March 13, 2015

The Oberlin Review

MARCH 13, 2015 VOLUME 143, NUMBER 17

Local News Bulletin News briefs from the past week Commencement Speaker Announced Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, has been selected to give the 2015 commencement address.

Edelman was involved in the civil rights movement and was the first Black woman to pass the Mississippi bar exam.

In 1973, Edelman started the Children’s Defense Fund, a privately funded organization that advocates on behalf of poor and disabled children and children of color. Commencement will be held in Tappan Square on Monday, May 25.

Conservatory Hires Grammy Winner The Conservatory has hired composer Stephen Hartke as the chair of the Composition department within Oberlin’s Division of Contemporary Music. In 2013, Hartke won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. He has composed music for a variety of groups, including the New York Philharmonic, the Hilliard Ensemble and the National Symphony Orchestra and has been a professor of composition at the Thornton School of Music of the University of Southern California.

Ohio Teachers Rail Against Tests A group of teachers testified this past Tuesday to an Ohio Senate committee that new mandatory standardized testing was having an adverse effect on Ohio education. The teachers said that the Common Core tests took far more time to complete than previous standardized tests, limiting the amount of time for actual instruction. The teachers also complained that the tests did not actually give instructors more information about their students because of the long wait for the test results.

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Student Activists Host Weekend of Action Tyler Sloan Sports Editor The Student Labor Action Coalition collaborated with numerous student groups last Friday, Saturday and Sunday to host a Weekend of Action. Organizers put on more than 30 workshops pertaining to social justice, creative expression and technology over the three-day event in Wilder Hall, providing an opportunity for students to discuss and learn about economic justice.

College senior and SLAC member Dan Quigley said conversations about hosting the event were initially born from the negative responses to the financial aid policy changes made last spring.

“The idea of Weekend of Action was to have it be a power-building experience for students and the community,” Quigley said. “The idea would be that everybody who experiences this weekend, through planning or attending, would be able to construct cohesive feedback so we would know what was helpful and successful.”

According to Quigley, several individuals independently proposed the creation of the Weekend of Action in a SLAC meeting at the beginning of fall semester, but planning didn’t start until mid-February.

After the group decided to pursue the idea, SLAC members reached out to individuals and campus organizations, as well as outside speakers. Quigley said they hoped students saw the weekend not as a SLAC event, but as “an event of students.”

The overarching theme of the weekend was economic justice; a range of groups, from OSlam

College senior Kaela Sanborn-Hum leads the Prison Justice Workshop on Saturday during the Weekend of Action. Led by the Student Labor Action Coalition, several campus groups collaborated to host the Weekend of Action, a space for workshops and discussions about economic justice.

Bryan Rubin

to the Oberlin College Socialist Collective, hosted workshops and provided platforms for discussion.

Zachery Crowell, College senior and SLAC co-chair, said this topic allowed for a diverse body of student groups and individuals to contribute to the event.

“We really tried to put the idea of economic justice in [the Weekend of Action],” Crowell said. “There hasn’t been as much emphasis on economic justice as other forms [of justice] here, especially coming

out of one of the most expensive colleges in the United States.”

College first-year Emily Isaacson, who co-ran the J Street U Community Organizing 101 workshop, said she felt the workshop was successful despite the low turnout. Several community members, including Janet Garrett, who ran for Congress in 2014 See Students, page 4

Planning Commission Sides Against Green Acres Hannah Jackel-Dewhurst Opposition from Oberlin residents and members of the Oberlin Planning Commission has called the future of the Green Acres Project into question.

The Green Acres Project is a proposed mixed-income housing development located on 15 acres of land that have been vacant for a decade between East Lorain Street and East College Street.

Community Builders, a nonprofit development company, has designed a plan for the project; however, the plan has generated controversy, and the Oberlin Planning Commission voted not to approve the request for rezoning this past Wednesday.

The Green Acres Project is now on the City Council’s agenda for its April 6 meeting. The Council will vote then on whether or not to abide by the Planning Commission’s suggestion that it not rezone. If the Council votes against rezoning the land, the city administration will need to construct a new plan that will garner more support.

Even the most basic details of the project are still being debated. Green Acres is a mixed-income development, but Community Builders, as a non-

profit, will only construct multi-family units reserved for residents making 60 percent of the local median income or below. The portion of the development that Community Builders would work on is only five of the fifteen acres, so some market-price units could be included, as well as some affordable single-family homes. However, no developer has yet been chosen to build the market-price units.

Some residents of College Street are not eager to see a multi-family unit built in an area of predominantly single homes, but other Oberlin community members are excited about the prospect of new affordable housing.

“My personal concern is that the plan include low-income housing,” said Sharon Fairchild-Soucy, vice president of City Council. “We want to have some low-income, some marketprice units and some individual affordable middle-class market value homes.”

Arlene Dunn, co-founder of the Oberlin Community Benefits Coalition, said that she agrees that affordable rental units are badly needed in Oberlin. She also stated that OCBC’s concerns are “to make sure that dur-

ing the construction project as many local people and local businesses have opportunities to participate to the fullest extent possible.”

City Council member Bryan Burgess believes that in order for the project to go forward, serious changes need to be made to the current plan.

As a resident of College Street who lives right next to the proposed development site, Burgess has recused himself from voting on issues relating to the project.

“I have yet to meet any of my neighbors that approve of the project as it exists right now,” he said. In Burgess’ opinion, the current plan, which calls for a three-story apartment unit to be built on the south quadrant of the property, needs to be reworked. Currently, the homes on College Street are primarily single-family, and Burgess said that he and his neighbors would like to see it remain that way. Burgess believes that a more suitable alternative would be for the apartment complex to be constructed on the north side of the property. He also said that public suggestions need to be incorporated more and that the current plan is not popular among citizens.

While environmental sustainability has been an important aspect of the design of the project, according to Peter Crowley, vice president of the Planning Commission, the current plan does not meet the goals it should.

“The current proposal to construct 50 rental units on the Green Acres site does not match the vision of sustainable development described in Oberlin’s Climate Action Plan,” wrote Crowley in a letter to the editor published on the Oberlin News Tribune’s website on Wednesday (“Polarizing Green Acres Plan is not Sustainable,” Oberlin News Tribune, March 10, 2015.)

A special sustainability task force of city residents has formed to address exactly what sustainability measures the development should feature and what goals it needs to meet.

However, despite criticism, many are still enthusiastic about the current project and think only minor tweaks to the project are necessary.

“It is my personal hope is that we can work with Community Builders and find something that will be acceptable to the broader community,” Fairchild-Soucy said.

on the Title Dreams

Water Woes

A water main break caused a boil alert for all of Oberlin.

Giants of Jazz John and Gerald Clayton gave a dynamic performance with OJE last Friday.

See page 2

See page 14

See page 10

INDEX:

Opinions 5

The men’s Ultimate Frisbee team has its eyes set on a Nationals bid.

This Week in Oberlin 8

Arts 10

Sports 16

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Feature Photo: SFP Protests Lina Khattab’s Conviction

The Oberlin Review, March 13, 2015

Speaker Explains Benefits of Online Classes Louis Krauss Staff Writer

Members of Students for a Free Palestine Kaela Sanborn-Hum, College senior, and College sophomore Kai Shinbrough prepare an exhibit in Mudd library on Monday protesting the imprisonment of Lina Khattab, an 18-year-old journalism student, activist and Palestinian who was arrested while attending a protest outside the Israeli Ofer Prison in the West Bank. Khattab was protesting on Dec. 13, marking the 47th anniversary of the founding of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, when she was arrested. She was later charged with “throwing stones” and “participating in an unlawful demonstration” by military prosecutors at Ofer Military Court. She was sentenced to six months in prison, three years’ probation and a $1,500 fine by an Israeli military court on Feb. 16.

According to the Palestinian activist website Samidoun and an SFP pamphlet about Khattab, the charges of “throwing stones” and “participating in an unlawful demonstration” are commonly used against young Palestinian activists.

College senior and SFP member Victoria Velasco said this action was an attempt to highlight injustices against Palestinian women.

“It’s important for Palestine solidarity groups to draw attention to violence against Palestinian women such as Lina Khattab and Rasmea Odeh,” Velasco wrote in an email to the Review. “While general news regarding Palestinian resistance is systemically silenced in U.S. mainstream media, that of women is particularly ignored even within

Palestine solidarity circles. On the campus of our elite liberal arts college, students are reluctant to engage with anything that reminds them of their own complicity in state violence, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere.”

On Monday, members of SFP rolled a wheelbarrow full of rocks into Mudd library — an action which inspired one onlooker to call Safety and Security — and, with the permission of the library, assembled a pile of rocks representing Khattab’s charges near the first floor entrance. A sign above the rocks and a pile of pamphlets described the purpose of the exhibition.

“Of course, one impetus for creating an installation like this was to raise a general awareness on campus about the injustice of Khattab’s imprisonment and the systematic injustice it represents, which many students may unfortunately be oblivious to if they are not directly involved in Palestine solidarity work,” wrote College senior and SFP member Jacob Ertel in an email to the Review.

“But we also wanted to demonstrate, on a visceral level, the ridiculousness of what Khattab was actually sentenced for: throwing rocks. The pile of stones forces the viewer [to] reckon with the power imbalance inherent in the occupation; there’s no way to normalize it.”

The exhibit was assembled for Israeli Apartheid Week, which ended March 12, and will be displayed until Monday, March 16.

Elizabeth Dobbins, News editor Photo courtesy of Victoria Velasco

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Michael Horn, the education director for the Clayton Christensen Institute, visited Oberlin yesterday to discuss his ideas for how small liberal arts schools can become more financially accessible by replacing lectures with online classes. Horn’s lecture was part of the Steering Committee’s Speaker Series, which brings in various education experts to talk about how Oberlin can improve.

In his work, Horn has focused on implementing what he calls disruptive education: the use of technology that is cheaper and simpler in order to help lower-income students get a good education. Horn believes that lecturebased classes that don’t engage students on a personal level can be eliminated and replaced by online classes. Horn also thinks online classes can help create more interesting curricula that incorporate different styles of learning.

“The notion that all learning has to come through lectures or something you read in a textbook is going away,” Horn said. “Now with new technology, you can make it come alive with simulation and gameplay and even tailor classes to each student’s style of learning.”

Recently, several schools, such as Arizona State University and Southern New Hampshire University, have made the switch to having separate programs that use online classes, which have helped reduce costs for students and universities by eliminating the need for lecture halls and accelerating students’ paths to their degrees. One example Horn gave was Southern

Oberlin Water Main Breaks Sarah Conner Staff Writer Water bottles filled the tables of Stevenson Dining Hall, the recesses of recycling cans and the minds of thirsty students after a pipe break placed the city under a boil alert from early Sunday morning until late Monday afternoon. The leak, located a quarter-mile north of state

Route 511, near the Oberlin High School softball field, came from a nearly 8-inch crack in a 10-inch main. The large size and inaccessible location of the leak caused the entire Oberlin city water system to depressurize.

Water Superintendent Jerry Hade said leaks aren’t unusual, but are normally small and caught quickly.

“We have a leak about

College seniors Rachel Grossman and Hope Kassen grab bottled water from a well in Stevenson Dining Hall as College senior Erin Amlicke restocks. A water main leak last Sunday forced the city of Oberlin to issue a boil advisory.

Effie Kline-Salamon

Julia Liv Combe Herbst Allegra RoseKirkland Stoloff Managing editor Samantha Taylor Field Link News editors Rosemary Oliver Boeglin Bok Elizabeth AlexDobbins Howard Opinions editor Will Kiley Rubenstein Petersen This Week Weekeditor editor Hazel Zoë Strassman Galloway Arts editors Danny Kara Brooks Evans Vida Georgia Weisblum Horn Sports editors Nate Quinn Levinson Hull Madeleine Tyler O’Meara Sloan Layout manager editors Sarah TiffanySnider Fung Layout editors Josh BenBlankfield Garfinkel Alanna AbigailSandoval Carlstad Photo editors Talia OliviaRodwin Gericke Photo editors Brannon Rockwell-Charland Mike Plotz Online editor Effie Alanna Kline-Salamon Bennett Editors-in-chief Editors-in-Chief

New Hampshire’s new competency-based program, which doesn’t let students move on from material until they’ve done well.

“As opposed to moving on based on the day of the week, now you move on when you master the material, meaning you actually learn it,” Horn said. “And if you already know it, you can pass out, so it makes for a much more affordable program for low-income students, and it makes sure students get the help they need to pass and understand it.”

In the case of Oberlin, Horn said that while online classes can help to add a greater variety of science classes, Oberlin shouldn’t stray from what makes it unique.

“A lot of universities want to be all things to all people, and it’s just a death spiral going down that road,” Horn said. “I think it’s important to be really clear in who you are and what your focus is; I think the Conservatory is one of the big assets that makes [Oberlin] special and should take priority to encompassing all science classes under the sun.”

With the addition of online classes, Horn believes that schools like Oberlin can become more accessible while also being more efficient.

“I saw in the Review about how the Steering Committee wants to raise revenue — well, how about controlling costs and lowering them so more people can afford the experience?” Horn said. “I think it’s great there’s more students on the Steering Committee now, and I hope by offering my ideas students can help make Oberlin more available to lower-income families and save money as well.”

Online editor CyrusCurtis Eosphoros Cook Savi Sedlacek Business manager Ian Campbell Reshard Ads manager Sarael-Shair Vaadia Production Sophia Bamert Production manager manager Alice Fine Production staff staff Stephanie Bonner Production Abbey Bisesi EmmaJulia Eisenberg Davis Taylor Field Lya Finston Katherine Hamilton Annelise Giseburt Julia Hubay Jennifer Jimenez Tracey Knott Joseph Kenshur Noah Morris OliviaPeckham Pandolfi Anna Kiley Sheffield Petersen Silvia Michael Swantek Drew Wise Antonia Distributors JoeChandler Camper Edmund Metzold Joseph Dilworth Talia Krehbiel-Boutis James Kuntz

15 times a year, and most of them go unnoticed,” Hade said. “If we have to go out and shut down an area, those [that do it] are really the only people that know because we put out notices. In this case, it drained our towers. The other 14 a year might come out on the street, or someone finds it right away. We valve it off and notify the people affected by Code Red.” Hade explained that the city is required to issue a boil alert any time the entire system is depressurized. Officials gathered several water samples from around the city, which were incubated for 24 hours to test for any biological waste. The samples tested clean, but the boil alert was still needed as a precautionary measure.

The last time the entire city went under a boil alert was in 2003. Since then, the same line has broken twice, See City, page 4

Corrections Corrections: The Review is notof aware of The Review is not aware any corrections any corrections this week. at this time.

The Review all The Review strivesstrives to printtoallprint information as information as accurately accurately as possible.

If you as feelpossible. the Review you feel Review made an to hasIfmade an the error, pleasehas send an email error, please send an e-mail to managingeditor@oberlinreview.org. managingeditor@oberlinreview.org.

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The Oberlin Review, March 13, 2015

Page 3

Off the Cuff: Susan Ackerman, professor of religion, Jewish studies and women’s and gender studies at Dartmouth College Susan Ackerman is the Preston H. Kelsey Professor of Religion as well as a professor in Jewish studies and women’s and gender studies at Dartmouth College. Ackerman is also president of the American Schools of Oriental Research.

She spent the past week at Oberlin giving three lectures that made up this year’s Haskell Lecture Series, a prestigious lectureship for the Religion department that was established in 1899. Ackerman has written books about a variety of topics, including When Heroes Love: The Ambiguity of Eros in the Stories of Gilgamesh and David, Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in SixthCentury Judah and Warrior, Dancer, Seductress and Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel. Ackerman specializes in the religious traditions of ancient Israel and its neighbors.

How do you approach using the Bible as a historical source?

My interests throughout most of my career — which you can probably tell from my gray hair has been a long one — has generally been the people or the religious behaviors that the biblical writers were either not interested in or actually didn’t like. For instance, my interest in women stems from [the fact that] the biblical writers just weren’t interested in women. It’s a very male-dominated document. … I’ve been interested also in religious behaviors that the biblical writers didn’t like. I drew mention last night that I had worked on child sacrifice, and not surprisingly, that’s not something the biblical writers were really fond of, so that’s why I’ve been interested in it. What that means in terms of my attitude towards the Bible is that I do take it as a historical source, and I take it as a product of ancient Israel between roughly 1000 and 200 BCE. But I’m always trying to read it with a grain of salt. If the biblical writers were interested in it, I’m always trying to read the undercurrents. If they were railing against it, I always try to think, “Well, why were people doing that?” I always try to read it against the grain.

In the lecture last night, you mentioned briefly that many female deities in ancient Israel were turned into male deities over time. What prompted that change?

I think certainly in the Israelite tradition, one of the things that leads to that is the notion that there’s only going to be one god; it’s going to

Thursday, March 5 12:29 a.m. Officers received a report of a disorderly student at the ’Sco. ’Sco attendants turned away the student because the venue was at full capacity and the student became upset. The individual left before the officers arrived.

10:09 p.m. Residents of Barrows Hall reported a strong odor consistent with burnt marijuana on the second floor. Officers contacted the occupants of the room, who admitted to smoking marijuana.

be the God of Israel, who they call Yahweh, and they understand that God is male. But they’re coming out of a world that’s completely polytheistic. So one of the things they have to do is somehow figure out how to take that polytheistic worldview with that large pantheon of deities and collapse it into monotheism. One of the ways they do that is take all the attributes that would have belonged to all the gods of a pantheon, and they assimilate them into that one male deity. And that’s how you get these occasional verses in the Bible that talk about Yahweh giving suck to his people or giving birth to his people. Those are very maternal goddess images, but if you only have one god, that god has to do it all.

Why were women thought of as the “guardians” against demons in pre-monotheistic Israelite religion?

I think it’s because guardian figures are by definition intermediary figures. You’re between the great gods and the human beings.

You’re between the supernatural world and the profane world. You’re by definition intermediary figures. And one of the ways we see this play out in ancient tradition is that if you don’t have women, one of the guardian figures you have are actually absolutely unambiguously intermediary. So you can have guardian figures that have the body of a bull and the head of a human and have wings. Is it a bird, a mammal or a human? It’s between all those things.

Women, I think, are read by the ancients as intermediary figures. I suspect for some of the ancients they’re not fully human, as fully human is male. But they’re certainly not gods.

So I think they function well in that kind of intermediary space because they themselves are read as intermediary figures.

You talked about how mirrors in the ancient Middle East were thought of as weapons to ward off demons, not just as a tool to see oneself. What other examples have you found in your career of objects that have a very different meaning to ancient peoples than they do for us?

In my last lecture, I’m going to talk about drums. And one of the things I’m going to argue is that they used drums in certain ways just as we use drums, in processions and things like that, but I’m going to argue that they also used drums as a way of scaring away demons. Demons have supersensitive hearing,

nations to explain why bad things happen. Demons is a very common one. Why is someone ill? Why are there sudden and unexplained deaths? In the ancient world, giving birth was an incredibly dangerous proposition for women. As many as one in two children may have died in childbirth or shortly afterwards. It was a dramatically perceived danger that your newborn child is going to be snatched away, and they, almost without exception, described that as snatched away by a demon.

Susan Ackerman, Preston H. Kelsey Professor of Religion and professor of Jewish studies and women’s and gender studies at Dartmouth College, who gave a series of talks earlier this week during the Haskell Lecture Series

and then if you bang on a drum repeatedly and really loudly, demons will run away.

The other way I’ve thought about this, which is not so much about objects, is to think about how emotional expressions are used in the Bible. To give you one example, in the Bible, with remarkably few exceptions, men love women but women are never said to love men. Women can love their children. God is said to love Israel, but Israel is actually never explicitly said to love God. And I suspect that the reason for all of this is that, whereas we think of love as [a] very mutual relationship, and a relationship between equals, and one that is mutually expressed between two loving partners, they thought of love hierarchically, as superiors love inferiors.

It seems like concepts of demons are pretty widely held in ancient religions. Do you have any thoughts on why that’s the case?

I think some of these are perfectly logical.

They do not have the repertoire of answers for explaining why bad things happen. Why do I have this horrible cold? Well, I can explain that I teach in a college community where students live in residence halls that are simply incubators of germs, and then they come into my office, and they generously and graciously share their germs with me, and I get this horrible cold. But the ancients don’t have germ theory, they don’t have that kind of explanation, so they have to resort to different kinds of expla-

Friday, March 6

Saturday, March 7

2:40 p.m. A student staff member reported finding a grill, charcoal and lighter fluid at a village housing unit on Elmwood Place during Life Safety inspection. The lighter fluid was confiscated and transported to the security office for disposal. The residents will be told to discard the grill and charcoal.

11:36 p.m. A student staff member reported a strong odor consistent with burnt marijuana on the second floor of Barrows Hall. The occupant of the room denied smoking marijuana and said the smell was incense. A bagged smoke detector was also observed in the room; the bag was removed.

8:38 a.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm on the second floor of Burton Hall. Smoke from burnt eggs triggered the alarm.

The area was ventilated, and the alarm was reset.

10:07 a.m. A student from a Woodland Street village housing unit requested assistance with cleaning fire extinguisher residue from the kitchen. The residue was a result of a small stovetop fire from the previous evening. Custodial staff was contacted to assist with cleanup.

9:22 p.m. A person attending a conference in the Williams Field House reported the theft of their

Do you think that this concept of demons has in any way influenced Judaism?

Sure. One of the places we most commonly see it is if we read the stories of one of the world’s most famous Jews, Jesus. Jesus is constantly excising demons from people who come to him begging to be healed. There’s very clearly a widespread belief in Jesus’ world that you’re inflicted with demons.

But I’ll tell you one that interests me that comes down into the modern period: If you go to a Jewish wedding, the very last event of a Jewish wedding is that the groom takes a wine glass and stomps it under his foot. It’s a great moment in the wedding, since it signals that that’s the end of the wedding and everyone applauds. If you ask the rabbi who’s officiating at the wedding, he’ll tell you that it’s because even though weddings are really joyful occasions, we want to remember some of the sad events of Jewish history, especially the destruction of the great Jewish temple that once stood in Jerusalem. Smashing the wine glass is a way of reminding ourselves of the sorrows of our past, even in the moment of our greatest happiness. It’s all very sweet, it’s very hokey — it’s just wrong. If you go back and look at medieval traditions where they write about smashing this glass, which they did, it’s because demons are greatly attracted to occasions of happiness.

Demons hate human happiness. So demons want to come screw up human happiness and show up in abundance at weddings because it’s a very happy moment for human beings. So how do you get rid of demons? Again, demons are scared of sudden loud noises, so if you smash a glass, the demon will flee. But to me it’s fascinating that that tradition carries down into modern Judaism without really anybody in the community understanding what the roots of that tradition are.

green iPhone 4s from under a bag in the Williams Field House.

9:49 p.m. A resident of the Goldsmith Apartments reported several students making noise and throwing bottles as they boarded a party bus. The bus was leaving the area as the officers arrived. Several beer bottles were observed on the ground, which were picked up by the student who issued the complaint.

9:59 p.m. A resident of Langston Hall reported locating a syringe near a trash can on the second floor. The syringe was collected and taken to Mercy Allen Hospital for disposal.

Sunday, March 8 10:20 a.m. An officer patrolling Peters Hall discovered that the

Interview by Oliver Bok, News editor Photo courtesy of Susan Ackerman

basement was flooded and could not enter.

Tuesday, March 10 5:16 p.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm in the basement of Peters Hall.

Blowers, which were being used to dry the basement, stirred drywall dust into the detector and activated the alarm. The alarm was reset.

6 p.m. A student staff member located several bottles of beer and other types of alcohol in a room in East Hall during Life Safety inspections. The bottles were confiscated and transported to the Safety and Security office.

News

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The Oberlin Review, March 13, 2015

OPD Offers Class to Educate Residents on Police Tactics Elizabeth Dobbins News Editor The Oberlin Police Department is currently accepting applications for this year’s Citizens Police Academy — a free 10-week program open to those interested in police procedures who also pass the required background check. The academy offers field trips, demonstrations and classes on topics ranging from detective work to canine teams to the 911 call center.

“We’re not training people to be police officers,” Lt. Mike McCloskey said. “We’re trying to give them a taste of what the job entails. Maybe gain a little mutual respect. It’s an opportunity to meet all the officers … in a less formal environment.”

McCloskey, like most officers in the OPD, is an instructor in the program and teaches the class on the use of force. In this class, students use a training simulator that produces scenarios

where students are required to quickly decide when and how much force to use.

“We give them a feel that making these decisions is sometimes difficult,” said McCloskey.

“You have to react in a split second, so it gives a little taste what the officers have to deal with.”

Oberlin Police Chief Tom Miller said he hopes the program will better educate the public about the responsibilities and decisions that make up police work.

However, so far only two people have signed up for the program — far less than the 10 to 12 participants the department needs to make the program viable, according to Miller. The department offers the Citizens Police Academy about every other year, but the program hasn’t run since 2011 due to a lack of community interest.

Miller said the department will make the decision whether or not to run the program by next week — about a week before Tuesday, March 24, the proposed start date.

Miller said he is surprised the academy hasn’t garnered more interest this year, given the current national conversation relating to police practices spurred by the deaths of Eric Garner and Mike Brown.

“I think with a lot of the national issues going on now, we thought this would be a good time to [run this class] if people had questions about police procedures,” he said.

Renee Romano, professor of History, Africana Studies and Comparative American Studies and panelist at the Faculty and Student Teach-In on Ferguson last semester, said this program is one of many Citizens Police Academies which have been offered around the nation for years. Romano feels these programs are clearly meant to promote police interests, but also offer insights into law enforcement perspectives for people challenging these institutions.

“My sense is what it might be effective at doing is giving people a sense of the police per-

spective on issues,” Romano said. “Now, if you can take that perspective, think about it deeply and critically, engage with it and then critique it, then it’s useful. I do think conversations between critiques of the police and policing, and police officers and their perspectives on issues, is actually important if we’re going to forge any kind of meaningful changes to practices.”

The Citizens Police Academy is one of several efforts that the Oberlin Police Department is making to engage with the community. Last November, officers began holding Coffee with a Cop on the first Friday of every month. Coffee with a Cop, a program started by the Hawthorne Police Department near Los Angeles in 2011 that quickly spread across the country, is a chance for members of the community to ask officers questions in an informal setting, according to Miller.

“We try to reach out to the community the best we can,” he said.

Administration Mulls Over Library Future, Budgeting Process Oliver Bok News Editor Discussions about the future of the Oberlin College library system are in full swing as the Strategic Planning Steering Committee makes longterm decisions for the institution as a whole.

According to members of the Library Committee, the administration may also be considering possible changes to the library system’s budgeting process, although it’s unclear what those changes would actually entail.

“The faculty Library Committee has heard of a change in budgeting approaches on the administrative level,” said Ann Sherif, professor of Japanese and chair of the Library Committee.

“What that actually means in terms of the library budget — we understand that conversations within the administration about any kind of new approaches to allocations and decision-making about the budget is undergoing discussion. Furthermore, in the trustees’ meeting this weekend, there will be additional discussion.

We’re anticipating further updates on that.”

In light of recent administrative discussions, Sherif stated that the Library Committee has emphasized to the administration how important it feels the

libraries are to Oberlin College.

“As stewards of the institution, the faculty Library Committee wants to ensure that this is a resource that the institution properly protects, and [one that] ensures the growth, health and sustainability of the libraries,” Sherif said.

According to Tim Elgren, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, no substantial changes to how the libraries operate are currently planned.

However, he also indicated that the libraries are not exempt from the Steering Committee’s purview and that the Committee could make major changes if it so chose.

“If we’re going to do [strategic planning] in an honest way, there’s no sacred ground,” Elgren said. “Everything has to be on the table, and in that sense, absolutely, the libraries are on the table. … But it’s not being singled out or focused on. Everything’s on the table.”

Last semester, Elgren asked science faculty members for their thoughts on the Science Library and whether small seminar classrooms would be a better use for what Elgren referred to as the “prime real estate” it currently occupies within the Science Center. Most of the science faculty responded with a desire for the Science Library to remain as is,

College senior Miranda Rutherford studies in the Science Library. Last semester, Tim Elgren, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, asked science faculty if a section of the Science Library could be better used as classroom space.

Evan Davies

and plans to turn at least part of it into classroom space were subsequently shelved.

Elgren also said that he hoped that the space could be made more “interactive” by moving books that are rarely checked out to off-site storage, although he also noted the lack of additional storage space currently available.

To Elgren, the rise of information technology will alter — and already has altered — the role of libraries in a fundamental way.

“The newest frontier here is tech-

Students Discuss Economic Justice Continued from page 1 and worked as a local kindergarten teacher at Eastwood Elementary School, attended the event.

According to Isaacson, the Community Organizing 101 workshop was created around the dictum “turn what you have into what you need to get what you want.”

“One of the things you’re going to need is power,” Isaacson said. “[If] you have people, how do you organize those people into power? … An action has to be an event that leads to a larger goal.

An action is a means to a larger end.”

Some of the weekend’s more highly attended meetings included Oberlin Young Educators’ Education Justice 101 event, the Prison Justice Workshop taught by College senior Kaela Sanborn-Hum and the Anti-Imperialism Workshop conducted by College seniors Victoria Velasco, Gian Parel and Khalil Habrih and College firstyear Thobeka Mnisi.

Sanborn-Hum got involved in the Weekend of Action after Quigley and College senior and SLAC member Jackson Kusiak approached her about teaching a workshop. She decided to focus the

workshop on the economic injustices regarding the prison industrial complex.

“Prison justice is deeply tied and connected to economic justice,” Sanborn-Hum said. “A lot of people talk about, or at least have heard about, the prison industrial complex, but do not necessarily know all of the ways that there are economics attached to it, institutionally and interpersonally.”

This workshop was one of three events that spoke directly about incarceration at the Weekend of Action.

While there currently aren’t any plans to host this event again, many participants expressed interest in another Weekend of Action, according to Quigley. Isaacson suggested a month-long series with different events taking place each weekend in order to increase attendance. Quigley hopes organizers can improve the event in future years by avoiding overlapping scheduling and gathering larger crowds from surrounding communities.

“I hope that other people take up the gauntlet next year and learn from all those mistakes and see what they can do to reach out to other colleges and communities,” Quigley said. “It definitely has potential to be much better than it was.”

nology,” Elgren said. When speaking to “a new vision for the libraries,” he said their new role could be “to use the front face of the library as a technology hub, to allow people and the librarians to be information-resource people for our community.”

Alison Ricker, science librarian, said in an email to the Review that she believes the Science Library is already a popular workspace for students.

“The library gathers ‘typical week’ statistics that are contributed to a national effort that gathers statistics on

academic library use,” Ricker said. “Recording the gate count (people count) at each campus library’s entrance is part of that project. Our typical week count for the last eight semesters, including spring 2015, has varied from 3978 to 5956 (this semester was 5599), which has been consistently higher than the Art or Conservatory Libraries for the same period, but not surprisingly significantly lower than traffic into Mudd.”

Another sign that the library system is entering a new era is the fact that longtime Director of Libraries Ray English will retire at the end of this year. According to Elgren, the College is going to hire a headhunter to find potential candidates, a practice the College regularly uses to fill top-level positions. Alan Boyd, the current associate director of libraries, will serve as the interim director.

Two library-related speakers will visit Oberlin in the next few weeks.

Michael Roy, the dean of the library at Middlebury College, will speak on March 20; James Michalko, vice president of the OCLC Research Library Partnership, has been invited by the Library Committee, the College Libraries, and the Office of the Deans of Arts and Sciences and the Conservatory to give a talk on April 22.

City-Issued Boil Advisory Forces Students to Drink Bottled Water Continued from page 2 but the city has responded quickly, allowing the leaks to go unnoticed by residents.

Hade said leaks like these highlight the importance of regularly replacing water mains.

“You’re always going to have leaks; that’s just part of the job,” Hade said. “But what we have been doing since I have been here is replacing water mains that are older or of high importance. We have been doing that to the tune of $350,000 a year. That is something we are proud of, and a lot of cities are not doing that, but in Oberlin, we are.”

The alert in 2003 occurred during a holiday weekend; students were concerned by the administration’s slow response and notification, according to an article written at the time, “Latest Water Crisis Bedevils College” (The Oberlin Review, April 25, 2003).

This time, the College responded to the incident by emailing students Sunday morning and shortly afterward placing signs near all sinks, drinking fountains and bathrooms.

“I think we handled this one really well, and I like to think that we learned from that experience in 2003,” said College President Marvin Krislov.

On Monday morning, ResEd placed water for students in all of the dorms and asked students in Village Housing to boil their own water. Stevenson Dining Hall stayed open for lunch and dinner, but served food on paper plates and placed out-of-order signs on the soda machines, distributing water bottles instead. OSCA students were given two meal swipes because the co-ops could not wash dishes or food under the boil advisory.

Several events were canceled and buildings closed, including Philips gym, which shut its doors for all of Sunday. On Monday, the gym reopened, and containers of water were placed in both the cardio area of the gym and the weight room. Only the grocery section of DeCafé was open on Sunday. The café portion did not reopen after the advisory was lifted Monday, and instead started functioning normally on Tuesday.

March 13, 2015

Opinions The Oberlin Review

Letter to the Editor

Faculty Approve of ’Sco Cancellation To the Editor:

In addressing the cancelation of the show by the band Viet Cong, we as scholars and teachers of Asian American studies wish to shed light on why, for some, this was not a benign matter. We hope to shift the tone and substance of discussion toward listening to and learning from one another, even in the face of disagreement over a highly charged issue.

For many, the Vietnam War brings to mind things like geopolitics, the antiwar movement, the ordeal of young GIs and films like Apocalypse Now. In the popular imagination, the Viet Cong — a communist organization that fought against the United States and its client regime in South Vietnam — registers variously as elusive enemies, courageous anti-imperialists, or — in the case of the band — something that sounds “cool.”

In Asian-American history, the Vietnam War has other meanings. The casualties do not merely revolve around the approximately 58,000 American lives lost but also the millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians who perished (about 4 million by some estimates). Racism is also one of the war’s legacies. Many Asian Americans, for instance, developed critiques of the U.S.’s involvement and behavior of its military as inherently chauvinistic and came to identify with the Vietnamese people as fellow “gooks.”

The Vietnam War and AsianAmerican history are, moreover, linked by the immigration of Southeast Asians from 1975 onward. In the last quarter of the

20th century, about 1 million people from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia entered the U.S. as refugees. Vietnamese Americans now number over 1.5 million.

Canada’s Vietnamese population numbers just over 150,000.

Their settlement, adjustment and contributions to life in North America are among the war’s reverberations.

Political and provocative band names are punk clichés, and no group has a proprietary claim over “Viet Cong.” While we might ascribe the band’s naming and remarks about it to innocuous ignorance, we find it harder to brush aside the tradition of racial appropriation that Viet Cong’s white members take for granted. In telling the origin story of their name, a member recalled his bandmate “shooting his bass like a gun,” to which he said, “All you need is a rice paddy hat and it would be so Viet Cong.” Acknowledging the complaints their name has generated, the bass player said that as Canadians, they had nothing to do with the war and then noted that the grievances came from “Vietnamese immigrants,” “Vietnamese Canadians” and “Vietnamese Americans,” eliciting giggles and a shrug.

Such blitheness, when experienced repeatedly, can be deeply alienating. This might be difficult to grasp, as Vietnamese Americans — and Asian Americans generally — hold a paradoxical place in the racial landscape where they are simultaneously “successful” and invisible. To illustrate, in 2014 the Bureau of Labor Statistics released numbers showing that Asian-American women were closer to closing the gender wage gap than white women. But also last year, a field experiment on college faculty responsiveness

to student requests for help revealed that Asian students elicited the lowest response rates, a bias that even surprised the researchers. This alienation is amplified for many Asian Americans when they are complimented on their “good English” and are constantly asked, “Where are you from?” More to the point, they inhabit a cultural system where stereotypes like the hapless nerd, kung-fu master and exotic, sexualized woman are the only signifiers of their existence. Frustration over these noxious representations are magnified when someone not from the community appropriates an aspect of Asian culture to appear edgy, reinforcing a schema where Asian cultural objects are valorized while people of Asian descent are reduced to crude stereotypes.

As members of the campus community we uphold free speech and artistic expression, even — indeed especially — when that speech or expression may be controversial. But we additionally note that the ritual condemnation of “political correctness” in these matters can also stifle speech by delegitimizing minority voices as unworthy of consideration in the public sphere. Thus, the efforts to call attention to the issues raised by Viet Cong’s event, as well as the dialogue that ensued, should be recognized for demanding something more of us all.

–Rick Baldoz Associate professor of Sociology –Shelley Lee Associate professor of History and Comparative American Studies –Harrod Suarez Assistant professor of English

SUBMISSIONS POLICY The Oberlin Review appreciates and welcomes letters to the editor 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.

The Review will not print advertisements on its Opinions pages. The Review defines an advertisement as any submission that has the main intent of bringing direct monetary gain to the author of a letter to the editors.

Opinions expressed in letters, columns, essays, cartoons or other Opinions pieces do not necessarily reflect those of the staff of the Review.

Page 5

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

Editors-in-Chief Julia Herbst Rose Stoloff Managing Editor Taylor Field Opinions Editor Kiley Petersen

International Women’s Day Fails to Recognize Global Diversity of Experiences Content warning: This editorial contains discussion of sexualized violence.

In a country with more CEOs named John than CEOs that are women, the need for an International Women’s Day is clear. This year’s event centered around the hashtags #MakeItHappen and #PaintItPurple to shed light on the broad topic of “gender equality … justice and dignity,” according to the IWD website. While this effort at uniting women across the globe under the umbrella of gender inequality is no doubt well-intentioned, International Women’s Day glosses over the intersecting factors that compound women’s inequality; race, class, religion, ethnicity, ability, sexual orientation and trans status all play into how women are treated.

Furthermore, safe buzzwords like “inequality” and “the wage gap” are thrown about almost to excess; meanwhile, words drawing attention to the institutional forces at play — including misogyny, patriarchy and white supremacy — are noticeably absent from popular rhetoric. Though these terms are very academic and easily ignored, their sentiment is important nonetheless.

The need for these sorts of conversations is dire, given the shaky grasp that many have on issues of gender equality. According to a 2010 Pew Research Center survey, 97 percent of Americans polled said that men and women should have equal rights, but only 64 percent of that group believed that the U.S. still needed to make changes to implement those equal rights. The phrasing “gender equality” is fairly undisputed; what is lacking is an understanding of what American gender inequality looks like. Simlarly, while 97 percent of Americans polled believe that women should be able to work outside the home, 25 percent believe that marriages are best when men are the primary breadwinners. This disconnect shows that though “workplace equality” is well-supported on the surface, the actual logistics of accomplishing it — more women in higher education, more women in the workplace in better-paying positions — are opposed at a far more fundamental level.

The overly simplistic branding of International Women’s Day on social media doesn’t do much to alleviate this issue. While raising awareness through #PaintItPurple, #womenyoushouldhaveheardof and spouting various statistics, IWD organizers glorify accomplished women who have transcended barriers while failing to examine both why those barriers exist in the first place and why they are so much harder to overcome for those less privileged.

Oft-touted statistics like the fact that (white, abled) women make 77 cents to every dollar (white, abled) men make are easy ways to recognize the wage gap. But the conversation too frequently ends there and fails to look critically at the reasons why women often work fewer hours or receive less pay in the first place. Only See Editorial, page 6 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.

Opinions

Page 6

The Oberlin Review, March 13, 2015

Student Activism Intimidating, Not Oppressive Ryan Murphy and Elly Higgins Contributing Writers In the Feb. 13 issue of The Oberlin Review, contributing writer James Tanford wrote an op-ed titled “Student Hypocrisy Part of Problem, Contributes to Injustice” on his problems with student activism. Before reading the op-ed, we hoped to find a criticism of the number of white bodies in activist spaces on this campus, or maybe the blatant cissexism that so often occurs in “feminist” organizing. Instead, we found a piece describing the thoughts of a cisgender white man who is made to feel “ostracized” and “irked” by those involved in social justice circles on campus. Never once does the author of this piece consider that people of color are ostra-

cized, either through microaggressions or obvious exclusion, from almost every social space at Oberlin.

The thesis of Tanford’s op-ed was basically that oppressors don’t view themselves as contributing to oppression. This is true.

We agree with this idea outside of the context of this piece. However, Tanford didn’t define “oppressors” as people with systemic power or privilege. He seems to speak of oppressors simply as people who are intimidating, specifically when it comes to expressing their political beliefs.

This point of view is what allows social justice movements to be dismissed as “extremist.” Intimidating direct action tactics are intimidating for a reason. There are no other options at this college, or in this country, when increasingly militarized state

violence continues to disproportionately target Black and trans lives. No matter how “peaceful” a protest is, it will be met with institutional resistance and violence from the law. One needs to look no further than the infamous pepper-spraying incident at UC Davis during the 2011 Occupy protests.

The “hypocrisy” that Tanford speaks of is, in reality, the fact that we are all culpable in oppression. The problem with injustice is that we live in a system that is designed to perpetuate it. Tanford specifically speaks of environmental justice. We throw things in the trash every day. That doesn’t mean that we don’t care about the environment; we all have to throw things in the trash, because that is the way disposable products are designed. This is why we are angry

at the system. We are angry that way that contributes to the op––––––––––––––––––––––––––– pression of another. Our ideology cannot always come out in This point of view is our practices, and this is why we are angry. what allows social Finally, we are most frustratjustice movements to be ed by Tanford’s assertion that dismissed as “extrem“nobody is part of the problem.”

Part of the problem is when a ist.” Intimidating direct cisgender white man polices the action tactics are intimiactions of marginalized students daing for a reason. There on this campus. Maybe nobody thinks that they are a part of the are no other options at problem. But even this is an obthis college, or in this jective truth that we don’t agree country when increaswith. Student protesters don’t ingly militarized state contribute to injustice by making a privileged person feel unviolence continues to comfortable or on the spot. This disproportionately tarisn’t about you. This is about a get Black and trans lives. system that listens to you more ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– than it listens to anybody else.

That’s why protesters are loud. we are forced to be “hypocrites” You will choose not to hear them and to sometimes act in such a if they are quiet.

Temperature Rise Over 50 Years More Dangerous Than It Sounds, Increase in Coral Bleaching Triggered by Heat Sophia Ottoni-Wilhelm Contributing Writer Climate data for 2014 reveal it was the warmest year in recorded history, with 1998 coming in at a close second. While it may not seem particularly consequential in the midst of a never-ending Oberlin winter, changes in global temperature are incredibly impactful to our planet. Geologists predict a 2 degrees Celsius increase in the Earth’s climate over the next 50 to 100 years, while environmentalists contend that this jump may occur in as few as 10. Regardless, the change puts our planet at risk.

Entire ecosystems, in particular coral reefs, face the possibility of extinction should the ocean become even slightly warmer. Reefs house anywhere from hundreds to thousands of diverse species, providing them with all the nutrition, shelter and safe nesting areas they need to thrive.

Coral structures are living animals with plants growing within. These plants house zooxanthellae — little photosynthetic algae that live on shallow, warm parts of the ocean floor, where there’s close access to the sunlight they use to generate 90 percent of the reef ’s metabolic needs.

When reefs experience stress, either in the form of temperature changes or nutrient loss caused by pollution, they expel their zooxanthellae, leaving the remaining plant tissue without a source of nourish-

ment. Without the usual intake of amino acids, glucose and glycerol, reefs can develop white patches and eventually die — a phenomenon known as coral bleaching. In 1998, the second hottest year in recorded history, coral bleaching occurred in reefs in 60 countries and island nations around the world. Corals in the Indian Ocean were especially hard-hit, with researchers on the Maldives and Andaman islands reporting that 70 percent of their reefs died in the year following the temperature spike. Nearly two decades later, many of the reefs affected have yet to show any sign of regrowth.

Yes, coral reefs can recover from bleaching and disease. Unfortunately, recovery is dependent on environmental stressors that probably will not be relieved as the global economy continues to tax the atmosphere and planet with ever-increasing ferocity.

College senior and Geology major Rachel Zuckerman is studying coral reefs for her honors thesis. She explained, “Globally, corals are producing half as much as they were in the ’70s. This can be attributed to increased sediment and nutrient input from land, ocean circulation and acidification, predominantly manmade processes. Reef systems have a dynamic geochemical process sensitive to temperature and chemical gradients. As our climate changes, we see these corals respond with bleaching, other forms of disease and death or decreased growth rates.”

Many geologists believe that last year’s temperature hike could prove more catastrophic to reef health than that of 1998.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

As coral reefs die out, humans lose a great deal of the natural shoreline protection provided by their structures and are left vulnerable to wave erosion and storm damage. Additionally, reefs provide livelihood and food for communities living nearby and have even played a role in the evolution of modern medicine.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Already this year warm water has been hitting reefs in the southern Pacific and Indian Oceans. In a Dec. 19, 2014 interview with The Guardian titled “Major Coral Bleaching in Pacific May Become Worst Die-Off in 20 Years, Say Experts,” Professor Ove HoeghGuldberg, a coral reef specialist from the University of Queensland, said, “Many coral reef scientists are expecting something similar to 1997–98 to unfold in the next six to twelve months.” Coordinator of the Coral Reef Watch Dr. Mark Eakin added, “[Due

to the circulatory wind pattern] El Niño, bleaching could continue until 2016 — lasting twice as long as the 1998 event.”

As coral reefs die out, humans lose a great deal of the natural shoreline protection provided by their structures and are left vulnerable to wave erosion and storm damage. Additionally, reefs provide livelihood and food for communities living nearby and have even played a role in the evolution of modern medicine. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported, “Coral reef plants and animals are important sources of new medicines being developed to treat cancer, arthritis, human bacterial infections, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, viruses and other diseases.”

Perhaps most importantly, coral reefs sequester CO2.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, “Before human-caused CO2 emissions began, the natural processes that make up the global ‘carbon cycle’ maintained a near balance between the uptake of CO2 and its release back to the atmosphere.” Coral reefs naturally sequester CO2 and, as they die out, the carbon cycle becomes unbalanced.

Educate yourself and others in your life about the dangerous effects climate change has on coral reefs and other vital ecosystems. Write to your politicians at a local and state level to ask them to consider investing in research, prevention and treatment plans for reefs before we lose them all for good.

Editorial: Feminist Conversations Must Avoid Reliance on Political Tropes Continued from page 5

cluding the global epidemic of

––––––––––––––––––––––––––– one in 25 of the major Standard & Poor’s 1,500 companies have a IWD organizers glorify woman as its CEO, and women accomplished women rarely take up more than one seat on corporate boards. We’ve who have transcended progressed far enough to rec- barriers while failing to ognize that an all-male board examine both why those looks bad, but it’s a rarity to find two or more women sitting barriers exist in the on the board of a large firm. As first place and why they long as prominent firms have are so much harder to one woman and one person of color in a senior position, they overcome for those less seem to be safe from criticism. priviledged.

Of course, many of the prob––––––––––––––––––––––––––– lems that IWD seeks to address go beyond the tokenization of sexualized violence. However, women in the boardroom, in- it’s crucial to be intentional in

the way in which these conversations take place. On the international level, Western countries often address and acknowledge violence against women as a problem that is more widespread outside their own borders. American politicians are quick to lament the atrocity of using rape as a weapon of war in countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Rwanda, and rightfully so. But condemning the human rights violations of other countries creates the wrong perception that violence against women is not also an American problem. Sexualized violence is as American as apple pie, and

like in many non-Western countries, it is used as a tool to oppress marginalized groups, including women and nonbinary people. The difference is that sexualized violence in America doesn’t usually happen systematically, and it rarely follows the “stranger in a dark alley” trope that most associate with rape and sexual assault. But IWD’s generalization of sexual assault ignores the fact that most rapes occur between two people who know each other well.

International Women’s Day can and should be a productive time to reflect on the accomplishments of women throughout history and the progress we

have made. But its focus is only surface-level and undermines the very real struggles that women encounter day to day, both in the United States and abroad. Misogyny is ubiquitous, but it looks different in varying geographic and demographic contexts. To be successful, International Women’s Day needs to move away from the safe political tropes it touts about the need for equal pay and women in positions of power to an emphasis on the intersecting systems of oppression that create barriers for women across the globe.

Opinions

The Oberlin Review, March 13, 2015

Page 7

Watergate Reveals Disparities in Urban, Rural Communities

Just Ask Us: Avoid Midterms Stress

Kiley Petersen Opinions Editor

Jolie De Feis and Mike Plotz Columnists

From the way students reacted to the water boil alert that went into effect early Sunday morning on March 8, you would think the apocalypse had begun. Playfully dubbed “Watergate 2k15,” the citywide lack of water affected students and residents alike until the boil alert was lifted Monday evening. In less than 48 hours, the city was back in operating mode, with College facilities like OSCA, Stevenson Hall and DeCafé returning to regularly functioning schedules very soon after. As I wandered around campus on Sunday and Monday, however, most students were complaining about the lack of clean water, only being allowed one plastic water bottle and unable to take a shower. The thirst was real, which is understandable, because you don’t appreciate how necessary something as basic as water is until it’s gone, but it’s the selfishness and ignorance of the student body that shocked me. I wouldn’t

have expected, on a campus that prides and sells itself on its commitment to social and environmental justice, domestic and abroad, that so many students would be uninformed about both the College-community relationship and water usage in developing countries.

One of the main complaints I heard was that, since we were paying $60,000 a year to attend this institution, the least the school should do is provide us with clean water and other basic amenities. While I agree with the fact that the College could definitely improve on dorm infrastructure — the popularity of the Oberlin Jank Facebook page underscores this — the College is not in charge of the water utilities.

That’s the city’s responsibility, and no matter how much Oberlin strives to symbolically call itself a city in a vain attempt to appear more important, the reality is that Oberlin College and Conservatory is in the middle of the rural Rust Belt.

When the demographic of the student body is mostly urban, upper-middle-class and white,

Machmud Makhmudov and Megs Bautista Student Senate Liaisons Student Senate has started off the semester diligently working on making the grass visible again; we’re glad to say that we’ve finally succeeded. You’re welcome.

This rapid improvement in our efficiency is in no small part due to the election of seven new senators — all of whom were chosen in an election that saw the highest level of voter participation since the 2010–2011 school year.

While we are thrilled about this tremendous spike in voter participation, we must recognize the relationship between this spike and the immensely talented and diverse pool of candidates who ran for Student Senate this semester. We are proud to share that Senators and College first-years Arianna Crawford and Deborah Johnson, College junior Rachel Weinstein and College senior Molly Brand join Senator Megs Bautista, College senior, and College first-year Anjali Kolachalam, increasing the representation of cis women on Senate from 13.3–20 percent (shout out to de facto Senator and College junior Sara Ebb) to 40 percent this semester. Additionally, Senators College junior Darrell Davis and College sophomore Peace Iyiewuare join Senators and College junior Machmud Makhmudov, Bautista and Kolachalam, increasing representation of people of color on Senate from 20 percent to 46.6 percent. When compared to last semester’s Senate, in which 10 seats were filled by white cis men, the spring 2015 Senate is a marked improvement in terms of tradi-

plunking students into a tiny, rural Midwest town is bound to produce some disparity in amenities. The Oberlin Water Division maintains 40 miles of pipeline that bring 2.25 million gallons of water a day to almost 3,000 residences and businesses. While it’s not the massive water projects managed by NYC or LA, I think that’s a pretty impressive statistic, especially when you consider the harsh weather this winter and the crumbling infrastructure that the city is dealing with.

Even more telling is the lack of knowledge or sympathy with water quality around the world.

It’s such a First World problem that we freak out about two days with no tap water, despite plenty of bottled water available in Stevie and jugs of water in several dorms, when there are parts of the world that never have safe drinking water.

The story in Oberlin would be different if we had no water for two days. Feel free to call me on over-reacting, but I think it’s bullshit how annoyed the student body was by a slight inconvenience that lasted less than

tionally under-represented groups assuming positions of leadership on Senate.

In addition to the seven new senators, six new representatives for the Strategic Planning Steering Committee were chosen as well, three through the election and three through Senate appointments.

Similarily to Senate, we saw the election of three Black cis women to the Strategic Planning Steering Committee through the student election process. We agree with the student body that the students elected — College junior Sophie Umazi Mvurya, College first-year Nina Pulley and College sophomore Jasmine Anderson — will illuminate some of the issues low-income students and students of color are concerned about, as well as bring added energy, passion, creativity and dynamic critical analysis to the Committee. Additionally, College sophomore Sarah Minion and College junior Avalon McKee increase the representation of cis women on the Steering Committee. We look forward to working with the student body and members of the Steering Committee to ensure that the College’s planning process is transparent and inclusive.

Senators held a forum last semester and heard student concerns over the lack of College-provided meals during fall and spring breaks and then spoke with local church leaders who expressed an interest in helping feed students. College administrators from the President’s Office of Government and Community Relations responded by organizing free breakfasts, lunches and dinners with local churches for this spring break as a pilot meal program. Please visit our website to see the

48 hours. I saw little to no discussion of the drought in California or the water shortage in São Paulo. According to Water. org, there are 9 million individuals without access to water in all of North America, Europe and Australia (including Russia and New Zealand), while there are 36 million without access in Central and South America and the Caribbean; 180 million in the Middle East and South and Central Asia; 186 million in East and Southeast Asia and Oceania; and a whopping 358 million in Africa.

Hopefully the lifting of the boil alert will turn students’ focus from their own water problems to those in developing nations and even in the U.S., where rural communities have less consistent access to clean drinking water. In the meantime, Oberlin: Take a shower.

Drink some clean water. Realize how lucky you are, because while the phrase “check your privilege” gets thrown out a lot, I think we often forget the privilege we hold as students, especially when compared to the surrounding community.

full schedule.

The Transparency Working Group is currently working on expanding resources for students to learn about processes, policy-making and decisions within Oberlin.

We also continue to be committed to facilitating fact-finding and other inquiries on the part of students. Please contact Senator and College junior Ben Libbey if you’re interested in contributing.

The Bylaw Revisions Working Group will be, unsurprisingly, working on revising the Senate bylaws. So far, we have brainstormed glaring issues to address as we come to them and gone through Section 1 of the bylaws, which focuses on the election process. We plan on bringing forward our ideas for revisions every week for general approval of the Senate. Please contact Senator and College sophomore Cory Ventresca if you’d like more information.

The Student Support Working Group is focusing on the new Student Support Initiative Fund established by the Board of Trustees Chair Clyde McGregor; the $500,000 commitment to the fund has been designated for “at-risk” students. The Student Support Working Group is organizing a forum after spring break to gather input and hear testimony primarily from students who fall under the umbrella cast by the administration of “at-risk” — lowincome and Pell-elligible students, students of color, first-generation students, nonbinary and gender non-conforming students, disabled students and cis women.

Please see us during our plenary sessions on Sundays at 7 p.m. in Wilder 115.

You’re stressed. We get it; you’re an Oberlin student (or alumnum, or prospie, or professor, or townsperson, or random internet surfer who was searching for “views in Berlin” and stumbled upon our little website), life is hard and, according to my great-uncle, it’s all downhill from here.

Sorry. But, that’s why, as you get older, you have to learn to enjoy the little things in life. And let us tell you, the littler the better! Have you ever seen a 90-year-old blow bubbles? It’s fucking magical.

We know you’re thinking that there are no “little things” in Oberlin, but that’s where you are wrong.

We believe that there are plenty of bubble-blowing 90-year-old equivalents here in Oberlin — it might just take some investigating to find them. As usual, here at Just Ask Us and We’ll Tell Ya, we did all of the cutting-edge research so that you don’t have to.

We found a number of wonderful ideas to help you get over midterms stress, and we’re so nice that we are willing to share them with you for free.

We believe stress relief doesn’t have to come in the form of a fancy spa trip or overpriced DeCafé chocolate — as Kanye says, “The best things in life are free.” In reverse order, here are the activities that will relieve the most stress per minute spent.

1. Get The Oberlin Review to pay for your trip to Sky Zone. This was a doozy of a task but was worth every second. Sky Zone is undeniably the most fun place in Northeast Ohio. Even more fun than counting dead fish on the Lake Erie shore (22 last Commencement). Let us save you the time though; the editors at the Review do not want you to have fun and do not want to subsidize your trip to Sky Zone. We say the folks at the Review are a little too responsible with their money. You’ll have better luck trying to free a ferret from a glue trap — yuck.

2. The good news is that there is virtually a trampoline in your backyard. No, it doesn’t have a foam pit or a basketball court or give you socks to take home, but it gets the job done. Burn off those stress pizzas you’ve been eating on Krislov’s trampoline! Jolie and Mike made an appointment with Krislov, headed there at our agreed-upon time, and boy, did we have fun. If you don’t believe us, just check our Facebook or the online version of this article, where we are allowed to post pictures.

Sure, the trampoline was covered in ice and Mike cut his foot, but man oh man was it nice when we got our cold toes back inside our shoes. For added fun, try pouring hot cocoa on your feet directly after landing on sharp ice. If you do this, please send us a picture.

3. Visit the Oberlin Macintosh Museum. That’s right, it’s finally opened. Take it from us, this is unironically the coolest place in Oberlin. In fact, it’s so cool, we’re not even going to tell you where it is. That’s right, as an added fun bonus, you can now go on your very own stress-relieving investigative adventure. You might not even have to leave Mudd! Where else can you see an original Oscorp computer? Or a letter written in 1982 begging Oberlin to buy a few computers, explaining their merits and importance? This place is great, and we’ll sure be there next week. Hopefully you can join us.

Whew, we had so much fun writing this — our very own form of stress relief. When we graduate (and not a day before), you might consider asking The Oberlin Review for a regular column, so that every two weeks you are given a new deadline, receive lots of emails and have to coordinate on a group project. It’s the best and never stressful. We’d like to send an extra special shoutout to our main man Krislov. Thanks for responding to our email so promptly and giving us permission to use your trampoline. May everyone who uses it ask permission first. Happy midterms, students. Before you leave for spring break, make sure to check if your destination has a Sky Zone — they’re all over the country. Jolie and Editor-in-Chief Rose Stoloff went to the one in Las Vegas and give it five stars.

Location: Oberlin Public Library Created by Laura Dahle, James Peake and other local artists Installed June 21, 2014 Despite its permanent appearance, this mural is actually created in chalk and remade every year during the city’s annual Chalk Walk. Last June, local artists decided to make the wall a tribute to poet and author Maya Angelou after her death in May; it features drawings of Angelou’s and quotes from her works.

After the chalk work was done, the creators sprayed it with a fixative to preserve it until it is remade next June.

Maya Angelou Mural

OUTDOOR ... at the Allen

Location: Allen Memorial Art Museum Grounds Created by Claes Oldenburg Installed 1970 This unusual addition to the Allen’s collection was one of a series of three identical 3.5-ton bronze pieces fabricated in Connecticut by Claes Oldenberg, a Swedish-born sculptor. Oldenburg had experimented with a number of different versions of the

Untitled

same idea by the time he created the Oberlin piece, including hard and soft plugs suspended from above with prongs pointing down. The plug was originally positioned to point west toward Tappan Square to symbolically connect the arts to the rest of campus, although it was later relocated to the hillside between the Allen and Hall Auditorium, with the prongs facing the new art building.

Location: Allen Memorial Art Museum Grounds Created by Robert Morris Installed 1970 This piece is perhaps too minimalist for some, with many students mistaking the work of art for a component of the building’s heating or air conditioning system. Three years prior to the sculpture’s completion, Robert Morris, a prominent artist and sculptor in the minimalism movement, wrote of his elimination of the personal and relatable in his works.

“The sensuous object, resplendent with compressed internal relations, had to be rejected,” said Morris. The piece was industrially produced in St. Paul, MN, in 1969 and installed in Oberlin the following year.

The sculpture acquires new dimensions when sunlight and other elements of the environment interact with the otherwise sterile, industrial forms.

Bound Tetrahedron

Giant Three-Way Plug

Location: Science Center Created by Roger Berry Installed 2009 This familiar sight is actually a recent addition to campus, installed just six years ago. The sculptor, Roger Berry, digitally designed the work using AutoCAD software to reflect a reinterpretation of the regular four-sided figure as an integral element in many sciences. When Berry was approached with the idea of creating a sculpture connected to the sciences, he initially expressed hesitation at the idea of covering such a broad topic in one work of art. “I began to look for ideas that might more generally connect to the sciences,” Berry said (The Source, “New Sculpture Combines Art and Science,” Nov. 18, 2009). “The tetrahedron is a basic structure in science — a basic building block — and I wanted to use it to relate to the field of science in a very literal way.”

Although it was designed digitally, Berry welded the piece together manually in his California studio out of 48 pieces of silicon bronze. This material was intentionally chosen to evolve in response to Oberlin’s weather and environment.

ART

in Oberlin

Underground Railroad

Giles Shurtleff

Location: Outside Talcott Hall Created by Cameron Armstrong Installed 1977 This literal underground railroad, intended as a commemoration of the figurative one that played a role in Oberlin’s early abolitionist history, was the brainchild of sculpture major Cameron Armstrong, a 1977 College senior. After spending six months clearing bureaucratic barriers, Armstrong spent $700 of his own money to purchase the rails as scrap from the Penn Central Railroad and hire a backhoe.

The sculpture was originally intended to be a oneyear installation, until the class of 1977 intervened by making the piece its class gift to future generations of Obies. “Some people in the College administration didn’t want it to be permanent,” Armstrong said (Chronicle-Telegram, “OC sculpture honors underground railroad,” June 22, 1977). “But using it as the class gift pretty much assures it will stay up.”

The 18.5 feet of iron rail and heavy wooden ties emerging incongruously from the lawn outside Talcott Hall achieves Armstrong’s desired effect.

“What I did was change the necessary relationship between the railway and the horizon,” Armstrong said. “The tracks must be on the horizon to work. But if you twist that, neither the horizon or the railway can be experienced or seen as they normally are.”

“Underground Railroad” creator and then-College senior Cameron Armstrong seated on his piece in 1977.

Location: South Professor Street and Morgan Street Created by Emily Peck Installed 1911 Just two years after his graduation from the College, Giles Shurtleff was one of about 850 Oberlin residents to take up arms in the Civil War. Although only whites were permitted to hold rank in the Union army, Shurtleff led a company known as the “Monroe Rifles,” consisting largely of Black residents and students from Oberlin, to battles and campaigns as distant as Virginia. After a war career that included a year spent travel-

ing between Confederate prisons, Shurtleff returned to Oberlin to marry and continue his academic career.

At the age of 59, 36 years after he left for war, Shurtleff posed for a statue that was originally to include a figure of a freed Black man kneeling to accept a gun from Shurtleff. However, when it was finally cast into its final form in 1911, the artist’s vision was altered.

Shurtleff now stands alone, a scroll grasped instead in his outstretched hand. Although the statue looks small on its pedestal in front of the house historically owned by the Shurtleff family, his portrayal is life-sized.

Behind the Oberlin Bookstore Created by Sarresa Renée, Emily Ballardo, Darius Mitchell, Josh Wallace, Calvio Socklet, Nanette YannuralMacias, Ariel Spotts, Addie Rolnicks, Sophia Strandberg, Iman Meller, Jonia Romane, Mary Reed, Cara Romano Installed 1996

... and around town This Week editor: Hazel Galloway

Contributing Writer: Olivia Konuk

Oberlin Opera Theater: La Finta Giardiniera Friday, March 13, 8–11 p.m.

Hall Auditorium

PlayFest Symposium Events starting on Friday, March 13, 3 p.m.

Bibbins Hall, TIMARA Studios

Art Therapy Saturday, March 14, 12–4 p.m.

Allen Memorial Art Museum, East Gallery

Billy Hart Quartet Saturday, March 14, 8–10 p.m.

Finney Chapel

Silk Screen Study Break Sunday, March 15, 3–6 p.m.

Wilder Hall, Main Lounge

Senior Recital: Julia Herbst Sunday, March 15, 8 p.m.

The Cat in the Cream

Double-degree juniors Max Bessesen, playing alto saxophone, and Jordan McBride, on double bass, will fill the Cat with an eclectic mix of jazz.

Selections include the classic You Are My Sunshine, Jimmy McHugh’s On the Sunny Side of the Street and six original compositions.

The twisting plotline of this opera follows the jealous stabbing of the Marchioness Violante Onesti by her lover to their eventual reunion and reconciliation. The opera was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the age of 18 and has been performed in theaters for over two centuries.

This two-day festival features workshops, artist talks, video screenings and performances by artists and musicians from around the world, focusing on ideas and creative expressions of play. Musicians will explore those same ideas with concerts held each evening of the symposium. See the online events calendar for a full schedule.

The student docents and staff at the Allen will host an afternoon of zine-making, string art, collagemaking and watercolor. The event is free and open to families, community members and students; it aims to help build community, along with relieving midterms stress and creatively celebrating the end of Oberlin’s long winters.

This jazz group, fronted by legendary drummer and Associate Professor of Jazz Percussion Billy Hart, will take the Finney stage on Saturday evening.

Hart, 74, continues to record, perform and teach extensively at various institutions. He will offer a master class on Saturday, March 14 from 12–2 p.m.

The Oberlin Apparel Collective will host a silkscreening workshop for those with all levels of screen printing experience. Organizers are providing shirts, snacks and drinks for a $7 entry fee.

RSVP to the event for a chance to win free clothing from the Apparel Collective.

Graduating fifth-year and Review Editor-inChief Julia Herbst will perform a mix of jazz and classical selections on the double bass, ranging from Bach to Leonard Bernstein to Chick Corea.

Some of the selections will be performed solo.

CALENDAR

Junior Recital: Max Bessesen and Jordan McBride Friday, March 13, 8 p.m.

The Cat in the Cream

Location: Oberlin Public Library Created by Laura Dahle, James Peake and other local artists Installed June 21, 2014 Despite its permanent appearance, this mural is actually created in chalk and remade every year during the city’s annual Chalk Walk. Last June, local artists decided to make the wall a tribute to poet and author Maya Angelou after her death in May; it features drawings of Angelou’s and quotes from her works.

After the chalk work was done, the creators sprayed it with a fixative to preserve it until it is remade next June.

Maya Angelou Mural

OUTDOOR ... at the Allen

Location: Allen Memorial Art Museum Grounds Created by Claes Oldenburg Installed 1970 This unusual addition to the Allen’s collection was one of a series of three identical 3.5-ton bronze pieces fabricated in Connecticut by Claes Oldenberg, a Swedish-born sculptor. Oldenburg had experimented with a number of different versions of the

Untitled

same idea by the time he created the Oberlin piece, including hard and soft plugs suspended from above with prongs pointing down. The plug was originally positioned to point west toward Tappan Square to symbolically connect the arts to the rest of campus, although it was later relocated to the hillside between the Allen and Hall Auditorium, with the prongs facing the new art building.

Location: Allen Memorial Art Museum Grounds Created by Robert Morris Installed 1970 This piece is perhaps too minimalist for some, with many students mistaking the work of art for a component of the building’s heating or air conditioning system. Three years prior to the sculpture’s completion, Robert Morris, a prominent artist and sculptor in the minimalism movement, wrote of his elimination of the personal and relatable in his works.

“The sensuous object, resplendent with compressed internal relations, had to be rejected,” said Morris. The piece was industrially produced in St. Paul, MN, in 1969 and installed in Oberlin the following year.

The sculpture acquires new dimensions when sunlight and other elements of the environment interact with the otherwise sterile, industrial forms.

Bound Tetrahedron

Giant Three-Way Plug

Location: Science Center Created by Roger Berry Installed 2009 This familiar sight is actually a recent addition to campus, installed just six years ago. The sculptor, Roger Berry, digitally designed the work using AutoCAD software to reflect a reinterpretation of the regular four-sided figure as an integral element in many sciences. When Berry was approached with the idea of creating a sculpture connected to the sciences, he initially expressed hesitation at the idea of covering such a broad topic in one work of art. “I began to look for ideas that might more generally connect to the sciences,” Berry said (The Source, “New Sculpture Combines Art and Science,” Nov. 18, 2009). “The tetrahedron is a basic structure in science — a basic building block — and I wanted to use it to relate to the field of science in a very literal way.”

Although it was designed digitally, Berry welded the piece together manually in his California studio out of 48 pieces of silicon bronze. This material was intentionally chosen to evolve in response to Oberlin’s weather and environment.

ART

in Oberlin

Underground Railroad

Giles Shurtleff

Location: Outside Talcott Hall Created by Cameron Armstrong Installed 1977 This literal underground railroad, intended as a commemoration of the figurative one that played a role in Oberlin’s early abolitionist history, was the brainchild of sculpture major Cameron Armstrong, a 1977 College senior. After spending six months clearing bureaucratic barriers, Armstrong spent $700 of his own money to purchase the rails as scrap from the Penn Central Railroad and hire a backhoe.

The sculpture was originally intended to be a oneyear installation, until the class of 1977 intervened by making the piece its class gift to future generations of Obies. “Some people in the College administration didn’t want it to be permanent,” Armstrong said (Chronicle-Telegram, “OC sculpture honors underground railroad,” June 22, 1977). “But using it as the class gift pretty much assures it will stay up.”

The 18.5 feet of iron rail and heavy wooden ties emerging incongruously from the lawn outside Talcott Hall achieves Armstrong’s desired effect.

“What I did was change the necessary relationship between the railway and the horizon,” Armstrong said. “The tracks must be on the horizon to work. But if you twist that, neither the horizon or the railway can be experienced or seen as they normally are.”

“Underground Railroad” creator and then-College senior Cameron Armstrong seated on his piece in 1977.

Location: South Professor Street and Morgan Street Created by Emily Peck Installed 1911 Just two years after his graduation from the College, Giles Shurtleff was one of about 850 Oberlin residents to take up arms in the Civil War. Although only whites were permitted to hold rank in the Union army, Shurtleff led a company known as the “Monroe Rifles,” consisting largely of Black residents and students from Oberlin, to battles and campaigns as distant as Virginia. After a war career that included a year spent travel-

ing between Confederate prisons, Shurtleff returned to Oberlin to marry and continue his academic career.

At the age of 59, 36 years after he left for war, Shurtleff posed for a statue that was originally to include a figure of a freed Black man kneeling to accept a gun from Shurtleff. However, when it was finally cast into its final form in 1911, the artist’s vision was altered.

Shurtleff now stands alone, a scroll grasped instead in his outstretched hand. Although the statue looks small on its pedestal in front of the house historically owned by the Shurtleff family, his portrayal is life-sized.

Behind the Oberlin Bookstore Created by Sarresa Renée, Emily Ballardo, Darius Mitchell, Josh Wallace, Calvio Socklet, Nanette YannuralMacias, Ariel Spotts, Addie Rolnicks, Sophia Strandberg, Iman Meller, Jonia Romane, Mary Reed, Cara Romano Installed 1996

... and around town This Week editor: Hazel Galloway

Contributing Writer: Olivia Konuk

Oberlin Opera Theater: La Finta Giardiniera Friday, March 13, 8–11 p.m.

Hall Auditorium

PlayFest Symposium Events starting on Friday, March 13, 3 p.m.

Bibbins Hall, TIMARA Studios

Art Therapy Saturday, March 14, 12–4 p.m.

Allen Memorial Art Museum, East Gallery

Billy Hart Quartet Saturday, March 14, 8–10 p.m.

Finney Chapel

Silk Screen Study Break Sunday, March 15, 3–6 p.m.

Wilder Hall, Main Lounge

Senior Recital: Julia Herbst Sunday, March 15, 8 p.m.

The Cat in the Cream

Double-degree juniors Max Bessesen, playing alto saxophone, and Jordan McBride, on double bass, will fill the Cat with an eclectic mix of jazz.

Selections include the classic You Are My Sunshine, Jimmy McHugh’s On the Sunny Side of the Street and six original compositions.

The twisting plotline of this opera follows the jealous stabbing of the Marchioness Violante Onesti by her lover to their eventual reunion and reconciliation. The opera was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the age of 18 and has been performed in theaters for over two centuries.

This two-day festival features workshops, artist talks, video screenings and performances by artists and musicians from around the world, focusing on ideas and creative expressions of play. Musicians will explore those same ideas with concerts held each evening of the symposium. See the online events calendar for a full schedule.

The student docents and staff at the Allen will host an afternoon of zine-making, string art, collagemaking and watercolor. The event is free and open to families, community members and students; it aims to help build community, along with relieving midterms stress and creatively celebrating the end of Oberlin’s long winters.

This jazz group, fronted by legendary drummer and Associate Professor of Jazz Percussion Billy Hart, will take the Finney stage on Saturday evening.

Hart, 74, continues to record, perform and teach extensively at various institutions. He will offer a master class on Saturday, March 14 from 12–2 p.m.

The Oberlin Apparel Collective will host a silkscreening workshop for those with all levels of screen printing experience. Organizers are providing shirts, snacks and drinks for a $7 entry fee.

RSVP to the event for a chance to win free clothing from the Apparel Collective.

Graduating fifth-year and Review Editor-inChief Julia Herbst will perform a mix of jazz and classical selections on the double bass, ranging from Bach to Leonard Bernstein to Chick Corea.

Some of the selections will be performed solo.

CALENDAR

Junior Recital: Max Bessesen and Jordan McBride Friday, March 13, 8 p.m.

The Cat in the Cream

Arts The Oberlin Review

Page 10

March 13, 2015

Claytons Add Spark to Strong OJE Concert Vida Weisblum Arts Editor

greater understanding of the passion behind Oberlin’s uniquely spectacular jazz scene.

Before playing a note, Clayton introduced himself and the musicians on stage to the audience.

The band sat awaiting its performance while sitting behind an array of old-school Oberlin Jazz Ensemble signs. Their first number, titled “Easy Money,”

John Clayton must be a magician. There is no other way to explain the effortless precision with which the jazz icon played his mesmerizing bass solos at the Oberlin Jazz Ensemble concert last Friday evening. After being introduced to the audience at Finney Chapel by ensemble director Dennis Reynolds, Clayton — ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– clad in a peach button-down and matching tie patterned with im- Conservatory jazz ages of basses — appeared from aficionados seemed to behind a black blockade. With a rediscover their love genuine grin slapped across his face, he stepped through a band of jazz and even jazz of dapper jazz students with his newbies among the bass in tow, winking at pianist crowd were guaranteed and Conservatory sophomore, to walk away with a Noah Sanderson. Clayton’s demeanor was gleeful and inspired greater understanding a light-hearted atmosphere for of the passion behind everyone present, including the Oberlin’s uniquely specOJE musicians.

As expected, Clayton stole tacular jazz scene. the show. Conservatory jazz afi- ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– cionados seemed to rediscover their love of jazz, and even jazz provided a jolt of energy that the newbies among the crowd were musicians constantly renewed guaranteed to walk away with a throughout the evening. The first

Jazz legend John Clayton conducts musicians in the Oberlin Jazz Ensemble. John and his son Gerald Clayton performed a riveting set of jazz standards at Finney last Friday.

Bryan Rubin

soloist of the concert, trombonist and Conservatory junior Lawrence Galloway, appeared visibly excited to perform as he glided toward the microphone wearing a purple button-down shirt. After

Feature Photo: La finta giardiniera

Conservatory senior Rosie Kearin as Sandrina and an unidentified rabbit gesture toward a captivated audience. The Oberlin Opera Theater delivered a rendition of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera La finta giardiniera Wednesday night. Showgoers received the performance positively, guffawing at its characteristic off-kilter humor. Conservatory junior Juliana Zara, who played Arminda, said the cast grew close during the opera’s production cycle. The Oberlin Opera Theater will perform La finta giardiniera, which Mozart composed at just 18 years old, again tonight at 8 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m in Hall Auditorium.

Courtesy of Yevhen Gulenko

his energetic opening, doubledegree sophomore and clarinetist Mel Maetzener delivered an equally stirring solo. The piece was driven by Conservatory sophomore and drummer Elena Conn, whose powerful playing helped maintain the piece’s intensity.

Following their debut song, a quartet of musicians performed “Locutus,” composed by doubledegree fifth-year Nathan Swedlow, who won a Jazz departmental composition competition.

Featured on Swedlow’s piece was professional pianist and “someone [ John Clayton] has known for their entire life” — Gerald Clayton, John Clayton’s son. With such a young face and hip attire, Gerald Clayton, sporting a gray suit jacket, a pair of cuffed pants and hip lace-up shoes, might have been mistaken for a run-ofthe-mill Oberlin student without his father’s introduction. Amid tunes by Dizzy Gillespie and Frank Loesser, Swedlow’s “Locutus” stood out as a gem of the evening. “Locutus” slowed the pace down to a smooth, comfortable speed and was simply beautiful.

Playing along on bass toward the back of the stage, Swedlow’s face lit up as he observed Gerald Clayton’s skillful piano lines blend impressively well with indulgent saxophone sounds.

The band vaulted into a much more spritely mood with “Groove Shop,” written by John Clayton himself, which swung hard. By the look of John Clayton’s face, he was overtly enthused about the piece. Conservatory first-year Adlai Reinhart, who stepped up to the microphone for a trumpet solo, looked hesitant at first but belted a solid stream of notes during his shining moment. “Groove Shop” was the type of piece that would have inspired dancing in a more convenient location. At one point, John Clayton hopped repeatedly, expressing his excitement for the song. Near the end

of the performance, Gerald Clayton launched into an unexpected piano solo, providing a satisfying respite from the hyper dynamics of the rest of the piece. John Clayton’s expression alone throughout his performance was enough to move audience members.

Before mellowing out in “Tale of the Fingers,” Clayton gracefully laid his sheet music over the stand as if he were laying down a tablecloth. After exchanging a sweet smile, the father-son duo began to play softly, yet intricately. Appearing enraptured by the experience of playing his instrument, John Clayton played effortlessly — literally with his eyes closed — as he snapped the strings of his bass. Watching Clayton play was a transcendent experience for both audience members and the student musicians who were fortunate enough to witness his performance close up.

The next selection, “Dusk Baby,” written by Gerald Clayton, included a sparse duet between the Claytons, showcasing their wonderful musical relationship.

The twinkling of the piano keys felt light on the ear, like fog tickling water. John Clayton’s solo on the jazz standard “Con Alma,” by Dizzy Gillespie, showcased his ever-present spirit. The musicians onstage stared at him in disbelief, as did audience members, regardless of their familiarity with the Claytons or with jazz.

Overall, the concert was a success. The duration of the concert provided just enough musical variation in a satisfying length of time. The Claytons added sparks of excitement to an already impressive evening, though it might have been nice to see more student work, like Swedlow’s, and hear student solos featured.

Hopefully Oberlin will see more performances like these in the near future, and the Claytons will bring magic to Finney again.

Arts

The Oberlin Review, March 13, 2015

Page 11

CME Performs Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings Colin Roshak Staff Writer Shouts of “bravo” rang through Warner Concert Hall this past Friday as Conservatory senior and bassoonist Ben Roidl-Ward played the final punctuating notes of Sofia Gubaidulina’s Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings. The concerto was programmed alongside the remarkably beautiful Snow Requiem by Aaron Helgeson, OC ’05, and Jonathan Harvey’s Wheel of Emptiness.

Tim Weiss and the Contemporary Music Ensemble gave one of the most inspiring and stunning concerts of the year.

The bassoon is a not a typical choice for a soloist — especially when the orchestra accompaniment is all cellos and basses.

The Gubaidulina concerto, however, defied expectations and established a unique atmosphere.

Roidl-Ward, the featured soloist on the piece, demonstrated not only flawless technique but also impressive control of sound and color. He navigated treacherous high runs and multiphonics with confidence, never faltering.

As the performers took the stage, it was difficult to imagine how the low timbre of four basses, four cellos and a single bassoon would blend, but any unease was completely lifted with the first note Roidl-Ward played.

The piece began at the highest range of the bassoon; the sound floated ever so gently atop the lower, slow-moving strings. Each of the five movements built on the previous one, adding new colors and textures. The piece re-

quired an abundance of extended techniques both in the bassoon and the strings, but the players met the challenge of such dif–––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Roidl-Ward, the featured soloist on the piece, demonstrated not only flawless technique but also impressive control of sound and color. He navigated treacherous high runs and multiphonics with confidence, never faltering.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ficult contemporary techniques head-on and performed the piece in absolute synchronization. The final notes played on the bassoon offered a clear and commanding finish to the wonderfully constructed piece, and the crowd went into an unadulterated frenzy.

Following Roidl-Ward’s inspiring performance was the world premiere of Helgeson’s Snow Requiem, which featured soprano Alice Teyssier, OC ’06, and Professor of Violin David Bowlin, OC ’00.

Typically, CME concerts are dominated by works for small chamber ensembles, but Snow Requiem called for an almost full-sized orchestra, a four-part choir and the two soloists. The piece began with a lengthy introduction in which Teyssier sang a chant-like melody that undulated with each

Conservatory senior Ben Roidl-Ward performs as part of the Contemporary Music Ensemble. Roidl-Ward took center stage as a featured soloist in Sofia Gubaidulina’s Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings at a concert in Warner Concert Hall this past Friday.

Courtesy of Dale Preston

passing phrase. The orchestra joined in, providing a textural bass which Teyssier floated above with rich tone. The piece consisted of six movements played continuously, each developing an original, almost aleatoric melody in the soprano. It was difficult to distinguish between the movements, but, at some point, Teyssier finished her melody and slowly walked offstage as Bowlin came onto the stage for his portion of the solo line. Much like the voice part, the violin wandered up and down, building on the orches-

tra’s momentum. The solo parts were not about sheer virtuosity.

Rather, they focused on creating thick textures and adding color to the more placid role that the orchestra played. The piece flowed seamlessly between moods and, although it was nearly 35 minutes long, not a single moment of the piece lacked energy or the audience’s attention.

The final piece of the concert was in more traditional CME style. Jonathan Harvey’s Wheel of Emptiness called for a smaller chamber group of various winds,

strings, percussion and electronics. The piece was fiercely rhythmic with constantly driving passages, as various voices exchanged leaping melodic motifs.

Under Tim Weiss’ direction, the ensemble performed perfectly in sync and with superb balance.

The bass voices supported the higher voices beautifully.

As a whole, the CME’s performance highlighted the intriguing world of modern composition. It took the ensemble out of its comfort zone, but also included more typical pieces.

Superhero Franchises Face Rebuilding at Hands of Writers Jeremy Reynolds Staff Writer In the world of Marvel Comics, nothing is sacred and nothing is set in stone. Writers tend to kill off characters with years of backstory and an enormous fan base in some appropriately heroic manner, only to resurrect them somewhere down the line with only flimsy, pseudoscientific justifications for their return. Of course, this is all a marketing strategy, as sometimes characters are simply worth more dead than alive. The revenue generated from retiring crowd favorites like Captain America is often formidable; March 2007’s Captain America #25, in which Captain America dies, sold more than any other comic that month.

But lately, the stakes have grown higher than merely life and death. Writers and producers have been systematically reimagining the very history of some of the Marvel universe’s oldest superhero franchises. How are they doing this? Through one particularly flimsy form of pseudoscience: time travel. The writers at Marvel have long sent heroes into the past or future to irrevocably (or not, I suppose) alter the fate of mankind. Indeed, some of the franchise’s most iconic and beloved stories, like Days of Future Past and Secret Wars, involve time travel. In the past, however, writers utilized time travel as a last resort, both to increase narrative drama and for fear of a dreaded “butterfly effect” that could erase the continuity of history as we know it in the Marvel universe. This has not been the case recently.

Let’s look at the latest story arc of Marvel’s flagship X-Men comic, Uncanny XMen. Last Wednesday, the arc concluded when writer Brian Michael Bendis sent a mutant back in time to erase the existence of another character by ensuring that his parents never met, thus returning the series to pre-arc status. This frustrates me.

For one thing, the potential consequences of altering the past at all are consistently and ominously referenced throughout Uncanny X-Men, but here the fallout from even this minor change is casually swept under the rug. I would be surprised if it comes up in a later issue.

A less recent but more perplexing example is the very existence of the ongoing series, All New X-Men (2012 to present), wherein the original five X-Men from 1963 travel to the present to witness what has become of their legacy. Somehow, they are still in the present in this series, despite the obvious ramifications for when they return to their own time. Sure, memories can be wiped in the Marvel universe, but how three years of aging will be explained away is another question entirely. All New X-Men featured heavily in the X-Men’s 50th anniversary event, 2013’s Battle of the Atom, which featured a team of mutants from the future joining our present heroes and the original five to celebrate — and slightly alter — mutant history. Sound ridiculous? It was.

The X-Men are not the only Marvel superhero team to witness an increase in time-hopping. Marvel’s other major superhero team, the Avengers, will also feature time-traveling adventures later this

year. Writer Al Ewing is currently developing the plot of Ultron Forever, a comic event scheduled to be released in print this April. Ewing has revealed that a team of Avengers composed of past, present and future heroes will band together to take down Ultron, a powerful villain bent on destroying mankind. The story will occur 50 years from now in a dystopian world, involving a diverse array of characters, from a 1960s version of the Incredible

precisely one year after the release of another Marvel film — one owned by 20th Century Fox instead of Disney — that joined heroes from different eras to battle a common enemy. The hugely successful X-Men: Days of Future Past both reignited interest in the cinematic version of everybody’s favorite mutants and merged the two different eras of the films into a (somewhat) believable timeline. As a bonus, sales of the 1981 comic event by the same name spiked dramatically. Clearly, ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– this sort of timing is not a coincidence.

It’s one thing to use time travel to creIn the past, however, writers ate continuity when pesky movie directors utilized time travel as a last re(think Brett Ratner) who don’t know much sort, both to increase narrative about comic books ruin a perfectly good franchise, like in X-Men: The Last Stand. drama and for fear of a dreaded However, is it possible that Marvel would “butterfly effect” that could even consider rewriting comic book hiserase the continuity of history tory to line up with the cinematic version of the heroes’ origins and lives? as we know it in the Marvel Well, maybe. The tandem release of Age universe. of Ultron and Ultron Forever may not seem ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– directly suspicious, but since Disney acquired the rights to make films of all MarHulk to a female incarnation of Thor from vel characters — excluding the X-Men and the future. If this sounds like Battle of the Spider-Man, who are owned by Fox and Atom to you, then you’re in good company. Sony, respectively — there have been 11 Any dedicated Marvel fan will recog- movies featuring Marvel characters under nize May as an important month for the the Disney banner, all of which take place Avengers franchise: Marvel’s next block- in the same fictional world. There is no buster, Avengers: Age of Ultron will appear official plan to merge the cinematic uniin theaters on May 1. How well-timed — verse’s continuity with that of the comic Ultron will confront the Avengers on both book universe, but this is certainly not out the silver screen and on the page at the of the question, especially in light of Marsame time. While the stories do not nomi- vel’s next big project, which hinges on — nally share any plot points, the timing is significant. For one thing, this is almost See Marvel, page 13

Arts

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The Oberlin Review, March 13, 2015

Joey Bada$$ to Serenade ’Sco with ’90s Flair Jessie Gaston The Oberlin Hip-Hop Collective will bring Joey Bada$$, a Brooklyn MC known for his lyrical dexterity and a style that recalls ’90s rap, to the ’Sco tonight. It looks to be one of the more talked-about concerts of the semester, but it’s not the first high-profile event organized by OHOP this semester. The collective also brought Killer Mike, albeit in a non-musical context, to the Cat in the Cream about a month ago. Killer Mike’s Q&A set the bar high for OHOP, but Bada$$, fresh off the

release of his first official studio album, B4.DA.$$, is likely to draw a formidable crowd.

Joey Bada$$, a member of the sometimes controversial Pro Era hip-hop collective, burst onto the scene in 2012 with his critically lauded mixtape 1999. Listeners recognized Bada$$’s technical prowess; he often structures his bars around puns, buildups and punch lines. Firmly planting himself in a sound clearly influenced by hip-hop luminaries, Bada$$ builds complex cadences and rhythms. As his career has progressed, he’s developed his own voice. At this

point, while he’s still clearly influenced by past hip-hop masters, Bada$$ has gained recognition for not only his talent but also his unusual approach. B4.DA.$$ reflects these qualities. It exists as an anachronistic piece of rap mastery, rife with the same wordplay and storytelling that marked his early work but now combined with idiosyncratic stylings that make Bada$$ stand out from his contemporaries.

Chances are Oberlin’s hip-hop-heads were the first to snag tickets, but Bada$$’s appeal extends beyond fan circles. Matthew Kornberg, a

College first-year with a ticket to the event, said, “I feel that it will be one of the best live shows of the year. I’ve heard he puts on a show sort of like Danny Brown. ... I saw [Brown] last year and it was amazing.” Kai Shinbrough, a College sophomore who will be in attendance this Friday, also expressed excitement: “I bought a ticket because I really like his music, and I heard that he puts on a great live show.” Both Kornberg and Shinbrough communicated Bada$$’s allure. People expect both great lyricism and a strong live performance from the artist.

Newman Takes Over Art Installation Show This Spring Abbie Greenbaum Few who are familiar with Oberlin would doubt its commitment to the arts. Not only does it boast the Conservatory, which hosts more musicians and more talent than some cities, let alone schools, but also many students in the College who play instruments, act, sing, dance, paint and create art with any combination of those media.

And yet, in spite of all these willing performers and the constant presence of art and music on campus,

Conservatory seniors Elise Moltz and Sam Phillips-Corwin saw a gap in the community.

Moltz and Phillips-Corwin are co-founders of Zoo, a art installation project that takes place twice a year within the space of a student’s house.

“I was in the Conservatory, and I realized what I wanted to do wasn’t necessarily music,” Moltz said. Moltz and Phillips-Corwin wanted to use Zoo to create a completely different environment, one that would allow for collaboration and exist as a showcase for

the artists’ own visions.

“We wanted to gather people from all different buildings,” Moltz said. “We felt very isolated in the Conservatory.”

Moltz and Phillips-Corwin wanted to give College and Conservatory students with different backgrounds, talents and ideas a chance to work together and create art that would be impossible to create by themselves.

Zoo begins with a general interest meeting that is open to everyone. “We are not exclusive at all,” Moltz said.

“We encourage anyone who has any

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interest to become involved. We have an application process, but we never weed anyone out.” At the meeting, attendants are encouraged to talk to one another, meet new people and discuss their ideas. Some come with only a vague idea in mind; others bring a fully formed concept.

This evolution of the performers’ own ideas is a big part of what makes Zoo distinct from other performances on campus. It is not about pleasing professors, or even the audience — each performance is entirely up to

its creators. Each of Zoo’s exhibits is often completely unrelated to the exhibits surrounding it. The setting, the rooms of a person’s house, dramatically influences the unusual show.

Nobody’s desires but those of the artists have any effect on what goes on display.

“We’ve had people ravenously eating a feast in a bathroom. We’ve had graphic scores, string quartets, a lot of improvised music with dance or visual art,” Moltz said. She described an installation in which artists filmed actresses on a set that they built and then painted over the set in white.

During the performance, they projected the video they had taken on the wall behind it, while putting real people on the painted set for the audience to see. The piece toyed with the idea that the audience didn’t necessarily know what was real and what was projected.

College sophomore Leah Newman, who is in charge of Zoo now that Moltz and Phillips-Corwin have taken a step back in their senior years, described a piece she participated in last semester called “Scramble Sweetie Swallow with Care.” “It took place in a kitchen and involved three other women. We were engaging with ideas of fertility and women’s role in the kitchen,” Newman said. The piece explored ideas of birth control and the notion that a woman is expected to produce children. The performers made food in the kitchen and served it to the audience and then performed a kind of skit. At the beginning of the piece they played songs that were about women depending on men; as the piece went on, it changed to house music to show that these stereotypes are not an antiquated problem but a current one.

In keeping with the idea that Zoo is for its performers, the project does not attempt to provide any cohesion for the audience. It is not about giving them one message or tailoring its experience to any one idea or concept.

Attendees’ senses are overwhelmed constantly; food is served. The house is usually packed.

The chaotic vibe aside, catering to the performers’ desires rather than the audience’s does not make the experience any less enjoyable, according to Moltz. “You come in, and it’s a very relaxed vibe,” Moltz said. “It’s a pretty long event — two, two and a half hours — but it takes most of that time for any one person to see everything and experience everything.

You’re in this dimly lit house, and there’s a projector here, and a guitar coming from over here, and you don’t know what’s in the basement, but people keep going down there, and you hear stomping upstairs. There’s a surprise around every corner.”

Arts

The Oberlin Review, March 13, 2015

Page 13

Marvel Universe Relies on Tandem Release Strategy Continued from page 11 you guessed it — time travel.

The 2015 event Secret Wars will feature not only timetraveling heroes, but also dimension-hopping and every other imaginable sort of mayhem. Beginning in May, what comic book editor Tom Brevoort called “arguably the biggest Marvel comic event ever” will change the past and, by extension, the future of the Marvel universe more drastically than ever before. Different timelines, dimensions and characters will be swept up by the events of Secret Wars and merged into a completely new Marvel universe.

What will this universe look like? At this point, the company is keeping quiet on the details. But, again, the

timing seems critical. With so many events in May, fans of the movies and comics alike will be wondering how Marvel will reconcile the cinematic and comic book versions of its most popular heroes. Without an official word, I can only guess. However, the lack of any non-Disney owned characters on the promotional posters may be significant. It’s starting to seem more and more likely that Marvel is putting all of its eggs into one vast, moneymaking basket. After all, what better way to initiate new fans into the realm of comic books than by linking the books to the hugely successful movies? How better to bypass Captain America’s convoluted 75-year history than by simply starting fresh?

Of course, this doesn’t completely invalidate the Avengers’ former history, and I should mention that I

love the time travel narratives themselves. As with many other things in comics, if you can just ignore what doesn’t make sense, the stories are all well-developed and offer fascinating insights into the characters’ histories. However, this recent surge in time-jumping narratives may indicate a possible reboot — the first ever — of the entire Marvel universe. And while I enjoyed the cinematic Avengers, I appreciate the differences between them and those that inhabit comic book pages. The comic Avengers are neither written by one voice nor acted by a single star, and therein lies their greatest strength. So, no matter how time travel is used to rewrite the history of these books and make way for a narrow but profitable future, I can only hope that Marvel will continue to play to its strengths and present its creations in varying ways.

On the Record with Andy Statman, Mandolinist and Clarinetist Andy Statman, a highly praised mandolinist and clarinetist who hails from New York City, works with a variety of musical genres, including American folk, klezmer and jazz. He has released over two dozen studio albums and received recognition for his work in the field, including a National Heritage Fellowship. On Monday, Statman gave a master class for students and performed at the Cat in the Cream. The Review spoke with Statman by telephone after his return to his home in Brooklyn.

Can you tell us a little bit about your visit here? What did you do and whom did you work with?

I was working with ... Jim Whitney on

bass and Larry Eagle on drums and percussion, and one of the professors, Jamey Haddad, joined us, playing both at the master class and at the concert.

deeper way. ... Students always have questions or you always have to find new ways of teaching things, so as a musician and as a person, you grow out of that.

Do you give master classes at a lot of schools? If so, what do you think you might give and get out of it?

I do, and you know … at universities, mainly most of the students are not that familiar with the music that I’m teaching, so it gives them a hands-on understanding of particular styles that I might teach. ... If you really master an understanding of one style, then you can go to another style and you’ll know what to look for or understand how to relate to it in a much

Does the genre-blending in your music come naturally, or does it take more careful planning?

The careful planning is learning the genre. So, I studied one genre very deeply, then I was able to go to another. Like I was saying before, once you know what makes one genre tick … [then] you’re dealing with elements such as phrasing, improvisation, ornamentation, how to play different types of melody, how to express emotions through music. All varying styles have pretty much the same elements that have to be dealt with. Certain types of music you want to have a certain tone production on certain instruments. Certain music requires certain instruments that others don’t. So once you begin to have an understanding of all the elements that make up a style, you’ll understand those elements in another style.

[You] find your own place in the music, which means you have to find your own way of speaking that stylistic language. … What usually happens is the up-andcoming musicians master the style that excites them. … Once they’re able to master them, it’s like learning a language. …

We’re both speaking English, but we’ll speak it differently … and that’s really when you’ve internalized a language of expressing what you want to say.

What do you see in your future?

As a general response, I just see [my] Andy Statman, klezmer clarinetist and bluegrass mandolinist, who gave a master class and per- music as continuing to develop. Musiformed at the Cat in the Cream on Monday. cians generally engaged in their craft get

better as they get older, so their skills are more refined and more honed. They have a way of looking at things more deeply and more effectively, so that’s what I foresee happening, or what I hope will happen.

What’s the best piece of advice you could give to a young musician?

It would be several-fold. I think the first thing to do is to [recognize] that most of us are playing music because we like the way it makes us feel. There’s an experience from playing music that is very positive. It’s important to stay in touch with that, particularly when you start dealing with technical issues. You can get lost in the world of athletics with technique and lose that connection with the joy of playing music or just [get lost while] dealing with the music business. You know, people [are] just trying to make a living playing music, which is hard, especially if you want to play creative music. You need to sort of stick by your guns and stay with that feeling as much as you can. In a nutshell, it’s just trying to stay in touch with why you’re playing music. … You need to keep in touch with that because there are lots of things that can take you away from that.

Then you need to practice. You really need to learn to master a style. You need to learn what makes a style tick. … You need to understand what you’re playing … and how to most effectively play it. That will enhance your ability to effectively play the music for other people and hopefully produce a similar experience in them that you’re hoping to have yourself.

Interview by Sam Rueckert Photo courtesy of clarinet-klezmer.com

Mahon Uses Choreography to Share Healing Process ‘ in ‘Crossing Rivers’ Mohit Dubey

College senior and Africana Studies major Kara Mahon’s honors dance show, “Crossing Rivers: The Love of Afrekete,” gleaned inspiration from African-derived ritual practices and spiritual worship to represent her healing following sexual abuse. The event, which took place in Warner Main Space last Friday and Saturday, got its title from a saying that her mother and other family members from the South have about “conquering personal demon[s],” according to Mahon. As such, the idea of cleansing oneself through overcoming a traumatic experience influenced the thematic lighting and costumes, as well as the story, which the dancers conveyed physically without uttering a single word other than “mama.”

Mahon has found strength in

the dance community at Oberlin ever since she joined Dance Diaspora as a sophomore. Mahon said she began dancing as “the backup” dancer in the group and attributes her growth to the energy of her fellow dancers. Mahon said she believes that “dance can move anywhere” and that it can help people around the world tell their stories in a resonant way.

Now a senior, Mahon plans to study macro-social work in graduate school.

College junior and “Crossing Rivers” dancer Sophie Umazi Mvurya explained that she saw Mahon’s healing process in all facets of the show. “The show, and Kara’s story, … is something that touches on many female lives, especially women of color,” she said. Mahon explained that working with her hands to create the entire set for the show

from scratch was as important as dancing in the process. Mahon said she “discovered a new passion and source of healing” in doing so.

“Crossing Rivers” held personal significance to Mahon and her family, as well as political significance to the institution of dance at Oberlin. According to Mvurya, “the Dance department is still lacking in recognizing dance forms from other continents.” The absence of dance diversity leaves many students seeking spaces in which they can express themselves through dance outside of institutionallypromoted forms or styles.

Mahon said she crafted the show with both the Oberlin community and family in mind and used dance as the medium through which to share the story of her sexual abuse. “The whole

reason I did [the show] in the first place was to let my family know

that this had happened to me, because they didn’t know.”

College sophomore Cassie Brown (left), Tiachelle Clifford (center back) and College senior Gifty Dominah (right) shimmer under blue lights as they encircle College senior Kara Mahon during her senior dance show. Mahon’s show, titled “Crossing Rivers: The Love of Afrikete,” combined traditional African movement with contemporary choreography to express deeply personal themes.

Courtesy of John Seyfried

Sports

Page 14

The Oberlin Review, March 13, 2015

IN THE LOCKER ROOM

Men’s Frisbee Captains

This week, the Review sat down with the men’s Ultimate Frisbee captains, senior Evan Holliday and junior Jason Freedman, to discuss changes in the team dynamic over the years, how they can make it to Nationals and their favorite team traditions.

Talk a little about the Horsecows’ relationship with the women’s Frisbee team.

Jason Freedman: The Horsecows and the Manti are very close, and we spend a lot of time together, including playing together but also partying a lot together. I would just like to clarify once and for all: They are different teams, and they play separately and have completely individualized practices and tournaments. A lot of people think they are one team.

Evan Holliday: The relationship with them has changed since I was a freshman. Over the past four years the teams have grown a lot closer and do a lot more together.

What does the team need to do this year to get over the hump and make it to Nationals?

JF: That’s a question that we have spent a lot of the past two years, and especially the last six months, trying to answer. This year, we’re really focusing on shaping our season the way that any varsity sport or high-level sport would. You have a preseason, and you work on building up strength for many weeks, and you save the highest load of your schedule for a concentrated set of about four weeks where you try and achieve your peak performance. Last year, we were a really good team, but we came into sectionals short on legs. We had a lot of injuries, and people were tired because we had overloaded the front end of

Why do you think your team is able to foster positive team chemistry so effectively?

JF: In part, it is the nature of the sport. The culture of Ultimate Frisbee is very community-based, and you can observe that in pretty much any Ultimate team at any level. It tends to attract a lot of good people who are looking for a community to hang out with, and we just love each other.

EH: It’s just a lot of fun, and we really make an effort to bring people in. It’s not just a “Oh, who’s joining?” It’s more of a “Hey, we want you to join. Come hang out with us, and come play with us.”

Evan Holliday (top) and Jason Freedman our schedule.

How do you think the team dynamic has changed over the past few years?

JF: It’s huge. There are over 50 members on the Horsecows.

EH: When I was a freshman, it was a lot smaller, grittier, and we had a very scrappy, underdog attitude. Very few people had played Frisbee previously.

Over the years, we’ve become a lot larger and a lot more experienced. Now, we know what’s up.

How has your relationship with the team changed since being elected captain?

JF: In large part, you get elected captain and it feels like a humongous change, and then after a couple weeks, it feels like not that much has changed. The biggest actual difference in my life is now I have to do way more stuff. I have to plan tournaments and decide what we do at practice, and it doesn’t really change what I do when I’m there because of the other leadership on the team, but there’s more that

goes on behind the scenes.

EH: Stuff just kind of used to happen, but now we have to actually make that stuff happen.

How does this year’s first-year class look?

JF: They are good, and there’s at least 20 of them, as compared to last year when we graduated three seniors. There is a huge range in their capabilities. Some people have come in with a lot of Frisbee experience, and then we have tons of guys who are completely new to the sport, but maybe they played other sports in high school. Then some people aren’t really that athletic, and they haven’t played Frisbee before, but they have fun and work hard.

EH: The important thing about having so many people is that the team culture is such that the team can be anything for anyone. Whatever you want the team to be for you, it can be.

How excited is the team to start practicing outdoors?

JF: We started on Tuesday

playing on the turf field under the lights. We want to let those discs fly.

EH: It’s been hard doing it inside in the Field House; it’s just really small. We have to play five-on-five instead of seven-onseven, and there is a roof, which is kind of strange. It’s really nice to get back outside.

What separates good Frisbee teams from great Frisbee teams?

JF: Consistency of system.

Within a year and year to year, the great teams have a system that’s in place. If the offense that they run with specific sets and specific goals is consistent, people know what to expect from each other on the field.

EH: Because Frisbee is a club sport, there’s not much of a budget for coaching, and it’s not that established. There’s not much infrastructure for it, and what we’re trying to do is build some sort of infrastructure. When we both graduate we want something to still be there.

How was playing Frisbee in high school different from playing at the collegiate level?

JF: I’ll answer this one because Evan didn’t play in high school. It’s definitely very different. I don’t think that it’s different than the transition in a different sport, but it’s definitely much more physical at the college level. Athleticism is much more at a premium, and it’s much more demanding.

What is your favorite team tradition?

JF: Spring break trip is a great tradition. Both teams go down to Georgia and stay in a house.

It’s a fuckin’ blast. Simple as that.

EH: My favorite is at the end of a tournament we get in a circle and sing a song. It’s usually “Down to the River” or “Country Roads,” but we’re all mediocre singers, but it’s just a wonderful team moment and being one family. Doesn’t matter whether we win or lose.

Interview by Nate Levinson, Sports editor Photo by Mike Plotz, Photo editor

Home Games This Week Saturday, March 14 12:30 p.m. – Men’s tennis vs. John Carroll University at the Hunsinger Tennis Courts 4 p.m. – Women’s tennis vs. University of Findlay at the Hunsinger Tennis Courts 9 p.m. – Women’s tennis vs. John Carroll University at the Hunsinger Tennis Courts

Tuesday, March 17

1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. – Baseball vs. Wilmington College at Dill Field

Wednesday, March 18 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. – Softball vs. Ursuline College at Culhane Field

Thursday, March 19 7 p.m. – Men’s lacrosse vs. Baldwin Wallace University in the Austin E. Knowlton Athletic Complex

Saturday, March 21 11 a.m. – Women’s lacrosse vs. DePauw University in the Austin E. Knowlton Athletic Complex

Sports

The Oberlin Review, March 13, 2015

Page 15

Divisive Paleo Diet Impractical for Many Isabel Hulkower Columnist If you’ve spent any time down the rabbit hole of outlandish food trends, you’ve undoubtedly come across the paleo diet. Paleo is an extremely rigid lifestyle plan in which dieters only eat foods cave people would have been able to hunt or gather, such as meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds. The diet forbids the consumption of anything else, including things like grains of any sort, legumes, dairy, refined sugar, soy, most cooking oils and processed food.

The diet gets its name from the Paleolithic era, which started about 2.6 million years ago, and ended with the advent of agriculture around 8,000 BCE. This style of eating then went the way of the dinosaurs until 1975, when gastroenterologist Walter L. Voegtlin published his book The Stone Age Diet, which coined the term “paleo diet.” From there, the diet slowly lost popularity before coming back into the mainstream in 2002 after Loren Cordain published his book The Paleo Diet, introducing

the world to the extreme joy of a lifestyle that excludes bread.

The main justification for the paleo diet is that our bodies are not prepared for modernly engineered foods. After all, food technology has astronomically progressed in the last 10,000 years, whereas our digestive systems have hardly evolved. Food has steadily become more processed and filled with things like fat, salt and sugar that we are hardwired to crave because of their previous scarcity. These elements make our food undeniably tasty, but paleo proponents argue that we are actually only able to process a small amount of the food that is currently available, and these recent additions are to blame for our collective obesity, fatigue and other assorted health woes.

Fad diets are based on some sort of science (or pseudoscience) about the inner workings of the body and look to aid in some quick weight-loss solution. The paleo diet is compelling because instead of referencing the same old research about fat absorption or carb burning, it’s based in evolutionary biology, lending it an air of legitimacy that new break-

throughs don’t necessarily possess. It seemingly makes sense because it is represented as a return to what our bodies are actually meant to process.

When referring to this lifestyle, people throw around terms like “caveman” and “primal,” which make it seem exciting — possibly to the point of danger. In reality, this diet mostly involves eating grass-fed meat at home and trying to avoid snack machines. The total saturation of this diet craze in a world already overrun with food blogs has given birth to some truly notable recipe blogs with names like “Cave Girl Eats,” “Paleoista,” “PaleOMG,” “Ancestralize Me,” “Cave Momma,” “Modern Paleo Warfare” and “Hunt Gather Love.” These are just a few of the countless websites dedicated to living paleo that make up a supportive and vast online community dedicated to swapping tips and recipes for “living primally.”

A huge subgroup within this paleo community is CrossFitters.

CrossFit is a fitness craze that gets you into great shape by doing diverse, high-intensity workouts in big warehouse gyms. Though you might not

know it, many CrossFitters also have dual identities as cavemen. CrossFit’s hyperintense outlook on fitness extends to the kitchen, and paleo’s extreme rigidity and meat-centrism fit right into that lifestyle. For many, paleo and CrossFit go hand in hand, working together to sculpt and fuel the body.

In researching this unusual lifestyle I came across a lot of anti-paleo dialogue, with most people criticizing the diet as improperly researched and hard to stick to. However, my issues with the diet go beyond just this.

The first issue is reliance on animal protein. This diet absolutely requires it, and not just occasional meat in moderation. Instead, it mandates a constant flow of meat and eggs mainlined into your primal bod.

This raises the issues of animal cruelty and environmental sustainability. The fact that eating meat is awful for the planet is not exactly breaking news, but the paleo diet additionally mandates a great deal of fresh fruits and vegetables. While that is A-OK during the summer, it is very difficult to adhere to proper seasonal eating while subscribing to a paleo plan.

Davis Clinches Victory for Men’s Tennis Continued from page 16 wins at his important middle-of-the-lineup position. “[Davis] has clinched — won the fifth and deciding point — in four matches this year,” Ishida said. This is an amazing accomplishment and a testament to how efficient he has been.”

Ishida also pointed out the contributions Davis has provided in doubles.

“Having [Davis’] success in doubles, with partner Billy Lennon, added to his singles wins, has really helped our team’s confidence when it comes to closing out an important match,” Ishida said.

While Davis said he believes he has grown stronger and improved his physical game, he attributed his success this year to improvements in his competitive mindset with a goal of improving every time he steps onto the court.

“The biggest improvements to my game have definitely been mental. Physically, maybe I’ve grown a bit and gotten a bit stronger, but maturing mentally is the key from here on out,” Davis said. “[My] personal goal [ for the season] is cliché, but I want to just try my best at every practice and every match.”

The Yeomen have recently put a particular focus on using their practice time for

inter-squad singles play, and Ishida said the improvement in his team’s match mindset already shows.

“The inter-squad match play was very beneficial to our success this weekend,” Ishida said. “[It allowed us] to practice competitive situations while pushing each other mentally and physically. When we had tough situations this weekend, we were confident and calm. To put it simply, I think we were well-prepared and more disciplined than the competition this weekend.”

Looking ahead, the Yeomen will host John Carroll University this Saturday at 12:30 p.m., hoping to extend their winning streak to five games.

Feature Photo: Hockey Alumni

Back Row (left to right): Bruce Campbell, OC ’66, Chip Shannon, OC ’65, Cortland Hill, OC ’76, Laurence Ducker, OC ’13, Bryce Fotiu-Wojtowicz, OC ’07, Murray Heaton, OC ’73, Bill Johnston, OC ’77, Dick Mugel, OC ’82, Mark Walsh, OC ’77, Erin Johnston, Doug Mugel, OC ’75. Front Row: Dan Cole, OC ’05, John Fisch, OC ’80, Tom Bokuniewicz, OC ’81, Danny Kane, OC ’07, Matt Green, OC ’80, George Davis, OC ’80.

A group of alumni pose for a picture after playing in an ice hockey game last weekend. More than 20 alumni reunited to celebrate the 50th anniversary of ice hockey at Oberlin last weekend. To commemorate the occasion, the alumni played in two ice hockey games on Saturday and Sunday in Elyria, Ohio.

Photo courtesy of John Seyfried

Another serious downside to the paleo lifestyle is that it forbids alcohol, which means a total disruption of social habits for people who drink. The only paleo narratives I’ve come across that claim the diet is easy to stick to are written by Mormon moms, for whom alcohol consumption isn’t exactly an issue.

But perhaps the most relevant issue with the paleo diet is that it is comically expensive and only truly accessible to those with a lot of disposable income. Few paleo adherents acknowledge that the diet’s seemingly miraculous health benefits are only available to a tiny portion of highstatus eaters, implying that many modern “cave people” are unaware that their lifestyle is exclusive and class-bound.

It’s really not groundbreaking information that the best thing you can do for your body is eat a diet of minimally processed food that’s heavy in fruits and veggies, but paleo really takes this to the next level. The caveman angle makes the whole thing even less appealing to me, but as far as fad diets go, you could definitely do way worse than going primal.

Editorial: NCAA Out of Control Continued from page 16 “A few months before enrolling, a close family friend approached me and said they didn’t want me sleeping on floors … so they insisted on putting me in an apartment and helping out with those living expenses. Because I accepted that offer instead of choosing to be homeless, I am no longer eligible to play football. … I had no idea I was breaking any rules, but I respect the decision of the NCAA.” Following the statement, the NCAA complicated matters by denying that it had declared Nacita ineligible and implying that rules can sometimes be bent in accordance with “common sense” in an interview with The New York Times.

The Times article, “Tangled Case of a Baylor Football Player Poses a Test for the Rules of Eligibility,” (March 7, 2015) also clarified that, contrary to Nacita’s statement, the NCAA is not actually responsible for determining eligibility; that burden is placed on schools.

To be sure, athletes are deemed ineligible by schools all the time for violating NCAA policies. And while Nacita’s narrative is certainly moving, the reason this story has gained so much traction is due to the unclear nature of the NCAA’s rules, which are ambiguous at best and catastrophically complicated at worst.

Critics have been claiming that the NCAA’s rules have been arbitrary for years, but the organization has come under fire for a variety of reasons recently. To name a few, accusations have been made that the organization overstepped in its handling of the Penn State University football calamity three years ago, and an investigation unveiling cheating scandals regarding the men’s basketball team at Syracuse University was revealed last Friday. In light of the these recent scandals and its inability to clarify its own legislation so that players and athletics departments can easily comply, onlookers must continue to question how viable the NCAA is in collegiate athletics today.

Sports The Oberlin Review

Page 16

March 13, 2015

— Men’s Lacrosse —

Crusaders Push Past Yeomen in Close Game Randy Ollie The men’s lacrosse team suffered its first loss last Saturday, falling 8–7 to the Capital University Crusaders in a back-and-forth battle. The Yeomen managed to stay within two goals for the entire fourth quarter but were ultimately unable to reclaim their early lead.

Despite the loss, Oberlin saw success in five different players combining for the team’s seven goals. Firstyear Reese Koburov struck first with one of his two goals at the 11-minute mark in the first quarter to give the Yeomen an early edge.

Less than three minutes later, however, the Crusaders tied up the game at 1–1.

Junior Matt Fox said that the Yeomen’s slow first half put the team in a difficult position to pull out a win.

“We came out a little flat,” Fox said. “We had a strong second half, but our first half wasn’t very good.

We went down early, and we were playing from behind for most of the game.”

The Yeomen regained the lead once more in the first quarter on a goal from junior Nick Lobley, but the Crusaders quickly evened the score less than four minutes later.

Oberlin then allowed four unanswered goals, falling behind 6–2 halfway through the third quarter. With less than four minutes to play in the quarter, Koburov and Lobley were able to collect one more goal apiece, bringing the score to 6–4 heading into the final quarter.

First-year Ian McCague, sophomore Eric Hager and junior Barrett Kelly found the back of the net in the fourth quarter, but the Crusaders were able to cash in two goals of their own against senior goalkeeper Erickson Andrews to clinch the win. Andrews finished the game with eight saves, extending his season total to 22.

Senior captain Sean Seaman collected a team high of five ground balls in the contest. Reflecting on the game, Seaman believed the Yeomen were not well prepared for it.

“We just weren’t ready for that kind of game, and we really underestimated our opponent,” he said. “We had a bad practice leading up to the game, and we weren’t ready to compete.”

Late Wednesday afternoon, the Yeomen bounced back from the tough loss with a decisive 8–5 win

over the Trine University Thunder at home. Lobley, Hager, McCague, Seaman and Koburov all scored in the contest. As Oberlin fell behind three goals early in the game, it appeared that the team would face a similar fate against the Thunder as it had against the Crusaders. However, the Yeomen powered through the fourth quarter without giving up a single goal to secure an important win.

Looking ahead, the Yeomen will continue to build on their offensive momen-

tum. This season, 11 Yeomen have each scored at least two goals, and nearly half the team’s total goals have come from first-years.

Lobley, who leads the team with 10 goals, said he expects the offensive talent to play a big role in the rest of their season.

“Our depth on offense is definitely important,” Lobley said. “Moving forward, we definitely expect a lot of different individuals to step up and produce.”

Head Coach Topher Grossman also noted that

a range of players have the potential to contribute to a very successful season.

“We certainly have more depth and talent across the board than we have had in previous years,” Grossman said. “Once everyone is on the same page, it could make for some exciting lacrosse.”

The team will play its first North Coast Athletic Conference game of the season this Saturday when it takes on the Ohio Wesleyan University Battling Bishops in Delaware, Ohio at 1 p.m.

First-year Reese Koburov looks past a Capital University defender in a road game last Saturday. Koburov scored twice, but the Yeomen could not overcome an early four-point deficit and fell 8–7.

Courtesy of Erik Andrews

— Men’s Tennis —

Yeomen Dominate on Road to Push Streak to 4 Jackie McDermott The men’s tennis team pushed its winning streak to four after earning commanding road victories over the Earlham College Quakers and conference rival Ohio Wesleyan University Battling Bishops last Saturday.

The Yeomen took immediate control of Saturday’s first contest, winning all three doubles matches against the Battling Bishops. Senior Soren Zeliger and junior Callan Louis got the team off to a strong

start when they won a tight No. 1 doubles match 9–8, and the No. 2 doubles pairing of sophomore Ian Paik and first-year Michael Drougas shut out their opponents in an 8–0 win. Sophomores Abraham Davis and Billy Lennon followed suit, completing the doubles sweep with a comfortable 8–4 victory in the No. 3 flight.

Head Coach Eric Ishida said he was pleased with the way his players made quick work of a competitive Ohio Wesleyan team and praised Paik and Drougas for their

Junior Callan Louis follows through on a shot in a match against the Indiana Tech University Warriors on Friday, Feb. 27. The men’s tennis team has won four matches in a row heading into a showdown this Saturday at home against the John Carroll University Blue Streaks.

Effie Kline-Salamon

doubles success. “[A] big factor in the weekend was confidence in each other,” Ishida said in an email to the Review. “For example, Michael Drougas and Ian Paik won their doubles match quickly, which put us on the scoreboard 25 minutes into the match and resulted in momentum and purpose to finish the other matches.”

Drougas and Davis carried their momentum into singles play, grabbing decisive wins in the No. 2 and No. 4 flights respectively. Drougas won 6–2, 6–2, while Davis breezed past his opponent 6–4, 6–0. Paik saw tougher competition in the No. 1 flight but walked away with a 6–3, 6–4 win. Louis also stayed focused through a competitive match, ultimately coming away victorious in the No. 3 singles slot 6–3, 6–3.

Two matches in the bottom half of the lineup went to three sets.

First-year Manickam Manickam took home the victory in the No. 6 spot, winning the first set 6–4, falling in a close second 4–6, and clinching the third-set tiebreaker 10–6. Zeliger fell 6–3, 2–6, 10–8 in his hard fought match, allowing Ohio Wesleyan to pick up its lone point. Reflecting on the matches, Zeliger said the Yeomen have adjusted to handling adversity better

this year than in the past.

“The biggest improvements for the team in general [so far this season] … have to do with how we handle match situations,” Zeliger said.

“There was a sense of tentativeness in the first few matches, which is expected with a young team, and we have done a good job of correcting it since.”

Paik and Drougas also dominated their No. 2 doubles opponents in the second match of the day against Earlham, as Oberlin swept doubles play once again. Davis and Lennon came out with a 8–2 victory, while Louis and Zeliger were once again locked in a close contest. The upperclassmen duo prevailed in another tiebreaker, winning 9–8 in the top flight.

Singles play against Earlham followed a similar pattern as the Ohio Wesleyan match, with Paik, Manickam and Louis all pulling out close wins. Paik won in three sets at the top spot 4–6, 6–4, 7–6 (10–7).

At the No. 5 spot, Zeliger was able to turn his luck from his earlier singles match, winning 6–2, 6–2. Drougas and Davis also earned two more points at the No. 2 and No. 4 spots. Ishida said that Davis has made a habit out of providing See Davis, page 15

NCAA Losing its Edge Tyler Sloan Sports Editor The NCAA is losing its edge in collegiate athletics. Once the brand of excellence and legitimacy, the organization now makes more headlines for its faulty policies than for progressive or inclusive reform. From the NCAA’s arbitrary regulations concerning the inclusion of trans athletes to its obscure eligibility requirements, rules are often muddled in ambiguous language that result in high-cost misunderstandings for some college athletes and athletics departments.

Most recently, NCAA critics have expressed dissatisfaction over the case of a Baylor University football player, Silas Nacita, who was disqualified from the top-10 team. Nacita rose to prominence after Sports Illustrated published a story last December about his journey from homelessness to playing in the Cotton Bowl, and as a result, many fans have eagerly jumped to his defense.

Nacita dropped out of Cornell University because he “grew disillusioned with the bitter cold, with the Ivy League atmosphere and competition,” according to Sports Illustrated. Though Nacita’s initial attempt to play for the Baylor Bears was unsuccessful due to a lack of finances, he eventually pieced together enough scholarships and federal loans to attend Baylor.

Enter the NCAA. On the path to officially donning green and gold, Nacita allegedly accepted financial help from a family friend, which ultimately resulted in his disqualification from the team after playing for just one season. In a statement on Twitter two weeks ago, Nacita wrote: See Editorial, page 15