An incident involving unauthorized access, theft, and destruction of property occurred within Clarity on Sept. 24 between 2 and 3:30 a.m. Clarity is a dining space on campus that provides entrées with meat and plant options free of a eight common food allergens. As a result of the incident, Clarity closed for the rest of the weekend and the following Monday.
The Board of Trustees will be voting on revisions to Ober lin College’s bylaws, as proposed by the Nominations & Governance Committee, during its next meeting Oct. 6 and 7. The College’s current bylaws outline the terms of governance over the institution, wherein the board has ultimate authority to oversee operations of the College and may delegate responsibilities to various other gov erning bodies within the institution.
President Carmen Twillie Ambar announced this in tent to amend the bylaws in a General Faculty meeting Wednesday, Sept. 21. N&G sent a document to faculty fur ther explaining these changes that evening, and faculty have since raised concerns over changes to faculty gover nance structures. The complete document is available on The Oberlin Review website.
“As the current bylaws state, the board is the govern ing body of the College and retains all the powers appro priate to that status,” Vice Chair of the Board Lillie Ed wards, OC ’75, told the Review. “The revision mirrors that same statement with greater specificity that not only does the board hold that power, but it also delegates authority both to the president, as the head of the administration, and to the faculty.”
The proposed amendment addresses six sections of the existing bylaws: overarching authority of the board, the role of the president, the roles of general and divisional faculty bodies, the process for the appointment of deans; the structure of committees under the board; and the dis cretionary appointment of the provost position. The first two proposals concern articles one and five of the existing bylaws, regarding the board and the president respective ly. These proposals are meant to reaffirm the authority of the board and the president, the scope of their responsi bilities, and the fact that the board delegates authority to all other governing bodies within the institution.
The third proposal updates the faculty governance systems and specifies their jurisdiction over only academ ic matters and those elements of student life that relate to curriculum — a shift from the previously broader man date of generally managing internal affairs in accordance with the bylaws. The fourth proposal suggests a change to the process of appointing deans, specifically in the composition and selection of search committee members.
The fifth proposal concerns the internal structure of the board’s committees, namely combining the Student Af fairs and Academic Affairs Committees into a single Stu dent and Faculty Success Committee, in addition to the creation of a Tenure and Promotion Committee. Lastly, the sixth proposal contextualizes the role of the provost in the event the board decides to appoint someone to that position.
“The conversation about refining the bylaws has been going on for a very long time,” Edwards said. “When I came onto the board in 2014 and began working with fac ulty and the administration on strategic planning, there was a recurring refrain regarding the need to revise the bylaws. The current bylaws align neither with how we operate nor with the structures and demands of higher education in the 21st century. ... The current bylaws do not reflect the ways the external world views institutional re sponsibility. They are messy and misaligned. The bylaws revision provides clarity and alignment.”
Edwards added that the revised bylaws would better reflect the manner in which the College does business. According to Trustee Chuck Birenbaum, OC ’79, these changes will help protect the College from a variety of liabilities.
“The board recognized our claims history was a lot greater than it should be for an institution of Oberlin’s size,” Birenbaum said. “The number of lawsuits, employ ment cases, Title IX claims, personal injury cases, the Gibson’s case, which we can call a torts case — all these claims demonstrated that Oberlin needed to take a hard look at itself in some ways that it hasn’t before. One of the things that [Oberlin] did was it sought professional advice on risk management. A firm came in and performed a whole process on risk management, and one of the areas that they pointed to for risk at Oberlin was ambiguity and the lack of clarity in the bylaws on governance and who should make decisions about what. And in the event in a shared governance situation there’s an impasse, how was that resolved?”
N&G met with members of the General Faculty Coun cil, elected representatives of the General Faculty, to de liberate on these proposals over the course of eight meet ings between Feb. 28 and May 23. The revised bylaws would authorize faculty to make decisions exclusively over academic matters, while simultaneously shifting
Campus Safety sent an email to the student body providing information on the closure. The emails also directed students looking for other food options to the AVI Foodsystems website and asked for any information on the incident.
“This type of behavior is disappointing and unacceptable in our community,” Campus Safety wrote in the email. “It also has a negative impact on members within the campus community, especially our dining staff, and the students who rely on this facility for their food service.”
Campus Safety responds to any criminal incidents, suspicious activity, requests for assistance, and emergencies on campus. Officers arrived at Clarity after someone reported the incident to Campus Safety.
“Campus Safety is always taking measures to improve security to ensure the safety and well-being of our community,” Anthony J. Traska, director of Campus Safety, wrote in an email to the Review “While we cannot always guarantee safety, we are actively reviewing to determine what additional measures we can take to secure our facilities. We really depend on our partnership with the campus community to help maintain a safe campus. We encourage everyone to utilize the ‘See Something, Say Something’ philosophy. If something does not look right, we encourage everyone to call Campus Safety immediately.”
While officers consistently patrol campus routes, dining halls have no extra precautionary measures to protect the space when staff is not there. Specifically, dining halls located in residence halls, such as Clarity, which is located in Fairchild House, allow students to go in and out of the space at all hours.
“Security measures for dining halls are currently under review to determine if there are some opportunities to improve the security of these areas on campus,” Traska continued. “We do have 24-hour-a-day security with Campus Safety officers actively patrolling the campus and available to respond to calls on campus.”
The closure forced students on the dining plan with allergens to eat elsewhere over the weekend.
“Clarity provides a safe space for people with dietary restrictions,” College fourth-year Evyn Lundy, the former Student Senate food and dining liaison, said. “Lots of people go there because campus dining is inaccessible to people with allergies.”
The incident at Clarity is an open and active investigation, and details on the case have not been made available to the public. Students should report any violation of campus policy to the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards.
The Board will vote on proposed amendments to the College bylaws Oct. 6. Photo by Erin Koo, Photo EditorAfter about a year of partial closure, the Arboretum is reopening in full. Construction was initially forecasted to conclude in December of 2021, but was delayed due to material and labor shortages and weather-related setbacks. The renovated Arboretum features a wetland designed to meet the recommendations put forth by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources following its 2018 inspection.
Prior to the inspection, the City Department of Public Works noted a four- to five-inch decrease in water level in the upper west Morgan Street reservoir and a clogged drain in the lower east reservoir. To rectify these issues and adhere to the ODNR’s recommendations, Public Works contracted Big Trees, Inc. of Columbia Station, OH, to convert the west reservoir into a wetland.
In addition to resolving these issues, the Environmental Design Group, which was contracted to design the remediation, expressed hopes that the palustrine and forested wetlands would allow plant communities to thrive. In late summer of this year, Big Trees, Inc. subcontracted Schirmer Construction, which completed the implementation of a new boardwalk between the upper and lower wetlands, a wetland observation deck, a staircase at the wetland spillway, and handrails on an existing stone staircase.
During the most recent phase of construction, the Arboretum was open to the public exclusively through the Ladies Grove and South Professor Street entrances. Many students are glad to see Arboretum access restored, including College fourth-year Jory Teltser.
“I like to go birdwatching in the Arb,” Teltser said. “I think it’s a really cool place to see birds, and it’s a really cool spot to walk and clear my head.”
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that responsibility from General Faculty to divisional fac ulty bodies.
“The divisional faculty bodies, subject to the guidance and approval of the Board of Trustees and consistent with the Bylaws, are responsible for the internal affairs of the College in matters pertaining to educational policy, cur riculum, methods of instruction, degree requirements, those aspects of student life that relate to students’ aca demic experience, and the evaluation of the faculty for appointment, tenure and promotion,” the proposed revi sion reads.
The bylaws currently authorize the General Faculty to propose, deliberate, and vote on matters related to the general welfare of the institution, including regulations pertaining to student organizations and conduct across divisions. The president then reports especially import ant changes to the board for their consideration. For ex ample, the General Faculty has previously voted to ap prove decisions like a campus-wide tobacco ban in 2014 and the One Oberlin Report in 2018.
Nathan A. Greenberg Professor of Classics Kirk Or mand raised concerns that the new bylaws would con tradict the Finney Compact — an agreement between Charles Grandison Finney and the Oberlin Collegiate In
Arts
stitute dating back to 1835. The compact was introduced by Finney as a prerequisite to his acceptance of the Col lege’s offer to join as a professor of Theology. Clause three of the agreement stipulates that the trustees should give internal control of the institution to faculty, including dis cretion over admitting students irrespective of color.
“One of the things that Oberlin has been known for from the very beginning of its existence as a college is a strong system of faculty governance,” Ormand said. “Which is to say, it has been the understanding of the board, and the administration, and the faculty at Oberlin literally since 1835, that the faculty run the College. The College is not run by the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees manages our money. They are, of course, ulti mately responsible for what the College does, and there fore they have the right to prevent us from making largescale changes to the way that the College is run, that sort of thing. … But controlling the budget is not the same thing as initiating and determining the strategic direction of the College, the operational direction of the College.”
According to N&G, the existing bylaws are unclear on the extent of faculty authority over operational manage ment, and these proposed revisions would clarify that the faculty do not have voting or direct decision-making
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authority over such topics. However, Birenbaum empha sized that the board still expects faculty to offer their opinions and be involved in the long-term strategic delib erations of the College.
“We are not by this draft of the bylaws suggesting [fac ulty] should limit their concerns,” Birenbaum said. “What we’re doing is clarifying the voting authority of the board — to the president, to the faculty — about who has author ity to decide what. But as to how those decisions are made and input is gathered, and what sensibilities are import ant and what advice comes to the board on what to do, there’s no limitation. ... I don’t think there’s going to be a material change in that way. I think we’re going to con tinue to solicit opinions on the involvement of the faculty, both in their organizational structure [and] individually, like how they sit on committees with board members — like the Investment Committee.”
Edwards and Birenbaum briefed faculty members on these proposals this past Wednesday afternoon. Accord ing to Birenbaum, they received several comments on the proposals from faculty members during the briefing. This feedback will be presented to the board during their Oct. 6 meeting before the final vote takes place that weekend.
Corrections:
In “AVI Implements Dining Changes, Students Respond,” published Sept. 23, 2022, the Review reported that reusable eco boxes were available for purchase at Stevenson Dining Hall, Heritage Kosher Kitchen, and Clarity.
According to the AVI Foodsystems website, eco boxes are not available for purchase at Heritage or Clarity but are available at Lord Saunders Dining Hall. The Review regrets this error.
In “How Do I Vote?” published Sept. 23, 2022, it was incorrectly stated that “All students living in traditional dorms, except Old Barrows, vote in Phillips gym.” Additionally, the map shown was an outdated map.
Precincts 3, 4, 7, and 8 (which includes nearly all college housing) will vote at the old Prospect School on the corner of Elm Street and South Prospect Street (just south of West College Street). Precincts 1, 5, and 6 (includes Firelands Apartments, Old Barrows, and Tank Hall) vote at the Zion Fellowship Hall. The Review regrets this error.
Photos by Abe Frato, Photo Editor The Arboretum reopened in full to the public after resolving concerns raised by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.the Canadian government understands the way these particular groups of First Nations peoples understand the land.
Could you tell me more about how the Canadian government could alter its approach or policy to come to a better resolution?
I think they need to recognize the significance of the theological beliefs of many of these First Nations groups. Their fundamental views theologically are about the importance of the land, whereas governments tend to see the land almost purely in economic terms. This is why there’s constantly an effort to say, “Well, we might not give you this piece of land, but we’ll give you another piece of land that’s equally valuable.” Or, “We’ll give you all this money, which is what it might cost you to buy this land.” It just misses the point.
How did you become involved with the land rights debate?
an honorary degree to Harry Truman. She thought she should object to this because of Truman’s act of dropping the atomic bombs, which killed hundreds of thousands of people, including tens of thousands of women and children, elderly, and disabled people who had nothing to do with the war, and yet they were just vaporized in seconds.
She thought, obviously lots of people do evil and you can’t object to everyone, but Truman was so closely associated in most people’s minds with this action. He was so notorious for it, and he continued to publicly laud what he had done — although various biographies show that behind the scenes, he clearly wasn’t so happy about what he had done, but he would never admit that. So Anscombe started a protest against his getting this degree, which almost nobody went along with. She got all these criticisms, and she continued to argue about this great injustice of killing innocent people. This issue led her to think about how you distinguish between say, legitimate killing in war versus what is just murder.
John Berkman Courtesy of University of Toronto Sofia Tomasic Senior Staff WriterOn Thursday, Professor of Moral Theology at the University of Toronto John Berkman gave a talk in King Building titled “First Nations Land Claims in Canada: Religious and Political Factors.” This lecture was part of the MeadSwing Lecture Series and covered some of the impediments to reconciliation between Indigenous peoples of southern Canada and the Canadian government, particularly the role religion has played in the conflict.
This interview was conducted prior to the lecture and has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you talk a little bit about what you will cover in your lecture?
I’ll begin with one example of a dispute over land in southwestern Ontario, just north of Lake Erie. It is a conflict and a protest that has been going on in the last couple of years. I’ll try to give an account of how that has come to be historically, going right back to when the original treaties were made, when and why this particular land grant was given to the six nations, then how it has come to be that they now only possess 5 percent of the land that was acknowledged to be theirs by the British government 200 years ago. I think one of the key things that keeps there from being an adequate resolution is fundamentally incompatible understandings of land: its significance, its status, its theological import — or lack thereof. We cannot hope for a proper resolution until
Well, my college is a Jesuit college. It’s had very longstanding historical interests in First Nations peoples and in trying to right the injustices done to them. I’d thought about this issue off and on, and then I was given the opportunity last year to be on sabbatical and think about questions about land and land rights. I decided that I really wanted to take up this question more in detail.
For Oberlin students who attend your lecture, how can this topic be applied to the United States or our thinking about these issues?
The conflicts that were going on that I’ll talk about were also conflicts that were going on around Oberlin — in Pennsylvania and Ohio. In fact, the Ohio River on the eastern border of Ohio was where the First Nations wanted a border when they were trying to make treaties with the young American state. Although they were willing to make some small treaties, they wouldn’t make any overarching treaty with a whole group of various nations of Indigenous people. What went on at that time and since in Canada has also been replicated in the U.S. in analogously relevant ways. I hope that we’ll better be able to see the nature of the historical injustices done and how those continue today.
The work I’ve been really focused on for the last few years has to do with a very famous philosopher, Elizabeth Anscombe. She was one of the great 20th-century philosophers whose work was driven by concerns over certain injustices. What really got her started on it was in the mid-’50s, when Oxford University wanted to give
This, of course, is relevant now when we read about these atrocities in Ukraine and we start talking about war crimes. Not every killing of a soldier is a war crime, but this killing — torturing — of civilians, women, and children, is. So she spent an awful lot of time trying to help us understand how we ought to distinguish between what could constitute legitimate killing versus what is simply murder, which for her was the intentional killing of innocent persons.
Interestingly, her work on this in the ’50s and early ’60s became very influential for the U.S. and British militaries. For example, recently when the U.S. mistakenly sent a drone and blew up a site, and it turned out not to be terrorists but in fact innocent persons, they not only acknowledged their wrongdoing but tried to pay some reparations for that wrong. Now, of course there’s no adequate reparation for killing innocent people, but that recognition by a government that it did wrong and it tried to do something more than just symbolic to right that wrong is a huge change in attitude and action that you see so rarely. This move by most Western militaries to really try to target only legitimate military targets and not bomb civilians has become very much standard among many militaries. It’s clearly not the standard with Russia’s more or less indiscriminate artillery fire, which is hitting hospitals, schools, all kinds of non-military targets. But I think Anscombe’s work helped many of us in Western society to recognize this and to realize we can’t do what Truman did. We can’t simply drop bombs on innocent people as a way to conduct war. So I’ve been working on a number of essays on her and am moving toward a biography of her early life.
The Career Exploration and Development Center is launching Junior Practicum 2.0 this semester. This updated version of Junior Practicum aims to be more accessible and to increase opportunities for students to gain experience applying to jobs and internships. The new Junior Practicum will do away with the weekly course requirement and will now allow students to apply for specific internships rather than being matched to them.
In the previous model of Junior Practicum, students were required to enroll in a two-credit LEAD course that would provide them with information and skills to help them explore their chosen professional field. The new model has replaced this class with a series of workshops and panel discussions spread throughout the semester.
According to Executive Director of Career Exploration and Development Anthony Pernell-McGee, this change was made in order to decrease the burden on students, as well as to make the resources it offers more accessible to student-athletes.
“I felt as if it was putting more burden and pressure on the students,” Pernell-McGee said. “The program is more flexible and we’re going to be offering workshops and career panels at 7:30 [p.m.] so that the athletes will be able to attend as well.”
While students will now have to select and apply for their own internship over the summer, they will have the opportunity to browse internships posted by employers,
many of whom are Oberlin alumni, on a new online platform. The program will continue to offer funding for unpaid or low-paying summer internships.
According to Pernell-McGee, having students proactively seek out internships will create a stronger and more engaged partnership.
“It’s making sure that the alum has a student who is interested in what they’re doing,” Pernell-McGee said. “And to me, the only way to do that is to really interview the student so that the student and the alum are in alignment in that this is the best match.”
He also hopes that this change will help students build critical cover letter writing and interviewing skills. “I do believe that having students apply for internships that they’re interested in and then having them sit for an interview, which helps them hone their interview skills — I think that is the best practice, so I’m excited to see the results this year,” Pernell-McGee said.
Rami Puangkam, OC ’22, worked as a peer-to-peer career advisor during last year’s Junior Practicum. She agreed that the matching system had challenges that the new system might alleviate.
“I think one of the things that was very big last year was that if you get a job or internship, you have to be a good representative of Oberlin so that in the future, students can get the same position or more opportunities,” Puangkam said. “I feel like if they’re not actually engaged or don’t actually want the internship in the first place, they might not act in the best interest they could have.”
She also believes that the new system will force students to be more proactive about their internships
and lend them greater agency in the process, though she recognizes that the previous system had some benefits that this year’s version will miss out on.
“I feel like the matching is kind of nice because it helps students to find jobs, especially for international students, which is hard sometimes for landing your own internship,” Puangkam said.
She also mentioned that with the lack of a required weekly course, the Career Center will have to be more proactive in getting the information out to students.
College third-year Jessie Goldberg applied for the new version of the Junior Practicum. She noted that while the new internship process might be more challenging, it is also more realistic.
“It sounds like it might require more effort from me to actually get an internship this summer, but I think that mirrors more the reality of getting a job,” Goldberg said. “It’s good and bad, I guess, because you don’t really have that built-in safety net.”
While some of the specifics have changed within the Junior Practicum, Pernell-McGee noted that the core values are still the same.
“Internships are important to the student’s development and career exploration,” Pernell-McGee said. “You are developing those core skills that employers are looking for. You are evaluating and assessing if this internship is the right fit for you, for your career. You are just making yourself more marketable and you are developing those core skills that you can’t get in the classroom.”
Applications for the Junior Practicum are due Oct. 14.
On Thursday, the Office of the President announced via email that Oberlin had entered into a partnership with both the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and the Global Foundation for the Performing Arts. Though UNITAR is collaborating with several institutions of higher education, Oberlin is the only undergraduate institution on the roster.
The partnership officially began yesterday, but the first initiative will take place in December of this year with a student choir and orchestra performance at Carnegie Hall in New York, where members of the U.N. will be in attendance. As the partnership develops, the College and UNITAR
will collaborate to bring international students to Oberlin for summer English immersion programs.
Additionally, according to the Thursday email, students can expect programs during the academic year as well.
“We will work with the U.N. on joint practicebased initiatives that include performance opportunities, educational and research opportunities, conferences, and symposia, all in partnership with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and the Global Foundation for the Performing Arts,” the email read.
According to Chief of Staff David Hertz, conversations began this past summer, when representatives of UNITAR reached out to College administrators.
“When they approached us in the summer,
they said that they were assembling a small group of colleges and universities of high quality and similar ideals to work with the U.N. and coordinate on this academic program that would introduce international students to these higher education institutions and give them the opportunity that they otherwise wouldn’t have to attend these institutions,” Hertz said.
Hertz forecasts that this collaboration to bring students to Oberlin may begin as early as this coming summer and that the school-year programs could commence the following fall.
“We plan on growing this partnership and developing it for a good number of years, and hopefully the fruits of that labor will continue to benefit Oberlin and the students who come here for 20, 30 years,” Hertz said.
The annual Oberlin Community Candidates Night took place on Tuesday, Sept. 20. Candidates presented their platforms and answered questions from College students and community members, providing insight into the November midterm election. The ballot will also feature two proposed amendments to the Ohio State Constitution, four tax levy renewals, and two Oberlin income tax renewals.
The Community Candidates Night kicked off with District 56 Ohio State House Representative Democrat Joe Miller sharing the stage with the candidate running as his functional replacement, President of Oberlin City Council Bryan Burgess. Miller currently represents Oberlin, but as a result of this year’s redistricting process, District 56 no longer encompasses the City, and Miller will instead be running for reelection to represent District 53. Burgess, on the other hand, is running for election to represent State House District 54, which does include Oberlin.
Following Miller and Burgess, candidates running for State Board of Education, Congressional Representatives, State Senator, and Treasurer of State fielded audience questions. Despite his candidacy for State Senate District 13, Lorain Democrat Anthony Eliopolous gave voice to frustration felt by municipal governments after years of state budget cuts.
“When it comes to the fundamental needs of a community, that should not be determined by state senators,” Eliopolous said. “That sort of stuff should just be giving the resources to the local communities. A lot of the talk today is about returning that local funding to local governments, and to me, that’s just the way it ought to be. Because we’ve had conversations: Does Oberlin deserve a park? Does Amherst deserve a park? Does Lorain? I mean, shoot — they all deserve a park.”
Candidates for County Auditor and County Commissioner presented their platforms, and six judges running for Lorain County Court of Common Pleas or District Court of Appeals closed out the night.
Magistrate Amber Crowe, a Democratic candidate for Judge of the Ninth District Court of Appeals, spoke passionately about demystifying the workings of the court, echoing other candidates’ enthusiasm to return power to localities and individuals.
“I think we could engage and take opportunities to have people come to the court for us to go and do speaking engagements, and explain what the court
actually does,” Crowe said. “But I think one of the best ideas I’ve seen, and what I would really like to implement more, is engaging high school students — having mock trials, allowing them to come in and see and observe oral arguments, and things like that.”
Crowe emphasized the importance of justices holding themselves accountable to their community, especially considering the context of recent landmark decisions made by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I think at this point in time, we have seen the impact that courts have on our daily life — how we are in our daily lives is going to be how we serve on the bench. So, I respect the single mom that comes before me [who] maybe can’t use her last bit of vacation time, and I change my pre-trial dates,” Crowe said. “It’s really all about what we can do.”
Magistrate Erica Voorhees, a Democratic candidate for Judge of the Ninth District Court of Appeals, expressed a similar sense of renewed urgency and explained what motivates her civil service.
“My kids are watching, and I’m not going to sit around and do nothing when it feels like I’m able to help my community in some way,” Voorhees said.
In previous years, the event was supplemented by an issues night, dedicated to unpacking issues, referendums, and other non-candidate items on the ballot.
This coming election features two proposed income tax renewals which represent 0.2 percent and 0.6 percent of Oberlin residents’ incomes. If renewed, these taxes would generate $647,000 and $1.9 million respectively on an annual basis. Those tax dollars would go to the City’s general fund, which supports City operations including police and fire departments, parks and recreation, and maintenance of Westwood Cemetery.
“Neither one is intended to increase taxes,” Oberlin City Finance Director Sal Talarico said. “These are continuations of existing taxes.”
The income tax renewals would go into effect in 2025. Oberlin City Council voted to seek early renewal for the two taxes so as not to compete with other funding renewals on the ballot in 2024, including those for Oberlin City Schools and the Oberlin Public Library. Burgess places the Council’s request for renewed funding in the context of state cuts to the local government fund started during former Ohio governor John Kasich’s administration. The local government fund distributes money to localities for the purpose of maintaining infrastructure and providing public services.
“Between cuts to the local government fund and the estate tax, Oberlin took a
hit of somewhere just north of a million dollars,” Burgess said. “Cities, including Oberlin, had to find some way to fill that funding gap, and we had no choice but to ask the voters locally.”
Burgess argues that the cuts forced an undue burden onto localities, resulting in increased municipal taxation across Ohio.
“If someone is traveling in through Oberlin on the state route and they get into a car accident, they’re not an Oberlin resident — they live somewhere else,” Burgess said. “But caring for that person falls on Oberlin taxpayers. Now, it’s the right human thing to do, but because it’s the right human thing to do, that’s why the state should be funding it.”
The levy renewals include taxes to fund Lorain County 911 services, the Lorain County Drug Task Force, the Lorain County Community College’s University Partnership Program, and the Lorain County Board of Mental Health, Addiction, and Recovery Services.
If all four levies are renewed, though they have different expiration dates, they will tax Lorain County residents a total of approximately 33 cents per every $100 of valuation. Collection will start in 2024 for all four levies except the one funding the LCCC University Partnership, which will commence in 2023.
The LCCC’s University Partnership offers 3+1 education programs with other Ohio universities, including The Ohio State University and Kent State University, that give LCCC students the opportunity to earn certain degrees at partner schools while paying only the price of community college tuition for their first three years of university. As determined by the U.S. Department of Education, LCCC’s net price comes out to $2,952.
The tax levy to benefit the Mental Health, Addiction and Recovery Services Board of Lorain County would go towards “providing essential mental health and recovery services and facilities” for Lorain residents.
According to a statement released by the MHARS Board, the renewal would “ensure that families have mental health crisis options in emergencies, treatment and prevention programs for children and adults, and addiction recovery services.”
Funds from the renewal would also go toward construction of a crisis receiving center for residents struggling with mental health and addiction in Lorain, where no such facility currently exists.
Oberlin College, as a tax-exempt nonprofit, will not be financially affected by the potential renewal of the tax levies. Likewise, the majority of College students, who do not pay property taxes on off-campus housing and whose incomes don’t meet the $10,000 threshold for state taxation, will not feel the impact of the levies on their annual incomes.
Alison Ricker, head of the Science Library and member of the League of Women Voters, encourages students not to preemptively disqualify themselves from voting on tax issues on the ballot.
“That is the one thing that I have heard townspeople express concern about — if you have a big block of students voting, and they vote for tax levies when they don’t pay taxes,” Ricker said. “And the townspeople will say, ‘Well, I don’t think Oberlin College students should be deciding whether or not I pay taxes.’ My position has always been that Oberlin students have every right to be concerned about the future of Oberlin as a city, because the City and the College’s futures are pretty closely tied.”
Voters can cast ballots on Election Day, Nov. 8, or during early voting beginning Oct. 12. Photo by Mads OlsenThere is much work to be done, and many young Asian-American and Pacific Islander artists and thinkers are working to challenge the current Eu rocentric vision of academic art.
Because of limited representation throughout many young AAPI artists’ education, it often takes time to develop an artistic voice that encapsulates the nuances of the Asian-American and Pacific Is lander experience.
Lea Crowley, a first-year College student and vi sual artist, commented on her limited exposure to diverse artists and art forms in her education.
“Only toward the end of high school was there a small amount of exposure toward different rac es of artists in general,” Crowley said. “Most of my inspiration comes from my dad, who is white, so I have always admired a lot of white male artists. I don’t like to say it, but that is who I have common ly turned to as my inspiration, such as my favorite artist Larry Rivers.”
The Oberlin Shansi AAPI Experience Grant aims to amplify the voices of students who share that identity in artistic spaces. The grant supports stu dent projects that highlight AAPI experiences in North America.
Tang’s poetry reflects his experience as a Latinx and Asian-American person living in the United States. He has been writing poetry since he was a child, but only joined the spoken-word community once he arrived at Oberlin. As a singer-songwriter, taking his poetry onto the stage just felt right.
“There is definitely a correlation between being a singer-songwriter and a poet,” Tang said. “To be a songwriter ... you have to write poetry, and then you have to take poetry and put it together with music, so it is both being a composer and a lyricist … Being a poet makes this process smooth because I already have one of those jobs out of the way.”
The art of spoken word draws from a diverse history of human expression and communication. Spoken-word poetry is an oral performance art with an extensive contemporary history in multi cultural storytelling.
Unsurprisingly, many spoken-word artists use the medium to communicate stories of personal and shared experiences to their audience. Spo ken-word poetry is often used to raise awareness on societal issues. Today, spoken word has found a critical place in music, with increased use in hiphop and other popular genres.
Dlisah LapidusAsian, Asian-American, and Pacific Islander voic es have been historically underrepresented in the arts and media. Although hostility and violence towards Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders has been prevalent in the United States for centu ries, the especially targeted anti-Asian hate crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic led to a heightened demand for increased diversity in artistic spaces.
College third-year and poet Joel Tang, a recip ient of the AAPI Grant, presented a poetry read ing at the Cat in the Cream Thursday, Sept. 22. Tang’s poetry tells a few of the many intergener ational stories of the Asian-American experience. His work also sheds light on how AAPI students on campus use art to respond to anti-Asian hate and share their stories. Ted Samuel, senior director of Oberlin Shansi, introduced Tang’s reading by con textualizing Oberlin Shansi’s call for action among upticks in anti-Asian hate.
“We [have] witnessed an alarming rise of an ti-Asian hate and harassment,” Samuel said. “As we considered our organizational response to this dev astating trend of systematic violence, we consid ered programmatic interventions, especially given Shansi’s historic connection to Asian communities, institutions, and individuals. ”
“I do consider myself a storyteller,” Tang said. “I think a good poem should have a shift from one side to the next, and the easiest way to do this is to tell a story, starting in one place and ending in another.”
Tang’s poetry honors his personal and genera tional history while also portraying a dream for a better life as an Asian American. His words aim to represent his community of multiracial Americans.
“I would say that I am one of the first people in my community to introduce poetry of this nature,” Tang said. “I touched upon this in my reading. It can be isolating to talk about my life experiences because I don’t really feel a connection to the his tory of this art form, as I have not seen myself rep resented in it. Here’s hoping for future generations to have more representation.”
Alex Corona is a Cleveland-based first gen eration Mexican artist whose multimedia exhibition Alma-Vision/Camposanto was on view at IngenuityFest 2022 from Sept. 23–25. IngenuityFest is an annual art and experiential event. Alma-Vision/Cam posanto is the first project of Babel Box Theater, the new Ohio nonprofit organiza tion dedicated to social justice and the per forming arts. Corona invited the public to take part in his project by contributing im ages of their departed loved ones to create a visual exploration honoring the Indigenous roots of Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Your installation evokes many experi ences of those from a distinct cultur al background. What does it mean to showcase this heritage through Al ma-Vision/Camposanto?
Culture is knowing where you came from and your history. I was raised by my grandmother and my aunt. My mom had issues, but she was there as well. I have a lot of memories of their handmade torti llas and the songs they sang. One of their traditions that just popped in my head was
that for our birthdays early in the morn ing, they would play Vicente Fernández, “Las Mañanitas” on the record player.
How has it been having your instal lation at IngenuityFest with this in mind?
So far, it’s been a very positive experi ence — everyone who’s passed through the installation has said nothing but nice things. Ingenuity has also been incredibly helpful and it seems like they’re excited to
have me here.
What were some of the original cre ative concepts behind Alma-Vision/ Camposanto during development?
I wanted to show the progression and transformation of Día de los Muer tos from its inception. The Indigenous Mexica people, which some may know as Aztec, celebrated Día de los Muertos, Tlaxochimaco, the flower offering, and Xocotl Uetxi, the falling of the fruit, as a
two-month event honoring the dead. The first month was for the children and the second month for the adults. When the Spaniards came, they deemed these tradi tions as evil, which forced the Mexica to celebrate in secrecy. It has now morphed into the All Souls Day, which takes place on Nov. 1 and 2, and is how we celebrate now.
In the installation, the front wall rep resents the Indigenous ofrendas, and the wall to the left is more of a vintage 1920s representation of [Día de los Muertos], which I used to show the progression of the holiday.
There’s an old 1950s Arvin console tele vision in the installation. It represents the concept of Alma-Vision — ‘Alma’ mean ing soul. The concept behind this [prop] was having our loved ones on the “other side” broadcast a greeting from Miktlan — the Indigenous word for the place we go when we die, a place of rest and trans migration.
There’s a noticeable cross-generation al appeal to the installation. What was the significance in highlighting this passage of time?
September 30, 2022 Established 1874 Volume 152, Number 4 Our blood never dies, it keeps going from generation to generation. That’s what I was trying to show — that gener ations, all the way from our Indigenous
Oberlin Shansi AAPI Experience Grant recipient Joel Tang per formed at Cat in the Cream Sept. 22. Photo by Erin Koo, Photo Editor Alex Corona’s exhibition Alma-Vision/Camposanto debuted at IngenuityFest last weekend. Photo by Malcom Bamba, Arts EditorTikTok, a platform that curates niche content for its users’ personal interests, has risen in popularity over the past two years. This algorithmic person alization has allowed for different circles to take shape within the app, and the part of the platform known as “Lesbian TikTok” has been at the center of recent controversy.
It is widely understood that once someone has a large public following, privacy becomes hard to maintain. This is no less true for TikTok con tent creators, especially when it comes to lesbian couples who act as important respresentation for young queer girls online.
Jojo Siwa, a previous member of the Abby Lee Dance Company known for her appearance on hit reality TV show Dance Moms , came out as queer in January 2021. She has since become a significant online voice and advocate for queer youth. How ever, the publicity Siwa has recieved since coming out has generated its own negative discourse — not only have there been homophobic responses from the usual right-leaning media sites, but there’s also been critique from members of the online queer community regarding her new relationship with
Avery Cyrus, another lesbian influencer on TikTok.
Four TikTok-famous couples that have recently broken up — Sedona Prince and Rylee LeGlue, Soph Mosca and Avery Cyrus, Alissa Carrington and Sa mantha Michele Miani, and Jojo Siwa and Kylie Prew — have now been thrust even further into the spotlight, with many TikTok users making videos in response to perceived similarities between these influencer breakups. Many fans felt that there was more behind the carefully crafted videos and Ins tagram stories which broke the news. Thus began speculation from followers looking to find the truth behind these breakups.
Sedona Prince and Rylee LeGlue were the first to publicly announce their breakup to their audi ence. Then Jojo and Kylie split for the second time, and Avery and Soph, who had been dating for two years, also went their separate ways. Finally, Sam and Alissa quietly announced their breakup. These rapid-succession breakups drew the attention of followers, who began to closely follow the respons es of each creator. Avery is now confirmed to be dating Jojo, who was a friend of the couple before they split. Fans then noticed flirty videos and com ments exchanged between Soph and Kylie.
TikTok users took to the platform to share their opinions, feeling disrespected on behalf of Soph
that Avery had moved on so quickly from the break up and was already posting about her new relation ship all over social media. In addition to followers of these creators, other content creators who were friends with Avery and Soph also voiced their dis content, most notably Dallas Smulson.
Nuanced queer relationships are underrepre sented in mainstream media, such as television and film. However, on platforms like TikTok, personal ities within the queer community are able to post and authentically share their lives and relation ships frequently. Queer communities and relation ships share dynamics that differ from their hetero sexual counterparts, and these complex dynamics are magnified on platforms such as TikTok, where users often feel entitled to the personal details of creators’ lives. The common ground of a queer identity creates opportunities for a parasocial dy namic to form between queer influencers and their young fans.
Similar to the closeness queer TikTok users ex perience with one another, Oberlin creates a shared identity between queer students, which often gen erates curiosity in knowing who is hooking up with whom, who is dating whom, and who has broken up. Beyond shared identity, the Oberlin student body is a dating pool for queer students. Once students graduate, they’ll be hard-pressed to encounter this many queer people living so closely together. Queer communities, relationships, and dynamics function in a unique way and this can blur the boundaries of privacy both on social media and off.
This past Monday, LA-based indie rock group Girlpool graced the ’Sco with its third-to-last performance as a band. Led by friends Avery Tuck er and Harmony Tividad, the group formed in 2013, releasing its debut al bum Before the World Was Big in 2015. Forgiveness , Girlpool’s latest album, came out this April and recieved a 7.6 rating on Pitchfork
In August, the band announced it would break up at the end of the year. Two-thirds of the band’s tour dates were canceled, leaving only eight of the initial 23.
“This upcoming tour will be our last one,” the band wrote in a state ment announcing its breakup. “It will be an ode to the past, a celebration for the future, and something we will pour both of our hearts into com pletely.”
I knew two Girlpool songs before Monday night: “Before the World Was Big” and “Chinatown,” both off the band’s debut album. I knew those tracks from high school and hadn’t listened to them much since, though I still held a quiet appreciation for them. With a little variation, I imag ine the majority of the audience at Monday night’s show might say the same thing: that they only knew a few songs from an early record. Perhaps, like me, they gave the band’s latest album or two a listen in preparation for the show. Forgiveness wasn’t for me — I’d describe it as bad hyperpop, wearing its Charli XCX-esque influ ences on its sleeve. I mostly hated the admittedly raw, real lyricism for its content: themes of disappointing sex and too much partying. I think I hoped that Tividad and Tucker, now both in their late twenties, might have matured from the pleasantly teenage whining and vulnerability of Before the World Was Big
The audience at the show seemed disinterested in the new works, more often chatting over the concert than reverently dancing. If we all only
know a handful of tracks from an al bum released seven years ago, why was the turnout for Girlpool so great?
“Knowing that it was their thirdto-last show, I liked the idea of being able to say, ‘I saw indie pop icon, cultly loved band Girlpool, in one of their last shows!’ even though I’m not their biggest fan,” Anisa Curry Vietze, OC ’22, said of the show. “I feel like it was a good pick for an Oberlin show; I feel like it was a very Oberlin band, and I bet a lot of people listened to them in high school. But also, I feel like some times you just go to the ’Sco show be cause it’s free, and at the ’Sco, and it’s a Monday night.”
Having music so readily available at our fingertips, and for free, gives students something to do in the midst of classes and assignments.
“All in all, I think I got what I ex pected: a video for my one second of the day, a brisk walk to the car, and to see Harmony Tividad play the bass. Kind of cool that their drummer is an Obie alum with an English major,” College third-year Sequoia Jacobson said.
Although I kept to the back at the Girlpool concert, I know what it’s like to be in the front row at a ’Sco show for a band you don’t know all that well. It’s a feeling that you are per forming as much as the band is — per forming to a loving and well-versed audience, dancing to every song joy fully and tirelessly. It’s a small venue, and the artists who come to play for us are just people who hope we love their music.
“I have a theory that your experi ence at the ’Sco show, any given ’Sco show, is really not about the show itself at all, but instead about your own mental state going in, who you see there, and how much you want to be in a crowded bar-like experi ence,” Curry Vietze said. “All that is to say, I don’t know that I loved the songs that they were playing neces sarily, although I didn’t dislike them either, but I still had a good time be cause I was with people that I really
care about, and in a space that ... still means a lot to me.”
Tucker, who came out as a trans gender man following the release of the band’s sophomore album in 2017, wrote an essay for Them about the struggle with identity that has come alongside Girlpool’s identity and its past success.
“I felt so distraught over my iden tity in Girlpool,” Tucker wrote. “The name of the project was gendered, our voices intertwined in a way I couldn’t imagine reinventing. Girlpool was my whole life, passion, journey, and ca reer.”
As artists rightfully grow up and out of their old music, though, the audience still holds onto it dearly. I still love the two songs I know. It’s a nostalgic, tender love, particularly for
“Chinatown,” a raw and sparse song about uncertainty and loving your friends. Listening to the track, I feel transported back into my sophomore year of highschool, driving around town in the passenger seat of my first girlfriend’s Prius, staring down at my checkered slip-on Vans. It’s not the kind of music I like now, but I honor it for the place it once had in my life.
“The one main song that I really wanted them to play — and they ac tually did — I knew because of my ex perience at Oberlin, because I have so many memories of my freshman year roommate playing it on her guitar in our Dascomb dorm room,” Curry Vi etze said. “So it was actually really sweet for me, now as a graduate, an alum, to be able to see them at Ober lin.”
Kathleen Kelleher Girlpool plays a show at the ‘Sco. Photo by Erin Koo, Photo EditorThis semester, College fourth-years Nina DiValentin and Piper Morrison are facilitating a mixed-level contact improvisation class through Ober lin’s Experimental College. Contact improvisation is a dance form that centers around giving and receiving weight and moving organically and harmoniously with other dancers. In free-flowing contact “jams,” dancers come together, find a point of contact between their bodies, and move in tan dem with each other.
Contact improv as it’s known to day originated at Oberlin in 1972 with dancer Steve Paxton, who taught the art form to twelve men on campus. Paxton pulled from his experiences with aikido and gymnastics to create a form of dance that was more con cerned with bodily awareness and the experience of connecting and inter acting with others rather than with performance for an audience.
“I think that it’s important to em phasize that people have probably been doing this with their bodies for much longer than fifty years, but the codified term ‘contact improv’ was created by Steve Paxton at Oberlin,” Morrison said. “It started as kind of like an experiment, with a bunch of guys throwing their bodies at each other. It was initially very inspired by aikido and other martial art forms and modern dance, and it all meshed into this playground of rough housing. And now, it’s expanded into a global phe nomenon.”
Morrison and DiValentin are the first students to teach an ExCo course on contact improv since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both are ex perienced with and passionate about the form.
“Unlike other dance forms, it’s real ly about the act of doing and the expe rience of movement in the body, versus preparing something to show,” Mor rison said. “That’s not to say it hasn’t been performed — and we do get into that a little bit in Varsity Contact — but that’s not its primary function.”
Morrison was vaguely familiar with CI before committing to Oberlin, and she had her first in-depth instruction with the form when she took the ExCo
in fall 2019, then taught by Rebecca Janovic, OC ’18. DiValentin got in volved with CI during the fall of 2021 by taking Professor of Dance Ann Coo per Albright’s class. Morrison and Di Valentin met — and, over time, became closely bonded — when they both took part in the intensive CI Winter Term project with visiting artist Jurij Kon jar.
“To me, finding contact [improv] felt like finding a home within dance,” Morrison said. “It felt like a bridge between more social, freeform dance settings and traditional dance classes. [CI classes] were places where I could experiment with dancing in a space cut out purely for dance, rather than a social space, like a party.”
Morrison and DiValentin noted that this iteration of CI consists of an unex pected majority of newcomers, rather than a balanced mix of levels. Both Morrison and DiValentin expressed that this is both a source of difficulty and a moment of opportunity for them to push themselves as educators.
“Something I would say I’m finding difficult in teaching the ExCo is try ing to ingrain this idea that we’re not performing for each other,” Morrison said. “We’re witnessing each other and supporting each other in move ment, but the goal of learning different strengthening techniques and exercis es is to be able to dance to our fullest ability. It isn’t for the sake of making it look a certain way.”
According to Morrison, the height
ened interest in CI among those who’ve never experienced it before is tied to the overlapping social and ar tistic side of the form.
“I think a lot of people were really curious about what it would be like to engage in close contact in this dance form that’s social, but also artistic,” Morrison explained. “It’s often unfa miliar, and even weird, to be that close to strangers or to new faces and with out the connotation that it carries a romantic or sexual connotation.”
The challenges of teaching CI to first-timers is heightened by COVID-related anxieties.
“I think that there’s a general sense of trepidation surrounding getting within people’s personal space bub bles,” Morrison said. “When facilitat ing a class where we’re directly in structing people to do that, we have to be really cautious and careful to communicate clearly why we’re doing what we’re doing, and we need to be sure to provide alternatives for peo ple who aren’t comfortable or maybe aren’t quite comfortable yet. Since the pandemic, there’s this bubble that everyone has that feels much more nerve-wracking to break than it has in the past. We have to go slowly.”
Although the pandemic has made the already vulnerable experience of dancing in intimate contact with strangers more stressful to navigate, it has also increased the collective de sire for meaningful touch. People are eager, perhaps now more than ever, to
feel present in their bodies and to feel physically close to others.
“[During the pandemic] it was like my body was screaming to be touched by other people and to have that skin to skin contact,” DiValentin said. “And then, in contact improv, someone is trying to truly feel your body through their body and have your weight and their weight coalesce. It’s a mindful, meaningful kind of touch. To have that kind of touch when I was craving touch was spectacular to me. It was exactly what I needed.”
Brooke Levan, a second-year Col lege student, is one of the newcomers to CI. Thus far, Levan has found her experience in CI to be freeing, espe cially after COVID.
“We’ve all been avoiding [physical] contact for these past couple of years, so it feels really nice, honestly, even if it requires a shift in my mindset,” Le van said. “It feels like something I’ve been missing. … I think that physical touch is an important form of connec tion with other people.”
Going forward, Levan wants to in tegrate her experiences with CI into her daily life.
“After my first class, I felt much more present and aware of my sur roundings and my place in space,” she said. “I think that is something that I would definitely like to carry into ev eryday life if possible, especially con sidering the crazy busyness of school. I don’t know if I’m there just yet, but I would like to get there.”
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ancestors, are still here living through us, and we can celebrate it in ways that they did. It’s a cycle; another seed comes up and grows into new experiences, memories, traditions, songs, and ways of culture, which we pass on to the next generations.
Reaching out to the community for photos of their de ceased loved ones for this exhibit must have been quite the emotional task. How did your team go about this out reach?
When I sent out the calls, it was sort of awkward because not everybody is very familiar with Day of the Dead. So instead of saying, “Hey, send me pictures of your dead relatives,” we had to word it in a certain way to be respectful. It was also a labor of love because a lot of my own family members are up on the ofrendas as well. I lost myself in the work and built out the vision I had. When everything was done, I took a moment to sit down and take it all in.
The set design for the installation is beautiful, what was the process of putting this together?
It took us about two and a half months to build it. My fatherin-law helped me with the build and my sister Lilly, who had a cultural dance group here for many years, helped with the film. It’s been a family affair. How has it been to produce this performance with Babel Box Theater?
I figured this show was a good opportunity to get the name out there. I had always wanted to do something like this, es pecially because of the void in this part of the country when it comes to Mexican and other Central American cultures. In Cleveland, the Mexican community is not a huge one. You go to a lot of other major cities like Chicago or New York and the Mexican population is rather big.
Our mission is to represent the underrepresented and the marginalized through performance and partnerships. Our first play is about a transgender immigrant. We already have the rights to do the play but we don’t have the funding yet, so it’s not official. Everyone who’s involved in Babel Box Theater loves art and performance. We do it out of love for the art, love for our culture, and to do it justice.
ExCo instructors Nina DiValentin and Piper Morrison demonstrate contact improv. Photos by Abe Frato, Photo Editor DiValentin and Morison perform contact improv. Corona’s art is displayed in exhibition. Photo by Malcolm Bamba, Arts EditorIn theory, you can pick tiny apples off the apple trees behind Severance Hall, but is it really worth it? No. Instead, try paw paw fruit. Paw paw trees are native to Ohio and produce green fruits with a light, tropical flavor reminiscent of a mango. They’re great on their own, but they can also be used to make banana bread-like bread pudding. You can find paw paw trees on campus behind Kahn Hall and near the Adam Joseph Lewis Cen ter for Environmental Studies. Don’t eat the skin or seeds, though — they’re toxic!
Since the closest Starbucks to campus is more than a two-hour walk away (a short 20-minute drive for the lucky people with cars), you’ll need to satisfy your pumpkin spice latte craving in town or on campus.
At Azariah’s Café, you can add a pump of pumpkin spice syrup to your drink until mid-November. While it’s not the Instagrammable Pumpkin Spice Venti Frappuccino, it only costs a meal swipe and tastes just as good.
If you loved getting lost in corn mazes as a child, now that you’re an adult, you can try hiking instead! Though you usually know where you’re going (boring), taking a walk in the Arboretum is a great way to enjoy the crisp fall weather. If you’d like a longer walk, the North Coast Inland Trail — a paved walking and biking path just south of the Arb — offers access to a number of parks in the area with longer trails, including Black River High Meadows and Cas cade Park.
Join the OC Program board Saturday, Oct. 1 at 7:30 p.m. for a bonfire and s’mores on the south end of Tappan Square. Gra ham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows will be provided for attendees.
To the Oberlin College Board of Trust ees:
I am writing to try to understand the strategic long-term vision of the trustees of Oberlin College. I learned recently that the Board is planning to revise the College’s bylaws to make clear the facul ty’s subsidiary role in the governance of the institution, undoing a value that has long made Oberlin unique.
How is it that the leadership of the institution is still in place after spending millions of dollars in defense of losing a legal action resulting in a judgment of tens of millions of dollars; a case, which, in my view, might have been settled for the cost of a cup of coffee and a dough nut? In my book, when a misjudgment of that order of magnitude is made by management, best practice is that man agement should change. Making matters worse, that final judgment resulted in a front-page story in The New York Times, often considered to be the national newspaper of record, that was person ally embarrassing to many alumni. That alone should have caused the chair and president to resign. The failure to settle the case is seen at best as a matter of con siderable hubris on the part of the board.
What does it say about the values to which we all subscribe when the in comes of many community members have been destroyed or devastatingly reduced by the outsourcing of services?
As a former administrator of an elite in stitution of higher education (with many years in property management), it is my experience that service quality always decreases after such a move — with min imal cost savings. Layer on top of that the recent violation of college norms with respect to reproductive health services that also landed the College in the news papers (again as a result of outsourcing)
at the same time the College’s president is at the White House discussing repro ductive rights. How can this be honestly explained?
Finally, the trustees’ unwillingness to be forthcoming about how the endow ment is managed is concerning. For a period of about a decade after the turbu lence in the financial markets of the late aughts, the endowment seriously under performed the broad market indices, as far as I could tell. And now the College’s investment strategy has wildly swung in the opposite direction with a majority of the corpus invested in alternative prod ucts — which are by definition volatile, opaque, and expensive — in addition to the institution adding the cost of an inhouse investment management func tion. The expenses of this strategy must considerably outweigh any benefit that might have been gained from the staff outsourcing. The trustees have been un willing to share basic information with the community about the endowment’s return or its costs of management, which is not at all in the spirit of the institution I attended.
It is my sense that since the dismiss al from the board of Peter Kirsch and Roberta Manaker, the board has lacked a diversity of views and lost its way. It is heartbreaking to me, with so many friends and acquaintances on the board, that the College has forfeited its identity as being unique — a place that cherishes (rather than pays lip service to) outstand ing intellectual and artistic achievement — and has chosen to become conven tional, risk-averse, and undistinguished. Going along to get along is not fulfilling the obligations of a fiduciary.
With all best wishes, Andy Manshel, OC ’78
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Let’s get a few facts straight regarding the outsourcing of Student Health to Harness Health. Harness is a division of Bon Secours Mercy Health, a Cath olic healthcare network that follows the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, devel oped by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. These directives prohibit Catholic health care networks from providing a wide range of repro ductive health services, including all birth control, abortion, and emergen cy contraceptives, except in cases of sexual assault, where emergency birth control may be used but abortions are still prohibited. Catholic health care providers have also faced multiple law suits alleging discrimination against LGBTQ patients (See Minton v. Dignity Health, Hammons v. UMMS).
While there are workarounds that allow providers working in Catholic health care systems to provide certain prohibited services, the accessibility of these services depends on how the par ent organization follows the directives. Patients must contend with providers requiring them to go through numer ous steps to receive essential services, as well as individual providers’ choic es to work around the policies of the health care system. In short, the mis sion of Catholic health networks to follow Catholic moral directives makes reproductive, sexual, and gender-af firming care less accessible to patients.
The solution that the College quickly put into place after it came to light that HHP would not provide reproductive health care is severely limited. Despite claims in an email from President Am bar that Family Planning Services of Lorain County would be on campus three days a week, with transportation provided on other days, FPSLC is only advertised as being on campus one day per week on the Student Health web site. The details of the transportation system are not clear at all and should not be necessary in the first place. In the past, the services students might seek from FPSLC were available on campus, often at little to no cost. Clear ly, reproductive care is now less acces sible to students than before the Col lege’s deliberate decision to partner with HHP.
Student tuition dollars are being sent to a religiously restrictive health care provider that makes reproductive health care inaccessible to patients in Oberlin, in Ohio, and across the coun try. Not only that, but according to the Campus Digest sent out June 8, student health records were sent to, and are ap parently still in the possession of, this potentially hostile health care provider.
There was a shocking series of ad ministrative failures that led us to this point. When the College announced that Student Health would be provided by HHP, it failed to acknowledge that the provider’s parent company was Catholic, and the College did not make any statement regarding how that fact might affect the care provided at Ober
lin. If the College had been deliberate in choosing HHP, it may have also been deliberate in keeping that important information from the Oberlin commu nity.
According to President Carmen Twillie Ambar’s own statements, the administration held conversations with HHP before partnering with them. In these conversations, they discussed access to reproductive and gender-affirming care, leading to as surances from HHP that they would provide such services. Did the admin istration simply take this company at its word? Did the College get these “assurances” in writing, perhaps in the contract it signed with HHP? If not, I question not only the administration’s commitment to the well-being of the Oberlin student community but also its professional competence as a group of higher education administrators. The Oberlin community deserves to know the specifics of what was discussed and, if such services were included in the contract, to know why HHP is still employed on campus after breaching that agreement.
Ignorance is no excuse. The College’s administration is responsible for the well-being of nearly 3,000 students; it is its job to not let this happen. If not ig norance, then might naïveté be the an swer? The picture that the administra tion is trying to paint is that, by no fault of their own, it was misled by HHP. However, HHP and BSMH are still providing student health care despite the administration’s dissatisfaction, and HHP still has our student health records. It appears as though the ad ministration’s initial motivation was to save money and shed employees — that is what HHP plainly advertises and why an institution like Oberlin would partner with it. This is not new, but part of a trend during President Am bar’s term that has resulted in worse outcomes for Oberlin’s student body and in beloved members of the Ober lin community losing their jobs despite widespread disapproval and protest. At best, the College was grossly cavalier in doing its due diligence about the new health care providers as they pursued the cheaper option. At worst, it know ingly put the well-being of the student body in harm’s way in the name of its financial bottom line.
Now the administration is trying to pass the blame off to others — express ing that it felt disappointed that BSMH and HHP were “no longer comfort able” with providing care that Catho lic health care networks do not make accessible in the first place. We do not need disappointment or excuses. We need answers, and we need results.
The College should release the con tract it signed with HHP and the as surances it received regarding how HHP would provide reproductive and gender-affirming care on campus. The College should also end its partnership with BSMH and HHP, retrieve our stu dent health records from these hostile organizations, and go back to employ ing its own health center staff.
Sam BeesleyAs a 1966 graduate of Oberlin College, I am saddened to hear of the lawsuit between Oberlin and Gibson’s Bakery, described by some as a David and Goliath conflict.
The suit has now concluded, and Oberlin has agreed to pay restitution for the defama tion Gibson’s suffered, as well as court costs. However, no explicit apology on the part of Oberlin has been released.
I do not think that shoplifting and assault, on which the original case was based, are a valued part of Oberlin’s mission. Neither is defamation. In this era of madness, we need to be very careful not to erroneously accuse anyone of racism — especially not a company which has enjoyed more than a century of co operation with Oberlin.
I encourage President Ambar to issue an apology to the Gibson family on behalf of the school. I personally apologize to them for their unnecessary pain and suffering, as this behavior is not representative of what I learned during my time at Oberlin.
Sincerely, Victoria Randall Barbosa, OC ’66
As you scroll aimlessly through so cial media, a video pops up saying, “5 signs you have ADHD.” Quickly losing focus, losing track of time, mood swings, trouble listening, being extremely talkative, losing things easily, or being disorganized — every sign seems to point to you and what you have been struggling with. You might feel a sense of fi nally being understood and seen. Your struggle has this new name, and you feel like you’ve final ly found the fix — the solution to what you’ve felt for so long. Your feelings finally belong somewhere.
Videos like these have flood ed social media platforms. I bet you’ve seen a couple. Topics of dis cussion range anywhere from anx iety, personality, and mood disor ders to disabilities like autism and ADHD. The videos typically con sist of an explanation of the “signs” that someone might have a partic ular condition, but often these socalled “signs” consist of behaviors that anyone could experience.
People take this information, re late to it, and start to believe they have the condition they’re hearing about. A troubling trend of people self-diagnosing seems to have tak en off these past few years.
The COVID-19 pandemic took a toll on many people’s men
tal health. This shared experi ence opened up more discussions around mental health, especial ly on social media, and efforts to destigmatize mental health strug gles have increased. According to a World Health Organization brief, there was a 25 percent increase in the global prevalence of anxiety and depression within the first year of the pandemic. As people were left alone, they began to no tice things about themselves that were not obvious before. People were forced to look at their own behaviors, patterns, thoughts, and interactions with others in a way they had not before. As one of the only methods of communication available at the time, social me dia became a tool for people to feel seen and recognized. Mental health became a central focus, and since then, online mental health communities have been built to open up conversations for strug gling people and offer a space for them to share their experiences.
The movement to destigmatize mental health was created to help those who have struggled alone with their mental illness feel seen.
After centuries of mental illness being viewed as something that is “wrong” with someone, people are finally feeling accepted de spite their struggles. It’s possible, however, that we have reached the point at which this phenomenon
is causing more harm than good. There has been what almost seems to be a romanticization of mental illness — people have started to just throw delicate terms and di agnoses around as if they are char acter traits you can easily assign to yourself. The thing is that we ar en’t dealing with simple character traits. We are dealing with intense human struggles that have been left in the dark for far too long. There has been a drastic shift in how mental illnesses are being presented on social media. We’ve gone past sharing personal experi ences to help build a human con nection in which someone can feel less alone. Now, people have taken it upon themselves to act as pro fessionals and offer easy answers to people’s complex questions about mental health and disabili ty, with some even trying to pro vide diagnoses. A majority of the videos about mental illness you see on social media aren’t creat ed by professional psychologists. There are some psychologists of fering information about different mental illnesses online, but what they are offering is education on the subject, not a diagnosis. There is a very big difference between feeling anxious or depressed and being clinically diagnosed with anxiety or depression. As any psy
Oberlin’s uniqueness resounds through our history. Since its founding in 1833, Oberlin has become syn onymous with academic excellence, world-class musical instruction, and liberal arts as a path to so cial justice.
The balance of these elements makes Oberlin unique. Oberlin’s community — trustees, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and emeriti — embrace, treasure, and respect this balance. The Board of Trustees has a duty to protect it as we navigate the landscape of higher education.
This landscape is now more complex than ever. We face economic, administrative, regulatory, stat utory, and even political constraints that were un familiar decades ago. In recent years, a lack of clari ty in our bylaws regarding institutional governance and the delegation of authority has hampered our ability to respond nimbly to extraordinary chal lenges (like a pandemic) and plan responsibly for the future.
The decision to clarify Oberlin’s bylaws is not simply a judgment call. Our exiting bylaws are not aligned with the stated criteria of our accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission, which specifies that institutions should be clear about responsibil ity and decision-making, especially with regard to the Board’s delegation of authority to faculty and staff. Our risk management assessment team has identified ambiguity in the bylaws as a liability in need of addressing.
With this reality squarely before us, earlier this year, the Board’s Nominations & Governance Com mittee invited the General Faculty Council to help us amend six sections of Oberlin’s bylaws. N&G and GFC met weekly for seven weeks.
All of us participated in good faith and in Ober
lin’s best interests. The trustees brought their sen sibilities as Obies. The faculty brought insights from experience and their dedication to Oberlin. There were disagreements, but also respect and collegiality. I thank everyone — faculty and trust ees — for their diligence and hard work.
Trustees will consider the amendments that re sulted from this process at the October board meet ing. The original intent was to vote on the updates at the June meeting, but GFC suggested that a vote in October would allow for more deliberation.
These changes will:
• Affirm the Board’s authority and establish a foundation for the delegation of authority
• Clarify the role of the president and specify the president’s authority and responsibility for the effective administration of the College
• Clarify the faculty’s role in the academic affairs of the College
• Clarify the process for the appointment of deans
• Update the Board’s committee structure, com bining Student Affairs and Academic Affairs Committees into a single committee, and cre ate a new Tenure and Promotion Committee
• Provide flexibility for the College if it were to establish the position of provost, subject to the Board’s approval
The amendments are meant to clarify responsi bilities without eliminating channels for valuable faculty input. Oberlin’s ongoing success depends on faculty advice to the administration and the board on matters of long-term strategic importance. The free flow of feedback from faculty participation in the Academic and Administrative Program Re view, which resulted in the One Oberlin plan, was invaluable.
The amendments confirm the Board’s delega
tion of authority to the faculty and its representa tive bodies over such important areas as the cur riculum; educational policy; quality and method of instruction; degree requirements and educational standards; faculty status, including the evaluation of the faculty for appointment; tenure; and pro motion, research, and those aspects of student life that relate to students’ academic experience. The bylaws remain replete with the term “shared gov ernance” and related references. Faculty represen tation on Board committees remains unchanged. The General Faculty Council remains listed in the bylaws as an “advisory body to the president on the budget and on such other matters as the president may raise.”
During a Zoom meeting on Wednesday with members of the general faculty, trustees collected feedback from a number of people who wished to comment on the amendments. We will share this feedback with the full board when we meet.
I can appreciate that to some at Oberlin, chang es to the bylaws can be jarring. The changes going before the Board serve to clarify roles and respon sibilities so that Oberlin can continue to evolve as a unique institution known for its outstanding aca demics, world-class musical instruction, and com mitment to social justice.
The bylaws amendments protect this vision. They offer clarity that complements our institu tional strengths. The collaboration, energy, and excitement that imbues campus will remain. Ober lin’s specialness will blossom well into the future.
Lillie Edwards is professor emerita of History and African American Studies at Drew University and a member of Oberlin’s Class of 1975. She currently serves as Vice Chair of the Oberlin Board of Trustees.
Editor’s note: The Review and its staff do not condone jaywalking in any form.
Jaywalking: we all know about it. Most of us do it. Some of us love it. Defined by the Oxford English Dic tionary as “a pedestrian who crosses a street without regard to traffic reg ulations,” “jaywalker” is a term that could be used to describe many an Oberlin student. This pastime among Obies is likely popular for a number of reasons: it lets you get from place to place on campus faster (West Lorain Street between the Science Center and Wilder Hall, I’m looking at you); you get to be a little mischief-caus ing rascal; and most importantly, it’s just plain fun. There’s such a thrill in walking into the street and crossing just before a car rushes past.
Let’s say, for example, that you are trying to get from your 10 a.m. Biolo gy class in the Science Center over to DeCafé to pick up an early lunch, then back to the Science Center atrium to study with your... good friend. After a study session, you’re both pretty tired, so you walk back to your room in South Hall to... take a nap. Once you’ve finished with that, though, you need to go back to the Science Center (you’re double majoring in Neurosci ence and Chemistry and might as well set up camp in the Love Lounge con sidering how much time you spend there). This is a routine that you fol low fairly frequently, and you’ve got ten a bit frustrated with the fact that you need to walk all the way to the corner where the crosswalk is locat ed in order to cross the street. If only there were a faster way to get from place to place! Sometimes you wist fully stare at those who dare to cross the street right outside the entrance to the Science Center, and you wish that you were bold enough to try it yourself.
There are two main types of jay walkers that I have observed during my time at Oberlin. The first is the New York jaywalker. These students walk brazenly into the street, barely even glancing for oncoming traffic before fearlessly stepping out. They believe the cars will simply stop and wait for them; that’s what it’s like in Park Slope, Brooklyn, after all, and New York City is the only place in the world. Second, there is the California jaywalker. Used to car-centric city designs, where the only safe places to cross roads are clearly marked cross walks with flashing lights and chirp ing sounds, they hover hesitantly at the edge of the street for several mo ments, nervously looking both ways
before scuttling across the street like small crabs on their childhood beach es.
Neither of these strategies are es pecially safe or efficient, although the New York Obies’ strategy does seem like a very effective way to get nearly hit by an oncoming vehicle. But what if I told you that, hypothetically, it doesn’t need to be this way? What if I told you that, hypothetically, you can, in fact, cross the street between the Science Center and Wilder quick ly and safely if you know how to do it right?
How would one go about this, you may ask? Well, hypothetically, if you were to jaywalk, I would recommend going about it with a good bit of cau tion and a little bit of confidence. You are at liberty to do it — but do it safe ly! In this hypothetical situation, I would recommend looking both ways
before stepping out into the street where there is not a crosswalk. This is also good practice for crossing at a crosswalk, as you never know what kind of drivers will be on the road on a given day. But what exactly are you looking for? Hypothetically, if you were to attempt to jaywalk, it would be advisable for the nearest cars to be at least one block away from you on either side. Also, if you were to attempt to commit such a heinous crime, it could perhaps be a good idea to walk quickly across the street. Hy pothetically, you shouldn’t need to run if the distance and speed of the cars has been accurately gauged, but I also wouldn’t recommend dilly-dally ing. If I knew anything about this and could offer any more advice, I would also add that it does take a bit of prac tice, and one should always err on the side of caution. This method is nearly
foolproof — in my 20 years of life, it has only failed me once.
I do, however, need to emphasize that this article is in no way seeking to encourage jaywalking. Jaywalking is, in fact, quite dangerous, and I merely wish to highlight the way in which it could, hypothetically, be done more safely. There are serious consequenc es to doing it badly — trust me, I know. Getting hit by a car is no joke. When choosing to cross the street in a lessthan-legal manner, it is important to remember one of the cardinal rules of health and safety at Oberlin: you need to be able to stay alive long enough to get to the world-renowned, top-notch Mercy Health - Allen Hospital Emer gency Department. You wouldn’t want to risk going to University Hos pitals or, God forbid, Cleveland Clin ic. Just think about how awful that would be.
It’s been just a few days shy of a month since I be gan my first semester of college, and it’s clear as day that cliques are already emerging among my peers. A clique is a group of people, bonded by cer tain commonalities, that establishes itself as exclu sive and typically closes itself off to others. It’s like high school all over again: the jocks in one corner,
the bookworms in another. While it’s comforting to know that people have found each other and feel comfortable with their new friends, I have some concerns.
I, too, have found myself closed off. I’ve found a small group of people that makes me happy, and the thought of further branching out is an exhausting notion. I’ve settled into a routine now: same classes, same food, same places, same friends. I don’t really want anything to change.
The issue is, friends made in the first month of your first year of college are rarely permanent. A few weeks ago, on a night walk with a couple of my dormmates, we ran into a third-year who reminded us that we “won’t be friends with one another in a couple weeks.” While I hardly think that’s a fair as sessment — my current friends are wonderful and I’m thoroughly enjoying my time with them — what if she’s right in the long run?
Holly Yelton, IllustratorContinued from page 10
chologist would tell you, this distinction is very important, but in the world of social media, these lines have been blurred. It is possible that the de-stigmatization of mental illness has been hi jacked by social media, and in turn, we’ve been lured into making those struggling with a clinical diagnosis feel unseen again — just in a different way.
You don’t need to have a clinical diagnosis or a severe mental health disorder to know that when you are in that amount of pain, you long to have the world tell you that you are seen. In the past, that need was crushed because you were met with the burden of a world saying, “Keep your mental illness hidden.” While it is true that in today’s society that voice has somewhat dissipated, what we need to understand is that we haven’t gone from “keep it hid den” to “I see you.” Instead, the source of feeling invisible has switched from feeling silenced to feeling minimized, as though one is in a crowd where everyone is chanting “welcome to the club.”
This is not to say that you aren’t in pain if you have felt anxious or depressed. We as humans experience those feelings, and they are very difficult to deal with. This is not about minimizing pain; it is about how social media tempts and invites us to express that pain in a way that equates it with a different type of pain, thereby minimizing the pain of those who consistently struggle with men tal health disorders.
To all the college students reading this, we have an important role. As young adults who have grown up with social media, we sit in the eye of this great storm. We are discovering so much of ourselves amid great amounts of academic and social pressures. In one way or another, we are all dealing with our own important struggles, but we are tempted to misplace these struggles in order to feel seen. Social media has taught us to all strive for the spot light, but this is not the world we want. As the ones most impacted by this phenomenon, we get to be on the frontline. We have the chance to reset our approach to one another’s struggles and help all of us feel seen without blurring the lines between self-diagno sis and clinical diagnosis to feel valid. We can create a world in which, instead of competing to be seen, we can be the ones assur ing each other, “you are seen.”
Continued from page 11
What if, by some universal law of college friendships, we are no longer friends by next year? It doesn’t seem entirely out of the realm of possibility — one month is hardly enough time to truly get to know people — but unless something major occurs, I can’t see myself not being friends with them.
To properly understand the human incli nation to form cliques, we can turn to psy chological study. We feel safer with a small er, more intimate group of people rather than with clusters of acquaintances. Sub consciously, we tend to associate ourselves with people who are similar to us. Accord ing to the Los Angeles Times , humans are more likely to learn from one another, be that socially or academically, if they are similar.
There are other reasons that humans tend to form tight-knit groups. For instance, cliques can emerge as a reaction to larg er social norms and patterns. People with shared identities often feel safer with one another, having common lived experiences. So it makes sense that people would clique up.
But while cliquing up might make you feel safe, secure, and relaxed for a while, it will ultimately result in you closing yourself off to a whole host of experiences. Take ad vantage of the experiences — or don’t, it’s up to you. But by shutting the door, staying in with friends every night, refusing to join clubs, identity spaces, sports, and music groups, you’re refusing to take advantage of the wonderful social opportunities that Oberlin has to offer.
Oberlin has tons of incredible clubs, from musical theater and dance to improv,
writing, and jazz. Oberlin is also host to an array of more niche clubs, like OBurlesque and Chess Club. We have both club and in tramural sports, like soccer, football, rugby, and even bowling. The Experimental Col lege experience provides students with the opportunity to take classes taught by other students for credit and learn about almost any topic they want, including Taylor Swift, moths, and sexual health.
The process for joining clubs, sports, coops, and ExCos is pretty easy. While partici pating in these extracurriculars may require some initial effort like filling out application forms, the entry points are easy to locate. When I came to Oberlin, I promised myself I would take full advantage of these oppor tunities. I’ve joined a variety of clubs and music groups, but not in hopes that I would stick with every single one of them for all four years — I may not stick with all of them for even a full semester. I did this because I want opportunities; I want to strengthen the skills I already believe I have. I became a columnist for the Review because I love to write, and I joined an acappella group be cause I love to sing. I’m doing what I love, and I’m happy!
I encourage my classmates to seek new experiences, look for new kinds of people, and challenge themselves socially. The college social experience is unique, and nothing in our future will ever replicate this. The ease with which you can join new groups and branch out socially is nothing like it will be later in life. My suggestion? Take advantage of it.
In 1866, just six months after the end of the Civil War, Fisk Universi ty was founded in Nashville to pro vide education to formerly enslaved Black Americans. However, by 1871 the school was in financial debt. This prompted George L. White, a Fisk student, to start a nine-person choir and take it on tour to raise money. They called themselves the Fisk Jubi lee Singers.
The group toured small towns in the American northeast and per formed for primarily white audienc es. The road was not easy. The group endured racism and illness, and de spite their talent, they did not profit financially. Soon, though, the choir began to receive acclaim for their musical skill and repertoire of spiri tuals that were not commonly heard outside of Black communities. These performances helped spirituals gain legitimacy as an American musical form.
It was only after performing at Oberlin in a convention which hosted several ministers that the group began receiving more attention than ever before. Their reputation, propelled by word-of-mouth reviews, prompt ed the group to tour the eastern US,
where they sang for notable individ uals, including Ulysses S. Grant. The group went on to receive world-re nowned acclaim and has won various awards, including the National Medal of the Arts, the highest national hon or for arts.
Over a hundred years later in 1971, Oberlin students Charles Woods and Everett Williams created the Ober lin Black Ensemble as a Winter Term project. The group was started as a creative outlet for singers, many of whom had grown up singing in Black churches. This Winter Term project quickly became a hit and ended up touring around different churches and community centers in the region. The Oberlin Black Ensemble soon gained a reputation as Oberlin’s ver sion of the Fisk Jubilee Singers.
The Oberlin Black Ensemble was then dormant for some time until this past year, when it was revived in the form of the Oberlin Gospel Choir. La Tanya Hall, professor of Jazz Voice in the Conservatory, spearheaded the project, assisted by Wendell Logan and Bobby Ferrazza, two jazz profes sors in the Conservatory.
The ensemble met weekly on Tues day mornings in the spring semes ter and has been a roaring success for students, faculty, and communi ty members alike. Sagana Ondande,
a double-degree fifth-year student studying Classical Voice in the Con servatory and Computer Science in the College, reflected on his experi ence with the choir.
“It was my favorite class last year, hands down,” he said. “I was real ly shy about my singing when I was younger, and the only place I would sing at was church. Joining the Gos pel Choir reminded me [of] why I sing, and being in that environment just hit me like, ‘this is where I can sing my fullest.’”
The choir also offers an escape for students seeking to broaden their repertoire beyond the confines of a Eurocentric classical curriculum.
“When you’re in classical voice, it’s almost like you have blinders on,” classical vocalist Daniela Machado, OC ’22, said. “But in my last year, I really wanted to expand my reper toire, so I joined. I hope that more singers consider doing it, especially on the classical side. I think Gospel Choir was a way for me to step back from how high pressure the Classical Voice program can be, because some times it’s not about joy. But the Gos pel Choir really is a wonderful envi ronment with wonderful people and beautiful music.”
The choir not only learns the music but also the history behind it, an as
pect of the Gospel Choir that neither students nor faculty take for granted.
“Professor Hall was very adamant about us knowing the history of the songs we were learning,” Machado continued.
In the spirit of honoring the gos pel traditions and history of the two ensembles that came before it, the Oberlin Gospel Choir performed a commemorative concert last May to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. The per formance featured not only gospel music but dance as well. Professor of Dance Holly Handman-Lopez cho reographed the show’s dances and felt a responsibility to choreograph in a way that was respectful to the text and history of the chosen pieces.
“I researched a lot more than I would for a normal contemporary dance,” she said. “I really looked at the lyrics and tried to understand the story and then tell that story physi cally, as opposed to making a pretty dance that’s symmetrical and aesthet ically pleasing but has nothing to do with the subject matter of the song.”
The collaboration between danc ers and singers is something that both Handman-Lopez and Machado hope will continue to flourish at Oberlin.
ConservatorySept. 9 marked the two-year anniver sary of the Conservatory’s 2020 ac tion plan, “Towards a More Equitable and Diverse Conservatory Education: Statement from Oberlin Conservato ry Faculty.” The plan was a Conser vatory-specific extension of the 2020 Presidential Initiative. This docu ment was made in consultation with students, alumni, and student groups, particularly the Oberlin Conservato ry Black Musician’s Guild.
The report was divided into eight sections: curriculum and pedagogy; programming, repertoire, and per formance; admissions and auditions; personnel; climate; community en gagement; student success; and advi sory council. Over the coming weeks, through a series of in-depth articles, the Review will examine how the Conservatory has addressed its tar gets through a series of reforms over the past couple of years. This article will examine how the Conservato ry has addressed two of these areas: curriculum and pedagogy and admis sions and auditions.
The focus of the Curriculum and Pedagogy section was on restructur ing a set of nine classes taught over four semesters for first and sec ond-year students that served as the core curriculum required of all Con servatory students regardless of their major. An institution-wide curricu lum review was initiated in 2019 as part of the One Oberlin plan, so the work was already in progress when this report was released.
The four-semester music theory sequence has undergone the most noticeable restructuring since the release of the plan. Students no lon ger need to take a linear path through the four-semester track that encom passed Western harmony and analy sis in every class. That sequence has been shortened to two required class es, and from there, second-year stu dents choose from a slate of 200-level courses, some of which deviate from a Western music focus. This semes ter, courses offered at this 200 lev el include Questioning Genius, Jazz
Theory II; and Scales, Sets, Series, and Spectra.
While students could previously test out of one or more core music theory courses, all students now must take Music Theory I and II during their first two semesters.
The form and structure of these two core music theory classes have also been changed. Previous itera tions of the class included learning goals such as “compose short exercis es in the style of 16th- and 18th-cen tury composers” and “develop and apply a vocabulary for describing dia tonic harmony with Roman numer als.” These kinds of classical-centric approaches are now accompanied by topics including jazz and pop no tation, atonality, and blues and jazz tonal forms.
“By letting go of four-part voice-leading, we’ve made space to do so many other things,” Associate Professor and Division Director of Music Theory Jan Miyake said. “I like voice-leading, but that’s not all of what music theory really is.”
Within this greater restructuring, the Music Theory department has also added an introductory course, MUTH 120: Introduction to Music Theory, a course that is geared to ward incoming students who need to strengthen their music vocabulary and other fundamental skills before tackling upper-level classes.
For Professor of Music Theory Bri an Alegant, who is currently teaching MUTH 120, the structure of the class is unlike anything he has encountered before.
“It’s as diverse as I can make it –we started with Hildegard von Bin gen; have explored classical, roman tic, contemporary, pop, metal, and jazz; and will devote a ton of time to contemporary music after break,” Alegant wrote in an email to the Re view . “This is a wide lens.”
Although the four semesters of au ral skills courses were also considered for restructuring, their forms have remained mostly unchanged. Miyake, who served as one of the chief archi tects for the restructuring of the Mu sic Theory division, explained how the decision was made to preserve most of the aural skills curriculum.
“We’ve actually found less urgen
cy in aural skills to change,” Miyake said. “It’s very dependent on five-line staff notation, and I’m not sure how, or if, it would be right to get away from that. It’s pretty much the only class that forces students to engage deeply with five-line staff notation.”
Reforms also targeted the musi cology side of the Conservatory and specifically focused on making the entry-level class, Music History 101, a less central part of the curricu lum. The report made two important points: eliminate MHST 101 as a pre requisite for all Music History cours es and revise the title and course de scription to better capture its course content.
Currently, only some of these changes appear to have been realized. While MHST 101 has been eliminated as a course requirement for 200-level music courses, certain departments still include MHST 101 as a required class. Furthermore, the current course description for MHST 101 re mains identical to its Spring 2019 it eration, and its formal title remains unchanged.
Outside of the core classes, an over arching effort was made by the en tire Conservatory faculty to include works from historically underrepre sented communities in their curric ulum. From 2020 – 2022, a series of workshops was held to assist faculty in bringing this new curriculum into the classroom. The Oberlin Library developed digital guides, which com piled databases highlighting music by historically underrepresented groups, including women composers and composers of color.
The report found that on-campus visits for auditions strongly correlate with eventual attendance among prospective students. Therefore, to help mitigate the costs of traveling to Oberlin for an audition, an Audition Travel Fund was established for pro spective students to help them make the trip to Oberlin. The upcoming application cycle will mark the first time these grants will be distributed.
The report also focused on modify ing the repertoire that students were expected to use for the first round of auditions before they were invited to
the final round. The action plan called on departments to either strongly en courage or require students who were auditioning to perform music from underrepresented groups. This direc tive was aimed at the classical divi sions of the Conservatory — keyboard (piano and organ) and orchestral in struments, where music from under represented composers exists but has long been repressed.
Currently, all classical perfor mance divisions outside of Historical Performance either include audition repertoire by composers from un derrepresented groups or have state ments on their web pages that en courage prospective students to apply with music from “Blacks or other un derrepresented composers.” Howev er, most areas of study still do not re quire students to audition with music from underrepresented composers.
The lack of a requirement among all departments for students to au dition with music from underrepre sented groups does fall short of de mands made by Conservatory alumni in a September 2020 Letter to the Editor, where they called that music from an underrepresented group be included as “a requirement of one piece regarding this criteria.”
According to Conservatory Associ ate Dean for Academic Support Chris Jenkins, who serves as the Conser vatory liaison to the Office of Diver sity, Equity, and Inclusion, efforts to address the concerns of students and alumni are still unfolding.
“Satisfying the demands of stu dents can be difficult because the timeframe for the change they want to see often extends beyond their graduation date,” Jenkins wrote in an email to the Review . “It’s import ant for students to understand that a lot of the work behind the scenes isn’t simply making decisions and ex ecuting but has to do with creating the conditions necessary for change. Even when students have amazing ideas that are theoretically possible for us to execute, there has to be an alignment of will, funding, personnel, and opportunity, and it can take more than four years to get to the right point.”
The Oberlin Alumni Association of African Ancestry, also known as OA4, is a branch of the Alumni Association founded to establish and maintain a relationship between African American alumni and current students of Oberlin College and Conservatory. The OA4 and Oberlin Conservatory launched a mentorship program this academic year to provide participants with guidance from Oberlin alumni.
The program’s inception is the result of the
Presidential Initiative charge that President Carmen Twillie Ambar announced Aug. 28, 2020. In the Presidential Initiative on Racial Equity and Diversity document published May 2022, the goal of the OA4 Mentorship Program is described as follows:
“To more effectively support students during their time at Oberlin and as they prepare to launch into careers post-graduation, the Conservatory will launch a new student-alumni mentorship pro gram in 2022. Developed and run in partnership with the Oberlin Alumni Association of African Ancestry (OA4), this program will pair OA4 men
tors with mentees who are Conservatory students who identify as being of African ancestry and/or students who are committed to supporting and advancing the study of Black music.”
Every alum mentor is expected to provide social, emotional, and career support for their mentee over the course of at least four meetings per semes ter, either in person or over Zoom. The connection established through this program between each student and their alum mentor works to potentially open up valuable professional opportunities and performance engagements for students.
Third-year Leander Herman is a dual-sport athlete on both the lacrosse and football teams who still finds time to participate in ultimate Frisbee on campus. A Computer Science major, he loves playing board games, spending time with friends, and play ing ice hockey.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
When did you start playing lacrosse and foot ball?
I started playing lacrosse in probably fifth grade. I went through a lot of sports in my life, but I stuck with lacrosse. People always used to ask me if I played football or basketball because of my height though. You know, maybe that’s what got me to play football now — all the years of people just ask ing me if I did. I joined the team two weeks ago. I’d been thinking about it since the end of last year and was waiting to talk to the coach. I had never played before, but I have the build for it and I thought it would be fun to try a new sport. It keeps me orga nized too.
Why did you choose Oberlin to play lacrosse?
I chose Oberlin to play lacrosse because after vis iting all the schools I planned to apply for, Oberlin seemed to fit what I wanted academically, and the team had the best community feeling compared to other schools’ teams. I felt that I would be part of a great community right when I got to school.
Are your positions in lacrosse and football dif ferent?
Sort of. In football I’m a lineman. Initially I was an offensive lineman, which is a lot like defense in lacrosse. I have recently moved to the defensive line in football, which is a lot like my position in lacrosse as the attacker. So I’d say now it’s a lot more similar because in lacrosse, I’m running at the goal trying to get by a defender, and as a defen sive lineman, I’m trying to block a path or get to the quarterback. It’s a similar thing though, and I’m essentially just trying to run through people.
In what ways do the two sports differ? Lacrosse is a very fast-paced game; you’re always going back and forth offensive- and defensive-wise. With football, there are breaks between each play. There’s always some time to plan the game out, and it’s meticulous planning; there’s a lot of spe cific plays you have to know. When the coach calls something out, you have to know what he’s talking about. But in lacrosse, we have more of a general flow on how you’re supposed to play. We have cer tain plays in lacrosse, but usually it’s more in the moment.
Was the football team welcoming when you first joined? How was it similar to when you joined lacrosse?
The football team was very welcoming. Once I joined it, I felt like I was instantly part of the team. It felt a lot like freshman year with lacrosse — how I already had a group of friends that I could do things and socialize with, even under many COVID-19 restrictions which made it hard to meet new people. Both teams are hardworking but are always fun to be around.
Do you play any other sports for fun or do any thing else on campus?
I try to play some ultimate Frisbee here and there. I never really played before college, but I had a lot of family members who played, and I always tossed with them when I was young. The team here practices at the same time as lacrosse so it’s not easy, but I enjoy playing it. And I like playing ice hockey as well; I played ice hockey for almost the same amount of time that I played lacrosse. But it’s hard to do other things with two sports.
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Images of Federer and Nadal after their match have gone viral for the amount of emotion each friend dis played. It was anticipated that every one would be emotionally affected and for Federer to be in tears, but Nadal crying and holding hands with Federer on the bench was unexpect ed.
“We can coexist in a tough rivalry and come out on top and show that, hey, again it’s just tennis,” Federer said in the postgame interview. “Yes, it’s hard, and it’s brutal sometimes, but it’s always fair. And you can come out on the other side and still have this great, friendly rivalry.”
Federer’s last match was the sec ond time he and Nadal had partnered together in the Laver Cup, a unique tournament on the professional cal
endar. In this team-focused event, the top European players band together as Team Europe to take on the best of the rest, Team World. Jack Sock and Frances Tiafoe, two Americans competing for Team World, saved a match point and prevailed over the European pair 4–6, 7–6 (2), 11–9 in a two-hour battle. Despite his final match ending in defeat, Federer was not disappointed by the outcome.
“It does feel like a celebration to me,” he said. “I wanted to feel like this at the end, and it’s exactly what I hoped for.”
Tennis has always been an individu al-focused sport with few opportuni ties for team involvement. The Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup compe titions, in which male and female ten nis players play for their individual countries, were tennis’s primary team events for years. Although these two
events are still important, the Laver Cup has become the most anticipat ed team event of the year. Along with being incredibly entertaining for tennis fans, the Laver Cup has reduced the perception that top play ers around the world are not friendly and harmonious with one another.
Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic have shared nearly every accolade in this generation of tennis, and many of their matches have occured on oppo site sides of the net in prestigious singles competitions. The Laver Cup united these three legends on Team Europe, where they are no longer rivals but allies. Fans have seen play ers on both teams cheering loudly in support of their teammates. The Laver Cup has successfully brought a team dynamic to tennis and has put healthy and competitive behavior on display for fans to witness.
Many athletes are forced to retire due to contracts or injury. Although Federer’s final comeback was stopped short due to his recurring knee inju ry, he was still able to retire on his own terms. Surrounded by friends and family, Federer’s last match con tained everything an athlete could want in their farewell to their sport.
“The way it all happened yesterday, I think it’s the perfect way to say goodbye,” Djokovic said to reporters the day after Federer’s match.
Roger Federer is an exemplary sportsman: graceful, sensitive, strong, and compassionate. His rivalry with Rafael Nadal is one for the history books, in both records and respect. He has left an indelible mark on ten nis and his legacy will last forever. Thank you for everything, Roger, and enjoy your retirement.
Third-year Leander Herman was recruited for lacrosse and is a walk-on for football. Courtesy of Maggie BalderstoneIn 80 minutes of action, the longest game of the season so far, field hockey won in a hard fought shootout against Transylvania University last Sunday. After a goalless double overtime, both teams engaged in strokes for a best of five, with Oberlin winning 3–1.
Oberlin’s defensive players took the stage in the shootout. Third-year Abbie Patchen started off strong with the first stroke attempt, followed by first-year Elly Scheer’s two shots. Ultimately, fourth-year Jackie Oh scored the winning point in what she called an “exhilarating” and “surre al” experience. However, she doesn’t take all the credit. Oh is grateful for the fans and fellow defensive players for keeping her motivated throughout the lengthy game.
“I don’t consider my shootout the game winner because it would not have been possible without the efforts of [fourth-year] Post, Abbie, and Elly,” Oh wrote in an email to the Review “Post had amazing saves, and Abbie and Elly secured some great shootout goals prior to mine. Because overtime is only 7v7, I had a lot of teammates on the sideline cheering me on and pushing me to be the best player I know I can be.”
Captain and goalkeeper Post played an important role in halting Transylvania’s persistent offense with six saves during the main game. They also blocked three out of four shootout attempts. Like Oh, they
remarked that this has been one of the strongest defensive lines in field hockey’s recent history, and working alongside them has been a hallmark of this season so far.
“Jackie, Elly, and Abbie are some of the most talented players I’ve ever worked with,” Post wrote in an email to the Review . “A lot of work on the field comes down to presence, com munication, and drive. If we show up to a game wanting it, it’ll project us forward. The defense and I have worked hard to maintain that tone
throughout games, even the more challenging ones.”
This marks the second year that field hockey has reigned victori ous over Transylvania; last season, Oberlin won their first and only game against the Pioneers. This was the last game against a non-conference team, as Oberlin will begin confer ence play this Saturday starting with the Allegheny College Gators. Fueled by the two Transylvania wins, Post hopes that the team can finish fifth in the conference and is excited at
the prospect of more wins and cele brations to come in their final season.
“Last year when we beat them, it was our only win of the season,” they wrote. “To be not even halfway through the season and beat them and two other teams feels incredibly important. Moreover, there is [an] insatiable drive to win more games, to finish every game feeling like we left it all on the field. … I want to uplift my peers and celebrate the family we’ve helped create and main tain.”
Last week, women’s soccer took on the football team on Bailey Field in a penalty kick/field goal competi tion. Each team had three players from their roster attempt shots and also selected a coach to end the contest. This friendly competition was the first time many of the athletes had played the opposing team’s sport. While the competition remained close for the majority of the game, the Yeowomen came out on top.
Third-year football player Jack Diskin said that although he didn’t attempt any penalty kicks, he did “bring the juice.”
“Whenever soccer would go up to kick we’d get rowdy,” he said. “After our guys made a kick we’d bring the whole team together and celebrate. The women’s soccer team definitely brought the inten sity — they came out to our field and definitely let us know after they won with a bit of trash talking.”
Third-year women’s soccer player Zoe Maddox, also known as Benji, played a pivotal role in secur ing this win for the soccer team as she was able to
save a penalty kick and tie up the game.
“I saved one PK, and that was wicked exciting,” she said. “PK’s are almost always in favor of the pen alty kick taker, so anytime I can make a save during them, it’s exhilarating. After making the save, my whole team ran to me jumping and screaming, and that is always a great feeling. Even though this was a friendly competition, I was gonna make sure I did everything I could to ensure my team’s victory. My save also tied up our score before [Assistant Women’s Soccer Coach] Lydia Mitchell kicked her field goal, which was the last one to be taken.”
This was indeed a big save that was crucial for the team. In the last round of kicking attempts, foot ball’s Tight Ends Coach Cade O’Connell wasn’t able to seal the deal for the football team, but Assistant Coach Mitchell drilled a field goal right down the middle to win it for her team.
Diskin said that despite the loss, the game was still exciting and fun for both teams.
“I was pretty impressed at both teams’ ability to play the opposite sport,” Diskin said. “Especially because all the guys we had kicking penalty kicks didn’t have much experience kicking a soccer ball. The entire time we were all going crazy and scream ing.”
Maddox described this year as a “transition year” for the women’s soccer team, not only with their play on the field but also with how they engage with the community off the pitch.
“This was an excellent opportunity for our team to interact with another athletic team we don’t often engage with in a fun and friendly environment,” she said. “Our team has a lot of pride and loves compe tition, so playing against football was a really fun experience for us all.”
Despite only participating in kicks, both teams did well and might have found a new passion. Who knows, maybe Head Football Coach Steve Opgenorth will start recruiting from the women’s soccer team if he needs someone to kick a field goal.
Zoe Kuzbari Jackie Oh dribbles past Transylvania University in last Sunday’s game. Women’s soccer fourth-year Camille Franklin kicks a field goal. Courtesy of Suada Duvette and Chase Sortor Courtesy of Amanda Phillips
James Foster
Just three weeks after Serena Williams, tennis’s greatest female athlete, retired, a fellow tennis legend followed suit. On Sept. 23, Roger Federer, the Swiss maestro who has cap tivated audiences for decades, played his final match at the Laver Cup in doubles alongside one of his most formidable rivals, Rafael Nadal. It seemed fitting for Federer and Nadal to share the court to close Federer’s career considering their storied rivalry. Over the course of 18 years, they played 40 matches against each other including 24 finals — nine of which took place at one of the four major Grand Slam tour naments.
Along with Novak Djokovic, Federer and Nadal have dom inated tennis since the early 2000s and are seen as some of the greatest tennis players of all time. The two have always had immense respect for each other, and neither have been shy to admit it. Before the 2010 Nitto ATP Finals, Nadal pro vided insight into his and Federer’s friendship.
“We have a great relationship all the time,” Nadal said. “Our relationship didn’t change a lot since the beginning because it was always very respectful. The only way the relationship has improved is getting closer. We spend more time together, always being in the [ATP Player] Council, being on court, playing exhibitions together. I don’t think it’s a rivalry. All these important moments in tennis make you appreciate it more.”
Federer has been equally vocal about his respect and sup port of Nadal.
Chris Stoneman Senior Staff WriterLast weekend, Oberlin College hosted its 22nd annual Force Freedom Ultimate Frisbee tour nament. Both of Oberlin’s teams, the wom en’s and trans Preying Manti and the Flying Horsecows, participated in the action.
To begin the day, the Flying Horsecows were divided randomly into two smaller teams, X and Y, for the tournament. Team X chose the name Mercedes-Benz UNIMOG while Team Y chose to call themselves the Battle of the Sandwich. Both teams faced the same oppo nents, though in a different order.
The Horsecows and the Manti lost 11 seniors last year, leaving many holes for first-years and new players to fill. The teams recruited heavily during orientation, but the question remained as to whether their efforts would suffice. Both MBU and BOS started on a down note, each losing closely to Kenyon’s X team. MBU lost 13–5 in their first match against the Serfs while BOS fell short 13–11. However, MBU was able to redeem the losses in a second match to Kenyon’s Y team, in which they won a close 13–12.
To end the day, both teams competed against The College of Wooster. Each of these match es were blowouts in favor of the Horsecows, with MBU stomping the Ramjam 13–1 and BOS winning in equal measure with a score of 13–3.
Fourth-year Captain Jack Povilaitis was extremely satisfied with the Horsecows’ per formance. He believes the Horsecows and their young group have a bright future ahead of them.
“The team blew my mind,” he remarked. “A huge part of this fall semester has been recruiting and getting [new players] up to snuff to fill gaps. So many people … showed the captains that they can step up when we ask them to.”
The Manti started out hot, securing a 8–6 victory against the University of Dayton at the beginning of the day. Though there were many turnovers throughout the game, the Manti were able to weather the storm and emerge
victorious. Unfortunately, a winning streak was not in the cards. The team lost their next game 11–1 to a stacked Case Western Reserve University.
“[Despite being] super intense, the game wound up being a really good learning experi ence,” third-year cutter Claire Rothstein said when asked about the loss.
Going into the latter half of the day, the Manti persevered and put up an impressive fight against two very strong opponents.
Playing the University of Pittsburgh proved to be a tough challenge but again served as a valuable teaching moment for the developing team, who lost 13–2.
“It was so cool being able to see such a talented group show off such amazing skill,” Rothstein said.
The Manti rounded off the day with a match against Miami University. In an intense defen sive battle with multiple turnovers and a plethora of long points, the Manti saw them selves barely edged out in a close 9–4 loss.
The Manti were proud of their performance, especially with so many new players.
“The team definitely exceeded expecta tions in a lot of ways and had so much fun,” Rothstein said.
Rothstein and Povilaitis also took time during their interviews to invite any and all students on campus to join the ranks of the Manti and Horsecows. Both spoke to the amount of love and support they felt from the teams and the joy they feel playing the sport.
“The Manti [and Horsecows] are the most loving and friendly teams,” Rothstein said.
“We’re always looking to recruit more people, and it’s been so exciting to see such a large group of individuals be so passionate about improving their abilities.”
Povilaitis agreed with Rothstein and added that the Frisbee community is like a family rather than a team.
“You can’t imagine how big of a role this team can play in your life,” Povilaitis added.
“If you let us, we will become your fami ly. Everyone deep down is a Horsecow [or Mantis]; you’ve just gotta let it out and fly!”
“I’m his number one fan, I think his game is simply tre mendous,” Federer said before playing against Nadal in the 2017 Australian Open final. “He’s an incredible competitor and I’m happy we’ve had some epic battles in the past.”
Both Federer and Nadal have erased each other’s name from the winning side of history on numerous occasions. However, healthy competition and respect is what stands out in their rivalry. They have always held themselves with grace and humility and are shining examples of sportsman ship at the highest level.
Courtesy of Getty Images Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were doubles partners at the Laver Cup. Preying Manti members face Miami University’s defense. Photo by Sumner Wallace