosacker Science Center today in an unveiling ceremony at noon. The skeleton, named Donna, is more than 60 percent complete, and joins “Linda” the edmontosaurus in the museum. Professor of Biology Anthony Swinehart, curator of the Fisk Museum, said triceratops bones are relatively common in dinosaur territory, but the bone configuration of this particular skeleton is rare, and there are less than 10 triceratops skeletons like it. The addition of the triceratops makes Hillsdale one of two or three places in the entire state of Michigan where real-bone dinosaurs are on display, Swinehart said. “Most collegiate institutions have gotten rid of their museum collections, while Hillsdale College has been rebuilding its museum and associated collections,” Swinehart said in an email. “That seems fitting to me. While many others naively do away with natural history collections as vestiges of an ‘antiquated discipline,’ Hillsdale College — being the standard-bearer for traditional education — continues to honor this traditional science and recognizes that it still has

great value, both intrinsically and in terms of valuable applications to problem solving.” The skeleton was discovered on private property in North Dakota in 2015 by Jim Braswell, an amateur fossil collector. Swinehart and three Hillsdale students, Lily Carville ’17, Matthew Hoenig ’17, and Randall Rush ’17 helped with the excavation process. The skeleton was donated by Caitlin and Tyler Horning ’06. Although the exact monetary value of the skeleton was not made public, Swinehart said the skeleton is incredibly valuable. Associate Professor of Anthropology Steve Nicklas at the University of North Georgia, a colleague of Swinehart’s, and his students also helped to excavate the skeleton and prepare it for display. “He was the one that cleaned and glued and stabilized the bones and put it in the mount,” Swinehart said. Carville credits Swinehart for allowing students to play a significant role in the excavation of the skeleton. “A big shoutout goes to Dr. Swinehart for bringing students to help him,” Carville said. “He could’ve gone on his own or just brought some of his friends and colleagues, but instead he brought Hillsdale students and made it an incredible learning opportunity.” Carville, who wrote her senior biology thesis on the environmental conditions

Lily Carville, Matthew Hoenig, and Randall Rush (all 2017 alumni) sit around bones covered in plaster jackets while extracting part of the triceratops’ rear foot. Anthony Swinehard | Courtesy

near the skeleton, said half the skeleton was mostly intact, while the other half had eroded away. “A lot of the work was just figuring out where the bones were,” Carville said. “I kind of expected it to be like ‘Jurassic Park,’ where you are brushing off the skeleton with a toothbrush, but a lot of it was just going at a hill with pickaxes.” Carville and Swinehart said the triceratops was most likely at the edge of a river when

it died and was covered by a flash flood event. A variety of conditions must exist for a fossil to form, making their occurence relatively rare, Tyler Horning said. “You think about all the factors that go into having such a well-preserved skeleton,” Horning said. “It’s been in the ground like that for 66 million years, even with all the changes in environment and stone piling on top of it. That’s pretty amazing.”

The Triceratops horridus were plant-eating, horned dinosaurs alive during the last two million years of the Mesozoic Era, called the “Age of Reptiles,” and died off when the impact from a large meteor ended the reign of the dinosaurs, Swinehart said. They lived in what is now Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Alberta, Canada. Triceratops reached a maximum length of about 29 feet

and weighed up to 12 tons. Braswell gave the Triceratops horridus displayed in the Fisk Museum the name Donna in honor of his wife. The skeleton’s skull measures 7 feet across and has a hole in it from injuries during its lifetime, Swinehart said. “The frill that they have on the back of the skull has a hole in it from fighting with another triceratops,” Swinehart said. “Probably it was two males fighting, but we don’t know if it was a male or female dinosaur.” The fossil also contains an articulated arm, meaning that all the bones in one of the forearms were preserved — a rare find that will help paleontologists determine the triceratops’ posture and how it used its limbs to walk, Swinehart said. “We can find a random toe bone and say it’s a toe bone, but sometimes we aren’t able to distinguish which finger it came from or which exact position it is,” Swinehart said. “If we have that and we know exactly which finger it came from and so on, we can look at muscle attachment sites, and that can help us determine exactly how they walked. So it’s a really cool detective story, and there’s only been one paper ever published on it from one specimen that’s at the Black Hills Institute Museum in South Dakota.”

See Skeleton A7

50 Hillsdale students tour Israel

Students on the Dateline Jerusalem trip sponsored by The Philos Project visited the Temple Mount in israel. Josephine von Dohlen | Collegian Follow @HDaleCollegian

said. “Passages wants us to Arranged by Vivian Hugh“I think it’s important for By | Jordyn Pair leave with more questions banks ‘16 and Nicole Foy, a student journalists interestNews Editor than answers. I feel like that reporter at the Idaho Press ed in pursuing a career as a Two groups of Hillsdale was accomplished.” Tribune, the group attended foreign correspondent in the College students attended In addition to the group journalism-specific events in region to have a solid grasp of a 10-day trip to Israel over of Hillsdale students on the addition to visiting locations the geopolitical significance Christmas break to learn general Passages tour of Israel, typical of other groups. The and religious heritage of the about the Israeli-Palestinian a group of Hillsdale College Dateline Jerusalem trip lasted Holy Land,” Hughbanks said conflict and visit biblical sites. journalists were part of the 10 days and was attended by in an email. Coordinated by Passages in first Dateline Jerusalem group. 29 students from 16 schools. In addition to visiting partnership with The Philos locations such Project, 41 students attended as the Garden of the general Passages trip to Gethsemane, the Israel and nine attended a Western Wall, and specialized trip for student Nazareth, the group journalists. also heard from Senior Jonathan Moy said various reporters he attended the general tour and other media both for spiritual reasons contacts, as well as and to absorb the culture in visited a newsroom order to better understand the in Jerusalem. conflict. “Our bus had an “It’s one thing to hear from expanded itinerary,” Americans,” Moy said. “It’s Hughbanks said. better to hear from Israeli and “In addition to the Palestinian citizens.” typical sites and The group visited historical speakers, we met and holy sites like the Garden with journalists of Gethsemane and Hezekiah’s and media watchTunnel, stayed in Jerusalem, dog organizations, and heard from various speaktoured the newsers on the conflict in Israel. room of [Israeli “Everyone in America wire service] thinks they have a solution The Passages group visited the Western Wall. Jordyn Pair | Collegian See Israel A2 for Israel and Palestine,” Moy www.hillsdalecollegian.com Look for The Hillsdale Collegian

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Kiplinger’s names Hillsdale in top 15 best value liberal arts colleges By | Jordyn Pair News Editor Kiplinger’s Personal Finance named Hillsdale College as the top best value liberal arts college in the Midwest. The 300 Best College Values for 2018 list released in December named Hillsdale the 14th best value liberal arts college in the United States. Hillsdale was 26th of all U.S. colleges and universities, as well, up from 36 last year. Kiplinger’s is a financial advice publication based in Washington, D.C. It looked at colleges’ sticker price as well as the average amount of aid

they award students. Hillsdale College awards some form of scholarship or grant to 95 percent of the student body, according to Richard Moeggenberg, director of student records and financial aid. He estimates that roughly half of students receive gift aid that covers half of their costs. “With an average gift aid amount near $18,000 for this year, we can at least make an estimation that just less than half our students have been awarded scholarship monies, which cover at least 50 percent of their billed costs,” Moeggenberg said. In the list of best value overall, Hillsdale College beat

out institutions such as Brown University, Cornell University, and University of Florida. It still falls behind Harvard University, Dartmouth College, and Yale University. The top three slots were taken by Princeton University, Davidson College, and Swarthmore College, respectively. In the list of best value among liberal colleges, Hillsdale College outranked colleges such as Grinnell College, Kenyon College, and Wheaton College. The top three slots were taken by Davidson College, Swarthmore College, and Pomona College, respectively. “It’s not about the money or the building,” Moeggenberg

said. “We have an outstanding education. We have worldclass faculty here.” Students agree with Kiplinger’s assessment. Senior class president Razi Lane has three scholarships, one of which has a work requirement. Although Lane’s award is tied to a paying job, some scholarships have a volunteer requirement. Scholarships like these enrich the culture at Hillsdale, Lane said. “It exerts us to give back to the community in a meaningful way,” Lane said. “Hillsdale experiences with these scholarships build character in a way other schools can’t.” Senior David Stone said

Hillsdale’s refusal to accept federal funding allows the college to create an independent educational experience. “If you have people giving money, you’re going to have people telling you what to do,” Stone said. “If we were getting federal funding, there would be a lot more focus on the liberal agenda [in classrooms].” Both students said they feel as if they are getting their money’s worth. Moeggenberg said the operating on donations affects how the school operates. “We have an incentive to keep our cost down,” he said. “It’s our responsibility to our donors.”

Lane also noted the effect donors and other alumni have on current students. “Hillsdale’s culture ties community so tight,” he said. “Alumni reach back into the undergraduate pool and employ them.” Moeggenberg said he expects Hillsdale will be on lists like Kiplinger’s for a long time. “I think our academic reputation will put us on this list forever,” he said. “In comparison to other schools, we’ve done well.”

Hillsdale avoids new federal endowment tax By | Breana Noble Editor-in-Chief Hillsdale College will not have to pay a new federal excise tax on college endowments, at least for now. As a part of the Republican tax package signed into law by President Donald Trump on Dec. 22, private, nonprofit colleges and universities must pay a 1.4 percent tax on their endowment’s yearly income. The tax, however, only applies to institutions with an endowment greater than $500,000 per student and more than 500 students. About 30 colleges qualify. Hillsdale’s endowment was nearly $570 million by

the end of 2017, according to Patrick Flannery, college treasurer and vice president of finance. That is about $378,000 per student. A $754 million endowment for Hillsdale’s approximately 1,500 students would qualify it for the tax. Since September 2013, the college’s endowment has grown by 47 percent, and it grew by more than 14 percent in 2017 alone. Flannery said he could not provide an accurate prediction of when Hillsdale’s endowment could become taxable or how much it would pay if it were to reach that threshold. Flannery told The Collegian in September that Hillsdale’s goal is to grow the

endowment, especially for scholarships, to $800,000 over the next few years. The college’s fundraising and income benchmarks remain intact, agreed Flannery and Nancy Johnson, executive director of institutional advancement. “The recent tax change hasn’t caused us to adjust our goal for the endowment,” Flannery said in an email. The $500,000-per-student threshold for the endowment excise marked a change from the original House-proposed tax bill. That bill set the qualifying endowment size to $250,000, which would have made Hillsdale pay up to $700,000 a year to the federal government.

The view of Jerusalem from the City of David. Josephine von Dohlen | Collegian

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Tazpit Press Service, and included time during the program for students to conduct interviews and work on their stories.” Each student was required to write an article on the trip. Senior and journalism minor Brendan Clarey said he was surprised at how much journalism was on the trip. “The journalism part was really appealing to me,” Clarey said. “It’s not just a pilgrimage.” Clarey added that going on the trip impacted how he will

report and consume international news. “In America, we like to have binary conflicts,” Clarey said. “It’s way more complicated than the news media wants to let on.” Clarey added that he was impacted in particular by a speech about bias in the wire services, which provide articles for outlets around the world. “I’m going to think twice before reading Associated Press or Reuters,” he said. The dateline tour was also the first Passages group to visit the Temple Mount complex.

The Senate later amended the bill, upping the threshold. That change was included in the bill’s final version, after the chambers reconciled the legislation in a conference committee. Hillsdale made news in early December, before the Senate first voted on the tax legislation, because of an amendment added by Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Ted Cruz of Texas that would have exempted any college that refuses federal money, such as Hillsdale, from paying the tax no matter the endowment size threshold. Although the amendment was later removed, the floor

debate centered on Hillsdale, which has the largest endowment of the at least 10 schools in this category. Several Democratic senators inquired if the U.S. Education Department’s secretary, Betsy DeVos, has donated to Hillsdale’s endowment. Original review of recent public records from the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation found no evidence a donation to Hillsdale College. According to documents later obtained by The Collegian, the foundation donated $35,000 to Hillsdale College as an unrestricted grant to its general fund in 2016. It donated to six other colleges and universities or af-

filiated organizations, as well. Toomey received campaign donations from Betsy DeVos in 2010 and 2015, and her husband has donated to his campaign, as well. The senator’s spokesman, Steve Kelly, previously told The Collegian that neither Toomey nor his staff had collaborated with DeVos or her office on tax reform. Since the tax exemption for colleges that do not receive government money was not included in the Senate or the House tax bills, it could not be added during the conference committee.

A mosaic on the wall separating Israel and the Gaza Strip. Josephine von Dohlen | Collegian

“The schedule was packed—I think we were all completely exhausted by the end of the trip—but each participant filed at least one story before we got on the plane home,” Hughbanks. Hughbanks said that, overall, this first journalism trip went well. “We had a great group of student journalists from across the country, and each took advantage of different angles the itinerary provided,” Hughbanks said. “I’m hoping that the excellent work of the participants on this trip will set a good precedent for future trips.”

A group of 41 Hillsdale students visited Israel over Christmas break. Rachael Reynolds | Collegian

Immigration complicates passage of spending bill

False phone alert warns of missles, causes scare

Meteor explodes over southeastern Michigan

North and South Korea unite in Olympics

Google app unavailable in Illinois and Texas

Congress is facing a potential government shutdown on Friday, if it doesn’t pass a spending bill. Democrats have said they will not allow the bill to pass without an agreement to shield thousands of young immigrants from deportation.

A Hawaiian state employee accidentally clicked the wrong button on a computer that sent a ballistic missile alert to the phones of Hawaiian residents. Many became panicked until the government sent out a false alarm notification 38 minutes later.

A meteor exploded over southeastern Michigan after entering the Earth’s atmosphere on Tuesday evening. It created a flash of light that could be seen in New York City and parts of Canada.

North and South Korea will enter the Winter Olympics in February under a united Korean flag. This is South Korea’s most significant embrace of its northern neighbor in over a decade, which could also possibly strain relations between South Korea and the U.S.

Google’s popular Arts & Culture App, which matches a user’s selfie to a historical painting, is unavailable in Illinois and Texas. Experts say this is because of state restrictions on using biometric data such as fingerprints and facial scans.

The dateline journalism tour visited many scenic areas. Jordyn Pair | Collegian

things to know from this week

-Compiled by Brooke Conrad

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Oprah’s fame doesn’t threaten Trump in 2020 By | Garrison Grisedale Special to The Collegian When Oprah Winfrey took the stage at the Golden Globes to speak about the evils of sexual assault, pundits began to spread rumors of a 2020 presidential candidacy. The speech was so well received that we just might forget Oprah is a longtime friend of Harvey Weinstein. Rich Lowry, editor-in-chief of National Review, warned conservatives to take Oprah seriously. According to Lowry, President Donald Trump’s election proved “that a celebrity with charisma, performative ability, and gobs of free media can, in the right circumstances, stomp conventional politicians.” Ben Shapiro bemoaned that “electing the president has become the equivalent of voting for the royal family, rather than voting for a person to implement policy.” Eugene Scott wrote in The Washington Post that conservative arguments of inexperience against Oprah are invalid in light of Trump. But Scott, Lowry, Shapiro, and others do not acknowledge the arguments for Trump. He won, not because he was a celebrity outsider, but because he challenged a decades-long bipartisan consensus on three key issues: immigration, trade, and foreign policy. Though erratically and imprecisely, Trump presented a renewed understanding of citizenship, nationhood, and sovereignty. The idea that the American government ought to serve the American people animated his campaign. This is not to say his outsider status hurt him. Trump himself is a sort of paradox to the flyover state Christian; he’s a rich, irreligious, coastal elite. But at the same time, of all those in the political sphere, Trump appeals to them the most. He talks like he just sat down on the barstool next to you. Although he is no political philosopher, he recognizes truths that seem blurred when looked on from above. Truths that can only be seen, as Machiavelli says in the preface to “The Prince,” from the place of the vulgar. Former Republican presidential candidates Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson were also political outsiders. Where was their automatic support? And Trump was far outspent by candidates such as Jeb Bush. It wasn’t about the money. This is why the thesis of Lowry, Scott, and Shapiro falls short; it attributes Trump’s meteoric rise to his celebrity status, his bombastic tone, the myopia of the masses, really anything but his message. Trump ran a fairly conventional campaign. He picked a few major issues and stuck

to them. As it happened, those issues were important to the American people. By championing these common sense “America First” policies, Trump demonstrated prudence and courage. Although his past may not be spotless, he must be evaluated on his ability to rule. Plato points to prudence, not chastity, as the virtue of the statesman. Indeed, look to our own American history: Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin were both instrumental to the American Founding. Neither was known for his sexual restraint. Trump also displayed a certain courage on the campaign trail. He called Hillary Clinton an enabler and lined up her husband’s accusers by the debate stage. He advocated for a total shutdown on Muslim immigration until we have adequate vetting measures. He spoke uncomfortable truths on crime and immigration. He challenged the “fake news” media head on. The list goes on. But most importantly, Trump denounced the inability or refusal of the political class to serve the American people. Can one imagine a Jeb Bush or John Kasich openly humiliating North Korean tin-pot dictator Kim Jong Un? But only after Trump’s “unpresidential” tweets did “Little Rocket Man” open talks with South Korea for the first time in more than two years. Shakespeare’s acerbic pen rings right: “Truth is truth to the end of reckoning.” And Trump, for all his crassness, seems to have the courage to speak the truth. Courage, as Solzhenitsyn warned the West in his famous “Harvard Address,” is in short supply. It’s only gotten worse since he uttered those prophetic words in 1978. Oprah may be in a position to run for president. Ironically, one of Trump’s first inclinations toward politics was an interview with Oprah herself in 1988. He told her he probably wouldn’t ever run for president — unless things got really bad. In Plato’s “Republic,” Socrates describes the just ruler: he “drudges in politics,” not out of a desire to rule, but because he does not want to be ruled by someone worse than himself. Trump was tired of being ruled by people worse than himself. But his outsider appeal only gets him so far; stances, not status, catapulted him to the White House. He is doomed in 2020 if he abandons those core issues. If all he brings to the table is his celebrity status, he’ll be any old billionaire — like Oprah. Garrison Grisedale is a junior studying politics.

The opinion of The Collegian editorial staff Choose life. Choose a college. Choose classes. Choose the arcana of the studentry — pencils, highlighters, book darts, and the Burton Raffel translation of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Choose your friends. Choose matching Under Armour leggings, and never rock Filas. Choose Netflix; ditch chill. Choose

a seven-hour marathon of “The Office” punctuated by 15-minute intervals of frantic attempts to assemble a coherent annotated bibliography for Professor of English Justin Jackson. Choose freaking out at the beginning, middle, and end of each semester, becoming a hazard to your roommate’s sanity and an

aural slave to Frank Ocean’s Balmain yelps. Choose internship applications, meetings with Professor of History Paul Rahe about your future in public policy, and the constant dread that all of this — All Of This — will culminate in a white collar Phoenix-based waste management job that leaves you in the lurch of

the collective longing that is history. Choose your future. Choose life. But why would you want to do a thing like that? We chose not to let anxiety guide our semesters or our lives. We chose a loving community that makes this place a home, even if only for a short while. Yeah, choose that.

Embrace Martin Luther King, revolutionary ideas and all By | Cal Abbo Assistant Editor Our society and education system have failed to understand the true extent of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy as a great American in our arduous and protracted history of the struggle for freedom and justice. As an activist, King valued each and every human life, judging them not “by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Yet, his mission went far beyond race into questions of human dignity and America’s values. He wrote in an essay, “The black revolution is much more than a struggle for the rights of Negroes. It is, rather, forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws: racism, poverty, militarism, and materialism.” King stood out for his nonviolent form of activism. As a preacher, he embodied the doctrine of turning the other cheek and loving your enemies originally proposed by Jesus Christ two millennia ago. Not only did King see peace as a necessary ethic for any person, but he thought it was the most effective means to end racial injustice. Integral to his belief in peaceful activism, the reverend unapologetically demanded equality through civil disobedience. He condemned slow progress in favor of immediate reforms through “militant, powerful, massive nonviolence” in “The Other America.” In his essay titled “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” he wrote, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” Along with his commitment to nonviolence, King urged understanding of people who act violently against systemic oppression. Today, exercising this philosophy could help us discern how best to eliminate the conditions “that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to

engage in violent rebellions.” In another speech called “Beyond Vietnam,” King said, “We may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.” A strong desire from King to appreciate and acknowledge negative perceptions of his country and culture is what made him a true revolutionary. In the same speech, King said, “The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.” King saw the black freedom endeavor as one that’s interconnected with the struggle against empire around the world. In his later years, he became the most outspoken critic of the Vietnam war, connecting foreign expenditures to the country’s inability to address the problem of poverty. In “Beyond Vietnam,” he also recognized the U.S.’s role in oppressing Vietnam, falling “victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long.” He noted, “Even though the Vietnamese quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them.” He continued to attack U.S. imperialism, indicting his own government as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” In the last few years of his life, King focused on supporting worker unions and organized labor. While fighting for better wages and safer working conditions, he boldly declared, “All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.” King believed that without a “radical redistribution of political and economic power” America would never solve racial and economic injustice. He aimed to restore the power to change wages and acquire safer working conditions to

laborers instead of owners through mass association and solidarity—a message that a relatively powerless labor force nowadays should certainly organize around. The reverend also despised the materialism that our country seemed to value above all. He called it in “The Three Evils of Society,” observing that “we are now experiencing the coming to the surface of a triple prong sickness that has been lurking within our body politic from its very begin-

“The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of racism.” ning. That is the sickness of racism, excessive materialism and militarism.” Additionally, in “Beyond Vietnam,” he argued, “We must rapidly begin to shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism, and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered.” Most striking, though, is how an ever-evolving King came to see capitalism toward the end of his life. His questions regarding the relationship between capitalism and the poor became central to his movement. “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar,” King said. “it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.” King saw a connection between the plight of black Americans and capitalism. “The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism,” he said in an address to the Southern Christian Leadership Con-

ference board in 1967. He even suggested a controversial welfare policy: the universal basic income. King’s radical ideas stemmed from a religious perspective, too. “If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God’s children to have the basic necessities of life,” he said, “she too will go to hell.” He eventually called for a mixed market system: “Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social.” He believed in a “synthesis” of both. He also thought it “a crime” that people living in the richest country in the world received starvation wages. Most importantly, he never disconnected the oppressive history of America from its economic system. “The fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor: both black and white, both here and abroad,” King said. Fifty years later, the U.S. exports exploitation of the poor to Asia, its companies enforcing atrocious working conditions and wage levels to manufacture goods for its citizens. King’s racial justice movement successfully transitioned into an aptly named “Poor People’s Campaign.” The new crusade demanded a revamped bill of economic rights, including a massive government spending project on cities and infrastructure. Up to 50,000 Americans participated in a protest camp on the Washington Mall, but King was not among them; he had been fatally shot in the head about one month earlier at the young age of 39. It’s only fitting to honor King’s brilliant examination of America’s institutions by shedding light on all of his analyses, not just the ones we agree with. Cal Abbo is a freshman studying the liberal arts.

Meal plans need more flexibility By | Scott McClallen Assistant Editor Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas described the college as “a trustee of the heritage that finds its clearest expression in the American experiment of self-government under law” at Hillsdale College’s 146th commencement speech in 2016. This reflects the college’s mission statement “to develop the minds and improve the hearts of students” and to prepare students to meet the challenges of modern life. Hillsdale College’s meal plan policy undermines the mission statement and self-government by preventing students from learning valuable life skills. There is no question underclassmen rely on the meal plan to balance their diet of ramen and coffee, but a mandatory meal plan for upperclassmen who live off campus. Hillsdale offers six meal plans, four of which are available to those living in dormitories. The cheapest meal plan, 10

meals per week, is only offered to off-campus students and residents of the Suites. It costs $17.70 per meal. There is no doubt students can feed themselves for less — even eating every meal at Olivia’s Chophouse. Upperclassmen must pick either a few, expensive swipes, or too many, wasting hundreds of dollars in leftover meals come the semester’s end. At lunch, students must squeeze around sorority, language, and admission tables in a dining hall that feels too small for the number of students. Some students with strict lunch schedules may forego the meal altogether. Hillsdale should try a different way. In 2014, Hillsdale College’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom petitioned to reform meal plans to resemble those of Kalamazoo and Adrian colleges, two institutions of similar size to Hillsdale. These colleges, which only require residence hall students to have meal plans, contract with Sodexo, a multinational food service. Sodexo offers small-

er, more flexible meal plans that integrate students with townspeople and include local businesses. After two days, the petition failed. “We take the view here that the old understanding is the correct one; the things we do together: talking, living, eating, classes are all important,” College President Larry Arnn told The Collegian at the time. “The dining service is not a major source of net revenue to the college. We do all in our power to make it good and to make it affordable. It matters that the students gather to dine.” Arnn’s email implied that students would lose a sense of community if Hillsdale gave students a choice in selecting meal plans. Community is unquestionably essential to Hillsdale’s atmosphere, reflected in long Sunday brunches and student-led dormitory Bible studies. But the best community is voluntary. Community ceases to exist when students are forced to eat elbow-to-elbow, unable to stand without

bumping another student. Community is not exclusive to the dining hall; it exists wherever people choose to gather. One way the college could improve the meal plan while preserving community is to let students spend their dollars at local businesses or at grocery stores. Broadening dining options would not destroy community. It could even strengthen the college’s relationship with the city. It could divert dining hall traffic, save students money, and offer cooking experience to prepare for when dinner means more than swiping into a cafeteria. Justice Thomas likened Hillsdale College to a “shining city on a hill” for believing “liberty as an antecedent of government, not a benefit from government.” Hillsdale should give students the liberty to choose from more options for their meal plan to prepare themselves for life after graduation. Scott McClallen is a senior studying economics.

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Fifty Five Broad Street boasts a wide selection of wines. Josephine von Dohlen | Collegian

Co-owner Ben Baldwin holds the new Broad Street logo. Josephine von Dohlen | Collegian

Fifty Five Broad Street plans to open a bar in the future. Josephine von Dohlen | Collegian

Broad Street reopens: New owners offer new drink options

By | Josephine von Dohlen Assistant Editor Fifty Five Broad Street is open for business. Co-owners Ben Baldwin and Dallas Russell held a soft opening of their store, Fifty Five Broad Street, Monday morning, revealing a wide variety of beers and wines for sale, as well as various snacks and other drinks. “We had a steady flow of people coming in and checking the place out,” Baldwin said. “Some were just stopping by and others were buying beers and wines.” Since the closing of Broad Street Downtown Market and Tavern due to foreclosure in January 2017, Baldwin and Russell have been trying to secure licensing in order to

open the store. “It’s just been a nightmare,” Baldwin said. “Plus, with the building being shut down for a year, there was a lack of maintenance.” Now that they have overcome the licensing obstacles to open their bar, Baldwin and Russell have several plans for the place in the coming months and years. Eventually, the main floor will feature a variety of beers, wines, and liquors, as well as a private bar on the main level that will have both indoor and outdoor seating. Baldwin said he hopes that the private bar in the basement will serve as a venue for a variety of events in Hillsdale. Some groups at the college have already started hosting events in the basement of

Fifty Five Broad Street, which features a private bar as well as a DJ table, a large space for dancing, dining, and games such as pool. “They loved having their own space,” Baldwin said. “We want it to be a place where people are able to go somewhere, have a private bar, and a whole place to themselves.” Senior Zoe Harness, the Hillsdale Chi Omega social chair, planned her sorority’s winter formal in the basement level of Fifty Five Broad Street. “When I was an underclassman, we had events there with Student Activities Board, and I always thought it was a really cool location,” she said. Harness said Baldwin was helpful and excited to help her with hosting the event. “He really wants to be

part of the community and especially reach out to college students,” Harness said. As Baldwin and his team continues to move forward, he said they are most looking forward to “just bringing entertainment back to the city.” Baldwin said events in the future could possibly feature live entertainment, especially as they expand and add more comfortable seating in the basement. The downstairs bar plans to host some events where all students, even those under 21, would be able to attend. “We need a club, a place where people can just dance,” Baldwin said. He said he and his team just want to cater to what they see fit in the town as things come up.

A meteor flew over Michigan on Tuesday night, visible from multiple states. Facebook

Fireball rips across Hillsdale night sky By | Nic Rowan city new editor A flash of light and a ball of fire ignited the Midwestern sky Tuesday nighy, captivating the eyes of anyone who happened to look up at the sky around 8:10 p.m.. According to the Detroit Free Press, people reported seeing what scientists are officially terming a “fireball” in all parts of Michigan and in other states including Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri as well as Ontario, Canada. Estimated to be about two meters in diameter, the fireball moved slowly down the sky and caused an earthquake registering at a magnitude of 2.0, according to the United States Geological Survey. Both students and Hillsdale

residents reported seeing and hearing the fireball. According to the Hillsdale County Sheriff ’s Office, deputies were dispatched to the area of Half Moon Lake Road in Fayette Township following reports of an unexplained object that “looked like a ball of flames” in the sky. The Sheriff ’s office was unable to comment on their findings. Senior Aaron Andrews said he was hanging out with friends when he saw a ball of light streaming down the sky. Although silent, he said he could see pieces of rock flying off as it made its descent. The light was so bright that not only did it light up the sky outside, but it also lit up the interior of the house where Andrews and his friends were sitting.

“It was kind of like a shooting star, but multiplied by 20,” he said. Senior Nathan Steinmeyer said he had a similar experience as he was walking out of the Mossey Library on the path down to the Howard Music Building. According to Steinmeyer, the light looked like a Roman candle that lasted for 15-30 seconds before fizzling out toward the ground. “It was remarkably like a firework,” he said. Steinmeyer also noted the meteor’s silence, which he said made the sparks shooting off of it all the more remarkable. Over near the hospital, Hillsdale resident Penny Swan said she did not see the meteor, but only heard it. Swan had just eaten dinner and was cleaning up her house when

she heard a rumble. Thinking it was an earthquake, she checked Facebook to see what happened. No one had reported on an earthquake, so she thought nothing of the incident for the time. “I assumed it was just a truck until I saw the reports much later,” she said. Assistant Professor of Physics Timothy Dolch said these types of fireballs are more common than people tend to think, citing a famous 2013 incident when a fireball in Russia was so bright that it even lit up the sky during the daytime. According to Dolch, this most recent Michigan fireball was brighter than a full moon. “These sorts of things certainly are pretty startling,” he said.

By | Nic Rowan city new editor The Hillsdale City Council unanimously passed a motion to recommend three city logo and tagline options for the City of Hillsdale on Monday. According to Mayor Adam Stockford, the city hired the graphic design company Muldrow & Associates to

design a new typeface for the city. These new designs come after the last round of proposed branding aroused dissatisfaction from the local community. Of the seven proposed taglines, Stockford recommended the council choose the three it liked the most. The council decided on “Classic. Creative. Community,” “Family. Tradi-

tion. Opprtunity,” and “Small Town Feel. Lasting Impact.” Stockford noted that although he favored the second option, he would recommend that if adopted, the city spell “opportunity” correctly. During the meeting, both Stockford and City Manager David Mackie recognized the significant time and effort of community members and city

staff put toward city rebranding efforts. “There’s a lot of work that went into this, I know that,” Stockford said. The council has yet to post a poll on its Facebook page or post one via news media, but the three options are pictured below.

Council approves plans for new branding

The new branding options proposed for Hillsdale. City of hillsdale

Baldwin said the place will be equipped with Wi-Fi, so students can stop by, hang out, and have a place to work upstairs. Several students expressed excitement as they came back for the new semester with Fifty Five Broad Street already opened. “Until now, quality craft beer was scarce in Hillsdale,” Senior Brant Cohen said. “I took a walk through the store yesterday and left very optimistic.” Cohen said when he was a freshman, he remembers hearing the upperclassmen praise the beer selection of the former Broad Street Market and Tavern. “I am excited this is coming back my senior year, and I hope it is just as good,”

he said. “I imagine I will be there frequently looking for great new choices that I could not otherwise find around Hillsdale.” Senior Joshua Liebhauser already has purchased from Fifty Five Broad Street, which is just down the street from where he lives. “They have a great selection of Michigan craft beers, a lot of wine, and they have a pending liquor license,” Liebhauser said. “I will definitely purchase from them rather than driving to Kroger or Walmart and buying from their limited selections.” “The beer I got from them was great, and they have more IPAs than I could drink in my last semester here,” Liebhauser said.

By | Nic Rowan city new editor The Hillsdale City Council unanimously approved a request from Meijer Inc. to install a new 12-inch water main that would service the future grocery store at meeting on Jan. 15. This decision came following Fayette Township’s approval of a revenue sharing 425 Agreement with Hillsdale in December that will allow Meijer to build a store in Hillsdale County. According to the agreement, Meijer will pay upfront the $600,000 needed to build the water main. The City of Hillsdale will compensate the corporation for the pipe, using funds other businesses pay the Board of Public Utilities to connect to the larger pipe. According to the BPU, hookup fee will be about $2,500. Throughout the negotiations with Meijer, it was never stated that the city would eventually pay for the new water main, according to City Manager David Mackie, who added such a request is not uncommon. “As a show of good faith of the city’s support of the project, we thought this request was fine and common,” he said. Councilman Matt Bell initially took issue with the new proposal, saying the city in essence would be paying for the pipe by funding pipeline hook-ups that it otherwise would have raised revenue from for itself. Mackie said although Meijer was unclear in its intentions, the city would not have been able to afford to build a new water main unless Meijer had offered to pay for it upfront. Mackie also stressed that deals like this will benefit the BPU and the city in the long run because a new 12-inch water main will give the community the capacity for additional growth. As of now, businesses located near the proposed spots for the new pipe will not have to hook-up to the new pipe, because it is intended for Meijer’s use. This most recent development comes in a long line of setbacks and renegotions between Meijer, Hillsdale and Fayette Township that began last spring when the Grand Rapids-based corporation approached the city for public

utilities use and the township for use of its land. To even buy the land in Fayette Township, both Hillsdale and Fayette were required to sign a 425 Agreement approved by the state of Michigan, which would ensure that the corporation could build and operate a grocery store on the land. Per the agreement, Hillsdale and Fayette would share tax revenues from Meijer. Following the introduction of the 425 Agreement, a number of local Hillsdale business owners spoke out against the agreement, fearing the introduction of a Meijer could hurt local businesses. At a Nov. 6 meeting, the council failed to take up a motion to pass the 425 Agreement, leaving it to be decided after the mayoral and council elections. At the first meeting after the elections, the motion passed unanimously. Once the 425 Agreement passed in Hillsdale, it was left to the Fayette Township Board to give it final approval before filing it with the state. The

City approves compensation plan for new Meijer water line

“As a show of good faith of the city’s support of the project, we thought this request was fine and common” motion froze in a 2-2 deadlock on Nov. 29 in Fayette, because Supervisor John Kalusniak was not present to vote. Kalusniak called a special meeting on Dec. 12 and cast a tie-breaking vote in favor of the 425 Agreement. Now that the agreement has passed in both Hillsdale and Fayette, Meijer has the approval to build a grocery store on the property located between Beck Road and Frank Beck Chevrolet. According to a Meijer representative, a new store could be a long time coming. The corporation has stores planned to open in Jamestown, Marquette, and Warren in 2018, but not in Hillsdale County.

Charger

JAN. 18, 2018

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL FALLS AFTER TWO WINS OVER G-MAC LEADERS By | S. Nathaniel Grime Assistant Editor Fresh off of victories against the top two teams in the G-MAC, the Hillsdale College Chargers couldn’t quite complete a trifecta by defeating the third-place Cedarville University Yellow Jackets on Monday. The Chargers (9-7, 7-5 G-MAC) led by as many as nine points late in the second quarter and held a 35-33 advantage at halftime. A rough third quarter, however, resulted in Hillsdale being on the wrong side of a 80-75 score when the final buzzer sounded. Hillsdale had beaten Ursuline College, undefeated in the conference at the time, on Jan. 6 and first-place University of Findlay on Jan. 13, heading into the game against Cedarville. Head coach Matt Fritsche said the lack of time to prepare for the Yellow Jackets (13-3, 8-2) was tough for his team. “It was a really quick turnaround to play here on Saturday [against Findlay] and get back down to Cedarville on Monday night against teams that were polar opposites,” Fritsche said. “We didn’t want to overwhelm our team with information, we wanted to give them a little

bit of freedom and let them rest on the day in between, but we probably should have been a little bit more adamant about the information we had available for our kids.” Hillsdale shot 40.3 percent from the floor, a dip from its previous two games. In comparison, Cedarville shot 50.9 percent and 42.9 percent from three-point range. Shooting percentage proved to be the difference in a game decided by just five points. “It’s never fun losing knowing you just missed shots,” junior forward Makenna Ott said. “We did all we could do. The past couple of games, we’ve been missing shots. They haven’t been falling for us. Our time will come when we start hitting them. Cedarville hit a lot of shots, credit to them for that.” Junior guard Allie Dewire, along with Ott, led the way with 19 points each. Junior forward Brittany Gray added 18. “Having three players score in double digits is really good,” Ott said. “That means we’re sharing the ball really well and that we’re able to score and take advantage of the matchups we have. With our team, any game could be like that.” Hillsdale, the top rebounding team in the conference, was out-rebounded by

Cedarville, 39-32. Fritsche pointed out, however, that the Chargers grabbed 13 offensive rebounds on 43 missed shots, and held the Yellow Jackets to seven offensive rebounds on 26 missed shots. “The thing we want to look at is percentage of offensive rebounds,” Fritsche said. “Percentages are the statistics we pay attention to more than anything. If we miss a lot more shots, they’re going to have more rebounds. We actually won that battle, even though it looks weird.” Since the beginning of the season, Hillsdale has improved ball security. On Monday, the Chargers turned the ball over only six times, resulting in just two points for Cedarville. On the contrary, Hillsdale’s defense forced 11 turnovers and turned them into 20 points the other way. Fritsche said an improved offensive motion has eased the early-season turbulence of taking care of the ball. “They’re trusting each other a lot better,” Fritsche said of his team. “We had plays the last three games that really focused on making plays for other people. When the ball moves like that for us, we’re really hard to guard. That’s been the improvement most of all: our movement on and off the ball.” Fritsche credited the work

ethic of the entire team for the offensive uptick. “The reason our motion has gotten better is because our practices have been really good,” Fritsche said. “The kids that are not playing as many minutes are pushing and sometimes beating the kids in practice that are playing minutes.” Cedarville’s run came in the third quarter, where they outscored Hillsdale 24-13. Gray pointed to the need for the defense to tighten up in order to prevent opponents from swinging the momentum. “Defense stops a run,” Gray said. “Our coach tells us that. Defense wins you offense. We play better on offense when we take care of our defense. That’s our mindset.” The Chargers are currently in the middle of the conference in terms of defensive rankings, but their strong rebounding usually offsets a hot-shooting team. The Yellow Jackets simply made a few too many shots for the Chargers to overcome. Despite Hillsdale’s rebounding prowess, Ott said the team doesn’t work on rebounding during practices. “We never practice rebounding,” Ott said. “We literally just go out there and do it. It’s something we take pride in and it’s definitely

one of our strengths. We’ve been very physical and we just work at it. We’re a very strong team compared to a lot of other teams, so having that strength and being able to get those rebounds is just effort and and working hard for it.” Fritsche described the conference as one with a lot of “parody”, where many teams are clustered at or near the top. Hillsdale’s victories against Ursuline and Findlay and down-to-the-wire game against Cedarville have the

Chargers believing they can hang with any team in the G-MAC. “I think we can beat anybody in the conference,” Gray said. “I feel that we have the talent, and Cedarville, we lost to them twice but I feel that if we see them a third time, we’re going to get to them.” The Chargers are back in action on Thursday evening, when they travel to West Virginia to take on Ohio Valley University (0-13, 0-9). Tip off is at 5:30 p.m.

Junior forward Makenna Ott leads the Chargers this season with 15 points per game. Carly Gouge | Courtesy

Women’s track gears up against Division I Men’s basketball sits at second in G-MAC halfway competition at the University of Michigan By | Anna Timmis through conference play Assistant Editor By | Mark Naida Assistant Editor The 17th ranked Findlay Oilers (17-2, 11-0 G-MAC) defeated the Hillsdale Chargers (13-4, 7-3 G-MAC), 59-50 at Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena on Saturday. In a battle between the top two teams in the G-MAC conference, defense defined the game. Both teams shot 42 percent from the field and 25 percent from three point in a tight game that featured 10 lead changes. “Both teams did what they did night in and night out. It was a defensive battle,” assistant coach Ryan Choiniere said. The stat sheet columns looked like mirror images save two categories: turnovers and bench scoring. Hillsdale had trouble taking care of the ball against Findlay, allowing 16 points off of 16 turnovers. Findlay’s bench scored 12 points to Hillsdale’s six bench points. It was the second game that head coach John Tharp missed after the death of his father. “It’s hard any time a part of your team is missing, but our guys have responded well for the most part,” said Choiniere, who is acting as head coach. “We are happy to be all together.” Senior guard Stedman Lowry led the Chargers in

scoring and rebounds with 15 points and eight rebounds, making three of the team’s four three pointers. Junior forward Nick Czarnowski had 13 points and six rebounds. Findlay’s high-scoring senior duo of first team all-GLIAC forward Taren Sullivan and All-American guard Martyce Kimbrough led the Oilers to victory. Sullivan scored 16 points and added five rebounds and Kimbrough had 12 points and six rebounds. At halftime the game was tied at 28. With 7:33 left in the game, senior guard Ryan Badowski made a free throw to cap a three point play and give the Chargers a 47-42 lead. During the rest of the game the Oilers’ slick defense prevented the Chargers from making another three-point field goal and forced nine late turnovers. “We didn’t execute to the level we normally do or want to do,” Choiniere said. “It was more self-inflicted.” A layup and a three-pointer on consecutive plays by Findlay senior guard Elijah Kahlig gave Findlay a 51-47 lead with three minutes left. The onslaught continued with field goal with a minute left by Sullivan, placing the game out of reach for Hillsdale. The Chargers return to action with their head coach Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at Ohio Valley University.

Sophomore guard Dylan Lowry is second on the team this season with 2.1 assists per game. Brendan Miller | Courtesy

The Hillsdale Chargers women’s track team competed on Saturday against Division I athletes at the Wolverine Invitational hosted by University of Michigan. “We had Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame and then a few other pretty solid mid-majors in Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan,” head coach Andrew Towne said. While the brand-new facility at Michigan made for an intimidating atmosphere, the event’s stakes were low, according to Towne. “The meet is a season opener for mostly everybody, so we weren’t putting up a ton of lifetime bests and they weren’t either,” he said. “But for us it’s a great opener in that we compete against some people that maybe we only see the likes of at really, really big meets. So it’s a great experience for our kids right of the bat — to be competitive and get used to competing against high level athletes.”

Senior Hannah McIntyre, named G-MAC Athlete of the Week, distinguished herself in the 3000-meter, finishing in 12th place. While it wasn’t a personal record, Towne said she had a good season opener, her time a NCAA provisional qualifying mark. Sophomore Arena Lewis finished 13th in the 3000 meter, right behind McIntyre. Her time qualified her for NCAA competition and was also a personal record. McIntyre said she was pleasantly surprised by how well the team performed with only five weeks of training, none being on that specific track. “We were really using the meet to just see where our fitness was at,” she said. “It was a good indicator of where our fitness is at, which is actually much better than I thought.” The freshmen faced a challenge at the meet after a month-long break since their Sagina meet. But Towne said the class is very talented, noting specifically Zoe Eby and Maryssa Depies, saying the meet was a great experience for them.

“For a lot of the freshmen it was their first indoor meet and I think it was definitely pretty intimidating. Mostly there were really awesome Division I schools there, and the facility itself was really nice. I think some of the younger runners did experience extra nerves. I would have as well,” McIntyre said. “But in the end people were pretty relaxed.” Towne praised senior Rachael Tolsma’s performance in the weight throw, finishing in fifth place with a throw of 17.15 meters. Though not as far as her throw in the first meet this season, Towne said she was consistent. He noted that the week leading up to the meet, Tolsma participated in a leadership class, pushing her practice time to 6 a.m. all week and making it difficult to prepare. “In the weight throw I executed some things technically pretty well, this meet showed me where else I could improve technically,” Tolsma said. Hillsdale will hold its next meet Saturday, which will be scored, unlike last week’s meet. Towne said scoring the meets add flavor to them,

“You have to be able to switch mindsets coming off of Christmas break when we’re at home and training alone or with a couple people,” Jones said. “But then you get right back into it and say ‘alright, we’ve got to be ready to go.’” Towne said he wasn’t expecting the mentality shift to be immediate and definitely wasn’t expecting any personal bests. The meet, however, was a good way to establish benchmarks for the rest of the season. “It certainly isn’t a meet where you’re expecting seasonal bests,” Towne said. “But it’s a good opportunity to get your season started and sort out what needs work.” Towne also said the meet allowed his athletes to experience a different competitive environment. Not only is the University of Michigan a Division I school, but it also houses a banked track. “This was the second year that we have competed at Michigan,” Towne said. “They have a brand new facility so that was a great opportunity

for us. In the past, we’ve tried to be on a banked track at some point during the season, so that when the NCAA Championships are on a banked track, which happens about every other year, we’re really prepared. That’s a huge thing for us.” In order to get on that banked track, the Chargers competed against Division I powerhouses, including the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Notre Dame University. “It can be easy, especially for younger kids who haven’t been around the block, to see the uniforms and kind of feel like maybe we don’t belong here.” Towne said. “But, as I told the team beforehand, it wasn’t a charity invitation. They know that we’re good and can add to the meet.” Towne didn’t expect any seasonal bests, but wanted his team to be competitive. According to Senior Daniel Čhapek, the Charger men delivered on Towne’s expectations. “People didn’t do super

making the competition more meaningful and exciting. “If you know no one’s going to be great in the pole vault, for the average fan it can be boring,” he said. “If you know though that first place is still worth points and seventh place is still worth points in the pole vault, it’s a little bit more of a competitive atmosphere.” He says he hopes the meet they designed will grow over the years, but it was originally organized to include two to three teams from all of the conferences in the Midwest region, including the G-MAC, the GLIAC, and the Great Lakes Valley Conference. “A few teams have backed out, so we’re still going to be at five to six total. It will be a season starter for a few schools,” he said. The team’s success at Michigan built confidence for the athletes looking ahead to the rest of the season. “I’m excited to see how we can build off of this going into conferences and then nationals,” Tolsma said.

Two men’s track athletes earn G-MAC honors at Wolverine Invite By | Regan Meyer Collegian reporter

After almost a full month off, the Charger men jumped back into the fray of competition this past weekend at the University of Michigan’s Wolverine Invitational. The team worked hard to stay in shape over the nearly month long hiatus, with some athletes coming back to campus as early as Jan. 2 to continue training. “The first meet is always a learning experience because of the break,” head coach Andrew Towne explained. “The kids go home mid-December and they have training that they are to do the whole time. But especially in this climate, if you don’t have a facility like this [Biermann Athletics Center], it can be really hard to accomplish all that.” The athletes had to be back by Jan. 10 to prepare for the meet. Senior captain Nathan Jones contended that mental preparation is just as important as physical.

well, but it was also not expected that there would be crazy performances,” Čhapek said. “This was the first meet and now it is time to make corrections as we move on with the season.” While there weren’t any seasonal bests, two Hillsdale athletes did earn G-MAC Athlete of the Week honors for their performances at the Wolverine Invitational, David Chase for his high jump of 1.98 meters and Joseph Humes with his mile time of 4:13.86. The Chargers will continue with competition Saturday, January 20th at home. The team hopes to continue improving as they near conference championships. “Honestly, our big thing is just build off what we have,” said Jones. “If we continue to get a little bit better each week, by the time we get to one of those conference championships in late February, then we’re going to be in a pretty good spot.”

Jan. 18, 2017 A6

www.hillsdalecollegian.com

Culture

John Green’s latest young adult novel focuses on a teen with mental illness. Unsplash

‘Turtles All the Way Down’ connects, but neglects to inspire By | Hannah Niemeier Senior Writer High-school junior Aza Holmes, fan of bad poetry; Dr. Pepper; and her beat-up car Harold has, like every normal adolescent, some irrational fears. But hers are worse. She has intense germophobia, which keeps her from other normal teenage activities: friendships, adventures, and especially kissing her first boyfriend. Aza’s struggle to escape the “tightening spiral” of her anxiety disorder is the focus of popular young adult fiction author John Green’s latest novel, “Turtles All the Way Down,” a coming-of-age story through which Green serves as equal parts author, teacher, therapist, and poetry professor. I read the story for a Christmastime walk down memory lane. I emerged disoriented, wondering whether as a teenager I, like Green, had confused relatable life advice with good storytelling. In classic young adult fashion, Aza is a smart, eloquent teenager with real problems — and interesting ones. She obsessively researches bacteria that live in the human body. She picks open a callus on her thumb, cleans it, and applies new bandages, over and over again. She could be played by a young Emma Watson; she would not be out of place in

“The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” a novel-turned-movie in the same coming-of-age vein from a few years ago. By novel six, there is a recognizable brand to Green’s characters, and Aza and company partake in typical Greennesses: They are precocious, articulate, honest, emotional, troubled. They come from broken homes at mediocre high schools in nondescript cities. But they love their small families and friend groups something fierce, and they talk with them about poetry, philosophy, and cosmological models with equal earnestness. Aza’s new boyfriend, Davis, has a poetry blog, which features Shakespeare, Woolf, and Plath; he writes poems with odd rhyme schemes because “that’s like life; it rhymes, but not in the way you expect.” He and Aza use metaphors to shape their struggles; Aza adapts Yeats’s “The Second Coming” by describing her mental state not as a “widening,” but a “tightening gyre.” Precocious, perhaps, but not foreign to the teenage experience. Having put in some time as a pretentious teenage girl myself, I can attest that glossing adolescent crises with classic literature is a coping mechanism for the few, the chosen, the afflicted among bookworms. But in popular young adult

literature? Well, yes, and here, the risk of didacticism works — neither the book’s characters nor its author is dumb, and at least the kids are learning something while thinking about serious problems like teen mental disorders. It is not in Green’s (admittedly predictable) cast of characters that my discomfort with “Turtles” lay. And it is not the glorification of heavy subject matter of Aza’s mental struggles. (Green writes of mental illness in a way that is self-consciously Not Your Regular Problem Novel, the sort that concerns itself more with emotional identification and validation — or, at worst, voyeurism — than with healing.) My discomfort lay in the unshakeable sense that this was a therapy session, not a story. But Green’s approach isn’t just sentimental drivel: There are no easy answers for Aza and Davis, just as there were none for the star-crossed Gus and Hazel of “The Fault in Our Stars.” No, Aza’s anxiety is no shiny badge of individuality, but her adversary: “Madness, in my admittedly limited experience, is accompanied by no superpowers; being mentally unwell doesn’t make you loftily intelligent any more than having the flu does.

So I know I should’ve been a brilliant detective or whatever, but in actuality I was one of the least observant people I’d ever met.” And her anxiety attacks force her into tighter spirals than merely unwrapping and rewrapping the bandage on her finger: Her relationship with her best friend flounders because of her self-centeredness. Her romance with Davis dissolves amid her nightmares about shared salival bacteria. Davis’s own troubles are less relatable, though they ostensibly ground the whole (loose) plot. His father, a filthy rich man in every sense of the word, has disappeared. He has no mother; he and his younger brother may be the world’s richest orphans. The plot: Aza can help track him down. The point: Green needs to get Aza and Davis in the same room, and the stakes need to be high. A loosely plotted adventure story is nothing new for coming-of-age novels, or for Green. (He did the same in “Looking for Alaska” and “Paper Towns.”) And neither are the troubled characters or the ill-fated lovers. The tear-jerker “The Fault in Our Stars” is a wildly popular story of cancer patients who fall in love and make the best of the time they have. Sweet. Probably, when the other options on the shelves include adolescent

experimentation (still!) with werewolves and zombies. A quote from Virginia Woolf summarizes Aza, Davis, and Green’s mission in “Turtles:” “The merest schoolgirl, when she falls in love, has Shakespeare or Keats to speak her mind for her; but let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry.’” This is the quest of the “problem novel” version of the coming-of-age story: They must learn to connect through a pain that they find unspeakable, but they must also avoid destroying each other. Green is right, and his readers likely need to learn it: Love is no therapy session. It is the way that Aza’s illness threatens to make love impossible that the story comes together. Her inability to connect with Davis is what finally allows her to escape the cage of her disorder, but not in the way either of them wants, or expects. Spoiler warning: In one of the final scenes in the novel, the two engage in a touching, mature conversation in Applebees (he tries to sit next to her; she moves to the opposite side of the booth) in which Aza comes to terms with the fact that she can’t love Davis in the way he needs. He needs physical closeness, and she needs to find a way not to drink hand sanitizer

to stave off nightmares about bacteria after she kisses him. She does not blame herself for her problems, but she does not deny them, either. She (or Green) philosophizes a bit longer about the many lessons one’s first love (Aza has only had one; what does she know?) teaches, and the book ends. The ending hits just right — too right. It is as if Green has checked every box in his list of “things that make a good coming of age novel,” and now he sits back, confident that he has imparted wisdom to the young folks. He has identified with them and allayed their fears, and he has given them hope for health and healing and love in the future. All in the space of a 250-page novel. Perhaps he has. Having spent some time as not only a precocious teen, but also a troubled one, I have to ask: Would “Turtles” have helped? And how — as validation, as emotional release, as affirmation of the hope? And are these concerns primary? Isn’t the story itself, and not its emotional benefits, what matters? Literature can heal, but it can do a lot more while it’s at it. “Turtles All the Way Down” leaves readers on the psychiatrist’s couch.

Ralph’s got rhythm: prestigious pianist to perform Gershwin Pita and hummus from an exhibit designed to recreate Nazareth village during the first century. Josephine von Dohlen | Collegian

To celebrate kinship, imitate Shabbat By | Katherine Scheu Associate Editor JERUSALEM — When 7-year-old Ariella Gillman sees her mom preparing for their family’s weekly Shabbat dinner, the little girl insists that company join in and help her eat a few loaves of challah bread. On the rare occasion no one joins the six-person family of Modern Orthodox Jews, Ariella’s disappointment rocks her to the point of tears. For the Gillman family, the Shabbat dinner is not an activity meant to be celebrated by the nuclear family alone. They instead usher in Shabbat, the Sabbath, by welcoming guests as they light the ceremonial candles, bless the food, and commune together through the recitation of Hebrew blessings from the Torah. I crowded Neil and Aliza Gillman’s home with 15 of my fellow travelers last Friday to share in the Gillmans’ tradition. After just one evening with them, I feel encouraged to introduce a Shabbat-like practice to my own life. Just after Aliza lit the candles at our dinner and the family prayed, the family practiced a tradition that amazed me. First, Neil and Aliza stood up and serenaded one another with Proverbs 31. Traditionally, this moment is usually reserved for the husband to thank his wife for

the work she does in the home — in Jewish tradition, the woman is recognized as the anchor of the household and the keeper of traditions. But in the Gillman’s household, the husband and wife sing this to each other because they both work full-time jobs, wipe snotty noses, and rinse dirty dishes. An equal participation in household and child-rearing duties deserves equal recognition in their eyes. Next, the parents took each little one in their arms and said a blessing over them. We crammed at an L-shaped table in the Gillman’s dining room, so Neil suggested the children — two of whom cuddled him at one end of the table, the other two hanging off their mother at the other side — receive a blessing from just one of the parents. This wouldn’t suffice for the Gillman children. They crawled under tables and over strangers to reach both parents, to have their heads held and kissed by their mother and their father as each chanted the blessings for children in Hebrew. Aliza told us she cherishes this moment as an opportunity to connect with each of her children on an individual level. Then we ate. After we finished the last slice of challah and wiped the dish of hummus clean, Neil stood up to wish us well before we exited their home and returned to a

sleepy Jerusalem. He looked on a room full of Christian students, all of whom glowed with the excitement and warmth of the meal. Neil explained to us why his family honors the Sabbath. The Orthodox Jewish world stops for 25 (no, not 24) hours every week, leaving behind cars, metros, cell phones, laptops, televisions. They do so to honor God, love their families and friends, and rest their bodies and minds, he said. “During this time we have no choice but to reconnect with our nearest and dearest — those who are closest to us but who often get overlooked during the course of the week. We make sure to invite friends and family to celebrate Shabbat with us, sitting around the table, enjoying a festive meal and each other’s company and conversation,” Neil wrote to me later in an email. “We take the time to reflect on the week gone by, asking everyone around the table to tell us about the best part of their week, giving thanks for what we have.” As a college student, I don’t keep any kind of Sabbath. Every Sunday, I drive to Holy Trinity Parish, usually 10 minutes late to choir practice, and worship the Lord during a 90-minute service. Then I rush back to campus, gobble down some eggs at brunch, attend a few meetings, work

out, shower, and finally settle in for however long a homework session I need to get me through Monday’s classes. I’ve been thinking about adopting a Sabbath-like practice for a long time. I could shift my week so that Sunday afternoon or evening becomes a time for reflection and rest instead of a flat sprint toward early-week deadlines. After experiencing just the beginning of Shabbat at the Gillman’s home and an eerily quiet Jerusalem the next day, I’ve finally made the commitment. I probably won’t serve a massive dinner on Saturday nights. And I won’t walk to church the next day. The reality is that I have homework and meetings and a messy room, and nothing about the Christian faith commands me to sit quietly in my room isolated from work and responsibility. But I am going to commit to a compromise: to turn the last three hours of my Sunday into a mini-Sabbath. This might sound small after my spiritual experience at the Gillman’s. But at least I’m taking their cue. My threehour Shabbat will allow me to disengage from the internet, tidy my room, call home, and spend some extra time with the Lord. Maybe I’ll even make some challah bread.

By | Madeline Fry Culture Editor A Michigan pianist with international acclaim will visit campus to perform songs by the great American composer George Gershwin, whose pieces he has been celebrated for performing with warmth and flair. Ralph Votapek, a professor at Michigan State University and winner of the first Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, will perform at 3 p.m. Sunday in Markel Auditorium. Admission is free, but tickets are required. Music Department Chair James Holleman said Votapek stands out among American piano players, particularly as an interpreter of Gershwin’s music. “Professor Votapek is considered among the most prestigious American pianists,” Holleman said. “Along

Pianist Ralph Votapek performs Sunday. Pexels

with a vast repertoire, he is well known for his interpretation of the piano music of George Gershwin.” Votapek will perform works by European composers Scarlatti, Schubert, Fauré, and Debussy, followed by selections from “George Gershwin’s Songbook.” The pianist will also teach a masterclass from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Monday in Conrad Recital Hall. Three piano students — freshman Anne Ziegler, freshman Michael Erickson, and junior Thomas Ryskamp — will perform. Erickson said he considers Gershwin to be the greatest American composer. Now, the artist who performs his work will bring that excellence to Hillsdale. “It’s really cool that he’s sort of a local performer who is known on an international scale,” Erickson said.

Jan. 18, 2018 A7

www.hillsdalecollegian.com

Science & Tech

Student constructs radioactive beams, studies proton drip line said. “Radioactive or unstable nuclei decay naturally using either alpha, beta, or gamma decay, or you can fuse extra neutrons onto a nucleus to make a different isotope. You could add a proton or a neutron, or you could shave them off of a nucleus.” Changing the number of neutrons results in different forms, or isotopes, of the same element, while changing the number of protons causes the atom to become a different element altogether. At a certain point, however, some atoms can’t accept any more protons. “For some, there isn’t another isotope there because if you try to add a proton, it’s so unstable that the proton just drips off,” Roundey said. “So that’s why this line, the line where you can’t add another proton, is called the drip line.” Understanding the properties and behavior of isotopes along the proton drip line is important for nuclear astrophysics, Roundey said. “Inside stars, nuclei are fusing, creating new isotopes, and if they’re going through rapid proton capture, they’re adding protons repeatedly,” Roundey said. “But if you reach one of these points where you can’t add another proton, they still want to keep adding protons, but first, it has to decay before it can start adding more protons.” Since researchers can’t get up close enough to observe the inner workings of stars firsthand, they instead create the radioactive isotopes in the lab using a cyclotron, an instrument that accelerates particles to high speeds. Roundey used the cyclotron to create beams of nickel ions.

“Cyclotrons are great if you want a beam of a stable isotope, but radioactive beams are important, so you have to find a way to produce radioactive beams from these stable beams,” Roundey said. To make the radioactive beams, Roundey used the MARS spectrometer, a particular spectrometer that runs the stable beam into a thick target, creating a variety of particles during the collision. The products of the collision are then sorted out based on their response to electromagnetic fields, and detected based on their energy levels when they exit the instrument. To determine how to create

ultra-precise measurements of the half-life of different radioactive isotopes. Roundey said the cyclotron institute is the only place that allows outside organizations to purchase time to use the cyclotron. The cyclotron institute is internationally recognized for its research contributions to the fundamental understanding of nuclear particles, according to its website. Chairman of the Physics Department Kenneth Hayes said Roundey was one of two Hillsdale students to conduct research at other colleges over the summer through a national program that provides undergraduate students with an opportunity to conduct research. “We encourage all of our physics majors to apply for summer REU positions,” Hayes said in an email. “REU’s are very helpful for the students as they get to experience what graduate-level research is like at a research university. Also, having done an REU greatly strengthens a student’s application to graduate school … Hillsdale College physics majors have been quite successful in obtaining REU positions.” Roundey said working at Texas A&M was exciting, even though she has decided not to pursue a career in research. “We can sit in the control room adjusting how the beam is being focused and tuned and see in the target chamber, how the beam is changing shape,” Roundey said. “It was really exciting and made me feel powerful to be fiddling with these ancient knobs and watching a whole bunch of radioactive particles moving around.”

“Inside stars, nuclei are fusing, creating new isotopes and...adding protons repeatedly.”

Part of senior Rebekah Roundey’s research involved manipulating radioactive beams from the control room at the cyclotron institute. Rebekah Roundey | Courtesy

By | Madeleine Jepsen Science & Tech Editor Senior physics major Rebekah Roundey said she likes to joke that she practiced alchemy during her summer research project since the focus of her research involved transmuting elements. Instead of attempting to turn lead into gold, however, Roundey’s research involved the production of radioactive nickel isotopes, or different forms of nickel with varying amounts of neutrons in the

atom’s nucleus, using stateof-the-art instrumentation at Texas A&M University. She was able to synthesize nickel-51, a type of nickel that had not been made before using Texas A&M’s instruments. “Our goal was to determine what isotopes in the area of nickel-51 on the drip line can be produced at the available energies,” Roundey said. “We then wanted to calculate the production rates of those isotopes.” Roundey wanted to determine whether adjusting the

method for producing these radioactive isotopes would help researchers to make the isotopes more efficiently. She presented her research at a poster presentation for the Division of Nuclear Physics, and also presented her work at Hillsdale last semester on Dec. 7. She focused on a special group of proton-rich elements with many more protons than neutrons in their atomic nucleus. “There are different ways to transmute elements,” Roundey

more of the radioactive nickel particles, Roundey tried different types of targets and a piece of carbon foil meant to serve as a filter. She found that the foil actually reduced yields, most likely because it prevented some of the nickel atoms from entering the instrument — a result she said was unexpected. She then analyzed the data from the instrument and confirmed the identities of the different isotopes that were detected. Her work at Texas A&M’s cyclotron institute used some of the same equipment used by NASA, the Jet Propulsion Lab, and by national defense organizations and businesses, according to Henry Clark, facility supervisor of the cyclotron institute and an accelerator physicist. Other work at the cyclotron institute relates to supernova explosions and

From Skelton A1 Carville said the skeleton could also be used to help determine the number of different species of triceratops that existed. Formerly, researchers believed there were eight species, but it’s possible that some of these distinctions were related to whether the triceratops were juvenile or mature when they died, Carville said. The skeleton is displayed as a two-dimensional relief mount in the museum, with the skeleton partially embedded in an artificial matrix similar to the rocks where the triceratops was originally discovered. The missing bones from the skeleton were filled in using casts from other triceratops specimens, Swinehart said. “We now have two mostly real-bone dinosaurs in a 40foot long room,” Swinehart said. “There are some states that don’t have a dinosaur in the whole state. We can probably rightfully say we have the smallest dinosaur museum in the world.” Small pieces of the triceratops bone not needed for the display will be available for sale for $2 following the unveiling of the skeleton, Swinehart said. All proceeds from the sales will go toward the museum. “My colleague ran into one of the senior paleontologists at the Smithsonian while we were out there on the dig and told him about the articulated limb,” Swinehart said. “The guy from the Smithsonian said, ‘We don’t have anything like that.’ So this is really cool.”

The Download ...

2017 year in review Science in the news -Compiled by Madeleine Jepsen

Professor of Biology and Curator of the Fisk Museum Anthony Swinehart poses with one of the bones in a plaster jacket before it is transported from the dig site. Lily Carville | Courtesy

The triceratops’ skull is approximately 7 feet in length, and the frill at the back of the skull has a small hole from an injury likely sustained while fighting another triceratops, Swinehart said. Anthony Swinehart | Courtesy

The articulate arm shown above, which contains all the bones of the triceratops’ forearm, contributes to the skeleton’s value and provides valuable information about the triceratops’ posture, Swinehart said. Anthony Swinehart | Courtesy

The two professors and their students all helped to excavate the triceratops skeleton. Anthony Swinehart | Courtesy

Scientists attempt first successful human trials with gene editing tool Crispr-Cas9

LIGO collaborators win Nobel Prize in Physics for detection of neutron stars merging

Research on natural disasters and major environmental events provide new insights

For the first time in the United States, scientists have successfully edited genes in human embryos to repair a disease-causing mutation, according to a new study published earlier this month in Nature. The researchers used Crispr-Cas9, a gene-editing tool based on a naturally occurring enzyme in certain species of bacteria.The study represents a significant improvement in efficiency and accuracy over previous efforts, according to Nature.

The long-expected detection of a neutron star merger was announced by members of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory on Oct. 16. Since the collision created light waves in addition to gravitational waves, scientists were able to learn more about how the universe is expanding, and how some of the Earth’s heavier elements such as gold, silver, platinum, and uranium may have been formed by an ancient, nearby neutron star collision.

The August 2017 eclipse, which spanned the entire nation, provided scientists with solar data. Multiple, high-intensity hurricanes hit along the U.S. coast, spurring additional research about hurricanes and the climate factors that contribute to them. An iceberg roughly the size of Delaware broke off from Larsen C, the fourth-largest ice shelf in the Antarctic, according to images observed by NASA’s Aqua satellite, causing the Larsen C shelf area to shrink by approximately 10 percent.

JAN. 18, 2018

Buskers enchant Jerusalem streets

By | Abby Liebing Collegian Reporter JERUSALEM — Hundreds of people pass them on the streets every day and occasionally throw a buck in their open cases. They don’t get much attention, but the street musicians of Jerusalem bring magic to the streets of the city, even in the middle of January. The 40-degree weather may be cold according to Israeli standards, but Jerusalem’s streets still have music as a few brave souls play their tunes on the corners. Senior Lillian Quinones, who attended a Pssages-sponsored trip to the Holy Land over break, got to hear one of many street musicians as she was out one night. “We stopped to hear the musician play, and he was awesome,” Quinones said. While many other people unthinkingly pass by, these musicians are doing what they love. For Shy Ashkenazi and Tamar and Netanel Amar, busking in the streets has given them exceptional experiences and opportunities to play their favorite tunes. Shy Ashkenazi’s day job is coordinating the summer Shlichim program of the Jewish agency for Israel sending Israeli emissaries to be counselors at summer camps. But by moonlight, Ashkenazi busks around the streets of Jerusalem. With his guitar, Ashkenazi sings originals and folk music all over Jerusalem and has even taken his tunes to New York City and Maryland. “One day I just started playing out on Ben-Yehuda for fun, to bring magic to the street, and loved it,” he said. Ashkenazi enjoys the atmosphere and music of the popular street, Ben-Yehuda in Jerusalem and that’s where he spends most of his time when he plays on the streets. Ashkenazi said he began busking for fun and didn’t expect money when he started playing. “People asked me where they should put the money, but I was only playing to bring music to the street, so they had to grab my hand and put money in it,” he said. “After that, I started opening the guitar case for money.” Around Jerusalem, Ashkenazi plays in Zion Square and Mamilla and also performs in different clubs and venues. But he said he

thinks playing on the streets is the most fun. “It’s a great stage to practice new songs, it’s the best stage to perform in general — no one expects anything from you, you’re not committed to anyone, and no one is committed to you, and every loving reaction means so much,” Ashekenazi said. Through playing around Jerusalem, Ashkenazi met Tamar and Netanel Amar, a married duo that plays some of the American classics like Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, James Taylor, and John Denver in the same popular squares and streets of the city. While still working a day job, Netanel became interested in getting into Jerusalem’s music scene with his guitar and singing. Knowing his love for music, Netanel’s friend invited to him to hear a girl who played violin, guitar, and sang at his coffee and tea shop. That was where Netanel met Tamar. “I really liked what she did,” he said. In 2013, after getting to know each other and sharing music, Tamar and Netanel started playing around the streets of Jerusalem as a duo. From the streets of Jerusalem, all the way to performances in Boston and New York, Tamar and Netanel have dedicated themselves to their music. “We wanted to fill our lives with shows like every day,” Netanel said. Playing on the streets gave the duo a lot of good experiences, and they met some fascinating people. But their music also brought a different magic to Tamar and Netanel’s life. They began dating about the same time they began playing together. Over time they fell in love. Now, Tamar and Netanel are married and enjoying life with their 2-month-old baby. They recently finished recording an album and plan to release singles in the coming months. Anyone busking around Jerusalem does it because they love spreading their music. “Usually you don’t make tons of money,” Ashkenazi said. From open mic night and a coffee and tea shop, to the city streets, and even to making an album, Ashkenazi, Tamar, and Netanel have used their talents to spread their love of music all over the holy city.

Thousands of Jews and tourists come to Jerusalem’s Western Wall to pray and touch the ancient stone. Josephine Von Dohlen | Collegian

A Marxist upbringing in Israel By | Joshhua J. Paladino Opinions Editor

TEL AVIV, Israel — A 20-year-old man in northern Israel woke up at 4:30 a.m to work in cotton fields for two years, hoping to earn his way into a university. Unlike an American with aspirations of education and a better life, Zeev Boker’s decision to enter college was not his own — his community had to decide. Boker grew up in an Israeli communal village called a kibbutz. His kibbutz, Afek, is in Western Galilee near the border with Lebanon and the Israeli city of Haifa. Kibbutzim arose in Israel in the first decade of the 20th century, when groups of socialist Zionists emigrated from Europe with idealistic dreams of establishing a Jewish homeland. They rooted themselves in the harshest places in Israel — near hostile neighbors, far from fresh water, and on undeveloped terrain. The Marxist Zionists didn’t have money to buy the best land, plus they wanted to build kibbutzim near the outskirts of Israel to establish borders for Jewish state. And it wasn’t easy to defend their borders. “We were surrounded by Arab border villages, which attacked the kibbutz, and we lost two members of the kibbutzim during the Independence War,” Boker said. The 1948 War of Independence, also known as the Arab-Israeli War, formed the borders of the state of Israel and provided kibbutz Afek safety in the future. Kibbutzim value defenders of their communities and their Jewish state. Boker said the kibbutz’s memorial garden, which commemorates its fallen soldiers, reflects this commitment. After working in cotton fields for two years, Boker’s kibbutz couldn’t fund his education, so he left to pursue his aspirations without help from the community. Even though he left, Boker said he never felt distanced from his home. “I still call it my kibbutz, even though I left in 1983,” Boker said. “You left the kibbutz like you left your military unit. There was a time when leaving the kibbutz was like leaving your family.” He still returns to visit his

brother and childhood friends who stayed. Boker’s accomplishments after leaving Afek are remarkable, but they aren’t unusual. Boker said children of kibbutzim disproportionately hold leadership positions in the Israeli military and government. He attended Hebrew University, where he earned a master’s degree in political science. After graduating he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1987, where his political life took off. He served as a diplomat to the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and Slovakia between 1990 and 2010, before he became the Israeli ambassador to the Republic of Ireland in 2015. Zeev’s son Assaf Boker said members of kibbutzim became the “elites of Israeli society,” though he said they don’t hold that position, to the same extent, anymore. While members of kibbutzim made up about 7 percent of the Jewish population in the mid-20th century, they held 40, sometimes 50 percent, of the combat positions in the Israeli Air Force. “We never look at ourselves as elites,” Boker said. For him, it’s the circumstances that made children of kibbutzim so successful: “There was something special in the education and being part of a community that is struggling together, in not very easy weather and security conditions.” Despite early struggles of kibbutzim, they set up a successful and unique education system. It is perhaps the strangest element of Israel’s wcollective communities — one which appears foreign,

and even cruel, to Westerners. At Afek, like most kibbutzim, children don’t live with their parents. They live in children’s homes. Children of both genders live and bunk together, largely separate from adult supervision. Some strict kibbutzim allowed parents to see their children for as little as two hours every other day. Afek allowed parents and children to spend four hours together each night. After school, from 4 to 8 p.m., parents bonded with their children. Then they sent back to the children’s home, where the kids put themselves to bed. Boker spoke well of his youth in children’s home, though he recognized its troubles. “Naturally children have to be with their parents, so for some children, it caused deep scars for them,” Boker said. “But from my point of view, it’s very positive. My mother was a teacher, so thanks to that my view is, maybe, more positive.” The philosophy on kibbutzim, much like broader Marxist philosophy, is that teachers and child experts should raise children. Kibbutzim employed this philosophy, at least in part, though they still connected parents and children. Boker said he was a “very dedicated student” who spent his time studying, so he rarely thought to miss his parents. “I didn’t look at it as something that was right or wrong...it had advantages and disadvantages,” Boker said. “In retrospect, I would have appreciated spending more times with my parents.

Israeli flags wave over the Yad Mordechai kibbutz. Breana Noble | Collegian

I remember escaping the children’s home to spend extra time with my parents, but there was no punishment. It was understandable...children want to be with their parents.” It’s rare in the United States to see young children alone in neighborhoods, but in kibbutzim children have freedom to explore. “If you enjoy the open space, exposure to agriculture, wildlife, then you liked childhood on a kibbutz,” Boker said. “There is freedom in the air.” Today, kibbutzim do not separate the homes of parents and children. Children’s homes died out in the ’70s and ’80s, as Israel liberalized and kibbutzim followed. From Israel’s independence in 1948 until 1977, Israel had a far-left government. In 1977, the government liberalized and so did the nation’s economy. This transition forced kibbutzim to reorganize. Most of the nearly 300 kibbutzim in Israel dropped the communal way of life and switched to private ownership of property and means of productions. About 30 kibbutzim still have communal villages, but they’re exceptions. Most of the 30 are able to support their Marxist economic systems because they own profitable factories, according to Boker. “Kibbutzim had to adapt themselves to modern life and modern economic conditions,” Boker said. He said the reorganization of kibbutzim doesn’t trouble him. He said he believes kibbutzim served a unique purpose that might not exist, to so great an extent, any longer. Collective societies have a troubling history, and the mention of Marxist communities gives up pause, but they worked for Israel at a perilous time. “I think it’s the history of the Jewish people,” Boker said. “The fact that we were expelled from our homeland and forced during most of the time, wherever we were staying, to defend ourselves. This made communal life more attractive and appropriate. When fighting for survival, you cannot be selfish — mutual help was necessary.”