April 28, 2017 by The Oberlin Review

The Oberlin Review April 28, 2017

established 1874

Volume 145, Number 23

College to Expand Hall Annex Oliver Bok Editor-in-Chief

like implementing the changes without telling anyone, so this time I guess they did technically propose it before putting it out there. But we still should have been informed way sooner that the conversation was happening. It feels the conversation should be started from the beginning with all the appropriate people involved.” Following Tuesday’s meeting with Raimondo, the senior administration released a letter to students via email yesterday to clarify the proposed changes, encourage OSCA to explore strategies to help make Oberlin affordable and defend the flexibility of the 300-meal plan. The email explains that as the baseline number of meals change, net financial aid students receive will be adjusted accordingly, shrinking the gross $1,000 and $2,000 aid reductions. “Next year, new students who dine with OSCA and receive full financial support from the college will actually receive $460 more than they would under the current plan,” the email states. “Those who both live and dine with OSCA and receive full financial support from the college will receive $540 less than they would under the current plan. Because more students dine in OSCA than both live and dine, new students who join OSCA will collectively receive more aid dollars from the college next year than they would under the current plan.” The administration also suggested in the email that OSCA change its own rates based on income.

Student actors, singers and dancers will have a brand new space to perform in next calendar year, after the City Planning Commission approved a longawaited renovation and expansion of Hall Annex April 19. The $14-million project includes both a complete renovation of Hall Annex and the addition of a medium-sized “Adaptable Theater” in the space between the Peter B. Lewis Gateway Center and Hall Auditorium. To Managing Director for Theater, Dance and Opera Eric Steggall, the new theater offers new opportunities and excitement. “I think having the shiniest, coolest, sexiest new theater in Northeast Ohio on our campus is a cool thing to have, and there’s no other large-scale theaters being built that I’m aware of anywhere around here geographically,” Steggall said. “I think it’s going to open up exponentially new ways of thinking and teaching and instructing and designing and producing art for anyone who chooses to take advantage of it.” The new Adaptable Theater will seat 200–300 people, depending on how the seats are arranged, allowing for a broad variety of performances. “Not every theater or dance piece is created for a 500-seat auditorium,” Steggall said. “There’s a need to be a little more intimate.” The new addition will also include a variety of support spaces for teaching and production — spaces that Hall Annex wasn’t originally designed to have, according to Steggall. “We’re adding additional classrooms,” Steggall said. “We’re adding additional rehearsal studios. We’re adding a new scene shop and a new costume shop, so our ability to deliver is going to be enhanced.” Simultaneously, the College plans to completely renovate Hall Annex, giving the 57-year-old building everything from new heating and air conditioning to new windows and a paint job. The renovation will also expand the Hall Annex lobby to make space for an elevator, making the two-story building more accessible. The College will also raise the ceiling of the Little Theater and rename it the John Kander Theater, after the famous Broadway composer and Oberlin alumnus who donated toward its renovation. “Currently, the Little Theater is a converted classroom, basically, so it’s very small, and the ceiling is only about 11 [or] 12 feet in the air, which really limits what we’re able to do from a design standpoint, both scenically and lighting-wise,” Steggall said. Construction is set to begin in June

See Administrators, page 4

See $14-Million, page 2

Students protest against the administration’s new housing, dining and OSCA financial aid policies last Friday. The protest was one of many actions in opposition to the changes, leading to today’s meeting between OSCA officers and the administration. Photo by Rick Yu, Photo editor

OSCA Pushes for Pausing Aid Changes Melissa Harris News editor

Oberlin Student Cooperative Association officers met with administrators today to negotiate the administration’s recent policy changes concerning housing and dining for next academic year. OSCA President and College junior Tara Wells said officers’ main goal at the meeting was to have the administration withdraw the changes until next semester, when students will have more time to negotiate the policy’s parameters since many are currently busy with finals preparations. Outgoing Vice President of Finance and Administration Mike Frandsen announced a 2.8 percent tuition increase and changes in student dining and housing options that increase minimum costs and cut the amount of need-based financial aid to OSCA members last Tuesday. However, the only finalized changes are that all incoming non-OSCA first-years must pay flat rates for dining and housing, with a 300-meal per semester plan ticketed at $7,990 and Residential Education housing at $7,872. According to Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo, the cuts concerning OSCA — which currently reduce needbased financial aid by $1,000 for students dining in co-ops and by $2,000 for those living in them — are just proposed, therefore negotiable. In light of this, OSCA officers met with Raimondo Tuesday to plan for today’s meeting with her, Frandsen, Director of Financial Aid Rob Reddy, OSCA Business Coordinator Sundance, OSCA Financial

Manager Linda Doan and various OSCA board representatives. “We talked about how the conversation has gone so far, how we can make a clear agenda for Friday’s meeting so that we can make sure that the conversation is actually making progress and not just kind of spinning,” Raimondo said. “I think [the OSCA officers] are doing a really great job at leading the conversation for OSCA.” OSCA Membership Secretary and double-degree sophomore Rory O’Donoghue said that the meeting with Raimondo was productive for initiating a dialogue between the administration and OSCA. “We candidly brainstormed tactics for an effective meeting with Mike Fransden [sic],” O’Donoghue wrote in an email to the Review. “We made headway on our differing understandings of the purported ‘equity’ of these proposed changes — we feel like this is an institutionally equalizing move that exacerbates inequity for individual students trying to navigate the system, which is a viewpoint that previously the higher-ups we’re working with didn’t share, but Meredith now understands and seems to agree with our look.” Wells highlighted the goals she and the OSCA officers set for today’s meeting. “We want any discussions on policy changes to be put on hold for now, since they’ve been presented at such an unfair time for students, with finals coming up and everything and end-of-semester transition to summer,” Wells said. “I guess we’re grateful that it was just a proposal this time around, since a similar fiasco happened three years ago, and that time it was more

CONTENTS NEWS

OPINIONS

Student Senate Proposes Central Budgeting Committee

Off the Cuff: Liz Burgess, Owner of Ginko Gallery 04

The Oberlin Review | April 28, 2016

Editorial: Student Input Necessary to Avoid Finger Pointing 06

I Am a Low-Income

Student in Favor of Dining Changes THIS WEEK

The Meaning of Mindfulness: Meditation 101 08

ARTS & CULTURE

SPORTS

OMTA’s Assassins Balances Levity, Seriousness

Oberlin Alums Pen Enchanting New Musical

16 On a Hot Streak, Baseball

In the Locker Room: Jules Sawhill Sweeps Kenyon

oberlinreview.org facebook.com/oberlinreview TWITTER @oberlinreview INSTAGRAM @ocreview

Ne w s

Student Senate Proposes Central Budgeting Committee Sydney Allen Production editor

Student senators are drafting a proposal to establish a Central Budgeting Committee, a standing group that would include and engage students, faculty and staff in the College’s budgeting decisions. Senate’s Financial Prioritization task force hopes to release the proposal this week to leverage student and faculty support before presenting it to senior administrators. Senate’s proposal calls for CBC members’ inclusion on all budgetary documents and information in accordance with a nondisclosure agreement. The committee would be required to make a budget proposal to the president on a yearly basis. Ideally, the committee will draw members from all major campus constituencies including students, faculty, staff, union workers and potentially Oberlin Student Cooperative Association representatives. The exact composition, among the proposal’s other suggestions, will be up for negotiation when the proposal hits senior administrators’ desks. Student Senator and College junior Jesse Docter said that despite the 2.8-percent tuition hike announced last Tuesday — a decision made without student involvement — the CBC was initiated in response to similar trends regarding administrative governance and financial decision-making. Docter added that the CBC has been in the works for over two weeks. “This comes out of a longer structural critique of budgeting at Oberlin that this week has played into extremely, extremely predictably,” Docter said. “I think that the decision coming out of [Vice President of Finance and Administration] Mike Frandsen’s office and the way that it was made

was just a perfect example of how broken financial governance was at this school. … But it fits into our larger narrative that we’ve been pushing for years of including students in decision-making processes at the school in a substantive way.” Some senators also see much of this confusion stemming from the Strategic Plan’s ambiguous language, which they believe failed to give the College concrete financial direction. “Oberlin is facing a structural deficit and a financial crisis, and we know that cuts are going to come,” Docter said. “But since we haven’t had a community process where we have articulated what our institutional values and priorities are, those cuts are going to be completely arbitrary. … In the vacuum left by the strategic-planning process, since there is no financial vision for this school going forward, we think the best alternative is to empower constituents and to empower the community to make those financial decisions.” Students currently contribute to the College’s financial decisions by sitting on various committees, such as the General Faculty, the Student Finance Committee, Strategic Plan Implementation Committees and Senate. However, no existing committee explicitly engages students in budgetary decision-making processes. Not only would the CBC give constituents a more direct stake in financial planning, but it could also facilitate better communication between groups across campus, according to College sophomore Elie Small, student senator and member of the Dining Committee. He said that the lack of institutional dialogue around the recent budgetary changes have been troubling to OSCA members and dining hall employees and managers. Small added that

Student Senator and College sophomore Meg Parker spoke at Sunday’s Student Senate plenary. Senators are drafting a proposal for a Central Budgeting Committee that will allow students, faculty and staff to participate in the College’s financial decision-making processes under a nondisclosure agreement. Photo by Bryan Rubin, Photo editor

these concerns point to a need for the establishment of the CBC. “We had been proposing different ideas on what to do with [the Rathskellar],” Small said. “We’d been working on that and we had the dining survey circulating around, which gave students a chance to vote. And with these changes that came out … [it’s] really frustrating because we’ve been working on this all semester and then, no input, the administration just goes and does this and basically shows us our work doesn’t matter. Anything that we can do to increase student input and student power is definitely necessary and worth it.” Vice President and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo voiced her support

for greater community involvement in financial governance. “I personally support the idea of exploring this question,” Raimondo said. “Oberlin’s tradition of shared governance structure and commitment to community engagement align well with this kind of idea. It would be important to develop a specific proposal, as there are important legal and operational requirements for budgeting to work successfully. However, as I understand the proposal, the goal is to seek broad participation in setting institutional priorities and ensuring that budgeting supports those priorities. I see that as an important and positive goal.” Frandsen declined to comment for this article.

$14-Million Hall Annex Renovations to Begin in June

A mockup of the Hall Annex renovation and expansion shows a projection of how the completed building will look. The $14-million project will begin in June and is expected to be finished by summer 2018. Photo courtesy of Westlake Reed Leskosky

Continued from page 1

and finish during summer 2018, according to College Architect Steven Varelmann. Hall Audito-

rium itself should remain usable throughout the construction process. Vice President of Finance and Administration Mike Frandsen

The Oberlin R eview April 28, 2017 Volume 145, Number 23 (ISSN 297–256) Published by the students of Oberlin College every Friday during the fall and spring semesters, except holidays and examination periods. Advertising rates: $18 per column inch. Second-class postage paid at Oberlin, Ohio. Entered as secondclass matter at the Oberlin, Ohio post office April 2, 1911. POSTMASTER SEND CHANGES TO: Wilder Box 90, Oberlin, Ohio 44074-1081. Office of Publication: Burton Basement, Oberlin, Ohio 44074. Phone: (440) 775-8123

estimates that the expansion will cost $13–14 million and stated that the vast majority of the money came from fundraising. According to Vice President Editors-in-Chief Managing editor News editors Opinions editor This Week editor Arts editors Sports editors Layout editors

Photo editors

Tyler Sloan Oliver Bok Kiley Petersen Melissa Harris Louis Krauss Sami Mericle Izzy Rosenstein Daniel Markus Victoria Garber Jackie McDermott Darren Zaslau Abigail Carlstad Amanda Tennant Talia Rodwin Parker Shatkin Bryan Rubin Rick Yu

for Development and Alumni Affairs Bill Barlow, eight anonymous donors provided more than 90 percent of the funds for the expansion. In an email to the Review, Barlow praised the donors, who he described as each having a “long-standing interest in theater, opera and the arts at Oberlin,” and asserted that they would not have given as generously for another project. “Over the past 60 years there have been multiple efforts to raise the funds needed to address [Hall’s] shortcomings, and it’s wonderful these eight individuals were willing to step forward to finally make this happen,” Barlow said. Barlow said that the Board of Trustees made the Hall expansion a fundraising priority for the Oberlin Illuminate campaign in June 2012. Many student activists reBusiness manager Ads manager Online editor Production manager Production staff

Distributors

Maureen Coffey Caley Watnick Hazel Galloway Ryanne Berry Victoria Albacete Sydney Allen Giselle Glaspie Auden Granger Courtney Loeb Emily Peterson Julia Peterson Kendall Mahavier Bryan Rubin Ben Steger Mason Boutis

main critical of the College’s penchant for expensive capital projects that do not reflect perceived student priorities. “The auditorium expansion, when contextualized with [The Hotel at Oberlin] and the [Philips gym] expansion, seems to continue a pattern of prioritizing prestige building capital projects that service an isolated subset of campus while ignoring projects that directly service a large number of students,” wrote Jesse Docter, College junior, student senator and Presidential Search Committee member, in an email to the Review. “Until the trustees and administrators find a way to substantively incorporate students into the capital planning process, students will continue to view the administration’s capital planning priorities with skepticism.”

Corrections: The Review is not aware of any corrections this week. To submit a correction, email managingeditor@oberlinreview.org.

County Investigation Delays Gibson’s Trials

Security Notebook Thursday, April 20

Customers check out at Gibson’s Bakery. The trials of College sophomores Cecelia Whettstone and Endia Lawrence — who were charged with assault after November’s shoplifting incident at the bakery — have been pushed back to May 15, with the possible addition of new charges. Photo by Bryan Rubin, Photo editor Louis Krauss News editor

The trials for two students charged with assault in the aftermath of last November’s incident at Gibson’s Bakery have been pushed back to May 15 and could lead to additional charges following Wednesday’s grand jury hearing. College sophomores Cecelia Whettstone and Endia Lawrence were originally given an April 17 pretrial date for misdemeanor assault charges after allegedly attacking store employee Allyn Gibson as he and College sophomore Elijah Aladin engaged in a physical altercation across the street from the store. However, defense attorney Jack Bradley requested that Oberlin Judge Thomas Januzzi push the trial back after learning that Whettstone and Lawrence both received subpoenas to testify at Wednesday’s hearing, which re-examined evidence in regards to the Gibson’s incident and could add, change or remove charges against the three students involved. According to Bradley, between 12–15 people have been subpoenaed, which he said is a large amount of testimonies for a grand jury and likely would take all day to complete. In an email to the Review, Aladin said he did not attend the hearing. Aladin had his case sent to Lorain County Prosecutor Dennis Will for review after Januzzi rejected a plea deal that would have dropped the felony charge in February and since then has not received any charges. The fear for Bradley and his two clients is that new evidence and testimonies could suggest that Whettstone and Lawrence will be charged with a more serious felony charge. “There’s always that possibility that they could hear evidence from other witnesses that might cause them to say they are going to charge more than one person,” Bradley said. “It could even be people other than my clients because there were certainly other people there.” Whereas actual trials involve back and forth presentations of the defense and prosecution, grand juries are an opportunity for a group of jury members to hear all the evidence presented by the prosecutor, in this case, Will, who did not respond to the Review’s request for comment. The judge and defense attorney are not brought into the meeting. After reviewing all evidence and hearing testimonies from the prosecution’s witnesses, the jury members vote to decide if different charges should be given and against whom. Because any additional testimonies carry the possibility of evidence to increase charges past assault, Bradley instructed both Whettstone and Lawrence to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights and decline to speak when called upon during the hearing. “Normally, if I’m representing someone and don’t know what they’re going to be asked, I won’t have them testify, as they do have that right,” Bradley said. It’s unclear who the prosecution summoned other than Whettstone and Lawrence, but Bradley said that the College’s outgoing attorney Sandhya Subramanian informed him that “numerous subpoenas were served to the College, given to students and staff.” Subramanian, Vice President and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo and Tita Reed, Special AsThe Oberlin Review | April 28, 2017

sistant to the President for Community and Government Relations, declined to comment on their roles in the recent investigation or confirm who appeared at the grand jury hearing. Although the large number of subpoenas could add charges, Creative Writing Professor Lynn Powell believes it could be a sign that the prosecutor instead wants to avoid going through with the trial for Aladin. “The conclusion I would draw from the number of subpoenas the prosecutor has issued in this case is that he wants the grand jury to hear a wider range of evidence than just the police report,” Powell said in an email to the Review. “That suggests to me that he’s not convinced this is a good case to take to trial.” Powell served on a Lorain County grand jury as a foreperson for three months and wrote a book titled Framing Innocence, which follows a case of how city politics in Oberlin influenced the local judicial system. In addition, Powell found it unsurprising that Aladin was not summoned to testify and said that in her experience, it was very rare for defendants to be brought to testify. “In the nearly 200 cases my grand jury heard over a three-month period, I can remember the prosecutor allowing a defendant to testify only twice,” Powell said. “In both cases, it was to the defendant’s advantage to be able to tell their story directly to the grand jury. In most other cases, the only testimony came from law enforcement, detectives and, occasionally, victims.” A representative from the Lorain County Court of Common Pleas said the results of the hearing would be released sometime today, but Januzzi said the process varies in how long it takes. “Sometimes they make a decision the same day, and other times it can take a while longer,” Januzzi said. “The reason it was continued was to see what would happen at the grand jury. Grand jury proceedings aren’t open to the public, so I’m not any more privy to it than the public. I guess I would say I’m anxious. I’ve been waiting to find out, too.” Another difference between prior set criminal charges and grand jury charges is that there does not need to be definitive proof that the crime was committed. According to Bradley, this means a lower bar must be met for jury members to indict defendants if it seems more probable than not that they are guilty. “It’s a very low standard to get someone charged, just probable cause, which is less than proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” Bradley said. “This standard is just good reason to believe [they should be charged].” According to Januzzi, any new felony charges would move Whettstone and Lawrence’s trials to the county court, but Januzzi added that they may just keep the misdemeanor charge or not indict at all. “You wouldn’t want to have the same facts pending in two different courts because then you would have issues of double jeopardy and just fundamental fairness issues,” Januzzi said. “You can’t be defending yourself in two different courts.” Oberlin Prosecutor Frank Carlson did not respond to the Review’s request for comment. The trial for Whettstone and Lawrence is currently scheduled in Oberlin Municipal Court at 8:30 a.m. May 15, presuming no new charges are added.

2:27 a.m. Students reported an unknown individual walking out of their Union Street apartment. The Oberlin Police Department responded. Nothing was reported missing or damaged. The area was searched with no results. 2:37 a.m. Students reported an unknown individual, possibly intoxicated, attempting to enter their room on the first floor of East Hall. Safety and Security officers responded and checked all floors and the exterior of the building but could not find the individual. 4:10 p.m. A Philips gym monitor reported that two patrons had their gray purses stolen from the Heisman Club Field House track area. 8:45 p.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at a Goldsmith apartment. Officers observed a smoky haze in the bathroom and contraband on the counter. Officers were unable to identify the odor as the area had been heavily sprayed with an unknown substance. The area was cleared and the alarm reset.

Friday, April 21 11:10 a.m. Mudd library staff reported a banner hanging from the fourth-floor roof, which was subsequently removed. It is unknown when the banner was put up or by whom. 11:50 a.m. Officers responded to a report of a banner hanging on the Memorial Arch in Tappan Square. The banner was removed and transported to the Safety and Security Office. 2:48 p.m. A student walking on Cedar Street reported two male individuals driving by and yelling at her out the window. Officers checked the area but could not locate the vehicle. The Oberlin Police Department was also notified.

Saturday, April 22 12:22 a.m. Officers were requested to assist two intoxicated students at Barrows Hall. One student was able to answer all questions asked and was walked to their room for the night. The second individual, a visitor, was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital by ambulance. 6:13 p.m. Officers were requested to assist a student who fell on the stairs at Stevenson Dining Hall, injuring their ankle. The student declined medical treatment at the time but stated that they would call if assistance was needed. 7:59 p.m. A student reported the theft of their black wallet from Hales Gymnasium around 5 p.m. Friday. The wallet contained approximately $70 cash, a driver’s license and an insurance card. 11:54 p.m. Officers transported an intoxicated student from the ’Sco to South Hall after determining they were OK to be in their room for the night.

Sunday, April 23 12:22 a.m. Officers assisted an intoxicated student sleeping in the grass in North Quad. Officers woke the student, who said they did have something to drink earlier but fell asleep waiting for friends. The student was transported to their dorm upon request. 12:24 a.m. Staff requested transport for an intoxicated student at the ’Sco to their dorm in South Hall. 8:44 a.m. Staff at Philips gym reported an odor of something burning in the women’s locker room at Knowlton Athletics Complex. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded, along with an HVAC technician. A belt had slipped off a heating and cooling unit, which caused the odor.

Monday, April 24 9:21 a.m. Staff reported that someone had tripped over wires in the Bosworth Hall data room, injuring their knee. The person received medical treatment. 1:43 p.m. A student reported the theft of two large, white Sharper Image Bluetooth speakers from Burton Hall. There are no suspects at this time.

Wednesday, April 26 7:45 a.m. Grounds staff reported numerous empty alcohol containers strewn about the yard of a Goldsmith apartment. Attempts to make contact with residents in the area for clean up failed. ResEd was then notified.

Ne w s OFF THE CUFF

agencies started calling me and said, ‘Did you ever find anybody to take care of those kittens?’ So I developed that skill for raising orphan kittens.

Liz Burgess, Owner of Ginko Gallery Liz Burgess, OC ’73, is the current owner of Ginko Gallery, an art and arts supply store downtown. Burgess opened the shop with two friends after graduating from the College in 1973. In addition to art supplies, the shop also features studio space for resident artists and an exhibition room to showcase local artists and their work. For many students, the main attraction is the back room where Burgess reg ularly cares for numerous abandoned kittens. Over the years, students have made a tradition of visiting the store to play with kittens, which are frequently up for adoption.

Where are you from originally? Mainly upstate New York, but I grew up traveling a lot, living in several countries as a young person. Before I even graduated from Oberlin, I fell in love with the town, and this town felt like home.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Louis Krauss News editor

How did the store get its start? It started with two friends; we had been renting the back room as artist studios. All three of us were fiber artists, so we were mostly making tapestries, weavings, quilts and such. The front, which was a used bookstore, became available for purchase, and we didn’t want to move! We signed a lease, and started selling our own artwork, started adding friends, and it has kind of grown organically since then. It started with our own work, then other peoples’ work. Then we wanted exhibition space, so we added that, and we kept our artists’ workspace. We still have resident artists who rent the space and work here. A few years ago, when the College bookstore decided it wasn’t interested in selling art supplies, we kind of took over that role, so it grew and now we have lots of art supplies. Can anyone use the studio space? People rent the space, and there’s not a lot of turnover. They’ll rent them out and won’t give them up for years, so they’ve really become resident artists. How did the tradition of keeping kittens in the back of the store start? I was fostering little bottle-baby kittens, pre-weaned kittens, in the back. I was hiding it because I thought it wasn’t appropriate for the store, but I had to put them in the back since they needed to be fed every couple of hours. I would sneak back and feed them.

Then people started to hear them and see them, word spread, and the next thing I know, it’s totally out of control. I don’t have a storeroom, I have the cats area, where now Bonner students take care of the kittens. All these are foster kittens from the Community Action To Save Strays. It’s a trap, spay, neuter program that takes care of stray cats in town and neuters the adult cats so they don’t continue to have kittens. But yeah, we’ve been doing this for at least 10 years. Have you enjoyed having students come in so much to pet them? Some of them come in for study breaks, and I think a lot of people get a lot of enjoyment out of them. I was a psychiatric social worker before, and in some ways I feel like the kittens are doing social work. I had no idea the symbiotic relationship would develop between the students and the kittens. The kittens usually come from a feral community in town, so they need to be socialized. And then the students, they live in a kind of artificial world where there aren’t children, babies or fuzzy warm things. It’s been beneficial for the students as well. What happens to the kittens after they grow up? After they’re too large for me, there’s other foster homes if they’re not adopted while they’re here. It continues to amaze me how many people adopt the kittens from here. It’s

Liz Burgess, owner of Ginko Gallery Photo by Louis Krauss, News editor

kind of become a brand. They’re not just socialized, they’re over-socialized. They’re so friendly, they expect people to want to play with them. These are often not aloof cats. How many cats do you have right now? Is the number pretty consistent? Right now we have four. It comes and goes; we usually have about 100 kittens per year. The survival rate of kittens born outside is only 20 to 25 percent, and our survival rate is more in the nineties. We’re kind of excited and proud that these kittens all survive and become socialized and then become pets. We go from zero in the middle of winter to a lot, like 20. People who have cats here, a lot of them let their cats roam freely. Often students will mistake them as stray cats and think they need help, when really they’re healthy, happy and just out for a walk. I guess I’m still wondering, how did you first decide to bring in and raise cats in the store? Years ago, there was a cat killed on the road in front of my house. A couple days later, I heard crying and found a litter of kittens with their eyes still closed. I called all the agencies, and no one would take them. Then, with help from my vet, I raised them. By the time they were grown, when they were six weeks old and ready to go, the

How has the town developed now that you’ve been here so long? Does it still feel like home? It does. There have been a lot of changes, but it’s still a small town with a lot of problems. It has all the problems that a big city has, but it’s more personalized, so it’s not as easy to objectify. That’s the joy of a small complex town. You can feel like you can try to make a difference here. What are some of the differences in the College you’ve noticed since you graduated? Could you live around town more or was there more connection between the College and town? I’d say the Bonner Center is a huge thing. As a student, I got involved with the town and fell in love with it by doing volunteer work and community organizing. We were on our own, those of us trying to do that back then. Now the Bonner Center provides such institutional support to do that — it’s wonderful. To me, that’s the epitome of the spirit of Oberlin: the Bonner Center. You’re not just a student on a self-contained campus, but you’re reaching out into the community. There’s a huge economic divide in this town. No matter where you came from, the fact that you’re at Oberlin now means that you have access to a life a lot of the kids who grew up here will never have, and that makes some friction and tension. But the only way that changes is if people like the Bonner students get involved, if College students cross that line and get involved in the community — then they become people. Then they’re not objectified as “those rich kids.” They become human and individual people to the folks in the town, too.

Administrators Meet with OSCA, Say Policy Proposals Still Up for Debate Continued from page 1

“OSCA sets it own rates. We are aware that OSCA has policies including grant awards, and we would encourage OSCA and its members to continue to explore strategies such as increased need-based financial aid or sliding scale charges to protect its affordability. These are the same questions facing the College, and as non-profit educational organizations, we need to share the responsibility for navigating the challenges posed by income inequality and rising costs.” Despite the administration’s statement, O’Donoghue said that the administration’s initial communication was poorly handled. “The changes have been delivered to, rather than negotiated with, OSCA, in a way that directly violates clauses contractually agreed to by the College in OSCA’s rent contract,” O’Donoghue wrote in an email to the Review.

“It’s significant that several years of silence came out of the last time this happened, after which the College, in determining that many students involved in or aware of the mass protests last time have graduated, pulled the same manipulative maneuver. It’s a longterm fight where OSCA and students as a whole are at a significant disadvantage, but we’ve pulled through before, and we’ll pull through again.” Leading up to today’s meeting, officers and members of OSCA have taken a variety of steps in response to the administration’s proposed changes. Last Wednesday, OSCA held an organizing and strategizing meeting to outline their initial plan of action, which included informing prospective students visiting during a major admissions event last weekend about the new policies; helping revitalize student group Defending Oberlin Financial Accessibility; reaching out to parents and alumni; and emailing and calling senior administration and the offices of the

Community News Bulletin

Firelands High School Receives Science Grant

Students Turn Farmland into Prairie Reserve

The CenturyLink Foundation awarded Firelands High School $4,895 as part of its Teachers and Technology grant program. The money will go toward purchasing new scientific probes and tablets for the school to improve its science lab classes. This year, the grant program gave cash rewards of up to $5,000 to 309 of the 2,300 schools that applied. Physics teacher Thomas Moyer submitted the grant request.

More than 20 students from a mixture of Environmental Studies classes and the track and field teams turned out Sunday morning to convert a 30-acre plot of farmland into a natural prairie. After Western Reserve Land Conservancy Firelands Associate Field Director Kate Pilacky purchased the land in 2015, she worked with students and community members to plan how to replace the once-barren farmland with wildflowers and grasses. The land is part of a larger area of forest and wetland west of the Oberlin Recreation Complex.

deans, Financial Aid and Admissions. Wells said that while today’s meeting focused on OSCA-specific demands, OSCA stands with the greater student body in challenging the administration’s flat rates for ResEd and College Dining Services. “I think [OSCA and the greater student body] support each other, but there’s the very specific OSCA being affected by the financial aid policy, and then the one where OSCA has no say in the housing and dining that ResEd chooses,” Wells said. “But we definitely endorse the student body at large in disapproving of those changes.” OSCA, DOFA and Students Building Community Power co-sponsored a petition circulated online. The petition called for no flat-rate housing and dining plans, no cuts to financial aid for OSCA members and for explicit student involvement in all matters that directly affect students. Wells said DOFA members handed in the petition and its signatures to the administration Monday. Medical Marijuana Policy Passes First Round Oberlin’s planning commission decided to put any potential medical marijuana businesses in the lightindustrial district north of East Lorain Street at its meeting April 19. According to the Oberlin News Tribune, this area will be along Artino Street, a location that meets state laws preventing medical marijuana businesses from being within 500 feet of any school, church, public library, public playground or public park. Fadi Boumitri, a lawyer from Cuyahoga County who claimed to represent an investment group looking to support medical marijuana businesses in Oberlin, also attended the commission’s meeting. City Council will discuss the matter at its May 1 meeting.

OPINIONS April 28, 2017

established 1874

Letters to the editors

Administrators Respond to Student Concerns

To the Editors: We are writing foremost to express our strong support and appreciation for [Oberlin Student Cooperative Association] and to reiterate our commitment to equity and fairness across all residential and dining options. These are not mutually exclusive positions, as we hope to clarify in the following points: 1. There has been much concern expressed over the reductions in aid for OSCA members ($1,000 for those who dine in OSCA and $2,000 for those who both dine and live in OSCA), but it is important to note that these reductions are part of the new model that aids to three meals per day as the baseline instead of the current model, which aids to two meals per day. As such, the net impact of these reductions is not what it would be if applied to the current model of aiding to the 14-meal plan. Next year, new students who dine with OSCA and receive full financial support from the College will actually receive $460 more than they would under the current plan. Those who both live and dine with OSCA and receive full financial support from the College will receive $540 less than they would under the current plan. Because more students dine in OSCA than both live and dine, new students who join OSCA will collectively receive more aid dollars from the College next year than they would under the current plan. 2. As an independent nonprofit, OSCA sets its own rates. We are aware that OSCA has policies including grant awards, and we would encourage OSCA and its members to continue to explore strategies such as increased need-based financial aid or sliding scale charges to protect its affordability. These are the same questions

facing the College, and as non-profit educational organizations, we need to share the responsibility for navigating the challenges posed by income inequality and rising costs. 3. OSCA has claimed in recent meetings with administrators that the financial benefit is the only real incentive to join OSCA and that these changes will hurt its ability to recruit new members. We are hopeful that we alleviated this concern in the first point above, but we also encourage OSCA to reflect on its proud history and on the experience and community it provides. We believe there are many factors beyond the financial benefit that make OSCA membership highly desirable, and we encourage OSCA to market itself accordingly. 4. The claim that the new policy no longer compensates OSCA members for their sweat equity is incorrect. The compensation for OSCA sweat equity is reflected in the lower rates OSCA charges its members, as is the case with any independent nonprofit cooperative. However, the College recognizes the unique and valuable learning community created by OSCA, which is why it continues to aid members above the cost of OSCA’s charges. For fullneed students, this amount is approximately $3,500 for members who dine in OSCA and $5,600 for those who both live and dine in OSCA. One can simply divide the number of hours worked (five per week is expected, according to OSCA’s website) into these figures to determine hourly compensation: for full-need students who dine in OSCA, compensation is more than $25 per hour, and for those who both dine and live in OSCA, it rises to more than $35 per hour. Again, this reflects compensation above that which is already calculated in the lower rates OSCA charges its members. 5. The new 300-meal plan

provides plenty of flexibility — we apologize that this wasn’t made clear in the FAQ document that was emailed to students last week. Students will be able to use unused meal swipes at any campus eatery until dining closes for the semester, including the option to buy groceries or other goods at DeCafé. This will include special events hosted by CDS in the next year, which the Dining Committee is currently exploring. 6. Some members of the community have been incorrectly calculating an excessively high cost for individual meals and rooms by dividing the College’s rate by the number of meals or by comparing a dorm room to a room in a private house. This approach assumes that the College’s room and board fee is used to cover only food cost, food preparation, custodial services and maintenance. The College provides good wages and benefits to all employees, and is very proud to invest in its full-time workforce (as opposed to institutions that staff housing and dining primarily through minimum wage temporary workers). It is also important to remember that the room and board fee covers many additional services provided by and for the residential experience, including in-hall student and professional staff, special programming in residences and dining halls, Safety and Security, the on-call system, the after-hours confidential counseling line, Rideline, the support system (including class deans) for students who are struggling, the conduct system, ID card support and many more services that contribute to the campus residential experience. We appreciate the opportunity to clarify these points and are available to answer additional questions should they arise. – President Marvin Krislov and Senior Staff See Letters, page 6

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. The Oberlin Review | April 28, 2017

Volume 145, Number 23

Editorial Board Editors-in-Chief Tyler Sloan

Oliver Bok

Managing Editor Kiley Petersen

Opinions Editor Sami Mericle

Student Input Necessary to Avoid Finger Pointing Following last week’s tuition hikes, the sentiment bears repeating: The administration needs to include students in conversations about major institutional decisions, financial or otherwise. The scenario played out much like similar situations often have in the past. Behind closed doors, administrators privately pivoted in favor of a 2.8-percent tuition hike and higher flat-rate housing and dining costs under the guise of “improving equity.” Students protested, organized events and held meetings about where to go from here as constituents in an institution without adequate representation. Administrators sent emails. And more emails. The justifications for these hikes have largely fallen flat on a student body that, for the most part, rightfully refuses to accept neatly packaged rationales for a nearly $70,000 price tag. It is not so much our unwillingness to understand the administrative perspective, but rather that we are often presented solutions to problems that were never previously identified, making certain explanations seem out of left field. Again, we turn to the administration’s argument that hunger is a major issue on campus. If it was or is, why is this the first time we are hearing anything about it from senior staff members? Further, what about all of the wasted meals that students don’t use on their current meal plans? Why not allow students to transfer meals to friends who have run out of swipes for the week when the food is already paid for? For that matter, why not fully and indefinitely commit to funding break meals? These are viable solutions if changes were really made in the name of equity and not to generate revenue. Students could have suggested similar options, knowing full well how often these situations occur, but were ultimately shut out of the conversation. To borrow a phrase from Hamilton, students want to be in the room where it happens. Disparate communication only serves to heighten tensions between students, who administrators often feel are antagonistic for sport, and senior staff, who students criticize for being out of touch. The distance allows preconceived notions to persist without venues for facilitating improved relationships, harboring resentment on both ends. We appreciate the invitation to raise questions in response to this decision, but that was never the issue. It’s about the front-end decision-making that excludes direct student input and later imposes significant changes on our lives at Oberlin — a critique that has also been repeatedly raised regarding the addition of a student representative to the Board of Trustees. This is why Student Senate’s proposal to create a Central Budgeting Committee is a promising start to what Vice President and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo calls “Oberlin’s tradition of shared governance structure” (see “Student Senate Proposes Central Budgeting Committee,” page 2). Still, administrators cannot simply call it shared governance and not act on it — if there is a real commitment to increasing horizontal governance, students deserve the opportunity to participate from start to finish. The Editorial Board fully endorses Senate’s efforts to pass this proposal and hopes the administration receives it well, keeping in mind our “tradition.” Another point of contention regarding recent changes, dining plans that insist students eat three meals per day in Campus Dining Services exacerbate tensions between the College and city. City Councilmember Bryan Burgess raised the issue in a Facebook post Sunday, arguing that “requiring students to purchase extravagantly priced meal plans will divert those dollars away from our local food economy. This decision further walls off the Campus from the Oberlin Community.” We hope that in addition to attempting to alleviate student concerns, the administration focuses on new ways to bridge the town-gown divide so downtown venues do not bear the brunt of this change. The College already benefits from city services without paying property taxes in town. Hurting local vendors by potentially reducing student business is corrosive to an already fractious relationship. We empathize with the difficulty of administrators’ tasks in governing the institution, but one way for them to avoid sharp criticism is to put students in the room. We will have a lot less to criticize if we are given more responsibility in major decisions. 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.

Opi n ions

I Am a Low-Income Student in Favor of Dining Changes Mia Bates Contributing writer

$500. That is what I owed the school for my entire first year at Oberlin. $500 and two weeks to pay it; otherwise, I could not enroll for my second year. I called my mom immediately and got a reply I had heard for 18 years: “I don’t know where the money is going to come from, lovey.” My parents made $15,000 dollars that year. Our furnace broke during that particularly bad upstate New York winter, and for two weeks my parents and little brother lived in a below-freezing house. The food stamps were nice though — at least they were eating. That is how my family’s life is. We have always lived paycheck to paycheck with sometimes months in between. I knew when I left for college that they would be unable to offer even the smallest monetary support. What I was not expecting when I came to Oberlin was that people would not know what true poverty looks like. This is an Oberlin problem — we lack enough lowincome students to illustrate to the student body what being low-income looks like. The New York Times created a ranking of all the top colleges on the basis of low-income accessibility. Out of 179 schools in the U.S., we ranked 132. Ten percent of students here are

Pell Grant students, meaning their familial income is $70,000 dollars or less. According to the U.S. census, the median income of this country is $57,000. If we properly represented this nation, over 50 percent of us would be Pell Grant students. Though it is naive to say we will ever perfectly represent the demographics of the country, a difference of over 40 percent is embarrassing. Last week, the administration announced a series of changes to room and board, tuition and financial aid that many students have decried as unfair and unequitable. I want to offer my perspective as one of the few low-income students at Oberlin. One of the changes requires first-year students to have 300 meals per semester. Many students have pointed out that the plan does not have flex points, but they have failed to mention that the meals can be used at DeCafé to buy groceries. After my first semester, I dropped my meal plan down as quickly as possible to save money. However, this meant I had to worry about where my meals would come from once they ran out for the week. I did not have a supply of snacks in my dorm room, nor could I afford to eat at The Feve. I couldn’t just ask my parents for money to cover food — if I didn’t have the money, then there was no money. The College claims that need-based financial aid will adjust to the increasing meal costs. I can vouch that with every increase

in costs from the College, my aid has increased accordingly so that I have the same coverage each year. It is enough to worry about school and money without having to worry about where your food will come from. If, as a first year, I had been forced to eat 300 meals in Campus Dining Services, would I have complained? Absolutely. But I also would have never gone without a meal. The second big change is financial aid cuts for students in co-ops. This consists of a $1,000 per year loss for students who eat in co-ops and an additional $1,000 loss to live in one as well. In a recent email, Student Senate said that “the new policy significantly reduces the incentive for students to join [Oberlin Student Cooperative Association], makes the Oberlin experience more difficult for low-income students to afford and will likely reduce socio-economic and racial diversity in OSCA in the coming years.” I do not know the current socioeconomic makeup of OSCA, but I do know that I could not afford to join one, despite recent efforts to increase accessibility. According to the OSCA website, the organization has created a scholarship that covers $500 or $1,000 of the semester bill. This is all great but does nothing to help those of us who cannot afford even the $75 down payment to reserve a spot in a co-op. Being able to afford a coop is a privilege in itself. The cuts to those in co-ops may not be

fair, but they are not going to hurt the lowest of the low-income students. In fact, if what the College says is true and that money is going back into financial aid, these cuts might even help people like me. I know there are people in co-ops who will suffer from those cuts, but they will still be saving more money than eating in CDS, and redistributing that financial aid may help more people afford to go here. I am at the mercy of the College. I have no back-up plan, no savings account to draw money from, no parents’ money to turn to. If my financial aid lessens at all, I will be gone. As it stands for people like me, the financial aid here is not good. If this is the College’s attempt to try to help us, then I have to stand behind it. I know most of you will not agree with me and will still oppose the change, but I am asking for you to consider my perspective as an actual low-income student. The College is attempting to help low-income students, and low-income students are a minority here that tends to be silent or spoken for by people with a lot more financial security than we’ve ever experienced. The average Oberlin student cannot pay full price, but that does not make the average Oberlin student a low-income student. So ask yourself: Are you fighting this for me or are you fighting it for you and people like you? If you are, don’t use me as an excuse.

Bill Combats Imaginary Voter Fraud Letters to the editors, cont. Nathan Carpenter Contributing Opinions editor

In December, I wrote in the Review that the election of President Donald Trump and Republicans nationwide signaled an impending battle for voting rights across the country (“Voting by Mail Removes Barriers to Polls,” Dec. 2). Now, that fight has come to Ohio. The 12 members of the Ohio House’s Government Accountability and Oversight Committee voted House Bill 41 out of committee along partisan lines Wednesday. It will now go to a vote of the entire State House, where Republicans hold an overwhelming majority. The intent of HB 41 is to restrict the ease of in-person early voting in Ohio, ostensibly with the goal of reducing voter fraud. The state’s current early voting policy is that photo ID is not required to vote early in person or by way of a mail-in absentee ballot. If HB 41 becomes law, in-person early voters will be required to present a form of photo ID, while absentee voters will still not be required to do so. Increased restrictions on voting, especially early voting, are nothing new for Ohio voters. In 2014, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted eliminated a week of early voting known as “Golden Week,” during which African-American voters were up to five times more likely to vote than white voters. Husted was also found to be illegally purging voter registrations due to voter inactivity. Further regulation of early voting practices will make voting more difficult for low-income voters, young voters and voters of color, who tend to take advantage of early voting to a much greater extent than high-income and white voters. For people who work, particularly in the service industry, it’s often difficult to get time off on a Tuesday to go vote. Clear early voting practices provide valuable opportunities to make it easier for everybody to vote. Research on voter-ID laws in other states reveals that such legislation exacerbates the voter participation gap between white voters and voters of color. “When a bill like this shows up on the committee schedule, it can look harmless. But if you scratch the surface, you see exactly who it goes after — minority voters, women voters, and Democratic voters who use in-person early voting more than other groups. While purportedly about reducing paperwork, HB 41 is really an attack on an easy voting method that many Ohio-

ans juggling work and family like to use,” said Ohio State Representative Kathleen Clyde. Ultimately, voter ID laws decrease the turnout of Democratic voters by nearly eight points, according to The Washington Post. Republican turnout is negatively impacted as well, but not as greatly. That is why there is an increasing incidence of strict voter-ID laws in states controlled by Republicans. The few states still under Democratic control are moving in the opposite direction and seeing improved voter turnout. In 2016, Oregon implemented an automatic voter registration system that greatly increases the accessibility of voting. Since that rule change, turnout among young voters has increased by 20 points statewide and registration of voters of color increased by 26 points. A similar automatic voter registration law will be implemented in California in July 2017. While not directly analogous to Ohio’s HB 41, Oregon’s new legislation shows that making voting more accessible greatly increases turnout among the same demographics that Republicans, in Ohio and elsewhere, are attempting to suppress in the name of reducing voter fraud. Allegations of voter fraud are nothing more than a political dog whistle from conservatives who want to ensure that people who support them can vote and that people who support Democrats can’t. Voter fraud is incredibly rare in the United States and does not impact elections; a recent study found only 31 instances of voter impersonation — the kind of fraud that is supposedly addressed by voter ID laws — out of over 1 billion ballots cast. To argue that voter fraud is a serious issue disregards the facts and misleads voters. Restrictive voter ID laws would not solve any problems for the state of Ohio, but they would create a whole host of new problems for voters who now find it much more difficult to make their voices heard. In any democracy, but particularly one with such a low incidence of voter fraud, voting should be a simple and accessible process. Some states, like Oregon and California, are taking steps to ensure that it is, while Ohio and many others are intentionally moving in the opposite direction. Republican leaders are dangerously misguided in proposing legislation that will deliberately disenfranchise certain demographics of voters — a bill that is a solution to an imaginary problem.

Continued from page 5

CCL Promotes Bipartisan Climate Action To the Editors: More than likely, few people in Oberlin need to be convinced of the gravity of climate change. What’s more difficult is moving from recognition of the problem to determining the solutions, especially in a political climate where the highest levels of our government seem hostile or indifferent to even the science of climate change. The good news is that the market is moving toward renewable energy. Just this week, The New York Times reported that the solar industry created more American jobs than coal and that Britain went a full day without burning coal for electricity for the first time since the 1800s. But the shift is not moving fast enough, at least not if we want to avert the worst impacts of climate change. The Citizens’ Climate Lobby offers a compelling way to reduce emissions. Its policy proposal includes a “carbon fee and dividend” that would assess a fee on the carbon-dioxide content of fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas — at or near the first point of sale. The fee would start at $15 per ton of carbon dioxide and increase $10 per ton each year, which should help accelerate the move towards renewable energy. CCL models have predicted that this policy could lead to major emissions reductions. The revenue from the fee would be divided and returned equally to all households in the country, which should help ease the burden of the fee on low-income families and actually promote greater economic equity. More details about the plan can be found at citizensclimatelobby.org. The most exciting aspect of this proposal is that it has the potential for bipartisan support in Congress. Because it uses a market-based rather than a regulatory approach, the idea is being embraced by some conservatives. The Climate Leadership Council’s “Conservative Case for Carbon Dividends” proposes a similar model with a higher starting point and slower rate of increase. The Climate Solutions Caucus, formed in 2016 by Carlos Curbelo (RFL) and Ted Deutch (D-FL), calls for climate action and remains explicitly bipartisan by design; members must join the caucus at the same time as a member of the opposite party. While the caucus has not yet embraced the carbon fee and dividend, it seems close to doing so. If you are interested in a concrete plan to address climate change, I encourage you to check out Oberlin’s CCL chapter. As a member, I have been impressed with and learned from the many tools, detailed resources and tangible items that CCL provides its chapters to help citizens lobby for climate action in general, as well as the specific carbon fee and dividend approach. You can find the Oberlin chapter on Facebook or get in touch by emailing oberlin@citizensclimatelobby.org. While some may not see market-based solutions as the perfect answer to climate change, the carbon fee and dividend has the potential to lead to major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and may be politically viable. It can be one avenue among many for concerned climate activists at a time when genuine, sweeping climate action is needed from multiple fronts as soon as possible. CCL creates an easy, effective avenue to join the fight. – Izzy Esler Member of the Citizen’s Climate Lobby, Oberlin chapter

Trump Reverts to Republican Orthodoxy

CARTOON OF THE WEEK

Ben Silverman Columnist

Former Breitbart News editor and President Donald Trump’s right-hand man Steve Bannon was ousted from his role on the National Security Council on April 5 and has continued to fall in standing in Trump’s inner circle since then, according to reports from The Hill and Vanity Fair, among others. Recent events have large implications for the remainder of the Trump presidency, as Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and other establishment Republicans have replaced Bannon at the president’s side. This changing of the guard has influenced Donald’s recent budget proposals, which include a tax cut disproportionately benefiting the wealthy and a lack of funding for his proposed border wall. The divides within Donald’s circle of advisors began after Bannon didn’t fully brief the president on his own appointment to the NSC, which caused Kushner and Ivanka to voice doubts about him, Vanity Fair recently reported. Bannon in turn accused Kushner and Ivanka of being “anti-movement,” recently converted liberal Democrats who wish to downplay the issues that comprised Donald’s populist appeal. Bannon has been the mastermind behind President Trump’s revolutionary actions for the past year, including his anti-establishment outrage, mastery over non-mainstream media and radical immigration restrictions. Over the course of his own career, Bannon gravitated toward a philosophy of “economic nationalism,” in which he espoused Reagan-era economic practices with protectionist policies given equal priority. This manifested as Trump’s populism near the end of the campaign, particularly in the fear of working-class jobs going overseas. However, as is now made clear by Trump’s cabinet of entirely special interests, Trump’s populism was a mere show to get him elected. Bannon is also behind much of Trump’s bolder, more disruptive decisions. The orchestration of the travel ban, for one, was mostly arranged by Bannon. According to a report by Bloomberg, Bannon decided to install the ban as a surprise and do it on the weekend because more people would be compelled to protest if they didn’t have to be at work. Bannon knew that if the order sparked protests, it would garner maximum media coverage, making Trump’s base believe that the president was sticking to his promises. This backfired. The ban failed entirely, with most of its provisions blocked by judges. Bannon’s plan to muscle through an executive order with the intention of only pleasing Trump’s supporters did not pay off, and Bannon began his fall from Trump’s favor. He continued his slide in the attempt to pass the American Health Care Act, declaring to Republican congressmen, “This is not a debate. You have no choice but to vote for this bill,” according to The Hill. An unidentified Freedom Caucus member responded, “You know, the last time someone ordered me to something, I was 18 years old. And it was my daddy. And I didn’t listen to him, either.” The initial, embarrassing failure of the AHCA depleted even more of Bannon’s political capital. Bannon’s failures have changed the trajectory of Trump’s presidency. The campaign that seemed to be the hope of agitators and malcontents across the country is on track to be defined by the actions and ideas of a complacent elite. Of course, this might have been Trump’s intention all along, but if so, it remains to be seen just how much Trump’s base actually cared for populism. The new administration continues to be driven by standard Republican orthodoxy, proposing tax cuts that only benefit the wealthy and failing to follow through with the border wall. Trump’s approval ratings in this first term will shed light on the degree to which Trump’s candidacy was actually driven by a populist “economic nationalism,” classic Republican standbys or the sinister cult of personality that was feared from the beginning. The Oberlin Review | April 28, 2017

Oberlin Should Seek Out Local Apparel Suppliers Jackie Brant Columnist

As the Review reported last week, an investigation by the Worker Rights Consortium released last December revealed that Nike had been using a sweatshop as a supplier for its collegiate clothing, violating its anti-sweatshop agreement with the College. As a college dedicated to social justice, Oberlin has a Sweatshop-Free Apparel Code of Purchasing, meaning that the College refuses to buy from businesses that use sweatshops in their production process. Sweatshops are wildly unjust to workers, as they may force employees to work unreasonable hours in unfit conditions, pay less than minimum wage with no benefits and may use child labor. Unfortunately, most major sports apparel brands have been tainted by labor malpractices. In fact, Oberlin switched its primary supplier from Adidas to Nike in 2012 because of Adidas’ labor practices. While the College should clearly denounce Nike’s infraction, these situations are inevitable as long as the College continues to buy from large corporations with factories abroad. Instead, Oberlin should look into switching its apparel providers to smaller, local businesses that are far less likely to engage in unethical labor practices. The WRC report found Hansae Vietnam Co., a major factory supplier of Nike’s collegiate apparel, violated numerous international labor codes, including abusive and unsafe management practices such as pressure on workers to meet absurd quotas, physical abuse of workers by managers, not allowing workers to take bathroom breaks, forced and excessive overtime, discriminatory dismissal of pregnant employees, denial of sick leave, management domination of the factory’s labor union and other wage and hour violations. These violations are not

only grossly unjust and dehumanizing but also in direct violation with DSP and USAS requirements. Though Nike is now working with the factory to correct these injustices, this single incident has brought to light a deeper problem. Even after this malpractice was exposed, Nike still refuses to allow the WRC to inspect the factories that supply its collegiate apparel. Nike’s Chief Sustainability Officer Hannah Jones told The Huffington Post that the company cannot give an outside group permission to inspect their supplier’s factory, and that it “wouldn’t normally assist an outside group like the WRC.” This refusal will prevent the WRC from being able “to fully perform its independent monitoring work on behalf of affiliate universities and colleges,” according to the WRC report on Hansae Vietnam Co. Though the breaches in the NikeOberlin agreement are very serious, the ethical issues have much more widespread consequences than just a breach of contract. Colleges that continue to use brands like Nike that benefit from exploitation and mistreatment of employees enable this practice in the long run. Collegiate licensing is a $4.6-billion industry, according to estimates by ESPN, meaning that colleges have significant power in the relationship between the college and the brand that provides the apparel. If colleges begin to truly stand up to these corporations, they will be forced to abandon these unjust tactics. Oberlin should be at the forefront of this fight to put an end to the use of sweatshops. Ideally, Oberlin would immediately terminate its contract with Nike unless the company allows the WRC full access to its suppliers and ends all unethical labor practices. Unfortunately, according to Senior Associate Athletic Director Creg Jantz, Nike’s contract with Oberlin cannot be terminated before Oct. 31, 2019. In the mean-

time, the College should look into alternative apparel providers. Most apparel corporations have been investigated and found to be using sweatshop supplies at some point, including Nike, Adidas, Under Armour and Jansport, according to student Purchasing Committee member Yijia Gao. Because of ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Oberlin should be at the forefront of this fight to put an end to the use of sweatshops. Ideally, Oberlin would immediately terminate its contract with Nike unless the company allows the WRC full access to its suppliers and ends all unethical labor practices. –––––––––––––––––––––––––– this seemingly repetitive issue with large corporations, Oberlin should look toward local businesses as providers. Currently, some of Oberlin’s apparel is supplied by small, local businesses. However, according to Politics and East Asian Studies Professor Marc Blecher, who also sits on Oberlin’s Purchasing Committee, the College has not found a way to have all of its apparel supplied by small, local businesses at this point. Looking toward these types of businesses rather than large corporations could be a good way to ensure that Oberlin abstains from supporting large corporations that thrive on the exploitation of workers. If Oberlin could find a way to make this work by 2019, it would be beneficial to both local businesses and to the anti-sweatshop movement as a whole. If not, Oberlin should drop Nike as a brand and look elsewhere unless the company demonstrates consistent dedication to fixing the unethical practices of its suppliers.

Tips for Meditating Make it a habit. Meditation becomes easier when one builds up a routine. Pick a time to practice each day and try to stick to it. Choosing a specific spot can also assist with structuring your meditation time in a helpful way.

The Meaning of Mindfulness

Everyone can agree that college can be overwhelming; we all have class in addition to work, extracurriculars and the daily anxieties that accompany trying to navigate life in a constantly changing world. One way to manage this stress is meditation and simple mindfulness. Becoming aware of the present moment and finding ways to focus your attention have proven benefits, especially in a world that is constantly on the move, rushing toward the next deadline. Here is a simple guide to get started.

When sitting in meditation, it is easy for your mind to wander. When this happens, simply notice your thoughts, acknowledge them and return your focus to your breathing. It is OK to have other thoughts, but a steady, even breath should be at the center of any meditation practice. Try not to get frustrated — with time, these distractions will lessen.

Calendar Poetry Prizes Celebration

Some people find it helpful to listen to someone else instruct them in meditation. There are many free, guided meditations available online, including on the websites meditationoasis.com/ podcast/ and marc.ucla.edu/mindfulmeditations. These include a wide range of time spans and address different purposes for your mindfulness practice. Simply navigating life with mindfulness of the present moment can help increase quality of life. Try eating mindfully, taking the time to give the food you are eating your full attention — focus on the sight, taste and texture of the food, as well as the sensation of eating.

A body scan can be a helpful way to center focus on yourself. Start at the top of your head and slowly move your focus all the way down your body, giving each body part and sensation distinct attention. Some feelings may be pleasant, others uncomfortable. Try to simply notice these sensations without moving. Again, if your mind wanders, acknowledge this and refocus your attention.

Why Meditate?

Other Forms

Once you feel comfortable with sitting meditation, try walking meditation. The principles are the same, but in this form, you are moving slowly and deliberately. Try to find somewhere reasonably quiet and continue to focus on the different sensations your body is experiencing.

Mindfulness and meditation help to manage stress, enhance the quality of sleep and create a more optimistic and grateful worldview.

These practices also have links to enhanced focus and improved quality of schoolwork.

Mindfulness can be exercised throughout the day simply through an awareness of one’s surroundings and focusing on the present. Meditation only requires a few minutes of practice a day to begin seeing results.

Layout and Text by Izzy Rosenstein,This Week editor Mariachi Flor de Toloache

Wilder Hall, Room 112 Saturday, April 29 at 4:30 p.m.

Finney Chapel Saturday, April 29 at 8 p.m.

The 2017 student prize winners of the Emma Howell Memorial Prize, William Battrick Poetry Fellowship and the Lucy Pope Wheeler Poetry Prize will read their work.

As part of Folk Fest, come hear Grammy nominee and all-woman Mariachi band, Mariachi Flor de Toloache. The members have cultural backgrounds from all over the world, lending to their unique sound.

Nothing But Treble: Spring Concert 2017

Fairchild Chapel Sunday, April 30 at 8:30–9:30 p.m. Oberlin’s oldest a cappella group for women and nonbinary people, Nothing But Treble, will sing in its final performance of the semester.

The Haze

The Cat in the Cream Tuesday, May 2 at 8–10 p.m. Playwright, performer and activist Heather Marlowe will perform this award-winning solo play about the mistreatment of sexual assault survivors. The performance will be followed by a question-and-answer session.

TED Talks: Technology Epigenetics Discovery Science Center, Room A254 Wednesday, May 3 at 8 a.m.

This event will be comprised of four different student lectures, each spanning about 10 minutes and discussing different cell-related discoveries.

Edible and Medicinal Spring Plants Oberlin Public Library Thursday, May 4 at 6:30 p.m.

This class, part of the library’s Adult Series programs, will show participants how to identify and enjoy edible plants that can be found in the woods.

The Meaning of Mindfulness

Calendar Poetry Prizes Celebration

Why Meditate?

Other Forms

Mindfulness and meditation help to manage stress, enhance the quality of sleep and create a more optimistic and grateful worldview.

These practices also have links to enhanced focus and improved quality of schoolwork.

Layout and Text by Izzy Rosenstein,This Week editor Mariachi Flor de Toloache

Wilder Hall, Room 112 Saturday, April 29 at 4:30 p.m.

Finney Chapel Saturday, April 29 at 8 p.m.

The 2017 student prize winners of the Emma Howell Memorial Prize, William Battrick Poetry Fellowship and the Lucy Pope Wheeler Poetry Prize will read their work.

As part of Folk Fest, come hear Grammy nominee and all-woman Mariachi band, Mariachi Flor de Toloache. The members have cultural backgrounds from all over the world, lending to their unique sound.

Nothing But Treble: Spring Concert 2017

Fairchild Chapel Sunday, April 30 at 8:30–9:30 p.m. Oberlin’s oldest a cappella group for women and nonbinary people, Nothing But Treble, will sing in its final performance of the semester.

The Haze

TED Talks: Technology Epigenetics Discovery Science Center, Room A254 Wednesday, May 3 at 8 a.m.

This event will be comprised of four different student lectures, each spanning about 10 minutes and discussing different cell-related discoveries.

Edible and Medicinal Spring Plants Oberlin Public Library Thursday, May 4 at 6:30 p.m.

This class, part of the library’s Adult Series programs, will show participants how to identify and enjoy edible plants that can be found in the woods.

A rt s & C u lt u r e

ARTS & CULTURE April 28, 2017

established 1874

Volume 145, Number 23

OMTA’s Assassins Balances Levity, Seriousness Quentin Nguyen-duy Staff writer Victoria Garber Arts editor

When the legendary Stephen Sondheim and librettist John Weidman first debuted Assassins in 1990, it was one of the most controversial musicals in recent history. The musical compiles its character list from the select community of historical figures connected to the assassinations and attempted assassinations of U.S. presidents. Several easily recognizable characters include Lee Harvey Oswald, who shot and killed President John F. Kennedy in 1963; Samuel Joseph Byck, who attempted to hijack a 747 and crash it into the White House during Richard Nixon’s presidency; and Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and Sara Jane Moore — the only two women to ever attempt to murder a U.S. president — who tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Gerald Ford in 1975. These people and many more will make appearances in the Oberlin Musical Theater Association’s production of the show, which opened yesterday and runs through Saturday in Wilder Main. The assassins and their associates gather on stage to express their discontent and, at times, to encourage one another to carry out their plans. The production toes a sensitive line in the exploration of its characters’ motives, and while those motives are never romanticized, it’s no small wonder the show’s premise raises eyebrows. “It’s never the right time to put on the

Cast members in the Oberlin Musical Theater Association’s production of Assassins rehearse for the show, which portrays several people who attempted — successfully or otherwise — to assassinate presidents of the United States. The musical opened yesterday in Wilder Main and runs through Saturday. Photo by Bryan Rubin, Photo editor

show, and it’s always the right time to put on the show,” said College junior Jacob Maximilian Baron, who is co-directing Assassins with College junior Henry DuBeau. DuBeau stumbled upon the original cast recording of Assassins during his first year at Oberlin and quickly fell in love with the musical. Its non-site-specific nature gives it a degree of flexibility, and DuBeau hoped it would speak to the pervasive

political tension on and off campus. “I thought it would be well received,” DuBeau said. “At the time it was spring 2015, and people had heard of Donald Trump, but that whole thing wasn’t happening yet. Still, political polarization was very prevalent, and I thought this would be a nice way to tap into that energy.” Baron had already discussed the possibility of bringing Assassins to campus

with Alex Ngo, the head of OMTA, by the time he and DuBeau met. Baron and DuBeau subsequently decided to share the role of director, and even though their perspectives occasionally diverge, their working relationship has been both positive and productive. “A really interesting dynamic is that I’m a Theater major and Jacob is a Cinema See With Assassins, page 12

Folk Fest Reaches Beyond Genre’s Traditional Boundaries Sydney Allen Production editor

Since its inception in 1999, community members and College students alike have flocked to Tappan Square for Folk Fest, an annual celebration of the genre featuring multiple live performances and events. Nineteen years ago, the inaugural concert featured a single headliner followed by student acts, but the series has since grown exponentially, drawing several touring acts each year and spreading to venues all over campus. Organized by the Oberlin College Folk Music Club, this year’s Folk Fest kicked off today with a panel discussion around Women in Folk Music, moderated by Professor of Ethnomusicology Jennifer Fraser and featuring members of Isle of Klezbos, an all-women klezmer band participating in the festival. The panel is just one part of a larger effort on the part of organizers to change the festival’s approach to music. Each of the touring acts this year will feature almost exclusively non-male performers, challenging folk music’s boundaries and bringing in a variety of international acts. “To me, this is a very unique folk fest,” said Associate Director of the Student Union and Faculty Advisor for Folk Music Club Tom

Reid, OC ’80. “There is much more of an international flavor. We’ve got a klezmer band, [a] mariachi band [and] a band that plays traditional Québécois music, so [we’re] reaching into different traditions than we sometimes have.” College senior Eleanor Van Buren, who will be performing in the student and community showcase at the bandstand for the second year in a row tomorrow, said she appreciates the organizers’ creative new spin on Folk Fest. “I think it’s neat that Folk Fest encourages a wider version of what folk is,” Van Buren said. “There are people that are bringing in … new influences … or just different instruments that you don’t necessarily associate with folk music to create a new musical experience.” College sophomore John Schechtman-Marko, student liaison and vice president of the Folk Music Club, said that the group wanted to interpret the term “folk music” more broadly when it came to booking performers. “We think there is … a perception out there of the folk musician as the ‘white dude with the guitar,’ which we wanted to sort of counteract,” he said. “We’re really trying to challenge the stereotypical notions of what folk music can be. The term is so broad and there is so much interesting music that falls under the umbrella … and music being made by people

who aren’t usually associated with folk music, and we wanted to showcase a bit of that.” Full of eclectic performances, the festival features The Pearly Snaps as they open for Isle of Klezbos at 7 p.m. tonight in the Cat in the Cream. The Pearly Snaps are an old-time fiddle and banjo duo with a traditional country and folk feel, featuring Steph “Pearly” Jenkins and Rosie “Snap” Newton. Following The Pearly Snaps, the Isle of Klezbos will headline, adding a bit of eclectic flair with their unique, modern take on klezmer, a traditional Eastern European, Jewish sound. Having toured all over the world, the band is one of the biggest names on this weekend’s docket. As their website boasts, “Our soulful, funloving powerhouse all-gal sextet is most likely the only band ever to be heard on both ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ and [Showtime series] ‘The L Word.’” College senior Emma Rast will emcee the event and open. Fans of The Pearly Snaps will have a chance to see them again at a harmony singing workshop at 10 a.m. tomorrow. The event is meant to draw more than just folk fans, with singers of all levels encouraged to come and practice with the duo. Then comes a long-time Oberlin favorite, as students and community members take to the Clark Grandstand in Tappan

Square, a nod to the first Folk Fest nearly 20 years ago. Schechtman-Marko, who helped organize the event and will be emceeing, said this year saw an increase in talent and applicants, making it especially difficult to choose performers. “One of the highlights is the process of auditioning … student acts and local acts … to play,” Schechtman-Marko said. “It’s always exciting to get touring acts to play here, but it’s also amazing just to see how much amazing folk music and … folk-related music is being made by people who live in Oberlin and people who go to school here. This year, we also had a very high number of applicants and it was very difficult — because they were all so good and so qualified — to decide who was going to make the cut.” The bandstand will feature several performances tomorrow, including Oberlin groups such as Three Story Chicken House, Quartet Davis and Ukes of Hazard. In addition, Brendan Eprile, Jacob “Guitarman” Turner and Van Buren, among others, will be performing solo. The bandstand performances will begin at noon, directly after the end of the Big Parade, and will run until 5 p.m., featuring 11 different acts with 30-minute slots. Van Buren plans to open with some of her original work, including “Cannon Beach” and

“Up and up,” which some Obies might recognize from her frequent performances around Oberlin. In between her originals, she hopes to incorporate some covers of Patsy Cline. She reflected on the power of Folk Fest for Oberlin’s performance community, as well as for the audience. “Anything that just brings the songwriting community together I think is really powerful,” Van Buren said. “Folk Fest is great because its more well-known and it has a tradition, so I think that’s … really vital. It’s funny because I feel like a lot of people might not know about Folk Fest but because it’s in such a public venue it draws them in and as soon as they hear the music, they want to come watch it.” After the bandstand, the action will move to Finney Chapel at 7 p.m. with performances by Les Poules à Colin, a traditional Québécois group, described as “the new face of Quebec folk-trad,” and Flor de Toloache, a Grammynominated mariachi band, one of the only all-women mariachi bands in the U.S. Finally, the weekend of festivities will come to a close Saturday evening with an open jam session in Tappan Square, starting at 10 p.m. The jam session will be open to all students and community members of any skill level. All Folk Fest events are free and open to the public.

Oberlin Alums Pen Enchanting New Musical

Student actors staged a dramatic reading of The Enchanted, a work in progress by John Kander, OC ’51, and Greg Pierce, OC ’00. Photo courtesy of Daniel R. James Julia Peterson Production editor

A staged reading of The Enchanted, a new musical comedy in progress by John Kander, OC ’51 — who previously wrote music for Cabaret and Chicago — and prolific playwright and fiction writer Greg Pierce, OC ’00, was performed by a cast of student actors last weekend in the Birenbaum Innovation and Performance Space, marking the first theatrical production in the venue. The musical, based on a French play of the same name by Jean Giraudoux, is set in the provincial French town of Aubergine

where strange occurrences are disturbing the townspeople’s dayto-day lives. From the Mayor’s first song, which describes the situation with lines such as, “The eggs are turning pink, and the baguettes are turning corners,” and “The goats are spurting wisdom, and the fountain’s spurting cheese,” the audience is introduced to a strange, comedic and supernatural world where anything is possible. While Aubergine is being thrown into chaos by a bitter, moody, Byronic ghost, the town’s schoolteacher, Isabel, romanticizes the Ghost and wants to understand the spirit world. Isabel flirts with life and

death as she navigates a love triangle with the Ghost and the town’s Supervisor of weights and measures. As she tries to understand the mysteries of what happens after death, the Supervisor tries to convince her that life is worth being fascinated with because it is full of surprises. “[Isabel] has been really dying to communicate with this ghost,” said Associate Professor of Theater Chris Flaharty, who directed the production. “She’s eager to learn about what happens after death. Her particular … reason for this is that she feels that life is a muddle for humans on a day-to-day basis because they don’t live imaginatively

because of their fear of death. She feels that the spirit world is much freer of the cares of this life [and] that maybe [the spirits] could teach us something about living more fully.” Kander and Pierce had intended to come to Oberlin for the staged reading, as they did last year for the production of their play The Landing at the Apollo Theatre, but unfortunately were unable to attend this year. “In the past, when [Kander and Pierce have come to Oberlin], they’ve helped students understand stylistically what they were supposed to be doing,” said double-degree senior Amy Weintraub, who played Isabel. “We couldn’t tell if this [play] was melodrama, or if it was naturalism — probably not — but it wanted to be several different shows at once. … In all of the choices that [many of us] made, we interpreted our characters in the way that we’ve been trained to here, which is mostly from a realistic point of view. Maybe in an actual stage version, they might want to ham up all these characters so that they’re more ridiculous and caricatures of themselves.” The authors play with these ideas through many styles of music. There is a technical, goofy patter song, a chorus of “eight young girls” who sing a repeating tune, sweet ballads, dramatic duets, and modern comic cabaretstyle songs. Weintraub described the effect that showcasing all these different styles in one production had on the cast. “We kind of renamed [the

show] ‘The Sound of Phantom Urine,’ like The Sound of Music, The Phantom of the Opera and Urinetown, just because it combines so many styles,” she said. Flaharty also noted the variety of musical influences in the composition and lyrics. “I hear various styles of musical theater history reflected in the ways that certain songs are played out,” he said. “John [Kander] is a … huge opera buff, and I think he evokes those styles in the play in subtle, humorous ways. … The music goes from tender sweetness to small-clubfeeling comic music. I feel that’s really important for this play because the characters are varied, and the idea of life as having a variety of interesting things in it is very subtly reinforced by the music and the lyrics. I think that Greg [Pierce] stretched himself with some really fun comic lyrics for this piece.” Some of the most wonderfully over-the-top comedy in the piece comes from the character of the Inspector from Paris, a rigid, rules-driven bureaucrat who breaks out into a bilingual song about the joys of paper. “Je believe in paper — Tout le monde loves paper!” he sings. The in-progress script blends language and regional expressions with mixed success; the Inspector’s song is an unmitigated delight, but describing a provincial French town as being “in the boonies” See The Enchanted, page 13

Jiménez Conducts Back-to-Back Orchestra Performances Ivan Aidun Staff writer

Next week, the Oberlin Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra, led by conductor Raphael Jiménez, will present two eclectic programs. The Oberlin Chamber Orchestra will perform this Tuesday, May 2, at 8 p.m. in Finney Chapel, and the Oberlin Orchestra will follow the next day at the same time and place. The Chamber Orchestra concert will begin with Claude Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, conducted by double-degree senior Maurice Cohn. The title of the piece is from a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé, which Debussy sought to represent in musical form. Like other pieces by Debussy, the Prélude can sound vague and far-off, but it requires a high degree of technical precision to render its gestures faithfully. “It’s a very challenging piece for the orchestra and a very challenging piece for the conductor as well,” Jiménez said. 2016 Senior Concerto Competition winner Amber Monroe will then perform Ricky Ian Gordon’s and flowers pick themselves, a song cycle consisting of text from five poems by E. E. Cummings. Jiménez himself originally premiered and recorded the piece in 2005, and recommended it to Monroe more than a year ago. Monroe says she quickly found a personal connection to the songs. “I had never heard of it before, so I … found a recording,” Monroe said. “The first words in the first movement were ‘i thank You God for most this amazing day,’ and me being a spiritual person, that drew me in immediately.” The Oberlin Review | April 28, 2017

Cummings’ poetry is well known for its unusual word order, and the cycle explores the varied emotions each poem evokes. The poems set are “[i thank You God for most this amazing],” “[why did you go],” “[Thy fingers make early flowers],” “[anyone lived in a pretty how town],” and “[who knows if the moon’s].” “The text is beautiful for all the songs and we have a phenomenal voice singing,” Jiménez said. The Chamber Orchestra concert will close with a performance of Ludwig Van Beethoven’s No. 2 in D major Op. 36. Like most of Beethoven’s early works, the piece is less frequently programmed than later symphonies like the fifth and ninth and is full of life and energy, bombastic in a way that is characteristically Beethoven. The Oberlin Orchestra concert, by comparison, is a tour de force of 20thcentury masterpieces. Starting off the program is Sergei Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante, or Symphony Concerto, for cello and orchestra, with the solo part performed by Conservatory senior Aaron Wolff. The piece is a revised version of Prokofiev’s earlier Op. 58 Cello Concerto, which flopped at its premiere. Upon meeting the cello virtuoso Mstislav Rostropovich, 22 years old at the time, Prokofiev made extensive revisions to create the Sinfonia Concertante in its present form. The original Cello Concerto was written during a very successful period of Prokofiev’s career, around the same time as Peter and the Wolf and Romeo and Juliet, and the Sinfonia carries over some of its exuberance. “It keeps you engaged at all times with

this peculiar Prokofiev sound,” Jiménez said. “It’s something we’re enjoying a lot.” “I think there’s a lot of humor that actually goes overlooked,” Wolff added, pointing to “flirtatious” moments in the third movement as instances of underappreciated levity. By the time Prokofiev reworked the piece, however, he had fallen out of the favor of the Soviet arts authority and was under official censure. Much of the material added to the Sinfonia is very somber in nature. The piece is legendarily challenging. For many years after its composition it was considered practically unplayable, despite Rostropovich’s successful performances. Even more than 60 years after its first performance, the Sinfonia Concertante is still rarely performed on account of its difficulty. “Just getting it all on [my] fingers took me almost a year. I’ve been working on it for almost two years,” Wolff said. In addition to requiring a high degree of technical virtuosity, the Sinfonia is also very physically demanding. The piece is over 40 minutes long, and the cello soloist is almost always playing. Due to the size of the cello, playing such difficult music for such a stretch is a real feat of athleticism. The required physical demands make it difficult to rehearse the entire piece continuously. However, Wolff has the technique and the athleticism in his grasp. He says playing 21st-century music at Oberlin has allowed him to approach the Sinfonia’s demands. The contemporary music he plays frequently asks for uncommon and sometimes novel techniques. Being able to

execute them requires a different kind of approach than most music from centuries past. The Orchestra’s program will close with Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. Where Prokofiev requests virtuosity from the cellist, Bartók demands it from every member of the orchestra. “It’s a concerto for the orchestra, so we all have a lot to do,” Jiménez said. “Everyone in the orchestra has a prominent role at some point. It’s a very difficult piece for the ensemble.” The Concerto was commissioned by Boston Symphony conductor and bass virtuoso Serge Koussevitzky. Bartók was in failing health at the time, and the commission spurred him to several other compositions that he otherwise may not have completed before his death. Jiménez drew a parallel between Bartók’s life and the present day. Bartók opposed Hungary’s alliance with Nazi Germany, and he fled to the United States after the outbreak of World War II. “We opened the doors to Bartók,” Jiménez said. “We gave him the opportunity to come to this country.” Jiménez lamented the United States’ current response to the international refugee crisis, and the number of people who may lose their lives without asylum. To him, Concerto for Orchestra exemplifies the potential of every refugee; potential that is lost when refugees are turned away from our shores. “When you think about what’s happening nowadays, think about how many … works of art will not be painted, pieces of music will not be written,” Jiménez said.

A rt s & C u lt u r e

OReilly Offers Players Chance to Be Everything Avi Vogel Columnist

Games are an ever-evolving medium as developers try to stand out in an increasingly competitive and saturated market by creating new games and mechanics. But with all games, new or old, one thing is universal: They let you be something that you’re not. This is the core concept of Everything, created by artist David OReilly, which was originally released back in March on PlayStation 4 and just became available for Mac and PC. Everything is a game about just that — everything. If that sounds impossibly complex, it is, and explaining the game requires some detachment from what a game is “supposed to be.” I began the game playing as a camel, exploring an expansive desert. After playing for a while, I learn something important about the central concept of the game — I can become anything. So, I meander up to a large baobab tree and become it. Then I learn to go smaller, and I become a tuft of desert grass. After some time, I find that I can rise higher, above the tuft and the baobab tree, and that I am no longer

contained within this desert but that I am the desert itself. That is the sense of progress in Everything — the entire system that you inhabit is you. The way that OReilly achieves this is nothing short of superb. The game introduces you to “lateral shifting” first, going to and from beings larger or smaller than the being you are. Then it introduces you to “vertical movement,” the process of growing even larger or even smaller, through continents to worlds to galaxies and then down again, through fungi, particles, atoms and eventually simply the geometric shapes of the universe. As you gain more abilities to interact with Everything in new ways, the game opens up into a playpen the size of infinity, one filled with possibilities and existential musings. Small icons populate the world signifying a thought or new interaction waiting to be discovered. Go up to a rock, and it might muse about its own existence. Approach a galaxy, and it might wonder why it doesn’t have any friends. These small moments add a sense of self to each and every entity that you interact with as you find tidbits of philosophy from Alan Watts

about the inherent connectedness of everything. There’s more to it than just these mechanics. In some ways it’s difficult to even describe Everything as a game. There is progression for players to go through, certainly, and there are goals for you to achieve, but they’re incredibly simple. There is no opposition. When I became the grass, I did not fear the rabbit that might eat me — it’s not that kind of experience. Eventually, I reach what could be described as an ending, tasked with finding the place I started. I leave the alien world I find myself in and go through a planetary system. I find a green world, become it and go lower. I find a desert and become a camel, as I was at first, and find the golden pyramid I started next to. I become the pyramid, only to realize that I’m stuck and can’t leave it. Watts’ philosophy enters again, as a shoe describes the futility and horror of its stationary life. I then get smaller and become a cookie the size of a speck of dust. I get even smaller, and at the end of this sequence I burst forth from the pyramid and across the screen words pop up — “Congratulations, Tutorial complete. Welcome to Everything.”

At this point, I’ve had innumerable points of discovery, contributing to some of the most euphoric experiences I’ve had in my years of gaming, even if that moment was simply becoming an eagle and flying through the sky. Because even though everything is grandiose in scale and vision, something it projects onto the player, the game’s message seemed to suggest something different. I am small, and as intertwined with the universe as I am, I am still just a piece of a larger whole. That’s OK, because Everything makes that feeling work. The sensation of moving through the largest toybox ever, playing with and becoming whatever I wanted, was surreal. Discovering things that I could become, like a satellite in space or chewed gum on the pavement, kept me continually engaged. With all that said, it’s not for everyone. Certainly some people who try to play it will not feel the resonance with the core thesis that this game presents. But I do, and it seems clear that Everything is not only a great game but also one of the greatest works of experiential genre today and perhaps ever.

With Assassins, Students Portray Dark Characters with Depth Continued from page 10

Studies major,” Dubeau said. “The ways in which we view this [production] have differed, but in the end, they complement each other.” Baron and DuBeau aim to tackle the many challenges Assassins presents with a sense of play and creativity, while keeping a critical eye on how morally questionable themes are conveyed. “I think the reason that [Assassins] presents the content in such a way, is to … handle it

with ‘kid gloves,’” DuBeau said. “To represent [the material] in a one-dimensional or twodimensional kind of framework doesn’t … honor … what it’s trying to portray. A lot of people will be like, ‘I really empathize with this character. Maybe not completely, or wholesale, but for a lot of reasons I see what’s going on.’” According to Baron, Assassins contrasts the dark themes of its subject matter and its largely light-hearted portrayal of the characters to create contradictory feelings in its audience. “It’s entertaining to a limit,”

Baron said. “It’s funny to a limit, digestible to a limit. The whole point of the show is that there’s also this thing on the other side of that limit that’s dark, and it’s not easy to swallow it. … The genius part of the show is that it mixes [these aspects] so cohesively that you can’t ignore either side of it. You can’t go in and say, ‘None of that was funny,’ or … ‘None of that was dark and horribly tragic.’” College first-year Gabe Strasburger, who plays the character of John Wilkes Booth, finds room within the musical to sympathize with these

misguided and antagonistic characters without exonerating them from their actions. For example, “The Ballad of Booth,” which they sing with College sophomore Alex Scheitinger, the production’s Balladeer, is one of the musical’s many heartfelt moments, capturing the genuine bitterness and loss experienced by the post-Civil War South. “I think that [Assassins] does a really interesting study of the central themes of the American Dream and the contradictions which are inherent therein,” Strasburger said. “I think a lot of the things that are fascinating about this musical is that it deals with all these incredibly heavy themes and most of the characters are just bad people — they’re whackjobs, they’re full of hatred — and yet through the music, we come to sympathize with them because there are these incredible, hopeful, sentimental sad tunes.” These sentiments are grounded in the historical realities these figures inhabited. In researching the origins and circumstances of their character, Strasburger came across a lot of painful history to illustrate where Booth was coming from. “In the year 1865, the South ran out of black clothing because there was so much death and destruction that the demand of mourners outstripped the supply,” Strasburg said. “The South was fighting for a repugnant cause — they were fighting to preserve the institution of slavery — but there’s also very genuine loss. It was a war that pitted brother against brother.” According to College junior Heather Freed Loschen, who plays Sara Jane Moore, the musical can be interpreted in a number of ways. At first, she

saw it as a play about violence unleashed through a sense of unfulfilled entitlement, but her perspective has shifted over time. “Now that I’m older and have some more understanding about America’s structure, I can see … that [these characters] have been told over and over again that they can have everything they want by being in America, and they are very upset that that lie is being told,” Loschen said. College senior Ari HeitlerKlevans plays Leon Czolgosz, an American anarchist and disgruntled factory worker who assassinated President William McKinley. For him, while Assassins explores the motivations of its obsessed and violent characters, it also shows how violence ultimately solves nothing for the dissatisfied parties. “I think that a lot of how the musical explores the various complex themes is through a combination of witty songs that point you to the specific motivations — or point to how society perceives these individuals and how that affects these individuals — and also through these very poignant conversations between these characters,” Heitler-Klevans said. “It looks at some of the problems of our society and how these [violent] individuals decided that violence would be the best solution. I personally think that a lot of their motivations are understandable, if not acceptable.” OMTA’s Assassins opened yesterday evening. Additional performances are scheduled for Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. in Wilder Main. Tickets are available for $3 in advance from the Wilder Hall information desk and $5 at the door.

Building Big Parade: Fun Float Extravaganza

College senior and Big Parade Chair Chelsea Ettlinger poses next to a float being built in preparation for this year’s Big Parade, which will begin at Prospect Elementary School tomorrow at 11 a.m. and make its way to Tappan Square. The annual event, which began in 2002, is

free and open to all and features student-created floats, stilt walkers, bikes and other street performers. From noon to 2 p.m., the event will feature live music, face painting, free food and a pie-eating contest in Tappan Square. In the weeks prior to the parade, College stu-

dents and community members attended open hours at the Big Parade’s construction space behind the Student Health Center to construct floats that will run in the parade. Photo by Rick Yu , Photo editor

The Enchanted Showcases Musical Variety, Comical Lyrics Continued from page 11

only sounds strange. The two executioners — both of whom believe that they are the sole official executioner of France and that the other is an impostor — also sing a wonderful duet about their job. Although that duet is a clear example of a moment where the play is still unfinished, as it is entirely unclear what or who the executioners are referring to when they sing about Marquisa, it still drew great laughs from the audience. For College senior Jourdan Lewanda, who played one of Isabel’s eight students, working with a new play that didn’t have a performance history was a rewarding experience. “Since it hasn’t been totally fleshed out yet, the

distinctions between [the characters] are really fun to find within the script,” she said. “With other shows, it’s tempting for everybody on board to refer to past productions to understand the show itself. With a new show, you really have to go from the text itself. Nobody is there to guide you, whether it be past performers or videos of other productions.” “Working on a brand new piece [is] very exciting!” College senior Hank Miller wrote in an email to the Review. “Normally, musicals already have cast recordings and you know how the songs are ‘supposed to sound.’ If it’s brand new — well, you get to decide that.” College senior Amara Granderson, who also played one of the students, enjoyed exploring all of the different

aspects of enchantment reflected in the piece. “You can make many inferences as to what exactly the enchantment [on the town] is, because there are a lot of literal, figurative and metaphorical examples of the motif of the enchanted throughout the show,” she said. “You have the literal enchanting by the Ghost, but then you have the emotional enchantment of Miss Isabel being enchanted by the Ghost, the Supervisor being enchanted by Miss Isabel. It’s about the different types of enchantment and the different ways that one can be enchanted, whether it be romantically … or in the way that the eight young girls are enchanted by Miss Isabel — they look up to her with admiration and reverence.”

COMIC OF THE WEEK

The Oberlin Review | April 28, 2017

Sp ort s IN THE LOCKER ROOM

Jules Sawhill This week, the Review sat down with fifth-year double-degree student Jules Sawhill. After coincidentally walking on to the baseball team as a first-year, Sawhill ended up pitching for the Yeomen for all four years of NCAA eligibility. In his final year at Oberlin, Sawhill is now focusing on finishing his degrees in Politics and Viola Performance. Sawhill discussed the overlap between athletic and musical performance and the surprising ways he ended up doing both at Oberlin. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Jules Sawhill, student-athlete and Conservatory student

Michaela Puterbaugh Staff writer

What instrument do you play, and when did you start? I play the viola, and I started playing viola three years ago in Oberlin, but I’ve actually been playing the violin since I was four years old. I started that in 1999 when I was growing up in Puerto Rico. Viola is more a recent development that I discovered here. Did you intend to play baseball when you first came to Oberlin? I had no intention of playing baseball. My high school baseball coach told me that I would never play college baseball because I wasn’t good enough. I showed up to a baseball class by accident, thinking it was like a skills training class for everyone. I walked in, and the whole team was there. It was really awkward. But I ended up getting recruited [as a pitcher], a position that I never played before.

What was your experience like playing baseball and also being in the Conservatory? Pretty hectic. A lot of jumping around from place to place, but to be honest, I think baseball is what kept me sane while I was in the Conservatory. It gave me a three-hour chunk of the day where I could just do whatever I wanted, turn off my brain and not think about anything pertaining to school and just sort of compete in another universe. How did you develop the time-management skills needed to juggle both commitments? I don’t know if I ever fully developed them, to be honest. I always played at least one sport throughout middle school and high school. I was always running cross country and playing baseball, and even one year I played basketball,

so I had three sports. I guess I have always been used to juggling — sort of jumping — between tasks and being able to have these switches in my head that I can turn on and off … where I can think about music for two hours and then just go to college classes for two hours and then go to baseball. It was a process that took a long time to perfect. What has been the most challenging thing for you? Sleep. Getting to bed on time. Everything is challenging. Probably practicing after pitching because my arm was really tired and hurt a lot. And my fingers wouldn’t move some days, which was really tough. But at the end of the day, if that was my worst problem, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. What skills, if any, have transferred over to the

Conservatory from playing baseball? Or vice versa? Definitely teamwork skills. I think playing in an orchestra or playing in chamber music is very similar to being on a [sports] team. You have to be unselfish and collaborative at all times. You can destroy team chemistry on either the baseball field or in a chamber group or in an orchestra by playing selfishly. I think that my coaches on the baseball field and my coaches in the Conservatory have both taught me that. What is it like not playing baseball this year and just focusing on music? I’ve made a lot of strides this year in music. But overall, it’s sad because I really, really miss playing baseball, and going to the games is bittersweet. I still get phantom arm pain at random times during the day, because my brain thinks that

Photo courtesy of Julie Anna Gulenko

I’m still pitching. But yeah, I definitely miss it. It comes in waves, but right now, especially after watching them play, it’s not fun on the sideline. What are your plans for after graduation? I’m staying in Ohio. I’m going to the Cleveland Institute of Music and studying with Robert Vernon, who was the principal violist of the Cleveland Orchestra for 40 years. He just retired. So I will be getting my master’s degree at CIM with him, but I will be around the area probably. What advice can you offer to anyone thinking of being in the Conservatory and playing a sport? Stay calm. Just always make sure you are planning ahead and you have a good idea of what your game plan is, because if you fall behind, it’s really tough to get back on the wagon.

Editorial: Williams Will Come James vs. Jordan Debate Continues Back Strong After Pregnancy Continued from page 16

her comeback were even bigger than she imagined. She described feeling sluggish, much weaker in her core and back, and slower than ever. “Your body just feels so different,” Clijsters said of the aftermath of giving birth in 2009. “Just moving was absolutely terrible. I felt like an elephant sometimes just trying to move.” Serena’s age may make those physical challenges even more difficult. “What is fascinating and different about Williams’ case is that none of those other women [like Clijsters and Court], amazing as they were, battled the confluence of challenges that Williams will have to overcome,” ESPN.com’s Johnette Howard wrote, citing both Serena’s age and the longterm physical stress she’s endured, as she turned pro at age 14. And that doesn’t even cover the emotional challenges Serena has already faced. Last week, Ilie Nastase, captain of the Romanian Fed Cup team, was overheard at a press conference making racist comments about Serena’s unborn baby. Nastase wondered aloud about the racial makeup of Serena’s baby, as her fiancé, Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian, is white. “Let’s see what color it has,” Nastase allegedly said. “Chocolate with milk?” The International Tennis Federa-

Jack Brewster Columnist

tion is investigating Nastase’s comments, and he will likely be fined or suspended. Still, Serena expressed deep sadness at the comments. “It disappoints me to know we live in a society where people like Ilie Nastase can make such racist comments towards myself and unborn child,” Serena said in a post on her Instagram. “Yes, we have broken down so many barriers — however there are a plethora more to go.” During my tenure as Sports editor this year, I have written about the vast amount of barriers that women athletes work to overcome, as well as some monumental advancements in women’s sports. I am confident that no modern sports star has blown past as many age, gender and racial barriers as Serena. The media should pay attention to those achievements, as they show that she is a truly unique athlete capable of moving forward despite any hindrance. I hope future coverage will stop challenging her assertion that she will be back. Serena can do anything she sets her mind to. Still, perhaps the negative backlash she has received will fuel the fire. Her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, expressed that sentiment. “I do think she’ll come back,” he said in an interview with The New York Times. “And she will come back all the more if everyone thinks she’s done. So I encourage you to write that she’s finished. Please.”

The Cleveland Cavaliers completed a fourgame sweep of the Indiana Pacers in the first round of the 2016–2017 NBA playoffs, capping off the series with a 106–102 victory Sunday. LeBron James was superb throughout the series. He played his best in Game Three, when he recorded a triple double, scoring 41 points, 13 rebounds and 12 assists. It is hard to remember that just a few weeks ago, many were talking about the possible decline of LeBron James and the Cavaliers. James was largely left out of the MVP conversation this season. The Cavs, who finished 51–31, were eclipsed by the Boston Celtics with one game left in the season, falling from the No. 1 seed — a spot they’ve held almost all year — to No. 2 in the Eastern Conference. But 32-year-old James has taken a page from Michael Jordan’s playbook and saved his best play for the postseason. James gets better as the season winds down, and so do the Cavs. After the Cavs swept the Pacers, The New York Times ran an article titled “LeBron James Issues a Timely Reminder of His Greatness.” In the article, Steve Cacciola wrote that in the final game of the series, “Playoff LeBron collected 33 points, 10 rebounds and 4 assists. Playoff LeBron shouldered the offense by attempting 25 shots, most of them layups. Playoff LeBron affixed himself to the Pacers star Paul George like a strip of Velcro, limiting him to 15 points. And Playoff LeBron made the big shot, a 3-pointer over Pacers center Myles Turner with just over a minute left.” “Playoff LeBron” has consistently been a different — and better — player from “Regular-Season LeBron.” Over his career in the postseason, James has averaged higher points, rebounds and blocks than during the regular

season. In the past few years, his postseason play has been even better than usual. So far this postseason, James is averaging 32.8 points, 9.8 rebounds and 9.0 assists. Last postseason, he averaged 26.3 points, 9.5 rebounds and 7.6 assists en route to an NBA championship and Finals MVP. The year before, he averaged 30.1 points, 11.3 rebounds and 8.5 assists. In each postseason, James has averaged more points, rebounds and assists per game than he did during the respective NBA season. James is constantly compared to Michael Jordan, former Chicago Bulls’ shooting guard and Hall of Famer. ESPN analysts and fans bicker about who is truly the best professional basketball player of all time, and Jordan is almost always the consensus number one. The breaking point in the debate has always been Jordan’s postseason play. Jordan — a six-time NBA champ — is famous for his postseason prowess. He averaged 30.1 points, 6.2 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game during his career in the regular season. But when the Bulls reached the postseason, Jordan’s play got better. He averaged 33.4 points, 6.4 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game in the postseason. This is without mentioning the countless highlight reel plays and clutch shots Jordan made over his career as well. But one could argue that James has made the debate more interesting. James has been to the Finals for six straight years. He has won three NBA championships and three Finals MVPs. If James keeps this string of excellent postseason play going, it will be hard to argue that Jordan is without a doubt the better postseason player. If there’s one thing that’s certain, it’s that, judging by his performance against the Pacers, right now James is the best player in the world and the Cavs are a force to be reckoned with.

Softball Ends 2017 Run, Splits Hiram Doubleheader Sam Harris

The softball team concluded their season Tuesday evening with a split against North Coast Athletic Conference rival Hiram College. Although the Yeowomen failed to make the NCAC Tournament, they saw improvements across the board in offensive and defensive categories — and, most importantly, in wins. The team took the first game against the Terriers 11–7 in an 11-inning thriller before dropping the season finale 5–3. Seniors Tori Poplaski, Grace Evans and Sami Mericle concluded their careers Tuesday evening with Poplaski and Evans holding multiple offensive records. Evans will graduate as the all-time hits leader with 141, as well as the career leader in doubles and at-bats. Poplaski will depart Oberlin as the career home-run leader with 11, while Mericle capped off a successful senior campaign batting .283 with a .303 on-base percentage. Junior Dana Rae Goldstein had high praise for the three seniors. “Each of them brought something different to the team, a necessary energy,” Goldstein said. “You could go to each of them and get unique yet equally valuable advice. They gave the rest of the team an air of composure and calm that we haven’t always had in previous years.” In the game one victory, first-year Leandre Glendenning’s RBI single and a three-run double off the bat of Evans broke open the 7–7 tie in the 11th inning. Oberlin outhit Hiram 17–16, as the bat backed

Glendenning’s effort on the mound to improve her record to 3–4. During game two, the Yeowomen’s offense struggled to find a rhythm as Hiram scored four runs in the third inning to take a 5–1 advantage. Oberlin would threaten in the seventh with an RBI triple from Glendenning and Mericle’s RBI groundout to cut the deficit to 5–3. Coming off of a 2–35 record in 2016, the Yeowomen saw huge improvements in 2017, finishing 12–28. Oberlin’s two conference wins this season are an improvement from last year’s 1–15 stint in the NCAC. Poplaski said that team’s upswing began on their 12-game spring trip to Clermont, FL. “We really came out strong at the beginning of the week and at the end of the week,” she said. “That is when we were playing some of our best softball against good competition and really showing what we can do as a team and as a program.” Looking forward to next season, the softball team will bring back many key contributors. With a small graduating class, nearly the whole team will return with hopes for another improved season. Offensively, the Yeowomen batted .306 as a team with sophomore Emma Downing leading the pack with her .374 average. Goldstein completed the 2017 campaign batting .368 while first-year Alexis Dill ended the season hitting .336. Head Coach Sara Schoenhoft said she was impressed with the determination of the underclassmen to improve over the course

Senior captain Grace Evans connects with a pitch against Wittenberg University on Senior Day last Saturday. The Yeowomen finished their season 12–28 overall and 2–14 in the NCAC. Photo courtesy of OC Athletics

of the season. “A lot of the underclassman have really good work ethics and are willing to put the extra time in outside of practice,” she said. “That kind of attitude is contagious and something that softball has not always had in the past.” With eight wins combined over the past two seasons, the team took numerous strides under Schoenhoft’s second year at the helm. They also had success on the mound with Poplaski leading the squad with four wins and sophomore Han-

nah Rasmussen posting a team-best 3.97 earned run average in 37 innings pitched. “Our rising seniors will be looked to for their leadership and experience, and I am confident they will step up as the senior leaders on the team,” she said. “Having some college experience under their belts, our rising sophomores are going to continue to get stronger. Right now, we have seven incoming freshman who I really believe are going to help take this program to levels that OCSB has never reached.”

Track and Field Nabs NCAC Accolades with Kenyon Meet

Senior captain E.J. Douglass edges past a Grove City runner in the Dan Kinsey Invitational in February. This weekend, track and field will head to Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, MI, and Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio. Photo courtesy of OC Athletics Julie Schreiber Staff writer

The Yeowomen track and field team triumphed for the second time this spring by securing a first-place finish at the Kenyon College Invitational last Saturday with 261 points. On the men’s side, Oberlin finished in third place with 115.50 points among the seven-team field. Head Coach Ray Appenheimer said he was pleased with the teams’ performances in preparation for the North Coast Athletic Conference Outdoor Championships in Greencastle, IN, May 5–6. “Everything we’re doing right now is in anticipation The Oberlin Review | April 28, 2017

of those two days in Indiana,” he said. “The dominant performances from both teams were a wonderful precursor to the conference meet.” The women’s events throughout the day were filled with Oberlin victories. On the field, junior Monique Newton’s toss of 45 feet, 8 inches elevated her to first place in the shot-put, and she later took home the title in the discus throw with a mark of 143–06. First-year Maya English won the hammer throw with a launch of 143–03, while senior Jillian Hostetler battled unfavorable weather conditions in the javelin and claimed a first-place finish with a toss of 119–01.

“The weather wasn’t great,” Hostetler said. “It was a little windy, which can be problematic for javelin throwing, but what you can do is make the best of it and find the positive attitude you need when you’re competing.” The Yeowomen also dominated in the track events with wins in numerous sprints and hurdle races. Sophomore Madeleine Weiland sprinted to first place in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, posting a time of 11 minutes, 43.45 seconds, and was later awarded NCAC Athlete of the Week for her performance. Oberlin also had a pair of secondplace finishes as first-year Shannon Wargo completed 800 meters in 2:21.15, while first-year Marija Crook crossed the 1,500 meter line at 4:56.97. For the Yeomen, junior James Tanford garnered big wins on both the track and the field. Tanford had a busy day, beginning with a win in the 200-meter with a time of 22.75 seconds, followed by second place in the triple jump with a mark of 41–05 and third place in the long jump at a distance of 20–03 3/4. For his achievements, the Bloomington, IN, native earned the NCAC Athlete of the Week award. “Mentally, I was very focused and ready to go,” he said. “I wanted to show them that I was ready to compete.” The Yeomen also had success during the 4x400-meter

relay as sophomore John Olsen, Tanford and first-years Julian Guerrieri and Dylan Rogers claimed first place, crossing the line at 3:25.93. On the field, sophomore Hank Sinn won the men’s hammer throw with a toss of 171 feet, 4 inches. With just one weekend of competition to go before the conference meet, Tanford said the team is prepared to thrive. “We had a ton of personal bests, multiple NCAC athletes of the week and even a women’s victory,” Tanford said. “I think our team is ready to dominate at conference.” In Columbus, Ohio, junior Lilah Drafts-Johnson was the only Oberlin representa-

tive at the Ohio State University Jesse Owens Classic last Saturday. Battling Division I and Division II participants, she broke her own school record in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 1:01.54 to claim fourth place. Her mark places her in fifth place nationally among Division III runners and qualifies her for the NCAA Outdoor Championships. With her successful individual performance, Drafts-Johnson said she remains focused on the NCAC Outdoor Championships. “We have a very good chance of winning the conference meet,” she said. “It will require a lot of work from the entire team, but we know how to do that.”

Home Games: April 29 - April 30 Saturday, April 29 10 a.m. Track and Field

NCAC Combined Events Championships at Kahn Track & Shults Field

11 a.m. Senior Day Women’s LaCrosse vs. DePauw University at Knowlton Athletics Complex

12 p.m. Baseball vs. Allegheny College at Dill Field

3 p.m. Baseball vs. Allegheny College at Dill Field

Sunday, April 30 10 a.m. Track and Field

NCAC Combined Events Championships at Kahn Track & Shults Field

12 p.m. Baseball vs. Allegheny College at Dill Field

3 p.m. Baseball vs. Allegheny College at Dill Field

SPORTS April 28, 2017

established 1874

Volume 145, Number 23

Misguided Media Doubts Serena Jackie McDermott Sports editor

Junior Sean Kiley has been a staple of the Yeomen pitching staff this season. The Studio City, CA, native was named the NCAC Pitcher of the Week for striking out 13 hitters in Oberlin’s 6–2 win over Kenyon College last Saturday. Photo courtesy of OC Athletics BASEBALL

On a Hot Streak, Yeomen Sweep Kenyon Alex McNicoll Contributing Sports editor

The Yeomen’s offense exploded for 25 runs in a fourgame series sweep last weekend against North Coast Athletic Conference rival Kenyon College. In the team’s first home series against a conference opponent, the games helped secure sole possession of second place in the NCAC East Division with 6–2 and 10–7 wins Saturday, and 6–2 and 3–1 victories on Sunday. With its sixgame win streak on the line, Oberlin split the doubleheader against the Division III powerhouse Marietta College Pioneers on Wednesday, winning the first game 8–7 before dropping the nightcap 5–2. “We’re really lucky to be able to play a national power team like Marietta,” Head Coach Adrian Abrahamowicz said. “They’re really tough and have a whole wall of national championships for baseball. We’re going to get a good test in between playing conference games.” Against the six-time national champion Pioneers, senior Mike Masella’s single in the 10th inning helped propel Oberlin to a Game 1 victory. On the mound, junior Milo Sklar earned his first win of the season, hurling the final two innings scoreless. In the second game, the Yeomen dropped a lower-scoring affair as they were outhit 8–5. In the first inning, senior right fielder Brian Carney’s RBI double gave the Yeomen a 1–0 lead, but the Pioneers struck back with two runs in the bottom half of the frame and three runs in the third to create a lead that they did not relinquish. Last Sunday, the Yeomen continued to play wellrounded baseball in back-and-forth battles with Kenyon. With game three tied 2–2 in the bottom of the fourth, junior Jack Brewster launched a grand slam to left centerfield to provide Oberlin with a decisive 6–2 lead. Oberlin’s momentum carried into the final game of the series, as Gear improved to 4–1 on the mound, allowing just one earned run through 7.1 innings in a 3–1 win. Brewster said the team’s wins represented an important step forward in the pursuit of a postseason berth. “I don’t know the last time we swept Kenyon. It was definitely a big deal to sweep, or to even get a sweep in

general,” Brewster said. “It was one of the best feelings in the world, finishing that last game, and I think everyone had a smile on his face after that.” On Saturday, Oberlin got off to a strong start offensively as Carney scorched a two-run RBI single to left center, allowing senior Justin Cruz and sophomore Ian Dinsmore to score. The Yeomen’s red-hot offense was able to pull away in the fourth inning with a two-run single from first-year Amari Newman. Junior Sean Kiley led the charge on the mound, striking out 13 hitters over nine innings, earning him NCAC Pitcher of the Week. In front of a large crowd at Dill Field, Abrahamowicz said he was pleased with the team’s intensity. “It was our first home conference series of the year, so we were really up for it,” he said. “We felt that if we were able to get on them and establish what we do early, we were going to do something special.” During the second game on Saturday, the Yeomen took an early 4–0 lead in the second inning with RBIs from Masella, Dinsmore, sophomore Brendan Mapes and junior Sam Harris. However, the Yeomen were not in the clear yet, as a fourth-inning home run by the Lords’ Matt Contreras cut the lead to 5–2. Later that inning, Carney blasted a grand slam to left-center, pushing the Yeomen’s lead up to 9–2. The Yeomen then cruised to a 10–7 win as sophomore David Gaetano earned his second win of the season, allowing six earned runs through six innings. Sophomore pitcher Noah Gear attributes the team’s success to its drive and mentality. “The big thing for us was practice,” Gear said. “A few weeks ago, we weren’t really as focused as we should have been. We came from our spring trip and we thought we were real good and hit a bumpy road. We came back, got back to work, back to the gym, and everything worked out.” The Yeomen host NCAC East Division-rival Allegheny College for a four-game series this weekend. First pitch for both doubleheaders is set for noon on Saturday and Sunday, with Senior Day slated for Sunday.

Serena Williams has conquered the challenges of age, fatigue and emotional strife throughout her career. She won 10 of her 23 Grand Slam titles after turning 30, a feat most thought impossible. She kept playing after her half-sister and personal assistant, Yetunde Price, was murdered in 2003. She overcame a life-threatening health scare in 2011 after developing a blood clot in one of her lungs. Last week, Serena announced that she will take on a new challenge: motherhood. With that will come yet another unique test: returning to the tour after giving birth to add even more accolades to her legacy. I have no doubt that Serena will meet that challenge and perhaps come back as good as ever despite the immense physical and emotional trials. I’m baffled that the media has doubted her will to return and unsure why her pregnancy has been met with such negativity. It’s time to change the tune about Serena’s pregnancy announcement and take the greatest player of all time at her word — that, come 2018, she will be back. Word spread of Serena’s pregnancy seemingly by accident last week. She posted a Snapchat to her story that showed off her baby bump with the caption “20 weeks.” It was later deleted, but not before it reached enough fans and journalists to spark widespread speculation. Serena’s team confirmed the reports last Wednesday in a statement. Her publicist repeatedly emphasized that Serena planned to return to the tour. She will take the rest of 2017 off, as the baby is due in the fall, and make her return sometime in 2018. She wanted to make that absolutely clear. Still, many articles followed up Serena’s publicist’s statement by questioning its validity. Speaking of Serena’s legacy before switching to a doubtful tone, the New York Times article confirming Serena’s pregnancy wrote, “More major titles will have to wait, if they happen at all.” Why won’t the Times and other media outlets take Serena’s statement at face value? Most of the doubts about Serena’s return center around her age. She will turn 36 during her time off. No other top player has returned from maternity leave at that age. Kim Clijsters gave birth in 2008 and famously returned to win the U.S. Open just a year later. From 2009 to 2011, she accumulated three more titles in New York and Melbourne. Margaret Court enjoyed similar success. Court, the only player with 24 Grand Slam titles (one more than Serena, although some of Court’s were won in the amateur era), won three of her titles after she had her son in 1972. But Clijsters was 24 when she became a mother, and Court was 29. Despite her relative youth, Clijsters said the physical challenges to See Editorial, page 14