April 17, 2015

The Oberlin Review

APRIL 17, 2015 VOLUME 143, NUMBER 20

ESTABLISHED 1874 oberlinreview.org

ONLINE & IN PRINT

Feature Photo: Strategic Planning Talk

Local News Bulletin News briefs from the past week Council Publishes Norenberg Goals The City Council released its goals on Thursday for Eric Norenberg, the current city manager who was asked to resign by four of the seven City Council members earlier in the year. The goals include completing evaluations of all the department heads in city government, developing a diversity plan and providing regular updates to the Council and the public. In addition, the goals include several concrete tasks such as preparing the Hamilton Recreation Complex soccer field and installing bike racks.

Students Fight for 15 Oberlin students participated in nationwide protests for a $15 minimum wage on Wednesday in Cleveland. The demonstrators in Cleveland numbered almost 300 and included a diverse array of people, from Service Employee International Union homecare workers to adjunct professors and college students.

The nationwide protests marked the largest mobilization of low-wage workers in U.S. history.

Tuition Protest on Saturday Students will gather on Saturday at 3 p.m. in Wilder Bowl to protest next year’s higher tuition at Defending Oberlin Financial Accessibility 2015: A People’s Strategic Plan. Next year, Oberlin tuition is set to increase by four percent, from $61,788 to $64,224. “Only when we act as an unshakable union of students will we bring about a better future where higher education becomes accessible to all and we no longer submerge whole generations in a trillion-dollar sea of student debt,” said College senior Zachery Crowell, one of the chief organizers of the event.

Meghan Riesterer, assistant vice president of Energy Management and Sustainability, David Orr, special assistant to the president on sustainability and the environment, and Tom Ross, acting president of the University of North Carolina system, discuss the future of higher education and energy policy at a Strategic Planning Steering Committee event last Monday. The event touched on divestment from fossil fuels, how colleges should interact with the surrounding community and the financial future of higher education. Ross also made sure

to underscore the importance of strategic planning when trying to make colleges more environmentally sustainable.

“When we were going through Strategic Planning, we did focus on issues of sustainability and energy usage and ended up, in the university’s strategic plan, with a litany of principles around design and construction and maintenance of buildings, around transportation and purchasing, around energy conservation — a whole array of different questions that were built into the strategic plan about how

we’re going to move forward as a university,” Ross said. “And it has paid off. If you look back at our last five years of performance, you’re going to see that we saved hundreds of millions of dollars in electrical expenditures. We’ve saved about half of our water usage because of focused effort to be thoughtful about how we live our lives. That’s in a big university system. Planning and policies really do matter.”

Text by Oliver Bok, News editor Photo by Effie Kline-Salamon, Photo editor

Students Divided over Hillel’s Event Sponsorship Decision Sarah Conner Staff Writer Earlier this week, Rabbi Shimon Brand, director of Oberlin Hillel, allegedly pulled out from co-sponsoring an event about the Freedom Summer veterans, a group of Jewish veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. The exact reason for Brand’s decision to decline sponsorship of this event is unclear.

Some involved in Hillel claim the organization never agreed to sponsor the event due to a lack of funds. However, others believe that Hillel initially agreed to sponsor the event and pulled out after learning about the veterans’ criticism of Israel and support for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.

“I had spoken with [Rabbi Brand] a few months ago about bringing the event, and I was very clear about what it was about,” said College junior Jeremy Swack, who helped to organize the event. “I said they are three

Freedom Summer veterans, and they have done Israel/Palestine events, and I have made it explicitly clear that they would talk about BDS, but it was not the focal point. It actually only came up once when someone asked a question. So, I met with him a week before, and he had already agreed to co-sponsor it. When I met with him, he said, ‘We have no money, there is no money in the budget, I am really sorry about this,’ even though he had already made a commitment to at least give some.”

The speakers coming to campus were part of a larger tour called the Open Hillel campaign, which aims to eliminate the national standards of Hillel International, the umbrella organization for all campus Hillels. Five years ago, the organization created a national set of standards for Hillels that included a paragraph that stated Hillel cannot sponsor or co-sponsor an event that is too critical of Israel.

The guidelines specifically state that Hillel speakers cannot support BDS. “When the money was requested, at that point in the semester, there was no money left to be allocated to the event,” said Jewish Life Coordinator Samia Mansour, OC ’10. “This happened last week. There was an initial conversation in February about the potential to sponsor the event, but there was not a lot of follow-up afterwards. Last week when the event was to occur, the money was no longer available. This was not a conversation with Oberlin Hillel, and this was not a conversation with students at all. The group never agreed to sponsor the event, and they never agreed to pull out money from the event.”

The event was not focused on BDS, but rather was centered on three activists who belonged to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee doing voter registration in the South in the 1960s. During the event, the speak-

Brain Talk

Playoff Time

Presenters answer students’ questions about the brain.

Men’s Ultimate Frisbee earned a bid to Regionals last weekend.

Macabre Musical Senior TIMARA recital gets bloody.

See page 2

See page 15

See page 13

INDEX:

Opinions 5

This Week in Oberlin 8

Arts 10

Sports 16

ers focused on their activism and how it was influenced by their Jewishness, which led to their involvement in the Israel/Palestine debate. BDS was mentioned once during the talk.

Swack maintained that he takes pride in Oberlin’s progressive legacy, and feels that allowing speakers like these on campus helps further it. He feels that even though many people may disagree with what the speakers have to say, they are still of great value to the campus.

Mansour maintains that Hillel is a welcoming, politically open space.

“The way that we’ve been structured in the past is that Hillel is not a political space; Hillel is the umbrella organization for Jewish life,” Mansour said. “In past years what we’ve done is used the space for religious programming and bring in speakers to talk about modern Jewish social issues, See Open, page 4

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The Oberlin Review, April 17, 2015

MRC Searches for New LGBTQ Coordinator Elizabeth Dobbins News Editor The Multicultural Resource Center is in the midst of a nearly semester-long search for a new LGBTQ Community Coordinator after the previous coordinator, Danielle Stevens, left the position at the end of last semester. Alison Williams, director of the MRC, said the candidate search committee plans to announce the new LGBTQ Coordinator by the last day of classes, although the unpredictable nature of candidate searches may push this date back.

“You can’t always predict how [candidate searches] go, so we have a timeline that’s our goal, but people can drop out of the search, people can turn down your offer, there’s some negotiations that sometimes happen,” Williams said.

The job posting describes community coordinators as “campus leader[s] on LGBTQ issues” and a link between the Director of the MRC, students and other local communities. According to Williams, campus coordinators must be able to manage a diverse range of duties, including crisis manage-

ment, programming and providing support for student groups.

Williams said she hopes that the new coordinator will have many of these skills, particularly those which complement the skill sets of current community coordinators.

“No one has everything you want, so you try to set some priorities,” Williams said. “But you also recognize that when we look for somebody in these positions we [not] only look for somebody that has a wide range of experiences and skills, but we also need to balance out the skills of whoever is the coordinator at the time.”

College senior Gabriel Moore is one of about 11 students, faculty and staff on the candidate search committee. He believes the new community coordinator should promote both student interests and accessibility.

“I think it’s important for any CC to put student needs first,” Moore said in an email to the Review. “And by that, I mean that the CC comes into the community and asks what their needs are instead of imposing programming that doesn’t align with student desires. Also, accessibility is extremely important. …

With that in mind, any CC needs to understand how to develop events, hangout sessions and programs that address the intersectionalities of queerness and other identities such as race, ethnicity, dis/ability, etc. and be supportive of people with different identities.”

Moore, who has also been involved in organizing, said that he worked with the previous coordinator, Stevens, to plan Queers and Allies of Faith, Coming Out Week and QueerFest last semester.

Through these experiences he built a close connection with Stevens and views them as a role model for future coordinators.

“Their departure made me very sad, and led to a hole within the structure of the MRC,” Moore said in an email to the Review. “While no person could fit the role as Danielle [Stevens] did in their unique way, I wanted to be involved to ensure that the new CC met the standard, compassion and level of student support that Danielle exhibited.”

This Winter Term, after Stevens left their position, students sent a letter to the MRC expressing concern regarding Stevens’ treatment

and the dynamic in the MRC last semester.

“We want the MRC to sign this letter and acknowledge their responsibility for Danielle Stevens’ resignation and that they are responsible by consistently refusing to acknowledge Danielle Stevens and their work, only interacting with them when there were logistical reasons for doing so, while accusing them of intimidation and ‘playing oppression Olympics,’ and refusing to consider Danielle’s health needs,” wrote students in a preface to this letter on Facebook.

According to Williams, students and members of the MRC met for a mediation and came to a resolution. The students involved in writing the letter declined to comment.

Since the LGBTQ coordinator position has been vacant, programming and other duties of the coordinator are being split between members of the MRC staff.

Williams said the MRC has been very intentional in its efforts to cover for the vacant LGBTQ coordinator position. Earlier this semester, MRC staff members met with several campus groups, including Zami, Trans at Oberlin,

Transgender Participation Advisory Committee and the Edmonia Lewis Center, in an effort to continue to communicate with and provide support for these communities.

“Our coordinators often support student groups, so if a student group all of a sudden doesn’t have their go-to person in the MRC, we just wanted them to know they could come to anybody in the MRC and get help with whatever they needed,” Williams said.

Jan Cooper, the John C. Reid associate professor of Rhetoric & Composition and English, is also a member of the search committee and has been on the TPAC board. Although she was on leave last semester, she rejoined TPAC this spring. Africana Community Coordinator Dio Aldridge filled in as the LGBTQ coordinator on the board. Cooper said, so far, this arrangement has been successful.

“As far as I could see, we didn’t miss a beat in the work of that committee,” Cooper said. “It’s also because … the students on the committee stepped up and took a lot of responsibility too.”

Students Strive to Make Neuroscience Accessible Hannah Jackel-Dewhurst Nu Rho Psi and the Neuroscience Majors Committee hosted the first annual Neuroscience student-powered lecture series this week, a series of 20-minute TED-style talks sponsored by the committee. Organizers planned the event using suggestions from students in an effort to appeal to neuroscience majors and non-majors alike.

“A big part of the way we advertised and put the lectures together was targeting nonneuroscience majors,” explained College junior and Vice President of Nu Rho Psi Jason Freedman.

The event covered topics ranging from studying to addiction to sex and love. The series closed with a student Q&A led by double-degree fifth-year Geoff King and College senior Weelic Chong.

College senior Carey Lyons, secretary of Nu Rho Psi, gave a talk on Monday about sleep and dreams. She discussed the five stages of sleep, each with a characteristic type of brain activity, and explained that most dreams occur during rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep. During REM sleep, brain activity closely resembles waking patterns, but the body is paralyzed due to the repression of certain chemicals in the brain. Lyons then delved into the current theories about why people dream. While current research on this topic is not conclusive, many neuroscientists believe that dreams are a way that new information is consolidated into long-term memory in the hippocampus.

All of the lecture topics, including Lyons’ talk, were based on suggestions that Nu Rho Psi officers gathered while tabling in Mudd library and asking students to write down questions they had about the brain. Organizers then invited Neuroscience and Psychology students to sign up to give lectures about these questions. In order to ensure the accuracy and clarity of these lectures, Nu Rho Psi paired these students with a Neuroscience faculty member, who gave them guidance in preparing their talk.

The presentations, modeled on TED talks, were short in length and focused on explaining scientific concepts in terms that any student could understand, regardless of their background. “[We hope students are] walking away with information that anyone would find interesting and relevant,” Freedman said.

Nu Rho Psi President and College senior Michelle Johnson described the lecture series as an opportunity to bring a larger neuroscience presence to campus.

“We wanted to give the campus a chance for the campus to see Neuroscience students in a different light. … We’re passionate, we want to share this information with other students,” Johnson said.

Similarly, organizers hope the talks will increase Nu Rho Psi’s visibility, which at the beginning of the year was not well known even among Neuroscience majors, according to Freedman.

“One goal when we set out at the beginning of the year was to exist on campus,” Freedman said. “We didn’t feel like there was

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College junior Will Lynch discusses the effects of marijuana on the brain during the Drugs and Addiction talk this Wednesday. The Neuroscience student-powered lecture series consisted of five student-led TED-style talks and a question and answer session.

Evan Davies

a presence; even Neuroscience majors don’t know what Nu Rho Psi is. And we wanted to become a little bit more visible, and show the campus what sort of goals we have.”

Looking forward, Nu Rho Psi hopes to establish an annual event called Brain Awareness Month, according to Johnson.

Freedman said he hopes the month could be a collaboration between multiple student organizations.

“I’m hoping that we can reach out earlier

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to the student body and other student organizations like the Mental Health Alliance or Student Athlete organizations to see if we can partner with them and bring in specific information that is relevant to them,” Freedman said. “We hope that it expands to other departments and topics, increasing general appreciation for science. It’s something that’s really cool and a lot of people are really passionate about. … It’s about curiosity towards the universe that we all share.”

Corrections: Corrections The article “Student Health Center to Double Number of Psychiatrists” should have The Review is not aware reported that the student healthofinsurance any corrections week. medical plan will expand genderthis affirming coverage in 2015-2016. Premium increases The Review strives to print all over the past couple of years are unrelated. information as accurately as possible. you feel the Review made an as TheIfReview strives to printhas all information error, as please sendIfan toReview accurately possible. youe-mail feel the managingeditor@oberlinreview.org. has made an error, please send an email to managingeditor@oberlinreview.org.

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The Oberlin Review, April 17, 2015

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Off the Cuff: Navigating National Security: Intelligence Gathering in the Information Age panelists Seven security experts spoke at the Apollo Theatre on Thursday on a panel titled Navigating National Security: Intelligence Gathering in the Digital Age. Five of the panelists, Jennifer Sims, OC ’75, Robert Jervis, OC ’62, Judith Klavans, OC ’68, Diana Wueger, OC ’06, and Joe Alhadeff, OC ’81, spoke with the Review about the PATRIOT Act, data and Edward Snowden.

granularity you need, but that again tips your hand to the people that are using this “Well I don’t need to know all of this.” All of the sudden people know what you kind of know and what you don’t know and so the ability to feed you misinformation inside of that leads you to greater danger. But as you can tell, this isn’t a black and white.

Do you think the PATRIOT Act should be extended, modified or allowed to exist?

Jennifer Sims: I think it ought to be extended.

Not permanently. I do think it ought to be extended, and it’s coming up, as you know, in June.

I have concerns about aspects of it. So the three provisions that are sunsetting: one of them is Section 215, everyone knows about that, the other is roving wire taps, that’s coming up, and the other is the “Lone Wolf ” provision.

My greatest concern about Section 215 has always been the gag rule. If I had my way, there would be no gag rule. I believe that is a step too far because I think forcing people not to speak about what the government has asked them to do and give up, even when they think it is deeply wrong, is undemocratic. Now, having said that, there’s a counter-intelligence cost. There’s a security cost to it, and I’m very cognizant of that because if people can speak about what the FBI is asking of them, for example, then the adversary knows they’re being chased, so you complicate the counter-intelligence problem, but I think that there ought to be mechanisms. A gag rule is a very, very serious thing in a democracy.

Yes or no: If you were President Obama, would you pardon Snowden?

JS: Pardon Snowden now or later after he’s convicted? [Laughs.] No. Robert Jervis: No. JK: No. Wueger: No. JA: No. RJ: Even if one approves of what he did, which is a different question.

JS: I do not approve of what he did. I do not because I think he undermines our oversight institutions in a horrible way. We have mechanisms for whistleblowers to use who can protest within our system. To go outside the system, to deny the institutions the ability to work is to undermine our democracy in a very fundamental way. I protested Watergate; I protested the Vietnam War; I marched on Washington but it was always to improve our institutions, to reassert the importance of our democracy and our political institutions and our representatives in Congress and Snowden has not appeared before our representatives in Congress. He has not submitted himself to the democratic processes we’ve put in place for just this kind of thing.

He sowed so much distrust in the American political system about the intelligence community, and it’s this amorphous distrust. It’s hard to have a reasonable debate. I agree with some of the Snowden view of overreach by the intelligence community. What he did was unforgivable. I’ve worked too long to try and work within these institutions to make them responsible and accountable. And for him to attack that oversight system from outside it is reprehensible to me.

Is there a national security risk to collecting too much data and, as a result, losing the information that’s actually important in all the noise?

Judith Klavans: I like big data. I think that all information, bring it on, and the reason for that is statistical. If you can get a statistical basis for what is ordinary, then you know what is extraordinary. So you know it’s outside of what you normally expect. So just taking the case of language. If we talked about your profile as a writer, we each have language that we gener-

Thursday, April 9 12:05 a.m. Officers assisted an ill student at Burton Hall. Officers requested an ambulance, and the student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for medical treatment.

Friday, April 10 3:11 a.m. A student reported that the bathroom sink of his Firelands apartment broke off from the wall and caused a small water leak. The water was shut off and a work order was filed. A chair was placed under the sink to hold it up until repairs were made.

2:33 p.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm

Panelists discuss contempory issues of national security, during Navigating National Security: Intelligence Gathering in the Digital Age, at the Apollo Theatre on Thursday.

ally use. If I’m trying to pretend that I’m you, you’re going to know it in a heartbeat. If you have lots of his language and lots of my language, you’re going to really look different. Joe uses words I would just not use. I just don’t use them. They’re kind of legally words. That’s why I’m sitting here saying, ‘How am I interpreting this?’ — because we have different kinds of vocabulary uses. So the more that we have as baselines for people and profiling people, it’s almost like a fingerprint. You can tell who you are by how you write. One of the examples Jordan and I were just talking about on the way over is that, for cybersecurity for example, if you have an example of a computer code that a hacker or cybercriminal has written, you can look for code just like you can look for an essay that you write and I write that looks like that and guess that it might be the same author and guess that it’s a cybercriminal. And then look at where it’s coming from, what its intention is and what it’s trying to do. So I do not think we can collect too much information. How we protect it is another issue.

JS: I’d add one other thing though, and that is one of our vulnerabilities in the U.S. intelligence system is what I call the all-source analysis vulnerability. We have this tendency to always think that all-source analysis is best. So if you get a piece of intelligence, and it seems

at Barnard House. Facilities staff members working in the area detached a detector head, activating the alarm.

2:39 p.m. A security staff member reported that screens had been removed from the windows of the southeast and northeast corner rooms on the third floor of Harkness House. Officers made contact with one resident, who was advised of college policy and the safety hazards of being on the roof.

A work order was filed to replace the screens.

Saturday, April 11 9:23 a.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm on the second floor of the Oberlin Inn. The officers found an activated detector in the hallway but no smoke or fire. Electricians responded to replace the detector, and the alarm

really important, send it back to the National Counterterrorism Center or CIA, it gets put into [a] big database and the analysts then look at the database and the little piece nugget then gets lost in the pile of nuggets where people are trying to connect dots, whereas if there was, at the front end, people making a discrete choice “Is this actionable intelligence today? Do I know where to send this today?” — [which] is so significant that a decision maker or a warrior or other person needs it immediately. If we’re going to stop something bad from happening then, yes, you may send a copy back to [a] central database, but you could also hand it off to someone who could use it right away. Now ... there’s a danger with that because it isn’t necessarily all source, and it might be wrong. But that’s a risk.

Joe Alhadeff: Part of that also goes to so that if one of the reasons that you’re collecting a mass amount of information is that it’s because you can’t pattern the norm, you don’t know what normal looks like. You don’t know what normal looks like, you can’t find an outlier. But part of the question is, “Do you need all of that information in its most identifiable form to pattern the norm?” Because in theory you could use some levels of aggregation or some de-identification and still have very useful information because it could give you the

was reset.

10:58 a.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm on the second floor of Langston Hall. Officers located the activated detector outside the kitchenette. The oven contained pancakes, but there was no burnt food or smoke in the area.

The alarm was reset.

12:27 p.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Police Department responded to a report of a motor vehicle accident in the Admissions parking lot. There were no injuries.

3:23 p.m. A monitor at the Conservatory reported that an unknown person urinated in a trash can on the second floor of Robertson Hall. An officer disposed of the trash can liner containing the urine and sprayed disinfectant. A work order was filed.

6:43 p.m. An officer on patrol at Hall Auditorium observed the wood cover to the lobby windows of the

Interview by Elizabeth Dobbins, News editor Photo by Bryan Rubin

ticket office on the floor of the office.

The wood window cover was put back in place.

Sunday, April 12 3:27 p.m. A student reported the theft of a Retina MacBook Pro laptop, valued at $2500–$3000, and an iPhone 6, valued at $700, from a TV room on the first floor of Kahn Hall. The student left the laptop and phone unattended in the room for a short time. A report was also filed with the Oberlin Police Department.

6:13 p.m. A staff member reported a bicycle accident near Talcott Hall involving a student who was going too fast and rolled the bike. A professor transported the student to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment of scrapes to the arms and face.

Monday, April 13 2:34 a.m. An officer on routine

patrol in Mudd library located a folding knife on the floor in Azariah’s Café. There was no one in the building at the time. The officer transported the knife to the Security Office for safekeeping.

8:41 p.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at a Union Street apartment. A resident smoking marijuana in the room set off the alarm. The room was cleared of smoke, and the alarm reset. Officers confiscated a clear, red and blue pipe and turned it over to the Oberlin Police Department.

Tuesday, April 14 4:16 p.m. Facilities staff reported non-offensive graffiti scratched into the mirror in the men’s bathroom in the basement of Wilder Hall. A work order was filed for cleanup.

News

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Open Hillel Speakers Give Talk Continued from page 1

and those are the things that Hillel has focused on because the issue [of BDS] is so polarizing and we want the space to be open to all Jews. Also, there are a number of political groups that deal with Israel/Palestine, so there are outlets for all students in regards to the issue, so we can keep Hillel neutral.”

College first-year and Hillel treasurer Eli Hovland agrees that Hillel is a neutral space.

“Oberlin Hillel has never been involved in shutting down BDS voices,” he said. “I do not think we have the capability to even do that if we wanted to.

We have a very specific range of programming that we offer, and part of why we do that is we want to offer a space that is as inclusive as possible. If there are people on campus that are passionate about issues, then that’s a good thing.

The Oberlin Review, April 17, 2015

Professors Discuss Pros, Cons of Dissection in Intro Labs Oliver Bok News Editor Students in five lab sections of a 100-level biology class dissected rats last week, but those in the sixth section did not. Instead, the section, taught by Associate Professor Taylor Allen of the Biology department, presented ideas for fictional organs for the human body.

“The project seeks to deepen students’ understanding of body plans and physiological processes, as well as to develop skills related to creative problem solving, innovative thinking and scientific collaboration,” Allen said. “The main impulse is to do something creative. I’m an engineer, so that’s what’s fun for me. It’s just a blast to see what people come up with in terms of designs.”

This is the second year that the content in various introductory Biology labs has differed. Allen stated, however, that students who wanted to inform their organ design by dissecting rats or grasshoppers could do so and that, in fact, roughly half of his section did opt to dissect this semester.

“The idea is to make an environ-

ment comfortable for all, which is difficult if somebody is truly opposed to dissection. There’s a need to be tolerant and welcoming,” Allen said.

Allen also said that he had helped facilitate discussions between students in Ellen Wurtzel’s History of Science class and some of his biology students who have participated in dissections.

“We come together to try to think about who experiences this pain. Do animals experience pain? … We’ve had two lunchtime discussions on sensation in animals, trying to understand it from a philosophical, historical and biological vantage point.”

The disagreement within the Biology department shows how this topic continues to provoke conversation within the scientific community.

To Biology Professor Jane Bennett, who teaches most of the other lab sections, the rat dissections are an invaluable learning tool.

“Any kind of dissection — if you’re not doing the dissection but, let’s say, looking at a picture of it or a video of it — it’s the difference of looking at a sculpture versus actu-

College first-year Caracol Haley dissects a rat for her Organismal Biology class. Instead of having students dissect rats, the instructor of one of the lab sections this semester has decided to challenge them to create their own organ.

Effie Kline-Salamon

ally being able to touch the sculpture,” Bennett said.

Bennett emphasized that the rats the Biology department uses arrive at Oberlin already dead and embalmed, as opposed to other science departments at Oberlin that use living rats for experiments. She also said that students in her sections were free to opt out of the

dissection.

“We have no problem with students who don’t want to dissect,” Bennett said. “We’ve offered in the past [that] they can look on with somebody. I’ve got a number of students doing that. We offer them the ability to go online and look at anything they want. … They can learn the material any way they want.

Personally, I think it gives them greater benefit to really be able to touch things, move around and look for stuff — things that are really not quite as amenable in a twodimensional mode.”

While Bennett believes the rat dissection to be vital to the course, she said she respects her colleague’s decision.

“There’s great autonomy in teaching at Oberlin, so that is what he has decided to do with his students for that particular lab. As long as the department’s fine with it, I’m fine with it.”

Bennett also noted the popularity of the rat dissection lab with her students.

“If you read the evaluations of the lab work, it’s the most frequently mentioned favorite lab,” Bennett said. “It’s not that students don’t want to do it. And there are students who haven’t had that opportunity in the course [who have] been upset by the fact that they haven’t.”

College Sophomore Marcus Caceres, who took the class last spring, found the experience useful.

“I thought it was a really great learning experience, very handson. I don’t think anyone had a particularly hard time,” said Caceres. “I consider myself an animal person, but I think it’s pretty necessary to do these kinds of things.”

However, other community members believe that no dissections should take place at Oberlin at all.

“The use of dead animals in dissections is not as concerning as the use of live animals in painful procedures, which also happens at Oberlin,” said Ari Benjamin, a former member of Oberlin Animal Rights who graduated from the College in December, in an email to the Review. “But the dissections still require the unnecessary killing of healthy animals. They should be discontinued, since there are plenty of alternate ways of learning anatomy, such as diagrams or even virtual dissections.”

April 17, 2015

Opinions The Oberlin Review

Letters to the Editors OCRL Lecture Series Fosters Diverse Opinions To the Editor: The Oberlin College Republicans and Libertarians are proud to host Christina Hoff Sommers as part of the Ronald Reagan Political Lectureship Series.

Since its beginnings in 2006, the Reagan Series has brought many distinguished scholars and commentators to our campus. As the Series’ organizers, we have endeavored to bring speakers who articulate the value of political and economic liberty, freedom of speech and thought, respect for individuals, national defense or voluntary association. We have aimed to offer views that we believe are underrepresented at Oberlin. We have also worked to promote the exchange of reasons, rather than recourse to rhetoric, on controversial topics.

We look forward to Christina Hoff Sommers’ appearance Monday, and we hope to see many of you there.

Sincerely, – Seth Flatt, College senior, OCRL President, 2014–2015 – Taylor Reiners, OC ’14, OCRL President, 2013–2014 – Nick Miller, OC ’13, OCRL President, 2011–2013 – Mary V. Burke, OC ’10, OCRL President, 2007–2008 – Allison (Lint) Boyt, OC ’09, OCRL President, 2006–2007

In Response to Sommers’ Talk: A Love Letter to Ourselves Content Warning: This letter contains discussion of rape culture, online harassment, victim blaming and rape apologism/denialism.

Dear community members: The Oberlin College Republicans and Libertarians are bringing Christina Hoff Sommers to speak on Monday, April 20. This Monday happens to be a part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, which makes the timing of this talk particularly objectionable.

Though OCRL advertised Christina Hoff Sommers as a feminist with a “perspective that differs from the general Oberlin population,” they failed to mention that she is a rape denialist. A rape denialist is someone who denies the prevalence of rape and denies known causes of it. Christina Hoff Sommers believes that rape occurs less often than statistics (those which actually leave out a plethora of unreported rapes) suggest. She also believes that false rape accusations are a rampant issue and that intoxication and coercion cannot rightly be considered barriers to consent.

OCRL additionally failed to mention that she participates in violent movements such as GamerGate, a campaign that threatened feminists advocating against sexism in video games via threats of death and rape. If you need proof, examples or explanation of that, just Google her. Better yet, look at her Twitter. Here are some examples: On April 13, Sommers tweeted: “The wage gap is a myth. So is ‘rape culture’ & claims of gender bias in science. But women’s

grievance industry goes on.”

On April 15, Sommers retweeted Adrian Chmielarz’s tweet: “Thanks for showing how trolls exploit #GamerGate. This account has NEVER used the tag before.” Chmielarz was referring to a tweet by Feminist Frequency, in which Anita Sarkeesian publicized an offensive tweet from @ cox4vox. The tweet contained a misogynistic, anti-Semitic rape threat that used the hashtag #GamerGate. “Reminder: I’ve been bombarded with messages like this one on a daily basis since GamerGate began,” Sarkeesian wrote.

On April 15, Sommers also tweeted: “Looking forward to visiting Oberlin next week. I see my talk is already the focus of a lively campus discussion.” She shared OCRL’s event page with all of her followers on Twitter, after which many of them flocked to the page to defend her viewpoint.

By denying rape culture, she’s creating exactly the cycle of victim/survivor blame, where victims are responsible for the violence that was forced upon them and the subsequent shame that occurs when survivors share their stories, whose existence she denies. This is how rape culture flourishes. By bringing her to a college campus laden with trauma and sexualized violence and full of victims/survivors, OCRL is choosing to reinforce this climate of denial/blame/shame that ultimately has real life consequences on the well-being of people who have experienced sexualized violence. We could spend all of our time and energy explaining all of the ways she’s harmful. But why should we?

Anger is productive, and critiques are necessary. At this point, though, why don’t we stop See Letters, page 7

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

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

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

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

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.

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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

BuzzFeed Controversy Highlights Risk of Advertising in Journalism BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith came under fire this week after he deleted an article written by staff writer Arabelle Sicardi which critiqued Dove Personal Care’s latest ad. In her April 8 post, published with the subheading, “Once again, soap is acting condescending,” she criticized Dove’s viral video, “Choose Beautiful” (“Dove Has Women Walk Through Doors Labeled ‘Beautiful’ Or “Average’ In Latest Campaign,” BuzzFeed, April 8, 2015).

The advertisement, which is the latest video from Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign, questions society’s definition of beauty and pushes viewers to see themselves as possessing the “Real Beauty” Dove advocates. Sicardi took issue with the company’s hypocrisy in promoting the acceptance of natural beauty in order to sell cellulitereducing lotion and skin-lightening creams — products expressly geared toward changing one’s appearance. Smith’s decision to remove the post garnered criticism from many who claimed that the choice was motivated by fear of negative ramifications. Dove is one of BuzzFeed’s corporate sponsors and Smith likely anticipated that the article could tarnish their relationship.

In the backlash that followed, Sicardi resigned, BuzzFeed reinstated the post and Smith sent an email to BuzzFeed staff apologizing for his editorial mistake: “I blew it. Twice in the last couple of months, I’ve asked editors — over their better judgment and without any respect to our standards or process — to delete recently published posts from the site. … You also have a right to ask about whether we did this because of advertiser pressure. … The answer is no.”

The second deleted article to which Smith refers was a BuzzFeed UK post from March 12 that criticized Hasbro, another one of BuzzFeed’s sponsors. The article, titled “Why Monopoly Is The Worst Game In The World, And What You Should Play Instead,” was deleted “at the request of the author” on March 13, according to the page where the article once was.

The Dove controversy highlights the tension between the growing need publications face for funding and the long-held value of journalistic independence. With the decline of print journalism and revenue sourced from selling print newspapers, new economic models are required. Eschewing the New York Times model of journalism, which simply requires a subscription fee for unlimited access, BuzzFeed’s primary source of revenue is corporate sponsorship and online advertising. The danger in this model, however, is that publications could become indebted to their sponsors. As seen in the initial removal of these two articles, this can result in the censorship of opinions that oppose corporate actions.

Internet journalism introduces new risk for the manifestation of this phenomenon. At least with Erdely’s Rolling Stone article “A Rape on Campus,” there was a print version of the article still circulating when the online version was modified and then deleted. By virtue of 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, April 17, 2015

Sexist Hiring Standards Unprofessional Greater Focus Required Elizabeth Bentivegna Contributing Writer On April 1, I interviewed for a programming job at OnShift, a Cleveland-based tech company that makes medical shift scheduling software. Two weeks later, I received a phone call from the recruiter who had contacted me about the position, saying that they would not be hiring me. The hiring director had relayed to her that they would have hired me based on my personality and technical abilities, but would not be doing so because of the way I looked. I was informed that my appearance “looked more like I was about to go clubbing than to an interview,” and that the run in my tights, coupled with my mild lateness — which I had informed them of earlier, due to my afternoon class — suggested to them that I was “unprofessional and not put together.”

Essentially, I was denied a job on an all-male development team for what I looked like.

My friend Alanna Bennett, OC ’13, a staff writer for BuzzFeed, tweeted about the incident, and it has since gone viral, sparking debates and being twisted by third-party media outlets. And while this experience has definitely helped me care less about what people think, I have a few more things to say to OnShift and anyone in tech who considers themselves an ally of women.

How dare you. You laud yourselves as beacons of diversity and change, yet refuse to pull your heads out of the sand and face the winds of change. The concept of “professionalism” in terms of dress is outdated and oppressive from many angles.

You cannot cherry-pick which parts of progressivism you embrace. You cannot stretch out your hand to those in need and yank it back on a petty whim.

For the curious: I was wearing a fitted black T-shirt, a red skater

skirt, black tights (yes, with a run, the horror!) and a black cardigan.

I wore fairly heavy makeup. But it doesn’t matter what I looked like precisely: If I had been a man, would it have mattered what I was wearing? Would the word “clubbing” have even come up? When a man needs to look “professional,” he puts on a suit. Done. When a woman does so, as I was attempting to do, she has to conceive of every possible way her outfit could be misconstrued as too sexy, too frumpy, too nonchalant, too revealing, too formal — and somehow correct for it. What’s more, everyone has their own ideas of what is considered “professional” — Hillary Clinton is constantly criticized for wearing pantsuits — and again, we are expected to magically know how we are going to be perceived before it happens. There is no giant rulebook for how a working woman should look, but everybody seems to think there is and that their copy is the correct one. My attempt to be “professional” was construed as sexual. What if I had actually intended to look sexual? Would this have had any impact on my ability as a programmer? Many tech companies don’t require their programmers to wear anything fancier than jeans and a T-shirt. Many men I know received job offers while wearing polos and jeans. Why was my ability to code not enough?

There are too few of us in technology, and many others are finally starting to ask why. I can tell you.

It’s because of things like this. It’s because even though the doors are finally opening for us, we are looking inside and are afraid of what we see. We can feel that we are not yet welcome here. You can claim that you want a female programmer, but if you do not show your candidates adequate compassion, you’re not going to get one. You got the vibe from her outfit that she’s not put-together? Call her references and see what

they say. So you think she’s a brilliant programmer but doesn’t seem professional enough? Hire her so you can mentor her and help her become a better working woman. We don’t need to have our actions scrutinized and ripped apart in search of error. We need guidance and an opportunity to show the world what a woman in technology looks like.

And after everything we have been subjected to, you need to roll out the red carpet for us.

Since the initial tweet was post–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

There is no giant rulebook for how a working woman should look, but everybody seems to think there is and that their copy is the correct one. My attempt to be “professional” was construed as sexual.

What if I had actually intended to look sexual?

Would this have had any impact on my ability as a programmer?

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ed, I have been contacted by numerous news agencies and even potential employers, so I suppose I really should be thanking OnShift instead of blowing them out of the water.

Thank you, OnShift, for giving me a taste of what this minefield is going to be like. You can rest assured that you have been an inspiration to at least one person. Thank you to all the media, the Review especially, for giving my voice a stage. And thank you to everyone who has poured out their hearts in support. You and I both know that change is coming and that we are the ones who will bring it. And we aren’t going down without a fight.

Editorial: Publication Transparency Essential Continued from page 5 its solely online iteration, BuzzFeed has made it almost impossible, once a post has been deleted, to find an archived or cached version. With Chivers’ anti-Hasbro Monopoly post, BuzzFeed even included Chivers’ post in its robots.txt directory, which makes it nearly impossible to find an archived post, ensuring that password-protected pages

aren’t indexed by Google or the Internet Archive. If BuzzFeed had not re-posted Sicardi’s Dove post, it also probably would have been lost in the internet forever.

Transparency is even more of an issue with online-only publications like BuzzFeed.

The unfortunate truth is that in the demise of print media, journalists have been forced to get creative with funding sources, and corporate

sponsorship is a very common, viable model.

To resolve this issue, publications can and should be more transparent about where they are getting their money from and to whom they might be indebted. However, this is not a perfect solution, as the transparency of any given publication is hard to ensure. The burden must also fall on readers to make sure that they consume content from a

variety of sources — and not just those they think they agree with.

As BuzzFeed grows, its left-leaning staff has come to include people from a range of backgrounds, meaning that there are many writers with differing and important opinions. This is wonderful, but of course, it doesn’t matter if the general public can’t access these opinions in the first place.

Public Censure Senator Ty Wagner has been found to be repeatedly absent from working group meetings, late and absent from plenary meetings of the Student Senate and in non-compliance with Student Finance Committee-stipulated time card requirements. Senator’s failure to perform necessary duties will not be tolerated by the Oberlin College Student Senate.

for Oberlin Activism CJ Blair Columnist

If there’s one thing Oberlin students know how to do, it’s to ensure that their political beliefs are heard. The truth is that Obies are known in and out of academia as the college students who hurl their most radical politics in the face of whoever’s in throwing distance, without restraint or willingness to compromise. Anyone who goes to Oberlin knows that this fervor can get very annoying, but they also know that it is what helps Oberlin move toward its progressive goals so much faster than other colleges. For this reason, it’s worth considering how our strong political beliefs are articulated to ensure that they expedite the advancement of the issues we really care about, and so that we don’t get lost discussing ideas we don’t care about.

I got the idea for this article when I was lying on a park bench on Saturday, six miles away from campus. I was training for the Cleveland Marathon and got overconfident, thinking I could run the full 26 miles at my Boston Marathon qualifying pace. At mile 20, I hit the wall. I knew I would collapse if I had to run any farther.

After calling a dozen friends to ask if they could come, I called Safety and Security for a ride. They said tough luck, because I was too far off campus. A friend came to pick me up after about an hour, but all I could think about was how much trouble I could get Safety and Security into.

I could’ve gone through with that. I could’ve written this column about bureaucratic nonsense and inconsiderate College staff and then sent President Krislov a letter. Even though Safety and Security surely couldn’t come because of liability reasons, I probably still could’ve gotten something out of that fight. But what would have really been accomplished? What would it have said about me if the countless hours I spend every week fighting pipelines and organizing environmental justice events had been ignored so I could be angry at the College for a few days?

This epiphany made me understand why Oberlin’s aggressive demands are often viewed negatively by the outside world, even if they share similar political views with many Oberlin students. When a serious instance of social or political inequality is brought to people’s attention, it needs to be afforded the utmost time and dedication for anything to get accomplished. This dedication has historically been one of Oberlin’s greatest strengths and still continues to be. However, this has been coupled with a tendency to afford this level of rhetoric and activism to issues that simply don’t deserve that amount of attention.

No matter how it’s viewed, too few forks in the dining hall or showers that take too long to get warm will never be as important as economic inaccessibility or a lack of diversity on campus. These might seem like extreme examples, but Oberlin is known for nothing if not extremes.

This was my dream college, and I am ecstatic that I am able to attend, but for every trivial fight annoyed students undertake, I can envision how much more meaningful work could be done for more urgent and important campaigns.

If it seems like I’m advocating a myopic, utilitarian view of political activism, rest assured that I’m not.

Though I’m suggesting a consolidation of focus, the enormous intellectual wealth of Oberlin students is more than enough to make some really spectacular change on this campus. If everyone here were fighting for the same goal in the same way, it would be no different than any group of well-meaning college students trying to better the world. But Oberlin is so much more than that because its students aren’t trying to build a resume. They want to set the gold standard for the way people and resources should be treated in the world.

This may sound like a lofty goal, but it’s one that is obviously engrained in the hearts and minds of students here, and it’s why I’m so frustrated when energy is wasted on complaints and trivial matters that are simply not that important. As college students with the immense privilege given to us by this education, it’s easy to lose sight of the outside world and find little things to complain about instead. But if Oberlin students save their brilliance and excitement for the truly important issues, as they did for the #BlackLivesMatter campaign and the current Fossil Fuel Divestment plan, it would make it much easier for ourselves and others to understand the importance of our trademark fervor.

Opinions

The Oberlin Review, April 17, 2015

Page 7

Asexuality Denial Furthers Heteronormative, Anti-Queer Arguments

Mainstream LGBTQ Movement Must Accept All Sexual Identities

Natalie Pierson Contributing Writer

Kiley Petersen Opinions Editor

Disclaimer: This piece does not reflect the opinions, experiences and feelings of all or even most asexuals. This is solely my own experience and how I feel.

I learn something new about sex almost every day.

Whether it’s rim jobs, golden showers or just how much the bottom/top dynamic says about your personality, sex and its thousands of facets and manifestations will always baffle me. I find it really interesting, disturbing, exciting and utterly foreign all at once. My feelings about it are complicated, variable and extremely hard to explain.

Being asexual is at times unbearably exhausting.

I didn’t realize I was asexual until I got to college. In high school, I was blissfully unaware of just how far behind I was. I suspected some of my classmates were having sex, but I wasn’t worried. I went to parties, had a closeknit group of friends and was relatively well-liked, but I never had much luck in the sex/romance department. I had crushes on people, and people had crushes on me, but the two groups never seemed to overlap, which was fine. People told me I was just a late-bloomer and that I would blossom in college.

When I actually got here, social expectations were a lot more obvious to me. Not only did all my peers live in the same five-mile radius, but they were a lot more open about their sexual exploits.

That was when I started to worry. It felt like I was lightyears behind everyone, with no hope of catching up. But

even more disturbing was that I wasn’t sure I wanted to catch up. As sex became less and less abstract to me, the more I wanted nothing to do with it. It didn’t seem like something I could realistically picture myself doing with anyone I knew. About sex, people say, “In the moment, you’ll know what to do.” But thinking about myself “in the moment,” I knew it wouldn’t feel natural to me. So last year, after months of anxiety, deliberation and questioning, I finally decided to identify as asexual and come out to a few of my friends. And I was happy!

But, as usual, things got more complicated. I decided to talk to my therapist about my revelation. I was pretty ––––––––––––––––––––––––

About sex, people say, “In the moment, you’ll know what to do.” But thinking about myself “in the moment,” I knew it wouldn’t feel natural to me. So last year, after months of anxiety, deliberation and questioning, I finally decided to identify as asexual and come out to a few of my friends. And I was happy!

–––––––––––––––––––––––– sure about my sexuality, and it seemed important, so I awkwardly came out to her, hoping for feedback, a discussion, anything. Instead she told me that the class of medication I had been taking

since I was 9 years old had libido-suppressing side effects.

According to her, my identity might be entirely chemical.

She suggested I switch to another kind of medication. I fearfully refused and am still wrestling with that decision.

The prospect of undergoing sexual adolescence in my 20s frightens me. It brings up bizarre questions like: What is identity? If it can change, was it ever my identity in the first place? What is sexual attraction, and how will I know if or when I feel it? Do I want to change who am currently?

Should I? What depresses me the most is that I don’t always know where I fit in in the queer community. While my romantic orientation is queer (biromantic), I know that many LGBTQ community members don’t view asexuals as queer, which is fine.

Some asexuals don’t identify as such because that’s their preference. But there are some asexuals, like me, who need a community because we feel defective and broken because of a society that tells us we’re missing out on something important.

And sex is really important to a large part of the population. It makes me sad that as of right now, I don’t understand something so crucial to human society. I hate not understanding things, and the heteronormative society we live in sometimes makes me want to change who I am.

Some days I like being me, and I really don’t want anything to do with sex, but other days I think my life would be so much easier if I could be like everyone else. I guess all I can do is be me, but I don’t know who that is yet.

Growing up in private Catholic schools from elementary until high school was full of both challenges and rewards. I was lucky enough to receive an excellent education that prepared me for college. I was unlucky enough, however, to receive inaccurate sex ed in both my health and religion classes.

As the archdiocese controls the curriculum taught by religious schools, even if the teachers had wanted to teach proper sex ed instead of abstinence-only classes, they couldn’t. So I grew up not only afraid of sexual contact with anyone but also confused and unsure of my sexual identity. I was supposed to like boys, find a nice one, marry him, then have sex, make cute babies and raise them Catholic. The circle of life. Never in sex ed were the words “gay” or “bisexual” brought up. There was a veiled reference to sexually transmitted diseases. HIV/AIDS was one of the main ones discussed, but I don’t remember ever learning how it was transmitted or the stigma behind it.

Middle school was a rough time for everyone, but especially for my closeted friends and me. My friend Thomas goofed off in class and spent most of his time in the art classroom, where he could get away from the jocks’ bullying. Later, he left for art school and blossomed into a talented artist and musician. In my sophomore year, a senior named Sean Simonson published a highly controversial op-ed in our high school newspaper, the Knight Errant, titled “Life as a Gay Teenager.”

He was the first person in our high school to come out publicly. The op-ed received many inappropriate comments, so instead of deleting the comments, the principal forced the newspaper to delete the story.

Throughout these events, I grew increasingly confused about my sexual identity. With little to no knowledge of other sexual identities

besides “gay” and “lesbian,” I knew that I didn’t fit in any of the boxes provided: straight, gay or lesbian. I was confident in my assigned gender identity as a woman, but I didn’t understand how I could have feelings of romantic and sexual attraction toward both men and women. I justified these emotions by hypersexualizing my relationships with boys — I told rowdy jokes and flirted a lot — while suppressing my feelings toward girls as merely friendship.

In our society girls are socialized to be affectionate and loving to their friends in public, so I thought this was just a normal girl thing.

The first time I came out, I was shaking and sobbing. My friend and I sat outside a coffee shop in spring of my junior year. It was probably one of the best days of my life. I attempted to come out to my mother twice; the first time, crying in the car, I never was actually able to vocalize the words, “I’m bisexual.” I merely told her that I had a crush on a girl in my dance class. The second time, in January of this year, she accepted my coming out.

Even at Oberlin, where I have grown to accept and love my sexuality, I have faced skepticism and scorn.

Throughout the various labels I have used for my sexuality — bisexual for most of my first year, pansexual for a brief week in the summer, and finally settling on queer, where I have rested comfortably since the beginning of this year — I have been met with resistance from fellow queer friends and peers. I’m either indecisive, a slut, secretly a lesbian, secretly straight or seeking attention.

I fully believe that it is not only the social stigma of anything queer- or bisexual-related but also the stigma of bi/pansexuality in our own LGBTQ community that has resulted in this disbelief and scorn. At Oberlin, we have great potential to open dialogue about LGBTQ issues. Let’s start by accepting different sexualities and allowing people to label their sexuality according to their own definitions.

Letters to the Editors, Cont.

Continued from page 5 spinning our wheels and burning ourselves out on conversations with Christina Hoff Sommers’ Twitter followers? We need to let survivors lead the conversation: to let them define their experience for themselves and to let them tell us what they need. We’re never going to get what we need from Christina Hoff Sommers or her Twitter followers, so let’s pull together and take care of each other. She can prioritize debunking statistics on sexualized violence; let’s prioritize each other healing from and refusing to tolerate violence. Her talk is happening, so let’s pull together in the face of this violence and make our own space to support each other. She exists, but so do we.

From centering survivors, their needs and community support, there are so many ways to engage. It is valid and necessary to both create alternative spaces for healing and to directly challenge the violence that is happening.

A few concrete examples of ways to engage: 1. Listening to your friends who’ve been harmed

2. Using your social and financial capital 3. Challenging violence and harm 4. Participating in actions and conversations in response to the event 5. Recognizing and prioritizing intersectional feminism and survivor support 6. Genuinely caring for one another 7. Educating yourself on the impacts of trauma and symptoms of post-traumatic stress/reactions 8. Silence While navigating these many forms of support, it is important to underscore both that safety is a priority and that it’s not possible to be neutral about rape culture. A decision not to support survivors/victims is a decision to permit the actions of the perpetrators.

So let’s engage in some radical, beautiful community care, support and love.

Let’s make space for everyone to engage at whichever level they want/need. Let’s come through for each other, both now and in the future. Trauma is an experience that threatens a person’s bodily, spiritual and emotional integrity. The psychological, emotional and somatic impacts extend beyond the experience of trauma. Healing is

a process that looks different for each person. Let’s make space to care for all expe––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

We need to let survivors lead the conversation: to let them define their experience for themselves and to let them tell us what they need. We’re never going to get what we need from Christina Hoff Sommers or her Twitter followers, so let’s pull together and take care of each other. She can prioritize debunking statistics on sexualized violence; let’s prioritize each other healing from and refusing to tolerate violence.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– riences of trauma and to respect those we care for. Let’s focus our energy on taking care of each other and ourselves. Let’s make

her talk irrelevant in the face of our love, passion and power.

Alternate Event: We’re Still Here Monday, April 20, 7:30–9:00 p.m.

Shiperd Lounge, Asia House Direct Action (occurring prior to and at the event) Monday, April 20, 7:00–9:30 p.m.

Hallock Auditorium, AJLC Love, – Sarah MacFadden, College senior – Sophie Meade, College senior – Tanya Stickles, College sophomore – Akane Little, College sophomore – Juliana Ruoff, College senior

O F

Y E S T E RY E A R

as told by six alumni and current residents of

Jane Eddy: I graduated from Medina High School in 1944 in May, and the next month, I matriculated at Oberlin with the thought of going six straight semesters and graduating in three years instead of four, which many of the women who started that summer with me did. So I went four straight semesters, and by that time I was so stressed. That’s a long time to be studying all the time, and [having] exams. And I lost weight and my hair got funny. So I took a year off, and I came back as a junior and graduated in 1948.

coming to Oberlin during the war Ernie Eddy: What an unprepared young man I was to come to Oberlin College from a high school at the end of the war. A high school in which there were [three] boys in my class. The girls were there; the boys were going to war. … In fact, the war was still on when I came to Oberlin as a raw freshman, and I had to go to Cleveland because I was called up for induction right toward the end of the war.

’Sco c. 1940s

workload and time off

Ernie Eddy Class of 1949, Sociology Major Jane Eddy Class of 1948, English Literature Major

Ernie Eddy: I’m glad she did, because I probably wouldn’t have married her otherwise.

Jane Eddy: I loved to dance jitterbug. And every Friday night, in what we called Rec Hall in the basement of what was then called Men’s Building, which is now called Wilder Hall, they had a student band that played. And boy, I loved the jitterbug. That’s one of my favorite memories.

in loco parentis

Obie romance Jane Eddy: [Ernie] ate in the same dining hall that I was eating in, and so we knew each other, but we did not start dating until I was a senior and he was a junior. And I won’t tell you the whole story, but he forgot our first date. He didn’t show up. Can you believe I married him anyway? Shouldn’t that have told me something? So, the rest of the story is that we have three children, three grandchildren, two step-grandchildren, three great-grand-children and eight step-great-grandchildren.

Jane Eddy: We women had curfews. We had to be in on weeknights by 10 o’clock. We had to sign in, make sure we were in. On the weekends, I think it was midnight.

Not only that, but the men had maid service and linen service, and the women did not. We made our own beds, dusted our own rooms. I had to send my laundry home — there were no washing machines. Everybody had a big laundry box, [and] every week I’d send my laundry home.

My mother would do my laundry and send it back, with maybe some chocolate bars or something in it. So there was a big difference in the way men and women were treated ... and we paid the same tuition.

Mary Louise VanDyke Class of 1947, Conservatory Music Education Major Don VanDyke Class of 1948, Pre-Med Major

returning to Oberlin after the war

dining hall life Mary Louise VanDyke: Oh my goodness, the dining hall rules.

First of all, when you walked into your dining room, you had your napkin in a silver napkin ring, and it was in a box. And you took it out, that was your napkin. And then we didn’t dare go in the dining room until the housemother went in; she went in first. So the nice thing is while we were waiting, we all stood around the piano and sang. We all had wonderful, old, old songs and somebody would sit down and play.

Don VanDyke: The men ate in the women’s dorms, and each dorm had its own kitchen. That’s how we met.

Mary Louise VanDyke: So we had a wonderful time, singing and joking until the housemother appeared, grumbling of course because we had other things to do. It turned out being one of the best things, it cements you together. And then you ate, and you didn’t dare leave your table until the housemother stood up. Men wore coats and ties, absolutely — they couldn’t get in the dining room without them. And you didn’t stand up until she did. Which caused a lot of frustration and indigestion probably because you had work to do, but it turned out to be a great lesson for life; you know, you learned to sit at a table and make conversation, you learned social graces. [Meals were] served by students always; that was one of the board jobs. Not only washing pots and pans and dishes, but serving.

[The housemother] watched you all the time. If you sat a little too close on the porch, she’d come up and…

Don VanDyke: Now there were ways around this sometimes.

Mary Louise VanDyke: We used the library stacks.

Don VanDyke: I had a year before I was in the service, then was drafted. Then I came back in ’46 when the war was over … we had summer sessions then, GIs, because we all wanted to catch up.

I was in the service from ’44 to ’46, three years. I went to Europe, France, England, Germany; when the war was over, Czechoslovakia for a while.

My experience was sort of unique because it was post-war for the veterans and nothing like anything before or since. We had a veteran’s cafeteria about in the Mudd parking lot. So that was just a couple years after the war. So all these rules changed at the end of the war, because when the GIs came back ,they weren’t going to put up with that, you know. They’d been out fighting a war.

Mary Louise VanDyke: I taught school in Sandusky [in the year before Don graduated].

We wore the bus lines out. ... We were married in Fairchild Chapel.

social strictures Don VanDyke: Of course the biggest change happened in the ’60s, when we weren’t here.

There were certainly changes then too, after the war. ... I think a lot of the breakdown of that rigid social structure. [Even then] I think we were still “Mr.” and “Ms.” to the faculty. And they were certainly not first-name people for us.

K E N D A L Tales of students sneaking home at midnight via the Keep Cottage fire escape, only to be placed on probation for breaking curfew, seem a world apart from modern-day life at Oberlin.

Changes over the decades are less obvious to members of a community as essentially transient as a college. The past is within reach, however, at Kendal at Oberlin — a part-retirement community, part-assisted living center tucked away just a few blocks north of Tappan, which houses over 300 retirees in landscaped adjoining cottages and apartments. Three out of every eight Kendal residents were once students, faculty or staff at the College, and many audit classes every semester and attend concerts and convocations. Some are affiliate scholars with the College, while others perform in student productions and music groups.

Kendal has been a fixture of the town since 1993, when a group of aging residents persuaded the national Kendal Corporation to start a community in Oberlin, providing them with the option of a retirement home without having to leave the town. At the time, Kendal resident Jane Eddy recalled, then-College president Fred Starr was rumored to have complained, “We don’t want all those old folks stumbling around downtown.” Attitudes were not wholly negative, however. “Johnny [of Johnny’s Carryout],” added Eddy, “was rumored to have said … that Kendal was the best thing that had ever happened to his business.”

Kendal’s system includes four levels of care: independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing and hospice care. However, residents pay a fixed rate regardless of changes in their care needs. When asked about the affordability of such a system in an upscale retirement community, Kendal Director of Admissions and Marketing Maggie Stark pointed out the universally high cost of long-term care in assisted living centers and retirement homes.

However, “Not everyone can afford Kendal,” she added. “I’ll be the first to admit that.”

Visiting Kendal comes as a surprise to those who see the term “continuing care retirement community” as a subtle euphemism for “nursing home.” Walking around the main building, one encounters residents hurrying back and forth carrying everything from posters to potted plants, former set-painters working on magnificent murals and townspeople and residents shopping in the Resale store, which accepts donations and sales. “We do draw a much younger crowd than your standard retirement community,” Stark said. The average age of the approximately 325 current residents is 75, with 25 percent having entered in their 60s.

Many of the College’s institutions and infrastructure persist from the time when many Kendal residents attended the College In the 1940s, when semester tuition and fees were in the neighborhood of $900, students still shopped at Ben Franklin, Watson’s and Gibson’s. They still saw movies at the Apollo.

This week, the Review talked with three couples about the greatest changes they have seen since returning to the town, six decades later.

This Week editor: Hazel Galloway Contributing writer: Olivia Konuk

love among the stacks

The famed Kendal Lawn Chair Brigade performs at the Big Parade.

Photo by Dale Preston, courtesy of Kendal at Oberlin

Harvey Culbert: As far as life on campus goes, I was dating when I was here — that’s the first girl I married. Our dates were all in the library.

At first, she was interesting but I just didn’t have time to date. So I was using the main library up in Carnegie. It was a huge room, noisy, terrible place to study … but I found out she didn’t like to study there, so as juniors and seniors we were able to go up into the stacks and there were these carrels that one or two people could get into and study together. And then, as seniors, we were given a key to the library of the Physics building … so we could study in the library of the Physics department together — until 10 o’clock.

I think the first date off, out of the library that we took, I told her, “I can’t afford to pay your way.” She said, “It’s okay,” but it only cost a quarter to get into the Apollo for a movie.

Kendal resident Allen Huszti takes part in the Winter Term Opera Strawberry Fields. Five Kendal residents joined student performers in the show.

Photo by Dale Preston, courtesy of Kendal at Oberlin

Harvey Culbert Class of 1958, Physics major Louise Luckenbill Class of 1958, Zoology major

consequences of curfew-breaking

political culture

Louise Luckenbill: When I was in my last, senior year in Pyle Inn, there was a fire escape going up one of the sides of the house, and one of our fellow students came up that fire escape and got into the house at midnight one night. … None of us would have said anything, except that a neighbor reported her to the dean, and she had a tough time. She was not dismissed from school, but I think she was on some kind of behavior probation the rest of the time.

activism in the ’50s

O B E R L I N

Harvey Culbert: The activism I remember was when Hungary was invaded by Russia, a bunch of us went into Cleveland. I don’t know how we got the cars, we didn’t have cars on campus unless you had special permission. … We all got together, and a whole bunch of us went to Cleveland, and we marched around the square in front of the Terminal Tower as a protest. … And there was a huge parade of posters and singing.

co-op life Louise Luckenbill: I think the co-ops had just started a couple of years before we came in as freshmen. … living there, it was just a big sociology experiment — it probably still is. And there were people who did things and lived life in ways that I’d never dreamed, and we had to work together to make it work.

Louise Luckenbill: I remember cell groups. … We had men and women, girls and boys, discussion. And they were questions like, “Who am I?” “What is life?” You know, small issues like that. [Laughs.]

And we would have these very, I want to say intimate, [discussions] in the sense of revealing inner feelings and thoughts in the group.

And there were maybe half a dozen people, and you became very close to these people, and you shared your thoughts and your ideas. The funny thing was that I think the communist party had things called cell groups too.

And so Oberlin had a reputation for being a little pink.

And then invited Pete Seeger, of course. But they forged on despite the talking about Oberlin in those days by those ultra-right-wing people in the McCarthy group.

CALENDAR

Dandelion Romp Friday, April 17 and Saturday, April 18, 8 p.m.

Hales Gymnasium

Creative Writing Program Senior Reading Saturday, April 18, 4:30 p.m.

Wilder Hall 112

The Feline Riot Saturday, April 18, 8–11 p.m.

The Cat in the Cream

A Deaf Perspective Sunday, April 19, 3–4 p.m.

Hallock Auditorium, AJLC

A New Environmentalism for an Unfractured Future Monday, April 20, 7:30–9 p.m.

First Church in Oberlin

“Spring Fling” Middle School Dance Monday, April 20, 9–11 p.m.

Cat in the Cream

One-Act Plays Wednesday, April 22 through Saturday, April 25, 8 p.m.

Little Theater

Oberlin’s annual contra dance festival draws dancers from near and far for two evening dances, a day of workshops and an afternoon dance to conclude the weekend. Two bands and guest callers will officiate at the events, which are open to all regardless of experience.

Seniors in the Creative Writing department will share excerpts from their work in the program. The Emma Howell Memorial Poetry Prize winner and honorable mentions, and the English department prize winners of the William Battrick and Lucy Pope Wheeler contests will also read from their winning entries.

This showcase features women of all ages performing a variety of musical acts backed by the political indie folk band Backbone. The perennially-popular and feminist-themed show aims to encourage women to perform together.

The American Sign Language ExCo will bring in Fred Palchick and Louis Ricciardi, deaf professors of ASL at Akron University, for a presentation and question and answer session about Deaf culture and what it means to be deaf. The event is accesible to non-ASL users; an English interpreter will be present to translate.

Biologist, author and activist Sandra Steingraber has participated in acts of civil disobedience against the construction of natural gas infrastructure in ecologically delicate areas. She also brings her perspectives as a woman activist, mother and cancer survivor to her writing and lecturing on environmentalism.

The Cat in the Cream staff will organize a night reminiscent of the most awkward 8th-grade semiformal, complete with appropriate music selections and mood-setting decorations. Chaperones will not be provided.

Students from one of the directing classes in the Theater department will present a night of five one-act plays. Two of the plays are original pieces directed by their writers. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at the door.

O F

Y E S T E RY E A R

as told by six alumni and current residents of

Jane Eddy: I graduated from Medina High School in 1944 in May, and the next month, I matriculated at Oberlin with the thought of going six straight semesters and graduating in three years instead of four, which many of the women who started that summer with me did. So I went four straight semesters, and by that time I was so stressed. That’s a long time to be studying all the time, and [having] exams. And I lost weight and my hair got funny. So I took a year off, and I came back as a junior and graduated in 1948.

coming to Oberlin during the war Ernie Eddy: What an unprepared young man I was to come to Oberlin College from a high school at the end of the war. A high school in which there were [three] boys in my class. The girls were there; the boys were going to war. … In fact, the war was still on when I came to Oberlin as a raw freshman, and I had to go to Cleveland because I was called up for induction right toward the end of the war.

’Sco c. 1940s

workload and time off

Ernie Eddy Class of 1949, Sociology Major Jane Eddy Class of 1948, English Literature Major

Ernie Eddy: I’m glad she did, because I probably wouldn’t have married her otherwise.

Jane Eddy: I loved to dance jitterbug. And every Friday night, in what we called Rec Hall in the basement of what was then called Men’s Building, which is now called Wilder Hall, they had a student band that played. And boy, I loved the jitterbug. That’s one of my favorite memories.

in loco parentis

Obie romance Jane Eddy: [Ernie] ate in the same dining hall that I was eating in, and so we knew each other, but we did not start dating until I was a senior and he was a junior. And I won’t tell you the whole story, but he forgot our first date. He didn’t show up. Can you believe I married him anyway? Shouldn’t that have told me something? So, the rest of the story is that we have three children, three grandchildren, two step-grandchildren, three great-grand-children and eight step-great-grandchildren.

Jane Eddy: We women had curfews. We had to be in on weeknights by 10 o’clock. We had to sign in, make sure we were in. On the weekends, I think it was midnight.

Not only that, but the men had maid service and linen service, and the women did not. We made our own beds, dusted our own rooms. I had to send my laundry home — there were no washing machines. Everybody had a big laundry box, [and] every week I’d send my laundry home.

My mother would do my laundry and send it back, with maybe some chocolate bars or something in it. So there was a big difference in the way men and women were treated ... and we paid the same tuition.

Mary Louise VanDyke Class of 1947, Conservatory Music Education Major Don VanDyke Class of 1948, Pre-Med Major

returning to Oberlin after the war

dining hall life Mary Louise VanDyke: Oh my goodness, the dining hall rules.

First of all, when you walked into your dining room, you had your napkin in a silver napkin ring, and it was in a box. And you took it out, that was your napkin. And then we didn’t dare go in the dining room until the housemother went in; she went in first. So the nice thing is while we were waiting, we all stood around the piano and sang. We all had wonderful, old, old songs and somebody would sit down and play.

Don VanDyke: The men ate in the women’s dorms, and each dorm had its own kitchen. That’s how we met.

Mary Louise VanDyke: So we had a wonderful time, singing and joking until the housemother appeared, grumbling of course because we had other things to do. It turned out being one of the best things, it cements you together. And then you ate, and you didn’t dare leave your table until the housemother stood up. Men wore coats and ties, absolutely — they couldn’t get in the dining room without them. And you didn’t stand up until she did. Which caused a lot of frustration and indigestion probably because you had work to do, but it turned out to be a great lesson for life; you know, you learned to sit at a table and make conversation, you learned social graces. [Meals were] served by students always; that was one of the board jobs. Not only washing pots and pans and dishes, but serving.

[The housemother] watched you all the time. If you sat a little too close on the porch, she’d come up and…

Don VanDyke: Now there were ways around this sometimes.

Mary Louise VanDyke: We used the library stacks.

Don VanDyke: I had a year before I was in the service, then was drafted. Then I came back in ’46 when the war was over … we had summer sessions then, GIs, because we all wanted to catch up.

I was in the service from ’44 to ’46, three years. I went to Europe, France, England, Germany; when the war was over, Czechoslovakia for a while.

My experience was sort of unique because it was post-war for the veterans and nothing like anything before or since. We had a veteran’s cafeteria about in the Mudd parking lot. So that was just a couple years after the war. So all these rules changed at the end of the war, because when the GIs came back ,they weren’t going to put up with that, you know. They’d been out fighting a war.

Mary Louise VanDyke: I taught school in Sandusky [in the year before Don graduated].

We wore the bus lines out. ... We were married in Fairchild Chapel.

social strictures Don VanDyke: Of course the biggest change happened in the ’60s, when we weren’t here.

There were certainly changes then too, after the war. ... I think a lot of the breakdown of that rigid social structure. [Even then] I think we were still “Mr.” and “Ms.” to the faculty. And they were certainly not first-name people for us.

K E N D A L Tales of students sneaking home at midnight via the Keep Cottage fire escape, only to be placed on probation for breaking curfew, seem a world apart from modern-day life at Oberlin.

Changes over the decades are less obvious to members of a community as essentially transient as a college. The past is within reach, however, at Kendal at Oberlin — a part-retirement community, part-assisted living center tucked away just a few blocks north of Tappan, which houses over 300 retirees in landscaped adjoining cottages and apartments. Three out of every eight Kendal residents were once students, faculty or staff at the College, and many audit classes every semester and attend concerts and convocations. Some are affiliate scholars with the College, while others perform in student productions and music groups.

Kendal has been a fixture of the town since 1993, when a group of aging residents persuaded the national Kendal Corporation to start a community in Oberlin, providing them with the option of a retirement home without having to leave the town. At the time, Kendal resident Jane Eddy recalled, then-College president Fred Starr was rumored to have complained, “We don’t want all those old folks stumbling around downtown.” Attitudes were not wholly negative, however. “Johnny [of Johnny’s Carryout],” added Eddy, “was rumored to have said … that Kendal was the best thing that had ever happened to his business.”

Kendal’s system includes four levels of care: independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing and hospice care. However, residents pay a fixed rate regardless of changes in their care needs. When asked about the affordability of such a system in an upscale retirement community, Kendal Director of Admissions and Marketing Maggie Stark pointed out the universally high cost of long-term care in assisted living centers and retirement homes.

However, “Not everyone can afford Kendal,” she added. “I’ll be the first to admit that.”

Visiting Kendal comes as a surprise to those who see the term “continuing care retirement community” as a subtle euphemism for “nursing home.” Walking around the main building, one encounters residents hurrying back and forth carrying everything from posters to potted plants, former set-painters working on magnificent murals and townspeople and residents shopping in the Resale store, which accepts donations and sales. “We do draw a much younger crowd than your standard retirement community,” Stark said. The average age of the approximately 325 current residents is 75, with 25 percent having entered in their 60s.

Many of the College’s institutions and infrastructure persist from the time when many Kendal residents attended the College In the 1940s, when semester tuition and fees were in the neighborhood of $900, students still shopped at Ben Franklin, Watson’s and Gibson’s. They still saw movies at the Apollo.

This week, the Review talked with three couples about the greatest changes they have seen since returning to the town, six decades later.

This Week editor: Hazel Galloway Contributing writer: Olivia Konuk

love among the stacks

The famed Kendal Lawn Chair Brigade performs at the Big Parade.

Photo by Dale Preston, courtesy of Kendal at Oberlin

Harvey Culbert: As far as life on campus goes, I was dating when I was here — that’s the first girl I married. Our dates were all in the library.

At first, she was interesting but I just didn’t have time to date. So I was using the main library up in Carnegie. It was a huge room, noisy, terrible place to study … but I found out she didn’t like to study there, so as juniors and seniors we were able to go up into the stacks and there were these carrels that one or two people could get into and study together. And then, as seniors, we were given a key to the library of the Physics building … so we could study in the library of the Physics department together — until 10 o’clock.

I think the first date off, out of the library that we took, I told her, “I can’t afford to pay your way.” She said, “It’s okay,” but it only cost a quarter to get into the Apollo for a movie.

Kendal resident Allen Huszti takes part in the Winter Term Opera Strawberry Fields. Five Kendal residents joined student performers in the show.

Photo by Dale Preston, courtesy of Kendal at Oberlin

Harvey Culbert Class of 1958, Physics major Louise Luckenbill Class of 1958, Zoology major

consequences of curfew-breaking

political culture

Louise Luckenbill: When I was in my last, senior year in Pyle Inn, there was a fire escape going up one of the sides of the house, and one of our fellow students came up that fire escape and got into the house at midnight one night. … None of us would have said anything, except that a neighbor reported her to the dean, and she had a tough time. She was not dismissed from school, but I think she was on some kind of behavior probation the rest of the time.

activism in the ’50s

O B E R L I N

Harvey Culbert: The activism I remember was when Hungary was invaded by Russia, a bunch of us went into Cleveland. I don’t know how we got the cars, we didn’t have cars on campus unless you had special permission. … We all got together, and a whole bunch of us went to Cleveland, and we marched around the square in front of the Terminal Tower as a protest. … And there was a huge parade of posters and singing.

co-op life Louise Luckenbill: I think the co-ops had just started a couple of years before we came in as freshmen. … living there, it was just a big sociology experiment — it probably still is. And there were people who did things and lived life in ways that I’d never dreamed, and we had to work together to make it work.

Louise Luckenbill: I remember cell groups. … We had men and women, girls and boys, discussion. And they were questions like, “Who am I?” “What is life?” You know, small issues like that. [Laughs.]

And we would have these very, I want to say intimate, [discussions] in the sense of revealing inner feelings and thoughts in the group.

And there were maybe half a dozen people, and you became very close to these people, and you shared your thoughts and your ideas. The funny thing was that I think the communist party had things called cell groups too.

And so Oberlin had a reputation for being a little pink.

And then invited Pete Seeger, of course. But they forged on despite the talking about Oberlin in those days by those ultra-right-wing people in the McCarthy group.

CALENDAR

Dandelion Romp Friday, April 17 and Saturday, April 18, 8 p.m.

Hales Gymnasium

Creative Writing Program Senior Reading Saturday, April 18, 4:30 p.m.

Wilder Hall 112

The Feline Riot Saturday, April 18, 8–11 p.m.

The Cat in the Cream

A Deaf Perspective Sunday, April 19, 3–4 p.m.

Hallock Auditorium, AJLC

A New Environmentalism for an Unfractured Future Monday, April 20, 7:30–9 p.m.

First Church in Oberlin

“Spring Fling” Middle School Dance Monday, April 20, 9–11 p.m.

Cat in the Cream

One-Act Plays Wednesday, April 22 through Saturday, April 25, 8 p.m.

Little Theater

Oberlin’s annual contra dance festival draws dancers from near and far for two evening dances, a day of workshops and an afternoon dance to conclude the weekend. Two bands and guest callers will officiate at the events, which are open to all regardless of experience.

Seniors in the Creative Writing department will share excerpts from their work in the program. The Emma Howell Memorial Poetry Prize winner and honorable mentions, and the English department prize winners of the William Battrick and Lucy Pope Wheeler contests will also read from their winning entries.

This showcase features women of all ages performing a variety of musical acts backed by the political indie folk band Backbone. The perennially-popular and feminist-themed show aims to encourage women to perform together.

The American Sign Language ExCo will bring in Fred Palchick and Louis Ricciardi, deaf professors of ASL at Akron University, for a presentation and question and answer session about Deaf culture and what it means to be deaf. The event is accesible to non-ASL users; an English interpreter will be present to translate.

Biologist, author and activist Sandra Steingraber has participated in acts of civil disobedience against the construction of natural gas infrastructure in ecologically delicate areas. She also brings her perspectives as a woman activist, mother and cancer survivor to her writing and lecturing on environmentalism.

The Cat in the Cream staff will organize a night reminiscent of the most awkward 8th-grade semiformal, complete with appropriate music selections and mood-setting decorations. Chaperones will not be provided.

Students from one of the directing classes in the Theater department will present a night of five one-act plays. Two of the plays are original pieces directed by their writers. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at the door.

Arts The Oberlin Review

Page 10

April 17, 2015

Feature Photo: Spring Back

Dancers Leah Newman, College sophomore, Alana Reibstein, College junior, and Jesse Wiener, College senior, slide across Warner Main’s beloved wooden floor while emitting tired sighs in a stunning dance choreographed by College senior Ellen Askonas. Her piece, a bright highlight of the program, appeared in Spring Back, the spring companion to the Fall Forward show.

The performances took place last Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. Spring Back featured a sound selection of contemporary dance choreography by Oberlin dance students, with a handful of standouts that made

the show a memorable one. “Grape Juice City” propelled the show into action with caffeinated energy. Co-choreographers and College seniors Christopher McLauchlan, Wiener and Julia Sheppard, and College juniors Rachel Nesnevich and Caitrin Hughes played with funky and energetic yet structured movement that conjured a vibrant atmosphere. Amid more lyrical pieces like College senior Nick Schrier’s duet with College first-year Frances Purcell titled “Just as I Thought,” impressive performances from Oberlin’s sword dancing group, Rust Belt Rappers, and a dance trapeze solo by College first-year Teddy

Ment offered exciting bursts of surprise. To end the evening with a bang, Reibstein starred alongside Schrier in her humorous piece “Blowing It.” Bridging elements of dance and performance art, “Blowing It” — a nod to her Fall Forward number “Don’t Blow It” — involved unusual props like a microwave filled with foam packaging peanuts and packaged hot dogs on plastic plates.

Text by Vida Weisblum, Arts editor Photo courtesy of John Seyfried

Harry and the Potters Give Magical Performance Julia Davis Staff Writer Wizard rock band Harry and the Potters gave an enchanting performance last Tuesday night at the ’Sco. The band consists of brothers Joe and Paul DeGeorge on the keyboard and guitar, respectively, and a drummer who was solely referred to as “The Ghost of Cedric Diggory.” The drummer’s true identity is still uncertain; the band is always changing drummers.

The DeGeorge brothers formed the band — and pioneered the entire wizard rock genre — in 2002 after a backyard concert gone awry, in which none of the bands they asked to play showed up. To save the show, the brothers quickly wrote seven Harry Potter-themed songs, donned Harry Potter costumes and played to the remaining audience. Six of those seven songs ended up appearing on their first album (self-titled), released on their own record label, Eskimo Laboratories.

The duo began touring shortly after the release of their first album, playing shows at libraries, rock clubs, art spaces, bookstores, basements and pizza places across the world. They now have three studio albums and have played almost 800 shows.

The group ran into copyright issues with Warner Brothers when they released their sec-

ond album, Voldemort Can’t Stop the Rock!. After a dramatic back and forth, Warner Brothers decided to allow Harry and the Potters to continue to make and sell music online, but they would only be able to sell merchandise at live shows.

The band sold plenty of merchandise last Tuesday night. Not only did they sell the usual T-shirts and CDs, their merch table included a handful of zines, both Potter-related and not, drawn by the DeGeorges.

The Norwood, MA, natives took the stage to excited cheers; both brothers dressed as Harry Potter. The lightning bolt-adorned keyboard and Hogwarts crest gracing the backdrop set the tone for the Potter-themed performance. Although the crowd was small, it was evident that everyone was exceptionally happy to be there. Surprisingly, not many people dressed up for the event, most opting for casual clothes instead of the Hogwartsinspired getup that the DeGeorge brothers performed in.

Their self-declared genre, wizard rock, is basically a Potter-y form of pop-punk. The energetic nature of their driving keyboard lines and loud, fast drum beats made it almost impossible not to dance along — even for those who might not have been diehard fans of the band — and the brothers performed with such energy and enthu-

siasm that the show would’ve been successful no matter who was in the audience.

They began the performance by both introducing themselves as Harry Potter and then asking the audience to recite a pledge with them, stating that everyone present would make this show the “best show the ’Sco [had] ever seen.”

The crowd enthusiastically obliged. This theme of audience interaction was present throughout the show, with both frontmen taking turns freely walking around the crowd and, during one song, letting audience members yell into the microphone. At times the crowd was showered with surprise bursts of confetti and, during a song mentioning the basilisk from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, a huge plush snake was released into the crowd. At one point they asked the audience to hiss, imitating the snake language Harry speaks in the books. “Now you’re speaking my language,” the guitarist responded with a wry smile.

This kind of humor also played a big role in the show. Between songs, the brothers made countless Harry Potter jokes and references.

It would be hard to expect anything less from two 20-something-year-olds performing Harry Potter-themed music and donning Harry Potter garb.

The brothers’ love of Harry Potter and belief in their music was clearly sincere, and by the end of the show they had the whole crowd chanting about how love is the most important thing we have. But the DeGeorges aren’t all fun and games.

In fact, in 2005 they helped co-found the Harry Potter Alliance, a non-profit organization that helps fight for human rights in Sudan. The organization, comprised mostly of young Harry Potter fans, has launched many campaigns aimed at raising awareness for human rights violations in Sudan. The alliance has been active since its inception and has fundraised for and partnered with many different organizations over the years.

The words “The weapon we have is love” can be seen emblazoned on the organization’s logo, a reference to a lyric from the last song the band performed at the ’Sco. Although completely based on a fictional book series, Harry and the Potters manages to find a way to bring the fantasy world of Harry Potter and real-world social activism together.

The show might’ve been the most fun ’Sco act of the semester so far, with no one on stage or in the audience taking themselves too seriously.

It was truly an honor to see a show played with such enthusiasm for a crowd so charmed by the performance.

Arts

The Oberlin Review, April 17, 2015

Page 11

Orcutt Peppers Compositions with Improvisation Bri DiMonda Bill Orcutt has combined free improvisation, atonal harmonies and blues forms on the solo acoustic guitar for the

past 10 years. Orcutt performed an improvised set in Fairchild Chapel last Saturday, where the San Francisco-based artist performed for nearly an hour but played only a handful

of songs. Both a guitarist and a composer, Orcutt imbues his songs with uncanny beauty and occasional discordance.

Beginning his career with the band Harry Pussy,

Bill Orcutt fills Fairchild Chapel with resonant strumming. The prolific guitarist combined experimental techniques with more traditional, blues-based playing last Saturday.

Steve Goodwin

Orcutt is not new to performing or writing music.

He began his solo career in 2009 and has since released four albums. Orcutt’s most recent record, Solo Acoustic Volume Ten, came out this past year. Its impulsive, abstract sounds peg Orcutt as part of a movement of avant-garde acoustic guitarists. His work grabs the listener’s attention and guides them through his pieces with quick plucks and fresh melodies.

Orcutt’s frenzied playing questions ideas about the guitar, tasking listeners to reimagine that the instrument has the potential to be utterly discordant. His music shifts between uninhibited tension and less disjunctive rhythms but still maintains a sense of free form throughout each piece. Taken as a whole, Orcutt’s music moves the listener into a sonic syn-

thesis of improvised blues and disharmonious tunes, creating a unique vernacular for guitar playing. Anyone that knows Orcutt’s style would be able to recognize him immediately when listening to him play.

This is a quality that many people argue is the mark of a great guitarist.

Orcutt’s strings broke during the beginning of his performance, as some of his pieces require a rather harsh plucking of the strings, but he didn’t appear fazed by this occurrence. Instead, he fixed his guitar in front of the audience and returned to his abstract performance in minutes.

Beautiful melodies occasionally emerged from the cacophony as Orcutt continued, and he sometimes jolted the audience by plucking the strings with an intensity that

rushed the listeners back into discordance. The abrupt switches in his pieces revealed a hidden lyricism that told his audience that everything about his works is intentional, albeit experimentally written and performed. By the end of the performance, Orcutt had pulled the audience through a series of emotions and a musical reimagination. Nearly everyone in attendance stood to applaud his work.

Though experimental guitar has not garnered an enormous amount of media attention, the genre seems to be drawing a larger audience than ever before. Whether Orcutt becomes one of the more well-known musicians in this movement will reveal itself as his genre continues to progress and expand.

Ho Brings Refinement to Ukulele, Other Instruments Sam Rueckert Staff Writer The multi-talented Daniel Ho quickly figured out who his audience was when he visited the Cat in the Cream Monday night. Everyone from untrained music lovers to experienced Conservatory students sat in the room. Given the audience’s wide range of musical knowledge, Ho managed to balance his on-stage talk between anecdotal explanations of his songs and technical explanations of the rhythms, harmony and forms at work.

Ho, a native Hawaiian currently based in Los Angeles, plays piano, ukulele and slack key guitar. He has received six Grammies as a producer and his album Polani (Pure) was the first ukulele album to be nominated for a Grammy. Ho, who visited Oberlin as part of Asian/ Pacific Islander American Month, sponsored by the Asian American Alliance, delivered an entertaining and virtuosic performance.

Ho described his first song, “On a Gentle Island Breeze,” with an anecdote, in which he noted the sound of wind sifting through rice fields, an accessible explanation for the less-musically-inclined members of the audience.

Today, indie singer-songwriters often appropriate the ukulele to play a few basic chords, severely under-utilizing the potential of the

instrument. This was not the case with Daniel Ho, who played the instrument with the dynamic refinement of a classically-trained guitarist. His melodies also resembled the melodies of a classical guitar piece.

After a few songs, Ho discussed the more technical aspects of his music. He explained that his third song, “Amis Rondo,” was a round influenced by an experience with the Amis people, who are indigenous to Taiwan. The song featured a very recognizable theme in the key of A minor, which Ho identified as a pun on the word “Amis.”

After “Amis Rondo,” Ho brought up his “new friends,” an ensemble of students consisting of College senior Robin Wong on flute, doubledegree sophomore Timothy Fenton on double bass, Conservatory sophomore Heewon Lee on cello and College sophomore Emily Bang on violin. The ensemble proceeded to perform his song “Haiku,” which featured a call-and-response, contrapuntal exchange between the ukulele and the flute.

Throughout the show, Ho sang praises of Oberlin musicians, especially the students with whom he was performing. He talked about his beginnings as a musician at the Grove School of Music in Los Angeles and how he didn’t bother applying to Oberlin because he knew he couldn’t get in. Ho explained how he had taken months to learn a par-

A cheerful Daniel Ho smiles at his audience. Ho shared quirky anecdotes during his musically adventurous set Monday night.

Eli Steiker-Ginzberg

ticular polyrhythm only to reveal that Lee, the cellist, had learned the rhythm in one afternoon.

About halfway through the set, Ho changed from his ukulele to a Yamaha silent guitar — which does make noise when plugged in — modeled to reproduce the tone of a Hawaiian slack key guitar. Next came a handful of eclectically influenced songs that ranged from blue-

sy instrumentals, such as “Slack Tides,” to more pop-influenced songs that included vocals, such as “Living in Paradise,” a song that he mentioned was featured on the show Hawaii Five-O. In another notable moment of his performance, Ho invited his artistic collaborator and friend Amy Ku’uleialoha Stillman on stage to complement his music with traditional hula

dancing.

Ho finished his set by bringing the ensemble back onstage for a piano piece, “When You Grow Up.” The piece was laden with Elton John-like embellishments and consonant swells in the ensemble and came to an abrupt end. When it was over, Ho kindly shook the hands of all the players and left the stage with grace.

Rwandan Superstars Meddy and The Ben Convey Powerful Messages Mohit Dubey The floor-shaking rhythms and heartmelting vocals of Rwandan R&B superstars Meddy and The Ben will fill the ’Sco this Saturday. The show, which will also feature the drum stylings of Oberlin College Taiko, is sure to be one of the most physically moving events to hit the ’Sco this semester. Meddy and The Ben were the top two most popular hip-hop artists in Rwanda, though the duo now lives in Chicago, where they network with and

empower other Rwandan artists in the U.S. through their label, Pressone Entertainment. The message that Meddy and The Ben wish to convey through their music in venues from Rwandan radio stations is a positive one. In an interview with the Review, The Ben said the group encourages listeners to treat others with compassion and to look for ways to make others happy as often as possible.

As they proclaim in their recent hit single “Ndi Uw’I Kigali,” Meddy and The Ben are from Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda.

The duo met as children in Sunday school, years before they considered becoming pop stars. Growing up, Meddy and The Ben listened to gospel artists, especially the Australian group Hillsong United as well as pop icons like Michael Jackson and R. Kelly and sought to fuse these two genres into a musical style that reflected both their social and spiritual characters.

“Music defines the one who sings it,” The Ben said. “It is a way to understand someone’s way of life, history and culture.” Nowadays, The Ben enjoys listening to British

pop artist Sam Smith — whom he sees as a master of the art of songwriting — as well as African humanitarian singers.

The Ben was born in Uganda, where his parents sought refuge during the Rwandan Revolution of 1959, and came to Rwanda at the age of 10 to a music scene broken by genocide. “The genocide affected music in Rwanda [in many ways], from asking musicians to be a part of making the worst happen to removing artists who See Duo, page 12

Arts

Page 12

The Oberlin Review, April 17, 2015

New GoT Season Collaborative Project to Connect Film, Sound Shows Promise Lya Finston Staff Writer

Clark Sacktor Columnist Warning: Spoilers for Game of Thrones seasons one through four and the first episode of season five follow.

Overhearing conversations about the last episode of Game of Thrones on the first floor of Mudd library has become commonplace once again with the beginning of the fantasy series’ fifth season. Groups of students are crowding into classrooms and dorm rooms to watch the premiere on their friends’ HBO Go accounts, Game of Thrones cliques have formed on campus and anyone who watches episodes before their own group is inevitably labeled a traitor. Theorizing about what characters are going to die this season has become an Oberlin pastime.

Discussions of the week’s episode can bring together students, professors and even strangers.

The fact that these episodes have been prematurely released means that spoilers will circulate on the internet and throughout conversations, putting a damper on the suspense of the show. Netflix has recently released entire seasons of shows at once, which is wonderful for perpetual binge watchers, but viewing the whole season over the weekend detracts from the potential water-cooler conversations that weekly anticipation can spark.

Game of Thrones is not a series that I would ever want to have the option of viewing multiple episodes of in one sitting; single episodes are convoluted enough, let alone four episodes in succession. One needs time to decompress Littlefinger’s newest scheme, evaluate Daenerys’ latest decision or marvel at how awesome Arya Stark can be.

Judging from last week’s premiere, this season will be just as entertaining as its predecessors. While not much happened in terms of plot development, the first episode of the season served as a reminder of what had happened last to each of the show’s many characters. Tyrion, who just killed his father, decides that he can get revenge on Westeros by helping Daenerys reclaim the throne but, of course, not without drinking himself to death along the way. Varys, through helping Tyrion, may have finally revealed his secret underlying motivations to restore the Targaryens to the throne of Westeros. However, Littlefinger’s motivations are still completely unclear.

Sansa seems to be playing along with his games for now and, as we have learned, she is quick to learn. Both Jaime and Cersei Lannister are mourning their father’s death at the hand of their brother, Tyrion, but neither of them has the luxury of dwelling for too long; as Jaime points out, they need to prepare themselves against their enemies, who constantly want to usurp power. Jon Snow is as noble as ever as he thwarts Stannis from burning alive his captor, Mance Rayder, by placing a well-aimed arrow in Rayder’s heart. After Snow’s heroic deed, he now seems poised to fill the leadership vacuum at the Wall.

This season has a lot of promise.

Undoubtedly, many Oberlin students and millions of people around the world will have countless discussions of what’s to come on Game of Thrones.

Wilder 115 bustled with creative energy last Sunday as College first-year Rebecca Winer, alongside College seniors and Film Co-op co-chairs Maxwell Kopelowicz and Patrick Gilfether, led a room of adamant musicians and filmmakers in “collab-a-fest,” a creative forum for the second installation of music, videos.

Winer’s creative brainchild, music, videos is a three-way collaboration between the Oberlin Film Co-op, WOBC-FM and Live from Studio B aimed at encouraging musicians and filmmakers of all skill levels to explore the interdisciplinary potential between film and sound. By the end of the project, contributing artists will have produced a unified body of creative work while raising awareness about different arts organizations on campus.

As opposed to the first installation of music, videos — a microcinema screening that took place in the basement of Mudd library on March 5 — this second installation will rely entirely on original, student-made content. It also has a greater production bent this time around, as contributing artists will be given full access to Film Co-op supplies, including 16mm film and editing studios. Last weekend’s “collab-a-fest” began with a description of the project and brief introductions by those in attendance before progressing into what Winer called a “speed-date brainstorm,” during which each musician or musical group spilled their creative ideas onto a piece of butcher paper as filmmakers rotated to and from each station.

Only moments into the activity, the room was filled with eager conversation, enthusiastic handshakes and smiles.

“There was a really nice creative energy in the room,” said College first-year, music, videos filmmaker and Review staff member Julia Davis.

For Winer, an active member of all three participating student organizations, experiencing this kind of energy only strengthened her extra-curricular ambition. “Seeing people here … smiling and talking about music videos makes me want to do more things,” Winer said. “It makes me feel good that I just rented a room in Wilder and put out a Facebook event, and now things are happening, and things are being made.”

Since she began school here at Oberlin, Winer has served as WOBC’s Winter Term station manager, WOBC’s current librarian and Film Co-op treasurer. As an active member of WOBC, she has also had

the opportunity to work with Studio B, a WOBC project dedicated to filming and broadcasting musical performances from local and touring artists, making her the liaison between all three of music, videos’ organizational collaborators. “[WOBC, Studio B, and the Film Co-op are] three really amazing organizations that have so much potential to collaborate together in really interesting [and] effective ways, and I kind of just want to push those collaborations together,” Winer said. “It’s an easy collaboration because the liaison is nice, and it’s me.”

After organizing intimate, alliterative screening events among friends, like Twin Peaks Taco Tuesdays, and campus-wide art initiatives like music, videos, Winer has gained prominence among members of the film and music communities on campus.

According to Winer, music, videos is largely an effort to combat the hesitancy many people feel toward initiating artistic projects by providing a community of ample support, equipment, facilities and students eager to collaborate with others.

“Our mission statement is to make and to make as much as possible,” Kopelowicz said at the beginning of Sunday’s “collaba-fest.” In this way, music, videos is, at its heart, an excuse for the creation of original artistic content.

“It’s really easy to put something together at Oberlin,” Winer said. “You just have to really want to do it and really love what you’re doing. I think I really love everything I’ve done here so far. I am excited to keep … doing new stuff, and I’m excited

that people care. … People care! That’s a really beautiful thing.”

Aside from its purpose as a creative catalyst, music, videos is also a unique means of providing student art projects with the power to outlive their brief collegiate lifespans. Many of the musicians present at Sunday’s “collab-a-fest” cited their impending graduation as the primary reason for their interest in music, videos, saying they were looking to leave their mark with a final project before moving on to bigger and better creative feats after Oberlin.

Kopelowicz called music, videos “a document and testament to musicians who have come and passed.” The initiative fits well with other interdisciplinary arts projects — like Zoo and microcinema — that encourage similar sorts of collaboration.

Winer said she hopes the project will teach others to “make the most of things, … do what [they] want to do and provide services for people who are willing and interested but might not have the time or initiative to do it themselves. I always really like being a busy person and feeling like I’m involved in activities that help out the community or help out interested kids.”

For the sake of maintaining a laidback creative environment, Winer has yet to decide exactly when music, videos will be screened. However, the final screening, which looks to be a testament to the power of the individual through the spirit of collaboration, is expected to take place at Mudd during reading period.

Double-degree junior Kirk Pearson (left) and College first-year Steven Levin engage in a lively conversation at the “collab-a-fest,” hosted by music, videos last Sunday. A joint effort by Studio B, WOBC and the Oberlin Film Co-op, music, videos will screen its final products at Mudd library later this semester.

Nick Farfan

Duo Brings Pop Music of Rwanda to Broader Audience Continued from page 11 did not do that,” The Ben said. Now, he sees his generation of artists as picking up the pieces and reforming Rwandan music with a peaceful message of recovery. “We are promoting love in the country,” he said. “That’s what we are bringing to the table.”

In recent years, the duo has come to know its fair share of personal struggle. They decided to move to the United States in 2010, seeking to grow their music and their message internationally with the final goal of returning to Rwanda with a new perspective. “Rwanda is small, so being big there is still local,” The Ben said, speaking on the way their music fits into the international pop scene. For him, coming to the U.S. has been a lesson in patience. “When I came here, everything changed. I had to start over, … but I have learned to wait for the blessing,” he said.

Just last year, after five years of making connections in the U.S., The Ben performed for the United Nations gathering in New York. Meddy and The Ben continue to pursue connections with people of all ages and on all levels, from the political to the social to the physical act of dancing. If their hip-moving rhythms aren’t enough to get students to come out, The Ben

and Meddy will also offer exposure to music that could not and does not exist in the United States. “If college students come to support us, not only will we appreciate them, but they will also –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

‘The genocide affected music in Rwanda [in many ways], from asking musicians to be part of making the worst happen to removing artists who did not do that ... We are promoting love in the country. That’s what we are bringing to the table.’

The Ben Rwandan Pop Musician ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– get knowledge of the world, the music and how we do things. …

They will be learning things they have not learned before,” The Ben said.

Arts

The Oberlin Review, April 17, 2015

Page 13

Senior Recital Features Gory Plot, Catchy Music Alice Fishbein

Double-degree junior James Quintana screams at a terrified Mariko Wakayama, College senior, in the musical REPO: Testify!. The senior TIMARA recital entertained audiences with catchy music and gory special effects last Friday night.

Courtesy of Zoë Madonna

“Pro Tip: Don’t wear anything too nice to this,” warned senior TIMARA major Kaeli Mogg on the Facebook page for her senior recital, REPO: Testify!.

I took her advice to heart and was happier for it. I obviously attended the event — which Mogg held in Wilder Main Friday evening and Saturday afternoon — fully expecting to have cinnamon-smelling fake blood poured down my back. I didn’t leave disappointed. Although there was a splash-free zone where audience members could sit unharmed and carefree, where’s the fun in that?

REPO is the semi-futuristic story of a world plagued by an epidemic of organ failures. GeneCo, a company that offers pay-

ment plans for those unfortunate souls who cannot afford replacement surgeries, surges forward.

However, those who fail to pay must beware: GeneCo will repossess their property with a killer Repo Man. Mogg directed and transcribed the script with the help of College first-year Rachel Dan, painted the set and both learned and taught the score by ear. Given that REPO was a recital, I attended assuming the music would be incredible, and Mogg did not fail me. I think it will take a good few weeks for the show’s main theme to finally dislodge itself from my ear, and I’m not complaining.

Beside the blood warning and my scarce preexisting knowledge of the show, I had few expectations. I wouldn’t imme-

diately expect a musical to be a TIMARA senior recital, but to be fair, I’m not sure what I would expect at a senior TIMARA recital. Upon entering Wilder Main, I was struck by a variety of sights: a giant blue tar-mat, a slew of musicians sitting onstage, Mogg at the piano holding various other instruments, double-degree sophomore Griffin Jennings and College senior Illona Brand playing guitars and Conservatory sophomore Louis Pino taking the drums while encased behind a blood-preventative screen.

I instantly knew I was in for something that you’d want to brag about to your cool aunt afterward. As I sat front and center in the garbage bag supplied to me by the corseted stage manager who greeted me at the door, I noticed four

circular stages. On one stage, a bunch of actors stood, poised and ready; at the second, graveyard scenery; at the third, two more actors sitting on a bed; and at the fourth, nothing but a raised plank.

Suddenly, music rang through the venue, the musicians strumming in time, setting the dark and exciting tone for the rest of the performance. During the first two acts, the audience was treated to a rare experience.

Not only were all of the participating musicians and actors successful, but they also looked like they were having fun. At one point, two blood-throwing Genterns — nurses who work at GeneCo — began dancing around, accompanying College fourth-year Mariko Wakayama’s song and grabbing various audience members, though we all wanted to get up and join in.

Certainly that sort of genuine interest in a performance is a unique response that does not happen at every recital. Though I’m accustomed to hearing “Now everyone come up and dance onstage” at the end of many performances, I never actually do. A few of the cast’s friends will come up, but for the most part, we all look at each other, eyes wide and smiles on our faces as we universally shake our heads saying, “Hell no.” At REPO, that was –––––––––––––––––––––

I attended assuming the music would be incredible, and Mogg did not fail me. I think it will take a good few weeks for the show’s main theme to finally dislodge itself from my ear, and I’m not complaining.

––––––––––––––––––––– not the case. It was evident that the cast was having fun and the spontaneity that is embedded in a show like REPO was tangible.

At a school like Oberlin, we have come to expect great performances, perhaps creating many jaded audiences. But Mogg did something different, capitalizing upon classic Conservatory-taught skills and creating something unexpected from them.

And, may I say, anyone that can employ skills that rival those of Paris Hilton — who played Amber in the film version — gets a gold star in my book.

Sports

Page 14

The Oberlin Review, April 17, 2015

IN THE LOCKER ROOM

Club Soccer

This week, the Review sat down with Albino Squirrels club soccer members junior captain Merlin Hoffman and fifth-year Alex Cheney to discuss their experiences playing on a club team, organizing games and their favorite professional soccer teams.

yeah, there’s a big range in skill.

How often do you practice, and who organizes the practices?

Merlin Hoffman: During the fall season, we practice four days a week — Monday through Thursday.

The practices are organized by the captains. Right now, I’m the only captain because Sarah [Mills] is studying abroad, but usually there are multiple captains.

Does your time commitment vary from fall to spring?

MH: Yes, it does. We play during the winter too. We get fieldhouse times and scrimmage in Williams [Field House]. In the spring, it’s what we can do, whereas in the fall, it’s a set season. We practice up until fall break and maybe a little bit after, weather depending.

Alex Cheney: Usually our fall season is ended by a combination of the weather and the daylight — maybe the second week in November. The spring season is always shorter because we don’t even get to practice outside until after spring break. And if there’s bad weather, which there always is because it’s Ohio, we don’t get to use the field until two or three weeks after break. We’re halfway through the third week of classes after break, and we haven’t practiced outside yet.

What is the most challenging aspect of playing on a club sports team?

AC: I think it’s just the balance of trying to keep it competitive, because it’s a step up from intramural, but you want it to be fun. I’m not saying that varsity sports don’t have

Merlin Hoffman (left) and Alex Cheney fun, but club sports are certainly more casual. You also have to compete with the fact that there’s two ends of the spectrum and you’re right in the middle, so you have to strike a balance between keeping it fun and having a good community.

I think one of the things that’s really cool about the Albino Squirrels is that it’s a co-ed team, and it adds elements that you wouldn’t find socially on a varsity team.

MH: I feel like when you’re a varsity player, you’re a lot more committed to your sport. Whereas in club, people want to be committed, but they also are really focused on their classes. As soon as classes pick up, it’s hard for a lot of people to stay committed to the team.

AC: Especially with games.

We’ve had home games with over 30 people showing up, and then we haven’t had enough people travel to away games on weekends. It also varies greatly from player to player.

In intramural, you have a similar level of commitment throughout the whole team; in varsity, you

have a similar level of commitment throughout the whole team, but with club sports, there are some people who are super gung-ho and then people who are a little more laid back.

cleared to play medically and we had about 20 people consistently showing up for practices. Those are probably similar figures to last fall.

Is it difficult to keep members engaged without an official coach?

MH: It’s not too difficult to keep them engaged during the fall season because usually people show up, decide they’re going to be committed to the team and get in a habit of showing up. But I think it gets more difficult once you go into the break of winter period, and it’s more difficult without having an actual coach to get people to show up, both for our winter practice times and the spring.

Did you play soccer before attending Oberlin?

AC: I played travel club in high school. I also tried out for the varsity team my freshman year, and I unfortunately had mono during the tryouts so I didn’t play very well. I would have liked another shot, but it wasn’t to be.

MH: I played mostly recreational soccer throughout high school and before. I dabbled a little bit in traveling and high school soccer. I do want to say that we also have lots of people who join the team who never had any soccer experience.

How many people are on your roster?

AC: I managed the roster from 2013–2014 and we had upwards of 90 people on our email list at points.

We had about 65 people sign up for the roster, we had about 30 people

Does that result in a wide range of skill levels?

MH: Yeah, a big range of skill.

AC: There are also some people who have quit the varsity teams at Oberlin — both men and women— who come out and play club. So

Do you play other schools?

AC: We play in a league with Denison, Kenyon, Ohio Northern University, Wooster, Case and Ashland. All the teams are co-ed except for Ashland. When I first started on the club team, every few weekends we would have one game — and this is going back to fall 2010 — so it’s been a while. But in the fall of 2013, we started experimenting with a new format. Two teams would travel to a school, and we would play so that Team A plays Team B, Team B plays Team C and Team A plays Team C. So the teams that are traveling get two games in, and that’s actually a great way to get more bang for your buck.

MH: Generally, we don’t play a full 90 minutes. It varies depending on fitness, and teams usually converse about how long to play. If we are playing one game, we play the full 90, but if we’re playing two or three games a day, it’ll be closer to 35-minute halves.

What is your favorite part of being on the Albino Squirrels?

AC: Just playing soccer. I also really enjoy getting the opportunity to put it all together and do behindthe-scenes work, and that’s something that a varsity athlete maybe doesn’t get to do. You don’t get to plan practices and schedule games and things like that.

MH: It’s playing soccer but also getting to build team chemistry.

What’s your favorite professional soccer team?

MH: Manchester City.

AC: That’s actually okay. I was really cringing until you said City.

I support Liverpool Football Club and D.C. United.

Interview by Tyler Sloan, Sports editor Photo by Mike Plotz, Photo editor

The Return of Alex Rodriguez: Cool or Drool?

Dan Bisno and Henry Weissberg Columnists Warning to Nate Levinson, Sports editor, and fellow Yankees fans: Proceed with caution.

We’re back again to update you faithful Review readers on what’s happening on and off the field in the world of sports. This week, we turn to the case of Alex Rodriguez, a one-time superstar and truly dangerous player behind the plate. Many readers will remember Rodriguez’s 2014 campaign, or lack thereof, which ended before it began when news broke that A-Rod would be suspended from 211 games for his illegal use of both steroid creams and human growth hormone. The suspension was later shortened to 162 games, but his record-setting accomplishments are, sadly, forever blemished.

The Yankees have just begun their 2015 campaign, fresh off of one of their most upsetting seasons in recent memory. Derek Jeter, “The Captain,” retired at the end of the season, adding insult to a season in which the Yankees missed the playoffs for the second consecutive year.

Currently, Rodriguez has 655 career home runs, placing him fifth on the all-time list and only five homers behind Willie Mays, the “Say Hey Kid” and one of the most beloved players in baseball history.

In 2008, A-Rod signed a massive 10-year,

$275 million contract with the Yankees, and now that albatross of a contract will be a burden on the team’s payroll for the next three seasons.

He returns to Yankee Stadium this season to resume his tumultuous position in the hearts of Yankee fans. As a 39-year-old player, Rodriguez’s role on the team is not what it once was.

The former MVP has had multiple hip surgeries and doesn’t have the powerful legs he once had.

With Chase Headley holding down the third base position, A-Rod has mostly been relegated to designated hitter duties and backing up Chase Headley and Mark Teixeira at first base.

But does it even matter if he’s starting or not? Whether playing in the infield or just acting as the designated hitter, A-Rod will get plenty of opportunities to hit the five home runs he needs to pass Mays. It’s an inevitable outcome.

A-Rod will pass him on the all-time home run list. For that, we cry.

The current all-time leader in home runs is the infamous San Francisco Giant Barry Bonds, who is, ironically, the godson of Mays. Bonds recently said in an interview with Bob Nightengale of USA Today, “When Alex hits No. 660, I’ll be happy for him, Willie will be happy for him, everybody should be happy for him.” It seems fitting that Bonds, perhaps the only steroid user more controversial and infamous than A-Rod, would support his efforts.

All baseball fans surely remember when

Bonds broke the all-time home run record in 2007. It was a bitter moment for fans who had trusted Bonds’ denial of alleged steroid accusations. The legendary ball was auctioned and subsequently purchased for $752,467 by baseball fan and fashion designer Marc Ecko. After acquiring the ball, Ecko hosted an online poll to decide what do with it. Some of the options were to leave the ball unblemished, shoot it toward the moon or burn an asterisk onto it, reminding fans of its questionable nature. Nearly five million fans supported his final decision to permanently laser an asterisk onto the ball and donate it to the Hall of Fame, where it would be enshrined and judged for years to come. As perhaps the most hated player in all of baseball, one can only dream of the creative designs people have in store for A-Rod’s 661st home run ball.

While some faithful Yankees fans may still support A-Rod’s endeavors as long as he produces, he remains the face of baseball villainy in the eyes of many. Like Bonds and the other dominant superstars of the steroid era, A-Rod will keep the records he breaks. The three-time American League MVP, 14-time All-Star, and five-time AL home run champ has achieved the success every young ballplayer dreams about.

However, he had to cheat and lie to do it. His seamless lies were beautifully slipped through his shiny white teeth, while he batted bashful

eyes. Still, after all the trickery, he’s set to earn $64 million on a contract he signed when everyone thought he was clean.

A-Rod can’t take back the harm he’s done to baseball. Like Shoeless Joe Jackson, who threw the 1919 World Series, or Pete Rose, who bet on his team’s games, the damage to the integrity of baseball is already done. We suspect Cameron Diaz and Madonna, Arod’s ex-girlfriends, would strongly agree with this opinion.

Steroid use is downright selfish and only tarnishes the work of other hard-working, honest players. Players like Willie Mays don’t deserve to have their work tarnished. After starting out in the Negro Leagues, Mays built up his reputation in the minor leagues and became one of the most storied players in the history of baseball.

He was the perfect role model, giving up two years of his baseball prime after being drafted to fight in the Korean War. He was also known for his kindness toward everyone.

A-Rod will never be considered better than Mays — at least, not after cheating. Mays maintained the integrity of the game en route to a remarkable 24 All-Star appearances. We can’t help but suffer gut-wrenching pain as A-Rod approaches his record. This entire situation is starting to smell like the banana-baby-food-infused slobber coming from your baby nephew’s mouth. No doubt about it, A-Rod’s return is a Major League drool.

The Oberlin Review, April 17, 2015

Sports

Feature Photo: Ultimate Frisbee

Page 15

Editorial: Mariota or Winston to Bucs at No. 1?

Continued from page 16

College junior Jacob Gilbert lays out to snag a disc at the USA Ultimate Sanctioned Tournament Division III Easterns on March 21, 2015. The Horsecows qualified for Regionals last weekend at their Sectionals competition in Columbus, Ohio. The team will travel to Allentown, PA, next weekend in pursuit of a bid to Nationals.

Text by Tyler Sloan, Sports editor Photo courtesy of David Freedman

picks in exchange for the chance to draft Mariota or Winston. The Titans have more holes than a young, inexperienced QB can fix, so their best move is definitely trying for a haul similar to what the Rams got when they traded the No. 2 pick to Washington’s football team in 2012. At the very least, the Jets, Bears, Browns, Eagles and Chargers should all have interest in moving up if the price is right.

Beyond Mariota and Winston, USC defensive lineman Leonard Williams is, by consensus, the best non-QB in the draft. He’s the kind of big, athletic lineman that should anchor a team’s defense for the next 10 years or so, and I’d be surprised if he slipped past the Jaguars, who hold the third pick. Alabama receiver Amari Cooper and West Virginia wideout Kevin White also seem like locks to go in the top 10. They’re both studs, and plenty of teams at the top could use a big play threat on the outside. Georgia’s Todd Gurley and Wisconsin’s Melvin Gordon are also top talents and safe bets to buck the trend of running backs not going in the first round. Both might even go in the top half of the opening round, especially Gurley, if his surgically repaired left knee

checks out medically.

This draft isn’t only interesting at the top. The top 20 to 25 players eligible are consensus first-round-level talents, but the next tier of players doesn’t necessarily warrant first-round selections. In short, that means two things: A lot of teams may try to trade up into the top half of the draft for a chance at grabbing one of those toptier talents, and a lot of teams picking in the back half of the first-round may look to move back and acquire more picks to take advantage of the draft’s depth.

The NFL Draft has become more and more of a spectacle in recent years, especially as eager fantasy football players look for any edge they can get come regular season. The NFL has hyped it a ton too, and this year it moves to Chicago after many years at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall. All told, the next several weeks and the three days of the draft will feature more media coverage than any other non-competitive sporting event; ESPN, NFL Network and others will try to take advantage of that intense interest in droves.

As ridiculous as it may sound, I’ll love every second of it. Forget January and February — this is the time of year when champions are made.

Committee Works for Inclusion of Transgender Student-Athletes Continued from page 16

process for how a student was supposed to self-identify and get through the process,” said Bruce, who has worked closely with the committee to continually improve the guidelines’ language. “We’ve really tried to clarify that.”

Intercollegiate athletics, unlike club and intramural sports teams, are governed by the NCAA. This, along with other factors, may help explain the higher level of participation of transgender student-athletes in club sports than at the varsity level at Oberlin.

Vice President and Dean of Students Eric Estes said that in recent years, he has seen the NCAA make progress, but believes there is still a long road ahead.

“There is greater flexibility in the club sports realm than in varsity athletics,” said Estes, who has worked with TPAC by connecting the committee with potentially helpful faculty members. “I think the NCAA has shown some real progress over the last five years or so, which is hopeful. But progress has also been the result of courageous work by student-athletes themselves like Kye Allums, who spoke on campus last year. My hope would be that we can develop a policy that creates as much accessibility and support as possible.”

As recent progress has been made in improving the accessibility of athletics to transgender student-athletes, other student organizations have begun to organize safe spaces for trans people in Oberlin’s athletic facilities. Student Senate’s Student Health Working Group piloted a Women and Trans Hour at South gym on Saturday, April 4.

In an email sent to the student body, Student Senate said that the purpose of the event was to “help determine the level of interest in establishing a permanent safe space hour at South gym for Women and Trans folx.” College sophomore Dana KurzerYashin said that the safe space was set aside for women and trans people because, in a very body-conscious place, these two groups might appreciate the ability to have a space where they don’t have to worry about one more level of body-awareness.

“The gym is a super body-conscious place, so we wanted to try this to create some kind of space for women and trans folx,” said Kurzer-Yashin, who hosted Women and Trans Hour at South gym. “I, as a cis woman, don’t think it’s my position to push for trans hours, but of course I support those efforts. If, going forward, trans folx want to have their own hours, we would definitely support that.”

Home Games This Week

11 a.m. – Women and trans-inclusive rugby host Spring 7’s at North Fields Friday, April 17 12 p.m. and 2:30 p.m.– Baseball vs.

8 p.m. – Quidditch vs. Ashland University at Allegheny College at Dill Field Bailey Field 1 p.m.– Men’s lacrosse vs. DePauw University at Austin E. Knowlton Athletics Complex Saturday, April 18 2 p.m.– Men’s rugby vs. John Carroll University at North Fields 10 a.m. – Women’s tennis vs. Allegheny College at Don Hunsinger Courts 4 p.m.– Women’s lacrosse vs. Denison 10 a.m. – Men’s tennis vs. Allegheny College at University at Austin E. Knowlton Athletic Complex Don Hunsinger Courts

Sunday, April 19

12 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. – Baseball vs. Allegheny College at Dill Field 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. – Softball vs. the College of Wooster at Culhane Field

Wednesday, April 22

7 p.m.– Women’s lacrosse vs. Allegheny College at Austin E. Knowlton Athletic Complex

Sports The Oberlin Review

Page 16

TPAC Revises Transgender Inclusion Policy Tyler Sloan Sports Editor The Transgender Participatory Advisory Committee and the Multicultural Resource Center partnered to host the TPAC forum last Monday in Wilder Hall to discuss the latest draft of the “Guidelines for Inclusion and Respectful Treatment of Intercollegiate Transgender

Student-Athletes.” The policy adheres to NCAA guidelines, but provides additional resources in the hopes of improving accessibility and institutional support for transgender student-athletes.

The NCAA addressed transgender student-athlete participation for the first time in 2011 with the official release of its policies in the publication, “NCAA Inclusion

of Transgender Student-Athletes.” Following the NCAA’s release of its guidelines, the Club Sports Trans Policy created TPAC to oversee the policy’s content and application at Oberlin.

Since then, TPAC members and faculty have been working together to address how the NCAA’s provisions affect transgender studentathletes and to evaluate how

College sophomore Augie Blackman (left) and College senior Aran Schultz lead a Transgender Participatory Advisory Committee forum on Monday, April 13 in Wilder Hall. The committee is expected to present its updated draft of the “Guidelines for Inclusion and Respectful Treatment of Intercollegiate Transgender Student-Athletes” to the General Faculty in upcoming weeks.

Mike Plotz

to administer stronger support systems and advocacy within the NCAA’s strictly regulated guidelines. College sophomore Augie Blackman said that they believe these policies can be discouraging for younger trans athletes.

“Trans athletes aren’t particularly encouraged to participate in sports in the first place,” said Blackman, who co-led TPAC’s forum with College senior Aran Shultz this week. “The reason I joined this committee was because I grew up playing soccer, and I’m wondering, if I had a different experience growing up — a mixed-gender team or a team that had honored my gender — would I still be playing soccer now?”

Blackman and Schultz navigated the complex and often medicalized NCAA policies with those attending the forum. The duo highlighted language alterations in Oberlin’s guidelines for intercollegiate transgender studentathletes, which initially used much of the language from policies at Bates College and Grinnell College.

“What we’re doing right now is working on revisions

for the second version of the policy,” said Schultz, who has been working with TPAC since last summer. “The first version was mostly lifted from other schools’ policies and was very basic. So this is the revamping of the policy, listening to more students and seeing what their opinion is on the policy and how we can make it better.”

TPAC’s next step is to have the latest draft of its guidelines approved by the General Faculty. TPAC has made several major revisions since the General Faculty last approved the policy guidelines in April 2014, including updating the resource list, clarifying the appeals process, editing definitions of cisgender and transgender and rewording several paragraphs in response to student concern or to improve clarity. Director of Recreation and Club Sports Betsy Bruce said that she hopes these revisions will yield more assistance to incoming transgender studentathletes who may not understand the NCAA’s policies.

“We really didn’t have a See Committee, page 15

— Baseball —

Inconsistency Keeps Yeomen .500 Against Lords Nate Levinson Sports Editor The baseball team played backto-back doubleheaders last weekend against the Kenyon College Lords, splitting both sets to push its season record to 11–16.

On Saturday, the Yeomen struggled out of the gate as junior pitcher Harrison Wollman allowed six runs in the first inning, putting the team in a hole before it could take its first swings of the game. The Yeomen bullpen picked up the struggling starter thereafter, allowing just one run on three hits in 6.1 innings after Wollman’s departure.

The solid pitching came too late, however. Senior second baseman Kyle Decker and senior right fielder An-

drew Hutson combined for five RBIs, but the team still fell just short, losing 7–6. The Yeomen put two men on with one out in the seventh and final inning, but senior left fielder Ryan Bliss flew out, and junior catcher Brian Hemmert grounded out to end the game.

After the game, senior shortstop Mitch Novak acknowledged the importance of playing consistently for an entire game.

“You just can’t have lapses in focus.

That’s the main thing,” he said. “One bad inning, especially at the beginning of the game, can cost you. It’s a lot tougher to play from behind than if you have a big lead.”

Fortunately for the Yeomen, in the second game of Saturday’s double-

Junior catcher Blaise Dolcemaschio readies his bat in the first game of a doubleheader against the Kenyon College Lords last Sunday. Dolcemaschio went two-for-three with three runs scored in the contest as the Yeomen dominated the game from the outset, ultimately winning 16–2.

Effie Kline-Salamon

header it was the Lords who slipped up and the Yeomen who took advantage. A seventh-inning Kenyon error led to four runs for the Yeomen, and pushed them to a 5–1 series-equalizing win.

Sunday’s games brought more inconsistency for the Yeomen; they dominated the first game, winning 16–2, before struggling in the series finale en route to a 14–4 loss. In the win, Decker and Bliss recorded three hits apiece, but the loss brought similar troubles as the team gave up five runs in both the first and fifth innings.

Overall, Head Coach Adrian Abrahamowicz was pleased with his team’s level of play, but like Novak, he said the team needs to do a better job avoiding lulls in its play.

“I thought we played really well all weekend,” he said. “We had a couple bad innings mixed in, which you can’t do. In baseball, there is very little margin for error.”

Now, the Yeomen turn their attention to another set of doubleheaders this weekend against the Allegheny College Gators. The Gators’ record sits at 13–6 in conference play and 27–14 overall, so the Yeomen know they have a tough task ahead of them.

“There’s a big test coming up this weekend against Allegheny,” Abrahamowicz said. “They are not going to make a lot of mistakes. They’re going to play really solid; they’re going to play really fundamental. There are going to be opportunities to score runs, and we have to take advantage of them.”

Last season, the Gators took three of four from the Yeomen, but this year, senior captain, first baseman and pitcher Ben Whitener believes the Yeomen have what it takes to see more success against their conference rivals.

“This year, we think we have enough talent on the mound and at the plate to outplay them every game,” he said. “It’s just a matter of playing at a high level in as many games as possible.”

With 10 regular season games remaining, Abrahamowicz says the team’s attention is focused on finishing strong, winning the NCAC Crossover series and making it to the NCAC playoffs in Chillicothe, Ohio.

Whitener even went one step further, saying that the team’s goal is to host an NCAC Crossover game.

“We’ve been saying all year that our goal is to win enough games to host a crossover playoff series and then go and win our conference tournament,” he said. “So far, we’ve lost more than we’ve won, but we’ve played fewer games than anyone else in our division. 2–4 isn’t a great start, but we absolutely have the opportunity to finish in the top two out of five in our side, so that’s the goal.”

The team will look to take one more step toward achieving that goal this weekend, especially as they try to make good on their last regular season home games of the season. The games against the Gators will take place at 12 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday.

April 17, 2015

No. 1 Pick Up in Air Nate Levinson Sports Editor The NFL Draft is less than two weeks away, and my favorite time of the sports year has officially begun. The MLB season started last week, but until the draft is over, baseball — though I love it so — won’t have my undivided attention.

After months of rumors that Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston was the lock to be the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ pick at No. 1 overall, Ron Jaworski reported on Monday that his sources told him Oregon QB Marcus Mariota would actually be the first pick in the draft. Of course, on Tuesday, NFL insider Adam Schefter reported that Winston would be the team’s top choice if the draft were today.

All that these conflicting reports mean is that it’s pretty likely that the Bucs haven’t made up their mind on who the pick will be, or at least they’re not telling anyone if they have.

As far as I’m concerned, they can’t go wrong either way. With backup-caliber QB Mike Glennon currently on top of their depth chart, the Bucs are in a prime spot to add a new franchise signal caller into the fold. Winston is a Ben Roethlisberger-lite and a proven winner at the college level, and Mariota is an incredibly athletic and mobile passer in the mold of Colin Kaepernick. Winston carries some off-field baggage and Mariota hasn’t played in a pro-style system, but my money is on both guys fulfilling their potential and becoming above-average quarterbacks for winning teams.

Now it’s just up to the current Bucs’ regime to decide who better fits their current roster. In any case, whichever one doesn’t go first will almost definitely go second, though not necessarily to the Tennessee Titans. The Titans may be sold on Zach Mettenberger as their starting QB, and here’s guessing that some team offers them a pretty sizable haul of at least a couple first-round See Editorial, page 15