March 3, 2017

The Oberlin Review

MARCH 3, 2017 VOLUME 145, NUMBER 17

Local News Bulletin News briefs from the past week Oberlin Project to Close Central Office Eight years after its founding, the Oberlin Project will close its central office this summer. The Oberlin Project was intended to be a temporary organization that helped the city and College collaborate to create environmentally and economically sustainable and resilient infrastructures.

With the opening of the Peter B. Lewis Gateway Center, the local food and farm economy’s development and improved housing for low- and moderate-income families, the Oberlin Project’s office closes upon completion of its goals.

Construction Begins at Mercy Allen Hospital Mercy Allen Hospital will begin construction on a new medical office building to replace its current space on the southwestern side of the hospital’s campus. The new building will be one level and 20,190 square feet with eight office suites. The Oberlin planning commission approved the site plan in early February, and work will begin as soon as permits for the construction are issued.

City Issues Water Contamination Warning Oberlin residents will receive a notice on their water bills Wednesday explaining that the level of the chemical compound trihalomethane is slightly higher than normal, according to The Chronicle Telegram. The notice states that while the water currently poses no immediate health risks, residents with specific health concerns should consult their doctors. Trihalomethanes are a contaminate compound usually formed in small amounts when using chlorine to disinfect water and have been shown to be carcinogenic when administered to lab animals.

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Senate Calls for Student-Rep Task Force Louis Krauss News editor Upon entering the Wright Laboratory of Physics hallway, trustees appeared stunned at the sight of over 150 students silently protesting the Board of Trustees’ initial rejection of Student Senate’s request for student representation on the board. Most trustees declined to comment upon entering the meeting with Student Senate last night, but many other administrators and staff in attendance said they were impressed with the protest organized by Students Building Community Power — a recently created student activist organization.

The trustees, who visit campus twice a semester to discuss institutional developments, tried something new by holding a trustee-Senate retreat, as opposed to forums that have previously been open to all students.

Leaving the meeting, Student Senate Liaison Thobeka Mnisi, College junior, said she felt optimistic about the possibility of reopening conversations regarding the addition of a student representative.

“I went in feeling very skeptical and thinking it would be a waste of time, but we had a really productive discussion about the role of the board in decision making, and the processes by which they decide once a challenge has been presented,” Mnisi said. “We didn't talk about student representatives directly, but used the case studies to demonstrate why student input is necessary in the decision-making rooms.”

The case studies Mnisi references are various

Student protestors surround Board of Trustees Chair Clyde McGregor as he makes his way to last night’s board retreat. Students expressed frustration that the trustees have not involved students in their sessions.

Photo by Bryan Rubin, Photo editor

hypotheticals for the College’s future, drawn up by Student Senate and the board to demonstrate policy changes that might be favorable for the community.

Student Senate sent a revised proposal to the board Wednesday night, requesting the creation of a taskforce of students, faculty, administrators and trustees to investigate adding student representation. Although the proposal requests that trustees respond by noon today, Mnisi said she expects a response by 8 p.m. since they will have collectively

See page 2

See SBCP, page 2

Bibbins Renovations Add Gender-Neutral Restrooms Melissa Harris News editor Though all of Oberlin’s dormitories contain gender-neutral bathroom facilities, many academic buildings have lagged in adding such spaces.

This summer, renovations to Bibbins Hall, the Conservatory’s primary building, will address students’ concerns

with the installation of gender-neutral bathrooms.

Conservatory students, namely junior Zoe Cutler and sophomore William Adams, consulted Title IX coordinators in fall 2015 about the absence of neutral facilities in Bibbins. Renovations that took place last summer, however, excluded the facility renovations many hoped to return to this academic

Students pass a men’s restroom in Bibbins Hall, a Conservatory building that has no gender-neutral bathrooms. Renovations this summer will address this issue as gender-neutral bathrooms will be included on the first- and third-floors of the building.

Photo by Bryan Rubin, Photo editor

year.

The Conservatory currently has two gender-neutral bathrooms, one in Robertson Hall and one in the Kohl Jazz Studies Building’s third floor. In an email to Conservatory students Tuesday, Dean of the Conservatory Andrea Kalyn introduced the renovation plans.

“It is Oberlin College and Conservatory’s policy that all persons are at liberty to use bathrooms consistent with their gender identity; this policy of inclusion remains intact, despite recent federal directives,” Kalyn wrote, referencing President Donald Trump’s recent rescindment of protections for trans students in public schools. “It must also be acknowledged that our aging facilities [do] not promote this policy as well as we would prefer, and certainly we are working to rectify this in the course of our ongoing renovation projects. ” According to the Conservatory’s Associate Dean of Facilities and Technology Michael Straus, the first floor of Bibbins will be renovated to include one women’s bathroom and one allgender bathroom, and the third floor will include one men’s bathroom and one all-gender bathroom. Straus added

Chats About the Chief City Manager Rob Hillard held a community listening session Monday as the search for the new police chief continues.

convened by that time.

Protestors doubled down on this request, and upon arriving at the Science Center, College sophomore and SBCP member Roman Broszkowski told students to be “silently intimidating” as the trustees entered the meeting room. Many held signs with slogans such as, “This is a school, not a business,” and “Let us hold you accountable.”

Thunder Strikes The Oberlin College Bowling Team battled 11 other schools in the Black Squirrel Open at Kent State Univesity.

Gone TIMAROW Longtime TIMARA engineer celebrates final semester.

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INDEX:

Opinions 5

This Week in Oberlin 8

See page 16

Arts 10

Sports 16

that all three of Kohl’s single-use bathrooms will become gender-neutral.

“Since 2012, we’ve been slowly renovating bits and pieces of Bibbins,” Straus said, explaining that the renovations have included plans for these facilities for a while but the process occurs in stages. “This coming summer, we’ll be renovating the basement and hitting all the miscellaneous stuff we haven’t been able to get to the past few years.”

In addition to changes in the Conservatory, Title IX Coordinator Rebecca Mosley said that StudiOC, an extension of the Peter B. Lewis Gateway Center, and the Cox Administration Building, which will also undergo renovations this summer, will include gender-neutral bathrooms. These additions are reflective of ongoing efforts to add more neutral facilities, as seen in Wilder Hall’s basement and in the Birenbaum at The Hotel at Oberlin. Next, some students hope that gender-neutral facilities are in the works for other academic buildings like King Building and Peters Hall.

“It needs to happen on other buildSee Conservatory, page 2

on the

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Hillard Emphasizes Community Policing in Chief Search Mia Wachtel Antezzo Students and community members alike sent a clear message that they want a police chief who will prioritize the well-being of city residents at a listening session in the Rathskeller Monday evening. As the search continues for Oberlin’s next police chief, City Manager Rob Hillard met with around 12 city residents and students to discuss what qualities people want in the new hire. Hosted by the city manager’s office, this was the second open listening session with members of the greater Oberlin community and the first located on the College’s campus.

“Trust is earned, trust is not automatically

given,” said Oberlin resident Carmen McFarlin.

“Through accountability and through recognizing that as the police chief, there is a certain duality there in that they are responsible to the community, but they are [also] responsible to their staff. There will be situations in which those two things come in conflict, … so I would like a police chief who understands that they work for us, and that they are not there to protect their officers from us.”

The crowd Monday was significantly smaller than the 80 people who attended the first listening session at Kendal at Oberlin Feb. 16. Hillard said in a statement to the Review that constituents at both sessions expressed similar concerns.

City Manager Rob Hillard holds a listening session with community members and students at the Rathskeller Monday evening as the search for the new police chief continues. The attendees emphasized that the new chief should prioritize residents' well-beings.

Photo by Hugh Newcomb, Staff photographer

Hillard, who is in his 12th week as city manager, maintains sole responsibility for appointing the next police chief. He urged locals to identify the ideal qualities and policing practices they hope to see become more common in the department.

Joe Peek, a lifetime Oberlin resident and local substitute teacher, said he hopes the replacement avoids targeting petty drug crimes and ensures the community’s overall safety.

“I want an enforcer who is hell-bent on reform of the mistakes and the disparities of yesterday’s less-than-blind justice," Peek said. "We’re paying your salary, so we want them to do the things we want them to do, What those [things] are, I am open to. But I am sure it’s not some of the things that many of the police officers and departments do around this country, which is getting stripes by pocketing low-level drug users. … At least at home, I want to be comfortable that our police force works for us. ” Students reiterated this sentiment, arguing that they have witnessed excessive police enforcement of petty crimes and alleged racial profiling of young people of color.

Michael Martinsen, Oberlin’s new director of Safety and Security, added that officers who have been in the field for some time would also likely benefit from training, not just new recruits.

In response, Hillard echoed that over-enforcement and racial bias are practices he does not endorse and that he hopes to choose someone who will practice effective community policing.

While the tone in the room was overall positive, some students challenged Hillard to give more concrete details on how the search process

SBCP Spearheads Board Protests Continued from page 1 Prior to the protest, SBCP held a teach-in in the King Building, where Broszkowski and College junior Andrés González explained to roughly 80 students how they would protest and why they believed it would ensure trustees hear students’ message.

“I’m really upset about the way the board has been treating us," Broszkowski said. "Their idea is that we’re children and that we can’t possibly understand complex issues. Someone pointed out, ‘Who are they accountable to?’ And the answer is no one.”

After senators and trustees settled into their meeting, most of the protesters moved to Craig Lecture Hall to discuss how to best gain trustees' attention and lead activist movements.

Harkness and Pyle co-ops provided large amounts of cooked potatoes and chickpeas for the event.

Although the Senate-trustee retreat took place behind closed doors, Student Senator and College junior Jesse Docter said the group was unified in using the time to advocate for student representatives on the board.

“They force us to keep reiterating why we want student representatives, and we believe the case is made loud

and clear in the letter we sent them in May,” Docter said. “We are conscious of the fact that their refusal to give us a hard ‘no’ is an evasion tactic so that they do not have to explain their rationale for limiting student input in the governance of this school.”

The delayed response to Senate's letter last year underscores larger qualms both the student body and Student Senate have regarding communication with trustees. Despite six phone conferences between Senate and the board, Docter said he was upset that most of the conversations were spent planning the retreat, as opposed to considering their demand for student representatives.

At a dinner before the meeting, Trustee and actor, comedian Ed Helms, OC ’96, told the Review that the board takes these concerns seriously.

“Personally, I understand all the concerns that I hear, and I think there’s a lot of effort to really understand what the right path forward is,” Helms said.

Recently appointed Safety and Security Director Michael Martinsen, who attended the protest in case the situation escalated, seemed moved by the student turnout.

“I think this is incredible, it’s part

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of the college experience, and I’m proud of you guys,” Martinsen said to the Review while standing in front of the hallway of protestors. “I came here from Ohio University. They had some pretty elaborate protests, but none of them were as well organized as this. I’m really impressed.”

Vice President and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo said she was also impressed by the protest, which led to trustees passing with puzzled looks as they entered a three-hour meeting.

“It’s really good to have accountability like this, and it’s really heartwarming to see all these people come together for it,” said College first-year Thomas Rice, who attended the protest. “I think when they walk up the stairs and see us, they’re going to get it.”

Before closing the doors to the public, Mnisi reiterated that Senate's main intent was to focus on the request for student representatives and the creation of a task force.

“Because of the mounting pressure that we have from the people who have elected us as student senators, we have to address the topic we have been trying to for the past while, and that’s getting student reps on the board,” Mnisi said.

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is being carried out. Sarah Johnson, OC ’15, asked Hillard “to get a little bit more specific about what’s informing the language that is being used to discuss these issues … to name a couple of resources, best practices or cities that you are looking to as a model for the kind of policing you would like to see in Oberlin.”

College junior Jake Berstein also urged Hillard to explain to the group why they should trust him to make such an important decision.

In response to both questions, Hillard referred to his prior experience as city manager of Yellow Springs, Ohio, home of Antioch College.

Yellow Springs is a small town with a similar history of college and community divide where Hillard witnessed successful police chiefs and effective community policing.

As for the hiring process, Hillard responded that he and his office are strategically advertising the position to attract a diverse candidate pool.

A panel will then recommend three to five candidates for Hillard to choose from. He emphasized that community input is essential in making this decision.

“I believe in community policing, and that’s a buzzword, … but community policing to me is actually knowing individuals,” Hillard said. “It’s knowing the environment you are in.”

The city manager’s office has planned three more listening sessions on policing. There will be sessions for the Oberlin business community at the Oberlin Public Library at 8:30 a.m. this Tuesday and at Mt. Zion Community Center 5 p.m. Tuesday, March 14. The final hearing will be Tuesday, March 21 at 6 p.m. at the Oberlin Public Library.

Conservatory Degenders Bathrooms Continued from page 1 ings on campus, because while it’s great that it’s happening in the Con, statistically in terms of numbers of students in the school, it’s not even half of the students that it’s benefiting,” Adams said. “King and Peters need these changes made, and students are used to using gender-neutral bathrooms in their dorms and such anyways. We’re not saying to make them all genderneutral. I understand that there still needs to be gendered bathrooms, but it just benefits people in so many ways.”

Mosley said that she and others in the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion are addressing these changes in the face of budgetary and temporal factors that have placed barriers toward completing more projects of a similar nature. Last fall, Mosley held meetings with faculty as part of a study about single-use or gender-neutral bathrooms that already exist. After locating where gender-neutral bathrooms are absent, Mosley mulled the option of designing a system that let people know where the closest genderneutral bathroom was.

“One of the things that we’re working on in the short-term is to be able to do some signage around all of the restrooms on campus that are not all-gender right now and be able to tell someBusiness manager Maureen CurtisCoffey Cook Business manager Savi Sedlacek Ads manager Caley Watnick Ads manager Reshard el-Shair Online editor Hazel Galloway Production Bamert Production manager manager Sophia Ryanne Berry Production staff Stephanie Bonner Production staff Victoria Albacete

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one who wanted to use an all-gender restroom where the nearest one is,” Mosley said, adding that more genderneutral facilities will come into conversation when buildings like King and Peters are scheduled for renovations.

Although students like Cutler and Adams have long advocated for the establishment of more gender-inclusive facilities on campus, Cutler acknowledged that relative to other schools and parts of the country, Oberlin is still progressive in making these changes.

“Oberlin students often expect institutional change to happen quite fast, and it often doesn’t meet our expectations,” Cutler said. “While I wish the Conservatory had completed these renovations last summer, I recognize that converting the bathrooms is happening faster than many institutional changes.”

While Adams said he was optimistic about the incoming changes, he also said he was frustrated with the larger national movement that the Trump administration has perpetuated in rescinding trans rights.

“What the Trump administration has been doing makes me mad because it targets some of the most vulnerable students in areas where they’re just trying to be themselves, and there aren’t laws to protect them boards,” Adams said. “It’s ridiculous,.”

Corrections Corrections: Review is not aware of in TheThe article "RECs Best Invested any corrections this(Feb. week.

Community Programs," 24) incorrectly described John D. Elder as a Cleveland The Review strives to print all resident. Elder lives in Oberlin.

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Off the Cuff: Pawan Dhingra, Professor at Tufts University Professor Pawan Dhingra is a professor of Sociology and American Studies at Tufts University, specializing in Asian American studies, immigrant adaptation, race and ethnic relations and social and cultural inequalities. From 2011 to 2012, Dhingra served at the Smithsonian Institution as museum curator for the Indian American Heritage Project and was involved with its exhibition, Beyond Bollywood, which was featured at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. He is the author of two award-winning books, Life Behind the Lobby: Indian American Motel Owners and the American Dream and Managing Multicultural Lives: Asian American Professionals and the Challenge of Multiple Identities. Dhingra also serves as president of the Board of the South Asian American Digital Archive, as well as chair of the Asia and Asian American section of the American Sociological Association. Dhingra, a former Oberlin professor, returned to campus yesterday to give a talk, “Achieving More than Grades: Race, Morality and the Pursuit of Education.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Based on your studies, could you explain how race and culture play into the dynamics of education in America?

Race and cultural playing into education — people write books and libraries about that topic, so it’s a very large question. But speaking specifically about my own work, I’m looking at the pursuit of extracurricular education. Why are some people pursuing education as a hobby?

And the roles of race and culture — we see some groups doing this more than others. There are a lot of Asian and Asian immigrant families doing this, disproportionate to their numbers, so one thing we’re trying to understand is why that is.

Do you think the supplemental education that many families — especially AsianAmerican ones — push for affects the mental well-being of students? Are there other consequences?

I think the pursuit or push for supplemental education affects the mental well-being as much as the push to do anything supplemental, in the way it affects the well-being of any kid. If I push a child to do strong athletics, that can affect their well-being as much as pushing the child to do supplemental education, so I don’t think supplemental education has any

more effect on their mental well-being than any kinds of other activities that you do.

I think what matters is to what degree is a child feeling either supported in their pursuits or burdened by their pursuits. That, to me, is the more relevant question in the psychology, rather than what they’re doing. There’s a lot of heterogeneity or variability between families and how they communicate the parents’ preferences to the kids and whether the kids feel encouraged or forced. I don’t think it’s true that Asian families are “forcing” kids to do things against the kids’ will, so it’s more of a caricature. But I do think it’s not uncommon for families of any kind to say to kids, “we really want you to pursue something in this realm of options,” whether it be academic or athletic or arts or something, and within that realm, choose something that you want to do. But … you need to do something within that realm — so I think parents are mindful of the fact that they don’t want their kids to feel burdened psychologically, and there’s kind of a give and take between kids and parents. Of course, parents make mistakes and do make their kids feel obligated and burdened and forced, and the kids can have psychological challenges as a result, but parents are still mindful of this and often try their best to avoid it.

Do you think that it would be better for students to engage in non-academic extracurricular activities, like sports and arts?

I think it depends on what the student likes.

A lot of students who do advanced spelling bees enjoy it. That’s what they would rather do than play baseball. Other kids do drama. I was talking to one girl. She was in middle school, and she said that doing spelling bees helped her feel more confident … and therefore helped her with her drama, so there’s not really an either-or. For some kids, it’s not an either-or, and doing one helps them with the other, and for others, they just have a certain preference for something.

But I think in general, what you do want to see … is experimentation and a well-roundedness to make sure that kids are getting the most exposure to different possibilities. You don’t want kids to specialize at a young age, but even outside of academics, we’re seeing in sports today that there’s an especially high emphasis on specialization at very young ages. That’s not healthy either, so it’s more about well-roundedness and trying different things that matter, rather than whether it’s academic or non-academic.

How did this kind of strenuous culture around education and specialization

Friday, Feb. 24 3:18 a.m. Safety and Security officers responded to an alarm, which was missing the detector head, on the second floor of Baldwin Cottage. A student resident admitted to burning a candle earlier, and repairs were made to the alarm.

Saturday, Feb. 25 1:30 p.m. Officers assisted an individual who had fallen by Kulas Recital Hall in the Conservatory Central Unit. The individual reported that they became lightheaded and fell. The individual was not injured and was

of awareness of competition and need to excel permeates.

And then there’s stability. You’re looking for financial stability. That’s the ultimate goal, and it starts at a young age and carries through college, and it affects what you major in and all these other things. It’s a continuum to me, not that distinct.

Pawan Dhingra, Professor of Sociology and American Studies at Tufts University.

develop?

Many of the families that are doing strenuous education are immigrants, so we have to ask what’s going on in their homeland that makes strenuous academics relevant or necessary. In the homeland, there often is a strong or stronger emphasis on educational excellence, on advanced testing, on being the cream of the crop and competitiveness around academics that is not always as present here in the U.S. That’s part of it.

Another part of it is, going back to the original question of race and culture, if Asian Americans believe that they have to score higher on the SAT to get into Oberlin College, or some other top university, compared to a non-Asian American — which some activist groups are arguing is true and there are lawsuits going on around this — then it’s in response, and those external conditions that I make my kids study more math or more vocabulary, so that they can get higher test scores and get into more advanced classes. It’s an unfair set of expectations. … There’s lots of reasons — cultural, racial and other things that pertain to why extra academics seems like a good fit.

Do you see these dynamics around education manifesting differently from K-12 education versus higher education?

Yes and no. I think that the higher levels has a lot of talk about what universities you go to — the status of it, the competitiveness of it — but also what you major in when you’re there, what you’re taking advantage of, why are STEM fields more prioritized than the humanities, the social sciences or the arts? The same sense

transported home by a family member.

2:32 a.m. Officers assisted a student at Goldsmith apartments who had an allergic reaction to food and was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

to raise a glass shelf and it shattered. Staff sustained minor cuts and first aid was given while staff cleaned up the glass.

Sunday, Feb. 26

8:52 a.m. Staff at the Service Building reported soda cans and leftover food missing from a refrigerator in one of the offices.

The incident is under investigation.

4:58 p.m. A student reported the theft of their bicycle from Keep Cottage on the southwest side bike rack. The bicycle is a Huffy Diamondback with a 26” frame and bright yellow with a purple front.

11:05 p.m. A Noah Hall resident reported an individual in the second-floor lounge tearing up books and throwing them on the floor. Upon the officer’s arrival, the lounge

1:16 a.m. An officer on patrol in Harkness House detected an odor of cigarette smoke in the basement restroom. Cushions and blankets were also observed in a storage area across from the restroom. No one was observed in the area. Photographs were taken, and the storage room was locked.

2:24 p.m. Officers responded to a report of broken glass in the Conservatory Library.

Staff reported that they were attempting

Monday, Feb. 27

What about in the years beyond education?

The goal, again, is financial stability. We’re talking about immigrant families that don’t have any networks in this country, who do not have wealth — even if they have middle class incomes — so financial stability cannot be taken for granted. For many families, you’re looking to pursue safe routes that you know are relatively stable, and that impacts what you major in, what kind of jobs you pursue. It impacts whether or not you go to graduate right away or not — things that pertain to that.

Do you think any of these attitudes around education will change, given the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education? Will structural or governmental changes impact families’ approaches towards education?

By now, a lot of motivations for the families I’ve been talking about — for why they do extracurricular education — has to do with college entrance. If the Department of Education deals with that, which is not [DeVos’] radar, it seems — if college admissions expectations change, so will what people do in high school, middle school and elementary school. That’s a political question, and who knows the answer? And also Betsy DeVos’ emphasis on school choice and vouchers, it’s really unclear what impact that will have with what she’s trying to do. … It’s too early to tell.

What are you hoping Oberlin students take away from your talk?

A better understanding of how families’ pursuits of education is not always just based on wanting their kids to be more educated. It’s influenced by other concerns, such as what does it mean to be a good person, and what does it mean to be a good family? There’s kind of a moral issue at stake that education pertains to. It’s not simply test scores or grades.

Interview by Melissa Harris, News editor Photo courtesy of Professor of Comparative American Studies Shelley Lee

floor was covered with torn pages and the responsible individual had left the area.

Tuesday, Feb. 28 9:39 a.m. Students reported the theft of a PlayStation console, controllers and video games from their Pleasant Street Village House sometime during the night. Members of the Oberlin Police Department also responded.

Wednesday, March 1 4:34 a.m. A Prosser Court resident reported that a tree had fallen from the backyard of a Village House on Pleasant Street, blocking their driveway. Officers and grounds managers responded. There was no damage to property other than a fence.

Page 4

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The Oberlin Review, March 3, 2017

County Suffers from Worsening Heroin Epidemic Louis Krauss News editor Once a secondary concern to police and anti-drug activists in the region, heroin addiction in Lorain County is reaching record highs.

Now, local law enforcement is grappling with the devastating consequences of addiction and increasing rate of overdoses.

Oberlin Interim Police Chief Michael McCloskey said he noticed an influx of heroin overdoses beginning in the early 2000s and exploding in recent years, especially in the county at large.

“We’ve been touched by [heroin addiction] in Oberlin as well,” McCloskey said. “Maybe not on the same level as some of the larger jurisdictions like Elyria or Lorain, but we have seen it here locally.”

Oberlin Police Department city records show non-lethal heroin overdoses increased from one case in 2015 to four in 2016.

Lorain County’s 63 various drug overdose deaths in 2015 more than doubled to 131 in 2016, according to Lorain County Coroner Stephen Evans.

“In the 1990s, companies came out with OxyContin and then went to the government to convince them that these opiates in pill form were safe and non-addicting and that doctors were under-prescribing pain medicine,” Evans said. “Then the government said [it] would rate doctors based on how well they reduce patients’ pain. Your compensation was based off of the patient’s satisfaction surveys and led to them administering more pills.”

After recognizing this issue, Evans said the government pulled back on drug prescriptions when addiction increased, leaving people who were addicted without a financially viable al-

ternative to prescription opiates like oxycodone. Heroin provided a cheap substitute.

“They’ve been pulling back since then, keeping track of doctors running the ‘pill mill,’ doctors freely prescribing narcotics,” Evans said. “But now we have a population still addicted but they can’t find the pills, whereas heroin is cheap and readily available.”

There is no drug treatment center in Oberlin or in Lorain County, although residents had the chance to approve one. Issue 35, had it been approved in November, would have added a drug rehabilitation clinic as well as increased resources for addicts in the county.

The initiative was rejected after losing by approximately 12,000 votes.

According to McCloskey, Mercy Allen Hospital and all police responding to overdoses are given Narcan, a medicine introduced in 2012 that is administered nasally to negate drug overdose effects.

College senior Dana Kurzer-Yashin has been pushing for the College to equip Safety and Security Officers with Narcan since last spring, but said legal technicalities have made it hard to do so.

“It’s a weird time right now because a lot of policies surrounding Narcan are shifting,” she said. “In some states, you can get it without a prescription, so there were some delays waiting to see what would happen.”

Although Kurzer-Yashin has been working with Dean of Students and Vice President Meredith Raimondo to make it happen, she is unsure when the plan might be implemented, since administering medicine can be restricted to medical personnel and law enforcement.

"It’s looking like a possibility, but there are liability issues because Safety and Security officers aren’t sworn law enforcers like police,

A graph shows the number of fatal drug overdoses in Lorain County from 2011 to 2016. Between 2015 and 2016, the number of overdoses more than doubled. Graph by Louis Krauss, News editor

who are protected by certain laws," KurzerYashin added. "The Safety and Security officers aren’t protected by those laws or by Good Samaritan laws, which protect civilians, because they’re technically contracted."

Even though some drug users are put on trial for possession, McCloskey said responding to overdoses is treated first as a health issue, instead of a criminal offense.

“From a law-enforcement perspective, there’s a movement to treat responses to heroin overdoses ... as more of a community health issue rather than an enforcement issue,” McCloskey said. “Generally, if we’re responding to a complaint that somebody had overdosed, our primary concern is obviously responding to their medical needs.”

On the other hand, McCloskey added that he thinks it can be useful to charge drug users sometimes, as it could force them to get mandatory drug counseling or treatment as part of

probation agreements. The rise in users has a doubly negative impact McCloskey said, citing an increase in thefts committed by friends and family of addicts to pay for heroin.

“We’ve also seen an uptick in property crimes attributed to the heroin problem,” McCloskey said. “We’ve arrested shoplifters and they’ve admitted their actions were an attempt to support a heroin addict. They might be walking out of Walmart with a flat screen TV to pawn in an effort to purchase narcotics.”

McCloskey added that while his department would continue to investigate dealers, education could be more important as a longterm fix.

“Outside from law enforcement stopping the sale of heroin, I think education has played a large role,” McCloskey said. “Educating the public of its dangers and the law enforcement about identifying it and what they can do are all really important things.”

Implementation Committees Inch Toward Final Plans Sydney Allen, Production editor Louis Krauss, News editor A year has passed since the College formed implementation committees for the Strategic Plan, and in that time progress has widely varied by group. Committees like Resource Management have made strides, while others wait idly for their turn with movement contingent on other groups’ plans.

“Compared to previous plans, the implementation is actually off to a faster start,” President Marvin Krislov said. “It’s a five-year plan and not all recommendations will be moving forward at the same pace. … Some of these recommendations also relate to the groups, so Resource Management is going to help define how much we can do in certain areas and how quickly. We think the progress is actually moving quite well, and there’s some committees that have moved faster than others, but that’s deliberately so.”

Five implementation committees are currently chartered: Advising, College Governance, Resource Management, Curricular and Co-Curricular Innovation and Support, and the Strategic Planning Committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Of these, only Advising, Resource Management and DEI are currently active.

This is part of what the general faculty ad hoc — the governing body comprised of students and faculty that the implementation committees report to — calls the “multi-step” implementation process.

“The thinking is that certain strategic recommendations are decisions that need to be made that are so integral to the other committees that it doesn’t make sense to assemble the other committees before some ground work is laid, especially by Resource Management, which is kind of the lynchpin of everything,” said College junior and Student Senator Jesse Docter, also a member of the general faculty ad hoc committee.

Since the Strategic Plan’s inception, students and faculty members have questioned its vagueness and contradictory promises of reducing costs to students while simultaneously institut-

ing expensive programs and policies. Given the Plan’s ambiguity, many implementation groups have struggled to determine which issue they should tackle first.

Many decisions hinge on the recommendations of the Resource Management implementation committee, which released a survey last semester asking students, faculty and staff what they considered expendable resources at Oberlin to determine the best ways to reduce spending.

“We are presently finalizing a report to the [General Faculty Council] on directions the College might take to change its financial trajectory,” said Frederick B. Artz Professor Leonard V. Smith, co-chair of the Resource Committee.

“Our working group has no authority to cut anything. My personal preference would be to make that report public, but that is up to the working group as a whole and to GFC. Once the report is submitted, we will await further instruction from GFC.” In the meantime, the Curricular and CoCurricular Innovation and Support committee and the Governance committee are stagnant, waiting to see which projects will get funding and which of the goals in the Strategic Plan will be prioritized. College senior Rachel Mead, who serves as one of the student chairs of the Governance committee, said this inactivity has created more confusion than clarity.

“We’ve only met with [Professors] Chris Howell and Tim Weiss, the faculty chairs, once, and don’t actually even know who the administrative and trustee chairs are,” Mead wrote in an email to the Review. “This isn’t necessarily a problem because of the divided way that the committee is supposed to run, but to me, it is oddly opaque and ironic considering that we’re supposed to be understanding governance better because of this process instead of being thoroughly confused by it.”

Howell, who is on the Governance committee, touched upon the goals his group is working toward this semester, despite the lack of meetings.

“Our task this semester is listening and education,” Howell wrote in an email to the Review.

“Members of the Faculty Governance Committee have been meeting with senior administrators and elected committees to ask for their ideas. We will be holding a series of listening sessions for all faculty, and then administering a poll to all faculty. Lastly, we are collecting data on faculty participation in elections, and how other schools like us organize their governance systems.”

For some students, however, the overall opacity of the process raises questions of institutional accountability and transparency — a concern widely echoed across campus.

“Each Committee is supposed to be working internally and has no responsibility to respond to anyone because nothing has been implemented yet,” said Student Senate Liaison and College junior Thobeka Mnisi. “Once they have strategic recommendations, they’ll present those to general faculty for approval, then the board. There’s kind of no oversight during the process, and each committee is responsible for soliciting feedback from different constituencies on campus.”

The one other committee that is making definite progress this semester is the Advising committee, headed by David Kamitsuka and Afia Ofori-Mensa. Both declined to respond to questions concerning their committee’s progress.

The Strategic Plan emphasized reforming Oberlin’s advising system, creating the 4+4 plan to support students after they graduate and fostering more entrepreneurial opportunities for students. The Advising committee is currently working on assessing the first-year advising program so it can decide on recommendations for the General Faculty or the Board of Trustees in the future.

“Advising is moving forward at a very fast clip because the co-chairs had a vision that dated from long before the Strategic Plan,” Docter said. “They’re moving forward quickly with … evaluating the current first-year advis-

ing process, and not moving on 4+4 yet, but that is their plan.”

While the Advising committee has shown signs of progress, other committees like DEI have not. Sophomore Kameron Dunbar, former committee member, blamed this on institutional restraints, overbooked committee members and lack of funding.

“Issues such as diversity and inclusion ought not be limited to an administrator’s side gig, but rather someone who can truly dedicate the significant time and energy required,” Dunbar said. “On another hand, the committee was an ‘implementation’ group without the ability to truly implement anything. We could offer recommendations or suggestions, but even those could simply be swept away by higher forces.”

The DEI committee, which recently lost two faculty members and students, is reeling as it tries to find its feet after the mid-year shakeup.

“It was functional for a while in the fall — very [dissatisfactory], but functional nonetheless,” Mnisi said. “Then Shelley Lee and Meredith Gadsby resigned because they felt like the structure of the committee wasn't conducive to real change and impact.”

Double-degree senior and DEI member Thanisa Durongkaveroj said that although the committee meets about once every two weeks, discussion and progress is slower than she would like. She believes that this is because DEI’s priorities have not been made explicit and says that clarity would increase the committee’s efficiency.

“I think this committee would have worked better if each member were given more distinct responsibilities,” she wrote in an email to the Review. “When we think that we all work collectively together, we sometimes assume that somebody else will do the work if you fail to do it. Our committee [is made] of members who contribute to diversity and inclusion at Oberlin in various ways, however, our other commitments can take away from our work for [DEI].

I agree that the committee work hasn’t been as fast-paced and actional as I had expected.”

Opinions The Oberlin Review

March 3, 2017

Letters to the Editors

OCOPE Clarifies Facts To the Editors:

It has come to our attention that incorrect information about Oberlin College Office and Professional Employees continues to spread across campus. We know the source of much of this misinformation and have requested that the College correct the errors, but since that is not happening, we believe it is important to share the truth.

The College’s continued refusal to provide requested information or adhere to the collective bargaining agreement has forced OCOPE to take extraordinary action. An unfair labor practice charge was filed with the National Labor Relations Board Monday, Feb. 20. We will continue to defend the rights of our members and our contract both by continuing our effort to work with the College and by holding them accountable through every available means when they refuse to respect our contract and members’ rights.

Thirty-two OCOPE members participated in the Voluntary Separation Incentive Program. The College has eliminated some of the vacancies and distributed the work from those positions and four additional eliminations/reductions to other employees, including nonbargaining unit staff. OCOPE continues to request information and status for vacancies not yet eliminated or posted to fill.

Two OCOPE executive board members participated in the Dean’s task force. We had no vote and neither approved nor recommended any positions for elimination, reduction or additional workload. Those decisions were made by Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Tim Elgren and senior administration.

We pointed out where cuts would reduce necessary services to faculty and students, discussed relevant contract language and explained the process and consequences of the bumping procedure.

At a recent meeting of the general faculty, OCOPE was blamed for causing delays in processing vacancies and communicating with faculty and staff about changes to their departments or positions. OCOPE accepts full responsibility for demanding that errors in nearly every document produced by the College be corrected before implementation and distribution. OCOPE did

not make the errors and accepts no responsibility for the delay caused by the time it took the College to fix its numerous mistakes.

The College implemented position eliminations and “restructuring” without consultation with the most affected department chairs or supervisors. OCOPE was excluded from this decision.

OCOPE repeatedly asked for financial information to aid in identifying areas for savings, as OCOPE has done in the past. No information or savings target was provided, other than the stated goal to eliminate administrative assistant positions.

OCOPE called attention to contract language that would have cost the College a considerable amount if ignored. This is not the first time OCOPE found ways for the College to save money.

Several administrative assistants retired in July and August 2016. Instead of posting and filling these positions in a timely manner, including some that provided the sole support to academic departments, the College notified OCOPE of their intent to violate the contract and continue the use of $14-per-hour temporary employees in positions that should have been filled last summer. Grievances were filed.

The contract between Oberlin College and OCOPE contains articles that benefit and/or restrict both parties. It was mutually negotiated, and every word of the language was carefully studied, analyzed and approved by College attorneys and administration. Poor planning and financial management are not just cause for either side to intentionally ignore past agreements and violate the contract.

In Solidarity, – Tracy Tucker OCOPE President – OCOPE Executive Board

Class Trustees Must Consider Student Needs To the Editors: Executive Assistant to the General Counsel and Secretary Pam Pierron’s email sent Saturday, Feb. 25 stating the “regularly scheduled forum time will be used for a trustee–Student Senate mini-retreat” was incredibly disappointing to me

as a former student senator. While it is important for Student Senate and the Board of Trustees to develop a strong working relationship so that Senate may better leverage its power, the development of that relationship should not preclude meeting with the student body. The idea that Student Senate can take on the Sisyphean task of representing all students to the board is absurd. In order for students to be fully represented, we need truly open fora.

The class trustees, who represent the three most recently graduated classes, were courteous to schedule their own meeting with students on Saturday, March 4 at 9 a.m., but that time slot is inconvenient. A large swath of students is not wont to attend such an early meeting on the weekend, and turnout will likely be especially low given Oberlin’s hosting of the North Coast Athletic Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships on the same day. If a meeting is to be held at such an inopportune time, it should be members of Student Senate — paid representatives of the student interest — who are inconvenienced. As students, we should not give the class trustees a pass for such minimal effort.

The Board of Trustees has, ironically, become increasingly inaccessible since the Fall 2014 trustee forum in Stevenson Dining Hall when board members drew the ire of students for their apathy and lack of transparency. Watching the board withdraw from student input and into intentionally fractured meetings over the past few years has been disheartening, and it is downright depressing to see the class trustees moving in the same direction. I still believe in the class trustees’ ability to effectively represent the student interest. However, during my time on Student Senate, it became abundantly clear that good outcomes are the direct result of a good process. In this case, a good process is a transparent one, and transparency is sorely lacking in the board’s decision-making process. Given the board’s general detachment, the specific role of the class trustees is more important than ever and they should take care to remember their time as students in a renewed push for greater transparency. After all, they were elected to the board to serve the student interest — not to maintain the status quo.

– Cory Ventresca College senior

Submissions Policy The Oberlin Review appreciates and welcomes letters to the editors and op-ed 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 that week’s issue. Letters may not exceed 600 words and op-eds may not exceed 800 words, except with consent of the Editorial Board. All submissions must include contact information, with full names and any relevant titles, for all signers. All writers must individually confirm authorship on electronic submissions. Op-eds may not have more than two authors.

The Review reserves the right to edit all submissions for clarity, length, grammar, accuracy, strength of argument and in consultation with Review style. Editors will work with 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.

Headlines are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board. Opinions expressed in editorials, letters, op-eds, columns, cartoons or other Opinions pieces do not necessarily reflect those of the staff of the Review. 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 a contributor.

Page 5

The Oberlin Review Publication of Record for Oberlin College

Editors-in-Chief Tyler Sloan Oliver Bok Managing Editor Kiley Petersen Opinions Editor Sami Mericle

Student Senate Needs to Clarify SBCP Relationship In one of the most competitive races for Student Senate in recent history, a group called Students Building Community Power emerged through individuals running on a collective activist platform this spring. Of the SBCP candidates, College sophomores Kai Joy and Dani Pacheco won two of eight available seats, joining an increasingly influential Student Senate. Concurrent with Joy and Pacheco’s campaigns, SBCP released a list of demands, including calls for six student representatives to the Board of Trustees, student liaisons to administrators, the creation of a student council to meet weekly with the College president and for Senate to act as a centralizing platform for student activism. Since elections, Senate has seemingly absorbed these demands as their own and embraced the group as an extension of its own body.

This very well might not be the case — which is exactly the issue.

The relationship and intersections between the two groups is muddy as stands. Unlike Student Senate, there is no directory of SBCP members, and it remains unclear which organization individuals participating both in Senate and SBCP are representing at any given time.

The overlaps are confusing for those seeking a distinction between the two groups in spaces like this week’s protests in the Science Center. When Joy and Pacheco entered Senate’s retreat with the board, were they representing SBCP’s interests or Senate’s agenda? Ultimately, these blurred lines might diminish Student Senate’s capacity for negotiations with the board since it is easy to conflate the groups from the outside, and the trustees’ perception of SBCP is unclear — though we speculate that trustees might find it easier to dismiss sporadic protests rather than address a clearly articulated proposal.

Senate has been building its reputation on campus over the past few years and has recently risen to a prominence not seen in our time at Oberlin. This status comes from dedicated membership, lengthy weekly meetings, high levels of engagement with the student body, and profound assessments of how the institution functions both in the long run and in the day-to-day. Student senators’ proposal to the Board of Trustees, delivered to trustees Wednesday night and circulated more widely Thursday, reflects a deep understanding of how Oberlin functions and how to encourage trustees to take student concerns seriously.

SBCP’s principles are admirable in their endeavor to “bring power to the students.” The group has managed to mobilize a large section of the student body around an issue that we believe is of the utmost importance: adding student representatives to the board. The fact that student activists and Student Senate are both pushing in the same direction has been encouraging. Protests are a vital tool for showing trustees that students care about student representation. If the board decides to add student representatives, both cool-headed dialogue and passionate protest will have played a critical role.

However, SBCP is a newly formed organization. The group has no outwardly clear leadership or membership and is barely a month old. Only time will tell what SBCP’s future holds — and it might be one full of success and hard-fought victories with the board — but Senate risks its newfound legitimacy by so closely associating with a group that might soon fold if it cannot establish the infrastructure that is necessary to create long-lasting organizations. Groups that have preceded SBCP, like 2014’s prominent campus body Defending Oberlin Financial Accessibility, have failed for this very reason in the past. As students graduate and the original mission of an organization fades, groups inevitably dissipate into the void. Part of Senate’s invaluability is inherently derived from its status as a permanent campus fixture, something that SBCP cannot claim for itself yet.

Student Senate endorsing SBCP is a completely valid course of action. However, if Student Senate has adopted many of SBCP’s principles, we find it necessary that the group clarify where it stands on all of the demands.

Editorials are the responsibility of the Review Editorial Board — the Editors-in-Chief, Managing editor and Opinions editor — and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the Review.

Opinions

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The Oberlin Review, March 3, 2017

Academics, Communities Benefit from Developing Relationships Chie Sakakibara Contributing writer Academics who study marginalized communities often wonder whether their research will actually benefit the communities they study. It wasn’t until I traveled to Alaska as a doctoral stu� dent 14 years ago that I was forced to confront this question as an academic myself.

“Promise us that you are not going to disappear,” Iñupiaq elder Martha Aiken said to me on my first day in the Arctic. As a Geography doctoral can� didate at the University of Oklahoma, I had flown into Utqiaġvik����������� , AK — for� merly Barrow — the northernmost town of the U.S., to introduce myself and my research proposal to the Iñu� piaq community. I did not hesitate to introduce myself and my research agenda with vim and vigor.

“So, you want to interview us,” re� sponded Martha. “Yes, I would love

to,” I said. My eager statement was fol� lowed by a long silence. I was getting nervous as I started to feel I had said something inappropriate.

Martha calmly explained that she had seen many tanik — white — schol� ars coming to Utqiaġvik, soliciting help from the villagers without any com� pensation and never returning to the community to report back or recipro� cate the villagers’ hospitality.

This kind of exploitive practice has long been associated with academic scholarships and colonialism. It was this nature of “extractive industries” of academia that Martha feared. Too many times, she witnessed indigenous knowledge and experiences conve� niently truncated and plugged into the market economy after being detached from the appropriate cultural contexts.

Very rarely was a plan for benefit� ing the local community part of this enterprise.

“It takes a long time to earn your

place in this village,” Martha said. “You will get a degree after talking with us and writing a paper using our stories.

What will we get from you in return?”

Then she smiled and asked me to swear that I would commit myself to cultivating a long-term relationship with her and her community. I agreed.

Many years later, I am still in the process of earning my place in the community, and the process of rela� tionship-building has opened many doors to me that would have otherwise stayed closed.

When I completed my Ph.D. a few years later, Martha congratulated me and said, “Now it’s your time to pay us back.” She emphasized that the best way for me to repay the community is to teach my students about indigenous cultures to educate future generations of scholars about the importance of so� cial justice and indigenous sensibilities.

Through my fieldwork, Utqiaġvik became my adopted home, and the

villagers generously incorporated me into their social and cultural fabric through the web of extended kinship and hospitality. I feel fortunate to be part of this community on many differ� ent levels. I recently introduced three Oberlin students — College seniors Liv Roak and Kiley Petersen and doubledegree fifth-year Paulus van Horne — to the community last November. The purpose of this fieldwork was to initi� ate a conversation with community members and establish a long-term collaborative relationship to facilitate the sharing of indigenous experiences with climate change, human rights and cultural resilience.

During a week of fieldwork, Liv, Paulus and Kiley immersed themselves into the Iñupiat whaling community to learn about the local and interna� tional politics of subsistence whaling, collaboration between scientists and traditional-knowledge experts, the role of music and the power of the tribal

language in contemporary indigenous identity and Iñupiat cultural resilience through their use of communication technology like Facebook. In so doing, they have taken the first step toward building relationships with the people who they will work with for many years to come. The outcomes of their proj� ects will be given to the Iñupiat Heri� tage Center and local school libraries.

We are looking forward to our con� tinued collaboration with the people of Utqiaġvik. It is our wish that our effort to build relationships with members of the indigenous community can be� come relevant for contemporary social research based on collaboration in in� digenous communities. And finally, we will be a proud keeper of my promise to Martha — we shall never disappear.

Liv Roak, Paulus van Horne and Managing Editor Kiley Petersen contributed to this op-ed.

Progressives Learn From Tea Party

Museums Lack Accessibility

Nathan Carpenter Contributing Opinions editor

Katie Lucey Contributing writer

Democrats have a tough time getting into the trenches. This has been clear from the beginning of the Obama era, when the Tea Party was able to thwart a number of progressive policy initiatives, despite be� ing a political minority. It became frustrat� ingly apparent when Senate Republicans successfully blocked federal Justice Mer� rick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court for an unprecedented 293 days.

Facing partisan impediments at nearly every turn over the past eight years, con� gressional Democrats chose to take the high road. They chose to place their faith in the system, believing that if only they could weather the storm, the ship would right itself, and the Republican Party would be exposed and punished for their unyielding obstructionism.

The Democrats were wrong. Sure, pro� gressives faced down Republican obstruc� tion and came out with the moral high ground, but from a pragmatic standpoint, that hasn’t earned Democrats much. Gar� land is not sitting on the Supreme Court and his spot is likely to be filled by another ultra-conservative justice in the mold of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. And Repub� licans control not only the White House, but both houses of Congress as well.

After November’s elections, progres� sives across the country knew that they would be facing serious political adversity at both a national and local level. Out� side of Washington, Republicans control 33 governor’s houses and 32 state legisla� tures. Across the country, Democrats can� not currently propose and enact policy in any substantial, meaningful way. Instead, they must play defense, focusing their ef� forts on fighting dangerous and uncon� stitutional actions in much the same way the conservatives once fought the Obama agenda.

Many pockets of resistance are inspired by the Indivisible Guide, a now 26-page document originally released in December by former progressive congressional staff� ers. The guide outlines methods of fighting the Trump agenda. Since the guide’s re� lease, Indivisible groups have sprung up in every congressional district, and they cur� rently number more than 5,000 nationwide.

There are two Indivisible groups in Oberlin alone — one affiliated with the College and one with the greater community.

The Indivisible strategy is simple: Ob� struct President Donald Trump’s agenda

in much the same way that the Tea Party, and later the Republican Party, were able to slow or stop key progressive initiatives during the Obama years.

According to the guide’s authors, the Tea Party’s success was based on two strategies.

First, they were purely defensive, focused on saying “no” to Obama’s agenda rather than presenting policies of their own. Second, they acted locally, targeting elected officials at events in their home states.

In these ways, Indivisible is inspired by the Tea Party, although the authors make the difference between the two groups clear: according to the guide, Indivisible is grounded in facts, and people in opposi� tion to Trump comprise the majority of the country, while alliance to the Tea Party was a minority position nationally.

For many progressives, the tactical shift from focusing on maintaining the moral high ground to concentrating on obstruct� ing regressive policy changes is a welcome one. Democrats spent a lot of time follow� ing the rules over the past eight years, and that idealism has been costly.

However, after coming out on the los� ing side of the 2016 election despite having faith that the American people would pun� ish Republicans for their obstructionism, Democrats are finally realizing that the old rules of bipartisan cooperation don’t work the same way they used to.

Due to the work of groups like Indivis� ible, progressives — even those in conser� vative districts — are seeing the beginnings of tangible breakthroughs. Confirmation votes for Trump’s cabinet appointees were among the most contentious in history.

Progressives nearly blocked Betsy DeVos’ nomination as education secretary due to a flurry of furious phone-banking. Angry constituents also let their representatives know that they oppose a straight repeal of the Affordable Care Act, pushing Repub� lican legislators to be more cautious with the issue. On a local level, protesters held congresspeoples’ feet to the fire last week at town halls across the country, including right here in Ohio’s Fourth District.

Nobody enjoys partisan gridlock. But the current political reality in the U.S. is that obstruction works. Voters rewarded Republicans for it. Democrats refused to face that reality and now face opposition from the White House, Congress and state legislatures across the country.

For Democrats, there is a silver lining, however: Through groups like Indivisible, progressives are finally learning how to fight back.

In art museums around the world, one warning sign is ubiquitous in every gallery: “Please do not touch the art.”

But what if a visitor’s sense of touch is the best way for them to interact with art? Institutions of culture and learning should offer programs that encourage a physical relationship between the viewer and the artwork — if not for all visitors, then certainly for blind and low-vision patrons. Most museums center their ex� hibitions and educational programming around nondisabled people. What most people tend to do at museums — that is, look at art — can be a difficult and some� times impossible task for visitors with

sensory disabilities. Traditional museum practices, like tours that require visitors to look and ask questions about the art� work in front of them, are often designed without disabled patrons in mind. This needs to be fixed.

In order to resolve this issue, muse� ums should offer more programs and services that stimulate other senses, like touch and hearing. Such programs could include the implementation of verbal description tours, audio guides, or tactile components such as the use of touch objects — replicas of objects on displays that visitors can hold and touch — alongside the originals on dis� play. By providing choice and autonomy See Allen, page 7

Melissa Harris

Opinions

The Oberlin Review, March 3, 2017

Page 7

Allen Needs Creative Accessibility Programs Continued from page 6 for blind or low-vision visitors, these programs would enrich the museum experience without segregating those with disabilities from other visitors. Nondisabled visitors could also benefit from these programs, as not everyone learns best in a strictly visual manner.

Various museums around the country, such as the Rubin Museum of Art in New York and the Smithsonian Institution, offer a variety of programming aimed at increasing accessibility to art for blind and low-vision visitors. For instance, the Rubin, which specializes in art from the Himalayan region, offers “Access Tours” that stimulate multiple senses instead of just sight. These tours encourage the participants to use their senses of touch, smell and hearing to experience art. Since many of the objects in the museum deal with the underlying theme of ritual, the ringing of bells or the burning of incense will often be included on the tour — though it must be acknowledged that these additions can make the tours inaccessible to people with sensory disabilities based around certain sensitivities.

Laura Sloan, manager of docent and access programs at the Rubin, emphasizes the importance of “tweaking the language” to the docents she trains to lead these verbal-description tours. These inquiry-based tours focus on one or two pieces of art, which are described in great detail by the docents to those on the tour.

“We have to be careful how we word things,” Sloan said in a phone interview

last fall. “We don’t say ‘over here’ or ‘over there’ when describing [the art].”

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 states, “No qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity.” Though the ADA outlines specific ways in which this requirement must legally be met, including large-print labels and audio guides, museums ought to go beyond what is legally mandated in order to truly ensure that no one be “excluded from participation.” Programs that encourage multi-sensory learning are a step in the right direction towards accessibility for everyone, and therefore would help museums fulfill this need outlined in the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Allen Memorial Art Museum is the perfect testing ground to implement these sorts of accessibility programs. Certainly, its status among the top ranked academic art museums, along with the College’s sustained commitment to accessibility for all, would make it seem so. Yet, the “small museum that has a little of everything,” as it was described by a recent visitor, currently lacks adequate accommodations for disabled visitors.

The historic building has no elevator, leaving visitors with physical disabilities to peruse a binder filled with pictures of exhibition objects and wall text featured in the upstairs Ripin Gallery instead of viewing the artwork firsthand. Additionally, many students are required to visit

the print study room for their classes; the room, like the Ripin Gallery, is located on the second floor and is inaccessible to students who cannot climb stairs.

Moreover, some galleries, such as the William-Newell and the Nord Gallery, are arranged “salon style,” meaning that pieces of art are stacked on top of each other.

Potentially, this could create problems for ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The Allen Memorial Art Museum is the perfect testing ground to implement these sorts of accessibility programs. Certainly, its status among the top ranked academic art museums, along with the College’s sustained commitment to accessibility for all, would make it seem so.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– visitors with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, as this method of displaying art can be chaotic and overwhelming.

While the Allen has certain accessibility accommodations in place, such as an access ramp in the back of the museum by the courtyard, a “Highlights Audio Tour” and an encyclopedic website with podcasts and high definition pictures of artwork, there are certainly ways to expand its range of accessibility to make it a bea-

con for the campus community at large.

Although it seems that Oberlin makes great strides in discussing issues of gender, sexuality, racism and other political or social justice issues, it has a long way to go in reaching full accessibility to all, regardless of disability.

However, students at the College are working on a project, tentatively titled the Allen All-In Initiative, to make the museum more accessible. The Initiative seeks to build accessible spaces for blind and low-vision visitors by creating interactive ways to touch and engage with art.

The venture’s goal is to submit a proposal to the Allen with detailed outlines of the programs it hopes will come to fruition.

Such programs include 3D printing replicas of objects in the Allen’s collection to engage visitors’ tactile senses and pairing artwork in the Allen with studentcomposed music to bridge the connection between the visual and the auditory.

The project would be non-invasive and would not require artwork to be moved or touched in the galleries.

Ultimately, art is more than just a painting hung up on a cold, intimidating museum wall. It is a living, breathing document of the past and a mode of expression, whether it be made for simple enjoyment or as a vessel of activism. As such, all people, regardless of disability, should be able to experience it, and museums should do their part in creating accessible spaces by facilitating programs that encourage multi-sensory learning. Even if it means touching the art.

Trump Raises Military Budget at Expense of Citizens Jordan Joseph Contributing writer In his budget proposal released Monday, President Donald Trump proposed increasing federal funding for the military by $54 billion at the expense of important domestic and international programs and agencies. This budget, if approved by Congress, would severely hurt American citizens. The proposal itself speaks volumes about the administration’s priorities.

Trump confirmed Tuesday that he plans to gut the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development by demanding cuts of at least 37 percent to both agencies’ budgets.

These cuts send a strong message that Trump doesn’t consider foreign relations to be important, as reducing the State Department’s budget would drastically reduce the capability of the government to meaningfully engage in foreign and diplomatic relations. An increase in military funding and decrease in funding for diplomatic matters could hurt American trade prospects and potentially lead to arms races with nations like Russia and China.

Another facet of Trump’s plan is a steep decrease in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which currently comprises 0.01 percent of the federal budget. The CPB brings educational programming and news to the public through its subsidiaries PBS and NPR. The amount of money that the federal government allocates to the

CPB is already tiny compared to the overall national budget. The CPB does a fantastic job of bringing quality educational programming to communities that might not otherwise have access to it.

People who might not be able to afford cable or internet connections can still receive public broadcasting for free. Reducing funding for organizations like CPB leads to a public that is less likely to be educated about the news that they are consuming.

Likewise, the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities is expected to sustain cuts, even though it makes up –––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The CPB does a fantastic job of bringing quality educational programming to communities that might not otherwise have access to it.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––– only 0.006 percent of the overall federal budget. The NEA supports 16,000 communities in every congressional district in the country and is the only source of funding, public or private, that provides equal access to the arts nationwide. Also, 40 percent of NEA activities occur in highpoverty areas, with 36 percent of grants assisting organizations that help marginalized populations such as disabled people and veterans. Without NEA funding, many of the programs that the organization supports would

disappear. Many underfunded public school districts that have already cut art classes would be unable to provide students with any outlet for artistic expression or education.

The Environmental Protection Agency would also be significantly impacted if the current incarnation of Trump’s budget is approved. Trump is proposing to reduce the agency’s budget of $8.1 billion by $2 billion — a 24 percent cut. Like the NEA and the CPB, the EPA makes up only a tiny portion of the $3 trillion annual federal budget but faces some of the steepest cuts.

Without the research pioneered and data collected by the EPA, the public will be left in the dark about issues of climate change and environmental deterioration. Trump’s plan to reduce EPA funding will greatly decrease research on the environment, which is desperately needed as the threat of climate change mounts. Cuts to this agency will immediately result in dirtier water and air, particularly in poor communities that do not have the resources to fight polluters on their own.

Trump is supposedly making cuts to these agencies to bolster an underfunded military.

But in 2015 alone, the U.S. spent $601 billion on its military budget — more than the next seven highest-spending countries combined. The current administration should focus on reducing defense spending, not increasing it. Additionally, it is using this spending hike to justify cuts

to agencies that keep American citizens healthy, educated, and engaged, even though these programs’ budgets barely scratch the surface of the military bonus. This should signal to anyone still in doubt that Trump’s administration is teetering on the edge of fascism, cutting agen-

cies that keep the public healthy and informed and favoring military prowess to diplomacy. In its budgetary process, Congress will now reveal whether its loyalty lies with a corrupt administration or with the American people.

Herbs For All

TUMERIC This spice has a long history of uses in both cuisine and medicine, but it can also be combined with milk to make a hair removal paste.

Apply to the desired area, let it dry and wipe off with a washcloth. Use soap and baking soda to remove any residual coloring from the skin.

MUGWORT Mugwort is an herb that grows in parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. It can reduce stomach pain and help regulate menstruation but can also make dreams more vivid and, in some cases, induce lucid dreaming. It is most commonly consumed as tea.

Occasions

GINGER

Though Western medicine tends to emphasize the usage of artificial pharmaceuticals for medical cures, natural alternatives can come in handy, too. Although many pharmaceuticals are truly remarkable in their healing abilities, they can also be expensive, cause allergic reactions or produce severe side effects. Sometimes we need to look no further than nature for help with physical ailments.

Here are a few herbal remedies to try.

Ginger contains gingerol, a compound with many potent medicinal properties.

It is especially effective at treating many forms of stomach pain, including nausea, indigestion and menstrual cramps. It comes fresh, dried or powdered and makes a delicious tea as well.

MULLEIN

LAVENDER

Often made into a tea, this herb has fuzzy leaves and small, yellow flowers.

It is used to relieve coughing and hoarseness. Mullein also loosens phlegm in the throat and lungs, making it a great decongestant.

Besides its soothing aroma, lavender has long been used to reduce stress and assist with sleep.

Put a few drops on your pillow before bed or use lavenderscented lotion to fight stress and rest well.

CALENDAR:

TEA TREE OIL This essential oil is a natural antiseptic, providing relief for small cuts, burns and skin infections.

It is also effective in reducing acne, soothing bug bites and combating cold sores.

Track and Field Indoor Conference Championship Indoor Track Friday, March 3 at noon, Saturday, March 4 at 10 a.m.

Essence Presents BLACK LOVE: The Incarceration of the Spirit Warner Center, Main Space Friday, March 3 and Saturday, March 4, 8 p.m. – 10 p.m.

Reproductive Justice: Looking Forward, Learning from the Past Wilder Hall, Room 101 Monday, March 6 Noon – 1 p.m.

Guthrie Ramsey: The Serious Work of Musical Play (Or Why Adele Deserved Her Grammy) Kulas Recital Hall Monday, March 6, 7 p.m.

Come cheer on the nationally ranked Yeomen and Yeowomen as they compete in the North Coast Athletic Conference Championships.

Don’t miss Dance Diaspora’s last production with Artistic Director and Professor Adenike Sharpley at Oberlin College!

The show is choreographed by Sharpley and includes students in the Dance department. $5 presale, $10 at the door.

If you are concerned about the future of reproductive health in America, come to this teach-in by Visiting Professor Chris Bercelos to to learn about sexual-health issues and strategies that have been successful in preserving reproductive rights.

Visiting scholar Guthrie Ramsey will discuss how artists like Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé Knowles have become symbols for resistance and how music can be a tool of social activism.

ST. JOHN 'S WORT Native to Europe, St. John’s Wort can be applied externally as an antiinflammatory or to heal cuts and burns.

It also may be useful to treat anxiety or mild depression when consumed, but can have adverse reactions with some medications. Make sure to consult a doctor before taking any.

Layout and text by Izzy Rosenstein, This Week editor Artist Lecture: Josh MacPhee Allen Memorial Art Museum, Classroom 1 Tuesday, March 7, 4:45 p.m.

Designer, artist and archivist Josh MacPhee will present a discussion about history in relation to art and culture. MacPhee will address how art history can be a tool to animate the past, inform the present day and think about the future.

Student Composers Concert Warner Concert Hall Wednesday, March 8, 8 – 10 p.m.

This concert will feature original works composed by Conservatory students in the TIMARA and Composition departments.

Herbs For All

TUMERIC This spice has a long history of uses in both cuisine and medicine, but it can also be combined with milk to make a hair removal paste.

Apply to the desired area, let it dry and wipe off with a washcloth. Use soap and baking soda to remove any residual coloring from the skin.

MUGWORT Mugwort is an herb that grows in parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. It can reduce stomach pain and help regulate menstruation but can also make dreams more vivid and, in some cases, induce lucid dreaming. It is most commonly consumed as tea.

Occasions

GINGER

Though Western medicine tends to emphasize the usage of artificial pharmaceuticals for medical cures, natural alternatives can come in handy, too. Although many pharmaceuticals are truly remarkable in their healing abilities, they can also be expensive, cause allergic reactions or produce severe side effects. Sometimes we need to look no further than nature for help with physical ailments.

Here are a few herbal remedies to try.

Ginger contains gingerol, a compound with many potent medicinal properties.

It is especially effective at treating many forms of stomach pain, including nausea, indigestion and menstrual cramps. It comes fresh, dried or powdered and makes a delicious tea as well.

MULLEIN

LAVENDER

Often made into a tea, this herb has fuzzy leaves and small, yellow flowers.

It is used to relieve coughing and hoarseness. Mullein also loosens phlegm in the throat and lungs, making it a great decongestant.

Besides its soothing aroma, lavender has long been used to reduce stress and assist with sleep.

Put a few drops on your pillow before bed or use lavenderscented lotion to fight stress and rest well.

CALENDAR:

TEA TREE OIL This essential oil is a natural antiseptic, providing relief for small cuts, burns and skin infections.

It is also effective in reducing acne, soothing bug bites and combating cold sores.

Track and Field Indoor Conference Championship Indoor Track Friday, March 3 at noon, Saturday, March 4 at 10 a.m.

Essence Presents BLACK LOVE: The Incarceration of the Spirit Warner Center, Main Space Friday, March 3 and Saturday, March 4, 8 p.m. – 10 p.m.

Reproductive Justice: Looking Forward, Learning from the Past Wilder Hall, Room 101 Monday, March 6 Noon – 1 p.m.

Guthrie Ramsey: The Serious Work of Musical Play (Or Why Adele Deserved Her Grammy) Kulas Recital Hall Monday, March 6, 7 p.m.

Come cheer on the nationally ranked Yeomen and Yeowomen as they compete in the North Coast Athletic Conference Championships.

Don’t miss Dance Diaspora’s last production with Artistic Director and Professor Adenike Sharpley at Oberlin College!

The show is choreographed by Sharpley and includes students in the Dance department. $5 presale, $10 at the door.

If you are concerned about the future of reproductive health in America, come to this teach-in by Visiting Professor Chris Bercelos to to learn about sexual-health issues and strategies that have been successful in preserving reproductive rights.

Visiting scholar Guthrie Ramsey will discuss how artists like Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé Knowles have become symbols for resistance and how music can be a tool of social activism.

ST. JOHN 'S WORT Native to Europe, St. John’s Wort can be applied externally as an antiinflammatory or to heal cuts and burns.

It also may be useful to treat anxiety or mild depression when consumed, but can have adverse reactions with some medications. Make sure to consult a doctor before taking any.

Layout and text by Izzy Rosenstein, This Week editor Artist Lecture: Josh MacPhee Allen Memorial Art Museum, Classroom 1 Tuesday, March 7, 4:45 p.m.

Designer, artist and archivist Josh MacPhee will present a discussion about history in relation to art and culture. MacPhee will address how art history can be a tool to animate the past, inform the present day and think about the future.

Student Composers Concert Warner Concert Hall Wednesday, March 8, 8 – 10 p.m.

This concert will feature original works composed by Conservatory students in the TIMARA and Composition departments.

Arts The Oberlin Review

Page 10

March 3, 2017

TIMARA Hosts Expansive Sendoff for John Talbert Victoria Garber Arts editor John Talbert, who for 38 years has run a tight ship as the technical director of the TIMARA department, will retire this spring. The department has organized a weekend festival that kicked off yesterday and will run through Saturday evening to honor his decades behind the scenes, maintaining vintage equipment, keeping the department stocked with the latest and greatest technology, running tech support for events and teaching students integral skills from circuit design to interface building.

“He’s really good at all of those things. He’s done an amazing job of staying up-to-date in a field that changes very rapidly,” said Associate Professor and TIMARA chair Peter Swendsen.

Perhaps his most profound impact has been as an educator, with a reputation among students for being as patient as he is eccentric in his teaching methods.

“He’s a very good teacher and does a great job of explaining very complicated topics — usually taught at engineering school — to a bunch of weirdo musicians,” said Will Johnson, OC ’16, who recently graduated from the program.

“He was, in spite of my inability to comprehend electronics at 8:30 in the morning at the age of 19, a great teacher and kind of innovative,” said TIMARA alumnus Travis Johns, OC ’04, who performed alongside current faculty yesterday in Clonick Hall. “One of the biggest memories that I have [is] him illustrating how a circuit worked by proceeding to walk around the room above chairs, over tables, on the piano and back down and [saying] ‘See? It always comes back to the same place.’”

His reputed patience does not translate into permissiveness when it comes to how the equipment under his supervision is handled.

“He’s not afraid to tell people when they’re not treating the gear right,” said Conservatory sophomore

Ko Takasugi-Czernowin. “I think that’s really important, that kind of honesty. … He knows so much stuff.”

Talbert’s expertise lies mainly in building innovative electronic instruments from scratch, including stand-alone contraptions that can be played or programmed on their own and peripheral devices designed as intermediaries between existing interfaces, instruments and their users. Many students have come away from his classes with the fundamental knowledge and flexibility to build what they need to create new sounds and visuals, somewhat mitigating the economic and other restrictions of what is commercially available. “[With Talbert], it was, ‘Here are the fundamentals of electronics.

Let’s step it back a bit and realize that we can take this into our hands and own every aspect of the creation, from the instruments we make, to the music we write, to the tools that we record them on,’” Johns said.

Assistant Professor Aurie Hsu performs a piece to electric drums Thursday evening in Clonick Hall as part of a weekTalbert’s innovation allows end celebration of John Talbert’s career.

Photo by Byan Rubin, Photo editor TIMARA to use a lot of opensource tech, which is less expensive returned to Oberlin to participate in is super heavy, and … even now with the workshops. and much more flexible by design. the festivities and perform alongside my [work] I owe it to him, because “That’s very much a good way to For example, he has recently been current students and faculty while I didn’t quite grasp what he celebrate John because he has really working with Arduino technology, throughout the weekend. There will was saying then, afterwards it really done a lot of that kind of design and using the programmable boards also be a series of presentations and laid the foundation for everything building of instruments over the to control the sounds of unique workshops. that I’m doing now.” years,” Swendsen said. “It’ll be nice to instruments, created by embedding “We have some students who The concerts will feature a variety have all these new instruments come sound chips from things like old have been working this semester on of creative work, including live music into being during the weekend.” video games into other objects, like using some of the many instruments and dance performances, fixedradios. Talbert has a long history of that John has developed over the media and video pieces, robotics All events are free and open to the such invention, and has developed years,” Swendsen said. “They’ll be and improvisations with homemade public: projects with numerous students presenting that work and performing instruments. Student projects will Open house in the TIMARA studios and faculty members. with some of those instruments. be on display for an open-house tour Friday, March 3, 8 p.m.

“For a long time he and my John will also be talking about what of TIMARA’s basement studios this Concert featuring performances by predecessor, Gary Nelson, … he’s done in his time here.” evening.

TIMARA faculty and alumni in David collaborated on an instrument called Talbert may not teach the most Professional instrument designer H. Stull Recital Hall Saturday, March the midi horn,” Swendsen said. “[It] musically exciting classes TIMARA Peter Blasser, OC ’02, an alumnus 4, 1:30 p.m. was one of the first fully-functional, has to offer, but to many alumni, of the program, will lead two Concert featuring music by College breath-controlled, expressive the knowledge and experience instrument-building workshops and Conservatory faculty and Oberlin instruments that Gary, who was a gained from his courses have been in which several students will community members in Stull Recital former tuba player, could play with fundamental to their musical receive instruction on how to create Hall Saturday, March 4, 3 p.m. all of the training he already had careers. homemade instruments. He’s spent Concert featuring performances by [and] that could control things on “You don’t really see the his career designing and constructing current and former TIMARA students the computer.” significance or the impact [of them],” all kinds of synthesizers and other in Fairchild Chapel Saturday, March Several former TIMARA students Johns said. “But after years … it finally instruments, and has assisted the 4, 8 p.m.

Talbert helped to inspire, who have dawns on you that … this [material] program in collecting materials for

Acclaimed Poet, Musician Jamila Woods to Perform at Cat Samantha Spaccasi Staff writer The first time College junior Athena Matsil heard Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment’s song “Sunday Candy,” she remembers being struck by the track’s lead vocalist, Jamila Woods.

“I was really moved by the beauty, quality, and purity of the timbre of Woods’ voice,” Matsil wrote in an email to the Review.

Woods, a Chicago-based musician and poet who has worked alongside popular artists such as Kweku Collins, Noname and Chance the Rapper, will perform at the Cat in the Cream at 8 p.m. tonight.

Many of Woods’ fans first came across her extraordinary voice on “Sunday Candy,” one of 2014’s biggest hits, which prompted listeners and publications, such as music website Pitchfork, to take a closer look. Woods’ provocative and soulful debut album, HEAVN, was released last June via Closed Sessions

to critical acclaim, and was featured on Pichfork’s “Best Albums of 2016” list.

College senior and Cat in the Cream manager Annika Hansteen Izora organized Woods’ visit. A senior member of Oberlin’s slam poetry team, OSlam, Izora initially discovered Woods through her written material.

“Being able to have a Black femme artist on campus is just really incredible,” Izora said. “A lot of white, masculine music is really upheld and is the center of attention in all music spaces here. To be able to have an empowered, incredible force [like her] on campus is going to be really amazing.”

Much of Woods’ work is centered around embracing intersectional strength and beauty, something that led Izora to fall in love with HEAVN. “It was so big and so beautiful,” Izora added. “A ton of people were talking about it, and a ton of Black people were talking about it. [The album] was just such an uplifting piece of artwork.”

College junior Sky Davis echoed Matsil’s appreciation for Woods’ performance skill and artistry.

“Everyone that knows her loves her, and if they don’t, they will,” Davis said, adding that Woods’ show will be ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

‘Being able to have a Black femme artist on campus is just really incredible.’

Annika Hansteen Izora College senior –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– a performance the whole campus can enjoy. “I think [her work] touches enough of the campus that people will either get to know her or vibe with her because they know her stuff so well.”

Woods expresses herself in a variety of ways, not limited to song. While she’s made a splash in the music world, Woods

is also well known as an inspirational poet. Her writing talent is evident in her flowing, expressive lyrics and poetry.

She also serves as the associate artistic director at Young Chicago Authors, an organization dedicated to providing a safe place for youth expression, where she helps young people hone creative skills as tools to engage with issues of race and discrimination.

Like Izora, College senior Misael Syldor was first exposed to Woods’ artistry through her poetry. Syldor described Woods’ music as “weird, Blackgirl music,” adding that her work draws from a wide variety of influences and transcends genre.

“One of the first poems I saw from her was called ‘Thirst Behavior,’ in which she called out Drake for his sad-boy music and mistreatment of women,” Syldor said. “She doesn’t feel confined by her identities and expectations of expression See “Sunday,” page 13

Arts

The Oberlin Review, March 3, 2017

Page 11

On the Record With Hector Aristizábal, Actor theater, which is basically using theater to ask a question about an issue that we do not resolve in the play. Hopefully the audience that identifies with the issue is excited and invited to enter into the play and try different things.

It’s very improvisational, [and] it’s a kind of aesthetic dialogue where we ask the question and we look for alternatives — not how to solve it, but what to do to try and change it. The plays in forum theater end very badly, but an ‘oppressed’ is not a victim. An ‘oppressed’ is a character that is trying to change the conditions of their lives but, in the play, they are unable to do it. But hopefully the audience will see that the characters could have done something different to change the terrible outcome, and that’s what we invite people to do.

Hector Aristizábal arrived in Oberlin to run several theater workshops and produce a forum play with students and community members.

Photo courtesy of Hector Aristizábal

Hector Aristizábal is the founder and artistic co-director of ImaginAction, a non-profit theater arts organization based in Los Angeles. ImaginAction uses techniques from Theatre of the Oppressed, Playback Theatre, Theatre of Witness, Psychodrama, traditional storytelling, maskmaking, drumming, dance and creative ritual to facilitate dialogue, community-building, liberation and healing in communities worldwide.

Educated as a theater artist and psychologist, Aristizábal has won numerous awards for his art, including the 2012 Otto René Castillo Award for Political Theatre, and is the co-author of The Blessing Next to the Wound: A Story of Art, Activism, and Transformation. This week, Aristizábal has been leading workshops on campus to produce a forum play with students and community members, which will be performed today.

During his stay, he also partnered with the Oberlin Drama at Grafton Program, which provides opportunities for residents of the Grafton Reintegration Center to perform classic theater works.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What is Theatre of the Oppressed?

In Theatre of the Oppressed … we develop plays with … people who are not necessarily actors as a profession, but we show them that we all have the capacity to tell stories. We believe that every person is an expert in their own lives, so when they develop scenes that are connected to their stories, they act very well because they know the tribulations and the ordeals that the characters are going through.

The modality that I’m using is called forum

What exactly are you doing at Oberlin and at Grafton this week?

This is my 13th year [coming] to Oberlin College — brought by students, not by the College — and every year is some kind of magical process, by which a student felt inspired to bring me back and does all the work to make that possible.

Three years ago I started going to Grafton … and the first two years, I did workshops with the inmates that participate in [the Oberlin Drama at Grafton Program]. They do mostly Shakespeare, but after the workshops the last two years, they wanted me to show them the other techniques that I use, which use Theatre of the Oppressed and other modalities. So this year, we are doing a short-form theater play that we are going to show [Thursday] afternoon to a larger group of inmates. The play is developed through improvisations about issues that they are interested in, both things that happen inside the prison and things that happen in their lives when they are in prison — for example, a loved one gets sick or dies, and how difficult it is

for them not to be able to attend the funeral or be with their loved ones. It’s a way to humanize the very dehumanized position that most prisoners are in in our society, because the way we treat prisoners is based in mostly punishment.

It’s not any way to see them as human beings who have made a mistake — sometimes a huge mistake — or committed a crime. So theater is a way to bring that to the surface and create dialogue.

I’m going [through] a very similar process with [Oberlin] students at the Cat in the Cream in the afternoons [this week], where we meet for two hours and do games and improvisations about the issues that the students are interested in. … Sometimes we have members of the community that come and participate as well.

Whatever comes out of that process, we’re going to show it [today] to the larger community.

What sort of questions have Oberlin students and community members been interacting with this week?

Several things have been brought out — one is issues and questions about water, and the future of water. Some people have mentioned Flint as an extreme situation, but they are also questioning: “What is happening with the water that people at Oberlin drink from the faucet directly?” “How do we know that water is clean, and for how long are we going to be able to guarantee that that water is being protected?”

Then the Lakota issue with the [Dakota Access] pipeline, and the fact that [the NEXUS] gas pipeline is going to pass very close to [Oberlin].

So there are questions about how … we as communities react to that, knowing the power that the oil and gas companies have, and also the current government, … [which] has given free rein to these kinds of projects in the country, to See On the Record, page 12

Noah Hawley’s Legion Flick Explores Mutant Minds Christian Bolles Columnist In the second episode of Legion, Fargo creator Noah Hawley’s first attempt at a Marvel television series, the protagonist, David, tells his lover — whom he is forbidden to touch — that they are engaged in “a romance of the mind.” This is as much of a mission statement as the show’s mind-boggling, brilliant and often elusive script is willing to provide. Hawley’s fascination with the human mind is the entry point for the series, which tells David’s story and follows his path from disempowerment to untold amounts of power. David quickly learns that the symptoms of schizophrenia that placed him in a psychiatric institution, where the show’s pilot is set, might not be the caused by mental illness at all. He soon becomes embroiled in an impending war between humans and mutants, who tell him that he harbors incredible potential as a powerful mutant. From this simple and potentially problematic premise, the show embarks upon a thrilling journey through David’s psyche, interlacing world-building, character and plot development within the framework of his mind. That it succeeds so well is testament to Hawley’s genius; given unfettered creative control by host network FX, he manages an impressive cast with finesse.

Legion is the best new television series this year, and if the latter

half of the season sustains the mastery of its first four episodes, then it may hold that title for a long time.

The show’s boldest choice, to spend almost every minute of its time operating from David’s perspective, is also its most compelling. From the outset, Hawley establishes a unique visual style best described as hallucinatory. At no juncture is it entirely clear whether David’s perceived reality is real at all, leading the viewer down a cinematic rabbit hole of memorable imagery ranging from gorgeous to horrific. This unpredictability fosters a nearconstant sense of tension, allayed only when Hawley decides to relax his grip, which is rare. Even in its slower moments, the sheer amount of artistic inventiveness on display proves that Legion is a rare example of a series that distributes its budget evenly from episode to episode. After the jaw-dropping breadth and style of the pilot, one would be forgiven for expecting the show to dial back its CGI trickery. But all of the episodes watched for review — especially the fourth, which contains an unforgettable sequence that ranks as the show’s best so far — are brimming with the kind of moments one rewinds to show their friends. It’s arresting.

It almost seems unfair to claim that the visual spectacle of the show is secondary to its performances, but it’s true. Dan

Stevens, previously known for his role as Matthew Crawley in Downton Abbey, pulls off a thoroughly convincing American accent as David — high-pitched, gritty and sharp, his delivery elevates every line. There is a careful line to toe when it comes to playing the role of a mentally ill character, and Stevens’ effort to bring passion and respect to David’s most charged moments is consistently admirable and ranks among the best television performances in recent memory.

Sharing the spotlight is Rachel Keller as Syd, a fellow mutant and David’s love interest, whose genuine pathos and determination prove the perfect counterweight to her boyfriend.

This is really David and Syd’s story; the other characters are wellwritten but ultimately peripheral, with some exceptions as the scale begins to widen in the third and fourth episodes. The show will undoubtedly have to continue to expand its focus to survive over a 10-hour run-time, but the intensity of Legion’s concern for its two central characters is more than welcome — it’s essential.

Westworld repopularised — and, to some, wore thin — the trappings of a “puzzle-box” narrative, but where that series used mystery to provide tension on top of a straightforward story, Legion’s story is only confusing to the extent that David himself is confused. His mind is the puzzle, and as both he and the

other mutants struggle to piece it together, the biggest questions that arise are not about a distant endgame, but rather David’s past, and, more importantly for him, his own mind. This is where the show’s setup might threaten to derail its attempts at philosophy; if David isn’t schizophrenic, as some around him assert, then is mental health treated as an onor-off switch? In short: not even close. Hawley’s skill at navigating the human mind brings the issue of sanity front and center.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The show’s boldest choice, to spend almost every minute of its time operating from David’s perspective, is also its most compelling.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––– David and Syd, having both been institutionalized, know very well that the source of the voices he’s heard all his life has no bearing on the psychological cost of their presence. The effect on his mind is the same, and it’s clear early on that the trauma caused since childhood by unknowingly reading thoughts and conjuring visions has had a profound impact on David.

The symptoms of his powers were diagnosed as schizophrenia for a reason. Whether the series will continue to expound on these

questions remains to be seen, but the nuanced treatment of mental health is one of its core tenets. In examining David’s mind so closely, the show finds its voice.

More so than perhaps any other show on television, Legion never stops being surprising. It boasts something like a cornucopia of genre influences, switching from Lynchian abstraction to sappy romance to intense action and back again. By the third episode, it’s begun to veer into the realm of psychological horror, serving up some inspired, nightmarish set pieces. David’s subconscious hides some deeply terrifying secrets; Hawley mines a lot of excellent material from a fictional children’s book with a macabre twist. That kind of specificity permeates every facet of the show’s design, leaving a lasting impression hour after hour.

Blessed with a strong sense of identity and clarity of vision, Legion is a critic’s show, possessing a brand of biting originality that reminds us that the golden age of television is far from over. With a riveting, believable romance at its center, subtle world building at its fringes and a trademark visual style, the show so far is a compelling argument for the value of creative control. This is Noah Hawley’s work through and through, and that should be incentive enough to tag along on this beautiful, twisted romance of the mind.

Page 12

Arts

The Oberlin Review, March 3, 2017

Sharpley’s Retirement Leaves Dance Diaspora’s Future Uncertain Brendan Eprile Staff writer “Black Love: The Incarceration of the Spirit,” Dance Diaspora’s last performance at Oberlin with its original founder, will be held at Warner Main Space today and tomorrow from 8–10 p.m. A semi-professional dance group founded by Africana Studies Artist-inResidence Adenike Sharpley, Dance Diaspora has performed at elementary schools, high schools, Tufts University, Georgia State University and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit. The group performs repertoire and choreography drawn from Gambia, Brazil, Cuba and Haiti, as well as African-American Vernacular Dance such as jazz and blues improvisation.

Francisca “Kika” Chaidez-Gutierrez, OC ’05, stage manager and marketing director for Dance Diaspora, has worked with Sharpley

for a decade. For her, the group’s mission to celebrate Black dance forms is central to its importance and appeal.

“This group is for everyone, but it especially appeals to people of color because it is empowering Black artists,” Chaidez-Gutierrez said. “We are elevating Black art forms to the same level as Western art forms.”

Chaidez-Gutierrez said she worries about the level of cultural denial concerning Black art history, but believes Sharpley and Dance Diaspora provide motivation and empowerment to students as individuals through dance and community service.

“We are educated … to think that embracing African culture is not important,” she said. “Marginalized communities often inform pop culture and art, but it’s important we recognize our historical roots. There [have] been Black writers, artists, dancers and poets for centuries.”

Participating in Dance Diaspora has been a rewarding experience for many of Sharpley’s students. College senior Khalid Taylor, a musical studies major, decided to join Dance Diaspora because he’s always loved to dance and wanted to find a form that incorporated the whole body, but was also looking for a connection to his identity and roots; for him, Dance Diaspora was a perfect fit.

“This experience has been extremely difficult but rewarding,” Taylor said. “It feels good to perform at a professional level, and nothing is better than when a movement starts to feel natural — although the work is never really done.”

Dance Diaspora has also provided an important space for Taylor as a member of the Black community and he said the performance this weekend is a culmination of that. “‘Black Love’ is a narrative of Black people’s struggles, triumphs and failures,” he said. “Most

Semi-professional dance group Dance Diaspora will perform “Black Love: The Incarceration of the Spirit” this weekend, their last show before founder Adenike Sharpley’s retirement.

Photo by Rick Yu, Photo editor

importantly, it is a story about love and about how Black love in particular can be sweet and gentle, but also strong, rough, scary and necessary. Lots of forces have tried to prevent it, to stifle it, to oppress it. In that way, Black love is also resistance.”

Sharpley agrees that love is central to the theme of the show, both bodily and spiritually.

“The show deals with issues of family, love, what is beautiful, how we deal with our body, how we move our bodies,” she said. “We don’t see it as nasty or dirty. We use call and response.

It’s a very communal show.”

The show also specifically focuses on the love and relationships of people of color. Sharpley stressed that it is “a Black vernacular show with Black dance, Black art forms and Black music [that] focuses on the Black community.”

This show is particularly significant because it is the last show that Sharpley will direct before retiring. It remains unclear what the future of Dance Diaspora holds, but no one has been hired to replace her. Chaidez-Gutierrez fears that if students don’t continue to fight for more art spaces for people of color, those spaces may slowly be lost. Sharpley said she has worked hard to inspire students and foster community, but feels that some of her work has gone underappreciated.

“When we toured other colleges, we were really treated much better than we are at Oberlin,” Sharpley said. “Back at Oberlin, we’re chopped liver.”

Though Sharpley wouldn’t go into specifics about her feelings on Oberlin, Taylor shared the sentiment.

“Miss Ade has done amazing things and she hasn’t received the recognition she should have,” he said, noting that Sharpley has never received the title of professor, despite teaching dance classes at Oberlin for over 20 years.

“Black Love: The Incarceration of the Spirit” will be a culmination of the years of hard work that Sharpley has invested into Dance Diaspora, highlighting the beauty of Black love, the Black community and the relationship between dancers and their bodies, as well as the Black struggle to establish the legitimacy of their relationships and the spaces they occupy.

“Black Love: The Incarceration of the Spirit” runs tonight and tomorrow night from 8–10 p.m.

Tickets are available for $5 via CTS in advance of the show and $10 at the door.

On the Record With ImaginAction Founder Hector Aristizábal Continued from page 11 fracking and oil and gas exploitation, because they deny that there are any problems with the environment.

So these questions have come out, [as well as] questions about students feeling overwhelmed, feeling, some of them, even depressed, asking questions about their futures [and] about how what they are studying is going to really serve them in their lives — beyond economic possibilities, but existentially. Some people have talked about how overwhelmed we all seem to be with how chaotic the world seems to be right now. The Earth is warming and melting and shaking, and the social institutions no longer seem to serve people. So where do we go?

There’s a despair that we’re feeling as human beings.

We use theater to create scenes to ask these questions — not to resolve them, but to project them out so we can take a better look at them as a group.

Your workshops are advertised as exploring political, social and environmental oppression and trauma, expressed and released through music, dance, movement, storytelling and puppets. How do all these things come together in the workshop? What does

that look like?

In theater … we always start with games.

What games do is they democratize the room. When we play, we’re no longer men and women, or people who know each other and those who don’t know each other, or those who are members of the community and those who are college students. When we play, we humanize each other. We connect to each other through our energy, through our bodies, and also when we play … imagination and spontaneity get activated. Then we go from the games into creating images about things that we’re interested in.

From the images, we go into improvisations.

We create scenes about issues in our lives, and then we start questioning. We often create scenes about the things that we don’t know how to resolve, so in that way it’s political. It’s a reflection on our lives, and it’s a reflection not to be critical or to be judgmental, [but] to be creative. It’s an invitation to say to the group “What do we do in this situation?” “What would you do in this situation?”

[On Tuesday], we brought costumes and wigs and masks, because those are tools that actors use to explore different ways [to] transform ourselves. When you put on a mask, somehow it connects you with parts inside of you that are often not expressed in daily life. The mask gives you some permission to be who you are, and

also to explore with your body and to explore with each other. They bring humor. They also allow you to express very strong emotion without hurting [anybody]. So I work a lot with creating spaces for imagination. We use music, sound, masks, images, pantomime, drums, etc. as a way to use the symbolic languages of theater to ask questions.

You have been involved with the movement to end torture and change U.S. policy in Latin America using theatrical performance.

What does that look like?

For many years I have worked with different organizations, like the School of the Americas Watch, which organizes demonstrations and lobbying in Washington. We have developed vigils that we do every year in front of the school, recognizing the role that the school has had in South America in teaching torture and promoting dictatorships. Theater allows us to bring those messages in a way that — hopefully — more people can look at. We use giant puppets to tell the story of some of the massacres that have occurred in Guatamala, El Salvador and other places. We invite people who attend these demonstrations to mourn the deaths of the people who have been killed in our name, with our taxes.

I have been part of that process also because of my own personal history. I was tortured in

Colombia, so it’s something that I have had to heal in myself, but also it has allowed me to meet people from all over the world who unfortunately have gone through that. When you go through something like that and you start healing, part of the healing process is to do whatever you can to stop it.

Right now, I’m going back to my country … Colombia, to work [using theater] in the peace process. The Colombian government just signed a peace agreement with the … Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and so we are engaging in a whole new moment in our history in which we want to figure out how we can live in peace even though there are people who think very differently.

The problem in Colombia is that, when you think differently than others, you could be killed or tortured or disappeared by the government or by the paramilitary groups or by the guerilla groups, depending on what ideological spectrum you were in. Now, we’re saying, “You can think very differently, but it doesn’t mean that I have to hide from you because of fear that you will kill me, or I need to plan how to kill you.” We can discuss and we can create a more democratic country where we can all fight for our ideas using words and using democratic means, not using weapons.

Arts

The Oberlin Review, March 3, 2017

Page 13

Melancholy Play Provides Funny, Lyrical Discussion of Sadness Rachel Mead Staff writer The five actors in Sarah Ruhl’s Melancholy Play are all preoccupied with lost arts like a talent for melancholy and the carrying of handkerchiefs. Directed by College senior Zoë DePreta, Melancholy Play follows Tilly (College sophomore Paige Baskin), a bank teller who suffers from a depression that attracts everyone around her. This theme is one that DePreta found relevant to Oberlin’s culture.

“I think it’s good to do on a college campus because it talks about the way that people fetishize sadness, especially at a school where people are pretty open about discussing mental illness. This is a show that projects that,” DePreta said.

College junior Zoë Kushlefsky, who plays Joan in the show and also designed the set, agreed with DePreta about the show’s focus.

“It kind of comments on a lot of bullshit in movies and stuff that Oberlin students see through; the whole show is kind of calling out manic pixie dream girls and how male characters in those kinds of shows ro-

manticize depression,” she said.

DePreta is no stranger to themes of sadness and poetry. Last year she devised a onewoman show with two other students, Anna Gelman, OC ’16, and Ariana Silvan-Grau, OC ’16, based on the life of Sylvia Plath, titled I Do It So It Feels Like Hell. This piece, which DePreta plans to continue developing after graduation, shows Plath as a woman who is more than her tragedy and infuses the serious nature of her famous works with some of her sillier and more whimsical qualities.

Melancholy Play features a similar balance of silly and serious moments. Ruhl’s simultaneously poetic and facial language was another draw for the cast and crew.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” Baskin said. “I’ve done musicals, I’ve done a lot of classic straight plays and a lot of realist theater, but this show has very heightened dialogue and poetic language. It’s been exciting and also really challenging.”

Along with lyrical language, the show features a live music component. Doubledegree senior Patrick Dunaj wrote original music for cello, performed by Conservatory

first-year Julie Holzen, who sits stage left for the whole one-act show. Dunaj’s music accompanies the actors as they spontaneously burst into song during the play.

“There are a few different scores you can use, but I figured when in Oberlin, you can find a composition major to write you a beautiful score, which he did,” DePreta said.

Dunaj said he drew inspiration from the Bach cello suites, late 19th-century romantic music and ’60s film scores like those Bernard Herrmann composed for Alfred Hitchcock. While he tried to capture a sense of melodrama as well as melancholy, Dunaj took care not to upstage the actors with his composition.

“I don’t want [the audience] to be concentrating on the music. It should enhance what’s going on onstage. If you find yourself paying too much attention to the score, the composer’s done something wrong,” he said.

On the whole, Melancholy Play is anything but subtle. The characters are dramatic and there are several soap opera-style twists. In the usual style of black box theater, the sets are sparse, but the upholstered chaise longue and area rugs bring charm to

an already charming script. The lighting is particularly creative, echoing the moods of the characters and the music, and adding dimension to the flat stage of Little Theater.

Those that are allergic to tree nuts should be warned: almonds are essentially the show’s seventh character. The nuts are used extensively and may come in close proximity to audience members; anyone whose allergy prevents them from being in the same space with tree nuts are asked not to attend the performances.

Melancholy Play, which opened yesterday as part of this year’s theater LabSeries and runs through Sunday, is a chance to revel in this lyrical and comical commentary on the idealization of unhappiness. It is a truly delightful play, and it is abundantly clear that the entire cast and crew enjoy one another’s company as much as Tilly and her friends do. Both the melancholy and the enchantment are contagious.

Melancholy Play is currently running at the Little Theater. Performances are at 8 p.m. tonight, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets cost $5.

“Sunday Candy” Vocalist Jamila Woods Brings Black Femme Power to Oberlin Stage Continued from page 10 in her art. … Her music is as free as she is, and it feels more inclusive that way. … I often feel like her lyrics are talking to me as a Black woman, so I’m excited to get that in person. … Her art is more closely tied to the Black and non-white communities on campus.”

The bulk of HEAVN’s lyrical material concerns modern Black womanhood. In an interview with The FADER, Woods said that she is inspired by Black women writers like Toni Morrison and classic soul singers like Stevie Wonder.

“If a Black girl hears my music, I hope it would sound affirming and soothing — whether that’s traditionally soothing like a lullaby, or the kind of soothing that comes from, ‘Wow, you just said that thing that is talking to me,’” Woods said in an interview with the publication.

Woods’ focus was something Davis also underscored. “[Her music is] focused on the power and confidence of the Black girl,” Davis said. “What she’s said in the past about her art — that’s who she wants to uphold with her music.”

These influences are evident throughout the album, especially in the empowering “Blk Girl Soldier,” which Izora said is the song that

she’s most excited to hear Woods perform.

“It will be a really important moment for myself and for others,” Izora said.

In the same interview with The FADER, Woods said that “Blk –––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“If a Black girl hears my music, I hope it would sound affirming and soothing - whether that’s traditionally soothing like a lullaby, or the kind of soothing that comes from, ‘Wow, you just said that thing that is talking to me.’”

Jamila Woods ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Girl Soldier” is her rendition of a freedom song.

The far-reaching quality of the album is evident in Woods’ overall appeal to people from a wide range of backgrounds on campus. Izora said she believes that Woods’ concert will be important for the community and will help begin to diversify the long-standing pattern

of booking mostly white male artists at Oberlin.

Davis is also looking forward to seeing the joy that Woods will bring to the Cat in the Cream. “I’m honestly excited to see all the Black people, the brown people, all the women and queer people … really enjoy this artist,” she said.

But Davis had some advice for people planning on attending the show: “Black Lives Matter,” she said. “I hope that people in there respect that and see that, respect the space, respect the people, respect the POC and respect the artist.”

Syldor encouraged those wanting to attend the show to listen to Woods’ music beforehand.

“There is a tendency for white people to come to Black artists’ shows with their own expectations and take up space while not giving the performer the respect they deserve,” she said. “Do not do that to Jamila.”

The Cat in the Cream staff expect the venue to be packed to capacity.

“It’s going to be one of our biggest shows of the year,” Izora said.

Jamila Woods performs tonight at the Cat in the Cream. Doors open at 7:50 p.m. and admission is free.

My Name is My Own: Life, Love, and Resistance Undocumented trans activists Ola Osaze (left), Nigerian-born, and Jennicet Gutiérrez, who came to the U.S. from Mexico in her teens, interview one another in front of an audience at My Name is My Own, an event hosted by the Multicultural Resource Center in Dye Lecture Hall Thursday night. My Name is My Own’s primary mission is to provide institutional support to Oberlin communities that identify as queer and of color in the broadest senses of those words.

Discussion topics ranged from political promises by current and past administrations in the face of increasing violence against Black, brown, trans and immigrant bodies to the importance of self love and joy in social and political climates that provide little of either to minority communities across the board.

Text by Victoria Garber, Arts editor Photo by Clover Linh Tran

Sports

Page 14

The Oberlin Review, March 3, 2017

In the Locker Room

Women’s Lacrosse

This week, the Review sat down with women’s lacrosse first-year midfielders Mia Battle and Eliza Amber to discuss their rookie season, offseason training and the eightperson senior class leadership. Last season, the Yeowomen finished 10–7 overall and 4–4 in North Coast Athletic Conference competition, falling to The College of Wooster in a heartbreaking 14–13 loss to keep them out of the NCAC tournament. The squad ranked fourth in the conference’s preseason poll and earned its first win in its season opener Wednesday against Heidelberg University 17–2.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How excited are you for the start of your season and to play in your first collegiate game?

Mia Battle: I’m really excited.

The team is very close-knit and everyone is super supportive. I’m really excited to see how that plays out on the field.

Liz Amber: I would agree. The team is super energetic, so it will be nice to have us all on the same side working together because it’s always a weird dynamic when the team is split up to scrimmage each other. I’m a little nervous, but I’ve only heard great things about our team. I don’t think there is anything to be worried about.

How has the offseason prepared you to be successful during the season?

MB: It’s been pretty good. It’s been a lot more work than I was used to in high school, but I think it

to play, because coming into college, it can be hard to make friends and navigate all of the social situations. Having people automatically was really nice for me, knowing that at least somebody has my back.

LA: I think we are a really close team. It’s so easy to walk into the Science Atrium and just sit down with any team member. On the weekends we all hang out, and it’s pretty nice to have a group.

Liz Amber (left) and Mia Battle was really good for me to learn new things and challenge myself.

LA: Working out is year-round, which is a new thing for me, but it was good to have stick skills going all throughout the year. I feel like in high school, I would miss a little bit when I played other sports, but I feel solid about the season.

What improvements has the team made during the offseason?

MB: There were a lot of injuries last year from what I heard, and I think people are trying to take better care of themselves so we don’t have that issue again.

LA: I think our defense is really strong. I don’t know how it compared to last year, but we very commonly are talking about our strong goalies and our strong unit.

Did missing the NCAC Tournament by one game last year provide any extra motivation for the team this season?

LA: I would say for sure. I hear our team talk about it a lot. We just got our preliminary ranking, and they were all super pumped up about it and a little pissed. It’s definitely a motivation to do well. We talk about the conference a bunch, so coming in as a first-year, I want to live up to that and make sure it happens.

How is the transition from playing lacrosse in high school to playing in college?

MB: It’s definitely a lot more involved and aggressive in college, at least for me, because lacrosse wasn’t as big of a thing in Texas.

NCAC Track and Field Preview and Home Games

NCAC Indoor Track and Field Championships John W. Heisman Club Field House Friday - 12 p.m.

Saturday - 10 a.m.

Sprinters, pole vaulters, high jumpers and throwers will descend upon Philips gym this weekend as Oberlin hosts the North Coast Athletic Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships today and tomorrow. Predicted to earn a banner on their home track, the Yeowomen are ranked number one in the pre-Championships poll for the first time in program history.

On the track, Oberlin will be led by junior sprinter and jumper Lilah Drafts-Johnson. A 2016 NCAA Outdoor All-American, DraftsJohnson currently holds the school record and fastest 400-meter time in the conference at 57.12 seconds.

The Melrose, MA, native also owns the school record in the 200 and ranks second in the conference with a time of 25.90.

The Yeowomen are also expected to dominate in the field. Led by juniors Monique Newton and Ana Richardson, who have the conference’s best marks in the shot put and weight throw, Oberlin has four of the top five best qualifying marks in the shot put.

In addition, six of the top 10 qualifiers in the weight throw belong to the Yeowomen.

Newton leads all of Division III and broke the

program record in the shot put with a mark of 49-09.25 (15.17m), while Richardson leads the NCAC 56-09.25 (17.30m) in the weight throw.

The Yeomen, on the other hand, are predicted to finish in fifth place. Oberlin will be led by junior James Tanford, who ranks fifth in the conference in the 400-meters and second in the triple jump, along with senior Bradley Hamilton, who ranks sixth in the NCAC with a 2:01.64 time in the 800.

On the field, the Yeomen are paced by school record holder Hank Sinn, who ranks fourth in the weight throw, and pole vaulter Jahkeem Wheatley, who also ranks fourth with a mark of 13.07-25 (4.15m).

Women’s Lacrosse vs.

Kalamazoo College Knowlton Athletics Complex Saturday - 1 p.m.

After defeating Heidelberg University 17–2 in their season opener, the Yeowomen begin their home slate hosting the Kalamazoo College Hornets. The Yeowomen will look to replicate last year’s result, when they took down the Hornets 21–4.

LA: I came from a pretty tiny school, and everything is so much tighter on defense and offense. Everyone is communicating. I enjoy the college level a lot more. Everyone is super motivated on this team, and that makes everything better.

How important are the eight seniors to the success and leadership of the team?

MB: They have all been great. It’s so nice to have a lot of role models of different interests and different personalities. They all give great advice and I think they help everybody grow.

How has the team chemistry been so far?

MB: I’m so happy that I decided

With just four first-years on the team, how has that group dynamic been?

LA: I think it’s nice. Four is a really good number. We are pretty close. We are all getting ready because next year there are going to be a lot of people coming in.

MB: It’s nice to have a smaller group within the big group.

How will the non-conference schedule prepare the team for success in the NCAC? MB: At least for the first-years, I don’t know what position [Head Coach] Lynda [McCandlish] is going to want me to play, so it’ll be nice to figure all of those logistical situations out before we are playing conference games.

LA: Coach has talked about these first few games, almost treating them as scrimmage-like, to get the cobwebs out.

Interview by Darren Zaslau,

Sports editor Photo by Bryan Rubin, Photo editor

Editorial: Misguided Monitoring Efforts Distract Congress Continued from page 16 provides to WADA each year, making the U.S. WADA’s biggest contributor.

But it’s clear that Congress was not motivated simply by budgetary concerns, as evidenced by Representative Tim Murphy’s comments to The New York Times.

“It isn’t just the money the United States puts into this,” Murphy said.

“If it takes money to motivate things, fine, but the real reason is: I want sports to be fair.”

While Murphy may want sports to be fair from a fan’s perspective, it’s doubtful he can have any effect on worldwide doping as a Congressperson. Even if the House wanted to throw more money at WADA to fund reform, it may not be able to do so. The terms of WADA’s funding arrangement are laid out in an international agreement. Further, the amount of money it would take to fix WADA is astronomical. Don Catlin, former director of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Lab, estimates that the worldwide anti-doping budget is about $300 million. Even those funds are insufficient to test 100,000 or more athletes around the globe and staff and maintain 35 testing labs — contributing a few million more would be just a drop in the bucket.

Regardless, strong-arming the IOC into cracking down on Russia may not be advisable. The United

States National Olympic Committee is currently lobbying to host the 2024 summer Olympic games in Los Angeles. Bringing the games to LA for the third time would not only be a boon for the NOC, it would also bring the greatest competitors and most enthusiastic fans on earth back to the U.S. during the summer for the first time since the 1996 Atlanta games. Targeting Russia is particularly problematic, as the House subcommittee’s insistence that stronger sanctions should have been levied against Russia ruffled the feathers of IOC members. The IOC is used to independence and takes offense at governmental scrutiny. But even more importantly, three IOC members who will vote on the 2024 bid are Russian.

“Fighting with an organization responsible for giving future Olympic Games — it’s a big mistake,” said Vitaly Smirnov, a Russian Olympic official, in an interview with The New York Times.

Congress potentially made a big mistake Tuesday by dipping its toes in anti-doping reform and threatening the Los Angeles Olympic bid.

Despite Congress’ desperate desire to promote clean sport and fair play, in the future, it should recognize that any efforts on its part to clean up sports on an international scale are fruitless.

Sports

The Oberlin Review, March 3,2017

Page 15

World Baseball Classic Lacks Tradition As Stands Jack Brewster Columnist Worldwide sporting events such as the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup consistently draw massive crowds and high television ratings. Nations fight tooth and nail to host these events and exhaust significant resources preparing their country’s representatives. These spectacles of sport are exceptional publicity tools for the nations involved and for the sports being contested.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Emeritus Bud Selig and his fellow executives had this in mind when they created the World Baseball Classic, seeking to grow baseball and reach more fans around the globe. But the event — set to begin March 6 this year — does not come close to the popularity and grandeur of the Olympics or the FIFA World Cup. The WBC will never gain substantial popularity and does more harm than good for the MLB. There are several reasons why the WBC will never be as popular as the Olympics or FIFA World Cup. For one, baseball’s popularity in the United States is rooted in tradition. America’s best baseball towns — New York, Chicago and Boston, to name a few — have all had teams for decades. The sport is etched into the fabric of some American cities’ character and history. Fenway Park and Wrigley Field are treated as holy relics in Boston and Chicago, just like Yankee Stadium before it was knocked down.

Most of the nations participating in the WBC, however,

have virtually no connection to baseball. Nations like Italy, China, Australia, Israel and Colombia should grow their programs before they are able to compete in the WBC. Not only does it lack tradition, but the timing of the WBC in the midst of spring training causes many WBC teams to lack substantial talent on their rosters. In some WBC matchups, it’s possible that there are no recognizable names on either team. This year, for instance, Taiwan has zero players that are currently on an MLB 40-man roster. This has led to lopsided matchups and a few teams dominating the WBC year after year.

Residency requirements are also more relaxed than they are in, say, the Olympics. This means that players can play for countries they have very little connection to.

Brandon Nimmo, outfielder for the New York Mets, will play for Italy this spring. Nimmo grew up in Cheyenne, WY, and has never lived in Italy. His only connection to Italy comes from his Italian maternal grandmother. Nonetheless, WBC regulations consider Nimmo eligible to play.

Furthermore, the WBC hurts the very organization that founded the event — Major League Baseball. For one, it creates a significant injury risk for MLB players. Instead of playing their relaxed spring training schedule, they are thrust into high-pressure games only a few weeks into the preseason.

The wear and tear of the WBC also negatively impacts the performance of pitchers during the MLB season, according to a study conducted by The New York Times. Us-

ing Pecota, an analytics forecasting program developed by Nate Silver, Dan Rosenheck found that 28 starting pitchers who threw in the WBC in 2006 fell far short of their projected performance that MLB season. Overall, their value that year dropped by a third of what it was supposed to be. These conclusions were drawn from a small data set but are alarming nonetheless.

Finally, the WBC strips MLB teams of valuable time they need to coalesce and train. Spring training is vital to a team’s chemistry and preparedness. Since the number of players playing in the WBC is not equal for each team, some squads will have more players pulled away by the WBC and thus will be less prepared to play as a cohesive unit come opening day.

There are, of course, are some good qualities of the WBC. Fans get more competitive baseball and see new rising stars. It was the 2009 WBC that allowed fans to see the dominance of Yu Darvish; Darvish is now a starting pitcher for the Texas Rangers. The WBC has also very slowly grown the sport’s popularity across the world.

But this does not negate the fact that the WBC is nothing more than a lopsided exhibition tournament that harms the MLB. The MLB should work on developing baseball in countries around the world from the ground up, not the top-down. Until teams besides Japan, the Dominican Republic, South Korea and the U.S. can consistently compete, there should be no World Baseball Classic.

Women’s Tennis Flounders In OC Thunder Bowling Teams Ready to Strike at Unconventional Tournament Wittenberg Matches Continued from page 16 game, struggling to finish at the net, but still managed to secure their fifth consecutive victory of the season at the first flight. Hughes said she and her teammates have made it a goal to pull out wins even when they aren’t playing their best.

“Although I individually didn’t feel that I played well during my matches this weekend, I felt that I competed well and played with a lot of energy,” Hughes said. “Winning ugly is sometimes necessary … [so] I am happy that I played with a gritty mindset.

My team definitely helped shape my mindset and approach as we were all super pumped up to play and grateful to be there.”

Hughes’ and Brezel’s win marked a pivotal moment in the match, putting Oberlin ahead 2–1 at the start of singles. Despite Oberlin’s lead, the match was precarious throughout singles play.

Audeh put Oberlin up 3–1, coming off the court quickly after an easy 6–1, 6–2 finish. After Heck contributed a win, four Yeowomen remained on court as the match hung in the balance. Oberlin needed to secure one more win to earn five points and clinch the match.

On Court 2, Brezel dropped a straight set bout 7–6(4), 6–1. The Yeowomen looked on in suspense as Hughes, first-year Delaney Black and McDermott all fought through third sets. The decisive win came on Court 5, as McDermott battled through long baseline points to seal a third set victory 6–3, 3–6, 6–3. Hughes earned the team’s final point with a 3–6, 7–5, 6–3 comeback win.

At the end of a successful day against the Colonels, which dragged on into the evening, the Yeowomen had little time to recharge for their match against the 25th ranked Tigers the next morning at 9:30 a.m.

Doubles got off to a slow start for the Yeowomen, as Black and classmate Lena Rich fell by a decisive 8–3

Continued from page 16 mark in their first ever match as a doubles pair. Rich, however, said she looks forward to more bouts with a fellow rookie partner.

“I love playing with Delaney,” Rich said. “We both love to serve big or try to serve big, but on my end it wasn’t working that match. We are still working out some kinks … but I’m really excited to play with her and I think that with just a few more reps, we’ll definitely get into a good groove.”

Hughes and Brezel had another successful showing, securing an 8–4 win, but an 8–6 loss for Hay and Audeh at No. 2 put the Yeowomen down 2–1 at the doubles break.

In singles play, the Yeowomen earned just two points in the one and five spots. McDermott once again added to the squad’s tally as she dropped the first set but came back and outlasted her opponent in the third.

A win over DePauw’s 20th-ranked player in the region, Gretchen Wilder, marked Hughes’s fourth victory of the weekend at No. 1. Hughes’ dominance earned her North Coast Athletic Conference Player of the Week honors.

The longest battle was fought

by Audeh at the No. 3 spot. Audeh dropped the first set and won the second but couldn’t keep up the momentum, falling 6–4 in a lengthy third set.

The Tigers topped the Yeowomen by a final score of 6–3.

While teams like DePauw have played just three or four matches this season, Ananiadis pointed out that his team has already played eight matches this spring. In order to fight off mid-season fatigue, the squad will focus on strength and conditioning in the coming days until they return to action March 12, taking on the John Carroll University Blue Streaks next Sunday at noon in Philips gym.

Reflecting on the weekend, Hughes said she is optimistic about what lies ahead.

“This weekend definitely made me more excited to see what we can do with the rest of the season,” she said.

top 45, including both women’s captains, seniors Maggie Gossiaux, with 642 pins, and Savannah O’Meara, with 590 pins.

Senior men’s team captain Juan-Manuel Pinzon knocked down 645 to finish in 35th place and helped lift the squad into 11th place.

“I had a lot of fun,” Pinzon said. “Of course, I always think we can do better, but I am proud of our performance and of our newer bowlers. I look forward to future tournaments with them.”

The team, which invites students of all levels of experience to practice and play with them, has remained a space for bowlers to compete for decades. Pinzon, who has been on the team for three years, said he looks back on his time with the OC Thunder fondly.

“It’s been terrific! I never really bowled before fall of my sophomore year — so I’ve been bowling for about a year and a half now,” Pinzon said. “Tom is a great coach

and I have learned a lot from him. I am also very excited that the team has grown so much over the last year. ... We have a great community over at the lanes and I’m very grateful to be a part of it.”

Reid, who offers Bowling 101 to introduce students to the sport, has introduced hundreds of bowlers to the world of competitive college bowling. He has been developing Oberlin’s bowling culture since his graduation in 1980 and has helmed the club team for nearly 70 semesters on campus.

Russell said Reid’s guidance and the bowling community have been a huge part of his life at Oberlin.

“I think it’s been hugely important for me in terms of meeting new people and getting involved in a sport I know I’m going to stay with for the rest of my life.”

The Thunder will close its season with the OC Unconventional Bowling Tournament, which takes place at Oberlin’s college lanes April 8.

Sports The Oberlin Review

Page 16

March 3, 2017

— women’s Tennis —

Yeowomen Fall to NCAC Rival Tigers Michaela Puterbaugh Staff writer In a tough loss to the No. 25 DePauw University Tigers, the Yeowomen fell 6–3 Sunday to the rival who bested them last year in the North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament third-place match, the last match of the 2015-16 season. The loss came a day after a victory over the Centre College Colonels, which helped the Yeowomen protect their No. 40 national rank. Head Coach Constantine Ananiadis said Oberlin fell just short of DePauw on the Tigers’ home courts.

“Our game plan was to come out with a lot of energy against DePauw,” Ananiadis said. “We knew we were as skilled as they are; it was just a matter of elevating our intensity from the day before [against Centre]. We needed to execute better at crucial moments.”

Oberlin started the weekend with a key non-conference matchup against Centre College.

Both teams were relatively evenly matched and the Yeowomen knew that a victory would help them maintain their national ranking.

To start off the match, doubles was closely contested on all three courts. The Colonels fought off

Congress Loses Sight Jackie McDermott Sports editor

Junior Sarah Hughes closes in on the net, eyeing a low forehand volley. After a 4–0 weekend in which she earned wins over Centre College and DePauw University at the No. 1 spot in both singles and doubles, Hughes was named North Coast Athletic Conference Player of the Week.

Photo courtesy of OC Athletics

fatigue in what was their third match of the weekend, while the Yeowomen struggled to adjust to foreign conditions at DePauw’s Indoor Tennis and Track Center.

Oberlin had not played an away match in three weeks.

Still, the Yeowomen managed to notch the first victory of the

day as first-year Rainie Heck and senior captain Olivia Hay were victorious at No. 3 doubles. At No. 2, juniors Jackie McDermott and Mayada Audeh seemed to be down for the count, trailing 6–2 before they rallied to win five straight games. Up 7–6, the juniors then failed to convert on

several match points and eventually fell in a tiebreak 9–8(5).

All eyes then turned to Court 1, where the duo of junior Sarah Hughes and senior Emma Brezel were locked in a tiebreak. The upperclassmen were a bit off their See Women’s, page 15

— bowling —

Club Bowling Revives Women’s Squad Alex McNicoll Contributing Sports editor For the first time in a decade, OC Thunder, Oberlin’s intercollegiate bowling team, fielded a women’s team. The group is brimming with enthusiasm and happy to be reviving an old Oberlin tradition.

“It was incredible to compete for the first OC Thunder women’s bowling team since 2007,” first-year Sophie Maffie said in an email to the Review. “Our team is full of enthusiasm, support and generosity. ... I am glad that we finally got out on the lanes and made our debut. I cannot wait to spend the next three years surrounded by these amazing bowlers and friends. I am excited for the future of our team, especially since we are growing in size and support.”

The OC Thunder needed five female bowlers for a women’s team, and this year they were able to recruit seven.

Both the men’s and women’s teams are full of youth, and five of seven female bowlers are first-years. Bowling season runs all the way from October to April, and on Feb. 18, the teams traveled to Kent State University to compete in the Black Squirrel Open.

Tom Reid, OC ’80, head coach of the OC Thunder, said he is particularly excited to have enough female bowlers for an entire squad.

“For me, the thrilling thing about the Black Squirrel Open at Kent State was the re-emergence of the Oberlin women’s team,” Reid said.

There were some growing pains for both the men’s and women’s teams, as the young rosters placed 11th and 12th respectively out

The 2005 Congressional hearings that exposed steroid use by Major League Baseball’s own Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire and other home-run slammers are forever burned into America’s collective sports memory. This week, Congress revived its clean-sports crusade, urging reform of World Anti-Doping Agency policy and berating members of the International Olympic Committee for their handling of last summer’s Russian doping scandal.

While Congress’s quest to eradicate cheating in international sports seems noble, it pales in comparison to some other issues our legislative body faces. Why should a Congress tasked with replacing Obamacare, probing Trump’s ties to Russia and fighting a nationwide heroin epidemic spend its time trying to prevent Russian athletes from using Meldonium?

Tuesday’s hearing amounted to nothing more than an empty political gesture. Congress does not have the power to significantly influence global anti-doping policy, and attempting to do so could unduly interfere with the bid to bring the Olympics to Los Angeles in 2024. Congress should stay out of international doping issues.

The main agenda for members of the House subcommittee on oversight and investigations on Tuesday was to wrist-slap some of the United States’ top anti-doping officials. Both the IOC and WADA have been accused of failing to act swiftly on tips from whistleblowers regarding Russia’s illegal state-sanctioned doping. When they did levy punishment on Russia, Congress claimed that the IOC’s sanctions were not severe enough.

The subcommittee’s alleged cause for concern was the $2 million that the U.S. See Editorial, page 14

The Oberlin College Thunder fielded a women’s team for the first time since 2007. Stacked with firstyears, the men’s and women’s teams traveled to Kent State University Feb. 18-19 to compete in the Black Squirrel Open.

Photo courtesy of OC Bowling Team

of the 12 teams represented. The men, who tallied a total of 5,932 pins, were able to stay competitive for the duration of the event. The women, who featured several bowlers in their debut performance, saw players still getting comfortable in the Kent State lanes, and finished with a total of 4,494 pins knocked down.

Senior bowler Matthew Russell, who placed 44th out of 70 in the individual stand-

ings, was pleased with his team’s performance and chemistry.

“I love going to tournaments,” Matt said. “I love when we get to bowl and be competitive, but also be a team. We really like each other so we really like these kinds of tournaments.”

The OC Thunder had five bowlers in the See OC, page 15