September 25, 2015

The Oberlin Review

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015 VOLUME 144, NUMBER 4

Local News Bulletin News briefs from the past week Career Center Names Interim Director The Career Center named Gayle Boyer its interim director on Tuesday following former director Richard Berman’s departure. Boyer came in as the Center’s department technician in 2011 before taking on the role of operations manager in 2012.

While the search for a permanent director continues, Boyer will manage daily operations and help maintain the Oberlin Business Scholars and Alumni-Student Mentoring programs. She will also act as an advisor for students interested in pursuing careers in law.

Police Chief Announces Structural Changes Oberlin City Council unanimously approved Police Chief Juan Torres’ plan to restructure certain aspects of the Oberlin Police Department. The changes call for one lieutenant and four sergeants, as opposed to the current system’s two lieutenants and three sergeants.

The projected savings for the department modifications are between $2,000 and $8,000, depending on overtime hours. Torres also shared plans to split the city into four sections with one sergeant assigned to each.

City Council Addresses Parking Space Loss Community members convened at a City Council meeting on Monday to express grievances over the potential loss of parking spaces downtown. The construction of the new Oberlin Inn — officially the Peter B. Lewis Gateway Center — calls for a reduction from 18 to 10 parking spaces, resulting in concern amongst local business owners. The parking spots of contention are between Pleasant and Main Streets.

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UAW, College Gridlocked Over Contract Andrea Wang The United Auto Workers, the labor union that represents facilities workers, is clashing with Oberlin College over proposed procedural changes. The College’s plan would levy a more rigid timeevaluation system onto UAW employees, which some workers say could result in unfair penalties.

“If you have an assignment that takes on average 30 minutes and someone is taking three days to do it, that’s a problem,” Oberlin UAW Chairman Milton Wyman said. “But if you take 45 minutes, and I take 30 minutes, then they want to start writing you up and possibly disciplining you for it, and that’s what we have a disagreement about.”

The contract between the College and UAW does not currently include a time-evaluation system. Oberlin proposed the revision in March but has been met with strong opposition. The two groups have been engaged in negotiations since the spring and are yet to reach an agreement. The issue is likely to be decided via a third-party arbitrator if a compromise cannot be reached.

A UAW worker, who requested to remain anonymous while disputes are ongoing, said that time evaluations will not always explain the full story and could cause workers to be wrongfully disciplined with anything from a verbal warning for first-time offenses to suspension or termination.

“In a two-hour window, I may not even be doing work orders,” they said. “A lot of the time I’m doing trouble calls or addressing emergencies on campus. You could just isolate all those twohour windows and say, ‘He’s not being productive.

What’s he doing week after week?’”

The two administrative bodies faced similar disputes in 1995 over a potential performancemanagement system, but UAW members

Two facilities workers complete a work order. The College and the UAW have been at loggerheads over an administrative proposal to record how long facilities workers spend completing work orders.

Benjamin Shepherd, Photo editor

threatened to strike and the College eventually conceded.

A different UAW employee, who also requested anonymity, expressed concern over the effectiveness of the time-evaluation methods. Many factors could contribute to differences in the amount of time required to complete similar tasks, they said. For example, cleaning a small dorm bathroom could take half the amount of time required to clean a locker room bathroom.

“Most of us don’t mind to see [the changes] move forward, but there’s always a fear of how

powerful something like that can be,” the employee said. “The [time-management] information can be just as powerful in a positive way, but if the school is truly interested in this information being used in a positive, productive way, I feel that they should provide us the assurance that it is going to be used that way.”

Director of Facilities Operations Keith Watkins, Assistant Vice President for Facilities Thomas Piccorelli and other members of the Oberlin administration did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Green Acres Discord Prompts Housing Study Katherine Kingma Staff Writer The Oberlin City Council is inquiring about the city’s housing needs following its rejection of an affordable housing proposal last spring. The Council will evaluate these findings before moving forward with plans.

The city put out a Request for Proposals for a study of Oberlin’s housing needs on Monday, Sept.

21. The analysis will quantify current available housing, provide and project statistics about pertinent housing demographics, examine housing supply and demand and give public policy recommendations. According to the RFP, the study will “summarize gaps, trends [and] what is anticipated” in the Oberlin housing stock.

Arlene Dunn of the Oberlin Community Benefits Coalition, an

organization that works to promote economic opportunity for locals and minorities, has voiced concern that the consultant will not take community input into account in the housing study.

“It’s unclear to me how the City Council is going to engage the Planning Commission or the community in focusing on what the housing needs analysis should focus on,” Dunn said. “I believe they think that all they’re doing is gathering data, but we believe there is possibly some anecdotal information that the people who are doing this study have to hear.”

However, according to city officials, including anecdotal information would defeat the purpose of the study.

“I think we’re trying to get away from the anecdotal and really stick to the facts so we can really figure out what the demand is,” Planning and Development Director Car-

rie Handy said. “There’s probably room in there for some input from different stakeholders, but this is a study, not a plan. So hopefully out of this study … issues will be identified, and then maybe we can develop a plan with the commu–––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“It’s unclear to me how the City Council is going to engage the ... community in focusing on what the housing analysis should focus on.”

Arlene Dunn Co-founder of the Oberlin Community Benefits Coalition ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– nity input as to how we’re going to address those issues. I think that’s when community input really

comes in to play. We just want as much hard data as we can [get].”

City Manager Eric Norenberg, who pitched the idea of the study to the City Council, echoed Handy.

“We hope this will provide objective data and facts that we can use for future decision-making rather than opinions and wishes,” Norenberg said. “Oberlin decision-makers need to be aware that the demands of young people and families are different than they were 40 years ago, and we need to be able to respond to those changes.”

Norenberg also said the study will be helpful in guiding Oberlin’s new Comprehensive Plan, which is updated about every five years to advise economic and housing development.

Despite the City Manager’s recommendation, the idea of See Council, page 4

on the Serves Up

Go Go Gadget The College recently installed a powerful new supercomputer.

Men’s tennis dominated singles play at their home invitational this weekend.

Global Grooves New hire Alysia Ramos teaches transnational dance.

See page 16

See page 11

See page 2

INDEX:

Opinions 6

This Week in Oberlin 8

Arts 11

Sports 16

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The Oberlin Review, September 25, 2015

Vocational School Resists City Annexation Oliver Bok News Editor The city of Oberlin wants to expand city limits to include the Lorain County Joint Vocational School, but the school doesn’t want to join.

JVS is currently located in Pittsfield Township, an unincorporated part of Lorain County that does not levy an income tax to residents or day workers. The city of Oberlin believes it has a legal right to take possession of JVS. If Oberlin successfully annexes the school, JVS employees will have to pay Oberlin income tax.

According to Oberlin City Manager Eric Norenberg, when JVS was in the planning process, the number of school districts opting into the vocational school kept increasing, necessitating a larger school.

Eventually the school became so large that plans to use a septic tank became unfeasible.

In 1971, the city of Oberlin offered a solution to extend the city’s sewer system outside the city boundaries for JVS use. In return, JVS agreed to be absorbed by the city if Oberlin ever grew to border JVS. Legally, cities can only annex contiguous property.

Norenberg stated that sometime around 2008, Oberlin annexed a property across the street from JVS that made the city contiguous with the school. To Norenberg, Oberlin’s annexation of JVS is simply a matter of ensuring that the school upholds its promise.

“We have a law on the books that’s been there for years — decades — that says we will not provide water or sewer service unless you are annexing into the city. In order for us to continue to enforce that policy for others, we need everybody who has agreed to do that to fulfill their obligation. … We did what we were obligated to do. We installed the sewer line, we have been managing it, maintaining it and treating their sewage for 40 years and they have not fulfilled their part of the obligation.”

To Pittsfield Township Trustee Mark McConnell, however, Oberlin’s push to annex JVS is nothing more than a shameless gambit to increase tax revenue for the city.

“As a private citizen and a public servant, I cannot condone a money grab in public education; public education has enough

The Joint Vocational School in Pittsfield Township is currently engaged in a legal battle with the city of Oberlin. Oberlin sued the Lorain County Vocational School last June in an attempt to legally annex the school.

Bryan Rubin, Photo editor

problems as it is,” McConnell said.

McConnell also noted that he personally opposed the annexation, even though Oberlin would give the township a share of the tax revenue as stated in an agree-

ment made between Oberlin and Pittsfield years ago.

JVS Superintendent Glenn Faircloth also cast doubt on the idea that Oberlin and JVS are contiguous after all.

“We’re looking at different land plots to see what may be possibly contiguous, getting land surveys and all that,” Faircloth said. “It’s a See Oberlin, page 5

New Supercomputer to Enhance Data Processing Melissa Harris Staff Writer The College’s new supercomputer, SCIURus, is now open in the Science Center for student and faculty research, reasserting Oberlin as a leader in supercomputing capability among liberal arts colleges.

The College installed SCIURus in May 2015, replacing the Science Center’s previous supercomputer, Beowulf, from 2005. After a month of assembly and a summer of beta testing, the computer cluster, consisting of nearly 200 tera-

bytes of storage and 36 processors, each with 256 gigabytes of random access memory, was ready for use this month.

According to Michael Moore, professor of Biology and chair of the High Performance Computing Committee, the new supercomputer is a huge upgrade.

“The entire old system is as good as one of our nodes,” Moore said. “It wouldn’t be incorrect to say that the new system is 36 times more powerful than the old one.”

The search for a new supercomputer began in 2013 when the HPC Committee — consisting

An inside view of the College’s new supercomputer, SCIURus. The updated system replaced its 10-year-old predecessor last spring, and opened for use this month.

Lulu Jingyan Huang

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of Moore, Professors of Chemistry Manish Mehta and Matthew Elrod, Professor of Biology Aaron Goldman and Professor of Physics and Astronomy Robert Owen — sent a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation.

Although the grant was initially denied, the team resubmitted a proposal in August 2014 and received a sum of $486,256 from the foundation to purchase the new high-performance computer cluster.

During the fall semester of 2014, the committee researched different supercomputer companies to get the best quote possible. Moore explained that each supercomputer is custombuilt, so the committee needed to make sure that the companies that they were working with understood the College’s needs in a supercomputer based on the desired research of students and faculty. The committee contacted engineers from these companies and tried to find the most cost-effective design for the money. In January, they chose a company, and after three months of building, the supercomputer was brought to Oberlin.

Moore decided to name the new computer Sciurus, using the Latin name for Oberlin’s newly adopted mascot, the albino squirrel, which he turned into an acronym for SuperComputing in Undergraduate Research.

In addition to the faster processing and larger memory, Moore said that the supercomputer has a graphical processing unit, lacking in the old supercomputer. All of these advancements will allow a variety of professors and students on campus to utilize the supercomputer simultaneously.

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Given its advantages, professors from Neuroscience, Biology, Physics, Chemistry and other departments have begun to look into utilizing the supercomputer for their research.

“For me, it’s an essential element of my work,” Owen said. “I do work on what happens when two black holes collide with each other. … If you want to study how one black hole interacts with another black hole you need to turn the math into an enormous algebra problem that needs to be solved by a computer.”

Moore uses the computer to study genomes and the evolutionary relationships among organisms by looking at large DNA sequence data. Mehta plans on using it with his student research team to examine models of co-crystals, an important concept in pharmaceutical development.

Mehta speculated about the learning benefits of having a supercomputer on campus, as previously large amounts of data had to be processed in supercomputers offsite in limited time slots.

“Students have the opportunity to learn.

Research teams can make mistakes without a high price,” Mehta said. “It allows for students to learn high-performance computing in a local environment.”

According to Moore, in the coming weeks the committee is planning on holding an information session about how to use the supercomputer. The SCIURus website, which can only be accessed through the campus network, also has an application form online for Oberlin students and faculty to request to use SCIURus for research.

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Corrections Corrections: The Review is not awareBan of Details” In “Committee Weighs Tobacco any corrections this week.

(Sept. 18, 2015), Jordan Ecker was misquoted. Ecker did not say that e-cigarettes do not The Review strives to print all contain tobacco. information as accurately as possible. feelarticle, the Review has madeisanlisted In If theyou same Cory Ventresca please send anae-mail as aerror, College senior.

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The Oberlin Review, September 25, 2015

Page 3

Off the Cuff: Chloe Bird, RAND sociologist and professor Chloe Bird, OC ’86, is a senior sociologist at the RAND Corporation and professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School who specializes in the differences in healthcare between women and men, particularly in regard to cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. She is also the editorin-chief of the medical journal Women’s Health Issues. On Thursday, Sept. 17, she gave a talk in the King Building titled “Mapping Gender Gaps in Quality of Care for Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes.”

What have you found in terms of the differences between men and women receiving care for cardiovascular diseases?

What we’re doing now is looking at quality of routine aspects of care for people who already are diagnosed with cardiovascular disease or diabetes, looking at gender — also racial, ethnic and socioeconomic — gaps in care.

What we’re doing now that makes it different is we’re mapping it.

Starting in 1984, more women than men were dying of cardiovascular disease in this country, and it was a new and odd thing. When I was in school, they thought that once providers had trained enough new cohorts of physicians, that it would get addressed, and it didn’t.

Then they thought, well, maybe women aren’t doing something right, and things weren’t getting addressed. We understood that the expensive, aggressive, heroic treatments didn’t necessarily work the same in women, such as moving a vein to replace an artery — different sized bodies, different issues. We knew that women had later onset, partially related to biological differences.

Until menopause, women had more flexible circulatory systems, which is, biologically, an advantage to be able to carry 20 percent more blood volume during pregnancy. Having a more flexible system means you’re at less of a risk of having high blood pressure, and high blood pressure doesn’t do as much damage.

That ends fairly abruptly over the course of menopause.

Cardiovascular disease is somewhat different in men than [in] women. Men tend to have symptoms, especially with heart attacks, that are specific to a heart attack — that classic TV left-arm pain, chest pain. With women, it can be sudden, overwhelming anxiety — feeling like you’re getting the flu, neck pain or throat pain or jaw pain, feeling like you can’t breathe.

Pretty much any pain that’s between your nose and your navel that increases on exertion and

decreases at rest could be cardiovascular, and you need to get it checked. But most of us think, “Oh, it goes away when I sit down.” We think about it [hurting] the way a muscle does.

This is actually your warning that it’s bad.

In addition, men get blockage of the major vessels, so as a result, most of the screenings were set up to test men who had this thing that you could identify. In a man, there’s a 90 percent chance that if you don’t have a major vessel blockage or you don’t have a blockage of the valves, you’re not having major cardiovascular disease. In a woman, it’s 50-50, because women often get blockages in the small vessels of the heart; it’s called microvascular disease.

So we have something going on that’s different, in a population that’s different; you have differences in women and men’s lives and in presentation and in treatment. … We looked at care for diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and we looked at what was happening in terms of blood pressure and cholesterol and blood sugar, and we found gender gaps in screening, treatment and intermediate outcomes, meaning achieving control over these areas of documented physiologic deregulation.

We knew there was a problem with expensive treatments, these heroic and aggressive things, but here it was in inexpensive routine aspects of care. … 100 percent of people ought to be getting this care, and we showed that there were gaps. We did that; we published it in the journal of Women’s Health Issues along with a number of studies that were done after it that looked at the same problems, and ended up doing a congressional briefing with the American Heart Association on it. Academically, that was a big success. In terms of having an impact, virtually none. And so I spent a long time — the briefing was in 2008 — and I started looking at why that didn’t work.

Our congress is a little more in the business of healthcare [now] than it was then, but we don’t legislate quality of care that way. They weren’t the best audience to talk to.

So what happened?

You would expect to see women doing better than men, but we were seeing women doing worse. So we had to think about what we could do with that that would be useful.

My husband and collaborator in this work, Allen Fremont — we met the first day of graduate school — [is] an MD PH sociologist now.

He’s been doing work mapping racial, ethnic and socioeconomic patterns in care. Mapping hasn’t been used a lot in healthcare. He’s used it to look at hotspots, gaps in quality, dis-

students and a visitor were called down from the roof and advised of the dangers. The individuals left the area.

Thursday, Sept. 17

Saturday, Sept. 19

12:16 a.m. Officers responded to a loud noise complaint at a Village Housing unit on South Professor Street. Students agreed to leave the area. A second complaint was filed at 2:16 a.m. Officers contacted the students and told them the music would have to be taken inside.

The students complied.

11:46 p.m. An officer on routine building checks observed students on the roof of Severance Hall. Two

1:29 a.m. Officers responded to assist an intoxicated student in Finney Chapel and found the unresponsive student in the balcony. An ambulance was requested and the student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

3:20 a.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm on the second floor of the Oberlin Inn. The occupants of the room in question

Chloe Bird, OC ’86, senior social scientist and professor at the Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School, spoke about the gender gaps in quality of care for cardiovascular disease and diabetes at Oberlin last week.

parities in all kinds of different illnesses and healthcare around race and ethnicity. Because where we live is segregated to some extent in this country — not necessarily by law, but you live where you can afford to live — people tend to move between very largely similar places as a result. You’re mapping socioeconomic patterns —you’re mapping race and ethnicity, and when you find a hotspot, there are demographic characteristics of who lives there on average.

What do you mean by hotspot?

A place where there’s a high rate of asthma or asthma exacerbations — that sort of hotspot. We tend to map them in red so you can see where there are problems or gaps. … We never used that to map gender differences in care because we live in the same places. And I realized: How do you get a message out there when it’s about a huge area? Or how do you get decision-makers to think about the problem as relevant to them? It was so surprising that you were seeing a gap in women not getting as good care, that a lot of people either thought that it’s not really a big problem or those other health plans have a problem, those other providers, those other provider groups, but we probably don’t have a problem. So to get people to understand and engage, we started mapping care … and we looked at patterns across the state instead of just looking at the average. On average [the] gap is just five percentage points on cholesterol screenings. But when you map it, in seven of the eight areas

used in California to look at quality, there was worse care for women than for men. In three of them it was a five to 10 percentage point gap.

Now we’re doing work with a national healthcare plan looking at four metropolitan healthcare regions across the country and mapping the gaps that they see in care. They’re coming to us — it’s not me trying to get data to write an article that’s measuring a problem to get people to pay attention to it; [these are] the people who do the data analytics for the health plan. They’re saying we want to understand it — we want to use it to improve care.

Insurers don’t have a lot of tools — they have payment, but they’re not the ones providing the care. But they do provide a lot of services that may give somebody access to free diet support [and] a range of behavioral health things.

What we’re seeing is that not only is there variation around the country and in different areas, much bigger than the racial gaps, but that it’s not caught by either measures of who’s a high utilizer, who has a complicated case — all these things that wouldn’t be a justification for not meeting guidelines, but might have been an explanation that would have given us leverage on it. … And then they looked at the algorithms they use to tap who gets contacted for these other kinds of behavioral health support — things they do to improve quality of care. And what they’re seeing is that women, and especially younger women, were not always getting picked up. … So instead of me going to them saying, “You’ve got to do something,” they’re saying, “We could go back and tweak these [things] and try to capture [them] so that these people get flagged.”

What we may have is that not only are women not thinking of themselves as having this risk, but providers — not all providers, not all of the time, but on average — are not being as aggressive in prevention or secondary prevention in women. But the algorithms that are designed to sweep people into better care, to help notify them of what to do have incorporated some of that clinical bias. So we have an opportunity to switch some of the levers, to work to change something about how health care is getting delivered. … It’s really exciting to do work that’s both rewarding and interesting, and goes beyond describing the problem and instead is saying, “Here’s some things that could be done.”

were smoking marijuana, which activated the alarm. The area was cleared and the alarm was reset.

1:50 p.m. A student reported that, while riding her bicycle at the intersection of Professor Street and College Street, she was struck by a vehicle and fell to the ground. The driver of the vehicle did not stop.

Members of the Oberlin Police Department responded to the call.

The student sustained scrapes and bruises to her hand and leg.

tion. The student was coherent, answered several questions and was assisted to their room.

12:25 p.m. A student was transported from Stevenson Dining Hall to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment of an allergic reaction.

12:50 p.m. A student reported the theft of a black Nike jacket from a practice room in Robertson Hall.

The student left the room for approximately 15 minutes and discovered the theft upon returning.

Sunday, Sept. 20

Monday, Sept. 21

3:11 a.m. Officers were requested to assist a student at Talcott Hall who was ill from alcohol consump-

6:23 p.m. A student reported that, while walking in the Rice Hall parking lot, an unknown individual

Interview by Oliver Bok, News editor Photo Courtesy of Chloe Bird

came up behind her, grabbed her iPhone 6 and rode away on a darkcolored bicycle.

Tuesday, Sept. 22 6:30 p.m. An officer transported a student with a sprained ankle from Williams Field House to Asia House.

Wednesday, Sept. 23 2:16 a.m. Officers responded to a loud noise complaint at a Village Housing unit on Professor Street.

The occupants said they would turn off the music and take their socializing inside.

News

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The Oberlin Review, September 25, 2015

Feature Photo: Kent Wong, UCLA professor and activist Kent Wong, professor at University of California, Los Angeles and director of the Center for Labor Research and Education, gave a talk at the College yesterday titled “Undocumented and Unafraid: A New Civil Rights Movement Led by Immigrant Youth.”

Wong discussed his experiences working with undocumented students at both UCLA and Dream Summer, a summer program geared toward helping undocumented youth to succeed and to fight for social change. Wong shared stories about how several of his students’ families were subjected to predawn raids and forced into deportation camps. He also discussed the difficulties that undocumented students face in higher education, such as the out-of-state tuition that many states charge and the obstacles to receiving financial aid.

The professor also talked at length about the success of the immigrant youth movement at forcing politicians to become aware of the problems that undocumented youth face. Wong noted that while President Obama likes to take credit for

the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive order, which freed hundreds of thousands of undocumented youth from fear of deportation, the undocumented youth movement forced Obama to confront the issue. Wong also reminded the audience that more people have been deported under Obama’s administration than under that of any other president.

“We cannot allow the kind of racist hatred that is being promoted on Fox News, in the national presidential debate, on these daily talk shows, to go unchallenged,” Wong said at the end of his lecture. “People of conscience cannot allow the right wing to advance their anti-immigrant policies. That’s why we think it’s so important to take on the fight against deportations, to stand with the immigrant youth movement and also to demand access to higher education, which longterm will yield tremendous benefit not only to immigrant communities but to society as a whole.”

Text by Oliver Bok. News editor Photo by Bryan Rubin, Photo editor

Council Divided Over Affordable Housing Study Continued from page 1

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the housing study wasn’t met with unanimous approval across the City Council.

“The Western Reserve Land Conservancy performed a property maintenance survey less than two years ago,” City Council member Bryan Burgess said. “If that information were compiled with our existing GIS and Lorain County Auditor databases, we could answer many of these basic questions with little or no additional cost. But this previous study has just been filed away. I want to see the price tag of yet another study and hear how it will benefit taxpayers before committing my support.”

Burgess also questioned whether the housing study would prove effective over time.

“As proposed by the City Manager, the housing study will present a snapshot in time: the state of housing in Oberlin [in] 2015. How relevant will this study be in a year? Five years? 10 years? Why not build a property assessment database [that can be] regularly updated?”

Norenberg presented the idea of the housing study to the City Council in May after the proposal for Green Acres, a new low-to-medium income housing development, was tabled in a City Council vote five to one because of disagreements over the site plan, the type of housing that would be provided and whether the housing was actually needed, among other issues.

Green Acres remains controversial and the proposed development looms over discussion of the housing study.

“I thought we had a chance to build a showcase and meet some of Oberlin’s lower-income needs, so I was hugely disappointed,” said City Council Vice President Sharon Fairchild-Soucy retrospectively about the delay and possible termination of the Green Acres Project. “Rather than have many units available to lower-income people, [some] people wanted higher-quality units that would be available to young professionals, but I don’t think that was the need that was being addressed. … [But] whether we do Green Acres or not, I think the information we gather from [the study that it prompted] will be very valuable.”

Dunn, on the other hand, was one of the people who objected to the Green Acres plan.

“One of the things that is happening here is that there is no ability to have a dialogue between the community and City Council,” Dunn said.

“We’re very much in favor of low-income housing … but we don’t want it to be concentrated. This was originally supposed to be mixed-income housing.”

The responses to the Request for Proposals are due Oct. 16, and the consultant will be selected by Nov. 3. The consultant will present the study to City Council on Feb. 1, 2016.

News

The Oberlin Review, September 25, 2015

Page 5

City to Transform Gasholder into Museum Kerensa Loadholt Oberlin has found a new use for an old building: a museum commemorating the city’s role in the Underground Railroad, housed in the Gasholder Building on South Main Street behind McDonald’s. City Council held a special meeting on Monday to continue planning for the new museum.

The museum will contain artifacts, a library with books about the Underground Railroad and Black history, a lawn where company picnics and reenactments can be held, a small exhibit wall, a gift shop and an exhibit that will include a personal story.

The Oberlin Underground Railroad Center will be dedicated to “serving diverse constituents,” according to Shara Davis, a member of the museum planning team. The center will aim to honor African-American heritage and serve as a tourist gateway and transportation hub to educate people on the city’s history with anti-slavery movements.

The 126-year-old Gasholder Building was historically used to store the manufactured coal gas that provided heat and light to the city. The building was saved from demolition in the late 1980s, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998 and donated to the city of Oberlin in 2004.

The most popular choice within the city was to renovate the building into an Underground Railroad Center and a Park & Ride initiative so it could be one of many museums on a bus tour. “[We are] reach[ing] out to some similar Underground Railroad centers in Ohio and surrounding states,” Davis said in the City Council meeting.

According to Davis, the planning committee can estimate the necessary budget, expected revenue and how long it will take the city to break even on the center by referring to similar Underground Railroad centers as an example.

The funding for the museum

comes from several sources: $435,542 from the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, $200,000 in grant mon–––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The Center will aim to honor African-American heritage and serve as a tourist getaway and transportation hub to educate people on the city’s history with antislavery movements.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ey and $50,000 from the city of Oberlin. The team will continue

The Oberlin Gasholder Building, constructed in 1889 to store coal gas, will house the new Underground Railroad museum. The planning group is still finalizing a construction timeline amid budget constraints.

Kellianne Doyle

Oberlin Sues JVS in Protracted Legal Battle Continued from page 2 big process because this district was created by land plots: Farmers had donated certain plots of land, you have a railroad track that comes in between.

There’s a lot of different land situations that have to be investigated, so we’re still working through that process.”

To Norenberg, JVS has much to gain from becoming part of Oberlin.

“Right now, they get fire protection from Wellington. I think it will be much better for them in terms of emergency response and for their insurance to have fire service from the city of Oberlin right across the street from their facility.”

But in Faircloth’s opinion, the school has had excellent and responsive emergency services for more than 40 years.

“We have never been dissatisfied with the service we have already been receiving, which has been superior,” he said.

Norenberg and Faircloth also sharply disagree on how they would prefer to see the case resolved. Norenberg decried the use of taxpayer funds for attorneys on both sides of the case and said he would love to find a “win-win” solution with some kind of settlement. Faircloth, on the other hand, wants the case to play out in court and have it resolved by the ruling or recommendations of a judge.

A judge recently filed a preliminary injunction allowing Oberlin’s case to progress. According to Norenberg, the case won’t go before a judge for another month or two.

Faircloth took care to emphasize that regardless of the school’s legal battle with Oberlin, JVS will keep doing what it does best: educating young people and teaching them valuable skills.

“We’re still chugging along here at the JVS. We received straight A’s on our report card. We’re very pleased by that. … We’re moving along, we’re moving along,” Faircloth said.

to hold fundraisers and apply for grants, sponsorships and partnerships in the future. Other potential funding sources may include membership fees from schools for a certain number of field trips every year, membership fees from the general public and company donations.

The planning team aims to work in partnership with existing tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations so as to minimize the amount of revenue required by the city to fund the museum. The prospective partnerships are Lorain County Community College, the Lorain County Heritage Center, the Lorain Historical Society, Lorain County Metro Parks, the Lorain County Urban League, the Lorain County Visitors Center, Oberlin College, Oberlin Public Library and the Western Reserve Historical Society.

There are three phases to the building and site improvement on the Gasholder Building: Phase one, External Building Stabilization, has already been completed at a cost of $480,000; all of those funds were raised. Phase two, External Improvements (Ground and Site Improvements), is in progress and will cost about $800,000; $108,886 of those funds are outstanding. Phase three, Interior Improvements, has not yet started but is projected to cost $1 million — none of those funds have been secured.

Council member Sharon Soucy said she appreciated the truthful manner in which information about the project has been presented. Unlike most projects in early stages, she described this plan as “a lot less abstract and a lot more realizable.”

Opinions The Oberlin Review

Page 6

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

Editors-in-Chief Julian Ring Madeline Stocker Managing Editor Vida Weisblum

Letter to the Editors Day of Service Benefits Kendal Community To the Editors:

Opinions Editor Kiley Petersen

In Planned Parenthood Debate, Local Inaccessibility Overlooked As House and Senate leaders traverse the caustic battleground that is this year’s federal appropriations bill, it’s evident that the future of Planned Parenthood’s funding has been precarious. But last night marked a possible turn in the road for the reproductive health organization, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed a bipartisan stopgap spending bill that effectively strikes the Planned Parenthood argument from the overall appropriations legislation. It’s expected to clear the Senate, and if it does, it’s smooth sailing for Planned Parenthood — for now.

As with many other targeted spending cuts, the mounting opposition against the organization’s possible defunding has been palpable. Many have publicly voiced their support for Planned Parenthood over the last several weeks, signing petitions or overlaying their Facebook profile photos with a pink “#StandwithPP” speech bubble. Articles have circulated across social media platforms and boots have hit the ground, all in an attempt to spread awareness about the benefits of this organization’s services. If nothing else, the threat of defunding has become a unifying factor.

The outcry is justified. Planned Parenthood provides valuable preventative healthcare, especially to people in low-income families. In 2012, 79 percent of visitors to the center were at 150 percent of the federal poverty level or lower, according to the Government Accountability Office’s March report. Federal funding accounted for more than 40 percent of Planned Parenthood’s revenue in the 2013-2014 fiscal year. Losing that funding could force Planned Parenthood to reduce or eliminate the services it provides to people who need them most.

So let’s just say, theoretically, that McConnell’s last-ditch initiative makes the cut. Let’s say the Senate passes the stopgap spending bill, saving the government from yet another possible shutdown. Let’s assume that, in this scenario, Planned Parenthood’s funding is here to stay. But let’s also ask, “What happens next?”

This question essentially answers itself when we look at past examples.

Such a victory would certainly appease the majority of those in favor of the organization. The Facebook hashtags would gradually subside, unfinished petitions would find their way into garbage cans and, as time went on, the threats to Planned Parenthood’s funding would slowly leave mouths and minds.

Of course, there would still be those who refuse to give up the fight.

Community leaders, reproductive justice activists and others would work to ensure not only that Planned Parenthood’s funding and operations stay secure but that their services expand to cover a broader client base.

However, history tells us that the majority of those currently speaking out against the organization’s defunding will soon forget that their reproductive justice services were ever threatened at all.

At a school that bills itself as a hub for activism and progressivism, it comes as no surprise that many of our Facebook newsfeeds have been flooded with the aforementioned hashtag. However, if we are truly an institution that champions “commitment to social engagement and diversity” as our mission statement claims, it’s critical that we avoid falling into the void of apathy and inaction that inevitably swallows a large number of self-proclaimed activists. Instead, our energies should be focused on advocating intersectional reproductive health services for our own community — something that, as of now, can certainly be improved.

As a rural college town in the Rust Belt, there aren’t many available options for reliable and cheap reproductive health care. The nearest Planned Parenthood is a 22-minute drive from Oberlin, inaccessible to College students and community members without cars or transportation to Lorain.

The clinic is only open three days per week — Mondays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m — rendering it virtually unreachable for anyone who can’t afford to skip work. The other clinics aren’t that much better. Lorain Family Planning Services takes 17 minutes to drive to. Preterm, an abortion clinic in Cleve-

See Editorial, page 10 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.

September 25, 2015

Western Reserve Land Conservancy would like to thank the Bonner Center for Service and Learning and the wonderful group of students who once again worked diligently on the Day of Service. The hardworking students cleared invasive plants and trees on two wooded areas, transforming them to lovely wooded garden areas for folks of all ages to enjoy.

These groups of students join a tradition of past Day of Service participants that have made a transforming effect on the two areas — one on campus and one in the community.

Residents at Kendal at Oberlin, as well as staff, volunteers from Western Reserve Land Conservancy and past

Day of Service students, have worked for several years clearing an area and planting native wildflowers and trees in a nice little patch of woods near a well-used pathway that residents frequently use. Students worked hard to extend the area this year, clearing the invasive buckthorn and laying mulch down for a nice continuous pathway that residents and visitors can enjoy.

The efforts of the students this year and in past years have made this area a nice, quiet haven of biodiversity near a very rich wetland. I encourage Oberlin College students to come and visit this area near Buttonbush Pond on the Kendal campus. It is a fine example of a great College and community partnership.

Ever since the building of the Kahn [Hall] on the Oberlin College campus, students and community residents have transformed the wooded area directly east of Kahn to a wonderful arboretum. Garlic mus-

tard and buckthorn have been removed, native plants and trees have been planted and the area has become a natural haven. Students can now enjoy another pleasing quiet natural area on their college campus.

Nature has responded as well; there was a pair of resident red-shouldered hawks that moved into the area this past spring. Please come and visit the area sometime; it is here literally in your backyard! Fall is a great season to enjoy it. Look for more work to be completed on the area in the next few weeks.

Kudos and thanks to the Bonner Center, Oberlin College Grounds Department and to both student teams for your help!

–Kate Pilacky Associate Field Director Western Reserve Land Conservancy, Oberlin Field Office

Privilege Means Choosing Silence Chloe Vassot Contributing Writer To speak has always been a political act. The urge to protect one’s right to speak, the most basic method of communication — in a way the most intimate, most direct route from your mind to another’s — is inherently understandable and incontestable. The unwavering belief in this right is part of what has been driving the ever-growing number of think-pieces criticizing colleges and students for the “policing” of free speech and the prevalence of “politically correct” speech that is beginning to dominate certain campuses.

This examination of the politics of speech is needed, but not when the goal is exclusively to find the weaknesses in our liberal arts schooling. The politics of speech, of who gets to speak and be heard and who is silenced and ignored, must be examined with the purpose of understanding how the act of speaking can shape the society we live in and the society we wish to create.

Those who denounce some of the new prevailing ideas of speaking on campus, like how the silence of those in positions of privilege and power can begin to ameliorate the historical and systematic silencing of the marginalized, decry them as an affront to personal liberty. But the concept of self-silencing also deeply offends and discomforts these critics; this sense of discomfort may be more at the core of their argument than they understand. These critics, for the most part, are accustomed to using their voices, to having an audience for their words and to being assured that, in some way, they will be not only heard, but also listened to with consideration. Any threat to this comforting status quo is understandably disconcerting to them. Funny how important it seems to fight for the right to be heard when it is finally your right that is threatened.

We live in a society that undoubtedly prizes the individual over the community, especially communities that

have been historically marginalized to begin with. When individuals with the luck of inhabiting spaces of privilege revere the idea of free speech, they are not simply referring to one’s ability to utter syllables without fear of extreme mental or physical consequences. They are referring to a right to be listened to and to be understood — for their sentiments to be respected simply because they come from their particular self and thus have inherent importance.

This larger idea of the freedom of speech — a freedom of discourse and respect — is not held equally in our society. To allow this full right of speech to be held by all — by those who have been and are currently marginalized and silenced because of their race, ethnicity, gender or sex — will paradoxically require the occasional silence of the privileged others.

The reality of who speaks and is heard in our society is easily ignored. The lovely thing about many liberal arts institutions, and Oberlin especially, is that students constantly analyze and seek to dismantle these realities. They look for ways to let the unheard voices speak and keep the dominating voices quieted for the sake of reaching a representational equality.

This process does not have to require censorship, but the idea of self-silencing is abhorrent and unjust to many. But what is more unjust: For the privileged to feel the personal offense and indignity that comes with one’s thoughts being unwelcome, or the perpetuation of the system by silencing the marginalized and unheard due to the momentary discomfort of those who, whether they choose to be or not, are thus made oppressors?

The choice to stay silent is not a simple choice, but it is a necessary one.

As a woman, I am angry that I have deeply internalized the process of questioning my right to speak in almost See Free, page 10

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.

Opinions

The Oberlin Review, September 25, 2015

Issue 3 Will Boost Ohio’s Economy Aaron Pressman Columnist Every 37 seconds, someone is arrested for nonviolent possession of marijuana in the U.S. In 2010, the U.S. spent over $3.5 billion on marijuana law enforcement. In 2012, 42.4 percent of FBI drug arrests were for marijuana. The war on drugs has failed, and draconian, racist and expensive marijuana laws must be taken off the books. Come November, Ohio voters will have the ability to vote “Yes” on Issue 3 and legalize both medical and recreational marijuana in the state. Voting in favor of this initiative will save lives, help counteract mass incarceration and boost Ohio’s economy.

Issue 3 is a fairly straightforward marijuana legalization measure, similar to those of Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Washington, D.C. The measure legalizes medical marijuana and recreational marijuana for those over the age of 21. Individuals would be limited to possessing one ounce of purchased marijuana at a time and would be allowed to grow up to four cannabis plants. Driving under the influence of marijuana and consuming marijuana in public would both remain illegal.

One serious concern cited by opponents to Issue 3 is that the amendment restricts cultivation of cannabis to 10 specific growers in designated locations throughout the state of Ohio. I am extremely sympathetic to this concern and have similar concerns about Ohio restricting the free market in the cannabis industry. However, I caution any marijuana-legalization supporters against using this as the only reason to oppose such an amendment. Individuals will still be permitted to grow their own cannabis, and another amendment can always be passed to allow for more growers in the future. While I absolutely do not support a state-mandated oligopoly in the industry, this is the best chance Ohioans have for legalization, and the benefits tremendously outweigh this drawback. Focusing too much on the motives of the amendment’s creators will only divide supporters of legalization and create more hurdles on the path to legalization.

Legalizing marijuana is crucial because the drug has extensive medical benefits and is relatively harmless, even for recreational users. The U.S. government classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug, meaning that it has the highest potential for abuse and lacks any accepted medical benefits. In comparison, cocaine is listed as a Schedule II drug. Not only does scientific research prove marijuana’s classification to be entirely ungrounded, but the government is constantly unable to justify its position. For example, a statement on the White House’s website says a marijuana “‘high’ can affect [brain] functions in a variety of ways, causing distorted perceptions, impairing coordination, causing difficulty with thinking and problem solving, and creating problems with memory and learning.” However, this is just putting a negative spin on the sensations of a high. None of these examples cause any long-term damage, and most of these symptoms are also applicable to alcohol, which is exempted from drug scheduling.

The website then goes on to discuss how heavy marijuana users can develop lung cancer, which has some scientific backing, but even the heaviest of smokers do not harm their lungs anywhere near as much as those who smoke tobacco. Besides, this is a criticism of the ingestion method — smoking — and not the substance itself.

Vaping and eating marijuana, both reasonable and common forms of ingestion, do not cause harm to the lungs. The White House also claims marijuana is dangerous because it is the “most commonly abused illicit drug.” However, frequency of usage has nothing to do with health concerns.

In actuality, tobacco and alcohol have scientifically been proven to be significantly more harmful. To put this in perspective, no one has ever died from a marijuana overdose — some people do die from marijuana-related causes, and though the exact number has not been fully determined, it is very low — compared to the 480,000 people who die each year in the U.S. from cigarette smoking, or the 88,000 people in the U.S. killed each year from alcohol. In 1988, the Drug Enforcement Agency even found that one would have to ingest the equivalent THC content of between 20,000 and 40,000 joints to be at risk of overdosing.

Marijuana has countless medical uses including treatment of some of the symptoms of epilepsy, cancer, anxiety, HIV/ AIDS, appetite issues, nausea and sleep disorders. Despite being proven time and time again, the FDA still refuses to accept the medical benefits of marijuana because it refuses to conduct its own large-scale clinical trials. 23 states have already recognized the medical benefits of marijuana, and Ohio should follow suit.

Marijuana legalization will also help reduce mass incarceration. No one should get caught up in the legal system, lose their liberty and, in many cases, see their children grow up without a parent because they wanted to use a relatively harmless medicinal or recreational substance. Not only are we destroying the lives of marijuana users and their families, but taxpayers must foot the bill. Additionally, in Ohio, black people are 4.1 times more likely than white people to be arrested for marijuana use, even though they use it at comparable rates. There is proven systemic racism in the justice system, and drugs such as marijuana are one of the most common areas where this systemic racism shows.

Finally, the creation of a legal marijuana industry will prove to be economically beneficial to Ohio, much as has been in states that have already legalized marijuana. In addition to saving millions of dollars on marijuana enforcement and legal costs, Issue 3 will implement a 15 percent tax on growers and a five percent tax on gross revenue of retailers. 85 percent of the tax revenue will go to Ohio cities, counties, towns and townships. States in which marijuana is legal have seen the benefits: Colorado made $70 million in marijuana tax revenue during their last fiscal year, and Washington made over $70 million in taxes during their first year of legalization.

Issue 3 will also create many jobs in agriculture, wholesale and retail, which will put Ohioans to work and stimulate the economy further.

Issue 3 may not be the best marijuana legalization initiative on the books, but it is the best chance Ohioans have right now. Don’t stand idly by as this natural and medically beneficial substance ruins people’s lives — not because it is harmful, but because it is banned.

California Verdict Legitimizes Suicidal Ideation Cyrus Eosphorus Online Editor Content Warning: This column contains discussion of suicide, assisted suicide and ableism.

September 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day. Organized by the International Association for Suicide Prevention, the World Health Organization and the World Federation for Mental Health, the main purpose of the event is to raise awareness of the number of people for whom suicide is a risk and the importance of keeping them from the literal or figurative ledge. A press release by the three organizations notes that “having access to means to kill oneself — most typically firearms, medicines and poisons — is also a risk factor” in who successfully commits suicide. Success is an important metric; for every person who kills themselves, 20 people will try and survive.

The day after World Suicide Prevention Day, the California legislature legalized assisted suicide, a procedure which generally consists of a physician handing their patient a lethal dose of painkillers and letting them walk away.

A mere 12 days after the California verdict, Pope Francis arrived in the U.S. In protest of his speech to Congress, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the largest American atheist nonprofit, is running ads in The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today and The Philadelphia Inquirer. One of the accusations of political involvement they levy against the Catholic Church is that it will “override the right to a death with dignity.”

I remember when “death with dignity” was still “voluntary euthanasia.” Over the course of my life the language has changed

from that of euthanasia to “assisted suicide.” Having to highlight the opt-in nature of assisted suicide likely felt counterintuitive, since specifying “voluntary” and using the word “euthanasia” brought to mind euthanasia’s usual meaning: a mercy killing inflicted on a being which cannot render consent. Even “suicide” is somewhat unsavory, hence the move toward “assisted dying.” Organizations including the American Psychological Association have registered objection to the use of the word “suicide” because it is associated with mental illness, in that for someone to want to die they must be suffering from depression or psychosis nearly by definition. The switch from “voluntary” to “assisted” is telling as well. Rather than something that we should support because people are actively seeking it out, death becomes tantamount to a favor that we are doing to the disabled and the chronically ill.

Campaigning for assisted suicide, at this time, is restricted to people who are, to use advocates’ phrasing, terminally ill or whose prognosis is one of lifelong suffering. Cancer is the big, catchy example: a painful, terminal, degenerative disease that all of us are used to crying over, survivors be damned. Other high-profile cases, such as that of Sir Terry Pratchett, are of people with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.

When I was 12, I enthusiastically supported legalized assisted suicide. I did not know at the time that I had multiple medical conditions that meant I would spend the rest of my life in extreme pain, much of it while a potential danger to myself or others. I did not know that my constant memory loss was likely due to brain damage or that I stopped breathing in my See Assisted, page 10

Page 7

Scorecard Empowers Incoming Students Ben Silverman Contributing Writer After the Obama administration’s recent release of College Scorecard, a user-friendly data cache designed to give prospective students access to more information about the institutions to which they are preparing to commit several years of their life, previously uncharted statistics have been brought into the public eye.

The announcement of this initiative, which brought to light data such as median earnings after 10 years and the tendency of alumni to default on their debt, was met with heavy opposition from presidents of lower-tier and elite colleges alike. Those who represent under-performing schools are rightly afraid that they may be weeded out in the future, and some elite colleges fear the corporatization effect that the mostly-economic data may accentuate. Adam Falk, the president of Williams College, said that College Scorecard “is oversimplified to the point that it actually misleads”. However, the current method of determining quality of higher education is no better.

In his weekly address preceding Scorecard’s release, President Obama is cited as saying, “Right now ... many existing college rankings reward schools for spending more money and rejecting more students — at a time when America needs our colleges to focus on affordability and supporting all students who enroll. That doesn’t make sense, and it has to change.” The President is referring to sites such as U.S. News & World Report, where reputation and selectivity are heavily valued. This can measure the quality of the elite colleges quite effectively, but for the vast majority of students that need to find their place in the workforce and quickly pay off their debt, too many are pigeonholed into attending a school that improperly prepares them due to misinformation during the decision process.

In the days of competing with the Soviets, when the number of kids attending college skyrocketed, the higher-education system in the U.S. was thrust into a transitory period. The old culture of higher education, in which only the best and the brightest of white men were accommodated, had to begin its shift to provide a decent education to as much of the country as possible while maintaining the quality of its established institutions.

These established institutions are doing better than ever, graduation rates are high among top schools, and the unemployment rate of college graduates is currently 2.5 percent. For the rest of the country, decent education and preparation for the future is not being delivered. A staggering 44 percent of students who attend four-year universities and colleges do not graduate, the vast majority of whom come out of institutions that consistently report low graduation rates. In 2010, for-profit schools and community colleges produced respectively 28 and 31 percent of total graduates who default on their debt, and those who do not graduate have an even tougher time.

It is apparent that a paradigm shift in higher education was rushed, leading people to question whether too many people currently attend college. The solution, however, is not tapering the currently overwhelming influx of college students but changing the system and our society to accommodate each person’s ability to pursue education and positionality in our country. President Obama has shown that he recognizes this and has shown it with the decision to make community college more accessible. The problems of the bottom half of the workforce are based on problems in the education they are receiving. It is important that we don’t set aside these people, especially labeling them as simply “lazy,” because their potential to positively impact the economy is enormous. The president agrees that solving this problem is the key to winning in the 21st-century world economy.

College Scorecard was an important step in the right direction. To the chagrin of top institutions, but hopefully to the future delight of 90 percent of the country, the Scorecard elucidates an alternative to the aspirationbased college system. Now people will have the opportunity to make an advised, objective decision that was previously not possible. It also may foreshadow a change in the culture of higher education, as less emphasis will be placed on the elitist nature of higher education and colleges and universities could perhaps do away with much of the semantics of competition. In its place, higher education could find a place to be a right for all citizens, but first the institutions must be great enough to fulfill that lofty goal.

Opinions

Page 10

Assisted Suicide Ruling Ableist Continued from page 7 which point for the first time in my life I had access to appropriate doctors.

All I knew as a child was that if I could kill myself when I turned 18, with a doctor as the implement to assure me it would work, then I would happily count the days. I have been suicidal for the vast majority of my life; only within the past two years has it been interspersed with periods of wanting to live.

A year ago, I finally attempted. Just as I had feared as a child, I failed. I was subsequently involuntarily hospitalized.

Three days in Mercy Allen Hospital costs thousands of dollars.

There have been cases, like that of Oregon cancer patient Barbara Wagner, where people’s insurance refused to pay for life-sustaining treatment but covered “physician-assisted dying.” On a global level, the rhetoric of “benefits scroungers,” “burdens on society” and people who don’t “earn a living” devalue disabled lives in a way that predisposes us to contemplate suicide even when our symptoms don’t do so.

There have been multiple definitions of eligibility for assisted suicide, many of which are hypocritical. Some nominate age cutoffs; all this inspires in me is patience. My 12-year-old self was willing to wait half his lifespan if

someone would make it easy to die. Any age-based cutoff for assisted suicide is arbitrary. Ones which include terminal illness but exclude “lifelong suffering” show an inconsistent definition of what “quality of life” is supposed to mean. The existence of people who wish to legalize assisted suicide, let alone its successful legalization, only adds weight and rationality to my own still-recurring desires.

Advocates emphasize the importance of knowing that people seeking assisted suicide are “of sound mind.”

This is strange, if not perverse, because in any other circumstance the desire to kill oneself is a mental condition.

Suicidality is a sign that something is wrong. Somewhere — between how a person receives information about their surroundings, how they evaluate that information, the conception of themselves in relation to it — a connection is broken. Asserting that illness and compromised judgment can be ruled out in people seeking euthanasia is not a value-neutral statement. In itself it is already encouraging their suicidal intent by saying it is possible for them to want to die without being suicidal as we know it, saying that it is possible for “I don’t want to live” to be right.

California’s concession to the possibility of people being pressured into suicide

by outsiders — whether the outsiders are support networks who fail to live up to the name or society at large — was merely to have physicians meet with them in private.

It’s a logical, reasoned decision, proponents say. That is of course someone would want to kill themselves rather than live disabled or chronically ill.

Coupled with that idea is the assumption that “death with dignity” is the alternative to a life without it.

I have been disabled my entire life. I will be disabled my entire life. As for the many, many people who choose to dehumanize me based on this fact, to take advantage of it to hurt me, their soulless cruelty is not my fault. My death would save me both the pain inflicted by my body and the pain inflicted by my society, at the expense of everything I am.

If you want and need so badly to die, I cannot stop you. You can oppose the body that has evolved to keep you alive, against the inevitability of people who know you, love you and need you, against the entire history of humanity.

You may even succeed. I cannot stop you.

But I cannot in good conscience support it.

I don’t even know you, and you mean too much to me for that.

Settlement Necessary to End Syrian Crisis Sean Para Columnist Syria has now been embroiled in a brutal civil war for four and a half years. The conflict has morphed into a proxy war as various powers compete for influence on the ground and seek to use Syria to further their larger foreign policy aims. The country is entirely fractured. The only way to end this morass of death and destruction is a negotiated settlement that grants some of the demands of the major factions while also taking into account the interests of the major foreign powers intervening in the conflict.

There are four main groups of combatants. First, the Assad regime itself, which controls many of the country’s population centers as well as Syria’s coastal strip — a large chunk of territory in the country’s west that has always been Syria’s heartland. Dominated by the Alawite minority, a Muslim sect related to the Shi’a but with syncretic elements, these regions have stayed loyal to the Assad government throughout the war or have been won back by the regime over the past few years, as in the case of the city of Homs, which was under Assad control from May 2011 through last year. The regime holds about a quarter of the country. A second group is the so-called moderate opposition — an umbrella term for a number of different rebel groups, mostly Sunni, with ideologies ranging from republican to radical Islamist. These groups control the Idlib province in the north, as well as a stretch of territory in the south along the border with Israel and Jordan and scattered pockets of resistance throughout Syria. This notably includes a large part of the Damascus suburbs, which has been under government siege for years.

The next two pieces in this jigsaw puzzle are the Kurdish regions and the Islamic State. The Kurds, a major ethnic group that spans Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria but is without a state, have used the chaos of the civil war to seize control of the Kurdish-populated regions of the north. The Kurds now control most of the territory along Syria’s northern border and have recently launched successful offensives that resulted in more territorial gain in the north from the Islamic State. The Islamic State, which has come into prominence in the past year and a half, now controls most of northern and eastern Syria, where it has established a jihadist state ruled by a self-declared caliph. The Islamic State’s rapid rise shocked the world, and the group’s radical ideology and uncompromising goals represent a major threat to the rest of Syria. As of now, the country is too divided to take back the roughly half of its territory now under Islamic State control.

A negotiated solution is the only way to mitigate this maelstrom. The country is too fractured; no one faction has the strength the fully defeat the others. Each side’s continued attacks and counterattacks could continue indefinitely

if peace is not achieved. A June U.N. estimate put the number of casualties between about 230,000 and 320,000, and many more have disappeared; it is impossible to be sure of the final tally, though we can be sure it is astronomical.

Furthermore, the conflict contributed to the flight of four million refugees leaving the country and another seven million internally displaced Syrians. To put these numbers in perspective, Palestinian refugees in 1948 numbered 726,000 to 957,000, an exodus which still reverberates around the Middle East.

Foreign intervention is another reason the conflict seems to have no military solution. The Assad regime is receiving huge amounts of aid from both Russia and Iran, while Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United States and other countries each support factions of the opposition.

The rebels effectively morphed into a variety of different groups, including armed militias national and Hezbollah, a Shi’a group from Lebanon that has elements of a political party, a state and an army. The Assad regime is dependant on the support of its core regions, as well as Iran and Russia, to survive. Assad’s foreign backers are committed to keeping the regime from collapse, and Russia is asserting itself in the Middle East in a way it has not done since the Cold War. The Syrian state has effectively collapsed, as no institution can hold complete influence throughout the country.

Therefore, the international community must mediate a deal between the regime, the rebels and the Kurds to stop the slaughter and contain the Islamic State. This agreement would have to suit not only the warring factions but also foreign powers involved in the war. This means preserving the Assad government in some form, while also granting the rebel and Kurdish provinces autonomy.

Although it seems abhorrent to perpetuate a regime that has slaughtered its own people, this is an outcome preferable to endless civil war. A conceivable solution might involve Bashar al-Assad himself stepping down, while his Alawite-dominated government remains intact. In turn, the non-Islamic State regions that have slipped out of government control in the northwest and southwest of the country, as well as the Kurdish regions along the northern border, would have full self-government while slowly being reintegrated economically into the rest of the country. This way, Iran and Russia will be able to preserve their influence while the groups supported by the opposition’s backers survive. One could hope that once peace had been achieved in the rest of the country, the Islamic State could be driven out of the regions it currently occupies. A reconciliation between the country’s warring factions seems unlikely at present, but some form of agreement is the only way to end the war short of a total victory by one side — or the permanent breakup of Syria.

The Oberlin Review, September 25, 2015

Editorial: Funded Abortion Services Still Limited Continued from page 6 land, is 44 minutes away without traffic. The next closest Planned Parenthood is outside Cleveland in Rocky River, a 31-minute drive away.

This is not to say that the available services don’t do great work.

The majority of these clinics work tirelessly to serve those that can access them — it’s just a matter of genereal inacessibility and lack of funding. For many Oberlin students, these types of limitations are easy to forget. As individuals with access to myriad sex-ed organizations and reproductive health knowledge — the SIC, HIV Peer Testers, SexCo — our privileges can leave us oblivious to the limitations of the services offered to those who live just blocks from us. But when considering how to best use our voices and positions of power, we should not overlook our own community. Hashtags and phone calls to senators are certainly important, but so is ensuring that our own community members have access to these services when their funding remains secure. Whether it’s advocating for public transportation to the available clinics or raising funds for places like Preterm, the efforts going into voicing support for Planned Parenthood need to translate into community action.

Free Speech Understood Through Lens of Privilege Continued from page 6 all contexts, constantly evaluating whether my knowledge justifies the vocalization of my thoughts alongside those of my peers. Choosing to stay silent in certain contexts when I have only recently rejected the idea that my thoughts are somehow less worthy of physical manifestation feels deeply wrong, even when I know other voices deserve to be heard more urgently than mine.

But as a white person, I understand that I am not just an individual concerned only with comfort but also a part of a society that I believe will benefit from my silence.

Choosing silence is not always personally gratifying, but because of my personal privilege, I have the ability to choose silence now and believe that when I speak later, I will still be listened to. A degree of personal dissatisfaction is an almost comically minuscule portion of the degree of oppression and silence that others less lucky than myself have experienced. It’s time we, the privileged, understand that change does not come without a measure of distress.

FALL FOLIAGE

Our campus will soon explode into full-fledged fall leaves mode, so why not learn a little bit about those trees we’re all going to be Instagramming?

Flowering Dogwood Quercus alba

Ginkgo

Red Maple

Ginkgo biloba

Eastern Cottonwood

Acer rubrum

This primitive species has changed very little in 270 million years of evolution, and is often called a “living fossil.”

They can be found along West Lorain Street near the Science Center. In autumn, the leaves turn a bright yellow, and persist for several weeks before falling.

Some individuals are thought to be 2,500 years old.

Although the species is native to China, they have been cultivated in Europe and North America for 200–300 years.

Populus deltoides

Eastern cottonwoods are one of the fastest-growing trees in North America.

Sugar Maple Acer saccharum

These trees turn a striking, brilliant scarlet and orange in the fall. Maple syrup is made from the sap — it takes about 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup.

Dogwood, another common ornamental, is readily recognized by its oval-shaped leaves, which occur opposite each other on stems.

Among common trees, only maples, ashes, dogwoods and horsechestnuts display this characteristic.

The red maple is thought to be the the most common tree in America. Although it does have distinctive red fall foliage, its name actually derives from the stems of the leaves, which are colored red even in summertime.

White Oak Quercus alba

White oak species are easy to distinguish from varieties of red oak by the rounded edges of the leaves, in contrast with the sharp points found on red oaks.

Although not particularly lofty, these trees have wide-spreading branches and can survive for hundreds of years.

English Oak Quercus robur

Shumard Oak

Quercus shumardii

Red Mulberry Morus rubra

This deciduous tree can reach 30 to 50 feet in height. Its fruits, resembling large blackberries, are often used in jellies, jams, pies and drinks. Its leaves take on a yellow hue in autumn.

Schumard Oaks are a variety of red oak. Like most oaks, the foliage turns a dull brown to red in autumn. Its relatively large acorns take 1.5–3 years to mature and serve as a food source for many birds and mammals. The wood is also used commercially for lumber and home furnishings.

English oaks are an old world species commonly cultivated in North America for its attractive, columnar form. It is the national emblem of England and a frequently-used symbol in German Romanticism.

Ohio Buckeye Aesculus glabra

The buckeye is the state symbol of Ohio, closely related to horsechestnut and yellow buckeye. Like horsechestnuts, the buckeye nut is thought to bring good luck to the bearer, despite containing toxic compounds that have been known to cause illness or death in livestock.

Designed and written by Natalie Hawthorne

CALENDAR Climbing PoeTree Concert and Workshop Friday, Sept. 25, 8 p.m.

Cat in the Cream

Screening of Harold and Maude Saturday, Sept. 26, 5–9 p.m.

Wilder Bowl

Screening of ¡Resistencia!

Saturday, Sept. 26, 3:30 p.m.

Wilder 101

Total Lunar Eclipse Observation Sunday, Sept. 27, 8 p.m.

Observatory and Planetarium

Climbing PoeTree is an amalgamation of dual-voice spoken word poetry, hip-hop and multimedia theatre. It is the creative project of educators and performers Alixa Garcia and Naima Penniman, whose goal is to expose injustices while promoting social, environmental, racial and sexual justice.

The Oberlin Film Co-op, the Oberlin Film Series and the Independent Film Society have combined forces to bring Hal Ashby’s 1971 cult classic movie Harold and Maude on the side of Mudd.

Organized by Oberlin Students in Solidarity with Guatemala, director Jesse Freeston will be hosting her film ¡Resistencia!, which examines the Honduran resistance movement since 2009.

The lunar eclipse this weekend coincides with the supermoon, so the eclipse will be more spectacular than any you’ve ever seen. The moon will appear about 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than usual. The last supermoon eclipse happened in 1982, and the next one won’t be until 2033.

Why Write? Creativity and Refusal: An Evening with Zadie Smith Tuesday, Sept. 29, 7:30–9 p.m.

Finney Chapel Zadie Smith is the author of the award-winning novel White Teeth. Smith is now a tenured professor of Creative Writing at New York University.

She will be dicussing the purpose of writing creatively.

Guest Lecture and Demo: Tom Kolor Tuesday, Sept. 29, 8 p.m.

David H. Stull Recital Hall

Study Away Fair Thursday, Oct. 4, 6:30 p.m.

Peters Hall, Klutznick Commons

Percussionist Tom Kolor, currently an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo, is one of New York City’s most in-demand chamber musicians and has worked with many famed composers. This will truly be a treat for anyone interested in 20th and 21st century orchestral music.

The annual Study Away Fair falls will take plave this Thursday. Students will have a chance to speak with Oberlin-sponsored study away representatives and ask questions regarding regional and international programs.

FALL FOLIAGE

Our campus will soon explode into full-fledged fall leaves mode, so why not learn a little bit about those trees we’re all going to be Instagramming?

Flowering Dogwood Quercus alba

Ginkgo

Red Maple

Ginkgo biloba

Eastern Cottonwood

Acer rubrum

This primitive species has changed very little in 270 million years of evolution, and is often called a “living fossil.”

They can be found along West Lorain Street near the Science Center. In autumn, the leaves turn a bright yellow, and persist for several weeks before falling.

Some individuals are thought to be 2,500 years old.

Although the species is native to China, they have been cultivated in Europe and North America for 200–300 years.

Populus deltoides

Eastern cottonwoods are one of the fastest-growing trees in North America.

Sugar Maple Acer saccharum

These trees turn a striking, brilliant scarlet and orange in the fall. Maple syrup is made from the sap — it takes about 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup.

Dogwood, another common ornamental, is readily recognized by its oval-shaped leaves, which occur opposite each other on stems.

Among common trees, only maples, ashes, dogwoods and horsechestnuts display this characteristic.

The red maple is thought to be the the most common tree in America. Although it does have distinctive red fall foliage, its name actually derives from the stems of the leaves, which are colored red even in summertime.

White Oak Quercus alba

White oak species are easy to distinguish from varieties of red oak by the rounded edges of the leaves, in contrast with the sharp points found on red oaks.

Although not particularly lofty, these trees have wide-spreading branches and can survive for hundreds of years.

English Oak Quercus robur

Shumard Oak

Quercus shumardii

Red Mulberry Morus rubra

This deciduous tree can reach 30 to 50 feet in height. Its fruits, resembling large blackberries, are often used in jellies, jams, pies and drinks. Its leaves take on a yellow hue in autumn.

Schumard Oaks are a variety of red oak. Like most oaks, the foliage turns a dull brown to red in autumn. Its relatively large acorns take 1.5–3 years to mature and serve as a food source for many birds and mammals. The wood is also used commercially for lumber and home furnishings.

English oaks are an old world species commonly cultivated in North America for its attractive, columnar form. It is the national emblem of England and a frequently-used symbol in German Romanticism.

Ohio Buckeye Aesculus glabra

The buckeye is the state symbol of Ohio, closely related to horsechestnut and yellow buckeye. Like horsechestnuts, the buckeye nut is thought to bring good luck to the bearer, despite containing toxic compounds that have been known to cause illness or death in livestock.

Designed and written by Natalie Hawthorne

CALENDAR Climbing PoeTree Concert and Workshop Friday, Sept. 25, 8 p.m.

Cat in the Cream

Screening of Harold and Maude Saturday, Sept. 26, 5–9 p.m.

Wilder Bowl

Screening of ¡Resistencia!

Saturday, Sept. 26, 3:30 p.m.

Wilder 101

Total Lunar Eclipse Observation Sunday, Sept. 27, 8 p.m.

Observatory and Planetarium

Climbing PoeTree is an amalgamation of dual-voice spoken word poetry, hip-hop and multimedia theatre. It is the creative project of educators and performers Alixa Garcia and Naima Penniman, whose goal is to expose injustices while promoting social, environmental, racial and sexual justice.

The Oberlin Film Co-op, the Oberlin Film Series and the Independent Film Society have combined forces to bring Hal Ashby’s 1971 cult classic movie Harold and Maude on the side of Mudd.

Organized by Oberlin Students in Solidarity with Guatemala, director Jesse Freeston will be hosting her film ¡Resistencia!, which examines the Honduran resistance movement since 2009.

The lunar eclipse this weekend coincides with the supermoon, so the eclipse will be more spectacular than any you’ve ever seen. The moon will appear about 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than usual. The last supermoon eclipse happened in 1982, and the next one won’t be until 2033.

Why Write? Creativity and Refusal: An Evening with Zadie Smith Tuesday, Sept. 29, 7:30–9 p.m.

Finney Chapel Zadie Smith is the author of the award-winning novel White Teeth. Smith is now a tenured professor of Creative Writing at New York University.

She will be dicussing the purpose of writing creatively.

Guest Lecture and Demo: Tom Kolor Tuesday, Sept. 29, 8 p.m.

David H. Stull Recital Hall

Study Away Fair Thursday, Oct. 4, 6:30 p.m.

Peters Hall, Klutznick Commons

Percussionist Tom Kolor, currently an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo, is one of New York City’s most in-demand chamber musicians and has worked with many famed composers. This will truly be a treat for anyone interested in 20th and 21st century orchestral music.

The annual Study Away Fair falls will take plave this Thursday. Students will have a chance to speak with Oberlin-sponsored study away representatives and ask questions regarding regional and international programs.

Arts The Oberlin Review

September 25, 2015

Page 11

Songwriters Benefit from New Exco, Club Louise Edwards Arts Editor College sophomore Lilah Drafts-Johnson cradled her guitar as she prepared to perform for an audience at the Cat in the Cream last Friday. Before singing, she told the crowd she’d be performing her favorite original song, but that it was unlike many of her other pieces which share similarities with Taylor Swift’s nostalgic love songs. Draft-Johnson’s song “Compliment” addressed the problem of street harassment, including lyrics like “With your legs you know you look fine,” and “Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to smile?” While much of the song is sung from the perspective of street harassers, she expertly delivered the words with an ironic and mocking tone. DraftsJohnson explained that inspiration for the song came from personal experience. “When I came back to my hometown, which is just outside of Boston — it’s a suburb called Melrose — I started running again there, and I was just totally shocked about just how much general street harassment would go on,” she said. “I had one particularly scary incident and ended up writing an editorial about it in the paper, but that didn’t do it as a therapeutic thing for me. So that’s how that song came about — just a lot of frustration from a lot of years of running.”

Drafts-Johnson performed “Compliment” as part of a songwriting showcase organized by College junior Brendan Eprile, or “Thabo,” as he likes to be known onstage. Eprile invited singer-songwriter friends to play onstage with him.

Much of the group that performed during Friday’s showcase are involved with Oberlin Songwriters, an organization started last year by College juniors Kristin McFadden and Rob Jamner. “I noticed when I got [to Oberlin] that there [were] a lot of songwriters on campus, and they’d be playing at the Cat open mics or other talent show performances,” McFadden said. “I was super impressed and also a little frustrated that there were so many songwriters and there was no way to bring us all together, that we’d just listen to people’s songs and not give feedback.” Jamner added that before he and McFadden founded Oberlin Songwriters, there weren’t a lot of

resources for songwriters to utilize in Oberlin. “There’s not enough support for singer-songwriters here, at least at an institutional level,” he said. “There’s not classes offered in it as much — there wasn’t, before Oberlin Songwriters, an organization dedicated to it, and [there aren’t] as many venues [ for songwriters to perform]. Becoming more involved in building a community helped me with my own [songwriting] as well — just starting things, meeting people and starting to pursue songwriting a lot more seriously.”

The organization holds workshops during which songwriters bring their compositions and give and receive feedback from one another. In addition, McFadden led a workshop last year specifically for women and trans songwriters to increase accessibility to the organization’s resources. Members of Oberlin Songwriters also hold resource sessions on how to copyright songs and how to write in specific genres.

The organization sponsored a songwriters’ showcase at the Slow Train Cafe last year, which featured 19 people playing original music. “We fit it into two hours, which was pretty amazing,” Jamner said. “Each person had one song and it was kind of hectic, but it was really fun. It’s something that, in the first year of operating, we were pretty proud of.” This semester, the organization became officially chartered, providing members with more resources. McFadden and Jamner hope that these resources can be used to bring in professional songwriters to give workshops, talks and performances.

Jamner and Eprile also decided to teach a songwriting ExCo for the first time this semester. “It’s a workshop-style class, and we’re trying to go through as many different parts of songwriting and also really build a community,” Eprile said. “We’re learning from our students, too.” The ExCo aims to broaden the songwriting community and allow students to get involved at any level they feel comfortable. These new opportunities to connect with other songwriters in Oberlin may explain the many songwriter performances at the Cat over the past two weeks.

Besides Eprile’s showcase on Friday, McFadden, along with College junior Eleanor Van Buren, performed on Sunday, Sept.

20. “Kristin and I performed together at the Oberlin Songwriters Spring Showcase last May, and we kind of stayed in touch over the summer about what songs we’re working on and what direction we wanted to take and our own ambitions,” See Cat, page 12

College junior and pop singer-songwriter Kristin McFadden performs original music at the Cat in the Cream. McFadden started a songwriting club last year with College junior Rob Jamner to provide more resources for the songwriting community at Oberlin.

Juliette Greene

Transnational Classes Unify Dance Department Rebecca Cohen The creaky floorboards of Warner Center’s first-floor hallway rarely respond to the fresh footsteps of a new Dance professor on their way to inhabit a vacated desk. But this year, Dance Department Chair Ann Cooper Albright welcomed Associate Dance Professor Alysia Ramos as a new addition to the department. “[Ramos’s arrival marks] the beginning of a new generation of dance faculty in the tenure track line,” Albright said.0 Ramos was hired for the first tenure track position available in the department since Albright was hired in 1990. The Dance department has a low budget compared to other

departments, so there are only three tenure spots available. Oberlin’s Theater and Dance faculty occasionally hires a temporary visiting professor or a postdoctoral fellow to fill spaces left by professors on sabbatical or to allow a recent Ph.D. recipient to share their particular research interests while gaining teaching experience. Yet rarely does the department shift enough to appoint a new artist to a potentially permanent teaching position.

The retirement of Professor of Dance Elesa Rosasco last year opened up the opportunity for both students and faculty to critically assess the Dance department’s current curricular strengths and shortfalls. They recognized a need for an instructor who specializes in

Associate Professor of Dance Alysia Ramos extends her arms while twisting her body. Ramos was hired this semester as a tenure-track professor and hopes to bridge the gap between Eurocentric dance and dance traditions from African, Asian and Latin American cultures.

Courtesy of Chelsea Rowe

“contemporary global dance with a focus on transnational, intercultural and hybrid movement practices,” as articulated in an online job posting for the position. This request reflects the divide in the department between students and faculty practicing non-Eurocentric genres — through classes such as Capoeira Angola, West African Dance Forms in the Diaspora and Essence Dance Class — and those engaged with movement styles derived from a Eurocentric classical tradition, such as ballet or modern dance. According to Albright, out of four potential candidates the department brought to campus last year, Ramos was the unanimous first choice, given her experience in a number of different traditions, her strong teaching skills and noteworthy portfolio.

Victoria Fortuna, a Mellon postdoctoral fellow and visiting assistant professor at Oberlin, taught theoretical courses on political performance, contemporary global dance, Latin American history of dance and performance ethnography from fall 2013 to spring 2015. Her two-year contract and traditionally academic courses gave the department a taste of what it needed: a long-term dance instructor and choreographer with a transnational movement repertoire who could bridge the gap between students and dancers working from a European foundation and those influenced by movement vocabularies “connected to Asian, African and Latin American countries and their diasporas,” according to the job description.

“I saw the job posting, and I thought, ‘Wow, it really looks like it’s been written from my resume,’” Ramos said. The choreographer and dancer discovered a love for her craft at the age of three and studied movement throughout her childhood and adolescence before moving to New York after high school. There and abroad, she danced with companies such as Gabri Christa’s Danzaisa, nathan trice/RIT-

UALS and Niles Ford’s Urban Dance Collective.

Additionally, she performed with Kotchegna, a dance and drumming collective from the Ivory Coast, Sing Sing Rhythms from Dakar, Senegal and her own group, Mezclado Movement Group. Ramos apprenticed with Danza Contemporánea and DanzAbierta in Cuba and has done research and performance in Senegal, Suriname and throughout the Caribbean. With exposure to such a wide range of genres, it is no surprise that when it comes to choreography, Ramos says she is passionate about pieces that connect diverse elements to create full performances. “[I am] interested in eclectic vocabulary that makes each piece seem like its own world — kind of like collage or pastiche,” she said.

Although Ramos has focused on African and Latin American genres throughout her career, she says she is now more interested in creating movement that speaks to the environment and state of mind she’s in at the moment. In Cuba, Ramos was exposed to the codified Cuban national dance form, a fusion of corporeal languages from Martha Grahambased modern techniques to social dances like Rhumba and Salsa, and Afro-Cuban traditions — a mezcla that reflects the country’s “transculturación blanquinegra,” or black and white transculturation. She completed a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and African diaspora studies at Hunter College and spent several more years in New York performing before leaving to complete an master’s of fine arts in dance at the University of Utah. As she began choreographing and honing her own style, Ramos allowed her involvement with various companies and genres to influence conceptual work such as the relationship between spirituality and dance. “[I’m interested in explorSee Dance, page 12

Arts

Page 12

The Oberlin Review, September 25, 2015

Cat Highlights Songwriters in Showcases Dance Dept. Adds

Continued from page 11

Van Buren said.

McFadden elaborated on her respect for Van Buren and her songs. “We both volunteered to MC the showcase …

We were joking around with each other, probably not do-

ing a very good job. I had never heard any of her songs before, and I was really blown away. I insisted that she record this song in some capacity, so that I could listen to it.”

Fittingly, Van Buren opened the show at the Cat with the song that that had enamored

College junior Eleanor Van Buren’s compositions focus on themes of relationships and romance. She and College junior Kristin McFadden both performed last Sunday at the Cat in the Cream.

Juliette Greene

McFadden. Van Buren, whose songs often focus on relationships, ended the song with the clever line, “I’m just a watered down version of what it means to be a virgin.” McFadden’s music complimented Van Buren’s songs well, as they both drew on themes of love and heartbreak.

College senior and songwriter Colin Seikel, who uses the stage name The Conductor, also spoke about relationships between people in his song “Superhuman,” which he performed during Friday night’s showcase. He dedicated the song to “all the people in your life that are good to you.”

Recently, Seikel has released a new album Blastoff, a collaboration with College senior and OSlam poet B.J. Tindal. Seikel performed songs from Blastoff at the Cat last Wednesday.

Additionally, Jamner will be performing Saturday, Sept.

26 at the Cat to celebrate the release of his new five-song EP, Lost in the Clouds. College junior Maddie Batzli will be joining him. “Rob and I met freshman year just [through] mutual friends unrelated to songwriting,” Batzli said.

“We’ve played together a tiny tiny bit last year, but basically just at the beginning of this year, a couple weeks ago, he just said that he was planning on playing a show at the Cat to showcase his EP, and he asked me if I wanted to open for him.

Then he gave me half the set, which was really nice. I’m really excited to hear him play his stuff.”

While the songwriting community has grown and become more connected, McFadden said she still hopes that more resources can be created for songwriters in Oberlin in the future. “I wish there was more of a performance major for more pop singer-songwriter people,” she said. “I think that that would be definitely utilized here, but I don’t really know how it would fit into the system that’s already in place. I think that’s always a struggle, making songwriting a respected art form.” On a more positive note, Van Buren said, “It was funny because I was having a conversation with a voice major in the Conservatory the other day, and she was like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you’re a songwriter, that’s so brave.’ It’s really funny because she’s a singer; she does music all the time, she performs, but there’s something about songwriting, about sharing your own personal music that’s way different than being a singer or being a voice major that sings others’ work.”

To share personal stories in public spaces takes courage and guts, but there are many students at Oberlin who are up to the challenge, and who are working to find ways to support each other in the process.

Feature Photo: The Conductor

College senior Colin Seikel, performing under the moniker The Conductor, strums his guitar while singing a song from his new album, Blastoff. Seikel teamed up with OSlam poet and fellow College senior B.J. Tindal for a poetry and music showcase at the Cat in the Cream this past Wednesday night. Seikel, whose music is defined by his wide vocal range and radio-friendly acoustic chord progressions, kept audience members cheering with his charismatic personality. In a unique move that crossed typical genre boundaries, Tindal opened for Seikel, setting the stage with witty yet emotionally powerful slam poetry. Like many OSlam poets, Tindal’s work focuses on relevant political issues, making his set all the more captivating. Slam poetry emphasizes rhythm, so Tindal’s set felt well-matched to Seikel’s, despite the unfamiliar nature of the pairing. As a whole, the show highlighted the similarities between these seemingly disparate genres, and both performers benefited from this collaboration.

Text by Danny Evans and Louise Edwards, Arts editors Photo by Bryan Rubin, Photo editor

Ramos to Faculty

Continued from page 11 ing] what it is about dance that connects people to their spiritual selves and what it is about it that takes you out of this world,” she said.

Ramos has been attending Assistant Professor of Theater Justin Emeka’s Capoeira Angola class as a participating student. Emeka says that her presence in the class indicates her commitment to dance approaches couched in the African diaspora. Ramos says she hopes to inspire greater confidence in dance students at Oberlin, especially within upper-level courses. “It seems like people are sort of hesitant to call themselves dancers, and they kind of dabble, and I’d like it to be a little more strongly identified,” she said.

Teaching Contemporary II and III back to back, Ramos is working to clearly iron out the differences between the levels and characterize each class in terms of skill sets. She is focused on refining technique and expanding movement tools in II, while personal style development is a central facet of level III. She is especially excited to facilitate a Winter Term project with her friend Nathan Trice, whose work “examines contemporary and historical dynamics of gender, identity and culture through a unique interdisciplinary multimedia expressive language,” as stated on his company’s website. For the second two weeks of Winter Term, the pair will offer an optional contemporary technique class using vocal work in the morning and an afternoon workshop utilizing a technique called conducted improvisation, which was developed by a jazz conductor and involves creating work in the moment based on a common vocabulary of gestures. She emphasized that students need neither a particular background to participate and perform, nor do they need to take courses in contemporary technique. The work that happens during Winter Term will feed into the Oberlin Dance Company show Ramos will choreograph in the spring. “It’s going to be a very collaborative choreographic process. … It’ll come out of improvisation, and then we’ll shape and shape and shape it. … based on what people bring,” she said.

“So if they’re coming with hip-hop and circus, it’s going to look very different than if we get everyone coming from the same department, the same training.”

Maya Muenzer, College senior and Dance and Biology major in Professor Ramos’ Contemporary III class, says the techniques learned in the class are fresh and new. “The movements that she’s asking us to familiarize our bodies with are different than other contemporary movements that we’ve done before; they definitely have a more world culture [ foundation],” she said. Students work more with the thoracic and cervical spine than lumbar spine, she says, as well as focusing on strength through circuits of movement, key words to elicit movement based on natural phenomena like melting or freezing and working on combinations. “I can feel myself feeling more comfortable with the movements and not being embarrassed about how I look while I do them and really going for the intention that she’s asking us for,” Muenzer said. “You can tell by watching her move that she has this great technique base in ballet and contemporary and other styles, but she is applying it to other things. So for a lot of us — because we only have experience in very Western dance — she is opening that bridge.”

The Oberlin Review, September 25, 2015

Slow-Burning Crime Thriller Captures Nuances of Cruelty Christian Bolles Columnist Even though I was seated comfortably in a mostly empty theater for a late-night showing of Black Mass, there was little the silver screen could do to keep James Bulger’s steely blue eyes from piercing me straight to my core. The Boston crime drama, directed by Scott Cooper, puts its eggs in two baskets, using James “Whitey” Bulger ( Johnny Depp), the infamous kingpin of the Winter Hill gang, and John Connolly ( Joel Edgerton), the FBI agent with whom Bulger formed an alliance, as points of ingress to a true story of desperation, manipulation and corruption.

In the film’s slow unraveling of the poignant, yet subtle, threads that led to the rise and fall of one of Boston’s greatest criminals, Cooper finds plenty of opportunity to chart the emotional tremors of his lead characters, often choosing to study their faces over their actions.

Though the core material doesn’t rise too far above that of a typical biopic, Black Mass soars due to the sheer skill of its central performances, pulling the viewer into the lives of two men ruined by their twisted concept of brotherhood.

Bulger is untouchable. Staring into the camera, Depp electrifies the film’s opening minutes with a sizzle that doesn’t die off until the credits roll. Though Bulger is first seen berating one of his men for doubledipping his fingers into a bowl of corn, much of the film’s first half is spent attempting to humanize him, and the effect is profound. There’s a strangely pitch-perfect dissonance in seeing Depp’s Bulger perform acts of kindness: Those eyes remind us of his cruelty, but Depp plays the part with such a genuine veneer that it’s hard not to lend him quiet respect.

Seeing these moments of compassion is like watching a spring wind up before its inevitable release, and it’s captivating.

When Bulger does finally strike, his attack is like that of a cobra but with even less remorse. This is a creature willing to shake a man’s hand moments before his execution or, after a particularly shocking murder, remark, “I’m going to take a nap.” The violence in the film is sporadic and quick but packs a punch, partly due to Bulger’s disaffected reaction to his own brutality. For Bulger, there is no distinction between kindness and cruelty, and Depp plays this moral sickness with a slick, icy flair that never overstays its welcome or crosses into melodrama. In fact, compared to his recent performances — which have ranged from entertaining (Pirates of the Caribbean) to bland (take your pick) — Depp is relatively low-key here, electing to

underplay when he can. The effect is perfect, making his fleeting outbursts of mania even more terrifying. There were moments where I recoiled in my seat, as if his malice would tear through the screen and freeze the theater. He’s a revelation to watch, and the film’s script gives him a gold mine of memorable moments to play with.

Joel Edgerton plays Connolly with equal fervor. From the beginning, we can see the desperation in his eyes as he does everything he can to set up an alliance with Bulger. In every scene featuring the two of them, it’s clear that Bulger has the power. As the film progresses, this power starts to infect Connolly’s entire life. One of Depp’s best character choices is to move like he’s wearing a suit of armor, filling the screen with his enormous gravitas; eventually, Edgerton has Connolly start to mimic this walk.

His new suits and watches, courtesy of his lucrative new alliance, imbue him with a sense of accomplishment. However, the bigger Bulger gets, the more difficult it becomes for Connolly to keep him under control, meaning that Edgerton is placed in the challenging position of seeming both desperate and powerful at the same time.

He pulls this off masterfully. A film without such a stellar Connolly might have buckled during the scenes where Bulger is absent, but Edgerton’s performance gives the movie two phenomenal halves that work equally well.

Unfortunately, the film can’t be carried by Bulger and Connolly alone, and though the supporting cast is excellent across the board — Dakota Johnson is particularly affecting as Bulger’s wife — the script could have spent some more time developing the central characters’ spouses. They seem to serve little purpose other than to reprimand the protagonists when they did something stupid — which happened a lot — and the narrative would have had a lot more emotional pull if we knew exactly what the characters were losing when the fallout from the dirty deals hit home. Additionally, seeing more of the relationship between Bulger and his brother Billy, played with an inexplicably excellent Boston accent by Benedict Cumberbatch, would have helped round out the narrative.

As a dual-faced character study, Black Mass succeeds admirably, weaving a nuanced narrative with powerful moments that stick with the viewer long after the credits roll. With skillful directing and a knockout cast, it’s worth seeing for anyone interested in the art of performance — provided you can stomach some very in-your-face moments of violence.

Arts

Page 13

Faculty Fail to Meld During Chamber Recital Colin Roshak Staff Writer Many students look forward to faculty recitals. Respected Conservatory professors step out of their typical roles, put on nice suits and perform for eager audiences. The faculty chamber recital last Sunday was no different. Kulas Recital Hall was filled with students anxious to hear their teachers perform. The concert featured pieces by a wide range of composers from different periods in classical music.

The evening began with a piece for flute, viola and piano titled Prelude, recitatif et variations by the French organist and composer Maurice Durufle. The piece started with slow chords in the piano interrupted by faster arpeggiated sections. The piano continued amorphously as the viola introduced a gentle theme that wound its way to the flute’s entrance. Unfortunately, Professor of Viola and Chamber Music Michael Strauss struggled to sound at ease throughout the piece. Strauss’ sound was harsh, had little subtlety and pierced rather than sang through the lyrical melodies.

However, the same cannot be said of Professor of Flute Alexa Still and Professor of Piano Monique Duphil. Still played with remarkable control and her sound never seemed labored; Duphil accompanied the passing melodies with a sensitive touch.

Next, Professor of Instrumental Accompanying James Howsmon accompanied Still on Paul Hindemith’s Sonata for Flute and Piano. The first movement began with

a youthful melody played on The piece dragged on, weighed the piano and passed to the down by Strauss’ ineffectual flute. The music was intensely playing, before coming to a rhythmic, with a jubilant mel- fairly lackluster close. ody juxtaposed by a repeated Following Strauss’ dissatsixteenth-note pattern. The isfying performance came a second movement was slower rousing and virtuosic rendiand particularly touching. Still tion of Beethoven’s Trio in had the opportunity to dem- B-flat Major, Op. 11. Clarinet onstrate her clear and soaring Professor Richard Hawkins, sound. Howsmon accompa- Piano Professor Peter Takács nied her impeccably and dis- and Professor of Cello and played versatile articulation Viola da Gamba Catharina on the keyboard, which helped Meints delivered an inspired to highlight the differences in textures between movements. ––––––––––––––––––––––––– The last two movements went by quickly in sparkling vir- Strauss’ sound was thin tuosity. Rhythm remained and raspy and his octaves integral, and the music was unrelenting until the final em- were out of tune more often than not. phatic chords.

Strauss returned for the third piece on the program, ––––––––––––––––––––––––– this time accompanied by Staff Pianist Allie Su in a so- and rousing finale. Takács, nata by English composer Re- who famously recorded all of becca Clarke. The piece began the Beethoven sonatas, soundwith a heraldic introduction ed entirely at home and able and a powerful, low chord by to play the music expressivethe piano. However, Strauss’ ly. Meints played with soarsound lacked impact and ing and intelligent phrasing. depth. His playing continued Hawkins performed admirably to underwhelm throughout with an effortless, effervesthe entire piece; it was diffi- cent sound. The virtuosity of cult to appreciate the delicate the first movement was starkaccompaniment Su provided ly contrasted by the slow, when Strauss was missing so simple thematic development many notes. Infinitely worse of the second movement. The than his inaccurate technique, third movement displayed the however, was the apathy for whimsical and youthful side to the music that Strauss dis- Beethoven before coming to a played. It was clear from the satisfying finish. sloppiness of his playing that Though the faculty conhe hadn’t put much effort into cert ended on a strong note, his preparation for the con- Strauss’ disengaged and techcert; he visibly reacted to each nically questionable playing mistake, becoming more and was hard to ignore. It weighed more uninviting as a perform- down the concert as a whole, er. Strauss’ sound was thin and overshadowing more sucraspy and his octaves were out cessful showings from other of tune more often than not. performers.

Sports

Page 14

IN THE LOCKER ROOM

The Oberlin Review, September 25, 2015

Vera Peterson and Joe Bennett

This week, the Review sat down with Philips gym employees Vera Peterson and Joe Bennett to discuss their favorite parts of the facility, their favorite sport and how Oberlin and its student body have changed over the years.

JB: Everyone is just so personable, the coaches especially. The other day, I asked Coach New how the men’s soccer team was doing, and he gave me a breakdown of their last game. That’s definitely an example of something I feel like a lot of people overlook.

How long have you worked at Philips?

Vera Peterson: 35 years. I started in 1980, before you were even born!

Joe Bennett: Three years, but I used to work at Stevenson [Dining Hall] for CDS. How has the Philips fitness center changed since you started working there?

VP: There are definitely more administrators compared to when I first started working. Varsity coaches are a good example. When I first started working, coaches used to coach multiple teams and some had other jobs around Philips. Nowadays, everyone pretty much does one thing.

JB: I definitely see that the students are becoming more active and involved in sports. Obviously, the new stadium and locker room that was built last year was a big change as well.

How have Oberlin students changed in terms of their use of Philips?

VP: Definitely more non-athletes use the facilities compared to when I first started, which is nice because it means there is always a lot of different people around.

What is your favorite place in the fitness center?

VP: I like to work out on the treadmills upstairs to get some cardio, but the sauna would have to be my go-to spot to relax after a long day.

JB: The gyms are definitely very nice. I haven’t gotten a chance to play in any of them yet, but I can tell that they are definitely quality spaces.

Philips employees Vera Peterson (left) and Joe Bennett What is your favorite part about working in the Philips Fitness center?

VP: I like interacting with the students. They are from all over, you know? They all have their own majors and interests, and it is always interesting to meet new students. One student still keeps in touch with me; he actually sent me a slide of monkey brains from his job in Washington, D.C.!

JB: I would have to say interacting with the students and interacting with the coaches. All the coaches are really nice. Over here, I’m intertwined in all the athletic events. I always know when games are and

Women’s Soccer Extends Streak Continued from page 16 record. After starting the season 0–2–1, it’s safe to say the team has picked a good time to find its stride with Saturday’s conference opener against Depauw University looming.

Head Coach Dan Palmer said the team’s weaker competition lately does not detract from the accomplishment of their victories, or their improved offensive strategy.

“We have been playing well all season, and we played better teams at the beginning of the year, which is reflected in the earlier results,” Palmer said. “With that said, we have steadily improved on the offensive side of the ball, which also has contributed to our results.”

The Yeowomen know that they need to continue to improve as the most critical period of the season quickly approaches. Sophomore Caitlin McCuskey is convinced that the team will continue to make the strides necessary for success in conference play.

“I think the improvement will continue throughout the season,” McCuskey said. “Our speed of play, our anticipation when it comes to seeing the field, as well as our team unity on and off the field is continuing to grow as we progress through the season.”

The Yeowomen will travel to Greencastle, IN, this Saturday to face the DePauw University Tigers. Kickoff for the game is scheduled for noon.

how teams are doing, which is a luxury that I didn’t have when I was working in CDS. What is your favorite sporting event?

VP: Probably football. I try to go to football and basketball games when I can, and I will stop by other teams’ events from time to time. Any sporting event in the gym is always exciting, because when I’m at work it always adds some fun to the day.

JB: Football for sure. On one of my off days a couple weeks ago, I took my son to the game against [the State University of New York at] Brockport.

He loved it, and I had a great time.

What would you say to anyone in the neighboring communities who might be interested in joining Philips?

JB: Everyone is very friendly and helpful. Virginia [Covalt] and a bunch of other employees have been here for a long time. When you come in and you need anything, you can always count on someone being available to lend you a hand.

What makes the Oberlin Athletics Department so great?

VP: It’s a casual setting, so you get a chance to interact with the students, see them every day and talk to them.

How has the Oberlin student body changed since you started working here?

VP: When I first started, the students were very liberal, and then they went through a conservative phase. Now it seems like students are even more liberal than when I first started working here. [Laughs.]

JB: I’ve definitely observed that Oberlin students are becoming much more dedicated to coming to Philips. When I get here in the morning, I see students on the treadmill or the stairmaster. I’m really impressed with the students’ commitment to stay in shape.

Interview by Randy Ollie, Sports editor Photo by Briana Santiago

Manning Should Set Sights on Graceful Exit Dan Bisno Columnist Deflategate remains a popular news story given the NFL’s recent announcement that they will appeal the reversal of Tom Brady’s suspension by the district court. While this has yet to develop, Brady’s name creates an interesting segue into this week’s topic: the decline of Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning. As many of you know, Brady and Manning are, almost inarguably, the most successful quarterbacks of their generation. They are the guys that get thrown in the GOAT conversation with Joe Montana, Dan Marino, John Elway, Brett Favre, etc. — perhaps because they’re all hardy and covered with hair, but most likely because they are the “greatest of all time.”

So what’s up with Manning? First of all, the guy is 39 years old. He’s almost old enough to be my dad, yet he posted a Quarterback Rating of over 100 last season. To give some perspective, eclipsing 100 places you in the elite tier of quarterbacks. This is impressive even before mentioning that the year before last marked his fifth MVP season, when he threw 5,477 yards to break the record for a single season. Mind you, that’s over three miles. So in many respects, nothing is wrong. Ever since his multiple spinal neck fusion surgeries in 2011, when there was doubt that he would ever return to NFL action, Manning has posted the best numbers of his career. So with two wins on the current season, am I even allowed to make the taboo suggestion that something is wrong with Manning?

Please forgive me football gods; I am here to judge the demigod Peyton Manning.

Week One: Manning led the Broncos against quarterback Joe Flacco’s respectable Baltimore Ravens. After much bloodshed, the Broncos won

the hard-fought battle. But not at the hands of their quarterback captain. No, Manning threw for less than 200 yards and scored no touchdowns. Instead, Brandon McManus — wait, Brandon who? Brandon McManus, the Broncos’ kicker, scored four field goals to win the game along with a defensive touchdown.

Manning was off. His throws were short and his arm lacked the strength of a superhuman.

Maybe it was the adjustment to new coach Gary Kubiak, or maybe it was the five hits that Manning took on account of the Baltimore defense, but he threw a “pick 6,” and posted a QBR of 26.4!

He read zone coverage as man coverage! But like I said, it’s one week.

So that leaves us at week two. Again the Broncos fought valiantly, this time defeating the Kansas City Chiefs. On the surface, Manning’s numbers aren’t that bad. 256 yards, a trio of touchdowns and one interception. On a second look, his completion percentage for passing was pretty low. In fact, his 59.4 QBR is still significantly below his expected performance. Furthermore, the single interception that he threw was another “pick 6!” My favorite Twitter reaction reads, “Here lies Peyton Manning’s arm strength. May it rest in peace,” from DraftKings Pro founder Al Zeidenfeld.

Without McManus kicking so many 50-yard field goals per game, the Broncos would not be 2–0. But more significantly, without the two defensive touchdowns that the Broncos have in only two games, they would surely be 0–2.

Mannings’ blemishes are being conveniently disguised by his defense’s astonishing high level of performance. After all, the Broncos boast two of the biggest outside linebacker names in today’s football world with DeMarcus Ware and Von Miller. Maybe Manning needs to spend a little less time filming commercials for Buick and

Papa John’s Pizza.

So is this a fluke? Maybe. Probably not, though. Manning has consistently brought up the conversation of his potential retirement at the end of every recent season, even though his contract is set to expire one season from now. If his numbers remain drastically lower than those from earlier in his career, it would not be naive to assume that these could be his last 14 or so games on the NFL stage. At this point, he has every accolade an NFL quarterback could dream of.

The only thing missing from his trophy cabinet is another Super Bowl ring. Can you imagine what it must be like to be Manning, whose younger brother Eli — clearly the worse quarterback of the two — has two rings compared to Peyton’s one? Peyton’s fingers are cold without a second ring, Thanksgiving dinners next to Eli are awkward and his opportunity to win another ring is dwindling.

While Manning’s current performance will not cut it in this league, his defense may have what it takes to carry Denver and an ailing Manning. Yet we rarely see a defense carry a team to the Super Bowl without a star quarterback. This is not the way Manning wants to go out. Star athletes have the reputation of staying in their respective leagues one year too long, when the reality of their age and diminishing performance hits them like a wall. This year may be quite a rollercoaster for Denver fans and Manning’s fantasy football owners. This week the Broncos are set to travel to Detroit to face the 0–2 Lions who recently lost Ndamukong Suh, one of the best defensive tackles in the league, to free agency. Week three will be a telling week for the future of this Denver team and its elderly captain, but for now it is safe to say that Peyton Manning’s season opening performances have qualified him as a drool at the Review.

Sports

The Oberlin Review, September 25, 2015

Page 15

— Water Polo —

Club Water Polo Seeks Comeback Following Hiatus Sarah Mills If one were to google “Oberlin College Water Polo,” a website would appear that some Oberlin students may not know had ever existed. The page, proudly sporting a copyright from 2005 at the bottom, represents a relic of the former glory of the Yeomen and Yeowomen’s water polo program.

“There was a time in Oberlin’s history where we hosted Club Water Polo Nationals. … And then, for some reason that we still can’t figure out, the team just started to fall apart,” said junior Tadhg Young, a captain of the up-and-coming club water polo team this year, alongside junior captain Victor Lau. They want to bring back the glory their team once held at Oberlin. To do that, they are willing to work their way from the bottom up.

Young and Lau were central in initiating water polo’s resurgence two years ago, with Lau as captain and Young as treasurer. They encountered difficulties early on when one of the team’s two captains left the school, but Young says the small team’s resolve remained strong.

“Luckily we still had Victor, and we still had a lot of interest in the group, and so we decided that we were just going to go ahead with it,” he said.

Progress was slow, but the wheels really

Editorial: FIFA Ignores Labor Concerns Continued from page 16 the fans and general atmosphere of the competition, including the fact that the state bans alcohol and

started turning for the team in the 2014-2015 school year.

“The team started getting our budget together, started actually having water polo representation at club sports, and we really reached out and had our first booth down at the club sports fair,” Young said.

The tradition of the energetic bunch showing up to the club sports fair clad in Speedos and confidence started at the fair last year; the team tried to gain as much attention and notability as possible right off the bat.

The team did gain the attention of members of the Oberlin varsity swim team, which Young and Lau claim have critically bolstered the team’s roster during the swim team’s off-season.

Experienced swimmers weren’t the only additions to the team’s small roster, though, as the now-captains cited many recruits as being total newcomers to the sport but very excited to learn.

“That has been our favorite part of practice — the enthusiasm of new players,” Young said.

“That’s what club sports is about: being able to try things in a low-stress environment and not feeling like you’re floundering in any way.”

Sophomore Lukas Gnirke was one of these eager beginners last year, joining with more experience in swimming than water polo.

“I swam in high school, and I had played a little bit of water polo, only by fooling around with

homosexuality. Chief Executive of Qatar’s 2022 bid Hassan Abdulla al-Thawadi promised that alcohol consumption and purchase would be permitted in specific fan zones while the event takes place, but no statements have been made as to the welcoming of LGBTQ fans, participants or staff.

While FIFA is more than happy to point to proof of its ability to act as an international unifier,

the ball on my swim team,” he said.

Last year, the team practiced once a week with a roster of eight to nine players. This year they are trying to create a more competitive environment with biweekly practices in hopes of entering into tournaments.

However, the team’s fall season is the less competitive of the two, as it is reserved for training novice members. The swim team is in its competitive season and is unable to lend support to water polo’s roster.

“We definitely put a backburner on fall season, so that in spring season we can be a bit more competitive — we get our swimmers back, and we can hold more in-depth practices, focusing on strategy more than fundamentals,” Young said. This year, Young and Lau are teaching seven new players.

The captains are continuously trying to increase the team’s size and accessibility, ensuring that they’re approachable to new players and encouraging friends to spread news about the team’s activities through word of mouth. They said that they also plan on making posters and throwing some water polo parties, similar to other parties thrown by varsity and more established club teams.

Young and Lau’s welcoming personalities and fun practices are what attracted Gnirke in the first place.

the fact remains that Qatar may be unable to afford the event. In fact, the event is estimated to cost around $220 billion, more than the costs of either of the two prior World Cups. Qatar’s ability to sustain the burdens of this competition are certainly in question. The deplorable labor conditions for migrant workers making up the labor force behind the stadium and infrastructure projects draw

“It’s really fun, the people on [the team] are super cool, and it’s a great workout,” he said.

Despite publicity efforts, the team is still encountering issues with a lack of familiarity concerning what exactly goes on during a water polo match. The sport is not particularly popular inthe U.S. in comparison with staple sports such as soccer or football, and it requires a pool, which is not as readily available an environment as a field.

Pool availability presents another problem, especially in the spring of 2015, as the Carr Pool will be renovated and therefore unavailable to everyone. The team has consulted Director of Recreation and Club Sports Betsy Bruce about the possibility of going to other facilities or recreational centers.

“The expense of that might be intense, but a dream is a dream,” Young said.

Since the beginning, the captains have continued to recruit members and raise awareness for the team. When it comes down to it, that seems to be a shared experience among club sports.

“We just want people, we just want bodies, we just want interest and enthusiasm for our club,” Young said, continuing that a dream of theirs is returning to Oberlin after graduating and seeing a full-fledged and healthy water polo program, much like the club’s 2005 glory days.

even more concern. Investigations by organizations such as Amnesty International and the International Trade Union Confederation have revealed exploitative conditions, due in large part to the Kafala system that Qatar follows, a sponsorship system that requires all unskilled laborers to have an in-country sponsor responsible for their legal papers and status. Inevitably, this sponsor often ends up being their employer, giving construction companies complete domination over their workers’ fates and freedoms and creating near-hostage situations that force them to continue working in the country. Construction on World Cup structures presents a prime environment for this to take place, as the Kafala system is most often applied to construction workers.

Some optimists claim that this is an opportunity to shed critical light on these labor practices and criticize them on a global stage. The Human Rights Watch drew attention to the issue in light of Qatar’s bid win, equating it to “force labor” in 2013 and identifying it as yet another catalyst to encourage public discussion and scrutiny.

What is demanded of World Cup venues creates an incredible and expensive undertaking so unfeasible that these practices will only be further exploited to finish stadium projects on time and cut costs as much as possible. With foreign workers comprising around 94 percent of Qatar’s labor force, this is a critical issue to be exacerbated. As evidence of the true burden of these projects, Qatar has already requested that they cut the stadiums built from the usual 12 to eight or nine. In response, FIFA implored them to ask neighboring countries to

build the remaining stadiums.

In addition to causing more of an impetus for exploitative labor practices, it’s not difficult to draw on examples where the demands of World Cup hosting permanently ruptured the lives of citizens of the host country. Brazil, the most recent host, which incited plenty of its own controversy over the socioeconomic costs of hosting the tournament, poses a prime example. According to a report by Terre des Hommes, an NGO founded in Switzerland, approximately 170,000 people lost their homes as a result of space-making and other tournament preparations. It also records the number of families forced to uproot and resettle as in the thousands.

It is true that hosting the tournament outside of the affluent western countries that comprise a significant portion of FIFA’s viewing audience encourages cultural diversity, globalization and cultural education. Host countries do in fact bid for the opportunity to host the tournament. However, the social and economic costs incurred for developing countries and their working classes are often far more severe than the event’s benefits.

FIFA shouldn’t exclude countries such as Qatar from hosting, but they should do more to regulate and, more importantly, aid in construction and costs of essentially full-country renovation. It’s impossible to ignore the caverns of instability the World Cup leaves in its wake in developing or already unstable countries. There has certainly been much discussion about labor conditions in Qatar, but FIFA should at the very least be taking measures to ensure that these conditions don’t continue in direct service to World Cup needs. With the tax exemptions and insane profits FIFA garners each World Cup, expending funds to meet these ends shouldn’t be too tall of an order.

Sports The Oberlin Review

Page 16

September 25, 2015

— Women’s Soccer —

Yeowomen Win 5th Straight Match Harrison Wollman Staff Writer Many individuals considered women’s soccer’s historical nine-game winning streak last season to be the high point in the history of the program at Oberlin. This year, the Yeowomen have quickly proven that last season’s magic wasn’t merely an anomaly.

The Yeowomen capped their third, fourth and fifth consecutive victories in the last week, including an 8–0 dismantling of Marietta College, a close 2–1 victory over Heidelberg University and a solid 4–2 win over Muskingum University.

Against Marietta College last Friday, the Yeowomen had five different players find the back of

the net, highlighted by a hat trick from junior midfielder and Review News Editor Tyler Sloan. The Yeowomen destroyed the Pioneers in all facets of the game, demonstrated by Oberlin’s 30 shots in comparison to just two shots from Marietta. Sloan credited the entire team for what she called a complete Yeowomen effort.

Junior forward Taylor French takes aim on goal against the visiting Waynesburg University Yellow Jackets. French notched her third goal of the season this past Wednesday against the Muskies of Muskingum University. The Yeowomen are currently 5–2–1 overall and will travel to DePauw University Saturday for their first Conference game of the season.

Courtesy of OC Athletics

“The defense was really composed and allowed us to move the ball up the wings for consistently dangerous service into the box,” she said. “The central players also did a great job of changing the point of attack to open up space in the final third for scoring opportunities. It was a prime example of what we can do when we execute what we practice in a game.”

The Sunday contest would prove to be a much more difficult task for the Yeowomen. Going up against a fierce Heidelberg squad tested Oberlin’s resilience, as an early goal in the third minute from Heidelberg would provide the Yeowomen with an uphill battle.

Oberlin never stopped fighting and was able to steadily gain momentum as the game continued. In the 67th minute, sophomore forward Gwennie Gardiner broke through the Heidelberg defense, tying the game at 1–1.

Oberlin continued to outplay and apply pressure to Heidelberg throughout the second half. Regardless, the game remained tied until sophomore mid-

fielder Caitlin McCuskey broke the deadlock in the 87th minute, sending a cross from sophomore midfielder Hannah Cook into the back of the net.

Junior forward Taylor French commended the team’s resilience despite going down early, saying the team’s late-game intensity contributed greatly to their victory.

“We started the game on Sunday a little bit slow, [but] as the game went on, we settled in and were able to gain momentum,” she said. “We controlled most of the second half and didn’t let up the pressure, ultimately allowing us to finish out with a win.”

In Wednesday’s contest against Muskingum, the Yeowomen used three first-half scores to build an early lead. Oberlin used accurate shooting — seven shots on goal out of 12 total — combined with stonewall defense to prevent Muskingum from posing much of a threat.

The win against Muskingum now leaves the Yeowomen with a 5–2–1 record. After starting the season 0–2–1, it’s safe to See Women’s, page 14

— Men’s Tennis —

Yeomen Dominate at Season Opener Randy Ollie Sports Editor The Yeomen started their season with a competitive performance at their own invitational event this past weekend. After finishing the 2014-2015 season ranked 12th in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Central Region and winning over 61 percent of their single matches, the Yeomen had high expectations for the start of their 2015-2016 season.

This past weekend, they fulfilled some of those expectations, finishing the weekend event with a 19–12 record in singles play over three rounds of individual matches and closing out the weekend with a 8–7 record in doubles play.

Senior Brandon McKennna, junior Abraham Davis and sophomore Michael Drougas highlighted the weekend, each going 3–0 in singles action. Sophomore standout and former North Coast Athletic Conference Newcomer of the Year Drougas was tested in the first and third matches, which each went to three sets. In his first match he bested Denison University’s Jack O’Koniewski 7–6, 3–6, 10–4 and would then go on to defeat Titas Bera of The College of Wooster 6–3, 4–6, 10–6.

Similary, McKenna won all three of his matches in straight sets and Davis won his first two matches in straight sets before outlasting Jack Buchan of Wooster 6–4, 4–5, 10–7.

Junior Billy Lennon said that both McKenna and Drougas played impressively over the weekend.

“Mikey took out both Denison’s number two ranked players as well as Titas Bera, one of the region’s top players and [the] number one singles player for Wooster,” Lennon said. “Brandon has been putting in a lot of hard work and won all three of his singles matches in straight sets.

He eased past his opponents in a businessman-like fashion that was fun to watch.”

In doubles play, Davis and Mckenna teamed up and finished the weekend 2–1, as did the teams of Drougas and junior Ian Paik and senior Callan Louis and junior Billy Lennon. McKenna, Drougas and Davis finished the weekend 5–1 overall.

Reflecting on the weekend, Davis commented that his team’s competitive gameplay would play a big role in the success of their season.

“Getting match experience is the biggest thing,” Davis said. “Everyone competed hard, and doing that day in, day out is how we’re going to reach our goals.”

Head Coach Eric Ishida praised his team for their offseason improvements as well as their success over the weekend.

“I think that we definitely improved over the year, comparing our results from last year to this year,” Ishida said. “Everybody is arranged in their matches to be competitive.

For us to go 19–12 in singles is a huge accomplishment. We needed match play going into the weekend, and that is exactly what we accomplished: getting match tough and better prepared for the season.”

Similarly, Lennon stressed that keeping up intensity in practice will directly contribute to the Yeomen maintaining their competitive edge.

“We need to improve by bringing up the intensity in practice and by being efficient on the court, coming to the net when we have our chances and putting the ball away when we can.”

The Yeomen will be back on the court this weekend when they travel to the ITA Central Region Championships at Washington University in St. Louis, MI.

Qatar Unfit to Host Cup Sarena Malsin Sports Editor Amidst massive controversy, Qatar is slated as the official host of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy announced recently that construction has begun on the country’s flagship venue, Lusail Stadium, making it the sixth and final site to begin construction. This announcement has caused a resurgence of discussions about the capability and plausibility of Qatar as a location for one of the most significant international sports events in the world, with issues ranging from geographical to sociopolitical.

Semi-resigned FIFA President Sepp Blatter appears to place the importance of cultural interaction in the World Cup above all else.

“We don’t want … discrimination,” Blatter said. “What we want to do is open this game to everybody and to open it to all cultures, and that is what we are doing in 2022.” However, this cannot overshadow the many logical reasons for which Qatar seems unfit to host the tournament.

For one thing, the World Cup’s summer timing means athletes will be playing in extremely competitive matches in temperatures reaching over 122 degrees, which medical professionals have labeled as a serious health risk affecting recovery times and quality of play. FIFA initiated investigations into holding the World Cup in the northern hemisphere’s winter, but this is anticipated to incur its own issues, including a clash with Christmas holidays and the scheduling of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations. Concerns have also been raised regarding See Editorial, page 15

Junior Abraham Davis readies to return a volley at Oberlin’s invitational event this past weekend. Davis was 3–0 in singles play at the event and would finish with an overall record of 5–1. The Yeomen travel to St. Louis this weekend for the ITA Central Region Championships.

Courtesy of OC Athletics