October 28, 2016 by The Oberlin Review

The Oberlin Review

OCTOBER 28, 2016 VOLUME 145, NUMBER 7

Local News Bulletin News briefs from the past week City Unveils Exercise Park The city opened a new exercise station at Depot Park south of downtown Oct. 19. The station was made possible by a $47,000 federal grant from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and features six machines, including a chest press, leg press and stair climber. The park also includes a bike rack and a water station. City Recreation Superintendent Ian Yarber and Oberlin Community Services Coordinator Cherilyn Holloway led the opening ceremony. Lorain Joins BookGiving Program The Stocker Foundation, a private Lorainbased organization that helps children and families around the county, has pledged $400,000 to join a new literacy program that sends books to the homes of underprivileged children. The program, titled the Dolly Parton Imagination Library Program, will launch around the country prior to the 2017–2018 school year and will be free for all families of children age five and below. Tree Hugger’s Closes Its Doors The Oberlin branch of Tree Hugger’s Cafe has closed permanently, a Tree Hugger’s employee confirmed to the Review. The employee did not know why the owners closed the location. The cafe has been closed since approximately Oct. 10. Tree Hugger’s continues to operate branches in Berea and Middleburg Heights.

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Council Chooses Hillard for City Manager Eliza Guinn Staff Writer After months of uncertainty surrounding Oberlin’s lack of a permanent city manager, City Council unanimously selected Robert Hillard to fill the position Thursday evening. Hillard was previously the city manager for Allegan, MI, where he served from 2005–2016. The pick comes as a bit of a surprise, as Hillard was added to the list of candidates for the position after two other finalists took positions in other municipalities. According to city councilmember Bryan Burgess, Hillard’s qualifications fit what Council was looking for. “Mr. Hillard has been in city government for 25 or so years,” Burgess said. “He has experience working in diverse communities.” City Council held a meet-and-greet at the Oberlin Public Library Thursday evening, where Oberlin residents could meet with three of the final candidates and express their opinions. According to Burgess, residents quickly came to the same conclusion that City Council had: Mr. Hillard was the right person for the job. “Certainly council had an impression of the candidates based on those two rounds of interviews," Burges said. "But it was very important for us to get feedback from the public, and it was interesting that the public had the

same impression of the candidates that we did.” The previous city manager, Eric Norenberg, left the position for a similar one in Delaware last December and Oberlin has been left with no permanent replacement since then. Oberlin Finance Director Sal Talarico has been serving as interim city manager in the meantime. Speaking to the Review before the decision, councilmember Sharon Pearson emphasized the need for unity. “As a council, we need to come together on behalf of the Oberlin residents,” Pearson said. “I don’t want to emphasize the divisions in the council — I want to be a peacemaker.” Councilmember Kelley Singleton agreed, saying that the council is trying to do what they feel is right for the community, and disagreement is fine as long as the council can come together and make a decision that best benefits Oberlin. “Certain members are looking in one direction with this decision, while others are looking in a different direction,” Singleton said. “It’s as simple as that.” Along with Hillard and current interim city manager Talarico, the candidates included former city manager of Grand Blanc, MI, Paul Brake; city manager of Newton Falls Jack Haney, and former city administrator from

Robert Hillard, the candidate chosen by City Council to be the new City Manager, speaks to residents at a public forum Thursday night. Council made the final decision shortly after the public forum. Photo by Rick Yu, Photo editor

Dalton, GA, Tyson Ross. City Council was previously divided in its decision between Talarico and Lowell Crow, the former city administrator of Monmouth, IL. The Council proved unable to reach the 5–2 vote required by Ohio’s revised code to make a final decision. Crow dropped out and the search reopened. According to Burgess, the Council published a list of job experience that an ideal candidate would have, including experience working in a diverse community as well as experience in a college town or a town with one other large employer. Oberlin, said Burgess, has three primary employers: the city, the College, and the Federal Aviation Administration. He said that the council thought it was important that the new

Committee Forms to Begin Presidential Search Louis Krauss News Editor The College will soon finalize the members of the Presidential Search Committee, which will eventually select the replacement for current President Marvin Krislov. After announcing the six trustees on the committee Oct. 10, elections were held for five additional representatives, one from each group — students, College faculty, Conservatory faculty, Administrative and Professional Staff and alumni. These elections will pick a slate of three nominees who will then interview with the six trustees to determine a finalist. Elections for non-student representatives are ending today. Unlike the four other groups, student nominees will not be chosen by a general election. Instead, Student Senate decided to send out applications for students to nominate themselves and will conduct interviews with nominees over the weekend to select the final three. As of Thursday evening, seven students, comprised entirely of sophomores and juniors, had sent in applications. Seniors were not eligible to apply, as the search process could potentially extend past this school year.

For Student Senate Liaison and College junior Thobeka Mnisi, the decision not to hold a general election was based off of past poor election turnouts and wanting to ensure that candidates who are chosen don’t simply want to push their own agendas. “Honestly, because of how voter turnout has been in the past, a lot of us didn’t trust that process to yield the best candidates, because it just becomes a popularity contest,” Mnisi said. Student Senator and College junior Jesse Docter added that Student Senate is paid and would take their selection very seriously. “We’re trying to pick somebody who doesn’t just know how to write a compelling one paragraph and share a Facebook page,” Docter said. “We want someone who has a proven record of working with and representing student groups, has knowledge of the administration and is qualified.” According to Mnisi and Docter, many of the student senators pushed for more student representatives on the committee but were unsuccessful. Student Senate was not notified of the Board’s decision to use the same committee format as in 2006, and did not realize until it was too late to change it.

Kaine in Lorain Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate Tim Kaine spoke in Lorain on Thursday. See page 2

manager have some previous experience negotiating with another large entity or institution within a city. He added that the council was looking for a candidate with an environmental background. “We see ourselves as leaders in sustainability,” he said. “It was important for us to find a candidate who had similar commitments.” Prior to the Council’s decision to hire Hillard, councilmember Scott Broadwell said he wanted to look beyond past differences and focus on the decision at hand. “I won’t make a secret of the fact that I supported Sal [Talarico] for the position, but we have four good candidates here,” Broadwell said. “We need a candidate who is a good fit, and that’s a tough decision.”

“Working with the Board is very difficult, and the structure of the committee was entirely confidential and difficult to do any effective advocacy on,” Docter said. “This adds just another piece onto our case for why representation on the Board of Trustees is so important. We didn’t even know this was a decision, and we had to scramble around administration and faculty to figure out how this decision would be made, and when we found it out, there was nothing we could do.” Although only one representative will be selected from each of the five groups, those who were voted in the top three of each group will still get to participate in confidential interviews with the final candidates for Oberlin’s presidency when they visit. Board of Trustees Chair Clyde McGregor said this allows for a somewhat wider Oberlin audience to meet the various candidates and give input to the committee. But while McGregor viewed it as a good way to “get feedback from more members of the Oberlin community,” Docter said more representatives would’ve made a greater difference. “The record shows with the Strategic Plan,

Serve's Up The women's volleyball team is prepared to rise in NCAC.

Serling via Turing Black Mirror returns with an impressive third season. See page 10

INDEX:

Opinions 5

This Week in Oberlin 8

See page 16

Arts 10

Sports 16

See Presidential, page 4

on the

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The Oberlin Review, October 28, 2016

Burglars Rob Lorenzo’s Twice

Campaigns Vie for Lorain Votes

Oliver Bok News Editor

Sydney Allen Production Editor

When Lorenzo’s Pizzeria owner Larry Cariglio went to use his generator for a catering job on the morning of Oct. 15, he had a problem — the generator wasn’t there. Sometime between Friday at midnight and Saturday morning, someone walked into the pizzeria’s unlocked storage shed and stole the red Honda generator estimated to be worth more than $1,000. The very next night, burglars struck again. According to Cariglio’s account of surveillance footage, at around 4 a.m. on Oct. 16 a burglar pried open a door with a pizza peel, walked through the dining room to the back door and let another person into the restaurant. But that’s where the tape ends. Cariglio stated that he believes at least one of the culprits for the second breakin must have been an employee or an ex-employee, since they knew how to shut down the restaurant’s power to turn the cameras off. The burglars’ height, clothing and shoe style can be gleaned from the video.

However, the burglars only managed to steal $100 in $1 and $5 bills by prying open part of the money safe, leaving $250 in larger denominations behind. “They thought they had a key but they didn’t,” Cariglio said. “Either that or it was so dark that they couldn’t see anything.” According to Lieutenant Michael McCloskey, the Oberlin Police Department has no evidence that the two crimes are linked and has yet to identify any suspects. “The investigation is still in a pretty early stage,” McCloskey said. He noted that investigators are interviewing both former and current employees and trying to track down the generator online and in pawn shops. The department will also keep a closer eye on the pizzeria in the near future. “Any time you have an incident like that where a location has been targeted, officers are usually more aware, so we’ll provide extra patrol and extra surveillance of the area just to kind of deter any future incident,” McCloskey said.

In addition, Cariglio said that the pizzeria will bolt the generator shed, have locksmiths strengthen all the doors and have a surveillance company install a new camera system. Cariglio said that the last theft at Lorenzo’s occurred four years ago. “We’ve been here a long time, 30-some-odd years, and it just doesn’t seem like it ever changes. It’s the same thing all the time,” Cariglio said. When asked if theft is a common problem in the food service industry, Cariglio speculated that the thefts could have been motivated by addiction. “I think there’s issues today with a lot of young people; they have very bad habits that day in and day out money can’t handle,” Cariglio said. “It’s unfortunate — if it’s not drugs, it’s alcohol. Basically, the best deterrent is just making sure everybody knows that there are cameras and we’re able to watch different facets of the business to keep people honest. It’s a shame, but it’s the way it is.”

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As a battleground county in a swing state, Lorain County will play a critical role in the bitter struggle to decide the next president Nov. 8. Both the Republican and Democratic campaigns have headquarters downtown in the City of Lorain, in addition to a Hillary for Ohio base here in Oberlin. On Thursday afternoon, Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Kaine spoke at a rally in Lorain High School. "You guys are more than a battleground, you’re a checkmate state," Kaine was quoted saying by the Chronicle-Telegram. Amid the political turmoil, there has been an increase in the number of registered voters in Lorain County. Over 8,200 people have registered to vote since March, raising the total of registered voters in the County to 206,413, according to Paul Adams, Director of the Lorain County Board of Elections. In the last general election only 67 percent of registered voters in Lorain County came out to vote — roughly 143,250 people — though Oberlin tends to have a fairly high turnout. “Oberlin, primarily because of Oberlin College, has a very high turnout in presidential election years,” Adams said. Typically, outsiders’ stereotypes of Oberlin are reflected in how often it votes Democratic. During the 2012 election, Oberlin voted overwhelmingly Democrat with 4,657 votes for President Obama and 479 votes for Mitt Romney, according to the Lorain County Board of Elections. That came to around 89.7 percent of the 5,192 votes being for Obama. In addition to an increase in registrations, Lorain County has seen a spike in the number of absentee ballots, with a 3,500 increase from the previous election. This increase is a result of looser poll restrictions and an effort to make voting more accessible to different demographics. Adams estimated that there could be as many as 40,000 votes cast through absentee ballots this election, which could potentially reduce poll lines and wait times on Election Day. According to Adams, that might not bode well for Democrats. “Democrats typically dominate early inperson absentee voting in Lorain County, particularly during a major election such as this one,” Adams said. “Republicans do better with mail absentee and voting at the polls on Election Day.” Ohio has historically been a swing state in most elections, helping to elect Republican President George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 and Democratic President Barak Obama in 2008 and 2012. Ohio has only voted against the winning candidate once since 1944, in 1960 when John F. Kennedy beat Richard Nixon. While Ohio may be a wild card in most elections, Lorain County has run Democratic in every general election since 1988. In 2012, 56 percent of Lorain County’s vot-

Editors-in-Chief Editors-in-chief Tyler Liv Combe Sloan Allegra Vida Weisblum Kirkland Managing editor Samantha Kiley Petersen Link News editors Rosemary Oliver Boeglin Bok Alex LouisHoward Krauss Opinions editor WillSami Rubenstein Mericle This Week Weekeditor editor Zoë Andrea Strassman Wang Arts editors Christian Kara Brooks Bolles Victoria Georgia Garber Horn Sports editors Jackie McDermott Quinn Hull Madeleine Darren O’Meara Zazlau Layout editors Abby Tiffany Carlstad Fung Amanda Ben Garfinkel Tennant Alanna TaliaSandoval Rodwin Photo editors Anya OliviaSpector Gericke Photo editors Brannon Rockwell-Charland Bryan Rubin Online editor Alanna Bennett Rick Yu

Business manager Maureen CurtisCoffey Cook Business manager Savi Sedlacek Ads manager Caley Watnick Ads manager Reshard el-Shair Online editor Hazel Galloway Production manager Sophia Bamert Production manager Ryanne Berry Production staff Stephanie Bonner Production staff Auden Granger Emma Eisenberg Taylor Field Julia Peterson Katherine Hamilton Giselle Glaspie Julia Hubay Sydney Allen Tracey Knott AnnaNoah Rubenstein Morris Anna Peckham Courtney Loeb Silvia Sheffield Melissa Harris Drew Wise Kendall Mahavier Distributors Joe Camper Distributors Bryan Rubin Joseph Dilworth James Ben Steger Kuntz

Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Kaine gives a speech at Lorain High School Thursday. The candidates are bitterly battling for Ohio’s 18 electoral vot es. Photo by Simeon Deutsch

ers voted for President Obama, with over 81,464 votes, compared to Mitt Romney's 41 percent of the votes. Still, history isn’t stopping David Moore, the campaign chairman of Lorain County for Donald Trump, from campaigning around the county. “Trump seems to have reached across the aisles,” Moore said. “He’s a candidate that has irritated both sides of the political spectrum so that seems to resonate with a lot of people because people seem fed up with the establishment right now.” While Lorain may be solidly Democratic, the fourth congressional district in Ohio has been a long-time Republican stronghold for the state. The fourth district, which is widely recognized as being severely gerrymandered, includes portions of Lorain County such as Lorain and Oberlin, as well as numerous Republican strongholds like Allen, Champaign, Logan, and Shelby counties, among others. This creates an overwhelming Republican majority and grim odds for Democratic Congressional Candidate Janet Garrett against Republican incumbent Jim Jordan who has held the position since 2007. In addition to the Congressional race, Ohio is also seeing a large deficit in the Senatorial race with the Democratic Candidate Ted Strickland trailing the Republican incumbent Rob Portman by more than 15 points according to RealClear Politics’ polling average as of Thursday. Regardless of party or political affiliation, all the candidates are encouraging people to go to the polls and exercise their right to vote. Reiterating the unsubstantiated claims of a “rigged election” coming from his candidate Donald Trump, Moore had only one piece of advice for Oberlin students: “Go out and vote — and if you’re a Democrat, please just vote once,” Moore said.

Corrections The Review is not aware of Corrections: any corrections this week. The Review is not aware of any correcto print all tionsThe thisReview week.strives To submit a correction, information as accurately as possible. email managingeditor@oberlinreview.org. If you feel the Review has made an error, please send an e-mail to managingeditor@oberlinreview.org.

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The Oberlin Review, October 28, 2016

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Off the Cuff: Eboo Patel, President of Interfaith Youth Core Eboo Patel is the founder and president of Interfaith Youth Core, an organization that works to promote interfaith dialogue on college campuses. In 2007, Patel published an autobiography titled Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation, which won the Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion. Patel was a member of President Obama’s Advisory Council on FaithBased Neighborhood Partnerships and in 2011 helped develop his administration’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge, an initiative that promoted interfaith dialogue on college campuses. A frequent speaker at colleges and universities across the country, Patel gave a talk in Finney Chapel Tuesday night. He sat down for a student media session Tuesday afternoon. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Why did you start the Interfaith Youth Core and what does it do? My life is changed because of diversity work in college. From first-year orientation to RA training to coursework, I developed an identity consciousness. I became what I call a multicultural progressive, which is somebody who pays attention to identity and sees it as having a relationship to justice. Sometime during the course of my college career, I awoke to the fact that we never talked about religious identity or religious diversity. Even though religious identity and diversity played a huge role in the world, and so many of my social justice heroes were faith-based, it struck me that in all of the diversity conversations in college, it was largely missing. What Interfaith Youth Core does is partner with college campuses to help them proactively and constructively engage religious identity and diversity — in part when it comes to student identities, but also as an intellectual endeavor. We think that part of the definition of being an educated person is being able to read The New York Times cover to cover with a reasonable degree of context. If you are unfamiliar with not only the theological distinctions between Sunni and Shia, but also the

Thursday, Oct. 20 1:33 a.m. Safety and Security officers on routine patrol at Talcott Hall detected an odor of natural gas. Members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded. Columbia Gas personnel and an Oberlin College plumber also responded and found multiple stove burners left on, expelling gas. 12:10 p.m. Safety and Security officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at a village house on Union Street caused by smoke from cooking. The alarm was reset with no further problem. 1:00 p.m. Safety and Security officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at a village house on Elm Street caused by smoke from cooking. The alarm was reset with no fur-

gions have in common? You will see tonight if I accomplish that. I’ll just say upfront: Diversity is not just about the differences you like. That’s how I make sure that it’s not superficial. Diversity is also about the differences you don’t like; it’s about the disagreements.

geographic spread, you’re going to have a hard time understanding a good part of what’s going on in the world. So the mission is to work with colleges and universities to do high-level, sustainable religious diversity work. What specific things do you do to accomplish that mission? We’re in partnership with a range of colleges and universities to create a new subfield in the academy that we call Interfaith Studies. Religious studies and world religions tend to focus on traditions — Islam and Hinduism; Interfaith Studies focuses on Muslims and Hindus. And of course Muslims and Hindus are not simply pure exponents of the tradition, they’re also shaped by economic, political, psychological, social and geographic contexts. By helping to create this new field — which means we run faculty seminars for people who want to teach interfaith studies courses funded by the Luce Foundation — we publish in this area. I’ve just published a book called Interfaith Leadership, which would be in the field of Interfaith Studies. We help colleges start minors in Interfaith Studies, so you can now go to Loyola University, major in Political Science and get a minor in Interfaith Studies. So it’s actually helping to create this new field that includes a literature, courses, etc. Isn’t there also a community service component to Interfaith Youth Core? In our early days, the big question was what kind of programs could you run on college campuses that brought students from different religious identities together, and the most obvious programs were service learning programs. We still think that that’s a good thing to do, but it’s become one of 25 things that we do rather than the main thing. So we’ve now branched out much more to the academic side of a college campus and also to questions of what are the identities that this college campus makes salient. Interesting question: If you were to videotape first-year orientation, what percentage of first-year orientation would be on diversity and identity issues and what percentage of that would be on religious identity and diversity issues? To use a sociological term, these

ther problem. 5:02 p.m. Safety and Security officers assisted members of the Oberlin Police Department in cutting the lock from a recovered stolen bicycle on the east side of King Building. They returned the bicycle to the owner.

Friday, Oct. 21 3:25 p.m. A resident of a village house on Elm Street reported a tree branch fell on their neighbor’s house. The grounds manager responded and determined that the house was not college-owned and that there did not appear to be any damage to the home. 8:39 p.m. A Rec Center patron reported the theft of a red drawstring backpack containing ID, keys and several miscellaneous items from a bench near the cardio machines at Philips Gym. Several items were recovered from a trash can and the remaining items were recovered in a men’s locker room shower stall.

Eboo Patel, president of Interfaith Youth Core

are cultural texts by which you get to know an institution. Why is it that this institution spends X amount of time on this dimension of identity but only Y amount of time on that dimension of identity? How is Interfaith Studies distinct from Religion departments at colleges and universities? We view college campuses as an ecosystem. The administration deals with things like Strategic Plans and fundraising and public identity. There’s student affairs staff that work very closely with students to create a campus environment; there’s student leadership; there’s the variety of academic departments. And our goal is to involve various parts of the ecosystem of a college campus in the proactive engagement of religious diversity. You can think about other identity issues in the same way. If you think about racial identity, you hear a lot about it at first-year orientation here, right? It’s a big part of residence halls conversations. It’s a big part of public events. There’s coursework on it; there are probably majors that deal with race matters at Oberlin. So we view religious identity very similarly. How do you make sure that interfaith dialogue isn’t superficial — that it goes beyond simply noting what different reli-

How do you deal with the fact that a lot of religions make a claim of exceptionalism? How do you reconcile those claims with interfaith dialogue? We say that what diversity work is, is helping people with deep disagreements on fundamental matters disagree in a manner that is civil, and being willing to work on other things together. Claims to the ultimate are not the only differences in religious traditions. If you are a very observant Muslim, you are waking up very early for prayer. You are probably disturbing your roommate. Does your roommate have a right to complain, woken up every day at four in the morning? If you are an observant Muslim student, and your roommate is engaged in intimate relations in the room, that probably makes you very uncomfortable, and you probably view it as invalidating your prayer, or you could view it as that. Does your roommate have to stop? Those are the questions I’m interested in. And not just Muslims, a range of traditions — the more observant and traditional end of the spectrum would be uncomfortable with overt expressions of sexuality. Forget LGBT expressions — any overt expressions of sexuality. They would also very likely have more traditional norms around gender. So if you’re in a religious studies class and you visit a mosque, the imam of the mosque politely asks the women to enter in a different entrance, cover their arms; women with skirts cannot come in and women will be seated behind the men. Do you do it? Is it different if it’s an evangelical church? Those are the questions I’m interested in. Those are the differences people don’t necessarily like. But people have a right to those identities, right? That’s what I mean by saying: How do you have a healthy, religiously diverse democracy? Interview by Oliver Bok, News editor Photo by Oliver Meldrum

Saturday, Oct. 22

Monday, Oct. 24

10:34 a.m. A student reported the theft of their backpack from an unlocked locker in the Conservatory. The backpack is a gray Swiss Army backpack and contained a MacBook Air laptop valued at $1,000, headphones of unknown value, a microphone of unknown value, a white binder and a book.

10:40 a.m. A Safety and Security officer on routine patrol in Johnson House observed what appeared to be camping fuel containers left in the first floor hallway. The containers were collected and transported to the Safety and Security office. 8:36 p.m. Safety and Security officers and the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at Burton Hall caused by smoke from cooking in the second floor kitchen. The area was cleared and the alarm reset.

Sunday, Oct. 23 9:53 p.m. Safety and Security officers responded to a report of a strong odor of burnt marijuana on the third floor of Noah Hall. They made contact with the occupants of the room in question who admitted to smoking marijuana. A blue metal grinder containing a green leafy substance consistent with marijuana, was confiscated and turned over to the Oberlin Police Department.

Wednesday, Oct. 26 11:01 p.m. Student staff reported an odor of smoke in Langston Hall on the second floor. A Safety and Security officer checked the area, finding no smoke or odor. The officer did make contact with a student burning incense on the first floor, who apologized. The incense was thrown away.

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News

Feature Photo: Truck Overturns Thursday Morning

A large garbage truck took a spill on its way to the Lorain County Landfill Thursday morning as it turned onto East Lorain Street, resulting in a massive pile of garbage on the street and sidewalk beside the Allen Memorial Art Museum. The accident forced police to temporarily close the road off, and trash was not cleaned up until around 5 p.m. The trash was then tossed into another garbage truck and taken away, while the fallen truck was pulled upright by multiple tow trucks before being towed. Text by Louis Krauss, photo by Oliver Bok, News editors

The Oberlin Review, October 28, 2016

Presidential Search Committee Finalizes Members Continued from page 1 the implementation committee and a variety of others, listening sessions and opt-in feedback sessions are no replacement for increased representation on committees,” Docter said. The two faculty representatives are being chosen in a more traditional general election, which allows all faculty members to cast votes for each other unless they withdraw their names. These elections have involved two rounds of voting that narrowed the pool of nominees down to nine. Although there may still be some issues with low turnout and apathy towards elections among faculty members, Politics Professor Chris Howell said the multi-step voting process helps ensure faculty vote when it's a small group of nominees. “I would guess the turnout on the first round would be unbelievably low, but the second round tends to have higher turnout because it’s a manageable group,” Howell said. One difference between student and faculty elections is the possibility that faculty might be biased to vote for nominees from their department. Although Howell did not notice any faculty actively promoting themselves for the position, he believes it’s very possible people would vote to get certain departments or demographics represented on the committee. “I’m not aware of any organized effort, but it wouldn’t surprise me if faculty of color wanted a representative on that committee and kind of bloc voted; any minority group would want that,” Howell said. “For example, women in natural sciences have historically wanted somebody, so it wouldn’t surprise me if some see someone on the list they know and vote for them.” After the votes are tallied and student finalists are chosen by Student Senate, the committee’s six trustees will conduct interviews with the final nominees from Nov. 5–18. McGregor did not disclose whether the committee has already selected an official firm to conduct the national search for presidential candidates but said more information will be given out once the committee finalizes its website.

Opinions The Oberlin Review

October 28, 2016

Letters to the Editors Alumni Association Values Inclusivity To the Editors: During the weekend of October 7–9, members of the leadership body of the Oberlin Alumni Association — the Alumni Leadership Council — were in Oberlin for meetings, to participate in the dedication of the Peter B. Lewis Gateway Center and to attend the celebration of the conclusion of the Oberlin Illuminate campaign. As a current member of the ALC, who is serving as the representative of the chartered group the Oberlin Alumni Association of African Ancestry, and who had the privilege of serving as president of the [Alumni] Association during 2005–2007, I thought it might be helpful for the current student body to be provided a brief overview of the Association and the ALC. This overview is important in the current climate when the actions of the group Oberlin Alums for Campus Fairness have been described in some media as actions of the “Alumni Association.” ACF is not a group approved by the Association or by its leadership, the ALC, and no one should confuse the ACF’s actions as reflecting any policies of or endorsement by the Association. The purpose of the Associa-

tion is to support the continuing excellence of Oberlin College (Conservatory and College of Arts and Sciences) and to foster communication between the College and its alumni and among alumni. While within the mission of the Association is the support of the College in its fundraising efforts, the Association’s principal mission is to “create a community of active alumni volunteers in support (broadly defined) of the institution.” The membership of the Association is broadly inclusive, including each person who has graduated from or attended the College of Arts and Sciences or Conservatory of Oberlin College and former components of the institution (e.g. the Graduate School of Theology). This broad membership imposes a responsibility on the Association to avoid taking positions as the Association on most political or social issues. The ALC is the governing body of the Association and its members serve for set terms of office. In addition to its officers and committees, the Association’s bylaws provide for the formation and approval by the ALC of chartered groups, and those chartered groups may apply to have representatives elected to the ALC (three chartered groups may have representatives on the ALC at any given time). The ACF is not a chartered group of the Association and

that group does not speak for the Association. Its actions or views cannot in fairness be viewed as reflecting the entire alumni body or the Alumni Association of Oberlin College. The ALC reflects the actions of thousands of alumni who love Oberlin and who devote their time, talent and treasure to support current students at Oberlin and to insure that the institution maintains its excellence and is true to its progressive traditions. The Association provides valuable support to current students through alumni mentoring and career services, internships, Alumni in Service to Oberlin College (alumni returning to campus for professional presentations), financial support, etc. The College website has an alumni page and current students are strongly encouraged to visit the site to examine all the resources that the Association makes available to support the educational and personal development of Oberlin students, the developing alumni of the institution. Students, the Association is your organization too, so get to know what it and members of the alumni body can do to make your Oberlin experience wonderful. – Wendell P. Russell, Jr. OC ’71 ALC Member

Historic Prison Strike Protests Legal Slavery Sami Mericle Opinions Editor In the 21st century, it is unbelievable that much of the U.S. population can be legally enslaved. A national prison strike protesting just that has reached at least 29 prisons in 22 states, garnering appallingly little media attention since it commenced on Sept. 9. The strike was staged to commemorate the anniversary of the 1971 Attica prison uprising in New York that was violently squashed by state troopers, resulting in 43 deaths, without producing tangible improvements in prison conditions. Forty-five years later, prisoners are still protesting abhorrent conditions. While overcrowding and systemic racism sparked the Attica riots, at the forefront of this organized protest is the prison labor system that has been unfairly extorting prisoners. An estimated 20,000 prisoners have refused to work at various points in the last seven weeks, as reported by the Incarcerated Workers Organizing

Committee, a young branch of the international union Industrial Workers of the World. These numbers make this the largest prison strike in history. Prisoners are protesting what the IWOC is rightfully calling “prison slavery.” According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, all prisoners are required to work if medically able. Prisoners may be disciplined with solitary confinement or other punitive measures for failing to do their jobs. Many of these jobs are prison upkeep, including custodial and food service work. Others are part of the Federal Prison Industries program. Commonly called UNICOR, the program contracts with private companies to employ prisoners to do anything from sewing clothing to staffing call centers for as little as 23 cents an hour, far below the federal minimum wage of $7.25. For non-UNICOR jobs, prisoners may not be paid at all. And as abysmal as these wages are, they are often still subject to taxes and deductions such See Incarcerated, page 7

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 Tyler Sloan Vida Weisblum Managing Editor Kiley Petersen Opinions Editor Sami Mericle

Freedom of Speech Threatened in Dakota Access Pipeline Protests When the Bundy Brothers were being acquitted for their January occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, several activists and journalists were getting thrown behind bars for protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, a 1,172-mile long route that would transport 470,000 barrels of sweet crude oil daily across four states from North Dakota to Illinois. On Monday, Oct. 10, North Dakota’s Morton County police arrested the actress Shailene Woodley for live-streaming an Indigenous Peoples’ Day protest to her 40,000 Facebook followers. Following her release, Woodley penned an article titled “The Truth About My Arrest,” published Oct. 20 in TIME. “We grow up romanticizing native culture, native art, native history … without knowing native reality,” Woodley wrote. “It took me, a white nonnative woman being arrested on Oct 10th in North Dakota, on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, to bring this cause to many people’s attention. And to the forefront of news publications around the world.” The following day, documentary filmmaker Deia Schlosberg was arrested at a climate change protest in Walhalla, ND on three counts of conspiracy to theft of property, conspiracy to theft of services and conspiracy to tampering with or damaging a public service. Though Schlosberg’s crime was filming two activists who were attempting to destroy the pipleline to shed light on these events, she now faces a possible 45 years in prison. Democracy Now! reporter Amy Goodman was issued an arrest warrant on Thursday, Sept. 8 for trespassing while reporting on the pipeline protests, which was later changed to a misdemeanor riot charge, punishable with jail time and a fine. Prosecutor Ladd Erickson justified her punishment to the Grand Ford Herald, saying, “She’s a protestor, basically.” Apparently by daring to report on the efforts of the Standing Rock Sioux, Goodman had invalidated herself as a journalist. At the courthouse, approximately 200 people rallied in protest of the charge, according to Goodman’s husband Denis Moynihan, who joined her at Standing Rock. The judge dismissed the charge the same day. These three journalists, along with the Sacred Stone Camp, others at Standing Rock and the countless personal social media accounts of Native protesters, have been providing valuable coverage of the “water protectors’” civil disobedience, while most major networks have ignored the protests since they first erupted in April. It wasn’t until Goodman’s footage of police dogs violently attacking protestors went viral on Sept. 4 that the American public became aware of the environmental injustices and human rights violations occurring along the pipeline route, which cuts through sacred Lakota burial grounds and could potentially contaminate the groundwater if the pipeline were to burst. The arrests of journalists in the wake of the events surronding the pipeline is a breach of First Amendment rights. Professional or civilian, these reporters are fulfilling their duty to reveal the true nature of the crimes perpetrated by private oil companies. These violations of freedom of press aren’t new by any means — in 2011, 36 journalists were jailed for covering Occupy Wall Street protests, and in 2014, 19 journalists were jailed for covering the Ferguson protests. The issues of indigenous peoples have been swept under the rug for as long as the existence of this country, though our sports teams and Halloween costumes continue to fetishize Native traditions. Despite the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement and an increasing public awareness of police brutality, many do not know that Native people are more likely to be killed by law enforcement than any other ethnicity. Indigenous peoples have had their land stolen and poisoned and their communities torn apart by forced removal. Without the media, we would be woefully uninformed about the continued violence against the indigenous people occuring now in the Dakotas. Exposing corruption, greed and injustice in the land of the free is part of a journalist’s job, and should be protected; Native people’s right to clean water and sovereignty should be as well. Editorials are the responsibility of the Review Editorial Board — the Editors-in-Chief, Managing editor and Opinions editor — and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the Review.

Opinions

Page 6

The Oberlin Review, October 28, 2016

Feminism Will Become Law Under Clinton Amber Scherer Contributing Writer As a country, we’ve finally made it through all three presidential debates. The matches were tense and personal, which gave us a deep look at the candidates’ characters. One resorted to insult, accusation and primal displays of arrogance while the other prioritized policy over performance. She may not make great TV, but Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is the model of poise and compassion in the face of ugliness. During the second and third debates, Clinton heatedly challenged Republican nominee Donald Trump’s mistreatment of women. She admonished his unforgiving position for women who receive abortions and condemned his alleged sexual misconduct. Call me biased, but I don’t blame her for her indignation. Throughout her career and even on the debate stage, she has repeatedly faced sexist indignities of the sort that Trump has perpetrated. There is no issue that so distinguishes them as gender equality. Every wound that Trump has inflicted on women’s dignity and equality is fundamentally contrasted by Clinton’s plans to institutionalize equality. Clinton’s dedication to gender equality has always been in the foreground of her career. As First Lady in the 1990s, Clinton helped establish the National Campaign to End Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. Once elected as senator of New York, Clinton carried out similar work by expanding access to emergency contraception and voting to strengthen women’s independence over their healthcare. Unfortunately, our right to choose is still on the ballot as Trump threatens the progress towards equality that Clinton has long fought for. The debate over abortion remains heated and divisive — Trump even suggested in March during a forum with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that women who seek abortions should face “some sort of punishment,” though he later retracted the statement. Electing Clinton would ensure that does not happen. She would secure our right to choose, because she trusts women to make their own decisions. She has collaborated with Planned Parenthood to protect the affordable health care it provides. Her fight for women’s access to contraception, preventative care and legal abortion would continue in office. It’s important to note that Clinton — and, I might add, Lorain County’s own State Representative Dan Ramos — has received overwhelming support from pro-choice organizations, including NARAL Pro-Choice. In addition to securing women’s reproductive rights, Clinton is a fierce advocate for paid parental leave. The issue has taken something of a backseat in this election, yet according to a 2015 Boston Globe article, 25 percent of American mothers return to work two weeks after childbirth. It’s an insensitive expectation we hold for American mothers. Though several presidential nominees have promised paid maternity leave, none of them could compete with Clinton’s ability to deliver. In 1993, she fought for the Family and Medical Leave Act, which now provides eligible families with up to 12 weeks of paid leave. She pushed similar legislation as a senator and worked to guarantee paid parental leave for all federal employees. The wage gap has also been astonishingly absent from political conversation. Women constitute nearly half of the American workforce, yet full-time female workers earn 81 cents to each dollar earned by men, according to a fall 2016 study by the American Association of University Women. The AAUW also reported that Black women were paid only 63 percent of white men’s wages in 2015. Clinton will work to end this. She plans to reintroduce the Paycheck Fairness Act that she first sponsored as a senator, which would allow workers to sue employers for wage discrimination. She has vowed to raise the minimum wage and lift minimum-wage earners out of poverty, two-thirds of whom are female, according to the National Women’s Law Center. Over the past 16 months, we’ve caught glimpses into the mind of a man who thinks he should be our president. Trump regularly objectifies women and gloated about sexually harassing women in a 2005 recording of a conversation with Billy Bush. Concerns over women’s rights are often regarded as nuisances — or worse, exaggerations. Yet these issues affect every American woman to some degree. We cannot neglect these inequities. And, based on her history and her platform, we can trust that Clinton won’t. Women face real opposition in the U.S.; Trump’s vast following is evidence of that. But that can change. We can work for the future that Hillary Clinton promises and make real progress against misogyny.

Carroll Rutledge

Bob Dylan Showcases Radical Innovation in Art CJ Blair Columnist It has long been rumored that Bob Dylan could win the Nobel Prize in Literature, but when the Nobel Committee announced his win two weeks ago, literature enthusiasts and laypeople alike were shocked. New York Times columnist Anna Smith wrote, “When the Nobel committee gives the literature prize to a musician, it misses the opportunity to honor a writer” (Oct. 13, 2016). In response to Dylan’s win, the poet Alex Dimitrov said, “Rock stars want to be poets. But sorry, not everyone is a poet.” Dylan’s victory renewed discussion about what constitutes literature, and has led many to question whether Dylan deserves a spot in the winners’ circle with literary giants like William Faulkner and Toni Morrison. When I heard the news two weeks ago, I was ecstatic. My mom was a huge Bob Dylan fan in college, and when I got to Oberlin, I became just as eager to burn through his albums while I studied. I spent a Winter Term in Washington, D.C., studying invasive plants, and the only CD in my car was Blonde on Blonde. From getting lost trying to find a bookstore to shoveling three feet of snow from the driveway, every memory of that month is intertwined with Dylan’s lyrics. Now, ten months later, one of us is still studying plants, but the other is a Nobel Laureate. To understand why Dylan deserves the prize, we must explore his emergence as a folk artist during the Civil Rights movement. While he idolized the folk singer Woody Guthrie, it was not until his girlfriend Suze Rotolo introduced him to the Congress of Racial Equality — a group of students fighting for integration — that he became the bard of American protest songs. With

social critiques including “Masters of War” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” Dylan secured his reputation as a mouthpiece for a generation deeply critical of authority, helping these sentiments reach far beyond the people involved in the movement. Of course, he wasn’t the only musician doing this. Pete Seeger was just as famous a singer and activist in the 1960s, as was Joan Baez, who dated Dylan for two years. Yet Dylan’s career was only just beginning when he wrote his most famous protest anthems. Between 1963 and ’64, his work became more ambitious, but also more ambivalent. “My Back –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

With social critiques including “Masters of War” and “The Times They Are AChangin’,” Dylan secured his reputation as a mouthpiece for a generation deeply critical of authority, helping these sentiments reach far beyond the people involved in the movement. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Pages” condemned his previous self-assurance about social issues, and “Like a Rollin’ Stone” presented a scathing critique of glamorized drug culture. Then with the wistful and abstract love songs “Visions of Johanna” and “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” Dylan’s music developed the distinctive quality it’s known for today, with bizarre, complex images exploring a variety of themes. Bob Dylan’s transformation from an archetypal folk singer to an entirely unique artist happened less than four years after his first album, and it’s key to understanding

why his work constitutes literature. Though he abandoned his strong ties with the Civil Rights movement, he continued writing about social justice in songs like “Hurricane” and explored topics laced with hard moral questions. Just as Dylan was not the first folk singer, past Nobel laureates typically aren’t the first to discuss their chosen themes, but they’ve often been the most innovative. Faulkner’s use of the Modernist “stream-of-consciousness” technique, for example, allowed for newfound understanding of racism and poverty in the South. Similarly, Toni Morrison used aspects of occult ghost stories in order to explore the traumatic effects of slavery. Neither Faulkner nor Morrison were the first to write in their respective genres, but because they told familiar stories in new ways, they are lauded as literary giants. When Dylan won the Nobel Prize, the committee’s explanation read, “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” This rationale captures the trademark innovation of Dylan’s career and assures that this is an essential quality of literature. If global literature suddenly stagnated and stopped exploring the boundaries of expression, it would run the risk of failing to adequately represent the times in which it’s produced. This may explain why last year’s winner, Svetlana Alexievich, was the first journalist to win the award, and why this year, Dylan was the first songwriter. There’s no way to tell how future generations will express themselves through art, but if people assume that only certain mediums will fit the bill, they’ll immediately shut off the potential for new discovery and revelation. So gather ‘round, people, wherever you roam, and behold our newest Nobel laureate, none other than Bob Dylan.

Opinions

The Oberlin Review, October 28, 2016

Page 7

Two-Party System Denies Voters Choice Russell Jaffe Contributing Writer

When my father was driving my brother and me back from one of our winter club hockey games when I was a kid, he asked us to vote on where we should stop for dinner. My brother and I — still young enough to enjoy vast quantities of fast food without feeling sick — instantly agreed on Burger King. However, my father, despising the chain, shook his head and took us to a diner after explaining that our votes didn’t count unless we lived in a swing state. In retrospect, this was my first real lesson in the American electoral process. Naturally, my brother and I were upset to see our majority vote ignored, but my father had just taught us an important truth that no patriotic middle school would ever dare admit: American democracy is corrupt. As this current election has shown, we are given the ability to choose our leaders the same way a thief would give you the choice between your money or your life. Technically, yes, you do get to

make a decision of some kind, but it’s a false dichotomy that eliminates any other option that should be your right to choose. This false dichotomy is largely a byproduct of the two-party system that drives American politics. In the past 10 election cycles, no pair of presidential nominees has been more despised than Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Even the ratings of President George W. Bush, who was “strongly disliked” by 32 percent of voters in 2004, are considered positive compared to Trump and Clinton, who were deemed unfavorable by 61 percent and 53 percent of voters respectively, according to a Quinnipiac University poll. Despite this, all polls indicate that they are the only two candidates who stand a chance of winning. There is a reason why no third-party candidate has ever won a presidential election. The two-party system polarizes the American political process, forcing citizens to choose one side or the other with no options in between. This divisive mindset removes the middle ground, lim-

iting the voters and ultimately setting up the two main parties as effectively the only two parties in American politics. In order to differentiate themselves from their opponents, –––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The two-party system polarizes the American political process, forcing citizens to choose one side or the other with no options in between. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– politicians in both parties are forced to adopt increasingly extreme stances, further dividing the already estranged parties. Although this was most apparent in the presidential primaries when left-leaning Senator Bernie Sanders and right-wing extremist Trump were both running for the nomination of their respective parties, the statistical trend has continued into the general election. In fact, the Pew Research Center has shown that from 1994 to 2014, the number of

“middle ground” voters dropped over 10 percent as negative views of opposing parties doubled on both sides. Additionally, the lack of cooperation between the two parties has led to increasing political stagnation, with many critical decisions left undecided long past their due. As just one example, the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s chair still remains vacant as the Republican-dominated Senate refuses to hold a confirmation hearing for President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. Last week, Senator John McCain even suggested that Republican senators may block anyone Clinton nominates should she win the presidency. Unless the twoparty system undergoes a dramatic change in the near future, this trend will continue until the system itself collapses under the weight of irreconcilable differences. If there is anything positive to say about this election, it is that it has highlighted the flaws of American democracy. Therefore, at this turning point in history, what can we as individuals do to

make a difference? The most obvious step is to vote, because it’s the only power we have right now. However, it is counteractive to waste a vote on a third-party candidate who can’t win the presidency. Rome was not built in a day, and a reformed democracy won’t be either — even on Election Day. For now, third-party votes should be saved for local and congressional elections because that is the foundation that would ultimately lead to greater change. Without this foundation, a thirdparty president would reach the Oval Office essentially powerless, which would likely cause more harm than good for both the new party and the country itself. Beyond signing the ballot, we should be demanding and petitioning for a government that actually represents the beliefs of the common people, not just those who are in power. Ultimately, any government — especially our own — is a system of borrowed power that stems from the people. I’d say it’s about time that we start taking some of that power back.

Clinton Proposes Comprehensive Immigration Reform Nathan Carpenter Contributing Writer A defining issue of the presidential election has been immigration, largely due to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s controversial proposal to halt illegal immigration to the U.S. by building a wall on the Mexico–U.S. border. Immigration is an issue that the Oberlin community has also made a priority, though in a far different direction than Trump: In 2014, Oberlin made the decision to consider undocumented students as domestic, rather than international, applicants, making an Oberlin education far more accessible to them. Oberlin students understand the importance of a multicultural society and embrace opportunities to engage with people of different identities and backgrounds. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has a plan for comprehensive immigration reform that will support the millions of immigrants currently living in this country, as well as the millions more who will come in the future. Her plan creates a path to citizenship that will allow full and equal access to this country’s opportunities for those who want them. She believes that we cannot rest until immigrants and refugees in the U.S. are afforded the dignity and respect they deserve.

Unfortunately, any discussion of immigration in the presidential campaign has largely been defined by Trump’s racist rhetoric. It is important to remember, however, that Clinton’s plan for substantive immigration reform is powerful, effective, compassionate and warrants discussion and recognition. Clinton has been fighting for immigration reform for decades. As a New York senator, she co-sponsored the SOLVE Act, a 2004 immigration reform bill, and supported the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act in 2006 and 2007. She also co-sponsored the proposed DREAM Act in 2003, 2005 and 2007, which would have granted partial and then full residency for young undocumented immigrants. As Secretary of State, Clinton publicly renewed her support for progressive immigration legislation, declaring that the State Department under her lead was “committed to comprehensive immigration reform.” Moving forward, Clinton’s commitment to immigration reform will remain strong. In her first 100 days in office, she promises to introduce legislation allowing for a pathway to full and equal citizenship. She would also support accepting refugees fleeing the humanitarian crisis in Syria — an important step in standing up for human rights around the globe.

The immigration system in this country is broken. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that 11 million undocumented immigrants currently live in our country. These people contribute to their communities and to the country’s economy. According to a 2015 study conducted by the immigrant advocacy group FWD, immigrants are twice as likely to start a new business than an American born in the U.S. that year. They pay billions in income tax — which is more than can be said of Trump this year. They also live in a state of perpetual uncertainty. Despite contributing billions of dollars to the economy, undocumented immigrants are not afforded the same privileges and opportunities as full citizens. They do not have the same access to healthcare, education or other essential public services. Clinton understands that this problem must be addressed with urgency, and she will fight to ensure that immigrants and refugees who come to this country with the hope of bettering their lives are given the opportunity to achieve citizenship with full and equal access to the basic public services that we all need. Oberlin students understand that it is important to treasure our differences. Our campus’ commitment to social justice, eq-

uity and inclusion is chief among the reasons why many of us were initially drawn to this institution. It is important for this campus and the state of Ohio to reject big––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

They pay billions in income tax — which is more than can be said of Trump this year. They also live in a state of perpetual uncertainty. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– otry and xenophobia in all of its forms. This November, we have a clear path to do exactly that. Clinton has presented a plan to reform our broken immigration system by making it fair and accessible; her opponent has, without proposing any real, coherent plan, called immigrants from Mexico rapists and drug dealers. This November, take a stand by voting for effective and compassionate immigration reform by voting for Hillary Clinton. Are you interested in helping out with the campaign? Stop by the Ohio Together office at 5 South Main Street to help us fight for the rights of all people in the U.S. during the final push of this presidential campaign.

Incarcerated Workers Deserve Federal Employee Protections, Mimimum Wage Continued from page 5 as victim compensation and child support. This treatment is legal under two facets of the law. For one, courts have repeatedly ruled that prisoners do not qualify as employees, and therefore are not eligible for federal employee protections, including minimum wage and benefits. The second facet is, surprisingly, the 13th Amendment. When the 13th Amendment was added to the Constitution in 1865, a critical exception was included: “Neither slavery nor in-

voluntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” While the 13th Amendment may have formally freed African Americans from slavery, it is now allowing them to be enslaved in prisons: According to the nonprofit The Sentencing Project, more than 60 percent of prisoners are people of color. When a person is convicted of a crime, we take away their right to freedom. But should they also lose their right to basic human dignity?

“Prisoners are on the front lines of wage slavery and forced slave labor where refusal to work while in prison results in inhumane retaliation and participating in slave labor contributes to the mechanisms of exploitation,” reads a statement on the IWOC website. Meanwhile, supporters of prison labor assert that employment improves the day-to-day life of prisoners while training them for jobs post-release. The UNICOR website claims, “The whole impetus behind UNICOR is not about business, but about inmate release preparation.” There is some valid-

ity to that statement, as studies have shown that employment programs reduce chances of recidivism. However, programs should be non-mandatory, fully regulated for safety, pay minimum wage and treat workers with dignity. The largest prison strike in history should be front-page news. The minimal media attention may be due less to editors’ cold hearts and more to tight restrictions on prisons. The press’ right of access generally does not extend to prisons, and what little information that has leaked out has mostly come from prisoners speaking on

illicit cell phones, often on conditions of anonymity. Fixing the prison slavery system will not be easy, as it’s inextricably tied to other problems of our prison and judicial systems including overcrowding and underfunding. Paying prisoners minimum wage for their work would likely cost millions if not billions of dollars. However, we need to continue to draw attention to this issue so this strike does not become another Attica, fading into history with little success at changing prison practices.

Last-Minute COSTUME IDEAS: Colored slices of foam for bread and sandwich filling Mass of pompoms and dryer lint

Cardboard tube with painted design

n i l r e b O Edition

Baby powder creates an aura of pallor

Dressing up for Halloween doesn’t have to be a chore — inspiration can be found anywhere, especially in Oberlin’s vibrant creative atmosphere. Ditch the sexy cat and bed-sheet ghost costumes and read on to discover some fun and quirky ideas that are sure to please trick-or-treaters and liquor-treaters alike.

Wig: make sure to cut the tiny bangs yourself

Sense of not being present in the moment

Tiny impractical backpack

Slight tobacco dependency

Putrid stench

Judith Butler’s Undoing Gender

Constantly growling stomach Walk like you’re headed to a DIY show

Ash collected from ashtrays

Cigarette Butt Once a flourishing species found abundantly among campus greenery and the tables underneath Mudd, the cigarette butt is now becoming an artifact of the past. Help preserve the slowly dying memory of this once-ubiquitous symbol of young adult rebellion and selfdestruction. In addition to being a conversation starter, this costume can serve as a passiveaggressive protest of the new tobacco ban. Who knows, it might even make asking for a lighter at a party slightly less awkward. Next year: PBR-can tumbleweed

CDS Bread Butt Sandwich Often, people will craft a sandwich with the middle slices of a bread loaf, leaving the ends to be discarded. This costume is an acknowledgement of the humble bread butt and other commonly overlooked food items. The possibilities for the sandwich fillings are endless and can be customized for all dietary needs. For a timeless look, one can fill the sandwich with organic smoked turkey, Tyler’s Farms lettuce and Just Mayo mayonnaise, in the style of the everpopular Turkey Club Sandwich costume. Vegan trick-or-treaters can wear a slab of seasoned tofu or rubbery block of tempeh. Next year: Co-op burnt rice

Chunk of Black Mold From Your Room in Harkness At first it was a nuisance, but it started to grow on you — and on the carpet as well. Now that you’re living on your own in a structurally sound duplex sans-water leaks, you miss seeing the familiar and reassuring sight of toxic Stachybotrys seeping into your walls. This costume is easy to make — glue black craftstore pom-poms to a dark T-shirt. Or for a more authentic approach, leave a damp shirt in the washer for two or more weeks. Next year: Slab of drywall that fell from your ceiling in South

This costume is for you to decide!

Member of the Hipster Elite Who are the hipster elite? We don’t exactly know, but we do know what they wear — worndown clogs, a jacket made before 1990, and “mom jeans,” all in neutral tones. If you don’t already own these clothes, chances are your friends will. It’s also the ultimate curveball at costume parties — guests will think you forgot to dress up, but imagine the look of shock and delight on their faces as you explain your getup. Maybe your costume will be executed so well that you will be adopted as one of the hipster elite and abandon your original friends. Lucky you, that means you’ve finally made it! Next year: Member of Williamsburg, Brooklyn hipster elite

James Joyce’s Ulysses for inspiration

Cloud shape cut out of cardboard, phrases painted with acrylic paint

Your Internal Monologue If you’ve ever wanted to personify the perpetual current of chatter echoing in your skull, Halloween is the best time to do it. Dress up as your own James Joyce-esque stream of consciousness to show everyone at the Halloween party how much you have going on in your head. This could be most frightening costume on the list, since it’s the only thing that reliably and consistently keeps you up at night. Next year: Inner peace

Calendar

Successful Liberal Arts Graduate This is the most ambiguous and idealistic costume on the list, since no one has encountered one of these in real life, and one can only hypothesize on what it looks like. CEO at an artisanal canning nonprofit? Curator of a postinternet meme art gallery? Director of a radical political theater troupe that operates out of an organic farm? B-list celebrity that makes headlines solely for complaining? This costume should embody your personal struggle towards finding self-actualization and a fulfilling career in this sad, hopeless world. Next year: Content but occasionally cranky retiree Design, content, illustrations by Andrea Wang

Undergraduate Research Presentations Friday, Oct. 28, 2–3:20 p.m, 3:30–4:50 p.m Science Center

Third World Haunted Maze Friday, Oct. 28, 7–9 p.m. Third World House

Force Freedom Ultimate Frisbee Saturday, Oct. 29, and Sunday, Oct. 30, 9 a.m–2 p.m North Fields

Filipinx American Heritage Month Banquet Saturday, Oct. 29, 6–8:30 p.m. Peters Hall

Las Sucias x Artemisa Saturday, Oct. 29, 9–11 p.m. Harkness Showspace

Communist Revolutions Then and Now Wednesday, Nov. 2, 4:30–6 p.m. Art Building, Classroom 1

This summer, College and Conservatory students conducted research across a variety of academic fields. This showcase is the culmination of their hard work, and is featured in conjunction with the special symposium “Oberlin and the National Academy of Sciences.” Oral presentations of select research projects will be followed by a reception in Perlik Commons and poster-viewing session in Bent Corridor.

The Language Maze is scary to walk through year-round, but this Halloween, Third World residents have turned it into a walk-through haunted maze complete with haunted scenery and spooky actors. Enter through Third World lounge to experience Oberlin at its scariest!

Support Oberlin’s own Flying Horsecows and Preying Manti as they compete with other Ohio Ultimate Frisbee teams in their annual fall tournament. Since this year’s theme is “Halloween,” competitors will bring the fire while dressing their best. Come out to North Fields for a weekend of wacky costumes and spirited competition!

Join the Filipinx American Student Association at their annual banquet in celebration of Filipinx American Heritage Month. The banquet will feature UCLA sociologist Anthony Ocampo as a guest speaker, a performance by #FASAband, and dinner catered by Nipa Hut. There is a suggested donation of $5 for admission to the event.

Las Sucias is a duo from California that layers Afro-Caribbean rhythms with rebellious lyrics and possessed vocals. The Oberlinbased Artemisa experiments with hushed soundscapes, harsh synths and straight-up noise. This event is sponsored by the Modern Music Guild in conjunction with Harkness Showspace, dedicated to featuring acts from underrepresented voices in the music industry.

What is the power of art to challenge national myths during times of revolution? How does art help us understand and remember these revolts, even years after they have happened? This event will feature a panel and discussions addressing these questions, looking at how the role of art was transformed by mid-20thcentury communist revolutions in Bulgaria, China and Cuba.

Last-Minute COSTUME IDEAS: Colored slices of foam for bread and sandwich filling Mass of pompoms and dryer lint

Cardboard tube with painted design

n i l r e b O Edition

Baby powder creates an aura of pallor

Wig: make sure to cut the tiny bangs yourself

Sense of not being present in the moment

Tiny impractical backpack

Slight tobacco dependency

Putrid stench

Judith Butler’s Undoing Gender

Constantly growling stomach Walk like you’re headed to a DIY show

Ash collected from ashtrays

This costume is for you to decide!

James Joyce’s Ulysses for inspiration

Cloud shape cut out of cardboard, phrases painted with acrylic paint

Calendar

Undergraduate Research Presentations Friday, Oct. 28, 2–3:20 p.m, 3:30–4:50 p.m Science Center

Third World Haunted Maze Friday, Oct. 28, 7–9 p.m. Third World House

Force Freedom Ultimate Frisbee Saturday, Oct. 29, and Sunday, Oct. 30, 9 a.m–2 p.m North Fields

Filipinx American Heritage Month Banquet Saturday, Oct. 29, 6–8:30 p.m. Peters Hall

Las Sucias x Artemisa Saturday, Oct. 29, 9–11 p.m. Harkness Showspace

Communist Revolutions Then and Now Wednesday, Nov. 2, 4:30–6 p.m. Art Building, Classroom 1

Arts The Oberlin Review

Page 10

October 28, 2016

Netflix Takeover Broadens Scope of Black Mirror Christian Bolles Arts Editor

Science fiction has always been fascinated by the cost of progress. Legendary genre writer Isaac Asimov’s pioneering I, Robot explored the murky line between artificial intelligence and humanity, proving that some of our deepest fears can be extracted by plumbing the uncanny valley. Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker and Annabelle Jones’ Twilight Zone-esque television show examining that Asimovian divide, uses chillingly plausible technological advancements to paint visions of futures gone awry. Better described as a series of short films, the show’s third season premiered on Netflix last Friday, marking a transition from the BBC and featuring an expanded six-episode run over the previous seasons’ three. For devoted fans, any worries about overt Americanization or thinly-stretched inspiration should be dispelled — each of the new films represents Black Mirror at its best. Broadly speaking, the new season scores high marks for variety. It features a dark roadtrip comedy, a psychological horror twist-fest, an unrelentingly tense thriller, an ’80s romance, a mutant apocalypse war yarn and a featurelength detective procedural. Paired with the myriad offerings of previous seasons, Black Mirror sits among the most original series of all time, reinventing itself at every turn even as it threatens to converge on similar themes. It would be easy to say the show is about the dark side of technology, but that description risks underselling the series’ complexity. Brooker, who penned the majority of the episodes and held creative control over the ones he didn’t write, will be the first to clarify that he has nothing against technology; in fact, his feelings are quite the opposite. A former video game journalist, Brooker’s affinity for Black Mirror’s tech contributes not only to its painstakingly realistic design, but also to the show’s focus on the human tendency to misuse it. If Black Mirror had a thesis, it would be that technology is the most seductive kind of power. One area where season three excels over past seasons is in tone. While a cold, painful, slow burn of an audiovisual experience could be expected from previous episodes, the new season lends each film its own aesthetic. The first

episode, “Nosedive,” tells the story of a world consumed by a social media super-app (think Community’s “MeowMeowBeans,” but bigger) through a pastel color palette that accentuates the artificiality of it all. On the other hand, “Shut Up and Dance” is bathed in filth, a visual representation of the depths to which the narrative is willing to dive for its unforgettable final reveal. Other episodes run the gamut from CGI spectacle to exquisite period detail; it’s a joy to watch as Black Mirror visually — and thematically — adapts itself to each story’s reality. If anything changed as a result of Black Mirror’s move to Netflix, it’s the scope of the showrunners’ ambition. With an increased budget, the show is capable of elevating the elaborate nature of the worlds it creates. Brooker’s work as screenwriter on season one’s finest episode, “15 Million Merits,” proved his ability to craft a compelling alternate reality, and since only half of this season’s films are set in realities comparable to our own, he’s given free reign to put his world-building skills to the test. Beneath the gloss and grime, the show’s inescapable pull comes from its writing. Gifted with the ability to poke holes in its own stories and fill them, this season’s narratives each pack that signature all-too-real Black Mirror punch that longtime fans are now familiar with. It’s a hard feeling to get anywhere else, knowing the rug could be pulled out in a million different ways at any given moment. The stories this show spins are all crafted like mousetraps, and their inevitable twists are the cheese that draws viewers in. But this season’s particular strength lies in its willingness to subvert expectations for what an episode of Black Mirror should be. Any anthology series risks losing audience engagement by recycling its messages or storytelling style, and if a general complaint could be leveled at earlier seasons, it’s that the show’s “gotcha” attitude can feel too self-satisfied and formulaic. Season three escapes this cycle through deft narrative maneuvering, investing doubly in its characters and focusing on the consequences of their decisions. There’s no invisible technological hand here guiding people into moral depravity — season three asserts that we’re the ones abusing technology, not the other way around. Many of its films grapple with the dualistic nature of our online and real-world personas,

Characters Kelly (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, left) and Yorkie (Mackenzie Davis, right) begin a relationship that will undergo the test of time in “San Junipero,” the fourth of six new episodes in season three of Netflix’s Black Mirror. Photo Courtesy of Netflix

treating tech as a realm in which we act without considering the reactive cost. The most potent moments of the season, as in the unforgettable “San Junipero” and the thrillingly inventive “Hated in the Nation,” come when those reactions become physical. Black Mirror would have few physical consequences for us were it not for the weight of its performances. A strong suit of the series since the very first episode, season three’s casting is exemplary across the board. Bryce Dallas Howard’s portrayal of an aspiring socialite’s downward spiral in “Nosedive” stays believable even at its most absurd extremes, a feat that will hopefully propel the Jurassic World star to further fame. And up-and-comer Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s sob-inducing turn in “San Junipero” stands out as a highlight of the season, swirling together a young woman’s desire for what she repeatedly calls “a good time” with the bruised wisdom of someone far beyond her years. Newcomer James Watkins joins Game of Thrones veteran Jerome Flynn in “Shut Up and Dance,” and the former, with his arresting depiction of a teenage boy forced to obey the whim of an anonymous force, will have a hard time overshadowing this

character in an invariably sterling future career. Finally, special mention must be given to Malachi Kirby’s soldier in “Men Against Fire,” who deftly swings from apathy to empathy as he becomes privy to the disturbing nature of his war. The season’s faults are few and come as a result of its insistence on nailing down a message. Some episodes can be heavy-handed in their efforts to make the endgame clear, and plot points occasionally overstay their welcome; the show is at its finest when twists are explained less, and a few of the films are guilty of both telling and showing. Black Mirror exists to spin stories about the potential pitfalls of technological advances, and in that capacity, this season succeeds wildly. But what makes season three special is its refusal to settle for just being Black Mirror; it seeks increased narrative complexity, stronger characters and a more sumptuous visual spectacle than before. Though its stories could push for just a bit more nuance, its convergence of those three strengths with the show’s innate philosophical trappings makes season three of Black Mirror a singular season of television and one that should not be missed.

AMAM’s Conversations Explores Asian Artistic Influence Julia Peterson Production Editor The Allen’s newest exhibit, Conversations: Past and Present in Asia and America challenges the popular assumption that art embodies a strict chronological progression from past to present and influence to influenced. To Curator of Asian Art Kevin Greenwood, it is a much more active process of cultural exchange. The exhibit, comprised of Asian and Asian-style pieces, presents art as a global dialogue punctuated by temporal and geographical disjuncture. It is currently on display in the John N. Stern Gallery. “I really wanted to emphasize that these artists were not passive receptors of … cultural traditions, but they were very actively engaged in picking and choosing things,” Greenwood said. “They have their own artistic visions, which include subjects, styles, techniques and modes from the Asian tradition.” Artworks are arranged in groups that emphasize an often

complicated web of influences and cultural entanglements. The first wall a person sees upon entering the gallery features a hanging scroll and two folding screens. Both screens were created by Japanese artist Sugai Baikan as part of his series “Landscapes in the Styles of Chinese Masters.” One of the screens is in the style of Chinese artist Lán Yng, who painted the accompanying scroll over two centuries earlier. On another wall, four long hanging scrolls — the oldest from 1661 and the most recent from 2009 — depict dramatic, monochrome landscapes by different artists. Stylistically and thematically, these paintings exemplify a series of ideas bounced back and forth through time by their creators, as well as with other artists and styles mentioned in the titles of the pieces, indicating the much larger discourse from which these pieces have been plucked. “[Baikan] was part of a movement in painting in Japan in the 18th and 19th century called the Nanga school — they were Japanese artists

who had mastered Chinese literati painting styles,” Greenwood said. “So [these screens] are a Japanese artist doing landscape paintings in the style of earlier Chinese artists. … And the painting by Lán Yng [depicts] an actual conversation of two historical figures that, in a sense, kind of parallels the relationship between the painter and a Buddhist master. So there are all these layers of conversation with the past that are going on just in that pairing right there.” Two large glass cabinets stand in the center of the room. One of them contains a porcelain vase made in the mid-18th century in conscious imitation of earlier Ming dynastystyle decoration, framed by four paper and plaster sculptures positioned in each corner of the cabinet. These blue and white pieces were made in the 1950s by American contemporary artist Arlene Shechet, who took inspiration for both the color and shape of these pieces from classic Chinese designs. The other cabinet holds contemporary Japanese artist Fukami Sueharu’s

abstract piece Soaring, a glazed porcelain sculpture. “You can see a kind of back-andforth with ceramic styles that, for example, come from China, go to Korea, go to Japan, and then come to America, and many contemporary artists in America, China, Japan and Korea are using these traditional ceramic types and continuing them but bringing a contemporary art sensibility to them,” Greenwood elaborated. “I think the best example of that is Soaring. ... Fukami Sueharu has taken porcelain and this ancient glaze type and [has created] this amazing, very abstract sculptural piece that looks like a wave or a blade or something ... floating in space. And he created it using an industrial process — high-pressure slip-mold casting, the same kind of process that’s used for making sinks and toilets. But he’s used that process for this really wonderful artistic vision.” The third wall of the gallery displays two scrolls of calligraphy, each painted with a minimalist elegance. Each calligrapher is in conversation

with a poet — the rightmost scroll, Waiting for the Moon at Six Bridges, was created by Chinese artist Mào Xiāng in the 17th century after a poem of the same name by Yuán Hóngdào. The scroll on the left is a contemporary piece by American artist Michael Cherney, after Nobel laureate Bob Dylan’s poem Last Thoughts on Woodie Guthrie. Cherney, who gave a talk on Tuesday about this piece in particular and about his larger practice of landscape photography, elaborated on the unique quality Chinese calligraphy imparts upon its subject matter, a visual layer beyond meaning. “Most of the most beautiful aspects of [the Chinese language] are in its writing,” Cherney said. “There are visual elements to Chinese characters and components of characters that ended up shaping poetry in a way that’s almost impossible to describe with Western poetry. If you just take the meaning of characters in a line of Chinese poetry and translate it into English, you’ll get See Art, page 13

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The Oberlin Review, October 28, 2016

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Hotel Installation Completes Ohio Trilogy Rachel Mead Staff Writer

After a busy couple years of change, the Peter B. Lewis Gateway Center will finally be home to artist Maya Lin’s exhibit An Ecological Primer: A landscape in 3 parts. Lin is best known for entering the stage of massive art installations at age 21, when she won the 1981 contest to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Since then, she has designed other memorials, along with many other pieces which have focused on the environment. An Ecological Primer uses landscape as a device to discuss releasing human control of land, honoring the water we depend on to survive, and issues of migration raised by climate change. As a permanent installation, Primer will be part of Oberlin in perpetuity. The installation will complete what Lin calls her Ohio Trilogy, a sort of ode to the state developed in collboration with her brother, the poet Tan Lin. According to David Orr, Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics, Emeritus and founder of the Oberlin Project, it’s no accident that Oberlin is the culmination of Lin’s Ohiofocused projects. “Maya had read some of the things I’d written and was attracted to the Oberlin Project and the greater vision of the College,” Orr said. “Her philosophy as an artist and a person coincides with what we’re doing here, using art to clarify and dramatize issues of climate change.” The project’s website describes its aim as “to improve the resilience, prosperity, and sustainability of our community.” The first part of An Ecological Primer visible when approaching the Gateway Center will be A Remnant Garden, a piece of native Ohio ecosystem regenerated within Oberlin’s city center. When it’s finished, the installation will be composed of two wetland-inspired water features, an old field garden and a miniature forested area. The street trees, most of which are already in place along East College Street, include oaks, maples, tulip trees, and persimmons. Lin’s longtime partner in landscape design, Edwina von Gal, spoke about these choices. “I’m putting some aspens in because they’re the single most widely, naturally dispersed tree species; they appear in more ecosystems in the U.S. than almost any other tree,” von Gal said. “Maya’s interested in tracking trees that are moving up from the south that will be more resistant to climate change. And I’m naturally going to put in an Ohio Buckeye, because how could I not?” Tan Lin is also a part of An Ecological Primer. His work will be located in the parking lot of the Gateway Center, to the northeast of the building. “Some that were, some that were not” is a poem about the migratory patterns of birds, which not only makes reference to the Lins’ interest in climate change but also

to the migrations in their own family history. The poem itself comes in two parts: one that spirals into the center of the drop-off roundabout behind the Center — about birds coming into Ohio because of climate change — and one that begins in the middle and spirals out, about those birds which are leaving the state. In the lot itself, the parking spots will each be delineated by the name of one of these birds. Within the spot, a visualization of the wingspan of the bird and the direction in which it is headed will be depicted. The lobby of the Gateway Center hosts the final component of Lin’s installation, a huge array of glass marbles that climb the wall facing the main entrance of the building. “They represent the aquifers of Ohio,” artist and collaborator James Ewart told the Review, climbing down from the scaffolding he’d been standing on to hot glue marbles to the wall and ceiling. He explained that the marbles were another piece of Lin’s childhood, from her father’s work as a ceramicist at Ohio University in the ’60s and ’70s, which Ewart said was a time of experimentation in ceramics and glassblowing art. “Maya played with them as a kid and had been thinking about them for years,” Ewart said. “She found the one supplier that still makes them while working on a project for the Smithsonian Renwick Gallery.” The Smithsonian piece, Folding the Chesapeake (2015), is similar to Lin’s piece in the Gateway Center lobby. In that project, the Chesapeake Bay spills over the walls and floor of a giant room, represented by 54,000 green glass spheres. Much like the Chesapeake at the Smithsonian, the Ohio aquifer system at the Center flows up the wall, holding light and refracting it just like the water it represents. Ewart pulled a handful of the marbles out of a bucket and rolled them against each other to demonstrate. “They’re all different,” he said. “They’re a raw material for fiberglass products, but what Maya likes is how they catch the light and create patterns.” “I really like Maya’s aesthetic and she likes mine, so I can translate her idea of a landscape into a reality that’s in keeping with her environmental passion so it will not only tell a story but also look good,” von Gal said. “My job is to put a brake on things so that it translates to the natural world and

A collection of marbles in the shape of Ohio’s aquifers cling to a wall in the newlyfinished Peter B. Lewis Gateway Center. The installation, glued in place by artist James Ewart, is part of a larger sculpture series by Ewart and collaborator Maya Lin. Photo by Bryan Rubin, Photo editor

can thrive. So like, with Wavefield, what color will the grasses be, how do you get things to grow, and how does it drain?” Storm King Wavefield (2009) is another environmental reclamation piece focused on maintaining sustainability and carbon neutrality. It’s a giant earthwork, reminiscent of and inspired by Native American sites in Ohio like the Great Serpent Mound in Adams County. Lin’s commitment to producing art for and about Ohio is clear in many of her works, but perhaps especially the Ohio Trilogy, in which Oberlin is now a participant. The first two pieces of the trilogy are Reading a Garden (1998), for the Cleveland Public

Library, and Input (2004), for Ohio University in Athens, where the Lins grew up and both their parents were professors. Each work in the series combines Tan Lin’s writing with Maya Lin’s landscaping art, creating what Lin calls “poems that can be read and walked through.” Reading a Garden is a sculpture in the Eastman Reading Garden outside of the library that has multidirectional text carved into the granite blocks of the pathways. Tan Lin’s words, which can be read in any order, interact playfully with the stone surfaces and the reflecting pool Maya Lin designed to contain them. Input See Lin, page 13

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The Oberlin Review, October 28, 2016

On the Record with Artist Christi Birchfield This past Wednesday, 2016 Creative Workforce Fellowship award-winning artist Christi Birchfield visited Oberlin for a talk about her work as a multimedia artist with a passion for printmaking. Having received her BFA in printmaking from the Cleveland Institute of Art and an MFA in visual art at Columbia University in New York City, Birchfield has participated in artist exchanges in Skowhegan, Maine and Germany. In 2006, she held a residency with the Cleveland print shop Zygote Press, where she now works as a production manager, helping bring other printmaker’s visions to fruition. Works by Birchfield — including graphite erasure drawings, mesmerizing botanical prints and hanging 3D geometrical sculptures — have appeared all over the world from MOCA Cleveland to China, and several are part of the permanent collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Birchfield sat down with the Review to discuss her work at Zygote, making meaning through process and the new cosmic etching she’s making for Oberlin’s Art Rental Collection. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Do you feel like your location influences your work? You talked a little bit about being in New York and the corner bodegas where you would buy flowers... Definitely. I think location influences my work for a couple of reasons. Cleveland, and where my studio is especially, and these kind of neighborhoods that I think artists tend to find themselves which are maybe a little downtrodden because of just the economic climate in those areas, tend to be considered a rough part of town, and where I work at Zygote, I’m driving through bits of Cleveland that are really… I see things that seem sad. So I’m constantly confronted in this very entitled [position], in that I’m in my car able to drive through and drive back to my nice apartment at the end of the day. But I think that kind of experience of Cleveland, and these things that I

see that are either shocking or make me stop and think, definitely impact my work and definitely play into how I think about life. … I think living in New York there’s this pace that was different than what Cleveland is and I think my work had to keep up to that pace, versus here, [where] I feel more liberated to take a step back and be slower about how I make things. You talked about working with other artists at Zygote, and you described yourself as a technician. What’s your process for bringing other artists into the studio to work with you? Sometimes the artists that I end up working with are resident artists at Zygote. Zygote has a resident artist program, you know, I talked about my time [working at Grafikwerkstatt] in Dresden, [Germany] — that’s an exchange program actually — so when Ohio artists are in Dresden, two Dresden artists are in Ohio working. Just this past month I was working with the Germans who were here on their projects. Sometimes — which it’s great when this happens — artists have a project in mind and then end up approaching us…for us to help them make it. So we just worked with this artist Jenny Jones. She’s this photographer; she’s probably 84 years old. We just did this series of lithographs with her. And so she came to us and asked us to do that for her. Something that I noticed was there are aspects of performance in your work, even though your work is certainly not performance art. Can you speak a little bit about that? I think when I was working on these graphite drawings, whenever I would have a studio visit, the performative quality of them would always come up. And at that point I was kind of like, “What are you talking about?” People would always talk about that at my studio, and I was so not interested in that, but what they were talking about was this kind of like ‘me versus it,’ and me kind of having to take on this [thing] that was bigger than

me. My studio at that time was absolutely covered in graphite powder, and so the environment took on the work and took on the materials, and so did myself. I had graphite powder in my nostrils all the time. And so it was like [I was] literally breathing my work, and that was where that conversation sort of entered. I think for somebody who deals with process as much as I do, it’s impossible for me to talk about my work without talking about process because I find meaning in the processes that I use, and meaning and purpose surfaces through these processes. So then if the process is the work, then there has to be this attention given to that, and that’s where I find myself dealing with documentation and video. And it’s something that I deal with when I feel like I need to, but it kind of presents itself, …I don’t see myself as a performance artist by any means, but when an idea surfaces, that this documentation of the performance of the making makes sense, then that’s when I would make a video, and I guess I could have responded to the question of [the person who asked a question at the talk earlier] with that it’s almost like this urgent need to document it, and it’s not — for me — something that needs to be slick or anything. Going off of that idea of making meaning out of process, I wasn’t quite sure if I saw a more mathematical or calculated approach in your work, or something more spontaneous and liberating — or both — and I was wondering how you derive meaning from those two very different modes of working. For the fabric pieces, for instance, I’m turned onto this way to approach materials and then can follow that carrot for a while. And it’s kind of like, either that idea will sink or swim. There will be something that will then create this curiosity for me to then continue to pursue it or to abandon it. And sometimes I feel like maybe, possibly I abandon ideas too quickly, but it’s almost just this idea after having this studio practice for so long, it’s like

Cleveland-based studio artist Christi Birchfield visited Oberlin Wednesday to discuss her role as production manager at Zygote Press.

I’ve come to understand that there’s this aspect of faith that needs to be present in that as long as I continue and keep pursuing these materials or a certain way of working, I guess I should say, then something will happen. And what I was saying in regards to [Professor Kristina Paabus’s] question, for me it always takes longer to get to this point of feeling like, “OK, this is a resolved moment,” versus an artist who maybe has this clear set of plans going into a project, and so that’s where sometimes this occasional envy will take place on my part — not to say that somebody that approaches work in a different way has it easier, because making art is hard, but to maybe then be able to turn back around and talk about it and sort of have this sort of statement to go along with the work, because it’s so experiential and has to do with this kind of journey. If somebody’s like, “What’s the influence?” or “What’s the meaning of the work?” whatever that means, I can feel stumped, and then that’s when vulnerability comes in because it’s like, what am I doing anyways? Can you talk a little bit about the print you’re making for Oberlin’s Art Rental Collection? I’m going to be working on an etching. It’s gonna be two plates that I had in my studio for a while that are these cosmic scapes that feel like a star scene, but they’re both aquatints. What an aquatint is is basically [taking] an image from rosin dust and then etching that dust and creating kind of a value range by doing that, and then painting with acid onto the plate, so there’s this alchemical that occurs by making the plate the print [itself], so I really respond to that as a printmaker — this aquatint approach to making a plate — so I’m gonna work out a few kinks with it tomorrow, so tomorrow is going to be a little bit of a proofing day and then the addition’s gonna be made on Friday. Are you making that all here, or did you start it already? So, I have proofs of the plates. The plates are made, I might have to tweak them a little. But yeah, that’s the plan.

Your work, like that of many other artists, has evolved in many different ways, so I’m wondering what has provided your impulse to evolve as an artist and where do you see your work going next? That’s a really, really good question, and one that I think about all the time. I think, just paying attention to the work, it would be impossible to not have changes occur in how artists make. So I think sometimes — I was saying to Kristina — sometimes I feel like this all-over-the-place artist that has kind of multi-personalities, but giving talks like I just did, it’s really helpful to take a step back and look at this chronological order that things have happened in, and the more time goes on, the more work happens. It’s this expanse all of a sudden of being able to look at this bigger picture, and so it’s exciting to have opportunities like this to be kind of forced to look at everything. But in terms of where things are going, I’m excited about the fiber processes that I’ve been working in and, you know, [finding] that there’s calling for other elements to come into play. For the show that I just had in Savannah, the work was hung on this metal chain just out of pure necessity of getting it up quickly and we had only two days to install, and so I wanted it to feel like this laundry line hanging on a chain; then when I had it in my studio, I felt like a chain felt like this foreign object in relation to this warm fabric, and so I decided to incorporate the chain … by making my own chain with papier mâché, and linking wheat paste and paper together to continue that as part of the composition — and so that was an exciting moment for me in that piece and a small step in a slightly different direction of how to expand the sculptural elements. A lot of the work depends on the wall, and it’s hovered between painting and sculpture right now, and I’m interested to see what will happen if the work really comes out into the floor. Interview and Photo by Vida Weisblum, Editor-in-Chief

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The Oberlin Review, October 28, 2016

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Art Museum Traces Influence Across Oceans Continued from page 10 one aspect of the poem, but ... there are visual elements to the characters which, for really great poets, add another layer of meaning which [is] very difficult to translate.” Cherney was inspired to set Dylan’s poem in calligraphy by his perception of a cultural shift within China. “I felt that China was really changing,” he said. “People were getting very caught up in material culture, and that poem kind of resonated. [It was] just a nice message to spend time with, compared to what I was seeing around me.” As an American who has devoted his life to studying and working with traditional Asian art forms both in his calligraphy practice and in his landscape photography, Cherney’s is a foreign perspective steeped

in both affinity and acquired understanding. “People should not be surprised when an aesthetic tradition, such as China’s, would appeal to anybody,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to change anything, because I have my own perspective from where I’m coming from — I get a lot of benefit from that too.” Cherney also reflected on the implication of displaying his calligraphy, with its foreign perspective and content in concert with Mào Xiāng’s piece, adding another layer to the conversations between these works and the larger practice of calligraphy in the past and present. “It’s a bit surreal and it’s an honor, but I don’t consider my calligraphy all that great,” Cherney said. “[There are] thousands of people who practice calligraphy in China, and in any given

century, maybe there will be a handful of them whose calligraphy seems like it will go down in the canon — like putting a brick in that road that came out of history. … But if there are people who could have done this poem with much nicer calligraphy, they may not have chosen Bob Dylan. … This exhibition [is a place] where people can see that the assumed definition of the word ‘tradition’ being something old is not correct. It’s actually past, present and future.” The delicate nature of the works on display requires that they not be exposed to the kind of prolonged light exposure permanent items typically receive. For this reason, they will be rotated out of the exhibit in the spring. Greenwood considers this an opportunity to present the community with more aspects of the AMAM’s extensive collection of Asian art.

“In the spring, all the paintings are going to change,” he said. “I’m going to continue with the theme of conversations, but I’m going to look at artists who have used historical photographs as the subject for really fascinating interpretations. We’re going to look at Asian and Asian-American artists who were inspired by the American pop-art movement. We’re going to see artists that were inspired by traditional Japanese wood-block prints, and I think it’s really going to be an interesting mix of things, very different from what’s on view now. ...When we get to the spring, it’s a totally different world. It’s all going to be very dynamic, dramatic, colorful, very poignant in some cases, political, and there’s a lot of really fascinating stuff to look forward to.”

Lin Pushes Boundaries of Landscape at New Hotel Continued from page 11 echoes personal memories for the Lins and resembles an old computer punch card. Again, Tan Lin’s poetry becomes a part of his sister’s landscape, describing and enhancing the raised and sunk-in rectangles of grass and concrete that comprise the work. “Oberlin has a wonderful reputation in history because of its relation to the environment, and had all the right ingredients for me — that doesn’t come along often in a project,” said von Gal. “We want to allow species to live in an urban environment and provide city planners with this idea of mosaics, ecosystems sprinkled through ur-

ban environments so that developed areas don’t have to be barren,” she said, echoing the foundational ideas of both the Oberlin Project and her own Perfect Earth Project, which promotes toxin-free landscapes. “One of the core concepts of what we promote is that every piece of land is a preserve and every person making decisions about that piece of land is a steward.” President Marvin Krislov involved Maya Lin alongside Orr from the beginning. “Maya came to Oberlin a few years ago and spoke a lot about environmental sustainability and art, and how those two were important to her and work together,” Krislov said. “It’s been a prominent theme in her art.” He said that he approached her after

the convocation, and they began planning for an environmentally-themed piece set at the LEED Platinum Certified hotel. “Part of what makes Oberlin great, in addition to all the people here, are the works of art and architecture,” he said. “Having great art here is something that creates value, and it’s an asset to our community.” Lin and von Gal also hope it will be something more. “These are plants and ideas that people can use,” von Gal emphasized. “If we are going to continue to create landscapes that will meet the needs of the future, we need to change our perceptions of what a landscape is. We control so much area, and we need to start conceding some land to nature.”

Feature Photo: Petros Klampanis

Greek-born double bass player Petros Klampanis stopped by the Cat in the Cream Thursday night for a Performance and Improvisation Series guest recital. After studying double bass performance at the Amsterdam Conservatory, he finished his schooling in New York, where he collaborated with renowned jazz musicians and performed at illustrious venues like Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center. His debut album, Contextual, showcases his original compositions and has garnered widespread praise for its beauty and complexity. His work has been performed internationally by groups such as the Liepaja Symphony Orchestra and the Greek Public Symphonic Orchestra in Athens.

Text by Christian Bolles, Arts editor Photo by Bryan Rubin, Photo editor

Project Unbound Highlights Human Tragedy With Art Brendan Eprile Over 1,200 children have been rescued by The Human Trafficking Collaborative of Lorain County in the past 10 years. To raise money for its cause and increase awareness, student-run anti-humantrafficking organization Project Unbound’s 3rd Annual Voices Against Human Trafficking gathering will bring together various on-campus arts groups in hopes of making an impact. Tomorrow’s event, taking place at 7:30 p.m. in First Church’s Meeting Hall, seeks to accomplish its goals through the avenue of art. The evening will feature performances by OSlam, Pitch Please and The Obertones. College junior and chair of Project Unbound Sarah Blum has organized Voices Against Human Trafficking since its inception. She envisioned a huge event that would raise awareness about the issues among the community, but suspected that the cause alone wouldn’t be enough to attract a full audience. The inclusion of popular campus performers ended up being an apt solution; the first event, which took place at the Cat in the Cream, proved successful. According to Blum, the night garnered immensely positive feedback — in the words of one attendee, “This is what I came to Oberlin for.” To Blum and her peers, Saturday’s fundraiser holds a great deal of significance. Money raised from Project Unbound goes directly to women experiencing life-or-death situations, giving the proceedings a very real impact — for example, last year Project Unbound helped one survivor buy her own house. “If people realize that human trafficking happens right here in Ohio, [they] will take it more seriously,” Blum said. “[It] happens all around us. I know of people who participate in human trafficking at Crocker Park.” The three headlining performances have all participated in the fundraiser since the first Voices Against Human Trafficking event, giving the artists a strong connection to the annual gathering. Among the artists performing this year will be College sophomore Sarah Nathanson with Ani DiFranco’s “Lost Woman Song,” about a young woman getting an abortion at the age of 18. “It sums up so much raw feeling in so few words,” Nathanson said. “Performance art is always one of the most powerful mediums to discuss any contentious issue.” College senior Zachariah Claypole-White, an OSlam poet who will take the event’s stage for the third time, agreed. “I think it’s the responsibility of any artist — poet, musician, painter, etc. — to help adjust the spotlight of the conversation, ... [to] direct people to pressing issues and to the individuals who are actively engaged in those issues.” Claypole-White said. For the last two years, the event has filled the Cat in the Cream. This year, with its move to First Church — a space that can host over a thousand people — there’s potential for an even bigger turnout. “Nothing would beat educating a room filled with a thousand people about an issue I think is so important,” Blum said. That education has extended to the event’s performers, blurring the line between attendee and artist and speaking to the potential power of such an event. “I didn’t really know that much about human trafficking,” Claypole-White admitted. “So I also view the event as a chance to learn something about it myself while hopefully helping others.” The significance of hosting this event at the First Church is hard to ignore: historically, groundbreaking decisions have been made in that space, such as Oberlin’s participation in the abolitionist movement and the acceptance of both female students and students of color. Voices Against Human Trafficking stands to continue the Church’s tradition of impactful progress, and with the efforts of Project Unbound and the fundraiser’s longtime performers, its success seems set to endure.

Sports

Page 14

In the Locker Room

The Oberlin Review, October 28, 2016

Swimming & Diving Captains

This week, the Review sat down with women’s swimming and diving team captains Nora Cooper and Kathleen Falk to discuss the importance of veteran leadership, offseason training and favorite memories.

I think that reminding them to trust the process and to buy into [Head Coach] Andy [Brabson’s] training program because it has worked really well for all of us. If they do buy into it, they will benefit.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How has your offseason training prepared you for the season? KF: Swimming is a really intense and long season, so the offseason is always a great opportunity to do other things physically like running, biking or lifting. There is more room to experiment. NC: We don’t have formal offseason workouts. Andy will write practices for us, and we still will have a time blocked off — 4:45–6:45 p.m. — and a lot of people attend those workouts informally. We also coordinate lifting with partners that we may have lifted with during the season.

What are your team goals for this season? Kathleen Falk: We are hoping that we can go undefeated in dual meets this season. That’s something we did our first year. Placing fourth in our conference is another one. One that’s a little more personal is to have 85 percent of our swims be personal best times at conference, which is more about improving ourselves than beating other people. Nora Cooper: One thing that we emphasize, which I think is really constructive and good moving forward, is just supporting one another, especially in meets. Swimming is such a mental sport, and when you’re swimming in a particularly long race or hard one, it makes all the difference to see your teammates supporting you and cheering at the end of your lane. What did you learn from last year to help your team succeed this year? KF: Every year you’re building on the foundation that you come in with, and I think most of the things you learn when you’re swimming are about mentally how to swim your race. So I think that’s a process that continues throughout all four years. NC: As far as our performance relative to last year, we are swimming on faster intervals. We are having less active recovery, and it is definitely a more intense training program. Does it add any extra pressure being a captain for the team while still having to perform at a high level? KF: I think for swimming, the role of captain

Seniors Nora Cooper (left) and Kathleen Falk doesn’t have to do that much with swimming fast but it does have a lot to do with doing the right thing. So there’s always been pressure to be on time and try your hardest in practice. The things you have to do to be a good captain are the same things you have to do to be a good swimmer. NC: The rules that apply to captains apply to everybody. It’s about leading by example. For swimming, at least, the role of the captain is to be a liaison between the coach and the team. Our senior class is really tight-knit. I think everyone in our women’s senior group has stepped up and filled that leadership role. And that, to a certain extent, takes a lot of stress off of both of us as captains. What kinds of challenges will your team have to overcome in order to be successful? KF: We have a lot of first-years this year and

that’s new to us. I think almost more than half of the team is made up of first-years. So making sure that the first-years are able to transition to the demands of college is really important to us this year. NC: It’s always really difficult balancing swimming with academics. It’s so time intensive as a sport. We swim 6:30–8 a.m. every morning and then we either have afternoon practices 2:45–4:45 p.m. or 4:45–6:45 p.m. So, that’s three and a half hours of every single day that we are never getting back. But the structure can be good as well. How important is it for the senior class to help guide such a large group of underclassmen? NC: I think the main thing is just providing encouragement. To a certain extent, a lot of the first-years don’t have a lifting background at all.

— football —

NCAC Powerhouses Await Yeomen Alex McNicoll Contributing Writer In what was arguably the football team’s best-played game of the season, the Yeomen fell 34–30 in a heartbreaker to The College of Wooster Fighting Scots. Now the Yeomen look to regroup as they set their sights on the last three games of the season. Despite a 0–7 start, the team isn’t fretting as it approaches the final stretch of the year. “I feel like our first losses were really hard on the team,” junior wide receiver Federico Consuegra said. “[But] we’ve bounced back, and I think we were able to keep our motivation. Sometimes last year we were completely deflated after losses, and now I feel like we really haven’t done that too much.” The Yeomen will host the No. 23 Wittenberg University Tigers tomorrow, who are currently tied for second place in the conference at 6–1 overall and 5–1 in the North Coast Athletic Conference. The Yeomen are prepared to combat the Tigers’ top-ranked defense, which has held opposing teams to 9.7 points per game. Despite the national attention Wittenberg has received for its excellent play, Oberlin is ready for the challenge. “We have to keep [the game] within ourselves,” senior wide receiver Justin Cruz said. “We have to see what we can do.” After facing off against Wittenberg, Oberlin will play their final home game of the year against DePauw University Nov. 5. The Tigers will be another tough test for the Yeomen as they are 5–2 overall, 4–2 in the NCAC. Unlike Wittenberg, DePauw’s strength is its explosive offense, which is first in the conference with 41 points

and 494.6 yards per game. However, Head Coach Jay Anderson is not too concerned with how his team will fare in competitions against both of these powerhouses in consecutive weeks. “We try to take it day by day and try to get better every day at what we do,” Anderson said. “For us, it’s about living in the now and focusing on what’s in front of us.” In their season finale Nov. 12, the Yeomen will look for revenge on the road against the Hiram College Terriers. Last year, in an intense rivalry game, the Terriers came back after being down 21–3 to eventually defeat the Yeomen 24–21. With the team continuing to improve, the Yeomen are set to turn their weekly improvements into victories. “I feel like everyone from [ first-years] to juniors and seniors have really grown this season,” Cruz said. “They’ve not only grown as players, but grown as a team.” In the end, all eyes will fall on first-year starting quarterback Zach Taylor, who is determined to end his first collegiate season on the right note. The Artesia, CA native has thrown for 1,325 yards and 11 touchdowns this year. However, Cruz and the rest of the Yeomen aren’t trying to get ahead of themselves before they suit up for the first of these last three games. “We’re taking things one game at a time, and we’re trying to go 1–0 for that week,” he said. Since they last played The College of Wooster, the Yeomen have had 14 days to prepare for their matchup tomorrow since. If the Yeomen can build on the success they had against the Fighting Scots, the team believes that they can finish the season on a positive note to build momentum for next year.

What is you favorite memory throughout your swimming career thus far? KF: Conference [tournaments] are always a lot of fun just because it is so intense physically and mentally, and it’s also really exciting. Last year, I had a good 200-meter backstroke. That was kind of unexpected because I hadn’t been training for it as much, and my coach was really excited with that. NC: Last year, our 800-meter freestyle relay was all-conference so we placed third, and that was really amazing, especially given how competitive our swimming conference is. I also would say my sophomore year, our 800-yard freestyle relay got a nationals cut, which was really amazing. A lot of my most memorable experiences are rooted in performing competitively in such a strong conference. Interview by Darren Zaslau, Sports editor Photo by Bryan Rubin, Photo editor

Gym Renovations Will Promote Holistic Wellness, Accessibility Continued from page 16 Health Working Group and other campus organizations advocated for women and trans only safe hours during the gym, to no avail. The department responded instead by instituting “Quiet Hours” Monday– Friday from 1–3 p.m. and publishing the times of varsity team lifts in case other gym patrons wanted to avoid them. Approval of the new renovation has re-ignited discussions about the gym’s accessibility. The athletics department has been criticized for failing to provide programming to promote mental wellness. Office of Disability Services Student Accessibility Advocate Dana Goldstein said that this problem is true of Oberlin as a whole. “I think that the athletic department tries very hard to promote wellness, offering a wide variety of courses,” said Goldstein, who is also a member of the softball team. “Regarding mental health, though, I feel that the department often fails to draw a connection between bodily wellness and mental wellness. Honestly, this isn’t a problem specific and exclusive to the Athletics Department, this is a problem with our culture in and beyond Oberlin.” Krislov said that the improved gym would offer increased opportunities to promote holistic wellness among the student body. “I think [the Philips expansion] very much

ties into the discussion of mental health and wellness here, and that having good recreational facilities really helps health and wellness of everyone, and that’s been a big concern of a lot of students,” Krislov said. The College’s recent capital campaign solicited some donations for the expansion, and outreach efforts by the athletic department accrued others, but Winkelfoos dismissed claims that the funding for the Philips renovations could have been allotted to other projects. “Donors give to what they want to give to,” Winkelfoos said. “This is a passion project for a lot of people, especially a lot of alums… [that] recognize how important it is to take care of yourself physically and mentally.” Winklefoos stressed that the administration’s involvement in the project, rather than athletics alone, adding that former Dean of Students Eric Estes played a key role in advocating for the renovations. Winkelfoos explained that these renovations would bring the athletic facilities up to par with peer schools with modern athletic complexes like Kenyon College and Denison University — a key to attracting prospective students and athletes. “It’s a recruitment piece,” Winkelfoos said. “And I don’t say that just for athletics, but for the College in general.”

Sports

The Oberlin Review, October 28, 2016

Page 15

— Women’s volleyball —

Yeowomen Face Fierce Competition in California Julie Schreiber Contributing Writer The women’s volleyball team took to Southern California over fall break to battle Chapman University, Pomona-Pitzer and Occidental College. For a team used to weathering the seasons in one of the coldest regions in the U.S., the chance to spend a week at the beach while facing fresh, non-conference competition was an exciting prospect. “Spending your week playing your sport in California is an opportunity any Midwestern, cornfield-dwelling student would be grateful for,” senior middle hitter Maggie Middleton said. The Yeowomen took their talents to Chapman University Oct. 22, but they could not upset the Panthers, who beat them in three straight sets to win the faceoff. Chapman took the lead early, amounting a 6–2 advantage as their initial control continued for the entirety of the game. The second set of the game featured more back and forth action between the Yeowomen and the Panthers with contributions from key players such as first-year Lexi Mitchell, junior Dana Thomas and senior Ave Spencer. Spencer mentioned Middleton’s “hustling dive” during the game as a sign of the team’s hard work in practice. Though the effort wasn’t enough to send Oberlin home with the win, there were notice-

able team improvements; the Yeowomen dominated the contest 8–6 in overall aces and 5–3 in blocks. Sophomore Sara Chang credits this progression to the team’s determination. “There were a lot of games where we were down in the beginning and lost the first set,” Chang said. “But we always kept fighting and never gave up, which can be easy to do.” The Yeowomen also took on the Sagehens of Pomona-Pitzer Friday, Oct. 21 and lost a close competition 3–2 after taking the Sagehens to a fifth set. Senior setter Meredith Leung led Oberlin with 22 kills while Spencer and senior Krista Langhans contributed crucial kills and aces respectively. Mitchell also reached 17 kills in the game and fellow first-year Maura Gibbs contributed 12 digs. “This was anyone’s game until the last moment,” Middleton said. “It’s important to play teams we’ve never played before to test our abilities, and this time we happened to come up a little short.” The Yeowomen rounded off the week with tough competition from the Occidental College Tigers Oct. 19, falling 3–1 after rallying to win the third set and keep the game alive. Strong contributors to the game included Thomas and Mitchell, with 13 and 11 kills respectively, while Leung added 31 assists. Head Coach Erica Rau was not surprised by the talent on the other side of the net.

Senior Jillian Hostetler leaps for a spike during Wednesday’s game.

“California has some really good [teams],” Rau said. “It is definitely a hotbed for volleyball.” Reflecting on her week of California competition, Spencer acknowledged the importance of focusing on the team’s improvement as opposed to the upcoming matches. With only two games remaining in the regular season, the team is ready to find its stride at the right time. “Looking forward, we are going to try to be more focused on ourselves and how we play,” Spencer said.

Photo by Bryan Rubin, Photo editor

The Yeowomen will prepare to rebound from their losses when they face two nationally ranked opponents tomorrow, the Wittenberg University Tigers and the Carnegie Mellon University Tartans. Both matches will be crucial for the Yeowomen as they look to end their regular season with momentum before the NCAC Tournament. “We are going to go to the conference tournament, but we always want to go up in the standings,” Rau said. “We are going to be able to surprise some people at the end.”

From Curses to Recluses: World Se- Editorial: Philips Renories Features Captivating Characters vations Positive for All Jack Brewster Columnist Editor’s Note: The Oberlin Review’s policy is to avoid calling the Cleveland baseball team by its name due to its derogatory nature and racist caricature. Towards the end of the beloved baseball movie Field of Dreams, Terence Mann, played by actor James Earl Jones, delivers a poignant soliloquy on the game’s enduring appeal. “The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball,” intones Jones in his signature baritone. “America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray.” Baseball fans everywhere recite this quote the way literature scholars recount Shakespeare and the devout cite the gospel. “The one constant through all the years…” But baseball’s constancy can also be to its detriment. Critics of the sport say baseball is too old-fashioned. Many young people prefer glitzier sports like football and basketball. Even the World Series, baseball’s biggest stage, has lulled fans in recent years. Some have grown tired of watching the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Cardinals or San Francisco Giants play deep into October. Enter the 2016 World Series. This year, as the cold moves in and fall dips into its twilight, the two unlikeliest teams are the last ones standing. Cleveland? Chicago? In the World Series? By this time of year, fans in both cities have usually retired to their dens to cheer on the Bears and the Browns, two other teams with a painful history of ineptitude. When the World Series opened Tuesday night, the lights at Progressive Field shone upon the first Cleveland World Series since 1997. The last time the team won it all was 1948. Chicago’s drought is even worse. The most “recent” appearance in the game’s grand finale was 1945. The last time they carried the trophy home? 1908. Theodore Roosevelt was in the White House and the car had yet to replace the horse and buggy. But there are other aspects to this World Series that break the mold. In addition to featuring two unlikely foes, the 2016 World Series brings other drama, too. Rivalry is brewing. Terry Francona, Cleveland’s manager, previously managed the Boston Red Sox and was at the helm when the Red Sox overcame their 84-year championship drought in 2004. Theo Epstein, Boston’s general manager at that time, is now the president of baseball operations for the

Continued from page 16

Cubs. These former comrades in the battle to shed Boston’s “Curse of the Bambino” now face different demons. Francona is on a quest to bring Ceveland a rare championship and faces the pressure to follow in the Cavaliers’ footsteps. Epstein is up against another hex — the socalled “Curse of the Billy Goat,” which has hung over the Cubs since the 1945 World Series in Game 4 when Cubs management removed Chicago tavern owner Billy Sianis and his pet goat from the Wrigley Field stands. And what would any plot be without the “comeback kid”? On the third day of the 2016 regular season, Cubs left fielder and Ohio native Kyle Schwarber tore his ACL and LCL in his left knee in a collision with center fielder Dexter Fowler. Doctors told Schwarber he would almost certainly miss the remainder of the season. But Schwarber, one of the Cubs’ brightest young stars, refused to sit back and watch while his team chased the glory that has eluded them for decades. He rehabbed relentlessly, and when the Series opened Tuesday he returned, batting fifth for the Cubs as their designated hitter. Finally, there’s “the exile.” Steve Bartman may well be the most famous (or “infamous”) fan in all of sports. Bartman injected himself into Cubs’ history 13 years ago in a way that has made him a target for abuse ever since. In the sixth game of the 2003 National League Championship Series, the Cubs were only five outs away from heading to the World Series. Marlins second baseman Luis Castillo hit a foul ball over toward the left field bleachers. Cubs left fielder Moises Alou glided over to make the catch, but instead encountered the outstretched hand of a fan — Bartman — looking to capture a memento from his beloved team. Bartman’s interference prevented Alou from completing the play. If Bartman had not reached for the ball, it is likely that Alou would have caught the ball and the Cubs would have advanced to the Fall Classic. Instead, they went on to blow the game, surrendering eight runs in that inning and eventually losing the NLCS. Bartman has been a scapegoat for irate Cubs fans holed up in North Side bars ever since. With the Cubs now in the World Series, many have wondered if Bartman will end his decade-long seclusion. Some players and fans have even called for Bartman to throw out the first pitch when Wrigley Field hosts game three. But most Cubs fans, fearing that even this year will end in disappointment, are not so sure. Even the critics who say baseball is boring and monotonous would be foolish not to call this Fall Classic mustwatch television. For all the talk of baseball’s constancy, 2016 stands apart as a special year. Sorry baseball fans. This one time, Terence Mann was wrong.

(“Trustees to Consider Philips Gym Expansion” September 16, 2016), students who are not members of varsity teams voiced their concerns and assumptions that the new wing would be a varsity athlete-dominated space. They posited that the extension would house a varsity-only gym, a smoothie bar and other accoutrements reserved for the athletic elite, assuming that non-athletes would be totally excluded. In an interview for our story on the expansion, Delta Lodge Director of Athletics Natalie Winkelfoos said there was never any talk of making the gym expansion a varsity-only space. And the idea of installing a smoothie bar in the gym was thrown out in the earliest stages of planning, when it became clear that there would not be enough funding for it and staffing it would be logistically difficult. The project is intended to be modest, welcoming and, most of all, inclusive. A much more serious accusation was also made in the Review by former Student Senate liaison Jeremy Poe (“Trustees to Consider Philips Gym Expansion” September 16, 2016). In asking why Oberlin does not have specific rules governing its gym, Poe seemingly insinuated that athletes believe themselves to be above the law. “Why don’t we have a code of conduct in the gym?” Poe said. “To me, it seems pretty simple to say, ‘You’re not allowed to touch people in the gym.’” We do, in fact, have a code of conduct in the gym at Oberlin which also governs the rest of campus and, indeed, all other colleges and universities in the United States — Title IX — which explicitly prohibits sexual assault and sexualized violence on campus. While there’s no denying that a small fraction of athletes are perpetrators of sexual assault, the vast majority understand proper conduct and hold themselves to those standards. Insinuating otherwise perpetuates a stereotype that most athletes know all too well. The myth that athletes are physically and sexually aggressive, not to mention intellectually lesser, pervades our culture. It’s promoted by hyperbolic movie portrayals of the high school bully who usually also happens to be the star of the football team. It stains the trial of any athlete accused of sexual misconduct — they are guilty until proven innocent. It invades campuses and constrains hopes of athletic advancement, contributing to negative perspectives of athletics-related projects like this renovation. An expansion of Philips Gym would be just that — an advancement. It would serve as a recruiting piece for all students, not just athletes, who would otherwise be drawn to the superior facilities at peer schools like Kenyon College. It will showcase the dedication of our alumni to the betterment of Oberlin athletics. The cost of the expansion is almost entirely funded by alumni donations. It will serve as a gathering place, where a varsity women’s lacrosse player and a Conservatory piano performance major can bond over a spin class and push each other to grow. And yes, it will serve as a place where varsity athletes can hone their skills and gain the strength to push Oberlin athletics to new heights. After all, varsity athletes have the same overarching goals as all other Oberlin students. We all came here to be intellectually challenged at one of our nation’s finest educational institutions. That mission is best served when our facilities are in the best possible condition and our students have the opportunity to develop well-rounded wellness, as Obies have been doing for centuries.

Sports The Oberlin Review

Page 16

October 28, 2016

Philips Expansion Debate Continues Jackie McDermott and Darren Zaslau Sports Editors Earlier this week the administration unveiled an alleged $15 millon dollar expansion plan for Philips Gym. The update, which the Board of Trustees approved on Oct. 10, is aimed at expanding health and wellness opportunities beyond Oberlin’s athletic community. Construction for the project will commence in the coming months and will wrap up in the spring of 2018. Following a trend of alumni-funded athletics facility improvements on campus, these renovations come on the heels of the $8 million construction of the Austin E. Knowlton Athletics Complex, completed in September 2014. According to President Marvin Krislov the expansion was spawned by a need to keep up with increasing demand for the space. “I think everyone thinks that the Philips gym is really not adequate,” Krislov said. “More employees are using it than ever, and a lot of faculty and staff use it. … I don’t think there’s a single person I’ve talked with who thinks that it’s not absolutely critical that we have a better facility.” Improvements to the nearly 50-year-old facility will include several additional fitness rooms, a wood-floored space equipped for yoga and dance classes and a new stable of stationary bikes for spin classes. Another multipurpose room will house the gym’s current stock of cardio machines in addition to new dumbbells, kettlebells and other equipment for free weight workouts. Carr Pool will also receive an overhaul complete with new tiling, pool heating system, air circulation system, larger viewing windows and a warm down hot tub for divers. The pool itself will also see expanded lane space. Delta Lodge Director of Athletics Natalie Winkelfoos said renovating the pool will alleviate the financial strain of making constant small improvements to a decaying facility.

Jackie McDermott Sports Editor

A model of the recently approved expansion of Philips gym. The expansion will include several new fitness rooms and a renovation of Carr Pool. Photo Courtesy of OC Athletics

“The pool is just riddled with one issue after the next. It’s a drain [on financial resources],” said Winkelfoos. “Why dump any more money into a facility that isn’t working?” To make room for the additions, Philips will take over the areas now filled by two collegeowned Woodland Street houses adjacent to the gym. Some squash and racquetball courts will be temporarily repurposed as contractor offices during construction and will later be transformed into a meet management room for Swimming & Diving coaches. Strength & Conditioning Coach Grant Butler said the new space provided by the expansion will help alleviate problem of overcrowding in the gym. “While we are blessed to have the gym space that we do, it is still difficult for everyone to get what they want out of their weight room experience,” Butler said. “The added space will disperse traffic and also provide mul-

tiple environments for gym goers to choose from.” Varsity team lifts coached by Butler and Olympic lifting racks will stay will remain in the current Philips weight room there as well, but the space will continue to be open to all gym-users. The expansion intends to be more inclusive to non-varsity athletes than in the past. “There’s an interesting kind of rejection of the project that people believe that it is for varsity athletes and that couldn’t be any further from the truth. It’s a very modest facility but it gets us exactly what we need for the campus,” Winkelfoos said. “There’s going to be another option for your typical student that wants to come in and [work out]. … I’m hoping that the new fitness center can make this a much more inclusive and welcoming environment.” Last spring, students from the Student See Gym, page 14

— Men’s Soccer —

Nationally Ranked Yeomen Prepare for Postseason Marissa Maxfield Contributing Writer

It only took two goals to seal the deal. With a 2–0 win over the Hiram College Terriers Tuesday, the No. 25 Oberlin College Yeomen earned their place in the North Coast Athletic Conference tournament for the third time in four years — capping off a season that has brought 13 wins and the highest national ranking in program history. “It took a lot of patience to score the first goal, but we kept a positive mentality,” said senior captain Dan Lev, who has been sidelined by a hip injury for the majority of this season. “Our defense held them to no shots on goal, which bodes very well going into the postseason.” The Yeomen seemed to be in a lull for the first 70 minutes of the game, until junior midfielder Jonah BlumeKemkes got them going. The Santa Monica, CA, native connected with fellow junior forward Tim Williams to put the Yeomen on the board. Just 10 minutes later, first-year forward Jack McMillin got a pass to senior midfielder Nick Wertman, who found the back of the net for Oberlin’s second goal. Wertman’s goal landed him in a tie atop the NCAC in scoring with DePauw’s Julian Gonzalez. This season, Wertman has spearheaded the Yeo-

Gym Renovations Necessary

men’s offense, notching 13 goals and 29 points. For the Yeomen, the win over the Terriers was was a much-needed rebound from their bruising loss to the Ohio Wesleyan University Battling Bishops Oct. 22. The Yeomen had struggled to find an offensive rhythm against the Bishops stiff defense and were outshot 18–13. Oberlin had its chances, firing nearly twice as many shots in the first half, but ultimately couldn’t connect. Head Coach Blake New attributes the team’s inability to capitalize off the Bishops’ mistakes as one of the deciding factors in the loss. “It was a very even game, and unfortunately they finished their chances and we didn’t finish ours,” he said. The Bishops had a 1–0 lead into halftime, with the Yeomen still struggling to find their groove as they were outshot 12–2 in the second half for a final score of 3–0. Because of this setback, Oberlin dropped to third place in the NCAC standings. With their previous loss Oct. 11 in a 3–2 doubleovertime thriller against No. 13 Kenyon College, the Yeomen rebounded well, securing two conference wins over the Wittenberg University Tigers and the Allegheny College Gators. Against the Wittenberg University Tigers on Oct. 15, the Oberlin offense exploded, leading to a 7–0 victory.

The dynamic duo of senior forward Sam Weiss and Wertman set the ball rolling seven minutes in, teaming up for Weiss’s fourth goal of the season. Wertman credits the goal to pair’s onfield chemistry. “Sammy and I have been playing together since our freshman year of high school,” Wertman said. “Because of that, we have a really strong chemistry and understanding of one another when we play together. To see that come to fruition against Wittenberg was really awesome.” In the span of 10 minutes, the two took turns as Weiss added another goal of his own before Wertman followed suit with a header assisted by first-year forward/midfielder Jack McMillin, who scored just a minute later. Up by five goals at halftime, the Yeomen held steady for the entirematch. From 30 yards away, sophomore midfielder Trenton Bulucea sent in a cross that maneuvered its way through the crowd that Weiss headed into the back of the net. First-year forward/midfielder Jiadi Cheng chipped in the final tally, his first collegiate goal. In their battle against the Allegheny College Gators, the scoreboard didn’t represent the extent of Yeomen domination, as they commanded possession and dictated the majority of game play. But out of Oberlin’s 25

shots, only eight were on net, and six were stopped by Gators goalkeeper David Stekla. Again, it was Wertman who took the lead just six minutes in as a tipin off of junior defenseman Jesse Lauritsen’s blocked attempt gave the Yeomen a 1–0 lead. For the next 60 minutes, though, Oberlin would be held scoreless until Bulucea secured the victory at 66:11 thanks to a set-up from Weiss. Winners of three of its past four matches, Oberlin’s confidence is at an all-time high as it prepares for the postseason. “Everyone is playing together and meshing well,” Wertman said. “We’ve worked really hard to put together a playing style that we’re super comfortable with and that we can adapt to deal with different defenses.” The last regular season game against the Denison University Big Red will determine if Oberlin hosts the first round of the tournament. After defeating the Big Red 2–1 in doubleovertime last year, tomorrow’s clash at 7 p.m. on Fred Schults Field is a critical match-up. “We have every chance in front of us to get to the point where we can host a playoff game,” New said. “Who knows — whatever else happens, we still have a chance to win the championship.”

The walls of Philips gym are lined with photos of those who came before us — the varsity athletes and coaches that dedicated themselves wholeheartedly to representing Oberlin to the best of their ability. Earlier this month, it was announced that Philips will soon become a space that would make our predecessors proud. The gym will be expanded through a renovation project that includes new fitness rooms and equipment, like a space outfitted with stationary bikes for spin classes and wood-floored room suited for yoga and dance classes. The Robert Carr Pool will also receive a much-needed update, with new heating and air circulation systems, wider lanes and improved aesthetics. All of these renovations should be completed in spring 2018. But the renovations won’t just be aimed at the fraction of the student body that gets to have their pictures on the wall, don the crimson and gold and represent our school on varsity athletics teams. The main mission of this project is to extend the rush of endorphins, the camaraderie of teamwork and the unmatched reward of fitness improvement to the rest of the student body. The new wing of the gym will not house a varsity-only weight room. In fact, varsity athletes will continue to work out in the current Philips weight room, while the airy, naturally-lit, high-tech, inviting space in the Philips addition will be open to all — students, professors, staff and townspeople. The reaction to this improvement should be nothing but positive, but negative rumblings have already begun to spread across campus. In a story about the Philips expansion in the Review See Editorial, page 15