March 25, 2022

The Oberlin Review March 25, 2022

Established 1874

Volume 151, Number 16

College Loosens Mask Requirement Anisa Curry Vietze Editor-in-Chief

Oberlin City Council unanimously voted against a rule that would increase regulations on short-term rental properties.

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor

City Council Plans to Address Affordable Housing, Short-Term Rentals Kush Bulmer News Editor City Council unanimously voted in a March 7 meeting to shelve proposed regulatory changes that would have required short-term rentals to register with the City and adhere to safety inspections and housing codes. In response, members of the Social Equity Plan housing subgroup raised broader questions about rental regulations and the lack of affordable housing in Oberlin.

Before implementing any regulatory changes to short-term rentals, City Council requested that the Planning Commission — which originally proposed the changes — take into account both the positive and negative implications of the regulations. City Council’s decision occurs as the Ohio House Local Government Committee hears testimony related to H.B. 563, which aims to curb regulations on short-term rentals, further adding to the need to reassess the proposed changes.

Currently, the City has no protocols for rental registration and only regulates rental housing quality on a complaint basis.

“We were trying to start a system of basically making them at least register with the City so we know where they are and there’s a contact person locally that could be responsible for the property, because we have some properties that aren’t owner-occupied,” said Carrie Porter, director of Planning and Development. “We would ask for somebody to be responsible for the property, and then we just wanna make sure that they’re safe.”

To some members of the community, these nowshelved regulatory changes raise the long-standing issue of affordable housing in Oberlin. City Council conducted a housing market study in 2017 which found that the City has an insufficient amount of rental and for-sale housing for lower-income families and middle-income seniors, and not enough starter homes in good condition. Additionally, the study noted that between 2000 and 2010, the Black population of Oberlin has decreased as a result of housing and job inaccessibility, falling from 18.5 percent to 14.8 percent of the total population. That trend has continued to this day,

as the Black population is now 10.7 percent of the total population, according to the 2020 census. However, the 2017 housing study did not predict the growing popularity of short-term rentals in Oberlin, such as those operated through Airbnb and Vrbo.

Pastor and former Professor of Religion A.G. Miller, who worked with the City on the Social Equity Plan’s housing subgroup, stated that it’s difficult to bring to code the various rental units, both long- and shortterm, that are owned and operated by people from out of town — especially as the City currently does not have a complete list of all the landlords and owners of these rental properties.

According to Miller, the lack of regulation around these rental units has led to code violations and misconduct, affecting nearby homeowners. His church, Oberlin House of the Lord Fellowship, has faced problems with rentals in the area, and Miller has had difficulty in contacting them to seek redress.

“This is not to blanket every renter or landlord in the same brush, I’m not trying to do that, but there are several very well-known complexes in town that are owned by people who don’t live in town, some of them live outta state,” Miller said. “If you talk to the code manager [Chris Yates], he will tell you it’s very difficult to bring these people under code and to get them to take care of whatever the violations are in order. It’s interesting to me that we’re talking about Airbnbs and trying to regulate that when you have these larger apartment complexes that are privately owned and have all kinds of violations.”

To Miller, the lack of regulation of Oberlin’s rentals directly applies to the issues of affordable housing, as these out-of-town owners also contribute to Oberlin’s rising rent prices and lack of adequate housing.

“This does raise the specter of affordable housing in Oberlin and its lack thereof,” Miller said. “There’s several things going on here. You had the 2008 housing market crash that I think put a lot of people in crisis.

They lost their homes. Speculators came in from outta town — and in town — and began to buy up properties and turn them into various rental markets. …

See Short-Term, page 2

This morning, the College released its plan to gradually shift to a mask-optional campus. Starting March 28, masks will not be required in exercise facilities. On April 21, wearing masks will be optional for all of campus, including in libraries, residence halls, and classes.

According to Chief of Staff David Hertz, the College’s COVID-19 team took a measured and cautious approach in making the decision to lift the mask requirement. On March 7, Oberlin re-opened indoor dining; Hertz says starting with dining halls allowed the College to assess how loosening guidelines would affect campus.

“That way, we were able to determine, in a very prudent fashion, whether we were going to trigger COVID spread on campus,” Hertz said. “And the data came back, and showed that we were not going to have a COVID spread with that amount of relaxation of our protocols.”

This shift will mark the first time that campus has been mask-optional since the summer semester. The College has taken into account the level of spread in Lorain County and across the nation in its decisionmaking.

“We determined that the best course of action as we’re heading into spring break was to take that measured step forward because we know that most of our campus will leave for spring break,” Hertz said. “We also know that COVID is going down in most parts of the country. So when we come back, we thought, ‘Okay, let’s wait for the incubation period to expire after spring break, and then if we’re still at low levels of COVID, we can take the final step and open up the entire campus to a mask-optional protocol.’”

In the 11 days prior to opening indoor dining, from Feb. 24 to March 6, the College administered 499 tests and reported 18 positive cases from College testing from both rapid and PCR — a 3.6 percent positivity rate. During this time, there were also six selfreported cases. In the two weeks after indoor dining reopened, from March 7 to March 21, the College has administered 845 tests administered and reported 12 positive cases — a 1.4 percent positivity rate. There were also six self-reported cases in this period.

The College is also tightening enforcement for students who have not uploaded proof of their booster vaccination. All students who have not submitted their updated vaccination card to the Student Health Portal, or acquired an exemption were emailed yesterday and informed that, if they do not comply, their Oberlin ID card will be deactivated and they will be required to participate in an ObieSafe non-compliance process.

While masks will be optional across campus, individuals, faculty members, and student organizations can ask people to wear masks.

However, mask-wearing will no longer be enforced by the College.

“We ask that you continue to keep your mask handy,” this morning’s ObieSafe email read. “Please appreciate that this change could be jarring for some who may feel the need to continue to wear a mask.

Obies are expected to show support and acceptance of those who choose to wear a mask and respect requests to put on a mask when near others.”

CONTENTS NEWS

OPINIONS

CONSERVATORY

03 One Oberlin Implements Operational Efficiency Strategies

05 Trustees Stalling with New Faculty Compensation Review

08 Benefit Concert Fundraises for 10 ABUSUA to Host “Black People 14 Time to Get Outside: Spring Ukraine Relief Are Infinity” Activities Near Oberlin

04 David Nasr-Zalubovsky on Organizing Support for Ukraine

06 New York Times Free Speech Editorial Sends Dangerous

THIS WEEK

The Oberlin Review | March 25, 2022

09 Drug Safety + Harm Reduction

ARTS & CULTURE

SPORTS

11 Students Host Silent Meetings 16 Cristiano Ronaldo Sets New to Revive Quaker Traditions On Record Inspiring Football Fans Campus Worldwide

oberlinreview.org facebook.com/oberlinreview TWITTER @oberlinreview INSTAGRAM @ocreview

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Short-Term Rental Regulations Delayed Continued from page 1

Rents began to rise and many of the folk who were either homeowners or lived in housing that was in crises were forced to leave the Oberlin community and to go to Elyria and Lorain, to other communities. … The Oberlin Black community has shrunk in part because of that. You have these interesting factors that are coming together that put crunches on the housing market that does not bode well for low-income working class and moderate-income families.”

According to City Councilmember Ray English, the current outreach phase of the Social Equity Plan will gauge residents’ needs and concerns within the broader umbrella of social equity, but City Council plans to address the issue of affordable housing as soon as possible.

“In the short term, we are gonna go ahead and try to work on issues related to affordable housing,” English said. “There are things that we can do as a city to develop housing, particularly where the city owning the land puts us in a position where we can work with nonprofit organizations that specialize in housing development

to get the kind of housing that, within our community, I think we really want.”

The Oberlin Community Land Trust is one such nonprofit organization that aims to provide affordable housing to Oberlin residents. Liz Burgess, owner of Ginko Gallery, and Krista Long, owner of Ben Franklin & MindFair Books, formed the land trust in 2019, following joint research into affordable housing solutions after their participation in the 2017 housing study.

They received funding from Lorain County’s El Centro de Servicios Sociales to create the trust and have since bought their first house.

“The roots of [OCLT] are in the Civil Rights movement and the push in the South to get voting rights passed and enacted in rural communities in the ’60s,” Long said. “It really became a way to protect voting rights, but also to create affordable housing. And the main way it does it is to provide a subsidy to the landowner in exchange for the land trust holding the ownership of the actual ground. … We’re hopeful that by

very early summer at the latest, we’ll have a homeowner in there and we’ll start to move on to our next projects.”

City Councilmember and College Outreach and Programming Librarian Eboni Johnson, who also works on the housing subgroup, points to the OCLT as an example of an innovative solution to the lack of affordable housing. Johnson herself struggled for years to find affordable and adequate housing after renting a house in Oberlin.

“There’s an interest and effort of City Council to try to address the housing situation here,” Johnson said. “I really appreciate being able to walk to work, you know; within about a 10-minute time period, I could be from my home to my job. So if we attract people here for work, they need a place to live. And so there’s a lot of other things that go along with that, like transportation. I think it all kind of fits together, but we have to decide what kind of place we want to be and then figure out how to make steps to becoming that kind of place.”

Office of Undergraduate Research Announces New Summer Research Program Lauren Krainess Contributing News Editor Last week, the Office of Undergraduate Research announced the launch of the Oberlin Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, a new research program in which participants stay on campus over the summer to complete an eight-week quantitative research project with faculty mentorship.

OSURF applicants must propose their own quantitative research project and find a faculty mentor to sponsor their project. If selected to participate, students receive a stipend, on-campus housing for the entire program period, and the opportunity to participate in personal and professional development programming as well as community-building activities.

According to OUR Director Leslie Kwakye, OC ’06, and Associate Director Angela LaGrotteria, OUR established OSURF to create in-person quantitative research opportunities for Oberlin students, which the COVID-19 pandemic limited in previous years. Additionally, many Oberlin faculty members provide unofficial research opportunities without compensation from the College, so the OSURF program will offer faculty mentors a stipend in support of their work.

“OSURF is expanding on-campus research opportunities for the students most affected by the loss of summer research experiences (mostly students in quantitative areas) whose research depends on intensive mentorship,” Kwakye and LaGrotteria wrote in an email to the Review.

OSURF differs from OUR’s other cohort programs — such as the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, the

Oberlin College Research Fellowship, and Science and Technology Research Opportunities for a New Generation — as applicants do not need to come from a historically underrepresented background to apply. However, Kwakye and LaGrotteria maintain that OSURF will still promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“OUR designs all of its programming through a diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice lens,” they wrote. “The ways in which each program promotes DEIJ differ, and OUR hopes that all our programs will complement each other to result in a vibrant, welcoming, and diverse environment of student researchers across all disciplines at Oberlin.”

OSURF also differs from MMUF and OCRF in that research fellowship projects must revolve around quantitative research, which includes quantitative social science fields and natural science fields. In contrast, MMUF participants must complete research in the humanities and social sciences, and OCRF participants can complete research in any field.

“My concern is that [the program] will be too open and there’s going to be way less underrepresented students and a lot more of the majority,” said College second-year and prospective OSURF applicant Arya Menon.

While OSURF fellows do not need to exclusively come from underrepresented identities, OSURF applicants must demonstrate commitment to fostering diversity and inclusivity in their fields, according to Kwakye and LaGrotteria. The two also emphasized OUR’s commitment to addressing any problematic community dynamics that may arise in the program so that underrepresented students feel Editors-in-Chief

The Oberlin R eview March 25, 2022 Volume 151, Number 16 (ISSN 297–256) Published by the students of Oberlin College every Friday during the fall and spring semesters, except holidays and examination periods.

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supported and so that allies to these students can improve their ability to foster inclusive educational environments.

College second-year and Psychology major Nevaan Bawa expressed interest in applying to conduct psychology research through the program. Bawa said they appreciated that OSURF gives them the freedom to conduct their own research project over the summer with a professor of their choice, as compared to summer research programs at other organizations where student researchers have no choice in what or with whom they conduct research. According to Bawa, OSURF also offers a competitive stipend compared to other summer psychology research programs.

“I’m comparing [OSURF] to other psychology programs outside of Oberlin,” Bawa said. “I feel like [OSURF] is more fitting for me.”

Menon also mentioned that the Psychology department does not currently have many labs with open research positions, making research opportunities somewhat scarce. OSURF offers her an opportunity to conduct psychology research without having to wait for a lab position to open up.

“There are very few [Psychology] professors that are doing research in labs that have open spots,” she said. “So, if you want to do research, options are very limited, and the kind of research is also very limited. So having this opportunity over a summer to do whatever I’m interested in and still getting real research experience is really nice.”

Still, Bawa and Menon have a few concerns about the program. Both students expressed their hesitation to ask professors to act as their OSURF mentors, considering that several Oberlin Anisa Curry Vietze Kushagra Kar Gigi Ewing Ella Moxley Kush Bulmer Lauren Krainess Emma Benardete Lilyanna D’Amato Kathleen Kelleher Zoe Kuzbari John Elrod Zoë Martin del Campo Walter Thomas-Patterson Khadijah Halliday Abe Frato Wiley Smith Adrienne Sato Nikki Keating Sierra Colbert River Schiff

professors taught year-round during the 2020–21 academic year and have not had an extended break since summer 2020.

“I feel like you’re kind of burdening [professors] by asking them to be your mentor,” Bawa said.

However, Kwakye and LaGrotteria emphasized that potential OSURF applicants should not hesitate to reach out to potential mentors.

“If they feel that they need a long summer break and are unavailable to mentor you, they will let you know,” they wrote. “Mentors may be waiting for students to reach out to them!”

Additionally, although the opportunity to propose an independent research project offers OSURF participants freedom, it also makes the application intense and somewhat daunting, according to Bawa. OSURF applicants must choose a research topic and outline how to conduct this research, which may pose difficulties for those without extensive prior research experience.

“I don’t like how intense the application is,” Bawa said. “I feel like … it’s too much on top of already doing school.”

Kwakye and LaGrotteria maintained that OUR designed the application so the OSURF selection committee can assess applicants’ compatibility with the program and that the process of completing the application will prepare OSURF participants to start their research projects. Additionally, applicants have support from their mentor and the OUR office during this process.

“We are happy to help students with applications!” they wrote.

OSURF applications are due April 15, and applicants can reach out to the Office of Undergraduate Research for assistance.

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One Oberlin Implements Operational Efficiency Strategies

The College has made changes to operational efficiency as part of the implementation of One Oberlin.

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor

Kushagra Kar Editor-in-Chief Nearing the three-year anniversary of the College’s Academic Administrative Program Review, the administration submitted a situation report on the project to the Board of Trustees during their March 4 meeting.

The AAPR was a year-long process that analyzed nearly every aspect of Oberlin’s budget and culminated in the One Oberlin report, which offers recommendations to solve Oberlin’s outstanding structural deficit.

Three primary sections recommend the bulk of institutional changes: Academic Reorganization, Operational Efficiency, and New Curricular and Career Programming. Through a series of in-depth articles on each of these sections, the Review will cover the impacts and current standing of One Oberlin, starting with Operational Efficiency.

The first observation under Operational Efficiency concerned personnel costs and administrative efficiency.

As reported last week, the AAPR report cited total compensation across employee groups as approximately 60 percent of the College’s operating budget. The report indicated that there were two primary reasons for the size of this spending: hourly workers were being paid significantly higher wages than their counterparts at peer institutions, and the College was managing multiple health care plans for different employee groups at that

point. In June 2020, the College announced that it was outsourcing dining and custodial services and officially severed its contract with the United Auto Workers, the union that represented dining and custodial workers.

In turn, dining was outsourced to AVI Foodsystems, which signed a four-year contract with UAW to unionize their employees in February 2021. Custodial staff were outsourced to Scioto Services. This transition has saved the College $2.4 million in fiscal year 2021–22.

Meanwhile, all non-unionized College employees were transitioned to a Consumer Driven Healthcare Plan and Health Savings Account on Jan. 1 this year. While the shift is expected to save the College $1.2 million every year, Vice President for Finance and Administration Rebecca Vazquez-Skillings explained that the College won’t start experiencing those savings until fiscal year 2023.

“The new plan was implemented in January 2022, so there are no associated savings at this time,” VazquezSkillings wrote to the Review. “A portion of the savings in the first year have been reallocated to provide an increased lump-sum contribution to employees’ health savings accounts. The College will see the first year of savings from this change in FY 2023.”

Both the decisions to outsource employees and change health care plans were met with contention from the Oberlin community. In March 2020, more than 500 members of the community gathered in protest of the UAW decision, calling it union busting. A majority of faculty, meanwhile, have voted in favor of two motions to improve compensation: one last December that was rejected by the trustees earlier this month, and another motion last Wednesday. Additionally, approximately 200 students marched in protest of the current compensation model on Thursday, March 10.

Despite these criticisms from the College community, One Oberlin highlights the importance of preserving the institution’s relationship with the community — from the City of Oberlin, Oberlin City Schools, Mercy Allen Hospital, to other local business partners — with a focus on upholding its reputation as an employer of choice in the region. To that effect, community engagement programs range from a Climate Action and Mitigation plan to collaborative work with the Oberlin Business Partnership and the Downtown Stakeholders Working

Security Notebook Sunday, March 20, 2022 4:39 p.m. A student reported the theft of their backpack from the second floor of Mudd Center. The backpack is a black North Face and contains a Macbook Pro, calculator, glasses, a 15-inch gray laptop case, AirPod headphones, and other miscellaneous items. A report was also filed with the Oberlin Police Department.

5:52 p.m. Students reported three nonCollege juveniles in the Science Center being loud and disruptive. Officers responded; the juveniles were located and identified. Officers from the Oberlin Police Department also responded.

Parents were notified and the juveniles were escorted from the building.

11:59 p.m. Officers and Oberlin Fire Department members responded to an activated fire alarm at a Union Street Housing Unit. Upon entering the room in question, a strong odor of burnt marijuana was detected. After checking the room for signs of anything burning, several cups with ashes were located, along with marijuana, a bong, scale, and grinder. The items were confiscated and turned over to the Oberlin Police Department.

Monday, March 21, 2022 9:30 p.m. An officer observed vandalism on the wall ramp in the dock area of the Allen Memorial Art Museum. inoffensive graffiti was written on the dock wall with purple spray paint. A work order was filed for removal.

Tuesday, March 22, 2022 11:33 p.m. Custodial staff reported a bat flying around the fourth floor of Mudd Center. An officer and a maintenance technician responded. The maintenance technician was able to successfully locate and remove the bat.

See One, page 4

Congress Simplifies FAFSA as Pressure Grows to Address Student Loan Crisis Ella Moxley News Editor

In a spending bill earlier passed earlier this month, Congress made several changes to how students pay for higher education — delaying the implementation of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid Simplification Act by a year and increasing the maximum grant for Pell Grant Recipients by $400. The changes come amidst a larger national discussion about the future of the student loan crisis.

Most of the changes to the FAFSA will not go into effect until the 2024– 2025 academic year, so the current first-year class will be the only class enrolled at Oberlin affected by the time the revisions go into effect. One of the most important changes included cutting down the 108 questions in the FAFSA form to a maximum of 36.

Despite the delay, some smaller changes have already gone into effect, such as the removal of a question about the Selective Service and another about whether the applicant had ever been convicted of a drug related offense.

“For students who had previously had some sort of drug arrest who had already done whatever they needed to do whether they served time or had gone through the legal process, this was almost like holding them The Oberlin Review | March 25, 2022

accountable for that all over again,” Director of Financial Aid Michele Kosboth said. “So being able to take that off the FAFSA and say students don’t have to answer that question really felt like a social justice move.”

Visiting Assistant Professor of Politics Amanda Zadorian studies economic inequality and echoesd Kosboth’s sentiment, stating that the change is a step in the right direction.

“One thing I think is really great is that there’s now Pell eligibility for incarcerated students in the new FAFSA, and also drug convictions no longer count against you,” Zadorian said. “I think those are really important for equity. Big wins for equity.”

In the long term, the act aims to make changes to FAFSA to simplify the filing process. However, it is too early to gauge how these changes will affect the way in which Oberlin distributes financial aid or who will be eligible for government programs like the Pell Grant. The revised FAFSA will also include a new financial measurement called the Student Aid Index which will replace the current FAFSA’s Estimated Family Contribution.

“What’s coming next … are the changes to how the formula works,” Kosboth said. “That’s the part that we don’t really fully understand yet in terms of how it’s going to impact

Oberlin students. [A] couple of the things that will change that we know, for example, is they will no longer look at how many students in the household are in college.”

The passage of the FAFSA Simplification Act and increased funding for Pell Grants may be a relief for students and their families who have to navigate the challenging process of applying for financial aid.

Still, the changes do little to address the larger issue of the student loan crisis in the U.S. Since President Biden’s election in 2020, progressives have pushed Biden to use his executive authority to cancel student loans. During his campaign, Biden promised to forgive $10,000 of federal student loans per person.

“This is something that has a long, long history — the idea of canceling all the debts to prevent an uprising of the lower classes,” Zadorian said. “​​The federal government holds $1.6 trillion in student loan debt. Which is a lot of money, but it’s only twice the defense budget that was passed for 2022. So it’s literally two years of federal military spending.”

Zadorian traces the history of the student loan crisis to the 1980s, when the movement towards austerity opened the door for greater privatization and a greater reliance on debt. As a result, many public

universities became underfunded — a trend that continues to this day. This pushes students to seek out private education, which contributes to rising levels of student debt.

“Rather than going to a well-funded public university, where you pay a nominal fee for a quality education and emerge without debt into the world and become a productive member of society, instead, you’re expected to borrow against your future earnings to go to a private college to get a quality education,” Zadorian said. “And the promise there, the sort of social contract there is that once you graduate with that quality degree, you will find a job and be able to pay back the debt.”

Unfortunately this reality has not panned out for the nearly 43 million Americans with student loan debt who face widening income inequality and the difficult task of achieving upward mobility.

“People in that 1980s, 1984 generation who are not upwardly mobile are not able to pay their debt and buy homes,” Zadorian said.

“Which means they’re not creating wealth by having that home asset, which is the primary way that Americans build wealth. And that’s going to have continuing implications as they age and become older.”

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College Executes One Oberlin Recommendations Continued from page 3

Group.

One Oberlin also recommends management development strategies for all levels of College leadership. The primary goal with these proposals is to decrease inefficient practices and articulate individual responsibilities to deter operational redundancies.

Approaches to this involved investment in human resources and data management technology. Chief Human Resources Officer Joe Vitale wrote to the Review about a number of workshops that were created and facilitated across divisions with the goal to improve the institution’s understanding of roles and responsibilities at Oberlin. The Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and HR have worked together to refine search committee training, which the EDI has supplemented with workshops to address workplace harassment.

In addition to professional development, systems have also been implemented to evaluate employee performance in different departments. Starting in 2019, supervisors and employees were able to input assessments through an online portal year-round.

According to Vitale, the benefit of this system is in affirming the idea of continual performance evaluations and the customizable nature of the system to suit specific department needs.

Changes to the Office of Student Life reflect One Oberlin’s commitment to streamlining employee responsibilities and increasing efficiency. Upon her arrival at Oberlin, Vice President and Dean of Students Karen Goff began restructuring the office. Most recently, Goff has introduced several new roles to focus on seven key strategic areas: Professional, Operational, and Administrative Excellence; Residential and Dining Experience; Student Belonging and Support; Student Safety and Wellbeing; Student Leadership and Involvement; Career Discovery and Development; and

OFF THE CUFF

Student Success.

“The One Oberlin report, along with the external assessment, were instrumental in providing a roadmap for the path forward,” Goff wrote to the Review. “With many of these areas falling under a single leader, this should help to reduce the ‘silo’ effect, create and facilitate natural synergies across departments and units, which helps to substantiate the ‘role realignment’ where the administrative enterprise supports academic excellence, student success, and institutional value. Ultimately, the shift and improvement of operational efficiency should provide a more equitable and holistic student experience.”

An additional One Oberlin recommendation that falls under the purview of the Division of Student Life is to develop an equitable and financially sustainable residential experience. As of 2019, the operations of Oberlin’s student-run co-ops were resulting in an annual $1.9 million negative impact on the institution’s budget. Following a round of contract renegotiations that concluded in December 2020, the negative financial impact of the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association has been completely cleared. While the accomplishment of this task relieved some financial burdens on the College’s side, it placed additional financial burdens on OSCA, forcing it to close a dining co-op space and hike up the price of participation in the nonprofit.

“Originally intended to make Oberlin more accessible to low-income students, OSCA membership used to cost approximately half as much as [Campus Dining Services] membership,” College first-year Abigail Nordan wrote in an email to the Review.

“Now, Oberlin’s administration reduces grant money awarded to prospective OSCAns dollar for dollar according to the price difference, making the financial incentive to join co-ops obsolete. In addition to this,

David Nasr-Zalubovsky on Organizing Support for Ukraine school organization yet, but we do have an Instagram page. We have been working on raising funds for Ukraine and we also did the protest, where we sent out two letters — one to the school, the other to Senator Brown — with our concerns.

David Nasr-Zalubovsky Photo by Angelo Angel

Lia Fawley Production Editor Conservatory third-year David NasrZalubovsky is a violin major who grew up in Ukraine and came to the United States when he was 16 years old for a gap year after high school. Recently, he has been involved in organizing events and fundraisers alongside members of OC Ukraine to support Ukrainian armed forces, state actors, and civilians who are resisting the Russian invasion that began Feb. 24. We sat down with NasrZalubovsky to discuss his letter to Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, the challenges and successes OC Ukraine met in its efforts thus far, and what the group is looking to accomplish in the future.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you give an overview of your work so far and what you have planned moving forward?

So far, we’ve started the group OC Ukraine. We didn’t make it an official

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the administration also lowers need-based financial aid to prospective OSCAns, as if there was still significant money to be saved by opting out of CDS.” The final element of improving operational efficiency concerns the usage of space and facilities.

According to One Oberlin, space costs amounted to approximately $42 million per year, which was 73 percent of Oberlin’s annual indirect expenditures.

The report explains that the College maintains approximately 1,000 square feet per student as compared to an average of 818 square feet per student at peer institutions. The significant contributor to the total space costs, however, are depreciation costs, which accounted for $20.4 million per year. In an effort to reduce these costs, the College has begun investing in preventative maintenance, improved system efficiency and continued work in renovating and replacing infrastructure. The Sustainable Infrastructure Project on its own will improve system efficiency and annually save an estimated $1 million in addition to steam system repair expenses of $300,000–$500,000. An additional element of the SIP is to integrate air conditioning into some residential buildings.

Decreasing Oberlin’s physical plant — the total space over which the College’s infrastructure is spread — is the long-term strategy to improve operational efficiency. The Office of Finance and Administration is responsible for managing the institution’s spaces, and since 2019, has managed to eliminate 21,000 square feet of space through Village Housing deconstruction, and instead convert over 16,000 square feet of administrative space to Village Housing.

Simultaneously, 14,000 square feet of administrative space has been consolidated into Mudd Center A-level, where the new Center for Engaged Liberal Arts is being constructed.

Can you briefly discuss talk about what you wrote in your letters?

The letter to the school was written by another Ukrainian student, Alexei Mikhailitchenko. I worked on the letter to the senator, and I basically explained how we think that the United States, by choosing to not oppose Putin’s genocidal behavior because of fear of future escalation, is making Russia stronger. The U.S. is undermining its own integrity as a leading nation by not confronting Putin directly for his crimes and not holding him accountable.

Ukraine’s problem does not seem to have a clear long-term solution because, being so close to Russia — which historically has an aggressive and violent expansionist culture — Ukraine can never be fully safe unless there is no aggression coming from the Russian side. I think the only way to stop the Russian aggression is for a change of government in Russia, but the only ones who can really do that are the Russian people. This dilemma involves the security of other previous Soviet republics and Eastern Bloc allies, some of them already members of the EU and NATO. Putin poses the greatest threat to global safety and security since World War II, and I feel that it’s important to communicate that to Oberlin students because there have been several students on Instagram posting stories basically labelling us as

Nazis for supporting a country that is being genocided.

If Putin comes out victorious from this war in Ukraine, he will not stop at that; he’ll feel like he has to continue on to other neighboring countries, always maintaining the threat of nuclear power as a deterrent against NATO interference. I feel like the U.S., U.N., and NATO have not been looking at this problem from that perspective. It’s not just a local Ukrainian-Russian conflict, but rather a long-term strategic challenge that has to be stopped completely or contained without the possibility of a repeat scenario. Ukraine’s collective response — the people, the military, the parliament, and the president — have been doing a great job, I think beyond anybody’s expectation. I hope this spirit continues stronger than ever in peacetime. We’re building up Ukraine and beyond with emphasis on selfdetermination, inclusive economic growth, and shared prosperity for all layers of society, not just the privileged.

Do you currently have family in Ukraine?

Part of my family is in Ukraine right now. My grandmother is in Ukraine and I have a bunch of friends there too. Every day I’m talking to them and they’re telling me these horrible things that are happening — how they’re forced to make molotov cocktails and are not able to leave their homes. Then going on Instagram and seeing Oberlin students who seem to be just repeating Russian propaganda from TikTok without analyzing it is really upsetting, because those people have large amounts of followers. We just started the OC Ukraine account and it has 155

followers. So it really just undermines our work.

Would you say the turnout for the protest, and other events like the bake sale and poster making, were what you expected?

Yeah, we are really happy with the funds that we were able to raise so far.

I think altogether with the bake sales and the fundraisers that we did in Mudd Center, we raised over $3,000.

I think we also raised $1,100 in cash just yesterday at the faculty concert for Ukraine, and more through Venmo.

So we’re doing pretty well. We were also asking the College to match the amount that we raised, but I don’t know if they’ve responded to that yet.

College third-year Andreea Procopan has been taking care of the financial part of everything.

Is there anything that you’d like to say for students who might not know how to get involved or who want to participate more?

If students are interested in helping out, they can email me or message @oc_ukraine on Instagram. We’re welcoming everyone who is willing to help. They can sign up for slots for the fundraisers — we just need people to sit in the lobby of Mudd or the Conservatory and collect money for Ukraine. I’m the only Conservatory student in the group and I don’t really have free time during the afternoon, so if there’s someone who would like to sit in the Conservatory lobby and fundraise, that would be good.

Students can also help by signing the two letters we wrote: the statement to the College and the letter to Senator Sherrod Brown.

March 25, 2022

OPINIONS

LETTER TO THE EDITORS

To the Oberlin College community, Life at a small liberal arts college is often referred to as being “in the bubble,” as it is easy to lose touch with the larger world around you while you focus on the daily life and insular struggles within your community. Those local struggles can often feel detached from larger trends and forces as you focus on the specific people, policies, and debates that feel unique to your campus.

We write from Middlebury College, Vermont, where we have read about Oberlin’s recent struggles over employee wages and benefits, with a message from outside your bubble: you are not alone. While every college campus is unique, these struggles are not. Across the United States, colleges and universities have seen record gains in endowments coupled with salary freezes — which are effectively a pay cut when offset by inflation — benefit reductions, union-busting, and other means to leverage the COVID crisis to disempower employees and hoard institutional wealth, often in the name of unity or “shared sacrifice.” Administrators at such institutions like to tout “intergenerational equity” to justify limited draws on a booming endowment, yet such policies undervalue current employees and students in the name of future wealth, promoting a skewed version of intergenerational inequity.

Thankfully, you are also not alone in seeing faculty and staff stand up to these administrative maneuvers. We stand in solidarity with the Oberlin American Association of University Professors, which encouraged professors to cancel class to demand fair compensation. We stand in solidarity with Bates Educators and Staff Organization, who are trying to unionize Bates College staff and contingent faculty together over objections from the college administration. And we hope you stand in solidarity with Middlebury’s AAUP, working to advocate for fair employee compensation and truly equitable endowment policies.

One of the core values of a liberal arts education is thinking across boundaries and drawing connections between separate realms of knowledge and experience. Thus we reach out across our institutional boundaries to share our experiences, knowledge, and advocacy, hoping that our peer colleges can all work together to ensure fair and equitable compensation for employees and provide the best possible educational experience for students.

In solidarity, Jason Mittell, OC ’92, Professor of Film & Media Culture at Middlebury College on behalf of the following members of Middlebury College AAUP Laurie Essig, Professor of Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies Amy Holbrook, Academic Coordinator of Economics Peter Matthews, Charles A. Dana Professor of Economics Jamie McCallum, Associate Professor of Sociology SUBMISSIONS POLICY

The Editorial Board encourgages anyone interested in submitting an Opinions piece to email the Opinions editors at opinions@oberlinreview.org to request a copy of the Opinions primer. Opinions expressed in editorials, letters, op-eds, columns, cartoons, and other Opinions pieces do not necessarily reflect those of The Oberlin Review staff. Submission of content to the Review constitutes an understanding of this publication policy. Any content published by The Oberlin Review forever becomes the property of The Oberlin Review and its administrators.

Content creators retain rights to their content upon publication, but the Review reserves the right to republish and/or refuse to alter or remove any content published by the Review. It is up to Senior Staff’s discretion whether to alter content that has already been published. The Oberlin Review appreciates and welcomes letters to the editors and op-ed submissions. All submissions are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board. All submissions must be received by Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. in the Opinions email for inclusion in that week’s issue. Full-length pieces should be between 600 and 900 words; letters to the editor should be less than 600 words. All submissions must include contact information, with full names and any relevant titles, for all signatories; we do not publish pieces anonymously. All letters from multiple writers should be carbon-copied to all signatories to confirm authorship. The Review reserves the right to edit all submissions for clarity, length, grammar, accuracy, and strength of argument, and in consultation with Review style. Editors work to preserve the voice of the writers and will clear any major edits with authors prior to publication. Headlines are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board. The Review will not print advertisements on its Opinions pages. The Review defines an advertisement as any submission that has the main intent of bringing direct monetary gain to a contributor or otherwise promoting an event, organization, or other entity to which the author has direct ties.

The Oberlin Review | March 25, 2022

Established 1874

Volume 151, Number 16

Editorial Board Editors-in-Chief

Anisa Curry Vietze

Kushagra Kar

Managing Editor Gigi Ewing

Opinions Editor Emma Benardete

Trustees Stalling With New Faculty Compensation Review On March 10, over 200 students marched from Tappan Square to the Cox Administration Building, delivering rousing speeches and standing in solidarity with faculty in calling for better treatment and compensation for College employees. Last week, at the encouragement of Oberlin’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, some faculty members canceled classes in protest.

These recent events are symptoms of growing exasperation with the College’s inaction and apathy on the issue of faculty and staff compensation — a trend that’s been around for almost a decade.

“Faculty salaries have been stagnant for some years,” wrote Chair of Rhetoric and Composition Laurie McMillin in an email to the Review. “If you compare Oberlin to similar institutions, we used to be in the middle [of faculty pay rates] and now we’re at the bottom.”

Board of Trustees members, President Carmen Twillie Ambar, and members of the College’s administration have all spoken out at various intervals about the conversations happening on campus.

Every comment issued has used similar rhetoric and been dismissive of the faculty’s demands. The trustees’ March 1 letter and President Ambar’s statement following the protest both concede to some extent that faculty deserve improved pay, but neither indicates that they are considering bringing that to fruition. “[Faculty compensation] is the most important financial commitment the institution makes, it’s the largest; it is also a commitment that you make for the long term,” Board of Trustees Chair Chris Canavan, OC ’84, said in a statement to the Review. “We also know that for faculty, compensation is the source of financial stability for them and for their families. And so we need to be sure that when we make a commitment like that, it is stable, resilient, and sustainable.” Yet, when faculty have submitted motions to the board, they are met with the response that other priorities are of higher importance.

The One Oberlin Report indicates that approximately 60 percent of the College’s operating budget goes toward compensation across employee groups, and that this number needs to decrease for the financial stability of the institution. Why? We have the funds to plan renovations in dormitories and in the basement of Mudd Center, create entirely new administrative positions in Student Life, and pour money into the Sustainable Infrastructure Project — all in service of the argument that these investments bring Oberlin up to date with prevalent practices in higher education and are critical to the long-term success of the College. What is overlooked here is that prospective students may love the idea of air-conditioned dorms and newly renovated spaces to learn collaboratively in Mudd, but they will be disenchanted by the declining quality of the faculty and the growing evidence of faculty frustration. The board and administration must recognize that an exceptional and dedicated faculty is also a critical long-term investment. The quality of education is what determines the success of an institution, not the material comforts it affords along the way.

One impassioned argument pushes for faculty compensation to be pulled directly from the endowment. Indeed, it seems to follow that if there’s a pot of money for the College’s use, it should be spent on sustaining teaching at a primarily teaching institution. Two separate faculty motions have recommended pulling from the endowment — most recently, Professor of Mathematics Jeff Witmer calculated that a mere 0.3 percent increase in the endowment payout rate on top of the 4.4 percent allocated for this year toward compensation would result in an additional $3 million going to faculty every year.

There are some truths we acknowledge here. First, tying faculty salaries to the endowment, which would allow the College to draw more in more profitable years, would mean that minor fluctuations in the endowment would directly translate to fluctuations in that payout rate and in faculty salaries. It is also true that most institutions limit their annual payout rate to an average of 4.3 percent, whereas in a normal year, the College will draw roughly 4.5 percent from its endowment. Given that the College’s financial structure is currently dependent on an average yearly withdrawal capped under 5 percent, asking to withdraw money to increase faculty compensation would either mean an increase in the percent we take from the endowment every year — thereby threatening the institution’s financial viability — or take funds away from projects that are already prioritized in receiving endowment money. With that said, the fact is that the endowment exists to support the long-term sustainability and success of the College, both of which are inextricably tied to the quality and contentment of our faculty. If the business practices of the College encourage no more than a specific, small amount of money be taken from the endowment, then it stands to reason that the majority of that should go towards compensation.

Taking all this into account, the question still remains: Where should the money for increased faculty compensation come from? Even assuming the endowment is off-limits — barring another comprehensive readjustment of how the College approaches its finances — there are other resources to bolster faculty compensation. The College earns money primarily from two sources: tuition and donations.

Annual full tuition costs, which account for the bulk of the College’s operating budget, have increased by $3,408 per student since the academic year 2019–20, and will no doubt continue a steady climb. But further raising tuition to meet faculty needs seems like a dangerous path to take.

One possible solution: the College conducts massive outreach programs to alumni for all kinds of projects, and if we truly are in such dire straits with the money already available to us, it might be time to ask for donations for faculty positions. Given the growing number of alumni who are speaking out in support of the faculty in their struggle for fair compensation, it seems reasonable to assume that they would be willing to give financial support to the cause as well. By directly endowing a faculty position, alumni can make sure their money is used where it is most needed, and simultaneously tie the administration’s hands.

See Faculty, page 7 Editorials are the responsibility of the Review Editorial Board — the Editors-in-Chief, Managing Editor, and Opinions Editor — and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the Review.

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Opi n ions

Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta Exploits Queerness for Shock Value Cal Ransom Benedetta, a 2021 film co-written and directed by Paul Verhoeven, tells the story of a nun who sees visions of Christ and is headed for sainthood — that is, until a same-sex affair is revealed between her and another young nun. The movie was shown at the Cannes Film Festival and received positive reviews for its explicit sex scenes.

Paul Verhoeven is protected by his manhood and his straightness. He does not feel the shame that comes along with women’s sexuality or queerness. He is able to show those themes on screen while being protected by the shield of his privilege. He has not been taught that his sexuality should be a hidden thing, one that bears shame.

The first time I was aware of my sexuality as a girl was when I wanted to buy a button-down shirt that had buttoned pockets on both sides of the chest. My mother pointed out to me that the buttons might look like nipples, and told me I’d be inviting unwanted attention. Later, I was advised to not send nude photos in case someone kept them and released them later. If the world could see my body, if my sexuality wasn’t reserved for whoever had “won” me and kept quiet, I would be branded and my life could be ruined.

In high school, I had started to accept my queer identity and wanted to wear a suit to prom, but my mother made me buy a dress , though she did eventually let me wear the suit. I learned from these experiences that my sexuality was supposed to be private and I was putting myself in great danger if I exposed myself in any way. I don’t have the luxury of watching the queerness in the film while being removed from it in the way straight people do.

There is no shortage of queer filmmakers trying to make it these days. There are only prejudices and biases that prevent them from succeeding. Queer filmmakers are told not to make their work all about their queerness and are criticized for throwing their sexuality in the viewer’s face. Yet when straight people like Verhoeven tell queer stories, they are praised.

There are three types of viewers of Benedetta. The first and most common is the heterosexual man or woman, who can watch with perverse curiosity. While the woman may have experienced the inherent shame that is taught with women’s sexuality, she is still removed from the experience of lesbianism, the label that adds the final layer to the shock factor of the film. For this group, the film is a circus where Verhoeven serves as the ringmaster. He is detached and in control, letting the viewers delight in the thrill of the voyeurism of the film while remaining safe in their socially acceptable lifestyles.

Similar to the first category of viewers is the queer male. Queer men possess a position of power as men, not taught that their manhood and sexuality is the ultimate shame. In the way that straight viewers can remain detached from the queerness, men can remain detached from the experience of female sexuality.

As someone socialized as a woman, I have been taught that my sexuality should be hidden, so I did feel a sense of shame watching the way Benedetta and her lover, Bartolomea, indulge in pleasure. The final conflict centers around a statue of the Virgin Mary, carved by Bartolomea

6

into a dildo. She presents it as a gift to Benedetta and they delight in using it on each other, before the nuncio, a powerful local representative of the Pope, condemns them. While the acts of pleasure are used for shock value in the film, Verhoeven uses the tone of the film to give the viewer reassurance that the queerness is not a sin, at least in the eyes of the God in the movie.

The third type of viewer is the queer woman. While the film does not present the sex scenes in their crudest form, it is the Hollywood “aesthetic” lesbian porn that has become typical of big box lesbian-centered films. Both the women are skinny, white, and feminine; the sex is choreographed and sensual.

Anyone who’s experienced sex, regardless of sexuality, knows that sex is not sensual and choreographed — it can be awkward, challenging, and sometimes not even sexy! When the only exposure we have to lesbian sex is highly choreographed and full of mood lighting, how are we supposed to know that sex is not always like that? How do we develop realistic expectations for ourselves and our partners?

Perhaps a fourth category should be included: the former or current Catholic. The Catholic League, a Catholic news journal, criticized the film’s homosexuality in a religious setting and its success at the Cannes Film Festival. The film does use the context and stylization of a typical Bible story to frame the narrative, though there are some notable differences.

I grew up watching Bible story films, where the visions that Moses and the apostles see are shown as if they are really happening — complete with the characters being transported to another place and Jesus or angels appearing.

The visions Benedetta experiences are also shown as she is presumably seeing them: Jesus appearing in front of her as a shepherd with sheep on a hill, her feet hitting the ground made of dirt and grass as she runs toward him — even though she is seeing these visions while laying on a table in the church play.

However, the film differs from the traditional Bible story film in tone. In this scene, the characters around her stare awkwardly, not in awe, and others show disbelief when she reveals her visions to them. While the church teaches that things happened how God intended them, this movie demonstrates human fallibility and the decision-making by those in power that molds history. Those in power are clearly human; the village priest, the head of the convent, and the nuncio are shown as multi-dimensional people, despite their positions as antagonists. They are allowed to be wrong, and the movie portrays their shock over the actions of Benedetta and Bartolomea. Despite Verhoeven’s flawed usage of sexuality, this is one area in which where the movie shines and satisfies the queer woman(ish) viewer — our “ringmaster” has condemned religious bigotry and given our queer characters vindication.

Ironically, the film highlights the homosexual acts as a source of shock for the audience. Are those who are shocked at the association between homosexuality and religion the villiains?

Perhaps we are all to blame for indulging in the shock factors Verhoeven so clearly wants to highlight.

New York Times Free Speech Editorial Sends Dangerous Message Emma Benardete Opinions Editor

Last week, The New York Times published an editorial titled “America Has a Free Speech Problem.” The title alone is an unfortunate start, but it gets worse.

Much worse. Right off the bat, the Editorial Board asserts that one of the core freedoms granted to Americans is “the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.” To its credit, the Board does go on to clarify the “important distinction between what the First Amendment protects (freedom from government restrictions on expression) and the popular conception of free speech (the affirmative right to speak your mind in public, on which the law is silent).” It would have been better if it had come up sometime before the 13th paragraph. That distinction, of utmost importance to the framing of the argument at hand, is buried in the middle of the piece so that, by the time readers get to it, they have already been primed to understand the editorial through the lens of a wildly inaccurate interpretation of the First Amendment.

The core argument of the piece is that a reality in which people hold their tongues for fear of shaming, shunning, retaliation, or harsh criticism is one that fundamentally threatens our democracy. The Editorial Board writes, “Free speech is the bedrock of democratic-self government. … When speech is stifled or when dissenters are shut out of public discourse, a society also loses its ability to solve conflict, and it faces a risk of political violence.” While this statement in and of itself does hold water, the piece conflates real, legal dangers to free speech — such as book-banning and Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill — with “harsh criticism” or “shaming and shunning” in response to the espousal of genuinely harmful sentiments.

The editorial includes data from a poll, conducted by New York Times Opinion in conjunction with Siena College, that explores perceptions of free speech in the U.S. The survey reports that 55 percent of people have “held their tongue” at least once over the past year for fear of retaliation or harsh criticism, and 22 percent said they had retaliated against or harshly criticized someone for something they said. They make it out to be some tragic symptom of an ever more politically correct world, but these statistics are not nearly as concerning as the editorial would lead you to believe. Far from foretelling the downfall of American society, these numbers indicate that people are holding each other accountable for their words.

The poll also found that Black respondents were least likely to have held their tongues for fear of criticism or retaliation and generally felt the freest of all racial groups to talk about issues like gender identity, religion, and race relations. The article glosses over this point and fails to analyze the implications of these results: that the people who feel silenced on important political issues and feel their free speech is being threatened are, by and large, the ones who are accustomed to holding positions of power and not having to watch what they say about people in less privileged positions.

“The old lesson of ‘think before you speak’ has given way to the new lesson of ‘speak at your peril,’” the article reads, but this has always been the case for people of oppressed groups. The difference is that now, privileged people are finally being forced to contend with that reality in a way that used to be reserved for those who have historically been marginalized.

“The full-throated defense of free speech was once a liberal ideal,” writes the Editorial Board. It goes on to describe some of the legal battles that liberals have historically fought in order to preserve the right to free speech — the right not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, the right to demonstrate against the Vietnam War, the right to burn the American flag. “And yet,” it writes, “many progressives have lost sight of that principle.” It cites a 93-yearold woman from Hartford, CT, who said she was “alarmed about reports of speakers getting shouted down on college campuses.” What the Board fails to realize is that rather than losing sight of that principle, liberals and progressives are able to recognize that it is, in fact, two separate principles. The first is the freedom to speak without government interference.

The second is the freedom to speak without social consequence. In the same way I believe in the right of someone to burn the American flag or kneel for the National Anthem, I believe in the right of someone to tell me that I am doomed to eternal damnation because I am a queer atheist.

It is my right, then, to shame, shun, and harshly criticize them. Freedom of speech cannot be a one-way street: the assertion of the right to speak without criticism necessarily undermines the free speech of the critics.

As an editor, and especially as an Opinions editor, I understand the importance of giving a platform to a variety of voices and perspectives. In the Review’s Opinions section, we strive to publish pieces that represent the full spectrum of perspectives at the College. However, it is critical that we keep in mind the distinction between an opinions piece and an editorial. While an opinions piece represents the opinion of an individual, an editorial represents the opinion of an editorial board: it is the collective voice of a large team of journalists. At some publications, like The Washington Post, editorials are explicitly stated to represent the position of the entire paper. Even though the Times Editorial Board does not officially represent the views of the publication, it holds the power and influence that come with being perceived that way. The decision to publish an editorial that so clearly antagonizes criticism of harmful views, especially as the most influential editorial board in the country, and perhaps the world, is reckless. It bolsters those who use this argument as an excuse to say harmful things while telling people who have been fighting for decades to be treated with respect that we are wrong for standing up for ourselves and setting boundaries.

They say that free speech is “predicated on mutual respect,” but when someone makes an offensive joke about queer people, that is disrespectful to me and a critical part of my identity, and I will not hesitate to exercise my own right to free speech and criticize the harm that is caused. Respect must be earned, and those who have chosen not to respect others will not earn my respect in return.

Faculty Compensation Review Unnecessary

Continued from page 5

The Board’s March 1 response to a recent faculty motion includes a call for President Ambar to conduct a long-term compensation review. “We need to know what compensation looks like at peer institutions: how it helps them attract and retain exceptional scholars and educators, pay equitably, and increase diversity,” reads the Board’s letter. Yet, according to One Oberlin, Arts & Sciences faculty are paid “significantly below the average of relevant liberal arts market peers, sometimes known as the Sweet 16.” If the College’s own report outlines this fact so simply, presumably based on its own collected data, why do they need to conduct a new survey? The last official compensation review — other than the aforementioned comparison in the One Oberlin report — occurred in 2013 and resulted in the notoriously unmet compensation goals. Instead of agreeing to go back to the initial 2013 commitment, the College is yet again calling for a compensation review. Given the lack of follow-through on the past two, the announcement of a new review does not bode well.

This Editorial Board is yet again joining the chorus of voices speaking out against the College’s ambivalent approach to faculty compensation. We ask for transparency regarding the intentions behind the upcoming compensation review, in light of the College’s failure to follow through on promises made after previous reviews. We ask that, instead of kicking the can down the road and hoping for minimal upheaval, the Board and administration prioritize the development of creative solutions to the problem of faculty compensation. Our faculty are our greatest asset, the bedrock of our community. It’s time to start treating them accordingly.

Subtle Prejudice of Disney/Pixar’s “Bao,” “Turning Red”

Phoebe McChesney Columnist

For centuries, the United States of America has been seen as the hallmark of opportunity. My whole life, I have been taught that it is the land of the brave and the free, a nation built by immigrants that welcomes them with open arms. But really, truly, how brave or free can a country be that hides its prejudice against immigrants behind happy endings?

Disney/Pixar released Bao in 2018 as an animated short film depicting the shifting relationship between a Chinese mother and her son, the latter of whom is initially represented as a baozi, or dumpling. As he grows older, he starts to pull away from her to assert his independence. A pushpull dynamic ensues between them, culminating when he tries to leave home with his fiancée, and his mother eats him, at which point it is revealed that the dumpling sequence was a dream and her son is still alive, and the two reconcile.

This year, the animated full-length film Turning Red made its debut. Protagonist Meilin, “Mei,” Lee lives with her Chinese parents in Toronto and constantly struggles to live up to their expectations. When Mei transforms into a ginormous red panda, the precarious balance of her life soon comes crumbling down and she must choose to either follow her passions — the part of her that the red panda represents — or to satisfy her family by locking away the panda’s spirit. She picks her passions and, in the process, helps her family let go of their expectations for her.

While Domee Shi, the director of both works, appears to appeal to a courageous and liberalizing world view — the dumpling/son being eaten in Bao is definitely a shock factor, and Turning Red addresses menstruation, sparking unreasonable backlash — she skips out on the opportunity to really dig deep. Is this because of Disney/Pixar’s censorship or Shi’s own discretion? Perhaps it’s a bit of both.

Regardless, neither film goes far enough to address real experiences of race and assimilation; instead, they actually express some harmful undertones.

Bao and Turning Red both antagonize the main characters’ parents. The parents are the ones stuck in the past, in the old structure of tradition. Their children see the light, the glitter, and the opportunity of Western idealism. All the while, the films champion independence, freedom, and the realization that there is a better world out in the big bright yonder. While independence and freedom are undoubtedly both positive attributes, the films demonstrate, even if unintentionally, prejudice toward Asian culture.

From whom do the children in Bao and Turning Red gain independence? According to Disney/Pixar, the confinements of a cultural household and the people who are part of it — likely immigrant parents.

Where, then, can independence and a sense of liberty be found? According to Bao and Turning Red, in the Western world. This message implies that the ones at fault are those attached to cultural beliefs. Their refusal to accept the exploratory and freedom-loving nature of Western society seems to make them regressive villains who can only be redeemed by the love of their children, suggestive of the films’ communicated prejudice toward Asian cultural backgrounds despite Shi’s own Chinese-Canadian identity.

I think it’s important to note that while both the director and the protagonist of Turning Red are Chinese-CaThe Oberlin Review | March 25, 2022

nadian, neither of the films solely circulate in Canada.

Disney/Pixar’s international reach and availability on digital platforms such as Disney+ mean that their audience extends both into non-English speaking countries and into the United States.

Thus, Western values are heavily tied to both films: they are idealistic, telling young people that anything is possible as long as they come to the West and integrate themselves into Western culture. Persuasive Western exceptionalism is perpetuated by the distribution of such media. Had 13-year-old me, a quiet and geeky Chinese-American kid from Chicago, seen Bao or Turning Red, I would have believed wholeheartedly in this emphatic and upbeat — dare I say? — propaganda. I wouldn’t have known that the fun and fancy-free messaging failed to address the unfortunate reality of anti-Asian racism.

In Turning Red, no one in Mei’s small Chinatown community is beaten in broad daylight. Her grandmother is neither ridiculed or punched in the face. No stranger stabs her neighbor in the back or demeans her on public transit. None of the random people Mei talks to tells her to “go back to China.”

“But that’s too much for a children’s movie,” I can already hear someone grumble.

Too much? What’s too much is teaching young, impressionable adolescents that only positivity exists; that the grass is greener where contemporary Western ideals of liberty and abundance abound. It devalues other cultures, and it’s essentially a lie.

Amid continuing reports of attacks on Asian Americans, young and old, the one-year anniversary of the Atlanta spa shootings has come and gone. On March 16, 2021, Robert Aaron Long gunned down eight people, six of them Asian women. These victims sought some form of liberty in the United States. For Daoyou Feng, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, and Soon Chung Park, it was financial freedom: the ability to make enough money to ensure the comfort of their families back home in China and Korea. Xiaojie Tan and Yong Ae Yue sought the liberty of love through the promised American pursuit of happiness, as marriage brought them to the United States. Unbeknownst to all, there was no freedom to be found.

Bao and Turning Red have delivered to audiences a package of Western exceptionalism wrapped quite nicely with a bow, a message of the “better life” in Western nations free from the cultural tradition, economic conditions, and expectations of the home country. But this message is, at best, deceitful, and, at worst, deadly. It’s especially tragic that young people are the intended audience.

Pixar, you’re not going to change the hearts of prejudiced people by enlisting a Chinese-Canadian director to create a happy-go-lucky Asian/Western representation film. Sunshine and rainbows won’t undo the past. But most importantly, these saccharine lies sell dangerous promises to the highest bidder.

Domee Shi, why exceptionalize the West at the expense of the East? Use your position as director to uplift unheard voices, not give the bullhorn to the ones who have always shouted the loudest.

Children should be able to see and understand the world they grow up in. They won’t be equipped if there is no conversation about realit;, if they are instead lied to and made to prioritize one identity over another.

College’s COVID Policies Fail Athletes Zach Bayfield Columnist On a brisk Friday afternoon two weeks ago, I was on a bus heading down to Berea, KY with my teammates. We were going there to play our first game of the 2022 season for Oberlin baseball. It was our first official game in over two years, and the excitement across the team was palpable until one of my teammates got an email from Mercy Allen Hospital. Three days after receiving a test, he was informed that he had tested positive for COVID-19. He was asymptomatic, but regardless, the damage was done. He was around the team during practice — unmasked for that entire time without ever realizing that he had COVID. While the coaching staff worked out a way to isolate him, he was asked to stand in the front of the bus, as far away from the team as possible. There are no ObieSafe policies on how to deal with such a situation, so the accompanying staff had to improvise a solution while the whole team shared a bus with our COVID-positive teammate. After a couple of hours, we stopped just outside Columbus, OH, where one of our assistant coaches volunteered to rent a car and take our teammate home.

We went on to play our game in Kentucky like nothing happened.

Once we came back from Kentucky, the whole team was required to take a rapid test and a PCR test. Normally, athletes are only required to take a weekly PCR test, but these were extenuating circumstances. We were leaving the next day for a spring training trip to Florida, and our trainers wanted to see if there were any other positive cases on the team.

When I took the PCR test, I had a bit of a scratchy throat, but I assumed it was just allergies since I didn’t feel any additional symptoms. A small group of teammates and I took the test together, and everyone else’s test in my group was negative. Then came my turn. The scratchiness in my throat was joined by dread when I saw the second red line appear on my test. I had tested positive. I was devastated as my trainer told me to grab my baseball bag and head straight to my house to quarantine. Sadly, I wasn’t the only one. Four of my teammates and I ended up missing out on the biggest trip of our baseball season.

If the College had done everything in its power to implement effective COVID-19 testing policies, all the pain and frustration we’re experiencing now could have been easily avoided. This experience made it clear that Oberlin’s athlete-specific testing policies are performative and do nothing to prevent the spread of COVID-19. If my teammate had received his results on the same day he was tested, he would have never come to practice and the spread to our teammates would have been prevented. Instead, he was around our team without a mask for two hours a day for three whole days.

If the College really cares about our health and safety, it should implement rapid PCR testing for all athletes as a standard practice. This way, outbreaks like the one that occurred on my team would be far more preventable. Rapid PCR tests are just as effective as regular PCR tests, but results can be processed within hours. If these tests are made available instead of the regular PCR tests, athletes who test positive would be able to get their results and quarantine before ever setting foot on a practice field. The only reason for the College not to implement rapid PCR testing is that doing so would be more expensive than regular testing.

At the bare minimum, the school should provide rapid antigen tests on a weekly basis. These would not be as accurate as rapid PCR tests but would be a much more cost-effective option that achieves the same goal of preventing outbreaks. However, spending even a little bit more money to keep students safe seems to be too much for an institution who claims its goal is “to reduce health risks.” Unsurprisingly, our College’s administration is once again choosing frugality over the health and well-being of Oberlin students.

As we have seen throughout the pandemic, our administration’s negligence continues to negatively affect Oberlin students. If our administration really cares about our health and safety like they claim to, then their COVID-19 protocols must be changed going forward.

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C on s e r vat ory

March 25, 2022

CONSERVATORY Established 1874

Benhur Ghezehey, Eritrean Operatist, Vocalist

IN THE PRACTICE ROOM

Walter Thomas-Patterson Conservatory Editor Ella Bernstein Production Editor

Could you tell me a little bit about your early life and how you were introduced to classical music? How much formal study did you have as a child?

I came from a family of warriors and athletes mostly, so no one in my family was into music. But as a child, everyone listened to music — my mom would sing lullabies. I would also love listening to traditional Eritrean music of all sorts, from all the different tribes we have.

But when I was 4 years old, I watched a Tom and Jerry cartoon where they sang opera. The sound was unique; they were like [in an operatic voice], “Figaro, Figaro, Figaro” — it really captivated me. It made me curious.

Before I came to America, I taught myself to sing by listening to records for three years. I downloaded media sheets from the internet and studied those since there was no music school. Later, when I was 18, myself and a group of young Eritrean musicians, mostly teenagers, gathered and formed this group called Sound of Oasis. We got support from the Eritrean Commission of Culture and we presented concerts to the public, who normally aren’t exposed to classical music played by native Eritreans.

We performed at the Asmara Theatre, which has a particular history. It was built in 1918 by the Italian colonizers. During colonization, they didn’t even allow native Eritreans to wander about its grounds or attend classical music concerts. They maintained a strict apartheid. They halted Eritrean natives from getting an education after about the fourth grade because they feared it would cause the people to revolt. So there is this kind of trauma from colonization, and classical music was the music of the colonizers, especially opera.

Because my family is a family of warriors, and they died to make the country independent against invaders, my singing of opera for them was not acceptable intially because they considered it foreign—something from the colonizers.

Can you talk about how you finally made it to the States?

Eritrea doesn’t have a great relationship with the outside world, and it was not until I got to meet an American pianist, John Ferguson, the executive director of an organization called American Voices, that I could come to the U.S. He came to Eritrea to do a workshop for musicians, and we performed a German lied together, which he posted on

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Benefit Concert Fundraises for Ukraine Relief Adrienne Sato Senior Staff Writer

Benhur Ghezehey is a Conservatory second-year Classical Voice major from Eritrea. He is starring in Oberlin’s production of Domenico Cimarosa’s Il Matrimonio Segreto at Hall Auditorium at 8 p.m. tonight and tomorrow, and 2 p.m. this Sunday.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Volume 151, Number 16

Benhur Ghezehey sitting at Piano in Stull Recital Hall.

Courtesy of Jake Berran Facebook. A teacher from New York invited me to attend a festival in Italy, which was the first time I received formal instruction. In 2019, I got a diplomatic exception to come [to the States] because the Trump administration had banned Eritrean students from studying here. I attended St. Louis University to study academic English and to take private lessons so I could apply to music schools. I became the only international African student in the Conservatory here.

How did your family react when you began seriously pursuing opera?

When I started to do opera, they thought, “Maybe he’s just being influenced by culture.” They thought it wasn’t going to come into fashion, but then something happend.

The whole community embraced the music because of its beauty. And in a way, it started to heal people from trauma; they started to appreciate the music as made by humans instead of by whites or oppressors.

Because they saw performers like me, who look like them, they realized that it’s actually beautiful music. Even though its history is troublesome, the music itself is not corrupt.

There are a lot of younger people now being inspired to attend classical music concerts, which is exciting. We are not at war anymore and now we are in nation building.

You have to build a society not just by economic development but also by culture, and music takes center stage.

Knowing that classical music has sometimes been wielded as a tool for oppression, how do you take it and wield it for something liberating?

It would be a tragedy if we would abandon this music because of how Westerners treated people. The canon has to open up to incorporate all people’s old music. And when you say classical music, if we are really going to go deep into history, how did Europeans get that music? It was from the Moorish empire that introduced instruments to them, and the troubadour culture that happened in Moorish Iberia during the Islamic Golden Age. So if you go deep into history, classical music has been transferred from people to people. It’s very connected. Each people adds to it.

On Wednesday, a host of Oberlin Conservatory faculty, along with guest musicians, performed a benefit concert to raise money for organizations aiding Ukrainian citizens affected by the ongoing war with Russia. The concert featured classical music works from a diverse array of composers and periods, ranging from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cello Suites to Ernest Bloch’s Prayer.

While the event was free, attendees were encouraged to donate to UNICEF, the Red Cross Ukraine, or Razom, a Ukrainian-American humanitarian organization.

The concert included performances by 16 different individuals and groups from the Oberlin Conservatory faculty and staff, including pianists Scott Cuellar, Peter Takács, Tony Cho, Yulia Fedoseeva, James Howsmon, and Haewon Song; flutist Alexa Still; clarinetist Richard Hawkins; French hornist Jeff Scott; bassoonist Drew Pattison; violinists Francesca dePasquale and David Bowlin; violist Kirsten Docter; cellist Dmitry Kouzov; bassist Derek Zadinsky; and members of the Verona Quartet. Cellist Andrei Ioniță also performed as a guest.

Associate Professor of Cello and co-organizer of the concert, Dmitry Kouzov, explained that he has been glued to news coverage depicting the horrors of the war over the past month, and sees the concert as a way of coping.

“The original idea came from the fact that it’s impossible to watch what’s happening in the news,” he said. “The first ten days, I was glued to my phone, just reading news 24/7, not really sleeping much — putting this program together helped distract myself from the nonstop violence. From the [start] there was overwhelming support from the community and from faculty and from everyone.”

Teacher of Double Bass Derek Zadinsky also performed in the concert, and he echoed some of Kouzov’s feelings of helplessness in the face of this war. He noted that playing in charity concerts is one of the easiest things to do as a musician to help aid humanitarian interventions.

“It’s not often that we get this much of the faculty together to perform on a program,” he said. “Our pain and inconveniences are nothing compared to what people in Ukraine are experiencing right now.”

For Romanian guest performer and cellist Andrei Ioniță — a friend of Kouzov’s — his involvement in the concert is profoundly personal. Romania borders Ukraine to its south, and according to the U.N., has accepted over 550,000 Ukrainian refugees as of March 22 Ioniță, who was in Romania’s capital, Bucharest, less than two weeks ago, saw the condition and outlook of many of the refugees that had fled to Romania firsthand.

“There was a real sense of this ominous feeling growing in the streets there because Romania is right at the border

Conservatory Faculty performing Schumann at First United Methodist Church.

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor to the Ukraine,” he said. “What really impressed me was the sense of determination that you could see in all of these women’s and mothers’ eyes. They just wanted to protect their children. They are just hoping for a slightly better future than what was happening back in their hometowns.”

Ioniță performed two pieces in the concert, each chosen from his repertoire to help achieve a balance of both mourning and transcendence.

“I will be playing Ernest Bloch,” he said.

“This particular piece has a proper fit for the concert. It has the sense of sorrow and longing, but at the same time it is a prayer for peace.”

Ioniță contrasted his more contemporary performance with a rendering of Bach’s Cello Suites, a foundational work of cello.

“To me, [Bach’s] music always brought a sense of serenity and this calmness … just coming from above, not necessarily rooted in earthly problems,” he said.

Kouzov’s identity also plays a role in the way that he experiences the war. He was born in present-day St. Petersburg, and witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union when he was 16. Having spent considerable time in Ukraine during his youth, he has friends who are still living there.

“It’s very painful to see what’s going on because both places are very close to my heart, and there are people I know [in Ukraine], and also there are lots of people I know, of course, in Russia,” he said. “I could never imagine that the country I was born in would do something like they’re doing now, and it’s very very, very painful to watch. It’s this helpless sense of guilt.”

Ioniță also noted that there are certain aspects of music that make it the perfect vessel for conveying messages such as this one and for allowing people to come together in a way that is important in the face of humanitarian crises.

“Music has in most cases been the language of peace,” he said. “The whole classical music industry is actually so international and so open that it’s really one of the best examples of how people can really come together and understand each other.”

Kouzov encouraged people to continue donating to the three organizations listed on the concert program. You can donate online to UNICEF, Red Cross Ukraine, and Razom.

T h i s We e k

Illustration by Holly Yelton, Illustrator Design by Wiley Smith, This Week Editor

Written by Amanda Bloom

For National Alcohol and Drug Facts Week, we wanted to highlight drug education and addiction recovery resources both on and off campus. Below is a list of resources to turn to for drug safety information and helpful tips for safer drug use.

EXCO 420: DrugsCo

DrugsCo is a student-run Experimental College class that has been active for eight semesters. The course covers information on drugs, harm reduction, and counterculture. Instructors talk about how licit and illicit drugs work on a physiological level, as well as the sociological issues produced by the War on Drugs.

Medical Amnesty

Oberlin College offers a medical amnesty policy to encourage students in potentially dangerous situations to reach out for help without fear of disciplinary action. For example, if your friend is under 21 and exhibiting signs of alcohol poisoning, you can call Campus Safety at (440) 775-8444 and neither of you will face formal sanctions for underage drinking. You may have to complete a low-time-commitment, online alcohol education course and meet with someone in the Offices of the Dean of Students or Residential Education, but the incident will not appear on your formal record. This policy also covers use of illicit drugs (e.g., marijuana, cocaine, opioids, etc.).

Campus Safety officers are trained to administer Narcan, an emergency medicine that temporarily reverses opioid overdose.

The Nord Center

The Nord Center is an organization in Lorain that provides mental and behavioral health services. The Nord Center offers daily peer support and access to addiction treatment. It also provides resources for family, friends, and significant others of people who have substance use disorders. It offers Narcan kits as well as a syringe exchange, so individuals can have access to clean needles.

Students for Sensible Drug Policy Oberlin SSDP is a student-run chapter of a nationwide coalition that seeks to implement drug policies rooted in evidence, compassion, and human rights. You may recognize SSDP from their drug safety posters on bulletin boards across campus. SSDP also hosts workshops, such as their “trip-sitting” workshop that instructs sober individuals on how to effectively support friends who are using psychedelic drugs. At the on-campus music festival, Solarity, SSDP hosts a cool-down station with water, fans, fidget toys, and basic harm reduction information.

Safety Tips (if you choose to use)

1. Test before you ingest

Many drugs commonly contain substances other than what is advertised.

Testing drugs can help determine what substance(s) you might be ingesting.

3. Check in with your friends Avoid using substances alone. Make sure your friends are informed about the drugs you’ve taken as well as basic safety precautions.

5. Stay hydrated

Dehydration is a major risk when using drugs, including alcohol. Many stimulants (e.g., cocaine, Adderall) and typical “rave drugs” (e.g., MDMA, 2C-B) can cause excessive overheating in warm environments. Make sure to take breaks and hydrate, ideally with electrolytes.

The Oberlin Review | March 25, 2022

2. Start low and go slow Beginning with a low dose of a substance is always important to avoid overwhelming or dangerous experiences.

4. Check your interactions

Some drug combinations pose a significant safety risk.

Always look up interactions between substances you use, including alcohol and prescription medications.

For example, an interaction of benzodiazepines (e.g., Xanax, Ativan) and alcohol can be fatal.

6. Know when to get help

If someone is exhibiting signs of an overdose, call 911 and Campus Safety at (440) 775-8444 immediately. Signs of an overdose include, but are not limited to: chest pain, seizures, extreme agitation, abnormal breathing, loss of consciousness, skin color changes, and an irregular pulse.

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A r t s & C u ltu r e

March 25, 2022

ARTS & CULTURE Established 1874

Volume 151, Number 16

Black Student Union to Host “Black People Are Infinity” Sierra Colbert Senior Staff Writer A few weeks ago, College second-year Imani Joseph read the line “Black People Are Infinity” while reciting a poem they wrote at an Afrikan Heritage House Soul Session. Since then, Joseph’s words have echoed all around campus on posters advertising this year’s Black History Month Ball.

Hosted annually by the Oberlin Black Student Union, ABUSUA, the Ball will take place this Saturday from 8 p.m. to midnight at The Hotel at Oberlin.

College third-year and A-House Program Assistant Evyn Lundy explained that the ABUSUA team chose the line “Black People Are Infinity” as the event’s theme somewhat by chance. It was only after deciding to use a celestial theme that the team heard Joseph’s poem and thought it was perfect. Of course, to the event organizers, Joseph’s phrase does much more than simply call celestial images to mind.

“It’s really supposed to be a reminder that Black people are always here, Black people are resilient; we deserve to be noticed,” Lundy said. “And I feel like a lot of times there’s a lot of invisible labor of Black people — basically meaning that people don’t always directly see the work and the emotions and everything that goes into all of our work.”

College second-year and A-House Program Assistant Wyaé Stewart expressed a similar thought on the depth of this year’s theme, “Black History Month: Black History Year.”To Stewart, infinity means the lasting impact of Black community and culture.

“When you think about it, so much of our culture and … our life is brought into so many different societies,” she said. “And so many people adopt it and use it in their day-to-day lives, just emphasizing that our culture and everything that comes with us is beautiful and it’s infinite. It’ll last for generations to come.”

It is for this reason that the Black History Month Ball is not just another party. College third-year Jillian Sanford explained that, while it is an excellent place to have fun, it also serves a greater purpose.

“The Ball is a way to celebrate all the hard work Black students put in day in and day out at Oberlin, especially during BHM,” Sanford wrote in an email to the Review. “It is a celebration of our resilience and our dedication to making Oberlin a better space for those in our community.”

A large part of that celebration is, of course, having a good time. In the grand scheme of events going on during Black History Month, the ball stands out as one designed to bring everyone together in one space to enjoy an evening of music and community.

“There’s different kinds of events that are going on throughout the month,” Lundy said. “So different kinds of people will attend different events. If you’re interested in the arts, obviously you’re going to want to go to more arts-focused programming.

So I think that the ball really serves as a space where we can all come together. [It] serves as a time for everyone to go, everyone to see each other, everyone to just have a good time.”

And the Ball promises to be just that. In addition to a change in venue See ABUSUA, page 13

College fourth-year Nasirah Fair struts down the runway at the Multicultural Resource Center’s most recent Black History Month event, the Black History Month Fashion Show, held on March 20. The BHM Ball will host students at the Hotel at Oberlin March 26.

Courtesy of Chemutai Ruto

Sadsack Mini-Series Premieres After Years of Development Emerald Goldbaum Sadsack, a television mini-series written and directed by College fourth-year Katie Friedemann, will premiere today. The first two episodes, the only ones filmed so far, will be screened at 7 p.m. in the Hallock Auditorium for Environmental Studies and they will be made available on YouTube and Vimeo. The semi-autobiographical show, a personal opus for Friedemann, follows J.B., a young woman who returns to her hometown after moving away to college, as she is forced to come to terms with a traumatic event from her past.

Friedemann began the writing process in March 2020, right after Oberlin students had been sent home due to COVID-19. With nothing else to do, Friedemann took the extended time away from school to write.

“It was just the perfect time,” Friedemann said.

“I had nothing else to do but to sit and be reflective.

This mini-series is what came out of it.”

Filming for the show began in November 2020 and just wrapped up a few days ago when the cast and crew shot the final background footage.

“This has been a very, very long process,” Friedemann said. “I had just the best team in the entire world who were just as dedicated to getting it done as I was, but that strain of time and very, very little resources was incredibly stressful.”

Friedemann describes the series as an examination of the main character’s trauma and how memories influence our present circumstances. She

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has always been fascinated by stories about small towns. When she watched Clerks, a movie set in small-town New Jersey, at age 14, she felt it was the first time she had seen movie characters who talked like her friends. That kind of writing inspired her as she tried to come up with realistic dialogue, especially as she began writing her own small-town characters like Rigby, a newcomer in town who works at a computer store and doesn’t know anything about J.B.’s past.

“I spent a lot of time asking myself, ‘What do these people actually sound like?’” Friedemann said. “The experience of Sadsack is just kind of being at home with your high-school friends after you haven’t seen them for a bit and just shooting the s**t and analyzing how messed up high school must have been for all of you. Once you can see it in hindsight, that’s kind of the experience of it.”

Friedemann has directed plays in the past, but this is her first experience filming a series.

“Working with all of these people, and dealing with these incredibly happy accidents, and finding things in my own writing that I had just never found before was amazing,” she said. “I got to work with these wonderful people who are so smart and so compassionate. This experience was so unlike a play, which is what I’ve directed to this point. This is something that I will have forever and it will live in its peak form forever. It’s just so nice to be able to look at it and say that we did this.”

See Coming Home, page 12

College fourth-year Katie Friedemann’s mini-series Sadsack will premiere today at 7 p.m. in Hallock Auditorium.

Courtesy of Gwen Gemmell

The Dropout’s Brilliance Lies in its Strange Performances

Hulu’s The Dropout narrates the rise and fall of failed Silicon Valley start-up Theranos.

Jocelyn Blockinger Staff Writer The Dropout, a highly-anticipated drama mini-series starring Amanda Seyfried, has debuted its first six episodes on Hulu. The series chronicles the misfortunes and fraud of failed Silicon Valley startup Theranos. Focusing specifically on the company’s founder Elizabeth Holmes, the series begins at the company’s inception in 2003 and ends when its doors were shuttered in 2018. Seyfried’s portrayal of Holmes is almost endearing — a wide-eyed teen with ambitious intentions of becoming the next Steve Jobs — but something is always a little off.

That being said, the dramatization of the downfall of Theranos is engaging, suspenseful, and most definitely worth a watch.

The moral nuance of The Dropout gives Holmes and her counterpart, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, too much room for redemption in a case where neither serves as a protagonist. Perhaps this is the biggest challenge The Dropout faces narratively — there is no central character to root for; instead, viewers

Courtesy of Hulu are challenged to hold their breath as Holmes defrauds her investors and employees. Throughout the show, viewers watch Holmes drift further away from the driven teen we first got to know as she becomes increasingly robotic and secretive. Similarly, Balwani quickly transforms from mentor and role model to abusive boyfriend and tyrannical chief operating officer of Theranos. Depicting these changes is where The Dropout succeeds, as it creates two characters who carry the show — without making either of them likable or worthy of rooting for.

Last week, the show’s installment included the tragic death of Ian Gibbons, a once-prominent Theranos scientist who helped launch the company in its early stages. Gibbons’ character, as well as his apparent suicide, is featured at the forefront of the show, as he is one of the only characters with true redeeming qualities who sticks around Theranos long enough to watch it slowly implode. As the show progresses, nearly every competent character recognizes the deep internal flaws with Holmes’ vision and execution, causing them to flee the project before it inevitably fails. While this may be true to

reality, where The Dropout fails is in its inability to hold on to a likable character for the entirety of the series. Characters played by actors Nicky Endres, Dylan Minnette, Hart Bochner, and Utkarsh Ambudkar come to represent sanity all throughout the series, though with each realization of Theranos’ inevitable collapse, every new arrival feels more doomed than the last.

With two episodes remaining in the series, the final downfall of Theranos has yet to unfold. That said, The Dropout makes it clear from the beginning that Theranos was never truly a success. Holmes and Balwani scrape by on sheer luck and manipulation, which would feel almost too unrealistic if it weren’t known to be true. When The Dropout introduces a partnership between Walgreens and Theranos, it feels impossible to imagine, from what viewers know by this point about everything from Theranos’ operational management to lab processes, that a corporation like Walgreens could possibly invest in this vision. If anything, The Dropout is a testament to the ill-informed decision-making of corporate America.

The greatest triumph of The Dropout is the portrayal of the relationship between Holmes and Balwani, played by Seyfried and Naveen Andrews, respectively. The viewer watches Balwani groom Holmes into a relationship when she is only 18 years old while he is nearly 40, taking note of the stiff way he grows to resent her as her stardom rises. Ultimately, the relationship helps to humanize both characters and takes the viewer away from the otherwise office-based series.

Seyfried perfectly embodies Holmes’ unnaturally deep cadence, ill-fitting Steve Jobs-esque wardrobe, and intentionally imperfect red lipstick. One scene in particular has caught the attention of the internet for its pure, palpable awkwardness. As Holmes begins to feel distant from Balwani, her secret-boyfriend-turned COO, she closes the doors to their offices and dances for him to the tune of Lil Wayne’s “How to Love.” While this interaction feels entirely forced and inorganic, the scene’s brilliance lies in its believability. No, the scene was not poorly written. These people are actually just that weird.

Perhaps the beauty of The Dropout lies in its sheer discomfort and strangeness, mimicking the Theranos scandal itself. The final two episodes are set to premiere March 31 and April 7 on Hulu.

Silent Meetings Hosted by Students to Revive Quaker Traditions On Campus Lilyanna D’Amato Kathleen Kelleher Arts & Culture Editors Prior to the pandemic, Quaker worship in Oberlin was in-person and intergenerational, bringing residents and students together for community-led silent gatherings and religious events.

The most popular Quaker meeting, Oberlin Friends Meeting, was held in the educational multi-purpose room at Kendal at Oberlin but moved to Zoom in early April 2020. Although a few students participated in virtual worship, College involvement dwindled as the retirement community and the school implemented new, isolating COVID-19 precautions. Now, younger students are revitalizing Quaker values on campus, hosting silent meetings, and promoting spiritual introspection.

The foundational tenet of the Quaker faith is a belief that God exists within every person and that all people have the potential to experience the light within. Ann Francis, a Kendal resident and leader within Oberlin Friends Meeting, explained the significance of seeing that of God in every one.

The Oberlin Review | March 25, 2022

“The basic underlying principle of Quakers is that we believe in the goodness of every single person,” Francis said. “The huge principle of our meeting is that in order to do this, you connect with moral principles and Quaker testimonies of peace, justice, love, simplicity, stewardship, sustainability, and equality. But not only do you believe them, you practice them and you take action to ensure that these are the ways that lives are led and institutions operate. We believe that through meaningful worship, we can gather together as a community to foster that kind of support.”

The meetings sought to provide students with the opportunity to sit in silence and reflect for one hour a week. Meetings are “unprogrammed,” meaning they have no formal structure other than this silent, reflective period. If participants feel inclined to speak, they can stand and offer their thoughts, although the majority of the meeting is quiet and contemplative.

“People can talk a little bit or say something, but usually there’s just a lot of silence,” Francis said. “That peace, after you’re rushing around and going to class or doing whatever — it’s really nice. It’s an opportu-

nity to gather and to center deeply and connect with spirit, to connect with God, and to connect with one another in trying to follow the path [of ] peace, justice, and equality. It’s a space where you can be nurtured.

Then out of that, the Quaker meeting may take collective action to do something in the community. But also it encourages people to have their own conversations on how to bring peace and justice and love and simplicity to the world.”

The meetings were hugely important to the Quaker communities’ identity on campus. When the pandemic hit, the group’s close-knit dynamic was upended.

“Both the College and the Kendal community totally shut down,” Francis said. “There was no way to meet.

It was a very difficult time, because for [those] two or three months, it was just so uncertain. And lives were being lost. It took us a while to get back on track — it was just so much more difficult to connect. Also, many of the key students with whom we had formed that deep connection with had graduated. There was nothing to offer for that relational part.

But hopefully now we can all connect

again. It’s wonderful for students to know that there is a meeting here and that it’s not just the retirement community, but it’s a meeting which connects to the wider Quaker world.”

When she got to Oberlin, College second-year Yana Levy went in search of a Quaker community to practice with. She was raised with Quaker education, as she attended a Quaker school from the first grade through high school and was used to sitting for weekly silent meetings. Levy says she searched the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life website for a student organization practicing Quakerism, but was disappointed when she couldn’t find anything. College second-year Alice Jacob also had some background in Quaker education from a summer camp that involved daily silent meetings. The two agreed that the void needed to be filled, and at the end of their first year they began practicing together.

“We went to Mount Oberlin, four of us,” Levy said. “We sat there at sunset for 45 minutes. That was the first silent meeting. Since then, we’ve done it every Sunday.”

The two spread word of their silent See Quaker, page 13

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

Shit Pit Siblings Sophie and Clara Zucker the one who pushed me to audition for an improv troupe. I don’t think I would’ve done that without her because, growing up, I was like, “Oh I’m funny. I can make my family laugh.”

But I was never like, “Oh I can make a whole audience of college students laugh.”

SZ: I was like, “Do it b***h, it’ll change your life.”

CZ: (Laughing) Yeah, exactly.

Oberlin sisters Sophie and Clara Zucker both love to laugh.

Anisa Curry Vietze Editor-in-Chief Sophie Zucker, OC ’15, started Shit Pit — Oberlin’s underground and informal stand-up comedy collective — with her friend Maya Sharma, OC ’15, during their fourth years together. Now, seven years later, Sophie’s younger sister, College fourth-year Clara Zucker, regularly hosts the event. This familial tie isn’t the only thing that makes the event wholesome; despite the name, there is a sweetness to Shit Pit, which strives to create a casual and supportive environment for students to workshop new material. The event, now an Oberlin staple, is often planned with little notice, hosted in someone’s basement, living room, or backyard, and is open to anyone to perform regardless of previous comedy experience. Since her time at Oberlin, Sophie has been writing for and starring in Apple TV’s Dickinson, along with performing original work at theaters and comedy clubs across the country. Clara is working on her Theater capstone, an original play she has written and directed, Shayna Punim, opening on April 21, and has also spent time in Oberlin’s Sunshine Scouts improv troupe and Good Talk.

The two sisters talk on the phone almost every day and often workshop material with each other.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Sophie, you started Shit Pit along with a friend. Is that true?

SZ: Yes. Maya and I had both studied at The Second City in Chicago and when we were there, these two guys had started this thing called Shit Hole, which was a very welcoming, experi-

Courtesy of Clara Zucker mental, open mic in a basement. And so we were like, “We should do that at Oberlin!” And we asked them if we could use a variation of their name.

When you graduated, did you have any idea Shit Pit would still be around by the time Clara got to college?

SZ: I did not think that it would go on necessarily. We also created Good Talk with a bunch of others, including Luke Taylor, OC ’15, and I think that we hoped that would be sort of an institution. But Shit Pit? No. It was casual and always felt kind of thrown together. I don’t think we thought of it as starting something.

And Clara, how did you get involved? How old were you when Sophie was in college?

CZ: When Sophie graduated from Oberlin, I was 15. I didn’t know anything about Shit Pit. We didn’t talk as much back then. I knew she went to Second City, but I didn’t find out about Shit Pit until years later, when I was a first-year at Oberlin. I was taking the Improv ExCo, and Gabby Shiner, OC ’19, and PJ McCormick, OC ’20, were like, “You should come to Shit Pit this weekend.” I texted Sophie about it and I was like, “Do you know what this is?” And she said, “I started that.” That’s how I found out about it.

Clara, do you feel like Shit Pit will continue next year? It’s mostly you and College fourth-years Juli Freedman and Levi Dayan — all of you are graduating.

CZ: I know. But the nice thing about Shit Pit is that it’s free. You don’t have to raise any money to do it. You only need a mic, and you don’t really even need that. And Juli and Levi and I have been trying to teach the underclassmen how to organize it. It’s very easy. You just have to find a house.

We always try to get underclassmen to host; we don’t wanna host every time because we don’t want it to die out when we graduate.

Sophie when you graduated, do you know who kept it going? Was that a conscious effort on your part?

SZ: No, we did not hand it off in any official way. I don’t think we thought that someone needed to continue it.

Even though it was a huge success, it just didn’t seem like that sort of a thing.

CZ: Yeah. But people are always wanting to do open mics. Shit Pit is one of the easiest things to organize.

Even though we’re not directly handing it off to someone, I do have confidence that the people who have been

So Clara, you went to Shit Pit your freshman year, and now, as a senior, you’re generally one of the people organizing it. Do you feel like Sophie had influence in that?

CZ: Sophie definitely had a lot of influence. Coming from high school, all I did was theater and Sophie was

doing it every time we host it will continue to do it and eventually decide, “Oh, I guess now I have to host it and organize it.”

SZ: Yeah, if you want it, then you make it happen. That’s a good lesson to learn in comedy anyway ’cause so much of it is being a self-starter.

Sophie, what was Shit Pit like when you first started it? What did you get out of it?

SZ: Shit Pit was really one of the first times where I was performing on my own as a solo performer, because otherwise I’d only done improv, where you’re obviously supported by a group. And solo performing is a lot of what I do now. I still have some of the recordings on my phone from a while back. And honestly, some of them were good. I was like, “Okay, I was very inventive.” I had way more ideas then than I do now. My other big memory is that my friend Charlie Kaplowitz, OC ’16, had a really bad cough and he coughed so hard he fell down in the back of Shit Pit and got a concussion.

Do either of you have anything else to add?

SZ: Obviously it’s so special that Clara does Shit Pit. I definitely told her, “Audition for an improv team, that could really make your Oberlin experience.” But I didn’t necessarily expect her to do Shit Pit. She just found it on her own. We already have so much in common, but it’s nice to have even more, and I bet Clara does a really good job of running it. She is very good at that kind of stuff, better than I am for sure.

Courtesy of Clara Zucker

Coming Home: First Two Episodes of Sadsack Premiere Friday Continued from page 10 J.B. is played by College fourth-year Meg Steen.

Following a Zoom run-through during quarantine, Friedemann asked Steen if she’d like to be a part of the project. While filming and editing was often tough, Steen stressed the importance of the cast and crew’s dedication.

“I am honored to play this part,” Steen said. “It’s semi-autobiographical, so it’s nice that [Friedmann] trusted me to take it on. I don’t think there was ever a moment during filming where anyone wanted to give up.”

Steen remarked that some of the show’s best mo-

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ments were the result of production mistakes. “[One time,] the tripod wasn’t working right, but then we got this really cool shot,” Steen said. “It was a little sideways but it actually turned out to be one of my favorite shots in the whole thing.”

During Winter Term, the crew attempted to shoot a beach scene at Lake Erie, not realizing that it was frozen over. They shot it anyway.

“It gave it a new perspective because it was so desolate and cold and snowy and bright, so that scene took on a new meaning,” said College thirdyear Gwen Gemmel, who was a crew member and

occasional cast member on the show.

While there are currently no plans to continue shooting, Friedemann aspires to return to the miniseries and continue working on it when she has more resources.

“Some of the best moments, the moments I’m most proud of, I won’t be able to show on Friday,” she said. “One day, people will be able to see the show in its entirety, which is what I want more than anything.”

ABUSUA Presents Black History Month Ball Continued from page 10 that the team hopes will help regenerate enthusiasm surrounding the event after the COVID-19 shutdown, ABUSUA will be bringing in a student DJ: double-degree fifth-year Kopano Muhammad, who previously DJed at the Black History Month fashion show.

Beyond the ball itself, ABUSUA and A-House work year-round to empower Oberlin’s Black community and create a space in which students may exchange ideas and support one another while also making their voices heard around campus. Sanford explained that a significant objective ABUSUA is currently working on is the fulfillment of the 2020 ABUSUA Demands, which were released in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the surge in anti-racist protests around the country.

“We decided that Oberlin needed to be held accountable for how they treated and supported Black students not only during that time but beyond; that is how our list of demands was created,” Sanford wrote. “And while these demands were released in 2020, we are still working with the College currently to achieve many of these goals, making great progress [and] hoping to have the majority of our demands completed by the end of this academic year!”

COMIC

A-House, meanwhile, remains focused on increasing engagement from the student body with a constant stream of events aimed at fostering a stronger and more involved community.

“A big focus right now in our programming is just trying to see how we can meet people where they’re at,” Lundy said. “Because COVID really has shifted a lot of social dynamics and we’ve noticed that we haven’t had as much engagement in events this year as we had in the past, at least for smaller, more intimate events.”

As the team looks to the future of ABUSUA and A-House, Sanford hopes that enthusiasm about the Black History Month Ball will prompt further motivation from students, both Black and non-Black, to continue to engage with the community they are cultivating.

“For A-House in particular, we hope that students continue to come to events in the house, eat at A-House dinner, and engage with our community. While the house is a safe space for Black students on campus, it is also a learning space for others. We hope that students will continue to engage with us and that we can continue to foster and support the Oberlin Africana community.”

Quaker Worship Brings Students Together for Silent Meetings Continued from page 11 meetings mostly via informal routes and maintained a loose movement between locations, often holding their meetings at the Clark Bandstand in Tappan Square.

“The only way people found out is word of mouth, or through our Instagrams,” Jacob said. “But we’ve had a lot of people we didn’t really know at all come.”

Ultimately, the two are hoping to expand these personal, informal silent meetings into something associated with the College.

“Our Winter Term project was to make a Quaker club, and we’re in the process of making that an official thing and making the silent meetings something that we get space and funding for,” Levy said. “I feel like Quaker values are something that not a lot of people know about; people think about Quakerism as this weird offset of Christianity with those weird hats and the oats guy, when the Quaker values really are in line with a lot of spiritualities that a lot of people align themselves with here. … What I would wish is that people would be open to it; it’s a space of community for people to come to and feel held.”

The two hope that the club will in-

volve more than just silent meetings, and would like to use it as an opportunity for students to learn about and understand Quakerism beyond stereotypes.

“Once we establish a club, I think we will have other things outside of silent meetings,” Jacob said. “I had the idea to have Quaker tea, where we sit and drink tea and eat cookies and talk about the values of Quakerism, as a way to have people understand what they’re practicing and the history of it.”

Levy noted the perception of Quakerism as being fundamentalist, exclusionary, or just a branch of Christianity. She says that’s not the case in modern Quakerism.

“What I find really powerful about our silent meetings, especially when it’s a bunch of random people, is that you can feel that moment where it settles, and people are being present with that light without necessarily doing anything,” Levy said. “It’s about accessing the good and being present in that good. Part of what I want to implement in these meetings is more Quaker education, more people understanding where we’re coming from.”

Late Spring Break Gives Obies FOMO

Holly Yelton, Staff Cartoonist

The Oberlin Review | March 25, 2022

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S p or t s

Time to Get Outside: Spring Activities Near Oberlin Matt Rudella It’s finally that time of year. The sun is out longer, the weather’s warming up (along with the climate) and people can once again be found throwing a frisbee in North Quad or just lounging in Wilder Bowl.

Although it’s Ohio, where it will be 65 degrees one day and snowing the next, it’s still a good idea to start making plans for when the weather is consistently warm, whenever that may be. Here is a list of local attractions you should check out when the time’s right.

Oberlin Arboretum If you’re looking for an easy walk or hike in the area, the Arb is the place to go. Although it’s currently under construction, it may reopen this season. On the south end of campus, past Johnson House, the Arb has lots of trails and creeks with a reservoir split into two ponds — and you just can’t beat the fact that it’s free!

I haven’t spent much time there, but I’ve heard nothing but good things from the people who walk around there, and I will definitely check it

out when the trees start to bud.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park If you’re looking for a more serious hike, Cuyahoga Valley National Park is your best bet. You’ll have plenty of trails to try, as the park spans over 32,000 acres of land and has over 125 miles of trails with varying difficulties. The National Park Service recommends the Ledges Trail, which “circles a plateau of striking rock formations and provides stunning views along the way.” There are also over 100 waterfalls to check out while you hike. It’s about a 45-minute drive away, but it’s worth it — it’s the only national park in Ohio, after all.

Progressive Field If you’re into professional sports, Cleveland Guardian games are always a fun time to share with friends. Progressive Field is a gem in downtown Cleveland, and it’s the perfect place to sit back and watch baseball on a Sunday afternoon. I really enjoyed the two games I went to last year, and I think the stadium’s a must-see for

any sports fan. Even for non-baseball fans, it’s a great opportunity to relax under the sun and watch some of the best athletes in the sport compete. The night games at the beginning of the year are also a phenomenal atmosphere and usually draw big turnouts if you don’t have free time in the afternoon. It’s only 40 minutes away and you can usually get tickets for cheap too.

The home opener is April 15; after that, there are home games consistently for the next six months.

Cedar Point The Sunday Funday committee, a group of Oberlin men’s lacrosse players that plans fun Sunday activities for the team (myself included), would highly recommend Cedar Point, an amusement park in Sandusky, OH. It’s about a 45-minute drive away and tickets typically cost between $50–60. If you have the time, I suggest paying a visit. Cedar Point is widely considered to be one of the best amusement parks in the country; people from all over come to Ohio just to visit. I have never feared for

my life more than when I heard the slow clicking noise of the tracks on the way up the Millennium Force roller coaster, awaiting a 310-foot drop. The park has 17 total roller coasters, but my personal favorites are the GateKeeper, Millennium Force, and Steel Vengeance. The park opens May 7, and I would suggest planning to go on an off-day, since the park will be very busy for the first month or so after it opens.

Cleveland Metroparks Zoo The Cleveland Zoo is a great place to go with friends on a nice afternoon. In 2019, USA Today ranked it as one of the best zoos in the country: “Known for one of the largest collections of primates in the United States, the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is part of 23,000 acres of parkland that also has 300 miles of trails, eight golf courses, and eight lakefront parks.” It also has a vast rainforest exhibit and over 600 species from across the globe to observe. The Sunday Funday committee will definitely have this on our radar in the coming weeks.

Men’s Lacrosse Continues Season Success Zoë Martin del Campo Contributing Sports Editor Zoe Kuzbari Sports Editor With six games under its belt, the Oberlin men’s lacrosse team has hit the ground running with a 5–1 record. In its most recent game against the University of Mount Union Raiders, the squad’s strong defensive presence forced 23 turnovers and only allowed seven total shots preventing the Raiders from hitting the goal.

This week, fourth-year attacker and midfielder Michael Muldoon was named North Coast Athletic Conference Men’s Lacrosse Player of the Week for scoring nine points in two games. Emerging from the COVID-19 hiatus, Muldoon is optimistic about the team’s performance, although he believes there are some things the team can work on going into this weekend’s game against Wittenberg University.

“I think the game this past weekend was really good,” Muldoon wrote in an email to the Review. “The defense was holding it down, and the offense generated a ton of shots. In the future, I think we just have to work on shot placement to improve our efficiency. Our team generally starts to click in the fourth quarter so it would be nice to have that throughout the whole game rather than toward the end.”

Muldoon leads the team and ranks third in the NCAC with 22 points. His 14 goals are fourth best in the league, while his eight assists rank him fifth in the conference.

The team’s success this season can be attributed in part to the strong defensive presence on the field and the mix of veteran leadership and talented third-year players.

Fourth-year defensive player Kiernan Stone also believes that Assistant Men’s Lacrosse Coach Jackson Mumford has been integral to the team’s success.

“On the defensive side, I think Coach Mumford’s schemes have really helped us shut offenses down, as well as the cohesiveness of our group,” Stone wrote to the Review. “[Third-year] Eugene [Kang] in goal has also been a huge help for us.”

The team’s next home game is this Saturday at 4 p.m. against Wittenberg, during which the Yeomen will hopefully continue to dominate the field.

Top Right: The Oberlin Men’s Lacrosse Team Competes Against Capital University.

Bottom Right: Oberlin Men’s Lacrosse Squad gathers its gear after a successful game.

Below: Fourth-year Kiernan Stone checks a Capital lacrosse player to the ground.

Courtesy of Carrie Loh

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IN THE LOCKER ROOM

Max Anastasio, Role Model for OC Baseball

River Schiff Senior Staff Writer Third-year baseball infielder Max Anastasio is entering this season with big plans. After not playing baseball at Oberlin since his first year, Anastasio is faced with a new leading role on the team which he has used to encourage his teammates in thinking more critically about the deep-rooted problems of sexual harm within the Oberlin baseball community. He’s challenged his squad to face these issues head-on and has rallied younger players to make a difference in the program both on and off the field. As a recent addition to the lineup, Anastasio has found success on the field in ways he never anticipated with his positive outlook and desire to improve both himself and his team.

How long have you played baseball? Why did you choose to play at Oberlin?

I’ve been playing since I was five years old, so about 17 years. I knew I really wanted to play college baseball when I was in high school, and Oberlin was a good school. When I was looking into colleges, I didn’t realize at the time that baseball would bring me to a place that I’d actually really enjoy or would allow me to explore so many different opportunities. Oberlin has more to it than just being a good school. When I initially came here, I wanted to do the 3-2 Engineering program, but Oberlin showed me that I actually have other interests. I’ve always been passionate about the environment, and just declared an Environmental Studies major in addition to Economics. I never could have anticipated being on the path that I am now.

Was it jarring to be expected to take a leading role after quite a bit of time off?

The last time I was here, I was a first-year and essentially had no say on the team. This year, people look up to me to set an example. If nothing else, I definitely try to lead by example everyday. I don’t necessarily want people to listen to what I say, I just want them to go the extra mile. Not only as baseball players, but as decent humans cleaning up after ourselves and working hard after practice to be the best versions of ourselves.

which is just as important as getting better as athletes.

This is a growing season for us. We want to be the best team we can be, but I also strive for us to be the best people we can be.

that out. I’m in the process of trying to get everyone to go to the One Love workshop this Sunday that the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee has helped put together.

What are you looking forward to as the season progresses?

We missed two years, so our team is very young.

This year is a huge development year; there’s so much we’re missing just from lack of experience. Learning and getting better with each game is the most important thing for us. Most of us older players have also been pushing to be not just good players on the field, but off the field, too. We’re trying to hold our teammates more accountable for their actions off the field,

Recently you’ve been outspoken about changing the culture of the baseball team, including scheduling a meeting with Survivors of Sexual Harm and Allies. What do you hope to get out of this meeting? What do you hope for the future of the program beyond baseball?

I want our younger players to get exposure to ways they can better themselves. SOSHA has great insight into sexual harm and sexual health. So if we have the opportunity to go above and beyond, we have to seek

What are you interested in outside of baseball?

My teammates kinda make fun of me for it, but I really like soccer. My roommate and I announced both the men’s and women’s soccer games this year and that was super fun for us. I also played in the intramural soccer league when I had the time. Other than that, I was a sustainability engineer this past Winter Term, which combined both of my interests and taught me a lot about what I want to pursue in the future.

Max Anastasio mans first base after transitioning to the infield this season.

Courtesy of Max Anastasio

Women’s March Madness Deserves Your Attention Continued from page 16

I think South Dakota has a very good chance of continuing their Cinderella run and upsetting the University of Michigan since they’re clearly underranked by the committee.

Before the madness begins again, I think it’s important for people to recognize how far the women’s tournament has come recently. Change began happening within the NCAA during the 2021 tournament when Sedona Prince, a redshirt junior for the University of Oregon, recorded a video highlighting the disparities between the men’s and women’s weight rooms that went viral.

While a Stanford trainer had already called attention to this issue, the NCAA dismissed the concern saying there wasn’t enough space. Prince’s viral video panned out to an empty weight room and ended with them saying “If you aren’t upset about this problem, then you are a part of it.” The video received millions of views on social media, and the NCAA upgraded the women’s weight room soon after. Prince became an overnight trailblazer for gender equity in college athletics.

Although Oregon was eliminated by Louisville in the Sweet 16 that year, people continued to pay attention to Women’s March Madness. Viewership increased and reached broadcast records while viewership for some men’s tournaments plummetThe Oberlin Review | March 25, 2022

ed. After Prince’s video, the NCAA also launched an investigation and implemented some additional changes that can be seen in the tournament. March Madness branding was used for the women’s tournaments for the first time, and the competition was expanded to 68 teams. Another video made

by Prince this year showed that the players’ swag bags improved in quality. Separately, the NCAA has also adopted an interim name, image, and likeness policy, meaning that student-athletes can now get sponsorships.

When watching sports, it feels like people see athletes and coaches as superhuman rather than actual people with thoughts and feelings. But now more than ever, it’s time for all of us to define athletes and coaches not just by their statistics, but also by their advocacy and the boundaries they break.

For instance, Prince, who is a lesbian, uses TikTok to talk openly about her sexuality. Prince and other athletes such as Azzi Fudd from UConn and Angel Reese from the University of Maryland have also partnered with the retirement fund TIAA for their #RetireInequality campaign.

UConn superstar Paige Bueckers honored and uplifted Black female athletes in her 2021 ESPY speech and called out the disparities in representation. Additionally, Bueckers is donating $1,000 for

every assist she makes to Youthprise, an organization that helps low-income youth in Minneapolis.

ESPN commentators Carolyn Peck and Courtney Lyle held a moment of silence for multiple games in protest against the “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida.

After Adia Barnes of the University of Arizona and Dawn Staley of South Carolina made history as the first Black female head coaches to reach the Final Four in 2021, 12 Black female coaches are now headed into this year’s March Madness.

That’s double the number from the previous year’s tournament.

As one of the millions inspired by Sedona Prince’s courage, I’m urging everyone, especially men’s March Madness fans, to pay more attention to the athletes competing in the women’s March Madness tournaments.

There’s still a lot of progress left; Women’s March Madness games still aren’t available on the NCAA website while the men’s are, and comment sections are still littered with sexist remarks. Athletes in the women’s March Madness tournaments deserve more support and respect on and off the court for their hard work and advocacy, even if the NCAA is hesitant to give it.

You can watch the Sweet 16 and more on the ESPN family of networks and FuboTV.

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March 25, 2022

SPORTS Established 1874

Volume 151, Number 16

Cristiano Ronaldo Sets New Record, Change Coming for NCAA Women’s Inspiring Football Fans Worldwide March Madness

Cristiano Ronaldo, the best international men’s soccer player, breaks the record for most goals by an individual.

Courtesy of Jan Kruger

Editor’s note: This article refers to soccer as football, the name used by Ronaldo and the rest of the international community.

Zoe Kuzbari Sports Editor Cristiano Ronaldo is arguably the best football player the world has ever seen. Not only has he been named the best player in the world by FIFA three times, but he is now the leading scorer in the history of men’s international football. Ronaldo has had an immense impact on generations of football players and fans, and his recent achievement speaks volumes about his undeniable talent.

Ronaldo has broken records at almost every program he has joined. The Portugal native is currently the top scorer in the history of men’s football with 807 goals. He also holds the record for the most UEFA Champions League titles, with five to his name, as well as the most goals scored in the competition’s history with 141 goals.

As a 37-year-old in one of the most competitive leagues in the world, he has proved that age is just a number. With 20 years of experience and counting, Ronaldo has become the model for everlasting talent.

Ronaldo’s work ethic is one of the major contributing factors to his success, and it’s easy to see why so many football fans around the world respect him as a player and a person.

Fourth-year men’s soccer player Alex Caceres highlights how even though he is not a diehard Ronaldo fan, Ronaldo is still an inspiration for any athlete willing to work hard.

“I’m a Messi fan, so hyping Ronaldo up can be difficult,” he said. “But I still believe that the recent record Ronaldo broke speaks to his indisputable hard work ethic both on and off the field. He is an athlete who takes pride in putting in the necessary work in order to achieve the goals and dreams that he has set forth for himself.”

Caceres says that Ronaldo is a true inspiration for athletes across all sports, not just football players, because his confidence drives the results he has as an athlete.

“Every athlete who wants to be the best should follow suit,” he said. “Ronaldo does everything he possibly can to separate himself from the rest. His success is what makes him so popular, but his drive and passion to be the best is what really sets him apart and inspires any young athlete around the world.”

Longtime football fan and College third-year Oliver Ripps believes Ronaldo’s greatness radiates beyond his innate football abilities. He says that even those who don’t understand the sport of football can tell that Ronaldo knows what he’s doing on the field.

“Ronaldo truly has the wow factor,” he said. “Every

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time he touches the ball, every fan watching — regardless of football knowledge — is on their feet ready to watch something amazing, bracing for the ring of the ball launched into the back of the net.

There’s no better way to quantify that impact than being the all-time FIFA goal-scoring leader.”

Fourth-year men’s soccer player Nicolas Jandeleit recognizes the importance of Ronaldo’s record-breaking career from a historical perspective, emphasizing that before Ronaldo came onto the scene, no one thought the scoring record could be broken.

“Pelé set the record back in 1977, and for a long time it seemed like no one would ever come close to beating it,” Jandeleit said. “In the past 45 years, the game of football has evolved into a much more competitive environment, but Ronaldo was still able to break that record and continues to score today. I personally think that him beating this record is much more of an inspiration to younger players than anything else. Young talent can look at this impressive number and think to themselves that maybe one day they can beat it.”

According to Jandeleit, Ronaldo has a very unique style of play. He uses flashy tricks and skills to beat players and score goals.

“As a kid, I would watch all of his highlight videos of him making insane shots and executing some of the most beautiful plays,” he said. “These videos made me fall in love with the game of soccer. His style of play is fun to watch and makes the game entertaining, which has helped him gain the attention of younger football players like myself.”

Jandeleit thinks what sets Ronaldo apart from other players is his mentality.

“He strives to be the best in the world and has this ability to score clutch goals under immense amounts of pressure,” he said. “The whole world watches him play, and billions of people look up to him — the fact that he is able to execute as well as he does every single time and not come off as nervous is amazing.”

College third-year and avid football fan Jack Povilaitis believes that another reason so many people look up to Ronaldo is because of the brand he’s built for himself off the field.

“Ronaldo’s record highlights his football abilities, but we can’t forget about his off-the-pitch success as well,” Povilaitis said. “He has the most Instagram followers on the app (415 million) and has his own brand partnered with Nike that soccer players revere. Especially in a sport full of individual brands, Ronaldo’s is the biggest for soccer.”

Like Caceres, Povilaitis is not a devoted Ronaldo fan, but still greatly admires his achievements and sees him as an inspiration.

“Love football or not, you’ve got to tip your cap to the lad,” he said. “We aren’t going to see this record broken for a long time — maybe ever.”

The University of South Carolina women’s basketball team bench celebrates on the sidelines during the March Madness tournament.

Courtesy of Sean Rayfod

Kayla Kim Production Editor After a hectic first and second round in the Women’s NCAA March Madness tournament, there is some calm before the next round: the Sweet 16.

The first round saw six upsets and some excellent plays. In a game against Montana State University, Fran Belibi of Stanford University became the third woman to succcesfully dunk in a March Madness game. Using a stifling defense, No. 12 seed Belmont University upset No. 5 seed University of Oregon in double overtime — the first double overtime in a March Madness tournament since 2013. Led by guards Abby Meyers and Kaitlyn Chen, No. 11 seed Princeton University added to their 18-game winning streak to upset No. 6 seed University of Kentucky, the defending Southeastern Conference Champion. The Princeton Tigers fought fiercely in the second round but fell to No. 3 seed Indiana University by just one point.

Madness continued in the second round, starting with No. 10 seed Creighton University upsetting No. 2 seed University of Iowa. In bitter irony, Lauren Jensen, an Iowa transfer, shot the winning 3-pointer in front of a large crowd of thousands of Hawkeye fans. Olivia Miles, the freshman standout from No. 5 seed University of Notre Dame, helped the Fighting Irish beat No. 4 seed University of Oklahoma in a 108–64 victory, one of the top performances by a lower seeded team. And finally, the No. 10 seed University of South Dakota took down No. 2 seed Baylor University after hitting eight of 16 3-pointers and securing many defensive rebounds. Both tactics ended Baylor University’s 12-year Sweet 16 streak. Cinderella teams South Dakota and Creighton will be dancing in the Sweet 16 for the first time in their school histories.

Compared to the first and second rounds, I don’t think there will be as many upsets in the Sweet 16.

Despite some shakiness and underperformances in previous rounds, I think top-ranked teams such as the University of Connecticut, the University of South Carolina, and the University of Louisville will continue, and I’m excited to see some of my favorite players such as Aliyah Boston, Hailey Van Lith, and Azzi Fudd make some madness. However, See Women’s, pg 15