Commencement 2014

The Oberlin Review

MAY 23, 2014 VOLUME 142, NUMBER 25

ESTABLISHED 1874 www.oberlinreview.org

ONLINE & IN PRINT

Effie Kline-Salamon

COMMENCEMENT 2014 EDITION: the year in review NEWS

OPINIONS

Professor Lawsuits

Gun Violence

Various members of the French and Arabic departments were implicated in lawsuits this semester, demonstrating their near decade-long inter-departmental controversy.

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In the aftermath of numerous shootings this past year, a columnist calls for gun laws to be rewritten.

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Culture of Consent

Tobacco Ban

Two current students discuss the prevalence of rape culture and fighting sexualized violence in our society.

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Students Senate recently approved a College-proposed tobacco ban, which would preclude the comsumption of tobacco products on College property.

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Day of Solidarity

Financial aid Policy

On the anniversary of the Day of Solidarity, student organizations joined forces to discuss allyship.

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The Review’s Editorial Board calls for greater administrative transparency surrounding the April 2014 changes to financial aid policy.

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News

Opinions

2

24

ARTS

SPORTS

Music Business

Albino Squirrel

Acid Rapper

Soccer Makes History

The Conservatory spotlights programs that teach students the nuts and bolts of building a successful musical career.

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Oberlin was one of the last stops on Chance The Rapper’s Social Experiment Tour when he played to a packed ’Sco on Dec. 3.

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Photo Highlights

A spread of some of this year’s most exciting events: Solarity, Fall Forward, Spring Back and OC Aerialists shows .

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index

This year, the Athletics department introduced a new albino squirrel mascot., garnering a mixed reaction from the student body.

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The men’s soccer team went 14–4–4, earning its first ever trip to the NCAA Division III Tournament Page 38

New Era for Football

Jay Anderson was selected as the head coach of the football team from a pool of over 200 applicants.

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Arts

Sports

This Week

25

40

12

COMMENCEMENT CALENDAR

There’s another way to see our complete coverage from the 2013–2014 school year: visit The Oberlin Review’s website at www.oberlinreview.org.

News

year in review Page 2

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

College junior Evan Delano addresses the crowd, which gathered to peacefully voice its concerns regarding the administration’s recent changes to the College’s financial aid policy. The protest, which took place on April 10, shed light on many of the policy’s most controversial aspects, such as its impact on students’ ability to pay tuition.

Courtesy of Waylon Cunningham

Students, College at Odds Over Policy Change Madeline Stocker and Kate Gill News Editors April 18, 2014 Since the campus learned of the proposed changes to Oberlin’s financial aid policy last week, students have organized, demonstrated and drafted a counter resolution, effectively intimidating administrators into postponing implementation of its policy until the fall of 2015. Students challenging the policy argue that it demonstrates the College’s lack of commitment to low-income students and a disregard for OSCA’s financial viability. Moreover, the nature of the policy’s creation gave rise to concerns regarding the process by which College policies are amended and enacted.

Although the policy was posted on the College’s site, it was neither disclosed nor readily visible to currently enrolled students. Though Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Debra Chermonte and Director of Financial Aid

Robert Reddy claim that they were “days away” from releasing the information to the student body when the change was first uncovered, organizers argue that the College’s lack of transparency and unwillingness to consult with students during the formulation of the policy is unacceptable.

While the College concedes that administrators failed to confer with students, it disagrees that the new policy is inconsistent with a commitment to low-income students. On the contrary, Chermonte and Reddy claim that, if implemented, the policy would redirect monetary resources to the financial aid packages of students with demonstrated need, rather than to all OSCA members without consideration of financial circumstance.

All administrators quoted in this article — with the exception of College President Marvin Krislov — refused to meet with Review reporters. Assistant of Financial Aid Lucas Brewer, Assistant Director of Financial Aid Cathy Belfiore, Associate Director of Financial Aid Amy Knowles, Director of

Randy Newman The Review sits down with the renouned singersongwriter to discuss the creative process.

See page 8

Residential Education Adrian Bautista, Associate Director of Residential Education Rebecca Mosely, Director of Business Operations and Dining Services Michele Gross, Assistant Director of Students and Assistant Director of Residential Education Kourtney Arcaba, Assistant Director of Housing Administration Sean Lehlbach and General Counsel and Secretary Sandhya Subramanian all declined to comment on the record.

Policy Comparison: Some of the changes to the financial aid policy include adjustments based on meal plan, off-campus housing and participation in OSCA. Before this year, the College did not adjust the financial aid package of students who lived or dined in OSCA — which has, traditionally, cost thousands of dollars less than Campus Dining Services and Residential Services.

This past Sunday, College President Marvin Krislov sent an email to the stu-

Inn Construction Gun Law Debate The City of Oberlin challenged the state’s open carry laws earlier this year.

See page 4

The Oberlin Project announced a $32 million replacement of the Oberlin Inn. See page 9

dent body, announcing his plan to delay the policy’s implementation by one year and consult with OSCA. “We value OSCA and the community and values that it brings,” Krislov said in an interview with the Review. “The reason that we decided to delay any sort of change is because we wanted to work with OSCA and the community to make sure that the effects of this won’t have unintended negative consequences.”

Although this delay may allow students and administrators one year to collaborate, students are wary of placation.

“I think it’s a relief for a lot of people, ... but on the other hand, a lot of people — myself included — feel like this is an effort to placate us or quiet us down so we think we have all the time in the world,” said College junior and Fairchild Co-op Dining Loose Ends Coordinator Evan Delano.

See New, page 3

Inside Oberlin 4 Policy Changes 6 Sustainability 8 Activism 10 This Week 12

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

News

Page 3

New Financial Aid Policy Threatens OSCA’s Future Continued from page 2 Student Response: Galvanized by their anger, over 100 students gathered in front of the Cox Administration Building to protest the changes last Thursday afternoon. At the demonstration, student speakers voiced their fervent opposition and shared their somewhat scarce information with the crowd.

Students have continued to challenge the policy, disseminating information through Facebook and organizing events throughout the week. On Sunday evening, students assembled in the Cat in the Cream to discuss their course of action, which includes a petition and a resolution, endorsed by the Student Senate, to repeal the new policy.

The document, titled “Resolution for the Repeal of the Recent Changes to the Oberlin College Financial Aid Policy,” cites a list of student concerns regarding the new policy, alongside a set of solutions.

“Oberlin will permanently revoke the new financial aid policy,” the resolution states. The document also demands transparency and correspondence with the student body when future policy changes are under consideration.

“In order to create greater transparency, accountability and student participation at this school, we call for all proposed policy changes concerning financial aid or the cost of attending Oberlin to be presented to and voted upon by attending students. This entitles full democratic participation in all financial decisions which affect the student body, now and into the future.”

College junior and organizer Zach Crowell noted that the current versions are not final drafts.

“The first draft of the resolution and the petition were supposed to be general outlines of how students feel. The actual policies can be discussed and debated by a much larger section of this campus, even though more than a couple dozen people worked on this resolution and petition. This isn’t a policy paper. We’re just trying to lay out goals.”

The most recent demonstration occurred on Wednesday, when students gathered outside the General Faculty Council meeting to peacefully voice their opposition to the new policy. The Council is the only administrative body that maintains the power to override any decision issued by the senior administration.

The Upshot for OSCA: Although students have expressed opposition to nearly every aspect of the modified policy, perhaps most viciously critiqued are the changes that impact OSCA members. While the policy changes remain veiled in ambiguity, students have extrapolated at least one potential effect — the possible collapse of

In an effort to clearly depict the recent changes to the financial aid policy, students created an infographic that compares the past policy to the newly modified version. Some of the changes include revisions to the co-op charges.

Review Staff

OSCA. OSCA President Katherine Pardue, who met with Chermonte, Reddy and Vice President and Dean of Students Eric Estes, explained that “adjusted accordingly” means that every dollar a student saves by being in OSCA will be deducted from their financial aid package. The real implications of the phrase have not been finalized; yet without more information, students assume the worst.

Many have bleakly predicted that the new policy will erase all incentive to live in OSCA for students on financial aid. Although several administrators have framed this theory as extreme, many students, including Pardue, consider it a legitimate fear.

“If enrollment goes down, our membership goes down,” Pardue said. “So instead of being at 615 members, which we’re at right now, we’re going to be at 594. If we do not have 594 members at all times next year, then we have to pay for the vacancies. We do not have enough money to pay for not having 40, 50 people, much less 300 [ fewer] people.

We don’t have the money to do that.”

“If there [is] no longer any financial incentive to live in OSCA, our membership will go down,” Pardue said. “OSCA is a lot of work. Yes, there are people that would stay. Those are the people that don’t need to have jobs to go to this school. [But] if OSCA has to shut down, or if students can’t get money from OSCA, there are going to be students that can’t go here anymore. ” According to Pardue, Reddy responded to this claim by acknowledging that OSCA requires a significant time commitment.

During the meeting, Reddy offered to add $7.95 for every average co-op hour to OSCA members’ financial aid package. For most members, this wage would amount to approximately $32 a week, or $827 dollars a year.

For Pardue, such compensation is hardly fair.

“That’s stealing,” she said.

“That’s what that is. It’s com-

pletely ridiculous, and a terrible idea. OSCA is the best paid job on this campus for students; it’s $25 an hour if you work in a four hour or five-hour co-op. For [Brown Bag Co-op] it’s $100 an hour. It’s great, and that’s why people join.”

Unanswered Questions: A chief source of anger is the lack of transparency and the administration’s relative silence on the issue.

“I had been in meetings with people that helped make that decision over the past month, several meetings just to talk about OSCA things,” Pardue said. “There was ample opportunity for them to talk to us, and they did not.”

Students were not notified of the policy change, but rather discovered it on their own.

“The Financial Aid Office updated its website and other materials for prospective students in late 2013 to coincide with the time period in which applicants were finalizing their college applications for admission and financial aid,” Chermonte and Reddy said in an email to the Review. “A thorough communication to the campus community –––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“That’s stealing. That’s what it is. It’s completely ridiculous, and a terrible idea.”

Katherine Pardue OSCA President ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– was in progress and days away from dissemination when the issue surfaced last week.”

Pardue said her meeting with Michele Gross, director of Business Operations and Dining Services, only served to convince her that the administrators themselves were confused about the policy. “[Gross] did not know that it involved housing. She said she had been consulted by the

administration ... and was told that she should not tell us, and that all students should find out at the same time because she was told it affects all students and not just OSCA. Essentially she did not know really what the policy was.”

According to Pardue, certain members of the administration avoided her over the past week, and the meetings she did secure were unsatisfactory. “[At a meeting] one of the admissions officers said, ‘I know this is uncomfortable for you,’ and [College third-year senior] John Bergen said, ‘I want to stop you right there. It’s not uncomfortable. This is people having to call their parents and saying, ‘Do you have any more money? No? OK, I have to go somewhere else now.’ That’s horrible. That’s not uncomfortable.’”

The new policy, in all its vagueness, has generated confusion as well as anger — given the ambiguity of “adjusted accordingly,” many students have formed their own hypotheses.

“It’s been a complicated research process because no one has all the information,” Delano noted. “There are little bits and pieces of the information coming from lots of different sources.”

“Presumably it was up [on the website] for an unknown period of time before people noticed it. ... The policy was put up sometime between February and this past Thursday. ... I haven’t talked to anyone who knows more specifically,” Delano said.

Many students have said that the new policy compromises Oberlin’s values and commitment to diversity, in particular to low-income students, students of color and mentally and physically disabled students, who are historically more likely to receive financial aid.

“Oberlin has prioritized admitting students of color and low-income students, but it has never prioritized those students being able to graduate from this [college],” College junior and organizer Neoma said.

“The new changes to finan-

cial aid are scary,” Neoma added.

“And they’re scary because they are an escalation of a problem that Oberlin already has, and they’re also scary because it’s happening to me and my peers right now.”

Delano agreed.

“Oberlin likes to call itself a progressive institution at the forefront of social change,” Delano explained. “But if it’s going to deny low-income students an education more than it ever has — increasing tuition and decreasing financial aid; it’s contrary to [Oberlin’s] image.”

Yet Chermonte and Reddy both disagreed, arguing that contrary to student belief, these issues were considered during the drafting process.

“The proposed change in process would treat all students equally when awarding financial aid by taking into consideration costs associated with their actual housing and dining choices,” Chermonte and Reddy said.

“Oberlin has — and will — continue to meet 100 percent of demonstrated financial need.

The proposed change in process for developing a given student’s financial aid budget only refines the determination of a student’s level of need, based on actual costs. If implemented, the process would appropriate financial aid resources in a way that is more fair and equitable to all students. This in turn provides the College with more capacity to enroll a wide range of students, particularly those who have high levels of financial need.”

However, many students believe the new policy threatens their ability to pay tuition.

“Since they explicitly state that they will decrease your financial aid if you live off campus, I have no problem believing that they will decrease your financial aid if you have a lower meal plan,” Neoma said. “I would not be able to go here at all under the new policies on the website.”

According to Krislov, Oberlin is more generous than students may think — more so than peer institutions.

“I understand that people are anxious,” Krislov said. “The way we work financial aid is that we meet everybody’s need. If you have a concern about whether or not your package is meeting your need, you go to financial aid and you talk about it. Some people may not like the packages that they’re offered, but we do them according to very well established procedure; we use the forms that the federal government provides.

Frankly we are very generous, much more so than many of our peers. If students have individual concerns about their circumstances, the best thing to do is talk to the people in financial aid.”

Policy Precedent: In the wake of their discovery, students have researched and reSee Students, page 14

News

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The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

inside Oberlin

Yedes Fires Back Against Murder Plot Allegations Rosemary Boeglin and Julia Herbst Editors-in-Chief April 25, 2014

Grace An

Muslim Religious Life Affiliate and member of the Comparative Literature and French departments Ali Yedes has been accused by fellow Oberlin faculty member Samir Amin Abdellatif, visiting assistant professor of Arabic, of plotting murder, forging academic credentials, spying on Jews and attempting to bribe a teaching assistant into marriage.

Yedes is fighting back against these allegations, filing a complaint in the Lorain County Court of Common Pleas on April 16 against Abdellatif for two counts of defamation as well as intentional infliction of emotional distress. The suit takes as its primary concern the claim that Abdellatif publicly hurled injurious and libelous claims at Yedes, resulting in irreparable damage to his reputation and, he claims, threats on his life. Yedes is seeking a trial by jury and compensatory damages in excess of $25,000.

This case, which has received national media attention from outlets such as Slate and Gawker, is the most recent development in a larger dispute within the shared Arabic and French departments that dates back nearly a decade.

Earlier in April, Associate Professor of French and Cinema Studies Grace An filed a lawsuit against the College earlier in April, claiming that the institution failed to address repeated instances of sexbased harassment by fellow French Department faculty member Professor Ali Yedes. This is the second piece of litigation directed at the College concerning the conflict within the French department since 2006. In 2012, Yedes filed a suit against the College and former French Department Chair Matthew Senior, alleging that he was discriminated against based on his race, religion and national origin.

An, who canceled the rest of her courses for the spring semester, is asking for compensatory relief in excess of $25,000 and a trial by jury. An claims that the College was either aware or should have been aware of Yedes’s inappropriate behavior as early as 2006 but that no “appropriate corrective action” was taken.

The details of the two lawsuits demonstrate the complexity and pervasiveness of long-term conflicts within the department and the extremity of the accusations, both of which center on violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. Although the Review reached out to over a dozen individuals involved in this and related conflicts, involved professors, faculty and students have repeatedly expressed a desire to respect An’s privacy, given the sensitive and intensely personal nature of Yedes’s alleged actions.

Two court filings elucidate the circumstances surrounding the conflict, the details of which appear above. In the meantime, the ultimate litigious question remains whether the College was acting negligently or in disregard of An’s safety and terms of employment.

In the charges, An also claims that Yedes has targeted her repeatedly since 2006. An claims the harassment — which includes

Position: French and Cinema Studies Hired: 2004 Tenured: 2010 Suit: An filed a suit against the College on March 5 on two counts.

Charges: The first count alleges a violation of code 4112.99, Ohio’s Sexual Discrimination and Hostile Work Environment statute. An claims Yedes “evinced antifemale animus and has created a hostile and abusive work environment,” for her and her female colleagues to the extent that his harassment “has been so severe and pervasive that it has affected the terms, conditions and privileges of Plaintiff ’s employment.”

An states in her complaint that the College either knew or should have known about the unsafe working conditions created by Yedes, yet ultimately failed to take appropriate action. As a result of the College’s failure to correct the situation, the suit claims that An “suffered and will continue to suffer economic and non-economic damages,” and that these damages include adverse effects on the conditions of her employment.

The second charge is negligent retention. According to An, the College either was or should have been aware of the fact that Yedes is an incompetent employee insofar as his harassment materially inhibited others from performing their duties. The College’s negligent retention of Yedes, according to An, has proximately caused her “mental anguish, emotional distress, anxiety and loss of enjoyment of life and fear for her safety.”

Compensation requested: An is requesting economic and noneconomic compensatory damages including, but not limited to, “damages for pain and suffering, mental anguish, emotional distress, humiliation and inconvenience,” in excess of $25,000.

Position: French and Arabic Professor, Muslim Religious Life Affiliate Hired: 2000 Tenured: 2006 Suit: Yedes filed a suit against Oberlin College and former French Department chair Matthew Senior on March 23, 2012.

Ali Yedes

Charges: Yedes alleged that Oberlin and French Department Chair Matthew Senior discriminated against him on the basis of his race, religion and national origin. In the lawsuit he claimed that he “was treated disparately from similarly situated non-Arab, non-Muslim co-workers; that he was subjected to a hostile work environment because of his race, religion and national origin; that Defendants failed to promote Plaintiff due to his national origin, religion and race; that Defendants retaliated against him for engaging in protected activity. The Complaint also contains references to state law claims of intentional infliction of serious emotional distress; negligent retention of Mr. Senior and negligent supervision of Mr. Senior.” The court’s summary judgment stated that the prosecutors provided insufficient evidence in their claims against Senior, but that Yedes could still pursue a case against the College under Title VII. Photos courtesy of Oberlin College

Yedes allegedly bringing his nephew on a student visa to the U.S. to “stab and kill someone from his department” — was based on her gender and therefore in violation of her employment contract.

The defendant in the most recent suit, Abdellatif, has had extraneous complaints filed against himself as well. The Cleveland chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations requested on April 22 that Oberlin College investigate Abdellatif for allegedly promoting anti-Muslim sentiments in his publications and on campus.

Julia A. Shearson, the executive director for Cleveland’s chapter of the organization’s advocacy group, wrote in a letter to College President Marvin Krislov that Oberlin Arabic Professor Dr. Samir Amin Abdellatif “promotes anti-Muslim bigotry and … condones

crude and ugly caricatures of Muslims” in a tract titled The Unknown History of Islam.

Although the book was published under the pseudonym Sami Benjamin, the Council contends that Abdellatif is in fact the author of the text. College students who have taken courses with Abdellatif independently corroborated this allegation, claiming that the professor openly stated in class that he wrote the tract.

For its part, the College has remained tight-lipped about the conflict, despite numerous attempts over the last several years to resolve it, all of which — including the hiring of an outside mediator — has proven to be unsuccessful. According to Oberlin Director of Media Relations Scott Wargo, the College will neither comment on pending or ongoing investigations nor on “personnel issues.”

City Council Passes Resolution on Gun Control Willa Rubin, Staff Writer Claire Watson September 13, 2013 Oberlin’s chief of police received an email from Brian Kuzawa, a resident of Ashland County, on Aug. 2, the day before the Oberlin Family Fun Fair. In the email, Kuzawa argued that as an Ohio resident, he had the right to openly carry a firearm, and he planned to do so at the Family Fun Fair. Less than two months later, a typical Sunday afternoon at the Slow Train Café turned eventful when various students spotted a customer armed with an AK-47 assault rifle in line for a cup of coffee.

These instances were examples of numerous “right-to-carry” protests that occurred late last fall, during which dozens of gun-toting citizens from across the state visited Oberlin to protest the City Council’s municipal law, which at the time banned possession of firearms in public spaces, such as city parks.

However, Ohio state legislature permits such possession. In 2004, Ohio passed legislation to legalize concealed handguns, therefore subjecting Oberlin to a potential lawsuit from any of their armed visitors.

After weeks of discussion regarding their course of action — possibilities of which included suing the state of Ohio, facing a lawsuit for not adhering to state code which supersedes its municipal authority or amending its law to reflect the state’s ordinance — the City Council voted on Sept. 16 in favor of amending Oberlin’s municipal law 4–3.

Whereas the ordinance previously prohibited the possession of weapons and firearms in city parks, the amendment only restricts the illegal possession of weaponry. City Councilman Bryan Burgess affirmed that illegal possession involves the ownership of such weaponry by convicted felons and other individuals restricted from possessing firearms and other lethal artillery.

The statute now allows for the possession of firearms and weapons in parks so long as it is not deemed “illegal.”

Certain students and some members of the town community have expressed frustration with the amendment.

“It was upsetting to see that Oberlin’s efforts to maintain a community that has reasonable gun laws were thwarted by state code,” College senior and former president of the Oberlin College Democrats Jesse Vogel said.

College and community members convene at a City Council meeting to engage in the recent gun debate. The panel included President of Council Ron Rimbert, City Manager Eric Norenberg and Law Director Don Clark. Simeon Deutsch

“That was disappointing.”

Although all of City Council had previously spoken in defense of home rule, the board ultimately decided that temporarily adopting the state’s ordinance would give them enough time

to organize their next move. Following the vote, the Council adjourned for a meeting to discuss the ordinance, which amended the part of the legislation that barred the “unlawful possession, use or discharge” of any type of

firearm in city parks. The City Council ended its meeting with a resolution: a request for the Ohio General Assembly to pass legislation, with the signature of See Gun, page 6

News

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

Page 5

inside Oberlin

Students Seek to Improve Campus Health Kristopher Fraser Staff Writer April 11, 2013 The diagnosis may be grim for Student Health Services, but three student senators are more optimistic about its prognosis. The recently formed Student Health Working Group, headed by College sophomore Ziya Smallens, College junior Peter Arden and College sophomore Mia Wallace, was active this past semester in working to improve campus health services, which many students understand to be ineffectual, inaccessible and inconvenient.

As the chair of the Student Health Working Group, Smallens says his role is to hear student concerns regarding health services and formulate solutions.

“Student health is a bit of a dirty word on campus, and I want to fix that,” Smallens said.

The Student Health Working Group has five major goals: to institute more accommodating walk-in hours, improve transportation offerings for off-campus mental health resources and counseling, implement a peer mentorship program, streamline online resources, and improve evaluative resources.

Although the work is already underway, Smallens emphasized that the working group’s projects are at varying stages of development.

“When it comes to evaluative resources, John Harshbarger [director of Student Health and Counseling Services] expressed having someone in-house that can receive student opinions on their service,” Smallens said. He also said that the group is working to simplify online resources, a goal he thinks is achievable in the foreseeable future. “Other things where there isn’t so much progress is transportation. When

I talked to Dean [of Students Eric] Estes that seemed to be the least realistic goal, … as it is the one that would require financial capital,” he said.

While Smallens is leading the effort to expand mental health services, several other students have also pooled their efforts.

Graduating College junior John Bergen and College first-year Kennedy Carlick are campaigning to change the department.

Carlick is forming a new organization called the Oberlin Listens Project, a peer-to-peer support network.

“It is a way to allow students

to provide a listening and emotional ear and emotional support to other students who reach out,” Carlick said.

As the Counseling Center is unavailable after 4:30 p.m., Carlick and her co-organizers, doubledegree first-year Ellyn Butler and College first-year Ethan Ableman, believe this project is a means to expand mental health resources on campus.

For graduating College junior John Bergen, the location of the Counseling Center is another urgent issue. The Counseling Center sits on West Lorain Street across See Senate, page 11

Off the Cuff: Cody Wilson, developer of firearm printing software November 22, 2014

ment? What about equal protection?

Oh God. I’ll give you some equal protection.

Ninth Amendment jurisprudence is absent.

There is no Ninth Amendment jurisprudence essentially, even in its own right by the court. So in a sense we’re just having a kind of hypothetical argument.

Cody Wilson is a law student, activist, innovator and self-proclaimed crypto-anarchist. He founded Defense Distributed, a nonprofit that publishes open-source gun designs for 3-D printers. Named by Wired as one of the 15 most dangerous people in the world, Wilson sat down with the Review and discussed the Second Amendment, equal protection of the law and his mission to radicalize.

Can you tell me about the 3-D printer?

It’s kind of an umbrella of technologies, but most of them come from stereo-lithographic laser technologies, ways of drawing stuff from a piece of 3-D software — basically interpreting that object in different layers and slices and then trying to exactly replicate the slices and what you see in the computer. So it’s this translation to the real from a physical file.

Why did you develop this technology?

Was it specifically for the purpose of asserting more independent control over gun possession, or were there other motives involved?

It’s that, [but] it was always layered in this political dialogue. This intentionality of actually trying to be provocative to the state, and your paradigm of maybe how guns would be controlled. … But I want to be clear that we didn’t develop any 3-D printing technology specifically.

We just developed the software for actually doing guns on that technology. We haven’t added on how to do 3-D printing, just how to do guns.

What are the possibilities and, by extension, the limits?

The limits are directly material right now.

If we’re just talking about guns, you can’t build an assault rifle out of plastic — it will explode.

[They] have 50,000 [pounds per square inch] of chamber pressure, and no plastic can withstand that. But in terms of particular components, or maybe even certain calibers of handgun ammunition which aren’t that strong, plastics can, even though they expand, contain the force. So it’s a really practical way of doing it — maybe.

But you can make gun components from 3-D printers.

How can this technology expand?

Well, it already [has]. It’s already been done.

Right now, it might cost you half a million — well, about $1 million — to actually print a gun out of metal, but you can do it. So all of the spectrum of available possibilities has already been demonstrated. It’s just a matter of mixing and hybridizing those technologies and [racing] to the bottom for their availability [and] then de-

Well, right — but this in itself is a hypothetical conversation.

Well no, but there’s nothing more real than the fact that you can print 3-D guns at this point.

Cody Wilson recently created a fully functioning pistol from a 3-D printer.

termining [what] kind of multi-material do we use. So it’ll be a mix of all these technologies into doing guns, just differently.

What if this technology falls into the wrong hands? Was civilian safety a consideration during the drafting processes?

So, I would first challenge the premise, right?

Like, all generally used technologies are already in the wrong hands — they’re in everybody’s hands. And thank God they are. So there’s no efficient way of preventing someone from using a laptop to do something terrible; we all have access. And that’s the thing with these, too — these are generally-used technologies, they’re software-agnostic, to a large degree they’re hardware-agnostic, too. Everyone will have them or no one will.

If I understand the technology involved, which I may not, these machines, or these iterations, can’t be detected by a scanner.

So — Some of the guns, if they’re all plastic, might make it through a metal detector… because they’re not metal.

Right. And is that a concern of yours?

Well, it’s not a concern of mine, I mean. But … [Laughs.]

Well, can you see the potential hazards of that output?

No, of course, of course, there’s a dimension of added, you know, stealth or something. To your potential assassin or something. But I gotta be honest, in their current iterations, these are extremely impractical devices and not what you’d use to try to slip into a courthouse and kill somebody.

But, given how rapidly technology is expanding — I’ll give you the hypothetical. Will this be a problem? Yeah, likely. It’ll probably even be ceramic before plastic. But in the end, there’s really no way to tell me where you’d get a handle on it.

You know, other than a kind of blanket prohibitive law. And you can pass a law saying, ‘Look, if we catch you with one of these, you’re in trouble.’

And that’s probably the best way to do it. But I mean, it’s there. It’s available.

Right. But I’m curious as to how you’d factor in an instance like Sandy Hook.

Oh, yeah. Our project gained prominence really right after Sandy Hook happened. But Sandy Hook was more a conversation about the assault rifle specifically used in that shooting, and people saying that people shouldn’t have access to this thing — look how quickly it killed toddlers.

Well, the thing is, this is a traditional rejoinder.

What does it mean to be serious about rights in a civic context? Well it means that we’ll absorb some social cost. That there will be shootings.

And that in the end, we judiciously protect the fact that there will be these things, because it’s better in the end. Or we deem that it’s better in the end to protect this mode of liberty.

So you think that the benefit of this rifle supersedes the lives of children who — So I’m not doing the [specific calculations], but yeah, I mean to say that it is more worthwhile as a human endeavor to protect this right in the face that terrible things will happen.

So you study law, right? And obviously the Second Amendment is a huge factor in this debate, but what about the Ninth Amend-

Just humor me.

I wouldn’t use a Ninth Amendment argument. Basically, it wouldn’t happen that way. It’s a standard of due process. What’s happening is that people are targeting 3-D printing as a technology. People are saying, “Well, you shouldn’t be able to 3-D print a gun.’ Well, okay, but this actually has equal protection — you can’t target the method of how I make the gun, you have to target the fact of whether I have the gun or not.

In the end it’s not the Second Amendment that’s at stake, per se. It’s the implicit rights related to the Second Amendment, and those haven’t been borne out of precedent yet. I guess we’re sort of mixing the real and the hypothetical right now. … Come on, let’s do some Second Amendment fighting.

The gun debate is quite polarizing, as you and I just demonstrated. How do you think the two sides can compromise?

I’m on neither side, and hang them all. I’m not interested in some result, I’m interested in leaving that behind and pursuing another avenue in this debate. There will be no synthesis, there will be no compromise. It will always polarize, forever and ever, amen.

So you have no desire to mitigate the political tension?

No. This is how we were driven to the heights of political awareness. Welcome to the problem.

I’m here to divide. We’re zealots for our own position, and we’re not particularly interested in a result where we’ve navigated the problem.

That said, why come to Oberlin, a robustly liberal campus?

Because I want to radicalize. Even you, at the end of the day, you know maybe there will be a certain grain of truth in this. I think I can get a hook in one or two of you.

Interview by Kate Gilll, News editor Photo by Effie Kline-Salamon

Page 6

News

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

policy changes

Campus-Wide Tobacco Ban Awaits Admin Vote

Louis Krauss, Staff Writer Madeline Peltz May 2, 2014 Administrators are currently considering banning one of the College’s most popular pastimes — smoking tobacco. The ban, which would prohibit tobacco products from certain areas of campus, was approved by Student Senate on April 27, leaving administrative approval as the only obstacle to implementation.

In their proposal, Senate cited secondhand smoke as one of the largest reasons for supporting the ban.

“Oberlin College is committed to providing a safe living and working environment for student, staff and faculty,” the proposal states.

In explaining reasons for the ban, Associate Dean and Director of Wellness and Health Promotion Lori Morgan Flood confirmed that the threat to student health was a main concern of the administration as well. Flood cited an earlier report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a major player in the decision to promote the ban, saying that “more deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by HIV, illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides and murders combined.”

In response to the concern expressed regarding Oberlin College’s definition of “campus boundaries,” the proposal also “urges the zoning subcommittee to clearly define and publicize the boundaries of the campus where smoking is not prohibited with appropriate signage,” and suggests that Tappan Square be excluded from the ban.

“I am proud of the resolution that Student Senate passed because it specifically sets aside Tappan Square as a zone where the tobacco-free policy would not be implemented,” said Student Senate liaison and College sophomore Machmud Makhmudov in his Letter to the Editor (The Oberlin Review, “Campus Tobacco-Free Policy Protects, Expands Upon Individual Rights,” May 9). “The exemption was drafted in consideration of the policy’s potential effects on the town of Oberlin and its citizens, as well as the need for a convenient space where anybody could smoke if they so choose.”

When asked how the College planned to regulate the rest of the land that it shares with the community, such as off-campus residential housing and the property surrounding Keep Cottage, Tank Hall and Firelands Apartments, Makhmudov said, “those are not properties where this will be heavily endorsed.”

Regardless of where the College chooses to implement the ban, many students view the ban as an infringement on students’ rights, with some likening the proposed tobacco policy to the prochoice movement.

“Keeping people from smoking anywhere on campus is both impractical and unreasonable.

Smoking is an addiction, and forcing people to quit, at least to me, is a step too far,” College firstyear Alexander Ekman wrote in his Letter to the Editor (The Oberlin Review, “Smoke-Free Policy Infringes on Students’ Right to Choose,” May 2).

“In that sense, the comparison between the policy and Santorum is sound: Attempting to force people to quit smoking against their will is an incursion on their rights by the College.”

Another point of contention surrounding the ban is the legitimacy of the administrative claim that tobacco use is a social justice issue. Though the Office of Student Wellness website cites numerous statistics that list the social justice concerns of the industry’s exploitation of communities, use of child labor and misdirection of revenue, many students believe the claim to be unconnected.

“At best, this argument is flawed for [several] reasons,” said College first-year Aaron Pressman in a Letter to the Editor (The Oberlin Review, “Smoking Ban an Issue of Personal Liberty, Dec. 13). “At worst, [this] is furthering the problem. If [this] claim is true, that means that once the ban is implemented, wealthier students will have an easier time quitting, and the less wealthy will be left unable to break their addictions. This will leave students of lower incomes forced to either break the rules or walk off campus every time they desire to light up.” In his letter, Pressman specifically targets Makhmudov’s argument for tobacco usage as a social justice issue.

The first mention of a College-wide tobacco ban was made earlier in the year, when Senate announced it at a plenary meeting. According to Flood, the plan itself originated three years ago when the Oberlin Tobacco Subcommittee — a group of six, including Flood, members of Safety and Security, Student Wellness and Lorain County — was formed.

“We saw a national trend for colleges to better address tobacco as a health concern. The number of schools to go tobacco-free has risen to over 1,182 and has doubled from July 2011 to 2013,” Flood said.

According to Flood, this nationwide ban makes it seem as though a tobacco-free Oberlin is inevitable.

“It’s going to happen anyway. I think it’s important to make sure that Oberlin is not the last.

Because of that we have to move quickly for it to happen,” she said.

Results from the Office of Institutional Research were also implicit in the administration’s decision to begin considering the prospect of a tobacco-free campus. According to the Office of Student Wellness website, around 16 percemt of incoming students report smoking when they enter Oberlin. A Student Senate referendum in 2010 indicated that 17 percent of the student body uses tobacco.

“This has been consistent over the years,” the website states. “However, according to the ACHA Survey in 2008, 24 percent of Oberlin students reported tobacco use within the last 30 days. The national average found in 2008 was 16 percent of college students have smoked within the last 30 days. This suggests that not only do more Oberlin College students smoke than other college students, but that many students take up tobacco smoking once they are at Oberlin.”

Ever since its original proposal, the ban has caused a split in student opinion, with an even 41 percent of students for the policy change and 41 against, according to a November referendum.

Although students have found many reasons to protest the ban — citing class divisions and a potential to exclude prospective students as additional probable consequences — many of their See College, page 15

Gun Rights Activists Hold

Feature Photo: College Modifies Town at Legal Gunpoint Undocumented Students Policy Continued from page 4

College junior Ana Robelo and double-degree junior Ariana Gil watch as student demonstrators barricade the front of Mudd library with a mock wall on Dec. 10, a construction that symbolized the many barriers present throughout Oberlin and beyond its borders. The wall, which featured more than 15 seven-foot-high panels painted with anti-oppression messages, was organized by a coalition of students united in their frustration over the Board of Trustees’ lack of action towards their demands, one of the more urgent of which was the creation of a scholarship program for undocumented students. On Feb. 26, several months after the demonstration, the College announced that it will now consider undocumented students as domestic candidates for admission. The new policy, which was unanimously approved by the Board of Trustees, considers undocumented applicants U.S. citizens rather than international applicants. “Oberlin College considers undocumented students as domestic candidates for admission,” the policy reads. “Students who qualify for ‘deferred action’ and have achieved Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status are particularly encouraged to apply.” Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Debra Chermonte explained that placing these individual students in the international pool is a ‘miscategorization’ because most undocumented students have spent the majority of their lives in the U.S., have attended U.S. schools and are fluent in English. In an interview with the Office of Communications, Chermonte said, “We have always welcomed applications from undocumented students. But because they are not U.S. citizens, we had, like most colleges, required them to apply as international students. This policy aligns our current practices with the public language we use to describe Oberlin’s policy with respect to undocumented students.” While Oberlin does not require DACA for undocumented applicants, the new policy makes admission to the College more accessible to undocumented students by permitting student employment and safer domestic as well as international travel.

Effie Kline-Salamon

Governor John R. Kasich, which amends the Ohio Revised Code to enable Ohio municipalities to regulate the possession of firearms in public.

According to President of the Oberlin College Republicans and Libertarians and Conservatory senior Taylor Reiners, contesting the state is “a losing battle.”

“It’s been challenged twice, and both [cities] lost,” Reiners said. “The resources they would use to fight this battle could be used for schools, education, or if they are really serious about safety, why not more police officers? Why not increase police presence in parks if they feel that is a concern?”

Over the next week, the City Council and members of the community brainstormed ways to comply with state laws while still keeping guns out of Oberlin’s parks.

“This resolution is only an intermediary step and not what we hope to be a final solution,” said City Council President H. Scott Broadwell. Both Broadwell and Vice President of Council Sharon Fairchild-Soucy have considered selling the land, effectively privatizing it. With the privatization, “landowners” would have the discretion to ban firearms and weapons on park territory.

“We are looking for a solution,” Broadwell said. “There are simply too many acres of park space to sell to an individual.”

However, the Council and community were not the only ones brainstorming. After a fruitless attempt to warn the Council of their allegedly illegal actions, members of Ohioans for Concealed Carry, a grassroots organization that seeks to legalize concealed carry of firearms at the state level, filed a lawsuit against the city on Oct. 1. The lawsuit claims that the amended decree still contradicts the Ohio Revised Code, which imposes uniform gun laws throughout the state.

“The state recognizes our fundamental right of concealed carry and it is the responsibility of smaller communities within the state to comply with that,” said President and Founder of OCC John Garvas. “Because Oberlin’s elected officials have failed to act reasonably and responsibly, OFCC now is seeking the aid of the courts to force Oberlin to comply fully with the Ohio Revised Code.”

Many officials believe the lawsuit to be arbitrary, but understand that they will have to deal with larger lawsuits later on.

“Since we are complying entirely with state law, advisors and the town’s lawyers have informed us that it is likely we will win this case,” FairchildSoucy said. “It is also likely that if OCC does not win this lawsuit, the organization will appeal the case, and we will have to handle this issue at higher courts.”

The OCC suit is still pending in the courts.

Additional reporting by Rachel Weinstien.

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

News

Page 7

policy changes

SIC Scraps “Hypocritical” Safer Sex Night Kristopher Fraser Staff Writer April 5, 2014 Thirty-five years after the founding of the Sexual Information Center, the student-run organization announced in April that it would discontinue its infamous Safer Sex Night. The dance, which has historically marked an end to a weeklong series of sex-positive programming designed to promote safer, healthier and consensual sexual practices, was discontinued due to the proliferation of nonconsensual activity, body shaming and binge drinking.

According to SIC staff, the decision was made collectively and over several semesters. Those in opposition felt that the dance no longer served its original purpose.

Primarily, Safer Sex Week aims to educate the student body on safe sex practices. The SIC workshops cover a variety of topics, ranging from appropriate sexual consent practices and ways to please your sexual partners to learning about various sexual orientations and understanding basic anatomy.

At their inception, these workshops encouraged free and open discourse and promoted sex education. Safer Sex Night was created for the sake of campus empowerment and comfort — a space for everyone. The SIC had always discouraged alcohol at the event, reminding attendees that “you can’t consent when you are drunk.”

“The reality was an environment where many students were intoxicated, not all people felt safe, and not all activity was consensual,” the SIC said in an email to the stu-

dent body the morning of April 3. “It seems hypocritical to host a dance that opposed so many of the values we were encouraging and were hoping would be reflected in this event. Although we recognize the importance of promoting safer sex practices, we have begun to reconsider our mission and responsibility to the student body.”

The email also noted that what was conceived as a safe environment had the effect of ostracizing or creating an uncomfortable environment for students.

“Further, the event’s focus on body positivity often pressured people to dress in specific ways, and alienated those who were uncomfortable with Safer Sex Night’s traditional attire,” the email continued. “We would like to support whatever relationship one wishes to have with their body and encourage everyone to express this relationship in whatever way feels comfortable and fulfilling to them. After lots of reflection, we decided our efforts would be better spent on an event that didn’t create such an unsafe space.”

The SIC is considering a substitute to Safer Sex Night, or a future event more conducive to the organization’s stated goals. These alternatives are still in the planning stages, and staff members stated they likely wouldn’t be proposed until next school year.

In their campus-wide email, the SIC affirmed that their decision was “firm,” and if some variant of Safer Sex Night were to return in the future, it wouldn’t look like the night of lascivious debauchery to which Oberlin is accustomed.

The Sexual Information Center announced its decision to discontinue Safer Sex Night in early April. The dance, a forty-five-year-long tradition, marked the end of a week-long event series that was meant to promote safe and consensual sexual practices.

Courtesy of SIC

Off the Cuff: Lena Dunham, OC ’08 and actress, writer and director of Tiny Furniture and HBO’s Girls Rosemary Boeglin: You incorporate your personal life into your work.

How do you maintain authenticity as your life evolves from what you’re working on?

That’s a good question that many people are always really curious about.

I think that there is a misconception that if you have success of any kind, your personal problems evaporate, and your anxiety evaporates, and you live in a detached cloud of rainbows and candy and you can’t relate to the common person.

But the fact is that I have a pretty stressful job in an industry that is very challenging for women. I get embarrassed a lot, I get anxious a lot; I have friends that are not yet doing what they want to be doing; I have a lot of experiences of things not being received the way I Lena Dunham pauses to take a quick selfie in want them to be received. So I have a lot the Wilder Hall bathroom during her February of experience every day to draw from. I just may switch the setting; it’s not going visit to Oberlin. to happen at an award show, it’s going to February 8, 2014 happen at a party. It’s just about finding a way to translate the myriad of complex Lena Dunham, OC ’08, released her first emotions that I deal with on a daily basis film, Tiny Furniture, in 2010, for which she into the world that I’ve created for these served as writer, director and actress. Her characters. I also have a staff that is full first television series, Girls, premiered on of experiences and full of knowledge, and HBO in April 2012. Like Tiny Furniture, Girls when we put our heads together, [authenis a comedy-drama that follows the lives of ticity] isn’t a challenge. close friends in their twenties living in New York City. According to Dunham, the show’s Rachel Weinstein: To what extent premise was inspired by some of her real- are your later seasons of Girls a relife experiences. In October 2012, Dunham sponse to the critique of former ones? signed a deal with Random House to publish It’s a complex question, and it’s a comher first book, an essay collection called Not bination. In some ways, there’s stuff on That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You the show that’s letting critics know that What She’s “Learned.” Dunham has won sev- we’re self aware of what we’re doing, but eral awards throughout her career, including also, a lot of it is topics that we would two Golden Globes for Best Television Series have gotten to anyway. I feel like a lot of and Best Actress. Dunham sat down with Re- critics don’t think we were aware of the view and Grape staff members on Feb. 8 to stuff that they were leveling at us. It’s discuss her creative process, misogyny in Hol- like, ‘Guys, these are issues that we would lywood and what it’s like to return to campus. have tackled at some point because we’re human people living in the world, but

we just didn’t have the chance when we started.’

Madeline Stocker: You mentioned about how you have felt challenged as a woman in your industry, and I’m wondering if you could talk a little more about that.

Yeah, I think it’s probably pretty clear to us, and the people at Oberlin who are constantly challenging norms, that Hollywood isn’t a particularly warm place for women. It’s like once every two years there’s a think piece about how it’s the best time for women than it’s ever been in movies, and then things go back to being the same. It’s a challenge just to navigate a world where the programming that speaks to 52 percent of the globe is considered sort of ‘marginal programming’ or ‘women’s programming.’ [I just want to] challenge the conception. I was reading a book about Sylvia Plath and how she’s one of the greatest poets of all time, and I’m not saying I’m the Sylvia Plath of television — I’m really not saying that. But her medium was challenged.

She was called diaristic and navel-gazing and overly feminine by all of these male poets, and I think that the same bias towards media that talks about a woman’s experience still exists now. And you know, I don’t want a battle cry of misogyny to become my entire life, but I think that it’s just really important to point it out and acknowledge it.

Anne Pride-Wilt: You mentioned that you aren’t good at collaborating.

What is the process like on a TV program where you’re collaborating with a large group of people?

I really love my job, and I’ve gotten better at collaborating. I have an amazing partner in showrunning whom I’m able to fully collaborate with, and I love working with the actors. … I would say just the

forced collaboration of a second grade science class, or an Oberlin documentary class, where the real challenge, for me, is that you need to be able to choose likeminded people who are able to understand your voice. I’m sure that some of you have found that in college. That just wasn’t my reality. So now that I’m able to pick people to work with, it’s great, because I’m sort of living in the fantasy land of people whose voices I love and who get what I have to say. I think the sharing ethos of a co-op or something like that was challenging for me. But I respect it.

MS: I think that one of the many reasons that people at this school look up to you is because you’ve turned so many of your ideas into real, concrete creations, which have then become successful. Can you talk about that process?

It’s funny — I think that you always meet people who are like, ‘I’m writing a screenplay about whatever,’ and you know, if you talk about your screenplay that much then you’re probably not writing it. It’s OK — writing’s really hard, and it’s a lot easier to talk than to write. It’s about sort of forcing yourself to take that next step. I know so many people — and this isn’t just a thing I say — that are so much funnier and more talented than I am — it’s just… I think for a lot of people, the reason they don’t write isn’t that they’re lazy, it isn’t that they’re entitled.

It’s that they’re scared, because it’s scary to express yourself. It’s scary to write something and put it out there, and you can feel really delusional thinking that you have the right to ask anyone to turn their attention on you in that way. That, for me, has been a big thing. Just realizing that you just have to do it. Just do it.

Photo courtesy of Lena Dunham’s Instagram

News

Page 8

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

sustainability

Campus Relies on Fracking in Transition From Coal Madeline Stocker, News Editor Rachel Weinstein Nov. 15, 2013 The College broke ground on a new sustainable installment this October — the replacement of the central heating plant’s coal boilers with new natural gas-fueled tanks. For years, the College has been dependent on a central coal burning plant to heat academic and residential buildings on campus. However, while many view this as a sustainable victory, several student organizations have continued to voice their concerns “[Rob Lamppa, director of sustainability,] put forward a plan in the last year and the Board of Trustees voted to approve of the overall concept,” said Associate Professor of Psychology Cindy Frantz, chair of the Committee on Environmental Sustainability. According to Frantz, the decision to shift to natural gas, in combination with Oberlin’s 90 percent renewable electricity portfolio, will get the College 50 percent of the way to their goal of carbon neutrality by 2025.

The central heating plant, a coal-fired power plant that’s a part of Oberlin College’s Service Building, has been the subject of debate for the past decade. Although there are still many challenges associated with the switch to natural gas, Frantz views the renovation of the Co-Chair of the Energy Planning Committee Cindy Frantz and Sustainability Coordinator Bridget Flynn ran a Nov. 2 workshop that coal plant as a fiscal necessity. aimed to educate attendees on the College’s exorbitant emission of carbon gases. After the main forum, students broke off into “Replacing the coal plant is really, really expensive,” several interest groups to further discuss more innovative ideas for reducing the school’s carbon footprint.

Simeon Deutsch said Frantz, “and the trustees are trying to protect the institution fiscally. But the thing that put the nails into the coffin was the EPA regulations. To keep the coal plant “They’re only showing some of the statistics,” said Col- College’s alliance with the fracking process, the amount we would need to put an enormous amount of capital lege junior Emma Charno. “There are a lot of numbers that the switch will contribute to global warming and its into refurbishing it, and it just doesn’t make any sense.” that are not shared when presenting the data and these contradiction with Oberlin’s image as a green institution, Over the next several years, the College plans to take numbers are just as important.” Beecher, Charno and suggesting that a switch to natural gas “won’t actually do the next step in their 2025 initiative — specifically, the many other members of the Anti-Frack organization be- much to reduce the amount of carbon we burn.” switch from natural gas to ground source heat pumps, a lieve the Board downplays the effect that the burning of “We will be buying fracked gas and therefore helping method already utilized in the Bertram and Judith Kohl natural gas will have on communities outside of Oberlin to fund the poisoning of the people of Ohio,” said Bergen.

Building and the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Envi- where the gas is produced.

Although Frantz recognized the shortcomings of the ronmental Studies. While many argue for the immediate According to Beecher, forums such as The Source — switch, she qualified that Oberlin’s switch to natural gas implementation of ground source heating pumps, the the College’s official communications hub — describe Board of Trustees is uncertain of the quality of the pumps natural gas as a “greener” fuel, which is misrepresenta- –––––––––––––––––––––––––––—————————— currently installed in the Kohl Building and Lewis Center tive of the sustainability of natural gas. She also described “There’s a lot of trustees and members of the and claims that the campus’s soil quality is not sufficient several of the trustees, as well as the Environmental Deadministration that come from these elite for geothermal energy. fense Fund, as “explicitly pro-fracking.”

Even with a commitment to move forward, many “Some of our administrators here at the College have backgrounds, but they don’t engage with members of the community are dissatisfied with the new bought into [this framework], which is really disturbing the communities that are obviously hurting energy initiatives. to me,” she said. “There’s a big disconnect because there’s “It just makes little sense to invest a lot of money in a lot of trustees [and members of the] administration from this industry.” a new system that you plan to replace five to ten years that come from these elite backgrounds, but they don’t Alice Beecher later,” said David Roswell, OC ’13, a representative on the engage with these communities that are obviously hurtCommittee on Environmental Sustainability. “I’m skepti- ing from this industry. All they do is read some report Anti-Frack member and Dec. 2013 graduate cal we will be able to reach our 2025 commitment.” about how natural gas is better for the climate, and they –––––––––––––––––––––––––––—————————— Students of various organizations, such as Oberlin [agree with] it.”

College Anti-Frack, have followed the Board of Trustees’s In an email to the Review, graduating College junior and proved to be a “best-case scenario.” decision to find alternative energy solutions very closely, Anti-Frack member John Bergen described the adminis“There are a lot of very poor people in southern Ohio and many share Roswell’s sentiments. tration’s stance on student concerns as “unreceptive.” who are getting completely screwed over health-wise so “There’s little transparency in regard to the Board of “We [had to] move to conversations with senior ad- that people up here can have clean electricity. I see it as a Trustees,” said Anti-Frack member and 2013 graduate ministrators and the Board of Trustees,” said Bergen. human rights issue, a social rights issue and an economAlice Beecher. “Students are given little opportunity to “Last December we held a silent demonstration during ic justice issue. I think that almost every environmental work with the Board and reach these decisions.” a Board of Trustees dinner where we recognized the fi- issue has this social justice aspect as well, and I think it’s In addition to this complaint about transparency, nancial limitations on the decision, called for quicker really important to talk about both,” said Frantz. many campus environmentalists take issue with the 2025 development of truly renewable heat sources and asked Frantz also commented on the significance of the operation as a whole. that students be given a greater voice in how College de- College’s decision.

“Switching from coal to natural gas decreases our car- cisions are made.”

I think that whether it’s voting or working on regulabon emission by 50 percent,” said Beecher. “While that Bergen also stated that, although he recognizes that tions, or whether or not we’re the state that’s producing seems to be a big improvement, this number only tells us the decision may be the only financially viable one, it is the most carbon dioxide, it really matters, and what we about the emission of carbon.” She said that although the still “ethically terrible.” do really matters. I think that any activism that’s generimplementation of natural gas would drop carbon emisBergen then elucidated what he views as the negative ated by this report to make changes in Ohio [is benefision substantially, the Board fails to address issues of wa- aspects of the College’s decision. The adversities men- cial] … it’s not just about changing Ohio.” ter and air pollution. tioned were the investment in natural gas boilers, the

The Oberlin Review — Established 1874 —

Volume 142, Number 25

(ISSN 297–256)

May 23, 2014

Published by the students of Oberlin College every Friday during the fall and spring semesters, except holidays and examination periods.

Advertising rates: $18 per column inch. Second-class postage paid at Oberlin, Ohio.

Entered as second-class matter at the Oberlin, Ohio post office April 2, 1911.

POSTMASTER SEND CHANGES TO: Wilder Box 90, Oberlin, Ohio 44074-1081.

Office of Publication: Burton Basement, Oberlin, Ohio 44074.

Phone: (440) 775-8123 Fax: (440) 775-6733 On the web: http://www.oberlinreview.org

Editor-in-chief Julia Herbst Managing editor Julian Ring News editors Madeline Stocker Opinions editor Sophia Ottoni-Wilhelm This Week editor Sarah Snider Arts editor Anne Pride-Wilt Sports editor Nate Levinson Layout editors Julian Ring Abby Carlstad Daniel Pappalardo Photo editor Effie Kline-Salamon Business manager Jesse Neugarten Production staff Drew Wise Louise Edwards Annelise Giseburt

Editors’ Note

In the Commencement issue, writers are credited with the positions they held at the time the articles were written. Many Review staffers have changed positions over the course of the academic year or for the Commencement issue. For a list of the past semester’s staff, please visit our website: oberlinreview.org/about/.

CONGRATULATIONS, GRADUATING Corrections SENIORS! The Review is not aware of Editor-in-Chief Rosemary “Start Your Day” any corrections this week.

Boeglin; News editor Kate Gill; Arts editor PhoebeThe Hammer; Sarah ReviewSports striveseditor to print allOrbuch; Production Manager Rosie Black; and producinformation as accurately as possible. tionIfstaffers, Walls, Erin Tesny you feelBennett the Review has made anand Eliza Kirby. error, please send an e-mail to managingeditor@oberlinreview.org.

News

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

Page 9

sustainability

Construction Begins this Spring on $32 Million Hotel Complex Felicia Heiney Louis Krauss, Staff Writer April 25, 2014 The College will break ground on the construction of a new hotel, restaurant and conference center as an attachment to the Oberlin Inn later this spring. The construction of the Inn is facilitated by the Oberlin Project, a citywide organization that aims to improve the resilience, prosperity and sustainability of the Oberlin community.

“The old [Inn] is falling down and the hotel has serious structural problems,” said David Orr, professor of Environmental Studies and Politics and special assistant to the College’s president. “One problem is that the hotel has north, south, east and west wings. It encroaches to the north where we need to expand Hall Auditorium. There have been plans for a black box theater and a green theater and to make major renovations to a building that compares unfavorably with a lot of high school auditoriums.”

Owned by the College, the Inn brings in significant revenue through-

out the year from visiting parents, students and hosted events. The building will be part of the new Green Arts District, which will include the hotelconference center — a 65-room hotel, conference center, two theaters, a culinary school and a center for commercial space — as well as a renovated Hall Auditorium.

“Imagine if people were going to restaurants downtown that are solarpowered, there’s incredible music being played, incredible conferences on issues of the day, and they’re buying local goods and crafts — that’s the goal,” Orr said.

In addition to it’s projected general appeal, the new building will also stimulate the local economy and create a number of jobs. In town, the Lorain County Joint Vocational School supplies high school students with workforce training and teaches trades such as cooking. JVS will likely send some of its students to the culinary school included in the College’s new hotel.

“I’m excited about the discussions with the Joint Vocational School and [its] culinary department,” said John

The Oberlin Inn, located on North Main Street, is currently undergoing a $32 million construction project. Following its completion, the Inn will feature a conference center, several theaters, a culinary institute and additional hotel space. The renovation is one of the key initiatives of the Oberlin Project.

Courtesy of Oberlin College

Schroth, superintendent of Oberlin City Schools. “It’s primarily juniors and seniors, and the restaurant has plans to possibly involve high school students in working in the restaurant.”

Like Orr, Schroth believes that the new hotel will increase job opportunities for residents and attract more visitors and prospective students, benefitting the town’s economy.

“As far as an economic driver for the region, this is probably the largest project of Lorain County,” he said.

See Oberlin, page 15

Off the Cuff: Randy Newman, award-winning songwriter Sept. 27, 2013

speak differently, it’s not the author — except in bad books — it’s not the author speaking through them. It’s a funny route that I took, and I can’t think of many people in pop music who do that. It may have been shyness, or it may have been an artistic choice. I just got tired of “I love you, you don’t love me,” and “Why don’t you love me again? What’d I do?” I just was writing one day, and I… and I just sort of couldn’t take it … From then on I sort of wrote differently. That interested me more.

Randy Newman, musician and Oberlin parent, performed Sept. 27 for a crowd of students and community members. He sat down with the Review to discuss his creative process and controversial lyrical subject matter.

Tell me a little bit about your relationship to Oberlin? I know your daughter is a student here.

That’s essentially my relationship. I’ve worked with musicians who went here; my orchestrator now went to Oberlin, Jonathan Sacks, [OC ’73], and he loved it. He’s a great orchestrator; I’ve learned a lot from him. And my daughter goes here, studying Environmental Studies.

Randy Newman is an award-winning songwriter, performer and Oberlin parent.

You have a very musical family. Can you speak a little to your musical lineage and how it’s influenced your work?

[I have] three uncles and four cousins [who] are musicians. It must be some sort of genetic thing. … My uncle Alfred [Newman], who won nine Academy Awards, was the leading film scorer of his time, maybe of all time, in my opinion. I’d go on the stage when I was five, six years old, and I’d see that, and it was impressive. And I had that sound in my ear of that orchestra, which was the great studio orchestra at that time. And I think it impressed me. And to my father [Irving Newman] he was sort of a god. My father was a doctor, but I think he thought — his brothers sort of raised him — and he really thought it was the greatest art form of the century. And probably I caught a little of that, too. So that’s what I thought I’d be when I grew up when I was five, six, seven. It looked possible because someone was doing it, but it looked impossible in that it looked so difficult, and it was. So that’s what I thought I’d do, so I was tremendously influenced. And his music has been a big influence on me, too.

I knew his music like the kids here know… Jessica… whoever they know very well nowadays.

Well, I don’t know if it’s necessarily predicated on that, but I like to make people laugh.

And, to tell you the truth, most[ly] I like that.

So it’s not far off. The songs people like best of mine aren’t the humorous ones, they’re songs like “Feels Like Home” and “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today.” But I don’t like them best necessarily; I like songs like “The World Isn’t Fair” or “Davy the Fat Boy,” which I wrote a long time ago. … I mean, I like the other songs, I don’t think people are stupid for liking them, but it interests me more when there’s a character in there like my song “Shame” or “Harps and Angels.” You know, more slightly deviant behavior, or a little off.

As a young musician, did you envision the career that you have today, which is predicated largely on humorous songs?

Very little, but yes, I know what you’re saying.

So you gotta get [the character]. People

You often write songs in, or as, a character.

When you write it, the vocabulary has to be within what the person would say. Often I’ll start, you get the syntax, the mood of what he knows, what he would say, and then you get it right, and then the song writes — it doesn’t write itself — [but] you have some parameters within which to write it. When you write there are words that clank and don’t fit. You ever write any fiction?

You write orchestral music in which you have more control over the piece, but you also have rock albums in which you work with a producer. Which do you prefer? Is it difficult or a relief to relinquish some control?

I’ve got the control in the studio, too.

They don’t say, “Do this.” I have less control in a way doing the pictures. But I have control over what I choose to write, whether it’s gonna be an oboe or a clarinet, but more and more directors are dictating what you can do because they [have] the technical means to put music in with an editor — they say I like this, I like that — and they fall in love with it when they work on their picture. It’s getting to be difficult to do the right thing, in my opinion, cause they want what they want, and it’s often the wrong thing.

So you prefer scoring films or working on your own albums in which you’re, perhaps, able to be more creatively genuine?

There’s nothing I like better than the four days with an orchestra working on a picture.

What I don’t like as much is going behind the glass and talking to the people telling me what to do. Even so, I love the orchestra so much that there’s enough good moments out there to make it truly worthwhile. When I’ve written a song, that’s a big thing to me, that I think is good. It’s those two things. I don’t like the studio when I’m recording necessarily. As much as I’ve done it, I’m still not comfortable in there.

Is there any particular subject matter

that you desire to tackle in your work that you haven’t yet? Or is that not really how you go about the creative process?

I have some ideas now, some of them I haven’t… tackled. I tried a while back to write a song about a woman whose family is gone, her husband’s died, and the kids have gone away, empty nest and what it’s like to be her — having to play the part of a woman.

And it’s not bad. The idea is good, I just didn’t finish it.

I have an idea about writing a song called “When the Fire Goes Out,” when you’re not in love with someone anymore, and it just doesn’t feel the same. Touching them, holding their hand, it’s just like skin. It’s like you feel it’s kind of bumpy or lumpy — just skin, and before, it’s just nothing, you don’t notice that it’s fantastic, until the fire goes out. And there’s plenty to say about that, I don’t think it’d be hard. It’s always a little hard.

A lot of your songs are controversial.

How have you dealt with criticism? What is your relationship now with short people and other people you might’ve offended along the way?

Well, I go to the doctor’s office and some nurse will be glaring at me … It’s fine, [the song “Short People”] surprised me that there was such — of course, I was surprised that it was a hit — but, I was surprised that there was that kind of sensitivity. And maybe I shouldn’t have been, but I didn’t know. I really didn’t know. I never cared how tall anyone was. What difference does it make?

But maybe it did. And I can see if you’re in junior high and people say, “Oh, they’re playing your song!” it would hurt. But I didn’t think of it. For the most part, I worry about some of the language that I use, saying some words. … But you don’t want political correctness to make you stupid. You don’t want to not recognize that he’s being a bad guy. It’s a dramatic device.

Interview by Rosemary Boeglin, Editor-in-Chief Photo courtesy of Oberlin College

Page 10

News

The Oberlin Review, May, 23, 2014

activism

One Year Later, Campus Commemorates March 4

More than a thousand students gathered in Finney Chapel for a convocation in response to persitent hate-related crimes on last spring’s Day of Solidarity. This year, students organizations joined forces to commemorate racial, religious and sexual identities on campus.

Zoë Madonna

Kristopher Fraser and Louis Krauss, Staff Writers Rachel Weinstein, News Editor March 7, 2014 In commemoration of last year’s March 4 Day of Solidarity — which was organized in response to persisting hate related incidents — nearly a dozen student groups organized events earlier this month to continue the community-wide conversations on oppression and allyship.

“Some people remember March 4 as the day classes

were canceled, and yes, that’s part of what happened, but we have to remember why and what it’s connected to,” said College sophomore and Student Senator Kiki Acey.

Students working with the Edmonia Lewis Center planned a series of events for the week that included two discussion panels and an art show for “folks who are reflecting on the events from last year at this time,” according to Acey. Both Acey and graduating College junior Joelle Lingat explained the planning that went into the creation of a space to examine the experience

of March 4.

Lingat emphasized the importance of hearing individual narratives and experiences of March 4. “We don’t want to generalize the community’s experience and make large sweeping statements on how everyone felt, but we wanted to create a venue for people who had feelings and wanted to share their experience,” Lingat said.

In addition to commemorating student and faculty reflections on the Day of Solidarity, this year’s events also focused on racial, religious and sexual identities on campus. College seniors Sarah Cheshire and Cuyler Otsuka and College sophomore Lillian White organized a project called The Oberlin History Lessons, an initiative designed to memorialize the range of voices and experiences through photographs, writing and art.

Presented just before U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey’s convocation on March 4, 2014, Cheshire explained that the project was inspired by Trethewey’s poem “History Lesson.” In one of her courses, Cheshire had fellow students “reposition themselves inside of a photo or memory that represented “home” to them, then had them think about the larger contexts informing this moment.”

“The range of voices is incredible: some are angry, some are soft, some are humorous, some are heartbreaking,” said Cheshire. “Some are two sentences long, others are five pages long. I see the display as a whole as a kind of map, demonstrating the uniqueness of the histories that each of us carry into this space, while identifying each history as distinct, yet rooted and relational.”

College sophomore Sophie Weinstein, a member of J Street U, facilitated a panel on March 5 titled, ‘Navigating Jewish Identity at Oberlin,’ which explored anti-Semitism, the role of Judaism in student life and Zionism.

“The goal of the panel was to explore how five different students have navigated and are navigating their Jewish identity here at Oberlin,” Weinstein said. “The See Administration, page 14

Feature Photo: Students Rally for Farmworkers March 14, 2014 Oberlin students picketed a Wendy’s in Columbus on March 9, joining a Florida worker’s union in a march for farmworker justice.

Protestors attempted to pressure Wendy’s into signing Coalition of Immokalee Workers Fair Food Agreement, legislation that both guarantees farmers a penny per bushel and ensures that there is a flat top on tomato buckets that are distributed.

According to College junior Zachery Crowell, this piece of legislation certifies that farmworkers are not over-picking or underpaid.

“It ensures farmworkers aren’t exploited in the work that they do,” Crowell said.

“It ensures farmworkers have a stake in the work that they do and the companies they work for. It puts a face to the people who are at the bottom of the chain of production. It ensures [they] are really given fair pay and can survive off the work they do.”

According to Western Farm Press, the majority of each year’s tomato harvest is shipped to fast food chains. In the past, the economic exploitation and inhospitable working conditions of farm workers have gone unnoticed by the public. Although the majority of farmers have lived in poverty for the past several decades, it wasn’t until the late ’90s that this issue sparked national attention.

“Of how clear cut it was, you can very tangibly see the benefit of working on the cause. It’s part of a larger movement to build worker power and have more workplace solidarity,” said Crowell.

College senior Jesse Vogel forged the relationship with the coalition to campus as part of the Student-Farmworker Alliance in 2009. The coalition was founded to fight for better working conditions for farmers, specifically those involved in tomato picking.

The march in Columbus was one of the first events for which Oberlin students were specifically asked to participate. Through its grassroots organizing, the CIWFFA has been able to attract Oberlin students to its cause.

“I think it’s really important because it was started by the people who are most affected,” said College senior Maggie Heraty. “These are all farmworkers who did their own grassroots organizing; they have asked for support from many college students, and I thought that call to action was really incredible.”

The March in Columbus was one of the movement’s most successful efforts.

Several major corporations signed onto the CIW Fair Food Agreement, joining the ranks of McDonald’s, Taco Bell and even Wal-Mart.

Photo courtesy of Margaret Heraty

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

News

Page 11

activism

Senate Works to Change Student Health Stigma Continued from page 5

School to try and set up a satellite course that would give students a national registry certification to practice as an EMT. Any state that accepts national EMT certification will [allow them to practice as an EMT], so not only could they practice in Ohio, but they could practice [in most of the country],” Arden explained.

Arden said he also hopes to found a student-run EMT

Oberlin’s current student body includes a number of already-certified EMTs, and Arden hopes to put together a from Mercy Allen Hospital, and is relatively far from central group of 15 or more of these students to form an on-call campus. campus cohort that would function in a similar way to othIn previous years, Student Health was located in Peters er organizations, such as the HIV Peer Testers.

Hall, a more central, accessible space, according to Bergen.

The ability of senators to effectively lobby for these When the Counseling Center relocated to its current buildchanges is partially contingent on responses to the student ing, the administration immediately encountered criticism referendum, overseen by Senate Associate Liaison Wallace. about the distance, particularly in light of Oberlin’s notori- –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– In addition to her regular responsibilities — such as keepously harsh winters and icy roads. Students argued that deing the campus updated on Senate’s progress on key issues pressed peers struggle to wake up in the morning, let alone I know friends who have said ‘I’m having a and their vision for future reform — Wallace will gather really bad day; I’m potentially in a crisis situtravel long distances. data from referendum responses to help determine which “I know friends who have said ‘I’m having a really bad ation, but I have to decide if I’m bad enough initiatives have the most support from students. day; I’m potentially in a crisis situation, but I have to deThe latest referendum included other health-related that I’ll walk all the way there, sit there and cide if I’m bad enough that I’ll walk all the way there, sit questions, such as student opinion on the proposed tobacwalk back.’ there, wait and walk back,’” Bergen said. co ban, which, according to Wallace, will influence the SenFor his part, Arden has been pushing for reforms to ate’s decision to either endorse or oppose a policy change. promote physical health and wellness on campus. The two- John Bergen Smallens noted that gaining steam on any of the initiatives Graduating College junior term senator ran on a platform that emphasized the imporwill require heightened pressure on College administrators. tance of improving health services on campus and is cur- –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– “There needs to be pressure on the administration rently spearheading an effort to add an Emergency Medical from the student body,” Smallens said. “We need a student Technician course to the College’s offerings. service on campus. movement saying we want this to happen, in that case if He said that one of the reasons he believes an EMT pro“They’d be able to respond quickly and provide care for the administration failed to meet the demands of the stugram is so essential is that it provides an alternative for free. And they’d be able to understand Oberlin values and dents they’d be held accountable for that. As students if we students who don’t want to or are not able to afford to culture, as well as just have a sensitivity that goes along go to the administration and take our anger and displeamove on to grad school after graduation. with being a student caring for a fellow student. I think sure and try to engage in a productive dialogue [we’ll see “I’m working with Lorain [County Joint] Vocational that’s tremendously efficient,” Arden said. a response.]”

Off the Cuff: Kelly Brown-Douglas, priest and womanist scholar [I asked myself ], ‘How do you reconcile this notion of a God that loves everybody with one’s own understanding of what it feels like to be on the outside?’

Just bringing all those things together.

You wrote a book titled Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective. How would you classify or distinguish a “womanist” perspective? How does that differ from a feminist perspective?

Yes, it does differ. The term “womanist” was coined by Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist of The Color Purple. She did a book of prose, and she called it a womanist prose, and in 1982-83 this book came out called In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: A Kelly Brown Douglas, professor of religion at Womanist Prose … and on the inside Goucher College, gave a lecture on sexuality in flap of this book she has this fourthe black church on Sunday, October 6th. part definition of womanist, and she says that a womanist is a feminist of Oct. 11, 2013 color. She coins it from the term in the African-American community, “you’re Kelly Brown Douglas is a priest and a acting womanish” — which is serious, professor of religion at Goucher College. in charge, not girlish, not frivolous.

She specializes in womanist theology When that definition emerged, it took and the black church. She spoke with the off. Black women began to pick that Review about her faith, Alice Walker and definition up, relate to that definition. communities of support.

It says [that] a womanist is for survival.

And so it provided black women with How did you first become ac- this space to be black and female — for quainted with theology, sexuality and our entire community, for our own freethe black church? What specifically dom as well as the freedom of our sons attracted you to this field of study? and our husbands and our brothers to There are two sorts of prongs [to] have both this sort of feminist analysis that. One, being aware, even [while] as well as this race analysis. Early femigrowing up, of who I was as a black nist movements — and some feminist person in a society that was very rac- movements still do — ignored issues of ist [and] segregated, in which being a race. It helps to identify black women’s black body meant that you were a mar- struggle. ginalized, oppressed body. Having that sensibility of what it meant to be differYou are both a priest and an acaent, what it meant to be marginalized. I demic. Has this been a complicated didn’t grow up as meeting certain gen- or difficult balance? How does your der stereotypes — that is, I liked sports faith complicate your work as an acaand all of that, which of course then demic and vice versa, if at all? [said] to me that I never wanted to treat It [hasn’t] been a complicated balanyone else in such a way that they felt ance for me, maybe because I’m in the like an outsider. Just having this notion Episcopal Church. Theology is about that God loves everybody. As I grew up faith and understanding, how we un-

derstand the faith claims that we make.

If we say that God is love, we say that God is justice, we say that God is all of this, how do we understand the meaning of that in a world that is unjust, unloving etc., etc.? Those questions emerged from the Church. So for me, as a theologian, you always have to be a part of a community of faith. And so, I see no other place to be but in the Church. Now what you’re getting at is that sometimes people say — particularly in the black faith tradition –– all of that study and intellectual stuff, you take my Jesus and you take my God. There’s this conflict. In my own personal church I have not had to experience this conflict. One thing I always say is that any faith worth having is a faith worth examining. And I often say to people, if [the Bible] is so sacred as you say it is then you need to study it as you would a text that is not so sacred.

If what I’m saying doesn’t ring true to the people who sit in the pews, then I will say things that challenge them, but at least I have to be raising questions that make sense to the life they live. The harder issue for me is trying to raise the issue of sexuality in the black church.

How can the Church be more inclusive? How can the highly institutionalized, traditionalist nature of religion accommodate the more unconventional — more specifically, queer-identifying persons?

It needs to be called back to its own center. And that’s the job of the theologian. The job of the theologian is a selftest of the church. Are you living into your faith? And for the Christian church, that’s a critical question because who is this center of your church? This incarnate, this sensuous, sexual God. For me, it’s about calling the church back to its radical center.

On a more personal level, how do you maintain your faith in religion during times of frustration? As in, how do you tolerate churchgoers and

members who want to deny religious access to queer people?

Good question. They don’t shape my belief. I don’t want to say this in a dogmatic way, because there’s always room to learn, but I always say to myself: [If ] I’m going to err, then I want to err on the side of inclusion, not exclusion. Maybe I don’t have all the answers –– I don’t. Maybe I’m wrong on this.

So here’s what we’re going to do, I say: We’re going to include. Everybody, until I can be shown otherwise, that has breath is a child of God. Period. When people act otherwise, that doesn’t shake the foundation of my faith. What it does is it challenges me. Yes, sometimes I’m dispirited. But what it does is it energizes me. What is the window into the black church? How can I break open this discourse? How can I help them to see? But it doesn’t shake my faith that God is a God of the oppressed and of justice.

How can women — and people of all identifications, orientations and genders — sustain or wield their sexuality in the Church and still garner respect from their peers, male or otherwise?

You have to just claim your voice.

I’ve never known a lived reality — as a black person [and] as a black woman — where I’ve not had to claim who I am in a society that opposes who I am, so you just have to find a way to claim your voice. And claim who you are and affirm who you are in a society or institution that says otherwise.

You are very vocal, strong minded and explicit in your papers. How would you advise young women who are struggling with identity politics and their faith to proceed?

Find a community of support; it’s hard to do it alone. In short, that’s what I would say.

Interview by Kate Gill, News editor Photo courtesy of Kelly Douglas

Commenceme Friday, May 23 Kickoff Dinner 7 p.m.

Wilder Bowl, Big Tent Tickets required.

Saturday, May 24

Class of 1964 Reunion Dinner 7 p.m.

Carnegie Building, Root Room Tickets required.

Cinema Studies Screening: The Best Student Films of the Year 8 p.m.

Apollo Theatre, Burrows Theatre

Half-Century Club Reception and Dinner 5 p.m.

John Heisman Field House Tickets required.

Latino/a Graduate and Family Reception and Dinner 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Price House, Lounge

Children’s Pizza Dinner and Movies 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Wilder Hall, Rooms 109 and 110 Tickets required.

Class of 1989 Reception and Dinner 5:30 p.m.

Stevenson Hall, Longman Commons Tickets required.

Asian/Pacific Island Graduates and Family Appreciation Reception 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Price Hall, Lounge

Black Parents and Family Appreciation Dinner 5:30 p.m.

Afrikan Heritage House

Children’s Pizza Dinner and Movies 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Wilder Hall, Rooms 109 and 110 Tickets required.

Classes of 1973, 1974, 1975 Reception and Dinner on the Patio 6:30 p.m.

Mudd Center, Patio Tickets required.

Grand Piano Extravaganza 8:30 p.m.

Warner Concert Hall Tickets required.

Organ Pump: Late Night Music and Antics 11 p.m.

Finney Chapel

Phi Beta Kappa Initiation Ceremony and Reception 4 to 5 p.m.

Science Center, Perlik Commons

Classes of 2008, 2009, 2010 Pizza Party 6 p.m.

Lawn between Langston and Burton Halls Tickets required.

Oberlin Baroque Ensemble 5 p.m.

Fairchild Chapel, Bosworth Hall

Class of 1989 Brunch 10 a.m.

President’s House, 154 Forest St. Tickets required.

And What!? and Koreo Dance Performance 4 p.m.

Warner Center, Main Space Tickets required.

Classes of 1993, 1994, 1995 Reception and Dinner on the Patio 6:30 p.m.

Mudd Center, Patio Tickets required.

OCircus!

4 p.m.

Hales Gym

Obe 3 p.m Tapp Band

Films from the Barnyard: A Short Program of Short Silent Films 8 p.m.

Apollo Theatre, Burrows Theatre Encore performance 9:30 p.m.

Tickets required.

Oberlin College Taiko 3 p.m.

Tappan Square, Clark Bandstand

Mellon (MMUF), McNair, BP and Science Scholars and Oberlin College Research Fellows (OCRF) Dessert Open House 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Peters Hall, Kluznick Commons

Conservatory Reception 3:30 p.m.

Kohl Plaza

Clas Lun 12:30 Mud Tick

Black Parents and Fam Appreciation Ceremony 3 p.m.

Warner Concert Hall

Social on the Square 7 to 10 p.m.

Tappan Square

P 8 Fi Ti

ncement 2014 Saturday, May 24

ganza

Organ Pump: Late Night Music and Antics 11 p.m.

Finney Chapel

nitiation eception

And What!? and Koreo Dance Performance 4 p.m.

Warner Center, Main Space Tickets required.

rlik

10

and

Class of 1989 Brunch 10 a.m.

President’s House, 154 Forest St. Tickets required.

Classes of 1993, 1994, 1995 Reception and Dinner on the Patio 6:30 p.m.

Mudd Center, Patio Tickets required.

Conservatory Reception 3:30 p.m.

Kohl Plaza

Class of 1964 Box Lunch 12:30 p.m.

Mudd Center, Patio Tickets required.

Graduating Seniors’ Art Exhibition and Student Art Show 1 to 5 p.m.

Richard D. Baron ’64 Gallery, Suite 5

Oberlin College Taiko 3 p.m.

Tappan Square, Clark Bandstand

Oberlin Swimming and Diving Alumni Gathering 2 to 5 p.m.

The ’Sco, Wilder Hall

Oberlin Lambda Alumni and Multicultural Resource Center Colloquium and Lavender Celebration 2 to 3:30 p.m.

Peters Hall, Klutznick Commons

Swing Dance, Oberlin Swing Society (OSwing) Dance 8 p.m. to 12 a.m.

Hales Gym

Acapelicans, Nothing But Treble and Obertones 10:15 p.m.

Finney Chapel Tickets required.

Films from the Barnyard: A Short Program of Short Silent Films 8 p.m.

Apollo Theatre, Burrows Theatre Encore performance 9:30 p.m.

Tickets required.

Commencement Recital Part II 8 p.m.

Finney Chapel

Commencement Recital Part I 1:30 p.m.

Finney Chapel

Sunday, May 25 OCircus!

4 p.m.

Hales Gym

Oberlin College Taiko 3 p.m.

Tappan Square, Clark Bandstand

McNair, BP and Science berlin College Research Dessert Open House

nick Commons

Black Parents and Family Appreciation Ceremony 3 p.m.

Warner Concert Hall

Graduating Seniors’ Art Exhibition 1 to 5 p.m.

Richard D. Baron ’64 Gallery, Suite 5

Champagne Luncheon for Alumni, Graduates and Families 12 p.m.

Wilder Bowl Tickets required.

Presidential Address 10:30 a.m.

Finney Chapel

Monday, May 26 Social on the Square 7 to 10 p.m.

Tappan Square

Punch Brothers Concert 8 p.m.

Finney Chapel Tickets required.

Campus Illumination and Commencement Concert 9:30 p.m.

Tappan Square

Academic Procession and Commencement Exercises 9:30 am to 12 p.m.

Tappan Square

News

Page 14

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

Students Protest Changes to Financial Aid Policy Continued from page 3 considered other policy changes made in the past decade. Several of these innovations were discussed in the meeting at the Cat in the Cream.

Under particular scrutiny is the College’s modification of its study away policy. Much like the amendments to the financial aid policy, the changes in the study away policy were formulated without student input. The past policy allowed students in approved study away programs to pay the costs of tuition, room

and board of the program, while the modified policy charges students the equivalent Oberlin tuition, in addition to room and board costs within their program. At the time, students argued that the new policy might deter low-income students from studying abroad. The College’s transition from a need-blind to a need-sensitive admissions process was also mentioned in Sunday’s meeting.

“It demonstrates their lack of true commitment for supporting [marginalized] students,” said College junior and Tank Co-op

Housing Loose Ends Coordinator Pablo Cerdera. “It would be not thinking critically to ignore the connections between all of these different types of marginalized students, and I think that these changes, as well as the lack of funding for the MRC ...

It’s interesting and telling to see where money is cut from. That really lays bare what the College values, and which students they think are important.”

Both policy changes came partly from “A Strategic Plan for Oberlin College,” a document dated March 5, 2005, whose stat-

College junior Anders Villalta addresses a crowd of students on Thursday, April 10 at one of the first “Defending Oberlin’s Financial Accessibility” protest. The protest was a response to the recent changes to the College’s financial aid policy, which the administration implemented without alerting the student body.

Kaïa Austin

ed goal is to “ensure academic, artistic, and musical excellence as well as financial sustainability in the years ahead.”

According to Dean of Studies and Vice President of Strategic Initiatives Kathryn Stuart, the financial aid policy was largely conceived from one of the plan’s financial strategies, which states that the College will “continue to reduce operating expenditures by identifying and implementing additional efficiencies throughout Oberlin’s operations in order to meet its listed financial goals.”

“The decision to apply financial aid to meet the cost of a student’s chosen housing and meal plans, rather than exceeding it, was viewed as a means of distributing the College’s resources in a fair and equitable manner,” Dean Stuart said in an email to the Review.

Another poorly received component of the plan stated that, “currently [Oberlin’s] most critical financial priority must be to realize more net tuition revenue per student and to do so in ways that honor Oberlin’s long traditions of racial and socioeconomic diversity.”

Students interpreted this statement to mean that the College prioritizes revenue over its student body.

“If this is [the] College’s most critical financial priority ... then the College might just have its priorities mixed up, and we should address that,” wrote one student in the Defending Ober-

lin Financial Accessibility Facebook group.

Currently the College is initiating another strategic planning period for this year. The administration recently proposed the framework, which will occur in the next few years. In their reso–––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“It’s interesting and telling to see where money is cut from. That really lays bare what the College values, and which students they think are important.”

Pablo Cerdera Tank Housing Loose Ends Coordinator ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– lution, student protesters mindfully included assertions regarding the upcoming plan.

In the upcoming year, students and administrators will continue to collaborate and reshape the policy.

“Many of the best approaches and ideas come from students or [collaborating] with students.

I’m open to finding the best solutions together this coming year,” Estes said. “This, of course, will require a lot of sharing of information in both directions. I know I learn a lot from students in the day-to-day, and it makes me better at my job.”

Administration Begins Implementing Student Working Group Proposals Continued from page 10 panel itself was thrown together somewhat quickly and was not meant to be representative of every Jewish experience here at Oberlin but was just about the panelists representing themselves.”

Another product of last year’s Day of Solidarity was the creation of various student-led working groups that were assembled to address issues of transparency, accessibility and institutional oppression on campus.

“A coalition of various groups on campus such as students of color, LGBTQ students and other radical groups on campus formed in response to the events last spring,” explained double-degree junior Arianna Gil. According to the proposals, over 300 students in the College and Conservatory communities took part in the initiative.

In March 2013, each working group drafted their own list of demands to present to the administration. In response to these proposals, the College has implemented several campus-wide changes, one of which was the construction of a new fitness center in the southwest basement area of South Hall.

“There were a lot of conversations last semester about mental health and wellness on campus. Exercise is a huge part of that, so [not having] any resources for [exercise] on South Campus — that’s a problem,” said College senior Toby Irving, a member of the Trainings and Workshops working group.

Another one of the more concrete proposals produced by the student work-

ing groups was the enhancement of the Multicultural Resource Center’s budget.

Alison Williams, the director of the MRC and the associate dean of academic diversity, described the budget increase as “slight” when compared to the additional strain placed on MRC resources.

“We’ve been bombarded with funding requests ... and if we keep getting them at this rate we won’t have any money by December,” she said.

The student working groups also envisioned mandatory trainings and workshops for all new students and faculty, and according to Dean Williams, the MRC is “super busy” trying to meet the demand for events that has arisen.

The administration has also promised an increased MRC presence in the Conservatory, a new position in the Conservatory for an Assistant Dean of Musicology, the creation of a website that will serve as a database of information relative to incidents on campus, an overhaul of the Cultural Diversity requirement and a new Social Justice requirement.

Eli Diop, a former student senator and College senior, has worked closely with the Training and Documentation Working Group, a committee formed to educate new professors and incoming students on identity, privilege and allyship. Although Diop admits to persistent cultural tension, she does not feel that her efforts have been fruitless.

“Something really tangible [that happened is] the Social Justice Institute now happens for professors, as well; the debut of that was in January,” Diop said.

“Instead of it happening only for fresh-

men, it is [also] open for all students. I specifically remembering listing that in the list of demands. It teaches or socializes you into ideas of social justice, it just reminds us of how to be cognizant of other identities and how we interact with other people.”

Vice President and Dean of Students Eric Estes also expressed that faculty and the administration have worked to address issues of diversity among faculty and curricula, as well as formed working groups to increase institutional accessi-

have collaborated to begin addressing these issues, which I think [has] been useful for many.”

Despite efforts to organize the week’s commemoration events and the past year’s arrangement of working groups that address issues of marginalization and privilege, many agree that these conversations are far more complex. According to Lingat, the benefits of discussion panels and workshops are limited.

“Most people may know what privilege is, but they have no idea how it functions in everyday life, and that’s almost as dan–––––––––––––––––––––––––––———— gerous as not knowing about privilege at all,” Lingat said. “People have this idea “A coalition of various groups that they’re the perfect ally when, in reon campus such as students ality, being an ally is not a static identity; it’s a kinetic relationship you have with of color, LGBTQ students and your community. Being a good ally is not other radical groups on campus being a stranger to these communities formed in response to the events of marginalized students and attending last spring.” even the unsexy event.”

Like Krislov and Estes, Acey remains Arianna Gil unsure of both the effects of the past Double-degree junior year’s endeavors and the long term ob–––––––––––––––––––––––––––———— jectives of addressing campus-wide oppression. bility for marginalized students.

“It’s hard to speak to the efficacy of “Although my title has shifted from what we’re doing because it’s hard to director of the MRC and I have a differ- identify the goals that we’re trying to ent working relationship with students, I reach,” said Acey. “Some people’s goal is work hard to be present in communities to get rid of the surface level racism. I’m like the MRC and be aware of student ex- sure some people feel content because periences,” said Estes. “But I don’t think nothing as serious as someone dressed [the community] as a whole has yet es- up in KKK regalia has happened in the tablished the long-term goals regarding last year. But my goal is to make peoallyship and privilege at Oberlin; how- ple realize that racism is institutional ever, since Day of Solidarity last spring, and that certain opinions are backed the administration, faculty and students institutionally.”

News

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

College Considers Smoke-Free Campus Continued from page 6 peers have backed the ban from the beginning.

As a member of both Student Senate and the Tobacco Subcommittee, a five year-old organization that works to address tobacco-related national trends in higher education, Makhmudov is one of the College’s strongest supporters of the ban.

“One thing that happens at every college is that people come in feeling insecure and they want to make friends, so they naturally congregate towards groups of people who are already together,” Makhmudov said. “[Smokers tend to] hang out their first year, and people trying to make friends start hanging out with them and start smoking.”

Makhmudov added that he also noticed these smoking groups during his first year, and believes getting rid of smoking would help eliminate these cliques and make students more inclusive.

According to Dean Estes, another potential upshot of the ban is the focus on education.

“The idea of a tobacco-free campus is to focus on education, outreach and supportive resources for cessation efforts,” said Estes. President Krislov added that this policy would not just be “regulation, but it’s education as well, and because we’re an educational institution, I think that’s something we focus on.”

Both the administration and Senate also said that an increase in discounted cessation products available to students would accompany the implementation of the ban.

The tobacco-ban proposal has taken different forms over the course of this year. The first concrete draft, which was created by a task force made up of students, senators, administration and community members, specified repercus s i o n s for students caught smoking

cigarettes or other tobacco products that would be more lenient than if an underage student were caught drinking.

“For the first few infractions, there’s no punitive action taken,” said Makhmudov. “Instead, you sit down with a counselor, talk about it and what kind of options are available ... basically telling people it’s not bad, but we as a campus are making a commitment to further x, y and z priorities, and so if you’d like to quit, we have these resources available.”

After approximately five infractions, the student would undergo a judicial process similar to the one typically reserved for students who violate the alcohol policy. Such a procedure most often results in students either receiving a citation from Safety and Security or paying a small fine.

Early drafts also outlined five sections that explicitly frame the terms of the potential change in policy, including the locations where smoking would be prohibited, a definition of tobacco and otherwise banned products, the prohibition of accepting money or gifts from tobacco companies by student organizations and a ban of tobacco advertisements on College grounds. Although many sections of former drafts are included in the final proposal, several of the proposals’ policies have since been amended, such as the exclusion of electronic cigarettes from the ban.

As it stands, the tobacco-free policy is nearly finalized, with only minor adjustments to the language left outstanding. The completed policy will be put to vote in the General Faculty in the fall. If passed, the administration projects that the ban will be implemented in the fall of 2016.

Additional reporting by Willa Rubin.

Security Report 2013-14: By the Numbers* Thursday, Sept. 12 9:26 a.m. Officers reported an incident of vandalism at Fred Shults Field. A six-byfour foot piece of sod was pulled up on the northeast corner. Several empty beer cans were also found.

Sunday, Sept. 15 9:17 p.m. A staff member reported that a prospective student was injured while playing pool at Kahn Hall. The individual accidentally hit himself in the mouth with a pool stick, chipping his tooth. The individual declined medical assistance at the time.

Tuesday, Sept. 17 10:43 a.m. A grounds staff member reported the American flag missing from Tappan Square. A multicolored flannel shirt was also found covering the light that shines on the flag at night. The grounds crew replaced the flag.

Thursday, Sept. 19 2:27 p.m. Staff at Philips gym reported a missing folding chair from an office on the first floor. It is a black padded chair reportedly valued at $125 with red and yellow lettering on the seat and back.

“Substances consistent with marijuana”

12

Parties shut down

Instances of vandalism

25

28

26

Intoxicated students

* These totals are taken from consolidated reports, and therefore the actual number of instances may be higher.

Friday, Sept. 20

Page 15

Oberlin Inn Goes Green Continued from page 9 According to Orr, the project will both meet the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Platinum rating and be water and heat efficient. Such sustainable assets are a product of the project’s affiliation with the Oberlin Project, an initiative led by the city, College, and several private institutional partners. The town’s increase in local businesses paired with the green projects is the start of what Orr hopes will be a citywide change to better Oberlin as a whole.

The Oberlin Project, which assisted the city in it’s recent designation as the first North American City to become a Climate Positive Participant, was founded by Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics and Special Assistant to the President of Oberlin College David Orr to help the city reach its goal of full-spectrum sustainability.

“The Oberlin Project is helping to implement strategies focused on areas where we have some leverage, such as food and housing,” said David Gard, executive director of the Oberlin Project.

The project is funded by a number of non-profit foundations dedicated to environmentalism, such as the Kresge Fund, the Joyce Foundation, the Gund Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation. The project is specifically involved with the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, which provides it with resources such as informative webinars, conference calls and connections to other cities attempting to reduce their own environmental impact.

As a direct extension of this relationship, representatives from ProjectZero in Sonderborg, Denmark, visited Oberlin earlier this month in order to share their own experiences as Climate Positive Participants. During the meeting, the representatives told students and faculty what practices and initiatives have worked for them and how they can learn from each other’s experience to reach their goals in the most efficient way possible.

Despite the support that it has received along the way, the sustainability initiative is still expected to encounter several obstacles. “People are naturally wired for short-term thinking,” Gard said. “We pay most attention to what’s right in front of us and tend to neglect longer-term, important issues.”

As of now, the College is set to reduce its emissions of carbon and similar greenhouse gases to approximately 7,000 metric tons by 2025, though it has pledged to reduce emissions to zero.

This shortcoming is due in part to the College’s decision not to invest in global projects using existing voluntary carbon markets. “[The College wants to] keep sustainability investments within the greater Oberlin community,” said Tani Colbert-Sangree, OC ’13, and carbon management fellow of the Carbon Management Fund.

With the assistance of these developments, the City of Oberlin will be able to reduce its emissions by 50 percent of 2007 levels by 2015, with 90 percent of its electricity coming from renewable resources.

juana while looking through their room closet. The marijuana was turned over to the Oberlin Police Department.

Friday, Oct. 4 8:40 p.m. Officers were requested to assist a student at Dascomb Hall, who, after smoking marijuana, fell and bloodied his nose. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

Friday, Jan. 31 10:45 a.m. Student Union staff members in Wilder Hall reported a four-by-two foot circular table missing from the ’Sco. The Oberlin Police Department was notified of the theft of the table, which is valued at approximately $500.

Sunday, Feb. 2

8:34 p.m. A resident of Firelands Apartments reported witnessing numerous flies emerge from the exhaust fan above the stove in his apartment. A maintenance technician and plumber responded and all gas lines were checked. No leaks were located.

3:12 a.m. A resident of Langston Hall reported that an unknown white substance was sprayed into her open window. Officers responded and determined that a fire extinguisher had been discharged. Discharged fire extinguishers were also found in Burton Hall and the south exterior of Langston Hall.

A work order was filed for replacements.

Sunday, Sept. 29

Friday, Feb. 21

11:36 p.m. Residents of Barrows Hall reported finding a small baggy containing a green leafy substance consistent with mari-

11:59 p.m. A resident of Harvey House reported a possible party on the second floor and that she had observed several

students urinating on the outside of the building. When officers arrived, they observed several students exiting the building. The building was checked and found to be party-free.

Tuesday, March 11 5:23 p.m. Officers responded to reports

by ResEd staff of suspected contraband or violations of housing regulations during Life Safety Inspections. A small marijuana plant, a Daisy Red Ryder BB Gun and a 10inch chef ’s knife were confiscated in Afrikan Heritage House. The owners were contacted and a report was filed for judicial review.

Saturday, March 29 10:44 p.m. A resident of East Hall reported an individual urinating on a room door on the first floor of East Hall. Officers responded and also observed vomit in the hallway. Noise could be heard from a nearby room, and contact was made with the occupants. All denied involvement in the complaint. An empty one-gallon bottle of vodka was observed in plain view and disposed of.

Custodial staff responded for clean up.

Friday, April 11 2:56 p.m. A student reported that he lost his wallet and a practice room key while on spring break in Georgia.

Opinions

Page 16

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

domestic politics

Gun Violence Solution Requires Assertive Leadership Sam White Columnist Sept. 20, 2013 We need to rewrite our gun laws, and we need to do it now.

Yes, here it is: another angry opinion piece from another selfrighteous college kid following another mass shooting, amid yet another wave of the same type of reactions to which we have become so accustomed. There will be the Democrats, calling for “common-sense gun control” and “improved background checks” and “laws that keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous individuals.”

There will be the Republicans, warning against knee-jerk reactions and infringement of Second Amendment rights, insisting: “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” And so it continues. Columbine. Virginia Tech. Aurora. Oak Creek. Newtown. The Navy Yard. The mediaoverlooked mass shooting at this spring’s Mother’s Day parade in New Orleans. Trayvon Martin.

The thousand victims of firearminvolving domestic violence reported each year. The near-daily gun murders in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland.

None of these shootings are the middle of [the gun] debate” anomalies, and they are all pre- in August when pro-gun activists ventable tragedies. Whatever attempted to hold a demonstrawe may choose to see, the re- tion — guns, again, in holsters ality is grave: Firearm-related — inside a store branch in Newdeath rates in the United States town, CT, the still-grieving home far surpass those of any other of last year’s horrific elementary advanced democracy. The gun- school shooting. related homicide rate in the U.S. And, of course, the national is, for instance, a full 90 times rhetoric has resurged once again greater than that of the United following the mass shooting in Kingdom — a country where, Washington, D.C. in September, with few exceptions, police offi- ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– cers do not even carry firearms.

It’s been a big week for the None of these shootgun debate in the U.S. on all ings are anomalies, and sides and in many different they are all preventable spheres. Here in Oberlin on Sept. 16, open-carry advocates tragedies.

— guns holstered at their sides –––––––––––––––––––––——— — picnicked with their families in Park Street Park, demonstrat- where a 34-year-old Navy vetering against a city ordinance pre- an with a history of violence and venting the carrying of firearms escalating mental health issues in parks and other public areas. killed 12 people inside a secured Oberlin’s City Council, which for Naval facility with a shotgun years stood defiant against pro- he had purchased legally just gun state laws, reluctantly over- two days previously. Sadly and turned the ban on Sept. 4. predictably, the cries for action In the corporate realm, Star- from President Obama’s grassbucks CEO Howard Schultz pub- roots organization and other lished an open letter on Sept. 19 left-leaning political action requesting that customers re- committees sound the same as frain from bringing firearms into ever. the company’s stores. The cofThe rhetoric on both sides fee mega-chain was, in Schultz’s defies not just common sense, words, “thrust unwillingly into but reality. The U.S. sees gun vio-

Recent Economic Growth Benefits Solely the Rich Oliver Bok Contributing Writer Feb. 14, 2014 The phrase “income inequality” is the spittle on every pundit’s lip. Left-leaning pundits like to use this issue as a cudgel with which to beat Republicans but fall far short of proposing policies that would actually help, such as a universal basic income. Right-leaning pundits continue to try to obfuscate the issue; The Wall Street Journal had to issue a retraction after editor Bret Stephens used non-inflationadjusted figures to try to prove that poor and middle-class Americans have gotten significantly richer over the last 40 years despite rising inequality.

In reality, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, incomes for the bottom 25 percent declined by 2.6 percent in real terms, and income for the middle class (in the 50 percent to 75 percent range) increased by only 5.7 percent in real terms from 1979 to 2012. The top 25 percent increased their incomes by 42 percent in real terms, with staggering increases in the top 1 percent accounting for much of that growth. For the last three decades, most Americans have been treading water while the top 1 percent swim away in an Olympic-worthy freestyle.

Stephens, in another misleading article, recently wrote that “inequality should only matter to Americans if, Russia-like, the rich are getting richer at the expense of the poor.” I agree with him — and I think it’s quite apparent that the rich are getting richer at the expense of the poor.

Before the 1970s, wages rose with productivity. Since 1970, wages have stagnated while productivity has continued to increase. The result? Corporate profits are at record highs. If industries are producing twice as much as they did in the ’70s

but only paying their workers slightly more in real terms, it’s obvious that the result will be massive profits for the owners and shareholders.

It may be an awful economy for employees, but not for employers. Desperate workers are good for business. Why raise wages in an economy when being employed at all is considered a blessing? Why create jobs when you can raise performance standards and squeeze more wealth out of your existing employees instead?

The current state of affairs is a stunning refutation of supply-side economics.

The conventional wisdom in American politics is that if businesses thrive, the country thrives. For both political parties, it’s gospel truth that “what’s good for General Motors is good for America.”

But what’s actually happening in the real world is that the workers are getting screwed and the owners are getting off. If you live on a salary, you live in a depressed economy. If you live on dividends or stock options, you’re in the middle of one of the biggest booms in history. These two facts do not exist independently of one another, and the former has largely caused the latter. Labor costs are low, so profits are high.

The U.S.’s GDP is growing at a healthy clip — employment, not so much. One of President Obama’s signature initiatives proposed in the State of the Union is to convene a conference of CEOs at the White House to create more jobs. The President is going to beg business leaders to hire people instead of hoarding money and paying dividends to investors. Spoiler alert: It’s not going to work!

The economic pie is growing, all right, but all of that growth is getting devoured by a gaggle of greedy gluttons. It’s been this way for 30 years, and it’s past time we did something about it.

lence at rates on par with countries that lack functional bureaucracies, yet our police forces and regulatory institutions are, for the most part, strong. Surely bolstering these bureaucratic structures — whether by instituting more regulatory systems, by increasing security presence or by arming more officials (such as teachers) — would fail to treat the issue at its roots. And if it were true that only people, not guns, killed people, then countries like the United Kingdom would have similar homicide rates to the U.S. Such is the gridlock: Red and Blue both think that the other side is wrong, and thus neither side sees their ideas become reality. Yet change, and safety from gun violence, is in the best interest of everyone. The Navy Yard shooting proved — as did every shooting preceding it — that the time for this change is now, and, as ever, we aren’t seeing it.

There is no excuse for this.

There is, however, a reason: lobbying money. This year alone, the National Rifle Association, the National Association for Gun Rights and other pro-gun groups have channeled close to $9 million into pushing federal officials to block gun control

measures. Their opponents, by contrast, have spent just under $1 million.

There are many possible ways to reverse the tide of gun violence in the U.S. Most lie outside the realm of what’s been proposed here. But we can and must learn from our neighbors around the world. As BritishAmerican satirist John Oliver detailed on The Daily Show this spring, Australia — itself once a nation plagued by gun violence and mass shootings — found one such way: In 1996, its thenconservative government enforced a compulsory buyback of several kinds of high-capacity firearms, including pumpaction shotguns like the one used in the Navy Yard shooting.

And, as Oliver made very clear, in Australia — a nation whose sociopolitical history is not dissimilar to our own — the effects of this buyback were overwhelmingly positive.

Comparable change in America will require exactly what it did in Australia: strong, courageous leadership in the face of fierce opposition.

Surely, the United States, a nation that deems itself “exceptional,” can deliver this leadership, can’t it?

Letter to the Editors

Hobby Lobby Case Threatens Healthcare Access April 4, 2014 To the Editor:

On March 25, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a case challenging the Patient Production and Affordable Care Act’s provision that employers provide preventive healthcare at no cost to their employees. The independent Institute of Medicine has recommended that preventive care include FDA-approved prescription contraception.

As a private sector company, Hobby Lobby is required to provide contraceptive coverage to its employees. This lawsuit is an attempt by a for-profit company to deny vital healthcare to its employees based on the religious convictions of its stakeholders. Contraceptive care is a critical component of preventive healthcare, and it is imperative that it is provided to employees with no co-pays to remain accessible to everyone, regardless of their place of employment.

This is not an issue of religious liberty. Exemptions for churches, religious schools and religious nonprofit organizations are already in place. Religious liberty is one of the core values of our country, but freedom of religion is not simply the freedom to believe what you want; it protects the freedom from the imposition of others’ religious beliefs and ideals.

The right to practice religion freely does not include the right to make birth control decisions for employees. Individuals have consciences, morality and religious beliefs; businesses do not. Businesses must obey the law.

This is an issue of employee rights. For a low-wage worker, the cost of birth control can be a serious burden. Whether it is used for family planning or for another medical reason, bosses should have no say over the medication provided to their employees. Da-

vid Green, the CEO of Hobby Lobby, may be able to afford extra out-of-pocket healthcare expenses, but many of his employees, like low-wage workers and cashiers, are unable to supplement their healthcare costs.

A Supreme Court ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby and against the provision could have far-reaching and dangerous implications. Allowing employers to deny health coverage for non-health-related reasons sets a potentially catastrophic precedent. Employees could be denied access to blood transfusions, organ transplants, vaccines and other life-saving healthcare.

Students United for Reproductive Freedom is extremely concerned about the potential consequences of this case. As college students, we are the next generation to enter the workforce, and we deserve to have access to contraception regardless of our place of employment. We should not have to choose where to work based on whether our boss will support our health needs. We should not have to pay extra for critical healthcare because of our employers’ personal preferences.

Ninety-nine percent of women will use contraception at some time in their lives for family planning or other health reasons. It’s offensive that a boss thinks it is OK to make these choices for their employees. This claim is out of touch with what the majority of Americans believe with regard to birth control, and it is out of the bounds of acceptable behavior for bosses.

This is an issue that affects the majority of Americans, especially young people. Oberlin students should be outraged that their healthcare needs are in jeopardy because of the religious convictions of a few individuals.

This Supreme Court case has the potential to severely set back the achievements of the Affordable Care Act and movements in support of the right to contraception and critical preventive healthcare.

–Hazel Crampton-Hays, Sasha Solov Students United for Reproductive Freedom

Opinions

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

Page 17

smoking ban

Smoke-Free Policy Infringes Campus Tobacco-Free on Students’ Right to Choose Policy Protects Rights Alexander Ekman Contributing Writer May 2, 2014 At the end of last semester, I started noticing posters in more and more parts of campus. They were full-color photos of Rick Santorum at a podium labeled “NO SMOKING” with no other text. As the posters multiplied, my friends and I spent some time trying to figure out what they meant. The argument seemed to be that the anti-tobacco policy movement has rationale in common with the pro-choice movement: Mandating whether or not people can smoke is wrong for the same reasons that restrictions on reproductive freedom are.

Anti-choice legislation and anti-smoking policies do have something in common; they are both restrictions on what someone can do with their body. But there is a crucial difference. The debate over whether abortion should be legal is centered on whether or not fetuses deserve the same rights as living human beings. When it comes to smoking, the same issues are not up for debate; people affected by secondhand smoke are manifestly people.

In theory, the policy the College has right now accounts for that by partitioning smokers away from where secondhand smoke will filter into buildings or places in which people congregate. But in practice, it’s not working. Even if the policy were perfectly implemented, I’ve never talked to someone who knows how far 30 feet is off the top of their head. I’ve never seen a smoker that far from a building, either.

Of course, this is anecdotal. Maybe I just have bad luck — the clusters of people smoking outside of King before class; the time I walked home to find a handful of people sitting on the steps of my dorm smoking; the people who, when the rules were pointed out to them, moved 10 feet away and then stopped.

The tobacco-free campus policy goes much further than that.

The Office of Student Wellness isn’t exactly being subtle on its official website about its hope that the new policy will convince people to quit smoking. But keeping people from smoking anywhere on campus is both impractical and unreasonable. Smoking is an addiction, and

forcing people to quit, at least to me, is a step too far. In that sense, the comparison between the policy and Santorum is sound; attempting to force people to quit smoking against their will is an incursion on their rights by the College.

But a central tenet of the pro-choice movement can be summarized as follows, courtesy of an unknown author: “Your rights end where my body begins.”

This could look like it means preventing people from smoking is an infringement of their rights. But as long as smoking means exhaling more than water vapor, anyone who does it is endangering my life. As long as secondhand smoke is an issue, the choice to smoke around others isn’t only an exercise of the right to decide what to do with one’s own body, it’s also a decision that inhibits the people around the smoker from making that same choice.

I’m an extreme example, since most people don’t have severe respiratory illnesses. But if someone’s actions are crossing the boundary of only affecting them when they smoke near me, that is true for anyone. Where their right to choose what to do with their bodies, or mine, ends can’t be different on a case-by-case basis.

The consequences for me are clearer, but everyone’s rights are — need to be — the same.

My reasons here are perfectly selfish and obviously emotionally motivated, and that shouldn’t be bad. Claiming to make an argument entirely unaffected by personal experience and emotional involvement is dishonest. Of course I care about something that affects me personally, for the same reason that smokers care about it.

I think the smoke-free campus policy is going to backfire due to being overkill, and I don’t know if it can be fixed. The role of the College can’t be to violate anyone’s ability to choose what to do with their bodies — that’s exactly as inappropriate as it sounds. However, that doesn’t just mean letting smokers choose whether or not to kick the habit. It also means ensuring that their decisions don’t keep other people from being able to make their own choices. As of right now, I know our current policy isn’t enough. My safety depends on other people’s choices, and judging by how that’s gone so far, this is not something I can afford any more.

Machmud Makhmudov Columnist May 9, 2014 On April 27, Student Senate passed a resolution endorsing the adoption of a tobacco-free campus policy that includes provisions such as the exclusion of Tappan Square from the ban and allowing the use of e-cigarettes in outdoor spaces.

This event serves as a benchmark for — though certainly not the culmination of — a campus-wide conversation that has been ongoing for seven years but was amplified significantly this year.

Though Student Senate and the Tobacco Subcommittee of the Office of Student Wellness have worked hard to promote dialogue about the policy this year, confusion still exists within the campus community with regard to the motivations and implications of the policy.

An op-ed letter in last week’s copy of the Review, penned by College first-year Alexander Ekman, articulates many of the misperceptions surrounding the proposed policy (“Smoke-Free Policy Infringes on Students’ Right to Choose,” May 2, 2014). For the purpose of full disclosure, I am a member of Student Senate and the Tobacco Subcommittee.

Ekman makes reference to posters placed around campus last semester by the Oberlin College Republicans and Libertarians that featured Rick Santorum, among other figures.

The posters implied that a tobaccofree policy would infringe on an individual’s right to choose, drawing a direct comparison to a woman’s right to choose with regard to issues of personal health. Not only is this comparison unwarranted, the charge that the proposed policy would limit individual rights is simply untrue.

In fact, the proposed policy protects and expands upon individual rights.

The proposed policy does not compel students, faculty or staff to quit smoking. Instead, it limits the areas in which tobacco use is permitted in order to protect the individual right to living, working and learning in a healthy environment.

Ekman mentions that several members of the Oberlin community suffer from health conditions that become exacerbated due to the ample amount of secondhand smoke on campus. I have seen

friends and others have asthma attacks right in front of me because of secondhand smoke on campus. Why aren’t the rights of these students, faculty and staff considered when groups or individuals on campus advocate for freedom and individual rights?

Oberlin has a history of affirming liberty by recognizing the importance of individual rights. At the same time, our character speaks to the truth that while we must fight tooth and nail to protect those rights, we must also never forget that we also have a collective responsibility to serve and strengthen our com–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Oberlin has a history of affirming liberty by recognizing the importance of individual rights.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– munities. This means ensuring that everybody has the opportunity to live, work and study in a healthy environment where secondhand smoke and its affiliated negative side effects are avoidable.

I am proud of the resolution that Student Senate passed because it specifically sets aside Tappan Square as a zone where the tobacco-free policy would not be implemented. The exemption was drafted with consideration of the policy’s potential effects on the town of Oberlin and its citizens, as well as the need for a convenient space where anybody could smoke if they so choose.

This compromise is the result of a fruitful conversation that occurred between the subcommittee, students, community members, faculty and staff this year. The collaborative effort has yielded a policy that was inclusive in its formation and is considerate of all members of the campus and town community in its current form. As I have written before, there isn’t another school in the world like Oberlin.

As I finish my second year here, I have thought a lot about how the decisions that we continuously make affirm our identities as both individuals and a community.

Oberlin, more than any other institution I’ve ever encountered, is very conscious of how the choices that we make echo down the hallways of history.

Letter to the editors: Proposed Smoking Ban

Considerations in the Smoking Ban Discussion March 11, 2014 To the Editor:

Though I smoke, I do not condone smoking. Its lethality is an established fact. The tobacco industry works hard to promote smoking in spite of that fact. That is reprehensible.

Nevertheless, I find Allison O’Donnell’s and some others’ arguments for a campus ban troubling and unpersuasive.

First, not every issue that disproportionately affects vulnerable groups is an issue of social justice. No one on campus has

argued persuasively that smoking is such an issue because they have not answered the basic question: What is unjust about the tobacco industry’s promotion of it, and what is the responsibility of the College to address that injustice?

Social justice claims are powerful rallying cries, and to make them indiscriminately undermines the promotion of social justice. If we want to be leaders in this area, we must lead responsibly.

Second, as far as I know, we have no systematic evidence that campus smoking bans actually work, and there is reason to believe that they might create other problems. In Canada, for instance, every time the government has raised taxes to

curb smoking, smuggling has increased.

I have heard that the University of Michigan’s ban has been largely successful at eliminating smoking on campus.

But just because we do not see it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening, and it may be happening in dangerous ways. Smoking is not only a health hazard but a potential fire hazard. If the ban pushes smoking underground, one obvious place for it to go is into the dorms. Smoke detectors are frighteningly easy to disable.

Finally, there is an issue about the role of the College in the lives of students. There has been a lot of concern lately about “helicopter parenting,” the over-involvement of par-

ents that shelters their children from the consequences of their actions. A smoking ban sounds –––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Social justice claims are powerful rallying cries, and to make them indiscriminately undermines the promotion of social justice.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––– very much like “helicopter educating.” In the real world, students will have to make choices about whether to smoke or not.

Why should they not have to make such choices here?

I fully endorse the harm-reduction element of the College’s

approach: increasing access to resources for smoking cessation. We might also consider increasing the number of smokefree zones without banning smoking altogether.

Harm reduction has proven very effective in combating the use of other dangerous substances, and it might work for smoking, too.

None of what I have said is an argument against a smoking ban. It is a call, rather, to think through such a ban and its implications more systematically than we appear to be doing. After all, as an institution of higher education, this is what we are supposed to be promoting.

–Jade Schiff Department of Politics

Opinions

Page 18

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

Israel-Palesitine

Jews Ill-Prepared for Difficult Conversations By Birthright Yonah London Contributing Writer April 18, 2014 Polarized conversations about Israel are nothing new to me. Nevertheless, when hundreds of Jewish college students and recent college graduates return from Taglit-Birthright trips to Israel every year, I am surprised to find that their conversations about Israel are often as superficial as the ones I experienced as a kid in Jewish day school.

A few times a year, my Facebook page is crowded with pictures of college students on Birthright trips wearing RayBans, throwing up peace signs, sitting on camels and boasting of Jewish victories over the course of history. I roll my eyes. Not because it’s a bad thing to go on a fun vacation in Israel, but because programs like Birthright ignore or vastly simplify Israel’s social and political ills.

Recently, Birthright expanded its eligibility requirements, opening up the possibility for many more young Jews to take advantage of its free trips. My Facebook page again lit up with various friends’ gleeful plans to take part. I was unamused.

Birthright’s goal, according to its website, is to fulfill the “birthright of

all young Jews to be able to visit their ancestral homeland,” which the site describes as a “building block of Jewish identity.” The site also states that “the vision of Taglit-Birthright Israel is to strengthen [the] Jewish identity” of its participants.

The Birthright model would seem to make intuitive sense. Young Jews go to Israel for an “educational” experience — they hike, float about in the Dead Sea, snap some selfies and leave raving about their love for the land and their strengthened Jewish identity.

Where Birthright fails is in preparing Jewish young people for their return home, where conversations about Israel can range from nuanced calls for a twostate solution to outrage at discriminatory Israeli policies and practices and, at the extreme, call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, the return of all Palestinian refugees or a binational state.

Birthright has not prepared its alumni for these conversations. Many Jewish students returning from trips to Israel do not know how to respond to denunciations of Israel’s human rights abuses and violations of international law. All that they have been prepared to say is something along the lines of, “Israel changed my life.”

Extolling Israel’s virtues is one possible response, but it is a response that denies the realities of the human rights abuses associated with the occupation.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Where Birthright fails is in preparing Jewish young people for their return home, where conversations about Israel can range from nuanced calls for a two-state solution to outrage at discriminatory Israeli policies and practices ...

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– As far as I can tell, raving about the beauty of the Negev desert or the emotions of visiting a Jewish country that rose out of the ashes of the Holocaust hasn’t convinced any BDS advocates to start buying carbonated water dispensers or spa products produced in Jewish West Bank settlements.

To be sure, the superficial treatment of these issues is not limited to Birthright. In 2011, I participated in a fourmonth high school program in Israel organized by the Union for Reform Ju-

daism. Even that program, organized by one of the most liberal branches of Judaism, failed to delve into the details of the occupation and the conflict with the Palestinians.

Though I enjoyed the sites as much as anyone, my life-changing experience was in coming home and finally discovering the importance of pushing back when I felt my generation was being fed propaganda.

If programs such as Birthright want to cultivate an enduring Jewish connection to Israel, they should start by promoting thoughtful and critically minded dialogue rather than sending young Jewish adults back to their jobs and campuses with a fairytale narrative about Israel and its accomplishments.

Let Birthright instead create a generation of Jews who can intelligently question both Israel and its critics and advocate for peaceful solutions that ensure both Israel’s future and the human rights of all people.

Letter to the US Government Must Carefully Navigate Editors Road to a Palestine-Israel Compromise

Response to Last Week’s Critical Birthright Op-Ed April 25, 2014 To the Editor:

Yonah London’s article in the April 18 edition of the Review, “Birthright Leaves Young Jews IllEquipped to Engage in Difficult Conversations,” failed to take into consideration the wide variety of Birthright trips that exist. While it is true that some Birthright trips include little or no education about the complex issues surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, numerous other trips do.

Taglit-Birthright is an umbrella organization that contracts with many different providers to plan, organize and staff its tours, which means that the content of any two Birthright trips can vary widely.

For example, Oberlin Hillel’s Birthright trip, which takes place every other year during Winter Term, includes multiple educational sessions before and after the trip. These sessions involve indepth discussions of Israel-related issues and are partially led by J Street U. On this year’s Oberlin Birthright trip itself, the tour guide discussed wide-ranging issues including the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Bedouin rights in Israel, religious pluralism in the country and the legal status of the occupied territories. Nor is Oberlin alone: Many other schools and groups hosting Birthright trips also work with J Street to prepare their participants for the experience and for returning to campus with a nuanced understanding of the country and its complexities.

Taglit-Birthright is an organization whose goal is, as London stated, to enhance its participants’ Jewish identities. It does not claim to have an educational or an advocacy goal, as London seems to desire. So while it is unfortunate that many participants feel unprepared to engage in Israel-related dialogue upon their return, this is by no means universally true.

Sincerely, –Hannah Seidel OC ’13, Junior Jewish Student Life Coordinator

Sarah Minion Contributing Writer May 9, 2014 The past few weeks have demonstrated what seems to be just the latest episode in a history of failed negotiations. We thought this time was different; we thought we finally had leaders who were committed to being partners for peace, and with hope, we looked to Secretary of State John Kerry to bring us an outcome different from that of previous peace talks.

Yet, in light of a formal end to a nine-month negotiation period which brought no progress, it is clear that there still is not enough pressure on the parties to make peace. Americans had an historic opportunity to end a brutal conflict through diplomacy, but once again let it go because of our inability to shift from conversations about blame to conversations about responsibility.

We cannot let a failed peace process turn into an excuse to ultimately perpetuate the status quo instead of challenging or deconstructing it. Because if anything has become clear, it is that the status quo is unsustainable.

The failure of peace talks time and again is not the failure of a dream. It is not a chance to call for continued occupation, a one-state solution or a bi-national state.

Rather, it is an affirmation that the only acceptable solution for people who believe in peace is one that ensures self-determination for both peoples: a Jewish democratic state in Israel as well as a free and independent state in Palestine, side by side in peace and security.

Why do I keep dreaming, even after the suspension of negotiations? Because, as a young progressive American in solidarity with the Palestinian people who also feels a deep sense of responsibility to and identification with Israel, I am overwhelmed by an undeniable urgency. With each passing day and with each settlement that is constructed, the window for diplomacy is closing.

However, the growing momentum I’ve witnessed from Americans who push their leaders to take meaningful diplomatic actions proves that the window has not yet closed.

There is no denying that, as American Jews, we have unique political leverage. I’m tired of hearing, “I have to be either pro-Israel or pro-Palestine,” and I am frustrated by the inability of my family, friends and peers on both sides of the table to put their confidence in a future built

on trust instead of closing their minds because of a violent and complex history.

Today, we are at a crossroads. It’s time to take an active step and redefine the American political conversation surrounding the conflict and create space for progressive action. At this crucial political moment, it’s time for the American Jewish community to recognize that a voice for peace is a voice for Israel.

The last nine months have been a wakeup call. Even in the face of disappointment, frustration and hopelessness, we must push for a two-state solution while the window is still open. We need to create active movements that bring people together and foster dialogue; we need to model the peace talks we want.

If the U.S. is truly committed to a solution, Kerry needs to stop allowing the continued expansion of settlements in the West Bank and hold Israel accountable to its values, while also holding Palestine — especially in reconciliation with Hamas — accountable for its commitment to nonviolence and other negotiation agreements.

For the peace process to truly succeed, the U.S. must work to be an impartial third partner, acknowledging –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––—

The failure of peace talks time and time again is not the failure of a dream. It is not a chance to call for continued occupation, a one-state solution or a bi-national state.

Rather is is an affirmation that the only acceptable solution for whobelieve in peace is one that ensures self-determination for both peoples.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––— the struggles and legitimacy of the claims of both Israel and Palestine, but also pushing a globally supported framework for a solution more aggressively than ever before.

We have a responsibility to change the conversation so that Kerry can put politics aside and be unafraid to say the unpopular when putting forth a solution, not accepting anything less than a just end to the conflict for two states for two peoples.

Opinions

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

Page 19

consent

Our Role in Creating Culture of Consent Editorial Board ComSophie Hess Contributing Writer Sept. 20, 2013

Trigger Warning: This article contains references to sexual violence.

This week marked my weird public debut as a feminist hacker. I’ve been working with a group called FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture since August, helping to facilitate a viral internet event in which a fake Playboy website released a list of party commandments emphasizing consent and sex positivity. Since news of the hoax hit on Wednesday, I have been given the most amazing platform to actually talk about sexualized violence. Most of the time I have trouble convincing people that this issue is important. So let me just take advantage of my 15 minutes of internet fame and preach to you now. It is really, really important.

Here is the statistic that I find blows folks’ minds: One in four college women will experience sexual assault. One in four. I said this to someone the other day, and they said, “But wouldn’t that mean it would’ve happened to someone I know?” To which I replied, “It has.” This issue has the ability to affect anyone, regardless of gender, sexuality or political bent. As humans, we are capable of both being violated and of violating others. Every one of us is. I find that this is the hardest part of talking about sexualized violence. People understand that it’s terrible, but we don’t understand that it is something of which we could be a part. For me, though, it’s an issue that’s been hitting (literally) close to home for a long time. My mom works as a SAFE nurse, meaning that she does foren-

sics examinations when a person comes to the emergency room after a sexual assault.

When she first started working at this job, she used to say how shocked she was at how the majority of her cases were drunken hook-ups gone wrong. “Don’t drink so much that you black out,” she used to say to me and my brother. “Please, just don’t do it.”

To me, my mom was absolutely not saying that if we black out we are to blame for what happens to us. She was saying, “Hey, you, my children, you are more vulnerable and more powerful than you think you are.

I may have raised you relatively well, what with all the whole grain bread and respect for women, but you could just as easily end up in my exam room or my court room. This is your issue, too.”

So, this is where the “tool” of consent comes in. When we think of risk factors to sex, we might think unwanted pregnancy or STIs, right? But we don’t just shrug and say, “Oh well, it won’t happen to me.” We use a condom, take birth control or get tested.

Sexualized violence is, as much as we all hate to admit it, a risk that currently exists in sex, and so we need to start putting consent in our toolkits along with condoms. Think of it this way: If you are having sex with another person, you are sharing each other’s bodies for physical pleasure. You need to make sure that the other person is OK with that, too.

Here’s the beautiful thing about this: Consent is more than just a way of addressing rape. It’s also a way of having better sex.

It’s a way to facilitate saying, “I like that,” or, “I don’t like this,” when otherwise you might have just shrugged and been like, “OK, whatever, guess I’ll just let them bite

my X even though I don’t really like it, and I would much rather they touched my Y or Z.” You can use consent for more than just the meat of sex — you can use it for every step of the process. The logic that consensual sex makes for better sex is why the Playboy hoax was so believable. Even though it talked openly about the threat of sexualized violence in college, the hoax framed consent as a way to have an all-around better time. It’s totally reasonable that a corporation known for dictating what is sexually appealing would hop on the bandwagon of consent as a “sexy” thing to do. It’s the whole theory of catching more flies with honey than vinegar. I, and the folks at FORCE, can talk to you all day about why this is a serious issue, but when the infamously sexy Playboy says that consent makes for better sex, it inevitably sounds more appealing.

That is what has been so powerful about this experience for me — I’ve realized that just as we are willing to accept the negative messages of the media, we are just as ready to accept positive ones. So if the media isn’t making them, we just have to make the media for ourselves. That’s what FORCE does, and is what I helped to do this week. As the point person here at Oberlin, I created information and graphics and helped coordinate the story’s spread through social media. Our message was serious and subversive, but our method was funny, colorful and accessible. Sexualized violence has remained silent for so long, and if we need to use bright colors and pranks for people to notice it, then we’ll continue to do that.

The issue needs to be visible if we want any chance of fighting it.

Last Month’s Game of Thrones Episode “Breaker of Chains” Works to Perpetuate Rape Culture Sophia Ottoni-Wilhelm Opinions Editor April 25, 2014 Trigger Warning: This article contains references to sexual violence.

This past Sunday night I was doing what most college students do on Sunday nights: homework. Just kidding, I was speeding through my work to make time for Game of Thrones. It’s a show that has enraptured the nation with copious amounts of blood, sex and dragons. Spoiler alert: In the last scene of the episode released on April 20, the sadistic boy-king Joffrey Baratheon was poisoned at his wedding feast.

A scene from that Sunday’s episode, “Breaker of Chains,” opens on the sanctuary where Cersei mourns over the body of her recently deceased son. Her brother and ex-lover, Jaime, enters, and they stand together at the altar. Cersei begs him to avenge the death of their son and to kill the man she believes is responsible. This is the first time in the series that either of them has explicitly stated that they, two siblings, are Joffrey’s parents.

Since he has returned home, Jaime has not successfully rekindled his incestuous romance. He turns to Cersei, grabbing her and pushing her against the altar, saying, “You’re a hateful woman. Why have the gods made me love a hateful woman?” before kissing her. Pushing him away, Cersei responds, “Jaime, not here, please. Please.

Stop it.” Ignoring her protests, Jaime rips off her underclothes and proceeds to rape her next to the body of their dead son.

This scene has created quite the uproar and rightly so, garnering criticism from the show’s viewers and non-viewers alike.

Dozens of articles have been published in

the last several days by a variety of news sources. I’ve seen a lot of crazy things on this show, but this takes the cake. Watching it made my skin crawl.

What I find particularly alarming is that this rape scene is starkly different from the sex scene described in the books.

The third book in George R.R. Martin’s hit series, Storm of Swords, describes the scene with Jaime and Cersei in the sanctuary as the first time they’ve seen each other since Jaime’s return to King’s Landing. As in the episode, the book paints a bleak scene — Cersei standing alone next to her dead son’s body as Jaime approaches. However, after they speak, the books makes it clear that Cersei kisses Jaime first. When he tries to have sex with her, she is initially hesitant because of the location, but quickly gives verbal consent.

She’s on her period, and the book says that after they have sex, Jaime wipes her blood off the altar.

The replacement of period sex with rape is a departure that feeds a terrifying rape culture already omnipresent in the world. Game of Thrones’s writers and director have mentioned in the past that they attempt to make each episode as unexpected and scandalous as possible. Apparently, two of the main characters having sex next to the dead body of their child doesn’t quite cut it.

The sheer magnitude of viewer disapproval has triggered a variety of responses from the director, writers and actors, each comment as misogynistic and utterly disgusting as the next. One writer referred to the change as a “sexy choice,” while another stated that the atrocious act was merely a culmination of Jaime’s understandable frustration with Cersei. That’s right, a justification of rape. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, the actor who plays Jaime, said in a recent

interview that “it was an act of powerlessness.” That’s right, it was an act of powerlessness for the rapist.

But the show’s director, Alex Graves, gives that ridiculous comment a run for its money: “It was not consensual as it began, but … Ultimately, it was meant to be consensual,” he said in an interview. “The consensual part of it was that she wraps her legs around him, and she’s holding on to the table, clearly not to escape but to get some grounding in what’s going on. She’s sort of cajoled into it, and it is consensual.”

She was “cajoled” into it? Seriously, dude?

What century is this?

As difficult as it was to watch, the rape scene in “Breaker of Chains” did serve as a reminder of how far our society has yet to go when it comes to discussing and interacting with instances of sexual assault. I read a comment online that outraged me, which read: “I think that [Jaime] definitely raped her on the show. However — I can’t think of a more deserving character to get raped.” Yes, deserving. While statements like this are difficult to read, it’s important to know that such problematic understandings of rape not only exist in the world but are alive and well.

It is my hope that the conversation surrounding this rape scene can be productive. Often the things that make me the angriest are the things that motivate me to keep challenging myself and those around me to be aware of the role we play in the perpetuation of rape culture.

This needless nonconsensual sex scene fuels the fire of rape culture. We should never be comfortable with rape — not in television shows, not in books, not in any sense. This scene should have made every single viewer incredibly uncomfortable. In fact, this show shouldn’t include any rape scene that wasn’t present in the books.

mends SIC’s Adherence to Core Values The Editorial Board April 5, 2014

Part of Oberlin’s appeal is its salacious, open-minded, body- and sex-positive outlook on sexual expression.

Throughout its history this college has proven to be at the forefront of issues related to gender and sexuality, such as its (well-timed) 1969 decision to adopt co-ed dorms. The Sexual Information Center — the mastermind behind the longstanding Safer Sex Dance — itself arose out of a desire to combat stigma surrounding the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the late ’70s. But the event that prompted many of us to reconfigure our Facebook privacy settings to prevent family members from seeing tagged photos will no longer serve as a rite of passage for lustful first-years finally free of parental control. Delightfully famous for its encouragement of sweaty, naked bodies of all different shapes and sizes rubbing up against one another, the event is also plagued with the more notorious aspects of its reputation, namely its unintentional convergence of alcohol and partying, which often results in the very thing the SIC hopes to combat every year: nonconsensual sexual acts and an unsafe, non-inclusive space for many students.

As we noted in our editorial, “Obies Shouldn’t be Fairweather Fans of Sex and Body Positivity” (Nov. 1, 2013), the SIC’s yearly night of sweaty, glittery, sexy debauchery has taken various forms since its inaugural outing roughly three decades ago. Since then, there have been many amendments designed to limit the hypocritical nature of the event. In 2001, alcohol sales at the actual event were prohibited, and just four years later, the College banned the once-infamous “Tent of Consent,” a converted space in DeCafé encouraging agreed-upon friskiness. The educational component of Safer Sex Week has been emphasized to various degrees by the event organizers, though in recent years, educational programming has been excluded from the Safer Sex Dance entirely. Instead, the SIC instituted Safer Sex Week in 2009, featuring workshops and information sessions at which tickets to the main event were exclusively distributed.

In theory, Safer Sex Week should have been a clear-cut example of consent and safe sex practices. But, as the SIC recognizes, best practices about sexual consent do not always translate effectively in real-life interactions. Learning to bridge this gap was ostensibly the thinking behind the dance. In reality, however, the week ultimately culminated in a highly ironic and disappointing shrugging off of the lessons which preceded it.

Safer Sex Night has historically been a night when safe sex is compromised and sex positivity is absent, and, despite its clearly benevolent and well-informed intentions, the SIC was never able to change that sad reality. Unfortunately, it is true of Oberlin — and probably of most college campuses — that any large party is going to involve the consumption of alcohol as a social lubricant, especially when people are trying to convince themselves that they are more OK revealing their mostly naked bodies than they actually are. But the consumption of alcohol impairs a student’s ability to give consent, as the SIC has acknowledged throughout the event’s existence.

To truly deal with issues of consent at Oberlin, the SIC must continue to emphasize one of the key issues at hand: liquid courage as social lubricant. Addressing the link between alcohol and consent (or a lack thereof) is imperative.

While it doesn’t extend to all instances of non-consensual sexual activity, it certainly focuses on a major culprit in many of them. The SIC could expand its existing programming that’s specifically designed to engage with the realities of alcohol and sex in an undergraduate environment. Though no one expects the SIC to overturn college party culture in one fell swoop, addressing the often problematic relationship between alcohol and sex on this campus — an issue explicitly demonstrated during Safer Sex Night — is key.

The SIC’s decision to cancel the event outright, rather than turn a blind eye to the problematic aspects of the dance for the sake of upholding tradition, is highly commendable.

It seems clear that despite the organization’s repeated efforts to emphasize educational aspects of the week, there was no way to ensure that the night facilitated safe sexual practices for all attendees. Recognizing that the environment was unsafe and reaffirming their organization’s commitment is the first strong step in creating a campus in which safer, consensual sex is a year round occurrence.

Opinions

Page 20

financial aid

Lack of Transparency in Changes to Aid Policy Unacceptable The Editorial Board April 19, 2014 Ever since students learned of the controversial financial aid policy change, tensions have been high. Within hours of their discovery, students were organizing demonstrations and circulating information. Obies are angry, and they have a right to be. Whether or not the policy change affects them, they likely know someone whom it does affect. The equally great injustice, however, lies nowhere in the text itself — rather, it’s in the College’s flippant lack of communication with both current and prospective students and their guardians regarding the revision’s details.

The result, of course, is that there are a lot of questions and very few answers surrounding the recent change, which in turn leads to misinformation and confusion. College administrators have repeatedly attempted to deflect student inquiries and instead refocus the conversation on this institution’s larger goals for financial accessibility and its “historic commitment to providing access to students representing the socioeconomic spectrum.”

The question is not, as the College would like to pose it, whether Oberlin provides “more robust” financial aid packages than comparable institutions, nor is it whether OSCA, as a whole, pulls financial resources from the College that the administration has, apparently, decided are best dedicated elsewhere. The issue is that this policy was discreetly posted on the College’s website sometime in the last couple of months, after which administrators sat on their hands and waited to see if anyone would notice. When students did, the College removed the OnCampus post that described the change in detail and conceded that they blundered in not foreseeing the staunch student opposition and concern regarding this change.

This policy amendment will determine whether or not OSCA can provide an alternative for students struggling to afford to study at this college — which, with next year’s tuition creeping above $48,000, is one of the most expensive institutions of higher learning in the country, regardless of its generous financial aid packages. Even basic questions like, “Will this policy increase the average cost of Oberlin for affected students?” are evaded by senior College administrators. There is no excuse for the fact that none of the College’s top personnel know the answer to this and other basic questions about a policy they originally intended to implement as early as next year. Frankly, we don’t buy it.

The more probable conclusion to draw when confronted with blatant refusal to answer basic questions, however, is that these individuals do in fact have the answers. If indeed the College was hoping to institute this change without a student response, it clearly doesn’t know its student body. It seems obvious that, at a school with over three-quarters of its students receiving financial aid and nearly a quarter in OSCA, a major policy shift affecting these groups would make headlines.

While the College has quietly agreed to postpone the policy’s implementation for a year or more, the problem at the heart of this issue remains: Administrators clearly don’t feel the need to be straightforward with the student body, even about matters as sensitive and precarious as financial aid.

Perhaps this can be a learning experience for the administration: When attempting to initiate change, they could save everyone — including themselves — considerable time and frustration by being transparent about the policy and implementation process from the beginning.

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

Justice in Higher Education System Requires Re-evaluation of Equity Sam White Contributing Writer April 25, 2014 In a 6–2 decision on Tuesday, April 22, the United States Supreme Court upheld a Michigan constitutional amendment banning the use of affirmative action in public university admissions. This disheartening ruling not only reflects a national disregard for the all-too-real issues surrounding race and ethnicity but fits into a broader picture of shrinking access to higher education in America. At a time when college costs are skyrocketing — a trend which Oberlin is helping to lead — this decision warrants a fundamental re-evaluation of the idea of equity. That re-evaluation must begin, among other places, here.

Like many of my peers, I’ve spent a lot of time over the past weeks considering (and vehemently opposing) the recent amendments to Oberlin’s financial aid policy, which disproportionately reduces aid awarded to students with high “demonstrated need” by deducting the price difference of lower-cost housing and dining from those students’ “cost of attendance.” Among the aspects of the new policy that I’ve found most troubling is the frequently-cited defense of the policy by those implementing it: that it will make financial aid distribution at Oberlin more “equitable.”

In a meeting with College financial administrators on Thursday, April 24, two other students and I attempted to gain a better understanding of this definition of equitability. To briefly paraphrase the administrators’ arguments; under the current policy, a student who receives need-based financial aid and chooses lower-cost dining and/or housing options is effectively reducing their “family contribution” toward college costs. By introducing a “downward adjustment” (in the words of the new policy) to this student’s financial aid package, the College is effectively sharing the burden of tuition in a more balanced manner — one that is fairer and more equitable to all students. In short, allowing lower-income students to contribute less money by selecting cheaper housing and dining options, while receiving unadjusted financial aid, is unjust

because it allows these students to receive proportionally more aid than others with less demonstrated need. I responded by expressing my opinion that this is not inequitable; as a student with low financial need myself, I have no issue paying a greater family contribution than these students, especially if that difference in contribution determines their ability to afford Oberlin.

Many others in my position, I mentioned, feel the same way. The administrators’ reaction was one of genuine surprise.

In essence, the meeting confirmed what I suspected. These administrators’ conception of equity is my conception of equal treatment, not equal opportunity. My conception of equity is best expressed by the timeless, simple graphic comparing equity to equality. The graphic shows two images, side by side, depicting two different versions of the same scene; three children, of different heights, are attempting to watch a baseball game over a tall fence. In the lefthand version of the scene, representing equality, the three children each stand on one crate, but the smallest child, despite the crate, is still too short to see over the fence. In the righthand version, the three crates are redistributed; the tallest child has no crate but can still see over the fence, the middle child stands on one crate and can still see and the smallest child stands atop two crates and is now able to see the game.

This skewed distribution of resources, which affords equal opportunity to all three children, represents equity.

In a setting such as higher education, where access has historically been contingent on resources and white, male, upperclass privilege, true equity — equal opportunity, with eyes trained on the redress of historic injustices — is paramount. This is the basis for affirmative action in its most basic sense. Enabling race awareness does, indisputably, result in unequal treatment in the immediate present; however, this is simply irrelevant to the purpose of affirmative action policies. Affirmative action is equitable because it exists to address longer-term, structural inequalities that will not disappear without concerted action on the part of those in positions of privilege and access. In the words of dissenting

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, “This refusal to accept the stark reality that race matters is regrettable. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination.”

I do not doubt that Oberlin College, as an institution, shares this view of affirmative action. President Marvin Krislov’s work defending this approach on behalf of the University of Michigan is well-documented.

I am, however, deeply concerned that College administrators evidently do not apply the same standard of equity to Oberlin’s financial aid policies. Without doing so, Oberlin’s commitment to admitting historically underprivileged students is meaningless, as it is not matched by an equal commitment to these students’ continued attendance and graduation.

My view of equity is not limited to the kinds of people (like myself) whom a nonObie might brand radicals, socialists or anti-capitalists. It’s the simple view that lies at the heart of mainstream liberal politics as defined by the Democratic party in the form of a progressive tax rate. Those who have the resources, this ideology suggests, should contribute proportionally more to the greater good of society; those who have less cannot reasonably be expected to make the same contribution. To quote First Lady Michelle Obama: “When you’ve worked hard and done well and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you. You reach back, and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed.”

While the Supreme Court’s decision of Tuesday April 22 is astoundingly backward, I admit I was only mildly surprised; the Court’s conservative membership is a wellknown legacy of recent Republican presidencies. Equally well-known in the world of small liberal arts colleges, however, is Oberlin’s commitment to providing students with the tools necessary to fight for social justice. A financial aid policy that overlooks historic injustice in the same manner that the Supreme Court did on Tuesday has no place at this institution.

Aid Policy Changes Deserve Full Hearing Machmud Makhmudov Columnist April 19, 2014

The backlash over the discovery of Oberlin’s recent changes to the financial aid policy — which has subsequently been delayed for a year — has sparked a variety of activist responses on campus. From petitions to rallies to policy meetings, students have been actively engaged in responding to the policy changes. For purposes of full disclosure, I’m a member of Student Senate and have been involved in parts of student activism over the course of the past week.

The source of discontent over the news of the policy change differs from student to student. For many, there exists a very tangible fear that living and eating at Oberlin will no longer be affordable to them. For others such as myself, frustration is tied up in seeing the duress and feelings of helplessness of our peers and sensing that Oberlin may be deviating from its values. From my perspective, the most pressing of these problems is derived from a sense of confusion about what the policy could and couldn’t potentially do.

As far as I’m aware, the first information made publicly available simply stated that financial aid packages would be “adjusted accordingly” for students who chose reduced housing or dining options. Upon speaking with the Admissions Office and Office of Financial Aid, many students discovered that this means receiving a dollar-for-dollar reduction in their aid packages if they choose less expensive housing or dining options.Moving forward, it’s imperative for the administration to have the opportunity to fully explain the policy, how it was devised and how it will affect most students. But in my opinion, understanding what it really means requires thinking

systematically about financial aid distribution and methods of cost savings at Oberlin.

Quite frankly, the disproportionate amount of high-income students in Oberlin’s co-ops does beg the question of why it makes sense to automatically subsidize all OSCA members. For example, why are we giving more than $5,000 in annual savings to full-pay students in OSCA when we could be applying that money to giving more generous aid packages to students that actually need it, both in OSCA and out?

That’s a conversation that should be held between a variety of parties on campus, but unfortunately the process by which financial aid policy decisions are made — particularly this one — has left students in the dark. As communicated in a statement that Student Senate presented at April 16’s General Faculty meeting, the process of amending financial aid policies needs to be transparent and accessible to students. Otherwise, Oberlin runs the risk of perpetually finding itself in our present state: confused, frustrated and disconnected as a community.

Faculty members received Senate’s message from Wednesday, April 16 well, and a number of them are already reaching out to find out how they can support students. I speak for myself and many others in expressing gratitude to the faculty for showing so much support for their students. Now more than ever, it’s important to present a unified front and extend a willingness to work with any members of the campus community that are dedicated to maintaining Oberlin’s accessibility and quality of education — be they students, faculty, staff, alumni or administrators. Most importantly, we must stand for transparency in the decisions that affect Oberlin students drastically, both now and in the future.

Opinions

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

Page 21

world

Western Women in the East: Response to UChicago Student’s Perspective on Studying Abroad in India Sophia Ottoni-Wilhelm Opinions Editor October 4, 2013 On Aug. 18, a University of Chicago student using the alias Rose Chasm published an article, “India: the Story You Never Want To Hear,” on CNN’s website. In hopes of giving readers a glimpse of what women experience in India, the South Asian studies major discussed incidents of sexual harassment she experienced while spending a semester abroad. The things she describes are incredibly disturbing: a man masturbating at her on the bus, men filming her dancing at a festival and stalking her through crowds and a staff member at her hotel attempting to rape her friend.

These traumas ultimately led to Chasm’s breakdown and twoday institutionalization about four months after she returned.

She is currently on a leave of absence from the University of Chicago and has been diagnosed with

post-traumatic stress disorder.

Surprisingly, her story has generated a great deal of backlash.

People have criticized her, saying she must have dressed inappropriately, spent time in the wrong places and that she has no place publicizing the country’s issues.

After working in Nepal for three and a half months this summer, I speak from personal experience when I say that all these comments are completely off the mark. Each morning I taught English, biology and math at an understaffed school in my neighborhood before going to work at an NGO that helps rescue and rehabilitate women who have been trafficked into India to work as sex slaves. I worked hard and kept to myself, carefully covering my body before going out. I didn’t go drinking or partying, and still men leered and stared at me every single day — proposing sex, commenting on my body or my face — and twice a man grabbed me.

Just as Chasm describes feeling ripped apart by the experiences, I felt these things wear me out. Look by look, comment by comment, the harassment started feeling regular. Mentally I curled inward, ignoring the things happening to me in order to keep working and functioning.

Now that I’m back at Oberlin, things couldn’t feel less normal.

The things I experienced this summer have started catching up with me. For the first time in my life, I’m having vivid flashbacks, bad dreams and problems connecting to people. Understandably so, given the work I was doing at the NGO with recovering sex slaves, teaching at the school and generally immersing myself in a culture so different from my own.

The purpose of sharing such experiences is not to publicize the problems of another country but to inform people planning to travel, work or study abroad of the importance of preparing men-

tal health strategies. It shouldn’t have to be this way — women shouldn’t have to steel themselves for inevitable harassment. But, since this is the way things are, at least for now, people need to know how common Chasm’s experiences are. Hundreds of Western women returning from Asia have received similar diagnoses of PTSD, depression and anxiety disorders.

It is important to mention that, just as Chasm described the duality of her study abroad experience, I find myself similarly torn between the beautiful and terrifying things I experienced this summer. On the one hand, I’m incredibly thankful for my time in Nepal; I got to know many amazing people and saw unbelievable strength in the women with whom I worked and the children I taught.

On the other hand, I wish I could’ve had those experiences without having to lay awake at night, haunted by terrifying mem-

ories and recovering from traumas that occurred weeks ago.

Patriarchy is deeply rooted in cultures worldwide. Women are sexually harassed in this country just as they are in Asia. As I struggle to process my experiences abroad, I think of the other dozens of Oberlin students who were abroad last year. No matter the experience had while abroad, as students return to school it is important to raise questions about how the College administration can help us incorporate what we’ve learned and witnessed.

Most of all, I hope that the College will take my experiences and the experiences of my peers seriously: caring for us before, during and after we’ve gone abroad.

Whether it is offering a workshop for students planning to go abroad or supporting a group of students to meet to talk about integrating back into college life after being abroad, something must be done to let the student body know the administration cares about our longterm well-being.

Media Must Hold Government Russia Must Achieve Goals in Ukraine Without Invasion Accountable for Drone Strikes Sean Para Columnist May 2, 2014 The crisis in Ukraine continued to gain momentum this past month, while every attempt to avert further escalation failed spectacularly. The Geneva Accord signed in April was a dead letter almost as soon as it was signed. The Russian-backed separatists in the east continue to gain ground, and the regional administration building ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Ukraine’s admission into the American-led alliance system is seen as an existential threat to Russia, as the two countries have strong economic and historical ties.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– as well as the prosecutor’s office recently fell to protesters in Luhansk, making it the second provincial capital to drown in a tsunami of separatists. The tentative actions of Ukrainian security forces intended to dislodge the rebels have been far from successful. In short, the Ukrainian government is paralyzed, and the government in Kiev cannot keep the country together.

Russia, meanwhile, couldn’t be in a better position.

Russia’s objective in the current tug-ofwar over Ukraine is to prevent its incorporation into NATO. Ukraine’s admission into the American-led alliance system is seen as an existential threat to Russia, as the two countries have strong economic and historical ties. Vladimir Putin seems bent on preventing a repetition of what has happened in the past two decades to Poland, the Baltic states, Romania, Bulgaria and other countries in the former Soviet bloc.

These countries had formed a security buf-

fer, keeping Russia removed from the West since World War II, and their incorporation into NATO was a breach of the agreements reached between Russia and the United States after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Putin has succeeded in accomplishing his goals in Ukraine without launching a full-scale invasion of the country. Kiev is off-balance, its legitimacy eroded by an utter lack of efficacy. The rebellion has also called into question the impending May 25 elections, which were supposed to offer the country a chance to elect a new national government and set the stage for constitutional reform.

Russia is playing its hand very well. Its economic importance makes it difficult for sanctions to easily isolate the Russian economy without harming European economies as well. Therefore, the coalition that opposes Russia is divided between the hawkish United States and its more cautious allies, such as Germany and the United Kingdom. Since Europe has so much more to lose from wider sanctions against Russia than the U.S. does, significant measures against larger sectors of the Russian economy would be imposed without a dramatic escalation of Russian actions toward Ukraine.

A compromise is therefore necessary to defuse the crisis. Russian influence and interests in Ukraine preclude a viable resolution to the crisis that puts Ukraine firmly in the Western camp. The gulf between the Kiev and Moscow governments can only be closed through a compromise that takes Russian interests in Ukraine into account.

Kiev is walking a fine line, trying to prevent both armed conflict with Russia and a permanent fracturing of the country. So far, it has not provoked a Russian intervention.

Perhaps autonomy should be granted to the eastern regions of Ukraine. This seems a much more palatable choice than a fullblown war that Ukraine could never hope to win.

Sam White Contributing Writer Nov. 1, 2013

On Tuesday, Oct. 29, members of Congress had a one-of-a-kind opportunity to hear firsthand from victims of U.S. drone strikes in northwest Pakistan. In a briefing organized by Representative Alan Grayson, D-Fl., schoolteacher Rafiq ur Rehman and his two children recounted their well-rehearsed tale of the day one year ago when a pilotless plane attacked their village in the country’s North Waziristan region.

Nabila, nine, spoke of working in the fields with her grandmother, Momina Bibi, when the missile exploded, hurling Momina to her death and blocking out the sun with smoke. She ran, scared, an injury on her hand bleeding uncontrollably. Her 13-year-old brother Zubair, nearby, tried to do the same, but shrapnel had badly damaged his leg. When Rehman arrived at the scene shortly thereafter, neighbors would not let him see his mother’s body; the injuries, they told him, were too gruesome. To Rehman’s knowledge, Momina Bibi, a local midwife and a grandmother of nine, was the only fatality.

Also in attendance at Grayson’s briefing was filmmaker Robert Greenwald, whose new documentary, Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars, features the Rehman family alongside others affected by the United States’s drone program. An array of staffers and other audience members were also present, as well as five lawmakers.

Five of the House of Representatives’ 535 voting members. Fewer than one percent.

For those well-versed in American government, perhaps this dismal turnout is no surprise. Our elected representatives are busy; They have committee meetings to attend and policy decisions to make.

Briefings like Grayson’s, which was not affiliated with any particular committee, aren’t always easy to fit into hectic sched-

ules. And it’s no secret in Congress that few Americans consider foreign policy a priority.

None of this, however, justifies Momina Bibi’s death. Nor does it justify the United States’s failure to respond to her family members’ pleas for explanation as to why a drone would target a family of schoolteachers or to offer them compensation –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

President Obama’s drone program has been shrouded in secrecy from the outset, and what few words and statistics his administration does release are carefully measured, vague and generally uninformative.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– for the crippling medical costs resulting from their injuries. And it does not justify Congress’s silence as the Obama administration’s controversial drone program continues unabated.

Grayson’s poorly attended briefing is, if nothing else, a reflection of the fact that members of Congress don’t think drone strikes matter to Americans. This needs to change.

It is true that not many Americans openly care about drone strikes occurring in faraway corners of the world. In large part, it’s because they don’t hear about them. President Obama’s drone program has been shrouded in secrecy from the outset, and what few words and statistics his administration does release are carefully measured, vague and generally uninformative.

And America’s mass media, for the most part, does little better; if Americans hear about drones, it’s the occasional short and to-the-point story of the death of a high-profile terrorist, stripped of context and important accompanying See Drone, page 22

Opinions

Page 22

miscellaneous

Drone Usage Requires Heightened Scrutiny Continued from page 21 however, is aptly summarized by the founding mantra of Al Jazeera America: “There’s more to it.” Indeed, the newly launched, New York-based cable news channel devotes an entire section of its website to the topic of combat drones, and it was one of few U.S. agencies (save for unabashedly left-leaning companies like The Huffington Post and MSNBC) to feature its own interviews with the Rehman family, gaining contrasting perspectives and covering the Tuesday briefing in substantial depth.

Global news agencies, meanwhile, have not hesitated to put the U.S. government’s conspicuous silence on the issue in perspective.

The Guardian, for one, included in its thorough coverage of Tuesday’s hearing an emphasis on the U.S. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––—————————

Grayson’s poorly attended briefing is, if nothing else, a reflection of the fact that members of Congress don’t think drone strikes matter to Americans. This needs to change.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––————————— State Department’s mysterious denial to grant a visa to the family’s lawyer, a respected diplomat. Echoing this focus was Russia’s RT, which, along with Qatarbased Al Jazeera English, publishes frequent op-eds condemning U.S. drone strikes, citing the intensifying anti-American sentiment they are fueling in northwest Pakistan among other factors. And even these perspectives miss details uncovered by international non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, whose most recent estimates at civilian casualties due to drones suggest that the U.S. is likely guilty of war crimes.

The reality that United States’s mainstream media often fails to emphasize is that stories like the one told by the Rehman family on Tuesday are not unique; they are indicative of grave problems that Americans — and the politicians they elect — need to hear.

If the United States government is to be held accountable for its actions, journalists must do their part.

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

Students Question Right to Local Vote Elizabeth Kuhr Contributing Writer Nov. 8, 2013 The public gathered at district voting booths Nov. 5 to elect a series of local and state candidates and vote on pertinent bill proposals, including the now-passed Community Bill of Rights that prohibits hydraulic fracturing for natural gas and oil within Oberlin’s city limits.

Because students maintain Oberlin addresses, they can legally participate in these elections. The College has demonstrated a commitment to student participation in electoral politics with opportunities like Cole Scholars, a year-long program which informs students about campaigns, both in the classroom and in the summer on the road with candidates. And the student body has joined the effort — the non-partisan, student-run Oberlin Young Voters Coalition hosts voter registration booths during the election season.

Walking into an Oberlin voting booth as a college student is a weighty decision, considering the College’s property tax-exemption status as a higher educational institution and the predominately out-ofstate student body — approximately 85 percent.

“Obviously, it is easy to support the idea of an inclusive franchise and the notion that all interested individuals should have a voice,” Politics Professor and Director of Cole Scholars Michael Parkin said in an email to the Review. “Some, however, are concerned that students, because their time in Oberlin is limited, may have preferences that deviate from those who have a longer record of living, working and paying taxes in the area.”

Taking a stance on the matter, representatives from both the Oberlin College Republicans and Lib-

Community members gathered on May 6 to lobby votes in anticipation of the upcoming election.

Effie Kline-Salamon

ertarians and the Oberlin College Democrats approve of students voting. “Students are residents, so they have the same right,” OCRL Co-Chair and Conservatory senior Taylor Reiners said, adding that he personally chooses not to vote on property taxes. Due to their 501(C)(3) status and politically right-leaning platform, OCRL strategically does not organize around voter registration in the historically Democratic town.

However, the Oberlin College Democrats fervently encourages student voting. Describing the group as an on-campus gateway into electoral politics, CoChair and double-degree fifth-year Eric Fischer says members are active in political canvassing and phone banking. Many members oversee OYV registration booths, which, according to Fischer, gave 1,800 students voting rights in fall 2012. “Registering as many people as possible is the goal,” Fischer said, adding that he spends most of the year in Oberlin and pays employment taxes. “It’s important to me that people who come to [Oberlin College] make it a home both politically and socially.”

By the same token, Fischer sympathizes with the argument against student participation in local elections; he cited an incident when Ohio State Senator Gayle Manning confrontationally expressed her reservations about their political engagement as college students. Like Manning, many who do not support students voting cite the issue with students deciding local property taxes.

“We need to take into account our positions as college students who are not affected,” said Cole Scholar and College junior Jocie Sobieraj, who still votes on state-wide social issues she sees as impacting her.

“It’s classist to assume responsibility of local taxes on people.”

Although it is true that some landlords renting Oberlin township property to residents live outside the district and that a handful of college students remain in-state for years after graduation, the prevailing piece of advice is to self-educate. Seeing student ability to vote on property tax as a trade-off to allowing them a say on a wide array of candidates and proposals, the League of Women Voters offers educational events and a seasonally updated election guide.

“If students do vote, they have to make sure they’re educated,” City Council Elect and member of LWV Sharon Pearson said. Specifically, Pearson advises students to ask questions, pick an area they can affect and consider their votes’ long-term impacts, both in benefit and consequence.

Intra-Campus Discussions More Effective Face-to-Face than on Facebook Nate Levinson Sports Editor April 5, 2014 Part of what makes Oberlin a great place is that people are so willing to engage in dialogue about serious issues, but the forum in which this discussion takes place has the power to detract from the opinions being expressed. Most dialogue that takes place in person is constructive, but as students have taken to Facebook to talk about problems at Oberlin, a lot has been lost in translation.

I’ve used Facebook over the past six years, and for the most part, I find it to be a useful and sometimes informative site. I use it to stay in touch with faraway friends, keep up to date on what’s going on around campus and occasionally to bestow my “friends” with links I find humorous. It’s not without its flaws, most of which I won’t get into, but overall Facebook serves the purpose I believe it was intended to in keeping me

tuned in to the here and now on campus and, to a lesser extent, the world.

Increasingly, however, I find myself disheartened by what I see on Facebook. The majority of posts I see are easy to gloss over and don’t discuss anything profound, but over the past few years especially, I’ve noticed an increasing number of posts that attempt to address serious issues on what I believe should be a more lighthearted social media site.

This should come as no surprise since last year’s March 4 incidents and the frustration stemming from this semester’s disagreements in Student Senate make productive discussion between students all the more important. I applaud members of the student body for looking to engage in dialogue regarding these issues, but there has to be a better place to do this than Facebook. Statuses about institutional racism and social inequality at Oberlin are far out of place on a site where links to

quizzes, like the one that aims to find out which Olsen Twin you are, are commonplace.

Using Facebook to inform others about serious issues is absolutely worthwhile, and I’m not arguing against that. I’ve been keyed into a number of important issues in this way, but using the site to call out other community members and make claims about others’ behavior without giving them a chance to speak is wrong. Facebook can create the illusion of familiarity, and too often I’ve seen people use charged language to implicate others that they barely know.

Another issue with using Facebook as a forum for serious discussion is that misinterpreting someone’s words and typing a hasty gut reaction is far too easy. Writing an angry response to someone with a view opposite yours might seem like a good idea in the heat of the moment, but that’s often when unjust words get thrown around.

The issue that Facebook then

creates is that once those words are entered, they are difficult to take back. Furthermore, the impersonal nature of text makes it easier for people to write things they might not say in person.

The solution to this problem isn’t as easy as creating a different site where the focus could be only on hosting serious discussion. Rather, one of the main issues with Facebook is that it relies on text-based conversation.

As anyone who has ever tried to have a serious conversation via text message will tell you, a lot can get lost when trying to convey a point through an electronic device. Even carefully chosen words, which aren’t exactly the norm on Facebook, don’t convey a message as well as words spoken in person with inflection and facial expressions. In person, people are far more likely to bite their tongues, as looking a person in the face and calling them out is harder than doing it when looking at a computer screen.

The impetus for venting about frustrating events on

campus is understandable, but there has to be a better way to do it.

I have no interest in trying to censor anyone, and people on Facebook are obviously allowed to post whatever they want from their accounts. But just because they’re allowed doesn’t make it a good idea. Using class time, group meetings, workshops or simple person-to-person interactions to air grievances and talk about the problems facing our campus are always more effective than posting on Facebook. In order to both be taken seriously and to ensure that the meaning of arguments isn’t lost in hastily chosen prose, using sources other than Facebook to engage in discussion is the way to go.

Oberlin is a special place in that it encourages conversation about a host of social problems, but it’s important that we as students choose to engage in that conversation in the right environment.

Opinions

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

Letter to the Editors

Response to Musical Injuries Article April 5, 2014 To the Editor:

Many thanks to the Review for bringing attention to something rarely discussed in the Conservatory — musician injuries. I believe the Conservatory must take more responsibility for educating students about injury prevention and supporting those who are injured. Playingrelated injuries are issues that musicians face throughout their careers. According to Playing (Less) Hurt by Janet Horvath, a survey of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians found that 76 percent of respondents had experienced a serious injury that required them to take time off from their instrument.

I discovered the Conservatory’s regrettable paucity of resources and the institutional denial surrounding student injuries last semester ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

While I am not blaming the Conservatory for causing student injuries, I would like to call on the faculty and administration to create an institutional environment that not only works to precent student injuries but also offers support for injured students.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– when I began experiencing playing-related pain in my left arm. My injury grew worse for several reasons.

First, because there is no musical injury specialist in Oberlin or nearby, I was left to diagnose myself with the help of WebMD and friends. I had no idea what was wrong with my arm, only that something was wrong. At first I thought it was tendonitis, but when the symptoms I found online did not line up with what I was feeling, I realized it must have been something else. It took me two months to get an appointment with a musical injury specialist at the Cleveland

Clinic, at which point I finally received a diagnosis. Not only was this wait frustrating, but over the course of those two months, my injury grew significantly worse.

Second, during the time of my injury I was playing in orchestra. Although I knew I needed to take time off to let the injury heal, I felt pressure from faculty members to push through despite my injury. I am not alone in this experience. I have had friends who were forced to keep playing in orchestra (under threat of failure) even though they were too injured to practice, which only exacerbated injuries which might otherwise have improved.

A third factor which worsened my injury was a chamber music coach who threatened to fail my group if I did not play in coached rehearsals.

Although I could not play without pain, I was forced to keep playing in the chamber group so that I could meet my graduation requirements on time. In the end, my injury took over two months to heal, I had to drop out of an important competition and nearly canceled my graduate school auditions. If I had been allowed to stop playing for just one week when I first injured my arm, I believe I could have healed completely in a timely manner.

While I am not blaming the Conservatory for causing student injuries, I would like to call on the faculty and administration to create an institutional environment that not only works to prevent student injuries, but also offers support for injured students. It would be relatively simple; Oberlin needs a musical injury specialist who can help students immediately after they become injured. We need an injury prevention and management class for all first-years.

Professor of Dance Deborah Vogel’s class is a start, but as the Review article mentioned, it has very limited spots. Finally, students should not be punished for being injured. While it is inconvenient to find a substitute player for an injured student, not doing so may jeopardize the injured student’s future career. A conservatory of Oberlin’s caliber should be doing everything in its power to ensure that its students are prepared — musically and physically — to pursue their professional careers.

– Julia Connor Double-degree fifth-year

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campus concerns

Kiss My Sass: Experiencing Oberlin Culture Shock Sophia Ottoni-Wilhelm Opinions Editor Sept 6, 2013 Sitting in the Qatar airport on my way home from Nepal last week, I was thinking about culture shock. After spending three and a half months in the poorest country in Southwest Asia, I knew that returning home to my small town ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

I thought those first few days would be the worst of it. I knew it would take some time, but eventually I wouldn’t feel a deep sense of happiness whenever I brushed my teeth using sink water...

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– in Indiana would feel pretty weird.

I was correct — people’s accents, gigantic trucks, the flatness of the land and the discounts given at restaurants to people with handgun permits — it felt seriously strange.

I thought those first few days would be the worst of it. I knew it would take some time, but eventually I wouldn’t feel a deep sense of happiness whenever I brushed my teeth using sink water or didn’t have to step over a rat on the way to work.

I was wrong.

As I drove my brother’s car, “The Leopard,” across the border into good old Oberlin, I felt more of a culture shock than ever. I’d forgotten my own people — how to talk to them and ask them about their summers, how to nod as they responded

that their regular job had taught them something profound about regular people. After speaking mostly Nepali for the summer, I’d forgotten how people use big words even when it doesn’t help demonstrate their point. I’d forgotten the style of dress and how some people wear clothes more torn up than those I’d seen on starving people. I’d forgotten the glazed eyes of kids sitting in class — “donut eyes,” my high school history teacher would call them.

I don’t want to use my first words of the year to rag on Oberlin students. To the contrary, there are some crazy, brilliant and kind people around here. I became friends this summer with an awesome little monk who told me to imagine that everyone I see is mero mamu, my mother, so I can truly respect and care for them. Yes, random person reading this article, I’ve probably imagined you as a 50-year-old religion professor from Detroit. And yes, I love you.

I don’t believe that the experience of Oberlin culture shock is at all unique to me at all. I’ve heard many people talk about the strange feelings that accompany returning to classes, being around so many people of the same age, getting older, having close friends graduate and feeling the holes they leave behind. Wow, that quickly got super sad.

Have faith everyone; it’ll start to feel normal again before long. In fact, it’ll start to feel so normal you may not even be aware of time passing as you move from ’Sco-ing to reading to Agave. Enjoy it, do your best to stay sane, happy and healthy this year, and don’t forget about the whole rest of the world out there.

Critical Response to May Review Column Titled “Complaints Over Solarity Naming Flat-Out Ridiculous” Maxime Berclaz Contributing Writer May 9, 2014 This article was written in response to College senior Aidan Apel’s May 2 column in the Review critiquing College senior Jessica Lam for her objection to Solarity’s event title.

First off, to address what little content is presented in the piece: The column’s main claim, outside of general accusations of ridiculousness, is that “using word association is an inappropriate standard for determining what is actually offensive.”

While perhaps I might object to the idea that there can truly be an objective determination of what is actually offensive (after all, the author seems to be offended by people being offended — also a rather poor standard for determining offensiveness), on a less pedantic note, I absolutely agree that

word association is a terrible standard.

Luckily, the concerns expressed in “A Response to Toxicity” (The Oberlin Review, May 2) are in no way, shape or form founded on such a principle.

The publicly available document puts forth the argument that what Toxicity reduces to fantasy is in fact the lived reality of many and asks us to question what sort of social forces leave us so disconnected from this reality that we can uncritically enjoy this fantasy.

This strikes me as a valid reason to be “actually” offended.

Furthermore, in an addendum published on April 28, the letter states that Solarity has taken these concerns seriously from the start and that a productive conversation is ongoing.

So essentially, concerns were put forward, and those concerns were listened to. Why would someone feel the need to add more?

As this column and other similar responses make quite clear, the real issue is not Toxicity or the response to it. It is the very idea that someone may dare to be offended when you are not. That they may dare to have experiences you cannot comprehend, emotions that they dare to ask you to see as valid, histories that they dare to ask you to learn.

This is why the concerns of multiple student groups are dismissed as simply being because they “hate Solarity.” This is how someone can honestly compare associating the word radioactive with Fukushima to associating the word “Alliance” with the Axis powers. This is why hurt can only be “ridiculous and inappropriate.”

However, in a stroke of luck, the column provides us with examples of what the ridiculous actually looks like. It claims that the writers of the letter “use a loose association with

real suffering to throw around racially bigoted statements” and “fashion [their] pedestal from a pile of real victims.” If I have to explain why claiming that an event is a bit messed up –––––––––––––––––––––––––––

It is the very idea that someone may dare to be offended when you are not. That they may dare to have experiences you cannot comprehend, emotions that they dare to ask you to see as valid, histories that they dare to ask you to learn.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––– is not equivalent to building a pedestal from human corpses like some twisted demon god, then I will have lost a good deal of faith in the student body.

The idea that the letter was a bigoted statement (which I assume comes from the use of the term “white culture”) is equal nonsense. As a white person, I am overjoyed to explain to the author that whiteness is a socially constructed category that constitutes nothing other than signifying one as an oppressor within a racial hierarchy, regardless of how one feels about that.

Whiteness begins and ends with oppression, and so does the associated culture.

I would be quite troubled to find out that someone actually identifies with this culture and sees it as worth defending, rather than working to abolish it and the social forces that maintain it.

Defense of whiteness is the actual bigotry, and hopefully the next time students are confronted with an opportunity for a dialogue on this, they will engage in it rather than see it as a personal attack against them and their right to party.

Opinions year in review

Page 24

The Oberlin Review

May 23, 2014

Students protest changes to Oberlin’s Financial Aid policy on April 10. The changes themselves, as well as their unannounced posting on the College’s website, was a source of outrage for many.

Kaïa Austin

We All Do Better When We All Do Better

Rosemary Boeglin Editor-in-Chief May 23, 2014 In 1999, then-Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone delivered a speech to the Sheet Metal Workers Union in which he asked, “Whatever happened to the idea … that we all do better when we all do better?”

At the time, Wellstone was referring to the interconnectedness of state projects: how, for example, investing in education and allocating public funds to fighting crime are two ways of approaching the same issue, or how the success of one department, city or project implies not the weakening of others but rather their ability to prosper now and in the future.

The question Wellstone posed 15 years ago has still broader implications. Is it — as conservatives have argued for decades — that power and economic success must play out as a zero-sum game? Or is it possible that an increasingly equitable distribution of resources can result in a society in which prosperity doesn’t come at the expense and exploitation of others, but instead a society in which prosperity begets more of the same?

Domestic Politics

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Smoking Ban

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Consent

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Financial Aid

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At Oberlin, we hold this vision in high esteem. We seek to create a world unencumbered by systems of oppression that stymie our success as individuals and as a society. Our drive to dismantle that which impedes us and our collective life experiences, both unique and shared, entreat us to create and expand safe spaces, open the door for dialogue, lend a hand or ear, and ensure the physical and mental health of one another.

Though these goals are shared among the hundreds of students preparing to walk across the stage on Monday, it’s less clear how we’ve worked to establish an atmosphere of mutual success and compassion during our time at Oberlin. We seek to proselytize our vision to other individuals and communities but often fail to foster that environment in our own town.

Our resources at Oberlin are admittedly both shared and finite, which often leads to a sense of competitiveness among student organizations and a desire to win out for money, power and prestige.

But this is a false equation and one that limits us. What does it mean that “we all do better when we all do better”? It means that when The Oberlin Review does a better

Safer Sex Night Cancelled The SIC put an end to Safer Sex Night, claiming the event contradicted the group’s core values.

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job reporting, investigating, writing and editing, the benefits are diffuse; we’re able to provide students with the information they need to hold the College accountable and formulate informed opinions, offer an open platform for campus dialogue and give students and residents a fuller understanding of local initiatives and issues. It means that like-minded students can find one another. Unfortunately, the Review doesn’t always meet this standard; when we don’t, we let down not just ourselves but our entire community.

“We all do better when we all do better” also means that we genuinely desire others to succeed by whatever metric they’ve set for themselves. This entails that while we pursue our own projects, we recognize that the pursuits of others are also meaningful and important. It means understanding that just because your neighbor is not able to dedicate themself to the same project in the same way, this doesn’t necessarily imply divergent values. When we learn to appreciate the work of those whose interests seem completely alien to our own, we find our commonalities.

There are only so many hours in the day and so many dollars in the Student Fi-

What’s in a Name?

A letter in support of College Senior Jessica Lam’s complaint about Solarity event Toxicity.

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nance Committee coffers, but if we locate the point at which your mission and mine intersect, we can make better use of these limited resources.

Ultimately, “we all do better when we all do better” means that when I succeed, you succeed. This applies on an interpersonal, as well as an interorganizational, level. Once we graduate from Oberlin, it will behoove us immensely to be part of a network comprised of passionate and prosperous individuals. Our future ventures will be all the more successful if we’re able to utilize the immensely creative minds that come out of this year’s graduating class, as well as those before and after. The only way to forge these relationships and ensure that others will find their footing in the world after Oberlin is to start here. By fostering a space in which compassion, respect and mutual support drive our interactions, we can work to create the type of society that allows prosperity to beget more of the same right here in Oberlin. With this model, we’ll be well equipped to combat the forces that oppose us, to take on the powers that be and to fill our lives with interesting projects and awe-inspiring Obies.

Tobacco-Free Policy Passes Controversy erupts as Oberlin considers, and then passes, a tobaccofree policy, disallowing students from smoking on campus.

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Arts

year in review

May 23, 2014

The Oberlin Review

Punch Brothers members Gabe Witcher on violin (left), Chris Eldridge, OC ’04, on guitar, frontman Chris Thile on mandolin, Paul Kowert on double bass and Noam Pikelny on banjo lock into a rhythm during their Artist Recital Series performance in Finney Chapel on March 9. The bluegrass group demonstrated its talent and chemistry but focused on diversity of repertoire at the expense of crowd-pleasing favorites.

Courtesy of Yevgen Gulenko

Bluegrass Residency Culminates in Diverse Finney Concert Anne Pride-Wilt Arts Editor March 14, 2014 When the popular bluegrass band Punch Brothers performed a last-minute show at the Cat in the Cream first semester, the raucous, enthusiastic concertgoers were treated to a hit parade culled primarily from the band’s crowd-pleasing last two albums. The clean acoustics of the small venue perfectly accentuated the show’s plunky, less bluegrass-heavy-than-usual set list. To be clear, it was one of the best concerts Oberlin has seen this year. But when Punch Brothers took the Finney Chapel stage March 9, it quickly became clear that while the band was playing in top form, this concert was a far cry from its organic, wild Cat show. On the contrary, this Sunday night’s show was an almost academic, calculated mix of fun songs, traditional bluegrass, eclectic covers and classical arrangements that seemed more designed to showcase the band’s range than to produce a fun show.

The Finney Chapel performance, presented as part of the ongoing Artist Recital Series, was only one in a long line of events

and performances that Punch Brothers are participating in as part of their three-part residency in the Conservatory. The band, including guitarist Chris Eldridge, OC ’04, stayed in Oberlin for a week at the end of last semester, hosting master classes, improv sessions and all manner of workshops, all of which culminated in the Cat performance. They returned in March for more of the same, the most-hyped event of which was the sold-out Artist Recital Series performance in Finney, and the quintet will return again for a collaborative performance this weekend.

Regardless of how Sunday’s performance goes, though, the Finney show is sure to remain a standout, at least in terms of scale — a sold-out Finney show is no small feat for anyone. Considering that Punch Brothers are a bigger act than Oberlin’s usual fare, concertgoers started lining up outside a full 30 minutes before doors opened. The unusually diverse audience was comprised of a healthy mix of students and community members. Frontman and mandolinist Chris Thile acknowledged the brief time that elapsed since the band’s last visit when they took the stage — “How are y’all? It’s been... months!” — but not much

Southern Tragedy

Real Talent AMAM exhibits showcased 19th-century lithographs and other Realist works drawn from the Allen’s permanent collection.

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time was spent on reminiscing, as they almost immediately launched into the music.

Curiously, the band opened with a cover rather than one of their own tunes — albeit one for which the band has become well-known — the haunting “Another New World” by Josh Ritter, OC ’99. A new, original instrumental piece followed, and only after that did the band come through with “This Girl,” a favorite from the group’s most recent full-length album, 2012’s Who’s Feeling Young Now? This odd initial ordering more or less set the pattern for the rest of the show — a cover, an instrumental and a recognizable Punch Brothers song, with a wild card thrown in here and there for good measure.

It was the wild cards, though, that defined the tone of the show. Most notably, the group played a Debussy arrangement that Chris Thile announced with, “Now for some Debussy.” The audience mostly laughed in response, assuming he was joking, before the five-piece actually did play a lively arrangement that sounded perfectly natural with the unorthodox instrumentation. The piece was followed with its polar opposite, an as-of-yet unreleased new original song called “Magnet” in the band’s more

Mutant Grooves Brazilian legends Os Mutantes brought rich, clean psychedelic rock to the ’Sco in November.

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In the Theater department’s Follow Me to Nellie’s, racial tension came head-to-head with romance in 1950s Mississippi.

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recent poppy style, lyrics querying, “Is there a center between two centers of attention?”

Also in the mix were a few more covers, less associated with the band than “Another New World,” including a pleasant version of “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” by the White Stripes (or, in Thile’s words, “Jack White and his sister-wife Meg”) and a sublime cover of Elliot Smith’s “Clementine.”

All of this variety was enjoyable in the moment. Each band member — Eldridge, Thile, violinist Gabe Witcher, banjoist Noam Pikelny and double bassist Paul Kowert — is wildly talented on his own, and the chemistry between the five only accentuates their individual skill. In particular, Thile’s goofy hopping motions while playing are a joy to watch; his weirdness is so unabashedly enthusiastic that it becomes infectious. All of this made the Finney show an energetic, engaging performance, and after the second standing ovation following the encore, almost everyone in the audience left smiling.

Frankly, though, it could have been better. Finney acoustics are notoriously illsuited to musical performances, and the See Punch, page 27

Music

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Features

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Visual Art

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Performance

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Arts

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The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

music

’Sco Crowd Packs in for Chance The Rapper Matthew Sprung Staff Writer Dec. 6, 2013 Still a few months shy of being able to enjoy a beer at the ’Sco, then-20-year-old Chicago native and rising hip-hop artist Chancelor Bennett, a.k.a. Chance The Rapper,

brought enough buoyancy with him to intoxicate a packed and pulsating audience on Dec. 3. Oberlin was one of the last stops for Chance as he traveled across the country as part of his first headlining tour, performing almost every night starting from late October until the tour’s end in Los Angeles on Dec. 19.

Chance The Rapper crouches low for a verse during his show at the ’Sco on Dec. 3. Chance relished the audience’s intimate knowledge of his rhymes, at points letting the crowd fill in lines for him.

Effie Kline-Salamon

Anticipation could not have been higher for the yet-tobe-signed rapper. Hordes of dedicated students trudged to Wilder Hall on an early Saturday morning at the beginning of November, causing tickets to sell out at an alarming rate.

The hype drew a massive crowd to the ’Sco; the room was packed even for the opening acts. Oberlin’s own Van ’Go, another Chicago native, performed a terrific set full of passion and enthusiasm. His introspective and motivating lyrics were a fitting introduction to Chance’s music. During his closing song, students held up lighters in tribute, although he was only warmup act number one, and it was only 10:30 p.m.

The following opener, DJs Rashad and Spinn, did their best to lift and maintain the crowd’s excitement, playing crowdpleasers like Kanye West’s “Gold Digger.”

However, after over an hour of a playlist that was at times cringingly loud, the crowd began to talk amongst themselves, looking to the back door for signs of the main attraction.

Finally, College senior Sam Brown, a December 2013 graduate, came onstage to introduce Chance and warn the crowd that the show could not go on if pushing and shoving knocked over the barricades set up in front of the stage. It felt as if Jay Z himself was about to walk in.

The audience responded with a

cheer, making it unclear if they were agreeing with or challenging Brown.

At midnight, Chance took the stage amid such an emphatic roar of applause that it felt like a gladiator had just entered the Coliseum. He got right down to business, keenly focusing his stage persona and exuding confidence that hovered on the cusp of brashness.

Chance made his way through several songs from his initial mixtape, 10 Day, while also sneaking in tracks from his more popular 2013 mixtape, Acid Rap. Released in April 2013, Acid Rap spread like wildfire among college students. Throughout his set, Chance repeatedly lowered his microphone, allowing the crowd to recite by heart long segments of verses throughout the show.

The live band, which consisted of a trumpet, drums and keyboards, lifted the songs to a new level of musical dynamism, harmoniously contrasting Chance’s nasally vocals and shrill delivery. The group even pushed him to attempt smoother sung vocals. A surprise for those who did not read earlier reviews of the tour was a sincere cover of Coldplay’s melancholy ballad, “Fix You,” which turned the ’Sco into the closest thing Oberlin will get to an actual Coldplay concert.

“I want to try an experiment,” Chance said, “but I need ev-

eryone to be real quiet for it to work.” As the room grew silent and dark, Chance let out three calculated yet harrowing and synthesized cries, which erupted the room back into sound and light. At regular intervals, Chance engaged the crowd in a howling call and response that sounded like a pack of wolves.

While the audience made the most noise during the catchier “Juice” — which momentarily produced the world’s shortest crowdsurf — and “Favorite Song,” their singing was most pronounced during the more sentimental and optimistic songs “Interlude (That’s Love)” and “Everybody’s Something.” These songs exemplified Chance’s honest and uplifting themes of fulfilling one’s potential, never giving up and staying positive.

The genuineness of Chance’s youthful enthusiasm made even the planned moments of spontaneity — breakouts into dancing, stripping layers off until shirtless and spraying water at the crowd with strobe lights — memorable not just for students but for a rapper on his way up.

“Thank you all so much,” Chance said before coming back on to perform a four-song encore, including his new unreleased song, “Paradise.” The dancing didn’t stop until the moment the young performer had left the building.

Os Mutantes Barrel through Psych-Rock Classics Julian Ring Arts Editor Nov. 15, 2013 Sérgio Dias may be the sole original member in Os Mutantes — the revolving cast of psychedelic rockers has gone through more lineup changes than the band’s home country of Brazil has presidents — but draped in a black cloak over a T-shirt, arms raised and sporting a wide grin, he looked more like a jovial father figure than an undisputed grandmaster of Tropicália. He is, of course, both.

Os Mutantes is legendary in South America, but despite garnering a few high-profile fans, their genre-bending career has been met with limited acclaim here in the States. Dias’s grin was warranted, then, by the number of people who packed the ’Sco on Nov. 12 to hear the group blaze through a rhythmic set spanning almost 50 years. Part nostalgia trip, part victory lap, Os Mutantes’s show articulated wordlessly why this group defies definition.

Sneering, anthemic and loud as hell, Argentine garage trio Capsula was a propulsive opener and a fabulous complement to Mutantes’s slower burn. This is a band that, in energy and aesthetic, should be playing to far bigger crowds — and as demonstrated by its tour for its first English-language album, Solar Secrets, bigger crowds appear to be precisely Capsula’s goal. Singer and guitarist Martin Guevara led the sonic charge like a Stooges-era Iggy Pop, spending as much time taking his histrionics to the crowd as he did flaunting them atop his monitor amplifier.

“The planet is going to fucking destroy [sic], so we’ve got to have fun,” he shouted, vocals dripping with reverb, before scraping off the riff to begin the corroded shuffle of “Seven Crimes.”

Those antics were sustained by the ferocious call-and-response between Guevara and bassist Coni Duchess, as well as the heavy-handedness of drummer Ignacio Solimo, who, like Keith Moon before him, rarely let up on the crash cymbals for the duration of the show. It’s rare to see a singer so devoted to showmanship front such a no-frills ensemble, but Capsula tapped into this dichotomy as a source of raw power. Only after Guevara’s guitar, strangled by a mic cable, was left swinging from the rafters did one remember that this was only the warm-up band.

That wouldn’t have been the first time that the good part ended early at the ’Sco this year.

But after clambering onstage for a humorous soundcheck — conducted in German, no less — the six members of Os Mutantes proceeded to dispel any doubts about the performance to come. Rambling through a danceable piece of retro-psychedelia, Dias, now 62, sang as well as he did on the band’s 1968 debut.

Across the board, rich harmonies and clean arrangements made the legacy act sound inspired and full of life.

A group of Os Mutantes’s stature has the luxury of being selective about which songs to play, but the band is so consistent in the quality of its output that it was impossible to tell when older tracks butted heads with much newer material — that is, when Dias wasn’t explaining his critics-be-damned approach to performance: “We’re here to put our face to slap,” he quipped. The group then tumbled into a deliciously trippy mambo. Routine, it seems, is not high on their list of priorities.

No, Os Mutantes is at its best when it’s relishing in the freedom that comes with decades of collective musicmaking. At heart, it is very much a jam band, and save for a few

acoustic ballads, Dias kept busy by prying extended shrieks and shudders from his guitar.

It was during solos that the assorted elements of the band’s sound differentiated themselves: A samba-flavored percussion interlude by Cláudio Tchernev drew from traditional Brazilian music or even Santana at Woodstock, while keyboardist Henrique Peters dug his heels into a meaty organ tone that recalled the best stateside southern rock.

Os Mutantes’s not-so-subtle fascination with America was on full display, most evidently in songs from its own English-language record, Fool Metal Jack. That album’s single is a politically charged tune called “Look Out,” which at the ’Sco came barreling down on

the heels of another recent cut, the Zeppelinbluesy “Piccadilly Willie.” Perhaps Os Mutantes is trying to make big statements with big riffs as a way of remaining relevant at the tail end of their fourth decade together. That those two songs were the evening’s standout performances affirmed that it has at least a decent shot.

On the other hand, the band will always have one foot stuck in the Summer of Love — and maybe that’s not such a bad thing. It’s got nothing to prove next to neo-psychedelic disciples like The Flaming Lips and Tame Impala.

Of course, Dias will never admit his greatness.

He’ll just stand there with that sly grin and play on.

Guitarists Sérgio Dias (left) and Vitor Trida of Os Mutantes trade vocal and instrumental licks during an extended jam. The band saturated the ’Sco with Brazilian beats and psychedelic sludge during its Nov. 12 show.

Effie Kline-Salamon

Arts

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

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music

Feature Photo: Yo-Yo Ma

Punch Brothers Meet, But Don’t Exceed, High Bar Continued from page 25

Yo-Yo Ma hits a high note as Kathryn Stott accompanies him. As the second event in the 2013–14 Artist Recital Series, Ma and Stott’s sold-out concert in Finney Chapel drew so many fans that overflow seating for a video live stream had to be made available in Warner Concert Hall — unprecedented for a classical concert at Oberlin.

Courtesy of Roger Mastroianni

concert was affected by the muddy sound. But more than that, the set list felt calculated to impress, as if the purpose of the concert was less to put on a great show than to highlight the band’s range.

When the crowd’s energy was high after, for example, the fast and loud “Rye Whiskey,” still the band’s biggest hit, the band didn’t respond to that energy and keep the mood elevated, but rather dampened it with a 10 minute movement of a longer, slower piece, the fourth movement of Thile’s “The Blind Leaving the Blind.” Both pieces are beautiful and impressive in their own ways, but Punch Brothers should have picked a theme and stuck to it rather than trying to be all things to all people. This is what the Cat show last December did better; it went for “fun” before “impressive,” and the results blew away the self-consciously grown-up Finney concert.

Nonetheless, Chris Thile, and hopefully the rest of the band, loves Oberlin, as he announced towards the end of the show (“I hope that’s okay,” he added), and Oberlin rightfully loves them back, if one can judge from the enthusiastic response of the Finney audience. The quintet is astoundingly talented, so even a less-than-stellar performance will still probably be one of the better concerts of the year, and this definitely held true for March’s concert. Even so, here’s hoping that this weekend, Punch Brothers focuses less on impressing and more on having fun.

features

Conservatory Students Call for Resources to Handle Injuries Nora Kipnis Staff Writer March 14, 2014

for a Conservatory student. For Castro-Abrams, it meant that if she had orchestra rehearsal, that was all the playing she could do for the day.

College junior Leah Wollenberg had a somewhat different experience with her violininduced stress injury. Her wrist pain started this past October and has yet to subside. It first emerged while she was changing her bowing technique to improve her tone, which resulted in additional tension in her hand. At the same time, she says that a general frustration with her musical progress cultivated more physical tension while playing. Wollenberg had been taking private lessons in violin and jazz, as well as a jazz improvisation class. Fortunately, her teachers were supportive in arranging ways for her to complete her coursework with minimal playing. She saw a physical therapist in Elyria who wasn’t much help.

As a Music Studies major with a concentration in jazz violin, Wollenberg has been able to cut back on playing this semester; she’s

One Wednesday during double-degree senior Elizabeth Castro-Abrams’s second semester at Oberlin, she suddenly felt an excruciating pain in her wrist. She complained of the pain to her violin teachers, who told her to ice and stretch, but it didn’t stop. Student Health Services wasn’t much help, either. Despite numerous visits to various doctors, all of whom had different ideas about the injury’s origin, the pain eventually forced Castro-Abrams to drop all of her musical engagements for the rest of the semester. Prior to her injury, she’d been practicing violin up to eight hours a day — not unusual for a Conservatory student, she said — but the injury was completely unexpected. “You think you’re invincible before anything happens,” she said. Instead of going to music camp as she had planned, Castro-Abrams spent the summer at home in California visiting specialist after specialist trying to find out what was wrong. By Au- –––––––––––––––––––––––––––———— gust, she had the answer: a tear in the cartilage of her wrist, for which she would need surgery. When Castro-Abrams woke up Castro-Abrams’s friends cautioned her to from the two-hour surgery, the avoid going under the knife, warning her that doctor told her that hers was she might sustain irreparable nerve damage and never be able to play again. However, the “the worst wrist [he had] ever doctor told her that if she didn’t get surgery, seen.” She spent the next two the tear would only become worse, so she de- months on medical leave from cided to go ahead. When Castro-Abrams woke Oberlin, in a cast and unable to up from the two-hour surgery, the doctor told her that hers was “the worst wrist [he had] ever open doors, eat or dress herself seen.” She spent the next two months on medi- without intense pain. cal leave from Oberlin, in a cast and unable to open doors, eat or dress herself without intense –––––––––––––––––––––––––––———— pain.

For the next few months, Castro-Abrams fulfilling her other requirements and giving used acupuncture, massage therapy and swim- her wrist a rest. She’s also learned a different ming to rebuild her strength. “All of the muscles way of playing to help relieve tension in her that I had built up over years and years of vio- wrists. “I have changed, and I actually think lin playing completely atrophied,” she said. By that my tone is better for it,” she said, but late December, she was allowed to return to her she’s still working toward the tone she was violin — but for no more than two minutes a trying to achieve when she was first injured. day. Despite the strict time limitation, Castro- Talking to many other students about musiAbrams said that when she was allowed to play cal technique has helped her in this pursuit. again, “it was the best day of my life.” Slowly, she “If you’re doing it right, then you’re not going increased her daily playing time by a few min- to get hurt, and you’re going to sound better,” utes a week, until by February she was prac- she said. ticing two hours a day. It was certainly an imCastro-Abrams also found that her way provement, but even so, two hours is minimal of playing changed after her injury. She

holds her violin differently and now takes a new approach to practicing. Instead of spending hours repeating the same song or few bars over and over until she gets it right, Castro-Abrams uses visualization to make sure she can play the piece within only a few tries. “I’ve heard teachers say, ‘It’s all about repetition; it’s muscle memory,’ ” CastroAbrams said. “But I think it’s a lot more than that. You have to be completely engaged the whole time.” But while her new method takes up less time, it is far more exhausting than mindless repetition. “To practice properly, you can’t do it longer than an hour at a time. It’s like writing a paper; you have to be extremely detail-oriented, and a lot of it is in your head — more than you think.”

Both Castro-Abrams and Wollenberg emphasized the importance of a relaxed approach to practicing. Anxiety and stress lead to tension in the body, which increases the chance of injury. “If you’re stressed out,” Castro-Abrams said, “You’re practicing against that, and it’s way more difficult physically and mentally.” She has tried various mental and physical warm-ups before practicing to help prevent injury, from deep breathing to squats, all in the hope of getting blood flowing to the hands and wrists. Wollenberg believes that mental stress increases one’s risk for physical stress injuries and that her personal frustration with her music probably had an impact on her own stress injury.

In response, she’s learned new ways to keep stress from impacting her body.

While Wollenberg and Castro-Abrams noted that their professors and teachers were incredibly supportive while they dealt with their injuries — Castro-Abrams’s teacher even drove her to see a music injury specialist in Cleveland — they both lamented the lack of school-wide support for stress injury prevention and management.

“It seems like there’s this idea of you get hurt and then you’re hurt, and it’s forever, and it could ruin your career, and there’s no helping it,” said Castro-Abrams. While the prevention and treatment of stress injuries is possible, the pair believes that not enough is being done to help students at the Conservatory. Castro-Abrams suggested the institution of a required seminar for stress injury prevention, while Wollenberg said that the

Conservatory class Physical Wellness for the Musician’s Life should be a requirement for all Conservatory students. They would also love to see a sports doctor, physical therapist or music injury specialist on staff at the Conservatory — someone to whom faculty can refer their students for immediate assistance when problems arise, as stress injuries are often difficult for general practitioners to recognize and treat.

Dance instructor Deborah Vogel, who teaches the Physical Wellness for the Musician’s Life elective, emphasizes physical health as a key element of musical ability and agrees with Wollenberg and Castro-Abrams that there should be a resource for Conservatory students akin to the trainer for studentathletes. Unfortunately, her class is limited to only 12 students per semester, about half of whom are enrolled because they were already injured. “I think sometimes musicians forget that they have a body,” Vogel said.

“Their main focus is ‘How many hours can I put in? That’s going to make me a better musician.’ ” Vogel espouses a less-is-more approach to rehearsals, saying that visualizing practice can work wonders for rehearsal outcomes. Stress injuries and minor pains are common in the Conservatory, a side effect of the pressure to perform that leads to hours and hours of practice a day. “I’m practicing more here than I have in my whole life. I think that’s the case for most people in the Conservatory,” Wollenberg said.

Vogel agreed, suggesting that the intensity with which Conservatory musicians approach their training and the competitive nature of orchestra pecking orders make them particularly vulnerable to emotional pressure and stress injuries. In her class, she teaches basic anatomy for musicians, stress-relief methods and exercises specific to musicians. According to Vogel, students often report that their injuries or pain have subsided within a semester of taking her class, although Castro-Abrams noted that she knows “students who have taken it who still have problems.” Evidently, the prevention of stress injuries isn’t a cutand-dried endeavor. “[Stress injuries] are mysterious things,” Wollenberg said. “You kind of have to wait and not push things and be patient with it.”

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features

John Cavanaugh on the Art of Piano Tech Julia Herbst Editor-in-Chief March 7, 2014 The classic recording of “Christmas Time Is Here” from A Charlie Brown Christmas drives John Cavanaugh crazy, but it’s an occupational hazard to which he is accustomed. As the Director of Piano Technology at the Conservatory, Cavanaugh has developed a highly trained ear over a lifetime of focused listening, so the off-key piano melody strikes him as particularly annoying.

“The piano [in the recording] is so out of tune,” he says, though he concedes that the imperfection does lend extra charm to the rendition. “When you hear some of these [same] Charlie Brown tunes that Vince Guaraldi did, and the piano’s perfectly in tune, it’s not the same. It’s not good. I mean, sometimes it’s OK for the piano to be a little bit stinky and ripe, or whatever you want to call it. And so you just go, ‘So it’s a little out of tune; I can handle it,’ and try and listen to the music.”

If you’ve never had a reason to wander into the mysterious piano workshop in the basement of Bibbins Hall — a cluttered workspace that sometimes contains as many as seven pianos in various stages of renovation — you’ve probably never met Cavanaugh. With an unassuming, methodical demeanor and a dry sense of humor, Cavanaugh, who has worked at Oberlin since 2001, is one of the Conservatory’s best-kept secrets.

It’s 9:30 a.m., and as Cavanaugh talks, he puts the finishing touches on a piano he’s just tuned for a morning master class in the David H. Stull Recital Hall. The rest of his day will be spent overseeing a variety of piano repairs and working with a staff of three other technicians — two full-time and one part-time employee, with an additional part-time position to be added

this fall. Together, the technicians are responsible not only for making sure the Conservatory’s concert pianos meet the specific criteria of the renowned pianists who perform here, but also for keeping the Conservatory’s 234 Steinway pianos — which fill practice rooms, professors’ offices and various performance venues — in working order.

“Over the years, students will say, ‘Oh, these pianos in the practice rooms are awful,’ and then they go to grad school and then they find out that this place wasn’t so bad,” Cavanaugh says. “You know, [the grad schools] put them in a little sarcophagus to practice.

No windows, and then the piano’s like this little Baldwin vertical, and they’re like, ‘But I’m a grad student! Come on!’ Oberlin [puts] a lot of effort into keeping the pianos here in nice shape.

I mean, they have the funding here to do it, and they think it’s important. And that’s why the guys here want to work here and stay: because they support our efforts.”

The Conservatory has had a close partnership with renowned piano manufacturer Steinway & Sons since 1877, and the company designated Oberlin Conservatory as the very first “All-Steinway School.” For Cavanaugh, however, Steinway’s relationship with Oberlin is more significant than its title.

“The ‘All-Steinway School’ moniker, or whatever you want to call it, is very recent,” he says. “It’s a marketing thing. As far as we’re concerned, we were an all-Steinway school before the name ever came into being. The school decides, ‘OK, we’re going to buy the nicest pianos, and Steinway, we feel, makes the nicest all-around piano for [the school].’ It’s not necessarily the best there is — I think it is, but it’s very personal — and they’re built like tanks, and you can rebuild them.”

Oberlin maintains a close partnership with the company today, as

evidenced by Steinway’s participation in the Conservatory’s development of a new Artist Diploma Program in Piano Technology, which starts next year. Oberlin plans to hold regional auditions in various Steinway factories, galleries and offices around the world, including in Shanghai, New York, Hamburg and Brazil; Steinway will vet the applicants before passing the names of top candidates along to the Conservatory.

According to Cavanaugh, only three students will be accepted per year into the two-year graduate-level program, which Cavanaugh and Robert Murphy, the assistant director of Piano Technology and curator of fortepianos, have designed to emphasize a collaborative relationship between technician and musician — a connection which both believe to be crucial.

“We’re going to be putting students in situations with artists ... [where] the pianist will say ‘I need this done,’ and then the mentor will be there with the student, and the student will have an hour to get the piano ready,” Cavanaugh says. “So, baptism by fire. We force them to think on their feet and then we review their work ... so that they learn to ... get to the heart of what the pianist wants. They have to learn what the pianist is getting at, because the pianist, they’re not thinking in terms of [the same] language [as the technician], and most technicians don’t know what in the world the pianist is talking about.”

In the past, Cavanaugh has offered piano technician classes to undergraduates, in large part to educate Piano Performance majors about the mechanics of the instrument they spend so many hours playing.

“Most pianists don’t know a thing about their instrument,” Cavanaugh says. It seems like even harpsichord players can tune their own harpsichords, organists can very often take

Director of Piano Technology John Cavanaugh works on a Steinway piano in the piano workshop in the basement of Bibbins Hall. Together with a staff of three others, Cavanaugh tunes and maintains the 234 Steinways that fill the Conservatory and adjusts pianos to meet the specific needs of visiting pianists for their recitals.

Zoë Madonna

care of a cipher or do something, [but] a pianist sees the keys, and they don’t know what is inside the piano.”

Students in Cavanaugh’s introductory class learned how a piano is tuned and tried their hands at making basic adjustments; in the intermediate class, students rebuilt an entire piano, including fixing the soundboard, putting on new strings and rebuilding the damper action. Cavanaugh says the undergraduate classes will likely be offered again after the Artist Diploma Program gets underway.

“Probably in the fall, there’ll be at least something geared for piano majors that’s kind of like a piano technology appreciation course,” he says. “The other [previously offered courses] were like, ‘Roll your sleeves up!’ and we were competing with other schools and ... doing in two semesters what they do in two years at the other schools. We just wanted to burn [the other schools] and show them we could do it because the students are so quick to learn.”

Cavanaugh views piano technology as more than just a craft.

“You just have to have the time to practice working on the pianos,” he says. “You know how it’s supposed to be done, you know all the rules ... but then you need to fall down lots of times, pick yourself up and keep trying. ... Tune two or three thousand pianos as a student, and then maybe you’ll be a good tuner.

It just takes forever. ... You just have to keep working on it until you’re competent and then, after you’re competent, you’re successful. After you’re successful, you start really making your mark.”

While he says he sometimes gets caught up in scrutinizing the tone and evenness of a piano he has adjusted during a performance, he considers being a piano technician a rewarding position.

“If the person who is playing is just a great player, then I really enjoy the music, and I’m really grateful that I could be part of it, and it’s kind of almost spiritual,” he says. “You’re just in there, and you’re going, ‘Wow, I’m really lucky to be listening to this great person, and I talked to him, and I helped him make the piano nice.’ ”

No More Starving Artists: Conservatory Programs Emphasize Entrepreneurship Daniel Hautzinger and Julian Ring Staff Writer and Arts Editor Nov. 8, 2013 “But how are you going to make money?”

It’s a question every student studying music has likely faced. This query is especially common today, with the economic recession and the all-too-common news stories of troubled music institutions. In the first week of October alone, the New York City Opera filed for bankruptcy, the music director of the Minnesota Orchestra resigned after a continuing yearlong salary dispute between musicians and management and Carnegie Hall canceled its opening concert because of a strike by stagehands. Amid such prophecies of doom, it’s understandable for Conservatory students to be concerned about their futures.

Yet there is still hope for the musician. According to a study by arts advocacy group Americans for the Arts, the nonprofit arts and culture sector in America creates $135 billion annually in economic activity, and that collective activity supports 4.1 million full-time jobs.

“There is a place for musicians in today’s world. It’s not a fizzling economic prospect,” said Professor of Conducting and Director of Oberlin’s Contemporary Music Ensemble Tim Weiss.

Weiss is a mentor to successful alumni groups such as eighth blackbird and the International Contemporary Ensemble.

But to be successful as a musician today, one has to be willing to create a career that fits into the realities of contemporary life, and that

means being well-versed in self-promotion and entrepreneurship. eighth blackbird is a good model: an Oberlin group with three Grammy awards to its name that has developed its own brand and become one of today’s foremost contemporary chamber ensembles. Paul Cox, interim director of professional development for the Conservatory and a mentor to eighth blackbird, said that part of the reason for that group’s success was that it made itself unique. “[It] did one thing that no one else was doing, and that was playing from memory with movement [around –––––––––––––––––––––––––––———

“There is a place for musicians in today’s world. It’s not a fizzling economic prospect.”

Tim Weiss Professor of Conducting and director of Contemporary Music Ensemble ––––––––––––––––––––––––––———— the stage],” he said.

To help students acquire the skills, experience and funding necessary to begin a career in music, the Conservatory and the Creativity and Leadership project, which facilitates entrepreneurship at Oberlin, offer a variety of resources. Alumni like eighth blackbird are brought in to speak about their professional lives and give advice, acting as a potential model for students who wish to form their own chamber groups.

Students are also able to form useful connections with alumni. “Connecting with people who have more experience is invaluable,” said Kate Chase, acting director of the Creativity and Leadership project. Masters in Music Teaching student Max Mellman, who is developing “enhanced recorded music playback software” called Maestro, wrote in an email to the Review that, through Creativity and Leadership, he has been able to meet alumni entrepreneurs who “are both inspiring and have awesome business advice.” In a lecture about careers at the Conservatory, which took place on Oct. 2, eighth blackbird members themselves stressed the importance of acquiring entrepreneurship and business skills as musicians. As the ensemble members mentioned in their talk, it is important to “always use your Oberlin connections.” Oberlin can help kickstart a career through its extensive network, they said, and then successful alumni can coach student groups. “We even played for Michael Maccaferri [the clarinetist in eighth blackbird],” oboist and Conservatory junior Tim Daniels said of his wind trio, Third Rail, in an email to the Review.

To fully utilize those connections, students must have solid entrepreneurial skills. To this end, the Creativity and Leadership project offers a number of classes. In the Conservatory’s entrepreneurship department, there are courses that cover basic entrepreneurship, finances, business models and promotional video production. The Conservatory also offers a course called Touring for Musicians, which covers practical skills such as budgeting, marketing and fundraising.

“If I could help students to learn just the basics before they graduate, it will put them so far ahead of their peers from other schools,” said Gloria Kim, Conservatory associate dean for artistic programming and operations, who teaches the class.

Kim, along with Cox, Chase, Conservatory Associate Dean for Student Academic Affairs Mary Kay Gray and Acting Dean of the Conservatory Andrea Kalyn, acts as professional mentors for students. “Any one of us here are eager to help,” said Kim. Artist Diploma student Nick King, who founded Art of Giving Back, an organization committed to supporting young classical musicians and giving back to the community, said in an email that “Paul Cox, Gloria Kim and numerous other members of the Oberlin administration have been very supportive and resourceful in the development of my organization. Each person I’ve spoken with is incredibly knowledgeable and eager to help.”

That guidance ranges from aid in putting together websites, biographies and recordings to refining ideas and careers.

“I listen a lot, and I listen carefully,” Cox said.

“Then I give advice as to what they could do to hone their project, maximize a tour, for example, [and] think of ideas that they may have missed.”

The world of musical employment may appear bleak, but Oberlin does all it can to shore up its Conservatory graduates’ employment prospects. As King said, “I don’t know of any other conservatory that has such a comprehensive entrepreneurship program.”

Arts

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

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features

Dunham Charms with Playfulness, Candor Anne Pride-Wilt Arts Editor Feb. 14, 2014 As the most talked-about Oberlin alumna in recent years, Lena Dunham, OC ’08, returned to Finney Chapel for her Feb. 8 convocation like a conquering hero — a funny, humble, down-to-earth one. Dunham is well-known for creating and starring in the award-winning 2010 indie film Tiny Furniture as well as the Emmy-award-winning HBO series Girls, which recently completed its third season, among other projects.

While Oberlin students may sometimes tire of being compared to Lena Dunham or hearing her name dropped in conversation, Dunham’s warm, smart and surprisingly poignant convocation confirmed that the Dunham connection does Oberlin proud.

The convocation was staged as a candid interview between Dunham and Professor of English and Creative Writing David Walker, who was a professor of Dunham’s during her time at Oberlin. Dunham was greeted with huge applause, but she seemed just as happy to be back in Oberlin as the community was to have her. She told a brief anecdote about how, upon her arrival in Oberlin the previous night, she had “wanted to go to Agave ’cause it’s delicious,” and on this late-night run, she encountered “memories on every corner.”

Those memories of Oberlin were the initial focus of Professor Walker’s questions. As he reminded the audience, Dunham had only graduated five-and-a-half years ago, and he took the audience back to her college days. While at Oberlin, Dunham created subversive “guerrilla-style” YouTube videos that featured, among other things, Dunham bathing and brushing her teeth in the fountain in front of the Allen Memo-

rial Art Museum. While that particular incident ended in a brush with security, according to Dunham, she was nonetheless extremely grateful for the creative support she received at Oberlin. For example, her first full-length film, Creative Nonfiction, was filmed while at school — Professor Walker even had a part.

After reminiscing about Dunham’s college years, Walker and Dunham naturally segued into a discussion of Dunham’s second film, Tiny Furniture, which starred members of her own family and featured Dunham as a recent college graduate navigating the foibles of the post-grad world. Tiny Furniture, which won Best Narrative Feature at the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference, landed Dunham her big break.

As Dunham related, producer Judd Apatow saw a copy of the film pre-release and sent her the email that led to her HBO series. Dunham’s reply to the email? “If this is Judd Apatow, thank you. If this is my friend Isabel, go fuck yourself.”

Walker followed this autobiographical theme fairly closely throughout the interview, leading Dunham and the audience through early negotiations with HBO over Girls before transitioning to the run of the series and Dunham’s current notoriety. Most amusingly, Dunham shared that HBO had not originally intended for her to star in the show — Dunham had merely assumed that she would do so since she had acted in Tiny Furniture, a mix-up she had thought would get her fired.

Instead, HBO installed her as the lead, and Dunham became a public face.

That publicity has not come without its downsides, though, which Walker addressed when he shifted the conversation to the controversy that Dunham and her show frequently provoke. A line from an early episode of the show is often cited as an example of Dunham’s megalomania: “I think that I may be

the voice of my generation. Or at least a voice ... of a generation.” When Walker brought it up, Dunham protested, “Guys, my character said it when she was on drugs!” The line, however, has refused to die, remaining an endless source of snarky articles with headlines like Dunham’s hypothetical example, “Lena Dunham Thinks She’s the Voice of Her Generation.”

Addressing criticisms that her characters are unlikeable and overly neurotic, Dunham said that she “just wanted to show characters who were as complex as my friends are.” She listed The Sopranos’s Tony Soprano, Breaking Bad’s Walter White and Dexter’s Dexter as examples of beloved unlikeable male characters and noted that “women behaving badly is historically really problematic for audiences.”

These criticisms aside, Walker moved to the most troubling aspect of Girls: what he called “the privilege question.”

Few discussions of Girls or its creator pass without a reference to the almost across-the-board racial and economic privilege of its characters. Dunham became serious. When the show was conceived, she said, she wasn’t thinking of representing the totality of voices in her generation — she was just making characters based on herself. Her regretful answer was more explanatory than defensive, and she said she was glad that at least the racially troubling aspects of her show had started a conversation. She also pointed out that her show had responded to the criticism in later seasons: “Maybe I should have gone on [The Huffington Post] and written an essay, but I’d rather work it out in my work.”

When, to conclude, Walker asked Dunham what she would tell a 20-year-old Lena Dunham in the audience, Dunham offered a heartfelt paean on the importance of finding oneself. There’s “a lot of really powerful energy here,” she said.

“Go where the bliss is.”

visual art

Allen Takes Cue from Academia with Realism Exhibition

Gustave Courbet’s 1872 painting “Castle of Chillon, Evening” is displayed at the Allen Memorial Art Museum as part of the Regarding Realism exhibit.

Courtesy of AMAM

Odette Chalandon Sept. 20, 2013 “One must be of one’s own time,” said 19thcentury French artist Honoré Daumier and the Allen Memorial Art Museum’s yearlong exhibits honor these words of the Realist movement’s founding father. The exhibits were conceived when Associate Professor of French Libby Murphy approached the museum about curating an exhibit of 19th-century French lithographs in conjunction with her class La Comédie Humaine, which explores the social movements that gave birth to Realism.

As an institution connected to a college, the museum derives its exhibits from actual curricula. Murphy’s project served as the impetus for the creation of four new exhibits: Regarding Realism, Modern and Contemporary Realisms, The Human Comedy: Chronicles of 19th Century France and Harold E. Edgerton,

Seeking Facts. The museum was able to pull from the more than 11,000 works in its collection to provide visitors with a deeper understanding of Realism in its various forms.

Walking into the first gallery, one begins to understand the historical narrative. Curatorial Assistant Sara Green, OC ’12, begins chronologically in the mid-1600s with works that represent the predecessor to Realism: Naturalism. A lobster still life and sweeping landscapes of rich, dense colors greet visitors. The artistic interest for Naturalists, and later Realists, was to oppose idealization, and the pieces demonstrate the style of the time: smooth brush strokes and realistic proportions.

The exhibit, like the movement, starts with French works. One example is Armand Charnay’s “The Park of Sansac, Autumn,” a romantic painting with a simple subject. A woman dressed in black walks along a path reading a book. She is surrounded by the burnt orange, brown and grey of a fall day. Similarly, Gustave

Courbet’s “Castle of Chillon, Evening” presents a serene tableaux of an unassuming sailboat approaching the castle.

There are also etchings in the exhibit.

“Knife Grinder,” by Charles-Émile Jacque, is a quintessential Realist piece that portrays a man at work, bent over his knife-grinding machine. He is looking down at the little girl next to him, who offers up another knife. The two figures are outside what appears to be his workshop; there are some old machine parts on the floor. In the background, a woman and another child stand together. This is an example of the sort of everyday activity that became the new ideal subject of the Realist artists.

The show reflects the movement’s influence on artists from other European countries, such as Holland’s Hague School and artists such as Jacob Maris, as well as those from the United States. The spread of Realism to the United States in the 1930s and ’40s is exemplified by Thomas Hart Benton’s lithographs of agricultural life. His lines are curved in a way that tampers with perspective, foreshadowing the Surrealist movement to come.

His subjects are real, but their portrayal is not realistic. Separate from agricultural landscapes was Urban Realism, which focused on cityscapes and, unexpectedly, women. Instead of the domestic, docile images of women portrayed in earlier works, these women are pictured as independent; they’re lusty, partly undressed and purposeful. Look at Douglas W. Gorsline’s “Brooklyn Local,” whose subject is a woman riding the subway and fixing her hair. Her jacket is open and her shirt is partially unbuttoned.

The second exhibit, Modern and Contemporary Realisms, deals with the concept of realism with a lowercase “r.” Like the early Realism movement, realism concerned itself with the representation of real life, but the expression was moving further and further away from a given reality. “Although Realism with a capital ‘R’ was a finite movement, the realism as defined in my exhibit follows the evolution of the desire to represent tangible, real objects,” Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Denise Birkhofer said.

The influences are so far-reaching and varied in both style and country of origin that extra walls were constructed in the Ellen Johnson Gallery to accommodate all the works and better organize the exhibit. “The large walls would have swallowed the pieces if they were installed in the original space; the new walls create a sense of intimacy that draws the viewers to take a closer look at each piece,” Birkhofer said.

It is easy to see that each new corner of the gallery is its own subworld of Realist art.

Each new development and submovement reflects the original Realism in its glorification of the mundane. Two examples represent the Pop Art movement. One is James Rosenquist’s “Nails.” His acrylic painting of nails, a subject we might normally consider uninteresting and unworthy of a work of art, takes on significance through his use of brilliant colors and the implication of tally marks. The other, Roy Lichtenstein’s “Craig,” depicts a woman looking up in anticipation, presumably into the eyes of an unseen man. In contrast with the Rosenquist piece, the reality here is not related to a common object, but rather the depiction, or implication, of the common reality of a heterosexual relationship.

All the pieces in the exhibit belong to the Allen’s permanent collection, which contains a few new acquisitions, including works by Elizabeth Murray, Roger Brown and the Chinese painter Xiao Xie, the last of which was donated by Driek and Michael Zirinsky, OC ’65 and OC ’64, in honor of Edith and Naham Zirinsky. There are plenty of recognizable artists represented as well, including Giorgio de Chirico, Joan Miró and Dorothea Lange.

When visiting this incredible survey of the Realism movement, the transition from Neoclassicism to the Realism movement occurs subtly, but by the time you reach the 20th century, everything erupts. Although it is tempting to dash straight to the Modern and Contemporary Realisms exhibit, with its incredibly diverse and celebrated artists, be sure to take time in the Regarding Realism exhibit; it will greatly enhance one’s ability to understand and appreciate the modern Realists.

Arts

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The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

performance

Opera Theater Puts Dark Spin on Humperdinck Classic Jarrett Hoffman Staff Writer Nov. 15, 2013 Posthumous decapitation? Hänsel and Gretel gesticulating at the audience with their fists as their parents kneeled in prayer? This was no kids’ story.

Directed by Associate Professor of Opera Theater Jonathon Field, Oberlin Opera Theater’s production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel on Nov. 6 and Nov. 8-10 in Hall Auditorium was a dark interpretation and an overwhelming success.

A grim scene greeted the audience as the curtain rose. The set, designed by Assistant Professor of Theater Christopher McCollum, emphasized stark diagonal lines and a general raggedness. The walls of the protagonists’ house were tilted, and the trees outside were a messy collection of brown sticks. Likewise, the straw in the house’s brooms — the title characters’ father is a broom-maker — was rough and unkempt, and the tablecloth was tattered, fraying at the sides. An axe hanging on the back wall punctuated the intensity onstage. In regard to the acting, violence was the main tenet.

The siblings Hänsel and Gretel, played by doubledegree senior Marisa Novak and Conservatory senior Alexis Aimé, roughhoused constantly in the beginning of the production, Gretel coming out on top more often than not.

But the mood sobered when their mother, played by Conservatory junior Hannah Hagerty, arrived home, put her bag on the floor and promptly smacked the two children on the head.

Hagerty’s performance was powerful, as she seamlessly alternated between anger, stress, misery and, for a short, wonderful time, joy, when the father, Conservatory senior Michael Davis, brought home unexpected food. Davis, too, impressively

toed the line between drunk, playful behavior and frightening abusiveness.

Double-degree senior Nicole Levesque, Conservatory junior Emily Hopkins, Hagerty and Davis, as well as double-degree senior Rebecca Achtenberg and Conservatory junior Victoria Davis in the smaller roles of the Dew Fairy and the Sandman showcased their rich voices with impressive tone and German diction. Particularly notable was the duet between Levesque and Hopkins in the serene “Abendsegen,” the evening prayer before the siblings fall asleep together in the forest.

Holistically and in solos, the orchestra, under the baton of Raphael Jiménez, was excellent. Moreover, there was a palpable connection among the entire ensemble, the singers and the orchestra together building the music’s drama as one. Interestingly, the aesthetics of the production didn’t coincide much with the score, which was indeed Romantic, though far more often brave or domestic in tone than dark.

There was no doubt, however, who the star of the performance was. From the moment she first snuck up on Hänsel and Gretel until her inevitable demise in the oven, Karen Jesse, OC ’04, was stunning in the role of the witch. Whether singing enticingly of cakes and marzipan, gesturing alluringly toward her gingerbread house, attempting to charm a conflicted, hungry Hänsel or shrieking with rhythmic laughter, she owned the stage.

The witch’s costume and the set for her house were both perfect contrasts to the production’s otherwise gloomy aesthetic. While in general the costumes were appropriately ragged — Hänsel’s ripped corduroy shorts, for example — the witch’s ensemble was Costume Designer and Associate Professor of Theater Chris Flaharty’s shining moment. Jesse sported clown face paint, a bowler hat with feathers and a dress cobbled together

During their Nov. 8 performance, Hänsel (double-degree senior Marisa Novak) is held captive by the Witch (Karen Jesse, OC ’04) as Gretel (Conservatory senior Alexis Aimé) stands frozen. Superb singing and a powerful score helped build the onstage drama and made for an enjoyable listening experience.

Courtesy of John Seyfried

from swatches of different fabrics, perhaps taken from the clothes of previously captured children.

Against the brown setting of the woods, her house popped in purples, greens, reds and blues and was adorned with candy canes, pinwheels and faces sticking out of the walls. A very creepy candyland, indeed.

The production was enthralling, but a few weak points stuck out. While the use of a projection screen to depict a rising moon after Hänsel and Gretel had fallen asleep was clever and effective, the moon’s subsequent explosion — poorly animated, to boot — was rather cheesy and overly symbolic. And while some might call the scene in

which angel children emerge from the woods and run around the sleeping siblings “cute,” a better word might be “tacky,” especially in comparison to the rest of the extremely original production.

The most disappointing part of the production was the score at the moment when Hänsel and Gretel push the evil witch into her own oven, vanquishing her — a moment of glory, or at least satisfaction. For the definite climax of the narrative, it was a bit of a musical dud.

That being said, it was only a small bump in an otherwise smooth landscape, and Hänsel und Gretel provided all the creepiness the audience never knew was missing from the traditional fairytale.

On the Record: Adenike Sharpley Talks Dance, Feminism, Hip-Hop’s Demise March 7, 2014 On March 7 and 8, Essence and Dance Diaspora presented Queens Rule, a dance performance that told the story of hip-hop music and dance from its roots in West African beats through its activist beginnings to the genre’s current commercialization. The show particularly aimed to question how women’s bodies are portrayed in hip-hop, and how this objectification came about in a genre that at first was aimed at breaking down binaries of power and privilege. Two days before the show’s premiere, Adenike Sharpley, artist in residence in the Africana Studies, Theater and Dance departments and the artistic director of the performance, took time out of rehearsing to tell the Review about Queens Rule’s relationship to social, historical and class dynamics in rap and hip-hop.

Can you tell me about Essence’s history?

Essence probably started in the 1970s. At that time, [students] did their own choreography, and most of the performances were in Afrikan Heritage House. And then when I came, the department thought ... I might be able to give more of a professional background to students who were doing their own work and eventually developed to where it is now — it’s here in Warner Center, and it’s a class. Essence was to showcase Africana or African diasporic art.

Students from the Caribbean, students from Africa, African-American [and] Afro-Latino [students] ... wanted to see their particular genre done in the academy, because it was not here.

What initially drew you to the issue of hip-hop’s objectification of women?

Well, it’s not hard to hear it. It’s in most of the music. It’s either negative or positive. They’re either talking about the body type or the hips or the lips or the color. ... For especially a lot of the latest hip-hop and gangster rap, women are part of the power of men.

They’re considered an object. [Male hip-hop artists] get money, they get cars, they get women. It’s like one, two, three. These are the prerequisites of stardom or being powerful.

What role do female hip-hop artists play in that dynamic?

There aren’t that many now. ... There never were that many. Some of the older ones were a lot clearer about the objectivity and how they wanted to portray themselves. The reason we picked “Queen” [for the show’s name] was for Queen Latifah, because Queen Lati-

Essence and Dance Diaspora members College sophomore Donnay Edmund (left), College senior Koryn Lockett, College sophomore Mark Sikorski, College junior Aldrumesia Baker, College junior Kara Mahon, guest dancer Tiachelle “Ty” Clifford, College junior Gifty Dominah and College sophomore Sophie Umazi Mvurya rehearse an energetic moment from dance performance Queens Rule, which ran March 7 and 8 in Warner Main.

Courtesy of John Seyfried

fah carried herself in a certain manner. ... The newer ones seem to be quite okay with some of the objectivity. They’re actually portraying it themselves. I think Nicki Minaj got butt implants.

Given how huge this genre has become, how did you decide what music to use in the show?

We listened to what was playing on the radio now, and we also remembered in our years growing up hip-hop and rap music that we liked, that women liked. We had a positive and a negative list. We generally start with the negative and go to the positive, so throughout the show, we’ll deal with certain themes. ... There’s more than one way to look at the way [the genre has] been tweaked. The women are given a chance in the troupe to answer that. The song may say one thing, but we’ve juxtaposed it either with women being in the power position or women having a response to what’s being said. There are two stories, and we’re trying to add at least one view of what women could say about that. I’m sure there are thousands.

How do you think that the West African influence on the choreography adds to the message of subverting hip-hop stereotypes?

It connects it. A lot of people think African-Americans were dropped some place. People say, ‘You don’t have anything. You were stripped from everything.’ But we have our memory and it’s there. Because I teach West African dance, I put the South African boot dance in there, the challenge dances that are done in West Africa where women and men dance usually against the same sex. ... We [also] juxtaposed it for the new world, where women are dancing with men. [The challenge dance is] definitely traditional. It happens all the time in the villages and ceremonies and parties that are done in traditional settings, weddings and child naming ceremonies. ... Also, there is a correlation between what is called the beat in hip-hop and the beat of the drum. [Because of] that bass line, in some instances, [it] was very easy for me to superimpose a West African [choreography on to] rap or hip-hop because [the baseline’s] there. Some of the beats are the same beats, the same rhythms, from people who really are ‘supposed’ to not know. But they do, it’s there and you know it, and they do.

What’s unique about Oberlin’s response to objectification in hip-hop?

[Oberlin has] a hip-hop group that was at one time mostly Africana, but it isn’t now. That’s the evolution of the times. So this is probably, in years, the first Africana response to hip-hop. It has been commodified, it’s American, so everybody uses it, everybody does it. A lot of the Africana community is starting to say it’s dead — hip-hop and rap is dead. It’s not any longer coming from the group that it did originally, and it’s moved away from it. ... That happens a lot of times with culture. Once it moves into the general society, or is done for years and years, people forget why they first did it this way. ... They’re not using it as a protest for the most part any more.

If what hip-hop has become is dead, what do you think might replace it?

Who knows? A lot of times, it is the disenfranchised that come up with fantastic art. So who knows what’s going on in the minds of young folks coming up now, what they’d like to see, what they like to do? Now in the Africana community, there’s lots of different kinds of music going on. They have a new name for the smooth R&B, they’re going back to a lot of the R&B, so those kinds of ballads, the hand dancing, dancing with a partner is coming back.

Who knows what you may see.

Arts

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

Page 31

performance

“Crazy” Put on Trial in Death and the Maiden Paris Gravely Staff Writer April 18, 2014 The theory of Chekhov’s gun states that in storytelling, a loaded gun should not be mentioned if it never goes off.

This dramatic principle emphasizes the importance of details and their resolution — why have the gun in the first place if it’s never going to be shot? In Death and the Maiden, a play that ran at the Little Theater from April 10–13, there is a loaded gun that never goes off, both literally and metaphorically: a trial that does not get a conviction. The result was a tension-rife, suspenseful experience that left audience members poignantly unsettled.

Death and the Maiden, directed by College senior Sophie Weisskoff, keeps the audience guessing about the reliability of its characters. For most of the play, Paulina Salas, played by College junior Erin Amlicke, seems to be mentally unstable. In her first scene, she pulls a gun from a bureau as approaching headlights illuminate her shaking hands. When her husband, civil rights lawyer Gerardo Escobar — played by College senior Anthony Watkins — enters and assures her nothing is wrong, Paulina’s trustworthiness is immediately called into question.

Further doubt is cast on Paulina’s reliability when Dr. Roberto Miranda,

played by College senior Alexander Bianchi, enters the play. He picks up Gerardo when Gerardo’s car breaks down in the first scene — and Dr. Roberto’s car is the same one whose headlights frightened Paulina. Paulina eavesdrops on Roberto and Gerardo’s genial conversation, and to Paulina’s horror, Gerardo asks Roberto to spend the night, given the late hour. Paulina then creeps into Roberto’s room, knocks him out, binds him to a chair and gags him. Paulina’s motivation for her violent actions is still obscured, and any doubts of her insanity are eliminated. She must be crazy.

Quickly, though, as Roberto begins to seem questionable, Paulina’s actions seem more and more justified. According to Paulina, Dr. Roberto was among the men who blindfolded, tortured and raped her under the country’s previous regime, which explains her violent actions toward him. Nonetheless, her evidence is insufficient for Gerardo. She recognizes Dr. Roberto not by sight, but by the sound of his voice and the smell of his skin. Gerardo, and the viewing audience, are then placed in the jury’s position. Is Dr. Roberto really as innocent as he claims?

The brilliant thing about Death and the Maiden is that the metaphorical gun is never fired: the characters never resolve the main conflict. In the final scene, Paulina, Gerardo and Dr. Ro-

berto are sitting at a Schubert concert as Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” quartet edges towards its climax. As the lights fade and the music builds, Dr. Roberto stares unwaveringly at Paulina, the graphic description of his supposed crimes still lingering in the air. Did he do it? The audience will never know, just as Paulina will never get peace for the horrendous abuse she endured.

It’s a complicated, dark and brilliant play, and much of it relies on the actors alternately persuading the audience of their guilt, innocence, trustworthiness and dishonesty. The way Watkins touched Amlicke, the way Amlicke shook when she held the gun, the way the two danced around each other in a tense game of lies and truth made for an immersive and intense experience.

Even Bianchi, who spent much of the play sitting in a chair, was both terribly creepy and tragically innocent. It was a meticulously directed and well-acted rendition of an ambitious play.

Perhaps most exciting, as evoked by the play’s well-executed production, was the idea of female trustworthiness and the slippery slope to which women can be subjected with the use of the adjective “crazy.” At the play’s beginning, Paulina seems completely irrational, in need of medication and some serious hand-holding by her husband. The audience is inclined to write her off as the needy wife whose dark history in-

College junior Erin Amlicke played Paulina Salas, the troubled female protagonist in Death and the Maiden. The show, which explored issues of truth and morality, ran in the Little Theater from April 10–13. Courtesy of Erin Amlicke

terferes with her husband’s political ambitions. When she is hostile toward Dr. Roberto, a likeable doctor introduced as Gerardo’s car-trouble savior, she is further forced into the “crazy lady” box so often associated with emotional women.

Because she is trapped by this “irrational woman” perception, Gerardo — and the audience — are disinclined to believe her. Though she affirms the truth of her story over and over again, to the point of begging Gerardo to believe her, it just isn’t enough. And so she is pushed to the wayside, her voice silenced.

This feeling of desertion was one that many audience members could relate to. Despite Paulina’s “craziness” and the audience’s inclination to discredit her, there is also a subtle sense of closeness between the viewer and Paulina. You want to believe her. You want her to be right. Combined with the unresolved ending, this empathy leaves the audience as dissatisfied with the outcome as Paulina is. But this ambiguity is necessary. Like the play’s ending, truth in the real world can be just as ambiguous, and Death and the Maiden makes it impossible for the audience to ignore.

Follow Me to Nellie’s Takes Dramatic Look at Love, Civil Rights Paris Gravley Staff Writer Feb. 14, 2014 As one might predict of a play set in the South during the mid1950s, racial conflict is at the forefront of Dominique Morisseau’s Follow Me to Nellie’s. Performed at Hall Auditorium Feb. 6–8, the play follows Northerner Ossie Brown, played by College senior Gynarva Monroe, who moves to Natchez, Mississippi on a quest to register African Americans to vote, and becomes a wanted figure in the town. Nellie, a middle-aged woman played by Cleveland-based actress Debra Rose, begrudgingly agrees to let Brown take refuge in her brothel. Brown’s love for Nellie’s adopted daughter Na Rose, played by College first-year Zoë Davidson, further complicates the plot. Will Brown be caught by the town for his voter registration efforts? Will Tom Robertson Jr., the

sheriff ’s son enlisted to find and kill Brown (played by College senior Hayes Biche) succumb to the local pressure that brings his own romantic feelings for Na Rose into question?

Act 1 progressed subtly but ambitiously, continuously introducing new conflict with a slight, humorous hand. In one particularly well-crafted scene, the sheriff informs Brown of the fate of a previous rabble-rouser, making clear the peril of Brown’s situation as the sheriff graphically describes the recent tar and feathering. Tom’s threat is still lingering on stage, encapsulated in Brown’s body language — he sits on the porch steps, head in hands — when Rose saunters in. Quickly, the haunting tension becomes playful as it is redirected between the soon-to-be lovers. When the scene finally culminates in a cathartic embrace between Rose and Brown — which received “oohs” from the audience — the sheriff ’s thinly veiled threats drift even further into the background, falsely foreshadowing resolution.

College senior Brandon Brown as Nellie’s husband (left), College senior Gynarva Monroe as Ossie Brown, and Cleveland-based actress Debra Rose as Nellie share a dramatic moment in Follow Me to Nellie’s. The play, which blended romance and civil rights drama, was performed at Hall Auditorium Feb. 6–9.

Courtesy of John Seyfried

Most, if not all, of the scenes in the first act followed a similar pattern: mounting racial tension disguised in the playfulness and humor of romance and lust. By intermission, the plot had reached a tangle of conflicts, each promising an exciting avenue of resolution.

Unfortunately, this left Act 2 with quite a challenge. Morisseau’s final scene is reminiscent of classical plays wherein playwrights conscript the destruction of a symbolic place in order to provide a sense of closure. For Nellie’s, the jarringly destructive finale includes a fire and the potential death of many of the characters. It seemed like an easy out, especially after the revving of Act 1’s anticipatory engine.

Beyond the frantic ending, Act 2 in general turned down the charm to make space for the dramatic plot to run its course. However, the growing seriousness of the unfolding events unfortunately quenched the humor in the dialogue.

To the play’s credit, the acting was solid. From Rose’s bashful underwear dance scene, to Brown’s confusion and frustration with racial issues, to the drunken anti-hero charm of prostitute Marla, stunningly performed by College junior Christal Bell, the talent onstage cemented together what could have been a disastrously fragmented first and second act. Moreover, in scenes in which plot tensions reached an overdramatic volume, the performers were able to defuse heated situations with convincing ease.

There were two smaller detriments to the overall solid performance of the actors, though they ultimately did not detract from the production’s quality: Nellie’s cough and Rose’s singing. Nellie’s cough was not only unconvincing — and borderline funny — but it also never developed into anything more than a minor plot point for Rose, who is torn between joining a local singing group and caring for her ailing guardian. Rose’s voice itself, which is supposed to be so siren-like it enchants both Robertson and Brown, was decent, but not exactly the alluring force implied by the storyline. Nonetheless, Rose herself was so charming that it was hard not to fall in love with her.

Acting and storyline aside, Brown’s realizations throughout the play struck a resonant chord with its presentation.

In one scene, Brown sits with Rose in the brothel’s parlor, injured and desperate to flee the angry mob looking for him. He confesses to her his skewed expectations of the South — he’d imagined that being a well-educated, well-intentioned man was enough to help others; he hadn’t expected that the men in Natchez simply wouldn’t care about his degree. His epiphany had situational profundity on an Oberlin stage when he explained to Rose that when you’re in the liberal bubble of academia, surrounded by other activists, “You forget Mississippi.”

Arts

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The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

Toxicity, Fall Forward & Spring Back

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Arts

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

Page 33

Oberlin College Aerialists

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Sports

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The Oberlin Review, May 23,, 2014

features

Albino Squirrel Mascot Draws Mixed Reviews Sarena Malsin March 7, 2014 On New Year’s Day, the Athletics department unleashed a new mascot: a blood-thirsty, red-eyed albino squirrel. The furry fellow has slowly made its way onto the apparel and equipment of Oberlin’s various sports teams, including basketball warm-up jerseys, golf balls and men’s lacrosse shirts and helmets.

Oberlin has an unusually large population of albino squirrels, and their presence in Tappan Square was the motivation for the squirrel’s addition as a mascot.

“Everyone was already using it,” Senior Associate Director of Athletics Creg Jantz said, referring to the squirrel’s presence in the Admissions Office and around the school website. “It’s already such a big part of the history of the College; it’s as if we’re just jumping on the bandwagon.”

Director of Student-Athlete Services Jason Hudson agreed. “In a way, I don’t see it as new. I see it as the Athletics department being the last to embrace it.”

“With no real mascot, we wanted to try to create something that our teams and other College students could have fun with,” Jantz said. He added that the squirrel was intended to foster a stronger con-OC Athletics

nection between College athletes and students who are not on a varsity team.

Each team will determine if they want to sport the new mascot on their uniforms and equipment. “Each team will find a little way to use it, or not,” said Jantz.

“That’s the great thing about it — it’s an option.”

Numerous Oberlin teams have already begun using the new mascot on their team apparel, and according to Jantz, it’s catching on.

“People were nervous at first; they thought we were changing our nickname,” Jantz said. “[Now], I think people are starting to embrace it.”

For all of the positive motivations behind the albino squirrel mascot, reactions from student-athletes have been mixed.

Senior basketball player Geoff Simpson sees the addition as nothing more than a minor change. “I feel like we should all just embrace it. I don’t think it’ll have a lasting effect — lots of schools have weird mascots,” he said.

Courtney Bolden, a first-year lacrosse player, expressed similar views. “I know it’s special to Oberlin, so I can understand why they chose it,” she said, though she also expressed a desire for “something more aggressive” to represent Oberlin sports teams.

But not all athletes have been so welcoming to the new

mascot, and the whimsical nature of the albino squirrel has sparked some strong opposition.

Senior lacrosse player Mickey Fiorillo said the introduction of a squirrel mascot is counterproductive to what he saw as a “revamping of the athletics program to get a more serious message across.”

“I don’t think it’s a step in the right direction to go from the Yeomen to the albino squirrel,” he said.

Sophomore soccer player John Ingham acknowledged the albino squirrel’s important presence on campus but believes it has no place representing College athletes.

“The ‘OC’ was such a perfect representation of the College. My big problem is that [the albino squirrel] is going against tradition that’s been building for years,” he said. “I love the traditional ‘Yeomen,’ and I don’t consider myself an albino squirrel,” he said.

Sophomore swimmer Sarah Kahl said that the mascot isn’t intimidating enough to represent Oberlin’s sports teams. “Nobody’s scared of a squirrel.”

The Oberlin Bookstore released an albino squirrel line of apparel this spring.

Although the squirrel is receiving mixed feedback among student-athletes, Jantz said that non-athletes have been especially interested in the new merchandise.

Krislov Continues Emphasis on Health, Wellness, Athletics Sarah Orbuch Staff Writer Dec. 13, 2013 During his tenure at Oberlin, College President Marvin Krislov has worked to develop a culture that emphasizes health, wellness and athletics.

This effort is set to continue as the new Austin E. Knowlton Athletics Complex is developed.

When Krislov came to Oberlin in 2007, Philips gym looked much like it does today. But on the inside, much has changed since then. Five years ago, the prospect of new facilities seemed far off; the focus was on maintaining the existing facilities.

Today, a new building is right around the corner, as the groundbreaking ceremony for the North Athletic Complex took place on Nov. 16.

The facility will include a new state-of-the-art football field with lights, a locker room facility and social space. Many projects like this have come

to fruition as a result of Krislov’s emphasis on the athletic community ever since he came here seven years ago.

“Health and wellness is very important to me, and I feel that it should be important to everyone,” Krislov said.

In 2012, the Krislov family made a generous donation to the athletics facility to update weight room equipment. Prior to this donation, the weight room contained the bare minimum: some dumbbells, a few squat racks with weights, one old mat used for stretching and a handful of machines. The equipment was old, the lighter fiveand ten-pound dumbbells were missing and there was not enough equipment for everyone to use.

With this donation, the weight room received a much-needed upgrade. New squat racks arrived, dumbbells of all weights were added, as well as new machines, mats, kettlebells, bosu balls, medicine balls and new benches. Weight room usage

has increased incrementally as a result, and a team of 40 football players can work out and still leave enough equipment for other students, faculty and community members to use.

Krislov hopes that the emphasis on health and wellness will continue to grow in the coming years.

“Philips was built at a time pre-Title IX, and it did not anticipate the growth of interest among students, faculty and the community for exercising,” he said. “My sense is that the health and wellness culture and athletics are improving, but I would not mind it to be a little stronger.”

Delta Lodge Dirctor of Athletics and Physical Education Natalie Winkelfoos had only positive things to say about Krislov.

“Marvin has provided our department with support and guidance that has encouraged us to shine. He is a believer in how extracurricular activities — like athletics, club sports, playing intra-

murals, taking a physical education course — can add immense value to a student’s collegiate experience,” she said.

Along with the facilities, the athletic teams have improved as well during Krislov’s time at Oberlin. Assistant Director of Athletics for Communications Mike Mancini emphasized some of the Athletics department’s successes.

“This fall alone, the men’s soccer team made it to its first-ever NCAA tournament appearance, while the women’s cross country team went to nationals for the fifth straight season, earning its highest finish ever by placing eighth overall,” he said.

According to Krislov, the success of Oberlin’s athletic teams has had a positive impact on the rest of the campus.

“It is great to cheer and support your friends,” he said. “But as we win more games, things become more exciting.”

IM Softball Provides Everyone Chance to Step Up to Plate Bronwen Schumacher April 25, 2014 On April 20, next to the women’s softball field by North Fields, a group of 40 students sat beneath the evergreen trees, pitched balls to one another and practiced their swings. Some had a natural talent for the sport, swiftly catching fly balls and casually hitting doubles into the outfield, while others showed little to no knowledge of softball. After an hour on the field, it became clear that intramural softball is as much about the spirit and culture of friendly competition as it is about winning.

The Designated $hitters finished the afternoon with a walk-off win, but win or lose, everyone had fun.

That same sentiment has been true for as long as Director of Recreation and Club Sports Betsy Bruce can remember.

“It’s been going on forever, really,” Bruce said. “Intramurals were the precursor to varsity sports, particularly for women. Intramural softball has long provided important opportunities for women, as three or more women are required to be on the field at all times.”

Intramural softball is accessible and appealing to Oberlin students who don’t get a chance to play club or varsity sports, Bruce noted.

“It’s a great way to get off your butt and do something,” she said. “It’s also a great outlet for students who aren’t committed to a varsity sport to get outside, to get some exercise. It’s outside, it’s a social event; I just think that intramurals are the right thing for a lot of students on this campus.”

Bruce has worked for Oberlin since 1999 and said she has seen nothing but positive attitudes from students toward the intramural sports here at Oberlin. She organizes year-round outdoor and indoor soccer and winter basketball, in addition to the spring softball league.

“Intramurals are supposed to be fun and social. Softball is mostly played by seniors who are thinking, ‘This is it!

This is the end!’ ” she said.

The season started out later than expected, as the long winter delayed games until the end of April. However, the delay didn’t stop junior Maisy Byerly, team captain of the Designated $hitters, from rallying her troops to win a game against the Skin Flutes on April 20. The Flutes were ahead 12–7 in the seventh inning, but an impassioned speech by Byerly boosted team morale and pushed them to victory. Junior and Review Sports Editor Nate Levinson jacked a three-run homerun to tie the

game, and a single by junior Jack Redell gave the $hitters a 13–12 victory.

Byerly shied away from acknowledging the influence of her captainship, but her humble anecdote about the win shed light on her leadership ability, as well as on the competitive yet lighthearted atmosphere of the games.

“My troops rally themselves,” she said. “They are the people who sacrifice their blood and time on the field.

Sometimes I will give a speech or two on the importance of softball in the dog-eat-dog world in which we so carelessly reside, but mostly I try and shape their energy and excitement into movements and bursts of athletic genius.”

Her fight and fervor showed the true nature of the competition that exists among the softball players here and encourages those who do not normally consider themselves athletes to own their roles on the field.

Junior Woah Bee Sea (not to be confused with WOBC) members Evan Davies and Sophie Harari also were quick to share their excitement about intramural softball. Still riding high after a big 27–15 win on April 21 against the Senior Shockers, they sang the praises of the league.

“It’s just such a culture,” Harari said.

“People who never knew they were ath-

letes become MVPs on the field.”

“And we’re all MVPs. I just have to say that there are good vibes on and off the field,” Davies added.

“Fun, friends, forever,” Harari concluded.

The league carefully strikes a balance between friendly competition and the drive to win. Spring softball is an opportunity for both varsity athletes

and non-athletes to come together to grill burgers and play ball, relieving the stress of school while indulging in athletic camaraderie.

“Wonderful, happy people congregating in North Fields — that is the essence of intramural sports,” Byerly said.

“It is just about being there on the field and trying something different with your friends there for support.”

Junior Sophie Harari eyes a pitch in an intramural softball game on April 21.

Intramural softball allows students of all abilities to compete in a friendly, team-oriented atmosphere.

Rachel Grossman

Sports

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

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spring varsity

Swimmers, Divers Persevere with Brabson Hannah Heinke-Green Feb. 21, 2014 After successful seasons, the swimming and diving teams traveled to Denison University from Feb. 12-15 for the North Coast Athletic Conference Swimming and Diving Championships. The Yeomen finished fifth with a total of 683 points, while the Yeowomen finished seventh with a total of 772 points.

The Yeowomen ended their regular season without a loss, a remarkable feat considering that their former coach, Mark Fino, unexpectedly left Oberlin in August to coach at John Carroll University. In January, both the men’s and women’s teams managed to beat their former coach at his new school.

“The women finishing the regular season undefeated was a highlight for the year,” new Head Coach Andrew Brabson said. Brabson led both the Yeomen and Yeowomen to winning seasons this year.

However, Brabson acknowledges that there is room for improvement.

“On the women’s side we were hoping to finish a little bit better at the conference level,” he said.

Brabson feels a lot can be learned from the team’s performance at Conference.

“[Conference is] a good indicator of what we need to do differently during our rest period, as well as what other people might need to focus on in training, whether it’s a different event to train for or just a different philosophy for training in general,” he said.

The men’s team exceeded expectations with its fifth-place finish, three places higher than its finish in the 2012-13 season.

Sophomore Aaron Frederick called the jump in rankings “absolutely massive” and credited their success to Brabson.

“Andy has done a lot of stuff that I had never done before and that made me a better swimmer,” he said.

Sophomore Samma Regan and firstyears Vera Hutchinson, Madeleine Prangley and Nora Cooper made school history in the 800-meter freestyle relay with a time of 7 minutes, 49.50 seconds.

“I didn’t know that we were going for the record because it required a huge time drop for all of us, but right before we went up our coach gave us a time to beat,” Prangley said. “I only found out after I swam that we set a school record.” The 7:49.50 timestamp resulted in fifth place overall in the 800 freestyle relay.

Seniors Jordan Attwood (left), Luke Harrison, Kelin Michael, Isaac Bacon, Robert McConkey, Katie Dunn, Chris Pickens and Rhys Hertafeld celebrate senior night at their final home meet. The Yeowomen finished seventh, while the Yeomen finished fifth in February’s NCAC championships.

Courtesy of Amanda Regan

Brabson is excited and optimistic about the future of swimming and diving.

“The mission is always to move up and do better than the previous year,” he said.

“[With] a strong base of younger swimmers, I think we can really improve. My expectations for next year are going to be pretty high.”

Yeomen Finish Up-and-Down Season with Win Sloane Garelick May 2, 2014 On April 25 and 26, the men’s tennis team closed out its spring season with a win and a loss in the North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament. The Yeomen finished its season with a 12–13 record, going 1–2 in conference play.

As the fifth-seeded team in the tournament, the Yeomen took on the fourth-seeded team, the Allegheny College Gators, in the quarterfinals on Friday, April 25. Unfortunately, the match ended with a 5–0 loss for the Yeomen.

With its season on the line, the coaches made some changes to the team’s usual lineup, hoping to achieve better results.

“We felt it gave us the best opportunity to win the match, and unfortunately the gamble didn’t pay off,” senior Charles Marks said.

The Gators, ranked No. 16 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Central Region, won all three doubles matches, as well as the No. 1 and No. 3 singles matches. The Yeomen almost snagged a win at the No. 3 doubles spot as first-year Abraham Davis and Marks took on Alexander Hurtuk and Sam Stephenson of Allegheny, but they ultimately fell 8–6.

First-year Ian Paik offered a truthful, if cliché, assessment of the team’s loss.

“Tennis is like a box of chocolates; you never quite know what you’re going to get, and the match with Allegheny epitomized this,” he said.

After the loss to Allegheny last Friday, the Yeomen bounced back on Saturday with a 5–1 victory over the Ohio Wesleyan University Battling Bishops in the consolation semifinals of the tournament.

“We did what we needed to do to win, and we made sure not to let them into the match,” Marks said.

Paik and first-year Jeremy Lichtmacher defeated Dane Poppe and Blake Brewer of Ohio Wesleyan 8–0 in No. 2 doubles. Davis and Marks secured another victory by defeating Justin Overhulse and Austin Okray 8–3 in No. 3 doubles.

Marks also secured a singles victory by defeating Poppe 3–6, 6–2, 6–2. The win came in Marks’s last ever match as a Yeoman and clinched a victory for the team.

“It was a good way to not only end our season but to end Charlie’s college career by getting the fifth point, clinching the match,” Paik said.

Davis was happy with the victory over the Battling Bishops but wasn’t content with the season’s end.

“It would’ve been nice to beat Allegheny and reach the semifinals, but there’s always next year,” he said.

Both Paik and sophomore Callan Louis received NCAC accolades for their impressive seasons. Paik was named to the AllNCAC Second Team and was also named the NCAC Newcomer of the Year while Louis was awarded with an All-NCAC Honorable Mention.

With this season behind them, the Yeomen are already looking to next spring and setting high goals for themselves.

“As a team we’d like to improve on our fifth place finish this year and aim to make the jump into the top three of the conference,” Paik said. “We’d like to get regionally ranked, and I think we have the tools to do it.”

Although Marks will be graduating this year, he is optimistic about the future of the Yeomen.

“This season was a season of learning, with a ton of young guys getting comfortable with the dual match setting,” Marks said. “This team is ready to take huge steps forward in the coming seasons behind a really strong core of young guys.”

Schweighoffer Leads Yeomen to 7 Wins on Spring Break Trip Hannah Heinke-Green April 4, 2014 The baseball team played well over spring break, ending its annual trip to Tucson, AZ, with a 7–3 record. Two of the games took place at

Veterans Memorial Stadium where both the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Chicago White Sox played their spring training games.

“Playing at the stadium made me feel like a major leaguer,” said first-year Darren Zaslau.

The Yeomen played 10 games in just five days.

Junior Jeff Schweighoffer steps up to the plate during a game at Veterans Memorial Stadium.

Schweighoffer batted a lofty .676 during the Yeomen’s games in Arizona over spring break.

Courtesy of Jeff Schweighoffer

Oberlin started off the week by earning a split with the University of Wisconsin-Superior. The following day the Yeomen clinched two big wins, first shutting out the Valley City State University Vikings and then easily defeating the Middlebury College Panthers.

Junior Justin Kidd and first-year Kyle Dominy both pitched against Valley City State and combined to shut out the Vikings offense. Kidd earned the victory with six strong innings, while Dominy picked up the save by finishing the game with three no-hit innings. On the offensive side, the Yeomen had 10 hits in the game, with juniors Jeff Schweighoffer and Kyle Decker and sophomore Brian Hemmert recording two apiece.

Monday’s matchup with Hamline University ended with another split as the Yeomen lost the first game 10–5. However, Oberlin defeated Hamline with an 11–2 score later that afternoon.

The Yeomen recorded a similar result the next day against the Lewis & Clark College Pioneers.

The team lost its first game of the day 7–6, but came back and won its second game 4–3. Schweighoffer was again a big part of the offense, as he went four-for-six with a triple on the day. Senior Mike McDonald and junior Andrew Hutson

also added three hits apiece in the doubleheader.

The team spent long hours at the ballpark nearly every day over the break and keeping its focus proved to be a great challenge.

“It’s very difficult to concentrate for the many hours straight that we are at the ballpark, but if we work on locking down mentally for every pitch, we will be in great shape to be more successful than we already are,” Zaslau said.

The Yeomen concluded their trip with two impressive, high-scoring victories, defeating Carleton College 11–8 and Williams College 19–11.

Schweighoffer ended the trip as the team’s top hitter, batting .676 over the break.

“Overall our team performed well on our trip,” Schweighoffer said. “It is hard playing 10 games in five days, and coming away with seven wins is definitely something we are happy about.”

The Yeomen were ultimately unable to continue their strong play and post a second consecutive winning season, but they did finish with a respectable 17–20 record. McDonald and Schweighoffer had especially successful seasons, as the former led the team with six wins, a 2.01 ERA and five complete games, while Schweighoffer led the team with a .422 average.

Sports

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The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

Yeomen Have Histor- Editorial: Flawless? Give Me a Break ic Soccer Season Sarah Orbuch Sports Editor Feb. 28, 2014

Continued from page 38 record for wins in a single season after tallying their 14th victory on Saturday and finished with a final record of 14–4–4, while remaining undefeated at home. This also proved to be Head Coach Blake New’s most successful team in his 16-year tenure; finally, New was honored with the accolade of NCAC Coach of the Year.

President Marvin Krislov was impressed with the team’s history-making success. “I think soccer’s been on the cusp of being very competitive, and this year they just went over the hump,” he said.

Individual players were recognized for their success this season as well. Besides Rentel being named an All-American and NCAC Defensive Player of the Year, Rentel, Ingham and Schwartz all were recognized for their impressive performances and made –––––––––––––––––––––––––––———————————

“Our fan base is what kept us going throughout the year. I can’t even describe the feeling.”

Nick Wertman First-year –––––––––––––––––––––––––––——————————— All-NCAC First Team, a title reserved for the conference’s toptier players. Graybeal, sophomore Slade Gottlieb and junior Josh Wilkerson made All-NCAC Second Team, and Wertman and sophomore Dean Schapow earned honorable mentions from the league.

The team will graduate seven seniors — including Rentel, Graybeal, Schwartz, Graham McQueen, Evan Tincknell, Aiden Apel and Matt Tunzi — but leaves a strong and eager group behind them.

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, the magazine is going plastic.

On Feb. 10, Mattel and Sports Illustrated announced that they would collaborate to put Barbie on the cover and place a four-page advertising feature inside the magazine. Their campaign is titled “Barbie #Unapologetic.”

Mattel dubbed the campaign #Unapologetic after Sports Illustrated received criticism for featuring an inanimate object on its cover. Barbie is “unapologetic” for her star-studded life, which began in 1959. Since her creation, Barbie has worked hundreds of jobs — from paratrooper to ambassador for world peace, to princess to hairdresser, all the way to McDonald’s cashier. Now she can add Sports Illustrated swimsuit model to her résumé.

While Mattel claims that this campaign “gives Barbie and her fellow legends an opportunity to own who they are, [and] celebrate what they have done,” when I see a doll in a swimsuit, with perfectly formed breasts to match an impeccably sculpted butt, I wonder what workout routine she follows.

The idea that there is a plastic toy pictured on the cover of SI is a little creepy, but at least there was no complaining at the photo shoot. Swimsuit Edition fans can also sleep soundly knowing that Barbie’s photos were not retouched. The amazon is as perfect on camera as she is in real life.

Although I have never been a huge fan of Sports Illustrated or its Swimsuit Edition, I’ve never taken issue with its choice of models. For instance, Alex Morgan is one of my favorite soccer players on the United States Women’s National Team, and her photo spread in this

year’s swimsuit edition did not prompt me to discredit her abilities on the pitch.

But Barbie is not Alex Morgan. Morgan is a living and breathing human and has proven to be a positive role model for many young, aspiring soccer players.

Unlike the cover’s false heroine, Morgan started playing club soccer when she was 14 years old, much later than most elite soccer players, and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley a semester early with a degree in political economy. While she may not have as extensive a résumé as Barbie, Morgan has imparted more valuable lessons to young athletes than the doll who beat her out for the cover — something Sports Illustrated should have considered when it dedicated its highly visible Swimsuit Edition cover to a physiological anomaly.

Barbie has no physical flaws. She has long legs, sculpted arms and an even tan. Her makeup and hair are always done up, and her immaculate outfits always match. She is a toy with an unrealistic body, not a role model. Nicole Rodgers, editor-in-chief of Role/Reboot, an online magazine that focuses on gender roles, said it best: “Featuring a plastic doll as an object of admiration and desire feels like a slap in the face.”

Humans are not plastic. Young girls should not look at Barbie on the cover of Sports Illustrated and aspire to achieve her unattainable paradigm of perfection.

Not only is this depiction unhealthy because it is impossible, but also because beauty comes in many more interesting forms. Barbie’s “perfect” body is modeled after one specific standard of beauty that we should not all strive to achieve. Instead of epitomizing Barbie’s traditional and fake version of beauty, Sports Illustrated should move toward celebrating the multiple incarnations of beauty.

spring varsity

Sheldon Gains Admiration From Teammates, Caoches, Earns Nationals Bid Zanna Doak May 9, 2014 The women’s tennis team finished out its season in the North Coast Athletic Conference match at Kenyon College with a third place finish on April 27.

The Yeowomen ended their year with a conference record of 3–0,

improving on last year’s mark of 2–1.

One of the most notable aspects of the weekend was the culmination of senior Brenna Sheldon’s conference play at Oberlin.

After her four years, she sits in fourth place for individuals in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Central Region’s rankings.

Senior Brenna Sheldon eyes the ball in a match. Sheldon went an impressive 21–6 in singles and 20–7 in doubles this season, earning a bid to the NCAA Division III tennis tournament.

Courtesy of OC Athletics

Due to her high ranking, Sheldon received a bid to the NCAA Division III National Tournament.

“Emotionally, Brenna was always a rock,” Head Coach Constantine Ananiadis said. “Physically and tactically is where she’s had the most improvement. She’s now a lot stronger and can do more things with the ball; she’s much more versatile.”

The improvement has shown on the court; in 2010-2011, she went 5–4 in singles and 8–8 in doubles, well short of this year’s strong 21–6 and 20–7 marks, respectively.

Sheldon credits two of her former teammates as mentors who facilitated her growth.

“I have improved a lot as a tennis player over the past four years in large part because I learned how to handle my injuries,” she said. “I’ve certainly been inspired

by Ariel Lewis, [OC ’12], our No. 1 from a couple years ago, and Farah Leclercq, [OC ’13], who graduated last year. I always loved playing [at No. 2] on the court next to them.”

Even while improving her skill set and becoming stronger, Sheldon has faced multiple challenges over the years.

“Injuries. Many of them,” Coach Ananiadis said. “Her back was the most major, as well as debilitating, one. Brenna hardly played her freshman year. She’s one of the most resilient people I know, though, so she kept a smile on her face and continued working. She’s so deserving of all this recognition she’s getting. This couldn’t have happened to a nic-

er, more deserving person.”

Sheldon considers her biggest challenges to be her injuries as well, but when asked about her greatest accomplishment, the answer was obvious to her.

“The best match I ever played was my junior year against Case [Western Reserve University],” she said. “I was playing at No. 1, and our match lasted three hours and fifty minutes. I lost the match, but I wasn’t sad because I left everything I had out on the court. I love the feeling of putting absolutely every last ounce of effort I have into a match. After that match, I could barely stand up. I think some people would find it crazy to love that feeling, but other athletes probably understand.”

Sheldon first became interested in tennis when she was 13 and began to think about playing in college shortly after that.

“At first, I thought I wanted to go D-I,” she said. “But luckily I figured out that D-III would be much better for me.”

Aside from loving the friendly atmosphere of Oberlin, it was ultimately Ananiadis who convinced Sheldon to play here.

“He would call and send letters, and after a while I just couldn’t say no,” Sheldon said.

Sheldon’s tennis experience prior to college was also a formative time for her current playing style.

“I’ve always been a counterpunch player,” she said. “Playing on red clay in Spain for a year during high school, where the mentality is to grind through really

long points, really contributed.

Some pretty bad injuries in high school and early college made me appreciate my body and tennis, too. Especially throughout college, I’ve always felt lucky to play.

In my four years, there has barely been a day when I didn’t want to be out there practicing.”

Despite only having played with Sheldon for a year, first-year Emma Brezel spoke highly of her teammate, praising her as one of the most hardworking, positive individuals on the team.

“I have never seen someone fight for every point the way Brenna does,” Brezel said.

Junior Grace Porter, Sheldon’s doubles partner, also couldn’t help but gush about her teammate of three years.

“Being on the same team as Brenna is amazing,” Porter said.

“She is a strong leader and leads by example more than anyone else. We have a very balanced doubles dynamic on the court — her intensity never falters, which keeps me focused, and I think in return, I help her relax a bit and remain calm in tough situations.”

Sheldon said she is incredibly excited to have received this bid; to her, it means going as far as she possibly can as a Division-III player.

“I’m so happy and lucky to go to Nationals,” she said. “It’s gonna be fun. Also, I’m really happy that I get to stay in season right up until graduation. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Sheldon will be in action at the Nationals Tournament May 22–24 in Claremont, CA.

Sports

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

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Yeowomen Fight Elements, Finish First Tyler Sloan Staff Writer Nov. 8, 2013 For the fifth year in a row, the women’s cross country team won first place in the North Coast Athletic Conference, held at Allegheny College on Nov. 2.

The top-tier team placed four members within the top 10 runners at the event, accumulating 45 points for the Yeowomen.

Ohio Wesleyan University trailed behind with 57 points to earn second place, and Kenyon College tallied 86 for third.

“It was the worst conditions we’ve ever run in,” junior Kyle Neal said, referring to a torrential downpour and an extremely muddy course. “That makes it hard to gauge how I did, but I was happy with the team’s results.”

The Yeowomen’s top five runners earned the accolade of All-NCAC honors for finishing within the top 21 runners. Junior Sarah Jane Kerwin led the pack, placing fourth overall in the 6K with a time of 23 minutes, 17 seconds.

Following her were juniors Emma

Lehmann and Kyle Neal and seniors Molly Martorella and Lauren Taylor.

First-year Emily Curley also made her debut over the weekend at her first NCAC Conference Championship and placed 28th in the event.

“The conditions were really muddy,” Lehmann said. “But I thought the team did a really good job staying tough.

Overall, we had a good performance.

Sarah Jane really rose to the occasion.”

Head Coach Ray Appenheimer lived up to his title as NCAC Coach of the Year over the weekend. During Appenheimer’s 10 seasons at Oberlin, he has coached an extremely successful group of runners. Just last year, he led the Yeowomen to the NCAA National Championships where they finished ninth, the highest rank in Oberlin’s history. Last season’s squad also boasted nine AllNCAC runners. Cumulatively, Appenheimer has coached 336 all-conference and 32 all-region runners, seen his athletes break 128 school records and win 104 conference championships, in addition to coaching 16 national qualifiers.

The Yeomen showcased successfully at the event as well, finishing

IN THE LOCKER ROOM

fourth overall with a total of 122 points.

Wabash College took first at the event with only 30 total points and five of their runners finishing within the top 10. Allegheny clinched second with 46 points, and The College of Wooster locked up third place with a tally of 95 points.

Sophomore Geno Arthur was the Yeomen’s top runner at the event, finishing sixth overall at the race. He ran the 8K in 27 minutes, 15 seconds and was trailed by the second-scoring Yeoman, sophomore Joshua Urso. Urso finished 17th overall with a time of 27:58.

The two were the only members of the Yeomen who left the weekend earning titles at the event. Arthur earned FirstTeam All-NCAC honors for the first time; during his rookie year, he earned second-team honors. After a competitive race, Urso earned a spot on the AllNCAC Honorable-Mention team.

Appenheimer noted that the team’s strong current junior class gives him high hopes for the future of the team, and he is looking forward to upcoming seasons when the young group will continue to improve.

Juniors Sarah Jane Kerwin (left) and Emma Lehmann race to the finish line. Kerwin and Lehmann finished fourth and fifth respectively at the North Coast Athletic Conference Championship meet.

Courtesy of NCAC

Matthew Walker and Randy Ollie

February 14, 2014

like are Zach Randolph and, number two, my favorite player of all time, Charles Barkley. I’m nowhere near as athletic as Charles Barkley, but he was a 6’ 5” forward in the NBA, and I’m a 6’ 5” forward in college basketball.

RO: I like to compare myself to an undersized LaMarcus Aldridge.

My mid-range game isn’t as good, but it’s getting there.

The Review sat down with sophomore men’s basketball players Matthew Walker and Randy Ollie to discuss strange things they’ve heard from fans, the challenges of playing on the road and the NBA players they try to emulate.

How has the season gone thus far?

Matthew Walker: For what our expectations were in the beginning of the preseason, certainly below that. It started off pretty rough because we knew three of four teams [in the division] were ranked [nationally]. We knew we hadn’t really established an identity for ourselves yet and still had to figure it out. Our team went from one with a lot of potential to back to square one.

Randy Ollie: We just haven’t played to our full potential yet, which is a good and a bad thing. Obviously it’s a bad thing since our record is not the greatest in the world, but it’s a good thing since we have a lot of basketball ahead of us.

What is the highlight of the season so far?

RO: I would say beating DePauw [University] is my highlight. That was the first time Oberlin has ever beat a ranked team, so it was good to be a part of some part of history.

MW: I think when we first played Wabash [College]. That was a team that we went out and completely demolished and demoralized and made sure there wasn’t a chance for them to win.

What’s the toughest part about playing on the road?

RO: I would say the fans. You never know what you’re going to get between obnoxious and ridiculous.

Matthew Walker and Randy Ollie We just played at Allegheny [College], and a fan had a blowhorn when I was shooting free-throws to start the game, and that was kind of annoying.

MW: Probably the referees. I remember an occasion against Wittenberg [University], and their biggest guy was trying to start fights with people. And, immediately after, the ref scolded us for it and then had a conversation with Randy.

What’s the weirdest thing a fan ever said to you?

RO: ‘Do you know how to read?’

That was at DePauw this year. I didn’t get the joke, but I thought it was pretty funny.

MW: At Kenyon [College], one of them was trying to get me to dance during the pregame. He was like, ‘I

know you remember coming here.

Come have fun.’

You’ve had eight losses by single-digits. How frustrating is that?

MW: If anything, it’s a testament to our potential. Our potential is there. All those games, it comes down to the last three or four minutes, a stretch of maybe two missed shots, and they come down and make two baskets. Those are the stretches we need to do better in to win those games.

RO: I think that if you can take pride in a loss, you could make the argument that we can really play with anyone. We really only beat ourselves; no one ever beats Oberlin College basketball.

How does your off-court relationship help foster on-court chemistry?

MW: I think our team is pretty goofy with each other. In terms of oncourt, we’ve been through six, seven, eight different lineup changes, so we all know how to play with everyone at this point.

RO: I like to think of the team as kind of like a family. Coaches are parents, you got your older siblings, your younger siblings. Sometimes people make you mad, and you want to pull your hair out, but at the end of the day, it’s all love; it’s all family.

Are there any pro players that you model your game after?

MW: My two favorite players right now who I can say I play most

What about Oberlin made you want to come here?

MW: When I came to visit, I felt really, really comfortable. It didn’t seem like I would stick out like a sore thumb here. I could just fit in the way I wanted to fit in. The head coach and I have had a strong relationship. He seems like he’s really focused on my growth each day and each year. Also this school is beautiful. Except for in the winter.

RO: I came to visit, and I just loved the team when I came. I loved the coaching staff, and I got the sense that everyone wants the best out of you. There’s a lot of programs where you don’t feel that way in terms of academics, athletics and just the culture of the school.

Andrew Wiggins or Jabari Parker?

RO: Jabari Parker. I played against him in high school, so I’ve seen him up close. He’s got the full package. In terms of whose game is NBA ready, that’s Jabari Parker.

MW: I would have agreed with Jabari Parker, but Andrew Wiggins as of late has been great. I think he has more potential than Jabari. Unlike Jabari, he plays defense.

Interview by Nate Levinson, Sports editor Courtesy of OC Athletics

Sports

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The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

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Rentel Leads Yeomen to 14-Win Season Tyler Sloan and Rose Stoloff Staff Writer and Sports Editor Nov. 22, 2013 The men’s soccer team traveled to Rochester, NY on Nov. 16 and 17 to compete in the NCAA Division III tournament for the first time in the team’s history. The team was met by an enthusiastic horde of adoring fans, parents and alumni soccer players.

The Yeomen prevailed on Sat-

urday, Nov. 16, defeating the SUNY Oneonta Red Dragons 2–0. However, the following day, the Yeomen fell to the nationally ranked University of Rochester Yellow Jackets, marking the end of their historic season.

Saturday’s game commenced with a scoreless first half. However, 20 minutes into the second half, after a shot by junior Sam Winward, the Red Dragons received a red card for a purposeful handball in the box.

As sophomore John Ingham placed

the ball and wound up for a penalty kick, the rowdy crowd fell quiet in anticipation. Seemingly effortlessly, Ingham tucked the ball away into the net, giving the team a 1–0 lead.

The goal was Ingham’s 16th of the season, tying him for second place in goals scored in a single season in the College’s history. He also finished as the top goal scorer for the NCAC in his breakout season.

The Yeomen rode this excitement for the duration of the half.

Senior Ari Schwartz dribbles the ball against the SUNY Oneonta Red Dragons. Supported by a loyal fanbase, the Yeomen won the game 2–0.

Courtesy of Erik Andrews

With only two minutes left in the game, the Yeomen secured their win when senior captain Ari Schwartz crossed the ball to first-year Nick Wertman. Wertman drove the ball past the Dragons’ keeper, and the crowd erupted in excitement, knowing the season would continue for at least one more day.

Third-Team All-American and senior goalkeeper Brandt Rentel, who earlier in the week was honored as the NCAC Defender of the Year, continued to impress by making 13 saves.

Unfortunately, round two of the tournament was not as successful.

The Yeomen were shut out, losing 3–0 to the University of Rochester Yellow Jackets in a defeat that ended their standout season.

The Yellow Jackets came out strong and got six shots on goal in the first 13 minutes of the game.

The Yeomen continued to play the strong game they had all season, but it was not enough to unsettle the home team.

“We didn’t have a great start, and that came back to bite us,” Winward said. “We woke up and moved the ball well after their first goal but had trouble being dangerous in the final third.”

As the game came to a close and it was clear the Yeomen were not going to recover, the mood turned bittersweet. With only a few minutes left in the game, Head Coach Blake New made some last-minute

substitutions so that all seven graduating seniors could finish out the game together for the last time in their collegiate careers. Alumni and fans that had traveled to the game cheered long after the clock hit zero, as players, coaches and fans alike teared up.

The enthusiastic crowd was much appreciated.

“It was pretty much the greatest thing in the world,” Wertman said.

“Our fan base is what kept us going throughout the year. I can’t even describe the feeling.”

Winward agreed. “I couldn’t believe how many people made the trip, and the support was overwhelming. The cheers only got louder as we were scored upon in the second game, which is a testament to their support. It’s one big family, and we know we are playing for more than ourselves.”

Though the weekend’s conclusion was an unfortunate close to a groundbreaking season, the Yeomen were, all in all, satisfied with the progress the program has made.

“We did a lot of great stuff this season, and I am certainly fortunate and happy to look back on how great all of it was,” senior captain Joe Graybeal said. “Overall, I was very happy with the way the season went.

It paved the way for the team to just get better in the next few years.”

The team set an all-time school See Yeomen, page 36

Construction on New Athlet- Editorial: Let’s Appreciate Derek ics Complex Underway Continued from page 40 for the non-varsity athlete; a new health and wellness center will change this.”

Winkelfoos said she believes the new emphasis on health and wellness will help the Oberlin community grow in ways outside its athletics.

“This will only make Oberlin that much stronger,” she said. “We are a really great school. Imagine how powerful we can be if everyone is on top of their game physically, mentally and emotionally.”

The new complex will feature a multipurpose field with artificial turf and lights, a state-of-the-art press box and new guard stands for home and visiting fans. The facility will also include new home and visitor locker rooms as well as meeting and social spaces for the campus community to host events. The second phase of construction is the South Complex, which will include a renovated pool and a health and wellness center that will include a fitness center, a multipurpose room, a personal training room, a wellness classroom, a demo kitchen, a café and a lounge.

“The new North Complex will be very beneficial for our varsity athletes and our community at large,” said Krislov. “I imagine that some of our club and intramural sports will use it as well. It is just huge to have a turf field because I think we are the last school in our conference with a grass football field. It becomes a big challenge in the winter. The new field is a great opportunity to get more use out of our field and allow us to do things including community concerts and activities.”

Backed by the concern of many students, the aim of these facilities is to address mental health as well as physical health.

“Mental health has always been a part of our plan,” Winkelfoos said.

“We have carved out space within the new health and wellness center for offices for the director of wellness, [and] the Counseling Center … to ensure that we are keeping the mental aspect in the forefront of our minds.”

Winkelfoos also mentioned that there are plans underway for South Campus. Though the gym was originally intended to be completed by Thanksgiving, the process was slower than expected, and the 24-hour fitness center was ultimately opened on March 8.

The Athletics department is abuzz with excitement over the new plans. “The new facility will give Oberlin a sense of pride,” said Jantz.

The complex is scheduled to be finished before the start of the 20142015 academic year.

Nate Levinson Sports Editor Feb. 21, 2014

On Feb. 12, Derek Jeter announced that this season will be his last in Major League Baseball.

For over three-quarters of my life, Derek has manned the shortstop position for the New York Yankees. There, he has made one clutch play after another, run out every routine groundball to second base and served as the de facto favorite player for every young Yankees fan.

It’s difficult to quantify just how much Derek has meant to me over the years. I refer to him by first name as if we’re old friends, recall plays he’s made as if I was on the field with him and have narrowly avoided speeding tickets on more than a few occasions in order to make it home to watch his late-game at bats on TV. Although I’ve seen him play hundreds of times, I appreciate the Yankees shortstop more and more every time he takes the field.

Yankees fans my age have lived through five Yankees World Series wins and seven American League pennants, and it’s hard to imagine any of it without the Yankees’ all-time hits leader.

Six-year-old me watched in awe as Jeter helped the Yankees sweep the Braves to claim their third World Series title in four years. Eight-year-old me sat on the edge of my seat at Yankee Stadium in 2001 when he hit a walk-off home run to win game four of the World Series, making him Mr. November. And three years ago, I cheered as he became the second player in MLB history to record his 3,000th hit on a home run. Ask me about the most memorable moments of my life and there’s a good chance I’ll mention the Captain’s name more than a couple times.

The Yankees are one of, if not the most, hated teams in sports, but even in acknowledging my bias, I find it hard to believe that this dislike extends to Jeter. He’s a class act on and off the field, and it’s difficult to think of a player, past or present, that better exemplifies “playing the game the right way.”

In an era of Major League Baseball tainted by steroid use, Jeter has stood as a model citizen. Often juxtaposed with fellow superstar teammate Alex Rodriguez, Jeter is known for his uncanny ability to stay out of the spotlight. Like A-Rod, Jeter has dated a laundry list of Hollywood actresses, but none of his relationships have endured the public ups and downs that his steroid-using teammates’ relationships have.

Only a few instances come to mind when I think of Jeter’s public missteps. One came in 2002 when Yankees owner George Steinbrenner criticized Jeter for staying out late partying. The two resolved the minor feud by appearing in a Visa commercial together that concluded with the two doing the conga at a New York night club. The day A-Rod makes light of his errors in that fashion will be a sure sign of the apocalypse.

The fact that the man who may be the most popular person in New York City has almost entirely avoided controversy is mind-boggling. With hundreds of millions of dollars and a gaggle of cameramen following me everywhere I go, I’d be on the back page of the New York Post every Sunday morning.

Following Jeter’s retirement announcement, dozens of current and former professional athletes sang his praises, thanking him not only for his play on the field, but his attitude and hard work off of it. “Always aspired to be the player he was on and off the field,” superstar outfielder Mike Trout tweeted. Judging by the 3,042 retweets, that’s a sentiment shared by many.

Jeter’s 39 hits this season have given him 3,355 for his career, good for ninth on the all-time list, and even a mediocre rest of the season should catapult him into sixth place. He’s a first ballot hall of famer, and if there was ever going to be a unanimous selection, it’d be him.

Seeing long-time Yankees closer Mariano Rivera pitch his last game in 2013 was hard. Watching Derek Jeter’s last time in a Yankees uniform will be even tougher. There will never be another player like him, and all that’s left to do is sit back and enjoy the precious few games he has left.

Sports

The Oberlin Review, May 23, 2014

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Football Ushers in New Era with Anderson Lillian Jahan Feb. 14, 2014 Delta Lodge Director of Athletics and Physical Education Natalie Winkelfoos and President Marvin Krislov announced on Feb. 4 that they had selected Assistant Coach Jay Anderson to be head football coach from a pool of more than 200 applicants. Coach Anderson had been the interim coach since early December and has been with the Yeomen for four seasons. During his time as both defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach at Oberlin, Anderson coached many players to All-NCAC and All-Ohio accolades and aided in two shutout victories for the Yeomen defense.

Anderson’s appointment as head coach was welcomed by many, including administrators, coaches and especially players.

Senior captain and linebacker Kyle Kessler, who played a role in the hiring process, said, “[Oberlin] made the right move with Coach Anderson. He’s a guy that’s been with the program before; he knows what it takes to succeed at a place like Oberlin with the unique challenges that a school like this presents.”

Sophomore quarterback Lucas Poggiali is excited for what lies ahead. “Clearly what we were doing was not working. You can already see a change in our team’s work ethic.

We have always been a hardworking team, but now we are working smarter. I am really excited for Anderson to be the new coach,” he said. “The school is committed to an overhaul on the football team and is dedicated to the success of the program. Coach Anderson is the perfect person to lead this change.”

While Anderson’s promotion was significant for the team, it was also important to him for personal reasons. Anderson, a native of Oberlin and a former football and track athlete at Oberlin High School, is excited that this new position allows him to return to his old stomping grounds after spending a year coaching Division II at Notre Dame College.

He says that he is ready to make an impact in the Athletics department and the greater Oberlin community.

Anderson has already started to make changes to the program. The focus this spring has been on recruiting and “changing the mindset in regards to the classroom,” Anderson said. “We have a team goal. We want a team 3.0 [GPA].

We want our players to excel in and out of the classroom because we want them sprinting over that finish line, not limping, with a championship ring on one hand and one of the finest degrees of this country in the other.”

It is this clear passion for football and desire to work with student-athletes at an academically rigorous institution that made Anderson stand out as a candidate.

Winkelfoos is excited about Anderson’s goals and visions for this program. “Jay has a vision of excellence for the program. It’s a picture of students achieving in the classroom, on the field and after four years with us on campus. His familiarity and understanding of Oberlin propelled him to the front of the pack of candidates. He grew up in Oberlin and has a connection and passion in seeing Oberlin College athletics get stronger that is difficult to match,” she said.

This season, the Yeomen received some media attention because of the small size of their roster. With only 37 players and never more than 34 of them healthy, the Yeomen were the smallest collegiate football team in the nation.

Anderson’s goal is to achieve a roster of about 50 players, which would likely make an incredible difference for the team’s future success.

President Marvin Krislov is also eager to see the team’s roster increase in size.

“We need to have a larger squad, because our current numbers are not adequate for the health and safety of the players,” he said. “I am very excited about Jay Anderson.

He has done a terrific job under somewhat difficult circumstances and has proven to be an effective recruiter.

What I have heard from many students is that not only is he a good coach but also someone they can look to as a mentor and a leader.”

IN THE LOCKER ROOM

Tom Reid

Nov. 8, 2013 You’ve bowled three 300 games in your life. Does one stick out more than the others?

TR: Before I shot my first 300, I had four 299 games, and of course the only way you can get a 299 is by bowling 11 consecutive strikes to start the game and nine pins on the last shot.

All four times, I made a pretty good [last] shot, and three times I left the 10 pin, and once I left the 7 pin. The next time I started the game with 11 strikes, I totally choked. I sent the ball way over to the wrong side of the head pin, and the pins just knocked each other down. I didn’t know how to feel. I rolled the worst shot I ever rolled in that situation. The next two 300 games had 12 good shots.

The Review sat down with Bowling I and II teacher Tom Reid to discuss Reid’s long tenure at Oberlin, how he started bowling and what you need to do to take his class.

When did you start bowling?

Tom Reid: I started bowling fall of 1973. I was 15. My church formed a bowling league, and I asked my parents if I could join. I expected them to say no, but they said yes. I was always picked next to last in gym class. I had a friend who was one of those naturally athletic people, and he joined the league also, and on the first night, I beat him. On the second week, I beat him again, and that’s when I thought, ‘Hey, this might be my thing.’

What makes bowling a great sport?

TR: On the face of it, it’s pretty stupid. Let’s face it. You’re rolling a ball at some sticks, and what’s the point of that? I feel a little weird because right next door to the bowling center is a hospital where they’re trying to save people’s lives. [But] there are some very real things about it. One is the human connection. Bowling provides that. In a team setting, you have comrades that are out there fighting pin wars with you. The movie The Big Lebowski shows how bowling can help strong bonds develop between people who otherwise would have nothing to do with each other.

When did you start teaching a bowling class at Oberlin?

TR: Spring of 1993. When I started managing the lanes in the fall of 1980, I went to the athletic director and offered to teach the classes, and the response that I got was that there were people in the department who felt I should have a teaching degree to teach the class. So, for the next 13 years, I just sat behind the counter and passed out shoes and sometimes would wince when someone teaching the class would give a piece of advice

Tom Reid that seemed unsound. Then, in the fall of ’93, they came to me and said, ‘Tom, we don’t have anybody to teach the bowling class.’ That fall semester, every night before class, I stayed up until two or three in the morning getting the lesson plans in order.

Do you have any special articles of clothing that you wear when you bowl?

TR: Are you recording this? There’s one thing I need to say: ‘Hi Mom!’ I’m sorry to report that I do not have a lucky pair of socks or a lucky pair of underwear. I wear slacks and never jeans and also short sleeves. I always do wear my lucky bowling shoes. If you don’t wear ’em, you slip and fall down.

How do you keep a fresh perspective about Oberlin despite being here for so long?

TR: This is actually my 38th year on campus. I’m in my 75th consecutive semester here at Oberlin College.

Thank you for assuming that I do have a fresh perspective. I’ve been teaching the class for 20 years, and sometimes I do get tired of going through the same routines year after year, and yet, [for] each student that comes into that

class, it’s their first time. They’re having this exciting new experience taking bowling. I feel I owe it to them as an individual to give them something to be excited about it.

Are there any professional bowlers who you’ve tried to emulate?

TR: Yes, and it usually works out pretty disastrously. When I was first starting out, the [Professional Bowlers Association] telecasts were on Saturday afternoons as the lead-in to ABC’s Wide World of Sports, and I bowled in a Saturday night league. That was pretty cool. You’d watch the professionals bowl and then go out to bowl, and I bowled better in that Saturday night league than I had in any other. There have also been times where I’ve seen a bowler do something and said, ‘I’m going to try to do that,’ and it didn’t work out so well.

Do you have any bowling superstitions?

TR: I can reason my superstitions away. If someone has left a split on the next lane, you don’t bowl until they have taken their next shot and gotten that split off of there. If you don’t wait, you’re likely to leave a split yourself. I also wipe my ball off before any strike

attempt, and that’s really not for the purpose of getting the oil off the ball.

To me, that’s a focusing mechanism.

What do you think about The Big Lebowski?

TR: It’s been very good for us because it’s encouraged a lot of people to take the class and take up bowling in general. It shows how bowling can help one remain centered when everything else in your life is swirling out of control. The thing I don’t like is that it makes bowling seem easy.

Aside from one time, every time you see someone roll a ball, every pin that is standing is knocked down.

Did you ever consider being a professional bowler?

TR: That was my plan. When I took the job managing the lanes here, it was only going to be for a few years before I went out on tour. It turns out that if you want to become a professional bowler, maybe you should not run a bowling center, because there’s so much work in it that you don’t get to spend enough time honing your craft on the lanes. Maybe that’s just a cop-out, and it’s an internal character flaw or a lack of physical or mental giftedness.

What would you say to people thinking about taking your bowling class?

TR: Email me to get on the waitlist. When I was a student, you would register for classes, and those would be the classes that you’d take. Now, it seems like you select a few classes that you’re sure you don’t want to take. If you’re on the waitlist, there’s a really good chance you’ll get to take the class.

If you could go back to one year in history, what would it be?

TR: I suppose what I’m supposed to say is that I’d go back to now because life keeps on getting better and better. 1968 was pretty cool, but there was also a lot of horrible stuff going on. I was 10 in 1968, so I got to enjoy all the good music and cool parts of the counterculture without really being aware that it meant that people were rioting in the streets. Any place where there’s great debate about historical truth, I want to go back and see what really happened. I’d love to have that role.

Interview by Nate Levinson, Sports editor Photo by Jodi Helsel

Sports year in review

Page 40

May 23, 2014

The Oberlin Review

Construction on the Austin E. Knowlton Athletic Complex began Nov. 16. The $8 million donation was the biggest donation Oberlin has ever received for athletics.

Courtesy of OC Athletics

Oberlin Breaks Ground on $8 Million Athletic Facility Sarah Orbuch Staff Writer Nov. 13, 2013 On Nov. 7, the Oberlin College Communications Staff announced that the Athletics department had received the largest donation in its history from the Austin E. Knowlton Foundation, to be used for the construction of a new state-of-the-art athletics complex.

A groundbreaking ceremony for the $8 million project was held on Nov. 16 before the football team played its last game of the season — the final game ever played at Savage Football Stadium.

Delta Lodge Director of Athletics and Physical Education Natalie Winkelfoos said she was excited about the festivities surrounding the groundbreaking.

“Many trustees will be in town; there will be a tailgate [party] and a special postgame [bon]fire on the field,” Winkelfoos said. “Many student-athletes will be involved, and there will be giveaways and vintage foam fingers.”

The large donation was much appreciated by College President Marvin Krislov. “Knowlton has been a generous benefactor to The Ohio State University, and the Knowlton Foundation has given us a significant amount of money for scholarships,” said Krislov. “We are very anxious to begin breaking ground on the North Complex.”

Oberlin’s athletics facilities pale in comparison to other colleges in Oberlin’s athletic conference, such as Kenyon College and Denison University. The Jesse Philips Physical Education Center was built in 1971, before Title IX, as a men’s-only facility. Many believe that because of this, the athletic center no longer supports the needs of the school and community.

“The building is ugly and out of date,” Winkelfoos said.

“We are trying to attract the best and brightest students, and we have high school students coming from better facilities. We are just so far behind in the race of facilities that we are doing ourselves and the community a disservice.”

Senior Associate Director of Athletics Creg Jantz also

saw the new facility as an opportunity for Oberlin to compete in admissions with other schools in its athletic conference. “Prospective students will go home and say, ‘I was just at a football game at Oberlin College, and their new facilities are unbelievable,’ ” said Jantz. “After leaving Denison University and Kenyon College, people are excited. Now they will get excited after leaving Oberlin College.”

The current athletics complex features a state-of-theart soccer field, surrounded by an aging football field, a cardio center located in a hallway, insufficient space to hold recreational classes and lots of brick. In a society where health and wellness is a major topic of conversation, many believe that Oberlin is falling behind.

But all that is about to change, according to Winkelfoos.

“This is a very rigorous campus,” she said. “If you’re not taking care of your body, you’re not taking care of your mind. I don’t think that our building is very welcoming See Construction, page 38

OBERLIN ATHLETICS 2013–2014 BY THE NUMBERS Men’s Soccer: 14–4–4 overall, 5–1–3 NCAC Women’s Soccer: 4–14 overall, 1–7 NCAC Football: 3–7 overall, 2–7 NCAC Field Hockey: 4–15 overall, 3–11 NCAC

Men’s Cross Country: 4 of 10 with 122 points at NCAC Championships

Men’s Swimming and Diving: 5 of 10 with 683 points at NCAC Championship

Women’s Cross Country: 1 of 9 with 45 points at NCAC Championships 8 of 32 with 331 points at NCAA Championships

Women’s Swimming and Diving: 7 of 9 with 772 points at NCAC Championship

Volleyball: 12–19 overall, 4–4 NCAC

Men’s Basketball: 7–19 overall, 4–14 NCAC

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Men’s Tennis: 12–13 overall, 1–3 NCAC

Softball: 11–23 overall, 5–11 NCAC

Women’s Tennis: 13–9 overall, 3–0 NCAC

Men’s Lacrosse: 8–6 overall, 3–4 NCAC

Men’s Track and Field: 4 of 9 with 61 points at NCAC Championships

Women’s Lacrosse: 8–5 overall, 3–5 NCAC

Women’s Basketball: 9–17 overall, 4–12 NCAC

Batter Up The intramural softball season provided fun in the sun for students of all years and talent levels.

Baseball: 17–20 overall, 7–12 NCAC

Aces Wild Strike!

Bowling I and II teacher Tom Reid sat down for an interview with the Review.

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Senior Brenna Sheldon earned a trip to the NCAA Tournament in California with her strong play this season.

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Women’s Track and Field: 2 of 8 with 124 points at NCAC Championships

Features

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Spring Varsity

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Fall Varsity

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