February 28, 2014

The Oberlin Review

FEBRUARY 28, 2014 VOLUME 142, NUMBER 16

Outside the Bubble News highlights from the past week Texas Gay Marriage Ban Deemed Unconstitutional On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia ruled that the ban on same-sex marriage in Texas is unconstitutional. Citing Supreme Court precedent, Garcia issued a preliminary injunction on the state’s ban. Garcia wrote that the 2005 amendment to the state’s constitution that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman denied gay couples the right to marry and demeaned their dignity for no legitimate reason.

Keystone XL Pipeline Complies with Federal Law A Washington, D.C. environmental firm confirmed on Wednesday that contractors of the pipeline are in compliance with federal regulations. The report revealed that some staff members who worked on the State Department report had done previous work with the pipeline operator, TransCanada.

While the contractor and State Department are in compliance with federal law, the report read that the State Department’s process for hiring outside contractors could still be improved, leaving Keystone opposition warring.

Russian Opposition Leaders Incarcerated A municipal court jailed several Russian opposition leaders on Tuesday. Among these leaders was blogger and activist Aleksei A. Navalny, who resisted arrest during a protest that led to the detention of more than 400 protesters. Monday’s protest was prompted by the sentencing of eight activists accused of attacking the police during a 2012 demonstration against current president, Vladimir Putin.

Though Russia released several high profile prisoners prior to the Winter Games, experts worry that authorities will resume the crackdown after the games.

Sources: The Huffington Post and The New York Times

Elyria Public School Gets Experimental Elizabeth Dobbins Staff Writer Franklin Elementary School in Elyria is locally notorious for its low test scores. But beginning next fall, the school will embark on a five-year program to enact experimental education reforms.

With a grant from the locally based Stocker Foundation, Franklin plans to extend the instructional day by 45 minutes, as well as increase the use of technology, incorporate more art in the classroom, raise parental involvement and implement a preschool program.

Franklin teacher and intervention specialist Cynthia Boyd said she believes that the extra time will positively impact the students’ learning.

“I think they’re going to do a great deal of good for our kids at Franklin,” said Boyd. “Forty-five minutes is a long time to … have extra practice in reading or math or whatever skills our students really need to work on. The 45 minutes are going to be a lot of time to work with kids that really need the extra help to get up to grade level.”

Franklin’s faculty has also expressed strong support for the reforms, particularly the extended school day.

“One of the really neat caveats

Ms. Boyd, a teacher at Franklin Elementary School, works with a small group of students. This year, Franklin will implement a set of experimental education reforms in response to perennially low test scores.

Courtesy of Lisa Licht

to this is that the teachers voted overwhelmingly, at 82 percent, to extend the day,” said Schloss. “We had to have a vote and they voted to extend their work day because they know it’s what’s best for kids. The more time on task, the more time they have to work with these children, the more prepared they’re going to be.”

Oberlin City School District received a $28,668 grant from the

See page 2

foundation in 2010 in order to fund literacy programs such as KinderCamp, America Reads, as well as Eastwood Elementary’s Read at Home and Book Buddies.

The grant was among 20 others totaling over $500,000 aimed at improving literacy in Northeast Ohio.

Franklin’s standardized test scores repeatedly come in below the state average. In 2013, 53 per-

cent of third grade students were considered proficient on the math portion of the Ohio Achievement Assessments. This marks an increase from 48 percent over 2011, but scores are still well below the 78 percent state average.

Franklin also struggled on the reading portion, with only 50 percent of students reaching proficiency See Local, page 4

Under Review: The Paper of Record Takes a Look in the Mirror Rosemary Boeglin Editor-in-Chief In this installment of “Inside Campus Publications,” the Review turns the critical lens onto its own journalistic and organizational practices. This April marks The Oberlin Review’s 140th anniversary, and to properly honor the legacy of one of the nation’s longest-running student newspapers, its staff is using this occasion to assess the publication’s ability to live up to its role as newspaper of record for both the city of Oberlin and Oberlin College.

College President Marvin Krislov put it frankly: “One of your questions was about diversity and inclusion, and I would just say — and I know you’re the Review — but I don’t think the Review does particularly well with that.”

In last week’s edition, the Review’s Editorial Board outlined a few of the publication’s deficiencies, including its failure to reflect the diversity of the Oberlin community that it purports to represent.

A diminished range of journalistic perspec-

tives accompanies this lack of diversity among staff members and contributors. Ale Requena Ruiz, College senior and production editor for The Grape, said that the presentation of limited perspectives is not a problem unique to Oberlin’s “alternative” newspaper. Recalling a piece printed in the Review, Requena Ruiz said, “It talked about [immigration and border control] in a removed way that’s possible only for people who aren’t affected by those issues in reality, which is a lot of people writing about a lot of things in The Grape and in the Review.”

Largely white and cisgender, the Review’s pool of contributors and editors fails to mirror the myriad of identities found in the Oberlin community. According to Jan Cooper, professor of Rhetoric & Composition and English and the Review’s faculty advisor, it is the duty of the Review to reflect the community at large.

“I strongly believe that — especially because the Review is the publication of record for campus — that the whole campus community should be covered,” Cooper said. “And of course you can’t cover the whole community in every single issue, but that there should be attention

Eyes on the Prize

RIO to Host Symposium The group will host a investment-centered discussion on March 8.

ESTABLISHED 1874 oberlinreview.org

ONLINE & IN PRINT

Fancy Footwork The Senior Dance Concert showcased choreography and talent.

See page 11

INDEX:

Opinions 5

This Week in Oberlin 8

Yeowomen enter 2014 season hungry for conference title.

See page 16

Arts 10

Sports 16

paid to South Campus as much as to North Campus, to speak metaphorically.”

Alison Williams, associate dean for academic diversity and director of the Multicultural Resource Center, agreed.

“I think it’s important to have a wide range of perspectives represented no matter what because, especially in a community where you have people from all different backgrounds, you want everybody to have a voice, and you want everybody to be represented,” she said.

“So I think it’s very important to have as diverse a community as possible participate in that vehicle, understanding that at some points, different communities may choose to have their own publication or radio show, whatever, to give particular strength to their unified voice and their experience. But if you have a paper like the Review, which is all-campus, meant for the entire community, then [it has] to have that community represented among the staff.”

In her explanation of the publication’s responsibility, Cooper echoed Requena Ruiz’s emphasis on See The Oberlin Review, page 4

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News

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Kasich Expands Medicaid Benefits

The Oberlin Review, February 28, 2014

News Brief: College Adopts New Policy on Undocumented Applicants

Madeline Peltz

Rachel Weinstein News Editor

After Ohio’s Department of Medicaid and the Controlling Board granted Governor John Kasich’s request to use $2.56 billion of federal funding to expand Medicaid’s accessibility in Ohio, changes to the cost and structure of residential health care plans have became apparent in more remote residential areas. In Lorain County, 44,000 people are now eligible for Medicare and Medicaid benefits.

Clients served by Oberlin Community Services, a local non-profit, are largely eligible for these welfare programs.

“I know people [for] whom it’s almost unaffordable now to get health care. They have to do something, because starting next year there’s going to be pretty hefty fines [for failure to enroll in the new marketplaces established under the Affordable Care Act],” said Kathy Burns, director of Client Services at OCS. “I saw the breakdown of some of the fines — just the first-tier fine was $700 for next year.”

According to Lorain County Commissioner Ted Kalo, a new statewide computer enrollment program for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries should make the expansion as accessible as possible for those who need it. The cost of

Months after journalist and activist Jose Antonio Vargas spoke on the experience of undocumented immigrants in the U.S., the College announced Wednesday that it would now consider undocumented students as domestic candidates for admission. This means that the new policy, unanimously approved by the Board of Trustees earlier this month, considers undocumented applicants U.S. citizens rather than international applicants. The policy reads: “Oberlin College considers undocumented students as domestic candidates for admission. Students who qualify for “deferred action” and have achieved DACA status (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) are particularly encouraged to apply.”

Ethan Ableman Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Debra Chermonte explained that placing them in the international pool is a “miscategorization” because most undocumented students have spent the majority of their lives in the U.S., have attended U.S. schools and are fluent in English. In an interview with the Office of Communications, Chermonte said, “We have always welcomed applications from undocumented students. But because they are not U.S. citizens, we had, like most colleges, required them to apply as international students. This [new] policy aligns our current practices with the public language we use to describe Oberlin’s policy with respect to undocumented students.”

In 2012, President Obama signed a memo permitting “deferred action for childhood arrivals” for specific undocumented adolescents who have pursued education or civil service. While Oberlin does not require DACA for undocumented applicants, the new policy makes admission to the College more accessible to undocumented students by permitting student employment and safer domestic and international travel.

See Accessibility, page 4

RIO Investment Symposium To Seek Community Consensus

College junior Andrew Follman leads students at a RIO meeting on Thursday night. The organization will host a responsible investing symposium on March 8 and 9.

Zoë Madonna

James Koblenzer Although it was excluded from this month’s College-sponsored Oberlin Symposium on Divestment, the student-led Responsible Investing Organization will host its own symposium on March 8 and 9 to discuss community standards for ethical investment in hopes of forming a consensus on investment practices.

“Our money should be invested in companies that operate legally and ethically, not [companies] that exploit human labor and [contribute] heavily to environmental degradation, such

as fossil fuel companies,” said College junior and RIO member Andrew Follman.

Founded in the spring of 2012, RIO is a student-led group dedicated to increasing accountability and transparency in investment practices.

“We are trying to make the Oberlin community more aware of the ethical implications of its investments,” said Follman.

Although an ambitious goal for a single symposium, RIO has invited numerous student groups, guests and an open forum for students and community members to participate in the

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February 28, 2014

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conversation. Organizations such as Oberlin Anti-Frack, Oberlin Zionists, J Street U and Students for a Free Palestine have been invited to reinforce RIO’s mission to “have no public political stance,” according to College first-year and RIO member Ema Sagner. The organization also hopes its upcoming symposium will represent “what Oberlin wants,” as the event will be open to the entire community.

RIO recently determined its “five percentone percent” plan; the organization’s goal is “to have five percent of the school’s endowment invested responsibly. Of that five percent, we want one percent to go to impact investment, which is direct investment for community development,” said Sagner.

According to Follman and Sagner, what will ultimately be deemed “responsible” will depend on the Policy Committee’s reception to the workgroup discussions that will take place during the two-day long symposium. The event will also include four guest alumni lecturers who specialize in environmental and public health investment projects and policy.

Throughout campus, concerns have been raised over RIO’s endorsement of “shareholder activism.” The term refers to the belief that “an investor’s choice of whether to invest or not invest in a company is a form of political power” according to College sophomore Ziya Smallens, a RIO member and student senator. According to Smallens and College sophomore Ben Hyams, the controversy derives from a campaign to divest from Israeli companies and boycott Israeli goods.

“I know many members of RIO, and I know

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that their private views lie with divestment,” said Hyams. “It is my concern that those who campaign most zealously for Israeli divestment are perceived to have the prevailing opinion rather than to simply be the loudest people. This is a legitimate concern that many students and faculty members may share.”

As RIO’s initiatives remain in their early stages, the debate regarding responsible investment persists throughout the community.

“It’s not that simple,” said Smallens. “Divestment is in many ways the most crude form of socially responsible investing. You’re just withdrawing money; better to use your money as leverage to encourage more ethical behavior on the part of multinational corporations, Israeli or otherwise. Besides, if it is a true community standard, it will not be one that excludes the voices of Jewish students. That is why we invited so many student activist groups.”

“I am very interested in what the administration has to say,” said Hyams. “Is it that there are no morals with money? I think their perspective is probably more nuanced than that.”

According to The Source, “Oberlin College’s Endowment has a highly diversified portfolio with allocations to hedge funds, private equity and real assets, which include venture capital, real estate and private energy.”

Many hope the organization’s upcoming symposium will clarify both the position of the administration and that of RIO. One poignant criticism of RIO that will probably remain is this: “They need a new name,” said College sophomore Eli Steiker-Ginzberg. “It sounds like the city in Brazil. Confuses me.”

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The Review is not aware of In “McCrae Includes Personal Struggles any corrections this week. in Poetry” (Feb. 21), McCrae’s parents were inaccurately described as racially The Review strives to print all prejudiced.

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The Oberlin Review, February 28, 2014

News

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Off the Cuff: Shahzeen Attari, expert on psychology of resource consumption Shahzeen Attari, assistant professor at the School of Public and Enivronmental Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington, sat down with the Review this week to talk about energy consumption, motivations in social dilemmas and the paper she will publish on Monday.

Your study has to do with energy curtailment versus energy efficiency improvements within the realm of public perception and how that same perception applies to water usage. Can you talk a little bit about that?

What we found was — and this is a paper that’s coming out this Monday, so we’re really excited — that when people are asked what the single most effective thing they can do to decrease their energy consumption, roughly 20 percent of our participants said turning off the lights. While turning off the lights is good, it’s not the single most effective thing you can do. There are more efficient actions, like carpooling with others, using public transit, changing the thermostat settings on your thermostat, so on and so forth.

But something very simple, easy and effortless comes to mind, such as turning off the lights. When you look at water, the single most effective thing, roughly 40 to 50 percent of our participants said shorter showers. Shorter showers are certainly good, much more effective than turning off the lights, but again as the single most effective thing, it’s actually retrofitting your toilets. So what we find is that when people ask what the single most effective thing they can do [is] they just think about curtailment, which is doing the same behavior but just doing less of it, as opposed to switching to efficiency, which is keeping the

Thursday, Feb. 20 9:36 a.m. Officers requested an ambulance for a student who slipped on the ice and injured her leg. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

10:50 p.m. Campus Dining Services staff members reported that they discovered a small plastic baggie containing a green leafy substance consistent with marijuana. The baggie was turned over to the Oberlin Police Department.

Friday, Feb. 21 1:15 a.m. Oberlin Inn staff

NPR, we’re not required to donate to NPR, but why is it that so many people donate to NPR? Why do so many people donate blood? Why is it that people conserve energy or buy energy efficient technologies?

All of these are social dilemmas because your private interest, which is your own self-interest, is at odds with collective interest. What I’m curious about is what motivates us to cooperate and do the action for the collective good versus be selfish and not do the action for the collective good? That’s what I’m working on right now: trying to understand what factors motivate and demotivate action in social dilemma settings.

Shahzeen Attari, an environmental scientist who visited Oberlin to give a talk titled “Pubic Perceptions of Electricity and Water Use.” Courtesy of Oberlin College

same behavior but just switching technology. So that’s the big upfront finding between the two.

If people did know that energy efficient improvements were better for the environment than energy curtailments, do you think that would change their actions?

That’s a really fascinating question. If we think about why we don’t act, we can think about two different models. One is the information deficit model, and one is the motivation deficit model. In the first model, we don’t know, therefore we don’t do. We lack the information.

In the second model, we know, but we’re just not motivated enough to do it. So I actually think that with energy and water, both of these

members reported that an intoxicated, disorderly male was at the Oberlin Inn. Members of the Oberlin Police Department responded to the scene, and the male’s family was contacted to pick him up.

2:49 a.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at Dascomb Hall. The cause of the alarm was water leaking into one of the building’s detectors. An electrician responded and made repairs.

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

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

Saturday, Feb. 22

models come into being. We might not know what is very effective, and we might not be motivated enough to change the behavior. We need to figure out what the motivation and information landscape looks like in order to change behaviors.

One of your current interests is factors that motivate action in social dilemmas. What are some of the factors that you’ve come across while exploring this topic?

Let me start with what is a social dilemma. A social dilemma is where a private interest is at odds with collective interests. So for example, donating blood. It hurts to donate blood; you stick a needle in yourself, but it’s for the greater good. Donating to NPR. You and I can listen to

3:52 a.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at a Union Street Housing Complex apartment.

The cause of the alarm was smoke from cooking bacon. The area was cleared of smoke and the alarm was reset. A city of Oberlin crosswalk sign and a College sign were also found in plain view in the apartment. Both items were confiscated.

Sunday, Feb. 23 1:48 a.m. Officers responded to a report of vandalism on the second floor of Langston Hall. The emergency lights were pulled from the ceiling and the exit light was broken. An electrician responded to cap the exposed wires.

2:29 a.m. Officers were requested to assist a student at Dascomb Hall who was ill from alcohol con-

And what have you found?

Well what we’ve found is that people are really afraid of needles.

And the second reason was ineligibility. Most people think they’re ineligible because of weight issues, prior tattoos, sexual orientation; you name it. That’s the way they rationalize it. When they’re asked why they do or don’t donate, that’s what we find. The main reason that people do donate is because they think it’s the right thing to do. Because it gives them warm glow; they feel good about themselves. We’re actually looking at five separate social dilemmas, and we’re trying to look at within participants, what is the reason that people donate or do not donate, or contribute or do not contribute.

There are tons of theories about how the public should best regulate their energy use. As somebody who has explored the hard science aspect as well as the social aspect, what’s your view of how energy should be regulated?

That’s a great question. Topdown regulations are great, but we

sumption. The student told officers that he was feeling better, and he was able to answer questions and walk on his own. The student was escorted back to his room and advised to call Safety and Security if he needed any more assistance.

10:36 a.m. Officers responded to a report of vandalism on the first floor of East Hall. The vandal(s) pulled down the exit sign and broke several ceiling tiles. A maintenance technician responded for repairs.

Monday, Feb. 24 1:20 p.m. Officers responded to a report of a bagged smoke detector found at a Union Street Housing Complex apartment. Officers also observed several pipes, a grinder and burnt candles in plain view. The plastic was removed and the items were confiscated and turned over

haven’t had a lot of top-down regulations in the climate change area, especially in regards to individual behavior. So let’s take top-down regulations and say that they’re extremely effective, but I can’t really study them because they haven’t come to pass, so let’s put them aside. Then let’s look at soft regulations, things like changes in default. For example, I can nudge you in a paternalistic way and influence your behavior.

And that has actually shown to be extremely effective. That’s something people are actively studying. I can also use social norms to change your behavior. For example, Bob Cialdini is a preeminent social psychologist who basically uses social comparisons. Like, if you know how much energy you use compared to your most energy efficient neighbor, and I can either give you a smiley face if you’re using less and a frowny face if you’re using more. And people are actually very responsible to these types of mailings, so much so that they formed a company called OPower that uses social comparisons to get people to decrease energy consumption by two percent, and it was maintained over a very long time. Two percent sounds small, but if you were to ramp it up to the whole United States, that would be a lot of energy. Then there’s also voluntary action. There are ways that you can create new social norms; they’re hard, and they’re very hard to predict. But that would be a sort of fascinating place to look at. But right now there’s a lot of active work on these soft regulations, on these paternalistic regulations, trying to nudge people in the right direction.

And how do you improve that? [You] provide people better information, or better motivation to incorporate some of these actions.

Interview by Maddie Stocker, News editor

to the Oberlin Police Department.

10:59 p.m. Officers responded to an anonymous call that reported witnessing someone smoking on the second floor of Fairchild House.

The occupants of the room in question were contacted and both admitted to smoking marijuana in the room. Two baggies containing a substance consistent with marijuana and a device used for smoking marijuana were confiscated.

The items were turned over to the Oberlin Police Department.

Tuesday, Feb. 25 3:03 p.m. Officers responded to assist a student who fell down the stairs at Rice Hall, hitting her head.

An ambulance was requested and she was transported the student to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

News

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The Oberlin Review, February 28, 2014

Local Elementary Aims to Improve Literacy Rates Continued from page 1 in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, this number improved to 64 percent.

Ann Schloss, the director of Academic Services at Elyria City School District, said that the various reforms applied to Franklin might also be implemented elsewhere around the district.

“Franklin is [the school] that has the highest need academically, so we thought this was the best place to start,” said Schloss. “A lot of the things that we’re going to put into place [are] in Franklin, though we will be doing bits and pieces of them all around the district. We really want to make Franklin a model school and the preschool units model preschool units. So once we have those in place, absolutely we’re going to look at ways to spread that throughout the district.”

Ohio’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee, an

Ohio education reform passed in the spring of 2012, prevents students who do not score at reading proficiency level from graduating the third grade.

In order to improve scores and academic achievement, Schloss and Franklin Principal Lisa Licht worked together to propose a set of reforms.

“Our needs … [are mainly based on] technology — incorporating it into the curriculum and getting the [students] ready for the technology that they [will] need to be prepared for later years — and better prepared students in kindergarten,” said Licht. “Also, our teachers always telling us we need more time. We put everything that we set out as a need into one grant proposal.”

The school currently runs a kindergarten skills clinic during the summer and, in an effort to expand this program and further prepare

The Oberlin Review Fails to Reflect Diverse Community Continued from page 1 acknowledging the identity and perspective of the individual reporter.

“I think it’s especially important to have members of particular sub-communities doing the reporting and bringing the special insight they have into those things and their special abilities to talk to their peers, and to bring their own individual critical perspectives to the ongoing events at Oberlin College,” Cooper said. “And that means journalists of color. The issue lies in part with the paper’s hiring practices [and its failure to attract] journalists who come from different economic backgrounds, journalists of various genders and sexualities. It does make a difference what your life experience has been.”

Although the Review attempts to cast a wide net — extending open house invitations, offering office hours and encouraging submissions — editorial homogeneity remains far too consistent.

According to former Review editor, 2011 Editorial Fellow for the Office of Communications and working journalist EJ Dickson, the same issue persists outside of Oberlin.

“Like any other industry, hiring practices in mainstream journalism seem to be largely dictated by cronyism — although I can’t say I’ve witnessed that [or] benefited from it directly, either at my Salon internship or my current job [at the Daily Dot] — and I’m sure the same still goes for the Review, to a certain extent,” Dickson said.

“When people are interested in hiring their friends, most other concerns, including diversity, kinda fall by the wayside. So I think that’s probably a large part of why this is an issue for some publications, student and otherwise.”

The staff ’s relative homogeneity is also perpetuated by its existing lack of diversity, mainstream journalistic tone, inaccessibility and reputation as non-inclusive.

Current Editor-in-Chief of In Solidarity and College junior Joelle Lingat said that she decided to redirect her journalistic pursuits to other publications after contributing regularly to the Review during her first year on campus.

“For me, there’s this quote that I really like: ‘You find your friends where you find yourself,’ ” she said. “And so I found my voice where I found people who appreciated my voice, so for me that’s kind of what pushed me to move towards other publications.”

Cooper said that in her experience advising student publications, the issue is not a lack of student interest in journalism.

“There are people interested in journalism from all across the spectrum at Oberlin, from every group of people,” she said. “So, they’re there. And the staff seems to know how to reach people, at least initially, and I think [the students] are there waiting to hear.

Maybe they get distracted often to other activities, but I think just going to Afrikan Heritage House and saying, ‘We need some AfricanAmerican reporters,’ isn’t gonna cut it.”

The problems, according to Cooper, aren’t new.

“To say the Review has never covered these things would be really wrong and a disservice to the memory of many students who have been dedicated to these issues over the years,” she said. “But, I am sorry that it seems to be a perennially occurring problem that the Review staff is primarily white, primarily middle- to upper-class, and each generation of students seems to have to find that out for themselves and address it.”

Lingat said that although the conversation is a long time coming, solutions will not be simple or easily executed.

“It’s really great and refreshing to see people trying to do this, but this is going to be a struggle that stagnates unless it becomes a wider conversation — not only on publications but on this campus and in society in general,” she said.

students for elementary school, the reform will add two preschool units for four-year-olds.

Boyd said she believes that the school’s 21st century upgrades and new tech coach will take the school in a new direction.

“Technology is being more incorporated into the classroom and a lot of students that we work with don’t have an opportunity to use it outside of school. These kids will be able to learn in different ways and hopefully for the better,” said Boyd.

Franklin will implement these reforms through a grant it received from the Stocker Foundation, an organization that, according to its website, “aims to lessen the achievementgap for under-resourced prekindergarten through third grade public school students by investing in programs that strengthen reading literacy.” Based in Elyria, the program provides grants to schools in select counties across the

nation, including Pima County in Arizona, King County in Washington and Connecticut’s Hartford County.

Stocker Foundation Executive Director Patricia O’Brien said that she hopes this five-year reform program at Franklin will serve as a model for future projects.

“We’ll be tracking this to see what happens over the five years and based on the results … determine whether or not we will move forward in terms of replicating in Elyria or Lorain County schools or in other communities,” said O’Brien.

The reforms require the involvement of not only school faculty but also parents, community partners and volunteers.

“It’s going to take the entire community to make this reform work, and so we are going to be asking for a lot from our community in every aspect,” said Licht.

Accessibility of Affordable Health Care Increases in Lorain County Continued from page 2

the expansion is managed at the state level, which issues monthly reports to counties. The program itself is administered through the Department of Child and Family Services.

“I think it will take us three to five years to see the overall impact of what those changes might be. Health care [costs] always go up, it seems; we’ve been able to hold ours at about 12 percent or 13 percent from last year,” said Kalo. “Actually it was a little bit higher than that, about 18 percent, but because of our cash reserves we’ve had, we’re able to only implement about a 12 percent increase,” he added.

Lorain County Commissioner Lori Kokoski did not mention rising costs. She highlighted the increased coverage for residents under the expansion implemented by Governor Kasich.

“I think [there are] a lot of people who have fallen be-

tween the cracks [who] will now be covered,” said Kokoski.

Rule changes under the ACA have begun to take place in Lorain County, including the requirement that insurance plans must now cover children.

The county spends $26 million a year on its health plan.

According to Kalo, the new rules will cost the county an additional $260,000.

The county itself is self-insured: The government accepts a percentage of the risk associated with insuring its residents, instead of simply leaving insurance to the marketplaces. Because of this system, most of the changes mandated under the ACA have not affected the county as dramatically as the rest of the country.

Many of the costs and changes from the ACA in Lorain County remain unclear. As the final date for enrollment nears, residents will either enroll or face the fines imposed by the law.

February 28, 2014

Opinions The Oberlin Review

Letters to the Editors A Monumental Oberlin Meeting To the Editor: It is important for us to recall that Martin Luther King Jr. made several visits to Oberlin, but his first, in February 1957, proved momentous for the future of the civil rights movement. The 381-day Montgomery bus boycott, during which King began to make a name for himself in the movement, had just ended. King spoke at First Church on “Justice Without Violence” and “The New Negro in the South” and at a Finney Chapel assembly on “The Montgomery Story.”

After one of these lectures, theologian Harvey Cox, then the YMCA-YWCA secretary at Oberlin College, arranged for King to meet an African-American firstyear at the Oberlin Graduate School of Theology, James M. Lawson Jr. Lawson, the son of a militantly anti-racist Methodist minister and his pacifist wife, had declared himself a conscientious objector at the age of 19 and was sentenced to federal prison.

After his release in 1951, Lawson returned to his BA studies at Baldwin-Wallace College, but also spent time meeting with Methodist student groups at Oberlin and elsewhere to talk about pacifism and nonviolence.

Following graduation, Lawson traveled as a shortterm Methodist missionary to India, where he continued his study of Gandhian nonviolence. Upon his return in 1956, Lawson enrolled at the Oberlin Graduate School of Theology, which, at the time, probably enrolled more black students than all other seminaries combined.

Among the courses Lawson took was The Pacifism of the Early Church: Jesus through Constantine. When Lawson and King met at the beginning of Lawson’s sec-

ond semester, King was so impressed by the student’s knowledge of the theory and practice of nonviolence that he insisted Lawson must immediately come south to help the movement.

Lawson transferred to Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, TN. The Fellowship of Reconciliation employed him as field secretary to teach local groups about Christian peacemaking and reconciliation in race relations. Soon, Lawson was building the base for the Nashville lunchcounter sit-ins of 1960. Central to this process were the workshops in nonviolence Lawson offered at local churches and attended by students from the several historically black academic institutions in the area, as well as by Vanderbilt ministerial students.

In Lawson’s workshops, the participants explored the roots of segregation and how to apply the Gandhian theory of nonviolence, blended together with Christian principles, in actions toward what Lawson called “constructive social change.”

During the sit-ins, Lawson was arrested along with many others who became leaders in the civil rights movement, including current Georgia Congressman John Lewis. The lunch counters were successfully desegregated, but because arrest violated Vanderbilt’s code of conduct, the racially conservative Board of Trust and the chancellor (ironically, also a scholar of the New Testament) had an excuse for expelling Lawson.

Many Vanderbilt faculty tendered their resignations in support of Lawson, and he was readmitted but decided instead to complete his studies at Boston University.

Julian Bond, then active in student protests, said, “Lawson was like a bad

younger brother, pushing King to do more, to be more militant, to extend nonviolence — just to do more … He envisioned a militant nonviolence … You didn’t have to wait for the evil to come to you, you could go to the evil.” King himself called Lawson “the greatest teacher of nonviolence in America” and “the mind of the movement.”

In 1962, Lawson became pastor of Centenary Methodist Church in Memphis, where he continued his activism, most notably in the 1968 strike by black sanitation workers. Union leader Jerry Wurf recalled that the Memphis city leaders “feared Lawson for the most interesting of all reasons — he was a totally moral man, and totally moral men you can’t manipulate and you can’t buy and you can’t hustle.”

Lawson persuaded King to come to Memphis to support the strikers, and it was there that King was assassinated. In 1974, Lawson accepted the position of senior pastor at Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles. Although retired from that ministry, he continues to be active as a teacher and in movements for labor rights, immigrant rights, civil rights and international peace.

In 2010, Oberlin College awarded James M. Lawson Jr. an honorary doctorate.

Dr. Lawson returns to Oberlin today for a week’s residence as a distinguished visiting lecturer. At an Oberlin College convocation at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, March 3, at First Church, where James Lawson and Martin Luther King had their initial meeting in 1957, he will speak on “The Influence of Plantation Capitalism on Today’s Human Rights.”

–John D. Elder, OC ’53

SUBMISSIONS POLICY The Oberlin Review appreciates and welcomes letters to the editors and column submissions. All submissions are printed at the discretion of the editorial board.

All submissions must be received by Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at opinions@oberlinreview.org or Wilder Box 90 for inclusion in the following Friday’s Review. Letters may not exceed 600 words and columns may not exceed 800 words, except with the consent of the editorial board. All submissions must include contact information, with full names, for all signers. All electronic submissions from multiple writers should be carbon-copied to all signers to confirm authorship.

The Review reserves the right to edit all submissions for content, space, spelling, grammar and libel. Editors will work with columnists and contributors to edit pieces and will clear major edits with the authors prior to publication.

Editors will contact authors of letters to the editors in the event of edits for anything other than style and grammar.

In no case will editors change the opinions expressed in any submission.

The Opinions section strives to serve as a forum for debate. Review staff will occasionally engage in this debate within the pages of the Review. In these cases, the Review will either seek to create dialogue between the columnist and staff member prior to publication or will wait until the next issue to publish the staff member’s response.

The Review will not print advertisements on its Opinions pages. The Review defines an advertisement as any submission that has the main intent of bringing direct monetary gain to the author of a letter to the editors.

Opinions expressed in letters, columns, essays, cartoons or other Opinions pieces do not necessarily reflect those of the staff of the Review.

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

Editors-in-Chief Rosemary Boeglin Julia Herbst Managing Editor Julian Ring Opinions Editor Sophia Ottoni-Wilhelm

Discussion of Post-Graduate Plans Tainted by Privilege, Classism While it’s still too early to glimpse the sweet relief of spring and its coveted sunshine, telltale signs of senioritis are cropping up everywhere. Both North and South Campus are lousy with second-semester seniors confronting a strange lethargy, characterized by a newfound inability to complete even the lightest of readings, a passion for sweatpants and loungewear of all kinds, and a compulsion to ruminate over a weeknight bottle of wine while bemoaning the possibilities of living at home again after four short years of freedom.

For those fourth-years among you who have kept post-collegiate stress at bay, now is the time to start worrying. In his weekly Source column last week, President Krislov offered to meet with any seniors concerned about their post-Oberlin plans. His offer is generous; his advice is on point. Now is the time to start thinking about your future, even if it terrifies you.

While it’s tempting to eschew cover letters for cover-less Senior Nights at the ’Sco, there are numerous resources at your disposal right now. But this is a limited time offer. It may be tempting to think that services like the Career Center and the alumni network will be equally available to after you walk across the stage on May 26, but the reality is that they will never be as proximate or helpful to you as they are right now. This also extends to the professor whom you keep forgetting to ask for that letter of recommendation, or the faculty member whose contact book you’re itching to hack.

Fortunately, these resources are available to all students equally.

But this is not the case for many of the factors that ultimately play a significant role in the desperate post-college job scramble, including the feasibility of unpaid internships, the ability to move back home and access to professional networks.

We too often assume the financial situation of others is similar to our own, despite abundant evidence to the contrary. Last year, approximately 80 percent of Oberlin students received need-based financial aid of some kind and 16 percent of the student body hail from families that earn below $60,000 per year. The misconception that other student’s financial situations mirror your own betrays class privilege and can inadvertently marginalize peers.

These discussions are born out of a desire to find commonality and support in preparation for entry into the scary “real world,” but ironically manifest themselves in marginalizing and uncomfortable ways far too often.

Although many of the resources in the post-grad job hunt are outside of our control, such as our hometown and socioeconomic class, we can control how we discuss these sensitive topics with our peers.

On a campus often perceived as attentive to bias and prejudice, class differences are too rarely discussed. We shouldn’t be aware of issues like race and gender inequality while simultaneously ignoring the effects of socioeconomic stratification. Perhaps this emanates from the less visible identifiers of class, but the insidious nature of financial discrepancies is all the more reason to be cognizant of one’s own class privilege when discussing the imminent future.

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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Opinions

The Oberlin Review, February 28, 2014

Issues of Social Justice Come to the Fore in Tobacco Ban Issue Allison O’Donnell Contributing Writer Oberlin College has a long history of commitment to social justice and standing up for vulnerable populations. The College currently has the opportunity to stand up for what is right and send a message to one of the most destructive industries in the world. A tobacco-free college campus policy is an opportunity for Oberlin students, faculty and staff to send the message that making billions of dollars from a deadly and addictive product is not acceptable.

Tobacco control is a social justice issue. Strong tobacco control policies, including a tobacco-free campus, are in line with Oberlin’s long-held commitment to social justice, activism and standing up for what is right even when it is difficult. The tobacco industry manufactures a product that kills half of the people who use it as intended. The tobacco industry has known that its products kill people for the past 50 years and continues to produce them.

In fact, the most recent Surgeon General’s report finds that cigarettes today are more deadly than they were 50 years ago because of manipulation by the tobacco industry to make them as addictive, appealing and easy to consume as possible.

The tobacco industry spends $1 million an hour marketing its products, particularly targeting youth, minorities and other vulnerable populations, including people of

color and the LGBT community. They do it in the U.S. and all around the world, especially in low- and middle-income countries, where governments have the least amount of power to fight back and people can least afford the cost of buying tobacco products and paying for the expensive treatments of the various health consequences they bring.

The tobacco industry has done a great job of arguing that smoking is an individual choice that all adults have the right to make. Unfortunately, this idea is a fallacy.

Almost all smokers have their first cigarette and start smoking before they turn 18 and are particularly vulnerable to tobacco industry marketing and nicotine, which happens to be one of the most addictive drugs available, making it very, very difficult to quit once you have started.

Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. and across the globe, killing almost 500,000 people every year in the U.S. — more than AIDS, alcohol, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined. It killed two of my uncles who started smoking in middle school, could never quit and died decades later, leaving their friends and families to mourn their loss. People die and the tobacco industry makes billions of dollars every year. This is not acceptable. A tobacco-free campus policy sends the message that none of this is allowed and that Oberlin students don’t support the tobacco industry.

Ukrainian Crisis Presents Example of Global Political Unrest Sean Para Columnist The recent political developments in Ukraine highlight the extreme political fragility of many regimes around the world. In the space of a few weeks, a protest movement turned increasingly radical until President Viktor Yanukovych was run out of government. A true political revolution has occurred, with great changes in government certain to follow. The political crisis is far from resolved. Tensions still flare all over Ukraine about the president’s deposition, while Russia makes military demonstrations in Crimea. While I cannot predict the outcome of this turbulent moment, the current conflict is strongly rooted in historical tensions that have plagued the region since the beginning of World War I. Ukrainian nationalism is largely a construction of the 20th century. This is not to deny that the Ukrainian people have historical antecedents. Ukraine was created as a Soviet socialist republic in 1922 and incorporated into the USSR This was the first territorial demarcation of Ukraine.

Before then, the region had been split between the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires. The nationalist uprisings that occurred following World War I allowed the Ukrainian state to come into being, but the divide between “Ukraine” and “Russia” has only existed since the breakup of the USSR in 1991.

Much of eastern and southern Ukraine speaks Russian and its inhabitants consider themselves to have strong historical and national links to Russia. In the west of the country, on the other hand, Ukrainian nationalism is far stronger, and nearly everyone speaks Ukrainian. President Ya-

nukovych was from the eastern region and maintained strong links to Russia, refusing economic aid from the European Union and instead looking east for economic and political support. Russia’s desire to keep Ukraine in its sphere of influence is thus a primary geopolitical cause for the crisis.

Inside Ukraine, many felt wronged by the increasingly corrupt and autocratic Ukrainian government, and launched large protests decrying current government policy. These demonstrations spiraled out of control, leading to huge riots ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

A true political revolution has occurred, with great changes in government certain to follow.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– and mass killings last week. Yanukovych’s political support melted away; he had gone too far. Opposition members of Parliament moved against him, and he was effectively deposed.

This striking turn of events displays strong continuities between our world and that of previous generations. The Cold War is over, but American-Russian competition remains a major element in current international relations. The End of History — an utterly absurd concept if there ever was one — has certainly not yet arrived. The lives we lead are the direct result of macro-historic trends that we have no control over. So, let us all take inspiration from the people of Ukraine, who boldly stood up to their oppressive and unjust government.

We as Americans have much to learn from their actions of resistance.

Jesse Kohler Student Senate Liaison This week’s Senate meeting was attended by the Responsible Investment Organization — a committee which hopes to make the investments of the school more transparent, as well as have a say in what investments are made. If you are interested in being a part of this organization, please email Lila Bhide (lbhide@oberlin.edu).

All senators’ office hours are also up on the website, and we encourage you to come to us during these times to discuss any and all questions or concerns that you have related to responsible investment.

College sophomore Ziya Smallens, the Student Health Working Group chair, had a meeting with Dean of Students Eric Estes last week, in which they discussed expanding mental health resources

on campus. Topics discussed included moving the walk-in hours of the Student Health Center to more convienent times, making Mercy Allen Hospital more accessible for all students in case of emergencies or times that Student Health is not open as well as providing transportation for students who see outside therapists.

On a similar topic, the Public Transit Working Group will meet at 2:30 p.m. on Fridays ( first meeting this Friday, Feb. 28) and student attendance and participation are encouraged and appreciated.

Finally, senators were appointed to committees this week. All appointments are available on the Senate website.

Many committees have open positions that all students can apply for, so please pay attention for several upcoming announcements that will provide further information!

Misguided Sex-Robot Opera Hits All the Wrong Notes Jennifer Bower Contributing Writer Two weeks ago, I saw the opera Nova, an original collaboration between Paul Schick, professor of German, Lewis Nielson, professor of Composition and Jonathon Field, associate professor of Opera Theater. I first learned about Nova through some friends who were participating in the musical side of the project. The fragments of description that I received intrigued me, so I gathered as much information as I could before attending the performance on Friday. The promotional material for Nova, an opera about the sale of a sex robot, started to set off some alarms. The “O” in Nova was a suggestively wide mouth, ringed by lipstick, and the “V” was a pair of robot legs spread wide open. I did more homework and learned that Paul Schick, the librettist, had stated that the work was “highly feminist but could be misunderstood.” I cracked my knuckles and prepared to tackle Nova with all the fervor of a Misunderstanding Feminist.

Two hours after Nova began, I was a mess: my legs were shaking, I felt nauseated and it was hard to look anyone in the eyes. I went into the opera expecting to start with a Bechdel-level critique and go from there, but I was hit with such a tangled mass of failed satire, objectification and horrifying, near-constant simulated sex that it was hard to think, much less articulate the ways in which Nova was screwed up.

A little time has passed, and I am ready to talk about Nova. Although its authors intended to satirize the commodification of sex, the opera failed to achieve a necessary level of satire in its execution, and it wound up a violently offensive work. Over 14 simulated sex acts occurred on stage, many of which were nonconsensual and objectifying, all of which were accompanied by a stream of dialogue between the salesman and the main character, Al, that

consisted mainly of crude and misogynistic jokes. This excess, presented without any trigger warnings, intended to make the viewer feel revulsion for the sex-hungry, misogynistic main characters. But instead, people laughed.

When the salesman said to Al, “You like that blowjob, eh?” the man next to me laughed. When the salesman boasted that the robot Nova “combines the whore and the wife into one,” the man laughed again. He laughed at every awful joke, and I’m pretty sure he left Nova feeling great. The opera allowed him and others to view the work as voyeurs and thus laugh without remorse and sidestep the “satire” entirely. I shrunk down in my seat and tried to keep my rage from escaping. The two women on stage weren’t allowed a single line.

Besides being functionally objectifying and misogynistic, Nova flirts with classism (the main character works in a factory and presumably is much less “educated” than Nova’s authors and audience) and is riddled with anti-sex worker dialogue. Unfortunately, the problems in Nova are symptomatic of a general crisis in the arts. It’s common for composers and writers to tackle controversial subjects in order to provoke audiences and challenge the status quo. However, given that the majority of mainstream artists are white men working alone, when they engage with social issues in a way that upsets marginalized groups it is not avant-garde.

It’s alienating.

I will admit there were some important things to come out of my Nova experience: 1. Free beer. 2. The musicians performed really well. 3. A friend and I cut up stolen Nova promotional cards and made twee valentines out of them. 4. The show served as a reminder that even supposedly “progressive” art (by Oberlin professors, no less) can reinforce misogynistic and violent attitudes toward women. I’m keeping my distance in the future.

Opinions

The Oberlin Review, February 28, 2014

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Collegiate Alcohol Consumption Yields Surprising Effects Josh Kogan Contributing Writer In my attempt to write scientific articles relevant to college students, the first thing that came to mind was to write about how alcohol and other drugs affect our minds and bodies. However, when I actually sat down to write, I realized it was very hard to write an article without sounding preachy. I kept writing things about all of the research showing negative effects of alcohol on memory, learning, etc. Essentially, I sounded like parents telling their kids that alcohol will kill them if they drink it, or all of those “Above the Influence” commercials saying that doing drugs will rot your brain.

I don’t really believe any of that propaganda, and as a (relatively) normal Oberlin student, I enjoy a well-shaken martini or even a nice can of PBR, the staple of our fantastic party scene.

Despite all attempts to avoid it, this article may seem like a PSA warning against the dangers of underage drinking, and I want to assure you that this is not at all

my intention. I would just like to convey some interesting scientific information about how we as an age group respond to alcohol.

This semester, we are very fortunate to have Dr. Scott Swartzwelder visiting us and teaching a class on alcohol and the brain through the Neuroscience department. Dr. Swartzwelder is a researcher at Duke University, where he runs a lab researching the effects of alcohol on the developing brain. So when I had the idea for this article, I thought it would be great to get his perspective on these topics.

“The most important thing for people to know about alcohol is that it affects the young brain very differently from the adult brain,” he said.

Now, let me explain that statement a little bit. Alcohol is a small molecule that has numerous, dose-dependent effects on the brain. At low doses, it decreases inhibition, reduces anxiety and makes people generally more social. At higher doses, it can impair memory and cognitive functions and also activate

inhibitory signals in the brain that make you sleepy, want to stop drinking and go to bed. In younger people, the threshold for getting sleepy is much higher than in older people, while sensitivity to memory and cognitive impairment is much lower.

So if I have five drinks, I’ll be much more likely to want to drink more, act like more of an idiot and not get tired and stop drinking, whereas the opposite would be true for my dad. I don’t necessarily think this means you should change your drinking habits, but it could account for why young people like to drink a lot more than older people.

Dr. Swartzwelder also said that, “one of the great things about alcohol for college students, especially in very low doses, is its ability to facilitate social interactions that are so important for people in that age group.” If you have one or two drinks, this can inhibit the socalled “executive functions” of the prefrontal cortex, a large region of the brain located roughly behind the eyes. These executive functions are analogous to the

CEO of a company — integrating and controlling input from various processes involving many things, including how we interact with other people.

When the prefrontal cortex is inhibited, this leads to a disinhibition of the brain areas involved in social restraint and anxiety, and makes it much easier for people to talk and communicate freely. It’s only when you exceed the one- or two-drink threshold that decision-making, coordination and all the other things that go along with alcohol use become impaired.

Also related to social disinhibition is the so called “expectancy effect,” which is analogous to the placebo effect. Expectancy means that you will experience certain effects from alcohol simply because you think you are drinking it. It doesn’t matter if you are actually drinking or not.

This is especially true of the subjective effects that come with small alcohol doses, like feeling happier or being more outgoing.

According to Dr. Swartzwelder, “There is very little research examining the expectancy ef-

fect and differences between age groups, but it seems likely that younger people who are more susceptible to social pressure and less experienced with alcohol would be more susceptible to this effect.”

It seems to make sense that someone without very much experience with alcohol will have all sorts of expectations based on what friends and family have told them, but I think it also follows that as you gain more experience with alcohol, you will develop certain perceptions of how small amounts of alcohol affect you that become reinforced with more drinking.

That said, expectancy pretty much only occurs at low doses.

If you have 10 drinks, the alcohol will severely inhibit certain brain functions whether or not you expect it to.

These are just a few interesting ideas to think about next time you’re at Splitchers or happy hour at the Feve. Next time you’re curious about what a drug does to your body, don’t rely on your friends or parents. Just ask a scientist.

Foul-Mouthed Celebrities Must Stop Being Themselves

Impact Investment Platform Aids Student-Trustee Relations

Ruby Saha Columnist

Machmud Makhmudov Contributing Writer

There’s something strangely satisfying about watching someone let a stream of four-letter words fly. I’m as prone to quotidian profanity as anyone else, and watching someone like John McEnroe flay an umpire alive is one of my terrible guilty pleasures.

There’s an incredible energy that comes out of a Mel Gibson or Christian Bale-level explosion, that elusive frisson of expletiveladen evisceration that the everyday Fbomb just doesn’t quite cover.

That said, I’m a lot less enthusiastic about foul-mouthed personalities like Gordon Ramsay or Anthony Bourdain. I think my dislike of them comes down to the fact that they’ve built careers around being assholes.

It doesn’t matter which episode I land on among Gordon Ramsay’s cornucopia of television shows; at any given moment, I’ll be faced with his craggy, Marianas Trenchlined face drawn into a deep, wave-shaped grimace, the beginnings of an “f ” frothing from his lips before the 1000-hertz “bleep” sound shields my sensitive, young ears.

Gordon Ramsay is easily the most censored person on television, and frankly, it’s boring. I get the “realism” argument, which is that every restaurant kitchen is a boot camp of verbal carnage, and Ramsay’s only putting a spotlight on the characteristic cruelty that occurs behind the Michelin stars.

But there’s nothing exciting about watching him make mincemeat out of his contestants. His bleep-laden tirades are as predictable as they are nasty: You look like a bleeping [insert animal of the day]. I’ll ram that pumpkin right up your bleeping arse.

You disgusting pigs. You fat-arse. You bleeping bleep!

It’s crude, cruel and lazy, and I’m bitter because he’s managed to build a multi-million dollar empire around it.

Anthony Bourdain is another one of those “asshole chefs” (without the excuse of being British) that sets my teeth on edge. It’s

not so much that I mind his bad boy, “gourmet anti-hero” shtick; it’s certainly more enjoyable than watching Ramsay scream at people, and it helps that Bourdain’s easier on the eye. But, as Tamar E. Adler pointed –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

I think my dislike of them comes down to the fact that they’ve built careers around being assholes.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– out in a New Yorker article, Bourdain turns food into a sport: “In the land of Bourdain, no dinner is complete without stentorian grunting, cursing, and beating one’s chest.”

Like Adler, I miss the Kitchen Confidential-era Bourdain, who painted a frank and vulgar portrait of the restaurant industry’s dirty underbelly.

His tell-all was as funny as it was useful — never order fish on Mondays; mussels generally “wallow in their own foulsmelling piss in the bottom of a reach-in”; specials are restaurant-speak for near-expiration — and briefly put me off seafood, which, if you know anything about my love for fish, is saying something.

Sadly, Bourdain’s self-consciousness over his post-Kitchen Confidential fame leads him to lash out at other “celebrity chefs” like Paula Deen — “she revels in unholy connections with evil corporations, and she’s proud of the fact that her food is fucking bad for you” — and Alice Waters — “[She] annoys the living shit out of me …

There’s something very Khmer Rouge about [her].”

It doesn’t really matter if he’s right; it matters that he chooses to do it as crassly as possible. Both he and Gordon Ramsay resort to ad hominem attacks that are lazy and unimaginative. I love food and I love profanity, but I have no interest in perpetuating or supporting this asshole culture.

On Oct. 17, Clyde McGregor, OC ’74, chair of the Oberlin Board of Trustees, announced via an article in Oberlin OnCampus that the Board had approved a resolution for an impact investment platform.

The platform will promote responsible investment of the College’s endowment through a sub-committee comprising students, alumni, faculty and trustees. Coming off of the Oberlin Symposium on Divestment held nearly three weeks ago, I’m personally excited about the potential that this platform has to promote Oberlin’s social justice agenda and generate a positive relationship between the board and the student body.

While maintaining financial solvency for the College in both the immediate and long-term is imperative if Oberlin is going to continue to make a worldclass education accessible to thousands of students, that doesn’t mean that a return on investment has to come at the expense of environmental or social justice concerns.

While Oberlin’s endowment of nearly $700 million is a small fraction of the $400 billion held by all colleges and universities in the United States, the investment choices that we make reflect our most deeply held values.

When it comes to taking principled stances, what we do speaks so loudly that nobody can even hear what we say. Making strategic investments provides us with an opportunity to put our money where our mouth is and support socially conscious causes.

As a student senator, I encourage students to work with Senate’s Transparency Working Group (chaired by Senator Hope Kassen) to help develop a unifying vision for what impact investment looks like for Oberlin. Kassen is excited about expanding the group’s reach and impact and has gotten it off to a great start.

The Responsible Investment Organization has also done tremendous work creating tangible options for the College to help improve the economic and ecological resilience of the local region.

The Impact Investment Platform also has the potential to be a space where a productive working relationship between the student body and the Board of Trustees can be forged.

By accepting students onto the Impact Investment Sub-Committee, the Board is clearly communicating that it is eager to listen to and hear from students.

I hope that the creation of this platform is a strong first step toward helping the entire Oberlin community craft a unified vision of the values that we are committed to upholding.

Today is the day.

Have your voice heard.

Write a column or letter. opinions@oberlinreview.org

Last spring, repeated instances of bigoted, hateful graffiti and the harassment of campus activists, queer students and people of color rattled the Oberlin community. The resulting series of workshops and events aimed to educate on oppression and allyship. One year later, Oberlin commemorates the work of those organizers with a series of events to remember last year’s community building and discuss ways to move forward with institutional critiques and proposed changes.

Activist, contemporary of Martin Luther King, Jr. and retired pastor Rev. Dr. James M. Lawson Jr., OC ’57, was a leading voice in the civil rights movement on the topic of nonviolence. He will be giving a class session titled “The Transformative Power of Nonviolence” in the Lord Lounge of Afrikan Heritage House.

Rev. Dr. James M. Lawson, Jr., OC ’57, will be speaking on “The Impact of Plantation Capitalism on Today’s Human Rights” at First Church, Oberlin. Free, no tickets required.

Posters of Love: the Multicultural Resource Center is sponsoring a session of positive poster making in the Wilder Alcove. After making posters, students are encouraged to post them around campus to remind the student body to stand by love, not hate.

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Author Natasha Trethewey, current Poet Laureate Consultant of the United States, will be speaking at Finney Chapel. Currently a professor of English and creative writing at Emory University, she has already published four poetry collections, one of which won the Pulitzer Prize, and a work of non-fiction titled Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. She has also received fellowships from prestigious institutions such as the National Endowment for the Arts and Harvard University. Free, no tickets required.

Writer and musician James McBride, OC ’79, will give a special convocation in Finney Chapel. Award-winning author, McBride penned The Color of Water, which was on the New York Times Best Sellers list for two years, and has collaborated with Spike Lee on multiple films. Tickets are required and free.

Students will have the opportunity to gather with other students, as well as working groups and student leaders, in King 106 to discuss the future of solidarity at Oberlin, reflect on the past events of March 4, 2013, and tackle changes that still need to be made in order to move forward and continue combating oppression.

Look out for the Oberlin History Lesson installation in Finney Chapel accompanied by Natasha Trethewey’s convocation on March 4, which will include statements by students in a wide variety of styles that focus on each individual’s experiences and developments from the past year in reaction to the events that occurred exactly one year ago. After the convocation, the installation will be moved from Finney Chapel to the Science Center.

Professors Meredith M. Gadsby, Meredith Raimondo, Renée Romano and Justin Emeka will be participating in a discussion in King 106 on the events surrounding March 4, 2013. The discussion will focus on community voice, organization and empowerment, as well as how to move forward without forgetting the past.

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Arts The Oberlin Review

February 28, 2014

Brooks Imparts Artistic Philosophy in Gripping Convocation Nora Kipnis Arts Editor Actor Avery Brooks, OC ’70, walks onstage at Finney Chapel in an all-white suit, took a seat at the piano and treated the audience to a dramatic performance of “Throw it Away” by jazz singer and songwriter Abbey Lincoln — an unorthodox beginning to an unorthodox convocation. However, the event was thoroughly consistent with the interpretation of the word “convocation” as “a celebration”; Brooks’s convocation, though unusual, was foremost a celebration of art and community.

Currently, Brooks is a professor of Theater Arts at Rutgers University, but, more famously, he is an actor, musician and director best known for his roles as Captain Sisko on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Detective Hawk on Spenser: For Hire. Brooks has also acted in American History X and 20 years ago played Solomon Northup in the PBS movie Half Slave Half Free, based on the memoir Twelve Years a Slave. In his introduction to Brooks’s convocation, President Krislov quoted Brooks as saying, “Brown children must be able to participate in traditional mythology.” In his convocation, Brooks followed the theme of mythology, calling it “one of the most important tools man has been given.” His interest in integrating the perspectives and aesthetics of people of all races into typically Western mythology and culture was evident; one of the first things he said was, “Every single moment depends on us coming together.”

During the convocation, Brooks talked to Assistant Professor of Theater Justin Emeka, OC ’95, whose friendship with Brooks began when they met 20 years ago. When Emeka asked Brooks about his experience at Oberlin, Brooks spoke eloquently of coming to the haven

of liberalism during the turbulent 1960s.

His grandmother had tried to come to Oberlin but couldn’t afford it, so Brooks was determined to attend with a scholarship. When he finally matriculated, he was part of the largest class of people of color in the school’s history. Brooks then went on to discuss his experience with an art and performance collective that performed to audiences outside the Oberlin College bubble. His desire to bridge the town-gown divide, Brooks said, was due to his experience growing up in a community where everyone knew each other.

Transcending the “proverbial walls” between communities was a recurring theme of the convocation and apparently one of Brooks’s major artistic goals.

For example, when asked about how he identifies a piece of art as “classical,” Brooks said that the most important consideration is that the work must be universally appealing, transcending time and location. He disputed the notion that a “classic” has to be inaccessible. He referenced Shakespeare, who was so dedicated to capturing the vernacular of the people in his plays that he didn’t even use punctuation in the original editions, as an example of an accessible classical artist.

Remarkably, Brooks answered many of Emeka’s questions using art — he often walked over to the piano for another impassioned rendition of “Throw it Away,” his music serving as his only answer to the question. His voice was gripping and emotionally evocative, and his theater training showed in his ability to speak with his hands and modulate his tone of voice to keep the audience enthralled.

Brooks emphasized the interconnectedness of time and space at Oberlin today. However, he said that Oberlin should work harder to help students feel hopeful about what they will do after

Brooklyn’s Archie Pelago Creates Rhythmic, Repetitive Sound Rosie Black Production Manager Archie Pelago recording and mixing tracks in the studio is one thing, but when the eclectic trio played at the ’Sco on Friday night, it was an entirely different story.

The Brooklyn-based group’s recordings are predominantly instrumental, creating an emotive and atmospheric texture, but their performance didn’t quite live up to the promise of the recordings. As they took the stage, Hirshi, a DJ and trumpeter, informed the audience, “We’re gonna take you on a little improvising journey.” And so they did.

Preceding the trio, solo act Jacob 2-2 graced the stage, accompanied by two computers and a soundboard. A series of visuals flickered on the screen behind him in a repeating sequence: little running cartoon men, stylized numbers, off-color pictures of satellite dishes and a rainbow cave of wonders. True to his name — based on the cult Canadian children’s film Jacob Two Two meets the Hooded Fang — Jacob 2-2 also included movie clips of boys in the throes of childhood exploration, a theme that runs throughout much of his music. He built the music onstage without interacting with the audience, dropping the bass with a flourishing hand, mellowing out for a measure, then bumping it up again for the audience’s pleasure.

After gesturing “rock on” to the crowd, Jacob 2-2 ceded the stage to Archie Pelago, composed of saxophonist Kroba, cellist Cosmo D and DJ Hirshi. Each musician had his instrument or a mixing board and computer in front of him. To kick off the improvisational journey, Hirshi laid a beat, and Kroba and Cosmo D proceeded to play a few bars before looping and mixing what they had just played using Ableton music software.

The resulting highly rhythmic, smooth jazz-influenced electronic sound with thudding bass and synth-pop overtones got the crowd dancing, and the improvisation kept the audience guessing.

Hirshi checked in with the crowd every now and then, as if wondering whether or not to keep playing. The audience answered every inquiry with applause and cheers, See Electronic, page 13

Assistant Professor of Theater Justin Emeka, OC ’95, interviews Avery Brooks, OC ’70, in Finney Chapel Saturday night. Brooks treated the audience to soulful music on the piano and a monologue from Othello, and, at his request, the convocation concluded with two student performances.

Courtesy of Dale Preston

graduation, particularly those interested in pursuing artistic fields. He emphasized that he couldn’t imagine that the events leading up to March 4 last year would have happened at the Oberlin of 1966. Though there was certainly political strife on campus then, Brooks said that there was no question that students shouldn’t blatantly disrespect each other’s identities. However, he stressed that we have a responsibility to keep the story of March 4 alive: “We can’t solve it, but we sure can talk about it.”

At both the beginning and end of the convocation, Brooks asked audience members to name one person who had helped them to get here — their parents, the people who had driven them to Finney or any other person who had helped them along in life. At the end of

the convocation, Brooks gave a stunning rendition of Othello’s dying speech from Shakespeare’s Othello, the way he said Paul Robeson ended his public appearances. Then, in keeping with his perception of a convocation as a celebration — of life, of art and of community — he invited College sophomore Caylen Bryant to the stage. Bryant had played her original cello song “To the Mountaintop” at the tribute to Brooks the previous night, which Brooks said truly touched him, and Bryant performed it again at Brooks’s request, followed by an energetic dance performance by Dance Diaspora. “It’s not a holiday,” he’d said earlier, “but you can declare one whenever you want.” And declare a holiday was exactly what Brooks did.

Arts

The Oberlin Review, February 28, 2014

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Soundfarm Show Encircles Listeners with Sound Paris Gravley In Conservatory Central 25, eight small speakers sat in a circle, a modern Stonehenge setup, but with shorter, more expensive stones. A few rows of chairs placed in the middle faced the makeshift stage, which consisted of a couple of tables, a few Macs, a soundboard and a tangled mess of cords. It was Saturday at 8:30 p.m, and Soundfarm, a concert series for improvised music, was hosting its fourth show, titled Circles.

Noise music is arguably one of the least accessible genres out there. Because its creation is rooted in blurring the line between noise and music, an inexperienced listener is at a disadvantage when it comes to the nuances of “good noise.” What differentiates blank static from blank static as music? Add the complication of improvisation, and the listener is further distanced from some sort of grounding measure. Was that change intentional?

Accidental? Or just, well, noise?

The flip side of ignorance is that experience overrides all pre-existing measures of quality. Unlike more traditional genres, noise music isn’t backed up by its listeners’ familiarity with a lifetime of popular music. For people those of us who know nothing about noise, it is a unique experience of “was that in some weird way enjoyable? Or was it not?”

College senior Sally Decker performed first. The piece started off with a call-and-response of static; opposing speakers played similar sequences with varying degrees of delay. The effect was an interweaving mix of synchronization and competition. Because she used different speakers for different sounds, each chair offered a unique listening experience. The relative proximity of each speaker determined the sounds you heard loudest, faintest, or even missed entirely.

Decker’s piece progressed away from the echo-like pattern into more complex variations, adding a quality of static, horizontal movement through the speakers, and some vocals in the form of soft, guttural “awws.” Her piece seemed controlled, gentler and less abrasive than the two that followed. Though it wasn’t cacophonous, the piece itself seemed a little self-conscious, the improvisa-

tions thoughtful but hesitant and less surprising than the other two. Changes eased, rather than crashed, into the mix. When the piece ended, it had reached a soothing note, but perhaps a simple one.

Next up was College senior Jack Patterson, whose piece in many ways contrasted with Decker’s. His mentality seemed to be “more is better,” especially when it came to volume, which was flirting with unbearable. However painful, the extreme dynamic created a deafening cylinder of noise, metaphorically trapping the audience.

The static in Patterson’s music, as opposed to Decker’s old TV snow, was more along the lines of an Amber Alert message. A harsher, higher-frequency texture was combined with dog-whistle tones and something that sounded like a missile dropping. The performance in general ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Unlike more traditional genres, noise music isn’t backed up by its listeners’ familiarity with a lifetime of popular music.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– felt like a full-blown siege, and when Patterson cut the music off abruptly, there was a wave of silent relief with some ear-ringing backlash. His performance, while exciting, was not as enjoyable as Decker’s. Though, to be fair, enjoyable is not always the endgame; violent, messy, abrasive and dense is as equally respectable an effect, but not necessarily what appeals to all listeners.

Following Patterson’s work was the music of doubledegree sophomore Paulus Van Horne. Van Horne’s piece began as a warm texture with a line that vibrated the chairs. The new vibration’s insulating effect distinguished itself from Patterson’s overpowering volume. Patterson’s piece demanded attention simply because it forced itself into the forefront of the brain, jackhammering in from the outside. Van Horne’s piece occupied the same space, but somehow emanated from the inside. The vibration he created, as opposed to the sound Patterson created, was a felt experience, rather than an observed one.

In addition to giving specific attention to the vibrational quality, the piece played with the circular setup of the speakers more than the other two performers. The piece moved systematically through the speakers, horizontally extending as two neighboring speakers played the same tones, and then eventually fading as the previous speaker fell silent to its louder neighbor. As the piece progressed, the playfulness with speaker choice remained constant, but the noticeable pattern diminished.

Running in parallel to the geographic movement was volume. Rather than remaining constant, the piece fluctuated, at times to near silence, then back to Patterson’s fortissimo dynamic. Between the changes in sound and the tonal quality, Van Horne’s piece seemed more structured than the previous two and subsequently more musical. Decker’s piece, though consistent and fluid, lacked the multi-layered complexity of Patterson’s and Van Horne’s, while Patterson’s “give ’em everything we got” approach seemed chaotic and less nuanced.

The show concluded with a collaboration between Van Horne and College senior Adam Hirsch. Hirsch, who organizes the Soundfarm music series, played saxophone, but not in the usual sense. Several microphones had been hooked onto the sax in various locations, picking up on the atypical sounds the instrument’s structure can make. Hirsch utilized the saxophone’s physical qualities: he drummed on the bell, pressed the keys, ran his hand up and down the body. Paired with Van Horne’s noise elements, the piece sounded like a dystopian saxophone solo played by someone unfamiliar with the instrument’s classic use. The piece ran a little long, and Hirsch’s playing definitely overpowered Van Horne’s contribution; at times, it seemed they weren’t working together.

SoundFarm no. 4: Circles introduced surround sound in a novel and surprising way; the performers used the placement of the speakers to their unique advantages.

The performance brought into question noise and its purpose as a performed medium. As for the overall likeability, it’s harder to determine. But if the music was able to develop an alternative understanding of a medium we are unfamiliar with, is how much we like it as important?

Senior Dance Concert Showcases Diversity in Choreography

College senior Jessica Lam descends from above College sophomore Alana Reibstein, College junior Lillian White, College senior Jesse Wiener, College first-year Natalia Shevin and College senior Toby Irving during College senior Hayley Larson’s section of the Senior Dance Concert.

The concert comprised Larson’s and fellow College senior Juliana Garber’s final projects in the Dance department.

Yvette Chen

Vida Weisblum

The Senior Dance Concert this past Friday and Saturday in Warner Main was an absorbing representation of Oberlin’s Dance department. Featuring choreography by two senior Dance majors, the show was a creative production that combined elements of partnering, aerial acrobatics and contact improvisation techniques, demonstrating a broad skill base. The Senior Dance Concert was performed on a modified prosceniumstyle stage, and as with most Oberlin dance shows, the performance was greatly enhanced by the open nature of the venue. The diverse, artistic dances demonstrated the capacity for experimentation in movement

and structure in Oberlin’s Dsance program and thoroughly enthralled the audience.

The opener “dis/connect” was choreographed by veteran performer and choreographer Juliana Garber, College senior, who most recently performed in the 2013 Fall Forward concert. Garber opened the piece with a fluid solo that harnessed a sense of suspension and contraction, a theme that she continued throughout the piece. Along with the other six dancers in the piece, Garber generated harmonic movement that was both inventive and truly beautiful. Each of the dancers moved with strong clarity — even their facial expressions evinced their engagement with the choreography. College senior Elaine

Liu’s mid-dance entrance was particularly striking, adding another level of dimension to the dance. College juniors Christopher McLauchlan and Madeline Klein’s sheer strength as fully engaged dancers was similarly beautiful. They effortlessly connected with Garber’s choreography, and both demonstrated an acute awareness of bodily suspense and release — in other words, “dis/connecting.” Garber’s utilization of the famed Oberlin contact improvisation technique captured the ephemeral nature of connection and disconnection through the imagery of weight transfer and partnering. Additionally, her costume and lighting choices demonstrated a particularly mellow elegance, though the music was distracting at times.

In keeping with the name of her piece, Garber seemed to have a personal connection with her dance. The dancers had their own moments on stage to interpret Garber’s choreography, but Garber also had solos that captured her personal intent as a dancer. This interesting choreographic choice evoked feelings of reflection and separation, fitting for a final project performed not long before its creator will disconnect physically from Oberlin.

While Garber’s piece offered a more traditional and streamlined reflection on her Oberlin dance experience, College senior Hayley Larson’s piece “Compress, Release” was more experimental, filled with quirky flair and presentational elements. The overall impression of Larson’s performance was less of a pure dance performance and more an intense hybrid of contemporary dance and Cirque du Soleil, a comparison aided by the use of extreme makeup and tight black costumes.

While the piece was slightly disjointed, the disjointedness was generally entertaining and for the most part worked to

the dance’s advantage. At times, the title seemed particularly appropriate. The opening solo focused on contrasting the elasticity of back-and-forth movement with the tension of stillness. While the dance began as a cohesive piece with a relatively small group, the addition of several other dancers created a sense of chaos on stage. The choreography was crafted with a clear sense of style and plenty of innovation, but lost some of its elegance due to the disorder caused by the amount of dancers onstage.

Larson’s use of aerial work was also intriguing. The incorporation of another art form was brave and exciting, especially in the context of such a complex, multidimensional dance. While many exciting aerialist performances take place at Oberlin, this particular experience was unique.

While the incorporation of aerialist work was creatively choreographed and wellexecuted, at times the acrobatic silk routine struggled to mesh with the contemporary elements of the dance. Fortunately, this slight disjunction was redeemed by the originality and excitement otherwise demonstrated in the aerial segments.

The Senior Dance Concert should serve as an inspiration to all current and aspiring dancers. The innovation of movement, commingling of art forms and choreography were exceptional, and the show was elevated by the investment and engagement of the dancers. During one of the most memorable moments of Larson’s piece, College sophomore Sakina Lavingia stood at the front of a large group of dancers, her eyes radiating a ferocity that was indicative of the sheer joy that dance at Oberlin brings to all involved — not only in Garber’s and Larson’s pieces, but in the program as a whole.

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Benefit Concert to Fund Anti-Frackers Erik Larson Smelling like a sweaty stoner and packed to the absolute limit, Harkness lounge was a lively and appropriate venue for last Friday’s Folk the Pipeline concert, presented by Oberlin College Anti-Frack.

Both a benefit concert and a terrific showcase of student talent, the two-hour concert was a generally fantastic time, no matter how you felt about fracking.

The issues at hand were twofold: raising money to cover the cost of fines for those attending a protest in D.C. this weekend against the proposed Keystone pipeline, and providing relief to the Charleston area of West Virginia, which recently suffered a chemical spill. With the funds raised — over $600 — OC Anti-Frack has enough money to cover the cost of sending one or two people to the protest. The rest of the money will go to Radical Action for Mountain People’s Survival, a non-profit with a strong anti-coal stance that is currently working with local volunteers to help solve the West Virginia water crisis.

According to concert organizer College sophomore Daniel Goering, RAMPS and OC Anti-Frack have a strong working relationship; Oberlin students have traveled to West Virginia to protest in the past, while RAMPS has brought speakers to campus.

The Appalachian, crunchy-granola spirit of the benefit extended to the rest of the concert, which shone with an earnest, See Folk, page 13

The Oberlin Review, February 28, 2014

Experimental Recital Juxtaposes Flute, Sax Anne Pride-Wilt Arts Editor This past Tuesday night, Stull Recital Hall — the performance space that protrudes from the top of Bibbins Hall — was brightly illuminated and visible from the ground below.

Few realized, however, that inside was an absorbing guest recital performed by three immensely talented musicians, two of them alumni. Headlined by flutist Élise Roy, OC ’09, and saxophonist Matthew Younglove and featuring three compositions by Kurt Isaacson, OC ’09, the experimental recital combined classical instrumentation with innovative musicality and electronic modulation for a fascinating performance.

The recital began with no introduction. Roy stepped quietly behind her multiple music stands and raised her flute for bokeh, composed by Isaacson in 2009. The experimental nature of the composition immediately became clear as Roy whistled and blew into her flute with no discernible patterns of rhythm or pitch. Already idiosyncratic, the piece’s strangeness was heightened when Roy’s solo flute was manipulated and looped such that while attendees saw only one performer, they heard three or four playing at once.

The speakers in the concert hall added depth to the sound, throwing it around the room and creating the illusion of ghost performers positioned around the stage. Toward the end of the piece, Roy held her mouth away from the flute and vocalized steadily, mimicking what she had just been playing on her flute. The effect was unexpected, eerie and disorienting in the way only experimental music can be, but also completely mesmerizing.

The second piece, Inflorescence IV, was composed by Assistant Professor of Composition Josh Levine and performed

by Roy and Gabrielle Roderer on flute. Although played with a similar multiplying effect as the opening piece, it required even more coordination, as the flutists had to synchronize with each other. Roy and Roderer had no rhythmic cues they could use to coordinate their playing, so they had to pay close attention to what the other was doing. The pair’s odd, jerky movements complemented the music, although it was unclear whether they were intentional.

Roy returned to the stage solo for the third piece, a performance of composer Brian Ferneyhough’s 1970 work Cassandra’s Dream Song. Roy reached her apex in this performance, handling the notoriously complicated score with apparent ease. Cassandra’s Dream Song is more nightmare than dream, and Roy conveyed this unnerving quality masterfully. At times, Roy tapped on her flute for makeshift percussion, emphasizing the unorthodox use of instruments that characterized the whole recital.

The evening’s other headliner, Younglove on saxophone, finally joined Roy for the fourth piece, Isaacson’s color boundaries and plastic action / red ground behind your eyelids. Roy switched to piccolo for this piece to better contrast with the deeper range of the saxophone. Much like the flute during the rest of the recital, Younglove’s saxophone often sounded little like the traditional conception of the instrument, only occasionally breaking loose with the saxophone’s characteristic brassiness. Instead, Younglove played with more restraint — except during the recurring sections, when he blasted the sax like a jarring fire alarm, a blaring sound over which Roy’s piccolo danced lightly to create a strange, pleasant counterpoint.

For the recital’s closing piece, Younglove returned for a solo rendition of Isaacson’s shreds of dirty gray assembled in a hurry, disdained by the moon. This piece recalled bokeh keenly, as it also employed plenty of electronic modulation.

Younglove used a pedal on the floor to manipulate the sound while he played his saxophone. While the piece was comparatively less interesting that the rest of the program and a solo by Younglove was an odd choice to end a recital so dependent on Roy, the bookend quality of bokeh and the closer satisfied overall.

Experimental music can be polarizing, but the talented Roy, Younglove and Roderer were able to perform so mesmerizingly that even proponents of more traditional music couldn’t fail to be sucked in. While the aesthetics may be endlessly debated, the talent onstage was certain, and the difficulty of the night’s selections only accentuated displays of that talent. Stull Recital Hall is an intimate space that makes a recital like last Tuesday’s even more intense — just a few gifted performers and their strange, stunning music.

On the Record: Claire Morton and Elise Moltz, Collaborative Art Organizers Conservatory junior Elise Moltz and College seniors Sally Decker and Claire Morton joined forces last semester to help put on a collaborative art presentation titled ZOO. They’re back in the collaborative art game this semester, but fans of ZOO can expect to see a few changes.

Though Sally wasn’t present, the Review sat down with Claire and Elise on Tuesday afternoon for coffee and a discussion on the importance of collaborative arts in the Oberlin community.

What is your project and how did it get started?

Elise Moltz: Last semester, [double-degree senior Sam Phillips-Corwin] and I wanted to have an event that would help pull different artists together [so they could] meet people they wouldn’t have otherwise and have a venue for multimedia collaborations. … There are a lot of music concerts that happen and art gallery showings that happen around campus — we wanted something where everything was combined in a different type of space.

What’s the goal of these collaborative projects? What do you think they add to the art scene here versus other types of projects?

Claire Morton: I was just a participant [in ZOO] last semester and just took on the leadership role. So for me, as a participant, it was a really unprecedented way for me to meet other people, and I think that the group of people that actually came to the event were people that I would have never … seen at a gallery opening, and I think vice versa. There were probably some people in the Conservatory who participated in the event who met people in the College they would have never been introduced to. Also, I think it’s a unique opportunity … having a ton of different installations or performance-based works in the same place at the same time. There are a lot

of events where there are discrete pieces that are happening but not really all at once, so it was a really interesting mesh of all these things happening.

EM: We sort of wanted it to be a little bit mystical, a little bit strange. I mean, you walk into this space, and you’re not really sure what’s happening … and you’ve never really been to an event like it. But everywhere you go there’s art, and everywhere you look there’s something different. I think it made people really curious and really excited to be in a different space like that. And also getting all of these people together who might not have met each other, I think it really allows for bigger projects to happen. Because musicians know other musicians and can make really big pieces of music, and visual artists know other visual artists and can make large pieces of visual work. But when they get together you can make something that can really get at a concept, get at an aesthetic in all of these different directions, and that really makes a much larger and hopefully more meaningful project.

Claire, you mentioned that you were a participant in ZOO last semester. What made you want to step up your role?

CM: Elise approached me after the event, mainly because … she wanted to have representatives from all the different sources or media that could help lead the event. So I’m representing the Art department more so, whereas [Elise is] representing the Conservatory, and Sally is representing Creative Writing or more academic departments. It was also just to take the stress off of [Elise] because it was a kind of crazy, huge thing to organize. So it was just more people involved.

EM: Especially because we have about twice as many artists as last year … I think people knew more about it this semester and were excited about seeing it again, so we have

From left, College seniors Sally Decker and Claire Morton and Conservatory junior Elise Moltz scout out a potential location for an as-yet-unnamed collaborative art project. Last semester, the trio worked on ZOO, a similar project on which they hope to improve this semester with more artists and a unifying theme.

Courtesy of Delwin Campbell

a lot more participation. A lot more people to organize.

Is there anything you want to share with artists who might be interested in getting involved?

EM: Because we’re just starting, we’re not closed off to having artists join us … They can feel free to contact us if they’re interested in joining because we’re still sort of in that stage of things … I’d also like to say that this is something that we feel really benefits the artists — everyone gets really excited about it, people get to explore things they wouldn’t have otherwise, and we definitely want to see it continue after all of us have left.

Are you all graduating this spring?

CM: I’m graduating.

EM: And Sally is. I’ll be here another year, so I really want to continue [these events with] younger people and possibly have this become some organization that can become chartered.

CM: If anything, I also think it’s really important for dialogue, it starts dialogue between students. Even if it doesn’t continue, it’s a way to make things happen, make people start thinking of ways of coming together.

Interview by Nora Kipnis Arts editor

The Oberlin Review, February 28, 2014

Arts

Page 13

Folk Show Funds Anti-Frack Electronic Improv Group Joins Forces Protest, Chemical Spill Relief with Oberlin’s Real Boy Digital Continued from page 12

captive throughout his entire set.

His covers were slightly less enticing, however, mainly because the lyrics and the music didn’t work together as perfectly as they had in the first two songs.

This slight dip in the evening’s energy paved the way for what was arguably the high point of the night, the three-piece folk outfit The Dads, made up of College sophomore Alex Chalmers on guitar and vocals, double-degree sophomore Amy Jackson-Smith also singing, and College sophomore tambourine player Josh Harlow. The band performed folk hits of yesteryear with such energy and gusto that the whole of the lounge was bursting with dancing and the echoes of people singing along. While Harlow was frequently overzealous, going for crazy rhythms and wild rolls when the music –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– demanded simplicity, it did little to dull the band’s overall effect, especially durThe Appalachian, crunchy-graing their amazing cover of “Bow Down nola spirit of the benefit extend- and Die” by The Almighty Defenders.

Here, a spell seemed to come over the ed to the rest of the concert, room, and people sng their hearts out which shone with an earnest, as the band played the chorus over and over, building until the excitement in the laid-back and, at times, actually room felt like it was going to explode.

Appalachian vibe.

The last two bands brought the ex–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– citement down a notch to usher in a hushed and relaxed tone for the final and excellent melodies. He closed with a sets, playing more down-to-earth folky song he wrote as his Winter Term proj- tunes. College senior Tom Rathe played ect, called “The Shining Palace Built on the first set, an around-the-fireplace the Sand.” Although its global warming style performance that left the tired and warning started off cliché, it quickly hit tipsy crowd drifting back and forth in its stride and continued building until their seats, lulled into a comfortable pilits unexpectedly moving climax. Arp was low of depressing tunes. Following him a hard act to follow, so it was a refresh- was a two-piece band featuring College ing relief when the next performer — the senior Haley Schurman on banjo and banjo-playing College sophomore Mattis Austin Meyers on guitar, closing out the Deutch, aka Matches — took things in an night with a more impressionistic style entirely different direction. of folk, their slightly discordant voices Deutch played two Appalachian folk painting a psychedelic picture. They songs and two Dirty Projectors songs. The were interesting, although unfortunately first pair brought a fascinating change burdened by the final slot, as the concert of pace, with the hypnotizing twangs had stretched to the two-hour mark by of the banjo contrasting intensely with the time they began. Many people left beDeutch’s high-pitched voice to create a fore the set. Those who stayed, however, transformative soundscape straight out were treated to one final experiment in a of old-time Appalachia. With the crowd night full of absolutely wonderful music. swaying gently, Deutch kept his audience laid-back and, at times, actually Appalachian vibe. For an Anti-Frack concert, there was little sermonizing and only one or two songs about environmental disaster or impending doom. The rest of the concert was a constant reminder of the abundant talent of Oberlin’s student body, as each performance improved upon the last and frequently provided better material than the songs on which they were based. The performances started with double-degree first-year Hayden Arp, a singer-songwriter who had a deft hand with the acoustic guitar and fantastic set of vocal cords. He started with a few covers before delving into his own material, which impressed with poetic songwriting

Continued from page 10 so the trio played on, trying different riffs, playing with the bass and layering traditional jazz and pop melodies with experimental, atonal lines. The three had great chemistry and obviously felt comfortable with each other as they shared a giggle onstage or reached past each other’s arms to mess with the soundboard. When they especially enjoyed a line they were creating, huge smiles broke out across their faces and their whole bodies pulsed along to the music.

Toward the beginning of the show, the audience shared the band’s excitement. However, little by little, the band’s repetitive, experimental sounds drove many from the dance floor.

A loyal handful of dancers and listeners remained until the end of the show, and those lucky few received the benefit of experiencing the array of visuals presented by double-degree seniors Charlie Abbott and Devin Frenze, which ended up being an understated highlight of the show.

Abbott’s and Frenze’s visuals included a diverse array of shapes, colors and themes, which often appeared in the form of a kaleidoscope of morphing crystals. “If it’s not weird, you can hit me in the face,” Abbott said jokingly before the show. It was definitely weird, but the interactions of the graphics with the music and the constant additions of new material kept the visuals fresh and enthralling.

Abbott and Frenze are members of Real Boy Digital, an artist collective founded in 2013 by Conservatory senior Myles Emmons to enable collaboration between artists to put on shows that feature projection and video art alongside other media. Recently, the group started looking for more professional collaborations, and Abbott was excited to work with Archie Pelago. “I met them [the night before the show] and showed them some of my work, and they put us on the show. I’m also a big fan of their music and especially their style of performance (with saxophone, cello and electronics), and I was super excited to play with them,” he said in an email.

The collective members use a programming language called Jitter to create the visuals. The different visual themes exist on different systems called patches, and Abbott and Frenze control how the objects in each patch interact with each other. During a show, the performers move through the patch, and their path determines how the visuals appear on the screen. Abbott described the movement through the patch as “flying through space,” traveling through a video game or playing a “visual instrument.” Said Abbott, “I like to think of [it] as an amalgamation of all three of those ideas.”

The originality and improvisational quality of the Real Boy Digital visuals made them the perfect accompaniment for Archie Pelago, which renders its songs uniquely at each performance.

The graphics shed light on the music, but also could have easily stood alone. Although many audience members didn’t stay for the chaotic, experimental sound, they should have stayed, if only for Real Boy Digital’s work.

Sports

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IN THE LOCKER ROOM

The Oberlin Review, February 28, 2014

Phoebe Hammer and Simone Brodner

This week the Review sat down with senior women’s lacrosse captains Phoebe Hammer and Simone Brodner to discuss how the team has changed over the years, what it’s like to be seniors and how they feel about Kenyon College’s mascot.

hard, but at the same time we’re realizing that we’re the new core.

What are the best and worst parts about being on the lacrosse team?

SB: Playing lacrosse is a really unique opportunity. It’s cool to realize [that] I got to participate in NCAA competition, I got to play sports and I had all these wild experiences that a lot of people never had. The worst part has been a lot of psychological pressure to perform, especially with our last coach.

What are your expectations for this season?

Simone Brodner: I think this is the best we’ve ever looked at this time in my years here — and it is hard to say because we don’t know how other teams in our conference have been preparing — but I feel really good about our upcoming games. We have a lot of new talent, and I think our new coach is doing a really good job.

Phoebe Hammer: It’s great, because this year no one sucks. There’s not that person that when they go in, you’re like, ‘OK, we’re going to lose.’ Everyone’s really good. We have a lot of depth.

What are some ways you’d like to improve on last season?

PH: We’re such a completely different team than last season. Less than half of us were on the team last year. We have nine new freshmen, a brand-new coach and a brand-new assistant. Completely different offense, completely different defense.

I don’t think you can even compare it, except that we’re going to be way better.

This is your first season with Lynda McCandlish. How are things going to be different under her watch?

SB: She has high expectations, but she’s really clear about them. She sets the bar high because she’s accustomed to a high level of play, but

Phoebe Hammer and Simone Brodner she’s very reasonable. The kinds of drills that she runs all seem to really make sense in terms of game play.

She’s also just a cool person, and I think it’s easy for us to relate to her.

PH: Well first of all, she’s not a crazy psycho, which is awesome. She has a great balance between being a great coach and really pushing us, but also knowing that we’re humans and that we also have a life outside of lacrosse. She went to Northwestern [University] too; she’s a badass.

Her stick skills are so good, we just like watching her play sometimes.

How has the team changed during your four years at Oberlin?

PH: We’ve had five different assistant coaches and three different head coaches since we’ve been here.

Every time it happens, a coach has a completely different system. Lacrosse here has been such a battle, emotionally and physically. Every semester was a new surprise. We’re

really lucky in that we have a good core of seniors that have all pushed through, and we’ve all been through it together.

What’s it like being seniors and team captains?

SB: It’s really cool. It’s definitely an honor, and the best part about it is that it’s an opportunity to influence the culture of the team and keep it the way that it’s been. I’ve always felt a huge sense of support, and the loving nature of the team has always been really positive and a really great experience. It’s nice to be able to keep that going and do the things that seniors in the past have done for me for this year’s freshmen.

PH: I just remember looking up to the seniors when I was a freshman and thinking, they knew so much about Oberlin, with lacrosse and with life. For both of us, being a captain some of it is on the field, but 90 percent of it is being there for our

teammates. Some of the freshmen say they’re scared of me, but they’re not. I’m the least scary person.

How are the first-years looking thus far?

SB: I really like all of them as people, and it’s been a ton of fun getting to know them.

PH: They’re just great and they’re all really good lacrosse players. All of our freshmen are really good — better than me, basically. I’m like, ‘Holy crap, I need to get my act together so I can still start.’

Is it difficult watching teammates and friends graduate? Do you ever feel like something is missing at the beginning of the season?

PH: I think everyone’s core is the first team they played with coming in as a freshman. The class above us was a big class and were some of our best friends, so it’s definitely been

PH: Worst part is that I’ve been to about two TGIFs in my life because we always have practice from 4:30 to 6:30 when the weather is nice. The happiest day of my life at Oberlin is the day that we beat Allegheny [College], my sophomore year. I really felt that I was a part of something that was bigger than myself.

Which game are you most excited for, and who is your biggest rival?

PH: I think all of us have a different biggest rival. For the senior class, I think it’s Kenyon [College], because we’ve come so close to beating them for the last three years. We’re not Kenyon’s biggest rival; they think we’re a joke a little bit. That’s why it’s going to be even better when we beat them. Whose mascot is the Ladies, anyway?

SB: Beating Kenyon would be awesome. I’m also looking forward to my senior day game. I’m going to cry.

Internew by Nate Levinson, Sports editor Photo by Zach Harvey

— Men’s Basketball —

Yeomen Season Ends with Loss to Wooster Michaela Puterbaugh The men’s basketball team ended its season in the first round of the playoffs with a 89-56 loss against The College of Wooster Fighting Scots. The win advances the Scots to the next round of the North Coast Athletic Conference playoffs.

The season ending loss was the Yeomen’s third consecutive defeat in a stretch that included a 63–90 loss on senior night to the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops.

“I just wish we could have gotten off to a little better start, especially for the seniors.

It would have been nice for them to walk off the court after our first sub and feel a little bit better about how that started,” said Head Coach Isaiah Cavaco.

For seniors Geoff Simpson, Trey Levy, Emmanuel Lewis and Derrick Sant, the loss was especially disappointing, as it was their last time playing on their home court. Fortunately, Simpson and Lewis ended their careers on a high note, as they both scored in double figures — scoring 19 and 11 points, respectively.

While reflecting back on the loss, Simpson agreed with his coach. “It’s tough to go down by so much at the beginning of the game and have to fight back.”

The Yeomen also struggled against Wooster during their last regular season game. Although Oberlin took the lead early in the game, the Scots seized control and kept

their double-digit lead for the remainder of the contest.

“We turned the ball over too much, and we just didn’t make our open shots. We got the looks we wanted, but we just didn’t make them work,” said first-year Jack Poyle, who led the team with 14 points.

However, Saturday’s loss provided an opportunity for the Yeomen to make adjustments before they played the Scots again on Tuesday in the opening night of the playoffs.

“I felt good going into Tuesday’s game.

It helps having played them Saturday. We thought we had a good feel for what they wanted to do and what we needed to do to win,” Simpson said.

Specifically, Cavaco said that the team needed to handle exchanges more effectively.

However, despite the team’s strategy, the Yeomen came up short. The team fought to tie the game at 9–9 in the early going, and then to maintain a single digit-deficit early in the game, but Wooster pulled ahead in the second half.

Although these past games have been unsuccessful for the Yeomen, Simpson was excited to be named NCAC player of the week for Feb. 17. In addition to his NCAC accolades, Simpson secured a spot in Oberlin history as the 11th all-time scorer, with 1,255 career points.

“Being named player of the week was a great honor, as is my spot on the scoring

list. I attribute it to the great opportunities I’ve had at Oberlin and all the hard work I’ve put in over the course of my career,” Simpson said.

The Yeomen ended their season with a record of 7–19 and 4–14 in the conference.

Despite losing a talented group of seniors, Coach Cavaco has high hopes for next season.

“I look forward to our young guys [who] have played a lot of minutes coming back with a better understanding of what it takes to win, not just be on the court.

Obviously Geoff and EJ graduating is going to leave a big hole, but I am excited to see who’s going to step up and be the next guy [to] fill those spots.”

Senior guard Geoff Simpson drives to the hoop against Ohio Wesleyan University. The Yeomen finished their season with a 7–19 record.

Lilly Day

Sports

The Oberlin Review, Febrary 28, 2014

Page 15

— Women’s Basketball —

Yeowomen Fall to Bishops in Season Finale Grace Barlow In the coming months, Philips gym will be a lot quieter without the noise of cheering basketball fans. The Yeowomen ended their season Tuesday night after a tough fight against Ohio Wesleyan University in the first round of the North Coast Athletic Conference tournament. The loss to OWU came after two hard-fought battles against Ohio Wesleyan and the Wittenberg University Tigers in the final leg of their regular conference season.

Oberlin entered their final regular season game against the Tigers hungry for a victory. A win would have given them a total of ten victories, a record the Yeowomen have not seen since 2004.

With 11 minutes and 50 seconds left in the game, the Yeowomen reduced the Tigers’ lead to a mere six points at 52–58. However, the Tigers powered through and added 20 points on the board to seal the victory for Wittenberg.

Sophomore Lindsey Bernhardt led the Yeowomen with 19 points throughout the game. The loss against the Tigers left the team at 9–17 overall and 4–12 in the conference, the same result as the 2012-2013 season.

However, their conference record didn’t dampen the Yeowomen’s spirits as they entered Tuesday night’s game against the Battling Bishops.

“When it comes to the conference tournament, records go out the window. Everyone is 0–0. The name of the game is to survive and advance,” said Head Coach Kerry Jenkins.

The team carried the 0–0 mentality into the quarterfinals of the conference tournament, where they started off with an impressive 8–0 lead against Ohio Wesleyan. The Yeowomen

trailed by just two points as the team entered the locker room at halftime.

Junior Christina Marquette added an impressive 21 points and 17 rebounds, while Bernhardt lead the team again with 23 points. Ultimately, the Yeowomen fell to Ohio Wesleyan University 81–72.

Despite maintaining last season’s record, sophomore Caroline Hamilton suggested that there was improvement this season.

“The win column doesn’t do us justice; we’ve been competitive in every single game,” said Hamilton, who finished the season with a total of 111 points.

Hamilton believes that the Yeowomen’s competitive edge stems from the team’s new attitude.

“Every person genuinely wanted to get better,” she said. “Oberlin is no longer the team that other teams look at as a definite win.”

Bernhardt is looking forward to the team’s success in future seasons.

“We have eight returners and some very talented freshmen,” said the sophomore, who finished the season with 361 points. “It looks like we have a very bright future ahead of us.”

While the team is losing three seniors — Allison Gannon, Lillian Jahan and Malisa Hoak — it is will look to first-year Eleanor Van Buren and sophomores Katie Lucaites and Caitlyn Grubb to fill their shoes. Both Lucaites and Grubb have been out this season due to injuries, so their return from the bench next season will be a welcome one.

Jahan, who contributed 17 points in Tuesday’s loss, felt that, despite the score, the Yeowomen stayed competitive until the final buzzer. “Our final game was an unforgettable end to an incredible four years.”

Sophomore guard Lindsey Bernhardt flies past a defender in the game against Ohio Wesleyan University. Bernhardt scored 23 points in a season-ending NCAC quarterfinals loss.

Courtesy of Erk Andrews

—Men’s Tennis —

Tennis Attempts to Bounce Back from Rough Loss to Cleveland State Sloane Garelick The past two weeks have left the men’s tennis team with two big home wins and two sound defeats on the road. Last Thursday, the Yeomen shut out the Heidelberg University Student Princes at home, winning 9–0.

“I think we played at a much higher level than we had been playing and the matchups were in our favor, so a lot of the matches went our way,” said Head Coach Eric Ishida.

There were all-around great performances from each player in both the doubles and singles play.

The Yeomen were dominant in their doubles matches. At the #1 spot, sophomore Callan Louis and senior Charlie Marks won 8–2. The first-year dynamic duo of Ian Paik and Abraham Davis earned an 8–3 win at No. 2. Paik and Davis each won individually as well, Paik with a 6–0 and 6–1 defeat of Benjamin Moore at No. 3, and Davis with a 6–0 and 6–0 victory over Tyler Flickinger at No. 4. Both Paik and Davis have now won five of their last six matches.

“I think it’s important to go into every match with intensity. When you get to harder matches you’re mentally prepared in the same way, and you just go out there and play with the same intensity,” said Davis.

Intensity was exactly what Coach Ishida hoped to see from the Yeomen in their battle against Heidelberg.

“In that match we knew that we were favored to win, but we actually had a few team goals set to focus on,” said Ishida. “We wanted to attack second serves and we wanted to appear at net more than a typical match, which allowed us to play an aggressive game and really kept the guys humbled, grounded and focused.”

Other triumphs from the Heidelberg match included sophomore Brandon McKenna’s 6–1 and 6–2 victory over Dan Driscoll at No. 6 and first– year Lucas Brown’s 6–2 and 6–3 win over Matt McDivitt at No. 5.

“I was happy with how we did overall, taking care of Heidelberg and getting both Brandon and Lucas their first wins of the season,” said Paik.

Ishida and the Yeomen hoped to carry this same level of performance into the match against the Division I Vikings of Cleveland State University last Sunday. Although the Yeomen came up short with a loss of 0–7, Ishida was pleased with how the team performed.

“We wanted to test our doubles and see what our volleying level and net play was. We also wanted to see if we could sustain long rallies with them,” said Ishida. “I think we struggled with it, but we were trying to do the right things and I was very happy with the result.”

The players also recognized their overall accomplishments despite the difficult matchup against Cleveland State. “I was happy with the way we competed. We kept our intensity up even through the more one-sided matches,” said Paik.

“When someone is that good and pushes you, you realize things you need to work on and things you mentally need to do to compete a little bit better in the matches,” said Davis.

With these two matches behind them, the Yeomen look to the rest of the season, and their upcoming match against the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops on March 8. The Bishops defeated the Yeomen 4–5 in the conference tournament last year, so this will be an especially significant game for returning players and Ishida.

“I think we need to focus on just being intense and making sure that we’re outworking our opponents.

And if we do that then we’ll be successful,” said Ishida.

The Yeomen are now 4–2 for the spring season and are looking ahead with high expectations and goals.

“We can take the experience of playing Heidelberg to help keep our intensity up through all of our other matches, including the upcoming Ohio Wesleyan match,” said Paik. “I think our team is heading in the right direction and isn’t that far off from the top programs in the region and nation.”

Editorial: Barbie’s Plastic Perfection Is Not the Ideal Continued from page 16

models. For instance, Alex Morgan is one of my favorite soccer players on the United States Women’s National Team, and her photo spread in this year’s swimsuit edition did not prompt me to discredit her abilities on the pitch.

But Barbie is not Alex Morgan, who is a living and breathing human and has proven to be a positive role model for many young, aspiring soccer players. Unlike the cover’s false heroine, Morgan started playing club soccer when she was 14 years old, much later than most elite soccer players, and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley a semester early with a degree in political economy. While she may not have as extensive a résumé as Barbie, Morgan has imparted more valuable lessons to young athletes than the doll who beat her out for the cover — something Sports Illustrated should have considered when it dedicated its highly visible swimsuit edition cover to a physiological anomaly.

Barbie has no physical flaws. She has long legs, sculpted arms and an even tan. Her makeup and hair are always done, and her outfits always match. She is a toy with an unrealistic body, not a role model. Nicole Rodgers, editor-in-chief of Role/Reboot, an online magazine that focuses on gender roles, said it best: “Featuring a plastic doll as an object of admiration and desire feels like a slap in the face.”

Humans are not plastic. Young girls should not look at Barbie on the cover of Sports Illustrated and aspire to achieve her unattainable paradigm of perfection. The swimsuit issue has come under fire for promoting unrealistic standards of beauty, but featuring a toy on the cover is one step too far.

Not only is this unhealthy because it is impossible, but also because beauty comes in many less boring forms. Barbie’s “perfect” body is modeled after one specific standard of beauty that we should not all strive to achieve. Instead of epitomizing Barbie’s traditional and fake beauty, Sports Illustrated should move towards celebrating the various incarnations of beauty.

Sports The Oberlin Review

With eight days until the season officially commences, the women’s lacrosse team is busy preparing for its upcoming attempt at a conference title.

The Yeowomen welcome nine rookies this year alongside new head coach Lynda McCandlish and new assistant coach Rosie Knisley.

Included in the group of first-years are influential newcomers Alexa L’Insalata and Sara Phister.

The two fill important gaps in the roster as key goalkeeper and skilled drawer respectively. Junior co-captain Kate Hanick believes that this will add a much-needed depth to the already talented roster.

“We have a really good goalie this year and a solid defense. I think that all the gaps have been filled with strong underclassmen. Phister also wins draws every time. I’m really excited to see it all come together during games,” Hanick said.

L’Insalata comes in with a wide breadth of experience, including accolades from high school, such

as leading her team to a conference championship as senior captain and earning the title of an Academic All-American the same year.

“It’s nice because we are all in the same boat,” said L’Insalata regarding her fellow first-year teammates. “We are all looking forward to our first collegiate game, but there are a lot of nerves that go with that.”

Phister, a native of Phoenix, AZ, also enters her first season with a handful of accomplishments under her belt. A two-time Academic All-American and U.S. Lacrosse Jackie Pitts Award winner, Phister graduated high school with over 200 goals to her name. She will add an edge to the Yeowomen’s attack this spring.

“I am so excited to continue learning from my coaches and teammates. I have never learned so much about the game in such a small period of time,” she said.

Phister attributes her new knowledge of the game to McCandlish’s tremendous coaching experience and her ability to build teams with winning records. During her tenure as a collegiate lacrosse

Junior midfielder Kate Hanick sprints down the field during a 2013 game. The Yeowomen open their season on the road against Otterbein University on March 8.

Courtesy of Erik Andrews

player at Northwestern University, McCandlish helped lead her team to an NCAA title in 2005 and 2006. She was part of the most successful women’s lacrosse program in school history at the time of her graduation. Since then, she has successfully coached several different lacrosse programs, including her own high school’s team.

“Playing lacrosse at Northwestern was an incredible experience. I’m hoping to bring a lot of what I learned there to Oberlin. Part of our success at NU was due to our work ethic, positive mindset and risk-taking on the field. We’re trying to build our program around those same values,” McCandlish said.

With her winning record and strong coaching techniques, Hanick believes that McCandlish will continue to contribute new coaching techniques and styles that will ultimately improve the quality of play for the women’s lacrosse team. She appreciates McCandlish’s low-key attitude and believes that her coaching style makes the team want to work hard.

Hanick, a veteran Yeowoman, will enter her penultimate season with two strong years behind her. In 2012, Hanick earned her spot on the AllConference Honorable Selection roster and added 14 goals for the team last season. Hanick remains a force for the Yeowomen and foresees even more success for the Yeowomen with a young and talented roster this spring.

She will co-captain with three members of the graduating class: Phoebe Hammer, Simone Brodner and Sarah Orbuch. The Yeowomen, who held a 4–11 record last season, are hoping to clinch a conference title this year and make their way to the NCAA tournament.

The first non-conference game of the season will be held in Westerville, OH, against Otterbein University Saturday, March 8. The Yeowomen will kick off official North Coast Athletic Conference play against long-time rival Kenyon College at home Saturday, March 21.

“It’s our goal to be a contender in our conference tournament this year,” McCandlish said. “We have a very athletic, deep pool of talent on our team. If we stay healthy, focused and positive, I think we can surprise some teams this year and compete with any team in our conference.”

— Women’s Frisbee —

Preying Manti Kick It Into High Gear Before First Tournament Sarena Malsin

“There’s a spread of ability, but that’s good — it bodes well for the program if we can keep all types of players coming in,” Fulton added. “It astounds me how into it people get and how excited they are to come to practice and learn. That’s what we really like to see.”

The new setup doesn’t change the Manti’s constant goal of cohesion. “We’re working on getting to know everyone’s playing style, to know what everyone’s capable of,” said senior captain and Review Production Manager Rosie Black. “To do that, we want all players to be as committed as possible.”

Even with the advent of split practices, the Manti will continue to have practices with both teams to “keep the cohesive Manti unit together,” according to Reach.

The Manti look forward to their Nashville tournament and

two tournaments over spring break in Southsboro, GA, and Princeton, NJ, both of which will host the teams for the first time.

The teams are anxious to return to Nationals, and the Manti’s captains are ready to put in the work to make that goal a reality.

“We’re going to try things we haven’t done to surprise teams we’ve played a lot before,” said Black.

Before Nationals, the Manti are looking to take on every challenge as a team; including its tournament–heavy season.

“You grow [as a team] so much in one tournament, as opposed to one month of practice,” said Fulton.

“I’m excited about just getting out on the field — nothing is better than going outside and having the whole field in front of you and six of your fellow Manti on the line beside you,” Blenko said.

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, the magazine is going plastic. Last week, Mattel and Sports Illustrated announced that they’d collaborate to put Barbie on the cover and place a fourpage advertising feature inside the magazine. Their campaign is titled Barbie #Unapologetic.

Mattel dubbed the campaign #Unapologetic after Sports Illustrated received criticism for featuring an inanimate object on its cover. Barbie is “unapologetic” for her star-studded life, which began in 1959.

Since her creation, Barbie has worked hundreds of jobs — from paratrooper to ambassador for world peace and from princess to hairdresser to McDonald’s cashier. Now, she can add Sports Illustrated swimsuit model to her résumé.

While Mattel claims that this campaign “gives Barbie and her fellow legends an opportunity to own who they are and celebrate what they have done,” when I see a doll in a swimsuit, with perfectly formed boobs to match an impeccably sculpted butt, I wonder what workout routine she follows.

The idea that there is a plastic toy pictured on the cover of SI is a little creepy, but at least there was no complaining at the photo shoot. Swimsuit Issue fans can also sleep soundly knowing that Barbie’s photos were not retouched. The amazon is as perfect on camera as she is in real life.

Although I have never been a huge fan of Sports Illustrated or its Swimsuit Issue, I’ve never taken issue with its choice of See Editorial, page 15

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The Preying Manti women’s Ultimate Frisbee team has split into two teams this spring, but both teams are tirelessly preparing for their first tournament, Music City Mash-Up in Nashville, TN, on March 8-9, with weekly lifting and track practices.

The A and B teams saw mixed success last year, in part because the Manti could not fill both rosters. But with many first-years joining the team this fall, the Manti now boast a roster with 30 players, plenty to fill both teams.

“The optimal team number is 14 to 15; 30 people do not get to play as much as they want to,” said sophomore Jessica Hubert.

Sophomore A-Team captain Allison Fulton said she prefers the two-team format. “It’s hard to take 30 people to a tourna-

ment and not have everyone play — that means not everyone is growing as players,” she said.

Junior B-Team captain Sarah Blenko agreed with Fulton.

“The addition of a B team takes off a lot of the pressure of playing with people who have been playing Ultimate for years,” she said.

Even with a shaky start to its last spring season, the team made it to the College DIII National Championships.

“It would be wonderful if we could build on that momentum and continue to compete on higher levels,” Blenko said.

Even though the first-years are new to the team, not all of them are new to the game.

“There’s a mix of freshmen that have been playing for years and ones that never played before orientation,” said senior Sarah Reach.

Sarah Orbuch Sports Editor

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Tyler Sloan Staff Writer

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— Women’s Lacrosse —

February 28, 2014

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