March 8, 2019

The Oberlin Review March 8, 2019

established 1874

Volume 147, Number 16

Arabic Courses to Be Offered Digitally Nathan Carpenter Editor-in-Chief

Students use desktop computers in the Mary Church Terrell Main Library shortly after Admissions suffered a cyber attack.

Photo by Ananya Gupta, Managing Editor

Cyber Attackers Breach Admissions Database Sydney Allen Editor-in-Chief A database controlled by the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid was the victim of a targeted cyber attack carried out by unknown persons Tuesday morning. The attackers were able to collect information about prospective, current, and former students who enrolled during or after fall 2014.

The individuals responsible specifically attempted to gain access to the Admissions database five times Tuesday morning by attempting to log into various accounts. They finally breached the security system at 2:45 a.m., using a system flaw in the “reset your password” function on OCPass, which is run by independent identity management software company Avatier. The problem has since been fixed on OCPass.

The hackers had access to the database until 6:49 a.m. — about four hours — when they were shut out of the system by Center for Information Technology staff, who were able to change the password of the hacked account. Access information for all admissions accounts has since been changed.

“We can’t know for sure why they chose this database, obviously, but this was a human being or a group of human beings specifically trying to access this database — this was a targeted attack,” said Ben Hockenhull, director of CIT. CIT staff are still determining what specific data was accessed and if it was downloaded. The database in question contained names, birthdates, home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, parent information, information concerning admissions files, and, in some cases, Social Security

numbers.

It appears that the attack may have been part of a coordinated effort against colleges across the country.

Reports on Reddit and other social media outlets allege a similar breach targeted a Grinnell College database, which was followed by mass emails to current applicants, offering them their entire admissions packets, including admissions decisions and commentary from their personal admissions officers. Originally, the hackers emails asked the high schoolers for $3,890, but have since reduced the price to $60. Hamilton College may have also been affected.

The FBI has been notified, but Hockenhull is not confident they will be able to identify the attackers.

“I doubt we’ll ever be able to find out who did it,” Hockenhull said. “With stuff like this people just disappear.”

“It’s a tough situation because Admissions didn’t do anything wrong,” said Scott Wargo, director of media relations. “It was a targeted attack, which is the frustrating part. We couldn’t have prevented it.”

After an extensive search and review process, CIT has no reason to believe that any other systems or databases have been compromised and stressed that Oberlin’s financial aid information is in a separate database, which was not breached.

President Ambar alerted 4,200 current and former students about the breach via email yesterday. Parents and prospective students will receive notifications as well.

In the email, Ambar expressed her regrets for the breach and emphasized Oberlin’s commitment to confidentiality and cybersecurity.

“Oberlin College is committed to maintaining a secure computing

environment and preserving the confidentiality of our electronic information,” she wrote. “We will continue to review and improve our security procedures to ensure that personal information is protected.

We deeply regret that this situation has occurred and are aware of how important your personal information is to you. On behalf of Oberlin College, please accept my sincere apology for any difficulties this incident may cause you.”

For some students, the attack is a frightening reality of living in the digital age.

“I think its always scary to hear that your information has been breached in a way you weren’t aware of or comfortable with, and it further highlights the susceptibility of Oberlin to instances like this in today’s day and age,” College senior and Computer Science minor Hayley Drapkin said.

“I think that as this issue grows — and it has been growing over the past 10 years — as data grows more valuable, it’s more important on the side of the College to ensure all student, faculty, and prospective students’ data are safe.”

For others the breach was slightly less concerning.

“I was a little upset, a little shocked.

I thought it was kind of hilarious at first, but the more it sits with me, the more I’m like, ‘Wow, this is really, really messed up,’” College junior Jack Mckeown said. “Because they also lost [information of ] people who don’t even go here. ... I actually sent a screenshot of it to all my high school friends.”

In her email, Ambar also provided links to numerous cybersecurity resources and said the College will be providing free credit monitoring services to those who are interested.

Oberlin will change the way students take Arabic language classes starting next academic year.

Moving forward, students will take intermediateand upper-level Arabic courses through the Shared Languages Program, an initiative of the Great Lakes College Association. The courses will be taught in a “digital classroom” with live group video sessions led by Hanada Al-Masri, associate professor of Arabic at Denison University.

The Shared Languages Program is available to all 13 colleges and universities in the GLCA, including Oberlin. Gabriele Dillmann, GLCA Consortial Languages director and associate professor of German at Denison University, founded the program to increase access to language education for GLCA schools who face low enrollment in advanced-level language classes.

“I thought, well, how about if several [GLCA institutions] offer courses [and] all of our students can take from all 13 colleges without paying extra tuition,” Dillmann said. “And so the Shared Languages Program was born.”

SLP courses take place via the Zoom conferencing platform, which allows students from multiple campuses to come together in a digital classroom setting.

According to Oberlin’s Acting Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences David Kamitsuka, who chairs the ongoing Academic and Administrative Program Review, the decision to transition intermediate- and upper-level Arabic classes to the digital platform was made due to low enrollment.

He also clarified that, while the decision is not connected to the AAPR, its motivation — financial sustainability — is similar to the AAPR committee’s focus.

“As much as Oberlin would like to support Arabic instruction under the traditional model, enrollment levels have not been sustainable,” Kamitsuka wrote in an email to the Review. “For example, in the last eight semesters of intermediate Arabic, course enrollment averaged four students per class.”

Kamitsuka added that the ARBC 202 course offered this spring has only two students enrolled.

However, College junior Simon Idelson, who is pursuing a Politics major and a Middle East and North Africa Studies minor, isn’t convinced that low enrollment justifies the transition to the SLP model.

“I think [the low enrollment] is a fluke because the [intro] Arabic class last year was largely made up of seniors and juniors who were about to go abroad,” Idelson said. “I think three people who would have taken the Arabic class graduated, two people went abroad, and then two people went abroad again the following semester.”

Current Visiting Assistant Professor of Arabic Basem Al-Raba’a, whose position has been funded through a four-year grant meant to evaluate student interest in Arabic and will not continue after this spring, agreed with Idelson’s assessment.

Al-Raba’a also said that he has not received much communication about the mentor position or future course offerings since learning that he would not be returning to Oberlin.

“I [am] not involved with the Shared Languages See Shared, page 3

CONTENTS NEWS

OPINIONS

THIS WEEK

ARTS & CULTURE

SPORTS

02 Admissions, Communications Present on Applicant Data

05 Arabic Transition Offers Opportunity to Model Collaboration

08 Oberlin in Pop Culture

10 Daily Show Comic, Students Perform in Finney

15 Walk-Ons Are Crucial to Varsity Athletic Success

03 Connect Cleveland Expands Programming

06 Ariana Grande’s Music Video Perpetuates Queer Stereotypes

11 Jonas Brothers Back in Spotlight After Five-Year Hiatus

16 Women’s Track and Field Wins Third Straight NCAC Title

The Oberlin Review | March 8, 2019

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Oberlin Hosts Healthy Kids Workshop

Admissions, Communications Present on Applicant Data Sydney Allen Editor-in-Chief

Oberlin hosted its first “Healthy Kids in the Bon Appétit Kitchen” class, a nutrition and culinary education program designed to teach and empower children to make healthy food choices for themselves and their communities. 25 children from the Oberlin community were in attendance.

Working with Bon Appétit chefs across the country, Healthy Kids educators teach handson cooking classes for kids by turning cafés or campus gardens into interactive classrooms, and by demonstrating how fruits and vegetables can be transformed into a healthy meal.

In this course, attendees learned about the six parts of a plant and where food comes from. Chef Manager Matt Krasnevich also led a taste test of mango, kiwi, and mango salsa verde. He also demonstrated how to “make pizza dough and sauce from scratch.” Each child made their own garden pizza and rainbow fruit kebab, which they finally enjoyed with their parents in Biggs Commons.

Text by Taiyo Scanlon-Kimura, OC ’15

Photo by Devin Cowan, Staff Photographer

Sexual Misconduct Investigation Concludes Jenna Gyimesi News Editor Editor’s Note: This article contains mention of sexual harassment and assault.

The formal investigation into the sexual misconduct allegations against former Organ Professor James David Christie have been completed by Giffen & Kaminski LLC, a Cleveland-based law firm. They concluded that “there is evidence that Mr. Christie in all likelihood grossly abused his position of trust and violated Oberlin College’s Discrimination and Harassment Policy, Sexual Misconduct Policy, and professional code of conduct,” wrote Acting Dean of the Conservatory William Quillen in an email to the Review.

During the full investigation, the firm interviewed more than 50 people associated with the Organ department and received 205 responses to a climate survey from current and former students.

Rebecca Mosely, director for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, thanks all who were willing to share their experiences and ensures current and former students that their voices were heard.

“We are sorry that for many of you we fell short of our values and our mission,” she wrote in a Feb. 21 email to those who participated in the survey.

The Oberlin R eview March 8, 2019 Volume 147, Number 16 (ISSN 297–256) Published by the students of Oberlin College every Friday during the fall and spring semesters, except holidays and examination periods. Advertising rates: $18 per column inch.

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POSTMASTER SEND CHANGES TO: Wilder Box 90, Oberlin, Ohio 44074-1081. Office of Publication: Burton Basement, Oberlin, Ohio 44074. Phone: (440) 775-8123

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“We are grateful to each of you who have pledged your continued support for Oberlin College, the Conservatory, and the Organ Department. We take seriously your charge that we lead the music world by defining artistic excellence in the academy as one that is free of unlawful discrimination, harassment, and abusive treatment of others.”

Quillen also emphasized that Oberlin is appreciative of student voices and will continue to consider student input as the Organ department moves forward.

“Students are actively engaged in their lessons and have expressed their appreciation for the collaborative approaches to teaching this semester,” Quillen wrote in an email to the Review.

“Students have offered thoughtful reflections and recommendations on their experience and we are actively listening.”

While the investigative process was underway, Oberlin implemented several new programs and trainings to help prevent such actions from occurring again. The Board of Trustees created the Sexual Misconduct Policy subcommittee of their pre-existing audit committee; all trustees and staff were required get up-to-date with their discrimination, harassment, and sexual misconduct policy training.

Since Christie’s resignation, the Organ department has been joined by visiting professors Christa Rakich and Arvid Gast.

Editors-in-Chief

Sydney Allen Nathan Carpenter Managing Editor Ananya Gupta News Editors Anisa Curry Vietze

Jenna Gyimesi Opinions Editor Jackie Brant This Week Editor Mikaela Fishman Arts Editors Kate Fishman

Katherine MacPhail Sports Editors Jane Agler

Alexis Dill Photo Editors Mallika Pandey Meg Parker Senior Staff Writers Carson Dowhan Roman Broszkowski Julie Schreiber

Layout Editors

Vice President of Communications Ben Jones, OC ’96, and Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Manuel Carballo held a talk for College and Conservatory faculty and select administrative and professional staff Wednesday called “Understanding Oberlin’s Applicants (and Their Understanding of Oberlin).” The talk provided information about the demographic breakdown of Oberlin’s prospective and matriculated students and their reasons for attending or not attending Oberlin.

The discussion was intended to lay the groundwork for the upcoming Administrative and Academic Program Review recommendations, which will be released next week, in hopes that constituencies might better understand the 31-person steering committee’s decisions. All of the data for Jones and Carballo’s talk were collected through two independent research firms, Human Capital Research Corporation and Generation Research Group.

“This presentation was really just a way to show some of the research that has fed into some of the things that the AAPR steering committee is thinking about,” said Jones, who is a member of the AAPR steering committee. “Obviously, we’re all here for the students, and so what the students are thinking about — both prospective, current, and otherwise — is critically important to the future of the College.”

The Office of Admissions and Financial Aid used HCRC, an education research consultant, to conduct an in-depth analysis of why matriculating students come to Oberlin, why some admitted students choose not to attend, where students go instead of Oberlin, how Oberlin is perceived compared to its peers, and more. While the Admissions Office collects matriculation data each year, this is the most comprehensive study they have conducted in recent memory.

“So they do things like help us with choosing a number of students we should take,” Carballo said. “They do some complex econometrics modeling around decision-making. We might take the same number of students one year to the next, but they look beyond [that] to see, ‘What was the academic quality? What is their income level?’ All these other things that would then feed to say, ‘Are you in good shape? Are you over-admitting or under-admitting?’”

Much of the data will have significant ramifications for how Oberlin is presented to prospective students moving forward.

For instance, many prospective students perceive Oberlin as having inferior internship and career opportunities compared to many peer institutions. This, along with Oberlin’s hefty pricetag, suggests that Oberlin is seen to have an inordinately low value proposition. This has been exacerbated by critical media coverage, such as a 2010 Business Insider article which claimed Oberlin provided the worst return on investment of any college in the U.S. This value proposition is becoming increasingly important as the number of families who are able to afford full tuition steadily shrinks nationwide. While Oberlin isn’t need-blind, the school does meet 100 percent of demonstrated financial need for its accepted students. Because of this, 40 percent of College students and 60 percent of Conservatory students do not pay full tuition costs.

The data also indicate that Oberlin’s location is a turnoff for some students, who don’t anticipate finding many internship or career opportunities in rural Ohio.

Finally, Oberlin’s community was deemed polarizing for many students, as some fit in extremely well and others not at all, with less middle ground than at similar schools.

Along with the work happening in Admissions, the Office of Communications contracted the Generation Project, a New York-based branding and communications agency. While the data that Generation gathered are relevant for AAPR, the Office of Communications has been in the process of gathering this information since fall of 2017, long before the AAPR was assembled.

The last in-depth study about Oberlin’s national and internal reputation was conducted in 2006.

The research’s main focus was questions about how Oberlin is perceived on the national stage, what Oberlin students value most

Parker Shatkin Jake Butcher Lila Michaels Lillian Jones Business Manager Jared Steinberg Ads Manager Jabree Hason Web Manager Sage Vouse Production Manager Giselle Glaspie Production Staff Christo Hays Olive Hwang Lior Krancer Devyn Malouf Madi Mettenburg Allison Schmitt Annie Schoonover

See Jones, page 4

Corrections: The March 1 editorial “Community Engagement Should Be Academic Priority” suggested that Oberlin should create a tag for courses that engage in community-based learning. A list of such courses already exists through the online course catalog.

To submit a correction, email managingeditor@ oberlinreview.org.

Connect Cleveland Expands Programming

Hanne Williams-Baron at the Cleveland Museum of Art with Connect Cleveland.

Photo by Meg Parker, Photo Editor

Lu Zucker Oberlin students visited Cleveland’s University Circle neighborhood last weekend to engage with the city through a free bus trip provided by the College. This trip was an expansion of the new Connect Cleveland initiative, founded in fall 2018 as part of Oberlin’s first-year orientation.

“We created Connect Cleveland in response to the desire among current and prospective students to have internships, work opportunities, and recreational possibilities in a more urban environment,” President Carmen Twillie Ambar wrote in an email to the Review. “It also addresses prospective students’ perceptions that our location is too remote or rural.”

Director of Student Conduct and Community Standards and Assistant Dean of Students Thom Julian, who is also a member of the Connect Cleveland Student Life Committee, noted that the orientation trip to Cleveland this past fall was met with overwhelmingly positive feedback from first-year participants, as well as requests

from upperclass students that the College lead additional student trips throughout the school year.

President Ambar also commented on the success of the first-year orientation trip.

“Having our first-year students go for a day of service and/or experiential learning at local organizations and companies ranging from the Cleveland Museum of Art and PNC Bank to an inner-city community garden is a great way to introduce them to a range of possibilities for social engagement, internships, employment, and recreation,” President Ambar wrote in an email to the Review. “While I’m proud of how engaged our College community is with the city of Oberlin and Lorain County, I think Connect Cleveland literally expands our students’ horizons by providing access to an urban experience and all that entails.”

Julian mentioned that the trips help address a number of concerns beyond simply entertainment.

“When you look at the admissions data ... location was a big factor in students not wanting to come to Oberlin,” Julian said. “A lot of our students come from more urban areas, and they need that kind of exposure. … This is an opportunity for us to connect socially, in order to keep students happier here at Oberlin.”

Julian hopes that Connect Cleveland will increase enrollment and retention while also encouraging Oberlin graduates to stay in the Cleveland area.

“I think by getting us out there more, it puts [Oberlin] in the public consciousness as a Cleveland-area school,” Julian said.

College junior Miya Wang and College first-year Serena Zets both explored University Circle during the recent day trip.

Wang was drawn to the program for the Cleveland Botanical Gardens and chance to

get bubble tea. She hopes the program will expand to include multiple drop-off and pick-up times so students have more agency in choosing the length of their visit.

Wang explained that getting to Cleveland is not accessible for all students, as many Oberlin students don’t have vehicles on campus, and that this program helps address those transportation concerns. Further, events and trips sponsored by Connect Cleveland are often free and scheduled well in advance.

During the trip, Zets enjoyed foods that she cannot find on campus.

“I went with the intention of getting bubble tea and Indian food, two things I’ve struggled to find in Oberlin,” she said.

“On my way to get bubble tea in the Circle, I randomly ran into an old friend who attends Case Western [Reserve University], and we spent the afternoon exploring the neighborhood.”

Julian emphasized that such experiences can be valuable for students.

“I think there’s something unique about a college student just getting to explore some place for five hours completely on their own and really pick their own adventure,” Julian said. “[For future trips] we’ve been looking at a lot of neighborhoods. … I want more students to become more involved.”

Students are already looking forward to another trip on March 9, this time to to Asia Plaza.

“I love the Asian market,” Wang said.

“My main purpose for now is to have a lunch and then do some grocery shopping.”

Any questions or feedback about Connect Cleveland can be directed to Thom Julian, Director of Orientation and Student Activities Tina Zwegat, or Assistant Dean of Business and Operations Jessica BayerCrissman.

Shared Languages Program Prompts Concerns Continued from page 1

Program,” Al-Raba’a said. “The administration is making plans … without my knowledge. I heard only from the students that there will be offerings in second- and third-year courses.”

Idelson is also concerned that shifting to a digital classroom model will compromise the experience of students interested in pursuing Arabic, Middle Eastern and North African studies, and politics.

“First, just technically speaking, you learn much more in person,” Idelson said. “I’ve used Zoom before in previous Arabic classes, [and] there was lots of freezing — the connection was very bad. Maybe they’ve updated their technology, but it was very hard.”

Idelson added that professor office hours and cultural or language-based programs on campus could become less accessible under the SLP model.

However, Dillmann said that she finds that her digital office hours are more popular than her in-person ones. Kamitsuka added that opportunities for individualized attention for students studying Arabic will still exist at Oberlin.

“We will support … instruction with a mentor on our own campus who can offer tutoring and opportunities for practicing conversation,” he wrote.

Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Elizabeth Hamilton says that it’s not yet clear what that mentor position will look like.

“The mentor’s position is yet to be designed and its exact contours will depend upon the level of enrollment,” Hamilton wrote in an email to the Review.

Al-Raba’a added that having an on-campus mentor is a vital part of the original agreements of the SLP. Al-Masri also emphasized the importance of mentorship.

“I insist on two things for this program to be successful for all students, not only for traditional students,” she said. “First, [that] we have students transition into the SLP at the intermediate level and above, and, number two, they have to have a mentor on campus to address whatever issues come up.”

From a teaching perspective, Al-Masri says that her experience with the SLP has been positive.

“It really has proven to be as good as the traditional class — maybe even better because of the technology and because of all of the tools that we can use,” Al-Masri said. She elaborated that

The Oberlin Review | March 8, 2019

particular Zoom functions, including chat function and screen sharing options, have allowed her to become a more accessible instructor.

College junior CeCe Longo, who is currently enrolled in an SLP German course taught by Dillmann, also reported that the platform had opened doors for them.

“While it can be difficult to attend school online, SLP provides an opportunity to learn more about German culture and practice language skills not offered here, physically, at Oberlin,” Longo wrote in an email to the Review. “I would take an SLP class in the future. Learning about German business culture is not something I would have done at Oberlin.”

Dillmann conceded that the digital platform will not allow students from different institutions to come together at campusspecific events, such as film screenings. While some in-person events and interactions can’t be replicated digitally, Dillmann noted that she is able to present a larger number of guest speakers to her classes.

As the SLP continues to grow, Dillmann hopes that students at GLCA institutions will have expanded access to language courses that their college or university perhaps cannot offer on campus.

“I would like to expand options for our students both by offering them higher level courses and more variety in higher level courses in the languages that they are already studying,” she said. “Or if they want to study a language that Oberlin doesn’t offer … for them to have the opportunity to then study that language.”

Idelson and other students still have doubts that the model will work for Oberlin.

“The Arabic program and its events helps bring together students of Arabic descent and students learning about it, and actually makes a community — a very important community that further humanizes [that] region,” he said.

Al-Masri encourages Oberlin students to open conversations about their concerns before dismissing the SLP model.

“I really, really understand their concerns … it’s just normal,” she said. “This is something that happens every time you try something new. My advice to [Oberlin students] is to try it first before they judge it.”

Kamitsuka says that Oberlin will continue to explore options to expand Oberlin’s collaborations with the SLP moving into next academic year.

Security Notebook Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019

8:52 p.m. A student reported that items were missing from their unlocked room on the second floor of South Hall. A jewelry box, two candles, and a ring holder had been taken.

10:14 p.m. Campus Safety officers were requested to assist an ill student in Kahn Hall. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

Friday, March 1, 2019

2:41 p.m. Officers were requested to assist a student stuck in an elevator at Firelands Apartments. Members of the Oberlin Fire Department and a College electrician also responded and the student exited the elevator safely.

3:13 p.m. Officers were requested to assist an ill student in East Hall. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

Saturday, March 2, 2019

1:46 a.m. Officers were requested to assist an ill student in Langston Hall. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

5:13 p.m. A student reported that their longboard had been taken from the third-floor hallway of Barrows Hall sometime before winter break. The longboard had dollar signs and gun stickers on it.

Sunday, March 3, 2019

12:15 a.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm on the second floor of Langston Hall.

The alarm was activated by smoke from frying food and was reset.

2:05 a.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm on the first floor of Bailey House. The alarm was activated by smoke from burnt popcorn and was reset.

10:38 a.m. Officers were requested to assist an ill student in Tank Hall. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

12:50 p.m. An officer on routine patrol observed an uprooted bush blocking the sidewalk on Hollywood Street. A maintenance technician responded and removed the bush from the sidewalk.

4:27 p.m. Allen Memorial Art Museum security staff reported that an individual was standing on the generator and exhaust pipes in the east side of the museum. The individual initially refused to give officers their name but was later identified as a student. Officers gave the student a warning before leaving the area.

Monday, March 4, 2019

6:30 p.m. Officers were requested to assist an ill student at a West Lorain Street Village House.

The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

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Kathleen Stephens, Former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea

Former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea Kathleen Stephens spoke yesterday on “Militarization and Demilitarization on the Korean Peninsula” for the 2019 Global Issues Symposium. The symposium has spent all of February and March exploring the theme “Militarization of Global Politics, Economy & Society.” The talk was part of a panel titled “Militarized East Asia.” In addition to her work in South Korea, Stephens has also worked in China, the former Yugoslavia, Portugal, and Northern Ireland. She is currently the president and CEO of Washington D.C.’s Korea Economic Institute of America.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Sydney Allen, Editor-in-Chief Lior Krancer, Production Editor Can you talk about your work at the Korea Economic Institute in D.C.?

I’ve been at KEI, as it’s called, since last September. It’s a small public policy think tank that is devoted to increasing the understanding of Korea and the U.S.-Korea relationship. So we do some writing of op-eds and articles. We commission articles from academics and policy thinkers about a whole range of issues relevant to not only the Korean economy, but more broadly, issues related to the U.S.-Korea relationship and security trade, global cooperation — whether that’s energy, climate change, a whole variety of things.

For the readers who weren’t able to attend your talk, can you explain what you touched on?

Well, first of all, I’m really delighted to be at Oberlin and visit the College and actually visit Ohio for the very first time in my life. I know Oberlin’s reputation very well. And I saw in the students I met at lunch this intellectual dynamism and this international outlook that I think is very associated with Oberlin. I also really wanted to come because I wanted to be a part of this very interesting global symposium on the militarization of foreign policy. I’m delighted to be on a panel with some colleagues to look at Northeast Asia. In my case, I’ll focus on Korea, but among the three of us we will cover Korea, Japan, and China, and also try to say something about U.S. foreign policy towards the region — in particular towards Korea. And I’ll be steered to

some extent by students’ questions.

The U.S. has a long and deep relationship with South Korea, including our military alliance. We’ve had a very decisive and influential role on the modern history of Korea. So there’s a lot to think about. We’re also at a time where it seems like there’s some possibility of transformational change on the Korean Peninsula. But at the same time, a lot of the elements that have made that change so difficult and the continued division of the Korean Peninsula, the challenge of the nuclear program and so on — all those elements don’t seem to have changed very much. So it’s obviously a very interesting time to look at the Korean Peninsula.

How did you get in this position during your work as an ambassador?

Well, I got here by the long and winding road. I grew up in the American West. I got interested in international affairs, and Asia in particular, because I had a wonderful professor who then opened up the possibility of studying in Hong Kong. I spent a year in Hong Kong, and I really got the bug to learn more about Asia — it’s just that simple. So that led me to the Peace Corps in Korea.

While in Korea, I took an exam to join the American Diplomatic Corps.

So I joined the foreign service pretty much right out of the Peace Corps and served for over 30 years in a variety of assignments. As I mentioned, with respect to Korea, I learned some Korean as a Peace Corps volunteer. I was in Korea

at a time of tremendous political change.

It made a very deep impression on me. I learned a lot of lessons from that about the U.S.’s role, about political change. I went on to serve in many other places, including post-Cold War Europe.

So coming back to be ambassador to Korea in 2008 was never exactly something I really thought was possible.

I think I never thought about it because there had never been a woman who was a U.S. ambassador to Korea. And there had never been a Korean-speaker who’d been U.S. ambassador to Korea. So let’s just say I didn’t fit the stereotype, but it was obviously very gratifying to me to have the opportunity. And I discovered that, notwithstanding some of the skepticism I heard — mostly from the American side — about whether or not a woman could fill the role of U.S. ambassador to Korea, that what really mattered to Koreans was that they saw me as someone who knew something about their history and their culture and also spoke their language. I think that really helped.

Korea has been in the news quite a bit recently. From your perspective, what has it been like to see Korea come into the U.S. consciousness?

I think over the decades since I first movedtoKorea,knowledgeandawareness of Korea has certainly increased. There’s been this extraordinary growth in size and influence of the Korean-American community. South Korea’s had an extraordinary economic blossoming as well, and its democratic rise — South

Kathleen Stephens Photo courtesy of Kathleen Stephens

Korea is really playing a much larger role in the world. Now some of that has to do with the fact that, in 2017, a lot of Americans were really concerned about whether or not we were looking at some kind of military conflict on the Korean Peninsula — or even a conflict involving the United States that would involve the use of nuclear weapons. It’s opened up a conversation about Korea.

What do you hope that students took away from your talk?

In very simple terms — and I think most of them know this already — I hope they take away a sense that Korea matters. The U.S-Korea relationship matters, and I hope students get a sense of why it matters. I do think that if we look at some of the major issues that are going to face us and face your generation — they’re going to involve Asia, and they’re going to involve the changing balance of power, and the deep connections across the Pacific.

Jones, Carballo Discuss Oberlin’s Demographic Trends Continued from page 2

about their education, and the perceived value and uses of an Oberlin degree.

One of the key takeaways is that, while Oberlin is seen as a top academic institution nationally, it is primarily associated with progressivism and politics, which deters some prospective students who are interested in academics over activism.

“I’m proud of Oberlin’s history, and it’s cool to see that people out there are proud of it too, but I do think that the main liability is when our commitment to social justice and activism gets totally decoupled from our academic excellence,” Jones said. “If people start thinking that Oberlin is only about social justice and not about academic excellence, then they lose the point of Oberlin, which is the education itself. That propels the world forward because people take their education and they go do extraordinary things with it in the name of progress.”

Additionally, researchers found Oberlin is seen as a

great institution for people interested in more creative or academic professions — catering to activists, professors, social workers, or artists — it’s not perceived as a good fit for people with entrepreneurial or STEM interests, such as prospective doctors, engineers, CEOs, lawyers, and finance executives.

The study also found that professional training opportunities are becoming a priority for prospective college students, and was a major factor for students who were accepted but chose not to attend Oberlin.

Meanwhile, matriculated Oberlin students tend to value professional training less and see the College as an opportunity to explore their “mind, values, and identity,” according to the presentation.

Carballo and Jones put this data into the context of national high school graduation rates, which are projected to steeply decline beginning in 2026. Additionally, studies show that the Northeast and Midwest — two of Oberlin’s largest demographic contributors — are going to start seeing significant declines in the populations of

Oberlin Community News Bulletin Spinners and Weavers Exhibit Fabrics and Textiles The Lorain County Spinners and Weavers Guild is hosting a hands-on exhibition featuring a variety of fiber arts. All ages are invited to learn how to spin yarn, weave cloth, knit, and crochet. Participants will handle tools like drop spindles, spinning wheels, floor looms, and assorted small looms. Many guild members will be present to help those who want to get familiar with these art forms. The event will be held Saturday, March 16 from 12–3 p.m. in Firelands Association for the Visual Arts at 39 South Main Street. The exhibition is free and open to anyone.

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OberlinKids Prompts Discourse at Parent Café Join OberlinKids at the Oberlin Public Library on Thursday, March 14 for its second Parent Café. This casual discussion group aims to break down common parenting concerns and help parents feel less isolated.

This month’s theme is social connections. A light lunch will be available following the discussion, and a limited number of childcare slots will be provided. Reservations are required and can be made by calling or texting Jenn Keathley at (440) 371-0113 or emailing jkeathley@ oberlinkids.org. If you are requesting childcare, please include the number of children and their ages.

young people in the coming years.

According to Carballo, this means that the college admissions process is going to get a lot more competitive between schools in terms of attracting potential students — especially among small liberal arts schools like Oberlin.

For some faculty in attendance, the talk provided a useful look into what kinds of data AAPR steering committee members are looking at.

“Personally, it gave me confidence that we are now proceeding with intentionality to recruit and retain the kind of bright, community-engaged Oberlin students that we have always treasured,” said Professor of Politics Eve Sandberg. “It did highlight, however, that many of the things we already do well are not being conveyed to our applicants.”

Although the presentation wasn’t directly open to students, Jones said that they will consider making the data and information available to students after the offices have a chance to more thoroughly review the implications.

Oberlin Choristers Holds “Evening at the Races” Fundraiser The Oberlin Choristers are hosting an “Evening at the Races,” on March 9 to raise funds which will allow the group to continue training talented young vocalists.

Attendees can enjoy a buffet and bet on the luckiest horse at this community gathering. The event will take place at VFW Hall, 6805 Lear Nagle Road, North Ridgeville, Ohio. Tickets are $20 per person and can be purchased by emailing jamie@reisfamily.org. Dinner is served from 6:30–7:30 p.m. and will include chicken and rigatoni, among other options. Races begin at 8 p.m. There will be gambling and alcohol at the event, so it is recommended that all guests be over the age of 18.

March 8, 2019

OPINIONS established 1874

Students Should Have High Hopes for New Senate Abby Kopp Contributing Writer Coming back from studying abroad last semester, I felt invigorated — I was ready to help improve campus and the Oberlin student experience. This feeling has been heightened by the recent election of new student senators, who seem similarly energized. All the new senators bring unique perspectives and valuable skills to Student Senate. That being said, there’s some work that I’m particularly excited about.

Firstly, I’m very excited about the overarching goal adopted by these new senators: transparency. Transparency is absolutely necessary to gain a better understanding of the work the senators do and the ways in which they can support students. I’ve attended several listening sessions run by senators in the past, and I hope they continue offering similar opportunities this semester. These opportunities are what will ensure that Senate continues to be as transparent as possible with their fellow students.

Further, I’m very much looking forward to seeing the work that Senate working groups will accomplish this semester. Any student can join these groups, which include the Campus Community Working Group, the Student Wellness Working Group, the Winter Term Working Group, the Campus Dining Working Group, and the Communications Working Group.

If you’re interested in attending future meetings, you can reach out to Student Senate or individual senators for meeting times and locations.

One group that I hope will be particularly impactful is the Campus Dining Working Group, led by Student Senator and College first-year Renzo Mayhall. Though I understand the financial reasoning behind consolidating dining halls, many students — myself included — find the remaining food options aren’t up to par.

I’ve been particularly disappointed

by DeCafé. DeCafé is one of the most convenient food options for busy students because of its central location and its grab-and-go options. However, it remains inaccessible due to limited food options for people with dietary restrictions and exorbitant prices.

I was upset upon my return to campus to find that only certain foods and

beverages could be purchased using a meal swipe. Given the lack of options, I often find it difficult to put together nutritious, filling meals without going over the $7.50 price of a meal swipe — especially because I’m vegetarian.

I also find the packaging at DeCafé to be extremely wasteful — i.e., the pizza boxes, the sandwich and side dish containers, and the plastic bags available at checkout.

In terms of the overall dining experience, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that students are no longer limited to one swipe per meal. We can now swipe multiple times to cover the cost of another student’s meal. Unfortunately though, this option is only available under certain dining plans — the most costly ones. I’m hoping this issue, along with my other grievances with DeCafé, can be addressed by the Campus Dining Working Group.

Another working group I’m excited about is the Winter Term Working Group, lead by Student Senator and College sophomore Bridget Smith. I feel very fortunate to go to a school that offers the unique experience of Winter Term. Winter Term gives students a chance to explore opportunities outside of regular course offerings, emphasizing creativity and experiential learning.

Yet, just like my experience with campus dining, I’ve found that Winter Term can be inaccessible for many students. A student or group may have a great idea, but struggle to find the resources to pursue it. For example, I had difficulty finding affordable housing in D.C. after I was accepted into the Congressional Winter Term Internship. Furthermore, I’ve also found it somewhat difficult to find good Winter Term opportunities since the month does not align with typical intern seasons. I’m hoping the Winter Term Working Group can help streamline this process, or perhaps help direct students toward good Winter Term opportunities.

Overall, I’m thrilled with the work Student Senate has already done, and I feel confident entrusting my concerns to such competent, committed students. If Student Senate brings the same care and effort to campus dining and Winter Term improvements that it has to transparency, the student body will be in good hands.

SUBMISSIONS POLICY

The Oberlin Review appreciates and welcomes letters to the editors and oped 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 that week’s issue.

Letters may not exceed 600 words and op-eds may not exceed 800 words, except with consent of the Editorial Board. All submissions must include contact information, with full names and any relevant titles, for all signers. All writers must individually confirm authorship on electronic submissions. The Review reserves the right to edit all submissions for clarity, length, grammar, accuracy, strength of argument and in consultation with Review style. Editors will work with 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. Headlines are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board. Opinions expressed in editorials, letters, op-eds, columns, cartoons or other Opinions pieces do not necessarily reflect those of the staff of the Review. The Review will not print advertisements on its Opinions pages. The Review defines an advertisement as any submission that has the main intent of bringing direct monetary gain to a contributor.

The Oberlin Review | March 8, 2019

Volume 147, Number 16

Editorial Board Editors-in-Chief

Sydney Allen

Nathan Carpenter

Managing Editor Ananya Gupta

Opinions Editor Jackie Brant

Arabic Transition Offers Opportunity to Model Creative Collaboration The recent decision to transition intermediate and advanced Arabic courses to a digital classroom platform known as the Shared Languages Program (covered in-depth in this week’s Review, “Arabic Courses to Be Offered Digitally”) has highlighted two truths about Oberlin’s current campus climate.

The first, which has been obvious for quite some time, is that the time to make difficult decisions is here. Oberlin’s finances are at a point where, if action is not taken now, the institution will struggle to keep its doors open down the road.

The second is that College administrators and students are getting better at coming together and discussing in good faith what those decisions are, and how they should be addressed — although we’re not quite there yet.

While the recent decisions concerning the Arabic program at Oberlin are not directly connected to the ongoing Academic and Administrative Program Review (although motivated by similar priorities), they have elicited concern and anger toward administrators.

However, that concern has translated into some tangible proposals, rather than complete rejections of any changes. Whether or not the proposals are feasible is another discussion — but an important one to have, nonetheless.

Some of the responsibility for the current dissonance regarding the future of Arabic at Oberlin lies with administrators. There has not been clear enough communication regarding the future of course offerings in introductory-level Arabic, nor about future on-campus mentoring opportunities for students enrolled in Arabic courses. Administrators have committed to providing an on-campus mentor, but what that position will actually look like is still up in the air.

The lack of communication and clarity represents a missed opportunity for the administration to rally support behind the SLP — a program with the potential to actually expand and deepen Oberlin’s language curriculum, and to build stronger networks between faculty and students across the Great Lakes Colleges Association. Especially for languages like Arabic, which may have only one faculty member on any given campus, the opportunity to share approaches and feedback with colleagues is valuable.

Despite those missteps, transitioning intermediate- and upper-level Arabic course offerings to the SLP model is an overall prudent and thoughtful financial and educational decision. The position currently filled by Visiting Assistant Professor of Arabic Basem Al Raba’a was funded by a four-year grant designed to discern whether Oberlin students would be interested in taking Arabic courses. As it turns out, the answer was not really — at least not beyond the introductory level. Over the past eight semesters, the average enrollment in intermediate Arabic classes was just four students.

Those numbers don’t support Oberlin’s current model for Arabic course offerings. Further, students and professors who have previous experience with the SLP model report positive learning and teaching outcomes.

Seeking innovative solutions like the SLP in order to avoid completely eliminating course offerings represents a genuine effort by administrators to recognize that Oberlin can’t be all things to all people, but that we can still leverage the technology and tools at our disposal to get as close to that ideal as possible.

It is important to note, however, that introductory-level Arabic classes have seen consistent student interest, a fact that must be taken into account when appointing the on-campus mentor. It would be a significant loss if future Oberlin students were not offered this course, making it impossible for them to advance to the courses offered through the SLP. For all of these reasons and others, the current campus dialogue about Arabic opens a much larger conversation about how we, as a community, can effectively digest the impending AAPR recommendations and then — in collaboration — chart paths forward that achieve financial sustainability without sacrificing what makes Oberlin special. In that process, all parties need to be candid, transparent, and ready to come to the table.

The controversy over the future of Arabic at Oberlin shows that we’re not perfect, but we’re getting better adapting to financial strain — certainly more so than in the past. True, administrators missed an opportunity to communicate as clearly as they could have. Likewise, students have failed to fully recognize the potential of the SLP platform as an opportunity to both extend and deepen Oberlin’s language offerings. They have also not fully engaged with realities about chronic underenrollment or the grant that funded Al-Raba’a’s position.

Let’s take this moment, before the whirlwind of AAPR has truly begun, to recognize that we’ve come a long way, but we still have a long road ahead of us, one filled with successes and disappointments alike. The current situation with Arabic isn’t ideal, and the changes — while financially necessary — potentially challenge Oberlin’s ability to offer on-campus educational experiences that reflect and celebrate the diversity of its student body.

However, the proposed adjustments come from our shared goal of financial sustainability, not a desire to eliminate a widely-supported program — and recognizing that creates a valuable opportunity to model the creative collaboration we all must engage in moving forward, with many more difficult decisions on the horizon.

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

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Opi n ions

Ariana Grande’s Music Oberlin Community Should Push Video Perpetuates Queer for Drug Harm Reduction Policies Stereotypes, Tropes Rachel Clark Contributing Writer

Aly Fogel Contributing Writer I am tired of watching gross misrepresentations of queer women in entertainment. I find myself mentally reminding the artists involved in these works, “My queerness is not a publicity stunt.

My queerness is not for your straight self-promotion. And my queerness is definitely not your personal fetish.”

So when I first watched Ariana Grande’s music video, “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored,” which has been criticized for its staged girl-on-girl kiss, I was not surprised to encounter the queer tropes I have become all too familiar with. However, I was surprised to find a strange new form of appropriation of the queer experience by a straight artist: using female queerness as straight girl empowerment and self-love.

In the music video, Ariana follows a heterosexual couple through a crowded party.

The girlfriend, played by model Ariel Yasmine, is dressed exactly like Ariana — high ponytail, false eyelashes and all. As Ariana flirts with this couple, there are subtle hints that Ariana is flirting with the girlfriend — not the man we assume she is after. The video ends with a plot twist when Ariana confirms this suspicion by pushing away the boyfriend and leaning in to kiss Ariel.

In her recent projects, Ariana has been highlighting selflove over romantic interest. In songs like “thank u, next,” she focuses on admiring herself, rather than a man. In “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored,” fans laud how she pushes away the man. Despite the tropes the video plays into, it has largely been met with praise. While fans applaud the empowering “I don’t need a man” moment, in reality they are supporting the tired, problematic tactic of queerbaiting.

Queerbaiting refers to hinting at same-sex attraction for attention from a primarily heterosexual audience while still catering to heterosexual norms and themes — essentially using queerness as an attention grabber. It’s easy to see this tactic unfold in Ariana’s new video. The video hints at same-sex attraction with Ariel but leaves the relationship foggy. These loose ends left fans questioning what the kiss implied — was Ariana coming out?

There’s absolutely no evidence that this was Ariana’s coming out statement. The last shot of this video is extremely telling — if this were truly a celebration of queer love, Ariana and Ariel would

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kiss, as she does with a number of male romantic interests.

Instead, the screen goes black just before their lips touch, as if teasing the audience.

More practically, it has been a month since the release and Ariana has said nothing on the subject.

Some viewers argue that the video is not about queerness at all, but a metaphor for selflove. The logic of this reading is that the girlfriend character is dressed and made-up to look exactly like Ariana, down to the tattoos. This suggests that Ariel represents Ariana.

At the end of the video, Ariana pushes the boyfriend away and kisses a stand-in for herself. This again brings up the theme of valuing self-empowerment over romantic relationships with men.

This isn’t the first time queer couples have been used as a prop to represent “selflove” in the media. Recall the “gay classic” Call Me By Your Name. Although the film has its merits, it is clear that the queer couple is a metaphor for autoeroticism and Elio’s self-discovery. Elio and Oliver — the queer couple in the film — are represented as mirror images of each other. The title itself, which refers to a scene in which the couple calls their own names during sex, cements the idea that this story may be more concerned with the autoerotic than the homoerotic.

More importantly, the original Call Me By Your Name novel is written by a straight man, and the film stars two straight actors. It does not include a gay sex scene, but does include an explicit straight one. Given these factors, queerness seems to be used largely as a tool in this story, leaving its “gay classic” status unearned.

The problem with straight artists using queerness for their own ends is that it ignores the lived experience of queer people. My queerness is not a disposable metaphor or an outfit I can change for the next music video — it is a real aspect of my identity that is often met with marginalization or harassment.

Given all of this, I can’t help but wonder why Ariana would appropriate queer aesthetic in this video. After all, it has nothing to do with the lyrics, which are very straightforward. A similar self-love theme could have been achieved had she kissed her reflection in the mirror at the end.

The queer “plot twist” is a clear publicity stunt for the straight pop star’s personal promotion. The video uses the “shock” of the ending to garSee Queerbaiting, page 7

As a progressive institution, Oberlin is uniquely poised to stand at the forefront of a new generation of harm reduction policies for drug usage. Overdose rates are up, current policy is failing, and it’s time for us to provide members of our community with ways to reduce harm while using substances.

It is essential that we recognize that people will engage in certain behaviors regardless of legality or social acceptance — substance use is one of these behaviors.

Therefore, it makes more sense to provide resources for people to make educated decisions about safe drug usage rather than to enforce policy that punishes individuals for making decisions about their own bodies. This is what harm reduction is all about: working to minimize the potential harms that members of our community might incur.

Changing how people think about drugs and drug users requires first acknowledging that, from a societal standpoint, drugs are associated with poor morality in this country — and it’s not by accident. Campaigns like Just Say No and D.A.R.E. have willfully concealed the racial and political histories behind the stigmatization of drugs. The prison indus-

trial complex is a major example of this phenomenon — it profits from continuous streams of inmates, and there is an enormous racial disparity in who is incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses.

Despite the federal government’s efforts to eradicate illegal substance use altogether through means such as laws and mass incarceration, high overdose rates and adulterated substances still dominate national headlines.

In 2017, more than 70,200 Americans died from drug overdoses, including overdoses from prescription opioids. Many of these cases also involved other drugs.

Forty-four percent of benzodiazepine users are currently dependent because of inadequate education from healthcare professionals.

Cartel violence and drug war-related deaths continue to rise despite stringent drug laws and excessively high amounts of law enforcement funding. Things are getting worse, and it’s abundantly clear that increasing our drug penalties has not stopped — or even slowed — our problems.

Still, we shy away from discussing the presence of drugs in our communities.

Drugs are taboo, whispered about in middle school bathrooms or warned against by parents via blatant lies based in fear. Many users — especially inexperienced ones — have no idea what they’re

doing, because no one is around to have a conversation with them that isn’t based in shaming or diversion.

And here we are in Lorain County — a community hit hard by opioids, in the middle of a state where cocaine cut with fentanyl has killed 3,000 people in the last year.

There has never been a more critical point to start enacting substantial change, especially in the Midwest where the opioid epidemic continues to rage.

Drug-related issues will not go away overnight, nor will instant legalization solve the problems we currently face. Beginning to rectify our twisted lationship with substances requires a multipronged approach that involves fact-based drug education, trust, support for those struggling with addiction, withdrawal, or safe consumption, and — most importantly — transparency among community members about what is really going on with substance users. On a local scale, we are perfectly capable of holding workshops and syringe exchanges, as well as drug checking services. Both these measures would help to ensure that if someone is using, they are doing so as safely as they possibly can.

Injection sites and factual drug education are often denounced on the basis that See Investing, page 7

Comic by Mikaela Fishman, This Week Editor

Overcommitting Results in Chronic Undercommitting Josh Ashkinaze Contributing Writer

The downside of a full Google Calendar is a partial commitment to everything on it. Paradoxically, overcommitting usually entails undercommitting to each thing you do. An overcommitted person simply does not have enough time or energy for each of their individual commitments.

We can define “overcommitment” as having more obligations to fulfill than time or ability to fulfill them. But it’s important to distinguish between discretionary overcommitment, such as choosing to participate in 10 clubs, and necessary overcommitment, like needing to work three jobs.

I’m writing about the first.

Thinking about physical structures can help us understand how we handle overcommitment. Every structure around us exerts a counter-force that keeps it from collapsing or flying into space.

There are two major ways that structures exert a counter-force — tension and compression. If we imagine our lives as structures, we deal with the load of overcommitment in the same way that structures do. Our overcommitted schedules sometimes make us tense. We feel “stretched for time.” Staying and chatting after class or taking a nap when we’re tired just aren’t options. At other times, our time horizon compresses. We forget about long-term projects. That plan to finally learn the piano doesn’t happen. Regardless of the way overcommitted people act, their inability to give necessary time and energy to each of their commitments causes them to act more like undercommitters.

The tense overcommitter can never be present in any single commitment. The

compressed overcommitter can’t think long-term. Absurdly, both types of over ommitters will sport a self-congratulatory grimace. For the tense overcommitter, their mere presence at the meeting is an accomplishment. For the compressed overcommitter, it’s an achievement they are even handling what’s due tomorrow.

To everyone else present, the overcommitter’s behavior is indistinguishable from an undercommitter’s behavior.

I think there are three main culprits for overcommitment: parental shadows, niche organizations, and a passion imperative.

First, Oberlin students are overwhelmingly affluent. The median family income of a student is $178,000. Wealthy parents fill their kids’ schedules with stuff to do.

Those kids grow up to micromanage themselves the same way.

Second, overcommitting is a great way to meet people. We have so many niche ExCos and clubs. We’re all a little eccentric. Maybe we can can “find our people” if we join enough organizations.

Third, don’t passionate people join activities to pursue what they care about?

We are passionate people. Just as people fall in love with the idea of love, I think we often are passionate about the idea of having a passion. It’s easy to chase the idea of passion all around campus — acting as a passionate person should act, without actually having real zeal for anything.

The artistic equivalent of overcommitment is “horror vacui” — fear of empty space. This fear leads artists to cover their canvasses only for the sake of covering their canvasses. Fear of empty space doesn’t usually lead to great paintings. A normalized fear of free time won’t usually lead to a great campus. Overcommitment benefits nobody.

Queerbaiting Delegitimizes LGBTQ+ Existence, Struggles Continued from page 6

ner attention without offending conservative viewers too much by actually showing the kiss. Ariana’s video profits off the fetishization of female relationships and the male gaze.

This all comes from a star with a large LGBTQ+ fan base, who was labelled “Gay Icon of the Generation” by Billboard in 2017. Apparently, Billboard didn’t see the irony in giving this title to a straight star.

And honestly, we really shouldn’t be surprised by Ariana’s problematic behavior by now; in fact, we should be seriously

questioning whether to support her at all.

Ariana has a long history of controversy amongst numerous communities. Aside from her play on queer tropes, she has also been accused of appropriating Black and Asian culture, most notably in her song “7 Rings.”

Despite all of these issues, Ariana reigns Queen of Pop. After she’s done shooting this video, she can have a laugh about kissing her co-star and still top the charts.

Meanwhile, her women-loving-women fans are left with a music video that perpetuates negative stereotypes and delegitimizes their existence.

Investing in Harm Reduction Will Promote Education, Safety Continued from page 6

they supposedly encourage use and therefore should not be implemented. However, if the number of complications and deaths from drug use goes down — which is what has happened at every safe injection site and drug education center in the U.S. — yet these places are still rejected, is the concern really about the users? Or is it about maintaining the deep-seated attitude that drugs are inherently evil?

Are we so entrenched in moral arguments that we allow overdose rates to climb instead of implementing safety measures?

And, if it so happens that a substance is

The Oberlin Review | March 8, 2019

safer than we tend to think, are we so determined to maintain our existing image of drug usage that we refuse to admit we might be wrong?

I ask you to consider whether Oberlin’s community is invested enough in those we love to consider that perhaps many Americans have actually been wrong about drugs all along. More importantly, I ask whether Oberlin students and townspeople are willing to take a step toward positive social change with drugs — both in Oberlin and in the surrounding communities — just as it has taken steps toward positive social change at so many other points in history.

Embracing Rejection Fundamental to Healing Campus Culture Katie Lucey Contributing Writer I recently listened to a podcast about a man who, upon determining that his personal and professional ambitions had stagnated, decided to seek out rejection for 100 consecutive days. During the experiment, Mr. Jia Jiang sought out rejection with foolproof ideas: he asked for a “burger refill” at a restaurant, offered to plant a flower in someone else’s yard, and requested $100 from a stranger. As is perhaps to be expected, Jiang received a lot of “no”s to his requests.

However — amazingly — Jiang was met with a “yes” 51 out of the 100 days. Embracing rejection led Jiang to take more measured risks and finally achieve his goals of becoming an author and entrepreneur.

The culture Obies inhabit is obsessed with success; social media platforms, family members, and educational institutions alike frequently broadcast messages of both achievement and struggle.

Somewhat frustratingly, we are told the latter is a prerequisite for the first by people who enter very different professional environments than us. Because of this, we are often afraid to fail.

As college students, we are often inundated with, (at times, unsolicited) advice about our futures. We are smugly told to brace for impact upon graduation: Without the cushy support of an insulated liberal campus, our twenties will be full of difficulty and rejection — both personal and professional.

Liberal arts institutions and the values that they stand for are floundering in a society that is increasingly focused on traditional, monetary measures of success. The world is converging due to globalization and technological connectivity, making the labor market more fluid and competitive than ever.

How are we supposed to attain success — whatever that means — in an environment that seems like it wants us to fail?

The ever-elusive future is a source of apprehension for many college students. During my time at Oberlin, I have heard a plethora of attitudes on the subject expressed. While some students seem to be in a state of constant panic about their post-graduation lives, others shrug off the very notion that there exists a time beyond the present.

There is a certain element of privilege that comes with the ability to think about something other than surviving moment to moment.

However, it is also a privilege to be able to ignore the future or to be unconcerned with what you’re doing post-graduation.

Entitlement aside, anxiety stemming from this uncertainty undercuts our ability to enjoy the present and results in a campus culture rife with stressed individuals. According to a Student Senate survey conducted February 2018, almost 49 percent of students have previously or recently considered leaving Oberlin; clearly, Oberlin students are not immune to stressful academic standards and our societal obsession with avoiding failure and achieving success at all costs.

Part of the reason we are so obsessed with avoiding failure is because avoiding failure in all our various endeavors keeps us busy — and therefore, on the road to “success.” Oberlin students are proud of their busy-ness. Busyness is what makes us desirable to future employers or graduate schools. However, Oberlin is also a genuinely impassioned community that cares about our academics, hobbies, and social and political causes. Sadly, this busyness culture can be toxic. Our hectic schedules, dedication to our studies, and endless search for internships and volunteer opportunities often come at the expense of sleep, healthy eating habits, and social interactions.

We opt into this culture because if we don’t, we’re outsiders. We won’t fit in with our fellow students, who seem to jump from one opportunity to the next and are apparently immune to failure. This is a dangerous way to think — unconsciously or not — and we must do something about it.

We must reconcile our collective fear of failure in order to adopt a healthier, more balanced approach toward our lives at Oberlin and beyond. While ambition and hustle are admirable traits, so is understanding that we are not bound to any one measure of success.

We must acknowledge failure and talk about it openly and honestly with each other.

Oberlin students certainly have a lot to offer the world. However, I am acutely aware of the abundance of issues we face as a community, including the fractured modes of communication that lead to a perceived apathy toward one another. Perhaps greater institutional opportunities for facilitated discussion are a way to build empathy and improve the more toxic aspects of Oberlin culture. Still, I think an easier step toward this same goal is to be more forthright in acknowledging our failures and embracing rejection.

I’ll start: I applied to over 65 internships this past fall and was rejected from most of them. I quit my varsity athletics team this year, in part because I felt like I failed to fully commit to my team and sport. Overscheduled and at times overwhelmed I dropped the ball on some really important academic and extracurricular assignments. In other words, I’ve failed, and I’ve failed often. Naming these failures has allowed me to make peace with them, and I encourage all Oberlin students to try it out.

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GAYLE WATERS-WATERS GILMORE GIRLS Episode 28: The Common App (2014) In one episode of this hilarious YouTube series, Gayle, a fictional, high-strung suburban woman, asks her daughter Terry where she is applying to college.

Season 7, episode 6: “Go Bulldogs!” (2006)

In this show about a young mom named Lorelai and her daughter Rory, Lorelai suggests to Rory on the phone that their family dog, Paul Anka, should go to Oberlin.

Gayle: What’s on your college list?

Terry: Well, there’s Oberlin...

Gayle: Terry, that place is a witch nest! It’s a coven!

If Abagail Proctor lived through the crucible, she would be at Oberlin right now, bunking with Tituba!

GIRLS

BOJACK HORSEMAN

Season 3, episode 11: “That’s Too Much, Man!” (2016) BoJack and Sarah Lynn go on an epic bender. They eventually end up at Oberlin so that Bojack can try to make amends with a friend’s daughter who he has wronged. While there, they run into the Obertones and visit Tank Hall and Mudd Center.

OBERLIN Layout and Text by Mikaela Fishman, This Week Editor

NEW GIRL

Season 1, episode 5: Hard Being Easy (2012)

Season 4, episode 16: “Oregon” (2015)

Created by Lena Dunham, OC ’08, this series follows four young women living in New York City, three of whom are Oberlin graduates. This particular episode features a flashback to a fictionalized version of Oberlin’s former annual “Safer Sex Night.”

THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART Monologue on Jan. 13, 2011

Conservative political commentator Michelle Mankin, OC ’11, negatively comments on one of President Obama’s speeches, and Jon Stewart responds:

We’re not a primitive people, capable only of response to outside stimuli. You have a choice. You went to Oberlin.

Jess, the main character in New Girl, takes her friends to her hometown Portland, OR, for her dad’s wedding.

As they take a pedicab through the city, Jess describes important places from her childhood.

In this “sex comedy,” an American teenager named Scotty travels around Europe in search of his German pen pal, Mieke, who he initially believed was a boy but then finds out is actually an attractive girl. At the end of the movie he starts college at Oberlin, only to find that Mieke has been assigned as his roommate.

EUROTRIP (2004) Scotty: What are you doing here?

Mieke: Going to college.

Scotty: What dorm?

Mieke: This one, room 214.

Scotty: How is this possible?

Mieke: I guess they thought I was a guy.

Scotty: Now who would be dumb enough to make a mistake like that?

MODERN LOVERS (2016)

WAIT WAIT...DON’T TELL ME! FUN HOME (2006)

By Emma Straub, OC ’02

June 11, 2016 episode

By Alison Bechdel, OC ’81

This novel centers around a group of former bandmates and Oberlin graduates living in Brooklyn and features several references to the school. Some examples: “At Oberlin he had grinded his body against beautiful girls with short hair and nose rings when he was fall-down drunk, but he had never really liked to dance.”

“It was deeply sexist, and so he’d never said it out loud (that was what Oberlin had been good for, teaching him that most things men thought on a daily basis were rooted in sexism), but it was true.”

Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me! is NPR’s weekly, news-based quiz show. At the end of every show, host Peter Segal asks the guests to comedically predict what will happen in the news next week. In this particular episode, Segal asks panelist and actor Peter Grosz what Bernie Sanders will do next, and Grosz responds, “He’s going to enroll as a freshman at Oberlin College and be treated like a god. And while he’s happily married, he could definitely get the top one percent of all the chicks at Oberlin.”

Bechdel went to Oberlin, so many scenes in her autobiography Fun Home take place here, including this one. You may recognize the cinderblock dorm room walls.

Fun Home was also made into a musical, and in the musical version the character modeled after Bechdel says, “It’s not the real world, anyway.

It’s Oberlin College.”

IN POP CULTURE

Many TV shows, books, movies, radio shows, comics, and other forms of media reference Oberlin College –– here are just a few of the best references. It’s interesting to learn about this school from former Obies writing fictionalized versions of their experiences, and also from people who clearly have never been here in their lives.

To see a complete list of references, visit oberlinreview.org/category/this-week.

A FORTUNATE AGE (2015)

By Joanna Rakoff, OC ’94

This novel is also about a group of young Oberlin graduates living in Brooklyn, and it contains a few references to the characters’ alma mater.

Beth, one of the main characters, goes to a party with a group of her Oberlin friends and meets a Columbia graduate student named Will. He says, “‘And you, it seems, are part of the Oberlin mafia.’

Beth laughed. ‘I guess. Except I didn’t know there was an Oberlin mafia.’

‘Oh yes. Of course. The city’s overrun with your kind ... Scheming Oberlin grads dominate the publishing industry, hold all the important positions in the more humanistic subjects at major universities, and so on ... Oh, and you must know this,’ he went on, ‘they control the waste disposal industry.’”

CALENDAR

COLLEGE HUMOR

Comic by Samantha Ruddy and Allison Strejlau (2015) College Humor is a comedy website that produces daily comics, videos, and articles. This comic is titled “Dating Someone Older: Expectations vs. Reality”.

SATURDAY, MARCH 9

THURSDAY-SUNDAY, MARCH 7–10

Come dance salsa, merengue, and bachata to live music by the Oberlin band Fogata at this annual Latin dance night.

This play by Tarell Alvin McCraney is about a Black man attempting to adapt after being incarcerated in the South. The play explores his relationship with his brother and how their Yoruban faith plays a part in their lives. Directed

by College senior Ti Ames. Kander Theater

Merengue Madness

The ’Sco 10 p.m.–1 a.m.

The Brothers Size

Thurs.–Sat. 8 p.m. • Sat.–Sun. 2 p.m.

SUNDAY, MARCH 10

TUESDAY, MARCH 12

WEDNESDAY–THURSDAY, MARCH 13–14

Los Angeles-based poet, teacher, artist, and movement leader Alyesha Wise comes to Oberlin to share spoken word poetry, as well as “inspiration, healing, and justice.” She will be joined by OSlam team poets.

Donate and receive a $5 Chipotle gift card, as well as a voucher for one free attraction at Scene75 Entertainment Center. Schedule an appointment at RedCrossBlood.org and enter the sponsor code “Oberlin.”

Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Alice Blumenfeld will perform in Mudd library to kick off the symposium “Breaking Boundaries in Flamenco.”

An Evening of Poetry with Alyesha Wise

The Cat in the Cream • 7–8:30 p.m.

Red Cross Blood Drive

Wilder Hall • 12–7 p.m.

Labyrinths: A Site-Specific Performance

Mudd library • 12:15–12:45 p.m.

A r t s & C u ltu r e

March 8, 2019

ARTS & CULTURE established 1874

Volume 147, Number 16

Daily Show Comic, Students Perform in Finney

A crowd of between 800 and 1,000 students packed Finney Chapel last Saturday, with the downstairs seating filled completely for Jaboukie Young-White’s free stand-up performance.

Photo courtesy of Nicki Kattoura

Roman Broszkowski Senior Staff Writer Close to 800 students filled the pews of Finney Chapel last Saturday to watch a highly-anticipated standup comedy performance by comedian Jaboukie Young-White. The event also featured student comedians as openers for Young-White.

College senior and Program Board member Kira Felsenfeld, who pitched

the idea to the Student Union and petitioned the Student Finance Committee for funds, organized the show as part of a drive to bring more well-known comics to campus. “[The SFC was] so generous with ad hoc and they’ve been really excited about bringing student acts,” Felsenfeld said. “I think it’s like, this is a really fun thing to do. We might as well have people … who you think [are] enthusiastic or who would bring enthusiasm.”

College senior Gabi Shiner, who kicked off the opening student performances, felt that the night was successful both personally and in terms of programming.

“I had a lot of fun — I liked the challenge of having to match the energy of that many people,” she wrote in an email to the Review. “I thought the event was amazing. It was so cool that comedy was showcased in a way that it isn’t traditionally showcased at Oberlin.”

College senior Michelle Chu, who also performed Saturday, echoed Shiner’s sentiment.

“I think that empowering upcoming artists and comedians [who] have an important, fresh perspective should be encouraged,” she wrote in an email to the Review. “I feel like Oberlin does a great job bringing upcoming [and] trendy musicians, but doesn’t really focus on many other types of entertainers besides poetry.”

Felsenfeld agreed and believes that, with the funds available to students, programming should focus on bringing popular and unique voices to campus.

“The goals [of the event] were to bring a comedian who wasn’t just representing a white-dude demographic,” she said. “We brought comedians like Brandon Wardell in the past who were just reading [their] tweets and … weren’t that interesting. Jaboukie is a queer person of color from the south side of Chicago who also speaks really candidly about … violence against trans women and against trans people of color. That’s really powerful and we

might as well be having that open conversation, but also through a medium of comedy, it’s really amazing.”

Much of the event’s success, Shiner says, came not from Young-White’s fame, but from his ability to speak to the feelings many students share about their place in society.

“I don’t know that the success of the event even necessarily has to do with how big Jaboukie is,” she wrote.

“I think the audience response was so positive because Jaboukie is really in touch with how 20-somethings actually think in a climate where we’re told how buzzword-y and fake we all are.”

Felsenfeld also found this to be one of his strong points.

“Jaboukie is really well known within our generation and within our demographic and reaches a lot of different audiences,” she said. “We had so many people from so many different backgrounds at the show. So I think that that definitely reflected our goals of what we wanted from this event.”

For the student performers, it was an opportunity to perform outside of the small, cramped basement shows that have come to define the Oberlin College stand-up scene. Chu was excited by the opportunity and hopes that the event generates momentum for the College comedy community.

“It was exhilarating performing in front of so many people!” she wrote.

“I’m hoping that the Oberlin comedy scene will start to grow and continue to empower [people of color] that have fresh jokes that people haven’t heard before.”

Catrina’s Food Review: New Mexican Eatery Opens in Oberlin

Ananya Gupta Managing Editor

An Indian and a Pakistani walked along West College Street last Thursday, terrified that within the next few hours we would hear terrible news regarding escalating military tension from our South Asian borders. We decided the best way to deal with this fear was to share a meal at Catrina’s Tacos y Margaritas — Oberlin’s new Mexican restaurant.

The restaurant was full that night, though it’s hard to tell whether the foot traffic was due to the novelty of a new restaurant downtown or genuinely delicious food.

When my friend and I weren’t simulating war tactics using cutlery and salsa bottles, we were discussing how confident Catrina’s owners must be considering it competes with two other local Mexican restaurants, Agave Burrito Bar & Tequilería and Lupita’s. Both already score major points with students — Agave because of its prime location and cheap fare and Lupita’s for its biweekly $1 margaritas. Catrina’s has yet to acquire its liquor license, so it remains to be seen whether the restaurant will be able to compete with Marg Night or Agave’s 1 a.m. burrito bowls.

In terms of ambiance, the restaurant was absolutely fantastic. With a proud display of authentic Mexican cultural pieces paired with a young, hipster vibe and a well-lit bar, I think Catrina’s has

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the potential to become a beloved haunt for the average Oberlin resident. Furthermore, the restaurant must be appreciated for its pleasant staff (who offered great service), its adequately-sized menu that is neither too baffling nor too limited, and its carryout options.

The proof, however, is in the pudding, not the packaging. I sampled four dishes at Catrina’s, two of which the server recommended: the Catrina chicken rice bowl; their Clásicos tacos, ground chicken with lettuce and tomato served in a hard shell; a dish titled Los de Tinga, which was semi-spicy chipotle chicken served in a soft shell with avocado, sour cream, lettuce, onions and drizzled with queso fresco; and perhaps the best of all amongst the four, Volcano tacos — an amalgamation of steak, roasted poblanos, chihuahua cheese, and guacamole.

The meat in all four dishes was wellcooked, and the combination of beans, rice, cheese, and vegetables produced a well-rounded, satisfactory meal. The guacamole tasted fresh, and the beans had an enjoyable creamy quality to them.

However, the main issue with all four dishes was the lack of flavor or zing.

While this “semi-spicy” choice seems to be a deliberate decision by the chefs to preserve the delicate taste buds of Oberlin and its Midwestern occupants, I believe Catrina’s can dare to spice their dishes up a bit. While there is nothing outrageously disagreeable about the food, the lack of flavor is disappointing for an otherwise memorable experience.

Catrina’s Tacos Los de Tinga

It must be noted though, that what is lost in the flavor of the actual dish is made up by the two condiments available on each table, a red salsa and a green, yogurt-based sauce with a kick to it. Adding these two condiments to the dishes really brought them to life, taking the gustatory experience to another level. I would recommend everyone visiting to sample the sauces with their meals at Catrina’s in order to truly enjoy the food.

While my experience with the restaurant’s food has been underwhelming thus far, this is not my final verdict. I have not had the opportunity to try their ample pork dishes, vegetarian tacos, burritos, desserts, or their lunch and break-

Photo by Mallika Pandey, Photo Editor

fast menus as of yet, and I am extremely excited to do so in the future.

I must further admit, that I have developed a soft spot for Catrina’s that allows me to forgive some of its flavor flaws. My friend and I were going through an incredibly rough time in our lives — worried about family, friends, and our respective countries. Walking into that restaurant lifted our spirits significantly and allowed us to laugh during a very dark time. I appreciate that more than words can convey. I think in the tumultuous political climate we seem to perpetually find ourselves in today, good food and a warm smile can go a long way.

Catrina’s is a great place to find both.

Empathy Café Facilitates Student Communication Katherine MacPhail Arts & Culture Editor Empathy Café is an initiative of the Yeworkwha Belachew Center for Dialogue, designed to help students develop positive communication skills.

The program was started last year, and grew out of the YBCD’s drop-in hours after staff members recognized the need for more programs that help people practice conflict resolution.

Ombudsperson Kim Jackson Davidson spoke about the inception of this program.

“We felt like there was something missing as the core reason for people to walk to this part of campus [for drop-in hours] and show up,” Davidson said. “One of the other members of YBCD had in the past run workshops on nonviolent communication. So we hosted some workshops and out of that eventually decided to do Empathy Café.”

A member of the YBCD facilitated the first few Empathy Café meetings last year before the role was taken on by College sophomore Rachel Wolchok during her first year at Oberlin.

“The way I look at it is that [the café is] for practicing empathy so that when you’re in situations where you disagree with someone or there’s a tense discourse, you can still exercise empathy and listen to them while also maintaining your own opinions,” Wolchok said. “It’s also really important to practice receiving empathy because empathy comes in so many different ways.”

The Empathy Café uses GROK cards to help students express themselves. There are two piles of cards: one that identifies feelings, and one that identifies values. One student will share a short story — which can be positive or negative — and pick a GROK card that names their emotions. The listeners will pick a value card that they feel represents what that person needs. These cards serve to help people identify their emotions and needs, practice active listening, and expand their emotional vocabulary.

College sophomore Maya Seckler frequently attends the Empathy Café.

“It offers really cool insight to situations sometimes — if someone offers you a needs card that you would look at and be like, ‘What? That’s not what I need right now,’ it offers you an opportunity … to consider something you might not consider,” Seck-

Drawing by Alex Tash

ler said. “And that can be revolutionary.”

College first-year Eliza Young has also found the café to be a valuable opportunity for growth.

“I think I’m gaining a lot of valuable skills in terms of how I conceptualize emotions and how I understand my emotions, the emotions of others, and different factors that may be at play in a given situation,” Young said. “It gives you words to be able to actually talk about how you’re feeling when it might be hard to pick different emotions out of thin air. So I think it just gives people more of a framework to think about their feelings and the feelings of others.”

The café can also be helpful for translating communication skills into other spaces.

“Having the vocabulary and having the ability definitely has helped me in other areas as well,” said College first-year Nicole Chase. “It’s helpful in the classroom. I take a lot of politics classes, and I’ve noticed that a lot of times people speak in this very removed language and don’t realize that the

things we’re talking about affect real people. Engaging in empathic dialogue … very much recenters both dialogue and thinking.”

The Empathy Café is expanding beyond the bounds of the dialogue center’s office in Lewis House and becoming available in other spaces on campus, starting with the Conservatory.

“Empathy is very important when you’re talking to your group members about music,” Wolchok said. “Going about [criticism] in a very respectful way is important because you’re making music together. It’s one sound that you’re producing, so hurting one person is hurting the entire group. … The Conservatory is a huge pressure cooker. I think it’s really important to provide that space for community, for communication purposes.”

Starting next week, Empathy Café will be held in Bibbins 232 from 7–8 p.m. on Wednesdays and at the Lewis House and Multifaith Center from 7–9 p.m. on Thursdays. Sessions are open to anyone who is interested.

Jonas Brothers Back In Spotlight After Five-Year Hiatus Carson Dowhan Senior Staff Writer Millennials around the world were in for a shocking surprise this month as the Jonas Brothers — one of the premier boy bands of the 2000s — released their first single in six years.

“Sucker,” released on March 1 has garnered worldwide attention, propelled the trio back into the spotlight since the song was announced a day before its release. Is this the beginning of a major comeback for the Jonas Brothers? Everyone on Twitter seems to think so; up until this wildly unexpected announcement, the band’s account had been silent since 2013.

The success of “Sucker” makes the Jonas Brothers the latest in a string of musicians in recent years to benefit from the “surprise release” marketing strategy. The music video and carefully planned social media announcements greatly contributed to the immediate viral success of “Sucker,” although ultimately the song’s success stems from the group’s iconic status.

“Sucker” is a refreshingly different take on the group’s style, and reflects the dynamic nature of pop music. The band sings about mature themes of sex and lust, which breaks away from their childish, Disney-Channel roots.

The evolution of the Jonas BrothThe Oberlin Review | March 8, 2019

ers is a natural progression from child rock stars to contemporary pop artists. Gone are the leading electric guitars and Jimmy Eat World-esque songs, like “Year 3000” and “Underdog” from 2006 release It’s About Time. These tracks captured the early-2000s feel of mainstream pop-rock.

Their more iconic songs, “Burnin’ Up” and “S.O.S.,” come from their second and third albums. Their 2009 album Lines, Vines and Trying Times mimics elements of Blink-182’s discography — see album opener “World War III” — while fusing eclectic classic rock inspirations, such as on “What Did I Do to Your Heart” and “Don’t Speak.”

It was only in 2013, after the Disney Channel show Jonas L.A. was canceled, that the band abandoned their child-star roots with the single “First Time.”

The producers behind the single are veterans of the industry. “Sucker” was produced by the frontman of OneRepublic, Ryan Tedder, who is known for such tracks as Beyoncé’s “Halo,” OneRepublic’s “Counting Stars,” and Maroon 5’s “Maps.” Producer Frank Dukes, known for production work on Travis Scott’s “Pick Up The Phone,” Post Malone’s “Congratulations,” and Cardi B’s “Be Careful,” also worked on the record.

Some students on campus are thrilled about the new single. College

sophomore Henry Hicks appreciates how the new song is reminiscent of the band’s old music.

“It had the same sound the Jonas Brothers used to have, so it felt very nostalgic to me,” he wrote in an email to the Review. “It’s definitely interesting to me that they reunited because to me it seemed as though they’d all gone their different ways: Kevin settled down and had that reality show.

Nick was kind of blowing up on his own — I have no clue what Joe was up to. But I like that they still sound pretty similar to the way they did back before the group broke up.”

College sophomore Sydnie Savarese appreciates how the band’s sound has evolved.

“I think that the new Jonas Brothers single is pretty innovative,” she wrote in an email to the Review. “It has different beats from their old songs and flows pretty well with the other new pop songs out there.”

In reality, the group never truly broke up but went on a five-year hiatus to pursue their own projects. Nick Jonas released two albums during the break, which included hits “Close” and “Jealous,” while Joe Jonas found himself bouncing between collaborations — which included joining the pop band DNCE and writing “It’s Party Time” for Hotel Transylvania 3.

Kevin Jonas starred in a reality show

Married to Jonas in 2012–2013 and undertook various entrepreneurial ventures in real estate under his firm Jonas/Werner Fine Custom Homes.

The long-forgotten fourth Jonas Brother, Frankie Jonas, is a decorated chili cook and also voiced a character in the 2009 animated film Ponyo.

Some students are hesitant to accept the Jonas Brothers back into the spotlight.

“Right off the bat, my thoughts are that they’re behind the curve musically,” said College sophomore Sam Schuman. “It’s just so nice that they’re finally allowed to talk about sex in their music now that they’re all married,” he continued, sarcastically.

Clearly, the Brothers’ re-entry into pop music isn’t for everyone.

Other students are thinking about the song in more unorthodox ways.

“I think it definitely can be adapted to a capella,” said College junior and Acapelicans member Miranda Purcell. “I can’t say how exciting it would be, because it’s not the most complex song, but I think it would be easy to arrange.”

“Sucker” has enjoyed viral success, but listeners will have to decide for themselves whether they think it’s worth all the hype. The release of their next album will reveal whether they can balance middle-school nostalgia with mature themes.

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

Ti Ames, Director of Kander Lab Series Show The Brothers Size Ti Ames is a fourth-year Africana Studies and Theater major from Charlottesville, Virginia. They are directing The Brothers Size for their senior capstone project. The play is a part of The Brother/ Sister Plays, a trilogy by Tarell Alvin McCraney, who co-wrote the 2017 Oscar Best Picture Moonlight. The play explores Yoruban spirituality and the Orishas, who are the personification of forces in nature and human endeavors. Their spiritual roles have been translated through different cultures and are prominent in many religions. The show runs from March 7–10 in the Kander Theater.

Tickets are $5 and are available at Hall Auditorium and online through Central Ticket Services.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Katherine MacPhail, Arts & Culture Editor

Ti Ames

Can you tell me what this play is about?

The show is based on the Yoruba spiritual framework.

Yoruba is a religion that comes out of West Africa that has been transcribed through the Middle Passage up through the Caribbean and into the United States.

It’s based on the idea that you have these forces of nature that control the earth and everything surrounding it.

You’ve got Oshoosi who is the Orisha of hunting, you’ve got Ogun who’s the Orisha of labor and iron, and then you’ve got Elegba who’s the Orisha of the crossroads and doorways.

Oshoosi is 19 years old. He was just released from prison and he has moved back in with his older brother, Ogun, who owns an auto mechanic shop. When Oshoosi was in prison, his cellmate was named Elegba, and it turns out they’re all from the same town in Louisiana. The show takes place about three months after they both get out of prison.

I don’t want to give too much away, but basically, it’s just Oshoosi trying to figure out what to do, being a Black man in the South who now has a record. It’s about his experience navigating life, the law, the police, and what it’s like to have an older brother who didn’t visit him in prison.

What has your approach been to directing this play?

When I became an actor, acting was very much based in Western doctrines and Stanislavski-type methods. For this show, I decided to go in a different direction. We’re doing something called Soul Work and call and response, which is very much rooted in Black aesthetic.

These two different principles work very similarly and they work together. The term Soul Work was coined by Dr. Cristal Chanelle Truscott. Her idea is that Western theater is all based in individual work and asks, “What do I want? What do I need in order to keep going in the show?” Soul Work asks, “What does my community need?” It goes from an individualistic view of a show to a community view of the show.

So it takes a little bit from this idea of action and reaction

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Photo courtesy of Ti Ames

in Stanislavski, but the call and response kicks back on that. I don’t have any set actions or objectives for my actors. I told them, “You can have a basic understanding of what’s going on here, but unless you’re actually sitting there and receiving what the other person is giving to you, there’s no possible way to give anything back. So your action and objectives will change every single show, every single time we run the scene. If it happens to start forming into a general idea that kind of continues, sure, let’s go with that. But if something new happens, which every single run of the show [it does], run with it because you now have a new call that you have to respond to.”

How has the show been a collaborative process?

What I didn’t mention about the show that I’m excited to explore, is that it talks a lot about Black queer masculinity. This campus is full of Black folk. It’s a smaller community because this is a small private white institution, but we exist; we’re here, and the Black queer community is even smaller. What’s been beautiful about this show is that it’s brought everyone out from the woodwork to work on it. My entire set was done by Black artists. There’s a massive mural on the back wall done by them. I’m very lucky and very blessed to have people who want to work on this show. It’s been really great to not have to do this by myself, and to work with people who are just as enthused about this and just as dedicated as I am.

What sort of important issues do you think this play addresses?

There’s so much! I mean, first of all, you’re talking about Black queer masculinity, which is something that is not talked about a lot, period, wherever you are. When most people think about Black queer people, they think about Black gay men who are more feminine-presenting. And those are great and wonderful people, but we don’t talk about the other facets of Black queerness, especially when it comes to men. So it’s

nice that this show really hits that on the head, talking about what it means to be a Black man, raised as a “traditional” Black man with very masculine qualities, who was forced to be strong every day of his life, and to be an example for everyone in his life.

The show is also based a lot on speaking stage directions out loud. Sometimes a character will say “the law runs up on him” or something like that, which ... shows how the law is everywhere. Being Black in America is not a fun thing, especially being Black and queer in America; you’re automatically a target.

It also talks about what it means to be from the South. I’m from the South, so I think that’s why it means so much to me. A lot of the show talks about the mud, and what it means to be stuck in mud, or stuck in dirt.

The show has a very swampy quality because it takes place in the Bayou.

We also base a lot of the show off of Angola prison, which is the largest plantation prison in the country. It still exists.

It started out as a plantation during slavery. Now in 2019, it still exists as a slave plantation, but it happens to be a prison. It’s mind-boggling to me that these places exist.

How has dramaturgy and Yoruba Spirituality been a part of this show?

[College junior] Miyah Byers is our dramaturg. She’s also my assistant director and she’s also in the show. She has done so much. She did a lot of work researching Yoruba and figuring out how we can carefully and respectfully approach the show when it comes to spirituality.

Yoruba is a very, very serious spirituality. There’s a difference between religion and spirituality being that religion is something that you do and spirituality is something that you are.

We have to be very careful when dealing with Orishas because we have to be respectful of the fact that this is not something that we do every day. Nani Borges is the only person who practices Yoruba in our cast, so a lot of questions go to her.

We dedicated the space to the Orishas and we have little offerings to each of them in the corners of the room. When we first walked into this space a couple of weeks ago, we blessed the space with Florida water, which is something that’s used for a lot of spiritual ritual and African aesthetics. We blessed it to communicate to the Orishas:

“You’re welcome here. This is your space.” We want to respect them and respect their place in the show. We also respect the fact that there are some things we can’t do because we don’t want to be sacrilegious or offensive. Personally, and this might sound kind of crazy, I’ve seen the power of Orishas, and they don’t play around. So it’s nice to be able to dedicate the show to them. All of us may not believe it to the same extent, but we respect it, and that’s the most important part. And I would hope that the audience would also do that even if they have no idea what Yoruba is.

What role have music and dance played in this production?

A massive role! We have an amazing music director, [double-degree senior] Eli Heath, who’s graduating this year, and this play is part of his Africana honors project. He is a white man who I love dearly, who understands what it means to be a white person in a Black space. A lot of his role has been figuring out what the live music in the show is going to sound like. He works with Khalid Taylor, [OC ’17,] and [Conservatory firstyear] Anthony Anderson, who are doing most of the singing and the dancing in the show. We also have [College senior] Nani Borges working with us, and she is an amazing choreographer.

I love having her on this piece.

She’s also in the show as an ensemble member.

With Eli, Nani, and Khalid — who’s also choreographing — we’ve created something that we like to call the counterpoint melody. It started on our first day of actual rehearsal after the read-through when I just asked Khalid and Anthony and [College junior] Jaris Owens to start the prologue of the show, which is like an invocation or incantation. And I was like, “Just play around and see what comes out

of your mouth, we’re just gonna record it and keep track of it and if we like it we’ll keep going with it, and if we don’t, we’ll scratch it and we’ll start something new.” And Khalid came up with this melody that gets stuck in my head every single time we do this. Eli picked it up and just started creating music based off of it.

And along with that, we have a great playlist and soundtrack of music. A lot of the music is sung live by our actors, but we are also working with a lot of recorded music from like late ’90s, early 2000s really bringing people back into like, “This is what Black life felt like at this point.”

We’re also pulling from spirituals, Black church, and all these different avenues of music and dance to create this massive show. There’s even capoeira at one point with a berimbau being played. There’s a little bit of everything.

What do you hope the audience walks away with?

I hope people understand that there’s more out there than we — the hegemonic majority of Oberlin College — understand.

We don’t talk a lot about Yoruba, Black queerness, or about things that are really hard to talk about. And this show puts it right in your face so you can’t ignore it anymore. I would love for people to walk away and talk about it.

The “what-ifs?” of this show are so expansive and can go in so many different directions. I want people to talk about this show. I want people to be like, “What did this mean? What is going on?” because that’s what we spent the last three months doing. Just last night we had a massive, massive “Aha!” moment. We open in four days and yet we’re still having these discoveries. I want the audience to keep discovering with us, that’s my main thing. Also, I just want them to enjoy themselves.

College senior Nani Borges, Khalid Taylor, OC ’17, and Conservatory first-year Anthony Anderson perform in a dress rehearsal for The Brothers Size.

Photo courtesy of the Oberlin Theater Department

CROSSWORD

Around the World in 105 Days: Answers Roman Broszkowski Senior Staff Writer

COMIC

Clair Wang Staff Cartoonist

Book Review: The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm Kabir Karamchandani Staff Writer Christopher Paolini, the author of the popular Inheritance cycle, is known for taking a while to write books — so when he released a collection of short stories titled The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm without much warning at the end of 2018, most fans were pleasantly surprised. As one of Oberlin’s many fantasy nerds, I grew up reading Paolini and got a copy of his new book as soon as it was released.

The collection was a great read, providing a much-needed return to the world of Alagaesia and the characters from Paolini’s first series. Yet it fails to live up to the standard of the original series because of the limits of its format — the short stories don’t provide the same in-depth look at the nuance of his world that the full-length novels did.

The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm is set shortly after Inheritance, the latest installment in the series, and it is told through the eyes of Eragon, the dragon from the original series, as he hears or reads the three titular stories. Paolini’s latest work is clearly meant for readers of the original series — if that’s not you, I would definitely advise that you pass.

However, the book is friendly to readers who have not revisited the series recently, giving occasional reminders of who the characters are and where they left off. While I understood its purpose, the process of conThe Oberlin Review | March 8, 2019

stantly being reminded of things I already knew was a little annoying. All told, though, this was a price well worth paying for a look at what’s been happening in Alagaesia while we’ve been away.

Paolini’s skilled worldbuilding is a large part of why his books are so enjoyable for me. His characters, countries, and conflicts always feel real and grounded despite their outlandish settings, and this remains the case in The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm. Despite being constrained to a shorter format, Paolini still manages to develop relatable characters with clear motivations, from an Urgal shaman to an innkeeper’s daughter.

Much of this clarity in the world stems from the heavy lifting his previous novels did in terms of setting.

Because of this, however, Paolini’s masterful writing style is somewhat lost; not nearly enough time is spent with the characters we have been introduced to. The book leaves us wanting more, coming in at under a quarter of the length of Paolini’s usual offerings.

This problem with The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm is that it seems to create more questions than it answers. While many people enjoy this in a book, I prefer a little more resolution — particularly when returning to a world I already know. While The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm builds wonderful characters, it does little to further our understanding of Alagaesia or answer any of the questions implicit in the Inheritance cycle’s ending.

Paolini has made it clear that he will one day write more novels set in Alagaesia, which will aim to answer his readers’ questions. Until then, we will have to resign ourselves to reading stories that are set in this world without developing it beyond the original novels.

I would be remiss not to mention that the book is not written solely by Christopher Paolini. The second of the collection’s three stories centers around the character Angela, and a chapter from her point of view is written by Angela Paolini — Christopher’s sister and the person on whom the character is loosely based.

While the difference in writing style is noticeable, this helps the story rather than hurting it, as Angela is unique enough that the style change helps illuminate her character rather than confuse the reader. The merit of this section is hard to judge independently from the book as a whole, as 25 large-font pages is too few words to evaluate someone’s writing style. Overall, I would say that her contribution adds to the book and helps give us a better, albeit incomplete, understanding of Angela.

At the end of the day, whether or not The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm is worth reading is an open-andshut case. If you have read and enjoyed Paolini’s Inheritance cycle, this book is a must-read, and you will almost definitely enjoy it. As long as you don’t expect a full-fledged novel, it will not disappoint. It does an excellent job eliciting excitement for Paolini’s inevitable return to the world of Alagaesia.

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Claudia Olaes, Sophomore Tennis Player and Former State Representative Candidate IN THE LOCKER ROOM

College sophomore and Oberlin native Claudia Olaes is well known around campus. During her spring semester last year, she decided to take time off from Oberlin in order to run for state representative for District 56 in Ohio’s House of Representatives. Outspoken about her dissatisfaction with bureaucratic approaches in school districts, among other issues, Olaes’ campaign garnered a good deal of support from Oberlin students and community members. She came away with 22 percent of the vote in the primary while up against four other candidates, only 12 percent less than the ultimate winner, Joe Miller. However, many do not know that Olaes is also a varsity women’s tennis player and has been a key component of Oberlin’s lineup. Last Saturday Oberlin women’s tennis was tied with William Smith College, leaving Olaes with the deciding match. After twin 7–5 sets, Olaes gave Oberlin a much-deserved victory. Since the spring semester has started, she hasn’t lost any singles matches.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Jane Agler, Sports Editor You are beginning to approach the most competitive arc of the tennis season. How are you feeling about it all?

I really like our team. We are filled with young, talented people, and we are only going to get better. So I’m really excited about that. For me, I’ve been injured a little bit [with a

Claudia Olaes

strained quad and hamstring], but I’ve still been trying to fight through it and give it my best. I really like our coaches. [Head Coach] Constantine [Ananiadis], he’s so great – such a wonderful coach. [Assistant Men’s and Women’s Coach John] Erikson as well. We are very excited to have Ariel Lewis [OC ’12]. She’s actually an

Photo courtesy of OC Athletics

alumna who was on the tennis team … she just came to New York with us On top of being a college athlete, you are also a full-time student with other extracurricular involvements (and, not to mention, you’ve just caught the flu!). How do you juggle everything?

I’m being careful with my time management and trying to keep up with everything. Tennis has always been something that I’ve been doing ever since I was little. So, it’s always been a normal part of my daily life.

My dad — he’s an alum — he was on the tennis team as well. My sister also plays tennis, and she’ll actually be here in the fall on the tennis team. I have a [tennis] family … But it’s [most of all] a great form of exercise. I’ve been trying to stay healthy, eat the right foods, participate in the lifts. I’m basically just doing what my coach wants me to do.

Tell me more about your younger sister. It sounds quite fun to have a sibling on the team with you.

Yeah, I’m super excited. We actually went to Oberlin High School together. There was no girls’ team, so we played on the boys’ team. It was interesting. We played doubles together and we did pretty well in [all of ] the seasons [we competed]. So I’m looking forward to her coming in the fall so that we can play doubles together. Plus, she’s a lefty and I’m a

Claudio Olaes

Photo courtesy of OC Athletics

righty, so it would work out perfectly.

Last year, you ran for state representative in District 56 for Ohio’s House of Representatives. This, ironically, coincided with tennis season in the spring. Because you were taking time off to work on your campaign, you were unable to compete. Are you anxious about coming back to compete at the college level?

When I took the time off, I still played tennis. I still communicated with the team and everything. I went to their matches and was still supportive, because, after all, we are still a team even though I wasn’t there in the spring. Basically, this is my first spring season, which is the more intense part of the season instead of the fall. So, I’m still learning how to play college tennis. But I’m super excited. When I was coming back from Winter Term, some of my teammates who were [still] around and I would always say, “We are so excited for the season! Let’s go!” and pump each other up.

We are all looking forward to it.

Athletic Community Must Better Recognize and Support Women

Varsity Teams Acknowledge Contributions of Walk-On Athletes

Continued from page 16

Continued from page 15

overwhelmingly male space. In that first year playing football, I was no good. I didn’t understand the game and couldn’t figure out why the ball was not in my hands at all times. I was unhappy, but Coach Sheila helped me through it. She got excited when I did something right, and her energy infected me. I wanted to play because I wanted to become as passionate as she was. She helped give me the confidence to become part of the team emotionally, and that’s when I found my love of the game.

My mom is back home in Atlanta.

I haven’t seen or spoken to Coach Sheila in over a decade. I’ve never met Maya Moore. However, their impact and the values I’ve learned from each one of them are here with me. Each of these incredible women shaped me, not only as a person, but also as an athlete. Maya Moore was an icon, my mom was an inspiration, and Coach Sheila was an igniting force. Without them, my life would look very different.

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The point of this article is not to champion Moore’s achievements or to claim that Coach Sheila was the greatest coach I’ve ever had or to focus on my own experiences as an athlete. The point of this article is to illustrate how women do so much for the sports world, whether its succeeding themselves, like Moore, or inspiring and motivating others, like Coach Sheila. They do all of these inspirational acts and everything in-between. They don’t exist on the outskirts of athletics. They are just as much interwoven into the athletic community — professional and non-professional — as any male athlete.

Women in sports deserve better recognition and support. They are athletes, coaches, and fans. Their contributions to athletics shouldn’t exist on the periphery. They should be something that we champion as a community. Sports were created to celebrate excellence, and, at the end of the day, excellence knows no gender.

once here they discovered so many possibilities to explore. Soccer happened to be the path they chose to explore.”

However, just because walking onto a varsity sports team at Oberlin is a frequent occurrence, that doesn’t mean it’s easy — the process requires hard work, dedication, and patience, as all these athletes have demonstrated.

Kocher and Metz each met with Palmer several times to discuss team expectations and what their roles would be before they were allowed to join. They trained with the team for several weeks during the spring as a tryout, spent time with their future teammates outside of soccer to get a taste of the team culture, and had to pass a fitness test before participating in practice just like the rest of the team.

“Both are good soccer players who make our team better, and they are good teammates who make our team better,” Palmer said. “For me, if a

player is going to help us, and we have room on the roster, I don’t care what path they take to join us.”

Palmer said he believes his philosophy parallels what Oberlin as an institution stands for.

“Oberlin fully embraces giving students opportunities to grow and experience new things,” he said.

“Whether those experiences are in the academic, social, and/or athletic realms, students here have opportunities to explore. Oberlin in particular offers students the chance to have a healthy balance in all three areas if they choose.”

Several Oberlin student-athletes are recruited for one sport and end up excelling in another, and others don’t come to Oberlin for athletic reasons but miss competing and end up making an impact in a sport to which they once said goodbye — almost every varsity sport has at least one walkon or multi-sport athlete on its roster.

Student-athletes like Smith and Deleonibus prove that it’s never too late to pick a sport back up or change paths.

Walk-Ons Are Crucial to Varsity Athletic Success Alexis Dill Sports Editor

As she runs out to Bailey Field, ready for that day’s practice, College senior and women’s lacrosse player Sabrina Deleonibus exudes the confidence of a veteran, but on the inside she’s filled with gratitude as she wonders, “How did I get here?”

All of Deleonibus’ childhood friends played lacrosse. What football is to boys in Ohio and Texas, and what baseball and softball mean to kids in states that are warm year-round, lacrosse is to states on the East Coast like Maryland, where Deleonibus is from.

Deleonibus, however, never quite fell in love with the game like many of her peers. Her mother signed her up for her first lacrosse team at the age of 12, but she lasted just a week before deciding she hated it and that she preferred basketball and soccer.

She gave lacrosse a second try during her first year of high school, hoping to stay in shape for basketball, and again quit after just one season. She didn’t pick up a lacrosse stick again until four years later, at the end of her first year of college.

Originally a member of the women’s basketball team, Deleonibus was encouraged by Women’s Basketball Head Coach Kerry Jenkins to try out for the women’s lacrosse team, which was coached by his wife at the time. Deleonibus had struggled in her first basketball season and began having second thoughts about whether the sport was for her.

“Basketball was a lot harder at the collegiate level than I originally expected,” Deleonibus said. “Being 5’2” and constantly having [6’4” College senior] Liv [Canning] swat the ball into the stands every time I took a layup made me think a change of scenery couldn’t hurt.”

After a four-year hiatus from lacrosse, Deleonibus had to put in hours upon hours of work just to catch up to her teammates. She barely saw any action during her sophomore season, but her teammates never gave up on her, and former Women’s Lacrosse Head Coach Lynda McCandlish — who took over the program in Fall 2013 — never let Deleonibus think she was just a walk-on or a waste of a roster spot.

“I never felt so supported and so validated in anything I had ever done,” Deleonibus said. “I know that sounds dramatic, but when you join a new team, support goes a long way.”

College senior Siena Marcelle spent a full month teaching Deleonibus how to shoot, College se-

nior Sydney Allen and College junior Emily Berner showed her defensive positioning techniques, College junior Josephine An helped her improve her stick skills, College senior Jenna Butler explained how to avoid getting flustered when being pushed around or checked, and College senior Hayley Drapkin demonstrated what it takes to be a leader.

Last spring, Deleonibus’ efforts paid off as she was named an Honorable Mention All-North Coast Athletic Conference selection after collecting 19 goals, 3 assists, 36 ground balls, 23 caused turnovers, and 5 draw controls as a starting midfielder. She has already scored a team-high six goals this season in just two games and is second to Drapkin in total points.

Although the decision to change teams was difficult, Deleonibus maintains a good relationship with all of her former basketball teammates. She lives with Canning and caught up with six alumni a few weeks ago in Washington, D.C. However, she thinks she might have transferred had she not found her place on campus after joining women’s lacrosse.

“I think the ability to find your fit at this school makes it a place of adaptability and comfort,” she said. “Being able to come into Oberlin as a basketball player and then adjust to something that fit me better shows that Oberlin allows its students to grow and develop into comfortable, confident individuals.”

Many people might assume that not originally being recruited for a team or moving from one team to another shows a lack of athleticism or skill, but Deleonibus is just one example of an Oberlin student-athlete who defies that assumption. Today, she is one of the team’s best players and a leader by example.

“I was able to learn the value of my work ethic and persevere through an adjustment period,” she said.

“I can confidently say that in four years, joining and becoming a part of Oberlin women’s lacrosse was the best decision I have made.”

Like Deleonibus, College sophomore and women’s soccer and track and field athlete Olivia Smith spent three semesters at Oberlin before realizing something was missing from her college experience.

Smith always knew she wanted to play soccer in college, and was recruited to do so. She began playing at age three, and joined an Elite Clubs National League team at the end of middle school. In her second season as a Yeowoman, she played in 17 games and made 12 starts as a back.

Despite the enjoyment Smith gets from playing

College senior and women’s lacrosse player Sabrina Deleonibus was recruited to play basketball at Oberlin, but quit after her first year to join the women’s lacrosse team. She is now one of the Yeowomen’s biggest offensive threats and a leader on the team.

Photo by Meg Parker, Photo Editor

collegiate soccer, she missed the competitiveness of track and field that she experienced in high school, so she set up a meeting with the coaches, who immediately offered her a spot on this year’s team after hearing her times. Last weekend, Smith scored Oberlin points as a sprinter at the Indoor Track and Field Conference Championships.

Smith said she doesn’t think she would have had the opportunity to pursue both sports had she not chosen a school like Oberlin.

“I’m a Biology major, and it was very important [when making my college decision] that I could still go to labs and pursue my academic interest while also playing the sports I love,” she said. “I don’t think I would have been able to do this if I hadn’t chosen DIII.” Smith isn’t the only member of the women’s soccer team who has walked onto a different team. College first-year Mikala Jones, who was recruited for soccer, walked onto the women’s lacrosse team this year, and College senior Eva Kocher and College sophomore Louise Metz — who weren’t recruited for soccer — were encouraged by members of the team to join.

According to Women’s Soccer Head Coach Dan Palmer, some of his players had seen Kocher play in an indoor soccer course taught by Men’s Soccer Head Coach Blake New, and others had been friends with Metz and knew that she played in high school.

“Both [Kocher] and [Metz] simply missed the experience of playing competitively,” Palmer said.

“Both players came to Oberlin because this is where they wanted to go to college. But like so many Obies, See Varsity, page 14

Student-Athletes “Dive-Into” Spring Semester

Last Friday, the Student Athletic Advisory Committee hosted its first-ever Dive-Into Spring Semester event in Carr Pool. With an entry fee of $2, Oberlin students and community members alike were able to jump into the pool while watching the on-theme feature film of the night, Finding Nemo. Popcorn and floaties were provided, allowing attendees to snack and drift through the water, turning Carr Pool into an aquatic drive-in movie theater. The SAAC’s mission is to create a strong relationship between the Oberlin community and varsity athletics through sponsored projects and events such as this one.

Text by Jane Agler, Sports Editor Photo by Mallika Pandey, Photo Editor

The Oberlin Review | March 8, 2019

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March 8, 2019

SPORTS established 1874

Volume 147, Number 16

Women Remain Underappreciated in Athletic World Khalid McCalla

Despite the departure of national champions Lilah Drafts-Johnson and Monique Newton, both OC ’18, the women’s track and field team proved they are no less dominant as they secured their third straight Indoor Track and Field North Coast Athletic Conference Championship Saturday.

Photo courtesy of OC Athletics

Women’s Track and Field Wins Third Straight NCAC Title Julie Schreiber Senior Staff Writer For the past few years, Oberlin track and field stars like Lilah Drafts-Johnson, Ana Richardson, and Monique Newton — all OC ’18 — have been household names in the Oberlin athletic community. After two consecutive years of Indoor Track and Field North Coast Athletic Conference Championships, with individual accolades and accomplishments to match, it may seem unclear to outsiders whether or not the track and field team could continue this streak of success without their stars.

Nonetheless, when the women’s track and field team took home the first place trophy at Saturday’s NCAC Conference Championships at The College of Wooster — alongside the men’s team’s fourth-place grab, their best score in at least 15 years — the victory came to neither the athletes’ or the coaches’ surprise.

“The people who graduated were incredibly impactful for our past successes,” College senior and jumper Olivia Woods said. “But in a way, they left in somewhat of a timely manner.

We have a lot of hardworking [first-years] and talented [upperclass students] right now, who now have the opportunity to blossom in a way they couldn’t before.”

Track and Field Head Coach Ray Appenheimer echoed Woods’ sentiment, saying that while competing in the footsteps of two national champions and a number of conference champions is daunting, his team embraced the challenge by supporting one another.

“People were nervous going in, and the team does look a lot different this year,” Appenheimer said. “But the nerves dissipate, because with the type of community we have, they can compete with no fear. They are loved, so they can be unafraid.”

The meet was filled with broken records and accomplishments, largely fueled by the team’s enthusiasm — including not only the athletes who qualified to compete, but also the remaining members of the team, who carpooled to Wooster to cheer on their teammates.

“People were loud and energized all day,” Appenheimer said. “They had their faces

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painted and were losing their voices … the energy was staggering.”

Of all the events, it may have been the triple jump, won by Woods, that was most emblematic of Oberlin’s success. Woods landed her best mark at 35-08.50, taking home first place for the Yeowomen and setting a personal lifetime record.

“Everyone was pushing themselves to [personal record] in the triple jump,” said College junior and thrower Naeisha McClain, who gave a nod to first-years Malaika Djungu-Sungu and Aesha Mokashi, who finished behind Woods and brought five additional points to the Oberlin scoresheet. “That event basically defined what the rest of the conference meet would be.”

Other successes on Oberlin’s list included first and third-place finishes in the women’s 3,000 meter dash by College senior Linnea Halsten and College sophomore Corrie Purcell — with times of 10:34.26 and 10:37.74, respectively — as well as a first-place win in the women’s 4x200 meter relay with a time of 1:47.29.

On the men’s end, the 4x200 meter team broke the school record with a time of 1:31.50.

“This weekend’s meet was the first time the men’s team scored 80 points in almost 60 years,” College sophomore Adriano Atallah said. “We have a lot of [first-years] and [sophomores] really stepping up, and we’re only looking to go forward from here.”

The Yeomen and Yeowomen are already back on the track to prepare for the spring season, and they plan to use this winter’s remarkable victory to reap equal, if not even greater, success outdoors. Roster-wise, the team may have changed drastically between last year and now, but its record of success has only improved.

“This meet was … everything,” Appenheimer said. “This win wasn’t an accident. It was the culmination of days, weeks, and months of preparation. We’re using this victory every day in practice, because this is who we are every single day of the year.”

The outdoor season kicks off March 29 at Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC, with the annual Bob Kahn Invitational taking place at Oberlin the following weekend.

ESPN’s annual World Fame 100 List, a definitive compilation of the world’s most famous athletes, determines its order through criteria like social media followers, yearly net-worth, and Google Trend scores. The top of last year’s list consisted of many familiar and expected names — NBA star LeBron James, tennis legend Roger Federer, and soccer greats Lionel Messi, Neymar, and Cristiano Ronaldo are all featured in the top five.

Many different sports, races, and nationalities were represented in the list; a solid representation of the make-up of the sports world within the United States and beyond. Numbers are fed into an equation, which assembles the list. However, a problem arises when you take a closer look.

On this list of the 100 most popular athletes in the entire world — according to ESPN — only 12 of them are women.

Tennis champion Serena Williams leads the way, clinching the 12th spot. Unfortunately, half the women on the list don’t even make an appearance until the late 80s.

These results are quite illuminating. What we are facing is a deep-rooted problem in society that pushes the narrative that sports are for men. ESPN’s 2018 World of Fame 100 list is a clear reminder that, as far as we’ve come, we still have a long way to go until we see true gender equality in the sports world.

ESPN’s list reminded me of a recent anecdote. On Feb. 5, 2019, basketball fans were forced to say an unexpected goodbye to one of the most dominant figures in the sport.

With her brief article “The Shift,” which was featured on The Players’ Tribune website, WNBA player Maya Moore announced her intention to step away from professional basketball to focus on family and faith. Moore’s dominance is nearly unmatched. LeBron James, who many consider one of the greatest basketball players of all time, was praised for winning his third NBA title in 2016. Moore, however, already has four in almost half as many years, and that’s just if we keep it stateside. If we include international play, her number of championships balloons to nine — nine rings in less than a decade. Even so, her level of excellence wasn’t highlighted by the ESPN World Fame 100.

Women have always had to fight for respect when it comes to sports. They have been barred from participating in certain sports, their accomplishments have been devalued, and they have had to prove time and time again that they deserve to be taken seriously. Strides have been made in the past 50 years thanks to policies like Title IX and the creation of leagues like the WNBA, but women’s sports still remain underfunded within the United States and beyond. Every day, women’s teams struggle to find support in a way their male counterparts never do. This is an unfortunate, unnecessary, and, honestly, disappointing truth about our society.

Athletics — particularly football — have been a large part of my life. Reflecting on all of the years I’ve devoted to sport, I’ve realized that women have played a huge role in my own athletic journey. I’ve been blessed to have a mother who has been a big part of my success as an athlete. Without her, I wouldn’t have made it to many of those practices, workouts, and camps that allowed me to develop as a player. Aside from the nuts and bolts of paying dues and carting me around, she was always a constant emotional pillar for me. Whenever a bad game or an injury got me down, she has always done everything in her power to get me back up. She has done all of this to support my athletic for over 20 years and, to an athlete, support means everything.

My first year playing football was, I assume, like many others’ in many ways. I joined a team a little late, did not know anyone, and my juvenile wishes of becoming a quarterback went unfulfilled. The coaching staff was predominantly comprised of dads and uncles who loved the game, but one coach stood out: Coach Sheila. She was the only female coach on our team and the only female coach I would ever have.

She was an inspiring coach and, at times, dominated the See Athletic, page 14