September 19, 2014

The Oberlin Review

SEPTEMBER 19, 2014 VOLUME 143, NUMBER 2

Local News Bulletin News briefs from the past week Bechdel Awarded MacArthur Grant The MacArthur Foundation named Alison Bechdel, OC ’81, a MacArthur Fellow this week. Bechdel is a cartoonist and memoirist best known for the comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For” and the graphic memoirs Fun Home and Are You My Mother? This year, the Foundation named 21 fellows. Recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship, often referred to as the “Genius Grant,” receive $625,000 to use as they see fit.

No Plans to Change Financial Aid Policy College President Marvin Krislov assures students that no recent changes have been made to the financial aid policy. “We’re still talking about it [and] trying to figure it out,” said Krislov.

Last spring, controversial changes to the financial aid policy appeared online, resulting in student protests and the administration’s eventual rescindment of the changes.

Oberlin Schools Report Card Grade Drops Significantly Oberlin schools failed to meet academic benchmarks and received less than stellar grades on the state report cards released by the Ohio Department of Education this week.

Schools in the district hit only 16 of the 24 performance indicators, dropping from an overall B to a D grade. The lower marks may in part be due to the state’s recently increased performance threshold. Previously, to reach a given performance indicator, only 75 percent of students needed to demonstrate proficiency in an area. The 75 percent threshold was raised to 80 percent this year.

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New Complex Drives Athletics Overhaul Sarena Malsin Staff Writer The football team will play its first-ever game under the lights in the new Austin E. Knowlton Athletics Complex against The College of Wooster Fighting Scots on Saturday, Sept. 20 at 7 p.m. Not only will this be the first night game ever played at home in Oberlin College football history, but it will also mark the culmination of the College’s Homecoming and alumni weekend events.

On Nov. 16, 2013, the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Austin E. Knowlton Athletics Complex took place in Savage Stadium.

At the ceremony, Delta Lodge Director of Athletics Natalie Winkelfoos proudly said, “The [$8 million donation by the] Knowlton Foundation has given us the opportunity to restore tradition while working forward to foster success.”

Now, fully completed over 10 months later, the complex sports an all-weather, multipurpose artificial turf, Bailey Field, complete with lights, new and improved locker rooms, a new press box and social spaces conducive to widespread campus involvement in ath-

A view from above of the new Austin E. Knowlton Athletics Complex. The complex will host a multitude of Homecoming activities this weekend.

Courtesy of Oberlin Athletics

letic events.

After witnessing the massive undertaking that was the construction of the new facility, students, athletes and alumni will join in celebrating the old and the new in an

especially significant Homecoming.

Oberlin athletes have expressed certainty that this year’s Homecoming celebration will stand out more than any in the past.

“There’s definitely going to be

See page 4

See Alumni, page 16

As Elections Begin, 14 of 15 Senate Seats Vacant Oliver Bok After an acrimonious spring semester and a failed referendum, Student Senate has lost its stipend funding and 14 of its 15 members, marking the upcoming school year as the first in decades that student senators will not receive pay.

A referendum held last spring, in which students were asked in an anonymous email whether or not they believed student senators should retain their funding, failed to attract enough voters.

While about 80 percent of the votes cast were in favor of hourly pay for senators, Student Senate needed a response from over half of the student body in order to achieve quorum. According to College senior and current Student Senator Peter Arden, only 400 students, or approximately 14 percent, responded to the referendum.

Another referendum on pay for student senators, organized by a handful of senators from last year, is being held this fall. Although it is possible that Senate will garner enough student support to restore its funding within the next several weeks, previous referendum failures haven taken the majority of the year to reach quorum.

According to College junior Aaron Appel, an outgoing student senator, the lack of pay is already limiting Senate’s accessibility for lowincome students who can’t afford to do the work for free.

“I’ve had friends come to me, who I think would be awesome in the Senate and who would really reach students and make sure that more student voices are sitting around the table, and say, ‘You know what? I want to run, I would like to do it, but I can’t afford to.’ And that’s really hard to hear.

That’s hard to know. Because we screwed up last semester, students can’t be represented properly at Oberlin College. That’s messed up,” Appel said.

Arden was a first-year on Student Senate in 2012 when the referendum was last passed. “[In 2012], they had started the pay reaffirmation first semester at some point, and they were struggling to get votes. They were already doing publicity, they were already sending out emails, they were already actively recruiting people, they were very active about it, and that referendum actually passed the summer after that year. Honestly, it was a huge struggle. The referendum was open to be voted on the entire year and that summer and we barely got it,” said Arden.

Arden noted that the members of the Student Finance Committee, who also have to get their pay reaffirmed biannually, managed to do so last year, unlike the Student Senate.

“SFC was smart,” said Arden. “They started at the beginning of the year, so they had all year to collect ballots. That’s why they got reaffirmed.”

According to Ziya Smallens, a senator last semester and a College junior currently taking a se-

Connies Find Inner Peace The Conservatory Council placed emphasis on student wellness.

a lot of people there,” said junior quarterback Lucas Poggiali. “I think everyone will be excited to see the new stadium — nothing

Hat Trick Junior John Ingham netted three goals in the Yeomen’s win over the Earlham College Quakers last Saturday.

Art Anarchy Students at Art Rental witnessed the breakdown and reconstruction of social order.

See page 10

INDEX:

Opinions 5

This Week in Oberlin 8

See page 16

Arts 10

Sports 16

mester off to work on a campaign, another factor in the failure of the referendum was the divisive and unproductive nature of Student Senate last semester.

“It’s funny how much Student Senate reflected the U.S. Senate in terms of gridlock,” said Smallens.

“I think that people said, ‘You’re not doing anything to represent us’, and I don’t think the polarized nature of Student Senate truly reflected sentiments on campus. I’m not placing blame, I’m just saying that at the end of the day, the way things clashed, we were not serving students best.”

In addition to its lack of funding, Student Senate has also suffered a multitude of resignations.

Students will vote to fill 14 of the 15 seats on Senate in the election this fall with only one senator returning, a ratio which some believe to be a historical first.

College junior Machmud Makhmudov is also the only senator currently running for re-election.

Senators are required to run for re-election every two semesters in order to continue serving on Senate.

“We had a lot of resignations for different reasons,” said Appel. “Some senators didn’t feel like this was their thing on campus, and after such a contentious semester you might want to try some new stuff. One senator suffered an injury See After, page 4

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The Oberlin Review, September 19, 2014

LaunchProgress Sees Success in Primary Season Rose Stoloff Editor-in-Chief Luke Squire and Poy Winichakul, both OC ’11, are trying to upset the political status quo. Just over a year after starting LaunchProgress, a nonprofit and political action committee devoted to electing young progressive candidates to public office, the two Oberlin grads are seeing the fruits of their labor as the 2014 election cycle heats up.

The two students chaired the Oberlin College Democrats together and taught an ExCo on civic engagement to try to bring some of their political zeal to the student body. Despite going their separate ways after graduation, the pair remained in close contact, according to Squire.

In January 2013, Squire and Winichakul bonded over President Obama’s second inauguration, and the idea for LaunchProgress was born.

“We were just having drinks at my house and talking about the state of politics and we kind of hung on this fact that even though a plurality of Americans voted for more progressive candidates — so even Democratic candidates — the majority in the House still went to Republicans. So we started talking about what caused

that and what we could be doing to fix that,” said Squire.

The solution the two came up with was to prime young progressive candidates for state and local offices with the intention that someday those same candidates would rise to positions of national authority.

Acting quickly on their idea, Squire and Winichakul founded the LaunchProgress Action Fund in August 2013.

The political group, which at its birth was a nonprofit dedicated to recruiting young progressives and urging them to run for public office, has since expanded.

In February 2014, LaunchProgress became both a nonprofit and a political action committee, or PAC, allowing it to directly help its endorsed candidates finance their campaigns.

LaunchProgress exclusively endorses candidates between the ages of 18 and 35 who meet the definition of progressive, according to Squire and Winichakul. Its definition of progressive is based on six value areas, including social equality, economic equality, environmental equality, civic engagement and election reform, and access to education.

Winichakul said that LaunchProgress does not simply endorse any progressive candidate, but rather can-

Luke Squire, OC ’11, (center) converses with Councilman Marcus Madison (left) at the Celebrating Young Leaders in Politics event in Washington, D.C. Squire, along with Poy Winichakul, OC ‘11, recently founded a political action committee which aims to urge young, progressive candidates to run for office.

Courtesy of Poy Winichakul

didates who understand the organization’s long-term goals.

“We are also looking for candidates who are going to run for higher office in the future,” said Winichakul.

“Our whole vision is that we will have supported candidates who will grow the progressive bench for higher office and national leadership positions. So we develop these candidates locally and at the state level now, and then they will go on and be national leaders, and we want good quality candi-

dates for those positions, which we currently don’t really have.”

In this election cycle the PAC endorsed 10 candidates, nine of whom were successful in their primaries and will continue to the November general election. The PAC supported three candidates in Ohio, four in Michigan and three in North Carolina.

One of the challenges the PAC faces in electing young progressives to office is the gerrymandering of many states.

NSF Grant Funds Supercomputer for Sciences Emma Paul Professors from the College’s Biology, Physics and Chemistry departments were the recent recipients of a $486,256 grant by the National Science Foundation to build a supercomputer, or a high-performance computing cluster, which will allow students to process data sets of an unprecedented size.

The computer, which is slated to be built by the end of next summer, is replacing an older high-performance computing cluster, which has been used in the science departments for the past nine years.

Nearly 350 Chemistry students per year currently use the old HPC cluster, and the computer also has applications in physics, astrophysics, and computational biology.

Matt Elrod, Biggs Professor of Natural Science, said he hopes that the new system will bring that opportunity to a larger portion of the student body.

“This is a natural evolution in how chemistry has been taught,” Elrod said. “People have used computers since the ’70s, but they were difficult to use and not very powerful, so you couldn’t do many interesting things. Having this supercomputer resource will let us do [computations] in a way that is easy and in a way so we can actually tackle relevant problems, as opposed to supersimple demonstrations of principal problems, so we can actually do things that connect to the things students are doing in the experimental part of the curriculum.”

Oberlin students will be some of the few liberal arts students able to work with a HPC cluster, especially at an undergraduate level. Oberlin’s commitment to undergraduate research helped distinguish the school during the competitive review process for the National Science Foundation’s Major Research Instrumentation grant.

“We have a very long history of supporting serious undergraduate research,” said Mike Moore, associate professor of Biology and co-author of the proposal. “We have the existing supercomputer, and the usage Oberlin has gotten out of that for the

past nine years has helped us show NSF that, in fact, we do use this thing quite extensively. I think it’s worth pointing out that not many liberal arts colleges have any computing clusters at all.

Oberlin is a leader in this kind of computing among liberal arts colleges.”

The Chemistry department isn’t the only one that will benefit from the HPC cluster. Aaron Goldman, assistant professor of Biology and one of the authors of the proposal, said he believes the HPC cluster will affect the process of research across multiple departments.

“I would say computational research is now a major part of biology and has been a major part of chemistry and physics for a long time, but is now becoming a major part of research in social sciences, as well as humanities research,” Goldman said.

“And so, broadly speaking, it opens up research opportunities for students.”

The supercomputer’s advantage comes from its structure. It is not one large computer, but many computers synced together.

The computers used are called nodes, each of which will contain at least 64 processors. The nodes are organized on a rack, with each in its own slot. When the HPC cluster is given a calculation, it divides the tasks among processors.

“For a large-scale computational job, there are a couple different things you might need. The one people are most familiar with is storage space, but different from that is the amount of memory the job may require, and also processors that actually do the computation. What a HPC cluster does is actually sync the computers together in order to take those jobs and split them across a bunch of different computers in order to get the most efficient mixture of processing and memory to complete a job.”

For Elrod the new technology is a step toward creating more opportunities for the students of Oberlin College.

“I think having the system is also important for recruiting faculty, which leads to courses being developed that use computational approaches, which leads to research projects for students that involve computational aspects,” he said.

The Oberlin Review — Established 1874 —

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September 19, 2014

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“It’s pretty rough right now for young progressives, especially in the states we’re working in. With the way things are districted, it’s really not easy to elect young progressive candidates,” said Squire.

Winichakul said she agreed, stating that the result of excessive gerrymandering, an abundance of safe districts, is harmful to the electoral process. “[Gerrymandering] discourages people to run. It discourages people from the same party to run and it discourages people from the other party to run and if they do run it’s hard for them to win. It’s also discouraging for people to vote,” said Winichakul. “People feel that there isn’t a reason to vote if there isn’t a competition. There’s a lot more awareness and media and education when there are competitive races. That hurts pretty much everyone.”

Depsite the difficulty of the work, Winichakul said she could not have it better.

“I get to support people I believe in 100 percent, which is definitely not what pretty much anyone can say. I feel very lucky to be able to do this; it is an extreme privilege and to work on everything I want to work on in the way I want to work,” she said.

Construction for New K–5 School Approved Sarah Chatta After years of planning to revamp the Oberlin School District’s facilities, the city’s Board of Education approved a plan last Tuesday to build a new school for Kindergarten through fifth grade. A tax levy will be presented on the city ballot this May, and, if passed, the first phase of construction could start as soon as the spring of 2015.

The Board was originally looking to build a K–12 campus, but this was contingent upon funding from the Ohio School Facilities Commission.

“Last May we found out that the funding is not going to be coming,” said Superintendent John Schroth. “Without that, it was going to be really difficult to build the whole K–12 campus at one time.”

The new elementary school represents the first phase of a greater plan to build and consolidate facilities for K–12. Financially, an elementary school is the least expensive option to build in the first phase.

“Without state funding we felt that [an elementary school] was the most fiscal[ly] responsible way of presenting this to the community,” said School Board President Barry Richard.

The state delayed funding eligibility in part due to Oberlin’s district rating, which is among the wealthiest in Ohio according to the state’s district ranking system. This ranking is determined by the value of all taxable property in the school district in relation to the number of enrolled students.

However, according to Richard, over 50 percent of students in the district receive free or reduced lunches, reflecting the 20 percent of the community that lives below the poverty line.

Members of the board have been arguing against this ranking system for at least 10 years, largely because certain members

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Off the Cuff: Frank A. Farris, professor of mathematics and computer science at Santa Clara University Frank A. Farris, associate professor of mathematics and computer science at Santa Clara University, is a mathematical artist and author of the upcoming book Creating Symmetry: The Artful Mathematics of Wallpaper Patterns. His talk on Thursday, titled “Seeing Symmetry: A Talk About a Mathematical Art Show,” discussed the mathematical concepts behind art.

Yes. There’s a new museum of mathematics in New York City, and they’re very aware of the value in producing displays that attract people’s interest to mathematics. So I think that a lot of people are aware of the aesthetics. We really want to draw people into mathematics to show them that it’s a human activity and … show people who are potentially interested in mathematics that this is something approachable and interesting and fun. Visual beauty can be a way to attract people. I think it’s only one of many ways, but the mathematical community has a great desire to welcome other people into our enterprise. We want to be seen as welcoming, and to intro[duce] participation of different kinds of people who maybe haven’t traditionally thought, “Oh, yeah, I could be a mathematician.” I hope my work serves to attract people to [an] interest in mathematics.

What interests you about the intersection of mathematics and art?

That’s a hard question. What I found is that my study in mathematics led me to situations where I was wanting to produce illustrative diagrams. And it was only very gradually, over a course of really almost 20 years, that I realized that there was artistic potential in these mathematical diagrams. And then with that came a massive desire to make them — the diagrams — as beautiful as I could, and so that brought me to wanting to produce visual art. So for me it very much started with an interest in certain mathematical things, and then that drew me.

I’ve always been interested in visual art. My mother was a watercolorist, and so I feel that I have some background in it, but I never thought of myself as a person who might produce visual art. So this has been a very interesting journey.

What are the main concepts of mathematical art? What makes it aesthetically pleasing?

I can’t answer about mathematical art in general, but I do have something that I like to say about my own art … A lot of computer-generated art looks like a computer made it, whereas my art has a certain organic feel to it. So a phrase that I use to describe my own work is, I call it “symmetric yet organic.” Because often when we see things with symmetry, they might look to us like rigid crystals or patterns with a very harsh rhythm, and my work has a more gentle rhythm to it, because it’s made from waves. It’s made from mathematical things called wave functions.

Frank A. Farris gave a talk this Thursday titled “Seeing Symmetry: A Talk About a Mathematical Art Show.”

Is mathematical art a relatively new practice, or is there a lot of historical background behind it?

In the past there have tended to be artists that used a lot of mathematics in their art … It’s well-known how Italian Renaissance artists needed to use mathematics when they desired to make a building look exactly right in perspective. Albrecht Dürer is a German example who just used so much mathematics to make his work look precise, the way the world does. Then, in the 20th century, M.C. Escher was an artist who learned from a mathematician to put mathematics in his art. But those are more situa-

ankle injury.

Friday, Sept. 12 Thursday, Sept. 11 6:48 a.m. An officer responded to a report of vandalism at the northeast side of Wilder Hall. The temporary wooden railing at the northeast entrance was broken off of the newly poured concrete. Various beer cans and debris were also scattered in the area. A work order was filed.

11:56 a.m. Officers were requested to assist a student who had fallen down the steps in Peters Hall. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment of an

11:50 a.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm on the fourth floor of Peters Hall. The cause was found to be a burnt belt in an air handler unit.

The alarm was reset after repairs.

12:08 p.m. A Dascomb kitchen staff member requested officers to assist a student who burned their hand with hot water. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

Saturday, Sept. 13 11:45 p.m. Officers responded to assist an intoxicated stu-

tions of artists using mathematics to advance their craft, and it does seem to me relatively recently that there have been mathematicians that realize that their ideas can inspire works of art, and so it’s created greater collaboration. There’s an annual conference called the Bridges conference. … They describe themselves as wanting to draw together mathematicians with artists of many different kinds, not just visual artists, to explore connections. It’s, I would say, a growing field.

Do you think that art which doesn’t have an expressed interest in mathematics expresses mathematical concepts?

Yeah, there’s really so much variety.

It’s a really big question, but there have been artists who I think almost unconsciously are addressing mathematical ideas. Think of some of the minimalists of the middle of the 20th century … I guess another thing is that any art that is meant to represent. So like that painting there, it’s a representative idea [in which] the artist, whether they knew it or not, was intending that your eye should be at certain point in relation to that painting. There’s this interesting computation in mathematics where you can look at a picture and do a computation, and figure out where you should put your eye in order to have it look its best. So that’s a way that, in any art that’s representative, there’s some math you can do on it to help you understand it better. [It’s a] funny little thing.

Do you think this kind of popularity and mathematical art’s relatively recent conception influences people’s perceptions of math?

dent passed out in a yard on Groveland Street. The student was incoherent and could not stand. An ambulance was requested and the student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

Sunday, Sept. 14 12:30 a.m. A student reported that, while riding a skateboard on South Professor Street, they hit a pothole and fell, injuring their elbow. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

6:18 p.m. Officers were requested to assist a student who had fallen and hit their head at an off-campus party the previous evening. A small bump was detected, but no laceration.

The student declined medical treatment, and on-call staff was notified.

Monday, Sept. 15 6:35 a.m. Officers responded to the Austin E. Knowlton Athletic Complex press box upon receiving a report of an individual stuck in the elevator. Members of the Oberlin Fire Department were notified and also responded. They discovered that technicians were testing the elevators and no one was stuck.

3:22 p.m. A staff member reported the theft of a road case used to store a lighting control panel from Finney Chapel. The case was dark gray in color and contained a gooseneck work light, maroon and gold braided

Interview by Elizabeth Dobbins, News editor Photo courtesy of Frank Farris

rope and several lighting color filters. The items were valued at $250–$300.

8:39 p.m. Officers, members of the Oberlin Fire Department and an electrician responded to a report of two students stuck in the elevator on the first floor of Mudd Library. They assisted the students in exiting the elevator; no medical attention was needed at the time.

Wednesday, Sept. 17 10:06 a.m. A custodial staff member reported graffiti in a practice room on the second floor of Robertson Hall. The graffiti was non-offensive in nature and was written with brown marker. A work order was filed for removal.

News

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The Oberlin Review, September 19, 2014

Students Attend New York Climate Protest Sarah Conner

A group of 70 Oberlin students will travel to New York City this Saturday to attend the People’s Climate March, an environmental activism rally that is billed as “the largest climate march in history.”

The march was organized in response to the United Nations Climate Summit, where world leaders will convene at the U.N. headquarters Tuesday to work toward a new climate agreement and a new set of sustainable development goals that will be concluded in 2015.

For College senior and organizer Rachel Berkrot, the march itself is a classic example of Oberlin activism.

“There’s something really important about the camaraderie about joining other people who are fighting the same struggle that you are, and I think that is more important than voicing your own

opinion,” said Berkrot, who helped coordinate travel plans to New York City. “We do that — voicing our own opinions — here at Oberlin.”

The organizers of the protest, who predict that the march will attract thousands of people from around the world, have voiced a desire to set this year’s climate rally apart from those of previous years.

While past marches have consisted of one single mass of protesters, this year’s rally will be organized into six sections, each based on the individual skills of the participants.

The first group, referred to as the “Frontlines of Crisis, Forefront of Change,” will be made up of indigenous peoples, environmental justice communities, climate-impacted communities and migrant, housing, farm and domestic workers. The second group, titled “We Can Build the Future,” will consist of labor unions and worker associates, public health

advocates, families, women, elders, students and youth.

Subsequent sections include organizations that offer solutions to climate change; groups that protest specifically against “environmentally unfriendly” organizations; and individuals, such as scientists, beekeepers and wildlife preservation groups, who work to to pinpoint causes of climate change.

According to College sophomore and organizer Hayden Arp, this heterogeneity is one of the larger benefits of the rally.

“Environmentalists at the moment have a certain ethos or perception in the world as radicals on the side, or radical hippies,” Arp said.

“One of the nice things about this march is that it’s going for such a diverse group of people. It wants students, it wants old people, it wants people of all economic classes, of all races, of all backgrounds. Hopefully

Feature Photo: Conservatory Yoga

Conservatory students convene in Robertson Hall to take part in yoga sessions led by double-degree senior Tim Gemesi. The class is part of the Conservatory Council’s program for promoting student wellness. In addition to wellness, the council which was dormant for nearly a decade prior to its reinstatement in May, will also focus on community outreach and professional development.

Courtesy of Jeannette Chen

it will provide a much more wholesome view of what the environmental movement actually is.”

Berkrot said she agreed.

“Generally, these gatherings are young, white college students, and it is important to realize that,” she said.

While many of the students involved believe the march to be a mark of progressive activism, others have voiced their opposition.

For College sophomore and organizer Araxi Polony, it is important to be aware of the shortcomings of this type of protest.

“It’s hard to say ‘I did this, and here is the impact x days later.’ I think that is the biggest challenge in organizing environmental protests is that we don’t see immediate change,” Polony said. “What are the implications of going to a protest that may not involve the people who are most affected? And also, what are the implications of major

corporations like Goldman Sachs sponsoring this kind of protest? Is it worth it to be involved in something that may not be the ideal protest?”

Polony also said she recognized the importance of leaving the “Oberlin bubble.”

“The most important thing I’ve done is made connections within the Oberlin community and outside. [Oberlin College] Anti-Frack has done a lot of work with the people of Youngstown, [Ohio], who are seriously affected by fracking ... we’ve really gotten to create a community with the people there, which has been super important.

We base our philosophy off of creating these comments of resolution as part of the larger climate movement, but also by focusing on local issues and environmental justice issues, rather than being involved with the mainstream.”

Board Discusses New School Continued from page 2

believe that it does not accurately reflect the community’s economic situation.

According to Schroth and Richard, the high value of property is based on the large tracts of land surrounding Oberlin, as well as local businesses that are considered taxable property in the school district.

Since the state’s economy has been improving, more districts ranked ahead of Oberlin approved tax levies on school building construction, pushing Oberlin further down the project list.

“In 2012 they told us we’d probably get money in 2013, and in 2013, they told us it might be five or six years,” said School Board Vice President Ken Stanley.

Oberlin’s proposed tax levy provides a means of raising money for the new school without depending on state funding. Richard is confident in the Board’s decision to include the levy and feels it has a strong case.

“We vetted everything that needed to be considered, and that’s how things turned out on Tuesday,” said Richard. “We think we have a great idea to sell to the community.”

The new school would be constructed on the grounds of the existing high school football field. Additionally, the district plans to purchase 10 acres of property from the College for $25,000, a price that represents only a fraction of the land’s value, according to Stanley.

The new building would be LEED Platinum certified, reflecting the Board’s push for carbon neutrality as both a way to save money and become more socially responsible.

A significant part of the school district’s energy inefficiencies, however, are due to the district’s oversized facilities. Since the construction of the current facilities, enrollment in Oberlin schools has reduced by half, leaving the district with 100 square feet more per student than the county average. The spatial disparity of the schools causes increased overhead costs and replacing the schools will reduce this expense.

“By enclosing Eastwood and Prospect [Elementary Schools], at least not using them as school buildings anymore, we expect to save somewhere between $600,000–$800,000 a year in operational expenses,” said Schroth.

Stanley added that, because the school district has both a large amount of facilities to manage and a small number of students, schools in the district cannot afford to hire full time staff for art and music programs.

The Board’s plan will also relocate the Boys and Girls Club from Pleasant Street to Eastwood Elementary School. Eventually, Eastwood will be converted into a community usage building, and Prospect will most likely be resold for residential development.

The last time a major educational issue was on the ballot in Oberlin was in 2011 to renew levies of $4.88 million and $2 million; the vote then passed almost two to one.

After Failed Referendum, Student Senate Loses Funding Continued from page 1 — she’s doing better now — but that prevented her from coming to meetings [and] two senators are working with campaigns. It’s a lot of bad luck mixed with bad feelings from last semester.”

Several other past senators have declined to comment on their reasons for resignation.

Smallens said he recognizes both the potential and the need for Student Senate to improve.

“I think the tone of Student Senate is going to be way different this year, partially because it’s unpaid and also because people kind of assume there is going to be a lot of conflict and tension

and I don’t think that’s the case; I think Senate this year has the potential to be way more unified,” said Smallens. “I’m hopeful about it.”

Appel said he agreed.

“A lot of people say, ‘Oh, Student Senate, it doesn’t really matter,’” said Appel. “And in and of itself, in plenary and working groups, we don’t necessarily get a lot done. But I think the fact that we can appoint students to committees where they can be sitting at the table with Dean [Eric] Estes or [President] Marvin Krislov on different issues and really have their input on College policy — I think that’s huge.

And that’s why this is such a huge issue. Because it really affects how student input is given.”

September 19, 2014

Opinions The Oberlin Review

Letters to the Editors Alumni Council Considers Changes to Bylaws To the Editors: This weekend, the Alumni Council will consider changes to the Alumni Association’s bylaws.

Sixteen past presidents of the Alumni Association, including myself, have reviewed the proposed changes, and we urge our fellow Council members to approve the new bylaws. [See the Review’s website for the list of signatories.]

In our judgment, the proposed bylaws achieve much needed reforms to the Association’s system of governance and will strengthen the Association’s empowerment of volunteers to become more effective in supporting the College and Oberlin communities. The new bylaws also will result in the inclusion of student representatives on a new and expanded governing body, the Alumni Leadership Council. The collaboration with student representatives offers an exciting opportunity to improve the relevancy of alumni support to the student body and establish an early relationship with the Association’s future members and leaders.

The new bylaws will not affect the role of class presidents, class agents, regional coordinators, affiliate group members, et al. The Association, moreover, will continue to invite these key volunteers to return to campus to train, form bonds and experience “renewal.”

Council members, your past presidents are most appreciative of your devotion to Oberlin, and we thank you!

–Clyde Owan, OC ’79, and colleagues Past presidents, Oberlin Alumni Association

Referendum Key to Student Senate Accessibility To the Editors: Hi all, it’s Aaron again, this time joined by fellow retiring Student Senator Emma Snape.

We wanted to take some time to address the Student Senate’s

Fall 2014 Referendum, which was released earlier this week.

The referendum addresses three major points: senator compensation, student representation and committees and working groups. All three are quite important, but the component that is drawing the most conversation is clearly the matter of Senator pay, so we’ll focus there now. Before beginning, we’d like to stress that we are speaking from our own perspectives, and not with the voice of Senate. Also to keep in mind: Since our terms are up, we won’t benefit financially from the outcome of this referendum. Instead, our concern lies in that Student Senate is a large job requiring a lot of work and a lot of time, and for a large number of Oberlin students, doing that work in place of a paying job simply isn’t feasible.

So, unless Senate is paid, it’s a position that’s inaccessible to low-income students, and we –––––––––––––––––––––––––––

effort involved on the part of the organizers, the referendum will fade away, and Senate will lack the energy to keep pressing the point. This is not a process that can be easily abused.

One may ask how we got to this situation. Those who oppose this process argue that we as an organization were too divided last spring to successfully carry out our referendum when we had the chance. We failed to receive the required number of responses, so the vote never took place, and we do not deserve to be paid.

If we were a homogenous body of wealthy students, this would be a fair argument: We screwed up, so now we’ll have to put in our time as volunteers. But Senate is a blank slate this year, and when we elect 14 new students to Senate, who in no way bear responsibility for the failure of last spring’s referendum, we’ll be asking them to volunteer in order to make up for the last Senate’s mistakes.

Student Senate is not homogenous, and neither is Oberlin Student Senate is a large College. The hard fact is that, as long as there are students who job requiring a lot of have to rely on multiple jobs to work and a lot of time, get by at Oberlin, Senate should and for a large number be paid. Without this, Senate is not accessible to all members of of Oberlin students, dothe Oberlin community and can ing that work in place of hardly claim to be a representaa paying job simply isn’t tive body operating in the students’ best interests. feasible.

Ultimately, your vote is your ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– own, but the body we elect this week is the body that will repbelieve that excluding those resent us for the entire year, voices from Student Senate is and retain institutional power absolutely inexcusable. to run again. So please fill out First, we’d like to state explicthe referendum, and please itly that this referendum is withelect a diverse batch of Senain the bounds of Senate’s Contors that can reflect Oberlin’s stitution (see Section II.19.C, promise of social justice. If located on our website at oberyou do the latter without the lin.edu/senate), and that prior former, people will drop out. If to its launch, we ran our deciyou do the former without the sion by Dean Estes, Dean Kawalatter, what’s the point? Do this guchi, and Tina Zwegat, none of because we’re all Obies and we whom had any objections. This all deserve the right to be eqprocess does bring up a potenuitably represented by our stutially tricky question, though: dent government.

Could Senate continually run referenda about its pay until –Aaron Appel it is reaffirmed? Theoretically, College junior Senate could do this indefinite–Emma Snape ly, but practically, this cannot College sophomore occur. Unless there is continual

SUBMISSIONS POLICY The Oberlin Review appreciates and welcomes letters to the editors and column submissions. All submissions are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board.

All submissions must be received by Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at opinions@oberlinreview.org or Wilder Box 90 for inclusion in the following Friday’s Review. Letters may not exceed 600 words and columns may not exceed 800 words, except with the consent of the Editorial Board. All submissions must include contact information, with full names, for all signers. All electronic submissions from multiple writers should be carbon-copied to all signers to confirm authorship.

The Review reserves the right to edit all submissions for content, space, spelling, grammar and libel. Editors will work with columnists and contributors to edit pieces and will clear major edits with the authors prior to publication. Editors will contact authors of letters to the editors in the event of edits for anything other than style and grammar. In no case will editors change the opinions expressed in any submission.

The Opinions section strives to serve as a forum for debate. Review staff will occasionally engage in this debate within the pages of the Review. In these cases, the Review will either seek to create dialogue between the columnist and staff member prior to publication or will wait until the next issue to publish the staff member’s response.

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Page 5

The Oberlin Review Publication of Record for Oberlin College — Established 1874 —

Editors-in-Chief Julia Herbst Rose Stoloff Managing Editor Julian Ring Opinions Editor Sam White

Messages of Prejudice, Intimidation Unwelcome on College Campuses When morning classes broke for lunch Wednesday, students funneled out of academic buildings onto North Professor Street to the sight of demonstrators holding large signs emblazoned with the words “Fear God” and “Ask Me Why You Deserve Hell.” In front of Peters Hall, a graying woman preached about the dangers of premarital sex to an incredulous crowd of passersbys, brandishing a long pole adorned with what appeared to be bloodied menstrual products.

Throughout the afternoon, the demonstrators — members of the Campus Ministry USA, led by George “Jed” Smock — occupied the sidewalk, eliciting a wide range of responses, from laughter and heckling to civil conversations to angry verbal altercations and several calls to Oberlin Safety and Security. The preachers’ message: that Oberlin College’s “sodomites,” “vixens,” “feminists,” “lesbians,” “non-Christians” and various other groups are sinners — and that they should be very, very afraid.

It’s not the first time similar demonstrations have occurred at Oberlin. Traveling preachers of various denominations periodically make stops here, often attempting to engage students in prayer, verse or song as they pass through public areas of campus. The Campus Ministry, for its part, is well-known for its aggressive style of demonstration, and according to its website, the group visits college campuses daily in its quest to “declare the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the college and university students of America and the world.” Smock, known as “Brother Jed,” is infamous for his attempts to incite fear and repentance in a style he terms “confrontational Evangelism.” The group’s website glorifies him as a “campus legend,” himself once a sinful college student at Indiana State University, now redeemed. Perhaps most strikingly, the site claims that the preacher has continued his mission for over four decades out of an unfailing “love for the students.”

The problem with CMUSA’s narrative of love and salvation, however, is that it fits into a larger narrative of hate and prejudice — a narrative whose wounds lie close to the surface in places like Oberlin. The culture of progressive acceptance that many members of Oberlin’s community strive to maintain provides a safe haven for students of marginalized identities. Despite ample reminders of this protective environment’s permeability — from daily microaggressions to the slew of targeted hate speech that made national headlines in March 2013 — the existence of such an environment, however imperfect or fleeting, is crucial in empowering these students and in enabling them to develop the necessary tools to confront their oppressors and fight for change.

Jed Smock is entitled to his beliefs, and he has every legal right to pursue his line of work. For this reason, he is as welcome at Oberlin College as any other visitor. His hateful messages, however, are not. To intimidate religious and sexual minorities, no matter how noble the intent, is to disparage members of historically disenfranchised communities based on character and identity. It is unequivocal, unacceptable hate speech.

The question we raise when incidents of hate speech occur on college campuses is not one of legality. The question is not whether the events represent the harsh realities of American society, nor is it whether students, supposedly sheltered by their insular campus environments, must learn to face these realities.

The question is whether hate speech, constitutionally protected or otherwise, should be allowed to stand. The Editorial Board believes it should not.

When Smock and his adherents finally departed North Professor Street, a cardboard sign lay in the grass that read, “Hatred is not funny and does not deserve an audience.” Though crowds lingered throughout the afternoon, the sign’s message did not go unnoticed. Students’ interactions with the protesters varied from passive observation to active confrontation, and we feel unqualified to hold up any particular response to the demonstration as “right” or “wrong.” However, we were heartened to see a broad range of students united in a singular message — that CMUSA’s actions are prejudiced, misguided and harmful. It is this message, we hope, that Oberlin students will carry forward.

Editorials are the responsibility of the Review Editorial Board — the Editors-in-Chief, managing editor and Opinions editor — and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the Review.

Page 6

Opinions

The Oberlin Review, September 19, 2014

Senate Elections – Candidate Statements Student Senate elections will take place online starting Saturday, Sept. 20 at noon, and polls will remain open until 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 25. Students will have the opportunity to meet Senate candidates and ask questions from 7–8 p.m. on Monday, Sept.

22, in the lobby of Dascomb Hall. Students will receive details regarding voting by email.

Benjamin Libbey College junior

Student Senate is an extremely important part of student life. As such, I believe that Senate should operate effectively and efficiently. Additionally, I believe that Senate should be open and transparent to ensure that it is acting in the legitimate interest of the student body it represents. I am interested in hearing student concerns and promoting students’ groups. This year’s Senate will have significant challenges to face with very few returning senators. I am ready and excited to face these challenges and to represent the entire Oberlin community to the best of my abilities.

Nick Canavan College junior

I am a third-year Africana Studies major, and I’m from New Jersey. I’d like to be a student senator in order to help expand and improve the mental health services available to students on campus. I think that everyone on this campus knows someone who has struggled with their mental health, in the context of a mental illness or otherwise. I want to work with the Counseling Center, as well as student organizations like OSWELL, to improve accessibility to the services available: for example, longer walk-in hours and better accommodation for marginalized students. In addition, I want to explore ways in which students can help each other in peer counseling roles to promote the importance of maintaining mental health.

Machmud Makhmudov College junior

I’m running for a third and final term on Senate in order to ensure the long-term viability of the body and solidify institutional commitments to Student Health Services on campus. Given that there are 14 open seats, I’d like to use my two years of experience to help the new members become effective advocates for the student body. I also think it’s very important for Senate to be an accessible organization for all students.

Therefore, one of my priorities would be to make Senate a paid position once again, though I’d also reform the compensation system to ensure more accountability. I’m also excited about the new football stadium and the opportunities that it presents for us to build community at Oberlin, both around athletics and other events.

Zach Gill

College first-year In Terry Zwigoff ’s Ghost World, an irritating character suggests that those who wish to “f--- up” capitalism should attend business school to “f--- things up from the inside.” Maybe that try-hard was onto something.

I’m a 20-year-old first-year from Manhattan Beach, CA. My politics are far left, but I don’t subscribe to

any particular clique. I’m an OSCAn who’s prepared to fight for the interests of progressivism and radical cooperation. I have extensive experience in local politics, serving for two years on a committee in charge of a large endowment.

I’ve worked with a disagreeable body of grown-ups, and now I have the audacity to stand up to one, too. As Breckin Meyer says in Clueless, thanks for “[taking] a chance on an unknown kid.”

and we introduced new instruments to the community. The most important part, however, was being able to represent the students at my school. I enjoyed being their voice, and I would love to be yours! So if you like to have your thoughts heard and have someone act on them, then vote for me!

Jordan Ecker

College sophomore

Anna Treidler

College sophomore I am Anna Treidler, an undeclared second-year student, a member of the Oberlin women’s tennis team and a tour guide at Oberlin. As a senator, I would work to create a group dynamic in which all opinions shared during Senate meetings are valued and discussed with the goal of reaching high quality, consensual decisions.

Only if we encourage diverse perspectives will the group be able to pass resolutions that have a positive impact on Oberlin. I also want to make the Student Senate more transparent and accessible to the student body. I want to find ways to give students easy access to share their opinions so that the Senate can make policies that reflect the sentiment of the student body as a whole.

My name is Jordan Ecker (he, him and his), I’m a sophomore and a Politics major, and I’m running for Student Senate. I’m running because I’m concerned that the interests of the student body, the interests of the Student Senate and the interests of the College administration have all diverged. If elected to the Student Senate, I hope to use my electoral mandate to challenge the College administration on the opacity of current financial aid policy decisions and the bizarre top-down “progressivism” of the tobacco ban. I will use my past experience as a high school debater and my current interest in politics to eloquently represent the interests of the student body and bring energy and transparency to student government. I appreciate your support!

Anjali Kolachalam Nicholas Olson College senior

I am excited to resume my senatorial work on campus after a semester abroad and my junior year.

I would like to continue my work on the EMT program as well as my work on improving transparency between student government, the student body, the faculty and the administration. Noticing some of the sudden policy changes Oberlin has announced over the last few years, including the financial aid adjustments according to meal plans and the financial changes whereby study abroad tuition is paid to Oberlin and then forwarded to the institutions, I question why these changes are being made, and especially why communication and student input has been scant. My work with the Oberlin College Democrats, and Residential Education as a resident assistant and my involvement in the Oberlin Theater and Dance departments have given me a broad network on campus to communicate with a wide range of students with diverse backgrounds.

Anthony Dennis College first-year

Hello fellow Obies! I am Anthony “Tony” Dennis. I am proudly running for a seat in the Student Senate not to have my own say, but rather to embody all of you, the Oberlin community. To give you some background, last year at my high school I was co-president of the Tri-M Music Honor Society. In this position, my colleagues and I were able to host more coffeehouses,

College first-year

Hello Oberlin! My name is Anjali Kolachalam. I’m running for Student Senate because, although our time on campus is short, I want the years we spend here to be the best they can be. To me, that means making sure our extracurricular activities, from clubs to sports teams to musical productions, have the best support possible. It also means making sure that if there is a problem on campus that needs to be addressed, we have voices speaking for us. I want to make sure your perspectives are heard and your interests are represented. As a student senator, I will always want to hear from you, and look forward to working together on everything that comes up this year. Thanks, and I appreciate your vote!

Sara Ebb

College junior I’m Sara (she, her and hers). I’m a third year Neuroscience/Biology (potential) major. Having been here for two years, I have seen both the positives and negatives of this campus. In particular, I would like to work toward improving student resources with respect to health. I worked with the student health working group last semester (the majority of our members have not returned this year) and would like to continue that work. While I won’t make promises I can’t keep, my goals for my term would include: creating a database of student-reviewed health resources off campus, creating opportunities for students to access those resources, and continuing to make Student Health Services more accessible and useful to the student body.

The Oberlin Review, September 19, 2014

Opinions

Feminism Hindered by Mainstream Accessibility, Ignores Political Struggle Sophie Kemp Contributing Writer When I was 14 years old, I adhered to an ultraapologetic feminism. I was the kind of “feminist” that always explained to boys and skeptics that feminism was for everyone. I constantly reminded people that feminists aren’t just bra-burners and that misandry isn’t real.

My feminism at 14 was the kind of feminism that has become extremely prevalent in mainstream media. We now live in an age in which masses of people are declaring themselves feminists, and those who do not do so are often shunned. While I should be happy that more people, especially young women, are opening themselves up to the magic of feminism and gender empowerment, I find myself angry. I’m angry because this wave that we are in now is a wave populated by ultraapologetic feminists like 14-year-old Sophie.

A lot of mainstream feminism focuses on the notion that feminism isn’t scary and should be accessible to everyone.

It’s a feminism that is one size fits all, one which fits nicely into everyone’s projected agenda: You can be a cool dude and be all about gender equality while not necessarily being all about visibility for trans women. You can walk a slut walk while living under the guise that Muslim women who practice purdah are oppressing themselves.

With everyone jumping on the feminist bandwagon, it is easy to become extremely frustrated by the factions in the movement. People who want to get stuff done often get labeled as extremists. Saying you hate men is the antithesis of mainstream feminism because mainstream feminism believes in equality regardless of gender.

To hate men, though, is to hate the system of

oppression women and people of all other genders face every day. Manhating is about solidarity.

Yet man-hating sounds horrifying. It does not mean that men are inherently evil. Not even in the slightest. What it does mean, and I will reiterate here, is that men are the patriarchy, and the patriarchy is the ultimate cause of oppression.

We have the right to hate our oppressors. If we adhere to a nice, comfortable feminism, we will not have our demands heard. Making feminism accessible is important, but feminism is an ideological and political movement. It’s about vocalizing our goals and trying to accomplish them through protest.

Feminism prioritizes particular issues just like any other political movement. For instance, reducing stigma directed at girls with armpit hair may be important, but our agenda needs to focus on taking action in Congress to promote visibility for trans women.

Feminism is about changing the fact that the state of Ohio only has eight abortion clinics, and it’s about changing the fact ––––––––––––––––––––––

We have the right to hate our oppressors. If we adhere to a nice, comfortable feminism, we will not have our demands heard. … [Feminism is] about vocalizing our goals and trying to accomplish them through protest.

–––––––––––––––––––––– that the largest demographic of women who need abortions live at or below the poverty line.

It’s about bringing an end to teenage girls getting shot in the head on

school buses in Pakistan.

Another major issue with the mainstream movement is that it erases the struggles of women of color and trans people.

Feminism under this lens strives for “gender equality,” which is a language that connotes a sort of gender-blindness.

The experiences women and men face are extremely different, and the experiences women of color and white women face are extremely different. Feminism should be about highlighting these differences and instead striving for visibility. To be ignorant to the struggles of other people is to take important information out of the equation.

It isn’t enough to post Upworthy videos of women professing their love for their pit hair on Facebook. That is only a tiny little fraction of a mostly Western-centric view of feminism. Nor is it enough to wear a Legalize Gay Marriage T-shirt or to buy TOMS shoes.

This kind of mentality makes people feel good about themselves, but it essentially does nothing.

Often, in fact, the corporations you’re supporting are damaging and exploitive. Companies like American Apparel and TOMS practice neoliberalism in every sense of the word.

My feminism isn’t here to make you feel nice and comfortable. It is here to scare you and to make you think. It is imperative that we stop trying to woo people over with GIFs of Zooey Deschanel proclaiming that she can “rock a lot of polka dots” (not that there is anything wrong with rocking a lot of dots: I am pretty into this myself ). Instead, we need to start getting stuff done. Feminism is more than girl power and pictures of glittery tampons. I’m ready to start treating feminism as something gritty and complex. We can’t be passive anymore.

Page 7

Swing Dancing Gives Introverts Opportunity to Find Social Footing CJ Blair Columnist Oberlin may be known in particular for its stellar musical community, with its Creative Writing and Art departments following not too far behind. But what about dance? I’m not gonna pretend I know much about the Dance department at Oberlin, but I can tell already that social dance is a surprisingly strong component of campus life, with impressive attendance at all the swing and blues dances thus far. When I revisited swing last weekend, I was struck by a thought that had always been on my mind, but hadn’t fully materialized until then: Why don’t people dance anymore?

I’ll get this point moving with an anecdote. Last weekend provided a bit of a detour from the regular irregularities of Oberlin College. My girlfriend came to visit from the University of Chicago. I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you I was secretly hopeful that she’d be weirded out by the campus, or that I didn’t go out of my way to make her feel that way. But, as I already knew, she is just as liberal as me and she loved everything Oberlin was about, so I wasn’t altogether shocked to find her more intrigued than deterred.

After stuffing ourselves with kugel at Shabbat and almost getting lost in the Arb, I took her to the swing dance in South Hall. I needed to go to one social dance every week for my Beginning Swing ExCo, and I considered this a last-ditch effort to pull her out of her comfort zone. Turns out that happened for both of us. I had so intricately plotted this moment that I blew over the fact that I had only been to one swing lesson. I was trying to teach her moves I only half knew myself. After a few generous pointers from my teacher, we were at least a passable — albeit clunky — couple of dancers.

You might wonder why I signed up for swing if I’m so quick to voice such an odd experience about it. Well, part of it is that I’m a tenor sax player and I’m in love with the music, but the real reason is this: I’m an introvert.

That may seem counterintuitive at first, but let’s consider what an introvert is. An introvert is a person who doesn’t necessarily dislike being around other people, but one who is mentally and physically exhausted by it. Introverts are people like me who love time with friends, but, at the end of the day, they really can’t get as much accomplished unless they spend some time working alone. Introversion and shyness aren’t synonymous, but many

times, they do go hand in hand.

One of the most fascinating things I’ve found about being an introvert is that, even though walking into a room full of strange people is a monumental challenge, over-the-top and flamboyant actions somehow seem more approachable. This is why I go to The Rocky Horror Picture Show in drag at every possible chance, but shy away from even the tamest parties.

Exhibitionism and introversion are polar opposites, but it’s that extreme lack of similarity that somehow lets them work in tandem with one another. Absurd, grandiose actions exist in a different dimension to the minds of introverts. Such actions are so unfamiliar that you have to throw away everything you think and believe to even attempt them. In that sense, they’re comforting to people like me.

If I know my deficit of social skills won’t matter for something I might –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Absurd, grandiose actions exist in a different dimension to the minds of introverts.

Such actions are so unfamiliar that you have to throw away everything you think you believe to even attempt them. In that sense, they’re comforting to people like me.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– do, I don’t feel as intimidated about doing it.

Therein lies the reason I’m enrolled in Beginning Swing. It’s something I’m very enthusiastic about but totally unfamiliar with, which keeps me from knowing if I’ll only ever be terrible. I think one of the saddest parts of present American life is that social dance is nowhere near as big as it used to be. With a few exceptions, public dances are quite rare, and this takes away one of the biggest outlets for introverts to explore public expression.

I’ll end with a sort of call to action, for introverts and extroverts alike: Go dancing. Just try your hand at it.

It’ll be terrible at first. I can almost guarantee it. But if you learn even a couple basic steps and just forget that anyone’s watching, you may well find it to be a rush unlike much you’ve felt before. Take it from me. As a force to get you acclimated to putting yourself out there and building momentum to be lively and social, there’s nothing quite as effective as dancing.

Retrospect ive Tom Rosenstiel, OC ’78, worked at the Review all four years of his Oberlin career, serving as Editor-in-Chief during his junior year in 1976–1977. His long and successful journalism career has included posts as a media writer for the Los Angeles Times, chief congressional correspondent for Newsweek, press critic for MSNBC and founder and long-time director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism at the Pew Research Center.

Today, as the executive director of the American Press Institute, he continues his work as an author, critic and researcher of modern journalism.

It’s hard to imagine how the Review could publish two issues a week during your time as Editor-inChief. What was the process of writing, editing and layout like when it was all done manually on typewriters?

Our office was in this ancient building behind what was then the supermarket, and it was just a museum full of old furniture. Typewriters that went back to the ’30s were piled in the corners, and we had what were then Royal manual typewriters. You would bang on them with your hands, and you would type on what’s called copy paper, which is a kind of very cheap newsprint-like paper. … You type it in and you hand it to an editor, and the editor would edit in pencil with copy editing marks, and then we would take it to the “backshop.” And this was true at all newspapers; it was not just the lingo of the Review.

Somebody who worked for the printer, the printing company who we contracted with, was what we called the typesetter. And he would retype the story on what was essentially an early computer. It would go into type, and then they would take hot wax and put it on the back of this typeset copy that looked just like a newspaper copy; you would put wax on it and paste it onto the page.

As the section editor, you would stand there with him while he was at his easel, and with a little knife, he would cut a long piece of type and fit it in on the page, laying it in by hand. If something was too long and you needed to cut it by three sentences, you’d pick the sentences you wanted to cut, and he would actually take a knife and cut them out and you’d throw them away. It stuck on to this galley with wax, and when it was all set, that’s what would be printed, a picture of this page.

Were there any big stories that stand out to you from your days at the Review?

My freshman year, another reporter and I discovered that the administration at the time — that there had been a secret policy, unpublished, to suppress or keep lower … minority admission. And that was a significant scandal, particularly given Oberlin’s history and legacy. And we caught them; there was a document and we published it — it was a huge story, a huge controversy for months. And the administration was very embarrassed, but they didn’t try and shut down the Review, or take recriminations against the paper or the other reporter and I who did it.

One [other story] was actually my senior year when I was no longer [Editor-in-Chief]; I was a friend of the paper and would write occasional columns. I wrote an Opinions column saying that I thought that minority groups had stacked the committee that decided how student activity funds were used and that they had more dough from the student activity fund than maybe they should, given the size of the groups. And, you know, I had taken some political theory classes and I was full of vinegar about that.

And even though I had made my career at the Review by uncovering scandal about minorities, then in my senior year, I thought, “I have credibility; I can write this too.” And it created quite a stir, particularly with a bunch of people that I had known at school for a long time. And there was a lot of controversy on the editorial page. … In retrospect, of course, that’s exactly what you want on an editorial page. [Laughs.]

But it seemed very hot and uncomfortable at the time for a couple weeks.

The other thing I remember very, very, very fondly were long debates in the newspaper offices and also in the study rooms in the library with members of the Editorial Board about how we should editorialize on issues. There were controversies [about whether the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps should] be on campus; I think there was a point at which some group like the Ku Klux Klan wanted to come speak or something. So we were trying to debate what are the limits of free speech, particularly on a college campus. And this was prior to the days of what some people call “political correctness.” It was a pretty open campus.

There wasn’t this sense of “there were certain people we don’t want here” — it was more the opposite, that

it should be as open as it possibly can. And we were debating things like that.

The other memory I have, not so much a story as [a] very, very late night — two, three in the morning — closing the paper because we were doing two editions a week. There were one or two other people during the wee hours of the morning finishing something that was going to be delivered the next morning to everyone on campus. And the process of production was so amazingly crude and slow by comparison to today that it seemed miraculous that you’d stumble into your dorm room at three in the morning, having worked for — forget the library, you’d put in seven hours at the newspaper! You’d go to sleep in an exhausted heap, and when you’d wake up the next morning, the thing that you’d handed to the typesetter actually was in a newspaper. That seemed almost magical. … I’m still not sure I understand how that happened!

celebrating the Review’s 140th year

Friday, May 24, 1974

Friday, February 7, 1975

Wednesday, April 1, 1874 The first issue of the Review features a story titled “A Visit to Waldbach, the Home of Pastor Oberlin.” Although the issue no longer exists, this copy appeared in the Review’s 1974 centennial edition.

Wednesday, April 1, 1874 – C. N. Jones establishes The Oberlin College Review, “a semi-monthly journal devoted to the interests of Oberlin College.”

1880

1890

1926 – Headlines are introduced to The Oberlin Review. An editorial in the same edition promised to use the innovation judiciously.

1900

1910

1950

October 5, 1982 – An ad promoting “Term Paper Service,” selling written term papers, causes a stir on campus.

c.1988 – The Review moves from offices behind Fazio’s (now the public library) to the basement of Burton Hall.

1926 – The newspaper goes to broadsheet.

1930 1940

1977 – The Review prints twice weekly under Editor-inChief Tom Rosenstiel.

1983 – Writer R. B. Brenner notes that the Review has finally moved from typewriters to IBMs.

1920

Given your experience in the field of journalism that’s changing so much with modern technology, what do you see as the future of a small college paper like The Oberlin Review?

In the end, what we’re discovering is that people consume information in the way that’s convenient for them at the given moment. So most people actually interact with print still. They interact with mobile phones, tablets, desktop computers … And there are even times when a printed newspaper may be more convenient. You do read it a little differently. People are somewhat more purposeful when they’re online. They read it a little more deeply and narrowly. They don’t discover things by accident quite as much. So there are actually strengths and weaknesses to all of these. And given that a college campus is this confined physical space, there is some logic to stacked papers in convenient places where people are going to walk by them. … There’s somewhat more of a communitarian element to print. But there will come a point at which there won’t be very much of it left. There may be more of it in college. The more hyper-local something is, the more print probably endures a little longer, just because you’re in a physical space. As opposed to, say, “I’m from Nigeria, and I’m at Oberlin, and I want to read about Nigeria,” — print makes no sense; I’m going to do that online.

How do you think your experience at the Review has influenced the way you’ve viewed journalism in your career?

One of the things you always see when you go back is the strength and the weakness of that open system where it’s not a journalism program monitored closely by journalism professors. It’s a lot of creativity, a lot of freedom, a lot of intelligence and a lot of loose craft. I didn’t know what I was doing, I was just doing it. I wrote a million stories and eventually I got better at it. But you’re pretty much on your own. … Because we were student-run entirely, it could be as ambitious and as silly as we wanted, but we took it very seriously, particularly the ones who were the most committed and really loved it.

And so we thought of it as a pretty deep enterprise, something that was thoughtful. The debates we had about what editorials to write and things like that — we were really trying to figure out how we were thinking about the world, what mattered to our fellow students. We were going through the process of learning to think like journalists. … And I think that that sort of journalism unbound is why so many people did it there and loved it and went on to keep doing it professionally. Because it was serious, instead of somebody saying, “Look, just put out this stupid newspaper, just get it done.” It was very much about craft; it was very much about thought and the intellectual process of trying to create media for people. So it might have been a weaker newspaper in some ways, but also smarter and more ambitious. We took ourselves very seriously. We didn’t know entirely what we were doing, and that’s part of what made it so great.

Interview by Hazel Galloway, This Week editor

1974 – The Review staff calls 60 S. Pleasant Street their home.

1908 – The Oberlin Review has its first female editor.

October 4, 1932 – The Review moves 1967 – The seventh to new headquarters in the Grill Block, female Editor-in-Chief is named. There have been 13 S. Main Street.

104 Editors-in-Chief up to this point.

1960

1970

1980

1990

1963–1964 – A Review staff member appropriates $10,000 of Review funds for personal use, and the College never presses charges. This causes the Review to go into debt for almost 10 years. Because of the debt, faculty members no longer received free copies of the newspaper.

2000

2010

1999–2000 – The Cole 1998 – Husband of former Dean of Students Charlene Cole Newkirk lawsuit is dropped.

Newkirk files suit against the 1999 – The first Review for libel. digital camera is 1998 – The Review gets stolen from the its first digital camera.

Review.

Saturday, June 12, 1965

Tuesday, May 5, 1970 The Review reported the vote of a mass student meeting in Finney Chapel to shut down the College in response to the shooting of four students at an anti-Vietnam protest at Kent State University. The College was shut down, and students turned their energies to protesting the Kent State incident and the Vietnam war for the remaining two weeks of the semester. Students numbering over 1000 traveled to Washington to protest there as students remaining on campus did guerrilla theater protests of the Kent State killings and the war. The Oberlin Orchestra performed Mozart’s “Requiem Mass in D Minor” as a protest in Washington’s National Cathedral.

Friday, March 12, 1965

1996 – The Review becomes one of the first college newspapers to be available online.

2001 –The Review moves to a .org website.

2013 – The website is redesigned and modernized.

2014 – The Review launches a new Facebook and Instagram presence.

Friday, November 22, 1963 The Review was the second newspaper in the world to hit the street with the news of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. The news staff of WOBC called the Review with the story when it came across the wire service just as the paper was about to go to press. The front page was then remade to accommodate the story.

CALENDAR Pine Leaf Boys Friday, Sept. 19, 8 p.m.

The Cat in the Cream

La Yegros Sunday, Sept. 21, 8 p.m.

The Cat in the Cream

Oberlin Chamber Orchestra Thursday, Sept. 25, 8 p.m.

Finney Chapel

This four-time Grammy-nominated Cajun band brings the spirit of southwest Louisiana to northeast Ohio.

The five musicians have traveled to all corners of the world, from Saudi Arabia to Latvia, with their dancy, energetic jams and revivals.

A singer/songwriter hailing from the Buenos Aires underground music scene, La Yegros has produced music critics have called “feminine, joyous, and tropical. It’s a revolution you can dance to.” Her debut album, Viene de Mi, combines traditional chamamé and cumbia with urban and electronic influences.

Come back for a workshop and Q&A session with La Yegros on Monday at 8 p.m.

Joined by world-renowned guest tenor Franco Farina, OC ’78, in its first performance of the semester, the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra will feature selections from Beethoven, Wagner and Mendelssohn. Farina is also offering a master class in Kulas Recital Hall on Friday at 7 p.m.

It’s Getting Hot in Here: The Effects of Ambient Temperature on Seasonal Birth Rates Friday, Sept. 26, 12 p.m.

King 127 Ever wondered about the relationship between air conditioning and birth rates in the U.S.? Alan I. Barreca, assistant professor of economics at Tulane University, uses a novel empirical model to examine the effects of temperature on birth rates.

Latinx Comedy Night Tuesday, Sept. 30, 7:30 p.m.

The Cat in the Cream Latinx Heritage Month events continue with a Tuesday comedy show by Gwen La Roka and Aida Rodriguez. La Roka’s awareness-raising approach to comedy reflects issues of grassroots justice and social activism, while Rodriguez provides a counterpoint with comedy centered around family and everyday life.

THIS WEEK EDITOR : HAZEL GALLOWAY

Retrospect ive Tom Rosenstiel, OC ’78, worked at the Review all four years of his Oberlin career, serving as Editor-in-Chief during his junior year in 1976–1977. His long and successful journalism career has included posts as a media writer for the Los Angeles Times, chief congressional correspondent for Newsweek, press critic for MSNBC and founder and long-time director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism at the Pew Research Center.

Today, as the executive director of the American Press Institute, he continues his work as an author, critic and researcher of modern journalism.

It’s hard to imagine how the Review could publish two issues a week during your time as Editor-inChief. What was the process of writing, editing and layout like when it was all done manually on typewriters?

Our office was in this ancient building behind what was then the supermarket, and it was just a museum full of old furniture. Typewriters that went back to the ’30s were piled in the corners, and we had what were then Royal manual typewriters. You would bang on them with your hands, and you would type on what’s called copy paper, which is a kind of very cheap newsprint-like paper. … You type it in and you hand it to an editor, and the editor would edit in pencil with copy editing marks, and then we would take it to the “backshop.” And this was true at all newspapers; it was not just the lingo of the Review.

Somebody who worked for the printer, the printing company who we contracted with, was what we called the typesetter. And he would retype the story on what was essentially an early computer. It would go into type, and then they would take hot wax and put it on the back of this typeset copy that looked just like a newspaper copy; you would put wax on it and paste it onto the page.

As the section editor, you would stand there with him while he was at his easel, and with a little knife, he would cut a long piece of type and fit it in on the page, laying it in by hand. If something was too long and you needed to cut it by three sentences, you’d pick the sentences you wanted to cut, and he would actually take a knife and cut them out and you’d throw them away. It stuck on to this galley with wax, and when it was all set, that’s what would be printed, a picture of this page.

Were there any big stories that stand out to you from your days at the Review?

My freshman year, another reporter and I discovered that the administration at the time — that there had been a secret policy, unpublished, to suppress or keep lower … minority admission. And that was a significant scandal, particularly given Oberlin’s history and legacy. And we caught them; there was a document and we published it — it was a huge story, a huge controversy for months. And the administration was very embarrassed, but they didn’t try and shut down the Review, or take recriminations against the paper or the other reporter and I who did it.

One [other story] was actually my senior year when I was no longer [Editor-in-Chief]; I was a friend of the paper and would write occasional columns. I wrote an Opinions column saying that I thought that minority groups had stacked the committee that decided how student activity funds were used and that they had more dough from the student activity fund than maybe they should, given the size of the groups. And, you know, I had taken some political theory classes and I was full of vinegar about that.

And even though I had made my career at the Review by uncovering scandal about minorities, then in my senior year, I thought, “I have credibility; I can write this too.” And it created quite a stir, particularly with a bunch of people that I had known at school for a long time. And there was a lot of controversy on the editorial page. … In retrospect, of course, that’s exactly what you want on an editorial page. [Laughs.]

But it seemed very hot and uncomfortable at the time for a couple weeks.

The other thing I remember very, very, very fondly were long debates in the newspaper offices and also in the study rooms in the library with members of the Editorial Board about how we should editorialize on issues. There were controversies [about whether the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps should] be on campus; I think there was a point at which some group like the Ku Klux Klan wanted to come speak or something. So we were trying to debate what are the limits of free speech, particularly on a college campus. And this was prior to the days of what some people call “political correctness.” It was a pretty open campus.

There wasn’t this sense of “there were certain people we don’t want here” — it was more the opposite, that

it should be as open as it possibly can. And we were debating things like that.

The other memory I have, not so much a story as [a] very, very late night — two, three in the morning — closing the paper because we were doing two editions a week. There were one or two other people during the wee hours of the morning finishing something that was going to be delivered the next morning to everyone on campus. And the process of production was so amazingly crude and slow by comparison to today that it seemed miraculous that you’d stumble into your dorm room at three in the morning, having worked for — forget the library, you’d put in seven hours at the newspaper! You’d go to sleep in an exhausted heap, and when you’d wake up the next morning, the thing that you’d handed to the typesetter actually was in a newspaper. That seemed almost magical. … I’m still not sure I understand how that happened!

celebrating the Review’s 140th year

Friday, May 24, 1974

Friday, February 7, 1975

Wednesday, April 1, 1874 The first issue of the Review features a story titled “A Visit to Waldbach, the Home of Pastor Oberlin.” Although the issue no longer exists, this copy appeared in the Review’s 1974 centennial edition.

Wednesday, April 1, 1874 – C. N. Jones establishes The Oberlin College Review, “a semi-monthly journal devoted to the interests of Oberlin College.”

1880

1890

1926 – Headlines are introduced to The Oberlin Review. An editorial in the same edition promised to use the innovation judiciously.

1900

1910

1950

October 5, 1982 – An ad promoting “Term Paper Service,” selling written term papers, causes a stir on campus.

c.1988 – The Review moves from offices behind Fazio’s (now the public library) to the basement of Burton Hall.

1926 – The newspaper goes to broadsheet.

1930 1940

1977 – The Review prints twice weekly under Editor-inChief Tom Rosenstiel.

1983 – Writer R. B. Brenner notes that the Review has finally moved from typewriters to IBMs.

1920

Given your experience in the field of journalism that’s changing so much with modern technology, what do you see as the future of a small college paper like The Oberlin Review?

In the end, what we’re discovering is that people consume information in the way that’s convenient for them at the given moment. So most people actually interact with print still. They interact with mobile phones, tablets, desktop computers … And there are even times when a printed newspaper may be more convenient. You do read it a little differently. People are somewhat more purposeful when they’re online. They read it a little more deeply and narrowly. They don’t discover things by accident quite as much. So there are actually strengths and weaknesses to all of these. And given that a college campus is this confined physical space, there is some logic to stacked papers in convenient places where people are going to walk by them. … There’s somewhat more of a communitarian element to print. But there will come a point at which there won’t be very much of it left. There may be more of it in college. The more hyper-local something is, the more print probably endures a little longer, just because you’re in a physical space. As opposed to, say, “I’m from Nigeria, and I’m at Oberlin, and I want to read about Nigeria,” — print makes no sense; I’m going to do that online.

How do you think your experience at the Review has influenced the way you’ve viewed journalism in your career?

One of the things you always see when you go back is the strength and the weakness of that open system where it’s not a journalism program monitored closely by journalism professors. It’s a lot of creativity, a lot of freedom, a lot of intelligence and a lot of loose craft. I didn’t know what I was doing, I was just doing it. I wrote a million stories and eventually I got better at it. But you’re pretty much on your own. … Because we were student-run entirely, it could be as ambitious and as silly as we wanted, but we took it very seriously, particularly the ones who were the most committed and really loved it.

And so we thought of it as a pretty deep enterprise, something that was thoughtful. The debates we had about what editorials to write and things like that — we were really trying to figure out how we were thinking about the world, what mattered to our fellow students. We were going through the process of learning to think like journalists. … And I think that that sort of journalism unbound is why so many people did it there and loved it and went on to keep doing it professionally. Because it was serious, instead of somebody saying, “Look, just put out this stupid newspaper, just get it done.” It was very much about craft; it was very much about thought and the intellectual process of trying to create media for people. So it might have been a weaker newspaper in some ways, but also smarter and more ambitious. We took ourselves very seriously. We didn’t know entirely what we were doing, and that’s part of what made it so great.

Interview by Hazel Galloway, This Week editor

1974 – The Review staff calls 60 S. Pleasant Street their home.

1908 – The Oberlin Review has its first female editor.

October 4, 1932 – The Review moves 1967 – The seventh to new headquarters in the Grill Block, female Editor-in-Chief is named. There have been 13 S. Main Street.

104 Editors-in-Chief up to this point.

1960

1970

1980

1990

1963–1964 – A Review staff member appropriates $10,000 of Review funds for personal use, and the College never presses charges. This causes the Review to go into debt for almost 10 years. Because of the debt, faculty members no longer received free copies of the newspaper.

2000

2010

1999–2000 – The Cole 1998 – Husband of former Dean of Students Charlene Cole Newkirk lawsuit is dropped.

Newkirk files suit against the 1999 – The first Review for libel. digital camera is 1998 – The Review gets stolen from the its first digital camera.

Review.

Saturday, June 12, 1965

Tuesday, May 5, 1970 The Review reported the vote of a mass student meeting in Finney Chapel to shut down the College in response to the shooting of four students at an anti-Vietnam protest at Kent State University. The College was shut down, and students turned their energies to protesting the Kent State incident and the Vietnam war for the remaining two weeks of the semester. Students numbering over 1000 traveled to Washington to protest there as students remaining on campus did guerrilla theater protests of the Kent State killings and the war. The Oberlin Orchestra performed Mozart’s “Requiem Mass in D Minor” as a protest in Washington’s National Cathedral.

Friday, March 12, 1965

1996 – The Review becomes one of the first college newspapers to be available online.

2001 –The Review moves to a .org website.

2013 – The website is redesigned and modernized.

2014 – The Review launches a new Facebook and Instagram presence.

Friday, November 22, 1963 The Review was the second newspaper in the world to hit the street with the news of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. The news staff of WOBC called the Review with the story when it came across the wire service just as the paper was about to go to press. The front page was then remade to accommodate the story.

CALENDAR Pine Leaf Boys Friday, Sept. 19, 8 p.m.

The Cat in the Cream

La Yegros Sunday, Sept. 21, 8 p.m.

The Cat in the Cream

Oberlin Chamber Orchestra Thursday, Sept. 25, 8 p.m.

Finney Chapel

This four-time Grammy-nominated Cajun band brings the spirit of southwest Louisiana to northeast Ohio.

The five musicians have traveled to all corners of the world, from Saudi Arabia to Latvia, with their dancy, energetic jams and revivals.

A singer/songwriter hailing from the Buenos Aires underground music scene, La Yegros has produced music critics have called “feminine, joyous, and tropical. It’s a revolution you can dance to.” Her debut album, Viene de Mi, combines traditional chamamé and cumbia with urban and electronic influences.

Come back for a workshop and Q&A session with La Yegros on Monday at 8 p.m.

Joined by world-renowned guest tenor Franco Farina, OC ’78, in its first performance of the semester, the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra will feature selections from Beethoven, Wagner and Mendelssohn. Farina is also offering a master class in Kulas Recital Hall on Friday at 7 p.m.

It’s Getting Hot in Here: The Effects of Ambient Temperature on Seasonal Birth Rates Friday, Sept. 26, 12 p.m.

King 127 Ever wondered about the relationship between air conditioning and birth rates in the U.S.? Alan I. Barreca, assistant professor of economics at Tulane University, uses a novel empirical model to examine the effects of temperature on birth rates.

Latinx Comedy Night Tuesday, Sept. 30, 7:30 p.m.

The Cat in the Cream Latinx Heritage Month events continue with a Tuesday comedy show by Gwen La Roka and Aida Rodriguez. La Roka’s awareness-raising approach to comedy reflects issues of grassroots justice and social activism, while Rodriguez provides a counterpoint with comedy centered around family and everyday life.

THIS WEEK EDITOR : HAZEL GALLOWAY

Page 10

Arts The Oberlin Review

September 19, 2014

Honor Code Aids Resolution of Art Rental Debacle Louise Edwards Staff Writer Art Rental occurs every semester, but last Friday night — the night before Art Rental — students and staff witnessed a spectacle that made the experience memorable. The evening began innocuously enough. Outside the back entrance of the Allen Memorial Art Museum, students pitched tents to the melodious strains of guitar music wafting from the courtyard.

Some played cards, while others hunched over problem sets, notebooks or Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.

The night’s excitement, however, was not without classic Oberlin activism and debate. As 9 p.m. approached, some students became irritated at the creators of the rule-bound list that indicated the order in which students would enter the museum to choose pieces of artwork.

“They were angry about the fact that this random person just made up all the rules, so their response was to tear down the list,” College senior Laura Messermen said. “The list had 125 names on it, so they lost their spots in line.”

This anarchical act resulted in a long discussion that included votes. The verdict was to recreate the old list to the best of everyone’s ability, with students adhering to the College’s Honor Code. “It was kind of like dining in a co-op,” Messermen said.

Ellen Johnson, OC ’33, worked at the College, first as an art librarian, then as a professor of modern art, and is fondly remembered as the pioneer of Oberlin’s Art Rental program. Throughout her career, Johnson worked to make art accessible and relevant to Oberlin students. “It occurred to me that if students could have works of art in their dormitory rooms, it would not only develop their aesthetic sensibilities but might encourage ordered thinking and discrimination even in other areas of their lives,” Johnson once said.

Students expressed their excitement about this quintessential Oberlin experience. “It was one of those things that I heard about when going on tours, so I thought that it would be a really cool thing to do,” College first-year Sarah Herdrich said.

College first-year Henry DuBeau said he felt similarly. “I came to Art Rental solely for the enjoyment of the experience,” he said. “There’s nothing that I had in mind specifically, but I thought, ‘I’m

willing to stay out here for so long to get some cool art to hang in my room.’”

Some upperclassmen, on the other hand, expressed a desire to take part in this Oberlin tradition before they graduated. “For me, it was one of the things that everyone said you had to do at Oberlin, and I had to do it before I left,” Messermen said.

Fall Art Rental is more popular than spring Art Rental, with 357 pieces rented within two and a half hours. This may have contributed to the chaotic list-making process. In February, fewer students brave the cold and more are caught up with academic activities, sometimes leaving as many as 60 pieces unrented.

The consistently popular pieces include big-name works by Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Alice Neel and Jackson Pollock. Matisse’s “Head, from Visages” depicts a woman looking directly at the viewer, as if she is listening intently.

Yet her right hand massages her neck and the other supports the wrist of her right hand. This asymmetrical arrangement makes her look nervous despite her steady gaze. All this emotion is simply communicated through dark curved lines. Picasso’s “Corps Perdu” also uses lines as the main element of artistic expression. Concentric semicircles to the left of the composition represent the sun, while a personified crescent moon rests on a surface to the right. The moon’s uneven eyes pop off of its face in an unsettling manner. The composition speaks to the way we view things. During the day, we see objects clearly and literally, while in the night, images can become more distorted or imaginative.

In contrast to Picasso’s and Matisse’s lines, Marc Chagall’s color lithograph “Abdullah the Fisherman and Abdullah the Merman,” based on a tale from the Arabian Nights, is a swirl of blues and greens. Nude humans, mermaids and fish emerge from eddies of ink.

Three Roy Lichtenstein prints are also popular. His comic book-like pop art jumps off the paper in bold colors: a black boot squashing a hand reaching for a pistol, a winged woman with a Roman column and a sinking ship in front of a bright desert sun, a crumbling ancient pillared temple.

Japanese works of art, such as woodcuts by Kawase Hasui and Koson Ohara, also catch students’ eyes with their tran-

College President Marvin Krislov takes a selfie while a group of bemused students looks on the evening before Art Rental.

Olivia Scott

quil and delicate depictions of nature: two swallows conversing on a flowering plant, or a full winter moon hanging in the tree branches above a lake.

However, while these pieces are notoriously popular, others change in popularity from year to year. Lucille Stiger, registrar of the Allen Memorial Art Museum and the person who oversees the Art Rental program, is going on her 36th Art Rental.

“I have to say, we’re awfully surprised at some of the pieces that go out early,” she said. She singled out “Funkel Road”

by Lois Rheingold, a silkscreen that depicts a path lined with a collage-like pattern of trees. “A few years ago, we thought about taking this one out because it was either the very last, or one of the last things to be rented or it didn’t rent,” she said. “And here it was now in the top 20.”

Works such as Rheingold’s that aren’t as popular or aren’t being rented sometimes get removed from the Art Rental collection. “They may have been popular back in the ’40s or something, but no one [is] renting them now,” Stiger said. “We also removed all the posters that were in the collection. We’ve only got a few posters in the collection now and they’re signed. [Having posters in the collection] kind of goes against what Ellen [ Johnson] wanted the collection to be. She wanted

it to be original works of art, and she also wanted it to be by up-and-coming artists, so we’re trying to stress that a little bit more.”

One such item that Stiger described is a pair of Oberlin sweatpants modified by artist Patrick Killoran that can be rented and worn by an Oberlin student. “They are a pair of Oberlin College gray sweatpants that the artist sewed this outer pocket to, and they weren’t very popular,” Killoran said. “There’s kind of a gross factor involved. The students are given instructions that before they return it they’re supposed to wash it, but, you know, we don’t know if that occurs.”

The museum did not rent the sweatpants this semester, but Stiger said that they might be available again at February’s Art Rental for use during the colder weather.

Despite the hectic atmosphere of Art Rental, Stiger and students alike said they found the experience of Art Rental a positive one.

“All I can say is that the students are aware that it is a privilege to be able to take these works of art home with them,” Stiger said. “They are really responsible and great.”

DuBeau also expressed his enthusiasm: “It’s been very interesting, fun to experience and I plan on doing it again.”

College seniors Kate Hanick, Seth Flatt, Aubrey Pongluelert and Nick Olson and College sophomore Simeon Deutsch stand in line moments before Art Rental officially begins.

Throngs of students camped out at the Allen Memorial Art Museum Friday night to ensure they got their top picks.

Olivia Scott

College senior Seth Flatt proudly displays his selection from this semester’s Art Rental. The night’s proceedings took an anarchic turn that was soon rectified.

Olivia Scott

Arts

The Oberlin Review, September 19, 2014

Page 11

On the Record with Alumni Band SUN SPEAK Guitarist Matt Gold, OC ’13, and percussionist Nate Friedman, OC ’13, who perform as the band SUN SPEAK, performed together in Clonick Hall Thursday night. Before their performance, the duo, who were excited to debut some of their latest work from their new EP, Light Blue Light, spoke with the Review about Vietnamese food, Coltrane and returning to campus.

What is it like being back on campus?

Nate Friedman: All of the same people but none of the same people.

Matt Gold: It’s all of the same stuff and none of the same people. The Oberlin energy remains the same and constant, which is great.

So how did you meet, and how did SUN SPEAK get its start?

NF and MG: We met here…

MG: In the Jazz department. [We] started playing

in a lot of bands together.

And we were kind of playing duo in a really casual way, just between rehearsals and things like that — getting together and improvising, and we liked the way it sounded, so after we graduated, we went to the artist residency program in New Hampshire and spent three weeks writing some music and made a record up there, and now we live in Chicago. [SUN SPEAK] is our top musical priority.

[and] we play with a lot of dynamics and pay attention to compositional subtlety.

NF: And we play mostly through composed music, which is an important aspect of our main identity.

What is your inspiration as musicians?

MG: [Laughs with Friedman] How many can we list? What’s the max? John Coltrane, really good Vietnamese food…

How’d you pick the name SUN SPEAK? MG: Well it was a combination of reading Moby Dick and drinking a lot of beer.

NF: That’s about right.

So you guys play electric chamber music. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

MG: That’s probably my territory [Friedman and Gold exchange a glance and chuckle]. I think, often this band gets labeled as a jazz group, but we much

Guitarist Matt Gold, OC ’13, and percussionist Nate Friedman, OC ’13, chat with the Review outside the Kohl Building. The duo, known as SUN SPEAK, performed on Thursday night.

more think of ourselves as a chamber music group.

Our music doesn’t involve much improvisation, although that is crucial in

our process for generating material. [The label electric chamber music is] basically a way of saying we’re a guitar and drums band

More specifically, what has been your most inspirational experience?

MG: For this particular music and this band, the artist residency was very helpful in generating the material. It’s called Avaloch Farm — it’s beautiful. It’s up in the woods in New Hampshire.

NF: [It] gave us an opportunity to write a lot of music and just dedicate a lot of time to [our album].

MG: [We were] working many hours every day for three weeks … and we

did [the program] again this year for two weeks just recently.

So what do you guys have planned for the concert tonight?

MG: We’re gonna rock some socks, play some new music…

NF: [Music] recently written at the residency program.

MG: Music written in the last couple of weeks.

We’re gonna play a couple of things we put out on a record this year, which is called Light Blue Light.

What are your plans for the future of your band?

NF: We’re working on putting together an EP for the new material we just wrote, more touring, getting over to Europe [to do some touring] and doing some collaborative work with some guests.

Interview and photo by Vida Weisblum, Arts editor

Performance of Piazzolla Turns to Discussion of Rare Autoimmune Disease Rory O’Donoghue Allison Boyt, OC ’09, doesn’t let much get in the way of her music. After a rare autoimmune disease struck the violinist at an early age, she founded a nonprofit awareness project that she calls the Violin 4 Vasculitis initiative. Boyt held an informational session in Stull Recital Hall Tuesday.

She started off the evening by asking the audience to make more noise — “It’s so quiet, it’s creepy!” — lending a casual air to the evening’s proceedings. She and her collaborator, guitarist Kurt Reed, then launched into a flowing rendition of “Libertango” by Astor Piazzolla to begin the program. After a gracious acknowledgement of the applause, Boyt put down her violin to discuss a more serious subject: her experience living and performing with vasculitis.

In the fall of 2004, when Boyt was 16, she began experiencing severe fatigue and complex respiratory problems. She began struggling with even the simplest everyday tasks, and her family sought numerous medical opinions. The diagnoses varied — her doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong. “At first they told me I showed signs of bronchitis,” Boyt said, “and then it was pneumonia.”

In the few months that followed, Boyt drifted in and out of clinics while her symptoms progressed in severity. Then she started to cough up blood. “That’s when we knew it was very, very serious,” Boyt explained. Not long after this development, she collapsed while climbing the stairs to go to bed one night. She was rushed to the hospital, and entered a two and a half-week-long medically induced coma.

“They had to shut my body down to try to figure out what was wrong,” Boyt said. Finally, four months later, in the spring of 2005, a firm diagnosis came through: Boyt was suffering from granulomatosis with polyangiitis (commonly called Wegener’s granulomatosis), a rare and dangerous chronic vascular autoimmune disease.

To gain control over her symptoms, Boyt began a variety of treatments, including steroids and chemotherapy. As a 17-year-old high school senior, she wanted to focus on college applications and auditions, deter-

mined to attain her dream of becoming a professional violinist. However, her disease quickly overshadowed her life. “Having a chronic disease makes you grow up fast,” she remarked seriously. “You’re suddenly dealing with adult stuff.” At that time there were only a handful of clinics in the country that specialized in the treatment of vasculitis.

Fortunately for Boyt, this list included the Cleveland Clinic. “I was lucky to grow up in Ohio,” Boyt said, explaining that close proximity to medical care necessarily influenced her college decisions. These factors immediately pointed her towards Oberlin. “I came to Oberlin because I was sick,” she said. “I could get an education and medical attention in Cleveland at the same time.”

Boyt attributes much of the spirit behind her project to the formative experiences she had as a student at Oberlin. During her presentation, she cited two of her former violin professors as her initial inspiration for Violin 4 Vasculitis. “[Professor of Violin] Gregory Fulkerson told me, ‘You have something that not many people have to deal with. I want

you to do something with that.’” Peter Slowik, professor of Viola, had similar advice: “You have this gift. Do something with it.” With these voices in mind, Boyt began to toy with the idea of combining the two defining aspects of her life — her music and her illness — in a way that could have an impact. She graduated in 2009 and founded Violin 4 Vasculitis in 2011. “I started this project without any guidelines,” she announced proudly. On her website, Boyt wrote, “I realized it was not enough to simply survive with vasculitis.

I wanted to bring information and hope to others who also struggled, and let them discover that they were not alone.”

The violinist continued to alternate between performing crowd-pleasing pieces and discussing the details of vasculitis. She was accompanied in her next selection, Kreisler’s “Tambourin Chinois,” by Oberlin’s own James Howsmon, professor of Collaborative Piano.

Boyt made it clear that she values interaction with local artists, and invited a piano quartet composed of Oberlin students — double-degree senior Clara Engen on violin,

Double-degree senior Clara Engen on violin, Conservatory senior Emily Tisdel on viola, doubledegree fifth-year Chava Appiah on cello, and double-degree senior John Etsell on piano open the program for the Violin 4 Vasculitis Initiative hosted by Allison Boyt, OC ’09. The event mixed classical music and an informal lecture to raise awareness for vasculitis.

Mike Plotz

Conservatory senior Emily Tisdel on viola, double-degree fifth-year Chava Appiah on cello and double-degree senior John Etsell on piano — to take the stage to perform the first movement of the Brahms Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 60. “I figured you could listen to the dry, washed up ’09 grad, or you can hear your classmates!” Boyt said. The music was thoroughly satisfying, lush and intimate, and Boyt explained how her diverse musical programs reinforce her efforts with vasculitis awareness. “People won’t come to hear ‘Boohoo, I got sick,’ but they will come to hear music,” she said. Engen, a Violin Performance and History major, praised Boyt’s work and ambitions: “She’s a great example of a Conservatory grad who is actually doing something with her degree.”

Boyt has now performed 19 “informances” — a term she uses to represent the hybrid nature of her performance presentations that also references her customary informality — in 15 states, though she hopes to eventually reach all 50. Through the expansion of her program, Boyt was able to add fundraising for the Vasculitis Foundation as an integral component of her work, and aspires to raise and donate $25,000 by the time she concludes her tour of all 50 states. She says the project has taken her to “many cool places and many cool people” so far, and that she can’t wait for her future lineup. Aside from her musical prowess and laid-back, casual air, Boyt’s is dedicated to her initiative’s central goal of broadening nationwide understanding of vascular autoimmune diseases. “I once drove all the way [ from Akron] to Madison, WI, and played for 10 people,” she said, “but those were 10 people who hadn’t known about vasculitis before, and that’s the only thing that matters.”

As she reflects on her work, Boyt seems satisfied with her efforts. “I am musically fulfilled through this project more than I ever could be as a healthy performer,” she writes online. She’s proud of the network of vasculitis patients and music lovers that she has helped to connect and values the frank and personal atmosphere that her “informances” create. Her advice to rising musicians? “This is what I’m doing,” she said. “This is my unique path. I want you to find yours, and don’t be shy about it.”

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A Most Wanted Man Features Stellar Cast Clark Sacktor Columnist A Most Wanted Man, which aired briefly at the Apollo Theatre this past week, has a surprisingly straightforward plot for a thriller. Directed by Anton Corbijn, the film is an adaptation of the eponymous book by John le Carré, author of The Constant Gardener and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Corbijn, who directed The American, another restrained spy thriller, makes use of what appears to be a hand-held camera to convey the paranoia seeping through the two-hour runtime. Corbijn does not rely on fancy camerawork, but instead adopts a minimalist approach, using various degrees of close-ups to place a focus on the actors’ individual performances.

The movie is concerned with the international workings of spy organizations competing in a bureaucracy to claim legitimacy over the management of terrorist threats. Set in Germany, the film begins with the image of Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin), a Chechen Muslim refugee who is under the eye of Günther Bachmann (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and his team of spies who believe Karpov to be a terrorist. Meanwhile, a well-respected professor named Abdullah (Homayoun Ershadi) also remains under Bachmann’s surveillance, as he is believed to be likewise tied to a terrorist organization.

The late Hoffman’s performance as a pragmatic, scowling, worn-out, functionally alcoholic spy is unsurprisingly remarkable. Besides the final two upcoming Hunger Games movies, his performance as Günther Bachmann is his last in any motion picture. Hoffman was arguably the finest actor of his generation, and his skill set is on full display in A Most Wanted Man. His effortless portrayal of a battered man determined to apprehend “the bad guys,” no matter the consequences, is not grandiose but modest. Hoffman, who died tragically before his time, will be sorely missed on screen; if there is any justice in the world (though the film suggests otherwise) he will be viewed on the same level as Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson.

While Hoffman’s is the standout performance of the film, the performances of the other actors elevate the film beyond a one-man show. Willem Dafoe progresses impressively from rigid businessman to a man deeply affected by both the consequences of his actions and those around him. Excluding her German accent, Rachel McAdams, who plays Annabel Richter, excellently embodies an idealistic lawyer forced to make hard decisions and to face the reality of a world where powerful people are apathetic toward her beliefs.

Grigori Dobrygin, a promising newcomer to the big screen, plays a mentally grim, physically tortured suspect. His character starts out quietly but later develops into a touchingly flawed victim and perpetrator who assists in propelling the movie forward.

The film is never plot-based, and even with a strong supporting cast, the movie becomes stagnant in Hoffman’s absence.

Sadly, since his passing, the global audience will be forever awaiting Hoffman’s return.

The Oberlin Review, September 19, 2014

SZA Delivers Vibrant, Playful Performance Sam Winward A $15 ticket can be tough to justify on a college budget, but at 10 p.m. last Friday, 20 minutes before the ’Sco doors were set to open, tickets to see the altR&B and neo-jazz singer SZA had already sold out.

Perhaps the young New Jersey native’s association with independent record label Top Dawg Entertainment and her friendship with platinum-selling labelmate Kendrick Lamar — whose 2011 ’Sco performance cost a mere $10 — justified the price of admission to the nearly 500 attendees. But she also made good on the industry hype; delivering an intimate, relaxed set of songs that easily surpassed her studio recordings in emotional resonance and vivacity.

The mood was unquestionably positive as the opening act, Van ’Go — Gynarva Van Monroe, OC ’11 — took the stage amid encouraging chants. A seasoned opener at this point in his career, ’Go handled the mic prior to Lamar in 2011 and before Mos Def ’s show in 2013. Dressed in black from his head to his Air Jordan Gamma 11s, he assumed the confident appearance of a headliner, with the stage presence to back it up. The crowd responded to ’Go’s rhymes with more vigor than they

do for acts twice his stature, and as the hometown hero topped off his set with an encore, it seemed as though the audience was there for him alone.

Between sets, a semicircular mass began to coalesce around the lip of the stage. Though at this point a warm-up was hardly needed, back-toback Beyoncé anthems on the house PA had the crowd swaying. “***Flawless” reverberated through the monitors: “I took some time to live my life,” the lyrics blared, “but don’t think I’m just [Jay Z’s] little wife.”

The song is oddly representative of the challenge inherent to SZA — that is, garnering attention independent of her all-male labelmates and losing the title of TDE’s “first lady.”

However, the Beyoncé–Jay connection is an entrepreneurial as well as ideological one; When the intermission music paused, a ’Sco representative asked the audience for consent to be filmed by Jay Z’s personal film crew for a collaborative project. Needless to say, consent was granted.

With energy at a peak, SZA took to the stage and wasted no time setting a completely new vibe for the remainder of the night.

She opened with “Ur”, a laid-back Mac Miller-produced track, with a sound inspired by the rapper’s well-documented codeine

SZA’s laid-back vibe and confident stage presence satisfied concert-goers. Her show sold out well before she took the ’Sco stage last Friday night to perform hits from her latest EP, Z. Alex Abramowitz

days. The song became infectious; a thunderous bass line synced with the audience’s collective frequency as they slowly grooved in time. SZA’s vocals sounded as if they were floating in the stratosphere, imbuing the track with grit rarely identifiable on her singleletter releases.

As the night went on, songs like “Sweet November,” from this year’s EP Z, warmed the room. SZA’s live performance of the tune was clear and lyrical, in contrast with the clouded filtration present on the studio version. Her band’s chillwave pulse created a riptide, dragging the audience’s hips collectively in and out between the backbeats. When what had turned into a laid-back Friday night came to its

fluid end, the crowd rallied for an encore. Unfortunately, SZA would not oblige, allowing the crowd to reflect on her complete performance instead of succumbing to requests for an unneeded continuation.

Despite the price, the audience seemed satisfied after an hour of SZA’s positivity. Her fame notwithstanding, SZA is naturally relatable — the type of artist you can’t help but root for. She appeared genuinely happy to spend her Friday night with a room of college students, despite having to travel nearly 900 miles for a Minneapolis performance the following night. Her spirit remained fresh and relatable to the audience, from her causal attire to her playful recognition of the

crowd’s appreciation. Hers is an admirable humility that’s rare among more popular artists — even Lamar, whose 2011 Oberlin stopover lasted a mere 35 minutes before he happily disappeared.

Though still burbling below a crop of smooth crooners like Frank Ocean and The Weeknd who sing, as it’s affectionately called, “PBR&B,” SZA’s raw vocal talent and persona have to be experienced live to be believed; the bold and thought-provoking lyrical content on her records alone just can’t compare.

Of course, time will only tell what the future holds for SZA, but as she begins work on her upcoming EP A, it’s a safe bet that her reputation will only continue to grow.

Eubanks Traces, Explores Unconventional Sounds Liam McLean Staff Writer Bryan Eubanks, despite what some listeners may assume, does not aim to transgress. His intention is not to push boundaries. Instead, he describes his development as an electronic artist as an organic evolution from his original work with acoustic instruments — primarily the soprano saxophone — to his current style, an elusive concoction of trance-like electronics, integrated acoustic sounds and ambient noise.

Beginning at 8 p.m., Fairchild Chapel’s resonant dome became an echo chamber for a zealous hubbub of around 30 students. Two tables supported an eclectic array of electronic instruments. The front table was reserved for Eubanks and boasted an open-feedback synthesizer, a computer for samples and a transducer, a device that channels frequency through a metal plate to produce sound. The rear table was set up for William Johnson, a double-degree sophomore pursuing majors in Studio Art and TIMARA, who opened the evening with a performance using a modular synthesizer.

Johnson began with an improvisational performance involving synthesized drones and wails. The more unsettling elements induced visible wincing and ear-plugging among the crowd. His work seemed to capitalize more on sonic “shock value” than anything; the music lacked build, and the hellish din that exploded in the middle of the piece was gratuitous. The performance’s saving grace was a single descend-

ing riff, the only melodic portion of the performance — and a surprisingly infectious one at that — which added a sense of cohesion to the chaos.

Following a brief intermission in the whiplashed aftermath of Johnson’s performance, Eubanks took the stage, commanded the attention of the audibly excited crowd with an unassuming, “Hey,” and proceeded to fill the room with his uniquely organic sound.

He performed his recent composition “Object,” a solo work that the Berlin-based artist developed on a February visit to the Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm. According to Eubanks, the piece evolved from a number of fragments he recorded during this visit. “Object,” like most of his works, is continually explored and rediscovered through performance and improvisation, and has yet to be finalized.

The artist, by his own admission, is also apt to explore sonic extremes, but his exploration, particularly in Monday’s performance of “Object,” was sparse, deliberate and meaningful.

Rather than bombarding the resonant room with an urgent cacophony, Eubanks let his music live and breathe in the space.

The first sound was a sustained tone which he channeled through a small microphone.

The tone’s emergence was so unobtrusive that it was difficult to pinpoint the exact moment of its materialization. Eubanks joined this raw undercurrent with the clap of two wooden sticks, a percussive interjection that recurred throughout the piece and served as the only deliberate acoustic

sound that occupied the space during the improvised performance. The organic nature of “Object” made Eubanks’s simulated soundscape receptive to outside noises.

The clicking of a pen, the rustling of a page, a passing car horn and a distant coughing fit seamlessly integrated into the chapel’s sonic centerpiece.

Grounded by the tone that opened the piece, the composition evolved over the course of the performance into a cohesive collective of sounds: a noisy, jarring sample that became a recurring motif, an unsettling ringing from the transducer and the occasional murmur of white noise. As the music progressed, its sounds became decidedly more organized with a betterdefined rhythmic pulse. The highlight of the concert was the deft interplay between Eubanks’ acoustic percussion of the clapping sticks, a sample of rhythmic beeps and a subdued bassline that merged to achieve an unexpected groove.

Eubanks takes “shoegazing” to a whole new level; he remained fully fixated on his feet for the duration of the concert. While the resulting emotional disengagement might seem to be a limitation of a live performance, Eubanks, surprisingly, could not have presented a more charismatic stage presence. His lack of onstage flair seems intentional: the sound, not the artist, was the predominant force at Monday’s performance. While it may not appeal to the majority of concertgoers, Eubanks’ music is a sage and salient voice to the niche he’s created for himself, regardless of how unassuming his persona may be.

Arts

The Oberlin Review, September 19, 2014

Hyman to Bring Shakespeare’s Roman Plays Back to Italy Aviva Blonder Staff Writer All roads lead to Rome, particularly for eight students this Winter Term. Associate Professor of English Wendy Hyman has organized an excursion to Rome in January for interested applicants to study three of Shakespeare’s five Roman plays in Italy’s capital city. According to Hyman, those selected for the program will have the opportunity “to see things contextualized and alive.” She spoke at a general interest meeting for “Shakespeare in Rome” last Friday to an excited audience of students hoping to secure one of the eight spaces available.

Hyman said she “certainly wanted to include Titus Andronicus, because the trip is being subsidized very generously by [the Julie Taymor ’74 Student Support Fund for Art and the Culture Abroad.] … Julie Taymor directed Titus Andronicus, so it’s a wonderful time for us to look at the film, read the play.”

She said she decided to include Antony and Cleopatra and Julius Caesar in the program because these two plays grant the best access to the Rome that is still visible and allow students to contextualize the performances in their original locations.

More than half of Shakespeare’s plays are set in Italy, including the five that take place in Rome. Nevertheless, Shakespeare himself never stepped foot on the Italian peninsula.

“England was still forming its national identity, and they looked to Rome and the Renaissance for their inspiration,” Hyman said. English poets and playwrights saw themselves as a nationalizing force, creating an English identity in much the same way that Virgil and Ovid did for Rome. This time period was characterized by international travel on an unprecedented scale.

“Yes, he had never seen it,” Hyman said, “but in a funny way, that doesn’t matter so much. In a way, Shakespeare invented Rome, or helped invent it.”

Hyman and her students will visit key locations from all three plays, such as the Coliseum, the Forum, the Catacombs and the Pantheon.

There are also murmurs of possible side trips to Pompeii, Naples, Verona — to see Juliet’s balcony and grave — and the anatomy theater at

Padua.

Hyman also intends to contextualize the performances through visual art. She is excited about the opportunity to witness some of the art that was created by Shakespeare’s contemporaries — specifically, the paintings of various mythological and historical figures that the playwright references in his plays.

This will not be the first time Hyman has taught Shakespeare in Rome, but it is her first time adapting the program into a Winter Term trip. She said this transformation has provided its own unique challenges.

“I can’t just pop over to the Vatican to look at the art that I’m going to show, so I’ve been looking at stuff online,” she said. “I’m hoping that when I get to Rome, I’ll be getting there maybe a week and a half before my students. I’m going to kind of do a dry run of the objects I think I’m going to look at, along with the plays I plan to teach.”

Hyman also said she feels that “not having it all figured out can actually be really productive, pedagogically, too, because it puts me in the position of being a novice and seeing things for the first time, instead of having a canned thing that I always say when I show people this painting in relation to this poem. Serendipity happens when you don’t have it all figured out.” Instead of just passing information on to her students, Hyman said she wants to “put in front of them a painting or a cuneiform tablet or an original document from the Renaissance, and say, ‘Here, what do you think?’ I’m not the only one making new knowledge or reporting old knowledge, but the students actually make the knowledge by having the object in front of them.”

Hyman has already received over 100 requests for applications to fill the program’s eight available spots. She recommends that those who don’t get a spot be patient, as she is “actively exploring having the program every other year, if not every year.” In the meantime, she said she suggests taking a course she is teaching on Shakespearian tragedies in the spring. She is also considering inviting another faculty member along in future incarnations of the program in order to accommodate more students, and she said she intends to continue the program for many years to come.

Zimbabwean Soundscapes Captivate Colin Roshak A world-famous musician performed in Kulas Recital Hall Monday night, yet you may not have know about it. Mbira virtuoso Fradreck Mujuru and his collaborator Erica Azim took the stage, delivering an evening of Zimbabwean music that transported concertgoers to a country with a rich musical history.

Having played the instrument since the tender age of eight, Mujuru confidently displayed exactly why he is considered one of the best mbira players in the world.

Azim is also a veteran performer, having studied the music of Zimbabwe for more than 30 years. Most striking, however, was not the pair’s considerable technical proficiency, but their unwavering ability to build upon and reciprocate each other’s energy. The duo performed with a precision that immediately captivated their audience.

The mbira resembles a small handheld piano, but instead of an ivory keyboard,

the instrument boasts spoon-like silver keys. When plucked with the fingers, the delicate, chiming timbre resembles that of a celeste. In this particular concert, the keyboard was placed within a large gourd that acted as an amplifier with “rattlers,” adding a percussive sound along with chiming of the keys.

The music was lighthearted and beautiful, but more importantly, it was clear that the two performers shared a deep passion for their art. The sheer amount of enthusiasm that they dedicated to the concert made it apparent that the music is an incredibly important aspect of their lives.

While one performer laid down a rhythmic bassline, the other would play a melody that soared above the gentle rhythmic patterns.

The two would continue their musical conversation, periodically switching roles and even inviting the audience to clap. “This [music] is what people dance to,” Azim said, as Mujuru gracefully

demonstrated onstage.

Between pieces they adjusted their instruments and exchanged a few words, but the moment one of them began to play, the other would immediately join in with an almost uncanny awareness.

When the two began to sing, their clear voices reverberated throughout the dimly lit and warmly resonant hall.

In an instant, listeners were transported from the stuffy concert hall to the white, sandy beaches of Zimbabwe. The soundscape evoked wide-open fields filled with mid-summer’s blooming flowers; the rhythmic and melodic tones constantly evolved to create new textures and images, and these musicians made it impossible not to be drawn into their performance through their passion and precision. Performances are all about the connections that are made between listeners and the music, the composer or the performers; few concerts have spoken to an audience as clearly and genuinely as this.

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Sports

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IN THE LOCKER ROOM

The Oberlin Review, September 19, 2014

Blake Buckhannon and Lucas Poggiali

This week, the Review sat down with junior football players and roommates Blake Buckhannon and Lucas Poggiali to discuss their exciting win over Kenyon College, their first game at the Austin E. Knowlton Athletic Complex and the new atmosphere the team has been embracing this fall.

How has the season been going so far?

Blake Buckhannon: The season has been going pretty well, especially after last weekend; we had a huge conference win over Kenyon. That was great because over the last two years that’s a team we should have beaten. It was great to go to their homecoming and get a win on their turf and pretty much pay them back after the last two years.

Lucas Poggiali: Absolutely. I thought that our team did a very good job this week. The offensive line played great for us, and we are looking forward to next week already. We need to build off what we did this week and take it to [The College of] Wooster.

How has the transition of Coach Jay Anderson into the head coach position been for the team?

BB: It’s been absolutely great so far. Jay has our back no matter what and he’s definitely been bringing a new attitude to the team that I think has been much needed. We are definitely behind him 110 percent and we are building off of what he does.

LP: It’s been good, too, because he was a part of our program last year, so a lot of the guys on the team already know what he’s about and the style he coaches with. Like Blake said, it’s a whole different atmosphere around the football program and everyone has bought into it, and it’s starting to translate on the field.

The team has 22 first-years this season. How do you feel they have transitioned into playing at the collegiate level?

BB: Very well so far. A lot of them have to play right now because we have lacked depth in the past and we’ve needed them to step up. So far

What would you say have been the biggest changes from last season to this season?

BB: I would just say the environment that the coaching staff has put us in. People that aren’t a part of the football team don’t really see that or don’t really understand that, but for the guys that have been on the team before they just know that comparatively it’s just a whole different atmosphere. I know I’ve said that a few times now, but it’s just a completely different atmosphere. It has changed for the better.

LP: In the past, we’ve had anywhere from 30 to just under 40 guys on the team, whereas this year, we have 50. Ten people doesn’t sound like a lot, but it really is. We have a lot more depth on the team this year, and it comes in handy in practice because you actually have a scout team and you can do a lot of different things. That’s been an improvement this year that has really helped us out so far this season.

Football players Blake Buckhannon and Lucas Poggiali they have done a very good job and they’re definitely getting better every day, as well as our upperclassmen.

We are definitely taking strides in the right direction.

What has been the toughest part of the season so far?

BB: Camp is always tough. Every single year, camp is a struggle; it’s a grind. We haven’t really gotten into the grind of the actual season yet, being only two games in. There haven’t been any real rigors yet, we haven’t had to overcome any injuries or anything like that. Definitely up to now the hardest part was camp.

What are your team goals for this season?

BB: I think another goal is to change the whole culture on the football program and integrate it into the campus. We want to bring people outside of North Campus who wouldn’t normally pay attention to the football program or care about it and have them buy into it.

We have something to prove, not only to everyone else in our conference but to everyone on campus, from the Athletics department to the students.

LP: Well, Oberlin hasn’t had a winning season in about 20 years, so that’s definitely a big goal. We want to win every single game every week, and that’s how we prepare. Definitely going above 5–5 would be great, but we would like to win every game.

Are you guys excited for Homecoming weekend and your first game at the Austin E. Knowlton Athletic Complex?

LP: Absolutely. Everyone is really excited about this brand-new field, and we want to go out there and show everyone that we deserve to have this new field and all these facilities, and just make a good name for Oberlin football. We’re here to play and we’re here to contend.

BB: I think everyone is excited for the new atmosphere, too. It’s the first night game we’ve ever had in the

history of Oberlin football, so that’s exciting. And like Lucas said: the facilities. We’re excited to show that off, and the new style of Yeomen football.

What are the best and worst parts about being on the football team?

BB: I think the best part of the football season is being with your teammates all the time. They’re your brothers, they’re your family, they’re why you go out and play the game.

And if I had to pick one bad part, it’s all the workload you have during the season. It’s hard to balance. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, but at times it gets challenging.

LP: I definitely have to say some of the best parts are building relationships with both new and old players. You’re with these guys for hours on end every single day. Experiencing the ups and downs of a football season is something that helps bring people closer together for sure, and that’s something that I think the team really enjoys.

What were the biggest factors that influenced you to attend Oberlin? You both are from Ohio; did that sway you in any way?

BB: Definitely the academics you really can’t compete with, definitely [with] schools in Ohio, but even schools in the Midwest and on the East Coast and some of the Ivy League schools. Also, just being close to my family. I really have a close relationship with them and I don’t want to be away from them anytime soon, so I figured I might as well be as close to them as I can.

LP: Oberlin’s education is [second to none]. They’re top-notch in Ohio for sure, and honestly I just loved the football players that I met when I first came here on my visit. I really felt like I was part of the team already from the moment I got here, so that really meant a lot to me in my decision-making.

Interview by Nate Levinson, Sports editor Photo by Rachel Dan

— Women’s Soccer —

Yeowomen Split Pair During Weekend Trip to Illinois Michaela Puterbaugh Despite dropping its first three games, including one on Saturday 4–2 against the North Central College Cardinals, the women’s soccer team was able to bring home a 0–1 win against the Benedictine University Eagles on Sunday in Naperville, IL. The Yeowomen opened the weekend with a slow performance as they quickly fell behind 2–0 in the match’s first 13 minutes. Assisted by sophomore midfielder Megan Herrmann, junior midfielder Ellie Huizenga notched a goal in the 21st minute to cut the Cardinals’ lead in half, but the Cardinals managed to tack on one more just before the end of the first half, pushing the score to 3–1.

That deficit would end up being too much to overcome, and despite another goal late in the game, the Yeowomen’s defensive performance gave them little chance.

“We were not as organized as we need-

ed to be, defensively. Offensively, I thought we did a lot of good things,” Head Coach Dan Palmer said.

Eleven minutes into the second half, North Central added to its lead by scoring a fourth and final goal, more than enough to secure victory despite a late tally by sophomore forward Taylor French in the 86th minute.

“The second half we played much better than the first. While the score doesn’t necessarily show it, we are already playing much better than last year and will only continue to improve as we head to conference play in two weeks,” senior goalkeeper Kate Frost said.

Despite having little time to reflect on Saturday’s game, the Yeowomen went into Sunday’s game against Benedictine refreshed and ready to win.

“We made the adjustments. On Saturday we talked about a little after the game that we were not as disciplined as we needed to be in our responsibilities, and Sunday we gained that discipline back and

ended with a great result,” said Palmer.

In the 36th minute of the game, firstyear midfielder Gwennie Gardiner scored her first collegiate goal off an assist from senior defender Samantha Mater, giving the Yeowomen all the scoring they would need that day.

“Honestly, I felt a huge degree of relief and excitement [about the goal],” Gardiner said. “It got me really anxious in the best possible way.”

The goal, combined with Frost’s three saves, earned the Yeowomen a 0–1 victory and marked their first win of the season.

“We created ample opportunities to score, and even if the play did not directly result in a scoring opportunity, we made the defense work to clear the ball,” said Frost. “I think we also had better chemistry in this second game, and we played more relaxed and with more confidence, especially in the defense.”

After a two week layoff, the trip to Naperville moved the team’s record to 1–3.

Prior to playing its two games, the

team was able to explore the city of Chicago last Friday when it visited Cloud Gate at Millennium Park and the John Hancock Center.

“It was pretty funny to watch [Coach Palmer] jumping in the elevator up to and down from the 100th floor of the Hancock building despite the explicit warnings that jumping wasn’t allowed from the elevator attendant,” Gardiner said.

The Yeowomen hosted the College of Mount St. Joseph Lions on Thursday for their first home game of the year, winning their second consecutive game by a score of 5–1. Five different Yeowomen scored in the game.

“They are a team that is in a similar state of transition as we are,” said Coach Palmer.

The Yeowomen will play in a flurry of games in the upcoming weeks with five games in 10 days, starting with an away game against the Marietta College Pioneers on Saturday, Sept. 20 in Marietta, Ohio.

The Oberlin Review, September 19, 2014

Sports

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— Field Hockey —

Yeowomen Remain Positive Despite Injuries Abby Weiss Last weekend, the women’s field hockey team became the first Oberlin team to play at the Austin E. Knowlton Athletics Complex.

The Yeowomen took on the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops on Saturday and the Wittenberg Tigers on Sunday, falling in each game.

With already short numbers and several injuries to key players, the Yeowomen played the games two players down, giving their tough conference foes a sizeable advantage.

In spite of their low numbers and the fact that they lost the two games by a combined score of 9–0, team players were still happy with

aspects of the team’s performance.

“I am beyond proud of this team,” said fifth-year co-captain Hannah Christiansen. “We played two people down for two full games back to back. The other teams could have subbed their whole team if they wanted, and we ran them to the ground. They were exhausted after the game,

Junior Sophie Weinstein eyes the ball in a game against the Wittenberg Tigers last Sunday. The Yeowomen fell 4–0 in the match, moving their record to 0–3.

Lilly Day

Editorial: NFL Not Harsh Enough with Violent Players Continued from page 16 Sure, Rice was innocent until proven guilty, and there was no way to know exactly what transpired in the elevator without seeing the later-released footage. But he dragged his unconscious fiancée out of an elevator. Did Goodell and the rest of the league office think that she had fallen and bumped her head?

The case with Peterson is a bit less cut-and-dried, since there is no video of the alleged incident and the use of corporal punishment varies by culture. I don’t buy either excuse, though, since his son has clear marks noted by a doctor, and there’s no way any 4-year-old deserves being beaten with a stick.

Only in the face of serious media outcry and a statement by the governor of Minnesota decreeing that Peterson shouldn’t be allowed on the field did the Vikings place Peterson on the inactive list, bucking their original plan to let him play in this week’s game.

Like any other American, Peterson deserves due process, but the Vikings and the NFL should hold him to a higher standard and keep him off the field. Peterson is no ordinary citizen. Millions worship him and he is the highest-paid running back in the league.

I must admit that I’m not entirely willing to put my money where my mouth is when it comes to the NFL. I will continue to watch games. But any faith I had in the league and in Commissioner Goodell’s moral compass is gone forever.

A league that will suspend a player for a full season for consuming marijuana but won’t suspend a domestic abuser for more than two games clearly has some reconsidering to do.

There are obviously plenty of men in the NFL who are role models off the field in addition to great players on it, but if I were a parent, I’d make extra sure that my kids knew the difference between the two roles.

Players like Peterson and Rice were in powerful positions to impact the thousands of kids who looked up to them. Now they are only examples of what not to do when they step off the playing field.

For a league with an annual revenue estimated at somewhere around $9.5 billion, it’s difficult to understand why the NFL is having such difficulty addressing these issues. I applaud the league for instituting a mandatory Rookie Symposium where all young players learn about what it takes to be successful in the NFL, but as shown by the onslaught of recent issues, it’s clearly not serving its intended purpose.

At this point, firing Goodell is a no-brainer. The league has had issues with players in the past, but the problem never should have gotten to this point. It’s up to the league to take a stand and demand a new commissioner who cares more about shaping players into role models than making money for the league.

As for the players, it’s time that they wake up and realize that millions of people across the world look up to them. That’s a responsibility that needs to be taken more seriously.

and that was such a good feeling.”

Junior co-captain Taylor Swift, one of the Yeowomen resting with an injury, shared Christiansen’s excitement with the team’s effort.

“You couldn’t even tell we were playing down,” she said. “I thought our best half was actually our second half of our second game, which is crazy. We held Wittenberg scoreless, and people just kept playing hard the entire game — it was awesome.”

With only 13 players on their active roster, the Yeowomen will have the odds stacked against them this season, but Head Coach Anna Baeth is more than pleased with the way the team has responded to the challenges thus far.

“It is never fun to be in the situation we were handed this weekend, and the team took it all in stride,” she said. “We played with more heart than I have ever seen and every person played to their full potential. It was fun, exciting and inspiring all at once.”

Before the opening of the new athletics complex, the Yeowomen were playing on a grass field, putting them at a major disadvantage to other teams. Now, Baeth is certain playing on the new surface will improve the team’s play.

“Field hockey is a game meant

to be played on the fastest surface possible, so having a new turf allows us to capitalize on certain tactics and techniques we have not been able to use before,” Baeth said. “Playing on the new game field was also downright fun.”

In two games where every player on the roster was forced to put in overtime, one player that stood out to Baeth was sophomore goalie Maggie Gossiaux, who played all 140 minutes and tallied 40 saves.

“Maggie Gossiaux had a superb weekend. Ultimately, though, this weekend was a team effort and I am proud of every single one of our athletes’ performances,” said Baeth.

This weekend the team heads to Indiana to take on nationally ranked NCAC rival DePauw University on Saturday and Earlham College on Sunday.

“This coming weekend is a tough weekend, but I think we have a lot of momentum to build on right now,” said Christiansen.

Baeth, too, is excited for the games this weekend after the team’s last showings.

“This past weekend, our team showed me and the NCAC just how much heart and grit Oberlin has,” she said. “I firmly believe that team chemistry and fitness win games. Luckily, we have both.”

Sports The Oberlin Review

— Men’s Soccer —

Ingham Leads Men’s Soccer Past Earlham Harrison Wollman

Nate Levinson Sports Editor

New noted, however, that if the Yeomen are to improve on last year’s historic finish, there are some things the team needs to address in order to take its play to the next level.

“We’re still making some mistakes that better teams will punish us for, both tactical or technical mistakes that we’ve got to clean up in the next week or so before we get to conference play,” he said. “I think we have to be smart and play just a little better in the transition game. If we do that, we’ll be in good shape.”

Despite the momentum from the win against Earlham, the Yeomen were unable to hold off Grove City on Wednesday, Sept. 17. Oberlin was unable to connect passes in its usual fashion as the Wolverines dominated possession for the majority of the game.

Ultimately, the Yeomen’s slow pace cost them a 0–3 loss at home.

The Yeomen will have an opportunity to redeem themselves when they face the Otterbein University Cardinals at home on Saturday, Sept. 20 at 4 p.m.

even more excitement because this is something even more tangible.”

Athletes have already noticed that their team’s attitudes are different from those of past years.

“Compared to last year, the atmosphere around the [ football] program is totally different,” said Poggiali. “The way we carry ourselves, the standards we hold ourselves to, are different than it used to be.”

The Yeomen football team actually has a new motto on the back of their practice shirts this year: STP, or “Something To Prove.” Poggiali explained that this means proving to the North Coast Athletic Conference, the student body and the Athletics department that they are not to be overlooked, and that they’ve earned their playing time in the new stadium.

In keeping with the spirit of honoring the past while looking towards the future, it’s only fitting that many of the events this weekend are centered around ensuring alumni involvement in the campus’ celebration of the new facility and the school’s new athletic era.

This year’s alumni lacrosse games, along with the Cardinal & Gold Alumni Flag Football Classic, will be taking place on the new Bailey Field in the stadium, giving alumni athletes a firsthand experience of the new venue. In this same vein, studentathletes will also be giving tours of the complex throughout the weekend.

There will also be a dedication ceremony for the complex preceding the football game, as well as a football reunion recognition ceremony during halftime.

The alumni lacrosse game will also honor Linda Donovan, who passed away in March of 2014 and was married to James Donovan, former head men’s lacrosse coach and head football coach.

Linda was a veritable staple in every men’s alumni lacrosse game, and her impact has clearly not been forgotten.

“Linda Donovan was an enthusiastic supporter of Oberlin’s alumni lacrosse game and seemed to know and have relationships with each and every one of the alumni who participated in the game every year,” wrote L. Michael Hankes, OC ’74, in an email to the Review.

The men’s lacrosse program will honor Donovan by naming the annual alumni lacrosse game after her.

“She was loved and respected by all who knew her,” wrote Hankes. “It is most fitting that Linda Donovan’s name will be made a permanent part of Oberlin’s enduring men’s varsity lacrosse tradition.”

It seems that the Austin E. Knowlton Athletics Complex has the potential to truly fulfill the goals framed at its conception on what Winkelfoos called a “historic day” last November.

See Editorial, page 15

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like this has ever happened in the Athletics program before, and I think especially alumni want to come see it.”

Poggiali isn’t the only athlete who could hardly contain their excitement.

“With all the alumni back, and prospies here, there’s going to be a lot of excitement,” said senior lacrosse and football player Erickson Andrews. “I’ve been telling everyone I know to come to the game.”

Fifth-year field hockey defender Hannah Christiansen also spoke to the improved atmosphere around the stadium, as her team became the first to play on the new field last weekend.

“Having the new stadium and the new building not only gives motivation to the athletes but I think should definitely build excitement in the student body,” she said. “There are beautiful stands to sit in, nice bathrooms, an up-to-date sound system — everything’s there to make the experience of going to games more fun.”

Aside from the Homecoming fanfare, Oberlin athletes and coaches are also enthusiastic about what the new complex means for their teams’ athletic experiences.

“The athletic complex is a huge commitment from our administration, and it shows that athletics is important on our campus,” said Head

Football Coach Jay Anderson. He added that the new facilities are sure to enhance the Oberlin Athletics program by improving player development, the recruiting process and the team’s overall game-day experience.

Christiansen and junior field hockey player Sophie Weinstein both emphasized that the new turf is especially important for them because field hockey is a sport meant to be played on artificial turf. Until now, the Yeowomen have played and practiced on grass fields.

“You can do so much more with the ball and with your style of play [on turf],” said Christiansen.

Besides the physical advantages the field presents to athletes and coaches, there’s also a widespread sentiment that the completion of the Austin E. Knowlton Complex will headline a new era for Oberlin Athletics. “[Oberlin] Athletics in general has been on an upward swing for several years at this point,” said Head Field Hockey Coach Anna Baeth. “It’s just nice to have this as a landmark of that upward swing.”

Head Men’s Lacrosse Coach Topher Grossman shared Baeth’s sentiment.

“I think we’ve made a lot of steps in the last few years,” he said. “You’ve seen a lot of programs make important steps from a competitiveness standpoint, and this is giving them

t this new t pu sp o a n

John will tell you that we don’t hold anyone above the team — he doesn’t have any special situations or perks. His job is scoring goals and is just as important as anyone else’s,” New said.

Coming off a tough loss last week to Penn StateBehrend, in which a goal in the 88th minute was the dealbreaker, the team knew that a different mentality was required to get back in the win column.

“Besides the fact that we were much more effective in the final third of the field against Earlham, the creativity was there, and wasn’t there against Penn State. We had a really strong week of training before Earlham, whereas we were a little lackadaisical coming off that 4–0 win to open the season,” junior midfielder Slade Gottlieb said.

The Yeomen came off of a record-breaking season in 2013, in which they went 14–4–4. This earned the team an at-large bid in the NCAA tournament, where they made it to the round of 32 before being eliminated by the University of Rochester Yellowjackets.

The NFL is a mess and everyone is to blame. For years, the league has struggled with its players not acting like the role models they should be: racking up DUIs, abusing illegal substances and even offering money to teammates who injured opposing players.

Last week, however, has to take the cake as the worst in league history.

On Sept. 8, TMZ released a video of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice knocking out his then-fiancée with a punch last February. Then, on Sept. 12, reports surfaced that Minnesota Vikings star running back Adrian Peterson was indicted on charges of “reckless or negligent injury of a child” after he beat his 4-year-old son with a stick.

The Ravens have since dropped Rice, and the NFL has indefinitely suspended him, while the Vikings deactivated Peterson for their game last Sunday.

But the discipline came too late — the damage already done.

The video of Rice was especially damning for the league, since, in July, the league suspended him for two games after the February TMZ video showed him dragging his future wife out of an Atlantic City elevator. The move has been harshly criticized, as having issued a mere two-game suspension, the league seemed to take little action against domestic violence. The video of Rice actually punching the woman only confirmed that the league had failed in its initial judgment.

The league had a chance to set a precedent with Rice back in July by suspending him for at least eight games, maybe more, but it failed to do so.

Now it’s paying for it dearly.

The fact that it took a video of the incident taking place to spur commissioner Roger Goodell to action is despicable.

o

Sophomore Dan Lev battles for the ball in a game against the Grove City College Wolverines on Wednesday. The Yeomen fell 3–0 in the game.

Ben Shepherd

Alumni Return for Historic Homecoming Continued from page 1

NFL Fumbles Discipline

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Propelled by a hat trick from junior forward John Ingham, the men’s soccer team dismantled the Earlham College Quakers 0–5 last Saturday to momentarily hold a record of 2–1. The Yeomen moved to 2–2, however, in Wednesday’s 0–3 loss to the Grove City College Wolverines.

Against the Quakers, the Yeomen dominated on both ends of the field, outshooting Earlham 21–3, while senior goalkeeper Oidie Kuijpers tallied his second shutout for the Yeomen this season.

Ingham’s strong play put the game out of reach early, with all three of his goals hitting the back of the net before the 28th minute. First-year forward Timothy Williams and second-year midfielder Sam Weiss scored two more goals in the 43rd and 48th minutes, respectively.

Ingham was confident that the Yeomen would be able to overcome last week’s 1–0 loss to the Penn State-Behrend Lions and credited the victory over the Quakers to the team’s resilient mentality.

“We just stayed focused on the fact that it’s a long season and that one result doesn’t affect the rest of the games,” he said. “We have 17 games, not just one, so we knew we had an entire week to work at getting better and if we kept our heads on straight, everything would come together.”

In recognition of Ingham’s 7-point performance, the North Coast Athletic Conference honored him as Player of the Week last Monday. Fresh off a standout 16-goal season in 2013, in which he was the conference’s top goal scorer, Ingham now has 20 career goals for the Yeomen.

Coach Blake New, in his 16th season as the team’s head coach, spoke highly of Ingham’s abilities on the pitch and as a teammate.

“The strengths [Ingham] gives to our team is that he just has a nose for the goal. He knows the game very well, he’s a really fiery competitor, but even

September 19, 2014

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