The Oberlin Review
OCTOBER 7, 2016 VOLUME 145, NUMBER 6
ESTABLISHED 1874 oberlinreview.org
ONLINE & IN PRINT
Bill McKibben Heats Up Finney
Local News Bulletin
Noted environmentalists and 350.org founder Bill McKibben delivers a talk titled “The Hottest Fight in the Hottest Year” Thursday night in Finney Chapel. To McKibben, the climate crisis could not be more urgent. “2014 was the hottest year we recorded, until 2015 smashed that record, until 2016 smashed that record,” McKibben said. “If we do not solve it fast, we do not solve it.” 350.org is a global grassroots organization that has organized rallies concerning climate change in every country except North Korea. The group advocates for taking steps to lower the amount of carbon dioxide
News briefs from the past week League of Women Voters Hosts Candidates Night Co-president of the League of Women Voters of Ohio Alison Ricker will moderate a nonpartisan event introducing candidates for federal, state, county and judiciary offices Monday at First Church in Oberlin. Refreshments will be served at 6:30 p.m. and the forum begins at 7 p.m. The deadline to register for voting in this year’s election is Tuesday. College Receives Grant for Asian Studies, Environment The Henry Luce Foundation’s Luce Initiative on Asian Studies and the Environment awarded the College a four-year, $400,000 implementation grant Tuesday. The grant is intended to build upon a one-year exploratory grant focused on “Sustainability and Resilience in the Face of Environmental Stress and Extreme Events,” funded by the foundation last year. EPA Completes College Street Cleanup The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency finished cleaning spillage from an overflowing oil tank containing nearly 500 gallons of motor oil and toxic chemicals at 550 West College Street last Thursday. The tank, which was seven feet underground and contained carcinogenic chemicals called PCBs, was located at a former gas station before its removal. Assistant Fire Chief Susan Hiesser told the Oberlin News-Tribune that she does not believe the tank contaminated Oberlin’s water supply.
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Text by Oliver Bok, News editor Photo by Rick Yu, Photo editor
Students Call for Representatives on Board Sydney Allen Production Editor As the trustees conclude their first campus visit of the semester, student activists are fighting for a change to College governance: student representatives on the Board of Trustees. Former Student Senate Liaison Jeremy Poe, who announced his resignation this morning, with the support of Student Senate and other student activists, published a letter requesting student representatives in May. “In order to bridge the informational and political divide between the Board and students, Student Senate and I believe that the Board should welcome student representa-
tives to its plenary meetings and to the Student Affairs Committee,” Poe wrote. Under the current format, students are only able to directly address the Board through two means. The first is letters sent through snail-mail, as trustee emails are not published. The second is the trustee forums, which take place twice a year and feature students and trustees discussing issues in small groups. Students have often complained about the unclear process involved in the Board’s decision-making, most recently in regards to last year’s decision to not divest from corporations that produce a large share of fossil fuels or participate in Israel’s occupa-
Trustees listen to student concerns about Title IX at the Trustee Forum on Thursday night in King. Student activists also raised the issue of adding student representatives to the board. Photo by Louis Krauss, News editor
tion of Palestinian territories. College sophomore and fossil fuels divestment team member Cecilia Wallace was dissatisfied with the Board’s explanation last fall, and thinks having student representatives would improve communication. “We submitted two proposals last year and the Board of Trustees would write back saying, ‘We really agree that these are important issues, but we chose not to divest,’” Wallace said. “It was really frustrating to not know why. Having student reps on the board would make decisions like divestment and other activist pushes that involve decisions from the Board of Trustees a lot easier.” Student Senators have voiced similar concerns, and some believe that having a student representative would assure that student input is heard. Student Senator and College junior Jesse Docter added that having student representatives could allow trustees to possibly avoid unpopular decisions before they are made. “I think having a student rep would allow students to engage with the decision-making of the school in a different and more substantial way,” Docter said in an email to the Review. “By gaining access to the larger and longer-term governance discussions, student advocacy could become proactive as opposed to reactive.” Although Student Senators never reached an official consensus about what exactly student representation on the board would look like, many
Fundraising Finale The College raised $318 million during the Oberlin Illuminate fundraising campaign.
in the world from 400 parts per million to 350 parts per million, the threshold that many scientists regard as the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The talk took place as part of the After Fossil Fuels: The Next Economy conference, based primarily at The Hotel at Oberlin. Other conference participants include Arnold Schwarzenegger and NextGen Climate founder Tom Steyer, who will take part in a discussion open to the public titled “Justice on a Hotter Planet” in the Apollo Theatre at 8:30 tonight.
Racing Rookies First-years lead the cross country team in the All-Ohio Championships.
Bechdel Fest Alison Bechdel, OC '81, visited Oberlin Tuesday. See page 10
INDEX:
Opinions 5
This Week in Oberlin 8
See page 16
Arts 10
Sports 16
have ideas about what would be best for both students and the board. “We would ideally like to see students voting on things that are going to be affecting them when it comes to financial decisions,” said Meg Parker, Student Senate associate liaison and College sophomore. “But we also fully understand that it’s four years when you’re here at Oberlin, so your experiences and the amount of time you can serve [are] going to be sometimes limited.” According to multiple trustees, the Board has yet to look at the issue in depth. “I think we’re still at a very early stage of discussing it, so I don’t think I’m ready to say something on that until we understand the issue better,” said Diane Yu, OC ’73 Board member and deputy to the president of NYU. “We’re looking at ways to strengthen student-trustee engagement, and we’re exploring different options. We’re still undertaking it as an exploration.” Though having student representation on the Board of Trustees is fairly common at larger state schools, it is less so among private institutions. The Association of Governing Boards, to which Oberlin’s Board belongs, recommends not allowing students onto boards as voting members. “AGB generally does not support the inclusion of students as voting board members because of the inherSee Board, page 4
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The Oberlin Review, October 7, 2016
City Council Approves New Member Manual Eliza Guinn Staff Writer After two years of discord, City Council approved an orientation manual to help new members and promote a cooperative environment at meeting Monday. The manual covers the basics of Oberlin’s government and recommends how to best have productive meetings. The idea came from Councilmember Sharon Pearson, who believes it will improve overall communication and effectiveness in council. “I think it will help us in our efforts to work as a team with respect,” Pearson said. “It will serve as a baseline from which all councilmembers can work. Law Director Jon Clark clarified that the manual will not be required at every meeting, but will be more of a guide for new members and to get discussions back on track. “This is not a set of rules that council is required to follow or for which there would be any adverse consequences if some of the suggestions in the manual were not followed,” Clark said. According to Clark and Councilmember Bryan Burgess, there was very little opposition to the manual, which was easily passed at the meeting following a few typographical corrections. City Council decided to create the manual during a retreat in February 2015, following a tense period
when multiple councilmembers asked former City Manager Eric Norenberg to resign. This August, City Council was unable to come to consensus on who to hire as Norenberg’s replacement, causing the city manager search process to start over again. Aside from helping council be more effective in meetings, the manual is also a way to orient new members for their various duties. Vice President of Council Linda Slocum said she wishes something like the handbook existed last year when she had just begun serving on council and had trouble recalling all the logistics. “As a new councilmember, I found there was more of a learning curve related to protocol and procedures than I had anticipated,” Slocum wrote in an email to the Review. “The Clerk of council provided an informative orientation session with new members and gave us pertinent documentation at that time. The Council Orientation Handbook reinforces a lot of what we learned then and fills in some of the gaps.” New Councilmember Kelley Singleton agreed and emphasized the guide’s importance for those who might be considering joining City Council. “I feel this could be very useful for someone who is contemplating running for election,” Singleton wrote in an email to the Review. “These are all things you should know before taking office in Ober-
City Council listens to a resident share thoughts on the new council manual on Monday. Council hopes the manual will help orient new members and remind all members to remain constructive. Photo by Bryan Rubin, Photo editor
lin. This does not take the place of attending meetings and talking to people before Election Day to prepare you for serving but can easily go hand in hand with that to make you a better leader of the city.” The manual includes information on the actual the legal powers possessed by council, the chain of command in city government and repeated requests to “avoid rancor and bitterness.” Prior to this manual, City Council had no document explaining the procedures it follows, which sometimes led to confusion and a feeling that newer members did not have an input in council’s inner work-
ings. Pearson said there were many unwritten precedents that new councilmembers were excluded from. “Something I hear a lot is ‘We’ve always done it this way,’” she said. “But where is it written down?” In her first year on City Council, Pearson said she often experienced challenges like not knowing how to pass an urgent proposal or a general lack of understanding of how meetings were supposed to progress. Pearson said she hopes the manual will prevent this type of confusion in the future. Councilmember Sharon Fairchild-Soucy also supported the manu-
al and said it would be an important reference to ensure opposing views in meetings are respected. That theory will face an early test this week as the controversial city manager search resumes. Recruiter Heidi Voorhees will discuss possible candidates for the city manager position with the council Wednesday. The city has gone 10 months without a permanent city manager. However, the John F. Kennedy quote at the end of the manual indicates that the council is trying to turn the page: “Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”
Framing of Race Series Seeks to Address Oppression Oliver Bok News Editor While a distinguished speaker giving a talk on an important social issue might not be new at Oberlin, the event series that sponsored this talk, The Framing of Race, is. Duke Professor Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, author of Racism Without Racists, delivered a talk titled "The Diversity Blues: Reframing the Diversity Agenda at Historically White Colleges and Universities” Thursday night. The Framing of Race is the 2016 theme for Think/Create/Engage, a new annual series that will focus on a different theme each calendar year. “The major objective of this series is to be a clearinghouse for all the things that are actually happening on campus,” said Wendy Kozol, chair of Comparative American Studies and co-chair of the Steering Committee for The Framing of Race. “[People] say, ‘Nobody’s talking about race.’ But in fact, there’s tons of people talking about race.” The main goal of The Framing of Race is to promote and support events related to the topic, allowing people to see every event that relates to race on the series’ website, for example.
“We’re on a busy campus, so it’s not that we want to do more, we want to get more out of what we’re doing,” said Jan Miyake, Music Theory professor and Steering Committee co-chair. According to interim Vice President and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo, the choice of topic was partially a response to student activism following the non-indictment of Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown in Ferguson in August 2014. “The idea came about during the semester that was the start of significant student involvement in this round of anti-Black racism, police killings, etc. that culminated in the petition to suspend the grading system,” Raimondo said. To Kozol, the idea is to bring all of the College’s facilities to bear on a different issue each year. “How do we have conversations about really difficult issues like race?” Kozol said. “What we do on this campus — what we as faculty, what we as students, what we as staff do — is create opportunities for intellectual engagement, political engagement, social engagement around these really difficult issues. What we need to do is foster those kinds of conversations.” Raimondo agreed, stating that series will help community members get more out of the events
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the College already has to offer. “For people who were already thinking about doing events or having workshops, they could link it to this format,” Raimondo said. “And people who wanted to be part of an ongoing conversation would be able to see, ‘Oh, this is another place I can go to explore the issues that I’m interested in, perhaps from a different perspective.’” To College sophomore and Student Senator Kameron Dunbar, however, students have yet to embrace the initiative. “To my knowledge there has not been much student engagement with the project,” Dunbar wrote in an email to the Review. “It's a bit [tough] — a good idea that didn't quite workout due to lack of student enthusiasm and awareness.“ In future years, Think/Create/Engage might expand beyond promoting events. Kozol said that administrators would also like the series to provide a space for conversations to happen between events, as well as inform students of all the classes that tie into the year’s theme during registration. “Ideally, what this initiative is encouraging is fostering of deeper conversations,” Kozol said. “Michele Norris’s talk was great, but now what?” The Framing of Race Steering Committee has distributed some small grants — funded by
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 Ben Alexa Garfinkel Corey Alanna TaliaSandoval Rodwin Photo editors Anya OliviaSpector Gericke Photo editors Brannon Rockwell-Charland Bryan Rubin Online editor Rick Alanna Bennett Yu
President Marvin Krislov’s office — to support events related to the topic. While it’s unclear if next year’s Think/Create/Engage series will also have funding, for Raimondo the funding is an added bonus, not the point. “It wasn’t designed to be something that had to create additional budget constraints, it’s a way to organize the stuff that we already do,” Raimondo said. The Steering Committee wanted the series to tackle a broader range of issues around race than simply Black and white issues in the U.S., which is why they helped support bringing Thenmozhi Soundararajan, a Dalit-American woman, to talk about the caste system in India to relate it to American conceptions of race last semester. “The Framing of Race references the historical, political, economic, cultural and social processes that have produced both white supremacy and the violent enslavement, genocide, and oppression of diverse groups of marginalized peoples,” members of the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion wrote in an email to students in September. Raimondo said that the topic for 2017’s Think/Create/Engage series is still undecided and anyone who would like to be involved should reach out.
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 Anna Rubenstein Noah 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
Corrections: The article “Residents Rally to Reverse Corrections City's Zoning Approval (Sept. 23, 2016), stated Theincorrectly Review is not awarethat of the Comprehensive Plan introduced any corrections this week. the C-3 zoning designation. City Council actually approved C-3 instrives 2006. to The article The Review print all also claimed that as theaccurately parcel in as question was information possible. zoned for office If youonly feel the Reviewand hasinstitutional made an uses; in fact, thesend zoning error, please an permits e-mail tosome types of commercial business under conmanagingeditor@oberlinreview.org. ditional use. To submit a correction, email managingeditor@oberlinreview.org.
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The Oberlin Review, October 7, 2016
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Off the Cuff: Gregory Kulacki, Nuclear Weapon and Control Expert Gregory Kulacki specializes in cross-cultural communication between the United States and China. He has been working for the Union of Concerned Scientists since 2002, promoting dialogue amongst experts in the U.S. and China on nuclear weapon control and security. He has worked with the House of Representatives’ U.S.China Working Group, the Senate Armed Services Committee, the U.S. National Academies, NASA and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Kulacki, who is fluent in Mandarin, has lived and worked in China for over 20 years. Prior to working for the UCS, he served as an associate professor of government at Green Mountain College, director of external studies at Pitzer College and director of academic programs in China for the Council on International Educational Exchange. Kulacki gave a talk Monday in the King Building about the possibility of nuclear war between the U.S. and China in the near future. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Can you briefly explain some of the main sources of tension between the U.S. and China in nuclear weapon threats and relations? In a nutshell, the problem is that we don’t trust each other. We don’t talk enough about why we don’t trust each other, and as a result we’re arming to defend ourselves from each other. Both of our countries have nuclear weapons, and we talk about that even less, and as a result of that there’s a lot of miscommunication about intentions that could lead to an accidental war. If that happens, there’s a surprisingly high probability that nuclear weapons might be used by one side or the other. In your opinion, how likely is a nuclear war between the U.S. and China within the next few years? There’s no way to quantify the risk. I’d
imagine that you could get the best actuarial mathematicians in the country and they wouldn’t be able to put together a formula that could give you that number. So I can’t answer that question. What I can say is that 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, the United States and China are a few bad decisions away from launching nuclear weapons at each other. We have an increasingly tense relationship for a variety of different reasons that seem to be getting worse. So I’d say the problems are getting worse, not getting better. The risks are increasing rather than decreasing. How did you become interested in your field of work? Well, I got this job looking for work in the Chronicle of Higher Education. I answered an ad. Before I went to the Union for Concerned Scientists, I had no background in nuclear issues at all. And my job isn’t really as much about the weapons as it is about the people who think about them and plan to use them in both countries. My job is to get those people together and get them to have conversations with each other in order to be clear, first of all, about what their intentions are, but also to sort of work on dismantling the distrust that leads them to want to use these weapons and have these weapons in the first place.
Gregory Kulacki, expert on China-U.S. relations
What does the Union of Concerned Scientists do, and more specifically, what do you do when engaging with the crosscultural communications between the U.S. and China? We do three things, basically. The first thing is that we observe what is being said by government officials and by the media. We fact-check that and we write about what we find. The second thing we do, and I do for the Union of Concerned Scientists, is talk to people in the United States government, since that’s the government of the country I’m from and that I live in — the government of the country that’s democratic and open enough to listen to people’s opinions. And we try to advise them on policies that we think would be more constructive to eventually eliminat-
What do you think of the presidential candidates’ policies, or lack thereof, on the issue of U.S. and Chinese nuclear tensions? Who do you trust more concerning this issue? I am forbidden by law to make any public comments on candidates or elections because of the legal status of our organization. So I’m not going to answer that question. I will say this: In the campaign, the question has been whose finger is on the button when the question really should be the button itself. Should we really put ourselves in a situation where one individual, regardless of who that individual is, has the power to destroy human civilization as we know it?
Saturday, Oct. 1 Thursday, Sept. 29 12:34 p.m. Safety and Security officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm, set off by smoke from burnt food, in the third-floor kitchenette of Baldwin Cottage. Officers cleared the area and reset the alarm. 5:22 p.m. Officers assisted a staff member who fell at Stevenson Dining Hall. The employee was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.
Friday, Sept. 30 1:15 a.m. Officers observed water leaking from the ceiling of the east entrance of Harkness House. The affected area was demarcated and a work order was filed for clean up and repair.
12:08 a.m. Officers observed approximately 250 students at a party authorized for 25 people at a village house on Elmwood Place. Officers contacted the host and attendees were dispersed. 2:07 a.m. Officers were requested to assist a student ill from alcohol consumption at Harkness House. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment. 1:20 a.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Police Department were requested to assist a student ill from alcohol consumption on East College Street. The student was transported by ambulance to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.
Sunday, Oct. 2 1 a.m. Officers were requested to assist a student ill from alcohol consumption in North Quad. The student was transported by ambulance to Mercy Allen Hospital for
ing nuclear weapons, which is what our organization aims to do. And the last thing we try to do is to improve communication between both sides. And we do that in a variety of ways, including convening meanings and conducting exchanges where the two sides have a chance to talk to each other.
treatment. 5:25 p.m. A student with a peanut allergy mistakenly consumed food that contained peanuts at Dascomb Dining Hall. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.
Monday, Oct. 3 3:45 p.m. Conservatory staff reported vandalism and graffiti between the Kohl Building and Robertson Hall. There were smashed pumpkins and comments were etched on the side of the building. A work order was placed for clean up and removal. 7:52 p.m. Officers detected a strong odor of burnt incense near a room on the first floor of South Hall. Officers contacted the room’s resident, who admitted to burning incense. Officers advised the occupant that burning anything in the room is prohibited and confiscated the incense.
Tuesday, Oct. 4 1:05 p.m. Officers were requested to as-
After living in China for over 20 years, could you describe some of the cultural and social components you picked up that currently help you with your job? Well, first of all, language is critical. One of the problems we have, especially in the defense-related and foreign policy-related area, is that most of the people who work in these fields have marginal Chinese-language skills. So language, more than anything. The language itself isn’t enough. You also need to have a basic cross-cultural competence, which is basically being able to function in another society, in another culture. And the only way you acquire that kind of competence is through practice, and the only way you get practice is to be there. One of the problems our defense, intelligence and foreign policy professionals have is that they don’t do that because they can’t do that. The United States government isn’t going to hire anybody that spends as much time in China as I have. I have too many friends. I have too many associates in China, and that poses a security risk. And it’s a perfectly understandable problem, but it leads to a very superficial level of cultural understanding in our bureaucracy that, in my opinion as a cross-cultural educator, is actually the source of the mistrust. We don’t really understand who we think our enemy is, who I don’t really think is our enemy. If we just figured out how to leverage all the people in society who have that cultural experience, who can better inform our government, I think that would go a long way in solving some of the security problems we have. It would certainly solve the trust problem, or help solve it. I mean, there are very real disagreements between the United States and China that are hard to solve, so I’m not just saying that they’ll all go away, but it’ll make solving those very serious disagreements much easier. And it’s certain to lead to a lower probability of either side resolving to violence to try to solve them. Interview by Melissa Harris, Production editor Photo courtesy of Gregory Kulacki
sist a student who sustained injuries from falling off their bicycle near Severance Hall. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment. 8:52 p.m. Staff conducting Life and Safety inspections observed a grinder, in plain view, in a room on the second floor of East Hall. The item was confiscated and turned over to the Oberlin Police Department. 9:16 p.m. Staff conducting Life and Safety inspections observed drug paraphernalia in plain view in a room on the first floor of East Hall. A red grinder, glass water bong and a glass jar containing a substance consistent with marijuana were confiscated and turned over to the Oberlin Police Department.
Wednesday, Oct. 5 12:28 a.m. Officers and Mercy Allen Hospital’s Emergency Medical Team responded to assist a student ill from alcohol consumption at Fairchild Hall. The student was able to answer all questions, declined going to the hospital and was escorted to their room.
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The Oberlin Review, October 7, 2016
Fundraising Campaign Rakes in $318 Million Oliver Bok News Editor Trustees, donors and volunteers will celebrate the end of Oberlin Illuminate, the most successful fundraising campaign in the College’s history, at a dinner tonight. Over the course of the seven-year campaign, the College raised almost $318 million, blowing past the original $250 million goal. The campaign officially ended June 30. To the two trustee co-chairs for Oberlin Illuminate, Pat Shanks and Chesley Maddox-Dorsey, the campaign was a much-welcomed yet unanticipated success. “When we began campaign planning in 2009, during the Great Recession, no one thought this result would have been possible,” they wrote in an email to the Review. President Marvin Krislov agreed, noting that faculty, staff, alumni, parents and friends of the College all played a part. “We’re really pleased with the results,” Krislov said. “Thirty-five thousand donors ended up contributing, 71 donors made a gift of $1 million or more, which is 58 percent of the campaign. The trustees gave a little over a quarter of the total.” Krislov said that the ending of the campaign “absolutely” played a role in his decision to leave, noting that Oberlin Illuminate and the Strategic Plan were two of his most important projects as President. “It’s good for institutions to have strong leadership and also to have orderly transitions,” he added. “I’m really proud of everything that we’ve been able to do. I’m going to continue to work really hard, and Oberlin will always be part of me.” According to Vice President for Development and Alumni Affairs Bill Barlow, about $145 million of the $318 million is earmarked for the en-
dowment. Much of the rest has gone to capital projects, such as renovations of the Apollo Theatre and the Allen Memorial Art Museum and the construction of the Kohl Building. Some of the funding has already gone into the operating budget to support programs such as the Center for Learning, Education and Research in the Sciences and the Center for Languages and Culture. While the campaign surpassed the overall fundraising goal, it did not meet all of its more specific goals. The College received $75 million for financial aid, falling short of its original goal of $90 million. However, Krislov pointed out that much of the money raised is unrestricted, allowing the College to spend it on core priorities such as financial aid. For Krislov, the struggle to raise more money continues. “We still need to raise a lot of money on an ongoing basis, and one of the things we’re focused on this year is really raising money for financial aid and scholarships, which is really the highest priority,” he said, adding that the College is also currently fundraising for the Health and Wellness Center and Hall Auditorium. Barlow stated that he felt alumni in particular “stepped up” for this campaign, with Barlow observing many alumni giving gifts larger than they originally expected. “This campaign was successful because thousands and thousands of people do believe in Oberlin, what it stands for, and want to make sure that it can do for others what the institution was able to do for them,” Barlow said. Krislov added that he believes the key factor to the campaign’s success was effectively communicating the seriousness of the College’s financial need to donors. “Part of it is educating people about the financial challenges of institutions like Oberlin —
that to thrive, we really need a lot of support from donors,” Krislov said. “Some of our peer schools have very large endowments and smaller student bodies than we do.” Barlow noted that peer schools, such as Amherst College, Williams College, Vassar College and Wesleyan University, raised more money than Oberlin during the same time period. “Oberlin’s history, in terms of its commitment to people who are going out and maybe not living their lives in the most lucrative professions [impacts] our ability to raise as much as some our peer institutions, which frankly have sent more people to financial services and other places where they can amass greater wealth,” Barlow said.
Not all of the $318 million is currently sitting in the College’s bank account. According to Barlow, a large segment of the money comes from multi-year commitments, not lump sum payments. The College has secured $80 million in promises from donors 70 and older to include the College in their wills. Since money received over the course of several decades is worth less than money received today, only $40 million of that sum counts toward the campaign’s total. Planning for the next fundraising campaign will likely begin within the next two to three years once a new president settles in at Cox Administrative Building.
Lights shine on the Kohl Building, which was partially funded by money raised in the Oberlin Illuminate fundraising campaign, Thursday night. The College officially concluded the campaign June 30. Photo by Rick Yu, Photo editor
Board of Trustees to Debate Addition of Student Representatives Continued from page 1 ent conflict of interest created when a student serves on his or her own institution’s board,” the association says. Despite this stance, other AGB schools, such as Howard University, Saint Mary’s College of Maryland and Cornell University have appointed students to their Board of Trustees. Yamini Bhandari, a senior at Cornell University, serves as Cornell’s undergraduate student elected trustee. Bhandari was elected by the undergraduate and graduate students at Cornell, has full
voting rights and is able to serve on committees within the Board, including the Presidential Search Committee — an issue Oberlin also has to contend with this year with President Marvin Krislov’s impending departure. “It has been incredible being able to serve on the Board,” Bhandari said in an email to the Review. “I've had the opportunity to discuss some of the most pressing issues the university is facing and be able to voice student opinions in those very critical discussions.” While many acknowledge that there needs to be reform in how the board communicates with students, some question whether
adding a student representative to the board is the best option. “I definitely think that there are alternatives,” Wallace said. “What I think is really important is to having an understanding as to how the Board of Trustees works and to have communication between students and the Board of Trustees. A board rep is a really nice and simple way to make that happen. but there are ways that I think could possibly work better, too, by connecting committees on The Board of Trustees to relevant student activist groups.”
Confidentiality Limits Dialogue at Trustee Forum Louis Krauss News Editor The Board of Trustees held this academic year’s first forum yesterday, inviting students to King Hall for intimate conferences with trustees, often the most direct channel for the community to address board members. Divided into four classrooms, the meetings allowed students to collectively raise concerns about issues such as the functionality of Oberlin’s Title IX office and the possible addition of student representatives to the board. “I personally value these groups where I can look someone in the face, and it’s an individual conversation,” trustee Lillie Edwards, OC ’75, said. “When you’re in a room with 200 people, it’s hard to have that level of communication and exchange.” Still, the board’s conditions of confidentiality often cut conversations short and keep exchanges one-sided or at the surface level. Multiple trustees acknowledged that the confidentiality issues seriously limit how much they can say on any given issue but assured that they engage with student input from both these sessions and generally. “Obviously we’re listening, and we want to make the best decisions for Oberlin 10 years down the road,” class trustee Anne Chege, OC ’16, said. “But we are bound by certain regulations confidentiality, so we need to talk things over first.” Students were again reminded just how tight-lipped trustees had to be when disclosing information. Double-degree senior and former Student Senate Liaison Jeremy Poe, who announced his resignation from Senate this morning, said his meeting was productive, but that discussions are ultimately limited. “Everyone supports those values of increased information on both sides,” Poe said. “We’ve said, ‘Here’s what we want in general terms,’ but it’s hard to say how comfortable
the board members are with having students in the room because there are logistical issues of confidentiality.” The restrictions, however silencing for the trustees, do not prevent students from providing plenty of input. One of the largest collective-action student groups at the forum included members of the Sexual Information Center, HIV Peer Testers and the peer-education program Preventing and Responding to Sexual Misconduct. College senior Dana Kurzer-Yashin, who helped organize the group, said one of her main concerns was finding a capable replacement Title IX coordinator. Rebecca Mosely, who has worked in the College’s Office of Residential Education for 11 years, was named the interim Title IX Coordinator last summer as former coordinator Meredith Raimando transitioned into the role of Interim Vice President and Dean of Students. Though trustees did not say whether they would take up the issue in future board meetings, they were visibly perturbed after Kurzer-Yashin described one of the recent Title IX coordinator candidates as “terrifying” in how unqualified they seemed. In response, trustee Christopher Canavan, OC ’84, questioned whether investing more money into the position is the best solution and that it was possibly just an issue of continuing the search. “If we work to offer more adequate compensation, then people with more qualification in this field of work might be willing to come to Ohio, who wouldn’t be willing to do so otherwise,” Kurzer-Yashin said. The small group format for student-trustee forums, which allows students to have these types of candid conversations, was introduced in Spring 2015, a change many trustees welcomed after previous, larger forums became increasingly raucous. The board concludes its meetings this weekend and will reconvene on campus in December for another round of student-trustee forums.
Opinions The Oberlin Review
October 7, 2016
Letters to the Editors Student Feedback Crucial for Change To the Editors: At a time when higher education faces significant pressure to make good on its promises of equity and inclusion, and in light of debates on our own campus about the impact of discrimination and bigotry — including anti-Black racism and anti-Semitism — we ask that all members of the Oberlin community contribute to institutional change by sharing any information about experiences of bias in our educational environment. Oberlin is committed to addressing any discrimination and bigotry on campus, using processes designed to protect the rights of affected individuals and the intellectual integrity of the academic program. We encourage individuals who may have questions or be concerned with participating in these processes to seek confidential advice about how to share their concerns so that meaningful action may occur. Without such information, addressing these profound barriers to learning becomes a challenge. For example, we are aware of recent assertions that Oberlin is currently facing significant issues related to anti-Semitism on campus. These allegations thus
far have come from anonymous or secondhand sources that we have not been able to substantiate. All involved campus offices — the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life; Safety and Security; the Ombudsperson; the Multicultural Resource Center; the Division of Student Life; and the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion — have issued numerous invitations to our community members to report any incidents of discrimination and harassment they may have experienced. Our off-campus community partners, including the Anti-Defamation League, AJC Cleveland, the Cleveland Hillel Foundation and the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, are also available to support individuals seeking independent opportunities to express their concerns. We continue to call on anyone who has personally encountered any incident of bias to share that information with us so that we can conduct a responsible and thorough investigation. – Tim Elgren Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences – Andrea Kalyn Dean of the Conservatory of Music – Meredith Raimondo Interim Dean of Students
Student Accessibility Advocates Warrant More Credit To the Editors: Sydney Allen’s article, “Report Unpacks Campus Climate on Disability,” (The Oberlin Review, Sept. 16, 2016) gives the Working Group on Disability and Access too much credit for a unique and successful peer-mentoring program. I write to correct the notion that we founded Student Accessibility Advocates, or SAAs. We did not. Sponsored by the Office of Disability Services, the SAAs were well-established by the time our working group first convened. If our work was at all successful, it is due in no small measure to the input of student member and SAA Rebecca Klein, as well as the SAAs’ leader, Associate Director of Disability Services Isabella Moreno. As an Oberlin press release in 2012 and a 2016 article in The Source describe in detail, this outstanding program was funded by a generous gift from the family of a former Oberlin student. Their gift and the hard work of the Student Accessibility Advocates merit our deep appreciation. - Elizabeth C. Hamilton Associate Professor and Chair of German Language and Literatures, ADA/Section 504 Coordinator
Symbolic Movements Need Active Participation Ariana Enzerink Contributing Writer There’s been a lot of buzz within the Oberlin College athletics community recently about the seemingly unanimous, teamwide decision for the Oberlin College varsity field hockey team to kneel during the national anthem, following the highly publicized lead of Colin Kaepernick and other Black athletes protesting police violence. As a member of the team, which I’m proud to say is comprised of passionate, vocal and hardworking young women, this act of protest motivated me to think more about the ways individuals participate in allyship and activism. To me, the power of being a part of a symbolic movement comes from understanding the issue and actively making the informed choice to join the larger, united group protesting the problem. But unfortunately, these movements often pan out in a way so that a few passionate people pressure others to be part of a group, rather than giving their peers time to make the
decision on their own. This pressure may not be direct or intended, but it can result when fervent individuals try to change the world for the better. This is the feeling I’ve been grappling with ever since the idea of kneeling was brought up shortly before we were called to publicly demonstrate our support. While I fully agree that police violence against people of color is a problem in our society, in the moment I felt as if my knowledge of the issue was limited so that I couldn’t meaningfully participate in the particular act of protest. I believe that there is a powerful social force at play when an individual is singled out for not following suit in any aspect of life. It’s a difference that is clearly apparent when you’re standing in the middle of the field right before the start of a varsity intercollegiate match, surrounded by field hockey teammates who are all kneeling, some of whom are kneeling because they personally believe in the message, others simply because they are supporting their teammates who feel See Allyship, 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
Student Representatives Mutually Beneficial for Board, Students During the Board of Trustees’ quarterly campus visit this week, Student Senate and former student members of the Steering Committee pushed for trustees to approve the addition of student representatives to the body. The Editorial Board endorses this effort and believes that including student voices will create a more meaningful and effective learning environment that will aid the administration in achieving its mission statement and better satisfy students’ needs. Student representation on college boards is not unprecedented. The Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges reports that as of 2010, “50.3 percent of the public colleges and universities that responded and 8.5 percent of responding independent colleges and universities had at least one student as a voting member of the board. In addition, 28.2 percent of public-institution respondents and 12.5 percent of independent-institution respondents included a non-voting student member.” Peer institutions — Macalester College, Vassar College and Scripps College, to name a few — have included both voting and non-voting student members in an attempt to connect students and trustees. Representatives from the student body could bridge this gap by offering active feedback in conversations instead of only having the opportunity to react to crucial decisions about campus life. Oberlin’s mission statement says, “The college expects that students will work closely with the faculty to design an educational program appropriate to their own particular interests, needs, and long-term goals.” What better way to address this tenet than to hear from students themselves? It is well within the board’s power to pivot toward student inclusion. Oberlin College bylaws “allow the Board of Trustees to create, alter, or otherwise modify the number of trustees and the manner in which they are elected and serve.” The board also maintains authority “over its own composition and terms of service,” thanks to a 1970 amendment to the Charter of the Oberlin Collegiate Institute specifically designed to allow the addition of class trustees. One member from each of the three most recent graduating classes is elected to a three-year term as class trustee. And while voices from recent graduates undoubtedly give the board deeper insight into campus life, no one understands current students’ needs more than current students. The trustees could and should amend the College’s bylaws to allow for student representation, just as it did nearly 50 years ago for class trustees. Even non-voting student representatives would open up a constructive space for dialogue. It’s no secret that students often express disdain toward what many consider to be an out-of-touch board — so why wouldn’t the board help itself by opening a direct channel for student feedback? At the very least, trustees would have a better sense of what they are walking into when they make unpopular decisions. Few would argue that students are fully qualified to provide input on all of the decisions the board must make about the College. The Board of Trustees, after all, is comprised of highly accomplished people in a variety of fields including finance, law, public education, social work and the arts. But the point is not for students to overhaul the board or monopolize meetings — it is to facilitate the critical conversations that must happen between trustees and students so we can better understand one another and hold the College accountable to its mission of “[graduating] liberal arts and Conservatory students who have learned to think with intellectual rigor, creativity, and independence.”
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
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The Oberlin Review, October 7, 2016
Environmentalists Must Rally Behind Clinton Kelly McCarthy Contributing Writer No good thing comes without a cost. More than a century of rapid technological advancement has sent global temperatures skyrocketing at a rate 10 times faster than precedented by natural history. We’re also seeing increasingly unpredictable weather patterns, rising sea levels and pollution of our air, our water and our communities. We must mitigate the consequences of climate change and secure sustainable principles in development moving forward. This is no small task. The struggles we face demand a united front and a shared commitment to sustainability. If Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump becomes the next president of the United States, we will have neither. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is our only hope for an equitable and livable future. Clinton recognizes that environmental racism is pervasive and must be uprooted. Her environmental platform is perhaps strongest in its commitment to ending environmental injustice afflicting marginalized communities. As president, Clinton promises to work to clean up brownfields, where the contamination of communities by toxic waste is a serious health risk and an impediment to economic development. She also intends to improve drinking water and wastewater treatment infrastructure so as to ensure that everyone in our country is guaranteed access to clean water, a basic human right. Clinton understands that oppressed communities are often exploited and polluted due to a lack of accountability. By increasing the criminal provisions of existing environmental legislation, Clinton intends to identify and penalize those who frequently endanger neighborhoods. She will ensure that legal precedent is set to bring the perpetrators of incidents like the Flint, MI, water crisis to justice. There is no slowing industrial development, but Clinton recognizes that our nation must develop inclusively and sustainably. She will expand the clean energy economy by investing in renewable programs in low-income communities and communities of color. By investing in clean power and transportation, particularly in urban areas, Clinton’s plan will curb continuing damage to the respiratory health of millions of Americans that air pollution threatens. Clinton recognizes the inevitability of many of the effects of climate change. In the coming decades, our generation will face a rapidly changing planet; this will be especially costly for densely populated coastal cities. Clinton will invest in infrastructure that will bolster resilience. Traditionally disadvantaged communities will be most affected by climate change. We need a leader who understands the importance of protecting these communities, a leader who will equip them with the tools necessary to lessen the impact of rising sea levels and worsening natural disasters. A sustainable future is only attainable if sustainability stands as a core principle in every step of the decision-making process. Sustainability
can’t be just a buzzword; protecting the environment can’t be something we just do on Earth Day. Concern for the health of the planet and our communities must be integrated into everything we do. Clinton’s promise to establish an Environmental and Climate Justice Task Force on her first day in office is a testament to her understanding of this necessity. The task force will advise the Clinton administration’s efforts to protect atrisk communities from environmental degradation and the adverse effects of climate change. From an environmental standpoint, there is always more to be desired from the political system. However, Clinton’s environmental agenda is progressive at its core. If she is successful in its implementation, millions of Americans will be shielded from the worst effects of environmental degradation. In fact, Clinton is the only major-party presidential candidate who has proposed a viable environmental agenda at all. Though some may be inclined to argue for Green Party nominee Jill Stein’s climate platform, the reality is that Stein lacks the experience and political tact necessary to get her aggressive policies passed. Clinton has been endorsed by the NRDC Action Fund, the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club and, more locally, the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund, which has also endorsed local State Representative candidate Dan Ramos. For myself and other environmentally-minded people who understand how difficult it will be to effect the change we need, Hillary Clinton is our only option. Despite the Republican majority Congress’ efforts to block any and all environmental legislation, President ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
A sustainable future is only attainable if sustainability stands as a core principle in every step of the decisionmaking process. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Barack Obama has set a historical precedent for combatting climate change and other threats to the environment. Obama’s ratification of the Paris climate agreement has finally committed our country to international cooperation in the climate fight. We cannot afford to lose this momentum. We cannot afford a president like Trump, who believes that climate change is an elaborate hoax and intends to defund the EPA and repeal environmental regulations. The U.S. president is in a unique position to influence individuals both here and around the world. We need a president who will lead with compassion, who will understand that lives and communities are at stake. We need a president who will face the harsh reality of climate change and act on it, not one who will pretend it doesn’t exist. We need Hillary Clinton. If you’re interested in discussing Clinton’s environmental platform or other policies, come visit the Ohio Together office on 5 South Main Street. We are hard at work electing a president who truly understands what is at stake.
Nick Endicott
Bass Event at Clinton Office Highlights Disunity of Oberlin Gay Community Brendan Eprile Contributing Writer Regardless of your stance on the *NSYNC versus Backstreet Boys debate, former *NSYNC member Lance Bass’ Sept. 27 visit to the Clinton campaign offices in Oberlin was exciting. It didn’t hurt that he was joined by Robbie Kaplan, the attorney responsible for the Supreme Court ruling that overturned the Defense of Marriage Act in June 2013, and thus entitled legally married same-sex couples to federal benefits. These two superstars of the queer community spoke at the Clinton office as part of their countrywide campaign to rally LGBTQ support for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Despite Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s lofty claim that “the gays love [him],” he would be absolutely detrimental for LGBTQ people across the U.S. During his talk, Kaplan asserted that Trump would appoint judges to the Supreme Court who would try to undo the legalization of same-sex marriage and support state-sanctioned discrimination against transgender people. Trump has also expressed support for “religious freedom” laws that allow discrimination against gay and transgender people in the name of religious liberty. To boot, he picked Indiana Governor Mike Pence to be his running mate — a politician who signed a bill to jail same-sex couples for applying for a marriage license, tried to divert funding from HIV prevention to conversion therapy and supported a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality. Even when Trump does attempt to support the LGBTQ community, he usually uses it as a tool to advance his xenophobic policies, such as in his disgusting tweet after the Orlando shooting: “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don’t want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!” Kaplan and Bass not only disparaged Trump as unfit for the presidency, but also discussed
why Clinton would excel in the position. Both speakers agreed that Clinton is the most qualified person ever to run for president, and in particular, Kaplan emphasized that she thinks Clinton truly cares about improving people’s lives. She told a story about Clinton calling a friend of Kaplan’s with cancer to offer emotional support as an example of Clinton’s genuine kindness. While Bass said he used to avoid publicly expressing his political views so as not to be seen as “one of those celebrities advancing a political agenda,” he soon realized that this election is too important to remain silent; now his fame has become a platform for political activism. “I don’t want my husband taken away from me,” he said in a tender moment. The inspiring event highlighted how crucial this election is to LGBTQ people in the U.S, and that now is the time for the queer community to work together. And yet, at this same event, I saw just how disconnected the gay community at Oberlin is. The event was shockingly poorly attended, with roughly 20 people in attendance. Out of the people who came, the majority were gay men. There are few events at Oberlin specifically catered to gay men, and one would think that this would be the perfect chance for us to interact. The lack of interaction between attendees at this event confirmed the weakness of Oberlin’s gay male community. But it is crucial that we now unite. For queer people across the country, our very way of life is at stake in this election. I truly believe that we queers can be a powerful force in driving the outcome of this election if we put our energy in the right place. We must follow in Lance Bass’ footsteps, volunteer for the Clinton campaign and use our voices to speak out against injustice. I beg the gay community at Oberlin to unite on this issue, because we can’t make a difference when we are not a cohesive group. This election, and our way of life, is too damn important.
Opinions
The Oberlin Review, October 7, 2016
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Local Ballot Measures Shape Student Lives Hannah Rasmussen Contributing Writer
As Nov. 8 approaches, all eyes are on the presidential race. Almost every student on campus has been hounded by the questions: “Are you registered to vote?” and “Have you changed your address?” from eager activists. These questions are important because, as most people know, Ohio is a swing state and will play a crucial role in deciding our next president. Everyone says that “Your vote here matters,” and I couldn’t agree more. However, your vote matters on more than just the national level — local issues are also important in shaping the lives of students and community members. I’ve lived in Oberlin since I was 2 years old, my childhood home is a 10-minute walk from campus, I am a graduate of the Oberlin City School District and a current sophomore here at the College. I love the city of Oberlin, and I love the College. These two communities have differences that I’ve been learning to navigate for the past 18 years of my life.
One of the most concerning issues I’ve heard around campus is the suggestion that College students shouldn’t vote in local elections. The argument that has been presented to me is that College students only live here for an average of four years, yet the effects of a vote may last much longer. While I understand this logic, I can’t comprehend discouraging people from becoming informed voters and active participants in the greater community of Oberlin. Many of these impending local races could affect students during their time at Oberlin. This November, there is an incredibly important race between incumbent Congressman Jim Jordan and former Oberlin elementary school teacher Janet Garrett for Ohio’s 4th District congressional seat. This seat is fought for every two years. Whether you are in your last few semesters at Oberlin or your first, the winner will be your representative while you are at school. Oberlin is precariously situated in one of the most conservative congressional districts in the state. Despite being a primarily Democratic town,
we have not been represented by a Democratic congressperson since the redistricting in 2012. Jordan is anti-abortion, opposes Obamacare and supports defunding Planned Parenthood. Garrett is running on a platform that supports clean energy, debt-free college and public universities and promoting universal pre-kindergarten and early childhood education. Either Garrett or Jordan will be your representative come January — you are entitled to vote to decide which of them will better represent your values. Other important races include those of local judges, the Lorain County Commissioner and Ohio Supreme Court Justices. These are the judges that will oversee your hearing should you commit a crime, and they also rule on issues of local policy. The Ohio Supreme Court will hear cases on the death penalty, taxes and jurisdiction cases that often directly affect local citizens. If students are educated voters, they have every right to vote on races of local officials and tax ordinances. Some argue that students shouldn’t vote on these issues because many
of them don’t pay taxes here. But if you believe that any ballot initiative will benefit the community, then you have every right to vote on that issue. To read up on all of these issues and races, I suggest visiting The League of Women Voters of the Oberlin Area’s website; the organization just released its nonpartisan voting guide. They also have information on how to register to vote in Oberlin, as the registration deadline is rapidly approaching on Tuesday. One of the most frustrating things I witness at Oberlin College is students’ attitudes toward the College and town divide. Yes, the town-gown divide exists. Far too often, students will come and live in this town for nine months of the year for four years and never try to involve themselves in the community or take the time to become informed voters. I appreciate that students who abstain from voting on local issues don’t want to impose their voices on issues that they think don’t affect them. However, it would be far more useful for them and the community to become educated on how these issues do affect us all, as both students and residents of Oberlin.
Candidates Neglect Climate Change Dialogue Amanda Tennant Conributing Writer With only a few weeks left until the general election, the candidates have debated a variety of domestic and foreign topics. Yet climate change and the United States’ role in combating it has barely been addressed by the two leading political party candidates; this lack of attention to one of the most important topics facing the world today is deeply troubling. The Scripps Institution of
Oceanography announced Sept. 23 that carbon dioxide levels have reached an overwhelming milestone at 400 parts per million — a juncture gravely anticipated by climatologists as the planet’s tipping point. While scientists assert that this level of carbon emissions is not immediately fatal, it presents serious consequences for both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in the near future. We are going to see disrupted food chains in the ocean, rising sea levels and extinction of one fourth of all
animal species by 2050, according to Vice. It is baffling that despite being an issue that affects everyone on the planet, climate change has been largely ignored during this election cycle. The National Oceanic Service estimated that ocean-based services such as fishing and maritime transportation contributed $282 billion to the United States’ 2011 GDP. According to National Geographic, 13.1 million Americans will be affected by the rising sea levels through increased flood-
ing and evacuations from homes and communities due to coastal erosion. While much information about climate change and its effect on the planet is public knowledge, the government has not taken the radical actions needed to halt rising carbon levels. Instead of thinking of solutions, leading political figures such as Indiana Governor and Vice Presidential Nominee Mike Pence have been bashing climate change, even declaring that we need to end the “war on coal.” This is going to be our strug-
Opportunities for Input Ignored by Students Meg Parker Contributing Writer This article is part of the Review’s Student Senate column. In an effort to increase communication and transparency, Student Senators will provide personal perspectives on recent events on campus and in the community. On a campus characterized by political activism, we seem to be lacking in action. There are a multitude of things students wish would be changed, from transportation needs to racial equity to increased funding for Title IX and the Sexual Information Center. All that wishing culminates in just that: a wish. Obies, if we’re going to talk the talk, we need to walk the walk. There are so many ways students can get involved at varying levels of commitment. Oberlin’s governance requires students, faculty and staff to contribute to the decision-making process. When students don’t con-
tribute, faculty and administration are left to make the decisions for us, which results in an overall disconnect on campus. That’s why we all need to get involved. We’re not asking for a big commitment — only an hour or two a week, if that. You don’t need to bring anything but your informed opinion and a positive attitude toward what we can achieve together. Student government depends wholly on students voting, becoming active and getting involved. Students were provided with multiple opportunities to directly take part in advocacy with the Board of Trustees this week — including trustee fora, a 5k run and breakfast with trustees — and only a handful of students took advantage of this opportunity. What does that say about us as a political community? Many things are changing at Oberlin this year. As we all know, President Marvin Krislov is ending his tenure at Oberlin in the spring. We’ll be hiring a new president, a new dean of admissions and shift-
ing some administrative responsibilities around. The arrival of a new president will usher in more opportunities for student input. Let’s take this opportunity to create a new political scene at our college. That can start as early as today. Students can get involved through working groups, committees, attending forums and plenary and coming to office hours to talk to senators Monday through Thursday from 9–10 p.m. in Azariah’s Café. Some of the issues we are tackling this semester through working groups are upgrading student health services, decreasing sexualized violence, investigating the possibility of instituting free legal aid and increasing access to transportation. If any of those issues are important to you, come talk to us and get involved. If they aren’t, still come talk to us. Tell us what does interest you, and together we will find a way to make a difference. So, Oberlin, we implore you, be proactive and engage with your community.
gle over the next few decades. Millennials are going to be the ones dealing with the consequences of the devastating milestone we just passed. As young people, this is the fight of our future. Beyond whatever actions we can achieve to reduce our individual footprints, we need to write to our elected representatives and call for substantial environmental legislation. If we cannot overcome ignorance and political gridlock, we will be facing more and more calamitous consequences of climate change.
Allyship Weakened by Uninformed Choices Continued from page 5 passionately about the issue. There’s a difference in the two types of support. Both are important and powerful representations of allyship and support, but they are fundamentally different. That difference is not apparent in a display of kneeling where it looks like everyone is down on one knee for the same reason. So how can we participate in acts of solidarity that do not condemn those who don’t know enough to fully commit? Education seems like the best place to start. However, these types of movements come and go so fast in our reactive and fast-paced society that there isn’t always the luxury of time for people to really think and process. There’s a trend of Oberlin students and many others getting behind a symbolic movement without having enough information to make a real decision because their peers are so vocal and quick to judge those who don’t immediately participate. Just partaking in the symbolic act isn’t enough to create any real change, so why is it important to rally people to do the same if they’re acting in blind submission — doesn’t that weaken the validity of the cause? While symbolic movements can be a powerful vehicle for social change, the stakes are so different for every individual that it’s difficult to come to a consensus of how to approach these situations. I truly believe that open communication and the desire to teach rather than coerce others into action is vital to creating meaningful change.
WOBC-FM WOBC-FM
What to listen to on Tired of Top ’40s hits and the same old talk shows? Oberlin’s student-run radio station broadcasts content 24/7 and offers a myriad of listening possibilities. From New Orleans Bounce to a K-pop power hour to the evolution of funk, here’s a selection of some of college and community radio’s hidden gems. A full schedule of shows this semester is available at wobc.org/schedule — tune in at 91.5 FM, or online at wobc.org/listen. LIVE LIVE ACTION ACTION RADIO RADIO Avi Vogel Wednesdays, 6–7 p.m.
On “Live Action Radio”, follow four heroes as they embark on their current enthralling campaign in popular tabletop game Dungeons and Dragons. Tune in to WOBC’s finest and only medieval fantasy roleplay hour.
THE DEAD HEAR FOOTSTEPS THE THE DEAD DEAD HEAR HEAR FOOTSTEPS FOOTSTEPS
Kate Diamond, Jay Shapiro Sundays, 5–6 p.m.
CALENDAR CALENDAR
Oberlin’s only ongoing radio serial follows the adventures of private detective Hardin Lovelace and investigative reporter Lucy Lodge as they make their way through the corrupt, crimeinfested city of Bayside, CA, in the 1930s. Tune in as the duo solves mysteries both tragic and ridiculous, from authoritative and corrupt senators, to eccentric and buffoonish gangsters, to goat-sacrificing cults and warring mafioso bakeries. All of this is written weekly and performed live by a student staff delivering quality comedy-noir to your radios!
Dance Diaspora Presents “The Detroit Way” Friday, Oct. 7, 8–10 p.m. Warner Center Main Space
OSLAM October Poetry Slam Friday, Oct. 7, 8–10 p.m. Cat in the Cream
In “The Detroit Way,” an Africana Studies senior honors project, double-degree fifthyear Daniel Spearman examines the distinct “Detroit Sound” and its influence on the Oberlin jazz legacy. The Oberlin Jazz Studies department was built upon a foundation of the “Detroit Sound.” In this interdisciplinary performance, dancers and musicians evoke a long history of the Oberlin-Detroit connection as well as their collective influence on Black vernacular musical tradition.
At OSLAM’s first poetry slam of the year, five OSLAM members and five community members will grace the coffeehouse stage with a fiery night of spoken word. In addition, five members of the audience will be randomly selected to share the spotlight with them. Brush up on your metaphors — those interested in performing should contact oslam@oberlin.edu or show up at the event.
BLACK CLASSICAL BLACK CLASSICAL ARTS ARTS Chris Jenkins Mondays, 4–5 p.m.
The contributions of African-American popular musicians receive greater recognition, but classical composers and performers are often overlooked due to a lack of education and knowledge about African Americans’ contributions to the traditionally Western genre of classical music. This show highlights works by notable African American classical composers.
Let’s go go camping camping Let’s
THE BOTTOM BOTTOM 40 40 THE
“Let’s Go Camping” explores the rich musical culture at Oberlin by featuring different campus musicians each week, sometimes involving a small set. Says Morrison and Meltzer, “It’s loose and personal.”
This show features releases from Bandcamp, an online platform for artists to share music directly with fans. There’s an endless stream of intriguing new music to explore, made by professionals and bedroom producers alike. If you’re not an early bird, a full recording of the show is posted weekly to mixcloud (The Bottom 40).
Thomas Morrison, Julian Meltzer Mondays, 10–11 a.m.
Playlist: Eerie Summer’s “No Big Deal,” Castlebeat’s “Rope,” Eemu’s “Tic-Tac”
Playlist: Nkeiru Okoye (OC ‘92)’s “Dusk” for solo piano, WG Still’s Symphony No. 1 “AfroAmerican,” Alvin Singleton’s “Mookestueck”
Diary Diary of of Two Two Teenage Teenage Girls Girls
SOUNDS SOUNDS OF OF THE THE SILVER SCREEN SILVER SCREEN
The teen girl experience, though often reduced to a monolith, carries weight and complexity. Quinn and Shiner hope to evoke the many facets of being a teenage girl through diary readings and sharing stories of formative experiences that defined their younger years. These reflections are paired with musical selections reminiscent of these experiences.
Soundtracks from all eras, locales, movements and universes are featured on this Sunday morning special; Greene looks at the evocative potential of movie scores from a critical lens. This week, the show will investigate the ways that Evil–as both an entity and a force–is presented in the sonic landscapes of films.
Joanna Quinn, Gabi Shiner Sundays, 7–8 a.m.
Jules Greene Sundays, 9–10 a.m.
Playlist: Courtney Barnett - Small Poppies, Nico These Days, Screaming Females - It’s Nice
Playlist: Music from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, Akira Kurosawa’s “Ran,” Guillermo Del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth.”
Naija Kids Kids Naija
THE CITY CITY OF OF OBERLIN OBERLIN THE
Ify Ezimora (DJ IFY), Folajimi Odekunle (DJ Ibukun) Tuesdays, 1–2 a.m. Ezimora and Odekunle are Nigerian students who feel that not enough music from African countries gets circulated. Naija Kids covers music mainly from Nigerian artists, but also music from other African and African Diaspora countries. They say, “We’re just trying to get people to listen to good music.”
Matt Grimm, Josh Augustin Mondays, 5–6 a.m.
THE FLANNEL FLANNEL CHANNEL CHANNEL THE Mac MacLean, Abbey Bisesi Fridays, 1–2 p.m.
The Flannel Channel is a talk and music hour for queers by queers, covering topics such as transness and the law, street harassment, the dangers of masculinity, racism in the queer community, fatphobia, hookup culture and dysphoria, among others.
Paulus Van Horne Thursdays, 9–10 a.m.
Graduating fifth-year Van Horne feels they are leaving Oberlin without a substantial connection to the city’s permanent population. This show is a small attempt to heal the gulf between town and gown, featuring Oberlin-related music, reading of archival documents from Oberlin’s history and interviews with community members.
DESIGN AND LAYOUT BY ANDREA WANG
Playlist: Yemi Alade’s “Johnny,” Pizo Dizo’s “Chali Stinji,” Kendrick Lamar’s “Momma”
Open House: College Archives 50th Anniversary Celebration Saturday, Oct. 8, 10 a.m.–2 p.m. Mudd library, Goodrich Room, 410
Punk Rock Flea Market Lorain Halloween Extravaganza! Sunday, Oct. 9, 12–6 p.m. St. John Lutheran Church, Elyria
Akron Pug Fest Sunday, Oct. 9, 12–5 p.m. 1929 West Market St. Akron, OH 44313
Anti-Procrastination Day Sunday, Oct. 9, 2 p.m.–12 p.m. Mudd library
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Oberlin College Archives, there will be an open house featuring a special exhibit of the history of the Archives and Special Collections, as well as screenings of films from the Archives. The Archives are located on the fourth floor of Mudd library. This is the first of two open house events.
This isn’t your grandma’s flea market! Punk meets goth at this Halloween-themed gathering of artisans and independent small businesses. Along with vendors selling clothing, vintage comics, collectibles, toys, candles and various oddities, there will be food trucks, raffles, art and games.
Hang out with Northeast Ohio’s cutest pugs at this day of fun and fundraising! There will be live music, food trucks, pug contests, pug rubs and lots of pugs at this event hosted by the Ohio Pug Rescue. This event is free and open to the public — dogs of all breeds are welcome!
Feeling lost during midterms and don’t know where to turn? Drop by the basement of Mudd library, where staff from the Career Center, Writing Center and Research Desk will be on hand to help with paper assignments, applications, resumes and interviews. Cookies and coffee from Slow Train will be available for those who have an appointment.
WOBC-FM WOBC-FM
What to listen to on Tired of Top ’40s hits and the same old talk shows? Oberlin’s student-run radio station broadcasts content 24/7 and offers a myriad of listening possibilities. From New Orleans Bounce to a K-pop power hour to the evolution of funk, here’s a selection of some of college and community radio’s hidden gems. A full schedule of shows this semester is available at wobc.org/schedule — tune in at 91.5 FM, or online at wobc.org/listen. LIVE LIVE ACTION ACTION RADIO RADIO Avi Vogel Wednesdays, 6–7 p.m.
On “Live Action Radio”, follow four heroes as they embark on their current enthralling campaign in popular tabletop game Dungeons and Dragons. Tune in to WOBC’s finest and only medieval fantasy roleplay hour.
THE DEAD HEAR FOOTSTEPS THE THE DEAD DEAD HEAR HEAR FOOTSTEPS FOOTSTEPS
Kate Diamond, Jay Shapiro Sundays, 5–6 p.m.
CALENDAR CALENDAR
Oberlin’s only ongoing radio serial follows the adventures of private detective Hardin Lovelace and investigative reporter Lucy Lodge as they make their way through the corrupt, crimeinfested city of Bayside, CA, in the 1930s. Tune in as the duo solves mysteries both tragic and ridiculous, from authoritative and corrupt senators, to eccentric and buffoonish gangsters, to goat-sacrificing cults and warring mafioso bakeries. All of this is written weekly and performed live by a student staff delivering quality comedy-noir to your radios!
Dance Diaspora Presents “The Detroit Way” Friday, Oct. 7, 8–10 p.m. Warner Center Main Space
OSLAM October Poetry Slam Friday, Oct. 7, 8–10 p.m. Cat in the Cream
In “The Detroit Way,” an Africana Studies senior honors project, double-degree fifthyear Daniel Spearman examines the distinct “Detroit Sound” and its influence on the Oberlin jazz legacy. The Oberlin Jazz Studies department was built upon a foundation of the “Detroit Sound.” In this interdisciplinary performance, dancers and musicians evoke a long history of the Oberlin-Detroit connection as well as their collective influence on Black vernacular musical tradition.
At OSLAM’s first poetry slam of the year, five OSLAM members and five community members will grace the coffeehouse stage with a fiery night of spoken word. In addition, five members of the audience will be randomly selected to share the spotlight with them. Brush up on your metaphors — those interested in performing should contact oslam@oberlin.edu or show up at the event.
BLACK CLASSICAL BLACK CLASSICAL ARTS ARTS Chris Jenkins Mondays, 4–5 p.m.
The contributions of African-American popular musicians receive greater recognition, but classical composers and performers are often overlooked due to a lack of education and knowledge about African Americans’ contributions to the traditionally Western genre of classical music. This show highlights works by notable African American classical composers.
Let’s go go camping camping Let’s
THE BOTTOM BOTTOM 40 40 THE
“Let’s Go Camping” explores the rich musical culture at Oberlin by featuring different campus musicians each week, sometimes involving a small set. Says Morrison and Meltzer, “It’s loose and personal.”
This show features releases from Bandcamp, an online platform for artists to share music directly with fans. There’s an endless stream of intriguing new music to explore, made by professionals and bedroom producers alike. If you’re not an early bird, a full recording of the show is posted weekly to mixcloud (The Bottom 40).
Thomas Morrison, Julian Meltzer Mondays, 10–11 a.m.
Playlist: Eerie Summer’s “No Big Deal,” Castlebeat’s “Rope,” Eemu’s “Tic-Tac”
Playlist: Nkeiru Okoye (OC ‘92)’s “Dusk” for solo piano, WG Still’s Symphony No. 1 “AfroAmerican,” Alvin Singleton’s “Mookestueck”
Diary Diary of of Two Two Teenage Teenage Girls Girls
SOUNDS SOUNDS OF OF THE THE SILVER SCREEN SILVER SCREEN
The teen girl experience, though often reduced to a monolith, carries weight and complexity. Quinn and Shiner hope to evoke the many facets of being a teenage girl through diary readings and sharing stories of formative experiences that defined their younger years. These reflections are paired with musical selections reminiscent of these experiences.
Soundtracks from all eras, locales, movements and universes are featured on this Sunday morning special; Greene looks at the evocative potential of movie scores from a critical lens. This week, the show will investigate the ways that Evil–as both an entity and a force–is presented in the sonic landscapes of films.
Joanna Quinn, Gabi Shiner Sundays, 7–8 a.m.
Jules Greene Sundays, 9–10 a.m.
Playlist: Courtney Barnett - Small Poppies, Nico These Days, Screaming Females - It’s Nice
Playlist: Music from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, Akira Kurosawa’s “Ran,” Guillermo Del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth.”
Naija Kids Kids Naija
THE CITY CITY OF OF OBERLIN OBERLIN THE
Ify Ezimora (DJ IFY), Folajimi Odekunle (DJ Ibukun) Tuesdays, 1–2 a.m. Ezimora and Odekunle are Nigerian students who feel that not enough music from African countries gets circulated. Naija Kids covers music mainly from Nigerian artists, but also music from other African and African Diaspora countries. They say, “We’re just trying to get people to listen to good music.”
Matt Grimm, Josh Augustin Mondays, 5–6 a.m.
THE FLANNEL FLANNEL CHANNEL CHANNEL THE Mac MacLean, Abbey Bisesi Fridays, 1–2 p.m.
The Flannel Channel is a talk and music hour for queers by queers, covering topics such as transness and the law, street harassment, the dangers of masculinity, racism in the queer community, fatphobia, hookup culture and dysphoria, among others.
Paulus Van Horne Thursdays, 9–10 a.m.
Graduating fifth-year Van Horne feels they are leaving Oberlin without a substantial connection to the city’s permanent population. This show is a small attempt to heal the gulf between town and gown, featuring Oberlin-related music, reading of archival documents from Oberlin’s history and interviews with community members.
DESIGN AND LAYOUT BY ANDREA WANG
Playlist: Yemi Alade’s “Johnny,” Pizo Dizo’s “Chali Stinji,” Kendrick Lamar’s “Momma”
Open House: College Archives 50th Anniversary Celebration Saturday, Oct. 8, 10 a.m.–2 p.m. Mudd library, Goodrich Room, 410
Punk Rock Flea Market Lorain Halloween Extravaganza! Sunday, Oct. 9, 12–6 p.m. St. John Lutheran Church, Elyria
Akron Pug Fest Sunday, Oct. 9, 12–5 p.m. 1929 West Market St. Akron, OH 44313
Anti-Procrastination Day Sunday, Oct. 9, 2 p.m.–12 p.m. Mudd library
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Oberlin College Archives, there will be an open house featuring a special exhibit of the history of the Archives and Special Collections, as well as screenings of films from the Archives. The Archives are located on the fourth floor of Mudd library. This is the first of two open house events.
This isn’t your grandma’s flea market! Punk meets goth at this Halloween-themed gathering of artisans and independent small businesses. Along with vendors selling clothing, vintage comics, collectibles, toys, candles and various oddities, there will be food trucks, raffles, art and games.
Hang out with Northeast Ohio’s cutest pugs at this day of fun and fundraising! There will be live music, food trucks, pug contests, pug rubs and lots of pugs at this event hosted by the Ohio Pug Rescue. This event is free and open to the public — dogs of all breeds are welcome!
Feeling lost during midterms and don’t know where to turn? Drop by the basement of Mudd library, where staff from the Career Center, Writing Center and Research Desk will be on hand to help with paper assignments, applications, resumes and interviews. Cookies and coffee from Slow Train will be available for those who have an appointment.
Page 10
Arts The Oberlin Review
October 7, 2016
Bechdel Returns to Oberlin to Talk Fun Home Julia Peterson Production Editor Editor’s note: This article mentions suicide. Spoilers for the musical Fun Home are included. Of all the brilliant lines from Fun Home, the stage musical based on the autobiographical graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, OC ’81, one in particular might resonate with Oberlin students. “It’s not the world, anyways,” proclaims a character modeled after a college-aged Bechdel. “It’s Oberlin College.” Bechdel, one of Oberlin’s most famous alumni, is lauded as a cartoonist, activist and the namesake of the Bechdel Test. She came to campus Tuesday as Fun Home made its way to Cleveland. For all of the play’s joking proclamations that Oberlin is not “the real world,” Bechdel described her experience here as having shaped her beliefs and values in many ways. “You know, I came here not knowing anything about Oberlin’s reputation, and I was completely apolitical as a kid,” she said. “I have to confess to you all right now that I did not vote in the 1980 election — my first presidential election. Ronald Reagan was my fault.” Coming out to her parents, she said, was a formative experience in finding her political identity. “I had never identified as a feminist until I started seeing how power worked — I very much started learning about that here at Oberlin,” Bechdel said. “I got transformed here and I’m very grateful for that. I don’t think that that necessarily would have happened on any other campus.” Fun Home, the musical, revolves around three characters inspired by her life: Small Alison, a child living in rural Pennsylvania ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“I have to confess to you all right now that I did not vote in the 1980 election — my first presidential election. Ronald Reagan was my fault.” Alison Bechdel –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– with her parents and siblings, Middle Alison, an Oberlin student just discovering her sexuality, and Alison, the present-day cartoonist reflecting on these memories as she tells the story.
MacArthur Genius Alison Bechdel, OC ’81, author of the award-winning graphic novel Fun Home and co-creator of the famed Bechdel Test, returned to Oberlin to present to an audience of students and professors Tuesday. Photo by Julia Peterson, Production editor
“I love making my life into art,” she said. “I somehow don’t feel fully present, fully myself, unless I’m telling myself a story about what’s happening. Which is probably some kind of primitive self-defense mechanism, but those are usually the things that save you or help you to do really good work, because you absolutely have to do it on some level.” And Fun Home consists of multiple stories, each of which enable Bechdel to explore her own life as well as her relationship with her father, who is central to the narrative. When she came out to her parents, she learned that her father had been involved in affairs with other men for the duration of his marriage to her mother. Months after that, he ended his life by stepping in front of a truck. “The musical that has been made from my book captures this moment [of his suicide] really beautifully. … I feel like I personally wasn’t really able to imagine my father’s death that closely. It was just painful to go into that moment. … What would you have to be feeling to do that? I’ve learned that [musical] theater is a much more emotional medium than writing, or even graphic novels, and the play plumbed that moment really masterfully.” But the play begins long before that, with Small Alison standing center-stage and demanding that her father play “air-
plane” with her, lying down and lifting her up on his feet so that she can extend her arms and pretend to soar. The timelines of these three iterations of Alison weave between one another, a scene of Middle Alison at Oberlin giving way to Small Alison watching TV and singing along to a theme song, dreaming of a happy family like the ones she sees on screen. Navigating these timelines and deciding how to tell all of these different stories as one cohesive whole was an incredible creative challenge. “Writing the book was very much like being in a labyrinth,” Bechdel said. “I didn’t know that I was coming to the end of the book, and all of a sudden I had this insight that the book was about not just my father’s death and all these complicated sexual issues surrounding it, but it was about how my dad had taught me to be an artist.” Though the play is a fictionalized adaptation of her graphic novel, Bechdel still feels an emotional connection to the events on stage. “Weirdly, [the play] does feel like my life,” she said. “It’s hard to describe it because obviously it’s an abstraction — obviously my family didn’t dance around the living room to The Partridge Family — but somehow it feels so emotionally accurate that sometimes I get confused about what re-
ally happened and what was made up in the play.” For all of the darkness and loss that permeates this story, there are moments of joy and humor, too — the graphic novel is aptly subtitled “A Family Tragicomic.” One of the funniest moments in the play is captured in the song “Changing My ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“Weirdly, [the play] does feel like my life.” Alison Bechdel –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Major,” where Middle Alison awkwardly stands in her sweater, socks and underwear in an Oberlin dorm room and sings about having sex for the first time with a girl named Joan, announcing that she is “changing [her] major to Joan.” She processes her experience out loud, questioning if she is “falling into nothingness, or flying into something so sublime.” This same question reoccurs near the end of the play, sung by Alison’s father, Bruce, before he takes his own life. The title itself is also an element of brilliant dark humor. Bechdel’s father worked See Fun Home, page 12
Comic by Eli Ferster and Ariel Miller
Arts
The Oberlin Review, October 7, 2016
Page 11
Peregrine Trades Narrative Arc for Dreamy Aesthetic Christian Bolles Arts Editor Editor’s note: This review contains mentions of violence against children and minor spoilers. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is the latest reminder of Tim Burton’s spotty history with film. Responsible for an impressive array of beloved classics including Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas and the underappreciated Sweeney Todd, the director’s genius nonetheless can get away from itself. In works like Planet of the Apes and Alice in Wonderland, his singular vision was clouded by a lack of focus, tending toward visual chaos over in-depth exploration of individual aspects of the world and leaving characters by the wayside. His best works prove that somewhere out there must be a creative climate that suits his process. And since there’s no pattern to his patchwork of hits and flops, one can suppose that Miss Peregrine’s Home, his film adaptation of the acclaimed novel, could have been good. If such a reality exists, it isn’t this one. Miss Peregrine follows the story of Jake (Asa Butterfield), a teenager whose life is pulled out from under him when he witnesses the untimely death of his grandfather. Beginning to suspect that the old man’s bedtime stories of a peculiar orphanage locked in time were more than just fiction, Jake sets out to find the truth on a small Welsh island, discovering a world where matrons called Ymbrynes create time loops to protect children subject to supernatural genetic peculiarities, ranging from unusual strength to the power to control bees. From the onset, the film rushes to establish intrigue, forgetting to
engage with Jake’s character in the process. Even with his grandfather dying in his arms, it’s hard to empathize with the protagonist when nothing has been seen of their relationship. Peregrine’s overwrought narrative can’t be entirely blamed on the film. The book, penned by first-time author and photo col––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
And since there’s no pattern to his patchwork of hits and flops, one can suppose that Miss Peregrine’s Home, his film adaptation of the acclaimed novel, could have been good. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– lector Ransom Riggs, was initially meant to be a compendium of unsettling archival photographs of children. The project was only turned into a novel at the suggestion of Riggs’ editor, resulting in a world as strange as it is unique. If the film were content to examine the deluge of ideas swirling around this miasma of a fictional universe, it may have succeeded — and for the first half of its running time, it mostly does. But, as though a Hollywood executive marched into the writers’ room partway through filming and demanded a more action-filled movie, the final hour is packed with some of the most ill-advised set pieces imaginable, connected to one another by near-incomprehensible plot points of time travel between loops connected to both the present and the past that have to be entered before they close. It all could feasibly make sense, but for a young adult-skewed film with plenty of silliness, the hasty and convoluted excuses
for explanations offered by Jake — who somehow makes the leap from confused, awkward teen to strong, silent badass capable of understanding everything in the span of a couple minutes — add little clarity. The film’s inability to settle on a target age group also jumbles its tone. It’s hard to believe that a movie where a gaggle of skeletons battles cartoonishly with cotton candy-covered monsters also contains an extended scene depicting the villains feasting on the eyes of children in morbid detail. Beetlejuice infused its more humorous moments with the macabre, allowing its darkest points to hit home. This film, on the other hand, sucks the life out of both ends of the spectrum in its refusal to fully commit to either. Perhaps the most galling omission in Peregrine is a sense of wonder. The trailers interspersed sweeping views of the children’s home with images of the residents therein, using strong orchestral backing to induce a welcome feeling of mystery. The film’s vibe is a far cry from these previews; by focusing on nothing but propelling its ungainly narrative forward, it fails to adequately engage with a single one of the ideas it puts out. Nearly every character is woefully underdeveloped, and the finer aspects of the world — the “peculiars” themselves, for example — are barely touched on. There are few shots of the locations’ surrounding areas, fostering a sense of confusion rather than mystery. And the love story at the center makes absolutely no sense, hitting the right on-screen notes but forgetting to have an actual arc, which results in two characters who have only known each other for a couple days acting like years have passed between them. Strangely, none of these failings make
Peregrine a terrible film, mostly due to solid performances by Ella Purnell and, of course, Eva Green as Miss Peregrine. It’s a shame that the latter isn’t given more to work with, but her commanding presence acts as an anchor for the narrative. The first hour of the movie manages a slow build to the reveal of the orphanage, carrying tension that works while it lasts. The early scenes set in Miss Peregrine’s home achieve a dreamlike quality, and Burton would have done well to spend more time within its walls. Miss Peregrine’s Home is surprisingly keen to leave its titular orphanage. Were more time spent on the relationships between the children, the ensuing ludicrousness might pack more of an emotional wallop. In fact, the premise begs for the time allowed by a television series (or, fittingly, a book); the fact that the characters end up blurring together despite their inherent distinctiveness speaks volumes about the movie’s preference for fluff over breathing ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Were more time spent on the relationships between the children, the ensuing ludicrousness might pack more of an emotional wallop. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– room. When the coherence of a narrative relies on filling a sunken 20th century ship with air to get from one island to another, it’s time to ask what went wrong. The answer might be that the screenwriter’s stable of work includes Kingsman: The SeSee Burton, page 13
Oberlin College Archives Celebrates Half-Centennial Anniversary Rachel Mead The Oberlin College Archives has been a resource for students, faculty, residents and the global research community since its establishment 50 years ago this week. To celebrate the anniversary, Archives staff members have
put together an exhibit that will be on display in Mudd library until Oct. 21. The exhibit includes photographs, documents and other items connected to Oberlin College and Conservatory history, as well as to the lives of notable alumni such as Mary Church Terrel, a Black women’s rights
A photograph of James Harris Fairchild (1817 – 1902) taken in Tappan Square. Artifacts like this are being displayed by the Oberlin College Archives in Mudd library. Photo courtesy of Oberlin College
advocate and Oberlin alumna who obtained a graduate degree in 1888, one of the first AfricanAmerican women to do so, and Carl Rowan, OC ’47, who was involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Several staff favorites are also on display — many drawn from under-utilized collections. The Archives will host a celebratory open house Saturday, Oct. 8 from 10 a.m.–2 p.m. in the Goodrich Room on the fourth floor of Mudd library. “We wanted to give people an opportunity to come and see what we have here,” College Archivist Ken Grossi said. “It was actually a hard thing to do, to choose, but it gives the current staff a chance to make a favorite selection or two from the collection.” Grossi himself chose a photograph of James H. Fairchild, the third president of Oberlin College. Fairchild, who was 82 at the time the photo was taken, is shown astride a horse in Tappan Square. Behind him to the west of Tappan are two now-demolished buildings, Warner and Cabinet Halls. Cabinet used to house the College’s natural history specimens and its early chemistry department. Warner was the original Conservatory building, which stood on the corner of West College Street and North Professor Street that the King Memorial Building now occupies. Louisa Hoffman, the archival assistant, chose a painted copper shingle. “It’s from a replica tem-
ple at the Chicago Expo in 1932 during the wave of Orientalist interest,” Hoffman said. The temple was a well-traveled copy of the Golden Pavilion of Jehol in Manchuria and made an appearance in Oberlin in the early 1940s. Indiana University entrusted the pavilion to a group that had plans to restore it but lacked the funds to do so, and the restoration plans –––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“We wanted to give people an opportunity to come and see what we have here.” Ken Grossi College Archivist ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– were abandoned as a result. Rescued from a scrap metal dealer’s storage unit by Indiana University in the 1990s, the pavilion made its way to first Harvard University and then Sweden. Grossi also picked several artifacts from the life and career of anthropologist Eduardo Mondlane, OC ’53, the first president of the Mozambican Liberation Front. The Mondlane collection, which includes a 1953 photograph of his Oberlin graduation, is one recent example of the kind of draw the Archives generate in the wider research community. Just this spring Livio Sansone, an associate professor of Anthropology at the Federal University of
Bahia in Brazil, came to Oberlin to speak about Mondlane and to use Oberlin’s collection of related information for a project for the Digital Museum of African and Afro-Brazilian Heritage. Outside researchers and institutions are especially attracted to the collection on the KingCrane Commission, a government investigation in Turkey and the Middle East involving Henry Churchill King, the sixth president of the College. Researchers also come to see items from the the Shansi Collection and from collections on topics such as abolitionist efforts. The exhibit also showcases a piece on the importance of student involvement in the Archives, highlighting their contributions with a poster featuring past and present student staff workers. Students have long been an integral part of the Archives, and faculty often incorporate the archives into classes, especially in the social sciences. “We have pretty good exposure in our support of the educational front,” Grossi said. He also cited the Archives’ blog, which provides updates and promotes events to a growing number of followers, as evidence of increased interest in an important campus and community space. The exhibit and open house provide opportunities to increase awareness of the kinds of resources the Archives has to offer, as well as show off staff favorites rarely on display.
Arts
Page 12
The Oberlin Review, October 7, 2016
Fun Home Commences Cleveland Tour
Feature Photo: Leyla McCalla
Continued from page 10
Leyla McCalla, a Haitian-American musician living in New Orleans, has toured the world on the tail of her 2013 debut album, Vari-Colored Songs: A Tribute to Langston Hughes. She brought her cello, guitar and tenor banjo to perform at the Cat in the Cream Monday, singing in a mixture of French, Haitian Creole and English. Her music investigates African identity and social justice, and her work has led her to collaborate with famed musicians such as Rhiannon Giddens, OC ’00.
Text by Christian Bolles, Arts editor Photo by Sarah Herdrich
On the Record with Peter Coviello A professor of English at the University of Illinois, Chicago, Peter Coviello specializes in 19th-century American literature and queer studies and formerly served as Chair of the departments of English, Africana Studies and Gay and Lesbian Studies at Bowdoin College. Coviello recently penned Tomorrow’s Parties: Sex and the Untimely in NineteenthCentury America, which was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in LGBT Studies and an Honorable Mention for the Alan Bray Memorial Book Prize from the Modern Language Institute’s GL/Q Caucus. His writing has appeared in noted venues including the LA Review of Books, Frieze and The Believer. Coviello chatted with the Review via email about his upcoming talk at Oberlin, titled “The Wild Not Less Than the Good: Thoreau, Sex, Biopower,” his approaches to Walden and what he’s working on next. What made you think of approaching Walden through the lens of gender and sexuality? Well, I’m a scholar who specializes in 19th-century American literature and queer theory. I’d just written a book about sex in the 19th century — sex, that is, before categories like “heterosexuality” and “homosexuality” had really taken hold — and there I’d found a lot that was intriguing and useful in [Henry David] Thoreau. For a man famous for being priggish and chaste, he thought a lot, and with force and intricacy, about carnality, desire and the relation of these things to capitalism. How do you bridge those notions of Thoreau’s personality, specifically his preference for solitude and chastity, with sexuality and wildness in your studies? It’s a good question. My sense is that part of what’s at stake for Thoreau when he immerses himself in the kind of solitude Walden is so famous for describing is a desire to wrench himself — his whole self, his body, its desires — away from the ways of being that the world makes available to him. He doesn’t want a body that’s merely instru-
mental, turned to use, made a tool for profit — or, for that matter, for reproduction. He’s really, as he says, in love with wildness, and part of what this means is that he wants a way to inhabit his body, to live out carnality, that doesn’t just cede to these other instrumentalizing imaginings of the flesh. What approach did you take in reading Walden? Do you think there is a “better” way to read Thoreau or, specifically, Walden? And did you refer to other texts by Thoreau or other Transcendentalist thinkers? I mean, there are great multitude of ways to read Walden, and Thoreau! I’m using him to help ask some questions about this decades-deep critical undertaking called queer theory, since I think his work gives us real purchase on some of the generative impasses we find there right now. So I’ll be talking about a lot of other people, most of them scholars working in queer theory in one way or another, from Michel Foucault and Eve Sedgwick out to Jasbir Puar, José Muñoz, Rod Ferguson and a range of others. As far as other texts from the period: yes. Though I’m mostly talking about [“Higher Laws”] from Walden I end up talking a lot too about some of his essays — one of them is, promisingly, about chastity — and a bit about a book he wrote before Walden, called A Week On the Concord And Merrimack Rivers. In your studies, did you ever try to follow in Thoreau’s footsteps and spend some time in nature yourself ? I’ll tell you what I long ago told another interviewer. It’s an answer I learned mostly from reading another 19th-century American writer, Herman Melville. I said to him, when he asked why I so much preferred cities to the country, bars to camping, etc: “My respect for nature is predicated on the harm I know it wishes to do to me.” So, yeah. I like the outdoors as much as any person who would much, much rather be on a subway!
What’s your next project? Did working with Walden and Thoreau influence what you chose to study next? This talk is really a follow-up to my last book, which was called Tomorrow’s Parties and was about sex in 19th-century America. My next book is about sex and race and religion. It’s about, more precisely, Mormonism! That is, it’s about 19th-century Mormon polygamy and what I call the biopolitics of secularism. So what’s on the agenda for your talk at Oberlin? Well, I’ll be talking first about the vexed status of wildness in Walden, and how and why he links it to things you wouldn’t imagine he would — like vegetarianism, hunting, masturbation. And then I’ll be talking about what Thoreau’s tense relation to wildness has to do with some of the recent turns in queer theory, and about how these might help us think our way more exactingly through some knotty contemporary problems, only one of which is the conjoined problem of sex, securitization and sexual violence on campuses. What do you see as the value of wildness in the context of Walden? What have you taken away from studying it, and what do you hope other readers will gain from it? Well, I think that the way Thoreau at once reveres wildness and is, in his way, wary of it — not of wildness itself, but of how the world around him wants to capitalize on what is wild in the self — is instructive, in a range of ways. He reminds us that the world is forever making claims on us, often contradictory claims, even on those aspects of ourselves we think are most private, most primal, most our own. This is why I think Thoreau’s thinking about wildness can be especially useful for helping us to see clearly into some of the paradoxes of how we think about sex and sexuality. Interview by Vida Weisblum, Editor-in-Chief
at the Bechdel Funeral Home as well as being an English teacher; within the family, the funeral home was called “the fun home.” Alison’s diaries are a recurring motif in the play. In multiple scenes, Small or Middle Alison will be writing, and Alison as she works on the graphic novel will come and pluck the diary right out of the younger character’s hand, usually with some wry comment on the writing. In real life, Bechdel also depends on her journaling to tell stories about past events. “I wrote a lot of stuff down,” she said. “I started keeping a diary when I was 10 and I still do it. I’m kind of obsessed with keeping track of my own life, and as I get older, [it’s] a very unwieldy thing. … I’m trying to let go of the need to do this, but it’s good if you’re going to be a memoirist to have material.” Despite having such a rich collection of source material to draw on, Bechdel still faced many challenges in bringing this story to life. “It was scary,” she said. “I wasn’t just writing about real people — I was writing about my family, which are about as real as people can get. … I felt like no one knew what really happened, and it was very hard for me to access my own feelings about it. So part of why I wrote this book was to explore that grief, to really go there and do it properly in a way that I had not been able to while it was happening.” In the stage adaptation, music is not just backdrop or accompaniment, but used to inform the story and let its colors stand out through the medium. TV show theme songs and piano etudes are reinterpreted and made to carry emotional weight, and the musicians are visible on stage for a large portion of the play. In fact, a centerpiece on the set of the Bechdel family home is a piano, and one of the few tender moments between Middle Alison and her father involves them sitting at that piano together and singing comically revised lyrics of “Heart and Soul.” Because some of the play is set in Oberlin, it is especially meaningful here. That’s why College senior Gabi Kaufman organized a trip sponsored by the Student Union to Playhouse Square in Cleveland so that Oberlin students could see it. Cleveland is the first stop on Fun Home’s national tour, which will also be visiting Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, Charlotte, Las Vegas and Seattle. “Fun Home is one of those rare musicals that I’m super attached to emotionally but I also do think that it’s one of the closest things we’ve had to a perfect musical in recent years,” Kaufman said. “And I think it’s beautiful, I think it’s a really important story. … It’s subtle, and I think that’s what I love most about Fun Home. All the hidden subtleties in it, and the little things they do that just make it really special.”
The Oberlin Review, October 7, 2016
Arts
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Variable State’s Debut Provokes Thought, Confusion Avi Vogel Staff Writer Virginia, the first project released by independent developer Variable State, follows the journey of Anne Tarver, a young FBI agent fresh out of school, and a more experienced agent named Maria Halperin in their investigation of the disappearance of a young boy in the small town of Kingdom, VA. The vagueness of this premise is an intentional part of the game’s design. The best way to approach Virginia is with as few expectations as possible. The narrative is complex and nearly wordless other than the occasional on-screen text, relying heavily upon visual cues and a context-specific musical score to convey information and emotion. This allows the story to unfold at a steady clip without lingering on dialogue, highlighting instead the game’s impressive aesthetic design. Although not as graphically stunning as similar games like Firewatch, Virginia’s stylized presentation draws the viewer’s attention to clues much like the eye of a true FBI investigator would. The world sways with life, and though the lighting can get wonky at times, its less realistic aspects contribute to an unsettling vibe that the game fully owns. Visual symbolism is vital to Virginia’s plot. The appearance of a cardinal, a broken key in Anne’s palm, a buffalo in the ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
The world sways with life, and though the lighting can get wonky at times, its less realistic aspects contribute to an unsettling vibe that the game fully owns. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– middle of the road, files upon files — these images and more are used recurrently throughout the narrative. Their meaning is elusive, even after two playthroughs, though they all seem to point to the connection between dreams and reality.
FBI agents Anne Tarver and Maria Halperin enjoy coffee in silence at a small-town diner in developer Variable State’s debut game, Virginia. Photo by Avi Vogel, Staff writer
This lack of clarity is intriguing, especially given the complete lack of dialogue. Subtle interactions — a grieving widow, a priest talking to the sheriff, your partner Maria staring listlessly ahead — are minor in and of themselves, but when combined piece together a story despite what could be construed as a lack of focus. What keeps Virginia from floundering is its approach to the passage of time. One flaw of the first-person narrative-based genre is the necessity of walking, often slowly, from one place to another. Virginia has a unique way of avoiding this: jump cuts. These cuts work just like editing in a film, moving the player forward after important events have concluded. Although a creative solution, these jump cuts can have the effect of making an already complicated narrative even more confusing. For example, one of the first scenes in the game has Anne receiving a dossier from the FBI assistant director. It contains her true assignment in writing, but the shot
only lingers on the vital text for a moment before a jump cut to another scene. It’s easy to miss the information presented in the document, key to understanding the rest of the narrative. Jump cuts abruptly interrupt important story beats on multiple occasions, which could be understood either as purposeful obfuscation of details or sloppy design. This uncertainty is Virginia’s main problem. Did developer Variable State purposefully craft an experience that was meant to leave one confused, leading to questions about the game’s purpose and, in the end, bringing one to question the nature of reality? Or did the developer intend for these moments to be clearer, to ground us in the narrative and give us guidance, but failed to do so? Ultimately, the game isn’t as enjoyable as one might hope. Minor gripes like visual hiccups and heavy-handed symbolism don’t detract much from the experience; rather, Virginia’s downfall is its uniqueness. The
developers went for something new, but left out some key aspects of what defines a game. Virginia isn’t a game; it seems more akin to an interactive movie. This isn’t a malleable narrative. However, that look-don’t-touch framework isn’t a bad thing. Overall, players’ experiences will be defined by their expectations. Those in search of a restricted immersive ex––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Jump cuts abruptly interrupt important story beats on multiple occasions, which could be understood either as purposeful obfuscation of details or sloppy design. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– perience that inspires deep thought despite its flaws will find what they want in Virginia. But that niche is a small one.
Burton Loses Touch, Focus with Miss Peregrine Continued from page 11 cret Service, Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class; all good movies, but high-octane in a way that Miss Peregrine never should have been. Finally, the pre-release controversy regarding the film’s lack of racially diverse casting can’t be ignored. The problem is very real, as it’s hard to justify yet another coming-of-age movie centered on a white boy’s realization of just how special he is. What’s surprising is how little Peregrine does to challenge the normativity of its protagonist’s arc, blindly casting the only person of color in the entire film as the spectacularly underwritten villain, Barron (Samuel Jackson — even his superior acting chops can’t save the terrible writing). He’s part-monster, with an array of sharp teeth and demonic eyes that are consistently played for scares. Given his lifelong tenure as a scientist, it’s ironic that Barron’s intelligence is consistently outmatched by
that of Jake. With no cards up his sleeve, Jackson’s villain is given no redeeming qualities whatsoever, his only real character trait being his ability to put aside any semblance of morality or humanity. It’s an uncomfortable dynamic to say the least — one that the film seems completely oblivious to. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is an ultimately frustrating experience. Flashes of excellence occasionally gleam through the tangled web that forms its narrative, giving a sense of what the film might’ve been had Burton engaged with its world and characters more intimately and avoided a tendency toward setpiece moments. Compared to other patently young-adult movies like Divergent and Maze Runner, Miss Peregrine certainly stands out. But with its talented actors, legendary director and intriguing premise, the movie had the potential to be so much more.
Sports
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The Oberlin Review, October 7, 2016
In the Locker Room
Field Hockey
This week, the Review sat down with senior field hockey players Maureen Coffey and Julia Birenbaum to discuss their recent protest of the national anthem, police brutality and activism in athletics.
with this protest? MC: In addition to the Oberlin community, I think our audience was other teams. The first time we saw someone kneel, before we had a team discussion about it, was when the Earlham College field hockey team knelt at our first game against them. I hope that our actions are making other teams think about it and talk about it. Maybe that gives someone on another team the courage to decide they want to do it too, because they aren’t OK with what’s going on.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Why did you decide to start kneeling during the national anthem before games? Julia Birenbaum: I’m from San Francisco and read about Colin Kaepernick kneeling. Some people have had really adverse reactions to it. I thought, we have the freedom to do it, and I know Oberlin is a place that would be accepting of it, and not doing it kind of felt weird and complicit. So I proposed it to our team and to our coach. Personally, I would have done it every game, even if the team wasn’t going to do it, as long as everybody was OK with it, but we’ve done it every game. I really appreciate it, and I like it a lot, and I think we’re going to keep doing it. Maureen Coffey: Before they play the national anthem at a lot of our away games — Oberlin doesn’t do it — they’ll sometimes have a statement, something like, “Please rise and stand for our great country that protects our freedom and values.” The more I kept hearing that, the more uncomfortable I felt with the whole concept. In light of Kaepernick’s protest and the North Carolina shootings, it just felt wrong. I love the United States. I would love to work in government. But this isn’t what U.S. values should be, and it’s hard to stand for something that doesn’t align with what you believe in.
Seniors Maureen Coffey (left) and Julia Birenbaum Like Kaepernick, are you kneeling to protest police violence against Black people? JB: That’s what I had in mind when I was doing it. It’s not an anticop thing. That’s not the message that I’m trying to send. It’s making people aware of unnecessary violence against Black people and the loss of Black lives. MC: I read The Washington Post almost every day, and they count — JB: 178 Black people have been killed by police this year so far. MC: I would just look at it again and again. It’s awful. For me, it’s absolutely about racialized violence. JB: I think, especially within athlete spaces, a lot of people aren’t forced to think about it. By bringing this to this athlete space and to this team, we’re saying, “This is an important issue.” We’re trying to make a statement about it. It doesn’t need to happen to all of us personally. It doesn’t need to affect us personally. But this is something
Men’s Soccer Climbs to No. 17 in NCSAA Top-25 Poll Jackie McDermott Sports Editor Men’s soccer has reached new heights. The team ascended to No. 17 in the National Soccer Coaches Association of America Division-III Top-25 Poll — its best national ranking of all time. Oberlin is the only North Coast Athletic Conference team to crack the rankings, and currently holds an overall record of 9–1–1 and is 2–0 in conference play. Leading the Yeomen is senior captain Nick Wertman, who has made a habit out of scoring game-winning goals. Wertman notched his first career hat-trick against the Case Western Reserve University Spartans under the lights of Fred Shults Field Wednesday. Wertman found the back of the net less than four minutes into the match to put the Yeomen up 1–0. In the second half, the Spartans committed a foul in the box, putting Wertman in a position to tie the game after Case Western pulled ahead 2–1. With 5:20 left, sophomore midfielder Trenton Bulucea launched a cross from the far side and an unmarked Wertman connected for his team-leading eighth goal of the season to give the Yeomen the win. Oberlin will look to continue their nine-game undefeated streak as they travel to Crawfordsville, IN, to take on the Wabash College Little Giants tomorrow.
that’s happening in our country, to people that we know, to people that we love and to our own teammates. This forces people to wonder, “What is that about?” It makes people talk about it. MC: This conversation wouldn’t happen in a space like a Division-III field hockey game if it wasn’t for our protest. The point is to create conversations where they might not otherwise happen. How would you respond to someone that wonders why a majority-white team is participating in this protest? JB: You don’t have to be Black for this issue to affect you. I’m half Black. We have other Black teammates. But the majority of our team is white and is saying, “This is something that we believe is an important issue.” The job of an ally is not to take the spotlight and put it on themselves, but to raise awareness of an issue for a minor-
ity and give them a voice. We’re forcing people to talk about it. It’s the only power that we have right now in this situation. Systemic violence is embedded in our society. It’s something that you can’t just change. You have to change the way people talk about it and view it. This small thing that we’re doing is bringing it to this community, and I think to not do it would be wasting a really good opportunity. MC: As a white person, I am in a lot less danger of being written off or retaliated against for my actions. It’s the action of an ally to say, “I agree, and I’m going to participate.” Not, “I agree, and I’m going to sit back untouched by this situation.” You don’t have to be a person of color to be affected by this, to know it’s wrong and to know that something needs to change. Who are you hoping to reach
Why do you think other Oberlin teams haven’t done public protests like this? JB: The campus is very segregated, with athletes on North Campus a lot of the time. Sometimes it feels like the actual geographical divide of the school makes things really hard. Afrikan Heritage House and a lot of events and protests happen on a totally different part of campus, and as an athlete, your life is very connected to where your sport is played. Sometimes, as an athlete, you’re limited in ways that other students are not. I have noticed that not a lot of activism takes place in the athletic community. I think making a statement that brings awareness to an issue that’s really important or hard to talk about is also really important. It’s important to get comfortable being in uncomfortable spaces. Bringing discomfort sometimes is important because it pushes the bounds of what we can and can’t do. Interview by Jackie McDermott, Sports editor Photo by Bryan Rubin, Photo editor
Sports
The Oberlin Review, October 7, 2016
Top-Scoring Offense Leads Yeowomen
— Frisbee —
Ultimate Frisbee Teams Take Flight Tyler Sloan, Editor-in-Chief Julie Schreiber
Continued from page 16 working hard at practice every day, it is hard to notice how far we have actually come,” Cook said. “[The Wooster game] proved to the fans and ourselves that we can and will win games in conference this year.” Oberlin went 10–8 in 2014 and set the single-season wins record. Seven games remain in the 2016 regular season, and Palmer says he is optimistic for the remainder of the season. “Our goal is always to play our best and give our best effort. If we do, we can earn a positive result in any match,” he said. Today, the Yeowomen have the opportunity to continue their success and build upon their 5–3–1 overall record in their upcoming ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“When we are in season and working hard at practice every day, it is hard to notice how far we have actually come. [The Wooster game] proved to the fans and ourselves that we can and will win games in conference this year.” Junior Midfielder ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– match against the Rochester College Warriors in Rochester Hills, MI. The Yeowomen fell to the Warriors 3–2 in overtime last year. “We’re heading to a non-conference game this Friday looking to fine-tune some of our play and get ready for Allegheny and [Wittenberg] next week,” Gardiner said. After taking on the Allegheny College Gators in Meadville, PA, next Wednesday, the Yeowomen return home Saturday to host the Wittenberg University Tigers for Senior Day.
Continued from page 16 National League Rookie of the Year Award, which came with $20,000, he donated the entirety of his winnings to Live Like Bella to fund research at Oregon Health and Science University on rhabdomyosarcoma, a soft tissue cancer. A year later, he donated an additional $34,000 to the foundation while also working for ALS charities and the Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation. In addition, for every Sunday home game, he would invite kids to Marlins Park to hang out in the dugout during warm-ups and watch the game. Fernández also changed lives of community members in the south Florida area. He was a hero to many Cuban-Americans who could relate to his struggle adapting to a new culture. Robert Palenzuela, a Cuban-American from Miami who placed flowers on Fernández’s grave, explained how much he meant to Palenzuela’s life and community. “He was the inspiration, not only
The women’s Ultimate Frisbee team kicked off its season in Niagara Falls, Canada last weekend, readying for its nationals campaign. The Preying Manti, one of Oberlin’s most popular club teams, have been training since the semester’s start and finally had the opportunity to put their skills to the test at the recent tournament. “We played really well together as a team and everyone improved so much over the course of the weekend,” first-year Lucy Brown said. The Manti will look to build off of their highly successful season last year, when the squad excelled in regional play to earn a spot in the national Ultimate championship tournament. In recognition of the team’s exceptional performance, six Manti were named to Ohio Valley Division-III All-Region teams last spring, including College senior Maya Gillett. “The tournament went really well,” Gillett said. “So many people really stepped up, and it was a really exciting and impressive weekend for all of us.” The Preying Manti are currently gearing up for their annual autumn tourna-
but will compete collectively this fall. Both the Preying Manti and the Flying Horsecows, the Manti’s men’s and trans counterpart, are playing in the inaugural home-field competition in a few weeks. The Horsecows have also already dirtied
“We’ve seen a lot of success at these tournaments, which certainly isn’t a bad sign for the spring,” said College junior Peter LaFreniere, who serves as team captain alongside College junior Toby Harvey. The Horsecows graduated a strong se–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– nior class last season, including Ohio Valley Division-III All-Region selects Conrad Schlör and Jason Freedman, but will look The Manti will look to build to fill their shoes with a veteran squad this off of their highly successful year. season last year, when the Although competition is undoubtedly a huge part of Ultimate, members of both squad excelled in regional the Horsecows and the Manti emphasized play to earn a spot in the nathat having fun is just as important. tional Ultimate championship “I love the sport of Frisbee, but the best tournament. part of Ultimate is the people it brings,” Gillett said. “It consistently surrounds me ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– with some of the best people I’ve ever met.” their cleats this season, playing in two LaFreniere echoed Gillett’s sentiments. tournaments at Kenyon College and Case “You’re working for your teammates Western Reserve University in anticipation on the field at practice and off,” he said. of Force Freedom. Although the team is in “That’s what makes the team, and club its offseason, the preparation is crucial for sports in general, so special.” its more competitive spring season.
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Hannah Cook
Editorial: José Legacy More than Baseball
Page 15
“The tournament went really well. So many people really stepped up, and it was a really exciting and impressive weekend for all of us.” Maya Gillett College Senior ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ment, Force Freedom, taking place Oct. 30–31 at the Knowlton Athletics Complex. The Halloween-themed event encourages participants to sport their best costumes for a prize. The team usually splits into an A- and B-team squads later in the season,
for me, but for my son who is 23 years old like José,” Palenzuela said. “Where he came from to come over here, learn the language, break all those barriers, the sacrifices he made, to have it end like it did. Tragic.” Marlins manager Don Mattingly, though, remembers Fernández in a different way. The way Fernández played the game and the positive influence he had –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“Where he came from to come over here, learn the language, break all those barriers, the sacrifices he made, to have it end like it did. Tragic.” Robert Palenzuela Cuban-American from Miami ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– on others were qualities that Mattingly will never forget. “There’s just joy with him,” Mattingly said in an interview to FOX Sports. “The passion he felt about playing, that’s what I think about.” To honor the life of José Fernández, the Miami Marlins canceled their game against the Atlanta Braves the day after
Flying Horsecows captain Peter LaFreniere makes a leaping catch during the team’s practice. Photo Courtesy of Jonathan Karpatkin
his death. The following day, the Marlins played their series opener against the New York Mets in his honor. In every other game, players would wear their own numbers and last names on their jerseys, but on Sept. 26, every Marlins player donned the number 16 with “Fernández” embroidered on the back of their jerseys to honor their teammate. Though Fernández’s impact on the baseball diamond will never be forgotten, his legacy should inspire other professional athletes to make an even larger difference off the field. Fernández’s contributions to the Marlins starting rotation, including his ability to throw a fastball over 95 miles per hour and the 38 wins he recorded throughout his career, don’t come close to the lives he changed through his donations to charity and his community involvement. “He was a pillar to our community,” Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman Lorenzo Veloz said to CNN. “He was involved in everything he could be to give back.” Fernández’s legacy as one of baseball’s all time greats is secured, but he leaves behind so much more than impressive stats. The on-field pictures he took with the children he brought to see their first Marlins game exemplify the joy and lasting memories he leaves with us.
Runners Gear Up for Conference Conclusion Continued from page 16 of coughing, lots of raspy throats, lots of headaches and head colds. I don’t think we’re alone on the College campus in feeling this stuff, but it’s made running in the races and practices a challenge.” Rebounding from these setbacks, the men’s and women’s cross country teams are set to compete and host the InterRegional Rumble Saturday, Oct. 15, during fall break. The race has historically been intense, filled with fast times and strong competition. This will be the last race that a majority of the cross-country team will be able to compete in, as only the top-12 runners compete in the North Coast Athletic Conference and only seven run in regionals. Douglass said he hopes the whole team’s last hurrah will be exciting. “What I want to see is the entire team just having fun,” Douglass said. “It’s the last big joint team meet we have before conference and regionals, so it’s a great time just to be together and to kick off fall break.”
Sports The Oberlin Review
Page 16
October 7, 2016
— Women’s Soccer —
Yeowomen Continue to Make Strides Marissa Maxfield Just two-and-a-half minutes into Saturday’s game against The College of Wooster, junior midfielder Hannah Cook sent a sweeping cross to junior forward Gwennie Gardiner. Gardiner found the back of the net for the seventh time this season, putting the team ahead 1–0. Though The College of Wooster would eventually tie the score in the final minutes of the game, the 1–1 draw is the best result the Yeowomen have had against the Fighting Scots since 2005.
“It’s obviously never fun to settle for a tie,” senior midfielder Taylor French said. “That being said, we fought until the very end and had some good opportunities that we just weren’t able to put away. … I think everyone was really happy with how we played. We ended up getting a point in conference, which is the best result we’ve ever gotten against Wooster in the four years that I’ve been here.” After the junior duo’s exciting play, both teams were scoreless for 86 minutes and the Yeowomen
desperately clung to their one-goal lead. Unfortunately, the lead eventually slipped through their fingers. With four minutes left on the clock, Wooster’s Kennedy Payne broke past the line of defense off of a steal and scored. Although the game ended in a draw, Gardiner’s goal represents the team’s year-to-year progression, as it was the first time the Yeowomen have found the back of the net against the Fighting Scots since 2005. “It felt great scoring against
Wooster,” Gardiner said. “It was fun to combine with Hannah Cook again, as we did so much our freshman year.” Second-year goalkeeper Jordyn Morris saw 110 minutes of play as the game proceeded into double overtime. She did not hesitate to step up to the challenge, denying five-of-six shots on goal. Overall, –––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“It’s obviously never fun to settle for a tie. That being said, we fought until the very end and had some good opportunities that we just weren’t able to put away. … I think everyone was really happy with how we played. Taylor French Senior Midfielder ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– both teams notched fifteen total shots. Offensive production is a strength for the Yeowomen, who have outscored their opponents 23–14 this season. As a result, the team boasts the top scoring offense in the conference averaging 2.56 goals per game. “When we are in season and
Senior midfielder Megan Herrmann settles a pass in a game against DePauw University. After a 1–1 draw against The College of Wooster last Saturday, the Yeowomen are 5–3–1 overall. Photo Courtesy of Oberlin Athletics Communications
See Top-Scoring, page 15
— Cross Country —
First-Years Excel at All-Ohio Championship Sydney Allen Production Editor Hundreds of runners hit the trails at the All-Ohio Championships 6K in Cedarville, Ohio, last Friday, but the Yeowomen managed to stand out among them all. The women’s team placed second out of 17 teams, with the Yeowomen first-years notching particularly impressive performances. The men’s team finished sixth in the 16-team field in the 8K. Head Coach Ray Appenheimer said he was impressed by the Yeowomen rookies once again. “We’re a very young team,” he said. “We have a lot of really impactful first-year students. They’ve done a great job getting the hang of this whole college thing, but it’s also largely because we’ve got some great senior leadership and captains.” The Yeowomen, led by three first-years in the top five, finished with 66 points. Firstyear Marija Crook placed 51st overall and eighth amongst the 122 D–III female runners, placing the team at 23:08.2. Classmate Shannon Wargo followed closely behind, completing the race in 23:11.2 to place 56th overall and ninth in the D–III competition. Crook was quick to credit the successful race to Appenheimer’s emphasis on sticking together. “Something that Ray has been pushing all season is pack running,” Crook said. “We did an amazing job with that because in the race, the one-to-five split — the time between
when the first person and the last person finishes — was only 26 seconds, which was the smallest in all the D–I, D–II and D–III races.” While the women’s team has coalesced around the first-years, the men’s team is still looking to fill the shoes of All–American Geno Arthur, OC ’16. Arthur was one of the most decorated runners in Yeomen history and placed 22nd in the NCAA championships last year. While losing one of the best runners in the country wasn’t easy, senior Ben Stassen said the squad has rebuilt its chemistry. “I think that we lost a lot of our best runners last year, so we really came in without an identity, and we spent a lot of the last races learning who we are as a team,” Stassen said. “I think this past race we really saw the team group up better, and I think we’re starting to see better teamwork and more confidence.” The increase in team chemistry was evident at the All-Ohio Championships. Senior captain EJ Douglass led the squad for the fourth race in a row with a time of 26:25.5 in the 8K, earning him eighth place among D-III men’s runners and 53rd overall. Sophomore Grant Sheely followed closely behind Douglass with a time of 26:29.6, which placed him 10th in D–III and 58th overall. Both teams performed well despite battling bouts of illness going around campus. “The team has been kind of waylaid by so many illnesses,” Appenheimer said. “Lots See Runners, page 15
Fernández Never Forgotten Darren Zaslau Sports Editor José Fernández was one of the best pitchers in the history of the Miami Marlins. Posting a 16–8 overall with a 2.86 earned-run average this season, the star right-handed pitcher will always be remembered for his dominance on the mound. And while Fernández’s on-field presence will never be forgotten, his charity work, community involvement and inspiration shines an even brighter light on the legacy that he leaves behind after his tragic death at the age of 24. When Fernández was killed in a high-speed boating accident off the coast of Miami Beach September 25, baseball fans across the world were shocked. A first-round pick in the 2011 Major League Baseball Draft, Fernández had the determination and talent to become one of baseball’s best, in addition to making a difference off the field. The Santa Clara, Cuba, native lived an inspirational life. He tried to defect from Cuba three times and was jailed after each attempt. In 2007, Fernández, along with his mother and sister, finally made it to the U.S., but not without peril. When their boat hit turbulent waters, his mother fell overboard, and Fernández dove into the water to save her life. This represents exactly the kind of person Fernández was. He put the lives of others before his own. A philanthropist and inspiration to others, Fernández was an honorary board member for Live Like Bella, a foundation raising money for pediatric cancer research. Upon winning the 2013 See Editorial, page 15
Sophomore Grant Sheely turns a corner in the University of Rochester Yellow Jacket Invitational Sept. 17. In the All-Ohio Championships Sept. 30, the Dobbs Ferry, NY, native completed the trek in 26 minutes, 29.6 seconds for a 10th place Division-III finish. Photo Courtesy of Athletics Communications