The Oberlin Review
MARCH 6, 2015 VOLUME 143, NUMBER 16
Local News Bulletin News briefs from the past week Council Pushes Food Truck Proposal Forward This Monday, City Council members passed the second reading of an ordinance that would allow food trucks in town on a regular basis. The Council added language that increases the permit fee from $250 to $500 and plans to revisit the issue during a third reading. Though the ordinance received unanimous support, Council members differ on where food trucks should be allowed to operate and whether the trucks could potentially hurt local brick and mortar businesses. Trustees Create Student Support Fund The Board of Trustees created a Student Support Initiative fund after the Board received a $500,000 donation to the project from Board Chair Clyde McGregor. The fund will expand first-year peer mentoring programs for disabled, firstgeneration and low-income students and students of color. Another staff position will also be added to the Office of Disability Services. Additionally, the Endowed Book Fund and the Emergency Medical Fund — funds which assist low-income students with access to academic books, school supplies and emergency health care — will also be expanded. Oberlin Press Poet Wins Prize Claremont Graduate University selected a book published by the Oberlin Press, Enchantee by Angie Estes, as the winner of the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Her earlier collection Tryst was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in poetry. In an interview with the Chronicle-Telegram, Estes said she would use the money to pay the bills and reduce the amount of time she spends teaching at Ashland University’s Master of Fine Arts program to make more time for writing.
Oberlin Community Services Expands Melissa Harris Oberlin Community Services is working on a new strategic plan called Planting Seeds for Growth and Sustainability to help reshape and expand its services to fit the needs of southern Lorain County communities. Executive Director Cindy Andrews, a former member of OCS’s Board of Directors, took charge of OCS’s operations about a year ago. Prior to Andrews’ arrival, OCS supplied two forms of support: emergency assistance and food services. One of Andrews’ first plans was to reach out to the community, along with volunteer coordinators MaQwe Lawson and Erin Adair, OC ’14, to ask what else OCS could do for the people it serves. Over 120 community members responded, requesting continuations of OCS-administered community gardening, food distribution, kids programs and emergency assistance. Community members also stressed a need for new services to help maintain economic sustainability. The Board formulated new programs, such as General Education Development, a bill payers club, financial literacy classes and tutoring, to add to OCS’s services. This expansion in capability has been made possible by working with
Alan Mitchell, food distribution coordinator of Oberlin Community Services, moves green peppers from the stock room to the food pantry. The organization has expanded significantly in the last year, both in the range of programs it operates and the number of people it serves. Lulu Jingyan Huang
United Way of Greater Lorain County, a collection of different local organizations that shares its services in order to assist people within the greater Lorain County area. According to the OCS annual report, casework has increased by 22.3 percent since last year, and the total number of people receiving assistance through food distribution services has risen by 44.5 percent. Just as the services and the num-
ber of people that OCS helps continue to grow, so do the number of volunteers. “Three hundred and ninetyseven people donated 12,575 hours [in the last year.] … The reason that we’re as successful as we are is because of the volunteers, and the volunteers [are] really what makes this organization what it is,” Andrews said. Despite the strong volunteer
support, Lawson said that the group is always in need of more help as it continues to grow and try to meet the significant rise in service requests. “We’ll definitely need help planning for the garden, helping out in the garden,” said Lawson. “We have a [Little] Sprouts program in the garden that we need help coming See Community, page 4
Students File Complaint After Conductor Uses Racial Epithet Elizabeth Dobbins News Editor Three students from the Oberlin Baroque Orchestra submitted a complaint to the Conservatory dean’s office after a rehearsal on Feb. 23, where guest conductor Jaap ter Linden told an anecdote in which he repeatedly used a racial slur. During the incident, Linden recited and joked about a children’s rhyme that includes a racial epithet in both the title and the text. He went on to suggest that those uncomfortable with this language should substitute the epithet with the word “frog.” An official complaint was filed with Meredith Raimondo, the special assistant to the president for equity, diversity and inclusion, and other instructors filled in for Linden for the remainder of the three-week cycle, ending March 6, which he was scheduled to teach. “I think this is not reflective of the standard of Oberlin,” said Dean of the Conservatory Andrea Kalyn. “It’s not reflective of the values of Oberlin, and it shouldn’t have happened, and I’m deeply apologetic that it did happen. There are a lot of issues it [has] brought up, and I think they’re important things to think about.”
At a meeting about the incident on Sunday night with about 25 students, faculty and staff, Kalyn stated that Linden would not be rehired at the Conservatory as long as she was the dean. During the meeting, she also outlined several changes the Conservatory plans to make in order to prevent this kind of event from occurring. Kalyn pointed to Linden’s brief planned stay at Oberlin, which prevented him from attending the fall orientation process required for all tenure-track and visiting professors, as a problem in the Conservatory hiring and feedback system that could have potentially led to the incident. According to Kalyn, the Conservatory plans to look into providing more opportunities for student feedback for short-term instructors and may also put together a professional development panel which could help give students guidance in reporting these incidents after they leave Oberlin and enter professional settings. As Linden was visiting from the Netherlands, Kalyn said this incident is a reminder that the music world is an international community. She stated that a Conservatory education should address how to navigate and be sensitive to different cultural expectations.
Two Years Later Students and faculty remember March 4 two years after the Day of Solidarity.
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Close Call
Making Noise Pharmakon shook the ’Sco in a politically charged set.
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INDEX:
Opinions 5
Women’s tennis dropped a 5–4 match to the University of Northwestern Ohio last Saturday.
This Week in Oberlin 8
Arts 10
Sports 16
“We work with lots of people from different cultures, whether we are in a different culture or somebody else is in ours,” Kalyn said. “How do you navigate that, and what are the sensitivities, and what do you need to think about? … How do we make sure we don’t offend in the ways that we’re offended?” According to Kalyn, the meeting on Sunday was originally planned as a chance for her to describe the steps the Conservatory plans to take, as well as to hear the concerns of the students in the Baroque Orchestra, since she was in South Korea when the report was filed. However, in addition to these musicians, students unaffiliated with the Conservatory also attended the meeting. Some expressed concern about the limited communication about the incident with the student body. Several students in attendance, including double-degree fifth-year and member of the Baroque Orchestra Emi Ostrom, felt the entire Conservatory and Afrikana community should have been notified immediately following the incident. “I just think in the future they should really email the entire Conservatory when something like See Conservatory, page 4
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