The Oberlin Review
MAY 1, 2015 VOLUME 143, NUMBER 22
ESTABLISHED 1874 oberlinreview.org
ONLINE & IN PRINT
Students Meet with Frandsen After Protests Local News Bulletin News briefs from the past week Students, Residents to Celebrate Big Parade The 14th annual Big Parade will take place tomorrow, May 2 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The parade participants will line up in front of Prospect Elementary School before marching down College Street and ending up in Tappan Square. The event will feature many College and community groups, floats, live music, costumes, games and food. According to the organizers, the parade is “the largest artistic collaboration between [the] College and [the] community. Come join the big fun! Our mission is to build and celebrate our community through artistic expression.” Town Restructures Debt The City Council plans to restructure the city’s remaining $3.3 million bond debt from the Oberlin road-service complex built in 2007. The refinancing could save the city roughly $400,000 over the next 12 years. On Tuesday, the ratings agency Moody’s gave the city of Oberlin an Aa2 debt rating, a strong rating for a municipality and the same rating that the agency gave to the College’s debt in 2013. “The Aa2 reflects the city’s small tax base located in the greater Cleveland (A2 stable) metro area, strong financial operations supported by robust reserves, above average but manageable debt burden and elevated exposure to unfunded pension liabilities,” Moody’s wrote in the report. Conservatory Council Holds Elections The Conservatory Council, a student governance organization focused on making the Conservatory “a more welcoming and supportive space for all of its students,” is holding elections for next year’s Council. The elections will run until 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, May 7. The results will be announced on May 8.
Melissa Harris
After students protested against the four percent tuition hike last Friday, 10 students, including members of Student Senate, met with Dean of Students Eric Estes and Vice President of Finance and Administration Mike Frandsen on Monday, April 27. During the meeting, they discussed student demands as well as plans for future negotiations to make Oberlin more accessible and affordable. With the total cost of attending Oberlin rising from $61,788 this year to $64,224 for the 2015– 16 school year, the students involved in the meeting initially demanded a tuition freeze. College administrators rejected this proposal. “We came up with the tuition plan because it seemed like the most immediate [way] to freeze the total cost of attendance, but the College obviously responded, ‘No, that’s not possible,’” said College senior Zachery Crowell, one of the chief organizers of the protests. “We fully expected that, but they also said no to things that they could do immediately for more information of metrics
Protesters call for financial accessibility as they march across Wilder Bowl. The College declined the students’ request for a tuition freeze. Bryan Rubin
of economic diversity at this College and things like what the actual average student was graduating with in loans.” Wanting more clarity and transparency, students used this meeting to understand where
See page 2
penses,” Frandsen said. “That’s what drives the cost of how we do business. It’s the cost of the personnel and the cost of salaries and wages and the cost of See Protesters, page 4
ASA Organizes Fundraiser for Yakubu Saaka Fund Xiaoqian Zhu The African Student Association held its annual banquet on April 18, the fourth fundraising event this year for the Yakubu Saaka Scholarship Fund. The ASA is attempting to raise $50,000 for the fund by May. The fund was established in 2009 in honor of Dr. Yakubu Saaka — a longtime professor from Ghana and a significant contributor to the Africana Studies Department — to provide financial aid for African students. “[Oberlin College is] always trying to reach out to the [African] continent to get more students in, and the reality is most students in the continent cannot afford this private school education,” said College junior and ASA Co-chair Sophie Umazi Mvurya. “So it clashes with their mission of trying to extend their outreach to Africa, but at the same time not catering to the fact that most students who come from the Africa will need that extra push to attend such a college.” The idea for the fund first came about in the discussion between Saaka’s widow and Development Office staff after Saaka passed away. The class of 2009 and ASA started fundraising in 2009, and students have continued to raise money for the fund in the years since. However, members of the ASA and the administration have disagreed about whether or
not the fund was intended to be a current-use fund or an endowed fund. The College spends current-use funds each year until nothing is left; endowed funds, conversely, are mostly invested, with the profit from the fund’s investments being spent each year, while the bulk of the fund remains perpetually intact. The College typically only endows funds if they have at least $50,000. While ASA students fundraised under the impression that the money was being saved for the $50,000 threshold in order for the fund to become an endowed fund, the fund was actually established as a current-use gift in 2010 — as shown by an internal memo written when the fund was originally established. As a result, the Development Office distributed the fund over the last few years as financial aid for African students. At the beginning of this year, only $137.70 was left. According to Vice President of Development and Alumni Affairs Bill Barlow, the Development Office set up the fund after failing to reach Mrs. Saaka after the original meeting. “[The Stewardship staff] made many efforts to try to reach her again and to have her sign the agreement, but they haven’t been rather successful in reaching her, so we went ahead and set up the fund,” Barlow said. “But because it was $8,000, it was [established as] a current-use fund. So from our perspective, this was a current-use
Senior Sluggers
Taking Initiative Students discuss uses for the Student Support Initiative Fund.
the money was going and how students could be more involved in the financial decision-making process. “Whatever revenue is coming in, the majority of that money is going to go to personnel ex-
Feminist Footwork Oberlin Dance Company piece underlines political themes through dance. See page 10
INDEX:
Opinions 5
This Week in Oberlin 8
Softball celebrates a doubleheader victory over Franciscan University on Senior Day. See page 15
Arts 10
Sports 16
fund, with the knowledge of the family from the beginning.” According to Mvurya, Barlow’s statement contradicted Africana Studies department professor Dr. Darko Opoku, who believed Mrs. Saaka shared the students’ impression that the fund was endowed. Mrs. Saaka could not be reached by the Review for comment. ASA members also questioned whether money from the fund was used as financial aid for non-African students. Barlow denied the possibility. “We have reported to Mrs. Saaka every year since the fund was established about who is the student and how the fund has been used to support that student,” Barlow said. “We have been using the fund in accordance to Mrs. Saaka’s wishes.” Now that ASA knows about the state of the fund, its goal is to raise $50,000 by May to make the Yakubu Saaka fund endowed. In addition to the banquet, ASA also organized a culture showcase, The African Way, a fashion show, Runway to Africa, and participated in Oberlin’s annual student show Colors of Rhythm. A crowdsourcing website for the fund was arranged to raise money as well, and the site has raised $1,760 to date. The fund is also one of the choices seniors may donate to for their Senior Gift.
on the
WEB
All of the content you see here is also available on our website. Check back for the latest stories and interactive polls. Visit oberlinreview.org and facebook. com/oberlinreview and follow us on Twitter @oberlinreview and Instagram @ocreview.
News
Page 2
The Oberlin Review, May 1, 2015
Senate Forum Focuses on New Student Support Fund Elizabeth Dobbins News Editor Students discussed the allocation of the Student Support Initiatives Fund during a Student Senate-led forum on Tuesday evening. Board of Trustees Chair Clyde McGregor donated $500,000 to create the fund for students of color, low-income, at-risk or disabled students. Other donors have since pledged more money to the fund, increasing the total to about $700,575. The fund was created after College senior and Student Senator Megs Bautista had breakfast with President Krislov to convey her concerns regarding the lack of support for low-income students beyond the financial aid packages granted during the admission process. “I was like, ‘So it’s really awesome that you guys give us generous financial aid packages when you do, but you kind of stop and forget about us after the fact,’” Bautista said during the forum on Tuesday. “So once the paperwork is in, what happens to my books? … What happens when my computer happens to break, which it did? So on and so forth. … There’s a postFAFSA or financial aid or whatever burden that is not being paid attention to.” During the forum, students discussed how to best allocate the fund, as well as the definition of the vague stipulation “at-risk.” Senator and double-degree sophomore Jeremy Poe said that by defining “at-risk,” students can interpret this term for the administration and influence the fund’s allocation. “When Clyde gave this money, the only stipulations he gave were these words,” Poe said during the forum. “I was talking to [Vice President and Dean of Students] Eric Estes, and he’s going to push for, by next week with Krislov, having [a] more
clear-cut procedure for how we encourage them to use this fund, or who it should be used for and what the stipulations should be. I think that’s why this conversation is valuable, because we can push for that and push for a better understanding instead of just the phrase “at-risk” and “low-income.” Our definition of what that means I think is very important, and having a better understanding will let us advocate better.” Some students suggested that the category of “at-risk” overlaps with the other groups outlined in the fund’s language as possible recipients: low-income, firstgeneration and disabled students, as well as students of color. However, others discussed a more expansive definition of “atrisk,” which included students who struggle or have struggled with drug or alcohol addiction. Bautista also raised the possibility of using the fund to support students during specific events that may put them at-risk. “The Oberlin College Republicans and Libertarians just brought this speaker to campus [who] was terrible,” she said. “There were events that happened as alternative spaces that were requesting funding so that they could program. Does that count as “at-risk”? … I personally think it does.” After proposing several definitions for “at-risk,” students discussed possible programs to support, expand or create using money from the fund. These proposals included plans to increase the financial accessibility of club and intramural sports, traveling home and summer work-study programs or internships. Some expressed hope that the fund could fill in the gaps left by other programs, such as the recently expanded Emergency Book Fund, which provides loans, not direct funds, for any student who needs assistance buying books for class. Several
College junior Dyaami D’Orazio discusses her thoughts on the allocation of the new Student Support Initiative Fund. The fund has over $700,000 for students of color and disabled, low-income or at-risk students. Effie Kline-Salamon
students want this new fund to provide money for supplies for art classes and textbooks without requiring the users to pay the school back. College senior and Student Senator Molly Brand emphasized that this will be an ongoing fund and an opportunity to support smaller initiatives. “This fund is not established to be spent all at once, so we don’t have to be thinking of [the] biggest possible way we can spend $500,000. But what are some small programs that [are] really important [to support] that you’ve heard of ?” Brand asked. A Senate working group will gather the ideas from this forum to organize a list of possible uses for the fund at a meeting on Sunday and then present the list of suggestions to Estes on May 7. Estes said part of the fund has already been allocated to several programs and the
Student Senate forum is a way to get additional student input. “It is being used to support a range of services to support students, primarily related to economic accessibility but other critical support resources like disability support and mental and emotional health support,” said Estes in an email to the Review. “So some of the money has been committed to expand peer-mentoring programs like Peer Mentors and Student Accessibility Advocates and increase the yield of endowed funds for books and medical emergencies. The fund is helping to support part of [the new] position in [Office of Disability Services] and the piloting of Saturday hours at Student Health Services. These priorities were created with input from students. Senate is soliciting input from students on potential additional allocations of the funds.”
Students to Give Feedback on Blackboard, Other Technologies Elizabeth Dobbins News Editor After finals end and students move out, most activities on campus will shut down, but efforts to evaluate and expand the ways technology is used in the classroom will be powering on. On May 27, Oberlin Center for Technologically Enhanced Teaching will host a day of instructional workshops for faculty on subjects ranging from the presentation software Prezi to Blackboard to the use of clickers in the classroom and — right in the middle of this day — will host the first official student-led panel focused on providing feedback and suggestions regarding technology in the classroom. Director of OCTET Albert Boronni views this panel as an opportunity for his organization, as well as professors, to gain a better understanding of which technology and
features are useful for students. “I’d like to see us start a more substantive conversation with students about what they see as working and not working, useful in their learning,” Boronni said. “There’s a lot of initiatives that come about or try to come about — computational modeling, e-portfolios, all this other stuff — and sometimes I think we forget to ask the students if this will be beneficial.” Last year, OCTET held a similar panel during its yearly Teaching and Technology Workshop, but the panel was informally organized and the students who participated were selected because they happened to be in Mudd during the event. Boronni hopes that by advertising this panel through Blackboard and other media the panel can attract a greater diversity of students and opinions, as well as inspire faculty to try different ways of integrating technology
The Oberlin Review — Established 1874 —
Volume 143, 140, Number 22 2
(ISSN 297–256)
May 1, 2015
Published by the students of Oberlin College every Friday during the fall and spring semesters, except holidays and examination periods. Advertising rates: $18 per column inch. Second-class postage paid at Oberlin, Ohio. Entered as second-class matter at the Oberlin, Ohio post office April 2, 1911. POSTMASTER SEND CHANGES TO: Wilder Box 90, Oberlin, Ohio 44074-1081. Office of Publication: Burton Basement, Oberlin, Ohio 44074. Phone: (440) 775-8123 Fax: (440) 775-6733 On theOn web: thehttp://www.oberlinreview.org web: oberlinreview.org
into their courses. “I’m hoping to see faculty come,” he said. “I’m hoping to see faculty integrate some of this. I’m hoping to see faculty get engaged and work with each other and talk to each other about what they’re doing, and then I’m hoping next semester for them to come back to us and say ‘Hey, I heard about this. I really want to do this.’” Associate Professor Al Porterfield has attended several OCTET workshops over the past few years and has integrated Blackboard into his courses by using the site as a way of communicating with students, hosting multiple-choice quizzes, posting documents and providing online grades. He says the site is convenient or at least more convenient than creating websites for his courses, which he used to do, but the system has some design flaws, such as unclear links and no function for
Julia Liv Combe Herbst Allegra RoseKirkland Stoloff Managing editor Samantha Taylor Field Link News editors Rosemary Oliver Boeglin Bok Elizabeth AlexDobbins Howard Opinions editor Will Kiley Rubenstein Petersen This Week Weekeditor editor Hazel Zoë Strassman Galloway Arts editors Danny Kara Brooks Evans Vida Georgia Weisblum Horn Sports editors Nate Quinn Levinson Hull Madeleine Tyler O’Meara Sloan Layout manager editors Sarah TiffanySnider Fung Layout editors Josh BenBlankfield Garfinkel Alanna AbigailSandoval Carlstad Photo editors Talia OliviaRodwin Gericke Online editorBrannon Rockwell-Charland Cyrus Eosphoros Onlineeditors Photo editor Alanna Mike Bennett Plotz
increasing the time on quizzes for students with exemptions from the Office of Disabilities. College sophomore Andres Cuervo agrees, and this belief, in addition to an interest in the intersection of technology and teaching, motivated Cuervo to sit on the panel this May. “Blackboard hasn’t been introduced to its content creators effectively: teachers,” Cuervo said in an email to the Review. “There’s still confusion and resentment, amongst everyone from Computer Science to English teachers I’ve had, about it being a restrictive, confusing interface. I think it’s actually a serious detriment that Blackboard is so frequently customized by the CIT staff here. If there’s anyone who has worked on it with experience in interaction design and information architecture, I can’t find much evidence in the current state of the Blackboard site.”
Editors-in-chief Editors-in-Chief
Effie Kline-Salamon Curtis Cook Savi Sedlacek Ian Campbell ReshardReynolds el-Shair Jeremy SophiaGiseburt Bamert Annelise Stephanie Bonner Abbey Bisesi Emma Eisenberg Julia TaylorDavis Field Lya Finston Katherine Hamilton Jennifer JuliaJimenez Hubay Tracey Knott Joseph Kenshur Noah Morris Olivia Pandolfi Anna Peckham Sophia Seibert Silvia Sheffield Michael Swantek Drew Wise Antonia JoeChandler Camper Edmund Metzold Joseph Dilworth Talia Krehbiel-Boutis James Kuntz
Business manager Ads manager manager Ads Production Production manager manager Production staff Production staff
Distributors Distributors
Despite Porterfield and Cuervo’s mixed feelings about Blackboard, 85 percent of the 110 people who responded to the Spring 2013 Faculty Teaching and Tech Survey agreed that Oberlin should provide an institutionally supported and integrated learning management system, like Blackboard. Members of a committee that met several times in spring 2014 debated whether Blackboard, out of the many learning systems on the market, is the correct choice for Oberlin. In a report dated April 3, 2014, the committee listed their concerns, which included the high cost of Blackboard but also the difficulty of transitioning to a new learning management system. Porterfield, one of the members of the committee, expressed similar conclusions. See OCTET, page 4
Corrections: Corrections
The feature photos of the Student Dance Thein Review is not awareshould of have Showcase last week’ s issue anyattributed corrections been tothis Johnweek. Seyfried. The Review strives toKoreo printPull all Heist In last week’ s “Obertones, as possible. toinformation Remember”as theaccurately song “Around the World” If you feel Review has made an should havethe been attributed to Harold error, and please sendYoung, an e-mail to King Adamson Voctor not Nat managingeditor@oberlinreview.org. Cole.
News
The Oberlin Review, May 1, 2015
Page 3
Off the Cuff: Gabe Schivone, co-coordinator of UNIDOS youth group and volunteer at No Más Muertes/No More Deaths Gabe Schivone is a U.S.-Mexico border activist, volunteer at No Más Muertes/No More Deaths and co-coordinator of UNIDOS ethnic studies youth group in Tucson, AZ. He has written articles for The Huffington Post opposing the violence on the U.S.-Mexico border and in Palestinian territories. This week, Schivone visited Oberlin to give a talk titled Gaza in Arizona: Colonial Technologies and the Transnational Military Industrial Complex and to join Amanda Rose, OC ’13, in leading Environmental Justice From the Mexico-U.S. Border to Palestine/Israel, a workshop sponsored by Students for a Free Palestine. Tired of the Arizona sun, he sat in the shade of the Baldwin Cottage porch with the Review to discuss the advertising tactics of Israeli security technology firms, issues with President Barack Obama’s immigration reform and the term “tonks.” In your talk you compare the U.S.-Mexico border to the Gaza Strip. How are they similar? Well, I won’t be comparing so much as giving more material analysis about [them]. They both are funded by the United States government. There are a number of deeply integrated military technology systems and strategies, and so the material reality is so interconnected — for example, the proliferation of Israeli military security technology firms. So, actual companies you can trace have been entering the U.S.-Mexico border security market especially since the post-9/11 era. In fact, [by] Israel’s own figures in the Jerusalem Post, they’ve noted that their homeland security market has tripled in that same era, and this border security market is projected to grow in a worldwide scale to $500 billion by 2020. So it’s something that governments in the U.S. and Israel [and] high-tech corporate executives and leaders are very excited about. Israel has something to offer. That is expertise. It’s the way that they market their products. They’re battle proven. The ones they have tested in the field, so to speak, [are] battle tested. Since the 1980s, Israeli participation in the U.S. genocide in Guatemala, for example, was reported on CBS and NBC as tried and tested in the occupied Palestinian territories. This isn’t something that’s a controversial language. This has been
the border patrol agent presence on the border. Clinton did it. Roughly, there were about a little less than 5,000 border patrol agents by the time Clinton came around. Under [President George W.] Bush it reached about 10,000. Obama [has] 20,000, and now he wants to expand it under the so-called compromise bill to 40,000. I think ending the militarization of the border is what needs to happen, and more equitable international economic treaties and economic policies is what is driving migration. Militarization is what is killing people left and right on the border, and so that’s what needs to end. Those are the root causes of this whole bloody, deadly situation.
Gabe Schivone, who is the co-coordinator of UNIDOS ethnic studies youth group and volunteer at No Más Muertes/No More Deaths
mainstream reported since the 1980s — that Israel is the expert of using occupied territories as laboratories and then modifying [their] uses to be then marketed and exported globally for their arms trade. One huge marketing site for them is the U.S.-Mexico border. I steer away from comparing the two also because [of] the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, if we’re going through international law — I don’t want to unfairly put international law on a pedestal — but even if you’re going by international law, the U.S.-Mexico border wall is built on the U.S. side. It’s built on an internationally-recognized border, but in the case of the occupation of Palestine, almost all of the wall — more than around 90 percent of the wall — is built on occupied territory, which is illegal. It’s not separating Gaza from Israel. It’s not separating specifically the West Bank. It’s not separating Israel from Palestinians. It’s separating Palestinians from other Palestinians, and it’s used as a weapon to protect the settlements as they’re expanded and built. But also on the U.S.-Mexico border there’s also colonial settlement that the wall is used for too. I think it’s just built on this 21st-century settlement. What are your thoughts on Obama’s new immigration reform, which has been termed a compromise?
front of Kade House. The bicycle, valued at $200, was locked to itself.
Thursday, April 23 3:10 a.m. Officers were requested to assist a student in Kahn Hall who was ill from alcohol consumption. An ambulance arrived and the student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment. 8:57 a.m. Officers were requested to help transport a student with an injured arm to the Mercy Allen Hospital emergency room. 11:11 a.m. A student reported that the driver’s side rear quarter panel of their vehicle was scratched while parked in the Admissions parking lot. 4:16 p.m. A student reported the theft of a black and yellow Genesis GS29 bicycle from the bike rack in
Friday, April 24 12:25 a.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm in the Kettering section of the Science Center. Someone accidently sprayed water on a detector while cleaning the floors. The detector was replaced and the alarm was reset. 9:39 a.m. Staff in the Conservatory Annex reported a burning smell in the admissions lobby. Facilities staff members also responded. The odor was cause by a melted grate over a recessed ceiling fan in the bookstore. Repairs were made and members of the Oberlin Fire Department completed a thermal imaging check.
I think it depends on your point of view whether it’s a compromise. To someone like Obama, or to the Democrats on the political spectrum of right wing and far right wing — right wing being Obama and Democrats and far right wing being Republicans — they could see that as a compromise. One thing they agree is bipartisan is expanding militarization by 300 percent in some ways and giving $42 billion more to militarizing the border, which is going to mean more death, which is going to mean more incarceration of undocumented immigrants and is going to mean more criminal prosecutions of undocumented immigrants just for crossing a border line. I don’t see that as a compromise. I see that as hideous injustice that is just expanding human rights abuses that [taking place on] a massive scale now and then just tripling them. What do you think could have been a better solution? Withdrawing and repositioning border patrol. I mean, one of the [Comprehensive Immigration Reform] packages of that security package of the so-called compromise is to double border patrol from around 20,000 to now 40,000, and every president we’ve seen — before [President Bill] Clinton, but especially since Clinton — has been expanding
9:32 p.m. Officers responded to a report of an unauthorized party with disorderly attendees at the Goldsmith apartments. Officers met with the hosts and approximately 30 to 40 individuals were asked to leave the premises.
Saturday, April 25 12:25 a.m. Officers assisted an intoxicated and unresponsive student on the third floor of Barrows Hall. An ambulance responded, and the student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment. 10:17 a.m. An officer on patrol in Zechiel House noticed additional slats from the vertical blinds on the pool table and floor in the lounge. It is unknown whether they fell down accidently or were torn down intentionally. A work order was filed for repair.
In an article you wrote for The Huffington Post, you wrote that border and Homeland Security is a large and quickly growing industry. Do you feel the increased militarization of the Arizona-Mexico border is more due to pressure from this industry or cultural perceptions of the border and immigration? I think both compound each other, and one gives intellectual and ideological justification for the other. So if these cultural perceptions of dehumanizing undocumented migrants [are] in the media and in discourse — how we talk about them — once they’re dehumanized we can do whatever we want to them. That ushers in this material reality of smashing their skulls in the desert. Border patrol has a culture of cruelty. They have a word for migrants. They call them “tonks,” and the reason why that word is so popular among border patrol is because that’s the sound that their metal [flashlights], popular among enforcement officers, … makes when they hit the migrants upside the heads. They’re smashing the skulls of migrants in the desert, incarcerating them, all sorts of horrific abuses in short-term custody. … [Migrants] are dying in the deserts in the thousands and turning the deserts into open graves and mass killing fields. This ideological justification as dehumanization allows that to happen without so much protest, so much criticism. It just allows it to happen. One makes possible and greases the wheels of the other. Interview by Elizabeth Dobbins, News editor Photo by Bryan Rubin
Sunday, April 26 1:03 a.m. Officers were requested to assist a student ill from alcohol consumption on the second floor of Dascomb Hall. The student was able to correctly answer all questions asked and was assisted to their room for the night. 3:11 a.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at the Goldsmith apartments. A strong odor consistent with burnt marijuana was detected upon entering the apartment and found to be the cause of the activated detector. The alarm was reset. 11:57 a.m. An officer on patrol noticed that the barbed wire fence above the fenced-off access ladder at the southwest corner of the service garage was loose and had been disturbed. The roof area was checked
and found secure. A work order was filed for repair.
Monday, April 26 3 p.m. Facilities staff reported that the third-floor push button for the elevator in Kahn Hall had been vandalized. The push button appeared to have been kicked into the control panel, making the elevator car unsafe to use. The elevator was locked and placed out of service until repairs were made.
Tuesday, April 28 10:28 a.m. Allen Memorial Art Museum security staff reported that a visitor passed out and struck his head on the marble floor. An ambulance was requested and the visitor was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.
News
Page 4
The Oberlin Review, May 1, 2015
Protesters Continue Call for Accessibility Continued from page 1 benefits for the staff.” Frandsen went on to say that 80 percent of the College’s revenue comes from the students, with 60 percent specifically from tuition. During the meeting, students asked Frandsen how information concerning the College’s finances could be made more accessible to students. Frandsen responded that he held a presentation last fall where he asked members of Student Senate how he could get more information accessible to the students. “There’s going to be some information that’s not going to be shared, but there’s more information that can and should be,” Frandsen said. On Thursday, Frandsen held a meeting similar to last fall’s in Dye Lecture Hall to discuss the College’s finances. After the meeting, there was a question-and-answer session with President Krislov, Dean Chermonte, Vice President Kathryn Stuart and Dean Estes. In addition to Thursday’s presentation, students plan to hold more meetings with administrators such as Dean Chermonte and President Krislov to find answers about how financial aid will be affected by the tuition hike.
Students have also begun to draft a list of demands that they collected from the student body to send to the administration. “[We’re] drafting really clear demands for the administration in language that’s digestible for people who sit on the financial board of this College,” said College first-year Sofia Smith-Hale. “Another main task that we’ve been working on is thinking about the demands not solely regarding financial accessibility but workers’ rights and accessibility for the disabled, who are struggling with all sorts of other things. We’re really trying to take into account other people’s needs and desires and make sure people are heard.” The list will incorporate a variety of demands, including moving from providing merit aid to need-based scholarships, loosening on-campus dining and housing requirements, reducing food waste and temporary workers in Campus Dining Services, cutting certain administrative pay and strengthening relations between the College and the city of Oberlin. The students also hope to establish an Accessibility and Affordability Committee that would include students, administrators and Oberlin residents. In President Krislov’s weekly column on Thurs-
A group of students march by the King Building protesting the 4 percent tuition increase. Vice President of Finance Mike Frandsen and other administrators held an information session on the College’s spending Thursday night. Bryan Rubin
day in The Source, he defended the tuition hike by saying that freezing tuition would necessitate painful budget cuts. “If we do not raise tuition, we probably could not replace the revenue we would lose in the shortterm and probably not completely in the longrun,” Krislov wrote. “We have been working and continue to work on generating revenue from sources other than tuition, including fundraising, bringing conferences and summer programs to campus and through partnerships with other institutions. But to
make up a budget shortfall, we would have to reduce costs. Some reductions could be realized through greater efficiencies, and we are working on that. But we are already fairly efficient. So at some point reductions are likely to result in a degradation of the quantity or quality of the education and support services we currently offer.” About 100 students participated in the tuition hike protest last Friday. The protesters marched through the Science Center, King Building, Carnegie Building and Bibbins Hall chanting, “They say
tuition hike, we say student strike!” and “Stand up, walk out!” Some students and faculty not involved with the protest criticized it for disrupting classes. The protest ended in the lobby of Carnegie, where the students discussed their grievances and future plans. “I thought the turnout was very strong and the overall protest achieved all its objectives,” Crowell said. “We had three local and two student newspapers cover us and almost 900 signatures all within one week of the General Assembly. This is a very
pressing issue, especially for low-income students, students of color and international students, who are all disproportionally affected by rising costs.” The Student Labor Action Coalition and Defending Oberlin Financial Accessibility planned to hold another demonstration outside of Wilder Hall today, International Labor Day or May Day. They plan to continue actions and demonstrations until the administration addresses their requests for more information and more student involvement with College finances.
OCTET Event to Consider Technology in the Classroom Continued from page 2 “I think what the group decided overall is that there is no perfect system, and Blackboard is quite expensive,” he said. “There are actually some free systems, but Blackboard also has a number of nice features, [and] now the faculty have sort of adapted to it, and if you were to go to a whole new system and if you were to say, ‘Look, we could save thousands of dollars each year by using this free system. All you faculty have to do is learn the new system,’ there’d be an insurrection. A lot of people don’t want to have to deal with new technology; they want to devote their attention to teaching and not the bells and whistles that they use to teach.” Chief Technology Officer John Bucher declined to share the yearly cost of Blackboard, but stated it was similar in price to other large management systems. “It’s on par with the Oracle database software that we buy and banner databases,” he said. “It’s your typical large system, business system type of software. It’s priced accordingly.” According to the report, the College’s two-year contract with Blackboard ends on June 30 of this year. Bucher said the College plans to sign
a contract with Blackboard for one more year and use this time to investigate other products and compare them to Blackboard. Until then, OCTET hopes to get more student feedback on Blackboard and the use of other technologies through the panel on May 27. College senior Alex Abramowitz, another member of the upcoming panel, warns that the College should be thoughtful about integrating technology. “We can’t just use technology for its own sake,” said Abramowitz in an email to the Review. “It’s very expensive and is often unnecessary. It can also be extremely frustrating when professors who don’t really understand it are relying on it.” However, Cuervo is excited about possible new developments and said they hope to see a better integration of mobile devices in the classroom. “The most barebones incorporation of technology in the classroom would be better integration with mobile devices,” Cuervo said. “Instead of letting phones and computers be a distraction in the classroom, let them be an interactive anonymous forum for participation. That might be an interesting way to maintain and ensure class participation from even the most disengaged or shy students.”
May 1, 2015
Opinions The Oberlin Review
Letters to the Editors CES Faculty Support Divestment from Fossil Fuel To the Oberlin Community: Faculty members appointed to serve on Oberlin College’s Committee on Environmental Sustainability unanimously support the student proposal that Oberlin College divest its holdings in the enumerated corporations whose operations are particularly counter to the College’s greenhouse gas emissions goal. In 2004, Oberlin College adopted a comprehensive environmental policy that called for a move towards zero net emissions of greenhouse gasses. The Committee on Environmental Sustainability was created through a motion by the General Faculty of Oberlin in 2006 with the express purpose of overseeing implementation of this environmental policy. In that same year the College was the first of its peer institutions to make its commitment to “carbon neutrality” formal through the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment. In 2008, Oberlin College set a date of 2025 for achieving carbon neutrality. In the view of the faculty who have been appointed to serve on the CES, it is inconsistent for Oberlin College to, on one hand, take the significant steps necessary to reduce campus emissions to zero while, on the other hand, use profits obtained through investments in the largest fossil fuel companies to operate the campus. We acknowledge that trustees are charged with investment decisions and that adopting the policy that students have proposed warrants careful and thoughtful deliberation. However, in our view, divestment from the enumerated companies is the right choice for Oberlin College. We support and applaud Oberlin students for initiating this effort, for raising awareness and stimulating productive discussion and for moving the College toward creating a more sustainable future. Although the CES includes student and staff representatives, the committee was created by a vote of the General Faculty as a faculty committee. In deliberating how to support the student proposal, the committee as a whole felt it most
appropriate for this letter to exclusively represent the faculty members who serve on the committee. – Roger Laushman Associate Professor of Biology, David Orr Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Committee on Environmental Sustainability Chair – John Petersen Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Director of the Environmental Studies department – Ann Sherif Professor of Japanese and East Asian Studies – Dennis Hubbard Professor of Geology and Chair of the Geology department – Rob Owen Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Senate Urges Trustees to Divest from Fossil Fuels Student Senate unanimously approved this letter on Thursday, April 30, 2015. To the trustees of Oberlin College: Whereas: r In June of 2014, the Board approved the Divestment Resolution, permitting students to submit proposals regarding the investment of the College endowment; r In March 2015, a proposal was submitted calling for the College to divest all direct investments in the 12 most prolific greenhouse gas emitters between 1854 and 2010; r Oberlin College has committed to carbon neutrality by 2025 as part of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment; r By partially funding its operations through the profits of the fossil fuel industry, whose products Oberlin has deemed too hazardous for its own use, the College finds itself confronted with a troubling contradiction;
r The students of Oberlin College, in the ongoing spring 2015 referendum, have demonstrated strong support for the proposal; r This support has been echoed by the broader Oberlin College community, including faculty and alumni; r Oberlin College faces an opportunity to reassert its reputation as a national environmental leader by becoming the first educational institution with an endowment of its size to divest from fossil fuel corporations; r And Oberlin’s current investment in fossil fuel corporations meets the criteria for divestment specified in the June 2014 resolution that r These investments in fossil fuel companies materially contribute to conditions that shock the conscience; r Divestment from these corporations is certain to have significant reputational impacts on this industry, and will encourage our peer institutions to join us; r And fossil fuel divestment is welcomed by the greater Oberlin community. Therefore, the Student Senate of Oberlin College, representing the Oberlin student body, strongly urges the Board of Trustees to approve the March 2015 proposal to divest Oberlin’s endowment from fossil fuel corporations. – Student Senate
Violence Requires Multiple Definitions To the Editors: Violence, sexual and otherwise, afflicts Oberlin as it does colleges and universities around the world, and our community needs to address it vigorously. But we won’t be able to do so effectively unless we know what we are talking about when we talk about violence. I’m not always sure that we do. My colleague, Professor Copeland, responded forcefully last week to a previous letter objecting to Christina Hoff Sommers’ campus visit (“Free Speech Not Equivalent to Violence,” The OberSee Letters, page 6
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.
Page 5
The Oberlin Review Publication of Record for Oberlin College — Established 1874 —
Editors-in-Chief Julia Herbst Rose Stoloff Managing Editor Taylor Field Opinions Editor Kiley Petersen
Tsarnaev’s Sentencing Provokes Moral Questions Surrounding Death Penalty Content Warning: This editorial contains discussion of the death penalty and execution. Two years after the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has reached the sentencing phase of his trial, but most of Massachusetts opposes the death penalty for him. Convicted on all 30 counts brought against him, of which 17 carry a possible death sentence, Tsarnaev faces either the death penalty or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. If the case were up to the state of Massachusetts, Tsarnaev would not receive a death sentence. The death penalty is illegal in the state, and only about a third of its residents approve of the death penalty for egregious crimes. Less than 20 percent of the state population believes that Tsarnaev should be executed and only 15 percent of Bostonians are in favor of his execution. Even several victims of the bombing — including the parents of the 8-year-old who was killed, a couple who both lost limbs in the bombing and the sister of the slain MIT police officer — have spoken out against the death penalty for the bomber. Rather, the public prefers he receive a life sentence in a maximum security prison — a surprising and impressive fact given that Tsarnaev is responsible for an act of terror that killed four and injured 280 people. Unfortunately for Tsarnaev’s fate, the opinions of Massachusetts residents and even the state’s laws are irrelevant. The case is a federal matter, and jurors in a federal court will determine his sentence. Even if Tsarnaev is sentenced to death, it’s likely that he might never be executed. Since the 1960s, the federal government has only executed three people, despite multiple death penalty sentences. A nationwide shortage of execution drugs combined with likely years of appeals in Tsarnaev’s defense might result in Tsarnaev dying a natural death in prison before his execution date. The controversy surrounding Tsarnaev’s sentencing is emblematic of a larger debate on the death penalty and execution methods in the U.S. — especially surrounding the highly controversial method of lethal injection. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard a case brought by three inmates against the state of Oklahoma about the use of the sedative midazolam in lethal injection. According to the argument brought by the inmates, the sedative does not achieve the level of unconsciousness necessary for surgery and therefore violates the Eighth Amendment. The Supreme Court’s nine justices seemed to split along ideological lines on the constitutionality of the drug on Wednesday, highlighting the deeper moral questions central to the death penalty debate. Wednesday’s courtroom debate, which was supposed to narrowly revolve only around the constitutionality of midazolam, erupted into a debate over the death penalty so heated that Chief Justice John Roberts had to reprimand the justices for their rudeness toward the attorneys. The death penalty brought out the worst in the Supreme Court justices, highlighting how visceral an issue it is, even for those who are supposed to be the country’s most objective decision makers. Among the debates in the Supreme Court was the availability of alternative execution methods. Lethal injection is the most botched execution method, yet it is still the execution method of choice in the U.S. Between 1890 and 2010, 7.1 percent of lethal injections resulted in complications, compared to gas chambers at 5.4 percent. In contrast, among the 34 firing squad executions during that time, there were no complications. But lethal injection is easier for us to stomach. It feels removed and humane in a way that other methods do not. There is something about directly killing another human being that makes even the staunchest death penalty supporters uncomfortable. The controversy over which execution method is the most humane is not See Editorial, page 7 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, May 1, 2015
Letters to the Editors, Cont. Continued from page 5 lin Review, April 24, 2015). In particular, he took issue with this line: “Her talk is happening, so let’s pull together in the face of this violence and make our own space to support each other” (“In Response to Sommers’ Talk: A Love Letter to Ourselves,” The Oberlin Review, April 17, 2015). He called this use of the word violence “irresponsible” because it collapses “the distinction between constitutionally protected speech and rape or other forms of sexual violence.” I think Professor Copeland is missing something, but I also think the letter’s authors didn’t articulate their conception of violence clearly. Constitutionally protected speech can indeed be violent but not in same way that rape, sexual assault and related offenses are violent. While Copeland recognizes violence in the offenses, the letter writers highlight violence in responses to victims. We might call the latter “discursive violence” because it attacks victims’ experiences and their descriptions of and reactions to those experiences. Without lifting a finger, discursive violence rejects theses experiences as inarticulate, unintelligible and illegitimate in the public sphere. Copeland himself points in this direction (though he likely meant it metaphorically) when he refers to “the unspeakable horror of sexual assault.” What makes it unspeakable, in part, is a public sphere that excludes, marginalizes or derides it. So violence can be physical as well as discursive, and some would say that even this distinction is not very useful because the body is not separate from our experiences and our practices of meaning-making. The point is that there are distinctions to be made, and unless we make them clearly, it is going to be hard to have the kinds of conversations necessary to make Oberlin an even more welcoming, thoughtful and vibrant community. – Jade Schiff Assistant Professor of Politics
Silencing Survivors Results in Violence Dear Professor Copeland: Do you think there are not sur-
vivors on this campus? Survivors who were offended and hurt by the words and actions of Christina Hoff Sommers? You said that nothing Sommers said could have offended a survivor … Are you a survivor? Do you speak on behalf of all survivors? Have you listened to the survivors who have been bravely saying, “As a survivor, Sommers’ words and actions hurt me?” Dear Professor Copeland, do you know what sexualized violence is? Have you ever considered that violence may be more nuanced than you believe? That everyone experiences violence differently? Have you ever considered that re-living trauma, being told that your experience didn’t happen or doesn’t matter, being told to shut up and just accept a culture of shame, denial and victimblaming that normalizes violence is violent? I am horrified that you have a position of power at Oberlin. I am horrified that theater majors have to take two semesters with you. Free speech may be constitutionally protected, but you are paid by the College to educate students, and you’ve just chosen to invalidate the words, actions and healing of so many survivors on this campus. You were appalled by our love letter to ourselves. But we will not be silent; we will not stop speaking our truth, re-claiming our stories, bodies and spirits and challenging rape culture because our healing is radical and beautiful. Never speak for us again. –Anonymous College junior
Silence on Tuition Hike Proves Senate’s Irrelevance To the Editors: The Oberlin College Student Senate is a 15-member body, elected to relay the complex and pressing needs of the student population to their institution. Yet, if one were to read the description on its website, one could be forgiven for questioning whether Senate is in fact a “governance organization for the student body.” What do they govern? Senate has no power to enforce and little leverage in any capacity that cannot simply be waved off by administration. Arguably its greatest tool is communication: They speak
with the president, send all-campus emails and pass resolutions. But if the Senate can only speak, for whom do they speak? Last week, Senate failed to make any collective statement of support for students presently organizing against the $2,500 tuition hike. For whom do they speak? Is there an invisible majority of students who want to pay more than the already inconceivable cost? Is it truly so controversial that they cannot agree to support accessibility at this most basic level? For whom do they speak, and, just as importantly, does it do any good? Some truly outstanding, brilliant student activists are currently serving as Senators, and yet no statement has been made. How is this possible? If Senate cannot do this, why should they exist? If they cannot move forward on this issue, which is so pressing and widely supported by the student body, why should they exist? The legitimacy crisis of Senate is not new but in fact chronic. Most of us saw the steady stream of emails and incentives, begging the student body to place any confidence in the electoral process. Many attribute this to apathy, but for many it is a disbelief that any time invested in Senate will be time well spent. Historically, Senate positions have attracted those from the most privileged backgrounds, an issue that becomes especially relevant in the context of higher costs coupled with painfully low economic and racial diversity and support. If this body actually speaks for students, why have they been blaringly silent on the current demonstrations? While over 1,000 people have signed the petition for a tuition freeze, Senate has not offered its voice, let alone its support. This is not an indictment of individual student representatives; it’s an indictment of structure. Nominal power is not power, and when the necessary steps cannot be taken even with words, perhaps it’s time we shifted from nominal power to student power. Perhaps it’s time for a truly collective structure, a students’ union. If the Senate wishes to exercise what power it does have, it needs to take its mission seriously and put their full weight behind this initiative to make Oberlin financially accessible. If they cannot support us when students rally against astro-
nomical debt, perhaps it’s time to abolish Senate. – Dan Quigley College senior – Zachery Crowell College senior – Darrell Davis College junior – Paul Paschke, OC ’14
Student Initiatives Fund Gives New Opportunities To the Editors: Since 2013, the Office of Disabilities has initiated a peer-oriented program designed to further enhance the quality of campus life for students with disabilities; upperclassmen disclosed with the office are able to work with these students by becoming a Student Accessibility Advocate. Steadily expanding its parameters, the SAA program is now ready to really take off, thanks to generous funding from the Student Support Initiative Fund. What does this mean for the SAA program? First, it allows us (the SAAs themselves) to continue doing the critical work of advocating for students with disabilities. We address existing concerns students have regarding their experience on campus (such as finding certain parts of a building inaccessible or getting their accommodations to a professor). We also take it upon ourselves to push ourselves forward to be vocal about disability by talking about it, spreading awareness and hosting programs to inform others. As a peer-initiative program, the SAAs are also focused on providing our knowledge to incoming first(and sometimes second-) years, working with them as mentors. Whether a student needs to be directed toward a resource they were previously unaware of, are needing help on how to get their accommodations to their professors or just want to vent about the frustrations they encounter as a student with a disability, SAAs make sure to work alongside them for as long as they need the support.
This funding enables the program to also continue to participate in events that help get its name out there to potential students (e.g. the All Roads Program), to introduce other resources to students (such as our Pizza Socials with the deans) and to even give ourselves the chance to challenge what we know about disability in order to be better advocates by attending the annual Multiple Perspectives on Disability Conference in Columbus, Ohio. New, exciting things will get to happen as well! For the next school year (2015–16), SAAs for the first time will be able to come to campus before Orientation Week and reach out to the incoming first-years sooner — instead of only hearing about our program by name, or getting handed some pamphlets, students can bring their questions to us in real time and be made aware much sooner of an existing resource. The number of SAAs in the office will double, allowing there to be more available mentors and for the chance to double our efforts in advocacy work. Student Accessibility Advocates have been on the ground running with this program for the past couple of years; given that we’re only one of two campuses in the nation to have a peer-initiative program designed by and for students with disabilities, we have a lot of opportunities we can explore and look into in order to make sure we’re giving students a quality experience on campus. Having this funding gives the program the chance to continue its existing work and try new avenues, something that we hope to continue for years to come. The 2014–2015 Student Accessibility Advocates – Jasmine Lomax College junior – Althea Levine College sophomore – Liam Oznowich College sophomore – Rebecca Klein double-degree sophomore – Anais Stewart College senior
Free Speech Defenders Underestimate Power, Violence of Language Cyrus Eosphoros Columnist
An awful lot of problems spring from one question: Does speech do harm comparable to physical injury? Roger Copeland’s letter to the editors (“Free Speech Not Equivalent to Violence,” The Oberlin Review, April 24, 2015) has given us one side. I disagree with him. But beyond that, I’m worried about a miscommunication that might destroy our ability to have this debate. Most people can recognize that verbal threats are a promise of impending violence. However, the standard conception of what qualifies as a threat is absurdly narrow. “I am going to do this thing to you” reads as a threat. Without personal experience to inform someone’s judgment, what about another expression of violence? Throwing things? Destruction of inanimate objects? Talking about how much someone would like to do
harm? “Mere” threats can have as much effect as, or more effect than, physical violence. Moving people around by the promise of something terrible is what makes coercion work. “Warning” someone that they may be attacked if is a promise of physical violence that preemptively puts the blame on them. If the definition of “violence” is restricted to physical action, then we’d still need another blanket term for conscious causation of harm. In practice, that’s what people use “violence” to mean: “violent threats” or “inciting violence.” It has long-lasting harmful effects, it is one person participating in the active infliction of pain upon another, and it works as a method of coercion. Speech can be violence. How about someone claiming that injury based on communication, even if speech can be violent, is never comparable to physical pain?
That it only counts if someone is literally kicked, hit or beaten; that “just” thinking about it being painful means the person they’re accused of hurting is weak? While it doesn’t involve someone else attacking me, I am not “offended” or “annoyed” when my shoulder pops out of its socket. I am in automatic physical pain, but that isn’t distressing. The part that makes it worrying, dangerous, that actually ends up throwing me is the fact that it happening once means it could happen again. The bulk of the pain is gone relatively soon, but it leaves something worse: Suddenly all my movements have to revolve around the risk that I’ll get hurt again. What I want and feel like is secondary to the risk of getting hurt again. The thing that alters my behavior is the threat that this will recur. Why should such caution be less serious when the hurt involved does require an external actor? In that case, a reminder becomes an ac-
tive threat. It becomes “I will do this to you”; it becomes “I won’t help or believe you”; it becomes “If someone else did, I wouldn’t stop them”; it becomes a painful hit with the promise of more to come. That’s not “being offended.” That’s not a time for “I’m sorry if anyone didn’t like ... .” That’s not a time for “Just because you disagree ... .” And in response to being confronted, it’s not a time for backpedalling on the basis that the action in question couldn’t possibly have enough impact on the world to cause harm. It’s a time for acknowledging what damage has been done, even — especially — in the case that it was accidental. Remember when we talked about the bravery needed to walk up to someone and say, “This, this and this hit succeeded in hurting me badly”? That’s a plea for change on their part that deserves to be heard.
Opinions
The Oberlin Review, May 1, 2015
Page 7
Media Paints Innacurate Portrayal of Baltimore Kyle Tribble Contributing Writer All my life, my mother has stressed to me the importance of having “common sense.” Whether it was getting my homework in on time, treating my elders with respect or simply making responsible choices, there have been myriad lessons my mom has imbued in me during my short life, most of which I still follow today. Yet one lesson has always stuck with me, plastered to the back of my mind: Avoid the police. When I was a child, this meant little more than staying within eyesight of my mom and speaking only when spoken to. When I entered adolescence, it meant dressing nicely and behaving myself. And now, as an adult, it has come to mean driving slowly with the music down, not walking alone at night, never looking “suspicious” and never, under any circumstances, challenging or confronting the police. Ignoring these directives, according to my parents, could leave me in jail, a hospital or, worse yet, a grave. For many, such extreme consequences may seem foreign, unwarranted or even excessive. Yet I am certain my mother’s lessons in “common sense” are more than familiar to others in Black communities, particularly those found in my hometown of Balti-
more, MD. I’ve lived in and around Baltimore my entire life, bouncing between the suburbs of Randallstown, Greenspring Avenue near Druid Hill Park and Mondawmin and eventually Catonsville in southwest Baltimore County. Because of this, I frequently have had the opportunity to be a witness to several facets of Baltimore simultaneously. From middle school onward, I went to private school in the wealthy, white area of Baltimore called Roland Park, though I was still living in a ’hood near Druid Hill. Every morning I’d don my uniform and make the 10 minute commute, leaving my completely Black neighborhood to study Latin and Shakespeare with rich white kids from all over the county. However, whether I was living in the city proper or in the greater Baltimore County area, and even if I was surrounded by carefree white friends, my relationship with the police remained uneasy and untrustworthy. In Baltimore, it is simply understood that if you are Black and it can be helped, you don’t call the police. The BPD has always been more of a threat than a helping hand and a hindrance rather than a source of confidence. The police exist to hurt you, not protect you. It should come as no surprise, then, that the protests
and riots that have occurred have been so pointedly furious — what has happened this week is indicative of a long, upward battle that residents of Baltimore have fought in relation to our police force, economic hardships and weak elected officials doing little to protect Baltimore’s citizens. Parts of Baltimore look like the result of some ancient nuclear war, leaving blocks of townhouses and business boarded up and abandoned. Around a quarter of Baltimore’s population lives in poverty, with many families living as the victims of appalling unemployment rates and poor education. Yet despite a frustrating, decades-long history of hardship and amidst the anger, violence and destruction that took place during the riots on Monday night, my fellow Baltimoreans reminded the world of something that I have known to be true all my life: Though we are a city often divided, we care deeply, passionately and honestly about our town and are more than willing to unite in peace to protect it. There seems to be some widely held belief that Baltimore is one of the worst places on earth, a stain on America’s East Coast. The media wants you to believe that Baltimore is nothing more than The Wire: a wasteland of a city made up of nothing more than criminals and back-alley
drug dealing. CNN wants you to believe that we are only capable of being violent, that cars burning and stores getting looted was all that happened this week. Let me make this clear to you right now — Baltimore is a place filled with beautiful, intelligent people who want more than anything for our city to succeed. Over 10,000 marched peacefully in the past week, uniting in opposition to the systemic police –––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Let me make this clear to you right now — Baltimore is a place filled with beautiful, intelligent people who want, more than anything, for our city to succeed. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– brutality that Baltimore and the U.S. are plagued with. Unsurprisingly, however, most news outlets chose to ignore this fact, focusing solely on the violent few taking advantage of the inherent disorder involved in such a massive uprising. Headline after headline told of the “chaos in Baltimore,” coupled with images of a teen smashing a police vehicle, a CVS aflame and depictions of Black looters raiding some roadside
store. What many media outlets overlooked, however, was a protester protecting a line of policemen from rioters, a Vietnam vet asking kids to stay home, local community organizers absolutely destroying Fox News and CNN correspondents on live television and rival gangs ignoring their differences to peacefully protest and protect local businesses amidst the violence seen Monday night. Many flooded the streets accompanied not by the noise of aggression and destruction but by the sound of music and dance and with hopeful hearts and smiling faces. This week, despite national news depicting our city as a war zone filled with “thugs,” local news brought light to several articulate, passionate Baltimorean organizers fighting in the name of peace. And though so many people who have never set foot in Baltimore seem to have a loud, negative opinion of my town this week, I have seen nothing but love spread from a people who share little more than an area code and a sports team. In a city of neighborhoods, where simply crossing the street can land you in either a ghetto or a chic shopping plaza, Baltimore can often be a tense and divided community. But when it’s time to protect its own, Charm City has always stood strong and always will.
Editorial: Death Penalty System, Procedure Problematic Continued from page 5 the heart of the death penalty debate, and as nine impassioned justices demonstrated, it is a thin veil over deeper moral questions. While six in ten Americans still approve of the death penalty — a statistic that has remained constant since 2008 — the number of people who favor the death penalty over life in prison with no possibility of parole has decreased. This change might stem from a growing realization that the determination of guilt
and innocence in the justice system is far from perfect. With the emergence of breakthrough scientific technologies such as DNA testing, many prisoners have been exonerated. It is nearly impossible to be completely certain that a suspect is guilty. Any amount of reasonable doubt is a valid reason to declare a stay of execution, especially since there are so many inmates executed who are exonerated later in light of DNA evidence. Life in prison with no possibility of parole is a bleak punishment, and some in that situation might even favor death, but even the faintest
hope of appeal makes it at least more reversible than the death penalty. The common thread throughout the growing disapproval of the death penalty is uncertainty — uncertainty in how we execute individuals and, more importantly, why we do it in the first place. The recent controversy on the Supreme Court and the small number of Bostonians who support Tsarnaev’s execution both suggest that Americans may finally be acknowledging the inherent inhumanity of the death penalty.
Conservative Rural Stereotype Diverts Attention from Urban, Liberal Racism Kiley Petersen Opinions Editor “White people are racist. Not all of them. But white culture is. Our white country is. Our nation is. Our American culture is full of white supremacy. We live in a white supremacist culture that caters to white people, [where everything from] the media to education to art to culture to politics is white-washed. What is not white-washed? … This country was built for white people.” You might expect the above quote to have come from an article on the basics of white supremacy from the blog Black Girl Dangerous, or from a short on the Baltimore uprising from The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore on Comedy Central. So the face of white, middle-aged, self-described “fat redneck” Dixon White, staring out from an April 4, 2015 viral YouTube video titled “I’m a redneck and I love America,” might surprise you. White, using a pseudonym to avoid trolls and anonymous hate online, is an actor and filmmaker raised in Tennessee, where he grew up in an environment steeped in religious white supremacy stereotypical of the South. It wasn’t until college, when he befriended his Black roommate, that he understood his learned prejudice and began actively writing and
speaking on anti-racism in America, specifically in the South. Some folks might get angry that I am centering this piece on a white man talking about white supremacy rather than a person of color recounting their lived experiences. While I think it’s essential that people of color speak about their lives and the oppression they experience in America, I also think White adds a couple of very interesting ideas to the discussion on white supremacy that might be lacking from other narratives: He’s from the South. And he’s a redneck — a derogatory term he reclaims proudly from its classist roots. So much discussion centers around young urban activists, but by focusing only on the actions and protests happening in cities, we lose a lot of content with regard to the rural, oft-forgotten regions of our country. The South is often dismissed as a place of rampant racism and homophobia. The white rural poor are judged as rude, uneducated and ignorant of the systems governing our politics and social spheres. This stereotype invalidates the determined activism occurring in those areas because it’s often less powerful or dramatic than urban-centered protests. Additionally, the rural working poor, who often survive by the exploitation of natu-
ral resources through mining or fracking, are judged as environmentally-unfriendly compared to the liberal vegans, locavores and environmentalists populating urban centers. I’ve talked before about how the class issues in Oberlin affect the town-gown divide (“Watergate Reveals Disparities in Urban, Rural Communities,” The Oberlin Review, March 13, 2015). When the majority of Oberlin students come from urban coastal regions and are hurled into the rural Midwest for four years, there are a lot of disparities in culture, amenities and opinions. I have felt uncomfortable at some points, as a queer woman, in interactions with the “townies.” It can’t be easy for trans individuals or people of color to be surrounded by this largely conservative Midwestern uniformity, either. But what is important to remember is that the redneck stereotype is often used by urban, upper-middle-class white liberals to distance themselves from the racism and general “conservative” culture of the rural Midwest and South. In fact, it’s most likely the urban middle-class, college-educated individuals who are denying housing, healthcare, mortgage and credits claims to Black people, running the national mass media coverage on Ferguson and Baltimore and making other far-reaching decisions that affect margin-
alized communities in America. The stereotype of the hillbilly is a shameful attempt of white, college-educated liberals to distance themselves from –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
In fact, it’s most likely the urban middle-class, collegeeducated individuals who are denying housing, healthcare, mortgage and credits claims to Black people, running the national mass media coverage on Ferguson and Baltimore and making other far-reaching decisions that affect marginalized communities in America. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– the “real problem of racism,” i.e. the South, with its lynch mobs and Confederate flags, ignoring their own complicity in the problem. As a majority-white, urban, progressive and upper-middle-class school, we can challenge that divide. Engage with community members, maybe even begin a dialogue. White supremacy is a system that plagues all of America and all of the world, not just one region or class.
capacity
Oxygen is pumped from the bottom of the second underground tank to mix its contents and nourish the aerobic bacteria that break down the waste further.
M A C H I N E
Why do we spend so much time purifying every drop of our water, just to flush it down toilets as waste? This question, and others like it, drove the design and construction of the living machine that fills the greenhouse-like extension of the Adam Joseph Lewis Center, which uses biological processes to convert raw, local sewage into safe grey water. “We use a smaller footprint than we use in traditional wastewater treatment and combine the biological aspects of a wetland, because a wetland is our natural system for processing all the nutrients coming through,” said AJLC Facilities Manager and Community Outreach Coordinator Catherine Hoyle. “[Wetlands have] been referred to as the kidneys of the environment.” The system was designed with a maximum capacity of 2,700 gallons of wastewater every day. Although it rarely exceeds 300 gallons daily during normal use, the system is not without danger. “Sometimes we’re over it if a toilet’s stuck in flush,” said Hoyle. “It can do 80 gallons an hour, so we could easily get over the 2,700.” Although that has happened several times, each time the problem was contained before waterflow exceeded the system’s limit. A group of student staffers work to keep the living machine in working order, seeding the tanks with new microorganisms and tending to the plants that harbor them. The system also requires monitoring as use changes over the course of the year. Waste input is lowest in the summer, when campus is far emptier than during the semester. January is another low point, although, Hoyle said, “It’s also colder, so we see some different results of what’s going on. We see a difference in the functioning of the machine because it is a whole ecosystem, and so as things change, the whole system will react to it.”
L I V I N G
The virtually clean water flows under the rock-covered floor through a marsh to the effluent tank.
300
As a final precautionary measure, the water passes through a UV light filter to kill any remaining pathogens.
gallons daily
gallons daily
w
a
2,700 use
The water and excrement begin in underground, anaerobic tanks, where microbes start breaking down and converting the organic waste. Solid waste also settles to the bottom of this tank before the wastewater moves on.
t
e
r
w
h
l e e
PERCENT ENERGY CHANGE OVER ECOLYMPICS 30
10
-10
-30
Baldwin
%
Keep
%
energy reduction
energy increase
Lord Harkness Price Asia House Kahn East South Johnson House Old Barrows
Water travels through a series of open tanks inside the greenhouse, where plants harbor microorganisms for the final phase of the filtering process. Other microbes live free-floating in the aerated water.
Water passes through a clarifier to ensure that most of the bacteria are eliminated from the final grey water. Bacteriafree water is siphoned off of the top, while the microbes are returned to the open tanks.
Dascomb
E C O L Y M P I C S C O L L E G E
6%
average dorm energy reduction during Ecolympics 2015
Kade
April 9–30 Barrows
Harkness
greatest energy reduction in Ecolympics 2015 4.23 kW 2.95 kW
RIGHT: the percent 2010 reduction in energy usage during 2012 Ecolympics com2014 pared to normal, baseline usage in 2015 College dorms. Dorms are ordered from highest average energy use reduction (top) to highest energy use increase (bottom) over all years listed.
Johnson House
Firelands Barnard Tank Bailey Burton
C I T Y
greatest water reduction in Ecolympics 2015 56.9% reduction
Allencroft
15,404 kWh
Harvey
total saved by all city schools during Ecolympics 2015
This Week Editor: Hazel Galloway Contributing Writer: Olivia Konuk
Zechiel Fairchild
Ecolympics
Energy use over time
Talcott
The Review is seeking a new editor for this section for the fall semester. Interest in graphics and journalism is preferred. Contact thisweek@oberlinreview.org ASAP for details and to apply.
Saunders Noah North
March 1
March 15
CALENDAR
April 1
April 15
Data from the Oberlin Environmental Dashboard
SEED House
Folk Fest The Cat in the Cream Friday, May 1–Saturday, May 2
Big Parade East College Street Saturday, May 2, 11 a.m.
OSlam! Spring Showcase Third World House Lounge Saturday, May 2, 8 p.m.
OCTaiko and Taiko ExCo Final Show Hales Gym Sunday, May 3, 4 p.m.
Steve Coleman and Five Elements The ’Sco Tuesday, May 5, 10–11:30 p.m.
Campfire and S’mores Tappan Square Wednesday, May 6, 7:30 p.m.
String Preparatory Concert First Church in Oberlin Thursday, May 7, 5:30–6 p.m.
The first night of this annual folk celebration will begin at the Cat in the Cream at 5:30 p.m. with visiting musicians, including Rushad Eggelston, the Jeremy Kittel Band and Kimya Dawson. Student and local performances will take place during the day on Saturday in the Tappan Square bandstand starting at 12:50 p.m.
Parade floats and participants will assemble at East Prospect Elementary School between 9 and 11 a.m. in preparation for a grand tour down East College Street and a loop around Tappan Square. This muchanticipated event is an annual showcase of Oberlin’s craftiness, ingenuity and often outright weirdness. No registration is necessary to join the parade.
“Everything we touch turns to puppies,” reads the advertisement for the show, written by members of Oberlin’s hard-hitting slam poetry group. This end-of-the-year showcase will feature some of the work that placed the group into the semifinals of the national College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational over spring break.
The members of OCTaiko will be joined by participants in their ExCo for a high-energy performance of the Japanese-American musical form. Proceeds from baked goods sold at the event will be used to support OCTaiko’s effort to bring Taiko master Kenny Endo to campus next semester.
MacArthur Award-winning saxophonist and composer Steve Coleman is an influential figure in contemporary jazz. His work demonstrates global influences and draws inspiration from nature and science. The group will also be offering a master class Wednesday, May 6 at 12 p.m. in Clonick Hall.
Oberlin Hillel will host a bonfire in Tappan Square to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Lag B’Omer on what promises to be a warm May evening. Free s’mores and snacks will be available, along with campfire songs and conversation. The event is open to all.
A cadre of young violin, viola and cello players who have been studying with Conservatory students will perform under the direction of Professor of Music Education Joanne Erwin. The students will be divided into beginners and those who have been playing for over a year, with performers playing solos as well as group pieces.
capacity
Oxygen is pumped from the bottom of the second underground tank to mix its contents and nourish the aerobic bacteria that break down the waste further.
M A C H I N E
Why do we spend so much time purifying every drop of our water, just to flush it down toilets as waste? This question, and others like it, drove the design and construction of the living machine that fills the greenhouse-like extension of the Adam Joseph Lewis Center, which uses biological processes to convert raw, local sewage into safe grey water. “We use a smaller footprint than we use in traditional wastewater treatment and combine the biological aspects of a wetland, because a wetland is our natural system for processing all the nutrients coming through,” said AJLC Facilities Manager and Community Outreach Coordinator Catherine Hoyle. “[Wetlands have] been referred to as the kidneys of the environment.” The system was designed with a maximum capacity of 2,700 gallons of wastewater every day. Although it rarely exceeds 300 gallons daily during normal use, the system is not without danger. “Sometimes we’re over it if a toilet’s stuck in flush,” said Hoyle. “It can do 80 gallons an hour, so we could easily get over the 2,700.” Although that has happened several times, each time the problem was contained before waterflow exceeded the system’s limit. A group of student staffers work to keep the living machine in working order, seeding the tanks with new microorganisms and tending to the plants that harbor them. The system also requires monitoring as use changes over the course of the year. Waste input is lowest in the summer, when campus is far emptier than during the semester. January is another low point, although, Hoyle said, “It’s also colder, so we see some different results of what’s going on. We see a difference in the functioning of the machine because it is a whole ecosystem, and so as things change, the whole system will react to it.”
L I V I N G
The virtually clean water flows under the rock-covered floor through a marsh to the effluent tank.
300
As a final precautionary measure, the water passes through a UV light filter to kill any remaining pathogens.
gallons daily
gallons daily
w
a
2,700 use
The water and excrement begin in underground, anaerobic tanks, where microbes start breaking down and converting the organic waste. Solid waste also settles to the bottom of this tank before the wastewater moves on.
t
e
r
w
h
l e e
PERCENT ENERGY CHANGE OVER ECOLYMPICS 30
10
-10
-30
Baldwin
%
Keep
%
energy reduction
energy increase
Lord Harkness Price Asia House Kahn East South Johnson House Old Barrows
Water travels through a series of open tanks inside the greenhouse, where plants harbor microorganisms for the final phase of the filtering process. Other microbes live free-floating in the aerated water.
Water passes through a clarifier to ensure that most of the bacteria are eliminated from the final grey water. Bacteriafree water is siphoned off of the top, while the microbes are returned to the open tanks.
Dascomb
E C O L Y M P I C S C O L L E G E
6%
average dorm energy reduction during Ecolympics 2015
Kade
April 9–30 Barrows
Harkness
greatest energy reduction in Ecolympics 2015 4.23 kW 2.95 kW
RIGHT: the percent 2010 reduction in energy usage during 2012 Ecolympics com2014 pared to normal, baseline usage in 2015 College dorms. Dorms are ordered from highest average energy use reduction (top) to highest energy use increase (bottom) over all years listed.
Johnson House
Firelands Barnard Tank Bailey Burton
C I T Y
greatest water reduction in Ecolympics 2015 56.9% reduction
Allencroft
15,404 kWh
Harvey
total saved by all city schools during Ecolympics 2015
This Week Editor: Hazel Galloway Contributing Writer: Olivia Konuk
Zechiel Fairchild
Ecolympics
Energy use over time
Talcott
The Review is seeking a new editor for this section for the fall semester. Interest in graphics and journalism is preferred. Contact thisweek@oberlinreview.org ASAP for details and to apply.
Saunders Noah North
March 1
March 15
CALENDAR
April 1
April 15
Data from the Oberlin Environmental Dashboard
SEED House
Folk Fest The Cat in the Cream Friday, May 1–Saturday, May 2
Big Parade East College Street Saturday, May 2, 11 a.m.
OSlam! Spring Showcase Third World House Lounge Saturday, May 2, 8 p.m.
OCTaiko and Taiko ExCo Final Show Hales Gym Sunday, May 3, 4 p.m.
Steve Coleman and Five Elements The ’Sco Tuesday, May 5, 10–11:30 p.m.
Campfire and S’mores Tappan Square Wednesday, May 6, 7:30 p.m.
String Preparatory Concert First Church in Oberlin Thursday, May 7, 5:30–6 p.m.
The first night of this annual folk celebration will begin at the Cat in the Cream at 5:30 p.m. with visiting musicians, including Rushad Eggelston, the Jeremy Kittel Band and Kimya Dawson. Student and local performances will take place during the day on Saturday in the Tappan Square bandstand starting at 12:50 p.m.
Parade floats and participants will assemble at East Prospect Elementary School between 9 and 11 a.m. in preparation for a grand tour down East College Street and a loop around Tappan Square. This muchanticipated event is an annual showcase of Oberlin’s craftiness, ingenuity and often outright weirdness. No registration is necessary to join the parade.
“Everything we touch turns to puppies,” reads the advertisement for the show, written by members of Oberlin’s hard-hitting slam poetry group. This end-of-the-year showcase will feature some of the work that placed the group into the semifinals of the national College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational over spring break.
The members of OCTaiko will be joined by participants in their ExCo for a high-energy performance of the Japanese-American musical form. Proceeds from baked goods sold at the event will be used to support OCTaiko’s effort to bring Taiko master Kenny Endo to campus next semester.
MacArthur Award-winning saxophonist and composer Steve Coleman is an influential figure in contemporary jazz. His work demonstrates global influences and draws inspiration from nature and science. The group will also be offering a master class Wednesday, May 6 at 12 p.m. in Clonick Hall.
Oberlin Hillel will host a bonfire in Tappan Square to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Lag B’Omer on what promises to be a warm May evening. Free s’mores and snacks will be available, along with campfire songs and conversation. The event is open to all.
A cadre of young violin, viola and cello players who have been studying with Conservatory students will perform under the direction of Professor of Music Education Joanne Erwin. The students will be divided into beginners and those who have been playing for over a year, with performers playing solos as well as group pieces.
Arts The Oberlin Review
Page 10
May 1, 2015
ODC to Highlight Feminist Themes in Only Way Vida Weisblum Arts Editor
This Friday and Saturday evening, Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Holly Handman-Lopez, Lisa Yanofsky, OC ’13, and Visiting Instructor in Dance Bobby Wesner will present Oberlin Dance Company in The Only Way, inspired by the suffragettes of the 1920s. The production will showcase live music by members of the Oberlin Percussion Group along with a soundscape by sound designer and Visiting TIMARA Professor Joo Won Park, and will also incorporate text and song. Handman-Lopez, a beloved member of Oberlin’s dance faculty, has worked on ODC multiple times, both as a director and collaborator. “I have been the director of the whole enchilada a number of times,” she said. HandmanLopez added that she was most excited this year to be adding TIMARA elements as well as helping to design the set. Composed of a cast chosen by a selective auditioning process, ODC is at its core a dance class. At the end of the class, dancers perform a long, complex piece in Hall Auditorium, much like a real-world contemporary dance company. ODC’s cast is typically hand-picked by the director
based on dancing skill, ability to capture the director’s style and previous dance performance experience, as well as special talents such as singing or playing instruments. Handman-Lopez noted that given her cast’s strong adaptability and willingness to “plow through,” she wouldn’t have cast the show any differently given the chance. “Every single person is bringing something unique and interesting,” she said. Originally, when handed the responsibility of directing this year’s show, HandmanLopez said that she “didn’t have a fire in [her] belly for a piece [she] wanted to make or a story [she] wanted to tell.” Eventually, inspiration for the show emerged out of the Percussion Ensemble’s wood block performance of a Fritz Hauser piece, which she said reminded her of the sounds of an antique telegraph machine, rain-spattered windowpanes and galloping horses. Handman-Lopez constructed the piece after discovering a New York writer’s story of the British suffragette Emily Davison, who threw herself before the King’s horse at the derby in 1913 and was tragically trampled to death. Although in the past the company has typically presented a relatively short piece alongside unrelated pieces, this year’s program will
only be an impressively long 40-minute piece performed by the Company. HandmanLopez talked about the complexity of the piece in comparison to previous work she has done. “This is the longest, largest piece I’ve ever made,” Handman said, “So I went in knowing that it would be ambitious to create an eveninglength piece.” Last year during ODC, Handman-Lopez performed an intimate duet with Wesner. Her background in contemporary-style partnering played a major role in this year’s piece. Students were required to participate in an additional partnering class co-taught by Handman-Lopez and Wesner, in which they worked on weight-sharing and other partnering techniques. “Part of it is real skill-building and how to use the body and physics,” Handman-Lopez explained, adding that the dancers incorporated contact improvisation methods as part of their training. She said that she has been excited to watch gravity and momentum come into play. In terms of partnering style, Handman-Lopez said that the dancers had been combining contrasting styles. “I come from a more roly-poly place and Bobby comes from a more balletic place,” Handman-Lopez said. “So we have a very broad range to work from.” College
senior and OCD performer Nick Schrier explained that the partnering is often used to convey feminist themes within the dance’s storyline, often communicating male power over women. “A lot of [the partnering] is a lot more tumultuous,” Schrier said. “It involves a lot of male-female pairings with men really kind of roughing up the women. ... It’s a lot of ... women trying to achieve things and both men and women [characters] thwarting those efforts.” After partnering classes, the Company often used re-
served dance lab space to develop new movement for the show. Schrier explained that the cast has been rehearsing in Warner gymnasium from February to April for about three hours a day. Although Handman-Lopez originally anticipated incorporating sections of choreography she had premade in previous projects, the piece is made entirely of fresh choreography developed by the cast in addition to short dance phrases from Oberlin classes she has taught and that almost all of the show’s members
have danced at one time or another. Moving the piece from Warner to Hall Auditorium has been relatively smooth yet time consuming, according to Schrier. “There are a lot of light cues, so it took about 20 hours during the weekend to get through everything,” he said. For Holly, the joy of putting the piece together was in the process rather than the product. “What interests me, what I’m good at,” she said, “is finding different ways for bodies to interact and the humanity of it.”
Jesse Wiener, who graduated in December, and College first-year Frances Purcell perform a duet in Oberlin Dance Company’s “The Only Way.” The show, directed by Assistant Professor of Dance Holly Handman-Lopez, will use partnering to communicate a narrative about suffragettes. Mike Plotz
Cleveland Orchestra Continues Nearly Century-Old Tradition Jeremy Reynolds Staff Writer Embracing her Finnish roots, Susanna Mälkki opened last Friday’s installment of the Artist Recital Series by conducting the Cleveland Orchestra in legendary Finnish composer Jean Sibelius’ The Oceanides. The tone poem musically represents the feminine spirits who animate the
ocean in Greek mythology. The gentle undulation of the string figures proved a tender welcome to Finney Chapel, where the orchestra has performed annually since 1919. A low rumble in the timpani heralded a lilting ostinato in the strings that mirrored the motion of waves. Atop this delicate texture, two flautists played the dancing melody of the sea
nymphs with effortless grace. Although Friday marked Mälkki’s debut with the Cleveland Orchestra, she led the musicians with confident ease, expertly manipulating the balance to draw out the different colors of Sibelius’s poem. Each instrumental voice was clearly audible: The brass was never too loud and the winds and strings were never too soft. The performers emphasized
the modal tonality of The Oceanides, evoking both ancient times and the low temperatures of the composer’s frosted homeland. At the dramatic peak of the work, Mälkki gestured sweepingly to stress Sibelius’ chromatic suspensions before allowing the music to relax back into a stable harmony, creating a musical sense of ebb and flow that effectively complemented the poem’s
subject. Unlike the powerful yet slow swells of the tempestuous Oceanides, the opening to Igor Stravinsky’s suite from the ballet Pétrouchka began with explosive passion. Gone was the gentle impressionism. Gone were the gossamer textures. Instead, the orchestra played with an aggressive See Mälkki, page 12
Downtown Boys to Emphasize Political Themes with Multilingual Lyrics Andrés Gonzalez Who are the Downtown Boys? In the lead-up to their performance tonight at the ’Sco, many Oberlin students have surely asked this question. As friend of the band and member of New York hardcore outfit Nine of Swords Jack Tomascak succinctly said in a conversation with the Review, “Downtown Boys are the future of punk-rock music, of underground music, of radical music.” As sweeping as this claim may seem, it befits a band whose intentions, both musical and political, are as grand as they are radically progressive. It is in that spirit, perhaps, that Downtown Boys defiantly titled their upcoming release, Full Communism, out via Don Giovanni Records May 4. Attendees of Friday’s show should expect a high-energy, fast-paced set likely split between tracks from Full Communism, including the powerhouse pre-release track “Monstro,” and cuts from their self-titled 7”, which has attracted a de-
voted following for the band since its release in February of last year. Downtown Boys have differentiated themselves from an often tamer, less political scene in New York and in the DIY music community at large through brazenly political lyrics split fairly evenly between Spanish and English, a strong sense of melody and a pummeling horn section. Lyrically, the band’s decision to sing in Spanish is, to them, a purposeful and crucial element of the band. “For people who speak or identify with the Spanish language, I think it is powerful to hear it in this music that’s so typically Englishdominated,” guitarist Joey DeFrancesco said in an email to the Review. Downtown Boys’ politics do not stop at a celebration of Latinx identity, additionally emphasizing the importance of creating positive spaces for youth marginalized by race, gender identity, class and sexuality through their music. Positivity also runs through the band’s in-
strumentals, which are easily as diverse as its lyrical themes. The motifs, energy and aggression of hardcore punk are all fundamental aspects to the music of Downtown Boys, and in the genre of hardcore, positive thinking and social consciousness are oft-explored themes. However, Downtown Boys also express an interest in dissociating themselves from the tropes of “political punk.” “I think we are a political punk band, but people have certain connotations for that phrase and we want to get away from that,” DeFrancesco said. “We try to take our ideas and emotions and beliefs and explode them into a cathartic two or three minutes. With the tools we have, what comes out is something you can move around to, is loud and shouted and has the additional soul-searching element of the horns.” Catharsis and soul-searching may seem like lofty goals for a punk band, but Downtown Boys take themselves seriously and have thus far man-
aged to inspire the punk and DIY community on the east coast to do so as well. That said, Downtown Boys’ emphasis on ethics does not stop them from having a good time. Downtown Boys’ Latinx influence is evident in many of the rhythmes and melodies they use. College first-year and fan of the band Justin Jimenez characterized this undercurrent when he said, “It sounds like my mom’s old salsa records were corrupted by a punk band in the most beautiful way.” Downtown Boys’ music is ambitious and expansive and their live shows strive to be a manifestation of their ethos. The band acknowledges that all its efforts are in service of growth and positivity in their fans. DeFrancesco mused, “It’s more about the people you are playing with and who show up in the audience than … anything. We have a pretty special experience every night we play when we’re able to connect with people we need and who might need us.”
Arts
The Oberlin Review, May 1, 2015
Page 11
On the Record with Visual Artist Alfredo Jaar Alfredo Jaar is a Chilean-born visual artist and architect based in New York. Both a Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellow, Jaar is most renowned for his work that engages with socio-political issues, such as The Rwanda Project (1994-1998). He has exhibited his work globally, from the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. On April 23, Jaar came to Oberlin and gave a talk titled “It Is Difficult,” in which he discussed his major projects and artistic ethos. The Review spoke with Jaar via Skype after he returned to New York. Your art, for the most part, responds to issues of violence and oppression. Could you talk about how your dedication to this sort of activist artwork developed? I do not see it as activist art. What I do is I react to events around me. I am interested in the context in which I work. When I find myself facing certain realities, I take the opportunity to respond to these realities. And unfortunately, we live in difficult times; we are always facing different types of tragedies, so it’s not that I look for them, it’s just that these are the times that we are
living in. I also enjoy doing other types of work, where it is not so much about a tragedy but a little more about trying to diversify the audience of an institution. I welcome different types of projects, different types of situations. But it is true that, somehow, people have seen me as someone that can intervene in these difficult situations, and so that is why I get these kinds of invitations, but it’s not something that I search for. Art that depicts other people’s suffering, photography especially, is sometimes subject to the critique that there’s an aestheticization of suffering that turns the subject into an object of delectation for the viewer. What do you do to push the viewer past this sort of passive appreciation for the art in and of itself? Well, every representation necessarily means aestheticization. There is no way to represent anything without aestheticization. That’s the first thing that I’d like to clarify. … Second, we have a choice as artists. [We can condemn] certain situations to invisibility and say , ‘I don’t want to aestheticize this reality.’ … What does that mean? Should we condemn these realities
to invisibility and ignore them? And be indifferent? Criminally indifferent? Or should we represent them with the risk of using aesthetics to communicate something that we need to communicate? That’s the choice I’ve made all my life. So I prefer to take the risk of an excessive aestheticization, which also would be a problem, and I try not to fall into that trap. In my view, when we have these subjects that are really in dire straits, in dire conditions, and are suddenly represented with beauty, I see it as a way to dignify my subjects. It is a way to dignify them so we can see them in their beauty, because there is always beauty. And hopefully that beauty will not blind you and you will still be able to address the issues that these images are trying to bring forth. We have a piece of yours, “The Body is the Map,” up in the Allen Memorial Art Museum. Although it is one of your smaller works, I’ve noticed that whenever I’m in the museum, there’s always a group of people around it. I was wondering if you could give a little bit of background about that piece.
Well, I photographed this worker and I did some close-ups of his face, of his neck, of his head, and so on. When I was taking these images, I noticed all these lines in his neck and I read those lines as his own map — a map of his working history. I thought it was fascinating to look at those lines. Those — what do you call those lines of the body? Scars? No, not scars. When you’re getting old and you have all of these lines — what do you call it? Wrinkles? Yeah, yeah. So when I saw all these wrinkles in the neck, I thought it was just the perfect synthesis of his life right there on his neck because his neck was used to carrying these heavy bags during his working days, and so you had traces of the rope that he used to carry those bags. I was fascinated by this, and that is why I created this work. I enlarged that area on the neck which had all the signs of his working life and I divided See Jaar, page 13
Community of Improv Performers Grows Tighter Vida Weisblum Arts Editor Despite a long-standing rivalry between longform improvisational comedy troupe Primitive Streak and shortform troupe Kid Business, members of the troupes attended each other’s shows this weekend. Until two years ago, Oberlin’s trio of improv troupes did not have such a warm and open relationship. While in the past the improv community was viewed as being cliquey and exclusive, the troupes are now making efforts to become more open with each other and less intimidating to prospective members. This weekend alone was a busy one for the trifecta of comedy groups on campus, with improv shows ushering in eager crowds on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. After shortform troupe Kid Business opened the weekend’s program of events on Friday, longform troupes Sunshine Scouts and Primitive Streak held shows on Saturday and Sunday evenings, respectively. College junior and Kid Business member James Koblenzer claims that the trend of improv members attending other troupes’ shows is “brand new.” “Primitive Streak was traditionally our enemy,” said Koblenzer, who joined Obehave, now known as Kid Business, during his first year. “We’re college students! We’re trying to make people laugh. Have we completely lost sight of that?” Despite both being longform troupes, Sunshine Scouts and Primitive Streak provide tremendously different experiences, which perhaps
is why they haven’t been dubbed enemies in the way Primitive Streak and Kid Business have. Both troupes use Del Close’s revered “Harold” structure — which you may have witnessed at famous improv venues like the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York and Los Angeles or iO in Chicago — as a starting point before entertaining free-form structures. The “Harold” consists of an opening monologue and three unrelated scenes involving a handful of players, interspersed with group games, which are often played by the entire cast. College sophomore Jesse Arnholz, who joined Sunshine Scouts during the fall of her first year, had only positive comments about her experience. “It’s like having a built-in crew of people who’ll love you and have your back no matter what,” she said. “We really trust and respect each other, and those two facets can be hard to come by. If I didn’t have Scouts then I don’t know what I’d do.” Because of its adherence to popular contemporary longform improv architecture, Primitive Streak is often labeled the most rigid of the three troupes. According to College firstyear and Primitive Streak member Josh Blankfield, the group practices six hours a week. “Rehearsal is a phenomenal thing,” he said. “Being able to improvise is a muscle that needs to be attended to constantly. Being in a troupe that meets so frequently is really great at strengthening this muscle.” At the same time, this high level of commitment coupled with an intimidatingly low number of cast openings
College first-year Josh Blankfield (left) and College senior Erin Amlicke engage in a short improvised scene about high school love as College junior Charlie Kaplowitz (back left) and College senior Julia Melfi watch. All three Oberlin improv troupes performed this weekend. Effie Kline-Salamon
can be off-putting to the slew of firstyears and sophomores who audition. Koblenzer hopes that the troupes will become less intimidating for prospective members. “We’re seen as sort of cliquey, for cool kids or nerds only — however you want to see it,” Koblenzer said. Koblenzer spoke to the more problematic aspects of the improv community on campus, namely its exclusivity and lack of diversity. “We’re a pretty homogenous bunch. … It feels a little irritating,” said Koblenzer. “The beginning of my
sophomore year I made a joke that we would become the first all-white, male improv troupe. But of course that’s not a joke, it’s reality, because at the time there were five members, all of whom were white men.” Koblenzer compared the improv community to a club or a clique and emphasized that by improving diversity of comedic voices, they would become an even funnier troupe. “[We have a] community that doesn’t reflect the demographics of the country,” he said. “I think it’s a larger issue because that leads to comedy that’s out
of touch with reality, and if anything, that’s worse than offending people. I really think that’s unforgivable, but that’s my opinion.” Despite his qualms, he does relish the positive aspects of belonging to such a small community and envisions its members taking positive steps forward in the near future. “When I was a freshman, it was really gross,” Koblenzer said. “It was clubby, it was atomized — by that I mean it was separated into troupes and there was not any communication … and that, I’m glad to say, is dying out.”
Pile Outshines Palm, Offers Sincere Take on Rock and Roll Owen Harrington Pile provided Oberlin with a much-needed dose of sincere rock and roll this past Thursday at the ’Sco. The Allston, MA-based band, an oft-cited influence for many other alternative rock bands of today — including Krill, who played at Oberlin last semester — has received lots of attention recently for its catchy riffs, quality songwriting and heavy sound. I set out to experience Pile first-hand and see if the band really is worthy of the dedicatory Krill suite “Steve Hears Pile in Malden and Bursts into Tears.” I entered the ’Sco amid whispers that the opening band, Palm, was going to outshine Pile. As the band
walked on stage, I noted how similar its members looked to Oberlin students — they attended Bard College — and knew almost immediately what to expect: noisy rock and roll with a noticeable ’90s post-rock/post-hardcore streak. As soon as Palm started its set, my expectations were met, though that is not to say that it wasn’t enjoyable. Palm’s four members had quite obviously spent a lot of time practicing, as their music was precise and their timing impeccable. In many ways, they echoed the rhythmic guitar counterpoint of bands like This Heat and Slint. My biggest problem with their music was that it did not strike me as unique. They wore their influences a little too much on their sleeves, and I was left desiring some-
thing more than a band that worships its idols. They had all the technical qualities of bands like Television and Polvo, but did not add many new ideas to the table. This, combined with lackluster, nearly melody-less vocals, left me unsatisfied. It’s not that Palm played an unsuccessful set. It is a very talented band that composes interesting music, but what I heard wasn’t unique enough to get me excited to hear more, and the music’s complexity felt self-serving. After Palm wrapped up its set, it was time for the main event of the night. Unlike with Palm, Pile’s appearance See Allston, page 12
Arts
Page 12
The Oberlin Review, May 1, 2015
Murphy, Wilson Flop in Failed Spy Comedy Nate Levinson Columnist Back for one final installment, this week’s column takes a look at the 2002 box-office disaster I Spy, an espionagethemed comedy film starring Owen Wilson and Eddie Murphy. Just 20 of the 132 critics who viewed it on Rotten Tomatoes gave I Spy a positive review — good enough for a mere 15 percent rating on the “Tomatometer.” Inspired by the eponymous television series that featured Bill Cosby and Robert Culp, I Spy stars Wilson as Alex Scott, a special agent with the Bureau of National Security, and Murphy as Kelly Robinson, a narcissistic, unde-
feated boxer. The unlikely pair look to thwart an international arms dealer’s evil plans, traveling to Budapest in order to prevent the sale of a plane tailor-made for transporting weapons of mass destruction. There, Scott works to navigate around his failures as a secret agent, his partner’s ego and an utterly pointless plotline. For me, the most striking part of the movie is just how unfunny it is. “Bumbling spy teams up with egocentric boxer” has plenty of potential, but an awful screenplay robs this movie of any chance of being funny. A number of misplaced potty jokes miss their target, and the chemistry between the two stars is almost nonexistent.
I wanted I Spy to be funny, but it just wasn’t. It’s honestly pretty difficult to find any good parts of the movie, and believe me, I tried. There are a few funny moments involving Robinson’s henchmen, and the scene in which Wilson sings Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” is definitely worth a chuckle, but that’s about it. Maybe Murphy’s pontificating style and the more juvenile jokes would hit home for a younger audience, but I still can’t stop wondering how on Earth 10-year-old me enjoyed this movie. After a ton of success early in his career, Murphy has made a number of movies like this. The one-time star
has lent his name to other under-20 percenters, like The Haunted Mansion (13 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), Norbit (9 percent) and A Thousand Words (0 percent). Wilson, too, has made a few other clunkers, including The Big Bounce (16 percent) and You, Me and Dupree (21 percent), but he’s also worked well in Wes Anderson films and as a co-star to Jackie Chan and Vince Vaughn. Unfortunately for Murphy, I Spy wasn’t even his low point of 2002. Just two and a half months before that travesty was released, Murphy appeared in the instantly forgettable The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Despite a gaudy $100 million budget, it appealed
to just 5 percent of critics and made just over $7.1 million worldwide. So, if you’re measuring by that, I Spy was actually quite successful, since it only lost $19.3 million. Unfortunately, however, I’m not measuring it by that, and neither were the other 87 critics who denounced it as “rotten.” The final verdict: I Spy is truly terrible and almost certainly not worth watching. What’s amazing is that 20 critics actually liked the movie enough to give it a “fresh” rating. I’m as big of an Eddie Murphy fan as anyone, and Owen Wilson’s career has definitely had some solid moments, but that talent is bafflingly and unabashedly wasted in I Spy.
Mälkki, Denk Debut with the Cleveland Orchestra in Finney Chapel Continued from page 10 fire, nimbly alternating between Stravinsky’s complex polyrhythms and the simple Russian dance tunes. Detailed program notes allowed listen-
ers to follow along with the in-depth narrative of the music, to hear the moment when the puppet Pétrouchka leaps to life, the moment when a rival marionette ruthlessly slays Pétrouchka with a scimitar and the moment when the puppet’s ghost
Conductor Susanna Mälkki leads the Cleveland Orchestra in a performance at Finney Chapel last Friday. The Orchestra offered renderings of Sibelius’ The Oceanides, a suite from Stravinsky’s Pétrouchka and Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Clover Linh Tranh
Allston, MA, Rockers Outclass Derivative Opening Act Continued from page 11 was different from what one typically sees at Oberlin: The band members looked how you’d expect rock musicians to look. Pile even had a guitarist who looked like Frank Zappa and played a Flying V guitar. If there is one thing I can respect, it is someone who can play a Flying V without a hint of irony. Much like Palm, Pile’s appearance accurately foreshadowed the performance its members gave. From the first song to the last, Pile rocked hard. The music featured catchy riffs, unrelenting guitar solos, pounding drums and the right bit of roughness around the edges. I’m not going to say Pile is an incredibly distinctive band that is changing the sound of modern alternative rock, but I will say I have a lot of respect for them. In a music scene made up of predominantly young musicians trying too hard to experiment, Pile stands out as a beacon of simplicity. Perhaps what I enjoyed most about Pile’s show was that its members seemed so proud of their own music. They were actually having fun on stage, not suffering for their art or acting ironically unattached and distant. Each song they offered was simply a well-crafted rock track delivered in the way that it was meant to be. It was hard not to have an enjoyable time while Pile did its thing, as it felt like its members wanted us to. Pile’s particular hard rock sound has been done many times before. What makes Pile special is that its members just want to play fun, quality music. They are the band that alternative music needs right now — one that provides a bit of sincerity. I would certainly go to another Pile show if the opportunity presented itself, if not for the tunes then for the reminder that there are still musicians out there who have a sense of fun and humility toward their music.
thumbs its nose at its frightened former puppet-master. The orchestra performed each of these cues with a convincingly dramatic flair, with the bassoonists and English horn player in particular committing to the humorous quirk of their musical characters. Especially impressive was the famous trumpet solo in the third movement, spectacularly performed by principal trumpet player Michael Sachs. He delivered the march-like tune with a velvet smoothness, never faltering. Though later in the piece there were occasional instances in which the strings and brass lost rhythmic integrity, the sheer energy with which the orchestra played rendered Pétrouchka an exciting conclusion to the concert. Sandwiched between the two orchestral masterworks, pianist Jeremy Denk, ’OC 90, made his debut with the orchestra along with Mälkki, performing Béla Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Like much of Bartok’s music, the concerto features a wealth of material drawn from popular Hungarian tunes. Bartok weaves the tunes into a light, neoclassical texture, creating a richly colored, highly structured piece. The orchestra played with sensitivity, never overpowering Denk yet capturing
the more fervent moments of the music with appropriate ardor. Denk, however, disappointed. His technical mastery was certainly evident, as was his obvious dedication to his stylistic choices, but his overemphasis of the concerto’s humor distracted from the music’s simple beauty. Instead of light comedy, Denk presented an aural and visual caricature of the concerto from the insistent bobbing of his head to the indifferent shrug with which he ended the first movement. In the second movement, Denk expressed Bartok’s hushed chorales with a beautiful understatement, but as soon as the music accelerated into the third movement, the gravitas vanished from his playing. A heavy, recurring timpani solo provided a welcome contrast to Denk’s overstated whimsy, grounding the movement with authority. But throughout the movement, the pianist’s casual handling of even the most demanding technical passages strayed dangerously close to flippancy. Though clearly a brilliant musician, Denk’s artistic choices diverted attention from the mature aesthetic of Bartok’s concerto, temporarily blemishing an otherwise enchanting visit from the Cleveland Orchestra.
Arts
The Oberlin Review, May 1, 2015
Page 13
Jaar Discusses Major Projects, Artistic Ethos Continued from page 11 this map, let’s say, in eight segments. In that work, you see those eight segments in different positions, and then you see his full back in the center image. So it is an homage: it is a modest homage to a working man. Where were you when you photographed him? I was in the eastern side of the Amazon in Brazil in Serra Pelada. When you are speaking with students or young artists, do you find yourself giving out any one piece of advice a lot? I’m most interested in the thinking process. … I really believe that
art-making is 99 percent about thinking and only one percent about making. We have conversations about art, about politics, about culture, about different things. I try to stimulate the thinking process and to look at different models of thinking about the world, culture, different issues. I try to stimulate the capacity of analysis of certain realities, of certain situations. I insist that we are intellectuals, we are thinking human beings. Forget craft, forget object-making. Let’s first start developing our brains, our capacity to see, to understand, to dream. Only at the end of this very long process we might create something in response to a very specific reality. So I really stress more the thinking process than anything else.
Do you see yourself making this sort of art for the rest of your life, or do you have any other aspirations that you want to pursue? I see myself doing this, absolutely. If someone ever offers me the funding, I would love to do a feature film. I studied filmmaking and it is always in the back of my mind. I’ve done shorter films — 30 to 40 minutes, but I would love, one day, to do a feature film. That would be wonderful. What is it about filmmaking that interests you? So many things. Basically, I envy the power of the filmmaker because he works with images, with sound, with words, with music. It is probably the most complete of the arts. The
position of the filmmaker regarding the audience is also extremely privileged because you have your audience seated in a comfortable chair, in a dark space, and they are willing to give you two hours of their time. That is an extraordinary privilege that we do not have as visual artists. It is well known that the average time that a spectator or an audience spends before an artwork in a museum is three seconds. [As a visual artist,] you spend six months or a year of your life working on a piece and you see people coming in and walking by as if they got it in less than three seconds. It’s very frustrating. [With film,] you know you have them in your hands for two hours, and you have this very magic medium at your disposal.
Is that also partially why you’re attracted to architecture? Absolutely; that’s exactly why I do what I do. Basically I’m imploring, I’m begging my audience to stay with me, give me five minutes, please. I’m not asking for more than five minutes. So I force them through the design of the piece, the architecture and so many other devices, to spend time with me. And that’s always part of my work, because I need them with me. I don’t want them to run away, and so I need to use all these mechanisms in order to do that. That’s why I use architecture and some aspects of the language of film. Interview by Isabella Miller
Newly Formed Band Draws on Glam Rock, Punk Bri DiMonda This past Monday night at the ’Sco, Ex Hex delivered a set that excited attendees despite the fact that it was on a school night. The Washington, D.C., garage-pop trio features guitarist and singer Mary Timony, bassist and singer Betsy Wright and drummer Laura Harris. The musicians began playing together in early 2013, creating sounds inspired by glam rock and punk. Their performance was enjoyable but not polished. It was clear that Ex Hex is a fairly new band, though it showed the promise of becoming a spectacular live band later in its career. Timony has been an active musician since the early ’90s. She has performed in a variety of bands, including Autoclave, He-
lium and Wild Flag, which formed about five years after Sleater-Kinney disbanded and was formed entirely by members of that influential band. Ex Hex performed for over an hour and played some of its most popular songs, including “Hot and Cold,” which came out as a hit single before the band’s full-length album, and “Don’t Wanna Lose.” Ex Hex’s music does not center around all-encompassing questions or messages. In fact, most of its songs, primarily written by Timony, are about disappointing ex-boyfriends and other relationship problems. However, its songs never feel inundated in self-indulgent tragedy. Instead, Ex Hex’s emotion is stripped down and fast — a feeling only supplemented by Timony’s overtly melodic delivery of
the lyrics. Her guitar playing and Wright’s bass playing complement each other well, especially during solos. At one point in the middle of their set, the musicians took a short break and conversed with students from the stage. “Isn’t this a party school?” Timony asked, joking with the crowd of students and locals. The crowd responded with half-hearted cheers, but Timony did not hesitate to continue bantering. “But aren’t you guys, like, intellectuals?” she continued. Some people laughed, and Wright asked if Oberlin has any rivals in sports. Timony told her it “wasn’t like that” since we’re an “artsy school” and proceeded to ask if our rival was Bard College. People booed as Timony and Wright continued to talk about the distinctly artistic vibe of the
school before returning to their set. Overall, Ex Hex had a great stage presence, even though its sound was slightly marred by a lack of experience. The performers are already attuned to one another musically and stylistically. Since forming, Ex Hex has come out with one fulllength album, Rips. Wright’s two main contributions to Rips, “How You Got That Girl” and “Radio On,” both slide perfectly into Timony’s previously established punk-girl vibe. The band has a distinct sense of trust in each other and a willingness to have fun. Overall, Ex Hex offered a solid, albeit slightly amateur, performance at the ’Sco. The group had as much fun as possible on stage, and this sense of joy is crucial in leaving a positive impression on an audience.
Kimya Dawson, 10 String Symphony Among Folk Fest Headliners Sam Rueckert Staff Writer “It’s going to be a jampacked weekend,” said double-degree junior Kirk Pearson of the Annual Oberlin Spring Folk Festival, which will occur for the 17th time this weekend. Pearson, one of the organizers and performers of the festival, said that on May 1 and 2, national and local acts will play at Tappan Square, the Cat in the Cream and Finney Chapel. “The festival really celebrates the Oberlin community. …The vast majority of acts are student or community members,” Pearson said. The Folk Festival, which is the biggest of its kind in Northeast Ohio, is expected to draw a total of 3,500 to 4,000 people this year. A committee consisting of Oberlin Folk Club members, Student Union Associate Director Tom Reid and two senior community members has been planning the festival since September. The students on the committee were responsible for booking local and national artists. “We tried to make the acts as eclectic and diverse as possible, even if they’re not necessarily the best-known acts,” Pearson said. The festival will kick off
at the Cat in the Cream on Friday. Student and local performers will open the festival, followed by headliners Rushad Eggleston, the Jeremy Kittel Band and Kimya Dawson. Rob Jamner, a College sophomore and one of the student performers for the Cat set, said the event is a great opportunity “to play for a new audience and get to know some new people. … It gives so many people the chance to share their music.” The festival will continue on Saturday in Tappan Square with more student and community performers immediately following the annual Big Parade. “At some point [the festival] sort of merged with the Big Parade,” said Tom Reid, faculty advisor for the Oberlin Folk Club. He explained that this benefits both events. Pearson will open up the Saturday set along with Jamner. “[We will] try to get people from the Big Parade hyped up about Folk Fest,” Jamner said. The Tappan Square portion of the festival should be a busy scene, with food stands from various organizations. After the day of student and local acts in Tappan, the festival will move to Finney Chapel with three more headliners: 10 String Symphony, Tom Paxton and
Folk Fest’s planning committee gathers at the Cat in the Cream to discuss their upcoming event. The festival will have its 17th annual incarnation this Friday and Saturday. Lulu Jingyan Huan
Front Country. After the headliners finish their sets, the festival will conclude with a jam session in the Tappan Square bandstand, to which all are welcome. Reid said that the now world-famous Josh Ritter, OC ’99, and his classmate Ellen Stanley, OC ’01, first organized the event. The event started out small, featuring only one headliner, with very little equipment and money going into the planning of the event. However, it quickly rose to prominence in the community
with the success of the first event. College and community members have offered various resources such as equipment and venues to help the festival run more smoothly. Over the years the festival has featured several student and local acts and famous national acts including Ritter, Richie Havens, Richard Thompson and The Lumineers. The music represented in the festival is “mostly American folk,” according to Reid. “[This] has to do with logistical hurdles of hiring
international performers,” he said. “[But] we do try to present a range of styles.” Both Reid and Pearson are interested in the topic of what kind of folk music should be brought to campus and, furthermore, what folk music is to begin with. Pearson watched auditions and selected acts. “[I had] no idea how to define folk [by the end of the selection process],” he said. One of the perks that Pearson and Reid both mentioned is that that event is completely free. “Nothing
is ticketed and everyone is welcome,” Pearson said. Reid saw this as one of the ways that the event is for the Oberlin community as a whole, rather than just for the College. “The student committee has always been mindful of trying to present this program to the wider community and not just the campus,” he said. “For all of the folks living below the poverty line in Oberlin, this is an event they can partake in. … It certainly doesn’t hurt anybody’s pocketbook.”
Sports
Page 14
The Oberlin Review, May 1, 2015
IN THE LOCKER ROOM This week, the Review sat down with Director of Student-Athlete Services and Wellness Jason Hudson to discuss his role in the Athletics department, coaching track and field and teaching fitness classes. As Director of Student-Athlete Services, what are your primary responsibilities? Jason Hudson: My primary responsibility is to make sure that all of our student-athletes are doing well. I provide links to other parts of campus if students need those. Ideally, [I] help students get nominated and awarded scholarships, like NCAA post-graduate scholarships and things of that nature. If students start to struggle in any way — academically, emotionally — [I] also try to wrap services around them to help them be successful that way as well. Can you give examples of the types of services you might direct students to? JH: Career services, in the sense of taking care of life after college but also getting internships. The Counseling Center, Student Academic Services, Disability Services. A lot of services that are within the dean’s office that a lot of people don’t know about. The class dean’s office has a lot of emergency services that are available that they don’t generally advertise, but when students need those types of things then we can loop them into those. You are also an assistant coach on the track and field team. How does this compare to your other responsibilities in the
Jason Hudson
department? JH: In a way, the services that I provide to all student-athletes as director of Student-Athlete Services are what I already provide to the track team. It’s just sort of broadening the scope. This year, you also began your work as director of Wellness. What is different about this position and being director of Student-Athlete Services? JH: It’s another hat that I put on. I started that this year, so director of Wellness for students but also for faculty and staff. Students need to be healthy, so trying to offer more classes that students actually want to take at the times that they want to take them. Obviously we are building a health and wellness center that will help, but we need to have the offerings that are going to service the people. For faculty and staff, it’s finding times that they can do things, like offering classes at different times — earlier in the morning, later in the evening. Ideally, working with human resources and some of the upper administration to try to incentivise people to get healthier. The Cleveland Clinic gives people a break on their insurance if they average 10,000 steps [a day] per year. I’d like to do something like that here. If the Cleveland Clinic can do it, we certainly should be able to do it as well. You teach Fitness for Life, Running and Conditioning and Independent Fitness this semester. Do you use similar workouts from track and field in these
JH: I want everybody on this campus to feel like they can come into this building and feel safe and welcome, because right now it’s not that way, and that to me is unfortunate.
Jason Hudson classes? JH: They are very different, actually. There’s probably only one workout that crosses over. But in Fitness for Life and Independent Fitness we’re not necessarily running. We’re doing lots of circuits, we’re in the weight room and doing things of that nature. Do you have a lot of studentathletes in your classes or is it usually people who don’t participate in sports on campus? How do you gauge how difficult to make the cases?
Editorial: Memoirs of an Oberlin Sports Editor Continued from page 16 it’s pretty disappointing that I can’t talk about something I love with more than a handful of friends, but I don’t always see it that way. Writing and talking about sports here is a challenge — a challenge to see if I can get a mostly unenthused student body to care just a little bit more. I’ve definitely tried to keep an open mind about being a sports fan at Oberlin, but my patience has certainly worn thin at times. For some reason I won’t take the time to get into, sports, and competition more generally, carry a pretty large stigma at Oberlin. I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve heard people say something sarcastic along the lines of “Sports, yeah!” when I get excited about some specific sporting event. As far as I’m concerned, it’s akin to saying “Art, yeah!” at the Met, as if all forms of art there are the same. I get that not everyone is as passionate about sports as I am, but what I don’t understand is the passionate dislike people seem to have
for athletic competition. At the Review, I’m most definitely the office’s biggest sports fan — sorry, present and past co-editors — so my biggest challenge has been conveying my passionate views about the games to a campus that is apathetic, at most, about nearly every topic I’ve written about. I’ve tried to bridge the gap by writing about social issues in sports, but I can’t help but feel like people gloss over the Sports section most weeks. That makes sense — I’m not exactly an avid reader of the Arts section of the Review — but I hope I’ve at least encouraged a few non-sports people to take an interest in either Oberlin athletics or the national topics I cover in my editorials. At the very least, I hope I’ve taught a few of the uninitiated a thing or two, and maybe I’ve even given some other campus sports fans something to read about every week. Or maybe my mom is still the only one who reads my work. Either way, I’ve enjoyed writing every word.
Home Games This Week Saturday, May 2 11 a.m. – Women and trans rugby vs. Hiram College at North Fields 1 p.m. – Men’s rugby vs. Denison University at North Fields
JH: Typically, it’s about one student-athlete a semester. The majority of students I have are Conservatory students, actually. At the beginning of each class, I ask them “What have you done recently?” and they fill out some questionnaires, and we go from there. People are at all different levels, some people are in great shape, and some haven’t done anything in months. If you could improve one aspect of the Athletics Department, what would it be and why?
There have been some efforts recently to establish a safespace hour for women and trans people in Philips. Is there a possibility of that happening in the future? JH: It definitely is. I’ve had two conversations with folks about that, one earlier this week. The problem is space, because I know it happened in South gym, and it was quite successful from what they told me. The problem with the limited space that we have right now is — because we’re talking about the weight room — if we did that, we’re going to have to do it for other groups. We service so many people in this building — students, faculty and staff, community members — to shut it down for an hour can be problematic. When we have 12,000 extra square feet, we can close this for an hour because people then have the same space they can just go around the corner. So once we have the space, it’s an easy thing to do. What is your favorite sport to watch? JH: Football. I’m a Cowboys fan, so my dream Super Bowl would be the Texans vs. the Cowboys. Interview by Tyler Sloan, Sports editor Photo courtesy of Brian Hodgkin
— Women’s Lacrosse —
Lacrosse Makes History Against Tigers Continued from page 16 Barlow scored the final goal of the game, pushing the score to 13-11. The Ladies nearly scored with 94 seconds left in regulation, had it not been for a bit of luck and the heroics of L’Insalata. Kenyon’s Jane Symmes’ first shot hit the post and ricocheted back to her for a quick second attempt on goal, but she could not get past L’Insalata. “Kenyon shot it right away,” said Hanick. “[Those shots] usually go in 90 percent of the time. [L’Insalata] just made a sick save.” Schumacher believed that L’Insalata’s save was the key moment in the game. “It was after that moment that we were like, ‘Oh, we’re going to win this,’” she said. The victory propelled the Yeowomen to the NCAC tournament, marking the team’s first appearance in the tournament in 15 years. The fourth-seeded Yeowomen went up against the top-seeded Wittenberg University Tigers on Wednesday, giving them an opportunity to avenge an overtime 17–16 loss to Wittenberg in the regular season. Before Wednesday’s game, Schumacher seemed confident in her team’s ability to pull the upset. “Being the underdog, and the fact that it’s our first time in the playoffs, means we get to play for fun, and that’s when we play our best,” she said. The Yeowomen came out strong, taking a 7–6 lead into the locker room at halftime. After the break, the Yeowomen dominated on both ends of the ball. Oberlin held Wittenberg to just three more goals in the second half. On the other end of the field, Barlow finished the
game with four goals, while Doak also picked up a hat trick. By the game’s end, Schumacher’s prediction proved correct, and the underdogs prevailed. “Our hearts were completely in it,” she said. “And more importantly, we were having fun. We outplayed [Wittenberg] in every aspect of the game.” Crucial to the Yeowomen’s success was their ability to limit unforced errors. They turned the ball over only 20 times on Wednesday, compared to a season-high 32 times in Oberlin’s last meeting with Wittenberg. “We had 32 turnovers against a really good team [in Wittenberg], and it was still close,” said Hanick before the game. “We know that if we focus on the details and change the simple errors, we can completely dominate [Wittenberg] on Wednesday.” The Yeowomen will play Denison University on Saturday for a shot at the conference title. That game will give the team a chance to make good on its year-long objective. “Every season our goal is to win a conference championship,” McCandlish said. The last time the Yeowomen met the Big Red they lost 15–8, the biggest point deficit the team incurred all season. This time around, Hanick hopes the team can redeem itself. “I think this will be a really big test for us. We definitely didn’t play up to our potential in our previous game against Denison,” she said. “It’s going to be a battle, but we’re up to the challenge. We can win, it’s just a matter of if we want to win.” The Yeowomen will travel to Granville, Ohio on Saturday to take on the Big Red at 1 p.m.
Sports
The Oberlin Review, May 1, 2015
Feature Photo: Softball
Page 15
Cavs’ Title Hopes Hit Snag Dan Bisno and Henry Weissberg Columnists
Senior co-captain and pitcher Katie Pieplow winds up for a pitch against the visiting Franciscan University Barons last Sunday, April 26. The softball team celebrated its Senior Day with doubleheader victories over the Barons, 5–4, 10–1. The Yeowomen graduate senior co-captains Pieplow and Jenny Goldsmith this year, but the vast majority of the roster will return next fall. Softball concludes its lengthy season with a 3–12–1 conference record and a 6–28–2 overall record. Text by Tyler Sloan, Sports editor Photo by Briana Santiago
— Men’s Tennis —
Yeomen Upset Little Giants, Fall to Lords, Big Red Continued from page 16 prowess he showed in those situations throughout the year helped him win the NCAC Newcomer of the Year award. That marks the third year in a row that a Yeoman has been named Newcomer of the Year, with Paik and Louis earning the honor in the past two years. Drougas finished the year with a stellar 20–7 singles record and a 13–6 record in dual matches. Papen said that Drougas has shown himself to be a player they can count on in the clutch. “It is great as a coach knowing that you have someone that, when it gets tough or close, has more grit than his opponent,” he said. “In pretty much all of his close three-setters, I haven’t been my most nervous because I’ve known that as long as [the coaches] stayed in his ear to keep playing the right way, he was going to pull it out.” Drougas posted yet another impressive performance in the conference semi-finals, teaming up with partner Paik to earn Oberlin’s lone point in the match against the top-seeded Kenyon College Lords, who came in ranking second in the region and ninth in the country. The Yeomen hung tight with the Lords — who went on to win the championship — in all three doubles
matches but eventually fell 5–1. The weekend concluded in Gambier, Ohio, as the Yeomen tried to reverse a 6–3 loss in the regular season against the Denison University Big Red in the third-place match. There would be no such vengeance, however, as Denison earned an impressive 5–0 win over the Yeomen. Despite the back-to-back losses that ended the season, the team’s strong performance throughout the weekend, especially the close doubles matches with Kenyon, a Division III powerhouse, demonstrated how far the men’s program has come in the first three years of Ishida’s reign as head coach. Just this year, Manickam has seen his game improve under Ishida’s guidance. “I really learned how to stay relaxed and focus on the right things when on the court this year. When you think about playing for your team rather than for yourself and just focus on getting your point for Oberlin, tennis just becomes a lot more fun,” he said. “I am definitely looking forward to [continuing to] work with Eric and improving for next year.” Paik also believes that Ishida’s coaching improved his confidence in his own game. “Over the past two years, I’ve just be-
come a more solid player mentally and physically,” he said. “I make the shots I used to miss and trust that I’ll be able to do it day in and day out,” he said. Paik certainly proved himself to be a solid player in his sophomore season, earning first-team all-NCAC honors. Paik credits his success to his supportive teammates and coaches. “Although it’s an individual award, it was definitely a team effort. There’s absolutely no way that this season would’ve turned out the way it did for me without everyone on the team along with Eric and Kevin,” he said. The men will look to build on the spring season’s success next semester, when they will return with their entire roster other than Zeliger. This year’s team of mostly first-years and sophomores will look to translate increased experience into continued success. “I think that going from one of the youngest teams in the region to a team that is predominantly upperclassmen will definitely help us,” Paik said. “Using that extra big match experience, we should be able to get past the hurdles that have plagued us in seasons past. It’s starting to show this year by handling the teams we were supposed to beat, winning matches we were not favored in and getting to the final four of Conferences.”
Attention Oberlin College seniors: You have two more sure opportunities to see LeBron live in action this season — maybe forever. Shell out the big bucks and see the best athlete on the planet throw down. It was a midsummer’s dream come true for Cavaliers fans. In early July, as the haze wafted off the asphalt basketball courts in Cleveland, countless fans asked themselves: Where will LeBron land? Many were still bitter after his “decision” to move to Miami in 2010, but was it time for the prodigal son to return after four finals appearances and two championships in South Beach? In July of that summer, LeBron posted a heartfelt essay to the Sports Illustrated website answering that question: He was coming back to Cleveland. His words revealed a man who missed his city, his fans, his childhood, his home. It wasn’t about money or winning. It was about coming back to the place and people he loved. He displayed outstanding signs of maturity since his highly criticized ESPN interview in 2010 that included his famous, gut-wrenching quote, “I’m going to take my talents to South Beach and join the Miami Heat.” Then Cavaliers fans burned his jersey, but since, he has not only solidified his status as the greatest player in the world but shown a tremendous amount of growth off the court. How could Cleveland not welcome him back with open arms? Fast forward nine months: it’s April 26 and the Cavaliers are completing a four-game sweep of the Boston Celtics in the first round of the 2015 NBA playoffs. Through free agency and strategic trading, Cavs General Manager David Griffin put together one of the most dominant squads in the East, a starting five of Lebron James, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, J.R. Smith and Timofey Mozgov. Coming into game four against Boston, Cleveland was the favorite to beat the winner of the Bulls-Bucks series in the next round and embark on LeBron’s fifth consecutive trip to the Eastern Conference Finals. Things were looking up for LeBron and the gang. Then injury struck. As Cavs fans know, Kevin Love struggled a bit during the regular season this year, seeing his scoring and rebounding averages both take significant hits. With a stronger team around him, his stats fell, and he was no longer the doubledouble machine that he was in Minnesota. Frankly, he looked slow and lethargic, getting beat on 50/50 plays and plagued by back spasms all season. However, he was still a key cog in the Cavs’ dominant machine and was on top of his game in the playoffs, averaging 18.3 points, nine rebounds and three three-pointers made in the first three games of the series with Boston. In game four, however, Love’s hot stretch came to a screeching halt. On a controversial play, while tussling for a contested rebound, Boston center Kelly Olynyk linked arms with Love, and during an extended struggle, he ripped Love’s shoulder out of its socket. The malice of this play is up for debate. No one can say whether or not Olynyk intended to injure Love, but his actions were questionable enough to earn him a one game suspension. Analysts have criticized Olynyk for not playing the ball or boxing out with his body and instead holding onto Love’s arm and shoulder as Love labored to reach the ball. Regardless of his intent, we can condemn Olynyk for putting another player in a risky situation. His one-game suspension does not begin to compare to the loss of a stud like Love on a team destined for a deep playoff run. As if the loss of Love wasn’t bad enough, the Cavs also lost J.R. Smith to a two-game suspension for his actions during the game as well. On a defensive rebound, vying for position with the Celtics’ Jae Crowder, Smith flailed his right arm behind himself and struck Crowder in the face. Crowder fell to the floor and Smith was ejected for committing a flagrant two foul. The Cavs still prevailed 101–93, but the damage was done. The losses of Love and Smith will have significant implications for the team’s next series. It’s a shame that such a long, hard-fought season could end with regrets about what would have been if the team had stayed healthy and out of trouble. Tristan Thompson and Iman Shumpert are expected to start in place of Love and J.R., and while both are strong options, one has to wonder who will fill in the role off the bench that those two provided throughout the season. Here’s hoping Mike Miller comes back from basketball purgatory with some more playoff magic. Most importantly, the loss of these two starters puts even more pressure on Lebron to perform. Lebron is on a mission; he told us all in July that “bringing one trophy back to Northeast Ohio” is what’s most important to him. In the face of recent adversity, the challenge is certainly on.
Sports The Oberlin Review
Page 16
May 1, 2015
— Women’s Lacrosse —
Yeowomen Defeat Kenyon, Wittenberg Ben Stassen The women’s lacrosse team made history this week, defeating the Kenyon College Ladies and the Wittenberg University Tigers to earn a spot in the North Coast Athletic Conference championship game for the first time since 2000. Last Saturday, with a spot in the conference championship game on the line, the team came from behind to defeat Kenyon 13–11. After taking the lead with 3 minutes, 43 seconds left in regulation play, the Yeowomen held off the Ladies’ lastditch efforts to seal the victory and earn a trip to the NCAC playoffs. “They came out really strong and ready to play,” said Head Coach Lynda McCandlish. “The game went back and forth, and I think the energy was really high the entire time. It was a fun game to be a part of.” The Yeowomen dragged behind the Ladies for most of the game,
and with 10:04 left to play in regulation the Yeowomen were down 10–8. They evened the score, however, as junior Grace Barlow and sophomore Hannah Heinke-Green led the Yeowomen in a quick turnaround, each contributing a goal within the next three minutes. With the score even at 10, the Yeowomen’s season came down to the next 7 minutes and 51 seconds. According to senior captain and midfielder Kate Hanick, the tie reinstilled hope in the Yeowomen. “Hannah HeinkeGreen’s tying goal really brought our spirits up. We were like, ‘We can do this,’” Hanick said. With the momentum squarely in the Yeowomen’s favor and a Kenyon penalty that gave Oberlin a player advantage, sophomore Sara Phister found the back of the net to put the Yeowomen one goal ahead of the Ladies. Kenyon could hardly catch their breath before Oberlin scored again, as junior
midfielder Suzanna Doak won the draw control and Barlow added another goal, her seventh for the afternoon. With 5:18 left to play, Oberlin was up 12–10. Despite the lead, the Yeowomen knew they had to finish strong to put away the Ladies. “The last five minutes is when a lot of things
have gone wrong,” said senior captain and attacker Bronwen Schumacher. The Yeowomen have lost three games this season by one point with the deciding goal coming late in each game. Kenyon’s Caroline Shipman was quick to respond, narrowing Oberlin’s lead to just one
with 3:43 left. Clinging to the lead, the Yeowomen focused on controlling the ball and clamping down defensively to stave off any last-second heartbreakers. Following a crucial save by sophomore goalkeeper Alexa L’Insalata, See Lacrosse, page 14
Junior Grace Barlow battles past a defender from the Wittenberg University Tigers last Wednesday in Springfield, Ohio. Barlow led the Yeowomen past the Tigers with four goals and two assists in a 13–9 win to advance Oberlin to the North Coast Athletic Conference Finals for the first time since 2000. Courtesy of Erik Andrews
— Men’s Tennis —
Ishida Named NCAC Coach of the Year Jackie McDermott Staff Writer The men’s tennis team earned a fourth-place finish at the North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament, which concluded on April 26, capping off a 12–11 season. Head Coach Eric Ishida was named NCAC Coach of the Year following the tournament, while sophomore Ian Paik and first-year Michael Drougas also earned NCAC accolades. In the first match of the NCAC tournament, the fifth-seeded Yeomen earned an exciting 5–3 upset over the fourth-seeded Wabash College Little Giants. After falling 5–4 to the Little Giants during the regular season, the team made a statement in doubles competition, coming out strong with victories in the second and third flights. The second-flight pairing of Paik and Drougas kicked off an intense evening of competition with an 8–4 victory, and sophomores Abe Davis and Billy Lennon soon followed with an 8–4 win at the No. 3 doubles spot. The No. 1 doubles pairing of senior captain Soren Zeliger and junior Callan Louis, ranked 12th in the region, almost completed the sweep, but the impressive Wabash first flight team, ranked third in the region, got the best of Oberlin’s pair, winning 8–6. Assistant Coach Kevin Papen said later that the strong showing
in doubles paved the way for a successful day. “Going up 2–1 after doubles definitively set the tone that we were there to win that day, and it helped show the guys that we [could] take [the match],” he said in an email to the Review. “It helped so much because we knew that they were good at every singles position. Knowing you’re up after doubles is such a mental relief when you start your singles matches.” In the February dual match between the two teams, the Yeomen were ahead 2–1 at the doubles break but faltered in singles and dropped four of the six matches. It was a different story on Friday, however, as they kept the early momentum going, thanks to strong performances at the bottom of the line-up from Lennon and first-year Manickam Manickam. Manickam earned a decisive 6–1, 6–3 fifth-flight victory to put the team up 3–1, and on the neighboring court, Lennon soon followed, winning a tight 6–4 first set before blanking his Wabash opponent 6–0 in the second. As the men predicted, Wabash did not lie down, and the opposing team fought back to win the third and fourth singles slots over Louis and Davis. When No. 2 Drougas dropped the first set 3–6, it looked as if Wabash may have mounted a comeback. However, Drougas did not waiver and turned the match
around, winning the next two sets 6–3, 6–3 to clinch the Yeomen’s bid to the semi-finals. The win under pressure was
nothing new for Drougas, and the mental strength and tactical See Yeomen, page 15
To Be a Sports Editor Nate Levinson Sports Editor This editorial is the last in my run as one of the sports editors of this paper, and I can’t help but feel a little nostalgic. By my unofficial count, I’ve written 67 articles in my two-plus years with the paper, including 21 “In the Locker Room” interviews and 25 editorials, including this one. I’d be lying if I said I envisioned this long tenure with the paper when I got to Oberlin. I didn’t join until second semester my sophomore year, and I only wrote five articles before interviewing for the job. Thankfully I got it, and if I do say so myself, it has been a match made in heaven. My time at the Review has given me the chance to write about the national sports topics I love in addition to offering me the opportunity to connect with Oberlin athletics in a way most nonathletes can’t or don’t. Most students at Oberlin are aware when their friends’ teams are doing well or in season, but don’t care much beyond that. As a sports editor, I’ve gotten to delve deeper than that. It probably goes without saying that I’m far more interested in covering national sports topics, but the chance to cover athletes I go to school with is still pretty cool. There’s definitely been a shift in the talent level and culture of the athletics teams in the four years I’ve been here, and that’s been fun to watch and write about. Talking about sports has always been a way for me to connect with people I know only superficially, but that option hasn’t been so readily available at Oberlin. I definitely get to talk sports with some people on campus, but it’s not like being back home, where my friends, for the most part, are up to date on all the sports-related news I obsess over every day. Looking at it negatively, See Editorial, page 14
First-year Michael Drougas rallies against an opponent from the Allegheny College Gators on Saturday, April 18 at the Don Hunsinger Courts. The Yeomen advanced to the North Coast Athletic Conference playoffs last weekend, ultimately falling to Kenyon College and Denison University to take fourth place. Courtesy of OC Athletics