The Oberlin Review
SEPTEMBER 12, 2014 VOLUME 143, NUMBER 1
ESTABLISHED 1874 oberlinreview.org
ONLINE & IN PRINT
News Brief: Inn Construction Begins
Local News Bulletin News briefs from the past week Student Union Board Modifies Wilder Hall Room Booking Policy The Student Union Board has reconfigured its system of assigning student organizations offices this year. The new system decreases the number of offices in Wilder Hall in order to add more general meeting rooms and storage space. The board has allocated five new meeting spaces available to any student organization. In an effort to keep rooms open for meetings, these spaces can only be reserved in advance by student organizations, though the rooms are still available to anyone on a walk-up basis. College Hires New Vice President of Finance Michael L. Frandsen assumed his duties as Oberlin’s new vice president for finance and administration this past July. Prior to arriving at Oberlin, Frandsen served as the vice president for finance and administration and later as an interim president at Albion College. The appointment of Frandsen coincides with the retirement of Ron Watts after 37 years serving as Oberlin’s chief financial officer and vice president for finance and administration. New Students Volunteer at Sites Across the Community On Aug. 30, the Bonner Center for Service and Learning hosted the 18th annual Day of Service. New students volunteered at 30 different sites across the community, including the George Jones Farm, the Dubois Project and the Prospect Learning Garden. The Bonner Center described the Oberlin Day of Service as an opportunity for students to explore the community and an entry point for engaging in further service and activism.
Demolition of the Oberlin Inn began in earnest this week, marking the start of a 15-month period of construction on the corner of Main and College streets. The new facility, which will open in its entirety in the fall of 2016, will include a refurbished 70-room hotel, conference facility, retail space, restaurant, lobby area and admissions wing, all combined into one 100,000-square foot complex. According to former Vice President for the Office of Finance and Administration Ron Watts, the Inn will serve as a large financial stimulus for the Oberlin community. “ The old Inn is obsolete and has been obsolete for 30 years,” Watts said. “This will give us the ability to do larger events, weddings and to have a sit-down building for 300 people — there is nowhere in the area for that capability. We need to make it a destination point, to program the building to truly increase revenue and the number of people coming to Oberlin to utilize it.”
See page 3
Photo by Julia Herbst, Editor-in-Chief
Committee Convenes to Plan College’s Fiscal Future Oliver Bok This Tuesday will mark the first meeting of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee, an organization whose purpose is to determine the future of Oberlin’s educational and financial endeavors. While College President Marvin Krislov has described the plan as “an opportunity for the College and all the different constituencies of the College … to think about the future,” some students and administrators are skeptical about how accurately the committee will address their needs. “I’d like to see the College admit that it maintains at least partial culpability — and more culpability than a lot of its peer institutions — in the student debt crisis in the United States, and [that] it commit itself to increasing economic diversity on this campus,” said College senior Zachery Crowell, a student activist who served as a leader in last year’s protests against the financial aid policy change. “I think I can speak for a lot of people who would like to see a more diverse campus — not just
racially, not just culturally, but also economically.” Committee member and Politics Department Chair Chris Howell described the past Strategic Planning sessions as “disastrous.” “We had a large number of essentially focus group-type discussions of faculty and staff,” he said. “We weren’t asked to talk about concrete issues or concrete challenges, and then the draft report itself appeared to reflect none of the discussions that had taken place. It was unclear who wrote it or how it was written or what conversations it reflected. But it didn’t reflect the conversations in those groups. I think it’s fair to say there is a healthy skepticism amongst the faculty about Strategic Planning, in general, given that experience.” Howell, like many other students and administrators, is largely basing his opinions on past Strategic Planning sessions, the most recent of which occurred in 2005, when the committee published a plan that was students and faculty later cited as contributing to making Oberlin less economically diverse.
Grand Opening
Beah Returns Ishmael Beah, OC ’04, kicked off this year’s convocation series.
Phase one of the new complex, which includes the hotel, conference center and retail space, will be completed by this November and will continue to operate while the rest of the complex is developed. The remodeled Inn will also host a number of sustainable features, including a geothermal system and 30,000-gallon tank to store rainwater for reuse. The facility is also the first building to be a part of the Green Arts District, a development plan that aims to “transform downtown Oberlin into a thriving and environmentally sustainable center for community and the arts,” according to its website. The College is largely responsible for funding this phase of the complex, using finances garnered from private donations and new market tax credits. The College is also investing some of its own revenue into the facility’s new admissions and development wing.
Morbid Melodies Folk duo Vandaveer performed a set full of dark yet charming folk songs at the Cat in the Cream Friday. See page 12
INDEX:
Opinions 5
This Week in Oberlin 8
The Austin E. Knowlton Athletic Complex opened its doors to student-athletes on Monday. See page 15
Arts 10
Sports 16
Several of the 2005 Strategic Plan’s initiatives came to the attention of student activists and leaders in April, when the administration made unpublicized changes to the College’s financial aid policy in a way that for many students would drastically reduce the institution’s affordability. Some student activists pointed to language in the 2005 Strategic Plan that called for increasing “net tuition revenue per student” by “gradually lower[ing] the institutional discount rate” and “retain[ing] the same number of full pay students” as an explanation of the administration’s actions. Asked if raising net tuition was on the forefront of the committee’s initiatives this year, President Marvin Krislov said that financial issues “certainly were a focus of the 2005 [Strategic Plan]” and that they will be a large portion of the 2015 or 2016 report. “I think the 2005 plan was very successful in terms of framing the direction of the College,” Krislov said. “I think it’s certainly helped guide a lot of See Students, page 4
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News
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The Oberlin Review, September 12, 2014
College to Implement Bystander Training Emma Paul In an attempt to develop a campuswide approach to prevent sexual assault, a coalition of students and administrators is currently in the process of developing a program that will train students to be effective bystanders. According to College senior Jolie De Feis, who is involved in writing the curriculum for Oberlin’s bystander training, an effective bystander is one who is observant of their surroundings, but who does not go so far as to physically intervene. “Basically [it’s] being an active participant and onlooker, and being able to
notice and be aware of things that are possibly not consensual, or turning into violent situation,” De Feis said. “It’s all about being an attentive, active community overseer.” Bystander training, though relatively new, has been used in the military and other universities and colleges to foster community-wide responsibility in regard to the prevention of sexual assault. Members of the coalition include Meredith Raimondo, associate dean and interim title IX coordinator, Marjorie Burton, director of Safety and Security, and several other department heads. Though members of the coalition have not yet so-
lidified their techniques for leading the trainings, the sessions will begin in the upcoming weeks with student-athletes. College senior Kaitlyn Custer, who is also involved with the project, said that the most significant aspect of the new bystander trainings is their focus on prevention. “We’re focusing on [the period] before acts of violence happen, because we believe that these acts of violence happen on a continuum,” Custer said. “There are lots of little things that lead into the one thing that would be followed by a judicial trial. We’re creating an environment that tries to step in along that continuum and
prevent that act from happening. We can all encourage our community to have a higher expectation of safety.” Before bystander training is introduced to the entire student body, it will be used in the Athletics department and in Resident Assistant training so that the administration can gauge campus feedback. “We want to work with communities that already have a sense of community among themselves,” Custer said. “We want people to work off each other and think in ways that a lacrosse team is already used to doing, and the ways that the RAs See Coalition, page 4
Oberlin Recycling Pickup Set to Return in October Sarah Chatta The city of Oberlin estimates municipal recycling pickup services will resume by the middle of October, returning after last February’s garage fire destroyed all six of Oberlin’s garbage and recycling trucks, limiting recycling services to two dropoff centers. Members of the student-run Resource Conservation Team have been offering limited additional recycling services to the College and town since March. “We are still surprised that the city hasn’t come up with anything, or the College hasn’t come up with anything a little more sustainable,” said RCT member and College third-year Isabel Guerra. Since the fire, the RCT has been the only organization to provide services for recycling pickup. Recycling in academic buildings resumed in March and continued through mid-May. Initially, the RCT’s services were
limited to the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association and Village Housing. Although the RCT was available to provide its services to all of OSCA, the only co-ops to consistently recycle were Pyle Inn and Keep Cottage. The pickups in the spring of 2014 produced roughly 50 to 80 bags of recycling per week. “I feel like there are just a handful of concerned students … who are actually cleaning up the trash, who are aware that this is a big problem, that the recycling trucks are a big problem,” said Guerra. “But it’s not really on anyone’s … mind just because … the recycling bins are still there, they’re just not going to the place that they should. So basically I think no one actually sees that it’s a problem.” The RCT continued its efforts in the summer with three members, Guerra, College sophomore Jacob Wilson and College junior Shavonne Stanek. They made biweekly recycling runs for students in off-campus housing and for the College’s summer conferences.
Community member Ruy Lopez disposes of his recycling in a bin behind City Hall. Oberlin’s municipal recycling pickup services halted after a fire in February destroyed the city’s garbage and recycling trucks. Effie Kline-Salamon
Since pickup services stopped, there has been a significant decrease in recycling in the city. The city’s Refuse and Recycling department found that in the first half of 2014, the department collected 55 tons of mixed recycling from the city’s dropoff point, compared with 230 tons of mixed recycling collected in the first half of 2013 with curbside pickup.
This decrease has significant implications for the department’s budget, which depends heavily upon a yearly grant from the Lorain County Solid Waste District. The funds given by the grant are based on what the city has recycled during the previous year. “I’ve had to walk around, especially this summer, with blinders on,
because there’s just so much recycling out there that I know is going to the landfill,” said Lori Sprotsy, Oberlin’s Refuse and Recycling coordinator. The new trucks purchased by the city are custom-built, and their exact arrival time is unclear. The vehicles are automated side-load trucks with hybrid hydraulic drive systems and will use half as much diesel fuel as the old trucks. Residential rates will rise by $1.50 starting in 2015 due to the cost of the hydraulic hybrids. Along with the new trucks, the city plans to implement a cart system of mixed recyclables. The plan will provide each residence with up to two 64-gallon containers without charge, in which unsorted recycling can be placed. “Our cart system will definitely increase our recycling,” said Sprotsy. There has not yet been a public forum discussing the new cart system or the use of hydraulic vehicles. A public meeting is expected to be organized this month as carts are being distributed.
Career Center Awarded Grant to Fund Students Pursuing Internships Molly Brand The College recently received $149,938 in grant money from the Great Lakes Higher Education Guaranty Corporation — funding which the Career Center will use to increase the College’s number of paid internships. The money, which will be allocated to applicants of high and moderate need, will fund 32 internships in its first year, during the summer of 2015. Participants will receive either $3,600 for a 9-week internship or $4,000 for a 10-week internship in the form of a $10 per hour wage for a 40-hour work week. Although there will be an opportunity to renew the funding for a second year, Career Center Director Richard Berman said he is unsure whether there is a possibility of extending it further. The grant, aside from offering students a chance to participate in paid internships provided by the College, will also allow ap-
plicants to gain funding for internships that they discover on their own. In previous years, the Career Center has allocated only $10,000– $20,000 in funding toward such internships. This year, the center will reserve five spots for students who have not yet been accepted to an internship, but who wish to gain funding once they are accepted. According to Berman, while some of the funding will serve to offset the College’s expenses, $125,000 will be allocated directly for student use. In terms of creating new internships, the Career Center has developed several techniques wherein administrators and other College leaders will work together to create new internship opportunities. Faculty members will also work to provide internships, either via programs that the faculty members themselves have created, or outside programs to which administrators can serve as liaisons. “High quality is [in] the interest of every-
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September 12, 2014
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body involved in this,” said Berman. “Unfortunately, there are too many internships that don’t sufficiently challenge and utilize Oberlin students.” He added that College President Marvin Krislov received a general announcement about Great Lakes’s internship program and “immediately brought it to [Berman’s] attention.” Berman said he was inspired to pursue this grant in part by the creation of the Class of 1965 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Internship Fund, which comprises a sum of $250,000 to be distributed over five years and which sponsored its first interns this past summer. Prior to the establishment of the Class of 1965 Internship Fund, the Career Center has made approximately $10,000 to $25,000 available for supporting students in pursuing unpaid career experiences. Taiyo Scanlon-Kimura, a senior Politics and East Asian Studies major, was one of the recipients of funding from the Class of 1965
Julia Liv Combe Herbst Allegra RoseKirkland Stoloff Managing editor Samantha Julian Ring Link News editors Elizabeth RosemaryDobbins Boeglin Madeline Alex Howard Stocker Opinions editor Will Rubenstein Sam White This Week Weekeditor editor Hazel Zoë Strassman Galloway Arts editors Jeremy Kara Reynolds Brooks Vida Georgia Weisblum Horn Sports editors Nate Quinn Levinson Hull Madeleine Tyler O’Meara Sloan Layout manager editors Tiffany Taylor Fung Field Layout editors Abigail Ben Garfinkel Carlstad Alanna TaliaSandoval Rodwin Photo editors Sarah Olivia Gericke Snider Photo editors Brannon Rockwell-Charland Mike Plotz Online editor Effie Alanna Kline-Salamon Bennett Editors-in-chief Editors-in-Chief
Internship Fund and spent the summer as an intern for the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies in Washington, D.C. Scanlon-Kimura, who is from Columbus, Ohio, said that he had spent his two previous summers living at home and working to save money. “[I] was determined to not be at home and to be financially stable,” said Scanlon-Kimura. While many administrators and applicants will select specific internship opportunities, a large bloc of internships will be arranged through a partnership between Oberlin and the Greater Cleveland Partnership. Berman plans to establish 10 to 15 internships with member organizations of the partnership. According to Berman, one of the major incentives for the Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation is to aid students in securing future employment, which will be instrumental in their ability to pay back their student loans.
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The Oberlin Review, September 12, 2014
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Off the Cuff: Ishmael Beah, OC ’04, best-selling author and human rights activist Human rights activist and Sierra Leonean author, Ishmael Beah, OC ’04, rose to fame with his best-selling memoir A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. One of the world’s leading advocates for children affected by war, Beah sat down with the Review to discuss his rehabilitation experience, the narrative structure of Mende, his native language and his perception of beauty. Obviously you’ve experienced more tragedy and brutality in the span of a few years than most people have in a lifetime, the kind of tragedy that most people would want to run from. What fueled your want — or need — to construct a memoir from your experiences? When I started writing it, it was more that I wanted to make sure that I was living in the United States and experiencing newer things. I felt that I wanted to document some of it, perhaps for when I had a child. It also started by the fact that I wanted to prepare myself to have a very elegant or succinct debate about what had happened if I had the opportunity, because there had been a few moments where I had a chance to speak, but I wasn’t prepared enough to say. With time, it became something that was more out of frustration of how my country, and the war that occurred there, and the issue of children and armed conflict was spoken of in the international media. I wanted to say something from somebody who had experienced it personally — to give the context that was missing. The Western media was more sensationalizing things; it was a way of speaking about it as though we all just wanted to be in this madness — that people just woke up one morning and they wanted a war. Even when my country was spoken about, it wasn’t that there was a Sierra Leone before the war, or things that led to the war. There was no way that we woke up one morning and said, “Let’s have a war today.” There were things that led to the war, and that context wasn’t presented. So for people who came to know my country through that, that’s all they knew. You’ve clearly had a lot of experience with child soldier rehabilitation services, both through your own personal experience and through your work with your foundation. What are some of the things that you’ve learned both through your own rehabilitation process, and subsequently through assisting the rehabilitation of others?
Ishmael Beah, OC ’04, former child soldier and best-selling author, gave a convocation this Tuesday titled “An Evening with Ishmael Beah.”
What I’ve learned is most important is that people have good intentions, to go to these places and want to assist. But often times they belittle the intelligence of the people they want to help. In the long run, they need to put structures in place that will allow people to continue the work that they start. Because when you go and try to rehabilitate, you have to do it in communities they’re coming from and create structures that will sustain themselves. If you don’t do that, then when you leave the whole thing will collapse. There hasn’t been much market research done to see how you provide opportunities to people coming from conflict, not just rehabilitating them psychologically. Because after that, what do they do with themselves? You need to talk to people to see how they can be a part of it, instead of imposing what you think they should be doing. For example, when I was coming out of the war, people would come and say, “We think everyone should be a mechanic or a plumber.” Well, OK, if somebody wants to be one, yes. But if you’re in a country that has no more than 10,000 cars and you’re training 20,000 people to become mechanics, that doesn’t fit. There’s a mistake when people think that when [others] come out of the war, they don’t know what they want, or they can’t think soundly. But you have experienced life enough to not want to waste any time. You’re intelligent enough to know what you want, because to survive war requires a lot of intelligence. I was reading a little bit about the narrative
Friday, Sept. 5
Thursday, Sept. 4 6 p.m. An officer on patrol observed a female skateboarding by the loading dock at the Conservatory. The female was advised of policies regarding skateboarding. The individual refused to provide identification and left the area. 10:59 p.m. Officers were requested to assist an intoxicated student at College and Main Street. An ambulance was requested and the student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.
9:21 p.m. Officers were requested to assist an individual visiting a student who was ill from alcohol consumption in the North Quad area. The individual was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment. 10:33 p.m. Officers responded to a report of vandalism to a washing machine in the basement laundry room at Firelands Apartments. The machine company was notified for repair.
Saturday, Sept. 6 8:47 a.m. An officer on patrol observed a large glass pipe and a
structure of Mende, your native language, which is inherently image-rich. Can you describe how growing up with this language may have influenced the way that you see the world, or how you tell stories? When you grow up in the culture, you don’t think it’s exceptional. It’s just what you do daily — just how people speak. It was only when I started trying to translate that into English that I thought it was beautiful. For example, how you say that you’re upset in Mende literally translates into saying that your heart is on fire. When you are upset, you feel that way. Or, for example, if you say that you are not upset anymore, you say that your heart is like cold water, because it means that your heart is normal temperature. There are things that are just part of the way we spoke. How you talk about a ball, you call it a nest of air. It’s never in our minds flowery — it’s just how we spoke, how things were. Because of the orality of how we tell stories, you don’t have them go back to read a sentence. You need to capture their imagination. I think the language has a lot of techniques to do that — of imagery, of things like that. So when I started writing, I would think in that language and try to find the English equivalent. That’s when I discovered that it was an advantage to me as a writer. You reference beauty continuously throughout your memoir. Can you speak to how your experiences with violence and brutality influenced your perception of beauty? I think for me, what I’ve seen is that often times we want to see things black or white, good
or bad. Beauty only exists when everybody’s laughing — absolutely not. Just like life, being alive or having life within you exists through hard times and through good times, so beauty exists, even in the most horrible things. It doesn’t die away completely. But you have to be able to see it. And sometimes you can see it more, because it’s the only thing that you can hold on to. So, for example, I think, during the war, I had moments when I stopped just to feel a breeze, and you realize it feels so good to feel a breeze because you nearly just got killed, and you appreciate it. So I think what happens is because you begin to realize how fragile moments are, you begin to slow down to appreciate it — the simplicity, the beauty of every action. There are also a lot of relationships that get formed in the war. It’s not just in my war, the civil war, because I was a kid — you talk to veterans from Vietnam, from Iraq, and they also tell you about brotherhood. Seeing the worst and the best of each other. When you see the worst and the best in each other you get to know them perhaps deeper than you would if they were your brother. There is beauty in all of these things. You’ve asked in other interviews how one can “move into the future while the past is still trying to pull at you.” How would you answer that question? In my case, what I’ve learned is to take lessons from the past. Don’t allow the negative aspects of it to weigh you down. So I take things that strengthen my character and then move on with it. When something happens to people, I think our natural response is to think that it’s all bad. And for a while, I did that, but I couldn’t function. Having been a child who fought in the war was horrible, but yet it strengthened my character. You know, I learned discipline, being in the army, and I used that in my studies. Because I knew how to sit somewhere for hours, and tell myself that I was going to focus and I won’t be distracted. I’m very observant. It’s something I learned from being a soldier, because you have to pay attention to details very quickly, otherwise things happen. And that helps me with my writing now. I can observe people very deep, and go just beyond what I’m seeing. So that’s how I use them.
lighter on a shelf of the common space in Harkness House. The pipe, which contained residue and an odor consistent with burnt marijuana, was turned over to the Oberlin Police Department. 2:45 p.m. A South Professor Street resident reported that the carbon monoxide detector had been activated in a Village house. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded and recorded a negative carbon monoxide reading. The batteries were changed and the detector was silenced.
to a reported large party at a village house on South Professor Street. The party was found to be unauthorized and guests were dispersed from inside the home and the outside area. 3:38 a.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at a Goldsmith apartment. Steam from the bathroom activated the detector just outside the door. The detector head was changed and the alarm reset.
Sunday, Sept. 7
4:45 p.m. A student staff member reported observing a bagged room smoke detector in Burton
12:25 a.m. Officers responded
Monday, Sept. 8
Interview by Madeline Stocker, News editor Photo by Effie Kline-Salamon, Photo editor
Hall. An officer responded, took a photograph and removed the bag. 9:20 p.m. A student reported the theft of an unlocked bicycle from Philips gym. The bicycle is a purple, black and silver mountain bike and is registered.
Tuesday, Sept. 9 4 p.m. Officers from the Oberlin Police Department responded to a 911 call of a physical assault in the area of Union and North Professor streets. A student had received injuries during a physical altercation with two non-College males. Police transported the student to Mercy Allen Hospital where he was treated and released.
News
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The Oberlin Review, September 12, 2014
After Years of Growth, MRC Revamps Office Space Elizabeth Dobbins News Editor The College renovated and expanded the Multicultural Resource Center this summer, providing more meeting spaces and individual offices in a response to the Center’s increased use over the past several years. “In general, we’re hoping we’re able to use it as a meeting space in a more efficient way,” said Alison Williams, associate dean for academic diversity and director of the MRC. The MRC, which serves as a collaborative hub for historically underrepresented communities, will continue its work to achieve this mission by providing trainings for campus groups and hosting events such as this past weekend’s community cookouts. “We find that the MRC is heavily used by all students, in particular the students in the various communities,” said Tina Zwegat, building representative of Wilder Hall. “Over the years it’s become kind of a hangout space. It’s also become a meeting space. It’s used so heavily and by so many people that giving them that extra space gave them the ability to [be more] comfortable.” Donnay Edmund, College third-year and 2013–2014 MRC facilitation and training associ-
Students convene at the 2014 Multicultural Resource Center New and Returning Student Open House. The event was held in the newly renovated MRC. Courtesy of Alison Williams
ate, hopes the renovation will create a space for more communities to enjoy. However, Edmund said she believes the new space is only part of the solution, and that funding also must be provided to hire community coordinators for native and indigenous, first-generation and disabled communities. “Renovation does not always mean addressing the root issues that the MRC needs funding for,” said Edmund in an email to the Review. “The
renovation is needed and useful; however, the needs [of] the space range far beyond just having a nicer space to be in.” The MRC has also been using the newly renovated Student Union kitchen across the hall, a space that Williams feels will aid the MRC in preparing for future events, such as the upcoming collaboration with Oberlin Hillel and the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life. The event will bring in writer and political commentator Jason A. Johnson to deliver a talk titled, “Racism, Politics, and Police Brutality: Ferguson and
Beyond.” Plans for the MRC’s renovation were brought to the Student Union Board in the spring of 2014, which proposed incorporating the neighboring room, Wilder 206, into the plans for the new space. The Student Union Board, in an effort to better fit the needs of student organizations, repurposed several student organization offices into storage spaces or general meeting rooms.
The square footage gained from this additional room resulted in an expansion of the MRC’s central area. In addition to the pre-existing couch space, the MRC now has a meeting area with a table and a projector for presentations. Providing community coordinators with individual offices was a priority for the renovation. Previously, two community coordinators shared each MRC office, which made it difficult for students to consult privately with the coordinators. “But now each community coordinator has their own office, so there’s a little more privacy,” said Williams. “It’s just a brighter space. It’s more user-friendly in general.” The MRC has also been working to introduce new students to the MRC’s resources through the Africana Cookout, Asian Pacific Islander Diaspora Cookout and Latino/a Cookout this past weekend. “[The cookouts were] for people to get to know each other, to get to know the MRC,” said Williams. “It’s open to all students on campus. Whatever staff are there, we introduced them so people can know what their resources are. All the student groups get to introduce themselves to what they do. So it’s a way for especially new students to learn what things are going on and to socialize.”
Students, Faculty Express Skepticism Over Strategic Plan Continued from page 1 decisions, and even during the downturn, we used it to guide a lot of what we did.” Certain student leaders are also skeptical as to how heavily the Strategic Plan influences the administration’s decisions in regards to financial, educational and political action. While Howell maintains that the report was “never referred to,” College junior, Student Senate Liaison and committee member Machmud Makhmudov said he believes that the plan is one of the administration’s larger influences. “I’ve heard from multiple board members that that’s the document that they reference whenever they make decisions at board meetings. They always look back at the language [in the Strategic Plan],” said Makhmudov.
According to Howell, there have been few attempts to bring to fruition some of the specific initiatives listed in the last Strategic Plan that were important to the faculty. “There is a specific target in the 2005 Strategic Plan to improve faculty salaries. In the period between the discussion and last year, faculty salaries relative to our peers fell from just below the median to near the bottom of the list,” said Howell. “As of last year,” Howell continued, “the trustees did come up with a plan for improving faculty salaries, which is now in place.” Other goals in the 2005 Strategic Plan appear not to have been realized. The past plan proposes reducing total student enrollment to 2,720 by 2010, but the 2014 academic year saw a total student enrollment of 2,930, according to Forbes magazine.
Eugene Tobin presents a talk titled “The Future of Liberal Arts Colleges.” The event, a part of the Strategic Plan Speaker Series, explored the current state of higher education. Mike Plotz
President Krislov said he believes this discrepancy was largely unavoidable. “How can Oberlin plan for a future that’s inherently unpredictable?” Krislov said. “The challenge is if you don’t think about 10, 20 years out, you
Coalition Develops Program to Combat Sexual Assault Continued from page 2 in Noah are already used to doing, and by doing that we can hopefully improve our program through seeing different perspectives.” After it initiates the training, the coalition will work to create a network of peacekeepers, students trained not only to be aware of their surroundings, but also to intervene if necessary. “The goal is that everyone on campus is trained to be a bystander, and knows what to look out for, but not everyone is going to be a peacekeeper and know how to intervene and what to do,” said De Feis. For Custer, an effective peacekeeper is one who is passionate about making campus safer for their peers. “We’re aiming to have a wide web of people interested in being peacekeepers that could help facilitate safety and comfort, and people that
would be able to utilize that resource,” said Custer. Regardless of the details of the coming techniques, the training curriculum will be written specifically for Oberlin, De Feis said. “We’re developing a curriculum that works for Oberlin based on things that we’ve seen that have been problems at Oberlin,” said De Feis. “So it’s new, but it’s based on tried and true practices.” College junior Sandia Ashley, who is also involved in planning the training, sees the program as a needed expansion of the policies already in place. “So this is — along with the other changes being made with the sexual misconduct policy — one of the other ways we can improve the systems that are already in place, and add more aspects that can reach more members of the community and help our community to be safer,” she said.
could be accused of being not very thoughtful or not very analytical. On the other hand, you could say the future is so unpredictable. At least it feels like the future is very different from what we have today.” While the current members of the
planning committee were hesitant to discuss its details, they did express a desire for more correspondence with the student body. “We’re going to make a very active effort to reach out to students and have their input, particularly after the first meeting,” said Makhmudov. “Somewhere down the line there will be smaller working groups, and I [think] that students will have some kind of way to get on those,” he said. For Crowell, this type of student involvement is vital. “We need to be more attuned to institutional policy and get involved,” Crowell said. “So often it’s a reaction — the College passes something that’s very widely unpopular and there’s a reaction. But there has to be something proactive if we’re going to try to make Oberlin a more economically accessible place.”
Opinions The Oberlin Review
September 12, 2014
Letters to the Editors Albino Squirrel IllSuited as Mascot To the Editors: I am afraid that Oberlin College has lost sight of the importance of its motto, “Learning and Labor.” As of January 2014, the Athletics department added an albino squirrel as a mascot to supplement our pre-existing mascot, the Yeoman or Yeowoman. The albino squirrel started appearing on team uniforms, and one can even buy shirts with the trendy logo at the bookstore. It’s now apparent that the Yeoman has been moved to the back burner and a cuter face has taken its place. Unfortunately, the decision to add the squirrel was made without much student involvement. If the student body was considered, I am sure that the change would have been vetoed. In fact, I, along with many other student-athletes and parents, signed a petition in an attempt to prevent the squirrel mascot. I believe that recently hired staff members and eager donors, who lack an understanding of school history and values, are responsible for the decision. The squirrel, it seems, is most popular among teams with new coaches and younger students who don’t know any better. Whatever the reason, the albino squirrel has no place as our school’s brand — it doesn’t represent our student body. Many would agree that the albino squirrel has become a played-out Oberlin cliché. The squirrel was once only a curious feature of Tappan Square — a mystery at which students would marvel and in which they would take pride. As the younger brother of a student enrolled then, I have noticed how my brother’s and his friends’ reactions to the squirrel are extremely different to those of the current student body. That pride they shared dissolved as the school started overusing it in its admissions and communications, putting squirrels on stickers, brochures and elsewhere. What was once a relatable symbol is now a commonplace marketing scheme, laughed at by students who are just plain bored with it. I like the albino squirrels, and
their spirit still lingers with me, even though that is a relatively uncommon feeling these days. The decision to add this mascot, however, is a step too far. I am a fourth-year player on the varsity men’s soccer team. Much of what I have experienced as a studentathlete relates to the experience of a Yeoman. The Yeoman was a farmer who took responsibility for a small amount of land. It was also the name for the warders who guarded the Tower of London. To me, it represents dedication to hard work, individuality and loyalty. Moreover, the Yeoman is a unique mascot — no other school uses it. It may be that the Athletics department wanted to give a visual with which students could identify. The Yeoman is not easy to picture — it represents a class of people and therefore doesn’t have a distinct face. But I don’t think this anonymity detracts from its use as a mascot. A Yeoman or Yeowoman can be anyone, but not necessarily one person. Rather, it represents a set of values. Regrettably, the school has failed in promoting our true mascot. –Remington Schneider College senior
Retiring Student Senator Offers Advice To the Editors: Welcome/welcome back, Obies! Hope you’re getting (back) into the swing of things. I’m Aaron (or Appel), and since last fall, I’ve been one of your student senators. Before I start rambling about Senate, I want to say that I’m not speaking on behalf of the group itself, but just telling you how I feel — after all, by the end of the month, I’ll be retired anyway. I’m writing here in the hopes of convincing you to run for Student Senate by giving you my two cents about the job. As a bit of background, senators have an array of responsibilities. Aside from weekly plenaries and office hours, we each hold one or more office positions. These include running outreach to students, planning
events, liaising with the city of Oberlin and much more. One critical thing we do is serve on and appoint students to the multitude of General Faculty, Arts and Sciences, Conservatory and entirely student-run committees at Oberlin. Students can make some of their greatest impacts in this place by serving on committees and formulating their policies. If that interests you, email us (senate@oberlin.edu) to learn more! We also run a number of working groups, which don’t require an official appointment. You just say, “I think this sounds interesting. Let me join,” and you’re in. There are a number of issues we deal with, such as student health and sustainable transportation, so visit our website to learn more and email us with your interest. The biggest thing I want to share though — and, speaking from personal experience, often the hardest to grasp — is that on Senate you have to be a representative of the Oberlin student body. You need to advocate for students and work hard to make sure that everybody in our community (not necessarily just the College!) shares an equitable space at the decision-making table. So, here’s what I’m hoping from you: I hope you (as the collective group of students intending on running) are motivated, compassionate (be it for general humanity or the specific communities you love and identify with) and representative of diverse backgrounds and perspectives. I also hope you can resolve your conflicts through careful dialogue. Finally, I hope you don’t just want something “impressive” on your résumé, because those who are not truly interested in doing this for any reason other than the title will not enjoy their experience, much less be a representative in any sense of the word. Of course, this is by no means meant to dissuade new Obies or those unsure of where their passions lie here from running and/or participating in student government, because ultimately the experience can be incredibly rewarding. If you’ve got an open mind for different perspectives, See Letters, page 6
SUBMISSIONS POLICY The Oberlin Review appreciates and welcomes letters to the editors and column submissions. All submissions are printed at the discretion of the editorial board. All submissions must be received by Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at opinions@oberlinreview.org or Wilder Box 90 for inclusion in the following Friday’s Review. Letters may not exceed 600 words and columns may not exceed 800 words, except with the consent of the Editorial Board. All submissions must include contact information, with full names, for all signers. All electronic submissions from multiple writers should be carbon-copied to all signers to confirm authorship. The Review reserves the right to edit all submissions for content, space, spelling, grammar and libel. Editors will work with columnists and contributors to edit pieces and will clear major edits with the authors prior to publication. Editors will contact authors of letters to the editors in the event of edits for anything other than style and grammar. In no case will editors change the opinions expressed in any submission. The Opinions section strives to serve as a forum for debate. Review staff will occasionally engage in this debate within the pages of the Review. In these cases, the Review will either seek to create dialogue between the columnist and staff member prior to publication or will wait until the next issue to publish the staff member’s response. The Review will not print advertisements on its Opinions pages. The Review defines an advertisement as any submission that has the main intent of bringing direct monetary gain to the author of a letter to the editors. Opinions expressed in letters, columns, essays, cartoons or other Opinions pieces do not necessarily reflect those of the staff of the Review.
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The Oberlin Review Publication of Record for Oberlin College — Established 1874 —
Editors-in-Chief Julia Herbst Rose Stoloff Managing Editor Julian Ring Opinions Editor Sam White
College Rankings Devalue Breadth of Knowledge, Ignore Human Element The days are getting shorter and crisper, and right on schedule, a host of disillusioned columnists are beginning to attack this year’s quantification of the unquantifiable. On Tuesday, US News & World Report released the 2015 edition of its widely acclaimed annual rankings of the nation’s best colleges; after a three-place uptick from last year, Oberlin College now rests at number 23 of all “National Liberal Arts Colleges.” Like its competitors, the list takes a number of factors into account, many of them quantitative rather than qualitative, and year after year, these reports generate inevitable controversy. The Review published an editorial last September, “Education More Than Return on Investment” (Sept. 27, 2013), that questioned the merit of financial- and earnings-based measures when ranking liberal arts colleges. The disagreements surrounding methodology, however, keep students’ and parents’ attention fixated on these rankings, even though the most carefully-designed numeric measures of each institution’s worth may be missing a broader point. What gets left out when deciding which colleges are “best” and which are “worst” is, in a word, us — the student body. In a Sept. 6 op-ed in The New York Times titled “Demanding More from College,” columnist Frank Bruni called out the narrowness of the public conversation about college worth, criticizing the relentless focus on rapid career achievement post-graduation. The limited scope of discourse, he said, drives students to attend highly-ranked colleges and universities only to surround themselves with the familiar, whether by deepening their knowledge only in the subjects that piqued their interest in high school, or by forging networks of friends and contacts that closely mirror those they already had. The Review’s Editorial Board could not agree more. Here at Oberlin, students are fortunate to have a rich variety of resources available to them. However, beyond professors, libraries, performance spaces and the like, we, the students, are one of Oberlin’s most valuable resources. We’re also the resource that is perhaps most frequently overlooked. Oberlin is made up of students from a broad variety of backgrounds, but, to quote Bruni, we’re “attending college in the context not only of a country with profound financial anxieties, but of a country with homogeneous neighborhoods, a scary preoccupation with status and microclimates of privilege.” Amid the various reports, one periodical whose college ranking list rivals that of US News for attention, at least among students, is The Onion, the fake news outlet whose satirical list placed Oberlin third. Amid harsh satirical jabs at Oberlin, including a cissexist remark, one ranking category stands out — “Free Speech Acceptance: Oberlin has a rich legacy of allowing students to vocalize opinions everyone around them already agrees with.” The truth in The Onion’s criticism is not that everyone on Oberlin’s campus shares the same views — they certainly do not — but that students here, like students at so many schools, self-sort into familiar subgroups, failing to expose themselves to the divergent viewpoints and philosophies that surround them. Bruni’s advice: “Mix it up.” That might mean deleting “one of every four [web browser] bookmarks” and instead following “publications, blogs and people whose views diverge from your own,” or — perhaps most importantly — breaking out of the social and academic circles that impede us from exploring the breadth of knowledge that Oberlin has to offer. At the Review, we’re uniquely situated to do just that. Reporting See Editorial, page 6
Editorials are the responsibility of the Review Editorial Board — the Editors-in-Chief, managing editor and Opinions editor — and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the Review.
Opinions
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The Oberlin Review, September 12, 2014
On Radiolab, Privileged Voices Prevail Lisa-Qiao MacDonald and Tanya Tran
Radiolab: dedicated to curiosity, storytelling and getting to the “fact of the matter.” What does it look like, though, when the search for “truth” — supposedly objective and just — ends up privileging certain voices and narratives over others? It looks like Western people speaking over marginalized communities. It looks like disrespect. It looks like the suppression of untold histories. It looks like Radiolab’s segment called “Yellow Rain.” Justin Eckstein offers the following summary in an article titled “Yellow Rain and the Sound of the Matter: Kalia Yang’s Sonorous Objection to Radiolab”: “Released on September 24, 2012 as part of the episode titled, ‘The Fact of the Matter,’ the 20-minute segment ‘Yellow Rain’ recounted the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of the Hmong by the Viet Cong and the Pathet Lao after the United States left Vietnam and the subsequent debates surrounding the chemical weapon called ‘yellow rain.’ The episode pitted the witnessing of Eng Yang, a survivor and documenter of the genocide — whom producer Pat Walters describes as the ‘Hmong guy’ at one point — and
his niece, award-winning writer Kao Kalia Yang — referred to only as ‘Kalia’ by hosts Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad — against the research of university scientists and the relentless questioning of Krulwich.” What this university research and relentless questioning led to was the proclaimed “truth” that the Hmong did not experience chemical warfare — that what the Hmong claim to be yellow rain was nothing more than bee poop. Krulwich went so far as to claim that Eng Yang’s experience was “hearsay,” and the interview ends with Kao Kalia Yang on the brink of tears: “My uncle says for the last 20 years, he didn’t know that anybody was interested in the deaths of the Hmong people. … He agreed because you were interested. That the story would be heard and that the Hmong deaths would be documented and recognized. That’s why he agreed to the interview, that the Hmong heart is broken, that our leaders have been silenced, and what we know has been questioned again and again is not a surprise to him or to me. I agreed to the interview for the same reason, that Radiolab was interested in the Hmong story, that they were interested in documenting the deaths that happened. There was so much that was
not told. Everybody knows that chemical warfare was being used. How do you create bombs if not with chemicals? We can play the semantics game. We can, but I am not interested and my uncle is not interested. We have lost too much heart and too many people in the process. I, I think the interview is done.” There are many things Radiolab could have done to make this segment better. Abumrad and Krulwich could have properly introduced their guests — Eng Yang was an official radio man and documenter of the Hmong experience for the Thai government — instead of (beyond pure disrespect by referring to Yang as “Hmong guy”) framing them in a way that lent no credibility to their truths. Krulwich and Abumrad could have listened and made room for the possibility of an alternative narrative. Radiolab could have practiced responsible journalism in its actions leading up to the interview, the handling of the interview itself and through its subsequent responses following public outcry and Kao Kalia Yang’s written response, “The Science of Racism: Radiolab’s Treatment of Hmong Experience.” (For a more complete understanding of what went down, please read this essay!) Even when Radiolab had the
chance to right some of its wrongs through written responses and post-production edits, there was still much left to be desired. In the words of writer Matthew Salesses in an article titled “Radiolab Update: Privilege in the Podcast, Hope in the Comments,” the show kept “focusing its response, like the podcast,
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“Objectivity,” “logic” and “truth” — these are concepts that act as excuses for Radiolab to inflict violence and cast doubt upon a community’s collective and already painful memory. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– on the supposed fact of bee poop, when what is making people so angry is that the bee poop is the focus of the show, is the focus forced upon the interviewees, when the real focus here should be on the story the Hmong tell of the suffering they underwent, of the GENOCIDE and their experience, whether the Yellow Rain turned out to be the exact chemical killing them or not.” “Objectivity,” “logic” and “truth” — these
are concepts that act as excuses for Radiolab to inflict violence and cast doubt upon a community’s collective and already painful memory. Radiolab is wildly popular. The show’s hosts, as many people on this campus already know, are Oberlin alumni and will be giving a convocation next week on Sept. 19, almost exactly two years after “Yellow Rain” aired. Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich are two educated, liberal men, who are popular amongst educated, liberal people. But we must reflect on the difference between intent and impact. There is more to the story — again, read Kao Kalia Yang’s response, referenced above. This is not a boycott; these words are not coming from people who want to “complain for the sake of complaining.” (So often is this the response when a group speaks out on something about which they are passionate.) We want the Oberlin community to be informed, and we hope all can see why this is relevant to not only the Asian and Pacific Islander Diaspora community, but also the community at large. Let this incident inform how you may approach and interpret what a person says, no matter from whom it comes, what their proclaimed politic is or from what school they graduated.
Celebrities Bring Rebranded Editorial: Student Journalism Enhances Liberal Arts Education Feminism to Pop Culture Continued from page 5 on a story provides students an opportunity to step outside comfort zones and explore areas of campus and town life they might otherwise never experience. Often, we joke that working on the Review is like taking an extra course, due not only to the long hours, but also because of its inherently topical and fluid syllabus. More than a few staff members say they have learned more from participating in campus journalism than they have in any designated course. In spite of our desire for breadth as well
as depth, the editorial choices the Review makes are limited by the narrowness of our own perspectives. Despite our efforts to push the boundaries of our reporting, our representation of community events is inevitably imperfect. This year, the Review strives to do better. We’re challenging ourselves to identify and address bias throughout our organization’s structure and to create an institution on campus that reflects more viewpoints and outlooks. At 140 years old, the Review is still learning to make the most of the space it occupies at Oberlin, and it’s got a long way to go — but that’s what college is all about.
Letters to the Editors, Cont. Continued from page 5 regardless of your own background, if you’re willing to be challenged by others and if you look for and foster this dynamic as soon as you first take your seats, Senate will be awesome this year. Above all, Senate will be as safe for everyone as it can be. I hope some of you take to heart what I’ve said. It might seem like I’m taking this too seriously (and if you know me in person, that might be surprising), but there’s a large degree of institutional power that a united and hard-working Senate can wield. And I want to emphasize that this power should be used to make this school more safe and accessible for everyone. At the end of the day, Oberlin is a microcosm of the world outside, and a place where we can re-eval-
uate what good government means. –Aaron Appel College senior
WRLC Thanks Day of Service Volunteers To the Editors: I’d like to thank Oberlin College Grounds Department, the Bonner Center for Service and Learning and the dozen or so freshmen and supervisor students for the hard work and tools they provided to transform the wooded park area behind Kahn Hall on the Day of Service during Labor Day weekend. Over the past four or five years, students have worked with the Western Reserve Land Conservancy and other community neighbors
battling the invasive buckthorn, planting trees and native wildflowers and turning the wooded area behind Kahn into an arboretum. Come and see for yourself how nice the area is coming along! Late summer and fall are the nicest time to experience this wooded natural area owned by the College. It is right in your backyard. There are now some places for students to sit and enjoy the natural surroundings. If you would like to volunteer to help this ongoing project, please contact Kate Pilacky at kpilacky@wrlandconservancy.org. One of the next projects is to plant native wildflowers near the entrance path along the driveway behind Kahn. Thanks again and have a great school year! –Kate Pilacky Western Reserve Land Conservancy
Maggie Menditto Contributing Writer In an August interview with The Guardian, Taylor Swift “came out” as a feminist in mainstream media: “As a teenager, I didn’t understand that saying you’re a feminist is just saying that you hope women and men will have equal rights and equal opportunities. For so long it’s been made to seem like something where you’d picket against the opposite sex, whereas it’s not about that at all.” This declaration has come on the heels of Swift’s deliberate rebranding of her public image. Four days before The Guardian published this account of the artist’s “feminist awakening,” Swift premiered her number one hit single “Shake It Off ” and announced the release date of her long-awaited fifth album. Swift has gone so far as to weave traces of her newfound beliefs into the promotion of her forthcoming record. In a statement for the same article, Swift said, “I really resent the idea that if a woman writes about her feelings, she has too many feelings.” With the buzz around Taylor Swift at an all-time high, her ideological shift into the feminist arena surely won’t be overlooked. As an artist notorious for rebranding her aesthetic every few years, Swift’s legions of fans are accustomed to redefining their expectations and tastes accordingly. In bringing such an accessible definition of feminism to the forefront of popular culture, Swift is also fighting against the common mischaracterizations of the movement that many women in the spotlight hold. Fearful of alienating fans, many female entertainers in the past have chosen not to associate with the term, instead adding to the historical misconception of feminists as radical man-haters. In her performance at the 2014 Video Music Awards, Beyoncé solidified her position at the forefront of the recent celebrity feminist movement. During the 15-minute medley of songs from her eponymous album, Beyoncé stood at the center of the stage with the word “FEMINIST” glowing behind her silhouetted
frame as a sample from Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk, “Why We Should All Be Feminists,” played overhead. The sample, originally included on the track “***Flawless,” from the same album, features Adichie defining a feminist as as someone who “believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes.” While celebrity feminism has raised awareness concerning the foundation of the movement, it is important that this heightened national consciousness come hand-inhand with productive education and action. With celebrities like Swift and Beyoncé serving as the torchbearers for millions of pop culture consumers, many young fans may be compelled to follow their examples weakly and blindly and to allow this opportunity for discussion to pass by. Although the mainstream popularization of feminism is inherently positive, we must be wary of oversimplifying such a complex issue. The fight for gender equality cannot be compressed into a sound bite or a headline. In an impassioned think piece for The Guardian, author and cultural critic Roxane Gay rails against the nationwide rhetoric surrounding the nude celebrity photos leaked last month: “What these people are doing is reminding women that, no matter who they are, they are still women. They are forever vulnerable.” Incidents like this have become almost expected and trivialized in popular culture. Such invasions of privacy are overwhelmingly targeted at women, telling the victims that they are to blame, that they should feel shamed. This is a large-scale illustration of just one of the many commonplace examples of misogyny and prejudice seen and felt on a daily basis. We don’t all need to be perfect feminists. Celebrities have brought the term to the airwaves and in doing so opened the door to conversation. With so much left to achieve in the fight for gender equality, it would be disappointing to see this rising societal consciousness fade away with the end of an artist’s marketing campaign.
Opinions
The Oberlin Review, September 12, 2014
Putin’s Government Prioritizes Russian State at Expense of People Andrew Fedorov Contributing Writer Since the early 1940s, my grandfather has kept track of the price of bread. During the Second World War, while living in Chelyabinsk, a major industrial city in Russia’s Ural Mountains, he starved to the point of puffing up. Since then, he has tracked the state of the world by checking how his local market prices its bread. While he spent a few months in Moscow this summer, his indicator swung in a disturbing direction. Food prices shot up with a 7.5 percent increase in July and another 7.6 percent in August. Unlike with previous increases, he could not explain the spike in prices with any of the free market operations that he’s been trying to understand for the last two decades. This time, it was fully explained by direct government action. As part of his retaliatory sanctions, President Vladimir Putin banned the import of Western foods into Russia. This failed to substantially impact Western economies and simply reduced the quality of life for Russians. This latest government strike against the Russian people indicates the governing philosophy of Putin’s government. Innumerable times, the government has demonstrated its belief that the power of the state is of the utmost importance and the welfare and lives of the people is of no importance at all. We can see this attitude in the recent disrespectful unmarked burials in small villages of Russian soldiers who died fighting in the Ukrainian conflict, which itself is a merciless power game from Putin’s perspective. But the most poignant and typical instance of the enactment of Putin’s policy happened in late October in 2002, when a group of young terrorists from Chechnya (incidentally, another area where Putin’s lust for state power has violently struck down the principle of self-determination) took a theater filled with Moscow musical enthusiasts hostage. After refusing to negotiate with the terrorists for three days, Russian special forces used underground passages to fill the theater with sleeping gas. It failed to immediately knock out the terrorists, and though hostages reported that they were aware of the gas, mysteriously, no bombs went off. Special forces executed the sleeping terrorists with shots to the head and evacuated the sleeping hostages. Unfortunately, they took less care in evacuating the victims than in the executions and laid the hostages on their backs, where they were allowed to drown in their own vomit. In the end, a few halfhearted terrorists were stopped,
130 innocent Russians died and Putin’s government news channels played it off as a success. This philosophy is, of course, not unique to Putin’s government. Russian leaders, from Ivan the Terrible to Stalin, have long undervalued the lives of their citizens, and the life expectancy of Russians has long been abysmal. Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen recently wrote in The New York Review of Books that “with the exception of two brief periods — when Soviet Russia was ruled by Khrushchev and again when it was run by Gorbachev — death rates have been inexorably rising. This continued to be true even during the period of unprecedented economic growth between 1999 and 2008.” She additionally wrote that “male life expectancy at age 15 in Russia compares unfavorably to that in Ethiopia, Gambia and Somalia.” Life is becoming unsustainable in Russia. A few weeks ago, while staying in a pilgrim hostel in a small coastal town of Spain’s Galicia province, I discovered that one of the volunteers who ran the hostel was Russian. She told me that she was from Saint Petersburg and that while walking the Camino de Santiago, she had decided to stop in this small town because she couldn’t handle the stress of events at home and the way they permeated every aspect of life. She had been living and working illegally in Spain for three months because there, unlike in Russia, she said she “felt like a human being.” In a rabidly capitalist, inegalitarian society, which Russia most certainly is (it has one of the world’s largest numbers of billionaires, one of the smallest numbers of millionaires and rampant poverty), the common man, who is by definition poor, is not considered to be of any importance because he is of no significance as a consumer. It is an obvious and widely acknowledged fact that Russia is not a de facto democracy. The consequences of this fact, however, are that the common man is even further devalued. When a man is not worth a vote to a politician, he is worth nothing. When the most powerful politician in an undemocratic country continues to hold to the principle of power at any cost, the cost is inevitably the people. As we have seen time and again, Putin is willing to pay this price, and thus, seemingly unwittingly, he is putting in place the factors that will one day be used to explain a war, a revolution, or, at the very least, his loss of power. All this he does in the name of power, because he fails to understand that a state is not made up of rocks, rivers and mountains. It is not made up of Crimean lands or even a full circle on a pie chart of power. It is made up of people.
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Progressive Passions Define Archetypal Oberlin Student CJ Blair Contributing Writer During a college-visit odyssey throughout the Midwest during my junior year of high school, my family decided there was time to tour a school that wasn’t on our list: Oberlin College. My mom had thrown her back out that morning, and we knew Oberlin was well out of our price range, so we were pretty close-minded about the excursion. But at the end of the tour, after seeing the Adam Joseph Lewis Center and hearing about Science Fiction Hall declaring war on Fantasy Hall, it was official: I was going to do everything in my power to go to this school. Now that I’m enrolled at my dream college, I’m faced with a unique and intriguing question: What is an Oberlin student? As a first-year, I may be one of the least qualified people to provide an answer to this, but at the same time I’ve yet to become so invested in and knowledgeable about the campus that I can’t provide an objective view. So let’s give this a shot. First off, I was reasonably surprised to find that many students here aren’t what I considered archetypal Obies. On some level, I guess I assumed that all Oberlin students looked, dressed and acted like the same breed of ultra-liberal, pot-smoking hippies. That is in no way a condemnation of hippies, but I must’ve been expecting Oberlin’s purported diversity to encompass just racial and ethnic diversity. I had no idea that a community could lean so far left and still have room to represent such a wide variety of social groups. So how does a college that represents so many different people manage to radiate such progressive vibes? Again, I’m new to this place, and I’m sure I’ll learn more later. At this point, though, I think it requires a lofty analogy explaining what it means to be liberal. Answers to the question of “What is liberal?” will vary (and maybe include a furrowed brow and a trembling upper lip) depending on who you ask. In most popular contexts it refers to leaning left on the political spectrum — which Oberlin does, perhaps aggressively so. But I’m inclined to say that being liberal permeates deeper than voting for Democrats and advocating healthcare reform. Nor is that to say that everyone at Oberlin is liberal, but with this analogy, I’ll try to define what an Oberlin student is, rather than what a liberal is. It goes something like this: To be liberal is to stand on the threshold of everything that has ever happened and everything that hasn’t, then leaning your body towards the latter to see what you find. Sounds pretty abstract put that way, but of course that metaphor neglects to mention how trying it is to be at the front of a movement and to support it gung-ho with the unshakable knowledge that it may totally fail. If it sounds like I’m trying to glorify liberalism, that’s because… well, I am. I think there’s always something to learn from traversing uncharted waters, and having the capacity to at least acknowledge the merits of a new idea is one heck of a practical skill. This is where Oberlin comes in. Even though it’s perhaps the most liberal college in the country, Oberlin still has its fair share of jocks, geeks, quasi-fraternity guys and even conservatives. The difference here is that almost — if not every — student has at least one thing they are immensely passionate about to which they apply their impressive intelligence and energy. Even if not everyone is the most environmental, most pro-choice or most globally-minded person, it’s almost certain that someone here is, and the sum of all that activist zeal is what makes this place special. It’s only the second week of classes, of course, and these are opinions I’m making very early in the game. I have no doubt that they’ll change, and I’ll be quite disappointed if they don’t. Until then, I hope to take advantage of the resources available and have one heck of a good time, too. My girlfriend told me that coming here would teach me how to be a good liberal. Already, I can tell that she was right.
Paul Criticizes Obama Policy Without Offering Alternative Machmud Makhmudov Contributing Writer Summer wasn’t the only thing bringing the heat for the Obama administration this summer. The midterm elections — deeply implicated by the beginning of unofficial auditions for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination — have bolstered Republican attacks against the president. Furthermore, a number of concurrent foreign policy crises have soured public opinion of America’s standing in the world, damaging President Obama’s approval rating and enabling Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) — widely thought to be a candidate for president in 2016 — to unleash a number of attacks on the current administration. From the effective disintegration of the border between Ukraine and Russia, to a perceived distancing from our ally Israel, to the chaos caused by ISIS in the Middle East, President Obama’s administration has faced an onslaught of criticism from right-wing
politicians and pundits, including Paul. However, exploring the alternative courses of action that Senator Paul has offered — most prominently in a TIME opinion piece dated Sept. 4 — reveals that the foreign policy divide between him and Democratic leaders isn’t as deep as his fiery political rhetoric suggests. Writing in TIME, Senator Paul criticizes President Obama for a lack of “vision” and prescribes “airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria … arm[ing] and aid[ing] capable and allied Kurdish fighters … [and] help[ing] reinforce Israel’s Iron Dome protection against missiles.” A number of Republicans and Democrats agree with those ideas. Unfortunately for Paul, one of them is President Obama. Having had authorized ongoing airstrikes in Iraq, Obama recently revealed plans to extend airstrikes to Syria as part of a broader campaign to defeat ISIS. Al Jazeera America reported on Aug. 11 that the State Department and the CIA
had assisted in “facilitat[ing] weapons deliveries from the Iraqis to the Kurds.” And, following passage by the House and Senate, President Obama signed a bill authorizing the allocation of $225 million in emergency aid to Israel in order to bolster its Iron Dome military system. In light of these facts, it appears that Paul’s criticism is nothing more than political posturing against the Obama administration as he pivots toward 2016. As President Obama’s approval ratings dwindle down toward the low forties, a number of potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates are doing everything to throw the GOP base red meat in anticipation of the 2015 primary season. Paul’s stature as a quasi-libertarian positions him uniquely in the Republican pack. If, as is widely assumed, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seeks and captures the Democratic nomination for the presidency, her profile as a national security hawk would paint a strong contrast be-
tween her and Paul, who is generally known for his more dovish, non-interventionist tone. A ClintonPaul general election would have the potential to fundamentally reshape the national electoral map, given his appeal among millennials and tar–––––––––––––––––––––––––––
A number of Republicans and Democrats agree with those ideas. Unfortunately for [Rand] Paul, on of them is President Obama. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––– geted outreach to racial minorities, two groups that have eluded the GOP in national elections for the past 40 years. Before potentially facing Clinton in a general election, Senator Paul would first have to make it through an extremely competitive GOP primary that
will likely feature more than a dozen candidates. Given the mood of the nation following the emergence of ISIS, national security hawks — including most prominently Senator Ted Cruz, a one-time Paul ally — will find a base that is very receptive to their arguments during the nominating season. Furthermore, the base may be turned off by Paul’s inconsistency between interventionism and isolationism. While at one time calling to cut off all aid to Israel and retracting America from a prominent role in global affairs, Paul is now scurrying back to the right to win favor with primary voters. Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president in 2012, is widely thought to have lost due to a lack of core beliefs. The same critique could be applied to Paul. While the approaching primary season may further clarify what Senator Paul actually believes in terms of a foreign policy philosophy, one thing is very clear at the moment — he’ll say and do anything to be president.
e m o c l e W CLASS OF
shifts have partially contributed to this, along with the advent and wider use of the common application.
30%
t
somethin s a g
tw
“I do think it’s kind of surprising, the split between the College and the town. Just because the College tries so hard to make a community encompassing both, and I feel like to some extent there’s still a strange split.”
W h a
– Sarah Purow-Ruderman
College first-year
So
uth
9%
“There’s actually more diversity of thought than I was expecting. … I want people to challenge my thoughts and views so that I understand myself and life, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much of that I’ve been getting here.”
S o ut
4%
“I didn’t expect to love the campus as much as I do, when I first got onto campus; now I think it’s really beautiful, and I love being outside.”
“I would say the heat. I mean, I knew that the summer and early fall was going to be hot, but I was not expecting to be constantly fanning myself.” – Josh Ben-Ami College first-year
– Hannah Frith College first-year
Barrows Hall Kahn Hall
– Lauren Distler College first-year
“I just love how fun people are! We have signs in our bathrooms that say ‘Treat it as if Beyoncé is waiting in line to come after you’ or whatever, and ‘Ryan Gosling wants you to pick up your hair’… and I’m on the frisbee team, and people are just so goofy and hilarious, I love it.”
Dascomb Hall
– Caroline Beshers College first-year
p
ants lic
2,094
1,05
397
1
136
C 38
722 Enrolled Numbers are approximate
a nt s
ollege Ap
Admitted
lic pp
6,0
606 high schools represented 22% American ethnic minorities 63% public school students 36% enrolled early decision Most popular majors (from Common App): Biology, English, Psychology, Creative Writing, Environmental Studies, History 2014–2015 combined costs: $61,778 (up 36% from 2007)
A
STATS
t tla n i c
2018!
rvatory
58% Female
d wes
19%
Interview and photo by Hazel Galloway, This Week editor
42% Male
14%
nd
Mi
w En
g la
8%
o n al
17%
a ti
We st
Ne
n se
Immigration and Our Southern Border: An Orthodox Christian Perspective Friday, Sept. 12, 7–8 p.m. Wilder 101 Padre Antonio shares his first-hand knowledge of what has been called a “humanitarian crisis” near the Mexican border. Using his experience as a parish priest and missionary in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Haiti, and Guatemala, he will speak about what the border situation means not only for Christians, but for all Americans.
– Rachel Swack College first-year
In ter n
Co
CALENDAR
“The language that people use here — I thought that back home I spoke in a very politically correct way, and I got here, and there were so many things which I said that I never realized were offensive until somebody mentioned it here.”
t
Do you think trends like this point to the College inevitably becoming more selective? DC: It’s hard to know. I have a long history here — 26 years. When I first came to Oberlin, we were admitting close to 70 percent of the students who applied to Arts and Sciences and drawing in the range of 3,330 to 3,600 applications. Now, we admit about one third and attract about 6,100–6,200. Also, about 20 years ago only one in four [admitted students] — 25 percent — said yes to Oberlin, and the early decision plan was very small, meaning that around 15 percent of the class came from first-choice applications. This was not unusual in the Midwest; that was the trend at that point. In recent years, the portion of the Arts and Sciences class who originally applied early decision has grown to 33–36 percent. In 2004 was when we started to approach the 5,000 mark. Demographic
ou t ab
Have there been any significant changes in the number of applications that you’ve received? DC: Not a huge shift … we had 6,038 for Arts and Sciences; the Conservatory passed 1,300. In recent years, Arts and Sciences applications have generally been in the range of 6,100–6,200. We had a little dip two years ago, but that was after 13 years of increases.
Is there anything that stands out about this class, either uniquely or following in the tradition of previous classes? JM: The first thing that comes to mind is the following the tradition of the other classes, because, like high school, every class has a certain personality. And the one thing that does remain the same in Oberlin classes, regardless of what people hear or believe by the time they leave this place, is that students do come here because they have an intense passion and desire to become involved in something. They all have a different something, but they want to be involved, they want to get to know their faculty, and that doesn’t change, that hasn’t changed. Students still want to become involved in the community, students still want to advocate for change, students still want to question and learn, and I think that’s something that I appreciate year to year. When you read essays about what students are involved with, a huge number of them are involved in community service, and already many of them are change agents, already, in their communities. And to me, that’s a very reassuring piece, is that Oberlin is still attracting students that want to stay committed and want to stay involved in the community. And as an Obie, that is a bias that I really appreciate and I look for. In applications, we all have our own backgrounds that we bring to the table. And caring a lot about what matters here, I want to see that matter when people come in.
u
es hw t
organizations. Over 1,300 different organizations. And we always look for leaders, but I don’t know that I recall having quite so large [a number]. We do have a supplemental essay, and we generally refer to it as a “Why Oberlin” essay. It asks them to talk about what their view of Oberlin is, stating a little bit about the Oberlin philosophy. The essay did change. Debra Chermonte: It’s basically, “What does your Oberlin look like?” I think we’ve gotten some deeper, more thoughtful responses from a greater number of students, asking the question in this fashion. I think it allows students to better imagine how they would contribute here taking what they currently are doing combined with their own imagination of what their Oberlin would look like.
ha
urprised y s t o
Oberlin ?
Are there any geographic shifts in this class that stood out to you? Areas that are unusually well or poorly represented? DC: There are no dramatic In a twist on the average admissions interview, the Review sat down with shifts. New York, Jill Medina, OC ’88, senior associate director of Admissions (left) and Deb- California, Ohio ra Chermonte, vice president of Admissions and Financial Aid. are still in the top 10. Since I’ve been Are there trends that you noticed in the in this office, they’ve always been in the top applications that you received this year 10, but sometimes they shift in positions. But that differed from previous years? Maryland and Virginia are usually in the top Jill Medina: This class had a larger per10, [and] Massachusetts, so I think those are centage — 88 percent — of students involved pretty similar. in leadership positions in a greater number of
M id- A
Admissions Interview
9/11 Day of Remembrance Saturday, Sept. 13, 2:30 –8 p.m. Memorial Arch in Tappan Square
Fall Fest Saturday, Sept. 13, 4–6 p.m. Wilder Bowl
Allison Boyt, OC ’09, Violin Tuesday, Sept. 16, 8 p.m.–9:30 p.m. David H. Stull Recital Hall
Ava Luna with Celestial Shore Tuesday, Sept. 16, 8–11 p.m. The Cat in the Cream
Self Evident Truths Project Thursday, Sept. 18, 12–5 p.m. Multicultural Resource Center (Wilder 208)
Join the Oberlin community for an afternoon of service in memory of the events of September 11. Meet at the Memorial Arch at 2:30 p.m. for a short walk to a number of community gardens in the area. The day finishes with a picnic for volunteers held at Legion Fields. (Register online.)
This ResEd-sponsored field day in Wilder Bowl features an inflatable obstacle course, tie-dye and, of course, carnival food. Forget those lurking readings and papers for an afternoon of fun in the sun!
Boyt’s performance will be a mixture of music and storytelling about her struggle with vasculitis, an autoimmune disease that threatened her life. The program features selections from classical to broadway to light jazz. Donations from the event benefit the Violin for Vasculitis project, founded by Boyt.
This 5-piece band from Brooklyn plays funky pop, described as “doo-wop with a punk twist.” Touring with them is the Brooklyn-based trio Celestial Shore, delivering experimental, avant-garde pop in anticipation of their second album, due out in October.
The Self Evident Truths project is in the process of traveling the country to document 10,000 portraits of people who identify anywhere on the LGBTQ spectrum. With its photographs and “we are you” message, the project hopes to normalize the LGBTQ experience and raise awareness that all are connected to this issue.
Writing about an Epic that Continues to Speak: Banned Books, Politics, and the Academic Study of Religion Friday, Sept. 19, 12:15–1:15 p.m. Finney Chapel Paula Richman, OC ’74, will deliver this President’s Lecture on the topic of banned religious epics. Her studies as a professor of South Asian Religion at Oberlin focus on the Ramayana, a Hindu epic, and the south Indian language Tamil.
THIS WEEK EDITOR : HAZEL GALLOWAY
e m o c l e W CLASS OF
shifts have partially contributed to this, along with the advent and wider use of the common application.
30%
t
somethin s a g
tw
“I do think it’s kind of surprising, the split between the College and the town. Just because the College tries so hard to make a community encompassing both, and I feel like to some extent there’s still a strange split.”
W h a
– Sarah Purow-Ruderman
College first-year
So
uth
9%
“There’s actually more diversity of thought than I was expecting. … I want people to challenge my thoughts and views so that I understand myself and life, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much of that I’ve been getting here.”
S o ut
4%
“I didn’t expect to love the campus as much as I do, when I first got onto campus; now I think it’s really beautiful, and I love being outside.”
“I would say the heat. I mean, I knew that the summer and early fall was going to be hot, but I was not expecting to be constantly fanning myself.” – Josh Ben-Ami College first-year
– Hannah Frith College first-year
Barrows Hall Kahn Hall
– Lauren Distler College first-year
“I just love how fun people are! We have signs in our bathrooms that say ‘Treat it as if Beyoncé is waiting in line to come after you’ or whatever, and ‘Ryan Gosling wants you to pick up your hair’… and I’m on the frisbee team, and people are just so goofy and hilarious, I love it.”
Dascomb Hall
– Caroline Beshers College first-year
p
ants lic
2,094
1,05
397
1
136
C 38
722 Enrolled Numbers are approximate
a nt s
ollege Ap
Admitted
lic pp
6,0
606 high schools represented 22% American ethnic minorities 63% public school students 36% enrolled early decision Most popular majors (from Common App): Biology, English, Psychology, Creative Writing, Environmental Studies, History 2014–2015 combined costs: $61,778 (up 36% from 2007)
A
STATS
t tla n i c
2018!
rvatory
58% Female
d wes
19%
Interview and photo by Hazel Galloway, This Week editor
42% Male
14%
nd
Mi
w En
g la
8%
o n al
17%
a ti
We st
Ne
n se
Immigration and Our Southern Border: An Orthodox Christian Perspective Friday, Sept. 12, 7–8 p.m. Wilder 101 Padre Antonio shares his first-hand knowledge of what has been called a “humanitarian crisis” near the Mexican border. Using his experience as a parish priest and missionary in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Haiti, and Guatemala, he will speak about what the border situation means not only for Christians, but for all Americans.
– Rachel Swack College first-year
In ter n
Co
CALENDAR
“The language that people use here — I thought that back home I spoke in a very politically correct way, and I got here, and there were so many things which I said that I never realized were offensive until somebody mentioned it here.”
t
Do you think trends like this point to the College inevitably becoming more selective? DC: It’s hard to know. I have a long history here — 26 years. When I first came to Oberlin, we were admitting close to 70 percent of the students who applied to Arts and Sciences and drawing in the range of 3,330 to 3,600 applications. Now, we admit about one third and attract about 6,100–6,200. Also, about 20 years ago only one in four [admitted students] — 25 percent — said yes to Oberlin, and the early decision plan was very small, meaning that around 15 percent of the class came from first-choice applications. This was not unusual in the Midwest; that was the trend at that point. In recent years, the portion of the Arts and Sciences class who originally applied early decision has grown to 33–36 percent. In 2004 was when we started to approach the 5,000 mark. Demographic
ou t ab
Have there been any significant changes in the number of applications that you’ve received? DC: Not a huge shift … we had 6,038 for Arts and Sciences; the Conservatory passed 1,300. In recent years, Arts and Sciences applications have generally been in the range of 6,100–6,200. We had a little dip two years ago, but that was after 13 years of increases.
Is there anything that stands out about this class, either uniquely or following in the tradition of previous classes? JM: The first thing that comes to mind is the following the tradition of the other classes, because, like high school, every class has a certain personality. And the one thing that does remain the same in Oberlin classes, regardless of what people hear or believe by the time they leave this place, is that students do come here because they have an intense passion and desire to become involved in something. They all have a different something, but they want to be involved, they want to get to know their faculty, and that doesn’t change, that hasn’t changed. Students still want to become involved in the community, students still want to advocate for change, students still want to question and learn, and I think that’s something that I appreciate year to year. When you read essays about what students are involved with, a huge number of them are involved in community service, and already many of them are change agents, already, in their communities. And to me, that’s a very reassuring piece, is that Oberlin is still attracting students that want to stay committed and want to stay involved in the community. And as an Obie, that is a bias that I really appreciate and I look for. In applications, we all have our own backgrounds that we bring to the table. And caring a lot about what matters here, I want to see that matter when people come in.
u
es hw t
organizations. Over 1,300 different organizations. And we always look for leaders, but I don’t know that I recall having quite so large [a number]. We do have a supplemental essay, and we generally refer to it as a “Why Oberlin” essay. It asks them to talk about what their view of Oberlin is, stating a little bit about the Oberlin philosophy. The essay did change. Debra Chermonte: It’s basically, “What does your Oberlin look like?” I think we’ve gotten some deeper, more thoughtful responses from a greater number of students, asking the question in this fashion. I think it allows students to better imagine how they would contribute here taking what they currently are doing combined with their own imagination of what their Oberlin would look like.
ha
urprised y s t o
Oberlin ?
Are there any geographic shifts in this class that stood out to you? Areas that are unusually well or poorly represented? DC: There are no dramatic In a twist on the average admissions interview, the Review sat down with shifts. New York, Jill Medina, OC ’88, senior associate director of Admissions (left) and Deb- California, Ohio ra Chermonte, vice president of Admissions and Financial Aid. are still in the top 10. Since I’ve been Are there trends that you noticed in the in this office, they’ve always been in the top applications that you received this year 10, but sometimes they shift in positions. But that differed from previous years? Maryland and Virginia are usually in the top Jill Medina: This class had a larger per10, [and] Massachusetts, so I think those are centage — 88 percent — of students involved pretty similar. in leadership positions in a greater number of
M id- A
Admissions Interview
9/11 Day of Remembrance Saturday, Sept. 13, 2:30 –8 p.m. Memorial Arch in Tappan Square
Fall Fest Saturday, Sept. 13, 4–6 p.m. Wilder Bowl
Allison Boyt, OC ’09, Violin Tuesday, Sept. 16, 8 p.m.–9:30 p.m. David H. Stull Recital Hall
Ava Luna with Celestial Shore Tuesday, Sept. 16, 8–11 p.m. The Cat in the Cream
Self Evident Truths Project Thursday, Sept. 18, 12–5 p.m. Multicultural Resource Center (Wilder 208)
Join the Oberlin community for an afternoon of service in memory of the events of September 11. Meet at the Memorial Arch at 2:30 p.m. for a short walk to a number of community gardens in the area. The day finishes with a picnic for volunteers held at Legion Fields. (Register online.)
This ResEd-sponsored field day in Wilder Bowl features an inflatable obstacle course, tie-dye and, of course, carnival food. Forget those lurking readings and papers for an afternoon of fun in the sun!
Boyt’s performance will be a mixture of music and storytelling about her struggle with vasculitis, an autoimmune disease that threatened her life. The program features selections from classical to broadway to light jazz. Donations from the event benefit the Violin for Vasculitis project, founded by Boyt.
This 5-piece band from Brooklyn plays funky pop, described as “doo-wop with a punk twist.” Touring with them is the Brooklyn-based trio Celestial Shore, delivering experimental, avant-garde pop in anticipation of their second album, due out in October.
The Self Evident Truths project is in the process of traveling the country to document 10,000 portraits of people who identify anywhere on the LGBTQ spectrum. With its photographs and “we are you” message, the project hopes to normalize the LGBTQ experience and raise awareness that all are connected to this issue.
Writing about an Epic that Continues to Speak: Banned Books, Politics, and the Academic Study of Religion Friday, Sept. 19, 12:15–1:15 p.m. Finney Chapel Paula Richman, OC ’74, will deliver this President’s Lecture on the topic of banned religious epics. Her studies as a professor of South Asian Religion at Oberlin focus on the Ramayana, a Hindu epic, and the south Indian language Tamil.
THIS WEEK EDITOR : HAZEL GALLOWAY
Arts The Oberlin Review
Page 10
September 12, 2014
Local Photographers Explore Race, Gender Identity Louise Edwards Staff Writer The framed photographs hung on the wall like windows into the subjects’ lives: an old man wearing sunglasses and throwing a yo-yo, a young woman holding a wide-eyed
cat, a child waving goodbye while trapped by the photo’s edge. These portraits can be found in the exhibit Seeing Community: Visions from NEO, which opened June 27 and runs through Sept. 19. The exhibit showcases the work of 16 local photographers displayed
in the Richard D. Baron ’64 Art Gallery located in the College’s Dewy Ward ’34 Alumni Center. While each artist demonstrated their unique style, common themes such as interrogation of gender and gender roles, observations on age, examination of race and ex-
ploration of self-identity resonated throughout the exhibit. Hadley Conner of Oakwood Village, Ohio, creates insightful commentary on girlhood in her portrait “Information Please.” In a bedroom strewn with dress-up clothes, two girls pose. One stands in a fringed
Visitors to the Dewy Ward ’34 Alumni Center take in the Richard D. Baron ’64 Art Gallery’s latest exhibit, Seeing Community: Visions from NEO. The photography series captures scenes from everyday life in northeast Ohio while meditating on gender, race and identity. Courtesy of John Seyfried
black sleeveless shirt, pink leggings, a black beret and a strand of pearls. Her eyes are big, admiring herself, yet also scrutinizing her appearance. The second girl sits to the right in an armchair wearing a dark plaid dress. Their mother appears in the mirror of the bedroom, peeking in to check on the girls while she takes a telephone call. The first girl poses in the same position as the mother, while the other imitates her by pretending to talk into a large peach telephone. This carefully constructed image depicts the admiration girls have for their mother, but also displays an eerie feeling of ephemeral childhood. The photograph also suggests that girls grow up pretending to be society’s vision of a perfect woman — that is, a concerned housewife. Jennifer Manna’s photographs complement Conner’s art well by bringing gender roles to light. In particular, her piece “Mary Poppins,” which depicts “Jane” and “Michael” apparently naked but covered by a fuzzy blue blanket, reveals how girls are societally conditioned to view their own bodies as indecent and vulgar. Manna skillfully captures Jane’s discomfort — her mouth agape in shock, her arms protectively holding the
blanket over her chest, her shoulders slanted with one shrugged upward. In contrast, Michael seems unconcerned with his nudity, his face and body positioned straight at the camera. In Conner’s black and white diptych — appropriately titled “Boyhood”— one panel displays a tough-looking teenager wearing a leather jacket and chains hanging from his hip. This image is juxtaposed with a second panel that shows a younger boy in a plain white T-shirt surrounded by cars in a parking lot. While the two images at first contrast in their depictions of boyhood, similarities prevail. With the boys’ backs turned toward the camera and the angle of the photos set off-kilter, feelings of confusion, loneliness and loss settle in. Mika Johnson and Micha Hilliard also accurately capture an uncomfortable depiction of boyhood in “Space Man.” A boy sits with his hands on his elbows, wearing a suit coat and tie and staring glassy-eyed at a point beyond the camera. Behind him rests a chalkboard littered with Newton’s law of universal gravitation and other physics equations. Johnson and HillSee Seeing, page 12
Shane McCrae Debuts Vulnerable Poetry Collection Vida Weisblum Arts Editor In a charming office of the iconic Yellow House on Tuesday morning, Shane McCrae, Oberlin’s newest assistant professor of Creative Writing, asks if it would be all right if he ate string cheese during his interview. An unconventional breakfast, perhaps, but one expects nothing less from an addition to one of the quirkiest departments on campus. His public introduction was no less engrossing: McCrae read selections from his most recent compilation of beautifully violent poetry, Forgiveness Forgiveness, in Hallock Auditorium on Wednesday, Sept. 10. The reading featured provocative poems pertaining to McCrae’s childhood with content centering on his experience of growing up in a household with two racist grandparents who had suppressed the fact that McCrae’s no longer present father had been black. When asked where he is from, McCrae gives an in-depth history of the many places he considers himself to “be from.” Despite having been born in Portland, OR, McCrae’s years spent roaming the United States define much of his complex persona and have contributed to the unique brand
of poetry that he now brings to Oberlin. Spending most of his childhood in Texas, he attended a wide array of educational institutions, including, but not limited to, Chemeketa Community College, Linfield University, the University of Iowa and Harvard Law School. The poet had an initially inauspicious educational experience, which is perhaps why, despite his apparent intellectual impressiveness and hauntingly stunning poetry, he remains so humble. “I failed every class from the sixth grade up, “ McCrae says unabashedly. Yet he remembers the exact date of when he first fell in love with poetry. On Oct. 25, 1990, during an after-school special that featured Sylvia Plath’s famous poem “Lady Lazarus,” McCrae, a self-described “gothy teenager,” fell in love with the classic line: “Dying / Is an art, like everything else. / I do it exceptionally well.” From that moment, McCrae started writing. He was inspired exclusively by work written by Plath, Linda Paston and Celestine Frost when he first began his career. He says that there is a musical aspect to his poetry, and revealed an anxiety about falling away from his usual musical focus and instead becoming more content-driven.
Despite his fears about his stylistic shift, however, McCrae’s latest poems, which he describes as “upsetting,” are satisfyingly powerful, as they combine musical and rhythmic precision and raise relevant social questions about race. Forgiveness Forgiveness features two sections, each titled “The Visible Boy,” and the book is described by McCrae as an “Emmett Till sort of thing.” “The Visible Boy” tells the story of a character named Little Brown Koko, whom McCrae remembers from a racist children’s book among photo albums on his grandfather’s bookshelf. In an excerpt offered by McCrae, Little Brown Koko runs away from his abusive mother. McCrae comments with a piercingly resonant line: “It’s easy to find God when something is being taken from you. Little Brown Koko finds God everywhere.” When asked if he considers writing poetry to be equivalent to his meditation, he responds with a decisive “no.” McCrae describes his poetry as “pretty businesslike.” His writing process gets mean; due to the vulnerability required for his poetry, which is confessional in nature, he has struggled less with achieving a place of vulnerability than with his lack of a personal
Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Shane McCrae is the department’s newest addition. McCrae gave a reading of poems from his latest collection, Forgiveness Forgiveness, to a rapturous audience of students on Wednesday in the Hallock Auditorium. Courtesy of Shane McCrae
life. McCrae initially wanted to work for an MFA program, but decided to teach undergraduates because his own undergraduate experience was more significant than his graduate experience. “Graduate level [teaching] is much more about facilitating,” he says. McCrae applied to Oberlin on a whim, and was shocked when he became a semi-finalist for the teaching position, which required a Skype interview. He
was again surprised when he was invited to Oberlin as a finalist, and when he was offered the position he was “even more shocked.” Struck by the level of student engagement, McCrae enjoys being surrounded by an abundance of writers on a campus so rich with history. Does he enjoy working at Oberlin? “I love it,” he says. “It’s not a very complicated answer.”
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The Epicurean: Setting Cleveland’s Culinary Stage Matt Segall Columnist This is the first in a biweekly column highlighting our local culinary scene. Restaurant reviews, research, interviews, recipes and more will all come together in order to identify what makes the Cleveland experience unique. Many have heard of Cleveland’s West Side Market, the much-hyped European-style food bazaar that offers a diverse selection of products that attracts tens of thousands every weekend. Another famous character on the Cleveland food scene is Michael Symon, who won the Food Network’s Next Iron Chef competition, rocketing him into the national spotlight. It should come as no surprise that Cleveland — former industrial and economic capital of the Midwest and home to the likes of John D. Rockefeller — has a rich European cultural history coursing through its streets. In the early 1900s, Cleveland’s rapidly growing economy attracted large populations of Russian, German, Hungarian, Polish, Irish and Italian immigrants, all of whom brought their culinary traditions. However, this age of growth did not
last, and the second half of the 20th century witnessed the decline of industry and population, resulting in an urban exodus and subsequent suburban growth. As the wealthy left the once-bustling downtown, the nickname “the mistake by the lake” began to gain popularity. The city began its recovery in the 1990s and continues today. During this same decade, the farm-to-table movement started by Thomas Keller and Alice Waters in northern California began to gain national momentum. Local chef-entrepreneurs, such as Symon, Douglas Katz and Zack Bruell, saw this as an opportunity to bring honest, fresh cooking to a city hungry for something new. This generation of chefs looked back to pillars of Cleveland’s culinary culture for inspiration. Sokolowski’s, which has been serving pierogies since 1923, has a clear influence on Symon’s famous beef cheek variant, which can be found at his downtown outpost Lola Bistro. Cleveland chefs’ respect for tradition has won them trust among their customers, allowing them to be more progressive with their choices. It would be challenging to find a restaurant outside of Cleveland that serves roasted pig’s face, and yet this delicacy sells out almost every night at The Greenhouse Tavern. While Cleveland acts as a typical melting pot, there is a nu-
ance to the experience that sets it apart from traditional culinary destinations like Paris, New York or San Francisco. Douglas Katz, the restaurateur behind Shaker Heights’s famed Fire Food and Drink, prefers to see Cleveland’s unique food scene like a puzzle. He warns against pinning his city’s culinary history and influence down to one — or even 10 — specific cultures. Rent is still cheap in Cleveland, lowering barriers of entry to the scene. Agriculture and farming in the surrounding area facilitate access to fresh and unique ingredients. Cultural institutions, namely the Cleveland Art Museum and Cleveland Orchestra, garner national attention. Katz cites these as factors that make the city the ideal culinary incubator and the reason why we should be excited for its future. Unfortunately, Cleveland is still burdened by its depressed reputation. Attend a concert by the world-renowned Cleveland Orchestra or a jazz show at the recently reopened Bop Stop. Go for a night out downtown or on West 25th St. in Ohio City. Take a quick 10-minute drive north to Amherst for paprikash at Sal and Al’s Diner, followed by a snoogle from Kiedrowski’s Bakery next door. It will be clear that the area is as strong as ever, and that the unique Cleveland spark never really left.
Derstine, Birkhofer Hope to Engage New Audience for AMAM Liam McLean The Allen Memorial Art Museum kicked off the commencement of the academic year with an evening reception Thursday, Sept. 4, paying tribute to its featured exhibition, Latin American and Latino Art at the Allen. Hosted by John G. W. Cowles Director Andria Derstine, the event achieved a jovial ambience; chattering visitors milled about a colorfully decorated central courtyard, partaking of a vibrant selection of wine and Latin American foods, while a five-man band of Conservatory jazz majors lent a samba pulse to the affair. Standing alongside a ring of hedges, Derstine welcomed the assembled guests and thanked the Ohio Humanities Council, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, whose $20,000 grant supported the exhibition. Derstine proceeded to introduce Janet Haar, executive director of the Oberlin Business Partnership, an Oberlin-based group of investors who co-sponsored the evening’s event. Addressing the crowd, Haar said, “Oberlin is a small town with big-city amenities,” and alluded to the festivities at the Allen as being among many “progressive initiatives” occurring in the town of Oberlin. Upon entering the airy room that houses the exhibition, one is immediately confronted by the vivid hues and elaborate iconography of Edouard DuvalCarrié’s “Justicia.” The work is dominated by an allegorical representation of justice
Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Denise Birkhofer speaks about a selection from Latin American and Latino Art at the Allen, the exhibit featured as part of the museum’s opening reception on Sept. 4. Samba music, decorations, food and wine helped create a festive ambiance. Courtesy of Sara Morgan
as a winged woman brandishing a sword. Denise Birkhofer, a Latin American art specialist, curator of modern and contemporary art and the show’s principal organizer, explained that she placed the piece at the beginning of the exhibition
to break down preconceptions about Latin American art. Birkhofer organized the rest of the exhibition thematically, rather than geographically or chronologically, to impart a sense of the fluid boundaries between
various cultures and historical epochs. Birkhofer’s tour of the exhibition featured a range of works related to faith, including Cuban artist José Bedia’s “ConSee Diverse, page 13
Understated Opening to Standing Ovation: Faculty Recital Kicks Off Series Jarett Hoffman Staff Writer Around 9:30 p.m., Sept. 4, Conservatory faculty members emerged from the backstage of Warner Concert Hall to a near-rockstar reception. A swarm of students had gathered in the hallway around the hall’s exit to shower their professors with whoops of adoration for the strong performance that they had just given, a concert of Mozart and Brahms quintets to open this season’s Faculty Chamber Music Series. Rarely performed — a forgotten third-stringer getting called up for the big game — the first work on the program was Mozart’s String Quintet No. 2 in C Minor. This piece was no slouch, however, and was certainly up to the task of kicking off the series. It is one of Mozart’s six “viola” quintets, each of which adds a second viola part to the standard string quartet of two violins, single viola, and cello. Michael Strauss, associate professor of Viola and Chamber Music, described the quintet in an email to the Review as “a beautiful and legitimate addi-
tion to the viola quintet repertoire.” He went on to say that “[he] was eager to program it for [his] community with the hope that it would spark interest in all six of Mozart’s beautiful viola quintets.” The opening of the concert was slightly disappointing, as the first movement lacked the initial “bang” Mozart indicated by a collective flex of forte in all of the parts. The performers — David Bowlin, OC ’00, assistant professor of Violin and Marilyn McDonald, professor of Violin and Baroque Violin; Professor of Viola Peter Slowik and Associate Professor of Viola Michael Strauss; and Associate Professor of Viola da Gamba and Cello Catharina Meints — opted for a more restrained, even dull take, but one could easily forgive them after they went on to display beautiful lyrical playing, exciting contrast and excellent timing throughout the remainder of the movement. The opening of the third movement was significantly more vigorous, with the melody bursting out in successive canon from one instrument to the next. In the andante second movement, Slowik and Strauss
displayed the piece’s double viola instrumentation, intermingling the instruments’ sonorities to create a far richer timbre than would be possible from a single viola. Strauss lauded the instrumentation. “Two violas bring a warmth to a chamber work that is really unique. In layman’s terms, you can’t have too much of a good thing, and since the viola is such a very good thing, why not two?” Indeed, the piece is quite charming as a whole, especially its quirky last movement, made up of several short sections that move promptly from one to the next, as paragraphs in a short story or individual pieces of a collage. One might worry that the closing segment, just as succinct as the other sections of the movement, barely has time to build up to the final chord, creating a challenge for performers in crafting a convincing ending. But the seasoned group worked up some powerful momentum even within that short space, driving the piece to a thrilling close and a warm wash of applause. See Faculty, page 13
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The Oberlin Review, September 12, 2014
Vandaveer Contrasts Murder Ballads with Humor in Showcase Lily Napach Mark Charles Heidinger and Rose Guerin, known together as Vandaveer, entered the Cat in the Cream stage last Friday the fifth looking slightly fraz-
zled. Heidinger, with his guitar in hand, surveyed the packed space, while Guerin, with a peasant blouse and a wreath of flowers in her blonde hair, took her place by one of the mics. There was a bit of fiddling on
the stage, and then a quiet comment by Heidinger: “One more second. We’ll avoid calamity,” followed by, “Hello Oberlin College.” The band, founded by singersongwriter Heidinger and based
Singer Rose Guerin (left) and singer-guitarist Mark Charles Heidinger serenade the audience gathered in the Cat in the Cream. The folk duo’s Friday night performance as Vandaveer intertwined murder ballads and lighthearted banter. Simeon Deutsch
Seeing Community Depicts Life in Ohio
in Washington, D.C., began performing in 2006 and has released four full-length albums. Guerin, whose voice falls somewhere between that of Stevie Nicks and Emmylou Harris, joined in 2007. Vandaveer’s presence became palpable as the two launched into their first song. Heidinger’s mild Kentucky twang and Guerin’s powerful harmonies generated a depth and soul often unseen in folk music. The song “Dig Down Deep,” which appeared on their eponymous 2011 album, concerns the necessity of finding strength in the face of utter ruin, and is representative of Vandaveer’s forlorn yet vaguely hopeful style. Although a running theme of death and ruin is present in the majority of their songs, Heidinger and Guerin are not particularly morose or angsty; they are unassumingly funny, intelligent and charismatic. The contrast between their demeanor and the subject of their songs makes for a compelling experience. When the two began singing old murder ballads from their 2013 album, Oh Willie, Please…, Heidinger said, laugh-
ing, “There’s not a pleasant song on the record. I’m not sure why we made [the record],” epitomizing the irony. “Get yourself a Rose Guerin; you’ll go farther,” he later advised the audience. He continued with stories and funny remarks throughout the show: “My mom wanted me to be an architect.” Guerin, although slightly less talkative than her counterpart, had her humorous moments, too. At several different points during the show, she whipped out a roll of duct tape in an attempt to fix her pants, which had split along the thigh seam before she entered the stage. It was clear from the beginning of their show that Vandaveer was not expecting to perform in front of a full house — granted, that full house was located at a coffee shop on a college campus. They had barely finished two songs before they expressed, very genuinely, their abundant gratitude toward the Oberlin community for being so gracious and kind. “Thank you, Oberlin,” Heidinger said on a final note, “for not billing pizza over Vandaveer.”
Feature Photo: Improv Auditions
Continued from page 10 ard’s photos add humor to the exhibit, but also use dramatics and satire to bring to light serious issues such as the dangers of a “treadmill” education system — one in which students are pushed to keep doing more, but are no longer learning. The boy’s vapid expression tells the story of parent pressure, sleepless nights memorizing formulas and a lost childhood. Art Department Co-Chair and Professor of Studio Art and Photography Pipo Nguyen-Duy also successfully uses humor to communicate a serious point in his four self-portraits, part of a larger collection titled AnOther Western. Drawing inspiration from Asian theatrical and visual arts, and from American tintype portraits that were popular in the West during the 1800s, Nguyen-Duy, a Vietnamese man, portrays himself as various powerful figures of the American West: a gunslinger, a general, a doctor with an amusing fake moustache and a musician carrying a creepy puppet. While these portraits challenge the stereotype of emasculated and submissive Asian men, one also understands that these assumed identities are an absurd masquerade, illustrating immigrants’ struggle to retain their homeland cultural identities while also trying to fit into an American one. The diversity of the pieces complemented one another and added a sense of scope to the exhibit. However, while each composition was aesthetically pleasing, some of the untitled pieces and close-up portraits of only the subject’s face did not have as much depth as the rest of the exhibit. In these portraits, the artist provided fewer clues into the personality of the subject, making it harder for viewers to weave a story about the subjects’ lives or take away an insightful observation. There is also much to be gleaned about personality and emotion from a subject’s body language, which can sometimes be lost in a headshot. Despite this shortcoming, the exhibit as a whole successfully communicated the humanity in the residents of northeastern Ohio. One is struck by the realization that our neighbors are both creative artists as well as works of art, each built from a diversity of unique experiences.
Prospective improvisers participate in games during auditions for Oberlin’s trio of improv troupes. The auditions took place in Warner Gymnasium and spanned the course of three days. Mike Plotz
Jamie Vincent Oberlin improvisation troupes auditioned roughly 120 aspiring improvisers to find fresh talent for the year. Oberlin is home to one short-form troupe, Kid Business, and two long-form troupes, Primitive Streak and the Sunshine Scouts. Each troupe performs around five shows per semester; Kid Business’s first performance is already scheduled for tonight at the Cat in the Cream. Auditions can be particularly cryptic for prospective improvisers; many know that it is more than theatrical ability the troupes are watching for, but are unsure of what they should bring to the stage. “I was talking to some people who were auditioning yesterday, and they were just kind of like, ‘I don’t know what to talk about,’” said College senior and Primitive Streak member Maya Sharma. “I think it’s important to kind of dispel the feeling that we’re making an ultimate judgment on you. It’s more like ‘How do you fit into the family,’ not
‘How do I like you?’” College senior and leader of Kid Business Sophie Zucker said she regretted that there were many talented students auditioning for Kid Business but a limited amount space available in the troupe. Claiming the process to be “fairly selective,” she said that each year the troupe only accepts one to three new members out of the 40 students who audition. However, Sharma also said being accepted to a troupe is not the only possible benefit of auditioning. “One thing about auditions that I love is that you make so many new friends,” she said. “For [ first-years], I think it’s a beautiful experience to be in a room creating something that’s fun with other people, and you meet people that way.” In April, all three troupes will participate in the Oberlin College Improv Conference, which will include performances by all troupes, both amateur and professional, as well as improv workshops open to all Oberlin College students.
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The Oberlin Review, September 12, 2014
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Faculty Recital Opens Series with Mozart, Brahms Continued from page 11 Following the Mozart and a short pause, a quintet by another towering composer of the classical repertoire closed out the evening: Brahms and his Piano Quintet in F Minor. “I thought opening the year with a concert that featured this incredible work was an exciting proposition,” wrote Strauss, who, along with Bowlin, was joined by Professor of Violin Gregory Fulkerson, OC ’71, on first violin alongside Darrett
Adkins, OC ’91 and associate professor of Cello, and Monique Duphil, professor of Piano. The haunting melody that opens this work was sobering after the lively Mozart. The quintet painted the range of musical characters with a deeply empathetic brush, displaying secrecy, cold assertion and redfaced fury in the first movement alone. This energy was particularly effective in the third movement, which alternated in style between a knife-edge scherzo and a joyous wedding march. Al-
though the two themes seemed to undermine one another, they wove together into an uneasy unity as the movement progressed. The Brahms performance was not without its problems, however. Intonation was unsettled throughout the performance, while the fast-paced close to the third movement could have been tightened up with more rehearsal time. Another issue was balance. While the opening of the second movement saw the strings lie low and
allow the piano to gently chart the course of the music, the latter’s sound was often covered up by the strings’ enthusiasm in the large space of Warner Concert Hall, diminishing the full blend of the ensemble. The crowd didn’t seem to mind, however, as a long standing ovation followed the recital. Some of the performers stopped to talk or exchange high fives with students in the hallway, while others scooted through the crowd appreciatively, perhaps looking forward to a calm-
er place after the excitement of the evening. The next installment of the Faculty Chamber Music Series, originally set for Sept. 21 in Finney Chapel, has been rescheduled for Nov. 2 in Warner Concert Hall. The program will include Béla Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, performed by Duphil and Yuri Shadrin, OC ’06, as well as Michael Rosen, director of Woodwinds, Brass and Percussion and professor of Percussion.
Diverse Latin American Art Styles Represented at Allen Continued from page 11 licencia,” an imposing ink drawing of a supplication rite endemic to Palo Mayombe, an Afro-Caribbean religion. A soft sculpture titled “Bicicleta azul platino” by Margarita Cabrera, an artist based in El Paso, TX, took center stage in the section devoted to immigration and exile. According to Birkhofer, its sagging foam and vinyl form represent the hardships of the immigrant experience. An untitled sculpture made of a stack of white shirts impaled on rebar is Colombian artist Doris Salcedo’s grim allusion to the government’s violence against striking Colombian banana plantation workers in the 1920s. This piece is Birkhofer’s personal favorite in the collection.
“In my own research,” Birkhofer said, “I prefer to use [the term] ‘art of the Americas’ rather than ‘Latin American art,’ because it’s more inclusive of the other cultures of the region.” Birkhofer also emphasized that she intended to expand public awareness of the range of styles that artists from the geographic region have embraced over the centuries. “Most people, when they think of Latin American art, would think of things like social realism,” she said, referring to the international early 20th-century movement, which sought to expose the daily lives of the working class, and was particularly prominent among Mexican muralists. “But that’s just one part of the many diverse works of art you can find in Latin American art. One of the goals of the exhibition was to show people that there’s more to Latin American
art than Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, that it’s so many other things.” According to Megan Harding, the Allen’s Publications, Membership and Media manager, over 440 guests attended Thursday’s event. Derstine hopes that, through the Allen’s Academic Programs Office, a liaison between the museum and College and Conservatory faculty, the showcase will prompt integration of some of the featured works into College curricula and attract a new regional demographic to the museum. “One of the things we’re most excited about with regard to this exhibition is that we’re showcasing to the public, for the first time, the breadth and depth of our Latin American collection,” said Derstine.
Baroque Concerts to Aim for Authenticity with Historical Instruments Aviva Blonder The Conservatory will be taking audiences back in time this Saturday with two faculty recitals that feature two instruments actually produced in Beethoven’s own period. In Kulas Recital Hall at 4:30 p.m., Marilyn McDonald, professor of Violin and professor of Baroque Violin, and David Breitman, professor of Piano, will be recreating Beethoven’s sonatas as concertgoers would have heard them at the time of composition. A second concert begins at 8 p.m. in Fairchild Chapel, where Webb Wiggins, professor of Harpsichord, will perform works composed by a range of German composers from the 1600s to 1700s on organ and harpsichord. This weekend, the instruments themselves will be featured just as much as the performers. McDonald will be playing on a violin made in Corona, the home of Stradivarius, which, according to McDonald, “exists close to the way it was in Beethoven’s time.” The instrument has been painstakingly prepared for this performance; from the gut strings of the violin (most strings are now made out of synthetic cord) to the period-style bow used to play Beethoven’s masterpieces, it has been engineered to present the most historically accurate rendition of the sonatas possible. Breitman said of his instrument, “Historical pianos are mostly played on modern copies. ... Unusually, maybe for the very first time, I will be playing on an actual antique piano.” The instrument in question was made in Vienna in 1829; this Saturday will mark the second time it has been played in concert since its restoration. “People have taken for granted that modern instruments are perfect for this,” Breitman said, but in reality, modern pianos are much louder than their 18th century counterparts, and pianists often encounter issues of balance and volume when playing chamber music. Using an actual period piano equalizes the dynamic power between
the instruments, creating an equal distribution of sound. Wiggins began studying the organ at a young age and first encountered the harpsichord in his college years. Ultimately, he fell in love with the sound of the harpsichord, and attended the Oberlin Conservatory to study the instrument. “Being in Fairchild Chapel is a really wonderful experience,” said Wiggins. “In the evening it’s really neat with the [stained glass] windows; it’s an intimate place. ... It’s a great time to hear organ and harpsichord.” The 4:30 p.m. program features two Beethoven sonatas as part of a historical performance project to perform all 10 of the German master’s sonatas for violin and piano as they would have been performed in Beethoven’s era. Despite the Conservatory’s focus on German baroque (each semester the historical performance department focuses on either the French, Italian or German baroque period), Wiggins opted for more variety. His recital begins with selections from Johann Jakob Froberger’s Libro Secundo, composed in 1649. This music reflects the composer’s international influences and displays traces of his travels to Vienna, Italy and France. Johann Sebastian Bach, however, the “main dude” of German baroque music as Wiggins described him, is not forgotten in this program. His heavy, impactful style is intercut with his son, Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach’s “tiny little pieces” that have a much lighter air. One of Wiggins’s biggest challenges in preparing for
this recital was that “you have to cut pieces you really want to play,” so the final program was very carefully selected for the 8 p.m. concert and provides a diverse musical span of “three different periods of time and three different styles of writing.” The musicians are all playing in their areas of expertise. McDonald and Breitman both have broad repertoires ranging from baroque to contemporary music, but they both specialize in historical performance on their respective instruments. This is the most important aspect
of a historically authentic performance, yet it is extremely difficult to procure two such valuable historical instruments. With all of their collective expertise and experience with historical performance, all three of Saturday’s performers agreed that teaching and playing at Oberlin was, as Breitman described it, an “illuminating” experience. “Playing helps to enhance the teaching” and vice versa, according to Marilyn McDonald. Wiggins agreed his time at Oberlin was well spent, calling it “the best of what I do.”
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IN THE LOCKER ROOM
Hannah Christiansen and Katie Skayhan
This week, the Review sat down with Conservatory student-athletes Hannah Christiansen, fifth-year lacrosse and field hockey player, and Katie Skayhan, senior track and field member, to discuss how they manage their busy schedules, what they use their lockers for and the similarities between playing sports and music.
so that was always the plan. KS: I walked onto the track team. I was actually recruited out of Coach [Jason] Hudson’s Fitness for Life class. He was teasing me when we were in class, saying, “You’re actually pretty fast,” and he saw all the gear I had, since I was actually pretty competitive in high school. I was really reluctant to start at first, but he told me I would definitely have the time to do it, and I fell in love with it and got hooked.
What instrument do you play in the Conservatory? Hannah Christiansen: I study violin. Katie Skayhan: I am a singer, so I play my body. [Laughs] I’m a soprano, the highest voice type on the spectrum. What are the unique challenges presented by being both in the Conservatory and on a sports team? HC: I feel like the biggest challenge is just the enormous time commitment for both. You’re supposed to spend four hours practicing your instrument every day, and you’re essentially in [sports] practice for four hours between lifting and the training room and then the two hours of actual practice. So that’s eight hours out of your day, and then you somehow have to be a real person on top of that, too. KS: I would agree that time management is probably the biggest challenge, mostly because you do have to find the right kind of balance between figuring out when you can study and trying to make allowances. So, I have to memorize music on the bus or fig-
The Oberlin Review, September 12, 2014
Hannah Christiansen (left) and Katie Skayhan, athletes in the Conservatory ure out the quickest way to translate all of my foreign language work. I think coaching faculty and staff have been very accommodating for me, knowing that the music is my primary education and life choice. They get it in the same way as they would get any College major.
Did you come to Oberlin with the intention of playing music and a sport (or two)? HC: I started in the College and then became double-degree, and I came in knowing I was playing field hockey and then I walked onto the lacrosse team. I knew that I eventually wanted to do double-degree,
— Women’s Frisbee —
Preying Manti Add Bevy of First-Years Nathaniel Sher The women’s ultimate frisbee team, the Preying Manti, has begun a new season of practice after making it to the USA Ultimate College Division III Regional Championship in Pennsylvania last season. This season, changes abound, as the team has two new captains and nearly 20 new players on the team. The team elected new captains, sophomores Maya Gillett and Caela Brodigan, at the end of last season, for their multiple years of frisbee experience despite their lack of seniority. While most of the Manti came to the team as beginners, Gillett was an active participant in Seattle’s youth frisbee scene for a number of years prior to attending Oberlin. “I’ve had some really excellent coaching, and I’m excited to bring some fresh ideas to the team,” she said. Gillett described Brodigan as a “renaissance woman on the field,” owing to her versatility as a player and ambitious plans for the upcoming year. Brodigan has plans to introduce a new secret play, which she calls “Crazy Line.” Since practice has only just begun, the team’s overall character and direction is still up in the air. The team has seen about 20 new players at the first few practices of the semester, and how well they are able to contribute will go a long way toward deciding how successful the Manti will be. Early reports are promising, according to Brodigan, as the newcomers have shown a variety of skillsets to add to the team. “The freshmen look like they’re going to be strong,” Brodigan said, following the team’s second practice. While some first-years already appear to
be adjusting well on the field, many have had little to no experience and are in need of much guidance. “I’m excited to help all the first-years as much as I can so we can build a solid core,” said junior cutter and former captain, Allison Fulton. As part of their preseason, the more experienced Manti will look to get everyone up to speed by running drills, scrimmaging and conditioning during the coming weeks in an effort to prepare for the season ahead. Fortunately for the team, they are already making progress. “Everyone’s learning quickly,” said junior cutter Jackie Milestone. The importance of learning quickly can’t be understated, particularly since the Manti lost several valuable players to graduation last year. “We’re a young team,” said Gillett. While the two captains do hope to help the Manti make the most out of their upcoming season, they made it clear that determining the team’s direction will be an entirely collaborative effort. “We have a bunch of amazing players and people who are ready to step up as leaders, ” said Gillett. If they do step up as leaders and the team learns to work together, the Manti feel that they have a shot at a very successful season. The team’s goal is to return to the USA Ultimate Frisbee Division III Regional Championship as they did last year, or to advance to the National Championship. For Brodigan, these goals are very much within reach. “We are the sort of team that, if we decided we wanted to go to Nationals and we made it a priority, we could go,” she said.
Do you find that there are similarities between making music and playing a sport? HC: Definitely. My violin teacher is always telling me how to think and how to have a mindset of being professional and being very highlevel in everything you do, and I think that really applies to sports as well. KS: I think music teaches you to be very disciplined. For me, because my instrument is my actual body, [running track] helps me connect to my breath better, and by being more in shape, it helps my singing. I noticed a huge transitional period after I joined the team because I was doing all these things that were better for my body. Do you find yourself struggling more than some of your peers to put enough time into your activities? HC: I feel like I definitely miss practice a lot more than anyone else on my team, which is unfortunate because, as the team captain, I shouldn’t do that. Thursdays I
don’t go to practice because I have studio. It’s kind of a struggle, but my coaches have been pretty good about giving me outside workouts and watching [game] film with me and things like that to make up for it. KS: It’s definitely challenging. There are those moments when I feel like I need to rally and get on my game going to practice. If you spend your whole day singing and then you have to go and lift for two hours, you’re already tired and probably hungry, too. You just have to suck it up and be there for your team. Do you use your Conservatory or gym locker more? HC: I use my Con locker for food and I use my gym locker for all my laundry. KS: I think they both end up becoming little storage units by the end of the semester. Have you improved more as an athlete or as a musician in your time at Oberlin? HC: Probably as a musician, but it’s hard for me to track my athletic progress because I missed a season of field hockey when I was injured. I don’t even remember how I was as a player before that. KS: It’s literally night and day listening to what I sounded like when I came into Oberlin and what I sound like now. Interview by Nate Levinson, Sports editor Photo by Mike Plotz, Photo editor
Anderson Era Begins With Loss to College at Brockport Continued from page 16 fort, and we did some great things on the football field,” Anderson said. “There’s definitely some things we need to work on. We have to continue to get better as we prepare for Kenyon [College].” Because of the high percentage of first-years on the team, there is a level of expectation that play will improve with more practice time. “There are three or four freshmen at wide receiver that come in behind Justin Cruz, so that makes it a little more challenging because, you know, you make some mistakes just from lack of experience,” Andrews said. “It’s a young team, but there’s certainly a lot of talent.” Anderson has high hopes for not only his football players, but also the athletic program at the school, and he expects future seasons to look better for the Yeomen. “I share everyone’s enthusiasm in not only the football program, but every other sport in our department. Great things are destined to happen here at Oberlin College for athletics. Watching our players grow and develop and change the way that we’re viewed outside of Oberlin College excites me. Watching our players become winners excites me,” he said. Despite the lopsided score, Edwards feels optimistic about the rest of the season. “The score didn’t really tell the whole story,” he said. “There were some bright spots on the offensive and defensive side of the ball. We made a lot of mental mistakes that I think are going to be easily corrected. It’s a long season; we definitely can still turn it around.” Andrews thinks Oberlin has a fighting chance against most of the teams in the conference this year. “I think overall there’s a positive outlook among the team. I think everyone’s got the mindset that we can play with all the teams in the conference.” The Yeomen go on the road to play the Kenyon College Lords this Saturday and will return home for a homecoming tilt against The College of Wooster Fighting Scots on Sept. 20.
The Oberlin Review, September 12, 2014
Backed by Winkelfoos, Hudson, Cracas Assume New Roles Continued from page 16 “I’m [the athletes’] link to different services on campus — an inhouse counselor, if you will,” said Hudson. “If someone’s struggling in a class, sometimes students aren’t forthcoming with their coaches, so I’ll meet with them and set up a plan to help them be successful.” Winkelfoos also said that, while Oberlin’s “actually a little behind” in initiating a strength and conditioning program, “our continued focus on the student experience is something we can tout that perhaps other schools cannot.” Both Hudson and Cracas also cited the enhancement of the studentathlete experience as a mutual goal for their respective positions, specifically aiming to provide students with lasting assets and skills. “My goal is to teach students how to properly lift, so during summer break or winter term they can go out and do a weightlifting program and be safe,” said Cracas. Hudson shared this sentiment. “Everyone wants to win games and be successful, but the other piece of that is, ‘Are you having a positive experience?’ We want to give them tools so that when they leave they can go and be successful.” The fact that these three administrators all share the same ambitions for Oberlin Athletics is no coincidence. Winkelfoos said that while Cracas and Hudson’s longstanding presence at Oberlin (six and thirteen years, respectively) certainly didn’t hurt their eligibility for these new positions, their shared vision proved they were the right people to spearhead this new change. “What they’ve been able to illustrate to me is a brand of loyalty, a brand of intelligence and a market for care for our students,” Winkelfoos said. “Any leader needs people around their table that they trust and who are on the same page as them.” Cracas, Hudson and Winkelfoos’s extended time with the Oberlin Athletics Department has provided the trio with a valuable sense of where the department has come from and where it’s headed. “We’ve been around long enough to understand Oberlin, and we’ve seen a shift in the culture within the Athletics Department for the better,” Winkelfoos said. “Being able to focus on health and wellness only makes us better and smarter — if we can be better stewards of health and wellness, then we’re a better college.”
Sports
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Feature Photo: Student-Athletes, Faculty Cut Ribbon at New Austin E. Knowlton Complex
Junior Taylor Swift (left), College President Marvin Krislov, Delta Lodge Director of Athletics and Physical Education Natalie Winkelfoos and junior Callan Louis perform the ceremonial ribbon cutting at the new Austin E. Knowlton Athletic Complex on Monday. The first game on the new field will take place when the field hockey team takes on the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops this Saturday. Benjamin Shepherd
Editorial: Athletics Department Hosts MRC Workshops Continued from page 16 pronouns, sexuality and other related issues. This meant that until the beginning of my sophomore year, I had no real formal education on these subjects. Why is this important? Because I, along with the entire fall-sport athletic community, missed out on an awesome opportunity for education about trans allyship. While I’m sure that other students may have passed on orientation sessions that covered a similar agenda, it is a unique loss for the athletic community at Oberlin, which so needs this education. That’s not to say that student-athletes are more prone to microaggressions than the next Oberlin student; however, it is definitely fair to say that sports’ culture has the potential to breed an environment where these microaggressions can go unnoticed unless we take the time to educate ourselves. Even the NCAA’s own publication, “NCAA Inclusion of Transgender Student-Athletes,” acknowledges this major failure in collegiate athletics. It reads: “Few collegiate athletics programs, administrators, or coaches have been prepared to fairly, systematically, and effectively address a transgender student’s interest in participating in athletics. The majority of intercollegiate athletics programs have no policy governing the inclusion of transgender student-athletes,
and most coaches have not received any direction for accommodating a transgender student who wants to play on a sports team.” It doesn’t stop there: “In fact, most intercollegiate athletics programs have not received the information to address even basic accommodations such as knowing what pronouns or names to use when referring to a transgender student, where a transgender student should change clothes for practice or competition, or what bathroom or shower that student should use.” In mandating trans allyship workshops for varsity studentathletes, the Oberlin College Athletics Department has certainly taken steps in the right direction in an effort to create a safer environment for trans student-athletes and to address the shortcomings the NCAA acknowledges. This trend can be detected at sister schools such as Kenyon College, which maintains its own Title IX office and provides support for trans student-athletes. It is this shift in mentality toward transgender athletes in the athletic community that will begin to make collegiate athletics an equal-opportunity outlet for everyone. However, the athletics community at Oberlin still has a long way to go.
Sports The Oberlin Review
September 12, 2014
Despite new Head Coach Jay Anderson’s efforts to improve the football team, the Yeomen fell 45–10 to the College at Brockport Golden Eagles on Sept. 6. “He’s already done some great things. I know we’re only a game into the season, but he’s brought in a huge freshman class,” said junior captain and defensive back Gabe Edwards, referring to the 22 first-years who joined the Yeomen this fall. “The staff around him have a lot of good ideas that we’re really buying into as a team. He’s a great leader and a great guy.” Anderson says he is committed to developing the football program and to helping the players grow on and off the field. “Winning is important to everyone. The expectation for our football program is to win football games. We want to compete for [the] conference championships,” said Anderson. “We believe that success begets success. We want to make sure that we’re working and developing to be the best students possible in the classroom and the best football players possible on the field.” The players are committed
Junior quarterback Lucas Poggiali drives forward with the ball. The Yeomen are currently 0–1 and will take on the Kenyon College Lords this Saturday Courtesy of Ryan Baker
to establishing their team in the conference as well and are also hoping to garner a stronger following within the student body. Edwards’s expectation is that the new Austin E. Knowlton Ath-
letics Complex will help the team attract more fans to its games than it has in the past. “This season, with Coach Anderson as the new head coach and the new facilities going in, is
a big year for Yeomen football,” Edwards said. “I know that we’re trying to not just change the culture of the team within our conference, but change the culture around campus. We’re trying to integrate ourselves into campus and have a wider fan base.” These changes to the football program are coming through in the team’s offseason performance, even if they haven’t yet shown up during games. However, the Yeomen are focusing on the bigger picture and keeping heads held high despite the loss. “Coach said that their team was better than us, and I’d agree, but I don’t think they’re 35 points better than us,” said senior kicker Erikson Andrews. “I think we made some silly mistakes here and there, like giving up a big return or a big play. Things like that swing the game one way or the other.” The Yeomen are looking to improve on this game and their playing on the field as the season progresses. “We’re going to draw some positives out of that game. Brockport’s a good football team, and I think that our guys gave great efSee Football, page 14
Athletics Department Changes Address Community Wellness Sarena Malsin Delta Lodge Director of Athletics Natalie Winkelfoos announced on Aug. 27 that Mike Cracas and Jason Hudson would take on new roles within the Athletics Department, both geared toward enhancing the athletic experience of Oberlin students. Hudson, previously director of studentathlete services, associate head track and field coach and assistant cross country oach, will maintain his position as director of studentathlete services with the added responsibility of the newly created position, director of wellness. While his involvement with the track and field team will not change, Hudson is now no longer involved with cross country. This added position is meant to “impact the overall wellness of the campus community,”
Hudson said. He added that whereas Student-Athlete services focuses on the experience of Oberlin’s student-athletes, the Office of Student Wellness takes a broader approach, aiming to enhance the experience of all students on campus. Part of this wider focus concentrates on physical programming, or as Winkelfoos said, “anything we can find to get the campus moving.” More projects similar to the installation of the new gym under South Hall last year exemplify Hudson’s goals and the goals of Student Wellness; Hudson called this “bringing athletics to the students,” as an alternative to bringing students to Oberlin’s recreational facilities. Cracas also has begun work to improve the fitness of Oberlin students. After working as the the assistant coach for the women’s soccer team for the past five years and as a monitor for stu-
See New, page 15
In what has been an important step in the right direction for Oberlin College Athletics this fall, the department required all fall varsity athletes to attend a two-hour trans allyship workshop for the first time during preseason in late August. Student facilitators from the Multicultural Resource Center conducted the workshops, which included lessons about distinguishing sex from gender and equipped student-athletes with other valuable tools regarding allyship, such as sharing different types of gender pronouns. One of the most intriguing parts of these workshops was the relatively even spread of questions coming from seniors to first-years. Though they came from various classes, student-athletes inquired with an earnest desire to learn and understand more. The success of the workshop sparked the question for me: Why is this the first time this workshop has been a required part of preseason? While Oberlin prides itself on its progressive reputation, many students often manage to unknowingly dodge formal lessons on trans allyship and miss crucial cornerstones that are necessary to make our community a safer space for everyone. As a fall athlete, my firstyear orientation experience was curtailed by days filled with training, so I only had the opportunity to attend two orientation events. Though I must admit I will never know what I missed while at practice, neither of the sessions I attended broached topics like gender identity, preferred gender See Editorial, page 15
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Mike Cracas (left) and Jason Hudson assumed new roles in the Athletics department this year. Cracas is the new strength and conditioning coach and assistant director of facilities. Hudson is the new director of Student-Athlete Services. Courtesy of Brian Hodgkin
dents working in Philips gym, he has now taken on the role of a strength and conditioning coach for all 21 varsity teams. Cracas will also continue his supervisory responsibilities in his new position as the Assistant director of facilities operations. His level of involvement on the women’s soccer team will not change significantly. As strength and conditioning coach, Cracas will be developing weight and speed training programs specifically tailored to each team. “I’ll be working closely with coaches, formulating a program that’s going to work for that sport and for those athletes and then implementing them either in the weight room, Williams, or in our new beautiful stadium,” he said. “[The training programs] will be in addition to practice, but sometimes they will take [the] place of practice as well.” Athletes on numerous teams are already looking forward to working with Cracas in his new capacity and seeing how he can help improve their game. “So far we’re all really excited to be working with Cracas,” said junior basketball player Randy Ollie. “He’s really knowledgeable about form and technique in regards to lifting and conditioning, so we definitely feel that in the long run he’ll help us keep our bodies healthy during our season.” Senior Kate Frost, starting goalkeeper on the women’s soccer team, is similarly optimistic. “I think Mike [Cracas] is very deserving of this new role, and I think we’re all very excited to work with him in this new setting. I think he can design a soccer-specific program that will really help our team excel.” While Cracas’s role is aimed more at students’ athletic experiences, Hudson’s responsibility has more to do with making sure students are successful outside of athletics, both in and outside the classroom.
Tyler Sloan Sports Editor
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Brianna Di Monda
Allyship Training Overdue
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Despite Larger Roster, Yeomen Fall in First Game
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