Hillsdale Collegian 3.29.18 by The Hillsdale Collegian

Michigan’s oldest college newspaper

Vol. 141 Issue 23 - March 29, 2018

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Hillsdale College primed to purchase Mauck Elementary By | Breana Noble Editor-in-Chief Hillsdale College is on the verge of purchasing a closed elementary school from the local school district, which gave approval for the sale of the building last week. The college has offered $390,000 to buy Joseph Mauck Elementary School, a vacant building at 113 E. Fayette St. that closed in 2010. Its plans include investing approximately $5 million to

update the building and likely transform it into a center to connect with the public, Chief Administrative Officer Rich Péwé said. “Likely we would use it for outreach initiatives; however, if we owned the building it would provide the college many options,” Péwé said in an email. “Space is needed.” Presented with the college’s offer, the Hillsdale Community Schools’ Board of Education voted unanimously March 19 to sell the building

so long as the transaction with the college is successful. Péwé said he still is negotiating details with Hillsdale Community Schools Superintendent Shawn Vondra. “A viable offer has been submitted by the college,” Vondra said. “The district’s Board of Education is pleased that Hillsdale College plans to maintain and use the building for college programs. There is a positive feeling about Hillsdale College’s plans for renovation and improvements

to the facility.” The college would fundraise to cover the costs of obtaining and updating the building, according to Péwé. As Hillsdale’s external presence and programs seeking to bring Hillsdale’s resources to the public grow, the college is finding itself limited in the space reserved for such initiatives in Moss Hall and the Dow Leadership Center. Purchasing the elementary school would address those present limitations, said Mike

By | Breana Noble Editor-in-Chief Hillsdale College is considering several offers to build a new satellite location, possibly in California. According to College President Larry Arnn, the college has received at least three serious offers to expand its operations to other parts of the country. Arnn said the opportunities come with significant dollar amounts attached and good motives behind them, as the college seeks to grow its outreach programs and efforts. “There’s a lot of opportunities for the college right now,” Arnn said. “There are a lot of dangers, too, but there are a lot of opportunities.” Since coming to the college, Arnn said he has received multiple offers every year of land for the college to use. “For many years, we’ve thought, ‘Simply impractical,’” Arnn said. “There are several now in various locations with a substantial amount of money attached to them and good motives attached to them. One year ago I decided the world was telling us something, that we should listen and think about it. We haven’t done anything except that: We are thinking about it.” Ideas for a new Hillsdale-affiliated location have

run mostly akin to the Allan P. Kirby Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C. Arnn said the college has discussed various ideas for such a place, but is taking discrete and sensitive steps as it thinks about the prospects. Some examples he noted were an outreach or online education center or a center for the Barney Charter School Initiative. Such a building could hold seminars and hostel programming and attract homeschoolers, parents, and friends of the college. “There are millions of people interested in learning from Hillsdale College,” Arnn said. “It would create another place for them to come.” Phillip Kilgore, director of the Barney initiative, said such a facility would be helpful for holding regional training events as well as offering summer events and programs to middle and high school students. “The satellite facility would give extra capacity for the college during the summer since so many events are held on our current campus between mid-May and mid-August,” Kilgore said. Arnn also suggested a satellite facility holding a graduate school for a Masters of Classical Education program, which Hillsdale is interested in starting. He said that could

launch somewhere else and perhaps also on campus. “We know that there is a need for a quality master’s degree in classical education,” said Daniel Coupland, dean of faculty and professor of education. “We think that Hillsdale could do a good job of providing such a program.” For now, the college does not seem to be looking to open a second undergraduate college campus anywhere. Arnn, however, did note that the number of students as well as prospective faculty members looking to pursue a liberal arts education has increased over the past 15 years. “A lot has changed,” Arnn said. “We have a lot more high-quality students than we can admit. We have a lot more applications for jobs than we can hire. We increasingly find as we search that we wish we could hire more than one person.” Arnn also emphasized that if the college does create a new location, the goal is to make it self-sustainable, so as not to divert funds from Hillsdale’s mission as a college. Two of the offers would make money off the land donated. The third is supported by donors who have a high opinion of Hillsdale, but are not contributing financially right now, he said. “It would be surprising if it all comes together,” Arnn said. “It would be surprising, but by

no means impossible, if none of it came together.” Arnn publicly announced consideration of opening a new Hillsdale location during the Parents Weekend luncheon on March 17. At the time, he specifically mentioned one in California because the man making one of the offers was present at the time. Consideration for a satellite location comes with good timing, as the college currently is developing plans and goals for the next five years. In that, Arnn said he is optimistic about the future and is aware the college has been fortunate in the success of some of its endeavors that were not always a guarantee. Arnn teased that in about a year, he expects the school to launch another major fundraising effort. He said the college is laying out its steps to do that now. “We’ve never been rich enough to ask the question: ‘What might you do?’” Arnn said. “It’s ‘What do you need to do for the excellence of the college?’” For that reason, a new location affiliated with Hillsdale is under consideration, Arnn said. “I don’t think we’re going to make a decision about this,” he said. “I think we’re going to discover whether it is a thing to do or not.”

College considers satellite location

Margaret Scott, a resident of Hillsdale, has volunteered to help with the Women Commissioners rummage sale for many years. The organization voted to no longer hold the annual sale in January. Ronda Deer | Courtesy

Women Commissioners end annual sale

By | Breana Noble Editor-in-Chief The Women Commissioners will no longer holds its annual rummage sale, the group voted in January. In discussion for several years now, ending the tradition of the sale came to fruition in January, when the independent organization, which celebrated its 125th anniversary in September, voted overwhelmingly to find a new way to raise money for Follow @HDaleCollegian

the student scholarships it supports. Aging membership, decreasing profits, and rental and maintenance fees contributed to the decision. The group still is discussing what it will do to fundraise money to sponsor more student scholarships. “This does not jeopardize our scholarships,” said Ronda Deer, the group’s outgoing president. “They’re already in existence. We will continue to have fundraisers to continue to fund more scholarships.”

The annual fall sale dates back to the 1950s and gathered used belongings from the community for resale in a giant rummage sale. In recent years, it was held in the Biermann Athletics Center. The two-day event, which typically requires a full week of work for setup and cleanup, combined community outreach while also supporting college students. The Women Commissioners already support 36 students with scholarships. In recent years, though, the

group has seen diminishing returns from the sale that near $10,000 in less profit. “It used to be it was a real benefit to the community, because we didn’t have the Goodwill store and the Salvation Army store,” said Sue Hayes, co-chair of the organization’s Ways and Means Committee. “People who need it get it on a year-round basis. I don’t think the service is needed as much.”

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Harner, chief of staff in the president’s office. The college is looking at moving entire departments and programs to Mauck Elementary. “There are a number of possible uses,” Harner said. “Office space has become a premium as departments have expanded in the colleges mission has grown.” Additionally, the 1.7-acre lot would provide much needed parking space for large

events such as homecoming and commencement, Harner added. The district has permitted the college to use its lot for that purpose in the past, Vondra said. Since Mauck Elementary closed, Hillsdale College has been looking into the possibility of purchasing the building, according to Harner.

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Hillsdale College has offered to buy Joseph Mauck Elementary School for $390,000. Breana Noble | Collegian

The College Republicans held a five-person panel about the opioid epidemic’s effect on Hillsdale. Rachel Umaña | Courtesy

The College Republicans host opioid crisis panel By | Jordyn Pair News Editor For some, it’s a culture problem. For others, it’s overprescription. But all can agree: Opioid use is a problem in Hillsdale County. College Republicans held a panel of community members on Tuesday evening to discuss the local impact of America’s opioid epidemic. The panel included Republican Congressman Tim Walberg, Sheriff Tim Parker, District Drug Court Judge Sara Lisznyai, Director of Emergency at Hillsdale Hospital Donald Brock, and Director of Health Services at Hillsdale College Brock Lutz. Roughly 100 people attended, the majority of which were members of the community. Brock said in his 25 years in the medical field, he has pronounced 50 to 100 people dead from opiate-related causes. “This is something we need to focus on,” Brock said. Opioid overdoses are the main source of drug-related deaths in the United States. They were related to 42,249 deaths in 2016. Overdose deaths were five times higher in 2016 than in 1999, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC also lists the increase of opioid-related deaths from 2015 to 2016 as “statistically significant.” The panel focused both on broad range issues as well solutions being implemented in the community. Walberg said one of the main causes of the opioid crisis is the breakdown of society. “We in society need to be concerned about people caught in this trap,” Walberg said. “We’ve gotten away from the basics of moral society. Some say leave it to the churches. No, we leave it to ourselves.” Parker added insight from law enforcement, saying that the crime rates in Hillsdale

County are “fueled by” theft to get money to buy drugs. “From the Sheriff ’s office standpoint, we are reactive more than proactive,” Parker said. Lisznyai explained that some local programs focused on rehabilitation, rather than just incarceration. One program in particular consists of a five steps, involving meeting weekly with Lisznyai and frequent drug testing. Although the program is new enough that it hasn’t seen any graduates yet, the longest-standing case of sobriety is 275 days. “The drug courts have proven to be one of the best approaches so far,” Walberg said. The panel also discussed fentanyl, a stronger opioid that is often mixed into other drugs. “Fentanyl seems to be the kicker that puts people over the edge,” Parker said. Fentanyl is deadlier than heroin. Fentanyl also puts officers and their families at risk. So much so that suspected drugs are sent away to a lab, rather than submitted to a street test, so officers are not exposed to the drugs. Granules can sometime travel home with officers, exposing family members to them. The panel stressed that there is hope, however. The use of drugs like Narcan and Vivitrol can help break addiction. Both drugs bind to receptors in the brain, blocking the effects of the drugs. “No euphoria, no effect whatsoever,” Brock said. “I think you’re going to see this become a real great drug.” Former addict Kristi Fraga, 42, attended the talk. Fraga struggled with addiction from 1989 to 2011 and spent six years in jail. “The culture views addiction as a character defect,” Fraga said. “I feel like it’s a societal defect.”

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DeMint makes the case for Article V convention By | Theresa Smith Collegian Freelancer “The Constitution is no longer operative in Washington,” Jim DeMint, former president of the Heritage Foundation and current senior advisor on the Convention of States, told Hillsdale students and faculty Wednesday night. DeMint was the main speaker at the first-ever Citizens for Self-Governance event. For one hour, DeMint, joined by Mark Meckler, Students browse options at Café Fresco. Jordyn Pair | Collegian president of Citizens for Self-Governance’s national organization, made the case for the an Article V constitutional convention of states. DeMint said a convention of states will involve change and risk. However, he said the agreed. By | Alexis Daniels original Constitution does not “It was nice to be able to Collegian Freelancer take it out without actually go- have meaning today. He said the original ConThe new Café Fresco, locat- ing into Saga,” Imperial said. stitution “has been replaced “The options were reasonable. ” ed in Kendall Hall at Hillsdale by years of case law that has However one complaint College, opened on Monday obliterated the original meanImperial noted having water with a variety of options for ing. was the single beverage oplunch hours. “I can’t think of anything tion. Bon Appétit Managment “So maybe they might want that the federal government is Company opened the grab ’n’ go to alleviate the heavy traffic to branch out a little bit there,” not regulating,” DeMint said. Citing the tenth amendin the Knorr Dining Hall from Imperial said. ment of the Constitution, Sophomore Mitchell Biggs 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Some of DeMint said the states and the was also very enthusiastic the students who tested the people were originally delegatwaters Monday morning gave about the addition. ed powers not enumerated in “It beats going up the hill, good reviews, as well as some the Constitution. This is not going to A.J.’s, going to Saga,” pointers. the case today. Biggs said. “And the fact “I like the availability,” said “There’s nothing that the that you use a swipe means I sophomore Avery Helms. don’t have to worry about my federal government is leaving “And you have more variety Charger change. So I think it’s to the states or the people, or instead of just two choices very few,” DeMint said. great.” with Passport and Sizzle.” Senior Giannina Imperial

Students give positive reviews for Café Fresco

Citizens for Self-Governance hosted former president of the Heritage Foundation Jim DeMint to speak on the Convention of States. Mike Ruthenberg | Courtesy

“There’s already been a run-away convention and we weren’t invited,” he said. “Everything is constitutional for the federal government.” He said the unbridaled government has a negative impact on various levels of society: culture, education, the free market, insurance, and energy. “We now have an overbearing government that is involved in every area of our lives,” DeMint said. He noted the gap between the amount of money the federal government receives and the amount it spends is unsustainable. This is the reason DeMint supports the constitutional convention of the states. “The system of the government is no longer politically

possible,” he said. “Our only solution now is the people. The only thing to do is to turn to a convention of the states.” DeMint proposed three subject matters the convention should incorporate into the Constitution with the aim of restoring “the original limits on the Constitution.” The first is to expose the federal government by requiring a balanced budget and spending accountability. Secondly, the Constitution must limit the authority and jurisdiction of the federal government. The third is imposing term limits on federal officials. Joining DeMint and carrying all 2,738 pages of the operative constitution, Meckler reinforced the need for a

convention of states. “The truth is that the constitution has been stolen from us,” Meckler said. According to Meckler, law students learn what judges say the constitution means, and not the Constitution itself. “This is the Constitution we labor under today,” he said. “It’s kind of like a game of telephone.” He praised Hillsdale College for teaching the constitution and felt honored that “the first students for self governance is started here.” Sophomore Emily Heubaum, the Marketing Chair for Citizens for Self-Governance at Hillsdale, was enthusiastic about DeMint’s visit. “It’s so exciting to have someone so influential to speak at our first event,” she said. She appreciated DeMent’s work in favor of the Constitutional Convention of States. “He is a great speaker for the movement and explains it so well,” Heubaum said. Charles Steele, professor of economics at Hillsdale and faculty advisor for Citizens for Self-Governance, was happy with the event as well. “I think I learned a lot, and I knew a lot before,” Steele said. He said it is important to figure out how to solve the problems in the U.S. government. “A convention of states is a valuable solution,” he said.

Club sails into sixth place, its best overall place ever By | Calli Townsend Collegian Reporter

The Chargers’ sailing club came in sixth at a Notre Dame competition, which is its best overall finish ever. Hillsdale’s sailing club sent four freshmen, lead by senior Jacob Weaver, to Notre Dame on March 24 and 25 to compete in the Freshman Icebreaker Regatta. They competed against nine different teams from the University of Notre Dame, the University of Michigan, Marquette University, and Ohio State University. “I’m really proud of how the team did,” freshman Kaitlyn Rowland said. “And we survived the cold, which is always a good thing.” A regatta is made up of six rotations, with each rotation consisting of two races. Hillsdale sent an A and a B team to Notre Dame, giving the team as a whole 24 races to compete in over the course of two days, which was great practice for this new club. “We’ve gone out since our last regatta in the fall one time,” freshman Leahi Johnsens said. “With each race we tried to improve little things. Really the regatta itself was like a practice.” The team has had little opportunity to train on Baw Beese Lake this spring, but that doesn’t stop them from improving during competition.

“For me personally, I became a lot more comfortable with the boat,” Rowland said. “I felt like my crew and I became a better team. We definitely worked well together and made improvements together. Before each race we made mini goals.” Rowland was the skipper for the A team, while Johsens was the crew. “I think we’re going to be skipper and crew for the next

“It’s a great community. All of these schools have rallied around us to help us particate in these regattas.” regattas we have, just kind of stick together and train together,” Johsens said. Weaver said he was proud of how the team of young sailors did. “They did a great job for being out for their first time this year. The more they raced, the more they improved,” Weaver said. “The wind was very shifty, with lots of gusts and things like that. The first day was much windier than

Tocco speech postponed until April By | Scott McClallen Assistant Editor Entrepreneur Don Tocco’s speech and unveiling of his fundraiser Art for Scholarship, in which alumnus buy Tocco’s paintings for a fixed dollar amount, has been

rescheduled for April 23, according to an all-campus email. Tocco didn’t respond to The Collegian for comment.

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Freshmen Maggie Ryland, Kaitlyn Rowland, Leahi Johnsens, and Micah Perry sailed into sixth place. Calli Townsend | Collegian

the second day.” Fortunately for the team, there was very little ice at this Icebreaker regatta. Weaver said the lake they sailed on is used as coolant for a factory, so the water never freezes despite how cold it is.

“On Sunday morning we had to break ice out of the boat,” Johnsens said. Because of the cold temperatures, sailors were required to wear drysuits, which the Hillsdale sailing club does not yet have, although the

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the time,” Harner said. “The 125th anniversary of the organization provided an opportunity for the organization to relook at these challenges and figure out what the best step forward would be.” Members of the Women Commissioners said they were understanding of the college’s request. “The college has been very accommodating, always,” Hayes said. “For years, they didn’t charge us anything. It’s only fair that they would charge us the same amount as other groups. It was getting to be more difficult for them, and we needed a great deal of help.” That was because the average of age of the organization’s 75 women had increased. Given the amount of physical labor that goes into the sales, its setup, and its cleanup, this had made its execution much more challenging, Hayes said. “It was a tremendous amount of work,” she said. “All the wonderful commu-

In the future, those profits were expected to decrease even more. The college was going to begin charging the organization for using the Biermann’s facilities and maintenance services. Mike Harner, the chief of staff in the college president’s office who serves as the liaison between the college and the Women Commissioners, would not confirm the price offered to the group to use the college’s facilities and services. He, however, said the rental fee for Biermann is set at about $5,000 per day for charities. Additionally, internal reviews by the college found that the sale costs about $20,000 per year to hold. That includes storage for many of the items sold at the sale and the work done by maintenance employees, including covering Biermann’s floor and setting up tables. “We had looked at the costs about five years ago and identified some challenges at

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Chargers were able to borrow drysuits from Notre Dame. “It’s a great community,” Weaver said. “All these school have rallied around us to help us participate in these regattas.” Hillsdale will sail on Lake

nity volunteers who helped were very nice. I think it’s just, with the age of the membership, it was probably just time to move on and explore other avenues.” Having discussed these challenges, the members voted at the organization’s quasquicentennial banquet during homecoming whether or not to disband the tradition. It was a tie. The college reviewed its costs again, finding similar results to that of five years ago. The group voted by mail, and overwhelmingly, it supported ending the rummage sale. Since then, it is looking at new ways to fund its scholarships with input from the college. The group hopes to still combine community outreach efforts and perhaps widen the scope of involvement in its money-raising efforts, Hayes said. “The Women Commissioners are looking for ways where they can better and more efficiently support the

Michigan next weekend at the Laker Showdown, co-hosted by Hope College and Grand Valley State University. Weaver is expecting this to be a bigger regatta, with about 13 teams.

college and community,” Harner said. “We are here to assist them in those efforts.” The organization does have one fundraiser on its calendar already. Its biennial Bag Ladies Luncheon is set for May 19. Tickets are $20 and include lunch and a style show from the Maggie Anne Shoppe. The group also will sell raffle tickets for themed bags such as those with knitting or stamping tools, though there may also be some special prizes like a Coach purse up for grabs, too. Deer said a new fundraiser may alternate every other year with the luncheon. The Women Commissioners should have a better idea of what that will be after its meeting in May, Deer said. “We feel we are a part of the college,” Deer said. “We have invested in the dorms, preschool, and in scholarships. We are not going away. We will have a plan. We are going to be around for another 125 years.”

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Greek houses come together to tie blankets for charity By | Carmel Kookogey Collegian Reporter Recent statistics show that one in every four men will be victim to domestic abuse at some point in their life, and one in every three women. The Greek houses of Hillsdale College recently collaborated to support some of the local victims of that abuse. Students from most of Hillsdale’s Greek houses came together on Monday night to tie fleece blankets, to donate to Domestic Harmony. The GOAL Volunteer Program partnered with Domestic Harmony, the local shelter for people who have been victims to domestic violence, and the Panhellenic Council to donate the blankets to the more permanent residents of the shelter, in addition to foster children. Sophomore and Kappa Kappa Gamma member Katie Dimmer, GOAL volunteer program leader for Domestic Harmony, explained the purpose of the event. “There’s not a ton we can do for these people in their situation, but to give them a physical comfort and say “Hey, I made this for you, I care about you, and you’re not alone,” that’s a huge physical symbol in their time of need,” Dimmer said. Sophomore Regan Hodgson, Kappa Kappa Gamma panhellenic delegate and

Members of a variety of Greek houses worked together to tie blankets for Domestic Harmony. Katie Dimmer | Courtesy

philanthropy chair, explained that the topic of a collaborative philanthropic event had been an ideal she had hoped to pursue for a while. Though she had contacted a few GOAL program leaders, Hodgson had not heard back from anyone until Dimmer suggested the idea of an allGreek collaboration with Domestic Harmony at a recent Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter meeting. “Katie helped with the idea and the room, and I brought it up to the rest of the Pan-

hellenic Council,” Hodgson said. “They loved the idea and everyone was on board, so I reached out to the men and we got great participation right away. It was really cool to see people come together for this.” Before the blanket-tying began, Dimmer shared a bit about her personal involvement with the shelter, where she has been volunteering since freshman year. Dimmer also said that the victims of domestic violence being sheltered at Domestic Harmony

were not limited to Hillsdale work on something together. is a great one to kick start doCounty. “We didn’t really know ing more philanthropies, since “People from the college what we we’re doing, but that’s definitely something come to Domestic Harmony,” they taught us in a couple that, coming from the semesDimmer said. “So these kids of minutes,” Steyer said. “It’s ter with new leadership, we’d may not be us, but in another really cool to help out in such like to do,” Lantis said. way they could be. Your work a good way, without having Members of the fraternities tonight matters.” much experience. I think it’s also joined in the crafting, Members of the Greek really special.” though they admitted their houses represented agreed the Kappa Kappa Gamma skills may have been less event was important. member junior Kendra Lantis adept. “I think that programs like added that collaboration “Blanket-making is an acthis and quired skill. It’s a what Katie’s work in progress, doing are but I think we’re absolutely doing a pretty fantastic, good job so far,” and I’m freshman Reed really glad Lawe of Alpha that we Tau Omega said. could help, Freshman even in this and Alpha Tau capacity,” Omega member Sigma Chi Sam Swayze, freshman meticulously tied Max Troyke knots on one of said. the infant-sized Junior blankets. and Pi Beta “We don’t want Phi memto make a bad ber Taylor product for the Steyer baby, but we’re worked on just not good a blanket artists,” Swayze with girls said. from her He added that swim team Sophomores Katie Dimmer and Regan Hodgson spearheaded the he hoped their volunteer project. Katie Dimmer | Courtesy who are ability paid off. members of “We’re trying Kappa Kappa Gamma, as well between Greek houses was to fill the blanket with the love as an independent, also on the something students will hope- that we would like to receive,” swim team. Steyer said that fully see more. Swayze said. “Also knots.” though they didn’t have a lot “We definitely want to do of artistic ability, it was cool to more inter-Greek events. This

Kappa house director to retire at end of semester By | Regan Meyer Collegian Reporter The women of Kappa Kappa Gamma have not gone a day without seeing the face of Debra Reister. The house director of the Kappa residence is always present and has been throughout her time at the house. Reister’s stint as house director, however, comes to an end as the spring semester begins to draw to a close. Reister has decided to retire after five years in the position. “Being a house director is just running the house, supervising the housekeeper and the cook,” Reister said. “I make sure that everything is in the house that is needed for any of the programming, formal dinners, that sort of thing. I’m just supportive.” The lack of flexibility that comes with the position was a factor in Reister’s decision. “What’s hard for me is having to be in the house 24/7,” Reister said. “You don’t have flexibility in your schedule too much during school time. I have a lot of outside interests with volunteering and so forth. I want to be doing that.” Reister will surely be missed by her residents. Junior and Kappa Kappa Gamma President Andie Chandler

nitely be missed.” Reister brings out the best in her residents and helps maintain a healthy sisterhood. “So much of Greek life is done outside of the home but so much happens inside of the home as well,” Chandler said. “The house director does play an important role in ensuring that we are able to have a strong sisterhood, execute effective events, and open up our home to guests. It’s such an important role.” Junior and Kappa Kappa Gamma House Debra Reister, who is retiring at the Chairman Laurel Armes end of the semester, has been the explained that Reister Kappa house director for five years. has also been instrumenHillsdale College | Courtesy tal with making changes said Reister always has a smile in the house. and a kind word for the girls. “This past semester has “She always has the best been really cool,” Armes said. interest of the house in “We’ve gotten some upgrades mind,” Chandler said. “From to our meal plan which Debher nightly walks around bie helped up figure out. Now the house to make sure all we have Checker Records the lights are turned off and coffee, which is really excitwishing us good luck with ing. We also now have open our studies to making sure we kitchen on the weekdays. Now have enough snacks downwe can go and cook and get stairs to keep us occupied for what we want. It’s been espethe night, she just understands cially helpful for girls who are about being student and athletes.” balancing that with sorority The college has started life and all the other activities. searching for Reister’s reHer understanding will defiplacement. Chandler says

the college has been listening to feedback from the Kappa residents. “Communication is super important to us,” she said. “We’re looking for someone who can communicate openly with the house chairman and also with the girls in the house. It’s so unique in comparison to any other dorm because you’re dealing with not just the girls who are living in the house but the sorority as a whole. We just would like someone who is understanding of what we need as a house and how we function.” Reister’s understanding and advice will be hard to replace. In her time at Hillsdale, Reister has reminded the women of Kappa Kappa Gamma of the bigger picture. “I try to tell the girls that today is not such a crisis,” Reister said. “Just think about what your path is to go forward. I’m not far away from this to know what the impact has been, but I do enjoy hearing that the girls that have graduated are having children or are married and that the seniors are engaged. It has been a pleasure to be around that youth at this point and to know that they are going to be activists in whatever they do.”

Delts, dough, and donations

Delts raise money for diabetes research By | Allison Schuster Assistant Editor

After undergoing an entire semester of planning, Delta Tau Delta’s “Unbaked Sale” is anything but half-baked. Delta Tau Delta fraternity will be selling cookie dough for $1 in its annual “Unbaked Sale” on April 4 and 5 during meal hours in the Grewcock Student Union. The fundraiser will benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund, the fraternity’s national philanthropy. According to Senior Peter O’Rourke, it’s the fraternity’s goal each semester to raise as much money as possible for JDRF. The Hillsdale chapter specifically has had members throughout the years who have Type 1 diabetes. This, he said, makes it personal. “If by my efforts and the efforts of my brothers in Delta Tau Delta, someone else later down the line is able to be helped, it will have been more than worth it…” sophomore Peter Takach, currently suffering from Type 1 diabetes, said.

“If I can do something that can help to actively stop the disease in the future, not only do I want to do that, but I feel as though I have the responsibility to do so.” Delta Tau Delta raised around $400 last semester through events like the Unbaked Sale. Since 2012, their national fraternity has raised over $1 million for Type 1 diabetes research. O’Rourke said they always hope to make a 2:1 ratio of money, as to be efficient with the amount in their philanthropy budget, and they have been hitting that mark for a while. The idea was originally brought up in discussing about how to run a bake sale for an event. One of us mentioned selling cookie dough instead of making the cookies. “The Unbaked Sale has been a favorite of ours for some time now because it’s a lot of fun and campus really seems to like it as well,” O’Rourke said. “It’s been so successful that we’ve made it a staple of what we do for philanthropy.”

Professors provide advice on handling sexual harassment in the workplace By | Jo Kroeker Culture Editor “What would you do?” Professor of Psychology Kari McArthur asked the audience. At The Federalist Society’s Tuesday night panel on sexual harassment in the workplace, sponsored by Lighthouse, three female professors — McArthur, Professor of French Sherri Rose, and Professor of Biology Angie Pytel — shared anecdotal experience and professional advice with, and answered public questions from, the 40 listeners. McArthur distinguished between quid-pro-quo (sexual favors for job security, for example) and a hostile work environment. She recalled

experiencing the latter while working in a male-dominated field — hearing lewd jokes and seeing calendars with nude women. “Things were just different then,” she said. “Maybe things are still there; maybe they’re just more covert.” McArthur provided a step-by-step approach: First, document the “who, what, when, where, why, and how” of the incident.Then, only if it’s safe, confront the harasser. Third, check to see if the company has an anti-harassment policy. If not, talk with a supervisor. Fourth, report within 48 hours. Finally, know that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission protects accusers between 180 and 300 days, and if they find just cause, will supply lawyers.

Pytel said because women have historically been treated as objects, not as transcendent beings with their own minds, some men can’t parse out that sexual desire which objectifies women. She said that a solution would require understanding how women feel when they’re objectified, and understanding how men think and how to react to that. “As long as there’s mutual respect, sexual harassment isn’t going to happen,” Pytel said. McArthur and Rose both addressed the bystander effect, where the more people witness an incident, the less likely people are to report it. “One takeaway from the #MeToo movement is the importance of speaking up,”

Rose added. “Staying silent is a form of complicity.” Pytel also gave concrete tips for being aware of one’s surroundings, like making eye contact with people or unplugging earbuds: “This place is a good place to work, but not every place is wonderful, so just be careful.” After the talk, senior Monicah Wanjiru said she came because of the national discussion. “Large, mostly liberal schools deal with social justice issues sometimes more than a school like this would, and sometimes completely ignore the topic because the other side is dealing with it, maybe even wrongly,” Wanjiru said. Wanjiru, who said she comes from a culture that

is more vocal about sexual harassment than Hillsdale is, suggested formal conversations at orientation. “I want to see Hillsdale start a conversation on that, and not just be silent,” Wanjiru said. “I would want to see the administration more vocal about this.” Federalist Society co-president sophomore Madeline Hedrick said several people talked to her afterward, grateful for the information. “We thought that narrowing it down to sexual harassment in the workplace would make it applicable for us, especially because we are such a driven campus of young, current or future professionals,” Hedrick said. Sophomore Mary Kate Boyle, the communications

manager of the Federalist Society, said students at Hillsdale are lucky to be in an environment that’s generally safe and respectful, but that the sense of security can cause people to think, “It can’t happen here.” “I think we want people to be aware of their surroundings, and we want people to be thoughtful about the way they treat each other and what it’s like when they’re not in a bubble like Hillsdale.” Editor’s note: If you have experienced sexual harassment or know of someone who has, please, document the incident(s), talk to a counselor, and reach out to the deans’ office. The college’s policy regarding sexual harassment is available on the website.

A4 March 29, 2018

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The Weekly: Media should equally cover major protests (517) 607-2415

ABC, CBS, and NBC spent almost a half hour covering the March for Our Lives on Saturday night, according to NewsBusters. On Jan. 19, the same networks spent slightly more than two minutes on the March for Life. The media should be ashamed.

Smoke-free spaces lead to safe spaces By | Brendan Clarey Columnist Last week, junior Jordyn Pair wrote a piece, “Stop smoking outside the library,” condemning smoking outside, between the Grewcock Student Union and Mossey Library, for all the wrong reasons. In doing so she speaks volumes about the way our generation responds to discomfort. This summer in New York, I realized that a lot of people smoke. People from all walks and stations of life sit or stand in the crowded streets of Manhattan as they take in the beauty of the city and breathe out the blue smoke into the air for the rest of us. I don’t mind the smell of cigarettes because it sure beats other city smells — hot garbage and exhaust. Even in Hillsdale, I’ve never been bothered with the group of people outside the library because they’ve always been there, just like it’s a given that people smoke in Manhattan. But Pair and others are uncomfortable with the status quo. Last week Pair wrote, “It’s time to stop smoking in front of the library.” The problem is that people who make this claim go about it the wrong way by using students’ comfort as a way to make statements about what other students should do without considering the consequences of their argument. There are probably many of us that feel that smokers shouldn’t be allowed to bother our lungs and pollute our air. Many might be quick to take a moral or health-based highground that they think gives them the authority to tell smokers to leave for the sake of their own preferences. Those who want the smokers to go away are guilty of a very easy, but harmful way of thinking that our generation is eager to embrace: many of us are quick to equate our preferences with moral claims. Essentially, if someone is impeding on our comfort, then they are an offense to our person and are morally wrong. This mindset is prevalent enough that it deserves its own name, and maybe something like “preferential realism” could work for our purposes here. Preferential realism is the notion that if enough people don’t like something, it shouldn’t be allowed to occur or exist simply because it is uncomfortable. We have such a ridiculous perception of ourselves in relation to reality that we think we are entitled to force our preferences on those around us and on reality. We have applied preferential realism to everything: God, President Donald

The opinion of The Collegian editorial staff

Trump, smoking, and speech that we disagree with. There are those of us who convince themselves that there is no God simply because they are uncomfortable with a God who could send anyone to hell. Because of their own discomfort, many others try to cast God in their own image as a God who loves and forgives everyone instead of sending the unrepentant to hell. We are tempted to apply our preferences even to God. As a more concrete example, I was at a creative storytelling event this summer in Brooklyn, and one of the anecdotalists said that after Trump’s victory, “Denial is survival,” and the room erupted in cheers of agreement. I was shocked (and terrified someone might perhaps learn the truth about my political leanings and the mob that would follow), but I also realized that these poor people deny the latest election results daily because the uncomfort of the current situation is too offensive. There is an increasing number of us who are uncomfortable with speech that we disagree with: Many colleges are succumbing to the intellectual anaesthetic of safe spaces, free speech zones, and trigger warnings on offensive material. Conservative students are often harassed by university and college administrators for handing out pocket Constitutions or displaying pro-life messages in public because many students feel threatened by the public exchange of ideas. The great irony with Pair’s piece last week is that it ran underneath Liam Bredberg’s piece, “Safe spaces hinder college students.” His comments on our generation highlight the prevalence of preferential realism, especially in America’s colleges and universities. “More and more college students whine about slight discomforts that are thrown their way. This generation tends to shy away from things that every adult has had to deal with at some point in their lives. Its weakness is disheartening,” Bredberg wrote. Condemning smokers and calling for safe spaces are two sides of the same coin. In both cases, someone is trying to conform reality to their preferences. If we push smokers away from the library because it makes us uncomfortable, we’re that much closer to pushing away our freedoms and the things that challenge us for the sake of our comfort — a mistake far more dangerous than secondhand smoke. Brendan Clarey is a senior studying English.

Journalistic integrity demands honest reporting. While this does not always mean second-for-second coverage, reporting requires some semblance of fairness. Like the March for Our Lives, the March for Life happened in Washington, D.C. Like the March for Our Lives, the March for Life drew

thousands — if not hundreds of thousands — of people. Like the March for Our Lives, the March for Life is led by the rising generation. Unlike the March of Our Lives, the March for Life has consistently attracted enormous crowds for nearly 45 years. That merits more than two minutes of coverage.

With such undisguised biased coverage, it’s no wonder that America’s trust in media has dropped eight percentage points in the last year, according to Gallup. The American audience deserves better.

Feelings don’t care about your facts: Conservatives need to tell more stories By | Brooke Conrad Assistant Editor Abraham Lincoln was always telling stories. When a Virginian once suggested that he appease the South during the Civil War by giving up Fort Sumter, Fort Pickens, and all government property in the southern states, the President responded with the fable of “The Woodman’s Daughter.” “A lion was very much in love with a woodman’s daughter,” he began. “The fair maid referred him to her father, and the lion applied for the girl. The father replied: ‘Your teeth are too long.’ So the lion went to a dentist and had them extracted. Returning, he asked for his bride. ‘No,’ said the woodman, ‘Your claws are too long.’ Going back to the dentist, he had them drawn. Then he returned to claim his bride, and the woodman, seeing that he was unarmed, beat out his brains.” His point was this: If the North surrendered its positions, the South would destroy it. Conservatives should learn a lesson from Lincoln and try to persuade with storytelling. As it is, they often rely on cold, hard facts. Consider Ben Shapiro’s coinage of the popular conservative expression, “Facts don’t care about your feelings.” Of course it’s true: Facts are facts, regardless of a person’s feelings. But feelings don’t care about your facts either, and everyday conversation between liberals and conservatives proves the futility of facts as a persuasive tool. In a video that went viral on social media last November, a conservative high school student known online as “Kid Gadsden” challenged his teacher on her political views. The teacher, determined to prove racial or

religious bias in the criminal justice system, argued it is wrong for law enforcement to label Muslim attackers as “terrorists” and not label the white man responsible for the Las Vegas shooting a terrorist. The student countered her assessment, explaining that terrorism requires a political aim, which the Las Vegas shooter did not have, as far as law enforcement could tell. When the teacher objected to the dictionary definition

of that class is there because she finds stories more powerful than Merriam Webster’s boring definitions. And that’s just the point: Facts do not help conservatives much in the culture war; we need more stories. Adam Bellow, who serves as editorial director of All Points Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press, promoted this idea in a talk he recently gave on campus. Throughout his career as a nonfiction editor,

Novelist Charles Dickens wrote fiction to show the ineptitude of bureaucracy and the superiority of individual charity. Wikimedia Commons

of “terrorism,” the student responded, “What do you mean? You’re not smarter than the dictionary.” The teacher’s response: “Yes I am. I bet you I am.” Ironically, the argument took place in a creative writing class. Perhaps the teacher

he believed that publishing fiction would be “beside the point” in promoting conservative ideas, but he now helps to bolster conservative fiction through a media publishing platform he founded called Liberty Island. “For years conservatives

have favored the rational left brain at the expense of the right,” Bellow wrote in an article for National Review. “With apologies to Russell Kirk, the conservative mind is unbalanced — hyper-developed in one respect, completely undeveloped in another. It’s time to correct this imbalance and take the culture war into the field of culture proper.” This is not to say we need what Bellow labels “cause fiction” or “literary propaganda,” but rather, stories that more subtly incorporate political themes. For example, Charles Dickens did this in his novel, “Bleak House.” He dramatized the failure of government bureaucracies to solve human problems and showed the success of individual human attempts to help others. Dickens based the fictional “Jarndyce and Jarndyce” lawsuit on an actual case that lasted 53 years. But the power of the story is that it shows rather than tells. And that is the difference between appealing to feelings and assaulting with the facts. Becoming a better storyteller does not necessarily mean jumping into the creative writing club next semester. It might mean incorporating stories into everyday conversation, like Abraham Lincoln did. And perhaps when we get good at this, our liberal friends will begin to say, as Stephen Douglas did during the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, “Every one of his stories seems like a whack upon my back. When he begins to tell a story, I feel that I am overmatched.” Or maybe, at the very least, they’ll start listening. Brooke Conrad is a junior studying English.

Justitia Omnibus: Congress passed deficits for all and justice for none By | Alexis Nester Collegian Reporter Historically, and especially since the 1970s, Republicans and Democrats have made compromises by allocating funding for numerous projects into one, all-encompassing bill: an omnibus bill. President Donald Trump and the 115th Congress proved that they are no exceptions to this unfortunate historical trend. The federal government’s projected deficit for this year is over $1 trillion. This takes into account the $1.5 trillion tax overhaul Trump signed in December as well as Friday’s 2,200-page, $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill. Kelly Phillips Erb wrote in Forbes that the bill allocates $11.4 billion to improve customer service within the Internal Revenue Service, $1.6 billion for to add more fencing along the Mexican-American border, and $500 million for opioid crisis research. The bill also included a 2.4 percent pay raise for the military as well as increased funding for NASA and the National Park Service. The budget continues allocating taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and Deferred

Action for Childhood Arrivals — three items that Trump said he wants to defund. Republicans have a majority in both houses of Congress, however the bill passed easily, winning 65-32 in the Senate and 265-167 in the House of Representatives. Though rumors spread of a veto, Trump signed the bill into law on Friday in order to prevent another impending government shutdown. $1.3 trillion is a hefty price to pay for a bad compromise. The debt increased from $20 to $21 trillion in a record six months under Trump. Despite this, unprecedented levels of spending continue. To put this in perspective: There are currently only $70 billion in circulation. Until the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913, the United States government had accumulated only $2.9 billion in national debt. In the 1930s, FDR added $236 billion to the national debt, a 1,048 percent increase from the debt at the end of Herbert Hoover’s term. Reagan, whom many deify for his drastic tax cuts, added $1.86 trillion to the national debt, a 186 percent increase from Jimmy Carter. Bill Clinton added less than Reagan, with $1.396 trillion.

George W. Bush added $5.849 trillion, a 101 percent increase from Clinton. Obama added $8.588 trillion, a 74 percent increase from the younger Bush. $21 trillion is by far the highest debt the United States has ever experienced. With Congress’ spending habits, it is also likely the lowest amount of debt we will experience in the foreseeable future. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Congress will add $10 trillion to the national debt over the next ten years. The omnibus spending bill alone will add $1 trillion to the year’s deficit. Over the past few years, the Federal Reserve has kept interest rates arbitrarily low — roughly half the amount they should be naturally — to allow the government to spend as it will. These low interest rates increase the amount of loanable funds, which in turn means more borrowing from banks and consumer spending. GDP increases, creating a false sense of wealth, as the artificially low interest rates send false signals to buyers and sellers in the loanable funds market. Last Wednesday, the Federal Reserve increased the interest rate by .25 percent,

and they plan to continue increasing it over the next two years. The federal government currently spends $500 billion, 12.5 percent of its $4 trillion annual budget, to pay off the debt. As the interest rate rises to a normal level, spending on the debt will consume upward of 25 percent of the federal government’s annual budget. The government could either cut other parts of the budget to allocate funds to pay off the debt or increase the size of the annual budget. Judging by Trump’s most recent spending bill, the government will not stop spending any time soon. So what does that mean? As the CBO predicts, $10 trillion in debt over the next ten years. Ask Venezuela what happens when a country accumulates incredible amounts of debt and has to pay for it at a high interest rate. Trump is not to blame for our debt, but he it at least partially at fault for expanding it. Justitia omnibus, the official motto of Washington, D.C., means justice for all. Trump might have forgotten justice, but he at least remembered omnibus. Alexis Nester is a sophomore studying economics.

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De La Peña’s ‘LOVE’ normalizes broken homes to young children By | Aaron Andrews Special to The Collegian Overturned furniture clutters the room. Mom cries in the corner with her head in her hands as dad gesticulates wildly, halfway out the door. He’s drunk. An empty whiskey glass sits on top of the piano in the middle of the room. A whimpering child huddles underneath with only his dog to comfort him. These are details from an illustration in Matt de la Peña’s best-selling children’s book “LOVE.” The text reads “It’s not only stars that flame out, you discover. It’s summers too. And friendships. And people.” On the back of the book, the blurb from The New York Times reads “Everything that can be called love — from shared joy to comfort in the darkness — is gathered in the pages of this reassuring, refreshingly honest picture book.” Honest? You bet. Refreshing? Not so much. Illustrated by Loren Long, De la Peña’s best-seller normalizes broken families to an

audience of 4-8 year olds. “LOVE” climbed the New York Times top ten children’s best sellers list in February, hitting No. 1 in mid-March. It’s no wonder why. With soft and vibrant illustrations and simple, lyrical text, “LOVE’s” aesthetic qualities promise the reader that everything will be alright. But this is a promise that the book breaks. Particularly the first page, a baby’s view from the crib looking up at a smiling mother and father surrounded by a halo of light, soothes and convinces the reader to let his guard down. The opening lines resound with nearly biblical stability: “In the beginning there is light and two wide-eyed figures standing near the foot of your bed, and the sound of their voices is love.” The book trails on like this with no narrative arc, listing images that give concrete form to the abstract idea of love. The sound of mom and dad’s voice, the buzz of the radio in a cab, the crashing of the waves on the beach — de la Peña writes that all of these are love. So far so sweet, right? Well, the book soon takes a dark turn as it explores the harsh reality of troubled mar-

riages and broken families. Another illustration shows the back of a small boy staring out of a window at his father, trudging through the snow on his way to work. A barely older brother stands in profile, offering a breakfast of toast and orange juice to the parentally deprived youngster. Mom is nowhere to be seen. The text reads, “In time you learn to recognize a love overlooked, a love that wakes at dawn and rides to work on the bus. A slice of burned toast that tastes like love.” While these poignant scenes are well executed and while they do express the hidden love in bad situations — good ‘ole Fido in the first instance, and a loving big brother bearing juice in the second — they aren’t for young children. They are heartbreaking. What is de la Peña up to? In an interview with The Washington Post, de la Peña explained that these images are a way of inoculating children for their future experiences: “Not everything that happens is what we hope to have happen,” he said. “Not everything is positive. Acknowledging that adversity

exists is important — but also wrapping it in love. It’s like the flu vaccination — you get a little taste of it so your body can be more resilient. A book can do that, too. If you know that sadness exists, maybe you will be more adept at handling that sadness in real life.” De la Peña is not wrong. Children will grow up to experience sadness first hand, but does that mean that we should spoon feed them sadness from a young age? Why are we trying to normalize divorce and broken families? Rather than educating children about the sadness and the grit of the real world, perhaps children’s literature should provide children with a vision of the world as it ought to be. It should display models of strong families that stick together regardless of adversity — models of mothers and fathers that love each other and take care of their kids. That way when children grow up and encounter broken families, instead of being numb or immune, they will be sad — as they should be — and they will know why they are sad. Realizing dissonance in the world, they will pursue the stability of the examples

that they were shown when they were children. William Kilpatrick, Gregory Wolfe, and Suzanne Wolfe argue for this model of children’s literature in their book titled “Books That Build Character: A Guide to Teaching Your Child Moral Values Through Stories.” They argue that children need their books to give them “a prime meridian — a fixed standard — to reach their destinations in life.” It’s as if Kilpatrick and the Wolfes write with “LOVE” in mind. Offering “a criticism of an approach [to children’s literature] that wants to give children only the slice of reality that they already have,” they explain how “there is a danger in trying to accomodate fiction to every new social malady, the danger being that, after a while, no one remembers what a stable family looks like. It’s not possible to break the cycle of broken or unformed marriages unless you have a picture in mind of what the alternative is.” They go on to quote children’s author Jane Yolen, who argues that good children’s literature “tells us of a world as it should be. It holds certain val-

ues to be important. It makes issues clear …. [I]t becomes a rehearsal for the reader for life as it should be lived.” This is not to bar children’s literature from dealing with conflict, sadness, or darkness. In fact, the best children’s books ever written deal with big problems. The difference is that good children’s literature doesn’t just dwell in darkness; it also offers hope. Take Cinderella, for example. Talk about a broken family! Mother dies and father marries a nightmare of a stepmother. But Charles Perrault does not write to prepare children for the reality of wicked stepmothers so much as to give them a model of virtue in the character of Cinderella as well as hope in the ultimate restoration of the world. Matt de la Peña and Loren Long are both Newbery Medal Award winners. Rather than trying to inoculate children with a divorce vaccine, they should be using their considerable skills to meet our children’s need for hope and a fixed standard in a quaking world. Aaron Andrews is a senior studying English.

Mohammed bin Salman offers real reforms for Saudi Arabia By | Abby Liebing Assistant Editor The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman is travelling around the United States for the first time since he came into power last June when his eighty-twoyear-old father King Salman named him crown prince. The prince’s trip consists of meeting with high-profile Americans such as Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Tim Cook, and President Donald Trump. His goal as he tours the states is to recreate Saudi Arabia’s profile in the American mind. For decades, the Saudi Kingdom has been the home of ultra-conservative Islam and oil. Now the crown prince wants to show that the kingdom is changing and progressing out of its archaic ways. Prince Salman’s journey to power began in 2013 when he was appointed head of the Crown Prince’s court, a position his father held at the time. When his father took the throne in January 2015, he made MBS the defense minister and named his cousin Mohammed bin Nayef crown prince. In April 2015, MBS gained more power and came closer to the throne when King Salman appointed him deputy crown prince, second deputy prime minister, and president of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs. Finally, in June 2017, King Salman pushed out Mohammed bin Nayef and made MBS the crown prince. Suddenly, MBS became the most powerful man in Saudi Arabia. When he was named crown prince, he also remained president of the Council for Economic and

Development Affairs, defense minister, and began acting as first deputy prime minister. He heads most of the government’s departments now. But MBS is not loved by all and his rise to power has caused concern. Before he became crown prince, MBS was subject to harsh criticism over his involvement in the Yemen crisis that began in 2015. ABC News reported that even during his trip to U.S., riots against MBS were planned in Boston by students and in Washington by CODEPINK, an anti-war group. As the defense minister, MBS sent troops in 2015 to Yemen to fight off the Shiite Houthi rebels who were rebelling against Yemen’s military and government. Since Yemen is in Saudi Arabia’s backyard, there was a legitimate security concern for Saudi communities near the border. As the Sunni power in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has to keep Shiite enemies from creeping up on its borders, which meant protecting the Yemeni government instead of letting wild Shiite Houthis take it over. In 2015, many also supposed that Iran supported the Houthis, Saudi Arabia’s and everyone else’s great enemy. The intervention became chaotic, especially after certainty arose that Iran had not financially supported the Houthis. But, MBS could not have predicted the turn that the intervention in Yemen would take. He tried to crush the Houthis, but instead, the Houthis have retaliated in smaller groups. They enjoy firing rockets into Saudi Arabian communities near the border to continue border squabbles that keep the Saudi military busy. MBS can no longer choose whether to secure the

border or not; it’s a necessity to keep his people safe. Aside from ongoing criticism about the Yemen crisis, as the new crown prince, MBS is now attacked as a power hungry individual. Critics cynically assume that all of MBS’s recent reforms are part of his plan to keep gaining

was to begin a long process of reforming the kingdom’s economy which has revolved around one commodity for decades: oil. With dropping oil prices, MBS began shrewdly looking to the future and working to wean Saudi Arabia off its oil addiction. Reuters reported in

country ever to be at the mercy of commodity price volatility or external markets,” MBS said at a press conference in 2016. With financial reforms underway, MBS turned to reforming Saudi Arabian society once he became crown prince. His first step was beginning

President Donald Trump met with Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman. Wikimedia Commons

power because he is just an ambitious power monger and has no true interest in changing Saudi Arabia. Time will tell if MBS is a megalomaniac, but being a power monger and reformer are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Without the immense power that MBS now yields in his various positions, he would not have authority to enact the reforms that are bringing Saudi Arabia out of its unenlightened existence and into the westernized, twenty-first century. Before MBS even became crown prince he was pursuing his “Saudi Vision 2030,” a long term plan for reforming the kingdom’s economy and social structure. His first step

2016 that he wants to sell huge amounts of the kingdom’s national oil company, Aramco, and begin to diversify the economy so that it doesn’t revolve around oil. This is why he is meeting with U.S. figures like Cook, Bloomberg, and Gates. According to Reuters, his financial plans for Aramco and the whole economy would mean “raising non-oil revenue to 600 billion riyals ($160 billion) by 2020 and 1 trillion riyals ($267 billion) by 2030 from 163.5 billion riyals ($43.6 billion) last year.” This would stabilize the kingdom’s economy so that it doesn’t shift every time oil prices change. “We will not allow our

an anti-corruption movement. By November he had arrested more than 300 Saudi Arabian princes and elites. Critics may view his campaign against corruption as an attempt to remove other influential royal members or business people to shore up his power and his future throne. Although he has exercised his power, he is nonetheless a reformer. MBS is also looking to reform Saudi’s culture by transitioning to a more moderate Islam, instead of the ultra-conservative Islam that has prevailed in the kingdom for decades. “We are simply reverting to what we followed — a moderate Islam open to the world

and all religions. 70 percent of the Saudis are younger than 30, honestly we won’t waste 30 years of our life combating extremist thoughts, we will destroy them now and immediately,” he said. Returning to moderate Islam means getting rid of primitive and backward customs that the kingdom clung to. Movie theaters have reopened, women can attend soccer games, join the military, and soon, they will be allowed to drive. Public events will be co-ed and MBS has neutralized the power of the religious police who used to harass women for how they dressed and arrest people for irreligious behavior. MBS is fully aware that the majority of the population in his kingdom is part of a young, westernized generation and in order to keep up with the rest of the world, Saudi Arabia has to be reformed in some fundamental ways. This means recognizing women’s rights in society, transitioning out of ultra-conservative, and even extreme Islam, and diversifying an economy that previously revolved around one commodity. MBS has been working for years to change and protect Saudi Arabia’s society and economy. Now as the most powerful man in the kingdom, he can enforce his reforms and quickly implement healthy change. MBS is the powerful figure that Saudi Arabia needs to finally bring it out of its primitive, oil-infatuated existence and into the modern world. Now he just needs to convince the U.S. of Saudi Arabia’s new character. Abby Liebing is a sophomore studying history.

There will be no joy in Mudville until we stop the shouting

What the Steve Scalise shooting taught a teenager about protest in public discourse By | Nic Rowan City News Editor Until recently, gun control advocates had not realized they had a powerful weapon in their arsenals: fearless, outspoken teens. The past weekend’s March for Our Lives demonstrated that the gun control movement wields the sort of power Mothers Against Drunk Driving leveraged against the drinking age in the 1980s. Emotions compel reason. Teenagers demanding their peers be protected from school shootings could eventually persuade lawmakers to restrict Americans’ ability to own guns. So I thought I would add my own teenage testimony. I was still 19 on the day House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, was shot this past June. That day, I caught a green line train down toward Nats Park to see the Atlanta Braves trash

the Washington Nationals, 13-2. When I arrived at my family’s box halfway through the seventh inning — some nice person had reserved the big one behind home plate — Atlanta was in the middle of a six run streak that would break Washington’s Nattitude for the day. And since neither Bryce Harper nor Ryan Zimmerman could get on base, we were out a team. These things come as no surprise. After all, D.C. is no sports town. Among our four major league franchises, we boast a football team branded with a proudly racist American Indian, a magical basketball mascot picked through a Washington Post poll, and a soccer team which plays in a stadium named for Bobby Kennedy, whom you might know from his assassination. The Nats alone seem to have escaped the ignominity that comes with Washington sports. And that’s probably just because they’re a nearby alternative to the Baltimore

Orioles, whom most D.C. residents secretly love anyway. But that’s just our Nattitude. Someone on the team’s public relations squad coined the term several years ago — they splashed it all over the stadium and Twitter — and I understand why. It’s the joy in Mudville. Because no one in the metro area consents to be loyal to a barely 10-yearold team, the best we can do is comfort ourselves by using its existence to tap into The Parable Of Baseball. When the Nats win, the stands erupt with cheers for the surprising notion that we (swamp dwellers!) are human too. When they lose, we shake our heads in uncomplaining shame: America’s pastime can’t thrive in America’s capital anyway. We were shaking our heads that day. Steve Scalise had been shot. “I hope to God he doesn’t die,” my brother said. “They would lock us in the stadium, just like that time Baltimore burned.”

He is, of course, referring to the Baltimore riots of 2015 when police officers killed 25-year-old Freddie Gray while transporting him to a police station. It was a race thing. My family attended a Baltimore Orioles game on Peak Riot night. Authorities locked us in Camden Yards until a SWAT team arrived to protect people leaving the game. The Scalise shooting was of a different calibre. It was ideological. Earlier that morning on a Del Ray community baseball diamond, a lone gunman emptied several 9mm magazines in the direction of several Republican congressman practicing for the annual bipartisan Congressional Baseball Game. Scalise and three other people were wounded in the firefight. Local police arrived 10 minutes later and killed the gunman, James T. Hodgkinson, a 66-year-old Bernie Bro from Illinois. Scalise sustained a shot

through the hip and managed to drag himself off of second base and out of the line of fire before an ambulance rushed him to the hospital. Doctors began surgery almost immediately. We were told he was doing well. But after that first surgery, Scalise’s condition worsened. Twitter sent me a notification: SCALISE IN CRITICAL CONDITION. A video of the shooting, recorded by a Del Ray resident, began circulating on CNN, MSNBC, and FOX with Zapruder-like intensity. Scalise is hit. Scalise is falling. Scalise will die. Scalise must die. And by the time I was dizzying myself in bubbly orange juice at Nats park, it seemed like death was the only thing that would triumph on a day like this. Of course we were all deluding ourselves. Scalise did not die, even if our worst fears willed it to be so. The mass anxieties of the ballpark — not helped by the jumbotron giving us live updates of the

Congressman’s condition — are the same longings of any crowd: to make a change, no matter how vague or haphazard. Just anything but our current state. Anything but the now. So when a univocal mass gathers in front of Capitol Hill shouting for change, I can only think of the day Steve Scalise was shot. What do we even want? Who is we? When we gather together in large crowds, discourse devolves into the pure and awful democracy of children. There’s no clarity, no room for deliberation here. Every one of these protests is a permutation of the one before. Democrats try to kill Republicans. The police kill black people. And now high schoolers kill each other. Stop it all. This is sin. Nic Rowan is a junior studying history.

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A6 March 29, 2018

Seniors Heather Wodehouse and Jake Coonradt play at Hillsdale Idol Unplugged. Facebook | Courtesy

The Wineboxes clinch Hillsdale Idol Unplugged

By | Carmel Kookogey Collegian Freelancer Against fierce competition from fellow student and town members, Hillsdale College student band The Wineboxes took home first place at Hillsdale Idol Unplugged.

On Thursday night, residents of Hillsdale County, students and alumni of Hillsdale College, and youth from the Hillsdale County School of the Arts gathered at the banquet hall at Johnny T’s Bistro on South Street to perform and listen to live music. This

second annual event, playfully named Hillsdale Idol Unplugged, featured a wide range of performers, who competed to win monetary prizes up to $250. Proceeds from ticket sales went to support Hillsdale County School of the Arts’ Summer String Festival, a

Junior Shad Strehle and Dean Sinclair ‘18 play some music. Facebook | Courtesy

summer camp for high school students in the area who play string instruments. Students of HCSA also participated in the music competition, playing a selection of songs including Coldplay’s “Paradise.” Abigale Bates, a member of HCSA, said she felt the performance went well. She added that she had been practicing twice a day the week leading up to the performance, and at least half an hour every day prior to that. “I liked all of it, and it was pretty awesome that all my friends came,” Bates said. Hillsdale Alumni Calvin Stockdale and Katie Stockdale returned for another performance this year as well, this time using only banjo and vocals. Calvin Stockdale’s college band, Hilltop Moonshiners, played at Centralhallapalooza a few times during his school years, in addition to coffee house performances, before wooing his now-wife Katie Stockdale by taking apart his banjo, and showing her how it worked. Though San Diego-native Katie Stockdale said she was not initially inclined to the more Southern style of music, that has changed since knowing Calvin Stockdale. “Now it’s kind of our thing, it’s what we like to sing,” Katie Stockdale said. Once the Stockdales got married, they said they began playing music together for fun. After placing in last year’s Hillsdale Idol Unplugged competition, the biggest feedback they received were requests for more banjo music. “This year we went out on a limb, and did all banjo and two vocals, which is a pretty risky thing to do,” Stockdale

City seeks to fill treasurer position

said. Though they did not place this year, Calvin Stockdale added that his wife Katie Stockdale makes singing together fun. “It’s one thing to sing by yourself, but if you can do harmony, you’ve just created something together that’s now unique,” Calvin Stockdale said. Among other performers were Big Cat and the Modern Cruisers, composed of Hillsdale College seniors Jacob Coonradt and Heather Woodhouse, who performed two original songs with flute, guitar and harmonica. Despite

“We will be having a party where we buy wine boxes and hopefully drink them all.” his pick breaking midway through the second song, Coonradt continued to play, and the duo won third place. “I like that collegiate band name,” Emcee and Hillsdale Alumna Lauren Fink, ‘07, said, laughing. “That’s what the Great Books do to you, folks.” Hillsdale Alumni Andrew Fink and Aaron Johnson, ‘06, whose band, Hello Central, won second place, joked that none of their songs were very pretty, but kept the audience laughing with a hearty rendition of “Roly Poly.” They also played some classic Van

Morrison songs. Hillsdale College Professor of Psychology Collin Barnes, one of the judges of the competition, described the decision process for the winners as relatively easy. “There was some debate about second and third place, but we were just floored by everyone’s performances,” Barnes said. “They were excellent, and really showcased the ability of the folks in the local music scene. We’re just happy to enjoy the talents and the abilities of the folks in the area.” First place went to Hillsdale College student band, The Wineboxes. They said their song choices were a different style than what they usually play, since the talent show was specifically unplugged. “We chose ones that we could put in an acoustic environment and make it work,” said guitarist junior Ryan Burns. Burns added that The Wineboxes enjoyed playing for the greater Hillsdale community. “It feels great to have come out and played an event that we could interact with the community in, and given all the talent of the people who came before us, either from the community or Jake Coonradt, they played absolutely marvelously,” Burns said. “I’m not sure that we deserved to win, but it feels very nice to have done it.” He added that The Wineboxes already have plans to celebrate their victory. “We will be having a party, where we buy wine boxes and hopefully drink them all,” Burns said.

Mauck from A1

former Hillsdale College President Joseph W. Mauck (The Women Commissioners named Mauck Residence on campus after his wife, Frances Ball Mauck). Final construction costs of the building were $129,036 in 1939. Since then, Greek houses especially had a tradition of volunteering at the school. If the college does purchase Mauck Elementary, it would not be the first time it purchased a schoolhouse from the district. In 1940, the college bought Paul Revere School at 190 N. West St., Mauck Elementary’s predecessor, for $2,000. Three years later, the college sold it for use as an industrial war factory, but Hillsdale repurchased it for use as a maintenance building. Since 1992, it has housed maintenance equipment. Soon the college hopes it can bring a new life to the quiet yard and silent halls of Mauck Elementary. “It’s a beautiful building,” Harner said. “It would be helpful to us, because our external presence is only going to grow.”

Opioids

addition to physical. “That’s the relief people are seeking,” Fraga said. Acting President of College Republicans Rachel Umaña said the group would most likely host the event again. For Fraga, the solution is helping people find meaning. “When you don’t have that sense of of self-worth because you’re not doing anything meaningful, you fill it with a substance,” Fraga said.

Péwé said the college approached the district at least three years ago, nearly making an offer. “I don’t think the timing was just right for either party,” By | Lillian Quinones he said. “Now it is clear we Senior Writer will need the space.” The $5 million is an estiThe Hillsdale City Council mated amount to update the has received 20 applications building that has stood vacant for the position of city treafor years. Péwé said the details surer, which has remained on that are yet to be set. Addivacant since Julie Beeker tionally, the college is looking resigned in the first week of March to work for the county to retain the architectural features of the school, which treasurer’s office. was constructed in 1939. The deadline for applica“We would want to pretions ended on Friday. City serve the building, but bring Manager David Mackie has it up to modern standards,” yet to begin reviewing the Péwé said. candidates and make recHillsdale Community ommendations to the city Schools voted to close Mauck council, said Kay Freese, the Elementary in November director of human resources 2009 because of declining enfor the City of Hillsdale. “There are a lot of variables rollment and to save on costs. After students left for the in choosing the individusummer in 2010, the district al,” Freese said. “We could has only used the property for have someone in a week or storage and does not have fua month because it really depends on who it is and their ture plans for it, Vondra said. The district named the availability,” elementary school after In the interim period, County Clerk Marney Kast from A1 is assuming the treasurer’s Former addict Kristi Fraga, responsibilities. Fortunately, the seasonal workload of the 42, attended the talk. Fraga struggled with addiction from position ebbs in March, but will pick up at the end of May 1989 to 2011 and spent six and beginning of June, as the years in jail. “The culture views addictreasurer will work to prepare the upcoming year’s tax bills, tion as a character defect,” Fraga said. “I feel like it’s a Freeze said. societal defect.” Fraga added that part of the draw of opioids is the way they numb emotional pain, in

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City News

March 29, 2018 A7

The Collegian presents: The best of Hillsdale 2018 Best Burger: The Hunt Club By | Calli Townsend Collegian Freelancer

Best Bar: Here’s to You Pub & Grub

By | Jo Kroeker Features Editor For my friend Lydia’s birthday, our mutual friend Morgan treated us to Here’s to You Pub & Grub, known to all as P&G. Past the smokers outside, through the fogged-up glass door, owner Kevin Conant scrutinizes your ID himself before you order or sit. The woman who busses our table, wiping the water rings away, is a mom. She apologizes for clearing while we’re there but she takes pride in keeping the tables clean. We thanked her and she said she gets practice cleaning at home. Construction workers building the chapel are seated by us. Eventually, we all got to talking. The foreman is there with a contractor, a worker, and an intern. The worker is getting a degree from Bowling Green and the intern took a travel gap year, going to Japan, Iceland, and Europe, so we talked about that — all of us having now moved onto their pitcher of beer, which keeps filling itself. The bartender knows how to hold her own. She banters with everyone, unleashing a few barbed jokes reserved for the men who almost don’t know what they’re saying. She is tough, untiring, glorious. We’re all friends here.

Hillsdale students have decided: The Hunt Club is the place to go for a great burger. The Hunt Club received 44 percent of the vote. Lane 17 at Hillside Lanes and Here’s to You Pub & Grub received second and third place respectively. Freshman Carmen Botha said The Hunt Club’s Texas burger is her favorite. “It’s bigger than most burgers and very juicy,” she said. “The bun is very good. It’s soft with a crunchy toasted side. They also use thicker slices of bacon, which is good.” Sophomore Kolton Rominski is another Hunt Club burger fan. His said his favorite is the mac ‘n’ cheese burger. “Who doesn’t like mac ‘n’ cheese? Then you put it on a burger, and it’s cooked to order, which I like,” Rominski said. “It’s very different and unique. Not many places have it. They have ten to 15 types of burgers.” The Hunt Club’s Head Chef, Dan Stevens, said he was honored to be chosen. “It’s an honor. It’s nice to be voted number one burger in town,” Stevens said. “The mustang melts are probably the most popular. If I had to make a choice, I’d say the cowboy burgers are my favorite.”

Best Ice Cream: The Udder Side

By | Madeline Fry Culture Editor For flavors from chocolate almond to coconutty, Hillsdale students call The Udder Side their favorite sweet spot. More than 80 percent of students chose The Udder Side as Hillsdale County’s best ice cream spot in a poll sent out by the Collegian last week. Of 186 students who responded, 17 chose Coney’s and Swirls, 8 picked Handmade, and one selected Finish Line Family Restaurant. Five students who responded “other” named Vanity Ice Cream, Johnny T’s gelato, McDonald’s, and A.J.’s Café. When Jessica Hurley ’17 was a student at Hillsdale, she went to The Udder Side ten times during one finals week, she said. Senior Alexa Tipton, whose dedication to frozen treats shows in her Facebook album “The Udder Side of Me,” said she and Jada Bissett ’17 came for ice cream and great service. “I love their mint chocolate chip ice cream. It’s the best I’ve ever had,” Tipton said. “Also, for sorority open houses Jada and I went to Udder Side to buy waffle cones for one of Kappa’s hors d’oeuvres, and the owner was so nice that he gave us an entire box of them for free. I love their customer service and choose Udder Side over any other ice cream store in the Hillsdale and Jonesville area.”

Best Coffee: Rough Draft By | Regan Meyer Collegian Reporter

Caffeine by way of coffee, courses through the veins of nearly every college student. While the typical student survives on Wal-Mart k-cups, it can be therapeutic to enjoy an artisan cup of joe topped with some gorgeous latte art. Hillsdalians find that beautiful brew in various spots around town but not one can hold a candle to Rough Draft. Rough Draft came in first with 95 votes with the closest competition, Checker Records, coming in second with 52 total tallies. Students cited both coffee quality and drink uniqueness as favorite aspects of Rough Draft. “I appreciate the uniqueness flavors of the lattes and the sweetness,” said sophomore Maria Forsythe. “They usually tailor the level of sweetness to you. Their lattes are just high quality.” Rough Draft not only serves up great coffee but also a warm and welcoming atmosphere said freshman Sophie Reynolds. “Rough Draft has a really nice atmosphere,” Reynolds said. “It’s a nice, relaxing place to study. I really like that they serve coffee in actual mug, so they reduce waste from the cups and plastic lids which is important for the environment.”

Best Date: Olivia’s Chophouse By | Allison Schuster Assistant Editor

Olivia’s Chop House is located in Jonesville, a 10-minute drive from campus, and boasts a fine dining experience, prime for any romantic evening. It is no wonder, then, that Olivia’s received 34 percent of Hillsdale College’s vote for best date spot. In second was Rosalie’s Roadhouse, and Johnny T’s Bistro was third. You and your date can enjoy intimate low lighting and a wide array of seating. Spacious booths or tables located an adequate distance away from each other ensure total privacy. Both lunch and dinner menus feature quality dishes with higher prices than most Hillsdale or Jonesville eateries, but still won’t break the bank. One fan favorite and something unique to Olivia’s is their flavored butter served with bread, with changing flavors each day. A Friday or Saturday night date at Olivia’s is guaranteed to delight. Olivia’s closes at 10 p.m., so be sure to take your date out early.

Best Entertainment: Hillsdale Premiere 7

By | Aaron Andrews Collegian Freelancer With six screens showing the latest and greatest blockbusters and a concession counter selling all the candy and coke that a student’s shallow pocket can muster, this theater is all that you can hope for from small town entertainment. “I like the movie theater here because it’s more community driven,” junior Adam Cieply said. “It has that small town theater feel. With its limited number of theaters, whenever big blockbuster movies come out — like any of the Marvel or Star Wars movies — it’s always packed. It’s a ton of fun. It feels like people are engaging with something. It feels better than a big AMC with 14-15 screens.” If you don’t like crowds, however, you can always show up on a weeknight. I went to a showing of Black Panther with my fiancé last Monday, and we had the whole theater to ourselves. At $7.75 per adult, the tickets are relatively cheap. “It’s a good two or three dollars cheaper than the theater back home,” junior Henry Listenberger said. The seats are roomy. “I love how there’s so much space between the seats,” senior Jess Degree said. “You usually only find comfy seats like that in a specialty theater.” Whether for the love of small town cinema or the lack of any other discrete modes of public entertainment, Hillsdale Premiere Theatre 7 reigns supreme.

Best Sandwich: Handmade

By | Hannah Niemeier Senior Writer It took four years for my family to visit me on Parents Weekend. When, this fall, they did, descending on Hillsdale all cornfed and thriving with stories of high school basketball and spin classes from a Nebraska town swept up in the Midwestern health craze, I thought they would probably like some lunch. Where? Of course: Handmade. While waiting for our sandwiches (I’m willing to wait for my pile of artisan meats and veggies to fit miraculously into a lettuce wrap), we caught up: There are now twelve fitness centers in my hometown. My mom logs 20,000 steps a day on her fitbit. They eat quinoa. In the intervening years, they’ve gotten Healthy. They like good food, and food good for them, and that’s why we’re here. Meanwhile, I developed a taste for caffeine and hoped for beer in the Handmade cooler. Meanwhile, I became a reporter and a great appreciator of the way a homey cafe atmosphere keeps words flowing. I claimed the “coffee and sammiches” beat as Handmade and Rough Draft opened one after another last year; I may have editorialized my news coverage about Derek and his dreams of cold coffee brewed like beer and beer flavored with coffee (someday). Ask Derek sometime about his search for the perfect ice cream. He tasted vanillas across Wisconsin for it. Ask him about how he crafts his seasonal menu. His catering adventures are full of light and foodie wisdom. I told my family these stories; they wolfed their sandwiches. My mom liked the spicy mayonnaise; my dad praised the shortbread. We sat outside at two cafe tables and enjoyed a golden afternoon: we were warm, full-bellied, blessed, surrounded by family with a wild weekend awaiting. My sister balanced her bottle of iced tea on her head. She threw her pickle wrapper at me. I asked her if she would eat at Handmade if she lived here: “Better than Subway,” she said. An understatement. This spring, as the weather gets warmer and we think again about refueling with friends and family instead of our computer screens, let Derek treat you like a regular. There are plenty of choices, but he dedicates his days to getting them right. And that’s a part of Hillsdale worth remembering. One of the Best.

Best Brunch: The Palace Cafe By | Crystal Schupbach Collegian Reporter

The students of Hillsdale provided The Palace Cafe with its true title this year: an upgrade from Best Breakfast of 2017, the Palace is the Best Brunch of 2018. The Palace polled in 47 percent of survey respondents. Finish Line was second, and The Coffee Cup took third. It’s 11 a.m. Your friend wants a sandwich, you still want some sausage links and eggs over easy. Why not have both? You can even cheaply satisfy your sweet tooth with a $3.95 cinnamon roll pancake that is the size of a $5 Hot ‘n’ Ready pizza. The murals on the wall never let the conversations die, leading to questions “Is that an angel flying over a duck…? And a...frat house?” And if you need some advice concerning the gossip circulating our small town from last night, look no further than the sign on the wall that reads, “Mind your own biscuits and life will be gravy.”

How we chose:

Nearly 200 students and faculty responded to a Collegian survey about local favorites. Categories and choices on the survey were determined by The Collegian editorial board, but allowed write-in opinions. These highlighted businesses won by the majority of the votes in their category, as determined by campus’s favorites. Graphics by Katherine Scheu | Collegian

A8 March 29, 2018

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Softball

Baseball Upcoming

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Mar. 24 Hillsdale - 9 vs. Cedarville - 0

Baseball still perfect in G-MAC By | Stevan Bennett Jr. Sports Editor The Hillsdale College baseball team has arrived to the G-MAC with bells on. This weekend pitching led the way as the Chargers (1114, 8-0 G-MAC) swept doubleheaders from the Trevecca Nazarene Trojans (12-15, 3-5 G-MAC) and the Kentucky Wesleyan Panthers (12-13, 2-6 G-MAC) to stay tied for first in the G-MAC — both overall and in the North Division — with Ohio Dominican (19-4, 8-0 G-MAC). “We’re doing a lot of things right right now,” head coach Eric Theisen said of the weekend. “Our pitching was outstanding, that was definitely the story … but we did a great job playing defense and running the bases and we were able to put some pressure on them.” Hillsdale started off the weekend with a 12-3 thrashing of Trevecca, a game in which nine separate Chargers recorded a hit. Last week’s G-MAC North Division Player of the Week junior Steven Ring carried the previous weekend’s momentum into the game, tallying three hits — two home runs — and four RBIs. Junior Dylan Lottinville drove in two runs of his own, while three other Chargers each also added an RBI. Senior starter Will Kruse set the tone for the Hillsdale pitching staff. In just 109 pitches Kruse covered the entirety of the nine-inning game and struck out 11 Trojans, allowing only three runs — two earned — on six hits. “[the pitching] has been huge,” redshirt freshman Rob Zurawski said. “We don’t feel like we need to hit four or five home runs a game. We know they’re going to go out there and shut it down.” With strong pitching behind them, the Chargers bats rolled right over into game two, scoring four runs over the first two innings. Two runs for the Trojans pulled the game within two, but four runs in the fourth for the Chargers and a squashed comeback attempt for the Trojans gave Hillsdale a 7-4 win for the sweep. Senior Alex Walts and junior Colin Hites each drove in two in the game, with three Chargers adding one of their own. Senior Phil Carey started the game and earned the win. Sophomore Kolton Rominski and freshman David Toth

Men's from A10

“I think we can finish 8-0, because we’ve played everyone in the G-MAC and we’ve beaten everyone, obviously. But again, we’re trying not to get complacent,” Szabo said. “We know we should be better teams than the teams that we’re playing, but we also know that we can slip up at any point.” The Chargers will play

each tossed an inning in relief to halt a late comeback effort from the Trojans. Saturday meant a new opponent at Simpson field when the Chargers hosted the Kentucky Wesleyan Panthers for a two-game set on a cold Michigan day. The Panthers gave the Chargers their first deficit of the weekend in game one, scoring two runs in the top of the first. Sophomore Andrew Verbrugge shut the valve after that, throwing the final eight innings of the game without allowing a run. “He worked really hard in the off-season to develop another arm angle...and he took to that really well,” Theisen said. “And then his command of the strike zone has greatly improved and that has been the biggest key for him — his aggression in the strike zone and allowing to life on his pitches to get the outs for him.” Hillsdale responded with a run right away in the bottom of the first, taking the lead for good in the third inning before adding insurance in the seventh and eighth. Walts, Ring, and Hites all had an RBI in the game. Thanks to efficient starts from the rotation earlier in the weekend, Rominski was able to start the second game on Saturday. “The efficiency was really good. Our attack mentality on the mound was good,” Theisen said. “We’ve been really good on the ground the last three weeks and it started in Springfield.” Rominski gave the Chargers five strong innings,

allowing two earned runs over five innings, before Toth came in to record a six-out save. The Chargers carried a 1-0 lead into the fifth, when the Panthers tied the game in the top of the inning before the Chargers took a 3-1 lead in the bottom. The two teams repeated the process in the sixth, bringing the game to 5-2 entering the final frame. The first four Panther batters of the inning reached, but Toth induced a ground ball to sophomore Jake Hoover at short to start a 6-4-3 double play. Then, with the tying run 90 feet away, Toth forced yet another groundout to Hoover to seal the game 5-4. “During the game I always keep myself focused wanting the ball, so in that specific situation I was thinking, ‘Hit the ball to me, let’s get it started.’ Preparing mentally for the ball to be hit to me is the biggest thing in tense situations like that,” Hoover said in an email. “That second where I recognize it’s hit to me is great, because I know I’ll have a chance to make the play we need.” Junior Colin Boerst and Ring each had two RBIs in the game, while Walts had one. Over the course of the entire weekend, Theisen said he thought his team did a good job of playing aggressive and smart baseball. “We want guys to kind of be their own coach and play the game to win,” Theisen said. “If you see in open base, take it. I don’t put on very many signs, but we trust that we have taught these guys how to play this game correctly and aggressively. It was really cool to see them go, “OK, the

game’s in our hands, we’re gonna take it over here.” Over the weekend Theisen earned his 100th victory as the head coach of the Chargers. He said he was unaware of the impending milestone. “The only person that knew was my dad. Your parents don’t stop keeping your stats, do they?” Theisen laughed. “I didn’t know, nor is it important to me, but it’s cool to have shared so many of those with former players and current players.” On Tuesday, the Chargers traveled to Grand Rapids for a nonconference game against the Davenport Panthers (12-9, 3-1 GLIAC), losing a barn burner, 23-12. “The game stays the same no matter who you are, or who you’re playing against. You’ve got to throw first pitch strikes, two out of the first three pitches in the zone, and stay out of three ball counts,” Theisen said. “We’re looking forward to being at our best for more conference action.” The Chargers will close out non-division conference play this weekend when they head to Ohio Valley (9-16, 0-8 G-MAC) and Cedarville (6-14, 2-6 G-MAC) for doubleheaders on Friday and Saturday. Then, Hillsdale will host former GLIAC foe Grand Valley (13-10, 2-2 GLIAC) for a nonconference tilt on Tuesday. “We just want to keep playing as we’ve been,” redshirt freshman Rob Zurawski said after the weekend. “We want to play at our own level, know that we’re a good team, and keep stepping on throats.”

Senior starter Phil Carey has gathered three wins so far this season. Trish Verbrugge | Courtesy

three matches in five days next week, Delp said beating tougher teams on the road first gave the Chargers a home advantage “ Our tougher two opponents are Findlay and Walsh and we’ve got both of them at home, which should be fun,” Delp said. “They are both good teams and definitely after having beat them once they’re going to come to our

home courts with lots of fire and no pressure… We can’t get lax for the rest of the season, for sure.” After Cedarville, the Chargers will face Spring Arbor and Lewis, one of the best teams the Chargers will face this year, Turner said. Turner said the Chargers planned a few weaker opponents to prepare for competition against Walsh and Findlay in two weeks,

Mar. 30 vs.Ohio Valley - 3:30 PM vs. Ohio Valley- 5:30 PM Mar. 26 vs. Tiffin - 12:00 PM vs. Tiffin - 2:00 PM

Men’s Tennis

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two of the toughest teams in the G-MAC. “I’m not even sure making the [NCAA] tournament is an option anymore,” Turner said. “With our tough loss to Tiffin, that may have taken us out of it. It’s still a match where we can make a name for ourselves.” The Chargers will face Cedarville University on Saturday at 12 p.m. in Cedarville, Ohio.

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Upcoming Mar. 31 Hillsdale at Cedarville 12:00 PM

Women's from A10 my match,” Matthews said. “When it comes down to your match to decide the overall winner, you can’t really describe the feeling. It’s a lot of pressure, for sure, but knowing that it’s not only a win for yourself, but a win for your whole team, makes you want to rise to the occasion even more.” Matthews won that match with a tiebreaker in the second set. Her final score was 6-2, 6-7 (4-7), 6-3 against freshman Linda Liong. Hillsdale freshman Hannah Cimpeanu also was victorious at No. 3 singles 6-1, 7-5. Junior Madeline Bissett at No. 6 also won 6-3, 6-2, after her 8-4 win with Matthews at No. 3 doubles. Cimpeanu and junior Halle Hyman were victorious 8-4, as well, at No. 2 doubles. “We knew it was a good team, and we wanted to play our best,” Walbright said. “We didn’t overthink anything and stayed calm and played our game.” Sophomore Katie Bell and junior Corinne Prost also put up a hard fight at No. 1 doubles, though lost at the end in a tiebreaker game 9-8 (7-3). Hyman also played a long, intense match against junior Dasha Kuznetsova, falling at No. 2 singles 7-5, 3-6, 6-3. At No. 1, Bell lost 6-2, 6-1, and Prost at No. 4 lost 6-1, 6-4. “Everyone contributed, and it was a great day for everyone,” Walbright said. “In my

opinion, we looked like the better team that day. We were more confident. We were more consistent, and we had better body language.” Despite still feeling a bit tired from its long match on Friday, Hillsdale traveled to Mayfield, Ohio, and shutout Ursuline. It was a quick match, but it required a lot of focus and some quick footwork, Walbright said. “They have a young program, and they were a nice team,” she said. “We were just the stronger program, and it showed.” The Chargers swept all six singles courts 6-0, 6-0 with victories from the same lineup as Friday’s match. The Arrows did win one game in doubles on court No. 1, but Bell and Prost ultimately were victorious 8-1. Cimpeanu and Hyman at No. 2 doubles and Bissett and Matthews at No. 3 won 8-0. “They have a young program, and they were a nice team,” Walbright said. “We were just the stronger program, and it showed.” The Chargers hit the road again this Easter weekend, playing at Kentucky Wesleyan University on Friday and Cedarville University on Saturday. Their play returns home on Wednesday to face Lewis University at 3:30 p.m. “We are constantly looking to improve, playing more points, more singles, more doubles,” Walbright said. “But every time we win it feels good, and Sunday was a good way to start out the G-MAC.”

Men’s track opens outdoor season By | Regan Meyer Collegian Reporter The Charger men’s track and field team opened its outdoor season this past weekend at the Vanderbilt Gold and Black Invitational. With many of the distance runners sidelined for one more week, sprinters and field event competitors stepped up to deliver solid opening performances. Head coach Andrew Towne said he saw good things from his team but expects improvements going forward. “We definitely have some things to improve upon,” Towne said. “We need to continue working at being competitive. I think we’re a very talented team on the men’s side but we’re not exactly where we want to be just yet. We just have to keep competing every chance we get.” A few individual performances stood out this past weekend including senior Seth Overla in the javelin and junior Nathan Pando in the 100 meters. Overla plays for the football team in the fall and throws javelin during the outdoor season in the spring. “I was on the football team and decided to take up track as a spring sport when I got injured during football,” Overla said. “I couldn’t really play contact sports anymore. I did throw in high school so I thought I’d give it a try. Javelin just kind of came out of that.” Overla threw in competi-

tion for the first time this year. He and his coaches decided to stick with a slower run-up rather than the full out sprint typically accompanying a javelin throw. “The meet went pretty well for me,” Overla said. “We started out with only doing a very slow run-up in terms of technique. We were just going to go real short and sweet. I ended up with a PR of about 2.5 meters. That was a really big thing with confidence as well.” Pando also performed well down in Nashville. “Personally it went pretty well considering it was the first meet of the year,” Pando said. “We traveled about 8 hours for a two day meet so the travel constraints don’t bode well for doing well. Our group specifically prepared really well for it.” Pando was optimistic about his team’s chances as the rest of the season progresses. “I think that how we did as a group and a cohesive unit was pretty good,” Pando said. “Obviously our times weren’t very good. If you compared them to our times at the end of the year last year, they’re not even close. That being said, the execution of the techniques and stuff that we’ve been working on a lot are coming through.” The team will continue with competition this weekend with the Oliver Nikoloff Invite in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Sports

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March 29, 2018 A9

A force on the track and the field A member of the football and track teams, KJ Maloney competes all year By | Madeline Fry Culture Editor During the last football game of the season, freshman KJ Maloney scored a 67-yard touchdown. Shutting out Lake Erie College 54-0, the Chargers won, but Maloney didn’t get to savor his accomplishments for long. “The day after football ended my track coach texted me, ‘All right, now the real work begins,’” Maloney said. Maloney was one of three freshman football players to see the field this year, but the only one to begin another varsity sport as soon as the season closed. He’s been playing three to four sports for “basically my whole life,” he said, but at Hillsdale, he’s sticking to two. On the football team, he’s a wide receiver, and on the track team he crushes the 4x400 meter relay. “I love competing,” Maloney said. “So in track it’s kind of you versus everybody else — you don’t really have to depend on other people, unless you’re in relay, of course. But in football, I love how much

you rely on other people and work together as a team.” At 6 foot 4 inches, Maloney towers over defenders in Randy Moss fashion, using speed to his advantage on the football field and the track. Assistant football coach Brad Otterbein calls Maloney “a matchup dream” for the Chargers. “Konnor is tall and fast, so he scares people that he is going to go deep,” Otterbein said. “This will cause opposing defenses to put two defenders on him or let us throw the ball to him one-on-one.” Otterbein says Maloney, who is enthusiastic and eager to learn, ran about 15-20 plays per game. Among them was his first touchdown, against Walsh in October. The Chargers won 38-0. “When I scored the touchdown, it wasn’t the prettiest,” Maloney said. “It was kind of a sliding catch into the endzone. So a bunch of guys, when they came upfield, they kind of mobbed me and they’re congratulating me and stuff but then I got a bunch of crap like, ‘Oh you slide in, it

doesn’t count,’ ‘Oh, you were down at the one-yard line,’ this and that. Just having fun.” Freshman Jack Murphy, Maloney’s roommate, said he and his buddies have been supportive from the sidelines. “Coming in as freshmen, all of KJ’s other friends and I got redshirted. So we didn’t play, but we were on the Freshman KJ Maloney during a track meet sidelines during this indoor season. KJ Maloney | Courtesy the games. And KJ was the only Maloney enjoys chemisone of us who played, so we were all always just cheering try labs and plans to major in exercise science. In his for him on the sidelines,” little free time, he’s coached Murphy said. “I remember an IM basketball team made when he got his first touchup of his football teamdown, he came over to all mates. He also had a March of us first and we all conMadness bracket — until it gratulated him. It was really croaked. special.” “I shredded it,” he said. Maloney finished last “It didn’t go well at all. I’m semester running indoor track and off-season football from Lansing so I’m a big MSU fan, so I had them goworkouts, and the spring ing pretty far. The Spartans semester means both sports disappointed me. It wasn’t again: 5:15 a.m. football what I was looking for.” training and outdoor track As a three-season athlete, competitions. Head track coach Andrew Maloney spends much of his time training for football Towne says he’s enjoyed and indoor as well as outworking with Maloney. door track, but that doesn’t “KJ is a hard worker,” Towne said. “He wants to be keep him from trying new classes, listening to country the best.” music, and playing Fortnite Maloney’s competitive with friends. streak doesn’t stop at the Off the field, Murphy end zone. He says he chose says Maloney is just fun to Hillsdale to attend college be around. somewhere he would learn, “There are not many even if he couldn’t compete negatives you could find athletically. about KJ. He’s really good at “My parents kept telling football, track, obviously he me this because they both gets good grades,” Murphy played college sports. If I ever got injured, I wanted to said. “But he’s pretty terrible at Fortnite.” be at a school where I could still go for academics,” he said. “Obviously this was the no-brainer.”

Freshman KJ Maloney with his family after a game this season. KJ Maloney | Courtesy

Women’s track competes at Vandy Will travel to Oliver Nikoloff Invite at the University of Cincinnati this weekend

By | Anna Timmis Collegian freelancer The Charger women’s track team launched the outdoor season at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. The team fought the steep competition of mostly division I teams, finishing well in their events. Freshman Carmen Botha said the transition from indoor to the outdoor season can create a challenge. “Sometimes it’s an adjustment coming out of indoor going into outdoor, just because of the way there are conditions and so on, especially in the beginning of the season,” she said. “It can kind of play with your mind sometimes if you’re thinking of ‘oh, is it gonna rain when I run? Am I gonna have to compensate for that?’”

Head coach Andrew Towne said he thought the women handled the transition well. “I always talk about how outdoor track is what our kids know,” Towne said. “Indoor is kind of an adaptation so I think people are excited to get back to what they know, get outside. I thought we had very competitive mentality for the first meet.” The team’s freshmen held their own in their first outdoor track meet as Chargers. Botha finished fourth in the 400 hurdle race with a time of 1:03.75. She made two personal bests, one in the 100 meter hurdles, when she finished third in her heat. Freshman Callie Townsend was right behind in fifth place. “ I feel like I’ve just gotten much stronger with Coach Towne doing a lot of speed

work with us and doing a lot of hurdle work,” Botha said. “And we’ve been in the weight room a lot and I just feel so much stronger. It just feels easier for me to get over the hurdles, whereas usually it was almost like an effort for me, now I feel almost comfortable in this time and I can really improve on that, so I just need to start pushing myself.” “Two lifetime bests is pretty darn good,” Towne said. Throwers also performed well. Senior legacy captain Rachael Tolsma finished fourth in the hammer throw, making a distance of 50.18 meters, and freshman Caylin Bonser took fifth place in the discus. While the distance runners stayed home, the mid-distance runners were a force, sophomore Abbie Porter taking fifth place in

the 800 meter race, finishing in 2:15.79. Porter said running with division I athletes, she knew the race would be tough. “In the beginning I didn’t start out quite as fast as I wanted to and I got kind of stuck in the back just in a clump, but in the end I was able to move ahead a bit,” Porter said. “It still wasn’t the time I wanted considering I had finished faster at the indoor season, but I think it was a good starting point.” Porter said she really liked competing outdoors, and the space of the 400 meter track. “Hopefully it’s a good outdoor season,” she said. The entire team will compete at Oliver Nikoloff Invite at the University of Cincinnati this weekend.

IM fields to open at Hayden Park this fall By | Nolan Ryan Assistant Editor

Hayden Park will open three new sports fields next fall. The three fields, one of which is a practice field, are currently undergoing preparation and seeding for use when they are open for campus-wide use in September. The fields, however, are specifically being designed with intramural sports in mind. The new fields will measure 140 x 90 meters. They will be used in addition with Simpson Field, located behind Frank “Muddy” Waters Stadium. In the past, the area was used for parking spaces, according to Hayden Park Director Bill Lundberg. After getting input from students, the college found a need for more soccer fields in addition to those at Simpson Field, he said. “This area is going to be dedicated to athletic competitions that are non-varsity sports,” Lundberg said. “Things like IM football could take place; things like rugby and soccer. We have a soccer field down at Simpson Field which is used by the Academy and our club soccer teams. They would continue using that field because it’s focused for them. The IM fields could be used as practice fields for different sports.” Director of Recreational Sports and Athletic Facilities Brad Kocher said in an email that these new fields will be an excellent new resource for students to “get outside and be active.” “The fields will be used for IM, club sports, and all students looking for an area to be active. Hayden park has become a hub for outdoor activity,” he wrote. “The goal is to continue to make Hayden park an outdoor do-all activity space for students.” Junior Jessie Wilcox, an assistant director for Campus Recreation, believes the new fields will help students get more use out of Hayden. “With all the work they’ve been doing on it, it’s been really cool to have more stuff out there,” she said. “It will

be good for IM, club soccer, and everything else to have their own field. We won’t have to work around the football team’s schedule. It’ll be really good for getting out there and having our own space to plan stuff.” Although the fields open in six months, there’s still maintenance to be done. Lundberg said seeding will happen this spring and summer. “It’s set up with an irrigation system; That’s going to be important for the growth and maintenance,” he said. Lundberg said the need for the new fields came up within the past year. “The college made a commitment to those fields,” he said. “There was a big amount toward that effort. There wasn’t any particular fundraising. We’re really grateful to our senior administrators, especially as we organized and designed them. I’m really enthused for the students and the staff and their families. It’s something that will be a great added venue for Hayden Park.” According to Lundberg, the fields will be scheduled for campus events, primarily, but students can work with scheduling to reserve times to visit the fields for personal use. He said, however, that the plan is for the fields to be “very accessible and useful” to all students. Campus Rec already has plans for the fall. According to Wilcox, they are lining up games and tournaments on the fields. “Our first sport we do, starting in September, will be intramural football,” she said. “Then we’re possibly going to have soccer tournaments, like our volleyball tournaments. We’re going to do our intramural soccer out there next spring.” Lundberg is glad for the wide variety of uses the fields can offer campus. “We are super excited about that fact that we can accommodate Student Activities’ special events and Campus Rec events,” he said.

Golf takes 18th at Findlay Invitational By | Ryan Goff Collegian freelancer On Monday and Tuesday the Hillsdale golf team played in the Findlay Spring Invite at the University Club of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky. Hillsdale placed 18th at the tournament with 629 strokes, while the University of Indianapolis came in first, finishing with 574 strokes. Next came Grand Valley State and Maryville tied for second with 590. Individually, Larken Whittemore of Trevecca Nazarene won the

tournament with a four-under-par 140. Junior Ryan Zetwick led the Chargers with a nine over par 153, which placed him at 38th overall in the event. Following behind him on the team were junior Henry Hitt (+13), senior Joe Torres (+15), junior Andy Grayson (+17), and seniorLogan Kauffman (+19). The team now looks forward to their next event, the Tennessee River Rumble at Lincoln Memorial University on April 3rd and 4th.

Charger Chatter: Kelsey Gockman What is your favorite thing about softball? The team aspect. There’s pretty much nothing like it. It’s an automatic friend group. You come in, and there are all these different people you get to hang out with all the time with different personalities. What is the worst thing about softball?

Charger Athletics | Courtesy

Kelsey Gockman is a senior from Downers Grove, Illinois. She is on the softball team and is studying biology.

Honestly, this is a dumb thing to say, but I hate putting on cleats. They’re tight and they’re uncomfortable and that’s probably the thing that I dread the most. How long have you been playing? A long time. I think I started when I was in 5th grade. Do you have any pre-game

rituals? I’m all about staying loose and not stressing too much. I like to keep things light, so I tell jokes to get everybody laughing. Do you play any other sports? I used to play volleyball back in the day, but considering I didn't grow past 5’4”, it didn’t seem like a very viable option. Do you have a favorite movie about sports? One of my favorites is “A League of Their Own.” It’s a classic girl baseball movie. It’s really good. I recommend it. Why did you choose Hillsdale? Really, it was the people. My dad told me, “I heard about this school on the radio, it has great values, and

I think it would appeal to you.” I said, “It sounds fake, but we’ll see.” I was so surprised. I visited with my grandma, and people were asking her to come sit with them. It was the nicest environment I’d ever seen at a college. I thought that was really special.

I’d probably just run away and say, “Not today, Dr. Arnn!”

What is the best class that you have taken?

If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Parasitology — studying parasites. It was disgusting and cool and I loved it.

What do you do in your limited free time? Watch Netflix. I’ve been a big fan of The Great British Baking Show lately. I work out a lot, too.

Pizza. Any and all kinds. I don’t discriminate.

What do you usually order at AJ’s?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

If I go, I’m getting the quesadilla or the chicken tenders. I’m not a coffee person.

I’m looking into biomedical research, maybe clinical research. I like immunology.

If Dr. Arnn asked you, “What is the good?” what would you say? -Compiled by Chandler Lasch

Charger Charger Chatter Senior Kelsey Gockman talks about how she flearned about Hillsdale, her hatred of cleats, and her love of "The Great British Baking Show." A9

MARCH 29, 2018

One man, 3 seasons Competing in football, indoor track, and outdoor track means freshman KJ Maloney is essentially in season all year around. A9

Intramural fields Three new IM fields are scheduled to open at Hayden Park this fall. The fields will be used by Campus Rec and various club sports. A9

SOFTBALL SPLITS WEEKEND DOUBLEHEADERS

Freshman Erin Hunt wins first G-MAC Pitcher of the Week Award after recording two wins By | Madeleine Jepsen Science & Tech Editor After beginning conference play over the weekend, the Hillsdale College softball team split doubleheaders against Trevecca Nazarene University and Kentucky Wesleyan University, leaving the Chargers 2 – 2 in the conference and 8-8 overall on the season. The first conference game against Trevecca remained scoreless until the fourth inning, when sophomore shortstop Sam Catron hit a solo home run, followed by another home run in the fifth inning from freshman catcher Madison Stoner. “They’re both showing us power, which our team desperately needs because as long as we’re not getting the RBI singles and doubles, we need some people to hit some home runs,” head coach Joe Abraham said. The final run of the game came in the seventh inning, when an RBI single from junior outfielder Katie Kish scored freshman outfielder Sarah Wojcik. Freshman Erin Hunt pitched a shutout, allowing only four hits and striking out six over the course of the game. The Chargers ended the day with a split after falling to

Trevecca 5-0 in the nightcap. Trevecca took an early lead after putting up two runs in the second and third inning. The Chargers secured a second conference victory against Kentucky Wesleyan on Sunday, 3-2, with two runs from Kish and one run from junior sec-

“We’re still kind of getting to know our team and getting into the swing of things, but we’re all really excited to play at home this weekend.” ond baseman Amanda Marra. Senior third baseman Jessica Taylor went 2-for-3 in the victory, and Catron went 2-for-4. Kentucky answered with two runs in the bottom of the sixth, but Hunt once again secured the victory from the

pitcher’s circle, striking out eight batters in seven innings of work. Her two pitching performances of the weekend earned her a place as the G-MAC Pitcher of the Week. “She shut down two really good hitting teams,” Abraham said. “But for one pitch, she would’ve had two shutouts.” The Chargers fell to Kentucky Wesleyan 9-1 in the closer. Although Hillsdale scored once in the top of the first inning, Kentucky jumped to an early lead with two threerun innings. Kish had an 8-for-15 weekend, and her overall average of .509 puts her third in G-MAC batting rankings. “Katie Kish had a great weekend, and Amanda Marra hit well. Jessica Taylor hit the ball pretty well too, but we’re still looking for a number of our hitters to come around,” Abraham said. “Katie’s getting on base and Amanda’s doing a good job of getting on behind her, and too often, we’re just not doing anything with them. Once we get that rolling, we’re going to win a lot more games than we’re winning now.” Abraham said more Charger bats would need to come alive to secure success in the second half of the season. Across all four games, the

ITA ranks women’s tennis 47th in country By | Breana Noble Editor-in-Chief The Intercollegiate Tennis Association ranked Hillsdale College’s women’s tennis program nationally in Division II for the first time in its six years of existence, after the team toppled Wayne State University and Ursuline College over the weekend. “I am very proud of the team,” head coach Nikki Walbright said. “It feels good to see a result of our efforts, and I look forward to seeing us continue to do well this season.” ITA ranked the Chargers 47th. The announcement came after they defeated the WSU Warriors, who ITA ranked No. 45 last week, 5-4 on Friday. A 9-0 nearly perfect victory over Ursuline on Sunday also started Hillsdale’s conference

matches off well. Hillsdale is now 6-4 overall and 1-0 in its first season in the G-MAC, after winning its fourth straight match. As a result of the wins, Hillsdale jumped from not ranking to No. 47 this week, according to ITA’s charts, ahead of Wayne State and right behind Adelphi University in New York. “We are closer as a team than we ever have been before,” sophomore Kamryn Matthews said. “I definitely think the unending support helps us to push ourselves and each other to be the best we can be and our hard work has shown through our success in beating a nationally ranked team and now being a nationally ranked team.” Mumbling under their

breath words of self-encouragement after a missed point and yelling out “Go Blue!” to their teammates, the Charger women held their grit in the long match against WSU in the Biermann Athletics Center. “It very easily could have gone the other way,” Walbright said. “Court by court, everyone tried their hardest, and we just won more matches that day.” As Matthews was the final Charger on the courts with an overall team score of 4-4, her No. 5 singles match extended to more than hour, while her team was on the sidelines cheering her on. “The fact that I was playing for something greater than myself really got me through

Junior John Ciraci was a No. 4 singles winner 6-3, 6-3, and sophomore Michael Szabo took home a 6-0, 6-3 No. 5 singles win. Freshman Gabe Katz beat Cedarville sophomore Jeremy Hoover 6-2, 6-0, at No. 6 singles. Ciraci and Delp won No. 1 doubles 8-4. Szabo and Adams together for the first time in the 2018 season, took No. 3 doubles. The International Tennis Association named the Hyman and Adams doubles team 46th in the NCAA. Head coach Keith Turner said Cedarville was a weaker team compared to their upcoming opponents and gave the Chargers a chance to rest junior Justin Hyman, who has an injured tricep. “We have a pretty strong team this year,” Turner said. “It’s nice to have a short stretch here where we’re playing some easier, stress-free

matches. It’s going to be much tougher next week.” Szabo said sweeping a G-MAC opponent always feels good but that multiple matches per week can tire the team. “I think we’re all getting to that point in the season where everyone is a little tired but we’re just started our conference play, so we’re really trying to push right now because we’re expected to do really well in the conference,” Szabo said. Szabo said their coach stressed performing well throughout conference play, even if the NCAA tournament may be out of reach. “So coach has been emphasizing that and I think we’re seeing it translate to our match results, because we’ve been doing really well.” Szabo said he’s confident Hillsdale can go undefeated in the G-MAC.

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Men’s tennis stretches G-MAC win streak to four By | Scott McClallen Assistant Editor The Hillsdale men’s tennis team blanked Cedarville University 9-0 on Saturday. The Chargers’ record moved to 8-6 overall and 4-0 in the G-MAC. Hillsdale swept doubles play, scoring an overall 24-9, and won all six singles matches in straight sets. Sophomore Milan Mirkovic won No. 1 singles 6-3, 6-3, and joined with sophomore Julien Clouette to win No. 3 doubles. Mirkovic was the third Charger named G-MAC tennis Player of the Week this season, but the first to receive the honor back-to-back weeks. He’s won seven out of his last eight matches. Sophomore Charlie Adams took No. 2 singles 6-4, 6-1. Senior captain Dugan Delp won No. 3 singles 6-4, 6-1.

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Junior Katie Kish is batting .509 this season, leading the Chargers. Sarah Klopfer | Courtesy

Chargers scored seven runs total. “We aren’t getting those big offensive innings,” sophomore outfielder Victoria Addis said. “We’ll get one or two, but we don’t have those big innings with four runs. We’re just not

getting consistent hits one after the other.” The team will play their first home games of the season Friday at 3:30 P.M. against Ohio Valley University. “I think overall, we had a pretty standard first conference

weekend,” junior utility player Carly Gouge said. “We’re still kind of getting to know our team and getting into the swing of things, but we’re all really excited to play at home this weekend.”

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B1 March 29, 2018

Culture Elyse Hutcheson | Courtesy

Senior art show season launches with ‘3 Cool Guys’ By | Jo Kroeker Features Editor They’re just three cool guys, a bit outside-the-box, with a variety of eye-catching, colorful art to showcase. Seniors Stephanie Rose, Elyse Hutcheson, and Summer Smith will exhibit art from their four years at Hillsdale College in their capstone project, an art show that runs April 2-7 in the Daughtery Gallery, with an artist’s reception on April 6 from 4-6 p.m. “We like to experiment, we like color, breaking outside of the box a little bit,” Hutcheson said. That casual approach explains the name, too. Rose tried to strike a balance between serious and fun, and the three agreed that 3 Cool Guys seemed to fit the best. “It was kind of a meme for me at first, but I couldn’t think of anything better,” Hutcheson said. “You don’t want to sound too pretentious, or like you’re taking it too seriously — it’s an undergraduate art show.” Rose illustrates with a tablet, but her exhibit will include sculpture, charcoal paint, and

watercolor, too, including her portrait of Rachel Solomito ’17, which won first place in the drawing section of the student art show last year. She’s most excited to show off her personal projects: digital illustrations that she hasn’t been able to display in shows meant for classwork. Hutcheson will show oil paintings. She’s excited to showcase her abstract work: She said few in the art department do nonrepresentational work, and at student shows, that work sometimes gets lost amid the quantity of good representational pieces. “Just to put some things that are out of the box and give them the space to have their own space will make me really happy,” she said. Smith illustrates with markers, pen, and ink, but she’s most proud of her work as sole designer of The Forum, as well as a drawing of a seated man she dedicated a lot of time to for Drawing II. Smith said that her work is nerdy, with comic-book-style illustrations, but she just likes making art that’s fun to look at.

The vibe that the name, and by extension, the artists, conveys is casual: Rose said that it’s made to be approachable and enjoyable. It extends to the approach Smith said viewers should take in an art show. “I don’t think you have to have this mentality that you have to be this artsy, pretentious person who knows a lot of things about modern art who can look at a work and extrapolate some huge statement from it,” Smith said. “If you just like looking at things that are pretty, that’s a good reason to go to an art show.” Hutcheson said that for anyone, but especially underclassmen considering the art major, who go and think, “Wow, I could never put on a show,” it’s important to know that the show might look impressive, but underneath, there’s been four years of work and a lot of frustration. She said that just as it’s good for students to attend thesis talks and senior recitals, it’s good to visit senior art shows and involve themselves in what their peers are doing. Looking back as she’s as-

Meaning in Marilynne Robinson’s metaphors By | Hannah Niemeier Senior Writer Last week, in a heroic money-saving venture, a University of Wisconsin campus proposed the sacrifice of 13 college majors, mostly in the humanities. The Washington Post heard echoes of Governor Scott Walker’s ill-conceived and ill-fated 2015 plan to shift the mission statements of the university system from the “search for truth” to meeting “the state’s workforce needs.” Marxist? Maybe. But it’s also a rallying ground; the plan to retool America’s public education system places renowned novelist and liberal-leaning essayist Marilynne Robinson’s vision of the great Midwestern institution of liberal learning more in line with a certain private Michiganian one than with her cohorts in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, or with her opponents in Walker’s penny-pinching Republican party. According to the Washington Post article this shift in mission statement was supported by some Wisconsin conservatives who think state university degrees leave students empty of marketable job skills and stuffed with liberal ideology. And in her new essay collection, released last month, Robinson asks a question that American educators should, regardless of political leaning, consider seriously: “What Are We Doing Here?” For Robinson, the answer to a supposedly unhealthy American educational system is not in beefing up the STEM departments of great Midwestern universities, but in broadening our intellectual and historical palate to understand the American spirit that concocted them in the first place. The missing flavor, though, is one that may cause some lip-smacking: Puritan theology and progressive political philosophy. “This country grossly

impoverishes itself with this condescending or contemptuous dismissal of vast reaches of its terrain and the multitudes who live and die there,” Robinson contends about her growing concern that America’s distaste for its own heritage stems from a steady diet of junk history. The taste many readers acquire first, though, is for Robinson’s literature, and it’s a good place to start in understanding why Robinson wants to augment our appetites with her particular menu of American thinkers. Robinson found her way to Hillsdale’s core through her storytelling; her name graces the syllabi of English courses such as Great Books II (where I met her first novel, “Housekeeping”) and upper-level seminars, including Theological Aesthetics and American Fiction since 1980. In a course on journalism of the 20th century, my instructor placed her with George Orwell and Wendell Berry in the list of “liberals conservatives like — or listen to.” So why do Americans on each side of the table listen? I would like to believe it is, first, for her voice. Fittingly for a renowned professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop program, Robinson’s fiction is widely acclaimed for the way it opens literature to a specific culture and place; for her, the wide spaces (of the field and of the mind) of the Great Plains. After a thirty-year break from her first novel (“Housekeeping,” 1980) to the Pulitzer-prize-winning “Gilead” (2004), Robinson has in her recent novels played a Faulknerian game; a trilogy completed by “Home” (2008) and “Lila” (2014) traces two Iowa families through marriage, birth, death, betrayal, heartbreak, and homecoming. Raised as a pastor’s daughter not too far West from Robinson’s Iowa, I treasure her fiction for all the God in it — or the people who see him,

and show me him, or him within themselves. All this to tenderfoot the path toward the jarring crossover into my Marilynne’s politics. I am not naive enough to think that a shared artistic vision leads to a common approach to politics of the people who are its subjects and beneficiaries. But I do find Robinson’s tracing of Iowan individualism to the grand vision of Puritan progressivism...puzzling. In “What Are We Doing Here?” Marilynne returns to her home territory of her familiar liberal mainline Protestantism, a politics that resonates with well-intended and articulate humanism as much as it mystifies me with the paths it takes to get there. An illustration: As heralded by the New York Review of Books, Robinson met with Obama to express her admiration — and admonition — multiple times throughout his presidency. The closing paragraph in her essay on Obama’s legacy (“the president is a philosopher, perhaps a theologian”), is worth quoting in its entirety for certain Robinsonian themes that connect her fiction to her politics to her theology: “There is a beauty at the center of American culture which, when it is understood, is expressed in a characteristic eloquence. Every new articulation renews the present life of the country and enriches historic memory to the benefit of future generations. Barack Obama speaks this language, a rare gift. He is ours, in the deep sense that Lincoln is ours, a proof, a test, and an instruction. We see ourselves in him, and in him we embrace or reject what we are.” I feel a vague American thrill as I read this; a vertigo of high aspirations in statesmanship and patriotism. For Robinson, political leadership is fundamentally moral, per-

See Robinson B2

sembled her exhibit, Hutcheson can see her progress. She said she used to think artists made boring, classical-looking art, or wild art, with a palette knife and paintbrush, throwing paint all over the canvas. “It’s not really that way, you do need an understanding of how a face looks and how a body works and be able to place carefully before you wildly stab at your canvas,” she said. “That evolution has been real, and Hillsdale has been helpful for me, even though I approach everything a little bit differently than some others in the department.” Smith, who came to Hillsdale resolved to study English and classics, had a crisis her sophomore year. She almost quit to attend art school, but instead she dropped the classics major and picked up art. Through them, she gained the confidence that she can work as an artist. Rose’s style is fun and quirky — like her sculpture of a woman with a cat on her shoulder. Smith appreciates Rose’s “cool, cute character design,” and remembers being captivated by a piece depicting

a girl with dark hair, red lips, and a kimono, a serene piece with pops of color. Color unites the two illustrators and graphic designers with Hutcheson’s oil paintings. In fact, that’s what Smith likes most, especially Hutcheson’s trio of self-portraits that use underpainting — a technique wherein she paints her canvas before her work to create an overall tone that seeps through the finished piece — to inspire different emotions. Hutcheson loves mixing colors for herself to see how they interact, rather than using the color that oozes from the tubes. Rose’s favorite is a giant, 4’x4’ nude with heavy black outlines, white, and pops of red. The show is part of the senior capstone class art majors are required to take, which Teacher of Art Bryan Springer teaches. The class gives students practical skills for life as a professional artists: writing artist’s statements, making portfolios, creating websites and LinkedIn profiles, and of course, preparing a show. Springer frames it in terms of self-promotion: creating

a visual identity, a story of themselves, that they can market professionally. “Stephanie Rose and Summer Smith like the idea of story-telling, figurative works that are producing a visual narrative,” Springer said. From Rose, he said, he also gets this idea of feminine beauty. Springer echoed what Hutcheson said about learning the fundamentals to experiment well. “That’s what’s been great about art majors going through the foundations and figuring out what they want to do,” Springer said. Springer said he loves senior exhibits because they’re a celebration of the students’ accomplishments, and allows their personal interests to shine. “I feel a certain sense of pride with these people that we’ve worked with for three to four years to really take flight with this amazing work,” Springer said, “and to see that they have confidence in their own skills and apply them.”

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Culture B2 March 29, 2018

Senior Madeline Richards draws and paints portraits. Madeline Richards | Courtesy

Finding the fine arts: A switch from the lab to the studio By | Regan Meyer Collegian Reporter While many students switch their majors, not many change disciplines entirely. Senior Madeline Richards, however, did exactly that — scrapping her goal of becoming a doctor to pursue a career in fine arts. She hasn’t looked back. Richards had taken multiple art classes in high school but came to Hillsdale intending to major in biology. She soon found herself second-guessing her choice and longing to get out of the lab and into the studio. “I had always loved art, and I took four years of art classes in high school,” Richards said. “It was mainly out of fear that I didn’t pursue art in college. I remember, after my freshman year, I took one art class as one of the core requirements. I just felt so happy there and so grateful to be in that class

everyday.” Richards’ decision was a tough one, but she found a friend in fellow art student Tracy Brandt ’16, who also changed disciplines. “I started my education at Hillsdale with the belief that I would be going into pre-pharmacy, and then switched my major to the fine arts,” Brandt said. “When Maddie told me about the choice she was going to face, I remembered the arguments I had juggled in my head about whether or not to leave the path to a medical profession.” Brandt walked Richards through her thought process and her ultimate choice to change her major. After going through the pros and cons of each discipline and much discussion, Brandt finally asked Richards a crucial question. “The final question arose: Towards what purpose did her heart pull?” Brandt said. “The answer was immediate and,

for the first time, a statement instead of a question: ‘I was made to create art.’” Richards is now an art major with a specialization in drawing and painting and a minor in French. She has no qualms about her decision and says she is happier for it. “I realized that I had such a passion for art,” Richards said. “I just wanted to pursue it. I wanted to go after it again. It’s been such a gift ever since. If I think about the decisions I made in college, that was definitely the right one. Richards’ science background has shaped her art in a multitude of ways, according to Professor of Art Sam Knecht. “Naturally her experiences in the sciences play a role in her love of observing specifics in nature,” Knecht said. “Plus it probably has made her all the more aware of how art, as much as science, requires procedure and understand-

An alumnus’ spiritual survey reaches ‘An Immovable Feast’ By | Nic Rowan City News Editor Tyler Blanski ’06 came to Hillsdale wanting to be a saint; he just didn’t know it yet. These were danger days, when the strains of Minnesota sweet-strumming evangelicalism clashing with the lo-fi screeches of Beck’s “The New Pollution” rattled around inside his head. Both were pulling him toward Christ, but he did not know how. This college has a knack for enmeshing a deep desire for community with Christ into the hearts of people like Blanski, enriching what was already made fertile by their hometown evangelicalism. Blanski’s memoir, “An Immovable Feast,” published by Ignatius Press this month, covers his discovery in faith, from teenage Evangelical hippiedom to collegiate Anglicanism, and finally — via marriage and an ongoing seminarian discernment — into the arms of Catholicism. It was not an easy journey. It never is. Blanski first became interested in deepening his faith because of the beauty of poetry and liturgies he discovered at college. After reading a little about communitas and the City of God, he wanted to put the cult in the culture of his faith life. T.S. Eliot and Russell Kirk stuff. A dash of Antonin Sertillanges, just to keep that faith life intellectual. So he entered Anglicanism. He looked longingly at Orthodoxy. Sometimes he slid around the ranks of Catholicism. All three offer tradition and ritual, which mainline evangelicalism generally disdains as non-Biblical. Anglicanism celebrates high liturgy (and is STILL Protestant) while Orthodoxy allures the romantics with incense and Eastern mystery. Catholicism claims universality and the completion of all Christian faiths. Not really understanding any of them, Blanski picked Anglicanism because its church community tugged at him most strongly.

But Blanski’s faith was still an isolated journey. Without a community for support, faith ceases to be an active reality. Once intellectual enthusiasm for religion fades — and it’s often hard to keep that enthusiasm alive outside of places like Hillsdale — voyeurism replaces it. Curiosity always wants to see, but never is willing to participate in the mystery. Blanski never fully face-planted into this pitfall because he continually sought truth, committing himself to a process of constant conversion that led him, well … to this book. Since he graduated from Hillsdale and moved to Minneapolis (and then to the Anglo-Catholic seminary Nashotah House in Wisconsin), Blanski has been something of a indie-Christian phenomenon. He blogs regularly for The Huffington Post. He started his own record label and has self-produced two albums. He’s also published several books, advocating what he calls “Romantic Theology,” which overlays Pope John Paul II’s Trinitarian conception of marital love (man + woman + God = the love that binds them all into a unity) onto the poetic visions of theological poets such as Gerard Manley Hopkins and John Donne. “An Immovable Feast” is Blanski’s attempt to unify his whole life so far into a narrative of continual conversion toward communion with Christ. The title — a play on Ernest Hemingway’s memoir “A Moveable Feast” — refers to the Mass, but more specifically to the Holy Eucharist, the simultaneous feast and sacrifice where time touches the timeless. The mass is special for Catholics because the service is Christ’s sacrifice on the cross; not a memorial, it is an unbloody co-redemptive participation in that sacrifice. Not recreated or replayed, but lived anew in the eternal now. The Eucharist plays the central role in the mass because by eating it, Catholics believe they directly enter Christ’s ultimate gift on Calvary.

For Blanksi — and nearly every Catholic convert — the story of conversion is the story of an intense desire to eat Christ’s flesh in the Eucharist. To “gnaw his flesh” as Blanski observes the original Greek in the Gospel of John reads. “An Immovable Feast” reads like a dialectic, as Blanski argues with himself (all while rocking out to bands like Arcade Fire and Radiohead), slowly coming to the realization that the Eucharist is love. In it is the community that he first sought. Everything must point to it. Two things in particular mark Blanski’s story and make it worth reading. The first is his Brown Scapular, a cloth necklace typically worn as a Marian devotion. One of Blanski’s Catholic friends at Hillsdale gave him the Scapular to wear back in the days when Blanski poked fun at people with a Marian devotion. Because he respected his friend so much, Blanski never took the Scapular off — and still has not. He even wears it in the shower. The second thing is related to the first. By explaining how his relationship with his wife, Brittany, developed, Blanski ties his Romantic Theology into an unexpected Marian devotion. “There was something about the way things fit together, a kind of music. The way Mary and the saints all dovetailed in Christ, the way they brought glory to the Father in the loving bond of the Holy Spirit, was not only right, but elegant,” he writes. “The edges of where earth touched eternity, like the edges of clouds, seemed to disappear. The communion of saints was more than mood lighting. We all depend on one another, quite literally, for dear life.” Blanski calls his marriage a “dress rehearsal for Heaven.” Like Mary and the saints in their own lives, Blanski and his wife are growing together on earth so that they can more perfectly unite themselves with God in Heaven — the eternally unmoved feast.

ing of the nature of material substances.” Richards says she loves to paint portraits and capture life on the canvas. “I love drawing and painting people,” Richards said. “There is so much emotion and feeling and you can communicate with portraits. You can see the life. It’s easy to see the life. Everybody has a different personality and everybody has their own characteristics.” As for her specific style of art, Richards described it as a combination of realism and impressionism — a description with which Knecht agreed. “Simply speaking, her style is realistic and based on observation,” Knecht said. “But she does experiment with pushing that conventional boundary by doing occasional work that is expressionist.” While she has been formally painting for only a

year and a half, the quality of Richards’ work has increased. She credits her most recent strides with her time spent at the Florence Academy of Art in Italy this past summer. “I lived in the heart of Florence and studied everyday,” Richards said. “I experienced so much growth with my work. I never thought I would be able to do work like what I ended up producing.” While much of her time in Florence was spent in the studio, Richards still found time to get out and explore the rich culture of Italy. “Every Friday we went to these old museums and got to see famous sculptures,” Richards said. “We got to see Michelangelo’s David and the Uffizi Gallery, which has Botticelli and Bernini.” Richards, now in her last semester at Hillsdale, is looking at graduate schools both foreign and domestic. “I want to pursue this thing

I have committed myself to,” Richards said. “I’m looking at different grad schools across the country for painting and maybe even drawing. I’m also looking at foreign graduate schools as well, ideally in France as that is my second language. I’m also looking at the Chicago Institute of Arts and the Savannah College of Art and Design.” Whatever happens, Richards is excited to embark on her journey after graduation. “I’m trying to be positive and just keep doing what I’m passionate about,” Richards said. “I never wanted to go through and feel like I’m just searching for another goal. I didn’t want my major to be a means to an end. I wanted what I studied to be nothing less than what I loved, and I found that.”

Robinson from B1

protection of the kind of men and women who actually live and dream here, and to open the horizons of freedom as wide as the progressive minds and the faiths of the people who settled the plains. But here, the turn: this means, for Robinson, funding for state universities. An appreciation for the progressiveness of the Puritan spirit, and the “great institutions,” federal and not, that they established: Welfare. Obamacare. A reading of American political philosophy and theology that follows a line from Calvin to Cromwell to Edwards to… Where next, exactly? Science. Taking her cues from Edwards, Robinson is at her best in discussing the ways the natural world collides with the theological one: “Microorganisms live in clouds, air moves in rivers, butterflies navigate the earth’s magnetic field. The matter cosmologists call ‘dark,’ which makes up most of the mass of the universe, seems to be nonatomic. Wonders never cease,” but we have given up finding new vocabulary for the divine in light of dark matter and other recent developments in science. Returning to Robinson’s nonfiction is like getting turned around in the old part of downtown; suddenly I’m going in circles, and every corner in Marilynneville is First and Edwards Street: his theology, Robinson believes, is essential in understanding how human experience of the transcendent in nature can bridge the perceived gap between science and the humanities, the material and the immaterial. I know it’s her wheelhouse, but the essays seldom leave this cul-de-sac. Why does it seem as if the West has been curated according to Robinson’s Protestant pioneer vision? Regardless of how interesting Robinson’s store of knowledge is, does it aim to fill in gaps in my conception of America or paper them over with a giant Edwards advertisement? If I were so audacious as to submit a bid for improvements to Marilynneville, I would include the following: Broaden the road from the

Reformation from its onelane Calvinism. Expand the playing field of religious denominations’ contributions to American institutions and culture (Catholic missions and Lutheran hospitals). Perhaps a nod to founding political theorists’ real reservations with Puritan tendencies toward utopianism. There is a tendency in Marilynne toward a sort of tribalism as she trumpets the ideas of “her people” without attempting harmony with the whole. When she writes novels about Iowa preachers and lionizes Puritan philosophers, I don’t see Robinson speaking through them simply because they’re voiceless; she speaks not objectively, but from the heart, with a voice that is also hers. This partiality, though it narrows her scope, also channels her strength. After Marilynne resurrected Edwards, I want him to join the American forum. I want to hear his conception of the “heavens declaring the glory of God” in conversation with the founders’ “self-evident truths,” with Luther on the First Article of the Apostles’ Creed, with Catholic social teaching, with Gerard Manley Hopkins on the “dappled things” of America’s medley of culture and political self-conceptions. As I consider our nation’s image of itself, I am revisited by a metaphor from “Gilead,” of the world as a smoldering coal, one that flares out when stoked. That is Robinson’s Iowa, and the individual lives, humbly grand, lived within it, and it is also the fire that fuels her politics in her nonfiction, Puritans and the legacies of past presidents who may, depending on our faiths and sensibilities, look opaque. But at Stevens Point, what we’re doing here in America’s liberal institutions is snuffing out the coals of the intellectual fires that forged us. And for Robinson, we’re increasingly blind to that danger. What will burn out — the sciences or the humanities that fuel them — when the coals of history are shaken? I imagine my Marilynne would say, “Neither.”

haps even a work of the moral imagination that shapes how we live as Americans. But it all feels shakily grounded in reality. Reading Robinson is like the first time I drove in the left lane on a one-way street; everything familiar, but the buildings too close in my right-conditioned periphery, the turns too sudden, tight and alarmingly close to danger when I reenter the cautionary yellow of America’s bidirectional politics. Like her Lincolnizing, the rest of the collection provides new angles on venerable “conservative” themes: the limits of scientism and materialism, the undeniable indwelling of the immaterial in the material, the search for a new way to speak of God in light of developments in science, the pressing need of a more robust humanism and of preserving the disciplines (history, literature, theology, philosophy — Stevens Point, Marilynne’s watching you) that remain relevant as long as men live their small epics in history. Robinson believes that American ignorance of history is to blame for many of its identity crises, swallowing up a tradition of freedom and democracy begun in England, but never so robustly at work in the world: “The void Puritanism has merged with the void Calvinism, swallowing Edwards along the way, to constitute a vast ignorance of early American history.” The void in Americans’ understanding of colonial Puritanism, particularly, gapes: “[The Puritans] were the most radical social reformers this country has ever seen … they had an extraordinary opportunity to put the impress of their values on a civilization very much in a normative stage. … The whole movement had a kind of heroic generosity into its design and intention that is rare in history.” And this is the thread that connects her fiction with her politics: The need for charity, humanism, the support and

March 29, 2018 B3

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Science & Tech

Professor York chronicles rare lions’ genetics

By | Isabella Redjai Collegian Reporter Many scientists believe that the next generation will be the last to see lions in zoos, according to Professor of Biology Daniel York. York studied the genetics from rare breeds of captive lions, retrieving blood samples over his 11 years of conservation genetics research. Working alongside Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, York developed an interest in the inbreeding and outbreeding of captive lions and joined a project in South Africa at Pilanesberg National Park located outside Johannesburg in the North West Province. “It looks as though most of the captive lions that are in South Africa now are lions that were imported there from a group in the United States,” York said. “What they had done was collected several hundred lions from various zoos, circuses, and carnivals that wanted to get rid of them.” Wild lions can be expensive to care for in zoos and circuses, prompting some organizations to sell the lions rather than continue paying for their upkeep. “A wild animal dealer basically negotiated all of this and ended up collecting all of these residual lions from Europe and the U.S.,” York said. “He shipped them to South Africa, and then those lions got involved in the anti-cachectic breeding and also with the captive lion hunts in South Africa, which are quite controversial.” York and his team, a large majority of which were students, retrieved blood

samples from the various lions in order to compare the close relations between the species. They focused their work on potential inbreeding or outbreeding between those species, since there has been a drastically dwindling lion population even among captive lions, York said. The research specific to Johannesburg was conducted on nine sedated lions. Then, York collected the blood samples and brought them back to Hillsdale for further study. “Initially, we worked alongside vets, so the lions were typically ‘knocked out’ for veterinary work before we could retrieve samples from them,” York said. “Once the lion was immobilized, we got blood samples from them and brought the blood samples back here, extracted the DNA, and did genetic analysis on the DNA.” Biology Lab Technician Jeannine Lama said genetic analysis involves a process called polymerase chain reaction, which amplifies a specific region of DNA. The genetic sequence, once amplified, can then be sequenced and analyzed. Apart from merely sedating the animals to retrieve samples, York developed his own unique alternative methods for retrieving data. “I had the audacity to develop strong techniques for isolating high-quality DNA from scat,” York said. “It is a noninvasive method of collecting DNA without bothering or harming the lions. I was listed on a government grant in South Africa as ‘Daniel York, Professor of Biology, Hillsdale College: Internationally Renowned Scatologist.” The work that York and his

By | Madeleine Jepsen Science & Tech Editor Two new fossils are on display at the Daniel M. Fisk Museum of Natural History. These latest additions to the museum are a “hog-like” oreodont and an ancient tortoise, both approximately 33 million years old. The oreodont, nicknamed “Bingo,” contains approximately 30 percent real bone, Professor of Biology and museum curator Anthony Swinehart said. Swinehart found both the tortoise and the oreodont over the summer while prospecting for fossils in northwest Nebraska. “Every year, there’s new stuff eroding out, and hopefully you catch it when it’s just starting to erode, or when there are a couple of bone fragments you spot and try to figure out where those came from,” Swinehart said. The oreodont, so named for its “mountain teeth,” belongs to a category of prehistoric cud-chewing mammals, according to the museum display. Oreodonts were thought to be widespread in North America during the Oligocene epoch. Swinehart said it can be difficult to spot the fossils against the ground in the badlands since both the bones and the ground are an off-

white color. Swinehart said he found a wide array of the oreodont’s bones ranging from its skull to full leg bones, ribs, and vertebrae. This allowed him to reconstruct the entire skeleton using the fossilized bones and casts based on other complete oreodont skeletons. This particular oreodont’s teeth and some other parts of its skull will fluoresce under ultraviolet light. Swinehart said this is due to minerals in the rock formation that leach into the fossil. In this particular case, Swinehart said the minerals were most likely calcite and chalcedony, which were present in the rock formations where Bingo the oreodont was found. Swinehart said he plans to incorporate a UV light into the display so museum visitors have an opportunity to see the fossil’s fluorescence. “That’ll be something cool to do when we take tour groups and kids through the museum,” Swinehart said. “We can turn off the lights and shine a UV light to show them that.” Based on the fact that many oreodont fossils are found articulated, meaning the bones are still arranged in the same position as when the animal died, Swinehart said oreodonts were most likely burrowing animals.

team completed in Africa was noticed by other institutions, including the National Zoo in Morocco. The directors at the National Zoo then invited York and his team to come to Morocco and study the genetics of their Barbary lions. Barbary lions had last been seen in the wild in Morocco during World War II , and the directors wanted York and his team to retrieve samples of “the last true Barbary lions.” These Barbary lions were bred at the zoo after the turn of the century, and York was asked to see if there was anything unique about the lions’ genetics. “These Barbary lions had different genetics than I had ever seen before, especially in comparison to the lions in South Africa,” York said. York conducted a similar research project in Africa associated with National Geographic, concerning the status of the white lion population. They learned after conducting research and genetic tests that the white lion population was in fact stable and not inbred — a finding York said was surprising. Due to the religious significance of lions in Eastern religions, the National Geographic team wished to re-release the white lions into Kruger National Park, one of the last regions in Southern Africa to have a natural population of lions present. York said the goals of the National Geographic team were well-intentioned but misguided due to the possibility of outbreeding depression. Outbreeding depression occurs when strong genes that develop in population in a particular area during a

Professor of Biology Daniel York worked with lions like these as a part of his conservation genetics research in Africa. Daniel York | Courtesy

particular time frame are diluted because of breeding with different species of lions. “The last thing you want to do is introduce new genetics into that natural population,” York said. “It will lead to outbreeding depression. They didn’t understand and wanted to call the white lion a subspecies, which it is not.” York emphasized the need to begin managing lion populations in a way that mimics old migrating patterns. Moving certain amounts of female and male lions to specific regions would allow the lions to crossbreed as in na-

ture, without the restrictions from man-made boundaries like parks and fences. Professor of Biology Jeffrey Van Zant said conservation genetics is a useful discipline when looking at small, specific groups of organisms. “In general, conservation genetics is a crisis discipline,” Van Zant said. “Applications of conservation genetics are place and species-specific. You have to know the biology and the ecology of the species you work with.” After working with lion conservation genetics research from 1999-2010, York’s

involvement in lion genetics conservation eventually came to an end due to the lack of donor funding and demands from other time commitments. “My work with the lions has given me real life experiences that help me when I go over with students the importance of conservation genetics,” York said. “It helps me answer ‘Why? Who cares?’ and explain what is actually happening. Students were able to learn new techniques, and research is a part of the teaching efforts here at Hillsdale.”

A 33-million-year-old sheep-sized oreodont (lower exhibit) and a 33-million-year-old tortoise (upper exhibit) found by Professor of Biology Anthony Swinehart are now in display in the Daniel M. Fisk Museum of Natural History. Madeleine Jepsen | Collegian

“It’s thought that they’re burrowers that died in their burrows, and that’s why they’re so well preserved,” Swinehart said. “They certainly have the claws for it. If something dies above ground, you have all kinds of scavengers dragging the bones around.” Unlike the oreodont, the type of tortoise on display in the museum was most likely not able to burrow like modern tortoises can, Swinehart said. The presence of tortoises is one piece of evidence that indicates Nebraska was most likely a sub-tropical climate while the oreodont and tortoise were alive. Swinehart said the oreodont and tortoises would have lived in a parkland environment with open spaces interspersed with patches of forest. Although tortoise fossils can be found from a variety of time periods as early as the age of the dinosaurs, finding well-preserved fossils can be difficult. “Turtle shells are in lots of deposits,” Swinehart said. “The problem is that the sutures come apart really easily, so you might find lots of fossils, but they’re all tiny bits of the shell. It’s a little harder to find a nice complete one like that, because it doesn’t take

much exposure to modern elements for it to become a giant puzzle, and they are the worst things to try to piece back together.” Randall Rush ’17, who went with Swinehart last summer on the prospecting trip, said he was also able to find a few oreodont bones and two tortoises, one about six inches long and one 18 inches long. Rush also found a jawbone from a mesohippus, a genus of three-toed primitive horse that is now extinct “Overall, it was a very good experience,” Rush said. “I was able to prospect in a marine cretaceous rock formation and an oligocene formation, and I had a handful of good finds at each site.” Swinehart said the tortoise fossil also contains trace fossils, or indirect evidence of other animal life. There also may be more bones inside the tortoise shell, but Swinehart said he did not want to risk breaking the shell to find out. “There are little gnaw marks all over from rodents. You can see the incisors from the rodents trying to get calcium from the shell,” Swinehart said. “These are 33-millionyear-old markings. Then there are some holes that may have been some larger animals with canines that tried to bite the shell.”

Fisk Museum adds tortoise, ‘hog-like’ oreodont

The Download ... Science in the News

-Compiled by Madeleine Jepsen

Excess hydrogen may have deactivated Mars’ magnetic field

New estimates put Pacific garbage patch at 79,000 tons of trash

Researchers work to build longer-lasting batteries

Biologists sequence genome of the American cockroach

Hydrogen atoms in Mars’ mantle may have turned off the planet’s magnetic field, according to a model proposed at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. The lightweight hydrogen would have settled close to the iron core, preventing the convection action that produces a magnetic field around the planet, researchers said. The researchers proposed that the hydrogen may have split off from water molecules in minerals found in the planet’s mantle due to the heat from the planet’s core. The InSight Mars lander, launching May 5, will study Mars’ core.

New estimates of the great Pacific garbage patch put the floating mass of discarded plastic at a minimum of 79,000 tons of material, or roughly the mass of about 6,500 school busses. The estimate, published in Scientific Reports, means the patch may be anywhere from four to 16 times heavier than previous estimates. The garbage patch is spread more than 1.6 million square miles in the ocean between Hawaii and California and consists mainly of microplastics, or plastic particles smaller than a fifth of an inch, most of which came from fishing nets and other plastic used for shipping.

A new type of battery with a significantly larger energy capacity has been proposed by researchers. They have designed a lithium-sulfur battery, which is more environmentally friendly, less expensive to make, and has a longer battery life, according to the research. Since sulfur is a poor electrical conductor, the researchers found a material that improved the battery’s stability and helped offset the conductivity of the sulfur. The researchers said their work, published in Nature Nanotechnology, is a step toward making lithium-sulfur batteries commercially viable.

The second-largest insect genome has been sequenced and published in Nature Communications. The genome belongs to the American cockroach, and contains a higher quantity of genes associated with detoxification, the immune system, growth, and sensory perception, which the researchers said likely helps the cockroach’s ability to survive. The American cockroach is considered the largest common house cockroach and can fly short distances, according to reports. The researchers said the sequenced genome may yield additional targets for pesticides.

Features

B4 March 29, 2018

www.hillsdalecollegian.com

Hillsdale alumna ascends to Supreme Court By | Nicole Ault D.C. Correspondent

When Beth Walker ’87 road-tripped with fellow Hillsdale students to Washington, D.C. one spring break, she had a blast touring the city and getting an insider tour of the U.S. Supreme Court — but she didn’t realize the trip was a “preview” of her future, as she calls it now. Designed by the same architect, the U.S. Supreme Court courtroom and that of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia resemble each other, Walker said. Since her election in 2016, Walker now takes office in the latter building as a justice on the West Virginia Supreme Court. “Of course, I had no idea what I would do later,” Walker said of her time in D.C. on spring break. (She did, however, know she wanted to go to law school since 7th grade.) A northern-Ohio native, Walker’s ties to Hillsdale preceded her birth; her parents, John and Ronda Doane, were Hillsdale alumni and have served on the alumni board (John, a Hillsdale football player, graduated in 1958, Ronda in 1960). When scholarships came through, Walker decided to attend her parents’ alma mater. At Hillsdale, Walker studied political science and

English, a double major that forced her to make a decision about what direction she’d take for her career. She opted for politics, but her English training never left her. At Walker’s swearing-in, one of the speakers complimented her legal writing for its exceptional clarity, remembered Elizabeth Spalding ’88, a close friend of Walker. An ardently-involved student — she was class president, a member of Chi Omega sorority, helped start the student ambassador program, and wrote a weekly column for The Collegian — Walker said her time at Hillsdale helped pave the way for her career, and not just by teaching her how to write and argue. “I had a lot of leadership opportunities at Hillsdale, and that’s the kind of thing that makes you see yourself as a leader later,” she said. From Hillsdale, Walker set off to fulfill her seventh-grade dream of going to law school. She attended Ohio State University, where she put her writing skills to use as an editor for the Ohio State Law Journal. After graduating from OSU in 1990, Walker moved to West Virginia to work for 22 years at Bowles Rice as a labor and employment lawyer. She then worked for several years as an in-house lawyer for the

‘Staying chaste’ at Niedformal By | Jordyn Pair News Editor

“Most of all, stay chaste.” The room erupted into laughter as Niedfeldt Residence House Director Mitchell Moutard, a senior, walked off the stage, the signal to officially start the award ceremonies. The Niedfeldt Residence Hall formal was off to a roaring start. Featuring a dinner catered by Bon Appétit, a tonguein-cheek awards ceremony,

Bald from B6

year of high school when his psychology teacher made a joke concerning his follicular density. And during his freshman year at Hillsdale, it grew back some. But that proved the high water mark. By the end of his senior year, the only part of Kelley’s head covered in hair was in the very back between his ears. Up until recently, he had kept his remaining hairs

thought that’s the way judges should be elected,” Walker said). She won by 18 percentage points over the next candidate. “I went from a very close loss to a very big win, so that

Beth Walker serves on the West Virginia Supreme Court. Beth Walker | Courtesy

again, this time in a nonpartisan election (“I always

was exciting,” she said. As a justice for more than

a year now, Walker has taken advantage of the opportunity to serve the public, and she’s passionate about transparency. “We really think it’s important for people to learn about what courts do and to see the judges are real people,” she said. Toward that end, Walker is active on Twitter, tweeting everything from her thoughts on legal matters and legal news to her March Madness bracket. Evident in Walker’s tweets — and her lively conversation — is a mix of steadiness and humor that Spalding said endeared Walker to everyone on Hillsdale’s campus. “She would lift people up and make them laugh in a good way,” Spalding said, recalling happy times with Walker in the dorm room and the Collegian office. Walker had “the kind of temperament — filled with patience, deliberation, and insight — that one needs to be a great judge” even as an undergraduate, she added. Director of Career Services Joanna Wisely, a friend of Walker’s parents who’s known Walker since her high school years, agreed that Walker balanced ambition with lightheartedness. “I would describe her as dedicated and determined and with a great sense of humor,” Wiseley said. “She was the perfect candidate [for su-

preme court justice].” Walker is “the exemplar of a first-rate Hillsdale student,” Spalding said, noting that Walker’s love for constitutional law classes and attention to detail in her Collegian work signaled her aptitude for a law career. “Beth is a Hillsdale graduate through and through and has carried on the best traditions of Hillsdale,” Spalding added. As she’s carried on Hillsdale’s tradition throughout her career, Walker has brought some Hillsdale with her. She served on the alumni board until she became a justice. Matthew Spalding, Associate Vice President and Dean of Educational Programs and Elizabeth Spalding’s husband, delivered a speech at her swearing-in. And Walker even has hung a copy of Professor of Art Sam Knecht’s painting of the U.S. Constitution’s signing over her desk. “I have a little bit of Hillsdale in my office,” she said. There aren’t many Hillsdale alumni in West Virginia, Walker acknowledged. But to her, it’s always a delight to find a fellow Hillsdale grad. “I love wearing a Hillsdale sweatshirt when I travel, because I always run into all kinds of people,” she laughed. “It’s a lot of fun.”

Alumnus’s company allows users to pay with a purpose — charity

“For at least half the guys, that’s a good thing,” Crago joked. After the awards show, they dimmed the lights and turned on pop songs. The residents and their dates started dancing, joining together in one big dance circle. A few stragglers hugged the outskirts of the dance floor as the rest of the group bopped to the beat. One or two couples paired off, dancing to the side. A pair of boys galloped around the room in a quasi-polka before eventually breaking down into laughter. One date, freshman Christine Mitchell, hovered on the side, watching the dancing. “The atmosphere of Niedfeldt, you can’t really encapsulate it,” she said, “you have to just watch.”

Over the course of his 20-year career, Derik Lolli ’98 has designed children’s toys, website interfaces, and most recently, Benefit Mobile, a fundraising app that contributes a fraction of the purchase toward a cause of the user’s choosing. Lolli, who studied art while at Hillsdale, said he has always enjoyed design. He also taught himself how to use design programs — a skill that he said allowed him to turn his passion for design into an employable skill set. “I had a background in design and illustration, and at that time, the internet was just starting to take off,” Lolli said. “Our computer lab was very small, and the only thing we would ever do to troubleshoot the computers was just to turn them off and reboot them. I was into design and was very fortunate that Photoshop was just starting to take off.” Before he became a web designer, Lolli designed toys for a year at Ohio Art Company, the same company that created the Etch A Sketch. For the next 15 years, he worked for several design firms, working with clients — including Adobe, Apple, Pearson, and Sony — on website design. This ranged from improving customer service interfaces to improving mobile designs for apps. “I absolutely loved design once I started getting into it on the computer and designing websites and started to learn a little bit of code,” Lolli said. “I utilized a lot of my illustration abilities to craft unique experiences on the web.” One such project was an iPad app about renowned guitarist Jimi Hendrix that included a catalog of his music and facts about his life, complete with a geolo-

cation feature that indicates whether the user was near a location significant to Jimi Hendrix. It has been five years since Lolli left the world of web and mobile design to start Benefit Mobile, although he said he never imagined that he would start his own company. “It was exciting work, and I never thought that I would abandon all that and start my own thing, unless it was the kind of thing that would keep me up at night and really inspire me,” Lolli said. The idea behind Benefit Mobile originated from a fundraiser at his son’s school. The fundraiser successfully raised money for the school, but was difficult for school administrators and painful for the parents, Lolli said. “With my background in mobile design, I recognized you could put this whole business on a phone and make it considerably easier for everyone involved and raise a lot of money for organizations working to make the community a better place,” he said. “Also, I could see that this is where a lot of the mobile payment technology was going.” The Benefit Mobile app works similar to the Starbucks app in that users are rewarded for using the mobile payment. Benefit Mobile partners with 180 national retailers, including Amazon, Target, and WalMart, among many other restaurants and retailers. When users make purchases through the app from participating retailers, the retailer donates a fraction of the purchase — anywhere from 2 to 20 percent — to a cause of the user’s choosing. Lolli said the donation can go toward a school or nonprofit organization, or the user can get cash back for their own personal expenses.

This gives organizations an easier way to raise funds, and allows people to donate to a cause without having to spend additional money. On the flipside, Lolli said participating retailers benefit from more patronage as they shop to support a cause. “Many retailers are tired of the interchange that they’re charged by credit card companies,” Lolli said. “When customers use a tool like ours, it’s considerably cheaper for those retailers.” In addition to supporting organizations like schools or nonprofits, Lolli said the app can be used for personal expenses. “We have a lot of college kids or their parents that can use it to support their own personal life expense,” Lolli said. “Many students will use this kind of thing for some extra cash that they can earn back every month.” Lolli said the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation used the app to raise funds for its walk in Chicago, and Camp Kesem, a camp for children whose parents have cancer, has used the app to allow more children to attend camp. Renee Mulder, a Benefit Mobile user, said the app’s convenience gives users benefits beyond the ability to contribute to a charitable cause. “It is faster for me to use my phone when purchasing at my go-to store, Target, rather than digging around my purse for my wallet,” said Renee Mulder, a Benefit Mobile user. “And I can support a local organization I care about which makes it that much better.” Lolli said helping the community through his company has been rewarding despite the challenges of combating fraudulent use of the app. “This can be fraud from sophisticated people out

of Russia, or it could just as easily be some guy in his garage,” Lolli said. “It’s very common that there are thousands of stolen credit cards they’ve gotten that they try to use those cards to buy gift cards, and they’re stealing from schools and nonprofits in the process.” For Benefit Mobile, successful fundraisers for schools and organizations mean a successful business. Maintaining a high volume of users allows the business, which has grown to nine employees, to continue offering fundraising opportunities, while also providing users with an easy way to contribute to a cause they care about. Amy Boucher, who used the app to raise funds for her child’s co-op preschool, said the customer service representatives were very helpful and friendly when some users had difficulty tracking the incoming funds. “I really appreciate the simple way of fundraising for our school combined with the convenience,” Boucher said. I can still swing by the grocery store if I happen to leave my wallet in the diaper bag or my other coat pocket.” Lolli said even small purchases are like drops in a bucket, so even small purchases can compound into a significant contribution — an approach that allows organizations to connect with younger generations. “Millennials aren’t necessarily the ones writing the big checks to support causes,” Lolli said. “This is a very easy way for young people to contribute to these things in the context of their own shopping. We wanted to provide a new technology, a new way for many of these organizations to engage with millennials, and I think that’s what we’ve accomplished.”

well-shorn. But his coworkers suggested that he should consider shaving his whole head. Though Kelley has a beard now, he didn’t think he looked good bald at first. “I looked like Caillou from the cartoon,” he said. After growing out his beard, he said he is happy with his appearance. “Some guys don’t have the face or jawline for a bald head,” Kelley said. “Some guys don’t look as good. I just got lucky.” When Cody first asked

his current girlfriend, senior Callista Ring, on date, he confrontred her with serious news. He told her, “I gotta warn you. I am gonna be bald. And soon. By the time law school is over, it is all going to be gone.” Despite this warning, she agreed to a date. Cody said he had less hair than most people in high school and had been in denial since 7th grade. “I used to just say I had a weird hairline,” he said. “But

by the middle of high school, I knew. I knew what was happening.” Over the years, Cody saw the peak of his hair slowly inching back from his forehead and recognizes that soon, he will have to shave all of his hair. But he said he is fine with it, considering the alternative. “Any effort to stop it or fight it ends up making you look more pathetic,” he said. He likens himself to Jason Statham, who he calls “the patron saint of baldness” — an

action hero who didn’t need hair to be a hero. “It is a mercy to lose your hair when you are young or at least know you will,” Cody said. “The guys who baldness affects the most are guys who had really great hair when they were young. In their thirties when their hair starts to thin out, they are all, ‘I am going to die someday, blah blah blah.’” Cody said the best approach for balding men is not found in a tube or in laser therapy. For him, the best ap-

proach is cheerful acceptance. “Find a woman who will love you for your baldness who will support you for your long, hairless years to come,” Cody said. Like Cody, Potter doesn’t believe that baldness is anything to bemoan. “If you have good hair, that is a gift,” Potter said. “But if you are balding, that is a gift too, because God is reminding you that you are getting uglier and you are going to die soon.”

up.” The awards ceremony included honors like “Best Sideburns,” “Most Likely to Live at Taco Bell,” and “Most Likely to Not Be Named Niedfeldt,” awarded to Andrew Simpson. “I’m very glad we had this,” sophomore RA Quinn Crago said. Crago won the award “Most Likely to Be On Eight Intramural Teams.” Each resident also brought a date to the event.

Freshman Haakon Santaella and Rachel Smith dance the night away under the Searle Center lights at Niedfelt Residence’s formal. Jordyn Pair | Collegian

and dancing, the formal is an opportunity for the residents of Niedfeldt to dress up and bring a date to a formal event. The dorm used to do a formal every year, until the tradition ended. This year’s Resident Assistant team started the tradition up again, hosting it this past Saturday in the Searle Center. Around 80 people — residents and dates — attended. “This is way classier than a date party,” junior RA Sam Cassels said. “It’s a privilege of being a smaller dorm.” The formal is sponsored by Phyllis Niedfeldt, who donates money specifically for the formal. “She wants them to know etiquette and classy dining,” Associate Dean of Men Jeffrey Rogers said. “It’s not often students get to dress

West Virginia United Health System. In 2008, Walker was talked into running for West Virginia Supreme Court Justice — and lost the partisan election by 0.6 percent. In 2016, she ran

By | Madeleine Jepsen Science & Tech Editor

Features Seniors admitted to graduate school

www.hillsdalecollegian.com

By | Grace Houghton Collegian Freelancer When most students reach the last month of spring semester, the constant refrain is “We’re almost done!” Those seniors heading to graduate programs, however, have only just begun. After forcing down an alphabet soup of tests, including the MCAT, GRE, and LSAT, students have finally heard the verdict on where they will spend the next four to six years of their lives. Whether they hail from the economics, religion, or science departments, these soon-to-be graduate students have spent years and months honing their interests and learning to articulate their passions. The process of pursuing their particular fields while still in undergraduate work at Hillsdale College has already proven the creativity and resourcefulness they will continue to develop in graduate level work. Many of them have had to work with professors to pursue a specific interest for which Hillsdale College doesn’t have an established program. Katie Wright, an economics major headed to Arizona State University to pursue her Ph.D. in sustainability, said her focus on resource economics led to a “transdisciplinary” experience at Hillsdale. She started by seeking advice from both the biology and economics departments, but, through the advice of associate professor of economics Charles Steele, associate professor of economics, discovered ways to make resource economics “infiltrate basically every part of my life,” including her classes on linear algebra and public finance. Another upcoming graduate student, Nathan Steinmeyer, traced his interest in Biblical studies through the religion, philosophy, and classics departments. Steinmeyer convinced Don Westblade, assistant professor of religion, to teach an additional class in Biblical Hebrew and also to supervise two semesters of an independent study program. He then

found an opportunity with the classics department’s Joshua Fincher, visiting associate professor, to study the literature of Fincher’s own culture: Judaism. Steinmeyer’s work has paid off. In the next several years, he will pursue a Masters of Arts in Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which allows him to study “the crossover between history and religion.” “We tend to over-spiritualize the Bible, especially when it comes to the Old Testament,” Steinmeyer said. “Once you start to learn the history about it, it makes the work so much more beautiful and adds so much depth.” Madison Frame and Steve Sartore followed a more linear route. Frame will complete her degree in biochemistry this spring, alongside Sartore with his degree in biology. While Sartore took the premed track and looks toward his Ph.D. in osteopathic medicine, Frame’s graduate-level interests drew her to research. What got Frame “really jazzed about research” was not a class, but rather a research project with Courtney Meyet, associate professor of chemistry, the summer following her freshman year. Frame’s love for research drove her to pursue graduate work, since graduate school is less about coursework and more about full-time laboratory work, she said. “Research is discovering new things,” Frame said, “and I love the feeling of doing experiments which no one else has ever done before.” Frame’s particular interest is with viruses, or, “tiny molecular zombies,” which she plans to research at the University of Michigan as part of its Program in Biomedical Sciences. This program attracted Frame because of the many virus labs that it offers. “Having a lot of variety in the options that are available means that there is more opportunity for me to find a mentor that I work well with and a project I’m interested in,” Frame said. The research project she

chooses will shape the rest of Frame’s five years at University of Michigan, similar to a humanities graduate student’s choice of dissertation topic. Steve Sartore prefers the clinic over the laboratory. He was accepted into the D.O. (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine) program at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine near Tampa, Florida. For Sartore, medicine “is one of the few passions that combines my love of people, love of science, and fascination with the human body.” While both M.D. and D.O. practitioners write prescriptions and perform surgeries, osteopathic doctors (D.O.’s) have additional training in chiropractic work, Sartore said. Osteopathic doctors “try the natural method of healing using the body’s own processes to heal itself before writing prescriptions,” which appeals to his personal philosophy of medicine. Sartore’s acceptance to Lake Erie College may commit him to more than four to six years in school; it may also involve another four to six years as a doctor in the United States Navy. Sartore is pursuing a Navy scholarship for his time in medical school for the chance to treat “the best of the best” and because of his personal admiration for Navy men. “I’ve been surrounded by Navy people with Chief Rogers, Coach Harner, and my next door neighbor,” Sartore said. “They all have exemplary character, and they’re products of the Navy.” In the next several years, senior Razi Lane hopes to find himself among Navy personnel as well. This fall, Lane will attend University of Notre Dame’s law program, with the goal of practicing military law as part of the JAG (Judge Advocate General’s) Corps. “Law is a field that is not only dynamic in today’s world, but which also offers the most flexibility in terms of access to opportunities to help people,” Lane said. Practicing military law in the Navy would involve “everything from family law to uniform code of military jus-

tice,” Lane said, in addition to exposing him to the influence of maritime law on marine policy. The University of Notre Dame was Lane’s top choice and attracted his attention because “they want to be a force for good, and I’ve always wanted to continue that tradition.” To some, including intimidated undergrads, being accepted into graduate school represents the road to a successful career. But these students aren’t pursuing a paycheck, a million-dollar suburban house, or a Mercedes SUV. “It’s definitely a balancing act,” Steinmeyer said. “Going on in your career is incredibly important…but you’re going to have your whole life to pursue your career. It’s very important to take the time today to spend time with friends and time doing the things you love.” Sartore represents a consistent theme among Hillsdale’s upcoming graduate students: he finds some of the things he loves most in his field of interest. Sartore explained his interest in osteopathic medicine: “You get to take away pain. How many people to you talk to that can say, “I take away people’s pain for a living? On top of that, they tell me I get paid to do that? That’s awesome.” Wright found her desired specialty in resource economics through her pre-existing love for nature. After plunging herself into resource economics, she realized she couldn’t see herself doing anything but researching fisheries and water rights. In addition to her fascination with fisheries, Wright found that resource economics wasn’t simply a story of state-of-natural survival, but held opportunities to “benefit the resource and the consumer by just defining the rules of the game.” Lane’s motivation is simply “the desire to help people.” “I want to put myself in a position where I can help as many people become the very best people they can possibly be,” he said.

From programming computers to pursuing the humanities By | Madeleine Jepsen Science & Tech Editor At Hillsdale. three professors have computer-programming experience, but two are now professors of humanities at Hillsdale. Before Associate Professor of English Dutton Kearney decided on a career as an English professor, he taught himself computer programming while working for an insurance company. His specific project involved using two computer languages — SQL and UNIX — to make and improve databases of injury-related information for insurance companies. At one point, Keaney learned a new computer-programming language over the course of 72 hours in order to take on a new project. “You’re continuously training and learning, and it’s exciting because it’s something brand new,” Kearney said. “Computer programming is a lot like learning a foreign language.” Based off Kearney’s work with improving the programming for the databases, the insurance companies could then improve the timeframes of expected recovery from different types of injuries. This allowed the insured workers to return to their jobs as soon as possible while still giving them sufficient time off for recovery. For Kearney, though, the rewarding part of the job was the challenge of the programming. “You spend days or weeks or maybe even months putting code together, and then you brace yourself and hit ‘run,’ and then it works, and that’s just fun,” Kearney said. “It’s not physically building something, but it tricks the

brain into thinking that you are constructing something, that if you can make it elegant and have it work, and be able to create a user interface that anybody else can use too, that’s a challenge too.” One day, though, as the novelty of the new projects and programming languages wore off, a realization struck him: Kearney said he realized he

computer science. Zeller used computer modeling to simulate how liquid crystals — a technology he said would one day be present in flat-screen televisions — would react to different environmental factors while pursuing doctoral studies in computer science. “I could write parallel programs that would run more

“You spend days or weeks or maybe even months putting code together, and then you brace yourself and hit run, and then it works, and that’s just fun.” wanted more from his career than an office cubicle, chasing the promise of a higher salary and a corner office. He left his job and was accepted into a doctorate program in English, enticed by the promise of new literature to explore — the passion for literature that he had already pursued as an undergraduate student and wanted to return to. “I had stopped learning at my job, and it was just maintenance, so it lost its freshness,” Kearney said. “Whereas going to study the literature of the western world…” For Professor Emeritus of Computer Science Reinhardt Zeller, computer science was not his primary academic interest. Before he found computer sciences, Zeller studied economics, and taught at Bowling Green State University and Iowa State, where he offered business and statistics courses. He then left to pursue graduate coursework in statistics, and worked on a econometric modelling project that left him with a new interest:

efficiently on these high-tech machines,” Zeller told the Collegian. He then shared his passion for computer sciences with Hillsdale students until his retirement in 2015. Whereas Kearney’s and Zeller’s interest in computer programming stemmed from their professional work, Assistant Professor of Theology Jordan Wales said his own interest in computer programming developed when he was in high school, and stemmed from a philosophical interest in capturing reality within a model. “I remember building a cathedral in a 3D computer game because I liked this idea of a world that could be entered into and explored,” Wales said. This interest followed him to college, where he studied engineering and focused on robotics. He even went abroad to study cognitive science on a Marshall Scholarship. “Cognitive science is kind

of like a mixture of Neuroscience, computer science, artificial intelligence, philosophy of mind, philosophy, biology, and computer science,” Wales said. “But there were certain questions, like what is the flourishing of the mind what does a good life look like? Is there a soul? How does God fit into it? I became frustrated because there were certain questions that couldn’t be asked within the domain of cognitive science.” He used his remaining semester on scholarship to study theology at Oxford before returning to the United States, where he had a National Science Foundation scholarship to pursue a doctoral degree in computer sciences. He began working in a laboratory that aligned with his interests, and engineered robots that could recognize and move pieces on a tic-tac-toe board. He said the research wasn’t particularly interesting to him, and conversations with his friends about larger questions in life led him to withdraw from the computer sciences program and instead, study theology at the University Notre Dame. While his field of study changed, Wales said theology required a similar approach in which individual components of study were always viewed in light of the whole. “The mode of thought that one must have as an engineer or a scientist or a theologian is a very synthetic mode of thought where the parts must always be understood in light of the whole,” Wales said. “For me it feels like a continuous development or refinement of the way I wanted to approach this yearning for reconciliation of the parts and whole and the desire to capture whole.”

March 29, 2018 B5

Freshman Joe Wagner begins his third consecuitve hour of “Fortnite.” Jake Sievers | collegian

Campus’s most popular game: ‘Fortnite’ By | Jake Sievers Collegian Freelancer Hillsdale dorms and fraternities alike are raving over “Fortnite.” While “Fortnite” first went on sale this past July for $40, it wasn’t a big hit at first. To attract more interest, the game’s marketers decided to create a free version alongside the paid game. Since the release of the free version in late 2017, Epic Games Inc., the creator of the game, has had a difficult time keeping the “Fortnite” servers running. This is most obvious in the latest numbers released by Epic Games in February, stating that had been 3.4 million concurrent players playing “Fortnite” in early February. This means that at one point, across consoles and PC, there were 3.4 million players playing at the same time. This number is very similar to the concurrent players total of the Call of Duty series after a new release. The difference between Call of Duty and “Fortnite”, however, is that Call of Duty’s popularity is at its peak when the newest game is released. “Fortnite”’s popularity has been consistently trending upward and shows no sign of stopping. The free version is modeled as a 100-player fight to be the last person or team standing, similar to the concept in the book “The Hunger Games.” Friends try to outdo each other for bragging rights, and viewing parties form whenever someone is among the final 10 players remaining. “Fortnite” is a combination of a building game like “Minecraft” and a traditional shoot-‘em-up, like Call of Duty. Although the free version is vastly more popular, Epic Games has been able to monetize this game mode by selling character costumes, among other virtual goods. According to an estimate from SuperData Research, Epic Games has made at least $157 million off this mode. “It’s played 24/7 on every TV [in Simpson],” freshman JJ Self, who lives in Simpson Residence, said. “That’s not even really an exaggeration.” Multiplayer games that allow players to talk to other players have been around for years. The free version of “Fortnite”, however, eliminates the barrier of needing to purchase the game. Because of this, anyone can play if they have an internet connection. This has allowed more than 40 million unique players to play “Fortnite” by early January, the most recent estimate by Epic Games. “I have a buddy who all he does is go to class, go to golf practice, and play “Fortnite” on his PlayStation 4 in his room,” freshman Joe Wagner said. “His roommate also plays “Fortnite” on a separate TV in their room on an Xbox One. He plays all day, and whenever he dies, he yells very loudly, and it can be heard throughout the whole dorm.” This is not an uncommon occurrence in Simpson, the largest male dorm at Hillsdale. There are four lobby televisions in Simpson on which students constantly play “Fortnite”, as well as on TVs and computers in countless rooms. Although Epic Games has declined to disclose sales of “Fortnite” to the public, Epic did say by early January the game had drawn 40 million players across both free

and paid modes. The game, despite being a third-person shooter, is non-violent. When players are shot, they do not bleed. When they run out of health, their bodies simply disappear. This has separated “Fortnite” from all other shooters, creating a much more family-friendly game and gaining approval from parents across the country. In an online gaming forum, a woman posted a picture of her pre-teen sons wearing custom-made “Fortnite” sweatshirts that she bought them for Valentine’s Day. She posted the picture with the caption, “I like the fact that if they’re not outside playing with their friends, they’re at least still interacting. I remember being a child and playing Atari and Nintendo in a room all by myself.” Freshman Nate Chambers, who has been playing constantly for the past two weeks, was speechless when trying to put into words how much he wanted a victory. John Thistleton another freshman, who lives on Chambers’ hall and has achieved the elusive “Victory Royale,” was more open about speaking on his “Fortnite” experience. “Every game you lose, you are unsatisfied with the outcome. And if you win, you want to win more,” Thistleton said. Epic Games keeps players wanting more, taking suggestions from their social media followers and Reddit users. To show that they are listening to their supporters, they release a limited-time game mode every few weeks. So far, these game modes have ranged from “Sniper Showdown,” where every player could find only snipers or revolvers, “Solid Gold,” in which every gun in the game is its most lethal version, 50 vs. 50 events, and many more. Some don’t think Epic can’t maintain this rise in popularity, including Owen Macaulay. When asked whether he thinks “Fortnite” will be around this time next year, Macaulay, a freshman Alpha Tau Omega pledge simply said, “I do not,” believing that Epic has caught lightning in a bottle. Although the future popularity of the game may be in question, the current trend of the game is undeniable. Beginning as a niche game, the impact in the mainstream is greater than any video game is on a level that hasn’t been seen in the recent past. Just this past week, online streamer Ninja livestreamed himself playing “Fortnite” with rapper Drake. The stream picked up so much momentum online that Travis Scott, another rapper, joined their game. Soon after Scott joined, Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster joined their game as well. In total, more than 600,000 people watched the group play on Twitch, a streaming service that allows people to watch others play video games. After the UMBC Retrievers defeated the Virginia Cavaliers in the NCAA Tournament to become the first 16seed to defeat a 1-seed, Nolan Gerrity of UMBC described the feeling by saying, “It’s like your first “Fortnite” victory.” Bill Phillips, a freshman in Simpson, no stranger to winning, making sure the fact that he has 17 victories so far be included in this article, said, “Your odds are only 1 percent of winning, so it’s extremely addictive and gratifying when you win.”

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All the bald young men By | Mark Naida Assistant Editor The bathroom of a college male can be a scary place. Dried toothpaste covers the faucet, beard clippings litter the counter, the shower liner molded months ago and everyone pretends not to notice. But this is expected of bachelors in their early-20s. Hair loss isn’t. On top of a cabinet in senior Samuel Potter’s bathroom rests a box of blue powder-free latex gloves and a small bottle of Kirkland brand Minoxidil Hair Regrowth Treatment. Potter cranes his neck to the side and parts his hair. But his part is not on the side like most men. Potter’s part is between the still-full back

“You have no hair.” That event coincided with his father’s decision to finally shave his head after slowly balding over the past 20 years. Potter said hair regrowth is not very likely, but products like rogaine can help slow the balding process. “I told myself: just swallow your pride and get something before you lose it all.” Although Potter admits he worries about self-image, he said he believes his condition has helped him overcome some of his vices. “Having a natural tendency toward vanity, I will sometimes look at myself and say, ‘What is happening?’ It’s aging. You look at your body and realize you are already starting to look uglier. Every-

Junior Ben Weeks, senior James Friedl, and senior Michelle Bara eat chili during Taste of Manning. Madeleine Fry I Collegian

Getting a taste of Manning By | Madeline Fry Culture Editor

Senior Samuel Potter applies off-brand rogaine to his balding pate. Mark Naida | Collegian

half, and a wispy brown patch in front. He screws off the cap and puts a few drops on his bald patch. “You’re supposed to do 1 milliliter direct topical solution. You just apply and rub it in. I try to get it right into the crown because that is where the hair-loss is.” He screws the cap back on the bottle, snaps the glove off, and sighs. “There you go. Do you like that? Twice a day.” Potter didn’t believe he was losing his hair until his sophomore year when a woman who was normally complimentary of his looks responded to a Snapchat message with a fatal phrase:

one has to come to terms with that eventually. Time is already taking away my beauty.” Though it is likely an old wives tale that early baldness is a trait passed from mothers to sons, Potter, Braden Kelley ’17 , and senior Daniel Cody all said family members had lost their hair early and believed that they had a genetic predisposition to it. These men are not alone. According to a study conducted by the American Society of Dermatologic Study, 16 percent of men aged 18-29 experienced hair loss. Kelley first realized his hair was thinning during his junior

See Bald B4

Take a walk down N. Manning Street. Start at Central Hall, pass the parking lots, stop to listen to The Wineboxes performing by College Baptist. Cross the street, gather at the beer tent for a cup of Coors. Then slalom from house to house: taste the mac ‘n’ cheese, grab a waffle, and don’t forget the chili. At Taste of Manning, the first Student Activities Board event of its kind, hundreds of students wandered up and down N. Manning Street on Saturday afternoon, snacking on dishes prepared by their peers. At the end of the street, a gaggle of friends steps up to The Stables, where seniors Ralston Tucker, Grace Vandegriff, and Michelle Bara hover by a crockpot of Kevin’s Famous Chili. Unlike the actual Kevin, the character from “The Office” who spilled his famous

Missed the inside page last week? “Fortnite” jump left you hanging? Catch that content and more inside, on pages B4-B5.

chili all over the carpet, students who wander into The Stables have a good chance of getting a bite. To reassure them, there’s a meme on the back wall with Kevin’s smug face behind the announcement: “I FINALLY DIDN’T SPILL MY FAMOUS CHILI.” And by the housemates, string lights frame a blackboard with a message in red chalk: “Chili: It’s probably the thing we do best.” Coming inside to escape the 40-degree cold, students sample bowls of chili with squares of cornbread. The housemates said over the course of the two-hour event, the chili ran out, and they had to make more. “It was really fun to make everything,” Tucker says, as the newest visitors reach for the ladle. Director of Student Activities Ashlyn Landherr, heading up the street, says she’s happy with student turnout despite the chilly weather. About 150 students signed up to attend,

but she guesses some 200-300 actually showed up. After students came up with the idea for the event in an SAB brainstorming session, it became Taste of Manning, named after the world’s largest food festival, Taste of Chicago. The next step was blocking off the street itself. “Getting the street cleared was huge,” Landherr says, “but it made this event possible.” Students in 10 off-campus houses shared their culinary skills, serving snacks from sweet to savory: banana bread, meatballs, brownies, tacos, BBQ, prosciutto. The Fratican, at the end of the street, got the most students votes for taste, thanks to its steak slices with garlic aioli. The Stables snagged the award for best vibe. Standing by a group of guys playing cornhole, Associate Dean of Men Chief Rogers says he came out to support an event that was all in good fun. “It’s wholesome and good,”

Rogers says. “And it’s around friendship.” When the bustle has subsided and even the beer tent has cleared, seniors Gina Hawersaat and Stacey Egger languish on their couch after dishing out almost every portion of mac ‘n’ cheese in Graceland. Hawersaat says they started cooking three hours before the event. “We probably had 12 pounds of cheese,” Egger says. Both agree that they enjoyed meeting students from every corner of campus, and Hawersaat adds that she hope that this isn’t the only taste of Manning Hillsdale students will get. “I think they should do it every year,” she says. “Manning is such a hub of student life right now.” She only has one suggestion. “Do you think SAB would clean our house for us?” she asks. “Just the kitchen. There’s cheese on everything.”

Campus Chic Genevieve Chiara Compiled by | Allison Schuster What’s one trend that you wish would come back? One thing I am waiting for to come back into style is the one colored velour track suits because I have a blue one in my closet from Juicy that I’ve been waiting to wear since like 2007. What’s one article of clothing you can’t leave the house without? I typically make sure that I have a watch on before I leave every day so that I don’t have to be obvious when I check how much time is left in class. Senior Genevieve Chiara. Allison Schuster | Collegian

What is your favorite brand or place to shop? I really like Madewell and Gap. Who are some of your fashion inspirations? Probably my sisters if that counts. I guess I really like Kate Middleton’s style but there’s nobody that I really desire to look like all the time. But I’ve mostly just taken after my older sisters’ style. If you could describe your style in 3 words what would they be? Usually a groutfit.