November 16, 2018

The Oberlin Review November 16, 2018

Volume 147, Number 9

established 1874

Karega Sues College, Claiming Discrimination Sydney Allen Editor-in-Chief

Students watch a screening of the documentary, We Exist: Beyond the Binary, as part of Trans Week of Action.

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Photo by Maria Turner, Photo Editor

MRC Program Supports Trans Students Gabby Greene News Editor The Multicultural Resource Center has launched new programming this week for the College’s third annual Trans Week of Action. Beginning last Sunday, students and staff organized events aimed at providing safe spaces and resources for trans students. The programming ends on Trans Day of Remembrance this Sunday with a vigil honoring trans folks affected by hate.

“The Trans Day of Remembrance vigil is something we do every year, since it’s a national event and there is already so much erasure of and ignorance about violence against trans folks, especially Black and Latinx trans women,” LGBTQ Student Life Director Elliot Director said.

The other three events this week are entirely new, including a Trans Narratives Open Mic, a film screening of the documentary We Exist: Beyond the Binary, which details the personal narratives of nonbinary individuals, and a clothing drive for queer and trans students entering the workplace.

“These events were chosen because they address basic issues often faced by trans folk that many cis folk take for granted,” MRC Student Associate Ti Ames said.

Ames organized the documentary screening, which was open to all, on Wednesday, hosting a question and answer session afterward

to address differing opinions on the film and approaches to activism.

“The film screening started some much-needed dialogue about gender nonconformity and revealed several biases we as a college community share,” Ames said.

College first-year Or Pnini was one of the students in attendance at the film screening, and felt encouraged by the community involvement throughout the week.

“I’m happy that community exists here, and that people are so outspoken about who they are,” Pnini said.

While some events prioritized discussion, others focused on material resources. The Queer/Trans Professional Clothes Drive on Thursday aimed to help queer and trans students find professional clothing for the workplace.

“I think [the Queer/Trans Professional Clothes Drive is] important to [Trans Week of Action] because I believe that presentation and expression affect those who identify as trans/nonbinary/ gender-nonconforming in a lot of ways,” College senior Le’Priya White said. “I feel like they are the ones more worried about being judged and put in situations where they might have to pick and choose. ... No one should ever feel like they have to compromise who they are to do something.”

White proposed and organized the event as part of her community service project for the Point Foundation Scholars program, a national

scholarship for LGBTQ students.

White was inspired by the fashion of queer and trans people of color, and her own experience with the standard of professional dress in the workplace.

“I often reflected on taking ‘interview prep’ classes on how to ace an interview and make a good impression,” White said. “It seems to have emphasis on women with dresses and skirts and men with suits and ties. That made me feel uncomfortable, but I was the only woman there that could be considered ‘masculine-presenting’ so I never said anything.”

In 2017, one-fifth of LGBTQ Americans reported experiencing harassment based on their gender identity or sexual orientation in the job hiring process. Queer and trans people of color are 32 percent more likely to experience harassment in the workplace than white members of the LGBTQ community according to the Discrimination in America poll conducted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and National Public Radio.

For White, the clothing drive was an opportunity for queer and trans students — especially those of color — to have access to resources that may have been denied in the past.

“What if you can’t afford certain clothes?” they asked. “Sometimes we can barely afford to attend school, let alone [find] clothes to get opportunities after it, you know? So I thought this was a great

See Trans, page 3

Joy Karega, a former assistant professor of Rhetoric and Composition at Oberlin, filed a lawsuit against the College last Friday claiming breach of contract and employment discrimination on the basis of race and retaliation. The lawsuit, filed with the U.S. District Court in Cleveland, seeks $855,000 in damages.

In February 2016, The Tower, a conservative, pro-Israeli magazine, posted a series of alleged antiSemitic posts found on Karega’s personal Facebook page, sparking national and local controversy. Karega was placed on academic leave that month and was ultimately fired in November 2017, following a ninemonth review process. Her termination initiated a national conversation around academic liberties and free speech.

The posts included claims that the Israeli and U.S. governments fund the Islamic State, that Israel orchestrated the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris in 2015, and that the Rothschild family, a prominent Jewish family, controls the media, government, and oil industries.

According to the new lawsuit, Karega, the only Black woman on faculty in the Rhetoric and Composition Department at the time of the controversy, claims Oberlin actively discriminated against her by “Instigating false charges of professional misconduct against [her]; soliciting student complaints; attempting to eliminate African American members from Oberlin College’s decision making authorities; and intentionally and personally ignoring and/or not acting upon misconduct of male(s) and Caucasian female Oberlin instructor(s), professor(s), or administrator(s) use of racially derogatory language or engaging in discriminatory acts,” along with other charges.

In a November 2016 Review article titled “Karega Fired After Split Faculty Recommendations,” Karega expressed no surprise at the result, citing outside pressures and agendas that forced the issue.

“The intention on day one was my dismissal,” Karega said at the time. “There are people within the community and outside the community who, for them, that was the goal.”

At the time of her employment review, only three of the six members of the General Faculty Committee voted for her dismissal. Two others advocated for a reprimand and one recommended suspension. Their recommendations were passed on to then-President Marvin Krislov, and after that to the Board of Trustees.

In the Board of Trustees’ statement on their decision to fire Karega, McGreggor referenced the American Association of University Professors’ Statement of Professional Ethics, which requires faculty members to “accept the obligation to exercise critical self-discipline and judgment in using, extending and transmitting knowledge,” and to “practice intellectual honesty.”

The General Faculty Council concluded that Dr. Karega’s postings could not be justified as part of her scholarship and had “irreparably impaired (her) ability to perform her duties as a scholar, a teacher, and a member of the community.”

Representatives from Oberlin’s communications department and Gary Benjamin, Karega’s attorney, did not respond to request for comment regarding Karega’s lawsuit.

CONTENTS NEWS

OPINIONS

THIS WEEK

ARTS & CULTURE

SPORTS

02 City Continues to Grow, Community Weighs Benefits

05 Students Should Prioritize Career Prep

08 Social Dancing at Oberlin

10 Cover Band Showcase Sells Out During Parents Weekend

14 Inexperience Not A Concern for Yeowomen.

03 Lorain County Rising Leads Anti-Trump Protest

06 Wildfires Highlight Inequity in Environmental, Climate Crises

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16 Niñas Sin Miedo: Oberlin Ahletes Partner with Colombian Organization to Empower Girls

The Oberlin Review | November 16, 2018

OTR: Blas Falconer, Poet

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City Continues to Grow, Community Weighs Benefits Roman Broszkowski Senior Staff Writer The city of Oberlin is welcoming a number of local businesses and restaurants in the coming months, including Oberlin Nutrition, a health drink and smoothie shop which will open on 175 South Main Street in late November; Catrina’s, a taco restaurant which will take the place of Red’s Chinese Bistro; and a Wendy’s fast food franchise set to open in the Oberlin Shopping Plaza in December at the intersection of U.S. Highway 20 and Ohio State Route 58.

This is part of the city’s ongoing efforts to expand economic opportunities in Oberlin.

Existing businesses have also voiced plans to expand — McDonald’s recently announced a remodel of its Oberlin location starting in March 2019 — and existing empty spaces continue to find eager buyers looking to do business in the city.

This combination of new development projects and the expansion of existing businesses is at the core of the city’s development strategy.

“The city’s focus is to continue to work with the existing businesses to support their present and future needs,” City Manager Robert Hillard wrote in an email to the Review. “We further engage interested businesses that want to locate in Oberlin.

We believe this balanced strategy will assure success in business retention and responsible growth.”

The city has also introduced a number of incentive programs to help local businesses, including tax abatements and financial assistance programs to encourage them to expand or move to Oberlin.

“The city has a number of approaches to

assist in business development including tax abatement programs, utility efficiency consultation and financial assistance programs, and loan programs,” Hillard wrote.

“We continue to develop outreach programs to listen to the needs of the community.”

While Wendy’s atypically reached out to the city about a possible expansion, the city government typically collaborates with local stakeholders such as the Oberlin Business Partnership and the Oberlin Community Improvement Corporation to attract outside businesses.

Cities like Oberlin have to weigh the benefits of attracting developments while also striving to preserve the character of the community.

“I think [the city is trying to attract] businesses that want to be part of a community where carbon neutrality is important,” Handy said. “We’ve had that discussion — OCIC is talking about that with [the surplus properties]; ‘what type of businesses do we want here?’”

Some community members feel the increasing number of chain restaurants and large corporations — such as the Wendy’s, McDonald’s, and the Walmart, which opened in 2006 — send a mixed message to consumers. “[Oberlin] tells us to shop local, yet they have a Walmart, and they have CVS and all these big corporate restaurants — McDonald’s and now Wendy’s,” said Black River Cafe Night Manager Sonny Berry. “I don’t know what they’re trying to go for at this point. Are we trying to be a tight-knit community with small business owners, or are we trying to shut down all the businesses letting all these corporations come in?”

Catrina’s, a new Oberlin restaurant, prepares to open on West College Street.

Photo by Devin Cowan, Staff Photographer

Students have mixed feeling about the growing number of franchises in Oberlin.

“I love Wendy’s. I love their food. I think that Wendy’s is generally better than most other fast-food restaurants, but at the end of the day it’s still fast-food,” College senior Alex Scheitinger said. “I’ll probably eat there, but it would be cool if some other more locally-operated restaurants opened; some other not fast-food chain would be preferred.”

In conjunction with the development projects, some groups have also focused on bringing more visitors to town by highlighting what makes Oberlin unique.

“Oberlin is the cultural Mecca of the county, it’s where culture happens,” said Oberlin Business Partnership Executive

Director Janet Haar. “So why don’t we use that [to attract visitors and drive commerce]?”

Berry agrees and wishes that there were more opportunities for members of the community to take advantage of the city’s arts scene — especially when it comes to music.

“I think they should focus more on music and art in this town. They have no street piano, no buskers,” he said. “It just kills me that [Oberlin] is such an expensive college to go to, and being somebody that lives here I can’t enjoy any of the music students because they don’t perform anywhere. Yes, they have recitals, but I work most of those recitals, so it would be nice if there was more of the busking”

Sophomores Guided Through SOAR Jenna Gyimesi News Editor The newly-created Sophomore Opportunities and Academic Resources program will offer sophomores academic and career advising tailored to their specific interests. Participants will be paired with a SOAR leader — a junior or senior knowledgeable and experienced in their major — who will guide them through how to declare a major, create an academic plan, and pursue job and internship opportunities in their field of interest.

The program will kick off with a two-day retreat on Feb. 1 and 2, and participants will attend three follow-up sessions with their SOAR leaders throughout the spring semester. The program is designed to give sophomores more specific guidance, considering that some students may have yet to declare their major or have

an advisor in their department of interest.

“Typically, sophomore year is the year that students feel forgotten,” said Associate Dean of Students and Interim Director of the Career Center Dana Hamdan. “[First-year] students receive a lot of attention with orientation and [Peer Advising Leaders]. Junior year, students have already declared their majors and have established an identity in their academic department. Seniors have a capstone, are doing research, and are getting ready to launch. We don’t have a lot of resources specifically for sophomores. We have resources for all of our students, but nothing just for students in this developmental stage.”

College sophomore Eddy Tumbokon, a declared History major, applied to SOAR because he feels the program will help address some of the unique ques-

The Oberlin R eview November 16, 2018 Volume 147, Number 9 (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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Editors-in-Chief

tions sophomores face when navigating Oberlin academics.

“I think within the sophomore year specifically, advising tapers off because most sophomores are in a limbo state between their first-year advisor and pushing to declare a major, where we may not know someone to be an advisor,” Tumbokon said. “I wanted to take advantage of one of the few sophomore advising opportunities on campus.”

SOAR leaders currently represent 15 different majors, and the program will hopefully be expanded to represent all academic majors in the future. Leaders were selected for their academic success, extra-curricular experiences, participation in campus activities, off-campus internships, and involvement in their individual departments. They are eager to support fellow Obies during this impactful — though sometimes confusing — time in

Sydney Allen Nathan Carpenter Managing Editor Ananya Gupta News Editors Gabby Greene

Jenna Gyimesi Opinions Editor Jackie Brant Cont. Opinions Editor Luce Nguyen This Week Editor Mikaela Fishman Arts Editors Kate Fishman

Katie Lucey Sports Editors Alexis Dill

Ify Ezimora Photo Editors Mallika Pandey Maria Turner

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SOAR student leaders pose with Associate Dean of Students Dana Hamdan in Wilder Hall.

Photo by Kate Little

their Oberlin careers.

“It’s a program to facilitate sophomores getting new opportunities and making meaningful connections that they need to make to sustain their career path and career goals while at Oberlin,” said College senior and Biology SOAR leader Juan Contreras.

“It’s a time when they need to be making decisions, and if they

Anya Spector Tori Fisher Lila Michaels Lillian Jones Business Manager Jared Steinberg Ads Manager Jabree Hason Web Manager Mikaela Fishman Production Manager Giselle Glaspie Production Staff Olive Hwang Lior Krancer Leo Lasdun Courtney Loeb Devyn Malouf Katherine MacPhail Madi Mettenburg Annie Schoonover

are making them alone they may not feel as comfortable in making those decisions. It’s hard to do alone.”

SOAR leaders emphasize that sophomores do not need to have a declared major to participate “Even if you are just considering the major, you should still apply for SOAR,” said College senior See SOAR, page 4

Corrections: The Review is not aware of any corrections this week.

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

Trans Week of Action Returns with New Events Continued from page 1

way to bring my community together and give them a resource to find clothes … so they can get the job they want and be comfortable in their skin at the same time.”

Late October, the Trump administration revealed the office was considering altering the legal definition of gender to “male or female based on immutable biological traits.” In essence, this would erase federal recognition of transgender identity and confine individuals to the gender assigned on their original birth certificate.

On Oct. 24, the MRC posted a message of solidarity to Facebook, writing, “Oberlin College has long recognized the dignity and worth of transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people.

Oberlin policy protects community members against discrimination and harassment based on gender identity and expression. We did so before the federal government recognized transgender students and will continue to do so regardless of any change.”

In light of the national conversation, organizers for this year’s Trans Week of Action remained focused on prioritizing students.

“We’re taking time to focus on what is important to the trans community here and now because this is the community that matters most to us,” Ames said. “Trans lives have always been threatened, but that won’t stop us from doing the work we must do as a staff and community of the MRC to make sure it is always voiced and demonstrated that trans lives matter.”

Students and staff agree that while the MRC put forth considerable effort for the week’s programming, there are still many actions the College could take to support trans students.

“I was disappointed coming out of the film screening and having to pick a binary bathroom [on the third floor of King Building],” College first-year Thandiwe Seagraves said.

Ames advises the College take steps such as finding staff to connect LGBTQ alumni, coordinating transportation for students to access certain health resources off campus, reinstating the Edmonia Lewis Center, and hiring staff to lead “Beyond the Binary” trainings, an introduction to gender, sexuality, identity, expression, and combating harmful societal norms.

Lorain County Rising Leads Protest in November 2016 and is dedicated to promoting community engagement and education in Lorain County. The group has teamed up with various organizations like The League of Women Voters, Organizing for America, For Our Future, and Planned Parenthood in hopes of creating positive change.

“The Sunday after the 2016 election, a small group of women met at Slow Train Café to find solidarity in our despair and fear and desire to do something following the election, and from there Lorain County Rising was born,” Sandler said. “We basically promote progressive politics and politicians and keep tabs on what’s happening both at the state and federal level, and hold our elected officials accountable.”

The group plans to shift its focus Protestors participate in a “Nobody is Above the Law” rally in Tappan Square. following last week’s midterm elections.

Photo by Justin Fairbanks “On the national level, things are going to change dramatically with a Anisa Curry Vietze group of folks who were able to come house that is more representative of the Senior Staff Writer with less than 24 hours notice and only nation at large, of the average American; Local activist group Lorain County two days after a massive, exhausting it’s not going to be so many old white Rising led a rapid response rally in midterm election,” Sandler said. men anymore, which is fantastic,” Tappan Square on Thursday. The protest Oberlin resident David Finke, OC ’63, Sandler said. “The midterm election was was in support of the investigation led spoke at Thursday’s rally and reminded a big turning point for our country. But

by Robert Mueller, the former FBI agent protestors that their efforts can be unfortunately, not as much for us as a who oversees the Justice Department’s impactful. state. We find ourselves with a so-called investigation as special counsel of “I wanted [the crowd] to appreciate ‘Red Trifecta’ in Ohio, which means we potential foreign interferences in the 2016 their power,” Finke said about his have a lot of work to do. Nationally we get election. The protestors were part of the speech. “As an individual, they may feel to go on offense. We get to stop playing nationally-organized “Nobody is Above powerless, but as we mobilize, as we defense all the time. But here in Ohio the Law” rallies prompted by President come out into the public, we can make a we are going to very much be playing Trump’s forcing the resignation of difference. We are making a difference.” defense.” former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Professor of Psychology and Sandler noted that Lorain County There were more than 900 Environmental Studies Cindy Frantz Rising is likely to focus more on local demonstrations Thursday, all held at 5:00 was one of the event’s participants. She issues in the future. p.m. local time. Protestors demanded expressed concerns about the lack of a “We are seeing already this week the protection of the special counsel’s student presence at the protest. bills in our State House for things like a Trump–Russia investigation and “I thought it was very important to be six-week abortion ban, things like Stand called for independence in the Mueller there, and I was pleased to see the variety Your Ground gun legislation, things like investigation. of people that turned out,” Frantz said. anti-union ‘Right to Work,’” Sandler “It was triggered by MoveOn and “I was surprised and disappointed that said. “And that’s in the first week after Indivisible,” said Lili Sandler, the students weren’t there, and I just don’t the election. And with the change in the founder of Lorain County Rising. “It’s know why that was. Maybe they just governorship, we’re going to see a lot less been over a year since they first put out didn’t know about it. I think it would be vetoing of bills like that, so there’s a lot of the call saying that we all need to be very disturbing to me to think that they work to do.” ready in case something were to happen didn’t realize how important it is to make Oberlin residents and Oberlin to either Mueller or Rod Rosenstein, a stand about the Mueller investigation. College students can get involved with who is overseeing the investigation I’m assuming it’s that they didn’t know.” Lorain County Rising by joining their since Jeff Sessions recused himself.

Professor of Mathematics Jeff Witmer private Facebook group or going to their Last week, when Sessions was forced also commented on the lack of student meetings on the third of every month, into resignation and [Matt Whitaker] representation. typically held at the Oberlin Public replaced him and became the acting “It seemed like it was not well Library. [overseer] of the Mueller investigation, publicized; most students didn’t know “Oberlin has a fantastic history of that triggered this national event.” about it, which is kind of a shame,” being at the forefront of progressive Roughly 100 people attended Witmer said. “I didn’t announce it in my movement, and it would be really great Oberlin’s demonstration. The rally classes because it seems like I should to see more Oberlin students taking an included homemade signs and chants keep my politics outside of my classroom, active role in what’s going on right now,” such as, “Hey hey, ho ho, Whitaker has but it did seem like students didn’t know Sandler said. “So come, we usually have got to go.” about it.” snacks — they’re always good — and we “The protestors are a very dedicated Lorain County Rising was founded love having students around.”

The Oberlin Review | November 16, 2018

Security Notebook Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018 3:21 p.m. Campus Safety officers were requested to assist a student in the Rice Hall parking lot who was injured after falling off a scooter.

The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

Friday, Nov. 9, 2018 9:04 a.m. Officers, members of the Oberlin Fire Department, and members of Oberlin’s Facilities staff were requested to assist a staff member stuck in an elevator in South Hall. The staff member was assisted out of the elevator.

2:12 p.m. Officers were requested to assist with a safety inspection in an Elm Street Village House.

Two smoke detectors were found bagged, and the bags were removed.

A glass pipe containing a substance consistent with marijuana was observed in plain view. The pipe was turned over to the Oberlin Police Department.

Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018 12:04 p.m. A resident of East Hall reported smelling smoke on the third floor. Officers responded and found a resident burning incense in their room with a bagged smoke detector. The bag was removed and the incense was confiscated.

4:49 p.m. Officers were requested to assist an ill student. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018 8:02 a.m. A student had an allergic reaction in Lord Saunders and was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

Monday, Nov. 12, 2018 8:21 p.m. Officers retrieved a yellow bollard sleeve and returned it to its respective location near the Oberlin Bookstore.

5:51 p.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at Keep Cottage. While there, officers were informed of an unresponsive student on the third floor. CPR was administered by officers and paramedics. The student was revived and transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2018 1:25 p.m. Officers were requested to assist with a safety inspection at a Union Street Village Housing Unit. A glass pipe containing a substance consistent with marijuana was confiscated and turned over to Oberlin Police. Two incense holders were transported to the Campus Safety office.

2:45 p.m. A student reported the theft of thier bike which was locked to a bike rack near Noah Hall at the time of the theft.

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SOAR Offers Sophomore Advising Continued from page 2

Jad Kaiss, Theater SOAR leader. “It’s something that is low stress and helps you out immensely.

It’s definitely something that I would have enrolled in if I had had the chance.”

At the February retreat, participants will be able to connect with their fellow sophomores, SOAR leaders, and Oberlin faculty members.

Day one of the retreat focuses on fostering these bonds and creating plans for the future.

“On day one, the sophomores will be divided into clusters based on their intended academic majors, and a faculty member from that major will support them in developing their five-semester academic plan,” Hamdan said. “We will also provide developmental advising to help students thrive as they face new challenges.”

Engaging with faculty will give students increased access to opportunities, both on and off campus.

“If you have a broad network and know all the professors, you will have someone you can go up to and ask if you have a question about research or anything,” College junior Tyler Hartman, Chemistry leader, said. “[Faculty connections give] sophomores an opportunity to look at more in-depth internships and research opportunities to start bolstering their résumés.”

The second day of the retreat will help sophomores learn how their Oberlin academic plans, which they built on day one, can relate to outside experiences like Winter Term, summer opportunities, and future employment.

“Day two will be focused on co-curricular engagement and integrated learning,” Hamdan said. “Students will explore how their academic plans can be connected to summer and Winter Term. The Career Development Center team will do workshops for them, on résumé and network building, public speaking, and basically all the things you need to plan effectively for your internships and summer work experiences.”

The SOAR program was inspired by the model and success of the Peer Advising Leader program, launched in fall 2017 for first-year students.

“There will be a lot of learning that takes place in the SOAR experience, but it will also be fun,” Hamdan said. “There is power in working in cohorts with your peers. Another example of Obies helping Obies.”

College sophomore Gio Donovan, an intended English major, applied to SOAR partly because she experienced the benefits of working in small, peer-based groups through the Peer Advising Leaders program.

“I think part of the thing that makes PAL so great is that you can build so many communities,” Donovan said. “To have a community surrounded by people who are possibly going to major or minor in the same field as you creates a more focused community. There are a lot of departments who will have events and things like that, but this is a good way to get to know older majors and people in your year who will possibly major and [get] guidance and perspective from each other to learn that you aren’t struggling alone.”

Applications to participate are due Monday, Dec. 10, or Tuesday, Nov. 27 for those who want to be considered in the early decision pool. All College sophomores are encouraged to apply.

OFF THE CUFF

Josh Voorhees, Political Journalist

Josh Voorhees, an American political journalist and senior writer for Slate, delivered a lecture on Monday titled “Blue Waves and Red Walls: Making Sense of the 2018 Midterm Election.” Voorhees has taught in London, has covered national politics in Iowa City, and is now based in Northeast Ohio. He specialized in covering national and international political campaigns and has been published in Politico, Greenwire, The Scientific American, E&E News and the New York Times.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Josh Voorhees, journalist.

What is a “blue wave,” and why does it matter?

In this context, the “blue wave” refers to the assumption of power in the House by Democrats this last election cycle.

While a few races are still being counted, it’s clear that Democrats had a strong showing. It matters now as Democrats now have the ability to check the president in more substantive ways. It also sends a strong message to Trump.

ers are not a monolith, though they are often presented as such. [Democratic candidate for governor Andrew] Gillum brought a lot of energy this cycle, and that’s not to be discounted. They also enfranchised over a million voters, so it was definitely interesting to watch.

We should really be thinking about this, particularly as national politicians look toward rising demographics in the American Southwest. Mainstream media [has] contributed to the sentiment that Latinx voters vote the same nationwide. This election cycle clearly demonstrates that is not true.

What message was sent to Trump this election cycle?

That’s still to be determined. Some commentators have presented this as a clear national rebuke of Trump, which I don’t necessarily agree with. While midterm participation figures certainly rose for Democrats, Republicans showed out in key areas. Political participation has increased across the aisles. This means that 2020 isn’t as cut and dry as some think it will be, and Democrats should not see this as a guaranteed victory for the next cycle.

Beyond that, it’s also important to note that the results seen thus far are not far off from what should be expected.

In 2010, Republicans benefited from large victory margins shifting Congress’ makeup. Commentators framed that as a referendum on Obama — he was re-elected. So is this a wave?

Was Florida one of the key areas?

That’s an example. Florida is a truly unique place in American politics. National media tends to homogenize the Latinx population nationwide — especially in Florida.

Just looking at South Florida, Cuban and Puerto Rican vot-

Community Voices Requested about Climate Action The Oberlin Environmental Dashboard Communications team wants to hear from community members about the ways in which they are taking action against climate change. A workshop will be held Saturday, Nov. 17 at 1:30 p.m. at the Oberlin Public Library to highlight the ways local people are contributing to the Oberlin Climate Action Plan, which is set to reach carbon neutrality in 2050.

Lots of attention has been focused on Ohio, including calls for Senator Sherrod Brown as a presidential nominee. What’s your take?

Ohio is not “lost” as some have suggested. There has certainly been a conservative turn in recent history, but Sherrod Brown represents a strong coalition that has made him a leader in Ohio politics. Labor is one of them, and if candidates are to learn something from him, it should be how to make voters feel heard and ready to rally.

Who do you think will run in 2020?

A lot of people. Democrats are looking for new leadership and an effective challenger for 2020. Hopefully it won’t be as messy as the GOP’s internal battle for 2016. I do imagine there will be more attention paid to [Ohio] as the cycle approaches, not only for candidates but also for infrastructure.

Students Phone Representatives In Protest

Editor’s Note: This caption contains mention of abortion, rape, and incest.

Students call Oberlin representatives Democrat Dan Ramos of the Ohio House and Republican State Senator Gayle Manning to protest the passing of HB 258, more commonly known as a “heartbeat bill.” The bill outlaws abortions after six weeks of an individual’s pregnancy, including for victims of rape and incest. The phone bank event, taking place three hours after the bill passed, was organized by College senior Lotte Brewer.

Text by Gabby Greene, News Editor Photo by Devin Cowan, Staff Photographer

Oberlin Community News Bulletin

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Mallika Pandey, Photo Editor

Kameron Dunbar

Margaret Papworth Remembered with Music Margaret Papworth, the former secretary to the dean of the Conservatory, will be honored at a recital Saturday, Nov. 17 at 3 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church of Oberlin. Papworth, who died in February 2006, worked at Oberlin for 53 years, from 1942–1993. Alan Montgomery, assistant music director of Oberlin Opera Theater, composed the music that will be performed.

Oberlin Holiday Bazaar Unites Community Get in the holiday spirit with your fellow community members at the Oberlin Holiday Bazaar on Sunday, Nov. 18 from 10a.m.–3p.m. at the New Russia Township Lodge on 46300 Butternut Ridge Road. The event, which is sponsored by the Oberlin Business Partnership, will be fun for all ages. It will include a visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus, free face painting, crafts, and Disney characters who may burst into song unexpectedly. Admission is free for children under 12 and is $5 for two guests or $3 for one guest.

OPINIONS November 16, 2018

established 1874

Letter to the Editors

Oberlin Residents Must Hold School District Accountable

With the passing of Issue 11, we have now entrusted the Oberlin School District with a large amount of taxpayer money. We will remember the many promises made throughout their campaign.

The message of Oberlin Concerned Citizens has been to broad-

en the conversation from a building to the entire context in which this decision is being made. We hope the community fares well, even as the depth of its divide about this project has now been revealed.

It is a basic truth that Oberlin’s resources are not infinite. The financial state of the College and our households will continue to impact the lives of all of us, including the children we educate. Holding the Board of Education accountable for its use of this money will best be ensured by an attentive and concerned Oberlin citizenry.

Respectfully submitted by Oberlin Concerned Citizens, Melissa Ballard Lorrie Chmura Debbi Walsh Joan Webster

CDS Welcomes Feedback to Enact Dining Changes Pearse Anderson Contributing Writer This semester has seen a whirlwind of dining changes at Oberlin, including the reopening of Sky Bar’s lunch (and now pilot breakfast) service, the expansion of hours at Stevenson Dining Hall, and the reorganizing and downsizing of Fourth Meal into its original Rathskeller location, to name a few.

These changes are a lot for dining administrators to understand, much less Oberlin students already tackling a full workload and rich extracurriculars.

To combat the confusion, two new systems of studentadministration communication have been developed for the community to learn about dining changes, while also reporting back what isn’t working in practice. The first way is though the Dining Ambassador program, a group composed of four students — College juniors Jordan Bettencourt Francesca Scola, and myself, and College sophomore Mike Sandifer — who work each week to talk with students about food and dining, whether that’s

composting, menu development, or the new texting hotline.

Oh, yes, there’s finally a hotline you can text to contact the CDS managers, operations coordinator, and nutritionist with one number: 440-427-3093. The hotline, named Zingle, is the second new CDSspecific communication system, which went live mid-October.

Already, the tool has had great success. Incredibly cheap to set up compared to the price of Stevenson phone lines, it is a welcome addition to the campus dining experience that Dining Ambassadors and Dining Committee attendees have been asking about for many semesters.

Before the hotline, students could submit comment cards available at each dining hall, submit an online comment card, email any CDS official, or talk to a staff member during their meal. All of these options had drawbacks: physical comment cards were confusing to locate or use, the dining website maintained by the College (dining.oberlin.edu) was similarly underutilized and difficult since many students used See Students, page 7

SUBMISSIONS POLICY

The Oberlin Review appreciates and welcomes letters to the editors and op-ed submissions. All submissions are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board. All submissions must be received by Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. 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 | November 16, 2018

Volume 147, Number 9

Editorial Board Editors-in-Chief

Sydney Allen

Nathan Carpenter

Managing Editor Ananya Gupta

Opinions Editors

Jackie Brant Luce Nguyen

Students Should Prioritize Career Prep Editor’s note: Editors-in-Chief Sydney Allen and Nathan Carpenter are both student leaders in the newly-created SOAR program, which is discussed in this editorial.

An anecdote floating around campus recently tells the story of a Google executive who supposedly said that Oberlin students make for some of the best employees, but some of the worst interviewees. This story, whether true or not, reflects a kind of dual truth: Oberlin students are creative, innovative, and have a lot to offer, but often struggle to make themselves attractive to employers.

Subsequently, Oberlin students lag behind students at comparable institutions in finding full-time work following graduation.

This observation suggests a failure to connect the skills and knowledge Oberlin students gain through our liberal arts education to the real-world — a failure to present ourselves to our full potential. It is essential that we learn how to pitch ourselves and to articulate how our Oberlin education has given us marketable skills and experiences.

However, we recognize that these difficulties are not solely the responsibility of students — they are also due to both previous institutional failure and a school culture that doesn’t promote serious career preparation.

We have written in the past about how Oberlin’s resources for career prep have been mediocre at best (“Graduate School Connections Vital for Student Development,” The Oberlin Review, Sept. 14, 2018). The institution has done a poor job of partnering with potential employers, bringing recruiters to campus, and fostering a culture of thoughtfulness around academic and career planning.

Students have lost confidence in the Career Development Center and see much of its programming as outdated and unhelpful.

Recently, however, we have seen the institution making strides to remedy these shortcomings. We are excited to see a variety of new programming launching next semester, designed to address student apathy and spark intentional conversations about life after Oberlin, starting with the Sophomore Opportunities and Academic Resources program and the Career Communities initiative.

The SOAR program will give selected sophomores the opportunity to attend a two-day retreat in February before classes start to build academic and career plans alongside students and professors within their intended major. Students will plot their five-semester plan, connect with a variety of professionals and peers within their field to build a network of support and resources, and pave the way for potential internships and other opportunities in summer 2019 and beyond.

The Career Communities initiative, facilitated by the Career Development Center, was announced this week. As part of the program, which will pilot in spring 2019, juniors and seniors can apply to join one of four career communities.

They will then participate in a variety of workshops and networking opportunities within their chosen community. The four communities are Finance, Business, and Consulting; Non Profit and the Public Sector; Arts and Creative Professions; and Entrepreneurship and Innovation. At the end of this program, each participant will have a guaranteed financially-supported internship for summer 2019 with one of 120 partner organizations.

Now that Oberlin and its alumni, who are providing the funded internships, have put in the hard work to provide these opportunities for students, it’s time for students to step up to the plate and take advantage of them.

It is essential that we put more energy into promoting and polishing ourselves for the career market. Oberlin students are innovative, compassionate, and social justice-focused. There are so many spaces in which we could do enormous good and make a tangible difference to real people. But in order to enter those spaces and put ourselves in positions to make substantive change, we must accurately and fully present what we are capable of. If we continue to see career preparation as a form of “selling-out,” we will struggle to enter the sectors that need us most — the tech or finance industries, politics, governmental work, and the corporate world.

Many of these fields aren’t seen as particularly “Obie,” yet they can all benefit from the holistic perspectives that Oberlin students bring to the table.

We aren’t advocating for Oberlin to become a pre-professional school. However, we also recognize that it will become harder and harder to remain competitive with our peer institutions if our graduates continue to struggle to pitch themselves and enter into the job market.

Let’s make the most of this opportunity and show the world what that Google executive already knows: Oberlin students have incredible things to contribute to the world — all we need to do is show it.

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

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Opi n ions

Wildfires Highlight Inequity in Environmental, Climate Crises Nathan Carpenter Editor-In-Chief Jackie Brant Opinions Editor In recent weeks, footage of the fires currently raging through the state of California has appeared in the news and on social media. We have seen houses destroyed, communities devastated, and families left without clear options. As of Nov. 11, more than 1.5 million acres had burned — the most ever recorded in a single fire season — which has caused nearly $3 billion in damages and control operations and has killed more than 50 people and left more than 130 people missing.

Even as firefighters across the state are working overtime to get the blazes under control, communities and neighborhoods continue to be overwhelmed. The threat has caused some wealthy homeowners to take matters into their own hands by hiring private firefighters to protect their homes and communities — a service offered through high-end property insurance policies.

While Kim Kardashian and Kanye West hiring a private team to preserve their multimillion dollar mansion may be an interesting headline — and may even benefit those living in their vicinity — celebrating this approach misses the bigger, and more frightening, story.

When high-income resi-

dents are able to use their private wealth to protect themselves and their neighborhoods, it leaves lower-income communities without equal protection from environmental and climate-related hazards. These communities must depend largely on teams of volunteer firefighters, which are simply too understaffed to confront the magnitude of California’s current crisis. Rural, low-income communities are at particularly high risk. These places are already very difficult to get to, and a shortage of firefighters only makes protection even more inaccessible.

For these reasons, among others, it is essential that we acknowledge these wildfires — and other instances of climate disaster — as political events.

The discrepancies between high- and low-income communities are inherently political.

Further, the lack of political action around climate change speaks volumes — especially as wildfires and other climate disasters become increasingly common and severe. We have been driven to a stark reality in which the wealthy hire their own environmental protection, while low-income communities are left to bear the brunt of the destruction.

Climate disasters may seem different from infrastructure failures or environmental racism; however, the political nature of both their increased oc-

currence and disproportionate impact pushes us to consider them as similar to the water crisis in Flint, MI, and the many battles over oil and gas pipelines, including in Standing Rock.

To begin, the impacts of all three examples — the California fires, Flint, and the battle over the Dakota Access Pipeline in Standing Rock — have disproportionately fallen on low-income communities and, particularly in the cases of Flint and Standing Rock, communities of color. In each instance, private wealth played a large role in the decisions that have created these enormous burdens on marginalized populations.

Soon after Flint’s water supply switched over to the source that has poisoned its residents, the local Ford plant discovered that the new water had begun to corrode its parts. After Ford — a major economic player in Flint and in Michigan more broadly — complained to the city, it was allowed to switch over to a less toxic source. Flint residents, who are predominantly Black, were forced to continue drinking water that was too contaminated for industrial use.

Similarly, the Dakota Access Pipeline was originally slated to go through Bismarck, ND, until residents expressed their distaste with having a pipeline cut directly through the middle of their community. In response, the pipeline

was rerouted through Standing Rock — a community of lowerincome Indigenous residents who were not given the same political power as Bismarck inhabitants and were left, after a lengthy resistance that received limited to no support from the government, to carry the entirety of the environmental and social toll.

In both situations, it was low-income communities of color who were left at a disadvantage after wealthier communities and corporations leveraged their economic standing to avoid experiencing the damages of environmental health hazards. Now, the same dynamics are present in responses to climate crises, in addition to environmental racism and infrastructure failure, as low-income communities in California are depending on a completely understaffed and underfunded firefighting force, while wealthy citizens hire their own personal firefighters for protection.

These are unacceptable circumstances which remind us of the importance of grappling with the connection between capitalism, the environment, and climate change. The path we’re on will allow people and corporations to use private wealth to avoid the negative impacts of climate change, leaving lower-income people and communities to bear the brunt of our collective failure to be effective environmental stewards.

Even current policies that are endorsed by prominent environmental organizations such as the Environmental Defense Fund are not adequate solutions. Take cap-and-trade as an example. This system would look to control carbon emissions and other forms of pollution by limiting the amount organizations can emit, while allowing further capacity to be purchased from other institutions that have not used their full allowance. Cap-and-trade in particular would allow larger corporations to basically buy the right to pollute more. The pollution produced by these corporations would still cause significant environmental damage to the surrounding communities. Many communities that exist in direct proximity to large industries often tend to be lower-income. Thus, policies like cap-and-trade, though they may be well-intentioned, still reinforce and even strengthen the harmful connection between capitalism and the environment.

It is imperative that we continue to fight for equitable distribution of climate and environmental burdens while also minimizing the ways in which we harm our planet. If we do not start implementing adequate solutions, environmental crises that disproportionately affect low-income communities will continue to cause irreversible damage.

Administration, Students Must Collaborate SOAR Program to Benefit Sophomores Meg Parker to Deal with Mental Health on Campus Contributing Writer Kristen Harris Contributing Writer A campus-wide email was sent out to students Oct. 30 by Associate Dean of Students Matthew Hayden, asking them to participate in the Healthy Minds Study. The survey was designed by the Healthy Minds Study Team of the University of Michigan to give students a chance to reflect on and express concerns with mental health stressors within the institution and campus environment.

The survey also aims to heighten awareness of sources of support. In the survey, students are asked about their eating and sleeping habits, substance use and abuse, current and past emotional and mental health, and body image.

Upon reflecting on this study and our current state of affairs as an institution, I have come to see it as a potential tool for the beginnings of substantive change on this campus, as it allows for administrators to see with little filter how being in Oberlin’s campus environment is affecting students’ quality of life.

However, since an opinion is only valid to the person who holds it, I sought the opinions of other students regarding what they knew or felt about the survey. I asked six students — most of whom were familiar with the survey — across class years for their thoughts, and collected a few highlights from those conversations.

Most students, while seeing the value of the survey, are weary of being excited about the potential for action because of past experiences or previously held opinions of the administration’s ability to effect substantive change. One student in particular, College junior Samuel Scheeres, emphasized

6

the vital role of the student body in creating change that the administration cannot make up for. One of the roles the student body must take on for example is changing the culture around mental health. Oberlin students have a tendency to glamorize poor mental health states, especially regarding busy culture. This sort of cultural change cannot come from the administration; it can only come from Oberlin students themselves.

Another student, College first-year Magali Coronado, believes that there is potential for change, but only if there is widespread participation in the survey explaining what students feel they need from the administration and from each other. She also highlighted the summary at the end of the survey that tells students whether their self-reported behaviors and feelings mirror symptoms of various mental health issues, and lists conditions and symptoms flagged by the answers a participant gives.

Some individuals I talked to found this portion at the end emotionally distressing.

While there was a warning about it at the beginning of the survey, some students were alarmed to learn that their everyday behaviors could be symptoms of depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues.

With those valid caveats in mind, I think that this survey may provide some real potential for both personal growth through honest reflection, as it did for me, as well as give students a chance to let their voices be heard to the higher powers of this institution. Change is possible, but only if the administration enacts policies that students express a need for in the survey, and if Oberlin students look to change the way we talk about mental health around campus.

The brainchild of Associate Dean of Students and Interim Director of the Career Development Center Dana Hamdan, the Sophomore Opportunities and Advising Resources program is one of the most exciting things to come to fruition at Oberlin this year. When Dana called me into her office to discuss the then-unnamed initiative, I had the same thought as when I first learned about the Peer Advising Leaders Program: “I wish I had had this!”

There are some challenging parts of my college experience I would never want to redo (Intro to Computer Programming and off-season lifting with former Strength and Conditioning Coach Grant Butler included), but if I had the opportunity to go back and enroll in SOAR, I would do so in a heartbeat. SOAR will provide invaluable institutional support for students both with and without a declared major, to support their personal development and network growth.

Collaborating with faculty, professional staff, and a SOAR student leader, selected sophomores will have the opportunity to think critically about the courses they’re taking for their major, courses that will supplement their major, their extracurricular and co-curricular involvements, and networking. They will also develop their résumé, identify beneficial internships, and refine job applications.

Sophomores will meet with their SOAR leaders intermittently throughout the spring semester to check in on their progress following the February workshops, and to ensure that students are feeling prepared and confident for summer opportunities and more.

As a senior contemplating my life post-Oberlin, I find myself skirting around the question, “What are you doing next year?” but simultaneously thankful for the network I have been able to build over my four years here. Creating a network can radically change access to opportunities and help students understand what they are capable of doing — and SOAR is attempting to institutionalize access to those exact kind of connections.

The beauty of a liberal arts education at Oberlin is that we have the ability to combine interests and constantly explore and try new things, giving us flexibility in the workforce. This plethora of options is both intimidating and exhilarating. Being able to look to an older student who has dabbled in and taken advantage of opportunities here at the College is unbelievably helpful. I’m thankful for individuals like Megan Cox, OC ’18, and Emma Eisenberg, OC ’17, who filled similar roles for me by encouraging me to apply for internships and other opportunities and connecting me to their networks to prepare me to make Winter Term and post-graduation plans.

Calling upon the professional development skills we can all use more of, SOAR combines peer-to-peer mentoring with faculty mentorship and advising. Regardless of how we feel about the bread email Dana sent out this week, the SOAR program is something you do not want to miss out on.

Oberlin’s Foreign Language Offerings Fall Short of Demand Ananya Gupta Managing Editor Despite the availability of an annual Winter Term project, two Shansi opportunities for graduates, and two study abroad programs in India, the languages of Hindi and Urdu are left out of the Oberlin academic scene.

Over half a billion people speak Hindi globally, second only to Mandarin Chinese. While this number is largely concentrated within the Indian subcontinent, it is also spoken in countries such as Mauritius, Fiji, Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, Nepal, and among immigrants in the U.S., U.K., and Australia — to name only a few.

This figure surpasses the number of global Spanish, Italian, Russian, French, German, Japanese, and Arabic speakers — all languages which are, at least to a certain degree, represented at Oberlin. There are over 150 million people in the world who speak Urdu,

a number that definitely surpasses the speakers of Ancient Greek and Latin, dead languages that are presented by a total of 12 courses being taught at Oberlin this spring. Over 50 million Indians speak Urdu, and it is the national language of Pakistan. Like Hindi, Urdu is widely spoken across the U.S., Britain, Canada, and parts of the Middle East.

For a community that considers itself ‘woke’ and discourses constantly about Eurocentrism, the silence on this issue is disappointing. While it is definitely laudable that East Asian Studies is a distinct and extremely popular department at Oberlin, and East Asian languages are deservingly given a strong focus, the neglect of third-world languages is extremely disheartening.

Further, the Arabic courses provided at Oberlin are woefully insufficient.

There is a single professor of Arabic at Oberlin, and one cannot study the subject beyond a 200-level course. Despite

the overwhelming demonstrated demand for the language, the College has done little to accommodate the need for a more rigorous curriculum.

Not only is this disregard in direct contrast to the values Obies are so quick to preach, but it is also a huge missed opportunity for those interested in, perhaps, getting a job? Hindi and Urdu are both listed as critical languages by the American Foreign Service Association, meaning they are unique, desirable skills for those interested in jobs pertinent to national security, international relations, and politics.

Furthermore, India, alongside China, is the largest emerging market in the world, with a large youth population, en route to being an economic power player in the global arena. Hindi and Urdu will be just as hot a commodity as Mandarin is today, and Obies are missing out on the opportunity to be competitive candidates in the job market. Particularly with the high den-

sity of Obies interested in international studies, global economics, and politics, it seems almost callous that the only resource available at Oberlin to learn Hindi or Urdu is for the one or two students awarded the Critical Language Scholarship.

White students flood courses such as Modern South Asia: From British Imperialism to Present, Political Economy of Development in Asia, and ‘Bollywood’s’ India: An Introduction to Indian Cinema. However, education on these topics is acutely incomplete without having even a basic understanding of the languages spoken in these regions. Oberlin cannot truly offer an international education to its students nor claim to be an ally to the third world, particularly South Asia, if it doesn’t offer a single Hindi or Urdu course. It is simply ignoring too large a community. And to those saying that no one has demonstrated this need before, this is me demonstrating.

Students Should Continue Giving Feedback to CDS, Dining Ambassadors Continued from page 5

the CDS-prefered website (oberlin.cafebonappetit. com), and, if students wanted to start a dialogue with someone from CDS after their meal, there was no simple way to do so without waiting until the next time they saw that person.

Now through Zingle, anyone can ask over text when a certain vegan entree will next be served at Lord Saunders, and either Matt Krasnevich, current manager of Lord Saunders dining hall, or Eric Pecherkiewicz, who manages the menu systems, can respond within minutes. Often, the turnaround is that quick.

Zingle has received a host of curious comments in the past few weeks, and in massive numbers: on Oct. 17, there were 14 conversations between texters and replying administrators. This week, Zingle has gotten three or four messages a day, ranging from saying the six-cheese mac ‘n’ cheese is “by far the best mac cheese i’ve had in my 4 years” to “How much longer is Stevie going to smell like sewage?”

(Answer from staff: there is a basement leak, not impacting any food service, that Facilities is dealing with). One person only talks about hummus: “pretty sour [hummus],” “no hummus,” and “More hummus!! :)” are just some of the highlights. We love the feedback!

Oberlin has a pretty short institutional memory, especially among students, and there are times in Dining Committee meetings when an older CDS official will describe old facts about campus dining, like how Fourth Meal used to serve 300400 students in the Rathskellar and was run by two angry sisters. At Dining Committee, we learn of current strange goings-on behind the scenes, from Stevenson lightbulb replacement to far-fetched ideas to turn the Rat into a noodle bowl store. So, the Dining Ambassador program is, in part, a way to record and disseminate both the history and future of CDS. Communication about food is pretty wild.

When the Student Senate Dining Committee on food issues surveyed the school last semester, they found that half of how students give “feedback” to CDS is through complaining directly to friends.

Unless those friends are involved in CDS, those resentments (and hopefully some compliments) never reach the administration, who are busy with work orders, dining changes, and often do not start a lot of conversations with students.

I tended to be one of those friends who works in CDS, and this September at least seven or eight people approached me about the switch from peanut butter tubs in Stevenson to individual-use Smuckers cups (a misnomer since two cups are usually required for a full bagel). Students were concerned as the cups seem to be lower-quality and wasteful — especially because, since their introduction, Smuckers cups have been consistently thrown in the compost, contaminating the entire system.

If those seven or eight friends all texted the Zingle hotline to raise concerns about the peanut butter cups, dining administration would understand the large student push against cups, instead of me bringing the topic up, again, at Dining Committee.

The Oberlin Review | November 16, 2018

Side note: Smuckers cups were introduced because of allergen concerns, so the peanut butter tubs will not be returning. Instead, tubs of sunbutter are now at Stevie, replacing peanut butter. As College senior and Student Senator EmmaLia Mariner wrote in the meme page, “Seriously y’all complaining and memeing the dining situation is fun and increases dialogue but please bring those memes and critiques to the dining committee and the student senate dining working committee.”

I don’t want to trivialize discourse and conversations, but incorporating more investigation and research-based info into discussions would be super helpful. Are you worried about plastic straw use at DeCafé, or food safety conditions in Stevenson? So are the Dining Ambassadors, and we would love to talk about to you about these concerns, especially if the topics are too complex to text to the Zingle hotline. Several student groups are already working on those issues. We have a Facebook page,

the Oberlin College Dining Ambassadors program, and you can always talk to us in person. This offer extends to staff as well, whether CDS workers or campus faculty.

As you’ve hopefully noticed, there are more ways of student-administration communication this semester, from the dining survey you were emailed about or the whiteboards available in DeCafé and Stevenson. These whiteboards owe their existence to the Mudd Slinger’s design; prior to Dining Committee, the CDS administration did not know what the Mudd Slinger was, again showcasing how much students can teach them about how we best operate. More is coming, and because many of the Dining Ambassadors are studying abroad next semester (Jordan to Berlin, Francesca to Thailand, and myself to Mongolia), we implore people interested in dining to come replace us this spring.

Please contact us at our hotline to learn more: 440427-3093.

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Social Dancing at Oberlin LAYOUT AND TEXT BY MIKAELA FISHMAN

WHEN AND WHERE ARE THE DANCES AT OBERLI

WHY DO YOU DANCE? Phoebe Durand McDonnell, Conservatory senior: I contra dance because it feels like a safe environment to move my body, and it can be as performative or meditative as I would like. As a complete introvert, I love that I can “blend in” — or at least not stick out — while I’m dancing because everyone else in the hall is doing the same move, following the same instructions at the same time. It’s a beautiful, comfortable mix of anonymity and autonomy that I haven’t found anywhere else.

Molly Tucker, Double-degree senior and Contra Dance Club treasurer: Contra dancing for me has been about connection and community. One of the important parts of dancing is weight, of trusting yourself to let go of your own weight to be supported by someone else and to do that in return. In a swing with one other person or a circle with four, the intertwined hands carry the collective weight of the group. In a dance that is ultimately ephemeral, the support of these intertwined hands lasts into friendships and mentorships and relationships and communities.

Caide Jackson, College senior: Contra dance and contra dance weekends are the most fun I’ve ever had in my life. I think that has to do with the atmosphere of general acceptance of any level of dancing ability. And I just love being swung around and dipped.

Contra happens one Friday per mo Hales Gymnasium. There is a begi lesson from 7:30–8 p.m. followed b with a live band from 8–11 p.m. To out when upcoming dances are, ch oberlin.edu/stuorg/contra/calenda email contra@oberlin.edu to be ad mailing list. The next dance will be

Contra

WHAT IS CONTRA DANCING?

Contra dancing is a New England and Appalachian folk dance with origins in English, Scottish, and French country dancing. Most contra dances, including at Oberlin, feature a live band that plays folk and bluegrass-influenced instrumental music. The dance is done in long lines; you stay with one partner throughout,but also briefly dance with everyone else in your line. The dance steps are dictated by a “caller.” It’s very similar to square dancing, but it’s performed in lines instead of squares.

In contra dance, people are spinning in a circle, laughing a lot, and feeling the tension and power of group dance.

Everyone is stomping in time to the music and dizzy and sweaty in the best possible way.

WHAT IS CA

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Madi Goetzke, College sophomore: Like most other partner dancing, swing is a unique social experience: Through each new dance, you learn so much about your partner’s creative expression. OSwingBlues embodies that integral part of social dancing, and has allowed me not only to become a better dancer, but was one of the first places where I found home in Oberlin.

Antonia Offen, College junior and vice-chair of OSwing Blues: I swing dance because the physical movement itself is fun, but 80 percent of it for me is the people. The people are also so respectful, from their terminology (like “lead” instead of “guy”) to their asking of consent. As for blues, there is emphasis in the blues community to make dances sensual and not sexual, and to experience a sensual dance is to experience two bodies moving as one. It’s just this feeling of anticipation, pressure and guidance that is so anchoring in that moment.

Aidan Kidder-Wolff, College junior: Oberlin Swing and Blues Society has been a great friend to me. When I visited Oberlin for the first time, my brother took me to a dance.

Although I knew nothing, I found everybody to be full of laughs and rhythmic wiggling.

Dance is how I’ve made most of my friendships over the years.

Calendar

FRIDAY, NOV. 16 // Maxo Kream with UNiiQU3

Houston rapper Maxo Kream and vocalist and producer UNiiQU3 are coming to the ’Sco. Maxo raps about themes from his life, including poverty, prisons, and violence, and “does not seek to be palatable for the larger white audience.” UNiiQU3 started off as a singer and now works as a producer as well. With OCID, tickets cost $2 during the presale and $5 on the day day of show. Without OCID, tickets are available for $18.

9:30 p.m.–1 a.m. // The ’Sco, Wilder Hall

SATURDAY, NOV. 17

Community Harvest Celebration The Members and Friends of Legion Field Community Garden are hosting a harvest celebration for local gardeners and community garden members to share their produce, exchange recipes, and build community. 5–9 p.m. // Oberlin Depot, 240 S. Main St.

SUNDAY, NOV. 18

Trans Day of Remembrance Vigil To conclude Trans Week of Action, there will commemorating people who were victims phobic violence and other trans people who lives in the past year. Tea and hot cocoa will b afterwards. 7–9 p.m. // Multicultural Resourc

TUESDAY, NOV. 20

The Ring Family Jewish Film Festival: Forget Baghdad The documentary Forget Baghdad is being s part of a series of Jewish films. It explores tory of the Iraqi Jewish communist comm telling the stories of five Iraqi Jews, most now live in Israel. Pizza will be served at 7 The screening is free and open to the public Hallock Auditorium, Adam Joseph Lewis Cent

Swing & Blues

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WHAT IS SWING DANCING?

“Swing is a revived form of dancing that aggregates a series of social dances, such as Charleston, [Lindy Hop], and Jitterbug, which were popular in Black communities from 1910 to 1941,” College senior and Swing Dance ExCo instructor Gavin Epstein wrote in an email to the Review. “The majority of these dances originated in Harlem, where the Savoy Ballroom formed the epicenter. Swing is generally danced to a subgenre of jazz that’s also called swing music. It’s a partner dance that emphasizes rhythmic variation and improvisation.”

Oberlin Swing and Blues Society organizes all swing and blues events on campus and teaches Swing and Blues ExCos. “We sponsor both weekly dances and semesterly workshops with internationally-acclaimed instructors [and] live music,” Shira Cohen, College senior and chair of the OSwing Blues board, wrote in an email to the Review. “We hold anti-harassment trainings and work ... [to] make sure our dance spaces are comfortable, accessible, and open to everyone.”

“In essence, OSwingBlues is just a collection of students who love to dance,” College junior and OSwingBlues board member Aidan Kidder-Wolff wrote in an email. “When we use the term ‘social dance,’ we want to make clear that we are not going for professional dancing in any way. Instead, we’d rather have some laughs and giggles as we wobble and sway around the dance floor.”

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“This is a question with no simple answer — partially because blues is a family of dances with quite a bit of variation between them, and partially because the broader blues community is still working through that question — especially as it relates to contemporary blues dancing’s authenticity and/or distance from its roots as a dance form that developed alongside blues music, by and for black people,” former Beginning Blues Dance ExCo instructor Sierra Maniates-Selvin, OC ’18, wrote in an email to the Review. “Generally, blues dancing is a family of (mostly) partner dances done (mostly) to blues music, and is based in connection, weight sharing, weight shifting, pulse, and a relaxed aesthetic and posture. This is somewhat different than other partner dances that are more based in a set of steps. There isn’t really that in blues, which I like, because it allows you to center connection with your partner and the music, and even the dance floor.”

WHO ORGANIZES THE DANCES?

ALLING?

l be a vigil of translost their be served ce Center

WHAT IS BLUES DANCING?

WHEN AND WHERE ARE THE DANCES AT OBERLIN?

On most Fridays in South Studios (the basement of South Hall), swing goes from 9–10 p.m. and blues from 10 p.m.–12 a.m. Once a month, Saturday dances are held in the Cat in the Cream instead; on those days, swing is 10:30 p.m.–12 a.m. and blues is from 12–1:40 a.m. To find out when and where the dance will be each week, join the OSwing Blues group on Facebook or email oswing@oberlin.edu to be put on the mailing list. The next dance will be Friday, Nov. 30 in South Studios. Swing will be from 9–10 p.m., and blues will be from 10 p.m.–12 a.m.

A r t s & C u lt u r e

ARTS & CULTURE November 16, 2018

established 1874

Volume 147, Number 9

Cover Band Showcase Sells Out During Parents’ Weekend

Associate Professor of Africana Studies Charles Peterson performed at the WOBC Cover Band Showcase last Friday night at the ’Sco. Photo by Maria Turner, Photo Editor

Carson Dowhan Senior Staff Writer WOBC’s popular Cover Band Showcase returned to the ’Sco last Friday to kick off Parents and Family Weekend.

Students and parents alike filled the venue to maximum capacity to enjoy live music and familiar tunes. Those with drinks in hand carefully maneuvered through the packed crowd, cautious of bumping shoulders or catching an elbow — it’s not often the ’Sco gets this full.

The showcase, which first came to fruition in 2011, provided something for everybody. The lineup included covers of the Jonas Brothers (Vronas Vrothers), Amy Winehouse (Tammy Beerhouse), Frank Zappa (Schlenk Zappa), The Carpenters (The Plumbers), The Cranberries (Kriegs: Itz the Cranberriez), Mitski (Puberty 3), Fleetwood Mac (Fleetwood Hack), and The B-52s (Diamond Crab).

The Duran Duran cover band (Power Station), which opened the show, was made up of professors from different departments of the College.

“One of the biggest challenges was selecting the bands to perform at the showcase — we had a record number of applications and try to balance genres, mix up the artists that have been covered in previous showcases, and make sure people who haven’t had the chance to perform in the show before get the opportunity,” wrote College senior and WOBC Stage Manager Katie Wilson in an email to the Review. “It’s also a hectic night because essentially 10 different bands share a stage, so the logistics are complicated.”

Associate Professor of Africana Studies Charles Peterson commented on why the faculty band chose to cover Duran Duran.

“We had been playing around with hard funk songs for a while, and our guitarist [Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing] Tom Hopkins suggested we do ‘Rio,’” Peterson wrote in an email to the Review. “That led to the Duran Duran ‘satellite’ band Power Station, and we embraced ‘Bang a Gong’ and ‘Some Like It Hot.’” This year marked the faculty group’s third performance at the ’Sco.

“This was by far the best crowd,” Associate Professor of Anthropology and Latin American Studies Baron Pineda, who played the marimba, said.

The group has also explored other genres throughout their time together.

“In the past, we have done The Beatles, Van Morrison, Nirvana, Black Keys, and Al Green,” Pineda said.

A quick glance around the venue showed parents, students, and professors enjoying the scene together.

“It was packed from the beginning to the end of the night,” Peterson wrote.

“Each year it seems the crowd gets larger. There are so many great bands each year, so it’s not a surprise. But it’s fun to see more faculty attending, and because it was held during Parents Weekend, more parents are showing up.”

WOBC and Concert Sound did an exceptional job getting bands on and off stage as efficiently as possible. The smooth transitions helped keep the long lineup going through the night, and gave space for conversation between sets about prior acts, and guesses of who would perform next.

Some groups picked difficult artists to cover, but rose to the challenge — including Tammy Beerhouse, the Amy Winehouse cover band.

“Just [Winehouse’s] popularity alone, knowing that almost everybody knows and loves her music, made it especially intimidating,” College senior Natalie Rathgeber, lead singer of Tammy Beerhouse, said.

Rathgeber has a deep appreciation for Winehouse.

“Her music continues to inspire me to this day — I even have her name tattooed

on my arm,” they said. “Part of what is so wonderful about Amy’s music is the depth and range of her lyrics. As soon as we started playing ‘Rehab,’ the energy in the room skyrocketed.”

Other groups, like the Carpenters cover band, brought variety to the showcase.

“Retro, bubblegum pop in live performances is rare here,” noted doubledegree senior Charles Ryan, the group’s trumpet player. “Capturing the ’70s aesthetic both sonically and visually was a challenge. In [the Carpenters’] live performance choreography, they are restrained and immersed by the emotion in their sad songs.”

Nostalgia for older bands was a prominent theme through the night, though covers of more contemporary bands, like the Jonas Brothers and Mitski, were a big hit.

“The Frank Zappa band was my favorite,” commented College second-year Sam Schuman in an email to the Review.

“His music is super hard to pull off, but they made it look so easy.”

Through interpretations of modern hits, some music was presented with a new, expressive sound, while other performers paid homage to the history and tradition of the artists they covered.

After a record number of applications for this semester’s showcase, the spring showcase is likely to be yet another success.

“It’s really amazing to me that an idea someone has to put together a show like this one time,” Wilson wrote. “[and it] can become a tradition and an important part of WOBC’s and Oberlin’s community.”

Instagram Account Highlights POC Fashion on Campus Imani Badillo Staff Writer Oberlin Spectrum has been filling Instagram feeds with looks from POC since November 2017, with the goal of providing a fashionable safe space for students of color.

Originally a personal project, the page has grown exponentially in recent months. The creators have introduced submissions, broadened their understanding of the meaning of representation, and begun seeking a greater presence on campus.

College junior Sheng Kao originally created the account. She began collecting photos from people of color in the fall of 2017 after announcing her project on the Facebook group Oberlin Memes for of Color Teens.

She received many comments asking her to start an Instagram page. With this, Oberlin Spectrum was born, showcasing looks of color around campus. Soon after, College junior Shaina Lin Chung expressed interest in the new project and the two started to run the page together.

“The reason we created this page is because of both our love for fashion [and] the love we have for our communities,” Kao and Chung said.

On April 27, 2018, Oberlin Spectrum became submission-based. Through this setup, Oberlin Spectrum could showcase fashion and aesthetics themselves as a spectrum, a place for all POC to access. Students and friends could submit looks of color, along with a quote highlighting what fashion means to them and how their expression continues in clothing.

“We can put the power in the hands of our peers,” Kao and Chung wrote in an email to the Review.

Since the moderators began allowing submissions, the moderators had to remind many students of the account’s mission to serve as a supportive place for all people of color. Under the “guidelines” highlighted on their Instagram, the moderators remind students that Oberlin students of

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color are of all shapes, sizes, and colors.

Current and new students on campus are seeing these changes and really taking these values to heart. College first-year Serena Zets, a follower of the page, has already appeared a few times on Oberlin Spectrum — the first instance after the Bollywood night at the ’Sco, and the second time with her younger brother.

She said that she loves how Oberlin Spectrum reaches out beyond simply clothing. The page “helps underrepresented students feel visible and seen,” Zets wrote in an email to the Review.

In scrolling through Oberlin Spectrum, I noticed a collection of photos from the Africana photoshoot “Sunset Noir.” Put together by double-degree sophomore Kopano Muhammad, the shoot involved Black Obies from all across campus. Pictures from this shoot popped up on Black and Afrikan Heritage House students’ Instagrams, so much that Oberlin Spectrum reached out to College junior Darian Gray for some photos to post.

Along with the “Sunset Noir” pictures is a photo of Muhammad expressing what yellow means to them as a person of color: “Yellow says ‘I am here, I’m loud, you can’t dampen me.’ I think that all us Brown folks should learn from yellow. We are here, we should definitely be loud, loud and brown, louder and browner.” Through the words, yellow itself, and its documentation, people of color are finding a voice on campus that is clearly heard and seen.

What’s next for Oberlin Spectrum? The moderators are currently looking toward further expansion, possibly creating a student organization, and definitely hosting photo shoots for the page to incorporate new moderator College junior Rian Szende’s photography skills. The moderators want to reach out to program housing like Afrikan Heritage House, Asia House, and Third World, and coordinate with other student organizations in order to reach out to as many people of color as possible.

Nae McClain and LePriya White pose in a photo which was featured on the Oberlin Spectrum Instagram account.

Photo Courtesy of LePriya White

As a first-year POC, I personally admire the efforts made to showcase other Oberlin students’ fashion. Since Oberlin is a predominantly white institution, it’s easy for students of color to feel left out of the fashion movement due to the lack of representation. Seeing and viewing so many fashionable students of color around campus, and following Oberlin Spectrum, has helped me to foster a bit more confidence in my appearance and to really work to make myself feel pretty. Oberlin Spectrum, like so many other safe spaces for people of color, has helped me progress on my journey of self-appreciation and self-love.

For more visual context about the page, check out @ oberlinspectrum on Instagram.

Senior Dance Students Impress with Creative Performances

Dance major Teddy Ment performs in her senior dance showcase, Nova.

Photo by Devin Cowan

Teague Harvey This past weekend saw the presentation of incredible senior shows from two Dance majors. I sat down with Tian Yoon Teh to talk about Embrace Me: A Dance Opera, and will share my personal perspective from working tech on Teddy Ment’s Nova.

To create Embrace Me, the first of the evening’s shows, Yoon Teh took

on an ambitious pre-production process that included storyboarding, which began last semester, a variety of experimental explorations, and finally a nine-week production schedule.

“In this piece, we played with how bodies are instruments and instruments are bodies, we played with the heritage of both Eastern and Western cultures,” she said. “We talk about trauma and what it takes to heal.”

Collaboration was also deeply important to Yoon Teh — the idea for the dance opera itself came from a piece in a senior show last year by Rachel Ford, OC ’18, titled to twine, to hold (enclosed).

“Weeks after her show, her piece and mine continued to unfold in my mind’s eye, and became the heart of this production,” Yoon Teh said. “I wanted…the audience to witness pain, beauty and care. Rachel’s piece set the tone for all those layers to be held together. With Rachel’s permission, we restaged her trio, adapted to suit the body types of this cast.”

The spirit of collaboration infused her mentality about her entire creative process as well. “[Retired Oberlin professor] Nusha [Martynuk], my beloved mentor, gave me this: ‘how you warm up has already conditioned the work you make.’ She said it more elegantly than that,” Yoon Teh explained. “In this production, the process that I steered the most is in development: what kind of space to hold, who to invite into it, what questions to prompt, what tasks we do together. That has already determined the aesthetic outcome.”

Yoon Teh deeply feels the need to make art, a drive which came through in Embrace Me. “Every piece is a pilgrimage,” she said. “It’s a space where I can knead my soul. I once told Nusha, who showed me how to think with my body, ‘piece by piece, I am walking towards inner peace.’ I learn a little more of myself every time.”

Embrace Me was followed in the program by Ment’s Nova.

As a member of OCircus! myself, I was incredibly excited to see Ment’s circus show. From training with her, I knew that she had been working on it for a long time — practicing skills, generating ideas, and planning logistics.

Because I’m a part of the OC Aerialists, she asked me to be in her tech team. I assisted with rigging transitions, helping to change which aerial apparatuses were set up mid-show.

In fact, four of the six crew involved were aerialists — emphasizing the ambitious number of transitions required.

And Nova was ambitious indeed.

Ment opened the show inside a lyra (aerial hoop) covered in fabric, with a projection of the moon overtop. Later, she was the moon, emerging in a shining silver suit.

Throughout the show, the moon was slowly pulled across the sky by the tech team, with the projection changing to show different moon phases.

Meanwhile, Ment and her circus partner Eleanor Getz did just about every kind of circus trick imaginable — trapeze, lyra, partner acrobatics, and even clowning. Conservatory senior Aliya Ultan accompanied them, playing the cello, piano, accordion, harmonica, and singing. Their hard work and dedication was on display in every act.

However, just like last week’s Acrobatic Conundrum performance, this wasn’t a circus for spectacle.

“It morphed substantially from a classic circus piece about bedtime stories into something deeply personal, investigating the passage of time as we go to sleep, and the time of passing from this life to whatever comes after,” Ment said. The narrative took center field.

“Tian’s and Teddy’s senior concert showcased some extraordinary work. I was so impressed,” Professor of Dance and Dance Department Chair Ann Cooper Albright said. “It was exciting to see their passion for movement woven into a dense texture of interdisciplinary collaboration. We got the best of many worlds.”

We are incredibly fortunate here at Oberlin. Almost every week, we have the opportunity to witness the amazing art made by our peers. Sometimes, we even get the chance to add to art like this.

My contribution was minimal compared to the directors (one week of my time, versus years of work), but I was still a part of making something beautiful happen. I got to see just how much love goes into crafting art.

I experienced the power of witnessing great art, both being in the crew watching the audience react, and from my own personal reactions.

I left my tech week inspired, with one thought: make more art.

You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown to Run This Weekend Katherine MacPhail Production Editor An Oberlin Musical Theater Association production of the musical comedy You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, inspired by Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic serial and written by Clark Gesner, goes up Thursday, Nov. 15 through Saturday, Nov. 17 in Wilder Main.

The musical brings the funny and existential comics about childhood to the stage with rousing musical numbers and snapshots of the zany, melancholic, and touching moments between characters that endeared Schulz’s work to many.

“It’s about these cartoon characters, these kids who have grown-up emotions, dealing with problems both fantastic and actually accessible for people our age,” the show’s director, College senior Keifer Ludwig, said. “It’s all sorts of things, as any musical is. It’s about reconciling your place in the world and feeling like at the end of the day you can’t really understand what people think of you, but that everyone sort of has it that way. And then through that, there’s a lot of fun dance numbers — it’s not all serious stuff, there are some shenanigans in there.”

Many members of the cast and crew are long-

The Oberlin Review | November 16, 2018

time fans of the Peanuts comics.

“Growing up, I loved Snoopy and all the characters,” College first-year Peter Stern, who plays Linus van Pelt, said. “It’s so thrilling to be able to embody these characters and live in their world for some time.”

The actors were thoughtful in their portrayal of these widely beloved characters. In preparation for their roles, the cast did extensive research on the source material.

“I read some of [the comics] and as a cast we watched A Charlie Brown Christmas, which was helpful,” said College first-year Clara Zucker, who plays Sally Brown. “Sally really changes throughout the comics, all the characters do, so I kind of had to decide which Sally I wanted to be.”

The cast also spent time considering what made the original stories so successful.

“There are some really adult themes encapsulated in a child’s mind,” said first-year Cyrus Thelin, who plays Snoopy. It is this quality which makes the comics — and this show — accessible for people of all ages.

OMTA’s production gives first-years the opportunity to partake in a musical theater production, since the Oberlin Theater Department held its primary auditions for their musical last spring, mak-

ing it only available to upperclassmen. OMTA and its counterpart, Oberlin Student Theater Association, have also been great spaces for people who are new to theater.

“I haven’t done musical theater or any theater before I came to college,” said College sophomore Gina Fontanesi, who plays Lucy van Pelt. “This is my second real production, and this is my first time having lines and a solo. This is all super new. It’s been a lot of fun.”

Ludwig explained his personal philosophy on directing.

“A lot of it ties to comfort; getting people in a place where they feel like they can do something that isn’t themselves,” he said.

Ludwig expressed his passion for this project and all the people involved.

“It’s a really fun musical,” he said. “The actors are so talented, we lucked out. They approach the show in such a delightful and hilarious way. Even though I’ve seen it 80 times over I still laugh at all their jokes. It’s a wonderful spectacle. It’s just fun to witness.”

You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown runs from Nov. 5–17 at 8 p.m. in Wilder Main. Tickets are available through OMTA and at the door for $5.

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

On the Record with Blas Falconer, Poet Blas Falconer is a queer Latinx poet and editor who came to Oberlin to read from his new book, Forgive the Body This Failure, on Thursday, Nov. 15. Falconer teaches in the MFA program at San Diego State University. His other published works are The Foundling Wheel, A Question of Gravity and Light, and The Perfect Hour. Falconer received a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award from Poets & Writers, and the Barthelme Fellowship, among others. He is a co-editor of the poetry section of the Los Angeles Review, co-editor of Mentor & Muse: Essays from Poets to Poets, and co-editor of The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Kate Fishman, Arts and Culture Editor them how to cope with grief and with longing. I think that the poems as a result have become much more streamlined and more bare. Because really, I think that I’m genuinely trying to understand something as I’m writing, and I’m trying to communicate it almost with my children as readers — my children when they are adults. I think a lot of the poems are in conversation with them, and some of the issues that they’ve wrestled with, as young children of two gay parents.

They’re both adopted, so they have a lot of questions about their own origins. So I feel like I’m really trying to understand a lot of their larger questions and speak to them.

Blas Falconer, poet and author of the new book Forgive the Body This Failure.

Photo Courtesy of Blas Falconer

Can you talk a bit about what you’ll be reading [Thursday]?

I’m going to be reading from my third full length collection, Forgive the Body This Failure. I’m still working out which poems I’m going to read.

Generally, I like to create a kind of arc for the audience so that they have a little journey to go on. I’ve been talking a lot with [Associate Professor of Creative Writing] Kazim [Ali] about the book, and what I’ve been thinking about lately is how when I first showed him the book he said, “This is so sad.” And I’ve been thinking about that a lot. The last poem in the book is about how sometimes to get past grief you have to go through it, and I thought that might be an interesting way to begin a reading — with a poem that addresses that — and then maybe try and demonstrate how the book pushes through grief to arrive at a kind of reconciliation.

You’ve published one chapbook and three full-length books. What was it like for you to assemble and create a book and go through the publishing process?

It took me a long time to figure out the order [for the newest book]. I sent the manuscript to a few trusted readers — one of whom was Kazim, and I have a couple other poetry friends who I really trust — and I listened to their feedback and just sat with the poems for a long time. I changed the order a few times before I organized the collection by looking at four different themes, thinking about longing.

The first section addressed longing for someone who’s passed away.

The second section was a longing for a parent from whom you might become estranged, so thinking about my mother and her mother, me and my mother, my son and his birth moth-

12

er. The third section was about love — longing for someone who you’re not supposed to love, if you’re a gay person. And then the fourth section was about place, and again there’s the theme of exile, and the notion of a home where you might feel like you belong and thinking about that in terms of geography. A lot of those poems are thinking about Puerto Rico, which was my mother’s home and a place that I used to go to a lot as a child, but also a place where I don’t necessarily feel welcome anymore.

That’s how it was organized, and then I just sent it to my publisher and they liked it enough to agree to publish it, and that was that.

Are there other themes and ideas like grief that you explore a lot in your work? Do you feel that differs from book to book?

I think one of the recurring themes I have in all my books is a sense of exile. One of my favorite stories from the Bible is the expulsion from the Garden. I feel I can identify with that story quite a bit. And that’s here, too, this sense of being an outsider — but also within this book, in particular, is the theme of how our bodies betray us. One of the ways that our bodies betray us is when they begin to fail.

The poems in the book spend a lot of time focusing on the elegy, on people who are passing away or have passed away, and how we can process that grief.

Do you feel like those ideas have sort of changed and evolved over your writing career?

Absolutely. I’m 47 right now, and I have two young boys. And so I’m not only trying to process these larger questions for myself, but I’m also trying to help my young boys understand these larger issues and trying to teach

You’re an editor for two publications — can you tell me a bit about how you got involved with those publications and what they do?

I’m a poetry co-editor for The Los Angeles Review, and Vandana Khanna and I work together to promote poetry for that online journal. We started doing that because the editor from Red Hen Press, a boutique literary press in Los Angeles, invited us to take those positions and that’s how we ended up there. That’s a lot of fun.

The second journal that I co-edit is called Mentor and Muse: Essays From Poets to Poets, and that originally started as a book project. My co-editors Beth Martinelli, Helena Mesa, and I put together this book of essays that invited poets who we felt had a very strong understanding of a particular poetic concept to write about that concept and encourage readers to explore that poetic device in their own work. And we loved doing that, and we were sad when it was over, so we decided we would kind of start it up again but this time online as a free journal for those who might be interested. This time it’s really targeting writers who have a pretty strong understanding of poetry and its history and want to continue pushing themselves and thinking about those poetic elements in more nuanced ways.

So that’s how that came about.

How do you approach teaching in an MFA program?

I always tell my students that our workshops are really just an opportunity to talk about poetry. And not their poems in particular, but poetry.

And when we do talk about their poems, the larger focus should be on how poetry works, the poetic devices.

I ask them to think about the larger picture — we’re not just thinking about getting five or six poems ready for publication, but getting them to

think about how poems work so that they feel confident well after the semester is over and they’ve graduated.

What I’ve been doing this semester is trying to give them a critical response to their own work, but I also want them to think about the poetic tradition and issues of literary craft.

So each week I present them with some element of poetry, and then I kind of try and show them the history of that poetic device throughout the canon. So, for example, one week we looked at the poetic turn. We started with the Renaissance period and looked at the sonnet, and then we looked at sonnets over time and how they evolved from literary period to literary period, but then ended on looking at contemporary poems, both sonnets and non-sonnets and looking at the turn there. I do that because I want to encourage them to keep going back to the canon to see how different devices have been employed by different writers over different literary periods. Hopefully that’s been really helpful for them, to kind of encourage them to see the canon as this infinite resource from which they can learn.

Are there any craft or technique elements that resonate for you or are particularly helpful in your work?

It seems that with each book I rely on a few devices more than others. When that project’s over, I start to gravitate toward other devices so that I’ll maybe address my own obsessions in a different way. With this latest book I was really trying to write a spare poetry, and in order to create tension I relied a lot on the short line and enjambment. To me, that meant I could infuse the poems with a kind of tension that might not be as prominent if it were written along the line or written as prose. So I would say that I was thinking about the sentence and creating tension syntactically, but then also what kind of surprises I could make when I broke those sentences up in creative ways.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I guess what I could say is this: In an interview, Eavan Boland said that poetry begins with uncertainties. I think that with this book in particular I wanted to place myself in that mind space where I didn’t know the answers to the questions that were coming up for me and my family, and to honestly engage the questions that were before me. So the book documents that quest to understand some of the larger questions that I’ve faced as the father of two young boys.

Multimedia Professor’s Work Explores Sending Art to Space

Associate Professor of Integrated Media gave a President’s Lecture last week, titled “Upgrade Available,” which discussed her research and artwork that operates at the intersection of technology, culture, and science.

Photo Courtesy of Julia Christensen

Gabe Schneier Parents and students filed into Finney Chapel for a lecture by Associate Professor of Integrated Media Julia Christensen this past Friday. In addition to discussing her artwork, which is focused on the intersection of art, science, and technology, Christensen spoke about her consulting work with NASA, focusing on developing a plan to bring art to an upcoming voyage to Proxima B, an exoplanet 4.2 light years away.

“My work is highly interdisciplinary,” Christensen said, “and Oberlin’s art department is a great place for interdisciplinary exploration.”

Her lecture ran the gamut of her recent work, which deals with the plethora of ways in which technology affects societal structures and social

COMIC

The Oberlin Review | November 16, 2018

life. She discussed the effects of the constant pressure to upgrade our technology — what she terms “upgrade culture” — the ways in which new technologies mediate human interactions with nature, and, finally, her work with NASA. Proxima B was discovered by scientists in 2016 and has not yet been explored by humans. Studies show that there is reason to believe that the exoplanet may support life. Christensen describes meeting with NASA’s Architecture team for a day of limitless brainstorming with a team of scientists.

She was visibly brimming with excitement as she presented a slide of the whiteboard from this meeting. It pictured a Venn Diagram with three categories: “for humans,” “for designers,” and “for possible extraterrestrial life” and included ideas of how the included art might cater to each group.

But why send art to space at all? Christensen is optimistic about the prospective initiative and adamant about its importance.

“It is a way of embedding a narrative on the craft to connect the science with the public on a creative frequency that we share,” she said. “Including artwork widens our imagination about the possibilities [of space travel] and in turn, widens our imagination about our possibilities.”

There is also precedent for such an effort. In 1977, the Voyager spacecraft included the “Golden Record:” an LP with recordings of music from around the world.

Christensen told the Review that while her project is inspired by the Golden Record, she intends for it to be more technologically forward-thinking.

She wants her work to represent the forefront of innovation in a way that is accessible and captivating to the public. Ideas included algorithm-based, generative images and sounds that would not rely on solely a limited curational perspective. Christensen also believes that the design of the spacecraft has an element of art, and hopes her work will serve to highlight that.

Christensen is interested in the ways in which human interaction with the natural environment is mediated by technology here on earth, too. In one of her recent projects, she set up a series of older model iPhones as projectors featuring images of ‘retired constellations.’

“The stars are still there,” she emphasized, “but these ways of seeing them have been phased out.”

The obsolescence of these ways of seeing is compared, in the piece, to our endless compulsion to upgrade the hardware of our smartphones.

The lecture was well-received by students, parents, and faculty in attendance, a large number of whom complimented Christensen on her work during the subsequent question and answer session.

“I find Julia’s work really exciting,” said College senior Matt Levine, “It’s nice to see [that people are] thinking about their footprint in space with a bit more intention.”

College senior Zaid Milefchik agreed.

“The notion of making an artwork that will last as long as she plans raises crucial questions about longevity in general,”Milefchik said.

Claire Wang Staff Cartoonist

13

Sp ort s IN THE LOCKER ROOM

Sam Paul, Men’s Rugby Captain

Although the Oberlin Gruffs haven’t won a single game this season, team members resoundingly share that the current president of the team, College senior and History major Sam Paul, has made the team experience very fulfilling. Because rugby is a club sport at Oberlin, the president effectively acts as the team’s coach. Paul works hard and leads by example, which has left a lasting positive impact on the rest of the team.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Noah Auby What first drew you to rugby?

I wanted to play football in high school, but my parents were doctors [and] worried about me getting concussions. They never let me play.

When I got to college, I figured now would be the best time since I’m by myself and don’t need my parents’ approval. Because I wasn’t in shape to play varsity, I thought I could try a club sport.

What roles and responsibilities do you have as president?

The main thing is to be the face and head of the team. I’m in charge of communicating with the Ohio Rugby Referees Society heads, with [Associate Director of Athletics for Intercollegiate Sports] Eric Lahetta, who directs club sports at Oberlin, and with the Great Lakes Rugby Conference president. Every other Wednesday, I attend club sports council meetings.

In recent years, our team has become less disciplined, so I’ve had to pick up the slack. The president is supposed to be somebody that is responsible and mature enough to say “if someone else won’t do it, I will.”

What have you learned from watching how past presidents have operated?

I’ve learned that it’s important to be proactive. When I joined my [first] year, I had no idea that administrative things were happening because the club was run smoothly. That is something that changed in the years after. Despite the last two presidents being charismatic, great play-

ers who were fun to be around, they were more disorganized than they should’ve been. Presidents should make sure that everything gets done on time so there are no major issues.

If something goes wrong with us, that might spread to the rest of the league.

Another thing that I’ve learned from them is to always keep your head up as president. You can’t let any obstacles impact how you interact with and run the team. As president, you have to give off that wave of confidence to others. If there are administrative problems, you just have to acknowledge that those problems are there and continue to function as a president. Rugby is a club sport. It can be serious, but you should remind yourself that this is fun. We’re here to have a good time playing a game that we love. That’s always important to keep in mind.

get people to sign up for information about first practices, that’s a success.

Lastly, we try to poach senior varsity athletes who are done with the sports that they’re playing.

Why do think so many first-years are interested in rugby this year?

That’s a good question. I think this year it’s a combination of larger enrollment numbers and the fact that we were able to throw out the bait.

We caught as many players as we could into the net. Enough people came, did some practices, and said, “This is something that we want to do.”

What is the recruiting process like?

There are three ways we recruit people. The main one is knowing other people that might be interested in playing. There’s been a strong tradition of people talking to their friends about rugby and bringing those guys into a practice. Those guys love the game as soon as they start playing it.

Another way we recruit is through the club sports fair. Essentially, you set up a table, have a section in a notebook for people’s information, and then you flag people down. Usually not a lot of Obies want to come up to the men’s rugby table because they have conceptions about rugby being a dangerous sport, but if you can

How do you deal with training so many people who are new to rugby?

It’s always difficult to train new players, especially in a contact sport where there’s no protective gear. You want to make sure that everybody stays as safe as possible. One of the things that helped me out was a coach training conference. It gave me a better understanding of what I need to be doing in order to effectively integrate players who have never played the game before. That, combined with some of the knowledge that had been passed down from other presidents, made my job easier. If you’re making a simple, avoidable mistake, I’m going to scream and yell at you, but if it’s clear to me that you simply need more practice, I’ll try to [address that] one-on-one and isolate those issues so that I can drill them into perfection. It’s more difficult this year

Yeowomen only lost to two teams in conference play and delivered a concrete defeat to the Wittenberg University Tigers to take home the trophy. But this year, the starting five aren’t set in stone.

“There’s definitely a variation in levels of experience,” said Canning, noting the difference in the mindset of the team this year. “We’re definitely a lot more [motivated] this season.”

But Canning also noted the rapid growth already demonstrated by her younger teammates.

“The junior class, the largest class on the team, is really stepping up,” Canning said. “They’ve already grown so much as players and will continue to throughout the season.”

Arthur agrees, saying that the team’s juniors are ready to step into newfound leadership roles.

“It’s definitely a different feel in terms of responsibility and accountability, but I think it’s something that the upperclassmen are prepared for,” said Arthur. “We knew coming into the season that we would be inexperienced, but I believe our senior and junior classes are handling it well in terms of leadership. We have had an increase in team effort to go over plays and our defense and game plan in and out – not only for games but for day-to-day practices as well.”

Practices began for the Yeowomen

Monday, Oct. 15, and in the days since then, they’ve been working hard to polish their skills and rethink the identity of the team.

“The first week or two of practice were just fundamentals, to make sure everyone knows what the standard is,” said College senior and co-captain Alex Stipano, who noted that building skills is just like taking a class — if you don’t follow along early on, you might get left behind.

“We’ve leveled up the intensity this year — it’s always been high, but [the intensity] is especially present this year, because we know what we’re capable of,” Stipano said.

Canning and Stipano, the only two seniors on the team, have had their senior season in the back of their minds since their first year on the court.

“We’re experiencing a big leadership shift, because Ty and Abby were captains for two years,” Canning said. “It’s nervewracking but exciting. Since [first] year, Alex and I kinda knew that senior year would be our time.”

Stipano is equally as motivated to succeed in her last season as a Yeowoman.

“Liv and I do have to take on this new captain role that we haven’t had before, but we’re using it to try and mold a new team,” she said.

Arthur concurred.

Sam Paul

Photo courtesy of Sam Paul

because there are more new players to teach like that, but I do the best that I can.

What are you looking forward to the most this season?

The main thing I’m looking forward to is playing games with the team every weekend. For one, if you’re traveling away, you get a chance to leave Oberlin for the day.

It’s a different place to be so that’s always great. Also I enjoy playing rugby. When I think about it, practices and socials are fun, but not that fun.

So for me, that’s what I look forward to the most: getting out on Saturdays and doing my thing while also seeing [the team] improve every week.

Inexperience Not a Concern for Yeowomen Julie Schreiber Senior Staff Writer When College senior and women’s basketball co-captain Olivia Canning watched her teammate, College junior and point guard Cheyenne Arthur, nail a few three-pointers in last Saturday’s game against Alma College, she got the feeling that the young team was headed toward another successful season.

The Yeowomen, who opened their 2018–2019 season Nov. 10 with a 59–45 win, are approaching the season with both steady optimism and caution.

The team is aiming to repeat last year’s NCAC championship, which it took home for the first time in program history, but must confront the challenging experience disparity faced by this year’s younger squad.

Teams thrive on consistency; between the 2016–2017 and 2017–2018 championship season, the Yeowomen returned all five of their starters.

“We were really used to playing with each other last year,” Canning said. “The captains, Ty [Parlor, OC ’18] and Abby [Andrews, OC ’18], had been captains for two straight years, and the starters were relatively the same.”

The regularity and dependability of the core of last year’s team brought them a stable season from start to finish. The

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“With Alex and Liv as captains, I know that the team is in good hands,” she said. “Throughout both of their careers they’ve had a large impact on the team’s success. When you have people like that as captains — people who know leadership — you know without a doubt that you can put all your trust into them to lead us in the right direction. In addition to having them as resources on the basketball court, it’s also extremely helpful to know that they’re there for you off the court as well.”

Both Canning and Stipano see a conference repeat in their future, but their primary goal for the season is to beat the DePauw University Tigers for the first time in program history. The Yeowomen lost to DePauw in conference play last season but did not have to face them to reach the championship, as the Tigers lost to the other Tigers of Wittenberg University in a semi-final upset.

“I see us going all the way again,” Canning said, “but beating DePauw is the history I really want our team to make this season.”

Stipano feels similarly motivated.

“Since we didn’t have to play them last year, some people might’ve thought it was a fluke that we made it as far as we did,” she said. “Beating DePauw is in our capabilities, and I want to prove that.”

Niñas Sin Miedo: Oberlin Athletes Partner with Colombian Organization to Empower Girls Zoe Guiney Oberlin students have recently partnered with Niñas Sin Miedo (Fearless Girls), an NGO that works to empower girls through education, sports, and psychosocial support in Soacha, Colombia. In providing these programs, Niñas Sin Miedo hopes to prevent adolescent pregnancy and sexual violence, while also working to challenge traditional gender norms.

Many of Niñas Sin Miedo’s core values overlap with those of Stronger Together, Oberlin’s student organization that encourages solidarity among women and nonbinary athletes. Recently, Stronger Together decided to partner with Niñas Sin Miedo to help them meet fundraising goals, which would allow the organization to grow and provide more resources for the community of Soacha.

The relationship between Niñas Sin Miedo and Stronger Together has grown out of the efforts of two of Oberlin’s athletes: College junior Nae McClain, who throws for the track and field team, and College sophomore and volleyball player Eliza Braverman. McClain and Braverman see the alliance between the two organizations as natural and are spearheading the fundraising efforts. “[Stronger Together] relates to Niñas Sin Miedo because there are a lot of athletes [who] are a part of the organization who have used sports as a form of empowerment,” McClain said. “And that is something that Niñas Sin Miedo is trying to teach young girls in Colombia.

Working with Stronger Together, we can see how sports have played an essential role in so many people’s lives who are not male-identifying.”

Niñas Sin Miedo is born out of the idea that physical activity is essential for young girls to form positive relationships with their bodies. For this reason, one of the

group’s projects is a bike school that encourages selfesteem, self-care, and autonomy by teaching girls how to ride bicycles and building up their confidence in their ability to do so. Niñas Sin Miedo promotes the idea that by giving girls opportunities to claim ownership and understand the power of their bodies, they can help combat systemic oppression that results in violence and decreased opportunities for women.

Braverman sees Niñas Sin Miedo’s emphasis on movement as essential to its function as a source of empowerment.

“I think that using physical activity specifically to empower young girls is important because it serves as a very tangible representation of the strength that girls and women have, which is a quality that society frequently overlooks or negates in females,” she said. “I think it’s really important to make it clear to girls that they are powerful, autonomous, and deserving of respect, and I think that physical activity allows them to do that, while also emphasizing the importance of collaboration and solidarity.”

McClain explained that while physical activity may be essential to girls’ empowerment, the way in which society values men’s sports above all others’ is indicative of greater systems of oppression.

“Growing up, sports were, and still are, something that made me happy and allowed me to have fun” McClain said. “At the same time, I am still able to turn to sports as my escape from everything that’s happening around me.

However, I think when it comes to sports, society only pays attention to men. And you see this time and time again where no matter how good a girl/woman or a women’s team may be in a sport, they are overshadowed … And this overshadowing is not just happening in sports; this is happening in people’s daily lives. So to me, empower-

ment through a sport is only one way to build up the girls’ confidence and belief in themselves and just one step in breaking any stereotypical notion that they may have about their capability.”

Niñas Sin Miedo knows that by investing in young girls through access to education and psychosocial support, they might help them break cycles of oppression and become leaders in their communities. You can help make this happen.

Your contribution would help Niñas Sin Miedo grow as an organization by meeting its immediate goals of creating a technology center. The center would provide the girls with access to modern educational resources. Niñas Sin Miedo would use funding to hire a psychologist who would provide support and treatment for victims of sexual violence.

If you are a member of a women’s varsity athletic team, you can support Stronger Together’s partnership with Niñas Sin Miedo by attending the initiative’s potluck at 6 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 18. The Oberlin community is encouraged to come to the basketball games on Wednesday, Dec. 5 where there will be a raffle with a chance to win Slow Train gift cards. Keep an eye out for more upcoming events.

For all Oberlin students and community members, follow the Fearless Girls @ninaasinmiedo on your social media accounts, and if you’re interested in learning more about Niñas Sin Miedo, reach out to the Oberlin team: Fundraising Event Coordinator Eliza Braverman (ebraverm@oberlin.edu); Fundraising Event Coordinator Naeisha McClain (nmcclain@oberlin.edu); Digital Media Manager Zoe Guiney (zguiney@oberlin.edu); and Content Creator: Rachel Serna-Brown (rsernab@oberlin. edu).

Athletes Take a Stand Women’s Cross Against Gun Violence Country Secures First Nationals Bid Since 2014 Continued from page 16

A stream of posts hit social media as the women’s cross country team members and supporters learned of the team’s invitation to the NCAA Championships. Shortly after placing third at regionals — the NCAA Great Lakes Championships — the Yeowomen received the unprecedented news that they had received an “at-large” bid for nationals.

The team gathered this week for one of the season’s final practices before taking off to Winneconne, WI, to compete at nationals. While just seven athletes will compete — College seniors Linnea Halsten and Sarah Ridley; College juniors Marija Crook, Oona Jung-Beeman, Shannon Wargo, and Joy Castro-Wehr; and College sophomore Corrie Purcell — the spirits of all 34 team members will be felt as teammates and loved ones cheer on the competitors.

Text by Ify Ezimora, Sports Editor Photo by Maria Turner, Photo Editor

The Oberlin Review | November 16, 2018

the names of all the victims of the Thousand Oaks shooting.

This simple but significant action was generally met with support among the league.

“As I’ve always said, our players aren’t just ball-players; they’re citizens,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said to ESPN. “They have strong feelings about what’s happening in society and they react to them. I think this was something that was a groundswell within the league. It came from the players and it spread by word of mouth from one team to another.”

Silver’s comments come at a time when his peers — particularly NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell — have been less supportive of players speaking out on relevant social and political issues.

Silver’s support for the warm-up shirts is also noteworthy at a time when the NBA has taken steps toward legislating players’ bodies — even extending to what tattoos they choose to put on their skin.

In August, Cleveland Cavaliers player J.R. Smith tattooed his leg with the logo for Supreme, a clothing brand that is not an official NBA corporate sponsor. In late September, Smith posted on Instagram that the league had informed him that he would face fines if he did not find a way to cover the tattoo during games.

Athletes in other leagues have also been fined or criticized for apparel choices that meant something to them but went against expectations. In 2015, former Pittsburgh Steelers running back DeAngelo Williams wanted to wear pink accessories all season to honor his mother who lost her battle with breast cancer.

The NFL said no and that he would be fined if he wore pink outside of October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Former Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman Chase Utley, who announced his retirement earlier this month, wore a “strike out cancer” shirt with his pants rolled up and no socks before a game against the Atlanta Braves this July.

Braves announcer Joe Simpson went on a rant about Utley’s “lack of professionalism” and said the Dodgers organization should be embarrassed that Utley would carry himself in such a fashion.

Nevertheless, athletes in every professional American sport have followed the lead of James, Wade, and other NBA stars in being persistent about expressing themselves and taking a stand on issues that matter to them through clothing.

This past March, Anthony Rizzo of the Chicago Cubs took batting practice in a shirt that had “#MSDStrong” written on it in support of his alma mater, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — the site of a mass shooting that took 17 lives.

Two months later, the Houston Astros warmed up in shirts that read “We play for Santa Fe” to honor the eight students and two teachers who were killed in the Santa Fe High School shooting.

While athletic superstars don’t work in the Capitol and don’t have the power to introduce a gun control bill, their influence is far-reaching, and every decision they make, even something as small as one word written on the side of their sneakers or across their chest, catches the attention of thousands of fans and brings awareness to issues they might not look into otherwise.

At the very least, small acts like wearing an “Enough” shirt remind us that there are bigger things than sports, and our favorite athletes are more than just athletes — they are empathetic people with a desire for positive change in our country.

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SPORTS November 16, 2018

established 1874

Volume 147, Number 9

NBA Sharing Stages Shines Light on Student-Athletes Players

Have Had “Enough” Nathan Carpenter Editor-in-Chief Alexis Dill Sports Editor

College senior and men’s lacrosse captain Elie Small has been writing and performing his own songs since he was six years old, and has produced five albums since that can be found on Apple Music. He performed “Lego Girl” — a song about taking chances and being true to yourself — at Sharing Stages Saturday.

Photo Courtesy of Erik Andrews

Alexis Dill Sports Editor Saturday night in the William and Helen Birenbaum Innovation and Performance Space, I realized what I love most about Oberlin: its tendency to foster creativity and collaboration, and the way people can express their diverse backgrounds, interests, and talents. I am regularly in awe of and inspired by the bright and energetic students on campus.

Last weekend, students of the College and the Conservatory, athletes and non-athletes, parents, and administrators came together to celebrate some of Oberlin’s most musically inclined athletes at the fourth annual Sharing Stages.

A number of student-athletes took the stage, including Conservatory firstyear and baseball player Ian Ashby, double-degree sophomore and distance runner Claudia Hinsdale, Conservatory sophomore and sprinter Jacob Britton, College junior and former tennis player Lena Rich, and College senior and men’s lacrosse captain Elie Small.

Music and athletics have more in common than one might think. Athletics molds participants into leaders and insists that only the most hardworking and dedicated participants will succeed, and the same holds true in music.

A baseball pitcher must be in total control of their body; if their stride is centimeters off or their arm motion isn’t exact, the pitch won’t move the way it’s supposed to or cross the plate where it should. The same rules apply to playing an instrument.

Likewise, running is all about rhythm.

Your breathing patterns must be in harmony with the pumping of your arms and the lifting of your knees, or else you won’t run your best race. Athletes and musicians learn how to master repetition, anticipation, and their own bodies in relation to others.

“Whether it’s trying to find the right chord or lyric to finish a song, or working to improve my shot or skills [in lacrosse], music and lacrosse both require working

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hard and persevering,” Small said. “Music has taught me [that] you need to put your hours in and practice to grow and even maintain your skills. Lacrosse has taught me similar lessons. Your performance on the field is a result of the reps you put in on the field and in the weight room.”

Small became interested in music after watching his older brother play guitar, and he began playing and writing songs at age six. He also plays the piano, drums, and mandolin.

“Music definitely influenced my decision to come to Oberlin,” Small said. “I really wanted to be in an environment surrounded by talented musicians and to have the opportunity to take music courses in the Conservatory.”

The singer-songwriter has produced five albums. His latest, Dancing in the Fire, came out in September 2016 and features the song that Small performed Saturday, “Lego Girl.”

“The inspiration behind the song is that I believe too many people live their lives by a set of prewritten ‘Lego’ directions, whether it’s waiting a certain amount of time before texting a guy back after a date, conforming to musical and fashion trends, or trying to build the perfect life on social media,” Small said.

Hinsdale, a Technology in Music and Related Arts major in the Conservatory and Environmental Studies major in the College, also performed a piece she created herself called “Phase Canon.”

As a TIMARA major, Hinsdale has developed a set of skills and the ability to follow her own artistic trajectory, which can include acoustic and electronic/electroacoustic composition, installation, instrument building, live performance, mixed media, and a multitude of other practices.

The piece she performed with Conservatory first-year Noah Hellman, who played alto saxophone, and Conservatory sophomore Jeremy McCabe, who played percussion, was based on an interface she made in a program called Max. She drew inspiration from a 36-voice

Renaissance piece and originally wrote her piece with live vocal performance in mind.

“The piece was in some ways a structured improvisation,” Hinsdale said. “I planned out a trajectory I wanted the piece to follow, but trusted the musicians to use their intuition and let it develop organically.”

After Oberlin, Hinsdale said she wants to do research that will integrate both of her degrees and weave her interests together.

“That could be in the form of acoustic ecological research or making music based on biological patterns, data, and phenomenon,” she said. “I also think ecological engineering is really cool, and I’d love to connect that to the engineering of spaces in which music is performed.”

Rich, who spent the summer touring nationally and playing country music, performed the song “Guidance” from her album Something in Between, which is available on all online platforms. She shared the stage with Ashby, who plays the bass in the Conservatory and is the son of Associate Professor of Jazz Arranging and five-time Grammy Awardwinning producer Jay Ashby. Ashby also performed alongside Britton, who played the vibraphone.

Perhaps students attend Oberlin because it allows them to be everything they want to be. Hinsdale doesn’t have to choose between running, music, and biology. Oberlin gives her the resources and opportunities to mix all three together to create a unique product. Small doesn’t have to miss out on being captain of a varsity sports team or a member of Student Senate, because his college experience has taught him how to balance all of his interests without becoming overwhelmed.

As my own time left here dwindles down, I hope to make it to as many concerts, performances, and athletic contests as I can, and to never stop appreciating the beautiful collisions that only occur at a place like Oberlin.

As former Miami Heat stars LeBron James and Dwayne Wade laced up their sneakers and jogged onto the Amway Center basketball court for warmups, a 17-year-old boy just 30 minutes northeast of Orlando, in Sanford, FL, put on his hoodie and stuck a bag of Skittles in his pocket upon leaving a 7-Eleven.

At the same time as over seven million people tuned in for the tip-off of the 61st NBA All-Star Game — 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 26, 2012 — Trayvon Martin was pronounced dead.

Martin, a Black teenager from Miami Gardens, FL, was visiting his future stepmother with his father the night he was fatally shot in the back by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman. Martin was unarmed and committing no crimes when he was murdered, yet Zimmerman was acquitted of all charges July 13, 2013.

A month after Martin’s death, both James and Wade took to social media to show support for his family. On March 23, 2012, Wade posted a photo of himself wearing a hooded sweatshirt to his Twitter and Facebook pages, and James tweeted a photo of members of the Heat wearing their hoods up with their heads bowed and hands in their pockets. He included the caption, “#WeAreTrayvonMartin #Hoodies #Stereotyped #WeWantJustice.”

Since that moment, pro basketball players have continued to use warm-up shirts, shoes, and other apparel to bring awareness to social causes they care about. In December 2014, a handful of players in the NBA wore shirts reading “I can’t breathe,” protesting the death of Eric Garner, who was choked by a New York Police Department officer.

On March 25 of this year, the Sacramento Kings and Boston Celtics wore shirts honoring Stephon Clark, who was shot eight times by two policemen in his own backyard. The front of the shirts read “Accountability. We are one,” with Clark’s name on the back.

Three months ago, James donated his very own Nike LeBron 15 Equality sneakers to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. His left shoe was white, his right shoe was black, and each had the word Equality scripted across the heel in gold lettering.

Recently, players have used clothing to draw attention to another issue of grave political and social importance — the abundance of mass shootings that have increasingly plagued the United States. On Nov. 7, a shooter entered the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, CA, and after shooting several bar guards and employees, opened fire on a crowd of more than 200.

In total, 13 people were killed, including the shooter, in the 307th mass shooting to take place in the U.S. in 2018.

Following the events, players from four NBA teams — the Los Angeles Lakers, Atlanta Hawks, Milwaukee Bucks, and Los Angeles Clippers — all wore black warm-up shirts, the front of which read “Enough.” The back listed See Athletes, page 15