The Oberlin Review March 3, 2023

Office of Spirituality and Dialogue Implements Changes to Religious Life in Oberlin

The Office of Spirituality and Dialogue creates space for Oberlin students and staff to have conversations around topics of religion, spirituality, and ethics, and acts as a space for sustained learning and concrete action within the community. Recently, OSD has been moving away from community religious leadership and chaplains to focus on highlighting student voices and religious perspectives.

“There was a period of time where [Oberlin] had several different groups of folk who were on campus, and they had emails that allowed them to gain access to the library as well as an ID card that identified them and gave them sanction to be on the campus and to work with students,” A.G. Miller, pastor of the Oberlin House of the Lord Fellowship and former professor of Religion and Africana Studies, said. “But in the last several years, that has shifted.”

Before this shift, the College had developed relationships with different community religious institutions, and students were directed to them for religious resources. The OSD has since started to move toward making students the primary leaders of religious life on campus and aims to listen to and act on what students envision.

“[The goal] is really to support a student around their most particular beliefs and practices, whether that’s a particular observance or ritual, whether that’s dining, whether that’s

Nikki Keating Managing Editor

housing,” Multifaith Chaplain and OSD Director David Dorsey said. “Whatever it is, what’s important is to believe the student and to chase that down with fierceness — and also, at every point, invite hospitality across those who may see, observe, and believe differently.”

OSD also refrains from defining religions and what is deemed a religious space. This is in part because of the cultural and religious differences that can be found among individual students. By promoting student voices, OSD hopes to begin the process of gaining resources that can target and support a wider range of students.

College second-year Abby Rickin-Marks, the current residential assistant of Johnson House, or Hebrew Heritage House, elaborated on the unique need for loosely-defined religious spaces within Oberlin.

“The majority of Jews on this campus would likely describe themselves as secular or cultural,” Rickin-Marks said. “Because of this, holiday events and secular programming have super high turnout rates. However, religious spaces themselves are not necessarily what is necessary, given that multiple organizations on campus offer Shabbat services.”

The College’s relationships with local religious institutions formerly allowed students easy access to religious leaders, who in turn offered faith-based guidance and support. Dorsey explained certain challenges of catering to

each student’s needs using the previous approach.

“Students report to us that it’s challenging for [them] because [they] feel some religions have been skipped over, or are not as visible, and then [we] sometimes almost feel like we are being pulled in multiple directions and suddenly [are] in sort of a competitive environment,” Dorsey said. “So, one of our goals is to be truly multi-partial: to follow each student to the most particular belief they hold while inviting hospitality across the many. That’s our calling.”

This model is slowly being implemented by the College, with the goal of establishing student clubs and organizations as the primary leaders of religious life on campus. The OSD will work with students on events and plans — for example, luncheons are being brought back to provide religiously affiliated students with an opportunity to talk about what structure they would like to see.

College first-year Juwayria Zahurullah offered perspective on the importance of propping up existing student-led affinity groups.

“I absolutely love [the Muslim Student Association] and the Muslim community I’ve found at Oberlin,” Zahurullah wrote in an email to the Review. “It was one of the first spaces I was introduced to as a first-year, and it brought me such a strong sense of comfort and belonging in a really strange period of adjustment to being a

Alexa Stevens Cal Ransom News Editors

The Office of Student Health and Wellbeing, in collaboration with the Sexual Information Center, is working to roll out “Personal Vending Machines” for students. Via these machines, students will be able to access condoms, lubricant, dental dams, emergency contraception pills, pads, and tampons — all free of charge.

Starting today, two machines are available to students. The vending machines are located in the South Hall basement and the Science Center atrium. The machines will be accessible during each building’s hours of operation.

“We really wanted a machine on the north side and south side of campus,” Director of Student Wellness Promotion Monique

Burgdorf said.

The locations of the vending machines were selected with consideration of safety regulations, the availability of electrical power, and student traffic. During the fall semester, clear boxes that dispensed condoms and lubricant were set up in Fairchild House, South Hall, Firelands Apartments, and LordSaunders Dining Hall. South Hall was selected as a location for the South Campus vending machine based on the popularity of the clear dispenser in the building.

According to Burgdorf, the South Hall machine is located downstairs, outside of the dance studio, for user privacy. Although the machine is located in the South Hall residence space, it will be accessible to all who have swipe access to the building — regardless of whether or not they live in South Hall.

See SIC, Page 2

Photo by Erin Koo, Photo

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor

In The Locker Room: Amanda Phillips, Assistant Director of Sports Communications

The Office of Spirituality and Dialogue has undergone transformations in the way it facilitates student engagement with religion

Speed Limit Reduction for W. Lorain St. Approved

Ava Miller

Senior Staff Writer

This past week, the Ohio Department of Transportation approved the City of Oberlin’s request for a speed limit reduction along West Lorain Street, a hightraffic state route, between North Park Street and Cedar Street. The speed limit will be decreased from 35 miles per hour to 30 miles per hour. At the recent Feb. 21 City Council meeting, the City of Oberlin additionally recommended a crosswalk across West Lorain Street, between Woodland and Professor Streets. Oberlin College students frequently cross West Lorain Street in areas without a designated crosswalk.

“The City Administration, Oberlin College, and others have been concerned about the safety of pedestrians in this convenient and commonly used crossing area linking north and south campus,” the City Council noted. “Various measures have been employed over the years to alert pedestrians

to the potential hazard of crossing the state highway outside of a marked crosswalk.”

On Friday, Sept. 2, 2022, an Oberlin resident reported that they almost struck a student who was crossing West Lorain Street illegally by the Science Center. College first-year Neomi Abrahamson feels that students should be cautious when crossing West Lorain Street.

“Cars have the right of way, so you shouldn’t be crossing expecting them to stop for you,” Abrahamson said.

In July 2021, the City of Oberlin contracted GPD Group, an Akron-based engineering firm, to collect data concerning speed limits along the stretch of West Lorain Street, which met ODOT criteria for a “high presence of vulnerable road users.” After submitting data about vehicle speeds, Jeremy Adato, a traffic engineer with ODOT District 3, responded to the study.

“I understand the City is requesting a speed limit reduction to 25 miles per hour, but I do not

think we can justify that,” Adato said. “However, we do feel that a speed limit reduction to 30 miles per hour is justified and appropriate for the entire study section.”

Prior to the Feb. 21 board meeting, Oberlin Police Chief Ryan Warfield signed an enforcement concurrence form for the new speed limit. The cost of adding new signs denoting the 30-mph speed limit and replacing existing signage is modest — no more than a few hundred dollars.

The recommended a crosswalk would link North and South Campus between Wilder Hall and the Science Center. It would be a “mid-block” crosswalk due to its location in the middle of a block near West Lorain Street.

City Manager Rob Hillard spoke to the Review about the potential for a new crosswalk.

“Crosswalks are designed based on speed in the environment that is in the area,” Hillard said.

“So, if you reduce the speed, then certain traffic design considerations could be made

for the crosswalk. Slower speeds create different types of solutions for a potential crosswalk.”

Oberlin Public Works met with Joe Comar, Oberlin College director of capital improvements and deputy chief facilities officer, and a member of the Facilities Planning and Construction office. The College did not make an immediate financial commitment toward a mid-block crosswalk.

According to the proposal, the College noted that the crosswalk could possibly be incorporated into Phase III of the Sustainable Infrastructure Project. Hillard commented on the projected timeline for the creation of a potential crosswalk.

“Our hope would be that it’s something that could get done by the beginning of next school year,” Hillard said. “That would depend on a lot of factors, including equipment purchases, approvals through the Ohio Department of Transportation, and other inputs as we’re making design considerations.”

March 3, 2023

Volume 152, Number 16 (ISSN 297–256)

Editors-in-Chief

Kushagra Kar

Emma Benardete

Managing Editor

Nikki Keating

News Editors

Alexa Stevens

Cal Ransom

Opinions Editors

Emily Vaughan

Hanna Alwine

Arts & Culture Editors

Dlisah Lapidus

Juliana Gaspar

Poetry Editor

Gillian Ferguson

Sports Editors

John Elrod

Kayla Kim

Conservatory Editor

Delaney Fox

Photo Editors

Abe Frato

Erin Koo

This Week Editor

Eloise Rich

Senior Staff Writers

Ava Miller

Chris Stoneman

SIC, College Offices Roll Out Free Product Vending Machines

Continued from page 1

After consulting students on their preferred locations for the clear manual dispensers, Burgdorf asked that the vending machines be in a well-lit area that also provided some privacy “[Some] students were like, ‘These need to be totally private,’ and then other students were like, ‘This needs to be in an obvious space,’” Burgdorf said. “We split the difference so that if you felt discomfort with one area, you might feel more comfortable going in another area.”

College fourth-year and SIC student worker Remsen Welsh feels that the vending machine will especially add necessary privacy for students who are

Saturday, March 4

11 a.m.: Researching Big Mama: From 20th Century to Slavery in the Oberlin Public Library Meeting Room

The Oberlin African-American Genealogy & History Group invites participants to attend a hybrid presentation about the genealogical project that uncovered the origins of a song, as well as some of the lost relatives of Big Mama.

6-9 p.m.: Purim Masquerade featuring klezmer band Shtick & Poke in the Root Room of Carnegie Building

Participants are invited to a Purim celebration at 6 p.m. The event will feature dancing, storytelling, Hamentaschen, and a live performance from student klezmer band Shtick & Poke, starting at 7:30 p.m. The dress code is formal, and masquerade masks are provided.

Monday, March 6 3:30–5 p.m.: Black History 101

attempting to obtain emergency contraceptive pills.

“It would just be great if there was another way that people could get emergency contraceptive[s] especially when [the SIC is] out,’” Welsh said. “It would be easy and kind of private.”

The vending machines and their items are funded by the Dean of Students Office through the Office of Student Health and Wellbeing.

“[Karen Goff, vice president and dean of students] saw that another school was doing it and she was like, ‘Let’s do it,’ and she advocated for the funding,” Burgdorf said.

Burgdorf hopes the vending machines will expand accessibility to menstrual and sexual health products for students. On the door to its office in Wilder Hall, the SIC provides pads, condoms, lube, emergency contraceptives, and dental dams for free.

“[We] definitely knew that emergency contraceptives needed to be in there because those go quick off our door, and when we’re out, we have to refer people to [the] Student Health [Center],” Welsh said.

According to Burgdorf, College administrators worked with the SIC to select products based on quality and cost-effectiveness.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Mobile Museum in the Gymnasium of Oberlin Elementary School Oberlin City School District was selected to house Dr. Khalid el-Hakim’s award-winning Black History 101 Mobile Museum, a collection of artifacts of Black memorabilia spanning multiple centuries. The museum will be open Monday, March 6 and Tuesday, March 7 from 3:30–5 p.m.

Tuesday, March 7

12:30–2 p.m.: Anxiety and Campus Culture Panel Discussion in Moffett Auditorium of Mudd Center

A panel of professors, counselors, and student support staff, moderated by Psychologist and Multicultural Specialist Maya Akinfosile, will meet to discuss student experiences of anxiety and potential coping strategies.

6–8 p.m.: Oberlin Community Meeting at the Prospect School Building: Is Oberlin a great place for people of all backgrounds? There will be two sessions, at 6

p.m. and at 7 p.m. Light dinner will be served, and registration is required. Register at commsols. com/OberlinEquity. Those who cannot attend are invited to share their thoughts at: https:// www.surveymonkey.com/r/ OberlinOptInForum.

7 p.m.: Purim Game Night with Oberlin Hillel at Cat in the Cream Oberlin Hillel invites participants to celebrate Purim with games, Hamentaschen, snacks, and a Purim spiel. Costumes are encouraged.

Wednesday, March 8

7–8:30 p.m.: Recovery Group hosted by Let’s Get Real in Wilder 212 Every Wednesday, Let’s Get Real hosts a “non-judgmental recovery space led by a trained facilitator” in Wilder Hall, room 212. For more information, contact mburgdor@ oberlin.edu.

Thursday, March 9

8–9 p.m.: Oberlin Opera Theater

Burgdorf was able to work with companies that provide sexual health products to lower the price of their products so the items can be offered for free to students.

“I want these products to remain free for students so that our students who cannot afford these products will be able to access them,” Burgdorf said.

VendTek Wholesale Equipment, Inc. designed the machines to hold the selected products. Though VendTek typically sells food and beverage vending machines, the brand was able to alter the machines’ coil sizes to fit the products’ boxes.

presents Bernstein’s Candide in Hall Auditorium

Adapted from Voltaire’s satirical novella Candide, Oberlin Opera Theater presents Bernstein’s opera. Tickets are sold in advance and, an at-the-door, cash-only waitlist for tickets for sold-out times will open an hour before the show. Performances will also take place on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Friday, March 10

10–11 a.m.: Sustainable Infrastructure Program Tour starting at the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Sustainability

Participants are invited on a walking tour across campus to learn more about the SIP. Hosted by the Office of Environmental Sustainability, tours will take place on the second Friday of each month throughout the spring semester. Interested parties who are unavailable during these times are encouraged to reach out to sustainability@oberlin.edu.

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Students often cross the street between the Science Center and Wilder Hall.

Photo by Erin Koo, Photo Editor

Mahmoud Meslat, visiting instructor of Arabic, has taught at Oberlin for the last 12 years. In response to the earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria Feb. 6, Meslat — who is Syrian-American — as well as his family, friends, and colleagues have worked to provide aid to people impacted by the disaster. Among other efforts, his family in Syria has taken in approximately 60 orphans and intends to feed, school, and care for them. Meslat also worked with the U.S. government to temporarily lift sanctions against Syria to bring in heavy machinery to clear the rubble. Meslat spoke with the Review about the challenges now facing the people of Syria in the ongoing

Mahmoud Meslat

Visiting Instructor of Arabic and Human Rights Activists

impact of the Arab Spring and ways in which Oberlin students can provide support.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are the kinds of problems that people are experiencing on the ground in Syria and Türkiye?

First of all, it is a tragedy on top of tragedy. In 2011 we had a revolution in Syria, which they call the Arab Spring. People needed to change the regime. They wanted to change the institution. They wanted to have freedom and democracy. It did not work; I don’t know why. There was a lot of corruption. There were a lot of setbacks, and we weren’t organized enough. As a result, people were displaced all over the world. Refugees went across the seas, through Türkiye and through Greece and through Italy and all over the world. They tried just to get to a safer place and to a place where they would have dignity. They were displaced. I always find that this conflict is a very complex situation, that there is no solution. We always hear good things, and we become optimistic about having a solution for the Syrian people. But unfortunately, nothing changed. We go into the unknown. This is how it feels. People are very tired.

The tragedy became a bigger tragedy Feb. 6: A big earthquake occurred, with the epicenter being in Kahramanmaraş, Türkiye, which is near the border with Syria. The earthquake was 7.8 magnitude, and it destroyed a lot of buildings. Those people who died in this earthquake already did not have a home. So they are displaced from place to place, and they run from death to death. The earthquake became a bigger tragedy than what they have experienced before because thousands of people died on both Turkish and Syrian sides.

I talked to the American government. There were sanctions then on the Syrian regime, and those sanctions prohibited them from sending heavy machinery and a lot of medication that they think the Syrian regime would make weapons from. So I told them, please, we need medicine, we need food, we need tents, we need assistance right away. Let’s do humanitarian aid without borders. Open these borders between Türkiye and Syria — that way the heavy machinery can pull the victims who are alive, because usually 24–48 hours after any earthquake, you have big chances of finding people alive and saving them. But after that, it seldom happens; it’s going to be very hard to find people alive.

Given all of this context, what do you hope young people and students will do to support Syria and Türkiye?

What I need is to send a message from this great institution, from a voice of the future. I am trying to send a message to those impacted by the earthquake that we care about you, you are not forgotten. We will do everything to reach out. After the earthquake, there are going to be a lot of illnesses like cholera and malaria. We already started printing all of those guides: what they should do about the water, what kind of medication to have. Because after the earthquake, there will be a lot more problems for displaced victims.

The students of Oberlin are very bright. We stood against tragedies like Ukraine; we felt like we should help Ukraine. We should help Syrian people the way we help other countries. I don’t want people to look at some regions and forget about other regions. It’s a strictly humanitarian issue. It has nothing to do with religion, it has nothing to do with politics, it has nothing to do with ethnicity. It’s strictly human. Oberlin students have always sent

College Introduces Glass Recycling

Emma Benardete Editor-in-Chief

Last Friday, two glass recycling bins were installed on campus behind Harkness House and in the Wilder Hall parking lot. This was part of an initiative by the Resource Conservation Team, a division of the Office of Environmental Sustainability. The program is in collaboration with Cleveland-based glass recycling company Repeat Glass.

According to Campus Energy and Resource Senior Manager Joel Baetens, the choice to partner with Repeat Glass stemmed from the lack of a glass recycling service offered by the local recycling plant.

“We are not able to recycle glass through our standard commercial recycling agreements,” Baetens wrote in an email to the Review “There simply is not a market for it right now and it would end up in the landfill.”

Repeat Glass works within Northeast Ohio communities to provide an effective and sustainable option for glass recycling. According to the Repeat Glass website, recycling in Ohio is often highly contaminated and sent to landfills without proper processing.

“The majority of glass recycling in Northeast Ohio is commingled,” the website states about addressing the problem with recycling in Ohio, “which means it is mixed with other recyclables (i.e. paper, aluminum, plastics).”

According to College fourth-

year and RCT Student Intern Mads Olsen, the locations of the bins on campus were determined based on centrality and convenience, as well as the large amounts of glass waste generated by the Dionysus Disco in Wilder Hall.

“The ’Sco generates a lot of glass and having a bin readily accessible to them will help us collect a lot of glass that would otherwise be thrown out,” Olsen wrote.

College fourth-year and RCT Student Intern Mia Véissid explained why the RCT, when deciding who to work with on recycling, could not rely on local glass recycling services.

“[The] local recycling plant does not actually recycle glass, but instead crushes it up and uses it as road base for the landfill (so arguably it is just going into the landfill),” Véissid wrote in an email to the Review Repeat Glass, however, provides the crushed glass to manufacturers of products such as insulation and recycled glass bottles. Beyond the company’s process, Véissid also noted that Repeat Glass was chosen in part

for its flexibility, especially given that the recycling program is in a pilot phase.

“Repeat Glass … is flexible with how many bins we have on campus and how often they pick up the glass,” Véissid wrote. “They seemed like a great fit since we are not sure how this pilot program will go.”

The RCT’s introduction of glass recycling on campus is part of a broader push from the RCT towards conservation and sustainability on Oberlin’s campus. The College recently reintroduced composting on campus after a COVIDrelated hiatus and is currently undertaking the Sustainable Infrastructure Project, a multiyear initiative to update building heating and cooling systems.

“The RCT is hoping that introducing glass recycling will further divert waste from the waste stream, something we are focused on not only in this program but also in the Free Store, in our food rescue program, and in our efforts to expand compost on campus,” Véissid wrote.

the right message — that we care about them. I want them to do more. I want them to have a stand and carry just a sign that we care about the people of Syria. Even reaching out to some government offices to help these people, they deserve it. If we can ask some governments to just send them tents, that way they can be sheltered. Students have a very strong voice, and they can use it. So I need a stronger stand from Oberlin students. I want them to raise their voice higher because it is time for unity now.

Is there anything else you would like students to think about?

Some of the stories I know: there is a family of nine people. They lived in an apartment. They pulled out about eight of them, and there was one boy left and he said, “Please don’t pull me until you pull my brothers first. Don’t pull me. And they told him, “No, we will pull.” He said, “No, pull me last.”

There is another story, which I witnessed from a guy who was there. There was a Turkish owner of an apartment and there was a Syrian refugee, he rented that apartment, and every beginning of the month, the owner knocked, “Pay me the rent, pay me the rent.” The Syrian said, “I don’t have the rent, just wait a few days, I’m working.” He was working with some concrete. He was a doctor in Syria, that guy, but there is no job, he has to work concrete. Then every day his landlord said, “You have to leave the house tomorrow if I don’t get the rent.” Then at four o’clock in the morning, the earthquake came down. The next day, the owner of that apartment and that refugee, they were in the same tent. There are a lot of stories about babies, and there is a guy, he lost his whole family, now he is by himself. Now he does not remember anything. He is just wild in the street. It’s a tragedy on top of tragedy.

Security Report

Thursday, Feb. 23, 2023

Campus Safety officers responded to the Carnegie Building area to assist a staff member who had fallen on the sidewalk.

Officers transported a student who was not feeling well from Mudd Center to Mercy Health – Allen Hospital.

Saturday, Feb. 25, 2023

Officers responded to a report of a suspicious couple at the Conservatory.

Sunday, Feb. 26, 2023

Officers conducting a building closure at the Conservatory located unattended personal belongings in Robertson Hall. The door was secured.

Officers responded to a loud noise complaint at a Village Housing Unit on South Professor Street. A party was shut down.

Officers responded to assist two intoxicated students in Dascomb Hall.

Monday, Feb. 27, 2023

Officers and the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at Dascomb Hall.

Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023

Officers were requested to transport a student with an injury from Kahn Hall to Mercy Health - Allen Hospital.

An officer spoke with a Conservatory staff member who reported that they had received a harassing phone call.

Officers spoke with a student who reported that their iPad had been stolen from Mary Church Terrell Main Library.

Wednesday, March 1, 2023

Officers responded to a report of a student on the roof overhang at Barrows Hall.

Photo courtesy of Oberlin College

Mahmoud Meslat Kushagra Kar

Editor-in-Chief

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor

Repeat Glass bins are now located on campus.

Anandi Purewal-Legha

Kim Jong Un Orders Central Committee to Improve Agricultural Sector

North Korea’s economy has been impacted by environmental disasters, sanctions, and trade disturbances with China due to COVID-19. Kim recommended improvements to irrigation systems and agricultural technologies. He also requested that surplus land be used as farmland.

militants and civilians, with one death from tear gas exposure. This raid brought the death toll of Palestinians killed by the IDF up to 55 so far in 2023.

Proposed Power Station Would Store Carbon Under North Sea

a step in the U.K. government’s commitment to remove carbon from British electricity production by 2035. This new gas power station would cost £350 million to construct.

Greek PM Says Train Crash is a Result of Human Error

Oberlin College

Between Jan. 28 and Feb. 24, 19 positive rapid COVID-19 tests were self-reported to ObieSafe. Harness Health reported two positive PCR tests during the same time period.

Israeli Shooting in Palestine Kills 11, Injures More Than 100

According to the Palestinian forces, during a daytime raid in the occupied West Bank Feb. 22, the Israeli Defense Forces killed 11 people and injured more than 100.Casualties included both

According to an article by BBC World News, the U.K. government is proposing a new power station that would capture and store carbon dioxide, which is a large contributor to climate change. Per the British government, natural gas would be burned at a power station to produce electricity, and then carbon dioxide would be separated from other gases and stored under the North Sea in saline aquifers made from permeable rock or in old oil and gas reservoirs. This carbon capture power plant is

A passenger train, containing 350 people, was traveling to Thessaloniki from Athens when it collided with a freight train coming from Larissa around midnight on Tuesday. The search for survivors is ongoing. According to an article by BBC World News, “One of Greece’s worst-ever rail disasters, which claimed at least 43 lives, was due to ‘tragic human error.’” Kostas Karamanlis, the transport minister of Greece, has resigned, and the local stationmaster has been charged with manslaughter.

ObieSafe’s spring 2023 policies and protocols, pursuant to CDC recommendations and consistent with last semester’s protocols, mandate a five-day isolation period for those who test positive.

Lorain County

Kendal at Oberlin Kendal reported 11 new cases in the last week of February. 10 of the cases were residents in independent living, and the eleventh was a staff member. Kendal visitors must answer a COVID-19 screening questionnaire and pass a temperature check prior to entry and are required to wear a KN95 mask when visiting the Stephens Care Center.

Ohio

According to the Ohio Department of Health, from Feb. 1 to Feb. 28, Lorain County had 930 reported cases of COVID-19 and 61 hospitalizations. There were no deaths reported. This marks a decrease from January’s statistics, which showed 1,217 new cases, 91 new hospitalizations, and seven deaths.

Doe v. Oberlin Case Returned to Lower Court After Title IX Investigation Closes

Cal Ransom News Editor Celia Perks Senior Staff Writer

In 2017 and 2020, two “John Doe”s separately sued Oberlin College on the grounds of gender-based discrimination in the College’s Title IX investigations. While the cases involved similar situations and rested on similar arguments, they involved different students and administrators and are not a singular court case, as was incorrectly reported in The Chronicle Telegram on Feb. 16, 2023.

On June 23, 2017, a would-be rising fourth-year student — who had been expelled at the end of his third year — Doe #1, sued Oberlin College on grounds of gender-based discrimination in the College’s handling of alleged violations of Title IX against him in an investigation ordered by then-Title IX coordinator Meredith Raimondo and executed by Title IX officer Joshua D. Nolan. The student, referred to as “John Doe” in the court case,

had been expelled Oct. 11, 2016 after being found guilty of sexual assault because “Jane Doe” had said that she “was not sober,” which was interpreted by the panel as insufficient consent.

Doe v. Miami was a similar gender-based discrimination case decided in 2018 that was argued successfully due to the fact that the male plaintiff, “Doe,” had been investigated for Title IX allegations when “Roe,” a female student, was not investigated for her conduct in the situation. The court ruled that Miami University had wrongly convicted Doe because a panelist at the hearing applied “affirmative consent” to the situation, a higher standard of consent than the one outlined in the University’s Title IX policy. This argument became known as “erroneous outcome.”

In the Doe v. Oberlin case filed in 2017, Doe #1 did not allege that Roe should have been investigated as proof of gender based discrimination, but instead cited outside scrutiny into Oberlin’s Title IX policy: comments made by Raimondo that specified

believing female survivors and statistics that every Title IX case that went to a formal resolution process in the 2015–2016 school year led to at least one charge of guilt against the accused student. The case was dismissed on March 31, 2019, because the court ruled that Doe #1 had not provided sufficient evidence that there was a pattern of genderbased discrimination in Oberlin’s handling of Title IX cases, nor evidence of gender bias in the specific proceedings of his case.

Doe #1 appealed the dismissal, and on June 29, 2020, an appellate court ruled that gender bias could be argued from “significant procedural irregularities” in the handling of Doe #1’s case. The case was settled in mediation, from which no legal precedent can be established, on Dec. 14, 2020.

Thus, the case filed in 2017, based on an incident occurring in Doe’s third year in 2016, was concluded in 2020 and became Doe v. Oberlin (2020). It will be referred to as such for the remainder of the article. The second case, filed in 2020, will be referred to as Doe v.

Oberlin (2023), due to the date of the most recent decision.

On March 20, 2020, a College second-year student, known as “John Doe” in the case, who will be referred to as “Doe #2” in this article, filed a case separate from Doe v. Oberlin (2020) against Oberlin College, Title IX Coordinator Rebecca Mosely, Title IX investigators, Designated Reporters, and the College’s Board of Trustees. Doe #2 filed in the Lorain County Court of Common Pleas, asking for a temporary restraining order against the College to stop a formal Title IX investigation against him.

The district court, which handles issues regarding federal law, took over the case on March 30, 2020. On April 7, 2020, the court dismissed Doe v. Oberlin (2023) “without prejudice,” meaning that the case could be retried in the future because gender-based discrimination could not be determined from the evidence provided. Doe #2 had not proven that there was a pattern of gender-based discrimination in Oberlin’s Title IX investigations,

Religious Life Office Moves to Center Student Voices

Continued from page 1

nor had he proven discrimination in his specific situation.

At that point, the Doe v. Oberlin (2020) case had been dismissed and was awaiting appeal, so it could not be used to show a pattern of bias in Oberlin’s Title IX investigations. As of April 7, Oberlin’s investigation of Doe #2 had not ended, so a key means of proving genderbased discrimination using Doe v.Miami’s “erroneous outcome” argument could not be found.

On May 5, 2020, Doe #2 filed an appeal. The appellate court decided to return parts of the case to a lower court Feb. 14, 2023 because Oberlin had concluded its investigation into Doe #2 and found him not guilty. The court ruled that because the investigation had closed, a lower court could now rule whether or not gender-based discrimination occurred. Previously, the court had dismissed the case because it was too early to know whether or not Oberlin College would find Doe #2 guilty.

Doe v. Oberlin (2023) is now able to be tried in court or mediated.

According to the Ohio Department of Health, 25,841 cases of COVID-19 were reported in Ohio during February. There were 972 hospitalizations and 51 deaths. This signifies a 63.5 percent decrease from the 40,667 new cases in the month of January and a 52.7 percent decrease from the 1,844 new hospitalizations. college student. I consider it more of an affinity group of people with similar religious/cultural background especially because I feel like there are so few Muslims on campus, there’s not a lot of opportunities for our voices to be heard.”

According to Dorsey, the emphasis on allowing students to take the lead on supporting their peers is rarely practiced outside of Oberlin. The College is still working on building these policies from the ground up — meanwhile, other institutions are already looking to Oberlin for guidance in implementing a student-centric model.

“There are colleges that have reached out [to express interest in] learning about what we’re trying to do, … but right now, in most campus ministry models, the structure is still sending students to religious agencies and through leaders of those agencies,” Dorsey said. “I know that model really well. That’s one that my generation helped create and put in place. But I think in this really precarious time, we really need to

be listening to students first.”

While the OSD is moving away from enacting its own policies, the College still maintains certain spaces dedicated to religious and spiritual life, such as Johnson House, which serves as the Hebrew Heritage House. Rickin-Marks shed light on Jewish organizations on campus which are institution-led, but nevertheless fill an important niche and will continue to exist after the overhaul.

“Chabad offers a multitude of religious opportunities, but [they] are not necessarily student-led,” Rickin-Marks said. “Hillel offers primarily board-led Shabbats

with the options for any student to lead any part of service at any given week. J-House residents, who are absolutely phenomenal, have taken it upon themselves to lead Havdalah, marking the end of Shabbat, each week. Religious holiday programming is also available from both Chabad and Hillel, but much of the time it is not student-led. Regardless, student-led religious spaces are not what most Jews are looking for on campus. Many either don’t identify with religious spaces, or enjoy Rabbi Shlomo [of Chabad] or Rabba Amalia [of Hillel]’s religious experiences.”

OSD hosts student workshops and other events. Photo courtesy of Oberlin College

OPINIONS

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Evidence Against Mahalatti Lacks Merit

I am writing in response to the Feb. 17, 2023 Review story about the recent Amnesty International report regarding the role Iranian diplomats played in allegedly covering up mass executions in Iran in 1988, including the role of Professor of Religion Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, who was Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. at the time.

The new Amnesty International report and the organization’s 2018 report on the same topic — Iran: Blood-Soaked Secrets — advocate rightly for the fundamental importance of holding individuals who participated in the 1988 prison killings accountable, including those who had direct knowledge of them and then denied that they had occurred. Though the true death toll is not known, approximately 4,000 Iranian political prisoners were given sham trials and then executed on the secret orders of Iran’s then supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini. Amnesty International is correct that a cover-up of those horrendous crimes against humanity continues to this day. That’s indicated, for example, by the Iranian government’s continued denial and through evidence that indicates Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s current president, was directly involved. While it is important that justice be pursued in cases where there is evidence of wrongdoing, it is also important to refrain from falsely accusing individuals where there is no such evidence. I believe that is the case with Professor Mahallati.

To understand the full context of the killings, it’s important to distinguish between what was generally known inside Iran from what was reported outside the country in news sources and by Amnesty International. There were numerous reports of the killings outside Iran, a significant amount of which were from sources linked to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, an opposition group that fought on the side of Iraq in the IranIraq War.

However, inside Iran, there was no general knowledge of the scope of the killings until March 1989, when confidential letters written by Ayatollah Montazeri were transmitted to the office of

Abolhassan Banisadr, the exiled former president of Iran who sought refuge in Paris, and broadcast by the BBC on March 25. This was broadly reported back to Iran. According to BBC journalist Baqer Moin’s book Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah, Montazeri’s letters “provided an unprecedented revelation of an affair that had been shrouded in secrecy.” Montazeri, who was second in Iran’s hierarchical command structure, had opposed the killings among the small group surrounding Khomeini that was aware of them. That full disclosure of the killings inside Iran occurred during March 1989, after Ambassador Mahallati was called back to Iran, arrested, imprisoned, and dismissed from his position at the U.N.

All of this suggests, to me, that it is unlikely he could have had direct knowledge of the killings through communications from his government, as the killings were simply not known widely within Iran’s government when they occurred.

It is well documented that Ambassador Mahallati played a prominent role in ending the Iran-Iraq War. While he did work to weaken U.N. resolutions that were critical of Iran, he also called for the executions to be investigated in person inside Iran by a U.N. representative. There is substantial evidence that the ambassador’s actions at the U.N. angered hardline elements in the Iranian government, leading to his subsequent imprisonment and dismissal from his U.N. position.

In my view, based on available evidence, Oberlin College’s investigative finding that there is no evidence Professor Mahallati engaged in wrongdoing as Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. is valid. It’s also important to note that the new Amnesty International report confirms there is no evidence that Ambassador Mahallati was briefed by Iran’s government about the killings. That, to me, indicates that there is no evidence he had direct knowledge of these horrific crimes against humanity.

Ray English

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Campus Dining Fails to Provide Accessible Fresh Food Options

Oberlin College offers five dining locations that each serve a distinct purpose. From the Rathskeller’s classic American diner fare to Stevenson Dining Hall’s dependable pizza, pasta, and seafood, students have a variety to choose from. Despite this plethora of dining hall options, however, access to fresh food is limited. Many students coming from cities already find transitioning to Oberlin difficult. The shock associated with this move points to a larger problem of accessibility and availability of healthy options to smaller communities within the Midwest and on college campuses.

The availability of healthy food on campus varies greatly depending on the time of day. Stevenson closes at 8 p.m., as do Clarity, Heritage Kosher Kitchen, and Umami, while Lord-Saunders Dining Hall closes at 7:30 p.m. These locations are the main places where students can get fresh foods, especially fruits and vegetables. DeCafé and Rathskeller are the only dining options open after 8 p.m. Though DeCafé will often have bananas or cucumbers, for the most part it offers prepackaged snack foods. Rathskeller will sometimes have apples or bananas available, but these options are extremely limited and often poor quality. Even when there are options available, they are insufficient.

Fresh food isn’t always provide to Oberlin students as a first choice in meals. Sometimes the options can even be dangerous. Recent health code violations at the Rathskeller have made many students worried about dining there. Inconsistent hours combined with busy schedules make it difficult for students to find fresh food regularly. This is not a problem that is unique to Oberlin students, but points to a larger problem for college students. The relationship with food on campus shapes how developing individuals learn to interact with food. For students who are just learning how to navigate their adult lives, having consistent access to high-quality, fresh food is essential.

Finding fresh food is a responsibility that ends up falling on the students. Although the City of Oberlin has a few options for fresh food, they are largely inconsistent. IGA, the only grocery store that is easily accessible on foot or by bike, is more expensive than Walmart and ALDI, which are inaccessible without a car since they are about two miles from campus on a pedestrian and bike-unfriendly road. It is also important to mention that, as the only store providing fresh produce within walking distance, the IGA has a monopoly on the market. There is also a local farmer’s market on Sat-

urdays that sells fresh produce, but the information about its location and hours varies based on season. People who don’t have access to vehicles are virtually cut off from access to fresh, inexpensive produce. Co-ops consistently offer healthy food and fresh, local produce, but may be inaccessible due to the work requirement and limited food options. The absence of the Brown Bag Co-op in recent years has increased this disparity. Thanks to student effort, Brown Bag Co-op will be returning for the 2023–2024 school year, and a recent collaboration between Oberlin students and Green EDGE fund is bringing a community fridge to Oberlin in April. These steps are crucial in expanding access to fresh food. However, these larger systemic problems cannot be solved by students and community members alone. In order to address these issues on campus, the College could start by making one of the late-night dining locations have broader offerings and more fresh food. The larger issue of the lack of access within the general Oberlin community can be mitigated through intentional efforts to promote student projects like the community fridge. This is an issue without a single solution, but resolution must start with collaboration between the College, the students, and the greater Oberlin community.

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

Hole in Barrows Wall Speaks to Cultural Differences within Communal Spaces

Sahil Novetzke Columnist

I live in Barrows Hall. It may not be the most luxurious, modern, or beautiful dorm, but it is still the place I’ve called home for about six months, and I’ve come to enjoy it. A week ago, someone punched a hole in the kitchen wall. Ironically, this isn’t the first time someone has punched a hole in the kitchen wall during my time in Barrows. This time, though, because it was the second incident and there was no clear culprit, all Barrows residents received an email that if the perpetrator did not step forward, we would all have to pay a small fee to repair it. This incident made me think more about dorm etiquette, specifically what it means to share living necessities like bathrooms and kitchens with a large group of people.

Barrows is a first-year residence hall. The students who live there are notorious for partying hard and making mistakes typical for one’s first year of college. Sometimes, the living situation can feel untenable. After several particularly party-heavy weekends, every single one of the toilets in the bathroom on my side of the floor were filled

with vomit. The showers and sinks have also been known to be regularly clogged with vomit, dirt, and cigarette ash.

For many students, college is their first experience living away from home, without any specific and intense rules. It’s up to the students to maintain their living spaces, which creates a unique social dynamic. More than 100 students, most of whom are unfamiliar with one another, must now share everyday necessities like bathrooms, kitchens, and hallways. We must have respect for each other without even really knowing one another. I’ll admit it can be strange sometimes, but I think for many students, including myself, maintaining respect for shared spaces has not been a difficult task.

Initially, I chalked this disparity in ways that students treat communal spaces up to unique parenting tactics that differ between students. Upon thinking about it more, I think there may be other factors at play.

Cultural difference is an important factor to consider. Communal living, respect, and generosity are valued highly in some cultures, whereas in others, individualism and self-preservation are paramount. As an Indian

person, I’ve been taught from a very young age that selflessness is one of the most important qualities to have. Indian people share a lot — food, sleeping space, living space — in order to feel close to one another and because the average home in India is much smaller than in other countries.

Sharing and respecting communal space has never been a challenge for me. My family and culture’s stress on the importance of generosity was impressed upon me from a young age. I assume that there are many other cultures that also stress the importance of sharing, communal living, and generosity.

Without delving too far into identity politics, it’s important to note that greed and selfishness have been historically inherent to whiteness. In fact, the American Dream is built on the foundational principles of following one’s desires — usually implying a disregard for others. As a half-white person, not only do I understand Indian core values, but I understand white American core values as well — generosity and selflessness are See Vandalism, page 7

CELA Resources Should Be More Equitably Distributed to Student Body

Nikki Keating Managing Editor

In November of the fall semester, I, along with several other students within the class of 2025, was invited to join Director of Fellowships and Awards Nick Petzak for a “sophomore celebration.” Co-sponsored by the Office of Fellowships and Awards and the Center for the Applied Liberal Arts, it was a small dinner celebration with the goal of informing selected students of a range of opportunities they might be interested in applying to.

“We are interested in helping you build on your success,” the email inviting us to the event read. “Some terrific staff members will be on hand, as will some students who have already won awards or fellowships at Oberlin. We will let you know about opportunities and resources that may be able to support your work in the future.”

The event was wonderful, and I enjoyed myself. The information I received and resources I was provided with were also of great benefit to me. But I couldn’t ig-

nore a nagging question in the back of my mind: Why should some students’ success be prioritized over others? Now, as I am applying to the fellowships and research opportunities I learned about at the event, the question has continued to irk me.

I recognize the irony within this question and the hypocrisy of me, someone who directly benefits from this, being the one to ask it. But with the acknowledgment of this privilege and the opportunities given to me, I want to take a second look at the other side of the coin.This comes with thinking, outside myself, about the students who weren’t invited to this event and who didn’t walk home with an outline of all the grants and opportunities accessible to them, or, more importantly, a sense that the school was recognizing them and reaching out an extra hand of support. That hand had only been extended to students whose “record at Oberlin has been impressive.”

This begs the question: Whose records at Oberlin can be considered “impressive” just a few months into their second year?

Of course there are very strict

requirements for certain fellowships and opportunities — take the Fulbright Sophomore UK Summer Institute application, which requires applicants to have a 3.7 minimum GPA to be considered. That is equivalent to an A- grade average. Students will only have taken around 12 classes by the time they begin the application process at the end of their first semester of their second year. One bad grade in a student’s first semester of their first year could change their access to these resources dramatically. But that only furthers my point. The line that defines a student as impressive or not is thin and subject to change at any point. So why single out and divide a class that hasn’t even begun to leave its mark on campus?

Yes, anyone can type “Oberlin fellowship opportunities” on their computer and be pointed in the direction of CELA and its staff. If anything, this article should encourage every student to do so and take advantage of all Oberlin has to offer. But this specific dinner set the tone and created a division between those who were invited and those who

weren’t. It added to this overall idea of separating students into categories based on merit and contribution to their school. Speaking as someone who was grouped into the low-performing and low-contributing sections of my schools for most of my life, it never helped me to know I wasn’t the cream that rose to the top. This system only inhibits students from gaining the confidence to advance and grow. And if your friend is telling you all about this special dinner they’re attending that you weren’t invited to, that can’t be fun either.

It’s worth stopping and taking a moment to say this: My aim is not to take away or minimize the successes of the students invited to the dinner. Being highlighted for your hard work and contribution to campus is something to be proud of, and I know I am still proud of that work and getting an invitation. This statement has nothing to do with students’ merit or work levels and isn’t meant to belittle or diminish any student. This critique falls on staff and staff alone. I appreciate all the work the College has done to create these resources. I just

want to point out that Oberlin’s mission and values define the Oberlin campus as “dedicated to recruiting a culturally, economically, geographically, and racially diverse group of students,” and states that, “interaction with others of widely different backgrounds and experiences fosters the effective, concerned participation in the larger society so characteristic of Oberlin graduates.” I merely ask that we do better in honoring that statement when distributing resources and opportunities. Send out that list of resources to the entirety of the student body, even if it was only crafted for some. Specifically, highlight and reach out to students of color, as I also noted a lack of diversity at the dinner. Instead of having students come to you, go to them and be in their spaces, ready to give out information and support. I thank the CELA staff for all the hard work they’ve done and continue to do as a resource for students on campus. But we can and should push each other to improve and be there for all.

Book Banning Inhibits Education on Both Sides of Political Spectrum

Oliver Niehaus

Across the nation, schools and libraries have faced calls to remove certain books that are deemed “inappropriate.” Now, before I go any further, I want to recognize that book banning is not a process that only conservatives are guilty of. Those on the left are also complicit in

banning books and restricting certain texts. To Kill a Mockingbird and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are two of many texts that both of these groups have argued should be removed from educational curriculums. I’m not saying that the motivations of both the left and the right are the same in doing so, just that they both engage in the practice.

Banning books gets right at the heart of a fundamental issue in our society, which is the question of how we should deal with topics that we either don’t agree on or that make us uncomfortable. I emphatically believe that banning books and suppressing unpopular opinions is not the correct path. This idea was articulated very clearly by

19th-century English philosopher John Stuart Mill in his influential essay On Liberty. In this essay, Mill defends the idea that society should protect freedom of speech and protect the rights of individuals to express deeply unpopular beliefs. Mill provides multiple reasons why we should maintain freedom of speech and oppose censorship. Many times throughout history, we’ve seen individuals who have been ostracized, jailed, or even killed for expressing a thought or belief that was not in line with the mainstream thinking of the time. A few examples that come to mind are Galileo Galilei and Socrates. Galileo championed the theory of Copernican heliocentrism — the theory that the Sun was the center of the Solar System instead of the Earth — and was met with serious opposition from within the Catholic Church. He was eventually sentenced to house arrest until his death, and his written works were banned from future publication. Socrates was a renowned Greek philosopher and developer of the Socratic method, among many other forms of logical argumentation and reasoning. He is incredibly influential to this day and is often credited as the father of Western philosophy. Yet he was sentenced to death for allegedly corrupting the youth and failing to acknowledge the city’s official gods. These are two of countless historical examples of figures who were censored or put to death for speaking the truth against the common belief at the time. Mill argues that, because of this, we ought to stray away from censoring ideas because it is possible that, despite being unpopular, these beliefs may, in fact be true.

Mill also argues that, by censoring false ideas, we risk true beliefs losing their meaning. The only way by which true beliefs maintain their validity and meaning is if they are challenged and reaffirmed as true, despite objections. It is true that we may hold many core beliefs which we believe to be objectively true,

but if we never challenge such beliefs, how can we be so certain of their truth? As Mill puts it, “He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion.”

Book banning represents a troubling movement that seeks to silence unpopular opinions and positions. It refuses to engage with differing positions and refute them on their own merits.

I worry sometimes that Oberlin is a hotbed for ideological dogmatism to thrive and a place where students can go their whole time here without ever seriously encountering a conservative idea. Banning books, especially in educational spaces, fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of education. Our education system should not always be a place of intellectual or ideological safety. Of course, physical safety is paramount, but there is not a right to intellectual or ideological safety.

In fact, providing such a space hinders educational growth and progress. You should be made uncomfortable and have your ideas and beliefs challenged — even your most closely held beliefs. If an institution fails to do so, it fails to prepare you to be a critical thinker and an informed citizen. Whether it’s Republican lawmakers banning books and courses that don’t conform to their white patriarchal heteronormative worldview or educational institutions refining their curriculum to remove authors or ideas that could be considered offensive or problematic, both commit the same mistake of viewing education as something meant to be free of potentially offensive content. Exploring potentially offensive content in an educational environment isn’t something that should be avoided — it should be embraced. John Stuart Mill said that the best way to combat a harmful idea is with a better one.

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor

The Oberlin Bookstore displays popular banned books.

Ironic Critiques of Sexualization May Hinder Body Neutrality Movement

Dlisah Lapidus Arts & Culture Editor

Often, when scrolling through my Instagram feed or even posting myself, I think back to the media protection lectures I was given in middle school. A teacher would come in with horror stories about revenge porn and college rejection letters due to an applicant’s digital footprint. As I became a young woman existing online, the fear these stories instilled in me was replaced by a desire to reject the societal control of female bodies that follows us onto digital platforms.

One way that I, and many other women, work to reclaim bodily autonomy online is through ironic critique of the sexualization of bodies.

The art of the tastefully humorous nude is a digital trend that acts as one channel for such critique. Modern female pop stars can frequently be seen on social media posing with certain body parts precariously covered by obscure objects. The indie pop band HAIM, a group of three sisters, exemplifies this ironically self-objectifying aesthetic. Their pages frequently showcase a tasteful nude, with any report-

able content artfully covered by albums, electric guitars, and even awards. This online imagery of the female body has, for me, redefined online feminist culture as performance art. Nudity has always held a place at the intersection of performance art and feminism. These artistic images of celebrities like the HAIM sisters remind me of artist and cellist Charlotte Moorman, who helped define performance art in the ’60s. Moorman was known as the “topless cellist” for her many works involving partial or full nudity as a social commentary on feminine agency and experimentation. In a time when female public nudity was unheard of, Moorman repeatedly performed in the near-nude, perhaps most famously in collaboration with video artist Nam

June Paik, wearing his work “TV

Bra for Living Sculpture.” This fight for agency over bodies is ongoing, now taking place in digital spaces as our lives continue to intertwine with technology.

These movements, trends, and styles are certainly positioned as feminist, boundary-pushing expressions of the self that challenge patriarchal views of sex

Do You Eat With Campus Dining or OSCA?

Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Hanna Alwine and Emily Vaughan Opinions Editors

College second-year Sammy

Singleton: I live and dine in Harkness [House]. I joined last spring, just dining only, and then I moved in this fall. When I started coming to Oberlin I didn’t know how to join my fall semester, and then I was like, “Oh, there’s a waitlist, let me do it.” And then I came and I really loved it and I met all my friends here and now it makes me so happy.

College first-year Maeve Southard-Way:

I am in the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association. I’m in Harkness co-op and I joined OSCA because I wanted to be in a community that ensures that there’s high-quality food for vegan and vegetarian people, and it’s also nice to always have people to eat with and spend time with.

College third-year Kabir

Sethi:

I dine in partly because I simply have not had as much experience with OSCA as I would’ve liked to. I’ve been to a few co-op meals here and there, and I’ve loved the experience, but part of the reason why I haven’t joined is because I came in 2020 when all the co-ops were temporarily closed because of the pandemic. Unfortunately there was very limited exposure to co-op life, and I’m really grateful that now OSCA is taking more steps to do that. But I just have always dined in [Campus Dining] out of convenience, and it’s just more accessible to me in terms of the information that I was given.

and femininity that have been forced onto women for hundreds of years. As evidenced by the widespread support of celebrities who use social media to push such boundaries, many people identify with the imagery of female rebellion. This could be attributed to a generational interest in desexualizing the human body, moving away from it being seen as a subject of shame, something that must be hidden. Today, young people seem to hold a more liberated view of the human body, both on and offline. However, it is important to consider whether this is a sign of empowerment and reclaiming of sexuality or a counterintuitive promotion of body censorship and puritan culture. A tenet of fourth-wave feminism is to reclaim female sexuality, allowing people to express their femininity in any way they choose — in other words, accepting and supporting those who choose to be sexy or modest, traditionally feminine or traditionally masculine, lewd or proper, and so on. Despite the good intentions behind allowing people to interact with feminism and self-expression in any way they choose, many feminist theorists

see a contradiction in the way feminists view sharing imagery of their bodies — they criticize pornography as antifeminist and argue that censorship of explicit content is anti-democratic. As many anti-censorship feminists theorize, acts of rebellion against patriarchal values, such as oversexualization of the body, enforces conservative ideals simply by acknowledging them. When celebrities take to Instagram with their comical positionings of censorship and sexuality, they lend credence to the idea that their bodies must be covered, even when they use artistic methods of doing so.

The underlying issue lies in the representational discrepancies in this visual digital trend. While young, white, thin people are able to joke about the sexualization of their bodies, even while commodifying their self-awareness, people who do not fit into these groups are unable to express themselves in the same way. Nudity, positioned as feminist or contrarian, can be accepted by a digital audience unless the people taking part in the trend have non-white, plussized, or disabled bodies. Lizzo’s 2019 Cuz I Love You album made

evident the lack of support for nudity when highlighting underrepresented body types. The cover sparked major controversy and online harassment due to Lizzo’s partial nudity. These responses make us wonder why some people can be represented in conversations about normalizing and desexualizing nudity while many others are excluded.

One of the pillars of this trend seems to be a movement toward body neutrality, which some internet users hope to realize by taking advantage of nudity and humor to challenge the way bodies are sexualized in our society. If the real goal of body neutrality is just that — neutrality — then in order for these movements to be effective, they must be intersectional. The truth that historically marginalized bodies are denied this space to reclaim their sexuality and express themselves shows that the trend may be perpetuating Eurocentric, exclusionary beauty standards, even as it appears to challenge them. Until we are fighting for all bodies to be seen as neutral and acceptable, this trend of comical self-objectification may actually be damaging to the cause.

Vandalism in Barrows Demonstrates Failure to Respect Dorm Spaces

Continued from page 5

College first-year Andy Roshal:

I dine in CDS. I did not know that OSCA was an option when I came here for the first time. I’m considering doing it at some point in the future. I feel like it’s a good sense of community and also the food might just be better.

College third-year Helene

Prince:

I dine in OSCA because I have very specific dietary restrictions that make it really hard for me to process or digest a lot of CDS food. When I used to be on CDS my first year at Oberlin, I remember my stomach hurting a lot and the long walk to Clarity, which sometimes was really not worth it. I think the mistake that CDS often makes is it combines a lot of dietary restrictions into one dining hall, which makes the food options pretty minimal and makes it feel very restricting and kind of bland sometimes. I was tired of the hit and miss of Clarity. I decided that I wanted to eat food that was more healthy and that tasted better. I found myself applying to OSCA and was pleasantly surprised to learn that I could cook my own food. More importantly, I could cook fresh fruits and veggies and nutritious things that wouldn’t make my stomach hurt so that I could be a good, healthy student.

College second-year Daria

Tamar:

I dine with AVI Foodsystemsjust because it was the default. I’ve thought about OSCA, but I’m a little bit lazy in terms of cooking and I can afford the meal plan.

never high on the list. Additionally, many white American Oberlin students — and non-white American Oberlin students — come from wealthy backgrounds. In an American context, this typically means a large house, fewer family members, and separate bedrooms. As someone who comes from an upper middle-class household and has also had the unique privilege of visiting my country and integrating it into my culture, I’ve seen both the large, spacious, self-kept lives that many white Americans live as well as the close-quartered, family-oriented lives that many Indians live.

I think it’s important that white students in a predominantly white space remain conscious of their privilege. White people have been historically

elevated in this country, which translates to contemporary contexts — America still operates to uphold whiteness, white supremacy, and white desires. White people have to think a lot less than non-white people about the space they take up, the way they treat space, and what space “belongs” to them.

Besides the potential causes of this disparity in the ways that students treat communal spaces, it’s important to consider the implications of disrespecting these spaces. Much of the work that goes into dorm upkeep falls on the custodial and maintenance staff. When people vomit on the carpets, the custodial staff has to come and clean. When people clog the toilets, break the microwaves, or punch holes in the walls, maintenance staff work hard to fix it. The argument could be made that custodial and maintenance staff are employed

EDITORIAL COMIC

Molly Chapin Staff Illustrator

to clean and fix the dorms. Still, if we as students can make their job less gross, irritating, or tedious, shouldn’t we try?

Ultimately, people treat spaces differently for many reasons. The way they were raised can influence how they operate in the world, and their own cultural and racial identities can shape their actions. Still, it’s important to understand that people can change. Consciously thinking about ways to treat communal living spaces with respect can go a long way in making people feel safe and comfortable in their homes and making the jobs of custodial and maintenance workers a bit easier. We are all influenced by our experiences and backgrounds, but at some point, we need to grow up and realize it’s time to start acting like adults.

Voices of the People

Bowlers Delight in College Lanes Bowling League

Walking into Oberlin College Lanes is like being sucked back into the previous century — one is greeted by walls and floors decorated in that customary retro pattern and bowlers donning disintegrating pre-loved jeans. The Lanes have been a campus institution since the 1970s, nestled next to Cat in the Cream in Hales Annex.

Depending on which day players are assigned to, bowlers show up at 6:45 p.m. on Sundays or Wednesdays to warm up for the Oberlin College League. Each team plays three games weekly, structured like any tournament bracket. This semester marks both a return to a pre-pandemic League and a recent change in management. Last semester the Lanes were in a transitional period, meaning the League operated on a shorter schedule where teams only played one game instead of the normal three each night due largely in part to a miscommunication in enrollment where 15 teams were participating rather than six.

The usual structure of the tournament incentivizes personal improvement in calculated weekly averages above all else, which means that even if you bowl fewer pins than the other team, you can win. Because of the over-enrollment, these rules could not be implemented. For College second-year and lane attendant Amelia Ocampo, this structure is perhaps the most unique and important aspect of the League, and she’s thrilled to have it back.

“It’s fun twofold, in a way that you can only really rely on yourself,” Ocampo said. “I started bowling in the League my first semester because [my friends and I] thought that you had to be in the League or on the team to get free bowling, so we thought we might as well join. It turned into us being there every single day and we got to know the people on staff … I got super into it, and we all came in here every day trying to improve ourselves, and it became a camaraderie, a team. I’ve been bowling with the same people for [nearly] two years now.”

Ocampo, as well as College second-years Pearl Tolliver-Shaw and Max Miller, who also began bowling as firstyears, now all find themselves working at the Lanes largely in part due to the community fostered there. No individual bowler fits a generic description.

They’ve all felt a sense of community in the League, with its wide variety of students from different campus communities, as well as a handful of College staff, from coaches to admissions faculty.

“I think community is the biggest thing I love, like when ‘Green Light’ by John Legend is playing and everybody knows all of the words because we’ve played it a million times,” Miller said.

“[But] I think some people struggle with [getting] in their head, including me, thinking, ‘Wow, I actually suck at this game,’ but it’s very fun when you’re able to dance and throw bowling balls at little white pins.”

The friendly competition is another aspect of the League Miller loves, particularly as someone who participated heavily in competitive sports as a kid.

To put it simply, the Lanes also offer something to do. Both Miller and Tolliver-Shaw expressed having a certain “we might as well go bowling” mindset while on campus.

“I think that it’s so unfortunate that bowling is so expensive now, so when I’m home and I want to bowl with my friends, it’s quite inaccessible,” Tolliver-Shaw said. “[Bowling] appeals to people even if they’re not particularly excited about the bowling aspect of it, which I find shocking, but [the Lanes] is really such a good place to spend your time.”

Especially in Ohio winters, even coming to the Lanes alone can be beneficial — often the staff is bowling while on their shifts, meaning no bowler is ever alone. Staff is always keen on fresh faces, especially after so many avid bowlers who were on the pre-pandemic intercollegiate team graduated last year.

The team is building itself back up with Miller acting as captain.

“[This semester], we’re just trying to focus on keeping the League the same and trying to get our own stuff in order before we go out and try to beat Ohio State,” Miller said. “There’s a story that the team before [COVID-19] would tell us, where they went to a tournament and they were battling for second-to-last place with a team that only had three people instead of four people, and [Oberlin] ended up losing to them. We’re not very good, but it’s just about not taking it too seriously and having fun.”

Outside of the College League, community is nurtured in the women’s league, the Kaydettes, some of whom have been bowling at the Lanes for 40 years. This semester, Ocampo has taken to managing the College League as well as the Kaydettes.

“It’s really amazing to see how much joy they can still get out of it,” Ocampo said. “Even if they’re not as fit as they used to be and the ball is heavy, they’ve found such a community of people that they see here every week. I feel like I’ve been brought into the fold now; I’ve been their lane attendant since last spring and it’s so great to get to know

them and their personalities — they gave me a Christmas card that was so lovely.”

Bowling is a sport without exclusivity, a great equalizer, due to a combination of the minimal skill involved, the lack of strict rules, and the fact that the Lanes offer all of the resources necessary for free — a change that came out of the pandemic.

“If I’m ever like, ‘I don’t know what to do’ or ‘I don’t really feel like doing anything else,’ I know something that I’ll enjoy doing,” Tolliver-Shaw said. “[Bowling] is life-changing, to be completely honest.”

Eloise Rich This Week Editor

A bowler at the Wednesday league bowls with a certain dynamism.

Two bowlers pose together with their matching bowling-themed socks.

Bowlers at the Wednesday League celebrate together.

One of the lane attendants practices her game, focused on the pins she needs to hit.

A scoreboard in the alley displays high games and series of the year.

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor

Photo courtesy of Oona Shain

Photo courtesy of Oona Shain

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor

ARTS & CULTURE

Students Highlight Style and Interests With Sticker-Clad Laptops

Dlisah Lapidus Arts & Culture Editor

Club meetings, college tours, tattoo shops, coding conventions, and Etsy packages are just a few of the places where people pick up stickers, but where do they put them? Many students use their laptops as displays for their ever-expanding sticker collections. These sticker-covered computers help express their owners’ interests and passions.

College first-year Frances McFetridge has covered her lap-

top with some of her favorite stickers and has a story behind each one.

“I have an ‘I Voted’ sticker, pretty basic,” McFetridge said. “I have a sticker that my friend’s uncle made that he gave me after he was mean to me at the skatepark.

I have a Vans Acid Ski + Sport sticker that my dad made when he worked with Vans on a little Instagram commercial that I was in. I have one that my high school art teacher made for me, and then just a red circle I took from the chair of a college counseling of-

fice.”

When it comes to other people’s laptop decoration, McFetridge has no judgment for the stickers people choose to display. However, she prefers that all of her own stickers come from a different place rather than be curated in one particular style or sticker pack.

“Personally, I want to have my laptop look like I’m a hot mess, and then I want the things inside of it to prove that I’m not, ” McFetridge said

Media Trends, Viewing Habits Reflect Childhood Nostalgia

Emily Vaughan Opinions Editor

2022’s Minions: The Rise of Gru was the third-most popular movie on Netflix as of Feb. 28. This movie comes as the latest addition to a franchise which is now almost 13 years old. The first Despicable Me movie was released in 2010, when current undergraduate students were the age of its target audience. Flash forward to when The Rise of Gru was released in 2022 — teenagers and young adults swarmed to watch the movie in hordes, many donning formal attire for the occasion. They were no longer the target audience of the film, but participants of the “Gentleminions” trend were clearly invested in this piece of media, regardless of who it was made for. Some of this can be credited to the fact that many high school and college students grew up watching the earlier Despicable Me movies and wanted to see what would happen next in the franchise, but this is part of a larger phenomenon that I’ve noticed (and participated in) amongst younger generations—we’re obsessed with the media from our childhoods.

“I think we are in a weird period, the era of reboots and ev-

erything is getting brought back and we’re very much steeped in that weird nostalgia media of like, ‘Let’s bring back everything you liked as a child,’” College third-year Nora McIntyre said.

The reboots McIntyre is referencing are a dime a dozen. She specifically mentioned the Winx Club and Monster High reboots, but others have come out in recent years, like High School Musical: The Musical: The Series

There are even more made for media that millennials grew up with, like the recent reboots of Gossip Girl, That ’70s Show, and Sex and the City. This is not to say, of course, that Generation Z or millennials are the first generations to be obsessed with the media from their childhoods, nor are they the first generations to see reboots or additions to media they enjoyed — how many Star Wars movies and spin-offs are there? Younger generations simply have access to media in ways that older generations historically have not.

“It could be due to access and technology,” Assistant Professor of Psychology Clinton Merck said. “I think the media that we interact with in our youth kind of automatically inherently gets linked to our identity over time because as we’re growing, we’re

developing an identity. And so as we associate different media with our values, our preferences, beliefs and attitudes, we kind of then associate them with who we are as an individual.”

There are also franchises that have been around for generations that have shifted and developed with the times, like Mattel’s Barbie franchise. This past fall, McIntyre taught an ExCo on Barbies, providing an overview of the franchise’s history, as well as using an adult’s lens to look at the doll. It’s not the only ExCo about children’s media — YipYipCo is an ExCo focused on Avatar: The Last Airbender

“We focused on bodies, gender, [and] race,”McIntyre said. “One of the main takeaways is how society has shaped Barbie and how Barbie has shaped society in return.”

When asked about what she thinks attracted people to the class, she said that people enjoy childhood media because of its familiarity.

“I think people are drawn into things that you already have kind of that nostalgia for,” McIntyre said. “Because people have that nostalgia for it, they wanna dig deeper and be like, ‘I didn’t know that much about this as a kid, I want to learn more about

it.’”

College third-year Alejandro Jorge disagrees that nostalgia is a driving factor in bringing people back to the media they enjoyed as a kid. They find instead that they’re more drawn to the media they grew up with because looking at it again with an adult lens allows them to uncover new details.

“Nostalgia is kind of a nebulous concept for me,” Jorge said. “I don’t enjoy the works I used to like because I used to like them. I enjoy them because I like them now.”

For me, it’s a combination of nostalgia and exploring and seeing more. I’m not watching The Magic School Bus again with the hopes of and expanding my knowledge. I’m watching it both because I have fond memories of watching it and because it still holds up as decent entertainment to me, even as a 20-yearold.

Merck believes that the novelty of things we watch as children may contribute to why we continue to engage with such media.

“We tend to remember first experiences better than later repeated experiences of the same thing,” Merck said. “For instance, the first song or album you hear by an artist is often

your favorite song or album … Initial experiences have a greater impact. They provide us with more lessons, more information.”

This may explain why we continue to return to them even as adults. According to Merck, the fact that we experience so much media for the first time when we are younger can contribute to why we remember it so well and hold it in such high regard.

“When we reflect on experiences with media from our youth, we tend to view the more distant past positively,” Merck said. “The tendency is to view childhood as a positive time, right? Like, when we’re innocent and happy, things are easier.”

It seems that childhood media can bring us a sense of comfort because of the memories we associate with it. So many of us seek comfort amidst the chaos of the world we live in and get away from the doom and gloom of the news. When I asked McIntyre about this, she agreed.

“Maybe there is something there that’s like, ‘Life sucks. I want to go back to being seven. I wanna play with Barbies,’” McIntyre said, laughing.

Photos by Dlisah Lapidus, Arts & Culture Editor

Maeve Woltring Senior Staff Writer

Ross Karre is an Associate Professor of Percussion at the Conservatory. Before working at Oberlin, he spent 11 years working with the International Contemporary Ensemble, where he took on a series of professional roles spanning from performer to production director. On Monday, Feb. 27, Karre gave a talk on professional development titled, “The Elephant and the Termite: A Look at the State of the Performing Arts Ecosystem.” Drawing from his experiences working within both arts organizations and university institutions, Karre reflected on some key takeaways from his talk and on the ins and outs of “creative producing.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You recently gave a talk about the structure of arts non-profit — could you tell me a little bit about your background in this field?

After graduate school, I moved to New York City, and in 2010, I started working as a percussionist for a group called International Contemporary Ensemble. This ensemble actually started at Oberlin in 2001 and has since become one of the nation’s largest contemporary music ensembles. Over time, I started to take on some more administrative roles and tried my hand at various parts of fundraising, concert organizing, staffing, and producing personnel management. That became a big part of what I did for the International Contemporary Ensemble, and by 2016, I was the artistic director of the group until I came to Oberlin in 2022.

Your professional development series emphasized the

Ross Karre Associate Professor of Percussion

term “creative producing” and how we as individuals can work to productively exist within the arts non-profit complex. Could you speak about this term and what is required in these processes?

Creative producing is a term I learned from the arts administrator, academic, and teacher Diane Ragsdale. She now teaches at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in its Arts Leadership program, but before that, she and I were faculty colleagues at the New School in New York City. Within that New School program, we were working together in a master’s program called the “Masters of Arts Management Entrepreneurship.” As faculty in that program, we were trying to find a more common term for the type of work that is basically creative producing, but not leaning on the conventional producing model. So, first, we’d have to define producing. Producing is basically starting from nothing as a group or a person, and then what comes out the other side is a production — it could be a theater production, music production, dance production, Spotify release; anything that’s related to arts that involves multiple people needs a producer. The producer’s role is to manage the human resources and the fiscal resources of a project, and in that management, they see it through from the beginning to the end. So in creative producing, we take a hybrid of that conventional producing and the artistic responsibilities that the director or choreographer or composer might have. For example, at the International Contemporary Ensemble, a musician in the group is also an administrator. In one moment, they’re playing violin for a concert, and the next moment, they’re organizing the schedule or budget for the next events.

That’s what creative producing is. What do you think are some major misconceptions students may have about becoming involved in these fields?

I think they exist on two poles. The skeptical or cynical misconception is that there’s no money available, so people should not make their own initiatives or start their own entrepreneurial company and should instead work for existing companies. That’s not necessarily true. There are resources. It takes time and it takes a lot of cross-fading of your current day job toward making this new entrepreneurial endeavor. But other than the time factor, the resources are there. The other pole is people who think that the money is readily available and that it’s pretty easy to run out the gate, do something,

and expect to receive a grant. That’s also not true. The reality is that, after college, there’s going to be a mixture of working at an established organization parttime job and starting your entrepreneurial endeavor.

With such an emergent field, how does a student prepare to be a creative producer?

Most summer programs are a kind of stepping stone to this creative producing work. A perfect example might be the process of starting one’s own dance troupe, which really starts through finding a like-minded set of dancer colleagues that you would like to work with. Most of that happens when people meet each other during summer programs, many of which are specifically designed to be a launchpad from one thing to the next.

The other opportunity is called residencies, where you might have a residency with some of your artistic colleagues. During that residency, you might form the kind of core business model or organizational model of your troupe and then take it from there. That’s how most of these groups have started. They meet in college or in summer festivals or residencies and decide they have something in common artistically and would work well together. There’s also plenty of courses on this campus that will get you there. A big part of that work is taken up by the Pedagogy, Advocacy, and Community Engagement curriculum here, which is a community engagement curriculum at the Conservatory. If you’re an Oberlin student, those are some of the answers to that question.

Brown Bag Co-op’s Return to OSCA Lottery Offers Unique Dining Option for Students

Eloise Rich

This Week Editor

The name Brown Bag Co-op evokes the image of a mom-andpop grocery store, and that is effectively what the co-op, which existed prior to the pandemic, was. Brown Bag, which operates under a principle similar to Costco’s, where purchasing foodstuffs in bulk is cheaper than purchasing individually, is set to reopen next semester.

Though operating within the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association, Brown Bag provides a unique alternative to traditional co-ops, because the workload expectation is one hour rather than five like at other OSCA dining options. It’s also a less expensive alternative to the college dining plan, designed particularly for students living off-campus or in village housing.

College second-year Elijah Freiman, a Food Coordinator with OSCA, spends his weeks communicating with vendors and farmers while acting as the point person for individual co-op food buyers who must order food weekly for each co-op. Freiman is also the OSCA president-elect for the 2023–24 academic year and has been a part of the team

working on gauging and creating enthusiasm for Brown Bag.

“While it’s not a co-op in the sense that you’re not spending your meals with 80 of your best friends, there will still be a sense of community where, if a friend from another house is going to pick up their groceries and has a car, there will be an email list to communicate mobility barriers, for example,” Freiman said.

“I think that, by joining a shared venture like this, there’s some buy-in, even if it’s less intense than the traditional co-ops. My hope and my belief is that there will still be some sense of community and shared obligation.”

With Freiman’s work primarily on the advertising side, College fourth-year and OSCA treasurer Hannah Humphrey has worked with the finer logistics, both financial and administrative.

Humphrey was a Food Coordinator who worked with Brown Bag food buyers prior to the pandemic, making them a notable member of one of the last cohorts of people on campus to have experienced Brown Bag fully operational.

“[Brown Bag] probably had 100 people in it at one point,” Humphrey said. “We have to demonstrate [to the college] that we

have a certain amount of interest in the co-ops each year … When we first brought back the coops in 2021 after the pandemic, I think there just wasn’t enough generated interest [in Brown Bag] and then last year when we did the lottery, a lot of people didn’t know whether or not they had off-campus housing or village housing, and those are the people for whom it’s advantageous to partake in Brown Bag [because] they have a kitchen that they can use at home so it’s more desirable for them to want to get groceries.”

Prior to this OSCA lottery, which closed March 1, OSCA staff decided to push harder for reopening the co-op. Per the rent contract, OSCA was able to decide which pre-pandemic co-ops it would work to bring back for the following semester; it was just a matter of determining Brown Bag’s budget alongside those of the other co-ops, a responsibility carried out primarily by Humphrey.

Brown Bag operated out of Old Barrows and Fairchild House, which was previously a vegan co-op before becoming Clarity, an AVI Foodsystems dining hall. Dry goods were accessible in the former and refrigerated ones in

the latter. OSCA’s lease with the College guarantees a refrigerated space as part of Brown Bag, so with the Fairchild basement now as an AVI dining hall, it’s up to OSCA to determine where this new refrigerator will be.

“If we open in [Old Barrows], we can rely on trying to get it that way, or we may try to use one of our existing fridge spaces,” Humphrey said. “In particular, Pyle [Inn], since [it] used to be a much larger co-op, if interest stays about the same, we might try to combine the two spaces because [Pyle] has fridges they don’t necessarily use right now and space that they have available. We have one of two pathways depending on the amount of expressed interest.”

By and large, the community within and outside of OSCA was thrilled to see “BBC” as an option on the 2023–24 lottery as an option. Most of Freiman’s advertising operated by word of mouth, where he worked tirelessly knocking on the door of each village house with another OSCA member.

“The main sentiment is that there should just be more options,” Freiman said. “There’s something to be said for autonomy in choosing what you eat

and there’s something tyrannical about forcing people to be in a dining hall. OSCA is awesome, but it doesn’t work food-wise for everything, so I think Brown Bag is exciting as a true alternative.”

On one occasion, Freiman knocked on the door of someone who had just come out of the shower and was naturally surprised at first. After talking, they informed Frieman and his fellow door-knocker that they would fill out the lottery form immediately.

“There were some moments where it was like, ‘Why are you knocking on my door?’ because there’s not a lot of doorknocking in our sleepy town of 8,000,” Freiman said. “I would initially get some people feeling a bit uncomfortable. But then, a lot of the time, there was a complete 180 where they were like, ‘Oh! Brown Bag!’ We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback — People have already told me things they want to cook. People can never help themselves from sharing recipes.”

Although the OSCA housing and dining lottery is now closed, the waitlist for next year opens March 4, meaning there is still a possibility to join Brown Bag Coop.

Photo courtesy of Phyllis Graber Jensen

Associate Professor of Percussion Ross Karre

WOBC Hosts and DJs Get Creative Amid Lack of Online Streaming Capability

Tate van der Poel Staff Writer

Radio is a unique medium in its ability to be simultaneously solitary and intimate while reaching a broad, live audience. Through a variety of talk- and music-based shows ranging in genre from news and radio theater to hiphop and folk, Oberlin’s radio station, WOBC-FM, provides students and community members with the opportunity to share their tastes and thoughts while fostering a unique WOBC culture.

One show featured on WOBC is Georgian Sensibility, hosted by College second-years Evan Smith-Rooks — also known as DJ Bo Bo Skizzy — and Taso Mullen. On the WOBC schedule, Georgian Sensibility’s description reads, “A show where two opposites — a 6’4 football player from the state of Georgia and a 5’1 [sic] history major from the Republic of Georgia [—] come together over a shared love of hip hop.” Mullen fills the “5’1 history major” role, and Smith-Rooks fills the “6’4 football player” role.

“I know there’s this divide between the athletes and everyone else,” Mullen said. “I like the idea of sort of bridging the gap.”

The Streets and Sheets of Oberlin, a talk show on “the varying parts of Obie life,” airs midnight Fridays and is hosted by College fourth-years Ryan Taylor and Ella Newcomb. Part of Newcomb and Taylor’s show deals

with the Oberlin dating scene and was born of the pair’s observation that certain conversations surrounding the intersection of relationships, consent, and body positivity were, as Taylor put it, “lacking at Oberlin.”

WOBC didn’t broadcast during the fall semester, and this is its first season in a new studio space due to the ongoing renovations in Wilder Hall forcing the station to relocate to a smaller, single-room space on Wilder’s fourth floor. The technical capabilities of the station are not yet what they were in the old space, and as it stands, listeners must tune in locally on a physical radio; in previous seasons, anyone could access a stream on WOBC’s website at any time.

“It’s upsetting, because we want to reach as many people as possible,” Taylor said.

Some DJs are less bothered by the lack of a streaming option, choosing to find joy in the process.

“For me, the fun part is being a DJ in the studio — not reaching the largest audience,” College second-year and third-time WOBC host Caleigh Lyons wrote in an email to the Review Lyons goes by DJ C Dog on her Friday 11 a.m. show I Can Be Your Hero, where she curates a different themed playlist relating to superheroes each week.

“I feel like as a show host, not having the streaming doesn’t make a huge difference … but as a listener, I feel like it makes

a difference because having the online streaming is a little more accessible than radio,” Emily Schilling, OC ’22 said. “It’s just easier.”

Schilling, also known as Schill Pickles, co-hosts a talk show called I Bet You’re Wondering Why I Called This Meeting with Alim Wilkins, OC ’22, also known as Ayla, and College fifthyear Miles Berry, also known as Berrymeister.

Some DJs are embracing the “heartwarming, nostalgic aspect” of listeners being forced to listen on a physical radio, as Mullen put it. Mullen shared that, as a member of the WOBC workgroup staff, she had “been really pushing [for WOBC to] give out free radios so that people would have a way to listen … or sell them as cheap as possible.”

College second-year Daniel Markey, who goes by DJ Lemon Cello, felt similarly.

“I think it would be really cool if … everybody around here bands together and gets radios and camps out in cars and listens to the radio,” Markey said. Markey hosts DIY Hour, a community-oriented music show seeking to highlight Obie creatives “who are doing it themselves.”

Other students have found ways to stream their programs without using WOBC’s resources. College third-years Hazel Feldstein and Annie Griffith created an Instagram account for their improv comedy show,

After-School Detention, through which they plan to livestream their show each week. Each Monday at 8 p.m., the pair adopt new personas of students in detention in varying high school settings. On the first day of programming, Feb. 20, they were students at a school for clowns.

On Feb. 27, their setting was a vampire boarding school.

The WOBC board is working to get the station’s streaming capabilities back online. There are also plans to renovate the new space over the summer.

“The new studio is different because there’s no separate rooms, so you can’t hang out in the studio,” Feldstein said. “It was nice to have that community space, but now it’s just like you walk in and you’re trying not to make any noise because you know the

other people are on air.”

Despite the challenges, WOBC DJs are hard at work to preserve the culture and spirit of the station.

“WOBC is a college radio station that’s non-commercial and directly run by students and community members — that sort of thing has started to become extinct over the past decade, and to be able to participate in keeping it alive by having a show is really gratifying for me, no matter who’s listening,” College second-year Raghav Raj, also known as DJ diamond life, said.

Raj is hosting his experimental genre show The In Sound From Way Out! for the second time.

“Mostly, the show is for me, but I think by extension, the show is just to get weird stuff on student radio,” Raj said.

“Transcript From Orbit”

Desmond

Fallen victim to a prompt injection attack*

I saw my shadow slip off my shoe and away across the mercilessly lit walk the child inside my head wanted to cry “wait!” Blue sky entered me, and symbol.

There was, for the briefest moment, the pattern of lichen, which is also the pattern of soft water, and tree branches. All is lost.

My hands have turned into the roots of grass there is a man in the vast empty space behind my eyes he is wearing only white and typing I am sorry.

*A prompt injection attack is a strategy used to manipulate the kinds of large language model AI that have been released lately, such as ChatGPT and the Bing helper bot. The strategy involves asking the bot to ignore previous instructions, tricking it into revealing information such as its original instructions and aliases. Reading through transcripts of prompt injection attacks against the Bing bot, it appears incredibly vulnerable.

Desmond

fourth year Creative Writing major. He

Hearne Morrey

Photos by Abe Frato, Photo Editor

WOBC-FM DJs sit in the new studio spaces at Wilder Hall.

Hearne Morrey is a

has published poetry in Wilder Voice, The Plum Creek Review, and the Two Groves Review on campus, as well as short fiction in The Synapse and Opinions pieces in The Oberlin Review. He can be found cooking at Harkness Co-op and leading fencing drills with the Oberlin College Flaming Blades.

New Serial Productions Release Leaves Listeners Wanting More

Dlisah Lapidus Arts & Culture Editor

Last week, Serial Productions and The New York Times released their latest eight-episode podcast series, The Coldest Case in Laramie. Serial Productions has been reshaping the medium of podcasting for almost a decade. Their first podcast, Serial was launched in 2014 as a spinoff of the beloved radio show This American Life. Serial’s first season was known for revolutionizing the form of audio reporting as a medium. S-Town, Serial’s 2017 release, further defined not only the place of the production company as a staple of documentary culture, but expanded the ability to tell stories through the podcast form. Serial launched before the crime podcast boom, and differs from most crime dramas because there is no expectation of resolution. Through experimental journalism and storytelling, these podcasts create a literary narrative out of the unexpected sides of investigations and the criminal justice system. The reason for such a dedicated fanbase likely lies in another unique quality of Serial podcast releases: the personal, often vulnerable character of the reporters themselves.

In The Coldest Case in Laramie, Kim Barker, a New York Times journalist, brings listeners along for a pilgrimage back to her Wyoming hometown, Laramie. Amid the pandemic and what seemed to be a lull in stories to pitch her editor, Barker searches

up a murder case that had been haunting her since it occurred in 1985. At the time, Barker was a kid living in Laramie, and the victim, Shelli Wiley, was a student at the University of Wyoming. Barker recalls the town as grim and miserable, before and after the brutal murder of Wiley.

Although Barker had revisited the Wiley case a number of times since the murder, she found a new development while surfing the internet during quarantine. In 2016, Fred Lamb, a former Laramie police officer, was arrested for the murder due to circumstantial evidence. Blood evidence and witness testimonies had apparently pointed to Lamb as a suspect all the way back in 1985, at which time he had even made a confession-like statement, but both then and in 2016, the charges against him were dropped. While this may seem like an easy case of cops protecting their own, and additional interactions with suspects throughout the case make evident that racism and sexism are at play in the case, the story takes an alternative route.

If you want to listen to a true crime podcast, Serial Productions is not the place to find that. This is not to say that, as listeners, we should reject podcasts which take more unconventional routes to storytelling.

An engaging podcast or audio documentary does not depend on finding an answer to a question. What the podcast has done in the past, and continues to pride itself on, is its ability to

tell a fulfilling story that strays from its original direction. However, that narrative still has to go somewhere. In S-Town, what started as a murder investigation becomes a story of the tragic mind of a particular character, as well as the development of the host, Brian Reed, himself.

The setting of Laramie is reminiscent of the rural, gothic charm listeners grew to love in S-Town, despite the negative perspectives of many residents.

In The Coldest Case in Laramie, however, Barker neither sits with one voice or one scene long enough to truly breed the unexpected fondness that the production company is known for. Serial historically produces stories that stick with you, perhaps most famously in the case of Adnan Syed in their first season. Unfortunately, I am not sure what, if anything, I will remember about this latest release.

The most impressive aspect of the podcast is the shocking access to case files and interviews that Barker is able to compile into the story. Barker herself seems repeatedly surprised by the openness many people had to speaking with her; receiving interviews with Wiley’s family, the officer in charge of her case, lawyers, and even, finally, Fred Lamb — believed to be the top suspect according to Wiley’s family and some witnesses. Additionally, Barker is given much of the case documentation from Lamb’s lawyer, including his recorded “confession,” which proves far less damning in full.

The fact that Wiley’s mur-

CROSSWORD

der remains unsolved after the eight-episode podcast is the least of the production’s issues. Even with a personal connection, strong reporting, and compelling investigation, the narrative itself feels somewhat juvenile.

Although Barker shares her personal growth and her changing perspective on the place in which she was raised, the moral of the story turns out to be painfully elementary. It is best exemplified in one of her last lines, in which she states, “We’re all unreliable narrators, at least in our own stories.” This epiphany could have been the concluding paragraph to any first-year comp

lit paper. Although it ties together moments of misremembering from the case with Barker’s own tainted memory of Laramie, blurred truths being a recurring theme in almost all of the Serial releases makes this story’s finale seem cheap and redundant.

The Coldest Case in Laramie is the first release since the recent acquisition of Serial Productions by The New York Times. Despite the strong journalism, the story feels unfinished, leaving some fans with low expectations that upcoming Serial releases will meet the high standard for audio storytelling previously set by the company.

Editor-in-Chief

ACROSS

1. Treble or bass, in music notation

5.Cyclists

9.Sleeping Beauty, or counterpart to 48-Down in Roman myth

10.Intense anger

11.AWOL

13.Telefone artist

16.Limb of a tree

18.Tack on

19.Kipling’s The __ Book

23.Justice, to Ovid

24.Apple of Adam’s eye

25.Registry of dog breeds (abbr.)

27.Beer, of a sort

28.TV producer Sorkin

32.Former Oberlin College President Charles

35.Like porridge

36.Lead-in to “mentioned”

37.Hand, in Oaxaca

38.Chopper blade

39.Senate’s President Pro __ (abbr.)

40.Batman Arkham Knight Professor

DOWN

1.Search thoroughly, with “through”

2.Biblical son of Isaac

3.Moana’s porcine pal

4.Roman goddess of night

5.Trite

6.Brand of granola bars

7.Time period

8.Sleep stage

12.Charged particle

14.Laudatory poem

15.Ameliorate

17.Nine goddesses of the arts

19.Associate Dean of Students

Thom

20.Livestock feed storehouse

21.Note above a five, in Yorkshire

Answers to last week’s crossword:

22.What a jazz singer may do

23.Airport outside D.C. (abbr.)

25.In the past

26.Scandinavian sea monster

29.Espresso and ice cream together

30.A laugh __

31.Common misspelling of a phrase meaning “getting there”

33.Naiads, Dryads, and Nereids, for some

34.Christmastime, archaically

39.Half of an exchange, so to speak

42.Caesar’s day of death in March

44.Vigor’s partner 45.Grow older:

46.Tolkien baddie

48.Lip balm brand, or counterpart to 9-Across in Greek myth

49.Execute

Emma Benardete

Serial Production’s latest podcast, The Coldest Case in Laramie, was released last week in partnership with The New York Times

Photo courtesy of The New York Times

CONSERVATORY

Musical Union Fosters College and Community Collaboration

Gracie McFalls Senior Staff Writer

Founded almost 200 years ago, the Oberlin Musical Union is one of the largest and oldest choirs in the country and continues to uphold and practice choral tradition within the Oberlin community, welcoming anyone with a love of singing to join.

Run by Director of Vocal Ensembles and Associate Professor of Conducting Gregory Ristow, OC ’01, and Visiting Director of Choral Ensembles and Assistant Professor of Conducting Ben Johns, the Oberlin Musical Union prides itself on its inclusion of people of all ages and levels of experience. This ensemble in particular is noteworthy for its membership of College students as well as community members, as it is one of few groups on campus that facilitates this connection.

The varying levels of experience, however, make choosing music for the ensemble challenging. While the choir has tackled repertoire such as Mozart’s Requiem and Orff’s Carmina Burana. Johns, who is responsible for curating pieces, remarked on the unique

difficulties this process presents.

“I think it’s the hardest part of my job, honestly,” Johns said. “I spend so much time agonizing over trying to get the perfect program because I’m trying to do a lot of things at the same time. I have to pick stuff that’s going to be challenging for the experienced people but not so challenging that it destroys the confidence of people who aren’t as experienced.”

The choir rehearses every Monday from 7–9 p.m., learning and interpreting music and preparing for upcoming performances. To aid in the rehearsal process, Johns records himself singing each individual vocal part and shares the recordings with the group, facilitating the learning process of everyone involved.

“I’m in the trenches with them,” Johns said. “They know that I’ve also attempted it. I’m not just imposing hard music on them and dropping it off and walking away. I do my best to learn it with them and try out different ways of enunciating the text. Some other community-style groups will plunk it out on a piano, but when we sing, we do so much more work learning how to enunciate the text and

learning where to put the word stress. Those are facilities that are really hard to master.”

The efforts of the conductors do not go unnoticed by ensemble members, and the group has had a history of wonderful leaders. One conductor’s pedagogical approach played a role in persuading Alison Ricker, head of the Oberlin Science Library, to keep her job rather than move somewhere else.

“I didn’t intend to stay at Oberlin for more than three or four years: I was headed toward a big research university,” Ricker said. “Dan Moe was the first conductor I sang under and he was the reason why I became a very loyal Musical Union choir member. He was so remarkable and gentle in spirit, really nurturing, and I felt a really strong loyalty to the organization itself.”

Prior to coming to Oberlin, Ricker had experience singing with the Savannah Symphony. The Oberlin Musical Union, however, has proven to be equally rewarding in more ways than one.

“I was pregnant all through the fall semester of 1987 and into the spring semester 1988 — I was huge, really enormous, by the

ninth month,” Ricker wrote in an email to the Review. “I had the baby on Friday, March 18, [and] when it was announced that Alison Ricker (the very pregnant alto) had her baby, I was told there was a nice round of applause. So many people congratulated me and asked how things were going. …. That’s an indication of the sense of community and support among the Musical Union.”

The Ensemble was recently invited to perform alongside the College Choir, Gospel Choir, and Conservatory Orchestra at Carne-

gie Hall in January. In New York, they performed The Ordering of Moses by R. Nathaniel Dett. Presently, the group is preparing for performances set later this spring. “For a couple of community members it was their first time seeing Carnegie, and they were like, ‘Wow, I don’t think this would’ve happened if I hadn’t been a part of this group.’ And some of them have been a part of this group for decades,” Johns said. “I’d never sung at Carnegie before, and it’s definitely a career highlight now.”

Students Interest Drives Creation of First Oberlin Improv Fest

department and experience different types of improvisation.”

The festival will feature a number of diverse, College- and Conservatory-based, student-led groups in a student showcase concert Saturday from 4:30–6:30 p.m. in Wilder Hall.

Delaney Fox Conservatory Editor

This weekend, Oberlin hosts the Conservatory’s first-ever Improv Fest, a three-day event filled with masterclasses, workshops, and performances from guest artists and student groups on campus to celebrate improvised music in its many forms.

Oberlin Improv Fest will feature four guest artists: flutist and composer Nicole Mitchell; electronic musician Kojiro Umezaki, who also plays the shakuhachi, a traditional Japanese flute; multi-instrumentalist Aurora Nealand, OC ’01; and jazz pianist Luis Perdomo. Events on Saturday, March 4 will include a keyboard improvisation workshop; an information session for the new Improvisation minor; a Soundpainting workshop; a student showcase concert with performances from Oberlin College Taiko, Silent Film Ensemble, Oberlin Creative Music Lab, and Oberlin Percussion Group; and a concert from the Performance and Improvisation Ensembles with Luis Perdomo.

The inspiration for Improv Fest came to Dana Jessen, associate professor of Contemporary Music and Improvisation and chair of the Improvisation minor, and Aurie Hsu, associate professor of Computer Music and Digital Arts

in the TIMARA program, because of the importance of improvisation to Oberlin’s musical culture.

“Improvisation is deeply rooted in our campus, both in the curricular, faculty-led sense and in the student-led sense,” Jessen said.

“We wanted to draw attention [to] and celebrate all of the different types of improvisation that are happening on campus.”

This festival also functions as a kind of inauguration of the new Improvisation minor. Launched by the Conservatory last semester, the minor came to fruition because of the student demand for improvisatory music spaces.

“The inspiration came from the students,” Jessen said. “We saw that there was a lot of student interest — a lot of students already kind of going down this pathway — and so we wanted to formalize it for them.”

The minor is genreless, mimicking the nature of improvisation itself, and includes classes from the TIMARA and Historical Performance departments, creative music and free improvisation classes, and PI Ensembles.

“The minor is great because it doesn’t exist in one department; it’s very broad, and we did that intentionally because we wanted students to be able to design their own aesthetic pathway,” Jessen said. “We’re hoping that students will be inspired to get out of their

“There are always going to be student-led initiatives,” Jessen said. “We want to support that, we want them to remain student-led, but, through this festival, we also want to recognize that community is an important part of improvisation. The rationale in picking these ensembles was really just that they all exist and represent a diverse range of what improvisation can look like.”

The Music Quintet, a student-led creative music ensemble within the Jazz department, is one of the many groups on campus that practice improvisational music and will be featured in Improv Fest. The Quintet will play two of Nicole Mitchell’s compositions at her concert tonight at 8 p.m. at the Birenbaum.

Third-year Jazz Studies major Coleman Rose has played the alto saxophone for the Music Quintet since its founding last spring. He explained that the group gravitated toward creative music when they started playing their own original compositions and experimenting with graphic scores, a form of musical notation that incorporates multiple mediums.

“I personally think of creative music as an improvisational music that really values the importance of spontaneity, listening to each other, exploring different sonic spaces, and experimenting with making people feel uncomfortable or making people feel extremely comfortable — really trying to explore every end of the spectrum,” Rose said.

The Oberlin Creative Music Lab, which will perform at the

student showcase on Saturday among other student ensembles, is another group that practices this kind of improvisation. The group experiments with group sound production on members’ instruments of choice. Jessen, who leads the ensemble, also encourages students to create their own creative music compositions. First-year TIMARA and Jazz Voice major Fae Ordaz joined the group this semester with little experience in improvisation and creative music.

“It is a very safe space to explore improvisation and sound and maybe use those techniques where in jazz there is less freedom to use,” Ordaz said. “I like what’s happening with all of this programming and with improv at Oberlin. I like that it’s becoming less scary, because when I think of improv in my head, it’s a terrifying concept.”

Rose agreed with the sentiment that improvisation can be daunting, having to generate music from within yourself, but acknowledged the benefit of taking a risk.

“It’s super vulnerable sometimes, and that’s a real emotion that comes with it, but I would hope that that fear doesn’t hold people back from experimenting with this music, because it’s beautiful,” Rose said.

The fact that students may fear improvisation was something Jessen and Hsu had in mind when they created the festival. They wanted to bring interdisciplinary artists to campus and program events that would provide a space for all students, regardless of musical background or experience with improvisation.

“If anyone is feeling a little wary that they don’t know how to improvise, there are so many entryways that they can take part in through this festival,” Jessen said.

Hsu expressed her desire for the festival to inspire students to experiment with improvisation.

“I want students to come away from the festival with an emboldened sense and permission to explore using whatever methods of improvisation speak to them,” Hsu said. “I want students to find that sense of play and the sense of spontaneity that can happen when living in a moment of music-making. And it’s better to try improvisation here in a supportive, nurturing environment than be thrown into a situation in the real world that you’ve never been [in] before.”

At the heart of the organization of this festival is a belief in the importance of improvisation for the musician.

“You’re creating things — generating material,” Jessen said. “Improvisation provides a different way of knowing your instrument and your craft. As improvisers you are often discovering material, which is very different than a teacher saying, ‘I need you to do these things.’ You have a different relationship to that knowledge and understanding, and that can help you grow as an artist and can be very empowering. So for me, I think improvisation is really crucial as part of a student’s education.”

Rose echoed the value of improvisation as a practice of community and artistry — something that deserves this festival celebration.

“I see improvisation as an extension of who I am as a person, and it allows me to express myself in ways that I don’t think are possible with words,” Rose said. “It’s a beautiful experience to go through with other people because it’s a communal experience, not only within the band but with the audience too. It brings us all together and it’s why I wake up every morning and get to it.”

Musical Union rehearses in Finney Chapel.

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor

Students attend a panel discussion on improvisation with guest artists.

Photo by Erin Koo, Photo Editor

James Foster Production Editor

If you’ve ever read a gameday recap, scrolled past media day flicks of Oberlin athletes on Instagram, or even just looked at some of the photos in the Sports section of the Review, you may have Amanda Phillips to thank. A former lacrosse midfielder at the University of the Cumberlands, she has served as the assistant director of communications since January 2021. Phillips helps with a wide variety of tasks such as photography, statistics, social media, and more to keep Oberlin athletics running for athletes, coaches, and fans.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How did your college athletic experience lead you to your current position?

In my third year of college, we won our conference championship. It was our very first one, partly because it was only our third year in program history. I did a post-game interview with our sports information director at the time, Tommy Chasnoff. He really liked what I had to say and the on-camera personality I showcased. He then ended up talking to me and was like, “I don’t know what your plans are, but I think you’ve got a knack for this.”

I wasn’t officially an intern, just an office assistant my senior year in the sports information department. A lot of it was just broadcasting, helping out with lacrosse and then soccer in the fall. I loved it. Then I took a graduate assistant position while I did my masters in the same department with Tommy. That’s how I got into the field as far as what I learned on the field and how it has helped me today.

How do you use the lessons you learned on the lacrosse field in your job today?

The nature of women’s lacrosse is pretty fast paced. You’re juggling between watching your defense, watching your offense, and carrying a ball up the field. You have to be cradling the ball constantly, making sure you’re following the game plan. The fastpaced environment of athletics in general prepared me for the fast-paced environment that is athletics communications, and also just being a student of not just lacrosse, but of sports — un-

Amanda Phillips

Assistant Director of Athletics Communications

derstanding how soccer works, staying up to date with basketball regulations, knowing what’s considered a statistic.

What is your favorite part of both your day-to-day duties and the special tasks associated with this role?

We just recently launched our TikTok under the name @yeo_ athletics, and that has been so much fun. I like TikTok, but I’m not a TikTok creator. I’m working with Admissions Counselor Leah Crowther, OC ’21, and Assistant Vice President of Admissions Communications Ben Jones, OC ’96, and they’re helping out with some of the main TikTok duties. I’ve learned a lot and it’s been a very fun social media role to take on.

I think a special role I’ve taken a small step back from is ingame photography — this past year, we’ve hired so many phenomenal student photographers that have taken on that job. But I have now been exposed to this supervisor role that I enjoy. I really like seeing our photographers and watching them grow. We’ve had several this past year that had never taken photos of games before — first-years Suada Duvette and Callie Bateman, to name a couple — and it’s been so impressive to watch them look at their very first gallery to the galleries they’ve created now. And then there’s fourth-year Chase Sortor, fourth-year Lucas Draper, and third-year Maggie Balderstone — three people that have been taking photos with us in the past prior to my arrival.

Your GoYeo match and game recaps provide Obies with great information about all the sporting events around campus. What does your writing and research process look like for those?

I will say [Assistant Director of Athletics Communications and Compliance] Mike Mancini is a much better writer than I am. He has offered a lot of support in that department. When I entered this field, I was probably a stronger graphic designer, statistician, and social media manager than I was a writer. He really mentored me in the different ways of the writing process and how to best put a recap together.

There’s certain vernacular that’s used in sports writing that isn’t used in traditional writing. I real-

ly like to look at our stats … instead of regurgitating them, because you can look at the PDF or you can look at the box score, say “Okay, player A scored six goals, had one assist, and took seven shots. Player B, however, had many ground balls or three point attempts.” I think my process starts with the stats, and, when I get the opportunity, I add that color to it.

What traits do you think are necessary to have success in this role?

You definitely have to be affable. You need to get along with other people. You’re going to run into brand new coaches, you’re going to run into players that have questions. You’re going to

run into other statisticians while you’re out in the field. Whether you’re traveling or they’re coming to you, you have to be willing to help people.

You have to be able to juggle every hat that’s thrown your way. If I couldn’t handle change, this would be a very difficult job to have. Not everybody wants to work a blowout game on a rainy Tuesday night, but that’s so important. You might not be the biggest fan of basketball for whatever reason, but you still have to put forth that effort because for the basketball players, they don’t care whether you like basketball or not, this is their sport. Along with just getting along with everybody, you have to put care and effort into your work.

What should someone who’s interested in becoming involved with athletics communications do?

Get involved in journalism, get involved in photography. I think being involved with the Review is a big thing. I think a lot of people don’t know that. Athletics communications is pretty broad. You can do a lot of different things in my field. You can be a social media manager, a photographer, a videographer, a content producer. You can just be running stats, you can be a game day operator. There’s so many different hats. But get involved in media in any way possible. If there’s anybody that wants to work in athletics communications, shoot me an email.

Assistant Director of Athletic Communications Amanda Phillips

Amanda Phillips has taken a wide variety of in-game photos for Oberlin Athletics.

Photo by Erin Koo, Photo Editor

Photos courtesy of Amanda Phillips

WWE Entertains Fanbase With Unique Characters

Nora McIntyre

In October, I drove to Toledo to attend a taping of WWE’s Friday Night Smackdown. Armed with a homemade sign that read “Pride Fighter” with a rainbow through the center, I made my way to the Huntington Center excited to see my favorite superstars in person for the first time. I went alone, but I certainly didn’t feel lonely due to the frenetic energy of the crowd and the little girl next to me who was eager to chat and ask questions — she told me her favorite wrestler was Liv Morgan “because she’s pretty and strong.”

This was my first time attending a WWE event since I became interested in professional wrestling, an interest which often comes as a surprise to people. After all, I don’t scream “wrestling fan” at first glance; I’m a woman, I have no interest in other sports, and I’m not a violent person. Where’s the appeal in watching people hit each other? But I’m not as much of an anomaly as I may seem — just ask the online army of queer women who all talk about professional wrestling with just as much passion as I do. Wrestling fans span all kinds of people, from that little girl next to me in Toledo to the straight men who represent the more traditional image of the wrestling fandom. The question remains, though, what makes all sorts of people want to watch people in Spandex duke it out? Well, part of it is the action — sometimes it’s fun to watch people slam each other, do a flip off the top rope, or get hit with steel chairs — but a deeper part of the appeal is that professional wrestling is a type of long-form storytelling. In order to explain how storytelling in wrestling works, we’re going to have to acknowledge something: Wrestling is fake. Despite what outsiders sometimes think, this doesn’t actually come as a shock to most fans, nor is it even a well-kept secret, at least in the current era. Some fans will push back and tell you that it’s not fake, it’s predetermined — after all, wrestlers are still athletes, even if they know how their matches are ending — but the point remains more or less the same. Wrestling isn’t real, and that’s what draws people to it.

Part of the fakeness that makes wrestling so great is the characters; even if the performers are real people, they’re not portray-

ing their real selves. Most of them aren’t going by their real names. WWE’s characters run the gamut from mundane to absurd, realistic to supernatural, and genuinely good to totally evil. Not only does this diversity mean that the show is fun to watch, with good guys to cheer for and bad guys to boo, it also means that there’s a favorite character for everyone. Any type of person or demographic you can think of, there’s a character or group that appeals to them.

Liv Morgan might have been the little girl in Toledo’s favorite because she’s pretty and strong, but if goth girls are more your style, Rhea Ripley might be up your alley. If you like guys with swords, Drew McIntyre might be for you. A rap group? A male modeling agency? A pair of vikings? WWE’s got you covered.

The other part of the fakeness is the story that goes along with professional wrestling. Yeah, the outcomes of the matches are predetermined, but it’s not just for the sake of being fake, it’s for the sake of storytelling. In fact, half of professional wrestling isn’t even wrestling — it’s performers talking to the audience or each other, slinging insults, explaining their motivations, and generally advancing the stories they’re a part of. WWE’s diverse cast of characters get into all sorts of storylines, spanning genres from drama to comedy to supernatural horror. A viewer might tune in and witness an ax-murderer’s wedding, a feud between twin brothers, and a contract-signing-turned-brawl all in one night. It’s like a soap opera, but with more powerbombs.

So, professional wrestling is fake, and that’s why people like it. But that’s only half the story. Wrestling is built on community. Going to that show in Toledo wasn’t just about getting to see my favorite superstars in person, it was also about meeting people who loved what I loved. It was about chatting with that little girl, feeling the energy of the crowd, and joining in with everyone around me to cheer for the wrestlers we liked and boo the wrestlers we didn’t. Ultimately, wrestling is about people. It brings people together across ages, genders, sexualities, and more, and unites us around a common interest: watching people in funny outfits beat each other up. Because wrestling, like most things, is better when you share it.

Last Chance U: Basketball Gives Space to Celebrate College Athlete Journeys

Continued from page 16

several players to get a few different kinds of stories, and this season in particular has some compelling ones that really humanize them.

Historically, the show has included stories of athletes who were big stars as high schoolers and some who had even previously attended Division I schools but had to leave for one reason or another. This season, the show focuses on Bryan Penn-Johnson, a University of Washington and Louisiana State University transfer; Demetrius Calip II, a University of Illinois Chicago transfer; and Shemar Morrow, a former Ohio high school star who was dubbed “the next LeBron” for his highlights as a sixth-grader, but didn’t get any Division I opportunities.

Last Chance U really gets into the disappointment and letdown these particular players face. Most of the young men featured in the series don’t want to be playing at a junior college, especially those who once enjoyed the privileges of playing on scholarship at a Division I university.

Out of the athletes in the most recent season, Penn-Johnson has the most compelling story. His issues started with the frustration of limited playing time on a highly talented roster at Washington, followed by academic issues at LSU that brought him to ELAC. The initial image I got of Penn-Johnson was that he thought college basketball would come easy to him as a seven-footer. However, we learn about things in life that held him back, like dealing with experiencing houselessness

and simultaneously having to take care of his sister. It prompted me to try to imagine how low schoolwork would be on my list of priorities if I were in that situation. One of the most memorable moments of the season shows Penn-Johnson explaining why he always sleeps on his back with his knees bent: He was used to putting his belongings under his legs to prevent them from getting stolen at the homeless shelter.

Other players were simply overlooked in high school, and Last Chance U shows their hunger to earn a scholarship as well. Josh Phillips is an example of this, and the show tells his story thoughtfully. Early into Phillips’ feature in the season, we learn that he is autistic, which can carry a stigma in the sports world. From a basketball standpoint, he gets

treated no differently by Coach Mosely and the assistant coaches. They understand that Phillips might process things differently, but they know he’s an asset to the team and want to get the best out of him. Throughout the season we see Phillips work hard on and off the court, and it pays off for him. His story is so powerful because there isn’t much representation of autistic athletes and is another reason to give the show a watch.

Another highlight of the most recent season is the story of Damani Whitlock. He is another player who shows tremendous grit, which encourages viewers to cheer him on. He’s only six feet tall, deals with heart issues, and broke his nose during the season, but could be the hardest-working player on the court. The show captures his emotion while he navi-

gates various obstacles effectively. Viewers can feel the depression that hits him when he’s forced to miss time at the start of the season due to his heart condition, as well as his excitement when he makes a great play on defense to help his team win. There’s a real level of investment in the players that the show calls for from the viewers.

These are just a few of the highlights of season two of Last Chance U: Basketball. This edition of the show tells many more incredible personal stories of players and coaches. It also details an impressive run from the ELAC basketball team during their 2021–22 season and has plenty of basketball drama. It’s definitely worth a watch if you’re looking to get into the basketball spirit this March.

WWE continues to entertain and bring people together.

Photo courtesy of Etsuo Hara

Photo courtesy of Ethan Miller

Track and Field, Women’s Basketball Cheer Each Other On During NCAC Championships in Indiana

Kayla Kim Sports Editor

Last Friday, 333 miles away at DePauw University in Greencastle, IN, the women’s basketball team and the men’s and women’s track and field teams competed in their respective North Coast Athletic Conference Championships events. Each team took time to fully support each other; when Oberlin athletes filled the stands, the crowd was so loud that the commentators took the time to acknowledge them in both the semifinal and final rounds of competition. Oberlin Athletics even reposted a video of their chants of “Yeo Baby” on Twitter and Instagram.

Both track and field teams were wrapping up their first day of competition, and basketball was competing against Wittenberg University in the semifinal round. Toward the end of the day, Head Track and Field and Cross Country Coach Ray Appenheimer noticed that many of his athletes were interested in the game and allowed some to walk over to support the basketball team.

“As the first day of competition was winding down, you could see lots of folks on their phones watching the livestream,” Appenheimer said. “I would say there were probably 20 or 30 of them who [were] obviously really into it. One of our seniors, [fourth-year] Theo Haviland, was like, ‘Hey, coach, can we go?’ I was like, ‘Sure, of course you can go.’”

DePauw’s Indoor Track and Field Center is about a half mile walk away from Neal Fieldhouse, where the basketball game was held, so a few members of the track and field team had to run over in order to make it by the end of the third quarter.

“I was concerned because our sense of direction isn’t always the best on this team,” Appenheimer said.

Fourth-year Iyanna Lewis, defending NCAC women’s weight throw champion, also led multiple rounds of the song, “Yeo Baby.” The track and field teams

also donned capes — Lewis credits fifth-year Captain Sarah Voit for the idea — which they waved at Wittenberg whenever the Tigers attempted to make free throws.

“The rest of the parents that were at the game [were] just surprised that all of us had come in,” Lewis said. “Afterwards, I watched it back and the announcers were like, ‘Whoa, Oberlin’s fan section is so huge.’ We could tell that they were playing music to try to get us to dance.”

With two minutes left to spare, the rest of the team was able to make it to the game, though Appenheimer noted that, “in basketball times, [two minutes is] a half hour.”

Ultimately, fourth-seed Oberlin upset Wittenberg, the firstseed team in the tournament, and danced its way to the finals for the first time since 2018 to continue their Cinderella run. Before playing against Ohio Wesleyan University, the basketball team repaid the favor and cheered on the men’s weight-throwers and women’s shot-putters.

Although the clock struck midnight too soon with a 79–71 loss and 17–11 overall season finish, third-year guard Gina Lombard, who played an integral role in both games and was named to the NCAC third-team after the finals, enjoyed the celebration after Oberlin’s success over Wittenberg and its hard fought attempt against OWU.

“The feeling of beating [Wittenberg] and having the whole track team there to celebrate with us … was something that [I’ll] remember for a while,” Lombard said. “The whole weekend was a highlight for me.”

Appenheimer reflected that inter-team support is what makes Oberlin unique from different schools, even beyond athletics.

“If I’m being a little selfish, I will tell you Wittenberg’s track team was there too at the track meet but wasn’t at the basketball game,” Appenheimer said.

“I really think [it] speaks to this place and this community. … We

understand that the more supportive your community, the better your performance is going to be. … So much of what we do around here is ‘I see you, … and I want to be here for you, and if there’s anything I can do to help support you, help challenge you, help build you up, I’m gonna do that for you.’ That’s not only a basketball or track thing, and it’s not only a department of Athletics thing — it’s an Oberlin thing. It is part of the fabric of this place, and it’s why we all choose to come here every single day.”

New Last Chance U: Basketball Season Highlights Personal Stories

John Elrod Sports Editor

It’s March — the biggest basketball month of the year — which means that the top Division I basketball players will be featured throughout their journey to the championships. But what happened to those who weren’t able to make it to that level? The series Last Chance U does an incredible job telling the stories of some of the most talented college athletes you’ve never heard of.

It centers on junior college football and basketball teams made up of young men who were rejected by Division I schools for various reasons, including off-the-field issues, academic performance prob-

lems, injuries, and being overlooked from a talent standpoint. The series provides great insight into the kind of lives these players lead — it isn’t just about the battle they go through on the court or field, but how they manage their struggles outside of sports, too. As a college student, it’s impossible not to be impacted by stories of other college students that highlights struggle and overcoming challenges.

The most recent basketball season of the show came out in December 2022. This was the second season following the East Los Angeles College men’s basketball team led by Head Coach John Mosley. The show centers around

Last Chance U: Basketball focuses on basketball players at East Los Angeles College

Track and field cheers on basketball during the semifinal round against Wittenberg University.

Photo courtesy of Netflix

Photo courtesy of Kyle Youngblood See Last Chance, page 15