September 6, 2019

The Oberlin Review September 6, 2019

Established 1874

Volume 148, Number 1

Local Overdoses Raise Concerns Katie Lucey News Editor

The Cox Administration Building houses the Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences’ office. Currently, both the College and the Conservatory are engaged in an active search for new deans.

Photo by Mallika Pandey, Photo Editor

Searches Launch for Next College, Conservatory Deans Anisa Curry Vietze News Editor In a time of unprecedented institutional change following the recommendations of the Academic and Administrative Program Review, both the College and Conservatory have launched active searches for new deans. The AAPR, which concluded this past spring, was chaired by Acting Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences David Kamitsuka and co-chaired by Acting Dean of the Conservatory William Quillen.

Both Kamitsuka and Quillen are currently filling their positions on an interim basis. Kamitsuka assumed his position in June 2018 following the resignation of former Dean of Arts & Sciences Tim Elgren. Quillen stepped into his role this past January after former Dean of the Conservatory Andrea Kalyn was appointed president of the New England Conservatory of Music.

Professor of Physics Yumi Ijiri is chairing the search for the next Arts & Sciences dean, and the Conservatory search is chaired by Professor of Clarinet Richard Hawkins. Both committees were elected through faculty governance processes. The College committee has begun establishing its expectations for the full-time dean.

“We’ve outlined maybe a half a dozen key features in what a new dean will have to be involved in doing,” she said.

These include skills like supporting faculty and staff, increasing student satisfaction and retention, managing and growing the budget, and implementing the AAPR recommendations. Both committees will work closely with the Office of the President in finding candidates. “[The new dean will] have to be a strong administrator with an understanding of liberal arts colleges and the challenges that our institutions are facing,” said President Carmen Twillie Ambar, who sits on both committees. “It’s those high-level visionaries that I believe will be the best candidates. Because I think Oberlin is the type of place that we want not to just be a part of higher education — we want to lead higher education.”

For some, the searches have raised

concerns about institutional stability, given that the next deans will oversee the implementation of the AAPR recommendations that were shaped by Kamitsuka and Quillen.

“I am concerned,” said Professor of Psychology Cindy Frantz, who also sat on the AAPR steering committee. “I’ve been here for 17 years, and I’ve never seen as much turnover in senior staff, ever. . . .

There’s been a lot of change, and it’s pretty unprecedented.”

Still, Ijiri maintains that the searches represent an important opportunity.

“I think it is a lot, but it is what it is,” she said. “This is where we are. Would you plan this? No, but here it is, and so I think our aim is to take advantage of that and use that as best we can.”

Hawkins agrees, highlighting that moments of change can be exciting.

“I feel like everything is under control and everything’s in really good hands,” Hawkins said. “There is a lot going on, but you know what? It makes everyone step up to the game. And I think it’s good because it keeps everybody on their toes and really kind of puts the microscope on everything that we’re doing here and making it better.”

While Frantz shares Hawkins’ optimism for Oberlin, she’s worried about the idea of introducing new leadership at such a precarious moment.

“My own personal feeling is that we could use some stability right now,” Frantz said. “I think there’s value in having new leadership come in. They bring in new ideas. There’s also value in leadership that really knows the institution. So what I worry about is if both of these deans change over to people that are coming from outside the institution, we have nobody in senior staff that really knows the institution.”

Ambar shares Frantz’s caution, noting that — should the next dean of either division come from the outside — stepping into the momentum of the AAPR implementation would be difficult.

“I think transitions are always complicated and so I absolutely have concerns about it,” Ambar said. “I think I’d be [un]reasonable if I didn’t. If there

happens to be new leadership, we’re going to have to really work diligently to connect them to the spirit and the concepts and then to try to help them in the implementation phase.”

It is possible for both Kamitsuka and Quillen to apply for the continuing positions. While Ambar, Ijiri, and Hawkins were unable to share if either acting dean had submitted an application, Ambar expressed her hope that both will apply.

“I hope that both [Kamitsuka and Quillen] will be in the applicant pool,” Ambar said. “I think that they’ve done really good work, and I think it’s important for us to be able to look at their candidacy in connection with other candidates. But that’s their choice, and they have to make their own decisions.”

Hawkins hopes to bring potential candidates to campus by the end of November and select a final candidate not long after.

“I don’t know what the College is up to, but for the Conservatory, we’re trying to kind of get it done before the end of the semester,” Hawkins said.

Ijiri has proposed a similar timeline for the College search.

Some students have noticed that neither committee includes student members. Ijiri explained that this is due to confidentiality concerns.

“It goes back to the bylaws,” Ijiri explained.

“It’s a faculty-elected committee; it wasn’t an appointed committee. You might have expected a committee with a couple of faculty, a couple of students, and staff — which you’ve seen in other searches. … [This was done] in order to protect the identity of the candidates; since this is a very high level position, certainly people would want protection as far as if they’re not the person who is offered this job.”

Students who are interested in influencing the hiring process can attend a listening session this Monday at 4:30 p.m. in Wilder 115, where they will be able to voice hopes and concerns for potential candidates. Students can also reach out to Yumi Ijiri and Richard Hawkins directly via email.

The Oberlin Police Department responded to 13 reported heroin overdose incidents within Oberlin city limits between Jan. 1 and Aug. 13 this year, one of which resulted in a death. These incidents are part of a larger pattern of fatal drug-related incidents that claim the lives of hundreds of Lorain County residents each year.

According to County Health Ratings, a database of county statistics, Lorain County has a slightly higher drug overdose mortality rate than the state of Ohio at large. Data recorded between 2013 and 2017 reveal that 39 people per 100,000 die due to drug overdoses in Lorain County, compared to 37 in the rest of Ohio. The Lorain County Coroner’s Office stated that 84 percent of 2017 overdose deaths in Lorain County were opioid-related.

While preliminary reports from the Ohio Department of Health state that the number of drug-related fatalities in 2019 has decreased for the first time in over ten years, Ohioans of all ages and backgrounds remain at risk for opioid addiction. According to Pradip Muhuri, a statistician at the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research, approximately 80 percent of total heroin users in 2013 began with prescription opioids, and then switched to cheaper alternatives when they found themselves unable to stop using the drug.

“I think we’ve begun to see an increase in heroin [use] because of the price,” Oberlin Police Department Lieutenant Mike McCloskey said.

“The state cracked down on the availability of prescription drugs; heroin has filled that void.”

Institutional and public responses to the continuing opioid crisis in Lorain County may be responsible for this year’s apparent decline in overdose-related deaths. On Wednesday, United States Senator Sherrod Brown announced that the Ohio Department of Health would receive an additional installment of $55 million in State Opioid Response grants.

Additionally, Lorain County Public Health provides educational resources and Naloxone rescue kits for free. Naloxone, also known as Narcan, reverses the effects of an overdose. According to the OPD’s Facebook page, the 12 survivors of the reported heroin overdoses in Oberlin were administered Narcan by emergency responders.

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CONTENTS NEWS

OPINIONS

THIS WEEK

ARTS & CULTURE

SPORTS

02 Introductory Arabic Courses Offered on Campus in Fall, Spring

05 In Face of Adversity, Obies Keep On Keepin’ On

08–9 Toni Morrison & Oberlin: A Timeline

15 Field Hockey Finds Best Start in Years

03 In Memory of John “Jed” Deppman, Professor of Comparative Literature and English

05 Media Coverage Misses Mark

11 Slavery’s Modern-Day Impact Felt in “Afterlives of the Black Atlantic”

The Oberlin Review | September 6, 2019

12 OTR: Dizzy Fae, R&B Artist

15 Dave Zirin Provides Model for Sportswriters

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Introductory Arabic Courses Offered On Campus in Fall, Spring

Students in the Arabic 101 course taught by Visiting Assistant Professor of Arabic Mahmoud Meslat. Following a faculty petition this spring, the College Faculty Council approved introductory Arabic courses for both the fall and spring semesters.

Photo by Chris Schmucki, Photo Editor

Ella Moxley Senior Staff Writer Following significant controversy last spring, Oberlin will once again offer introductory Arabic courses on campus this academic year. In April, a group of faculty petitioned the College Faculty Council with a proposal to offer a section each of Arabic 101 and 102.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Arabic Mahmoud Meslat was hired over the summer to teach the introductory courses.

“As is our process, a group of faculty submitted a request for a temporary line in Arabic to the [Educational Plans and Policies Committee] and the [College Faculty Council],” acting Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences David Kamitsuka wrote in an email to the Review. “The CFC authorized two courses, one in the fall and one in the spring.”

The request followed news last spring that Oberlin would transition intermediate and upper-level Arabic courses to a digital classroom platform called the Shared Language Program, a partnership among several institutions in the Great Lakes Colleges Association.

For some, the transition stoked fears that on-campus Arabic offerings would be eliminated, particularly after it was announced that former Visiting Assistant

Professor of Arabic Basem Al-Raba’a would not return.

Meslat, Al-Raba’a’s replacement, has taught at Oberlin twice before, from 2011–2013 and 2014–2016.

He was an integral part of building up Oberlin’s Arabic program to include celebrations of the Arabic language like Arabic Day, cultural activities, parties, and field trips.

“Students emailed me and wanted me to come back, and I also heard from [Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Elizabeth Hamilton that] they wanted me to come back,” Meslat said.

Initially, the plan was for Meslat’s introductory courses to complement higher-level courses offered digitally through the SLP. Over the summer, the College successfully participated in some workshops with the technology. However, logistical challenges with a faculty member at Denison University led to Oberlin pulling out of the program for this fall. College senior Simon Idelson was among those planning on taking advanced Arabic courses through the SLP before learning that these courses would no longer be offered.

“The instructor was unfortunately unable to teach the fall SLP courses in Arabic, so they had to be cancelled,” Hamilton said in an email to the Review.

“Half-course private readings were arranged to accommodate the students who were enrolled in the distance learning courses.”

Despite the setback, Kamitsuka clarified that Oberlin plans to participate in the SLP in the future.

“The Shared Language Program is an exciting opportunity for all language and culture faculty from across the Great Lakes Colleges Association to collaborate for the purpose of offering as many learning opportunities as possible for students,” he wrote.

The decision to continue introductory Arabic courses on campus follows significant student activism around the issue last spring. The student campaign, known as “Save Arabic,” launched a petition calling for a sustainable funding model for an Arabic program that garnered over 1,500 signatures, coordinated in part by College senior Caitlin Kelley.

Kelley, along with Professor of German Steven Huff; Professor of Russian Thomas Newlin; Ruberta T. McCandless Professor of French Matthew Senior; Presidential Scholar in Islamic Studies Mohammad Jafar Mahallati; and Associate Professor of History

Zeinab Abul-Magd wrote a proposal to the College Faculty Council last spring to request funding for one professor to teach at least the introductory classes.

“We thought it was really important to have Arabic 101 and 102 on campus continuously as we worked together with the dean’s office and the MENA program to come up with more permanent solution and more permanent program that is under the jurisdiction of the relevant faculty bodies,” Kelley said.

Kelley says an outside, four-year grant funded the last three years of on-campus Arabic. Therefore, the dean’s office had administrative control of the faculty line rather than faculty governance bodies like the Educational Plans and Policies Committee, which normally oversees faculty lines. Due to low enrollment trends over several years, the dean’s office decided to not renew Al-Raba’a’s contract into the fall.

Some concerns do exist about hiring Meslat as a visiting professor. Kelley mentioned low pay as a barrier to keeping visiting faculty on campus. Idelson added that the lack of an Arabic TA on campus adds to concerns about the program’s long-term sustainability.

Kamitsuka said that further steps need to be taken for the position to become permanent, and added that he hopes enrollment will reach levels that he views as sustainable.

“As is our practice, the appropriate faculty will need to submit a request for position to EPPC and CFC for a continuing position,” Kamitsuka wrote. “This process assures a fair vetting of all requests for faculty lines from across the College of Arts and Sciences.”

Going forward, Kelley hopes to work with Hamilton and others to review the Arabic program and look for ways to better integrate it with other curricular offerings on campus.

“Arabic is such a relevant thing to be teaching, “ Kelley said. “Especially at Oberlin. Especially now.

It just connects to so many things. It connects to history, it connects to political science, it connects to international relations, and is something that is increasingly important in the world.”

For his part, Meslat is looking forward to being back on campus and working with Oberlin students again.

“I love Oberlin,” he said. “Oberlin has always been a great institution. Oberlin has a beautiful diversity … I have beautiful students.”

SJI Reaches Record Attendance A record-breaking number of incoming first-year students applied to participate in the Social Justice Institute orientation workshop. The two-day annual workshop aims to engage incoming Obies from a diverse range of social, cultural, and political backgrounds in conversations centered around issues of social justice.

“There were 97 applicants this year,” said Kim Jackson Davidson, Oberlin’s second ombudsperson. “Eighty new students confirmed their plans to attend prior to arriving on campus, including 10 student facilitators. [Ultimately,] 78 students participated in the first day of SJI.” SJI and its sponsor, the Yeworkwha Belachew Center for Dialogue, create videos, group discussions, and other facilitated dialogues about power, privilege, and disenfranchisement.

“The discussions on both days were rich and thought-provoking,” Davidson said.

“The facilitators for the institute continued to make adjustments to the schedule to make time for following the flow of engaged questioning and thoughtful contributions on the part of new students … It will be exciting to watch the class of 2023 as it makes its journey through Oberlin.”

Text by Ananya Gupta, Managing Editor Photo courtesy of Dale Preston

The Oberlin r eview Sept 6, 2019 Volume 148, Number 1 (ISSN 297–256) Published by the students of Oberlin College every Friday during the fall and spring semesters, except holidays and examination periods. Advertising rates: $18 per column inch.

Second-class postage paid at Oberlin, Ohio. Entered as 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

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Editors-in-Chief

Nathan Carpenter Katherine MacPhail Managing Editor Ananya Gupta News Editors Anisa Curry Vietze Katie Lucey Opinions Editor Jackie Brant This Week Editor Lily Jones Arts Editors Kate Fishman Aly Fogel Sports Editors Jane Agler Alexis Dill Photo Editors Mallika Pandey Chris Schmucki Senior Staff Writers Carson Dowhan Ella Moxley Layout Editors Parker Shatkin Jake Butcher Lila Michaels

Ads Manager Web Manager Production Manager Production Staff

Jabree Hason Sheng Kao Devyn Malouf Gigi Ewing Christo Hays Jimmy Holland Olive Hwang Kushagra Kar Allison Schmitt Ivy Fernandez Smith Jaimie Yue

Corrections: To submit a correction, email managingeditor@ oberlinreview.org.

In Memory of John “Jed” Deppman, Professor of Comparative Literature and English The staff of The Oberlin Review extends our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Professor of Comparative Literature and English John “Jed” Deppman, who died June 22, 2019 at the age of 52.

Deppman moved to Oberlin with his wife, Professor of Chinese and Cinema Studies Hsiu-Chuang Deppman, in 2003, where he lived until his death. Deppman was a leading scholar on Emily Dickinson, spoke several languages, and taught the highly-regarded first-year seminar, “Ars Moriendi: Death and the Art of Dying,” among other campus roles.

“My favorite quality about Jed Deppman was his humor,” College junior Elmo Tumboken, who took Professor Deppman’s first-year seminar, wrote in an email to the Review. “He was also one of those people who absolutely opens his heart for every student that he came across. He, without fail, waved at every student he made eye contact with from across the street with both arms raised like he was everyone’s cheerleader.”

College senior Marlee Neugass, who also took Deppman’s first-year seminar, shared similar sentiments.

“All of his qualities made him quite literally the best person I’ve ever had the honor of knowing,” she said. “Jed’s best quality was everything about him. I will always remember him for his infectious enthusiasm, his calming presence, his beautiful kindness, his unwavering support for his students, and his wise perspective. Jed has made an indelible mark on my time at Oberlin, and on me as a whole.”

Interested parties can donate to the Comparative Literature department in Deppman’s name by visiting oberlin.edu/donate.

Text by Katie Lucey, News Editor Photo courtesy of Jennifer Manna

Despite Legalization, Medical Marijuana Faces Hurdles Alexa Stevens Sunday will mark the third anniversary of the legalization of medical marijuana in Ohio. On Sept. 8, 2016, Ohio House Bill 523 went into effect, allowing those with specific medical conditions to purchase marijuana with the recommendation of a licensed physician.

Since the passage of the bill, the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program granted licenses to two medical marijuana dispensaries in Lorain County, Rise and Clubhouse Dispensary, both of which are still active. However, Oberlin native and Lorain County resident John Pardee is one of many who believe that — three years later — medical marijuana still isn’t accessible enough. “[The system] needs a lot of work,” Pardee said. “It has a long way to go in order to meet the needs of the patient community.”

Pardee and his wife Linda, administrative assistant for the English department and fellow Oberlin native, have a personal connection to marijuana legalization activism.

When the Pardees’ son was the victim of a near-fatal car accident, doctors prescribed opioids for pain management.

After the opioids began to show dangerous side effects, their son suggested medical cannabis as an alternative, but the Pardees had reservations due to their preconceived notions about cannabis use. Their opinion changed after they looked into medical marijuana’s benefits.

“We did our own research and realized that our son was right, and everything we had been told was wrong,” John Pardee said.

John is now the president and founder of the Ohio Rights Group, formerly the Ohio Medical Cannabis Association, which held its inaugural meeting in Rice Hall in 2012.

Oberlin City Councilmember Kelley Singleton also supports legalization in order to protect those who currently purchase the substance illegally, including college students. He expressed concern for the potential presence of recreational marijuana laced with fentanyl — a synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine.

“The world has bigger problems than some kid smoking a joint,” Singleton said.

In 2017, the Oberlin City Council, including Singleton, voted unanimously in favor of a resolution that recognizes the legality of medical marijuana and encourages growers to build their facilities in Oberlin. However, there are still no current

The Oberlin Review | September 6, 2019

dispensaries within city limits.

Both Pardee and Singleton agree that the process of bringing medical marijuana to Oberlin has been slow. In 2017, Ascension BioMedical was licensed to grow cannabis in the Oberlin Industrial Park with the support of Councilmember Singleton. However, an in-town dispensary has yet to open, and the process of getting a medical marijuana card — as well as the certification process that doctors must undergo in order to recommend the substance — remains tedious and difficult.

Unanimous local support indicates that the slow progress in opening more medical dispensaries comes not from the town itself but from the state government, which is responsible for licensing dispensaries.

In July, the Ohio legislature legalized the sale of CBD oil — cannabidiol — derived from hemp. However, because obtaining recreational marijuana containing THC is still illegal, one must obtain a medical marijuana card in order to purchase cannabis in this form. Furthermore, the doctorpatient relationship must meet certain standards. The relationship must be in good faith, the patient must have one of the 21 qualifying medical conditions, the physician must explain the pros and cons of marijuana use, and the physician must look into the patient’s history with substances.

Physicians within the state may be approved to recommend medical marijuana to patients if they hold an active, unrestricted MD or DO license from the State Medical Board of Ohio and complete two hours of continuing medical education about medical marijuana, according to the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program.

College senior Ezra Andres-Tysch, who has worked on several Democratic political campaigns, explains that the next step for marijuana activism is the expunging of records of those both currently and previously imprisoned on marijuana charges.

“As much as recreational marijuana is important … the criminal justice reform aspect of it really comes with good government, and that’s what we need to be moving toward,” Andres-Tysch said.

Pardee agrees. He supports expunging the criminal records of those currently and formerly incarcerated for marijuanarelated crimes due to the partial legality of the substance in an ex post facto revision. According to an FBI report, in 2016, the year medical marijuana was legalized in Ohio, there were still

Security Notebook Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019 8:13 p.m. Campus Safety officers were requested to assist with a student who appeared to be having an allergic reaction to an unknown allergen. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

Friday, Aug. 30, 2019 10:04 a.m. Officers responded to a one-car motor vehicle accident in the Gray Gables Parking Area on Elm Street. There were no injuries and only minor damage to the vehicle.

11:11 a.m. A student reported the theft of their bicycle from the front yard of their off-campus house on Walnut Street. The bicycle is a women’s Diamond Back Tess 24, blue and white in color, and valued at $250. It is registered with Campus Safety and was locked to itself at the time of theft.

Sunday, Sept. 1, 2019 12:18 p.m. Officers were requested to assist a student who fell while riding their bicycle near Mudd Center. The student received first aid for their knee and hand. No additional assistance was requested at the time.

2:41 p.m.

Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at Dascomb Hall. The smoke resulted from meat juices dripping on the heating elements of the stove, which activated the alarm.

The area was cleared of smoke by the fire department while an electrician responded and reset the alarms.

11:54 p.m. Officers from Campus Safety and the Oberlin Police Department responded to a loud noise complaint at a Village Housing Unit on North Professor Street.

Approximately 100 individuals were asked to leave the unauthorized party.

Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2019 11:41 a.m. Staff reported a noninjury motor vehicle accident in the parking lot of the Conservatory. A vehicle backed into another parked vehicle near the loading dock.

Minor damage was sustained, and information was exchanged between the parties involved.

7:20 p.m. An officer on patrol heard what sounded like an alarm coming from Lord House. Upon further investigation, the officer found that the alarm was caused by a smoke detector on the second floor. Smoking in a room had activated the alarm. Residents were advised that smoking is not permitted in the dorms. The alarm was reset.

7:52 p.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at a Goldsmith Village Housing Unit.

Food on the stove had boiled over, creating smoke that activated the alarm. The area was cleared and the alarm reset.

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Residents Hope Oberlin Can Lead on Medical Marijuana Continued from page 3

18,731 total arrests related to marijuana — 17,714 due to possession and 1,017 due to the sale of the drug. “[Oberlin can] lead the way as a compassionate teacher for both drug addicts and for communities that need … medical marijuana legalization the most,” Andres-Tysch said.

According to the Ohio Board of Pharmacy, there were 48,248 patients registered to use medical marijuana in Ohio as of July 2019. According to a 2018 federal estimate, there are 11.69 million residents in the state, meaning that only 0.4 percent of Ohio citizens carry medical marijuana cards, a testament to John’s description of the medical cannabis system as “onerous.”

Pardee believes that his role as a medical marijuana activist is primarily educational. He hopes to pay forward the lesson he learned the hard way by enlightening others about the benefits of medical cannabis.

“It’s going to require citizen activism, so it’s going to continue to require contacting your elected representatives … and telling them how important medical cannabis is to them,” he said.

County Officials Grapple With Opioid Crisis, Drunk Driving Continued from page 1

“[Narcan kits were] distributed to police departments in Lorain County in 2012 as part of a pilot project: Project DAWN, or Deaths Avoided with Naloxone,” McCloskey said. “It’s been an effective tool simply because we’re often the first people on-scene, even before an ambulance gets there.”

Others argue that preventative or harm reduction strategies are more effective for solving the opioid crisis in the long run, rather than relying on life-saving drugs in an emergency situation.

The Harm Reduction Coalition focuses on reducing the negative consequences of illicit drug use through resources such as safe injection sites and seeks to respect the human rights of drug addicts or users.

“The purpose of harm reduction ... is to acknowledge that an action will be taking place regardless of societal shaming and legal roadblocks, and take steps to reduce as much of the risks affiliated with that action as possible,” College senior Rachel Clark, who leads DrugsCo, an ExCo that discusses safer drug policies, wrote in an email to the Review. “It is essential that this community — and all others — recognize that [heroin] not only exists, but is being actively ingested, often in secret, by our friends, family, and neighbors.”

While the vast majority of drug-related deaths in Ohio are due to opioid abuse, impaired driving also causes a high quantity of fatalities and incidents throughout Lorain County and Ohio. According to the Ohio State Highway Patrol, the number of Operating-Vehicle-whileIntoxicated traffic accidents surpassed 13,000 in 2018, resulting in 402 deaths and nearly 8,000 injuries. There have been more than 450 OVI-related incidents thus far in 2019.

Law enforcement authorities throughout Lorain County have taken steps to reduce fatalities and crashes from impaired driving.

For example, the Ohio State Highway Patrol placed an OVI checkpoint on Leavitt Road in Lorain — about 10 miles away from Oberlin — from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. last weekend.

“A large part of what we do is education, and that’s a large part of what the checkpoints are,” Staff Lieutenant Craig Cvetan, spokesperson for Ohio State Highway Patrol, said. “They allow us to speak to motorists and raise awareness about the issues that we see with impaired driving.”

According to Cvetan, the location of the OVI checkpoints are chosen using statistical information that indicated where “impaired driving problems” tend to occur. The OPD, as well as the College, are actively involved in preventing additional OVI-related incidents.

“Rideline was started in 1999 to provide students the service to get around campus in a safer manner,” Assistant Director of Campus Safety Clifton Barnes said. “Students who have been imbibing too much don’t have to feel obligated to drive or walk home.”

Individuals at risk for drug abuse or overdose can call the Oberlin Police Department at (440) 774-1061 or 911, or, alternatively, Lorain County Public Health at (440) 322-6367.

OFF THE CUFF

Keith Tarvin, Professor of Biology

Professor of Biology Keith Tarvin published a study last Wednesday which has been covered by major news outlets such as CNN, The New York Times, and NPR. The study, titled “Eavesdropping grey squirrels infer safety from bird chatter,” finds that squirrels use the tone of bird chatter to determine whether an environment is safe. Previous studies had only observed squirrels response to alarmed bird calls.

Tarvin earned his B.A. from Hendrix College, an M.S. from the University of Arkansas, a Ph.D from the University of South Florida and did a Postdoc at the University of Chicago before coming to Oberlin in the fall of 2000 to teach Biology and Ecology. He is currently on sabbatical.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What has your main focus been within your research at Oberlin?

Much of my work at Oberlin has been looking at the behavioral ecology of American goldfinches.

Communication is the main theme of my work.

For seven or eight years now I’ve been working on squirrels and their eavesdropping behavior on alarm calls and how this works [with] other kinds of information that might be out there.

What has your experience been working at Oberlin and working with Oberlin students?

Oh, it’s a great place to be. It’s fun. Here’s the downside of working at Oberlin, and it’s a wonderful downside: Sometimes it would be great if students could spend a little bit more time in the lab, but they’ve got a recital or they’re going to go work in the circus or they’ve got a theater performance going on. That’s so cool. I love it. That’s a trade off I’ll make any day — for the eclecticism of Oberlin students and their enthusiasm and their interest in so many things. I think that’s great.

Since you’ve researched squirrel communications for so many years, I’m wondering how you envision building upon the research that you’ve just published.

This particular paper raises a few questions in my mind, some of which are kind of small but important, and others of which may be broader and more interesting to some people. First of all, even though we have pretty strong evidence that the squirrels are eavesdropping on this bird chatter, we don’t know what elements of the chatter they’re really cueing in on.

We have three different chatter exemplar recordings that we used and no squirrel received more than one. So different squirrels heard slightly different kinds of chatter. There are a couple of species of birds that were on two of the three exemplars, but I think only one species was on all three and it’s actually not a species that is found everywhere in Oberlin. The recordings were made at my house and I’m about 12 miles out of town in a different kind of habitat. So what exactly were they listening to? Were they cueing in on a particular species? Do they really categorize all bird chatter as the same thing?

Which is weird because — I’ll get wonky here — a nuthatch sounds really different than a junco.

Imagining that a squirrel would categorize those two kinds of sounds as one thing is interesting and kind of a stretch. So, we need to work on that and figure out, “What are the squirrels really cueing in on? What’s the mechanism by which this works?”

Oberlin Community News Bulletin

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Keith Tarvin Photo by Mallika Pandey, Photo Editor

Katherine MacPhail Editor-in-Chief

Good Morning Oberlin!

Firewalk at Common Ground

Small business owners in Oberlin can network with others at Good Morning Oberlin!, an event hosted by the Oberlin Business Partnership this Thursday, Sept. 12, from 8–9 a.m at CoWork Oberlin, a local coworking space. Everyone, regardless of occupation, may attend. Coffee and doughnuts will be provided.

Embrace your wild side this Saturday, Sept. 7, at the annual Gregg Gilder Memorial Firewalk at Common Ground. Dave Tuscany, certified firewalk instructor, and Dr. Harry Pepper will facilitate the event, which encourages participants to face their fears by walking on hot coals. Registration is $49 per person, and all ages are welcome. Register at commongroundcenter.org.

While your study applies to grey squirrels, I’m curious how the findings apply to our own resident albino grey squirrels.

That’s actually a really interesting question.

So they are the same species, the albino squirrels are just albino gray squirrels. But on the other hand, the albino squirrels, at least to me, are really conspicuous, and if they sense that they are really conspicuous, it might be even more important for albino squirrels to make use of public information that can contribute to their safety.

I don’t know if they do. That would be a really cool study. The number of albino squirrels in Oberlin has been low for the last several years.

When I first started this study, there were quite a few spread out in town and then one year, for a whole year, none of my students, who comb this area when they’re looking for squirrels, ever saw an albino squirrel, but it seems they’re slowly coming up. So I don’t think we have sample sizes big enough to look at that, but it would be really cool to find out if some individuals of a particular species have to behave differently than other kinds of individuals of the same species because of some phenotypic attributes that they have.

An NPR article made comparisons between the squirrel’s communication and Facebook or the “Twitterverse.” What do you think about that idea?

Here is an embarrassing revelation: I’ve never used Facebook or Twitter, so I don’t really know what they’re like. It’s not a bad analogy in the sense that we’re looking at one little piece of what might be a public information network. Squirrels are listening to other species — that means other species are producing information. They’re not producing it for the squirrels, they’re producing it for themselves, or for their flock mates or what have you. But the squirrels are able to exploit that information. They’re able to listen in on it.

So in a sense there’s this sort of social network out there. I don’t know that it’s analogous to the social media network, but information can be transferred in various directions. It’s easy to listen in on it. It’s easy to pick up what is relevant to you and disregard what is not relevant to you. So those metaphors … I’m sure [they] have limitations, but they’re kind of cool.

And I think when it’s on something like radio where you’re trying to convey something to a broad audience, that’s great. The little buzzwords get people to listen and think.

Root Beer & Yesteryear The Oberlin Heritage Center will host an afternoon soirée featuring historical games, root beer floats, and music on Sunday, Sept. 8, from 1–4 p.m. The family-friendly event celebrates Oberlin’s history as a “dry” town. Conversations will feature historical figures, including Sojourner Truth and 1847 Oberlin College graduate Lucy Stone, who will all be portrayed by local Lorain County residents. Tours and exhibits will also be available free of charge.

opinions September 6, 2019

Established 1874

lEttEr to thE Editors

Gibson’s Case Trivializes Actual Racism Like many alumni, I have followed the legal battle concerning Gibson’s Food Mart & Bakery with interest and horror. Decades of Oberlin students have enjoyed Gibson’s tasty doughnuts and other treats, and have come to know the family. I am not at all surprised that the jury ruled in favor of Gibson’s. Both the experience of Oberlin students and the facts of the case indicate that Gibson’s is not a racist business. Simply put, the shoplifters were caught and when the police arrived, they were assaulting Mr. Gibson.

Polarized race relations at Oberlin are not a new phenomenon. When I was a student in the late 1970s, my political organization, The Moderate Caucus, circulated a petition opposing the creation of the Afrikan Heritage House as a single-race dormitory and dining facility supported by College funds. Oberlin has encouraged segregation for a long time. The timeliness of this issue has been highlighted by remarks concerning bussing by Kamala Harris in the presidential debates this summer. The more students of all races interact with one another, the less polarized the communities will be. We need desegregation. Feelings of guilt on the part of affluent white students and an “us-versus-them” mentality regarding race, politics, and town relations are precursors to this debacle.

This case trivializes the genuine issue of a racist legal system that imprisons black people at a disproportionate rate. The students and their dean should be demonstrating in front of courthouses, not bakeries.

Oberlin is throwing away $25 million dollars that could be used on worthy causes, such as funding scholarships for needy applicants. The College’s legal defense is shameful and sets a poor example for how institutions should behave.

– Nicholas Isherwood OC ’81

Media Coverage Misses Mark Editorial Board June 18, 2019

Editor’s note: This editorial was originally published online in June; the Review is publishing in print as well in order to reach a broader audience, including new students and other community members. Students who are approached by journalists are encouraged to consult this student media guide, also created in June: bit.ly/2lDr78z. The piece below has been lightly edited from original, to preserve clarity.

This past May, a Lorain County jury awarded Gibson’s Bakery $11 million following a month-long trial stemming from the bakery’s lawsuit against Oberlin College and Vice President and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo. On June 13, less than a week after the original verdict was delivered, the jury added on $33 million in punitive damages. This stunning decision — which struck a serious blow against free speech on college campuses across the country — garnered significant attention in major media outlets such as CNN and The New York Times, as well as on social media and various personal blogs.

The tension between the College and Gibson’s began in November 2016, when three Black students were involved in a physical altercation outside of Gibson’s after Allyn Gibson, son of store owner David Gibson, accused one of the students of shoplifting.

The three students were arrested. Shortly thereafter, Oberlin students alleged that Allyn had racially profiled the students and launched a protest and boycott of the bakery.

A year later, Gibson’s sued, alleging that the College and Raimondo had participated in smearing its reputation.

See National, page 6

SUBMISSIONS POLICY

The Oberlin Review appreciates and welcomes letters to the editors and op-ed submissions. All submissions are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board. All submissions must be received by Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at opinions@oberlinreview.org or Wilder Box 90 for inclusion in that week’s issue. Letters may not exceed 600 words and op-eds may not exceed 800 words, except with consent of the Editorial Board. All submissions must include contact information, with full names and any relevant titles, for all signers.

All writers must individually confirm authorship on electronic submissions. The Review reserves the right to edit all submissions for clarity, length, grammar, accuracy, strength of argument and in consultation with Review style. Editors will work with contributors to edit pieces and will clear major edits with the authors prior to publication. Editors will contact authors of letters to the editors in the event of edits for anything other than style and grammar. Headlines are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board. Opinions expressed in editorials, letters, op-eds, columns, cartoons or other Opinions pieces do not necessarily reflect those of the staff of the Review. The Review will not print advertisements on its Opinions pages. The Review defines an advertisement as any submission that has the main intent of bringing direct monetary gain to a contributor.

The Oberlin Review | September 6, 2019

Volume 148, Number 1

Editorial Board Editors-in-ChiEf

Nathan Carpenter

Katherine MacPhail

Managing Editor Ananya Gupta

opinions Editor Jackie Brant

In Face of Adversity, Obies Keep On Keepin’ On Over the course of the summer, many people around the country seemed to suddenly be worried about Oberlin students. An explosion of media attention following an initial verdict in the lawsuit filed by Gibson’s Food Mart & Bakery against the College and Vice President and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo inspired people who have never set foot in Ohio to weigh in on whether we have our heads screwed on straight.

The Review’s inboxes were flooded with messages written in varying degrees of hysteria. Some wanted to know if Oberlin students knew how stupid and short-sighted we are. Some accused us — both the Review staff specifically and the student body at large — of being sheep at the beck and call of College administrators. Others wrote to display their remarkable arsenal of racist slurs. One interested reader demanded that we eat him — twice.

The flood of attention was more bemusing than it was surprising — at the center of a longstanding media microscope, Oberlin students have experienced this before and, no doubt, will again.

However, even with the media maelstrom swirling, Oberlin students spent the summer doing what they do best: finding work they care about, committing themselves fully to it, and leaving behind a legacy of care and compassion. They again dismantled the notion that this student body is a monolithic entity full of naïve children who know nothing about how to function in the real world. Oberlin students demonstrated — as they have time and time again — that they are fully up to the task of empowering themselves and others to make significant, long-lasting impacts on their communities.

We saw this ability in the students who spent their summers teaching and writing grants in Colombia, publishing articles in national outlets, organizing for climate justice, working for multinational corporations, and conducting research through programs like Mellon Mays and the Oberlin College Research Fellowship, as well as many more. Studentathletes spent countless hours improving their skills, as did our worldclass Conservatory musicians. Together our Resident Assistants, Peer Advising Leaders, Peer Mentors, and other student leaders collectively spent thousands of hours preparing to support their peers throughout the academic year.

We saw it in the 30 Bonner Scholars who spent their summers doing service work in 13 states and seven countries. These remarkable young people — who commit to long-term community engagement throughout their entire Oberlin experience — worked on a range of issue areas including arts, education, youth programming, environmental sustainability, health, and immigration.

We also saw it in the students who are making transitions into and out of Oberlin. As covered on page 3 of this issue, the Social Justice Institute for new students saw record registration this year, as students grappled with complex questions of identity, power, and privilege. At the other end of their collegiate journeys, dozens of Oberlin graduates accepted prestigious graduate school offers, job opportunities, and travel fellowships to spend a year or two researching, teaching, and learning about new places and cultures.

This list only begins to scratch the surface of everything the Oberlin student body accomplishes on a daily basis. There is nothing monolithic about this group of young people, nothing broad about the strokes we paint ourselves with. Yes, we don’t always agree with each other; certainly, we mess up. But from those challenging moments arise opportunities for growth, opportunities that we take seriously and build upon.

As we’ve all come back to campus after summers spent around the world, engaged in the work that motivates each of us, we’ve greeted old friends and met new ones. In these moments of relationship building, one truth emerges above all others: While everybody else was busy worrying about Oberlin students, we didn’t dwell on the negativity. We didn’t become deflated or defeated, for one simple reason: we were too busy with the work of making the world a better place — and that’s where our focus will stay.

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

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Opi n ions

National Gibson’s Coverage Relies On Tropes, Inaccuracies Continued from page 5

Unfortunately, much of the media coverage and commentary either inaccurately represented the lawsuit and the events that led up to it, or only presented parts of the larger story. An extensive timeline of events was outlined in a June Review article covering news of the verdict (“Jury Rules for Gibson’s, Assigns $44 Million in Damages,” June 14, 2019). Readers looking for more background on the verdict should consult that article.

The Editorial Board wants to identify three key ways that the initial wave of media coverage skewed or misrepresented events leading up to the trial.

The first concerns the Oberlin Police Department report that was filed following the initial altercation outside Gibson’s in November 2016. The document filed by responding officers was prejudiced in favor of Gibson’s, as it only included statements from owner David Gibson, his son Allyn Gibson, and a Gibson’s employee. David and the employee both backed up Allyn’s version of events, giving them near-complete control of the narrative in the report and, consequently, in the media.

Noticeably absent from the police report was the perspective of any of the three Black students involved in the initial incident, not to mention the witnesses who originally called the police out of concern for the students’ safety.

Officers did include the line, “It should be noted that, as the reporting officer was interviewing all three subjects, several other individuals who were also on scene at the time of the incident, and who were initially interfering with officers attempting to gain control of the situation, began stating that Allyn was the aggressor and the Black man didn’t do anything wrong.” This is the only suggestion in the entire report that anything took place counter to the Gibson’s’ version of events.

This omission is meaningful — par-

ticularly in a country with a long and shameful history of manipulating testimony and evidence to criminalize people of color, especially Black people. The report defined the narrative that, from the beginning, was parroted by mainstream outlets and right-wing blogs alike to vilify the three Black students and those who came to their defense.

By immediately assuming the students’ guilt, the report significantly impacted the way this story was discussed in the national media — and even today.

Second, many people have bought into the narrative presented in court

by Gibson’s’ attorneys that the College acted as a “Goliath” in encouraging students to crush a small, locally-owned family business. While it’s true that the College is often not the most considerate neighbor, in this situation the accusation is entirely contrived, and the support that it has found not just from personal blogs, but major media outlets as well, is misleading.

Former Student Senate Chair Kameron Dunbar, OC ’19, put it best in a New York Times article where he was quoted saying, “Part of the narrative that has been built up is that Oberlin’s administration weaponized students against Gibson’s out of malice. I find that concept to be pretty insulting.

We’re autonomous” (“Oberlin Helped Students Defame a Bakery, a Jury Says.

The Punishment: $33 Million,” June 14, 2019).

Whatever you think of the protests and boycott of Gibson’s, the responsibility for those actions lies squarely with students. Nobody at Oberlin — student, administrator, or otherwise — has ever contested this fact and, indeed, students continue to openly take ownership of their actions. On campus, the idea that administrators could somehow orchestrate a student protest is laughable; Oberlin students prize their independence above nearly all else. If anything, students at the time felt that

administrators were dragging their feet — especially after it was announced that the College would resume its contract with Gibson’s in early 2017.

In this context, the narrative of the so-called “Goliath” college egging on its students completely deteriorates. It’s true that Raimondo was at the protests, but she was simply attempting to ensure the safety of all involved — as dictated within the responsibilities of her job. Any other framing is incomplete, and we urge both journalists and readers to critically evaluate the facts of the College’s involvement.

Finally, many journalists and commentators — although not all — appear to believe that the most salient question at hand is whether the three students involved in the initial altercation were actually guilty of shoplifting, or if students were right to protest the bakery and characterize that incident as racial profiling. Many outlets have even used the names of the three students in their coverage of the trial — an irresponsible decision given that the three students were not parties to the lawsuit and have nothing to do with the legal questions at hand.

We encourage readers and journalists to reject this framing of the story. The core question of the trial was whether Oberlin College and its dean of students are on the hook for statements made by their students. The chilling answer from the jury was a resounding yes. That decision should broadly concern everybody who believes in freedom of speech and autonomy of a student body.

Throughout the trial, the Gibsons maintained that the College should have stepped in on the bakery’s behalf; the College’s argument was that administrators could only try to maintain the safety of all parties involved and that any attempt to dictate student speech would be blatantly outside the scope of responsible leadership.

The jury sided with the Gibson family — a decision with profoundly disturbing implications for free speech at Oberlin and on college campuses across an increasingly authoritarian country.

Conservative commentators often talk about a supposed crisis of free speech on campuses, wherein students wield the sword of political correctness to silence dissenting opinions. On the contrary, the jury’s verdict is a real warning shot at free speech. The fact that those same commentators have widely lauded the verdict reveals their hypocrisy and lays their thinly-veiled agenda bare.

Ultimately, we believe that the story of the verdict should be discussed out in the open because the jury’s decision — as it stands — sets a concerning precedent that must be challenged. However, these discussions must take place with the full picture in mind; otherwise, they won’t get anywhere useful. This piece is a starting point for expanding those conversations, but it is by no means the end.

In this difficult moment, we hope that Oberlin students are not discouraged from continuing the kind of sustained and brave activism that emerged following the initial November 2016 incident at Gibson’s. We hope that students continue to validate and support the experiences of their peers, even as some silence them and others attempt to force their institution to do the same.

We also hope that students continue the good work of building relationships with community members, and that tension arising from the verdict does not impact the many positive, symbiotic partnerships that exist between students and the broader community.

And, in the very near term, we hope that the College will appeal the jury’s verdict and continue to fight for the rights of its students — and the rights of students across the country — to identify injustice and speak out firmly against it.

Big Pharma Lawsuits Won’t Sufficiently Address Opioid Crisis Jackie Brant Opinions Editor In a landmark case that concluded on Aug. 26, Judge Thad Balkman of Oklahoma ordered biotech company Johnson & Johnson to pay the state $572 million for their hand in the prescription opioid epidemic that continues to ravage the country. When I first learned of the case, I didn’t understand how the company known for making baby powders and soaps had a hand in perpetuating the opioid epidemic. Upon further research, I found that Johnson & Johnson actually has a hand in almost every major aspect of pharmaceuticals and first aid supplies. The company owns brands such as Band-Aid, Tylenol, Neutrogena, Acuvue contacts, Clean and Clear, and — of course — Johnson’s baby products.

However, consumer products only scratch the surface of what Johnson & Johnson actually sells. Among their other products are many well-known medications that treat a range of conditions, including autoimmune diseases, HIV, hepatitis, ADHD, depression, tuberculosis, and cancer. They also sell medical and surgical devices, supplies for diabetes care, joint replacements, arrhythmia, and bariatric surgeries.

With such a large array of products for sale, prescription opioids made up a rather small percentage of Johnson & Johnson’s overall sales. Despite this, the state of Oklahoma argued that Johnson & Johnson played a major role in the perpetuation of the opioid epidemic in Oklahoma, in two primary ways.

First, the state alleged that the company was responsible for the development of a poppy strain that later became a major ingredient in oxycodone and hydrocodone, both of which are responsible for a

6

large percentage of opioid overdoses nationwide. The second core part of the argument was that Johnson & Johnson made around 150,000 visits to medical offices in Oklahoma to promote their opioid products to physicians, in the hopes that doctors would choose to prescribe their opioid products over other painkillers. Thus, Judge Balkman concluded that Johnson & Johnson both aided in the development of highly addictive drugs and deceitfully marketed prescription opioids to both doctors and the public.

Although media outlets have widely covered the Johnson & Johnson suit, two other companies — Purdue Pharma and Teva Pharmaceutical — were also recently sued in Oklahoma; however, both settled out of court. Altogether, the three companies will pay almost $930 million for their role in the opioid epidemic.

Oklahoma’s success in the Johnson & Johnson suit has been widely celebrated throughout the country.

Since the news about Johnson & Johnson broke, numerous other states have geared up to file similar suits against companies for the roles they have played in the opioid crisis. Many people are celebrating the fact that opioid companies are finally being held legally responsible for the deaths of millions. However, I am a bit skeptical.

I do believe that drug companies should be held responsible for the devastation they have caused. However, simply suing these companies is not a long-term solution.

Johnson & Johnson’s annual revenue in 2018 was $81.53 billion. So, while $572 million is undeniably a huge amount of money, it does not even make a dent in Johnson & Johnson’s revenue as a whole. Sure, the lawsuit is bad press for the company; however, it doesn’t impact Johnson & Johnson’s ability to contin-

ue to dominate the pharmaceutical field. The punishment is simply not a strong enough incentive for the company to substantially change their practices.

Furthermore, the state of Oklahoma predicted that they would need almost $900 million per year over the next 20 years — a total of more than $17 billion — in order to address the epidemic by increasing the capacity of rehabilitation centers and increasing support for mental health services. Suing three major big pharma companies is still not enough to address the problem; the legal outcomes raised enough money for only one year. Thus, simply suing pharmaceutical companies is not the effective, clean solution to the opioid epidemic that many people across the United States believe it to be. It is entirely unsustainable.

While Oklahoma will collect money from these individuals, it does not have a great enough effect on the opioid crisis to dedicate the amount of time, energy, and money that the state would be forced to spend on lawsuits.

Finally, while holding companies responsible for the damage that they have caused is certainly a good thing, it is highly unlikely that it will lead to a decrease in opioid-related deaths. As I have written previously in the Review, attacking dealers and doctors who overprescribe opioid pills has not been an effective method in the fight against opioids, and I believe that attacking corporations that do the same will be similarly ineffective.

In “Opioid Epidemic Cannot Be Fought Through War on Drugs,” I presented numerous statistics highlighting that when state governments implement policies that crack down on prescription opioids, the positive results are outweighed by negative ones (The See Opioids, page 7

Administration Must Return Our Eggs David Mathisson Columnist Following student-organized CDS boycotts this past April, the administration offered several changes to available meal plans: $200 in Flex Points tacked onto the first-year and sophomore meal plan, reinstatement of the 200- and 100-meals-per-semester plans available to juniors and seniors, and promises to increase quality, variety, and value at DeCafé. I am proud to have been an organizer in the movement, to have arranged the protest that preceded many of these concessions, and proud of our community for standing up for low-income students and their families.

I am disappointed by our administration’s failure to deliver on many of the commitments it made following the boycott, as well as its neglect of the quality, variety, and overall value of the goods sold at DeCafé. When many students left campus for the summer — and were no longer able to object — the administration made sweeping changes at DeCafé that reduced available options, quality level, and quantity obtainable with meal swipes.

Students returned to campus to find the administration made promises it could not keep regarding these improvements, and that even the so-called “unlimited” meal plan offers a maximum of four swipes a day.

The plan’s limitations have become clearer in light of the new restrictions on meal swipe usage. Students could previously have as many sides or drinks as they wanted within a $7.50 price limit.

Now, we are limited to just two sides and only one drink. Many offerings — despite costing less than half of an entree if purchased with Flex Points and lacking the size or caloric value of an entree — have been reclassified as entrees, meaning you’ll need multiple swipes to eat one as a side. The side limit presents other issues as well. Say goodbye to stocking up for your sports team’s trip or swiping out with enough chips to bring to a party.

Not satisfied with the reduction in value, the administration took it upon themselves to also attack the quality and variety of our board meals, all for a little bit of money. The available varieties of sandwiches, yogurts, and snack mixes for board meals have been greatly reduced.

The customized smoothie area — a very popular feature formerly touted by Admissions tour guides — has left DeCafé, relocated to a grab-and-go section in Stevenson. And “bundles designed for

home cooks” — a change promised last spring — have yet to be seen. Eggs, nuts, cheese, and frozen food are only available to buy through Flex Points, Obie Dollars, and student charge. For those looking to enjoy the Flex Points we got out of our protest, the value of Flex Points just decreased.

Let’s look at eggs, which were brought to the meal plan last semester. The administration used our eggs as a symbol that they cared what we think, and are working to meet our needs. Eggs are now only available at DeCafé for three times the retail price.

I really enjoyed my eggs. Saturday morning omelets I’ve cooked inside the (relative) comfort of my dorm have made my weekend on multiple occasions. In taking away our eggs — the symbol of the administration’s respect to student interests — they have taken away something far greater. The fact that they took our eggs from us is offensive, and the way they did it demonstrates a fundamentally flawed approach to student feedback.

The administration’s refusal to listen to student feedback is demonstrative of problems far beyond what they’re taking off our plates. Once again, they have betrayed student interests and are prioritizing profits over people. They are prioritizing profits over students, who deserve the improvements they were told to expect. They are prioritizing profits over keeping their promises. They are prioritizing profits over the College community as a whole when they risk student retention and erode trust in our community through their actions.

There’s still time for the administration to reverse course. There’s still time to rework meal swipe limits to better meet student needs, bring previous offerings back to the board meal section, and deliver on promises to increase variety and improve quality. Perhaps most crucially, there’s still time to return our eggs to their rightful place as part of a board meal. There’s still time for the administration to repair the broken bonds of trust within our community.

The people of our community came to this place because we understand the power of standing up. That power gave us Flex Points and promises, and those promises will be kept. If not, the people will rise.

It is my hope that the administration returns our eggs. It is my hope that the administration keeps their promises and respects our voices. We will not give up until they do. We will not let the administration take our eggs — or our voices.

Opioids Require Long-Term Solution Continued from page 6

Oberlin Review, Feb. 16, 2018). In almost every case where prescription opioid policies were enacted, the drop in prescription opioid deaths was met with a dramatic increase in heroin-related deaths. Thus, when prescription opioids are harder to access, addicts simply move on to other, more accessible opioids. A similar pattern happened with heroin: Heroin crackdowns in 2017 and 2018 brought drops in heroin-related deaths, but major spikes in fentanyl-related deaths.

I still believe companies should be held responsible for their roles in the opioid epidemic. However, we cannot think of these lawsuits as solutions. They are a form of retribution for those who have been affected by the opioid crisis, but they will not stop other families from being impacted in the future.

There are plenty of steps we could be taking now to decrease the rate of opioid-related deaths across the country. Such solutions include opening safe injection sites, making Narcan readily available to addicts and emergency responders, investing in rehabilitation centers, lab research that specializes in opioid addiction, and more.

How will the money from these lawsuits be used? Will the victims of the opioid epidemic directly reap the benefits of the lawsuit? If so, how? And what policies will the state implement to keep people safe in the future? These are the questions we must ask the state to hold it accountable.

The Oberlin Review | September 6, 2019

Examining Oberlin’s History Rewarding, Provides Insight Nathan Carpenter Editor-in-Chief Editor’s note: This column is the first in a series that will focus on Oberlin’s history as a town and an institution. The series will be published regularly throughout the fall semester.

Through the decades, Oberlin has demonstrated a strong commitment to documenting and preserving its own history. Mudd Center boasts extensive archival collections; for a town and college of modest size, a surprising number of books and essays have been written about Oberlin. While many Oberlin historians have had some connection with the college or town, many journalists and scholars from outside of this community have also taken an interest in Oberlin’s historical impact on the broader trajectory of American history.

This past Winter Term, I read Elusive Utopia: The Struggle for Racial Equality in Oberlin, Ohio by Professors Emeriti of History Carol Lasser and Gary Kornblith. The book focuses on racial politics in Oberlin’s early history, exploring why a community that firmly advocated for the abolition of slavery also held deeply-entrenched racist values, which became particularly visible after the Civil War and into the early 20th century.

I couldn’t put the book down. I was fascinated not only by its content, but also by the fact that it was even written. I decided to dive into my own study of Oberlin’s history, in the form of a private reading with Professor of Comparative American Studies Wendy Kozol. I didn’t have any specific direction I wanted to move in; rather, I wanted to saturate myself in the history of this place in order to more fully understand its present form as well as its broader impacts.

Alongside Elusive Utopia, my research materials included books like The Town That Started the Civil War by Nat Brandt, and autobiographies by Charles Grandison Finney and John Mercer Langston. I read a collection of essays by Geoffrey Blodgett, longtime history professor at Oberlin, compiled in a volume called Oberlin History: Essays and Impressions. I spent quite a bit of time in College’s archives in Mudd Center as well as the Review’s online collection, which dates back to the paper’s founding in 1874.

I quickly realized that the scope of everything that’s out there was much broader than I had originally thought. It began to seem as though the Oberlin community had documented every moment of campus tension, communal exhilaration, and unnerving apprehension throughout its long history. This attention to detail pushed me to two initial conclusions that framed my work through the remainder of the semester.

First, Oberlin has been arrogant throughout its history. We have always had a sense that what is happening right here on campus matters to the rest of the world. This attitude holds up today in our sometimes-mocked admissions motto, “Think one person can change the world? So do we,” and in the rhetoric used by the steering committee of the now-concluded Academic and Administrative Program Review — “the world needs Oberlin, and it needs Oberlin’s graduates,” the committee wrote in a document shared with the campus community in late March. For more info on the AAPR and its recommendations, you can refer to the Review’s previous coverage.

However, this arrogance is not always bad or misplaced. Indeed, what happens here quite often does reverberate through time and space.

Still, this arrogance has led to what Blodgett characterizes as a series of institutional mythologies, in which we valorize key moments or figures from Oberlin’s history that are, in reality, much more complicated than we make them out to be.

Second, my research reminded me of the importance of journalism as a historical resource. In my research, I relied heavily on the Review’s archives, which provide a fascinating and insightful record of campus and community life stretching back nearly 150 years. Oftentimes, these articles — written by students in real time — challenge subsequent analysis by faculty and outside researchers, which added incredibly valuable nuance to what I was reading.

The Review archives also reminded me of the vital importance of maintaining high standards of journalistic ethics. Over my time as an editor, I have learned anecdotally that the Review has not always maintained such standards; in the past, it has regularly misquoted and misrepresented community members. Diving into the archives made it clear that these mistakes are damaging not only in the moment, but decades down the road as well. My research could only be as strong as my trust in the integrity of prior Review editors and reporters.

Over the course of this semester, I will share some more of my thoughts about this place’s history in a series of columns published in the Review. These columns are not meant to be a comprehensive look at Oberlin’s history, or even my work over the last semester; rather, they are about smaller moments — those that didn’t necessarily shift the institution’s trajectory, but that mattered deeply to community members at the time. I feel that each of these provides an important window into the past that can often help inform the present.

Researching Oberlin was complicated, but also incredibly rewarding — particularly as we grapple with a post-AAPR reality that will shape the trajectory of this institution for decades to come. I found the process of diving into the past to be incredibly instructive with regard to the present moment. I hope you do, too.

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Morrison returns to Howard to teach.

During her time there, she joins a group of writers and begins writing fiction, including the short story that inspired her first novel, The Bluest Eye.

Toni Morrison is born Chloe Ardelia Wofford in Lorain, OH to Ramah and George Wofford.

Feb. 18, 1931

Late 1950’s to Early 1960’s

1953 Morrison graduates from Howard University in Washington, D.C. with a B.A. in English.

Toni Morrison & O Photo courtesy of literaryamerica.net

Layout and text by Lily J

Over the course of her remarkable life, acclaimed a number of times. She grew up eight miles from throughout her life. She often set her stories in O town Midwest. Morrison holds an Honorary deg multiple occasions, including delivering convocatio Toni Morrison Society has its office in the Mary C programs and lecture series dedicated to teaching the Road Project, which places “benches and plaq individuals, and locations within th

This timeline intertwines notable events from Morris Photo courtesy of Oberlin Theater

Lydia R. Diamond’s stage adaptation of The Bluest Eye is produced at Oberlin, directed by Associate Professor of Theater and Africana Studies Justin Emeka, OC ’95.

November 2017

Morrison is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

August 1, 2012

2012

The Toni Morrison Society moves its office to Oberlin College.

Photo courtesy of wdtn.com Photo courtesy of nyacknewsandviews.com

Toni Morrison dies at age 88.

August 5, 2019

Lorain City Council adopts a resolution to commemorate Feb. 18 as Toni Morrison day.

September 3, 2019

Beloved, Morrison’s fourth novel, is published to wide acclaim.

Morrison is named the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities at Princeton.

The Bluest Eye — a novel set in Lorain, OH — is published.

1980

1970

1987

Photo courtesy of amazon.com

Morrison is awarded an Honorary degree from Oberlin.

Oberlin: A Timeline

Jones, This Week Editor

Photo courtesy of Oberlin College Archives

d author Toni Morrison crossed paths with Oberlin campus in Lorain and maintained ties to the area Ohio, focusing on Black identity and life in smallgree from Oberlin and lectured at the College on on addresses in 2009 and 2012. Additionally, the Church Terrell Main Library and has a number of g and examining her work, including the Bench By ques at sites commemorating significant moments, he history of the African Diaspora.”

son’s life with her interactions and visits to Oberlin.

Toni Morrison lectures at Finney Chapel about Beloved, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988.

Toni Morrison delivers a convocation speech at Oberlin. During the visit, she dedicates a bench at the corner of North Main and Lorain Street as part of the Bench By the Road Project.

2009

1991

1993 Morrison becomes the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature for her body of work.

Photo courtesy of the Allen Memorial Art Museum

Weekly Events Calendar

Sunday, Sept. 8 Saturday, Sept. 7 Student Publication General Interest UMI + Real Girl Meeting California-based lo-fi R&B/soul Presentation and Q&A session with artist UMI and DJ Real Girl, OC student publications The Oberlin Review, ’19, will be giving a concert The Grape, The Plum Creek Review, this weekend.

As I Am, Two Groves Review, and The 10 p.m.–1 a.m. // The ’Sco Synapse. Snacks will be provided.

2–3 p.m. // King 106

Wednesday, Sept. 11 A Taste of Oberlin Free food from local restaurants and Oberlin College Catering will be available for sampling in the afternoon. There will also be a charity dunk tank, carnival games, and an inflatable.

4:30–6:30 p.m. // Science Center Atrium

A r t s & C u lt u r e

ARTS & CULTURE September 6, 2019

Established 1874

Volume 148, Number 1

Upcoming Festival Features Concerts and Panels on Mortality

Conservatory faculty rehearse for this weekend’s “End of Life, End of Time” festival performances.

Photo courtesy of Oberlin Conservatory

Carson Dowhan Senior Staff Writer This weekend will be an exciting one, featuring music, discussions, poetry, and art — all centered, surprisingly, around mortality. On Saturday, Sept. 7 and Sunday, Sept. 8, the Conservatory will host the “End of Life, End of Time” festival. The festival was created by Professor of Violin Sibbi Bernhardsson, OC ’95, who became fascinated by pieces written late in composers’ careers.

“The subject of art created at the end of the artists’ life is a compelling one,” Bernhardsson wrote in an email to the Review. “Oftentimes composers start writing chamber music at the end as their subjects become more intimate, personal and experimental. I wanted to explore that topic as well as the question of how artists in general think about the end of time.”

The name for the festival came from French composer Olivier Messiaen’s “Quartet For the End of Time,” which premiered in a German prisoner-of-war

camp during World War II. Faculty discussed performing the piece at Oberlin, but Bernhardsson felt that “the subject matter was so serious and the music so powerful that we should build a festival around it.”

The festival will span the weekend, featuring faculty panels, readings, and concerts at Warner Concert Hall, the Allen Memorial Art Museum, and the David H. Stull Recital Hall. The events will feature 18 performers, 15 speakers from across campus, the Oberlin choir, and a string orchestra.

Bernhardsson is grateful that Oberlin has the resources to take on such a big project.

“I love the fact that we have here at Oberlin all the musical and intellectual resources right at our fingertips,” he said. “We are able to pull experts from the departments of Geology, Classics, Creative Writing, English, Psychology, from all corners of the Conservatory and from our great museum to create a very rich and compelling weekend festival.”

The festival will kick off with a free gallery talk on French painter Claude Monet’s “Wisteria”, acquired by the Allen Memorial Art Museum in 1960, along with some of Monet’s other late-career works. Then, the first faculty concert will begin on Saturday at 1:30 p.m., featuring works by Beethoven, Fauré, Purcell, and Schubert, and poetry read by Associate Professor of English DeSales Harrison. Be sure to come in early for a talk with Professor of Musicology Charles McGuire, which will be followed by a panel at 3:30 p.m. in David H. Stull Recital Hall. The second faculty concert of the day will be at 7:00 p.m., with music by Beethoven, Haydn, and Messiaen, and poems read by Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Chanda Feldman. Andrew Shenton, a musicologist from Boston University, will deliver this event’s pre-performance lecture.

Sunday follows the same concert-panel-concert structure, with two times and locations. The 1:30 p.m. faculty concert will showcase pieces by Shostakovich, Boulanger, Debussy, and Brahms, poems read by Feldman, and a pre-show talk with Associate Professor of Music Theory Andrew Pau. The second concert at 7:30 p.m., following the 3:30 p.m. panel at Stull Recital Hall, will open with a talk by Professor of Music Theory Brian Alegant and feature music by Prokofiev, Brahms, Schumann, and Beethoven, and poetry read by both Harrison and Feldman.

The two panels, “Musicological, Geological, and Classical Perspectives on The End of Time” and “Us at the End: Hearts, Minds, and Souls,” will feature guest speakers, College professors, and community members. Rabbi Megan Doherty, director of Oberlin College Hillel and moderator of “Us at the End,” explained that her panel “will be discussing how each of our faith traditions

and/or areas of expertise respond to death and the process of dying.”

Associate Professor of Psychology Paul Thibodeau, who is speaking at “Us at the End,” further explained the content of his speech.

“The psychological science of end of life issues is a really new area of research, and there are so many interesting and unanswered questions,” Thibodeau wrote in an email to the Review. “One of the issues I’ll talk about is whether there is empirical support for this theoretical model [for the psychological perspective] — how it can be helpful and how it can be misleading.”

While there is no “correct” way to view death, Professor Thibodeau hopes attendees “have the experience to reflect on an important universal human experience with the blend of artistic, spiritual, and intellectual components of the event.”

Christopher Trinacty, associate professor of classics, is speaking at the “Musicological, Geological and Classical Perspectives on The End of Time” panel. He will be speaking about cyclical time and Roman thought, including eternal recurrence. This concept claims that all energy in the universe has been recurring and will continue to do so.

“I see this as [a] perfect example of the sort of interdisciplinary thinking/ events that Oberlin excels in offering,” Trinacty wrote in an email to the Review.

“It is important to know this perspective because of ways that it can help inform our belief about the end of our own lives, the end of the world, and the proper perspective one should have about the end,” he added.

“End of Life, End of Time” will run this Saturday and Sunday. The festival is open to the public and free of charge.

Introducing New Students to Quirky Orientation Week Traditions Kate Fishman Arts & Culture Editor When I plopped down into a pew in Finney Chapel last Sunday, halfway through Robert Post’s one-man variety show, I was soaked from the rain outside, exhausted, and confused by what was happening in front of me. Post is a physical comedian, and one whose dubbed-over acts felt at times reminiscent of something like CLUE or The Rocky Horror Picture Show — dated, achingly meme-able, and only partially selfaware. My generation chases ironic humor — I think our of everything in Post’s show, a de-contextualized video segment where he vlogged his travels through Cowboy Town, IN— an excerpt from his “POST from the Road” series — drew the most laughs. This was Post’s fourth show on campus, and a was an effort to end orientation on a light note.

Sitting there, feeling cynical about another sure-tobe-grueling-yet-also-rewarding semester, I was also reminded of how I felt during my own new student orientation. Events specifically intended to orient newcomers to the college environment spark a sense of wonder in upperclass students that tends to fade over time, but is so fresh during the first week on campus. Orientation week and the time that follows provides an opportunity for the new students to experience collegiate wackiness as brand new and brimming with opportunities, rather than a perpetual mad dash between meetings in fevered anticipation of imminent classes.

As Director of Orientation and Student Activities and Associate Director of the Student Union Tina

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Zwegat put it, there’s a particular whimsy to wandering through the many campus events post-Wednesday’s Connect Cleveland initiative and seeing all of “the purple shirts” huddled in groups, talking with their new friends. These events in particular were well-attended — one of them included the quirky Bob Ross painting night, which had handed out 190 canvases by 8:15 p.m. Meanwhile, the Cat in the Cream’s game night saw traffic between 300 and 350 people.

“I consciously plan events in each venue,” Zwegat said. Much of her job during orientation involves making sure that students feel comfortable in campus hang-out spots before upperclassmen come surging back in. “What I’m trying to do is put [types] of music in the spaces that are a little bit more indicative of what normally happens in that space. … I want them to feel comfortable coming in.”

Dizzy Fae’s orientation concert at the Cat in the Cream drew a crowd of over 300.

“Because [Dizzy Fae] was so enthusiastic, that made me really enthusiastic,” said College first-year Jooske Van Houten. “I think I’m going to go back there again.”

Van Houten was also charmed by the avant-garde nature of the Bob Ross painting night at the ’Sco, which was a fun place for her to paint with friends.

Waldman expressed a similar sentiment, especially in her role as a Resident Assistant.

“As soon as I walked into Wilder, the walls were shaking with the low calming sounds of Bob Ross’s voice,” she said. “Going to your typical talks and community meeting sessions and resource fairs is expected, but a Bob Ross paint night is definitely pretty unconventional. It’s nice to bond with your peers over

that.”

The bike-in movie on Friday night, Surf’s Up, drew 140 students to spread out on the lawn in front of Mudd Center. If Robert Post’s show was anachronistic, Surf’s Up felt similarly so. Though it’s a kid’s movie, it mimics documentary style filmmaking.

“It kind of captures the zaniness of the mid-2000s and what it was like to grow up in that age,” said Waldman. This sort of strangeness is another opportunity for students to participate together in a shared unorthodox activity. It’s nice to have something to laugh at, to make fun of, and to bond over. Zwegat likes to keep it light when scheduling these events — hence the wacky comedy.

“When we bring in new students I would just like to hope that returning students … reach out to those new students here,” Zwegat said. “Oberlin’s a great place to be, and you want them to feel included by everybody.”

And of course, there is something to be said for the return of upperclassmen as bringing its own sort of magic back to campus.

“It was nice to see everyone meeting up again from over the summer,” Van Houten said of last weekend.

“I was imagining doing that with my friends [in the future].”

The whimsy of Post’s show, while perhaps unwelcome to my tired mind, was nonetheless a reminder of the energizing force of passionate work. Post was first brought to Zwegat’s attention by dance and theater faculty who knew about the classes he taught in physical comedy — it is invigorating to see such work play out in practice, and a refreshing start to a new semester.

Slavery’s Modern-day Impact Felt in “Afterlives of the Black Atlantic” Photos by Mallika Pandey, Photo Editor

Left: “Valicia Bathes in Sunday Clothes” by Vik Muniz, a Brazilian artist, in 1996. Right: “Ethiopia” by Rev. Albert Wagner, an American, in the late 20th century.

“Liberation” created by Fred Wilson, an American artist, in 2012.

Jaimie Yue Production Editor “Afterlives of the Black Atlantic,” the Allen Memorial Art Museum’s latest exhibit, seeks to redefine the written history of slavery. The show commemorates the 400th anniversary of when African slaves on the English warship White Lion landed at Point Comfort in the Colony of Virginia on August 20, 1619. This date marks the 400 years since the beginning of institutional slavery. Curated by Assistant Professor of Art History Matthew Rarey and the Allen’s Ellen Johnson ’33 Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Dr. Andrea Gyorody, the exhibition will be on display at the museum until May 2020.

The exhibit argues that slavery is neither geographically exclusive nor exclusive to the past. By bringing together pieces from the United States, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa, the exhibition addresses issues that persist today as a result of slavery — issues such as human trafficking, cultural exchange, struggles with identity and belonging, and collective trauma. “Afterlives” gives voice to contemporary artists and their relationship with slavery’s legacy.

For Rarey, an art historian specializing in Black Atlantic art and visual culture, “Afterlives” is an extension of his regular work at Oberlin. His classes and the exhibition seek to preserve and uphold world cultures that are overlooked by modern soThe Oberlin Review | September 6, 2019

“Bocio,” unrecorded artist from the Republic of Benin or Togo in the 20th century.

Left: “Black History, Nighttime”. Right: “Church in Oberlin, Ohio” 2 pieces by William E. Smith, an American arist, in 1971.

ciety. As a curator who also works in academia, Gyorody has experience in the classroom and also engages with the general public.

In fall 2016, after discussing the upcoming 400th anniversary of institutional slavery with Professor Mindy Fullilove at the New School in New York City, Rarey and Gyorody decided to commemorate the anniversary with a show. Work on the exhibition began in 2017 and was completed after two and a half years.

The exhibition focuses on unmooring of traditional narratives to create a conversation between the past and present. “Afterlives” seeks to “commemorate, not celebrate, that history, but also interrogate it a bit because those were not the first enslaved people to arrive in the United States,” Rarey explained. With the exhibition, Gyorody and Rarey wanted to address the complexities of slavery’s history and present the diversity within the African continent.

“Africa is not one place,” Rarey said. “It has 54 countries, it has thousands of languages and cultures, and it has a very long history of interactions inside of it and outside of it … that has had as strong a role to play in the formation of what we call the modern world as any other place.”

In addition, Gyorody described how the Ellen Johnson Gallery’s shape enhances the viewing experience. The open floor plan allows viewers to take in nearly all the works simultaneously, allowing them to exist in conversation with each other,

unmoored from historical and geographical barriers.

“As you’re walking around the gallery, you’re compelled to start thinking about not just discrete objects but how they link up with one another, which is entirely what we had hoped for,” Gyorody added.

One piece by New York-based artist José Rodríguez, titled “\sə-kər\” is available for public viewing starting today at 5:30 p.m.

“I chose the phonetic spelling because it alludes to that space between and can be read as both ‘sucker’ and ‘succor,’” Rodríguez explained.

A former classmate of Rarey’s at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Rodríguez was commissioned to create a piece specific to the exhibition. The object, a twelve-foot high, teepee-shaped structure that viewers can physically enter, is part of Rodríguez’s effort to create art that demands interaction and reflection from the viewer, not just passive observation.

In “\sə-kər\”, Rodríguez depicts the Cuban iteration of the Virgin Mary, “la Virgen de la Caridad,” with a mirror as her face, challenging the viewer to reflect upon their relationship to divinity and what divinity represents. The way that the Virgin Mary’s face changes depending on the viewer adds dynamism and impermanence to visual art, an otherwise static medium. Rodríguez seeks to capture See Allen, page 13

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A r t s & C u lt u r e ON THE RECORD

On the Record w/ Dizzy Fae, R&B Artist nating effect of “You don’t know you need it until you have it.”

I love your video for “Her/Indica” and the way it represents queerness. Can you talk about the concept for that video and your thought process behind it?

It’s so funny because every time I think about the song “Her,” my mom thought it was about her, so I’m like “No, Mama!” And she’s not the only mom who thought that too, which is kinda funny.

“Her” is really a song that’s about, I want to say discovery, but I don’t really like to describe being queer as a discovery because I think that it’s something that you’ve always been. “Her,” initially is about me falling in love with a femme for the first time in my entire life, or really falling in love with anyone, but it just happened to be someone with a vagina.

“Indica” is like the other side of that, which is like, “Okay, you’re kind of making me crazy and I don’t want to be your experiment. Even though it might feel like we’re both experimenting, my head’s kinda crazy right now, but I know that I like you, but I know that this is not right.” I never imagined putting them together, the director actually did that, and it just worked out perfectly.

What’s next for you?

I have this show in Minnesota called “Dizzy Land.”

I kind of want to make it an annual thing, but we are just starting off this year. We’re just gonna have a bunch of people come in, people are gonna dance, we’re going to see how it turns out. That’s the goal though, is to dance and to move and to feel free and safe in the space.

Now Introducing: Book Nook

Dizzy Fae

Photo by Bobby Rogers

Dizzy Fae is a rising R&B artist from Minneapolis. At just 21 years old, she has shared the stage with an impressive list of musicians. Shortly after graduating from her performing arts high school in 2017, she went on tour with pop icon Lizzo. Since then, she has also performed alongside artists like Kehlani, Toro Y Moi, and Jorja Smith, and at 2019 World Pride in NY. Last Friday, students packed the Cat in the Cream to watch her perform as part of the New Student Orientation Week series.

to play around with boundaries. I like to play around with ears and comfortability, so I think defining that is really complicated.

There’s a lot of music that I grew up listening to which probably has a big impact on how my melodies are, like my runs. I grew up with a lot of ’90s, ’80s pop, R&B, and rock. It’s kind of all over the place; it just pulls from so many different places. I could talk about that for hours … it’s like 21 years of talking about it — my whole life.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How do you feel like your sound has changed from Free Form to NO GMO? I really think it’s an evolved version of myself. I got more comfortable. With Free Form, I was just starting out in the studio, just starting out experimenting with everything. I’m gonna use a metaphor: So Free Form for me is like being on a river doing my thing, and then NO GMO is getting off the river with a map, if that makes sense. I feel more navigated toward what I’m actually doing whereas Free Form is very just “do you and be you.”

Aly Fogel, Arts & Culture Editor What does “Dizzy Fae” mean, and what is the significance of the name to you?

Dizzy Gillespie was an inspiration early in my life, and I think [his name] was in my subconscious. That’s something that I kind of came to an understanding of later on in life. Honestly, it took me years to think about “Why Dizzy?” I remember laying in my bed and thinking, “Well who am I?” and Dizzy is the first thing that came to my head. Fae just came from “Fate,” but I took the “T” off because it slipped off the tongue better.

How would you describe your own sound?

That’s a good question [that] I’ve had a lot of problems answering just within myself, so I’ve really just concluded that my music is evolving, because I’ve dropped two projects. They’re both mixtapes and each song is different from the other, but [with] enough consistency to know that it’s Dizzy Fae. I like

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How does the name NO GMO play into the concept of the album?

It comes from non-GMO. When I think of “no GMO,” I think of food for [the] soul, like eating to live, not living to eat. I truly believe my music provides nutrition for the soul. I grew up not eating the healthiest things. The dollar menu at McDoald’s was a really good thing for my family, we were really excited about that. And now, I’m just thinking about the different nutrients my body needs and making that kind of impact on my life because I know that’s what I should be doing. So NO GMO has this mari-

Join Book Nook, our new Review book club! Every month, the Arts & Culture Section will feature one book written by Obies or about the town of Oberlin. You have the chance to read along with us and submit your own review. The Review is asking its readers to write a short response that encapsulates their thoughts about the book. All you have to do is write a few paragraphs — about 300 words – with your opinions and send it to arts@oberlinreview.org, and you may be published alongside some of our other readers!

This month, we’ll be reading Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel, OC ’81. Fun Home is a graphic memoir about the author growing up in a funeral home, coming to terms with her sexual orientation, and navigating her complicated relationship with her closeted father before and after his death.

Look closely — you’ll be able to spot Oberlin landmarks in a few panels! We’ll be publishing responses to the book on Friday, Sept. 27. Please send submissions by Wednesday, Sept. 23.

Looking Beneath the Laughs in Coming-of-Age Comedy Good Boys Casey Troost Based on the trailer, it’s easy to compare Good Boys to previous action-comedies like Superbad , Bad Teacher, Year One , and Bad Grandpa. However, while the humor of comparable movies is often delivered by adults or teenagers, Good Boys shifts the focus to three youthful and inexperienced preteens. In Good Boys, most of the comedy comes from scenes in which the three naive protagonists, called “The Bean Bag Boys,” misinterpret the adult content they come into contact with. For example, Thor, one of the three Bean Bag Boys, mistakes a BDSM mask in his parent’s closet for protective wear and puts it on to answer the door for a stranger.

While I enjoyed the comedy in the film, I question whether I should have laughed at scenes like these. The movie trivializes an experience that is a frightening reality for many parents: kids putting themselves in danger because of premature access to the adult world. While it was enjoyable to laugh about what the boys didn’t know, as in the scene with the BDSM mask, what they did know reflected the fears of many parents whose children have too much access to the adult world.

The theme of encountering adult topics prematurely is especially relevant due to the kid’s access

to the internet. In one scene, Thor types “PORB” into Google. I suspect that this gaff was written to reduce the tension of the scary reality it reflected: insufficient security on the internet for children.

I understand that, through scenes like this, the movie is an effective tool for relieving the stress of protecting kids in our current age, but I question whether the pressure should have been lifted at all.

While I had mixed feelings about the movie’s overall theme, I was decisively upset by its archaic portrayal of female characters. Every woman in the movie is either a villain, mother, or object.

The teenage girls, Hannah and Lily, were archetypal villains who continually put the protagonists in danger for their own self interest. They constantly antagonized the boys, eventually forcing them to buy drugs from a frat house and plotting to abandon them if anything went wrong. The mothers played only a small and passive role. After hearing that her son had handled drugs, watched porn, dislocated his arm, and ran across a highway, Lucas’s mother dismisses the dangerous behavior as “gibberish.” Brixlee, one of the boys’ romantic interest, is presented as a one-dimensional trophy.

The story focuses on the perspectives of boys who are inexperienced with girls their own age, but the movie should express this without creating female characters that are foreign, frightening, and pas-

Allen Show Emphasizes Ripples of Slavery

sive objects.

The film is also riddled with dialogue that is dismissive of the traumatic reality of sexual harassment. Characters are quick to make false accusations of misogyny, perversion, and sexual abuse to get what they want, using a serious societal problem as a tool for personal gain. When Hannah and Lily catch the boys spying on them, they threaten to tell the school that the boys are perverts and misogynists. Lucas’s defense, “I respect women, my mom is my best friend,” sounds like a broken record; a hackneyed phrase devoid of its original meaning.

Worse still, the boys falsely accuse their babysitter, Lily, of sexually harassing them in order to send a cop after her. The boys made the accusation with no consideration of how their behavior discredited the survivors of real sexual harassment. Although there is a more progressive scene in which one of the boys chastises the other for not asking for consent when he’s about to practice-kiss a CPR doll, this does not make up for some of the film’s less socially conscious scenes.

It’s disappointing to realize that a funny movie is a harmful one, but I always prefer to understand what’s underneath the humor. If you still want to see this movie after reading this review, go ahead.

It might make you laugh too. Just reflect on what it is you’re laughing about.

COMIC

Continued from page 11

the “ephemeral” nature, as he describes it, of mediums like dance or spoken poetry, and challenge viewers’ ideas of art itself. He encourages viewers to look deeper at both the art and slavery’s surface-level historical narrative — neither are static or isolated in the past, instead both are actively shaped by the viewer.

While the outside of the piece depicts images from European Catholicism, the inside imagery is dominated by aesthetics from African cultures and religions. The structure itself juxtaposes European and African imagery to visually represent how colonialism obscured African cultures and religions from an outside gaze.

Above all, Rodríguez wanted to highlight the interconnectedness of different people in American history. He emphasized that slavery does not begin and end with the United States, citing his family’s experiences with slavery in Cuba after it was abolished in America.

“When we talk about black history or Latin history, we’re really talking about American history, and it belongs to all of us,” he said. “And I think we have to learn to appreciate each other’s stories in that way, because it’s all of our stories together.”

Most importantly, the majority of the show’s pieces are abstract, taking on non-human and unfocused forms. Rarey explained that these abstract renderings consciously stray away from the graphic, shocking depictions of slavery that are usually presented in history textbooks and archival material.

Pieces that are more literal in their presentation of violence are usually meant to sensationalize the horrors of slavery, while imparting the false message that these horrors are long over and no longer affect modern society because these images do not exist in a modern context. Rarey states that these pieces collectively create a somber, reflective mood that still effectively conveys the diasporic and emotional damage that slavery has left on the world.

“It’s really necessary and urgent because it seems like there are certain lessons from the past that we still haven’t learned,” Gyorody said.

“For a lot of people, [slavery] isn’t a distant memory. This isn’t the deep past. This is, in the United States, less than 150 years ago,” she added. “The fact that [contemporary artists] are contending with the legacy of slavery says to me it’s still relevant today.”

“Afterlives of the Black Atlantic” will be displayed at the AMAM through May 2020. Additionally, smaller pieces will be switched out with new art pieces at the start of the spring 2020 semester.

Students are welcome to visit the Allen and learn more about slavery’s lingering impact on world history and society.

At 5:30 p.m. today, artist José Rodríguez will be unveiling and speaking to the public at the Allen about his commissioned piece.

The Oberlin Review | September 6, 2019

Clair Wang, Staff Cartoonist

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Sp ort s IN THE LOCKER ROOM

Zoe Hecht, Ultimate Frisbee Championship Player

Massachusetts native Zoe Hecht is a College junior, Geology major, and captain of the Division III National Championship-winning ultimate Frisbee team, the Preying Manti. When she is not leading the team to victory, she is working in a geology lab and playing ultimate Frisbee for club and professional teams, traveling on the weekends around Ohio and Michigan for games. This past summer, Hecht traveled to Germany to play for the U.S. U-24 Mixed National Team, and won the World Championships. She began her ultimate career on her high school’s ultimate Frisbee team, and has since proven to be a force to be reckoned with both on and off the field.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Zoë Martin del Campo Contributing Sports Editor

know how old that makes me. I think 16.

It’s been a few years.

What was it like going from playing ultimate Frisbee on campus to traveling to Germany to play on the U.S. U-24 Mixed National Team against people from different colleges from all around the world?

It was really wild. I have played for a couple of club teams over the summer, so the College team isn’t the only experience that I’ve had playing. I’ve played with people from around the country before, but never anything like this — I mean, it’s just a combination of basically all of the best players my age coming together and doing something that we all care a lot about and have put a lot of time into.

And it was one of the most special things that I can imagine. Just having all those people in the same place, with the same goals. And for the two and a half weeks — or however long — we were in Germany, the only thing that mattered was that team. That goal of winning a gold medal is such an incredible privilege to have that focus on, and to not have to think about anything else for that amount of time. It was amazing.

What led you to ultimate Frisbee?

It was mostly my brother; my parents didn’t push it on us. My earliest memories are of being at Club Nationals. I’m not sure exactly what training it was, but some training with them and my parents were playing in it in Florida in 2002. So it definitely has been a part of my life and something that I’ve known has existed for a long time, but it wasn’t something I ever thought about until one of my cousins actually played in high school. And then my brother took after my cousin and then I was pressured into it, basically, and eventually I gave in.

Was the team just in Germany the entire time or were you doing trainings throughout the summer leading up to going to the competition?

We had one training camp in Colorado for a weekend in June and then we had a week long training camp in Germany and then the tournament was a week long.

That was the whole thing; it was a total whirlwind.

How is it balancing classes and this additional commitment?

It’s hard. I didn’t have any free weekends after April of last year. I was gone every weekend and it just means that my emotional, social, and physical energy is lower at school than it would be ideally. But in a different way, it keeps me alive and keeps me going. And it’s really good for me to have something outside of school that I love doing and can do when I want to. So it’s a tricky balance. But I’m definitely glad that I’m doing it.

Your brother plays Frisbee too?

My brother plays and my sister plays and both of my parents played. My brother was on the men’s [U-24] National Team and it was incredible getting to be there with him. That was beyond my wildest dreams. He was playing as well on the [National] Team.

You were both on the team, did your parents also go to Germany?

My parents were there, my whole family came. We were on different teams, we didn’t play together because there were three teams from the U.S, but we were all part of the same delegation. It was amazing.

How old were you when you started playing ultimate Frisbee?

I started playing the fall of my sophomore year of high school. I don’t

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Last season the Preying Manti won the DIII National Championship. What was that moment like?

That was an indescribable moment.

I can’t decide yet whether I didn’t think we were going to win or that I knew all along that that was something we were going to do. I’m not sure that makes sense, but I’m super wary of being overconfident and a very superstitious person. And so if people would ask, if the team was that good and if we were gonna make it to Nationals and if we would play well at regionals and things like that, I always had to go into it, doubting myself and doubting the teams so I wouldn’t jinx it by being overconfident.

But at some point after we won regionals, one of my really close friends looked at me and said that we should “Just go win Nationals. That’s something you all can do and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t.” I think that flipped the switch in my mind that was like, “Yeah, that’s the only thing that makes sense anymore.” Our team is the best team in the country and we have to do this thing so that everyone else knows it. The final game was against Bates [College], which was a team that was supposed to be the best team in DIII college ultimate by a lot. And no one had ever come close to beating them all of last season. Even during the whole final game, the commentators were talking about how shocking it was that Bates [College] was falling.

But in the end, the last point, the last score wasn’t that surprising because we were winning by seven points or something ridiculous like that. There was a point in the game where I realized that there was almost nothing that we could do to lose at that point. Everybody on our team was playing the best ultimate that they had ever played and everyone was peaking all at once. And we had won.

How do you guys bring together this national championship winning team?

It’s hard. There are a lot of things that we have to balance. But a lot of it is just about trust and encouragement and figuring out how to give figures from the captain’s perspective. Figuring out how to unlock each player on the team so that they can not only reach their full potential as a player, but also so that they truly understand how best to give themselves to the team. The leadership

College junior Zoe Hecht

in general can only do so much and a ton of what goes into winning has to come from every single person. We did team workouts, we did some contact improv as a team. We had a bunch of low key social events, like a friendship bracelet, puzzles and things like that. Just trying to get people as comfortable with each other and with their own bodies and with their own emotions and everyone else’s emotions, so that we could blend at the right moments and everyone knew what was going to happen next for each person when playing.

How does it feel to be back?

It feels really surreal. I am not grounded in my schoolwork or this place or anything yet and I’m trying to figure out how I can become that way. The transition back after being in Germany was really, really hard for me. It’s still something I’m trying to figure out. Just because of that almost dream-like state that I mentioned earlier. My job was to play ultimate with incredible people who I didn’t get enough time with, who I am still thinking about and missing. To be back doing anything else feels wrong and cruel. But I know that it’s not true. I am really excited to be back and I love school. I’m excited for the classes I’m going to take this semester.

And then overwhelmingly excited for the new year with the Manti. But at the same time, I don’t know where I am or why I’m here because to some extent it feels like I should still be there doing that. So that’s something I’m trying to figure out.

Outside of ultimate Frisbee and geology research, what are your other interests?

I don’t have that much time for other interests. I’m part of a co-op; I eat in Harkness [House]. I lived in Keep [Cottage] spring semester last year. I’m working in the Quantitative Skills Center this semester as a geology tutor. I’m really charged with my free time and try to spend it doing as little as possible with people that I love.

What are your plans for next summer?

Definitely I’ll be playing club [ultimate Frisbee]. I might play professionally again.

The under-20 World Championship are only held every other year, so I’m going to be able to do that again next year, but the year after unless something terrible happens and I am injured or otherwise unable to play, I should be back on that team.

What’s the difference between club and professional ultimate?

Club ultimate right now I think is the most watched and most followed division. And those are regionally-based teams. They set up in certain cities

Photo by William Brotman

wherever people want to start club teams and you can have club teams at every level. I’ve been playing elite club, and Club Championships are held every year, which is one of the most prestigious tournaments in the country. The professional scene is just getting off the ground because it’s such a small sport. So this spring was the first ever women’s and trans inclusive professional league which I was a part of, and we got paid $20 a game.

We’re trying to gain legitimacy and trying to figure out how, as a sport, we can push to be seen more. It feels to a lot of people like professional ultimate is the next step towards that. I don’t know anything about the men’s professional scene as far as the women and trans side of things goes.

Are all the teams trans-inclusive?

Not exclusively but many are. I used that language when talking about the professional league because part of their mission is to be inclusive of non-binary players and of trans players as well as women. And so it’s women’s with an X. There are several trans and non binary players at all levels of ultimate. So the ultimate community is trying to find the right language to show that we can be inclusive. It’s actually been hard to try to continue using that language as we try to legitimize the sport. As we’ve started to be broadcasted by ESPN, they force the men’s division to be called the men’s division instead of the open division, which it has been traditionally called, which changes it from being an open space that anyone can play into the men’s space, which is an interesting shift. So we’ll see how that goes as we try to legitimize and also stay inclusive.

Do you think ultimate Frisbee is one of those sports at the forefront of bringing in this idea about gender being nonbinary in sports?

I think, I don’t know very much about other sports and where they stand on all of that. But there’s definitely a lot of conversations happening in ultimate all the time about gender equity, racial, and class equities. One of the biggest perceptions of ultimate, which is pretty accurate, is that a lot of the people who play ultimate are cis, white, upper-class people who have the time and resources to devote towards this semi-legitimate activity. But there’s a lot of effort and resources being put towards inclusivity at all levels. It’s far from perfect, but I think that I would be surprised if I saw such conscious efforts and activities going on at the highest levels of more established sports. People have recognized our potential as the younger sport to become more inclusive earlier on and be intentional about the ways that we grow our sport.

In Time of Transition, Field Hockey Finds Best Start in Years Alexis Dill Sports Editor Behind a new coaching staff and 12 talented underclass students, the field hockey team is already having their best season since 2014 — and they’ve only played two games.

With a 1–0 win against Ferrum College and a 2–0 win against Sweet Briar College, the Yeowomen have collected multiple victories in a single season for the first time since 2014 and two consecutive victories for the first time since 2010.

The roster is largely made up of underclass students after graduating seven seniors this past spring. The team now has four seniors and one junior compared to six sophomores and six first-years. Captained by College seniors Luisa McGarvey and Libby Royer and College junior Reet Goraya, the Yeowomen hope to surprise opposing teams after posting a 1-17 record a year ago.

“They’ve brought about a new momentum,” Interim Head Field Hockey Coach Jess West said.

“They’ve really come together as a team and continued to work hard as a unit. [They know] that games are going to be challenging here on out, but they’re really excited to keep the momentum they have and to move forward and see what comes with the rest of the season.”

West, who was the assistant coach to Tiffany Saunders last year, took

the program over after Saunders announced in the middle of June that she had accepted a position with Youth Enrichment Services in Pennsylvania.

Although the announcement was a shock to many of the players on the team, West emphasized that there has been continuity through the transition.

“There’s still a lot of core values,” she said. “The coaching techniques and things that we’re working on are still very similar.”

One of the things that Saunders valued most was team chemistry, which West has worked hard to maintain.

“Everybody meshes like a family,” she said. “If you can create an athletic team that’s ultimately a family, you’ll have success on and off the field, whether the wins are there or not.”

When the team bus broke down on the way to their weekend trip last week and West and her players arrived at their hotel later than expected, West used the experience as a teaching lesson.

“My motto this season is ‘adapt and overcome,’” she said. “There are things that are going to happen.

There are things that are going to be unfortunate, and you can’t do anything about it in the moment. We really made it into a team bonding experience. The [players] got to see a fun side of me — just to keep the mood light and easy.”

Adapt and overcome seems apt for a team with so many different background bringing players to the

field. College sophomore Audrey Kamal discovered field hockey during her junior year of high school, but didn’t have the opportunity to try the sport out until arriving at Oberlin. According to Kamal, she coincidentally befriended a number of students who were on the team, and they encouraged her to join.

“They were like, ‘Join the team.

It’s not that uncommon,’” she said. “I was like, ‘You’re all [nuts]. That’s not a thing. No one joins a sport they’ve never played before in college. You’re funny.’ But by spring of last year, I met more people who were saying, ‘It’s happened before. You won’t be the first.’”

Kamal ended up mentioning her desire to join the team to Saunders while they took the same circuit training class. She told Saunders she had never picked up a field hockey stick but could run well. Saunders told Kamal to grab one and she would find a place to put her.

While working a few jobs in Oberlin over the summer, Kamal worked on stick skills with McGarvey and taught herself the game by watching YouTube videos, specifically a channel called Hockey Heroes.

“I would go out on the field here, move the goal into a section, and then just hit at it for like an hour or two and then go home and watch YouTube or watch games,” Kamal said. “I thought I would be seen as the weird sophomore who has never played before, but it

Dave Zirin Provides Model for Sportswriters

By Respecting Intelligence of Sports Fans Jane Agler Sports Editor

Dave Zirin, political sportswriter and editor for The Nation, spoke at my high school five or six years ago. Since his visit, I’ve found myself reflecting on his words from time to time, especially as I have grown older and begun to pursue sports writing myself. It is only now, years after seeing him onstage in my high school auditorium, that I’ve come to understand why I found him so memorable.

For one thing, I’ll never forget how Zirin had the courage to visit a Chicago high school and explain to its student body why the Chicago Blackhawks are a prime example of racism in sports. He debunked a few myths, such as the idea that the Blackhawks were named after a native tribe when, in fact, they were named after a Sauk leader who was ultimately captured in war and degradingly paraded around the country. We were left with a jarring and undeniable truth that, yes, one of our favorite sports team was no exception to racism.

I remember that he spoke about many issues that I had never discussed before, such as the controversy surrounding Cam Newton and the differences between the criticism directed at black and white quarterbacks. He discussed the nuance of racism and sexism in sports, and highlighted ways we could identify such themes. Up until that day, I had engaged in conversations with my peers and family about sports, as well as separately about race and gender, but never in tandem.

Even as a female athlete and sports fan of color in a predominately white school, I still hadn’t quite made the connection between sports and sociopolitical issues. This was partially due to the pressure to assimilate with my peers, as many people experience in high school. But it was also a result of me lacking the proper language to think critically or speak about race and gender in sports. I could extensively discuss game statistics and predictions for game outcomes — yet I could barely articulate my own experiences as an AsianAmerican athlete.

Zirin is still one of the most relevant and The Oberlin Review | September 6, 2019

thoughtful sportswriters today, to which I am equal parts happy and disappointed. Happy, because his writing and social media presence continue to bridge the gap between sports and sociopolitical issues; disappointed, because the strong need for his voice shows that these issues are just as prevalent as they were when I first saw him speak.

On his Twitter account alone, Zirin recently highlighted connections between the NFL and activism to support undocumented immigrants; emphasized the importance of Ryan O’Callaghan’s underpublicized biography detailing his experiences as an openly gay NFL player; and continued to push the conversation around the economic disparity between the U.S. Women’s National Soccer team and their male counterparts.

On top of all that, he has emerged as an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump.

Although Zirin isn’t the only sports journalist who addresses real-world issues, his voice stands out above others. He is paving the way for future sportswriters, based on one defining characteristic in his work: He acknowledges that sports fans are smart.

Dedicated fans are constantly consuming media related to sports. However, major programs like SportsCenter tend to avoid venturing beyond game clips, short recaps, or predictions.

Challenging this culture, Zirin appears to believe that sports fans are fundamentally intelligent, a belief not usually conveyed in mainstream media.

He leans on this intelligence as a vehicle to foster a deeper understanding of issues beyond the realm of sports. He takes our attention and directs it toward politics and social justice.

In recent years, the Sports section at The Oberlin Review has decided to shape itself around the example of sportswriters like Dave Zirin. We have deserted the kind of pieces that don’t reflect the cultural complexity that exists in sports. It is our hope that sportswriting continues to change in such a way; it is a common misconception that sports fans don’t enjoy being challenged and thinking critically, when these are the exact characteristics that draw us to sports in the first place.

wasn’t like that. I was completely accepted by everyone, including firstyears. When I mess up, [everyone] is just like, ‘It’s OK, it’ll come.’”

Accepting one another and radiating positivity and love is the legacy that the field hockey team hopes to leave behind — although Goraya assures that they would like to add some more wins to their record this year as well.

“It definitely feels like we’re off to a great start, and I’m really excited to keep the ball rolling and keep winning a lot more throughout the season,” Goraya said. “It feels like a new team and a fresh start, which is really amazing and an energy that we haven’t felt in the past four years — or at least since I’ve been here.”

McGarvey said she thinks the team has what it takes to get over the hump this year and finally collect some wins against North Coast Athletic Conference opponents.

“I think being confident in ourselves that we know how to play our game and not stooping down to the level of our opponents will help us get over the hump this year,” she said.

“We have always been a very closeknit team that is extremely supportive of each other, which really helps keep us all encouraged.”

At 12 pm. tomorrow, the field hockey team will look to record their third win of the season at Centre College in Danville, KY. The team will then travel to Lexington to play Transylvania University the next day.

New Albino Squirrel Mascot Unveiled

This albino squirrel suit recently debuted as Oberlin’s new mascot. With its beady, red eyes and signature Birkenstocks, the mascot has been described as an embodiment of the Oberlin College community. No longer will the squirrel only be seen printed on school apparel — students can anticipate seeing the creature in the fur at various sporting events and around campus. Jim Ward of Collegiate Branding created the albino squirrel logo back in 2010, revamping a concept originally introduced in the 1970s.

Text by Jane Agler, Sports Editor Photo courtesy of OC Athletics

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SPORTS Established 1874

September 6, 2019

College seniors Shannon Wargo, Marija Crook, and Oona Junge-Beeman

Volume 148, Number 1

Photos courtesy of OC Athletics

Senior Trio Poised to Repeat as Conference Champions Alexis Dill Sports Editor As College seniors Shannon Wargo, Oona Jung-Beeman, and Marija Crook each accepted their “Most Outstanding First-Year” award at the end-of-the-season cross country banquet three years ago, Associate Head Cross Country Coach Izzy Alexander told the entire team that together, the trio made up the perfect runner. Wargo started each race strong, Jung-Beeman performed her best in the middle of a race, and Crook always finished with incredible endurance.

“If you put those three things together, that’s how every runner wants to race,” Wargo said.

After three years and nine seasons of cross country, indoor track and field, and outdoor track and field, the trio has collectively received over 12 allNorth Coast Athletic Conference honors, made three trips to nationals, and helped their team win one cross country conference championship and six track and field conference championships.

Wargo, Jung-Beeman, and Crook are poised to have their best season individually and collectively this fall after training over the summer together in Boston. Wargo volunteered at the Ronald McDonald House at Boston Harbor and networked with Oberlin alumni in the area; Jung-Beeman completed a teaching fellowship at one of Roxbury Prep’s three middle schools; and Crook interned at the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office. When they weren’t working, they talked about their goals for the season and ran all over Boston together.

“There was more motivation to actually get out of the house and do it, even if we weren’t feeling like it,” Wargo said. “Summer training became more of a fun, scheduled event in my day instead of something that I had to do. I told myself, ‘I get to go hang out with my friends for 45 minutes.’”

Wargo, Jung-Beeman, and Crook have been in the same workout group all four years of their collegiate running careers. Every season, Director

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of Track and Field and Cross Country Ray Appenheimer and Alexander split the team up into several practice groups based on each athlete’s past performances and how they do throughout preseason camp. The fastest group — which Wargo, Jung-Beeman, and Crook are a part of — also includes College senior Rachel Urso and College junior Corrie Purcell.

While no longer having three-time national qualifier Linnea Halsten, OC ’19, on the roster hurts the team, the running group continues to uphold its ideals, prioritizing teamwork and carrying forth the spirit of communication and unity cultivated by last year’s team.

“We have an easy time communicating with each other,” Wargo said. “If one of us isn’t feeling good one day or is feeling really good one day, we’re all comfortable with speaking up and saying, ‘We’re going too fast,’ or ‘Let’s pick this up.’”

Although the cross country program has always been viewed by other student-athletes as one of the closest teams on campus, Wargo and Jung-Beeman insist that their team chemistry this year is better than ever.

“Our team has always been really close and always made it a point to enjoy the things that we’re doing, but this team feels less cliquey and more focused on the present this year than in other seasons,” Jung-Beeman added.

The trio admitted that they didn’t have as much confidence as they would have liked during their first two years, but losing last year’s conference title by a slim margin has motivated them, and now, as seniors, they know they’re fully capable of winning the conference title again.

“The three of us have definitely talked very specifically about being a confident team on the starting line, because it’s something we’ve dealt with in past years,” Crook said. “I don’t feel a huge amount of pressure because I have so much confidence in the rest of the upperclassmen in the creation of a positive team environment that leads to all the oth-

er successful things.”

Jung-Beeman struggled to list her personal goals for the fall, noting that her goals have always revolved around the team.

“I want to be enough of a leader where I can bring the rest of the pack with me,” she said. “I’m not trying to leave people in the dust. Our team isn’t competitive in that kind of way.”

Jung-Beeman was named the North Coast Athletic Conference Athlete of the Week on Monday after winning Oberlin’s season-opening race at the Wooster Invitational last Friday with a 4K time of 14:45.8. She was the only runner to average a subsix-minute mile, 5:55.7.

Wargo qualified for Division III Nationals in outdoor track and field three years ago for the mile.

Since then, she has had surgery to remove a dangerously large cyst, battled a knee injury, and worked to overcome the doubts in her head that came with that kind of adversity. However, Wargo is anything but discouraged, and said she trained hard this summer to be in the better shape than she has ever been in at the start of a cross country season.

“A lot happened my sophomore year, and coming out of it my junior year was still a bit of a struggle,” she said. “I’ve been trying to figure out who I am as a runner, and what’s going to make me happy as I walk across the stage at commencement in May is if I can look back and say that I figured it out. I’m mad it hasn’t happened yet, but it will.”

However, Wargo echoed Jung-Beeman’s team-oriented sentiment.

“It’s going to be fun, because it’s not just me going after [these goals],” she said. “It’s me with two people I have been friends with for more than three years now, as well as so many other of my close friends.”

The team will compete at the Calvin Knight Invite in Grand Rapids, MI, tomorrow at 10 a.m.

They’ll have a weekend off before driving down to Cedarville for the All-Ohio Championship on Sept.

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