The Oberlin Review Nov. 4, 2022

The Oberlin Review November 4, 2022

Established 1874

Volume 152, Number 7

PSA: Upcoming Election In-person voting will take place Tuesday, Nov. 8, and the deadline to request an absentee ballot is Saturday, Nov. 5 at 12 p.m.

The Review encourages everyone eligible to vote to head to the polls!

Multicultural Visit Program Welcomes Prospective Students Nikki Keating News Editor Editor’s Note: The reporter who wrote this article was an ambassador host for prospective students during the Multicultural Visit Program.

The Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies serves as a hub for environmental discourse on campus.

Photo courtesy of Oberlin College

Trustees Reject Immediate Divestiture, Move to Divest Gradually Alexa Stevens News Editor On Oct. 7, the Board of Trustees resolved to eventually fully divest from fossil fuel investments. This divestiture comes 16 years after the College signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment.

As it stands, fossil fuel accounts for less than 1 percent of the College’s endowment. These are legacy private energy investments indirectly invested in the fossil fuel industry. At their peak in 2015, these investments amounted to 5 percent of the endowment.

According to Sue Chandler, OC ’65, a lead organizer of the Oberlin Fossil Fuel Divestment Working Group, various alumni came together to call for divestiture during the class’ 50-year reunion in 2015.

“There have been some student and alumni concerns since that time, but I think it was really in November of ’21 that this group of women from the class of ’65 said, ‘We wanna do something about this,’” Chandler said.

“And then we began calling around, got in touch with the ’14 [and] ’15 people, with faculty, with other alumni, and finally and most important[ly], with some students.”

According to Board of Trustees Chair Chris Canavan, OC ’84, the decision to gradually divest comes after the board voted to reject a proposal to immediately divest from any investments tangentially connected to fossil fuels.

“The proposal was for us to immediately divest from any and all investments linked to fossil fuels and to make a public statement to that effect,” Canavan said. “And because divesting immediately and completely from anything connected to fossil fuels is problematic — it’s problematic in some cases because sometimes it’s not obvious that your investment is indirectly an investment in a fossil fuel business or an industry that relies on fossil fuels — we felt it would’ve been disingenuous for us to accept that resolution even if we couldn’t be absolutely confident that we could verify it.”

Though the proposal was rejected, Canavan maintained that the board’s goals are aligned with the proposal. The resolution passed by the board commits the

College to complete divestiture of indirect investments in companies that support fossil fuel development in an unspecified period of time.

According to Canavan, immediate divestiture is made especially difficult by the processes through which the endowment is invested.

“The fact is that when you’re investing over a billion dollars in all sorts of different markets, and in most cases, those investments are being made by other investment managers on your behalf, it’s practically impossible to be able to say at any given moment, ‘I can assure you without any doubt that not one tenth of 1 percent of the endowment is invested in fossil fuels,’” Canavan said.

The pledge to divest as presented in the board resolution places Oberlin among the 76 colleges and universities in the United States that have publicly declared their divestitures from fossil fuels. Chandler views this as a significant victory.

“When you stand up and say, ‘We are going to divest,’ and say it publicly and clearly, that is a big deal,” Chandler said. “It puts you on that side of history.”

Though Chandler and other members of the Oberlin Fossil Fuel Divestment Working Group view this as a moment to celebrate, she cautions that the work ahead of the divestment community is far from done.

“The mega corporations whose profits depend on fossil fuel extraction show no signs of stopping the machine that’s driving life on this planet to the brink,” Chandler said. “The economic and political power is on the face of it unmatchable. It’s only through collective action, such as a divestment movement, that there is a chance to stop it.”

Chandler expressed that she and other members of the Working Group are involved in this collective action for the sake of generations to come.

“So often our look at the future comes through our grandchildren,” Chandler said. “And I can’t say strongly enough the sadness of looking at a future that is just overwhelmed by a climate crisis. … But it also makes us very willing to fight. And even when we’re old and maybe should be on the beach someplace, no, we’re right here fighting because we really believe that it’s the students and the young people that are at the center of things.”

Last week, the College welcomed over 70 prospective students to the Multicultural Visit Program. MVP is an opportunity for prospective students to visit campus for a weekend and live with a student ambassador. During the pandemic, fewer prospective students were able to visit, and they weren’t allowed to stay in dorms. This session of the program hosted the largest cohort since 2020 and resumed regular operations.

“The main purpose of MVP is first off acknowledging that Oberlin is a predominantly white institution,” Assistant Director of Admissions and MVP Ana Richardson, OC ’18, said. “The whole point is to try to bolster the community of students of color, low income students, and also first generation students.

So a student can either be first gen, … low income, or a student of color to qualify.”

The Admissions Office finances travel for prospective students, in addition to costs incurred while on campus. During that time, prospective students tour the campus and eat at the dining halls, as well as go to events and classes. This year, many joined in with performances at Afrikan Heritage House Soul Session or sat in the pews of Finney Chapel for Organ Pump.

“We put a lot of money into making sure that we are actually bringing in more students of color, and the number one indicator of if somebody will choose your school is if they’ve been on campus,” Richardson said. “So the point of this is to bring in students of color, but also to have students who wouldn’t have had the opportunity to come to campus without it. We pay for their flights, and we pay for everything while they’re here too.”

See Multicultural, Page 4

Prospective students toured Oberlin this past week.

Photo courtesy of Oberlin College

CONTENTS NEWS

OPINIONS

THIS WEEK

ARTS & CULTURE

SPORTS

03 Gubernatorial Candidate Nan Whaley Speaks to Oberlin Community Members at Slow Train Cafe

06 Delays in Third-Year Consent Training Send Mixed Messages

08-09 International Students Miss Families, Reflect on Finding Community Away from Home

10 Students Eager to Utilize Makerspaces, Face Barriers to Entry

15 Oberlin Seniors Shine Under Saturday Night Lights

12 Christ Episcopal Church Hosts Free Weekday Community Meals

16 Oberlin Men’s Cross Country Sweeps NCAC Championships

04 OTC: Dr. Jessica Kirzane

07 Media Scrutiny of John Fetterman’s Health Unnecessary, Ableist

The Oberlin Review | November 4, 2022

oberlinreview.org facebook.com/oberlinreview TWITTER @oberlinreview INSTAGRAM @ocreview

1

Ne w s

City-Wide Planned Blackout Allows for Successful Power Line Repairs, Concludes Early Isaac Imas Production Editor The City of Oberlin staged a citywide power outage at 12 a.m. Oct. 30 to allow FirstEnergy to repair a broken cross-arm brace on a transmission line.

The repairs went smoothly and power returned to the City at 3 a.m. on Sunday morning, three hours earlier than expected.

Similar to the planned power outage in October 2021, the repairs were carried out after a FirstEnergy inspection identified a piece of an insulator that needed to be replaced. According to Director of Oberlin Municipal Light and Power System Doug McMillan, the rolling power outages across campus earlier this October were due to unrelated causes.

“I’m not sure if that was a squirrel or a branch,” McMillan said. “We had one of those two that came down just in the wrong spot, and it took out a good chunk of the area.”

During the outage, students could enter their

individual rooms, where key card operators are battery-powered, but external dorm entrances could not be accessed electronically. College second-year Gavin Cahill, a Resident Assistant of Price House, explained why he was instructed to discourage the propping of doors.

“That was definitely a big no that we got,” Cahill said. “If the doors were open at the time the power went out, they would stay unlocked for the whole night and wouldn’t lock until the power’s supposed to come back on, which was originally 6 a.m. ... And so then that would become a huge safety concern of just anyone being able to get into the dorms.”

RAs worked through the night to address any issues that could have arisen during to the blackout.

“One of the main things that night before the power works went out was literally just circling all the doors, making sure they stayed closed, because some people were trying to prop them open,” Cahill said. “In a sense, we all had to be on duty in our own dorm, because if something else happened in

another dorm, we wouldn’t be able to get to that dorm.”

The announcement on the City of Oberlin webpage, as well as the one circulated in the Campus Digest regarding the Oct. 30 power outage, noted that emergency services would not be interrupted during the power outage. For the Oberlin Electricity Department, this entailed setting up generators at traffic lights and ensuring other municipal departments, such as police, had backup generators.

Oberlin Electricity had no sway over power the College supplied to dorms.

McMillan commented on the timing of the power outage.

“We chose that time because the industrial park has a third shift,” McMillan said. “Early Sunday morning, they’re not running that shift. So we didn’t wanna disrupt people making their wages there ...

Because a plant like that would just shut down for the whole evening. So they would lose a whole shift of work.”

The Oberlin community experienced a City-wide blackout last weekend.

The Oberlin R eview

P ublication of R ecord for Oberlin College November 4, 2022 Volume 152, Number 7 (ISSN 297–256)

Published by the students of Oberlin College every Friday during the fall and spring semesters, except holidays and examination periods.

Advertising rates: $18 per column inch. Second-class postage paid at Oberlin, Ohio. Entered as second-class matter at the Oberlin, Ohio post office April 2, 1911. POSTMASTER SEND CHANGES TO: Wilder Box 90, Oberlin, Ohio 44074-1081. Office of Publication: Burton Basement, Oberlin, Ohio 44074. Phone: (440) 775-8123

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

2

Editors-in-Chief News Editors Opinions Editors

Arts & Culture Editors Sports Editor Cont. Sports Editors This Week Editor Operations Manager Photo Editors Senior Staff Writers

Web Manager Social Media Manager Production Manager

Photo by Abe Frato Kushagra Kar Emma Benardete Alexa Stevens Nikki Keating Emily Vaughan Elle Giannandrea Juliana Gaspar Andrea Nguyen Zoe Kuzbari Kayla Kim Cal Ransom Abhisri Nath Abe Frato Erin Koo Adrienne Sato Sofia Tomasic Ava Miller Gracie McFalls Chris Stoneman Julian Anderson Nada Aggadi Lia Fawley

Production Staff

Layout Editors

Illustrators Distributors

Addie Breen Delaney Fox Ella Bernstein Isaac Imas Owen Do Sumner Wallace Serena Atkinson Trevor Smith Erin Koo Grace Gao Ginger Kohn Molly Chapin Holly Yelton Leah Potoff Nondini Nagarwalla Neva Taylor Will Young

Gubernatorial Candidate Nan Whaley Touring Lorain County, Speaks to Oberlin Community at Slow Train Cafe Alexa Stevens News Editor Isaac Imas Production Editor On Wednesday, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Nan Whaley discussed her platform with College and City residents in Slow Train Cafe. Whaley is running for the seat against incumbent Republican Governor Mike DeWine.

Whaley served as mayor of Dayton from 2014 to 2022, and her running mate Cheryl Stephens, who is running for lieutenant governor, served as mayor of Cleveland Heights.

During her Wednesday talk, Whaley spoke to those in attendance about the ballot and her gubernatorial bid at large.

“I’m proud to be on this ticket with Cheryl Stephens, the former mayor of Cleveland [Heights],” Whaley said. “I always say, ‘What’s better than one former female mayor, but two former?’ And look, we want to get back to governing this state like the common sense state it is, right?”

Lili Sandler, founder of grassroots organization Lorain County Rising and Campaign Manager for Anthony Eliopoulos’ District 13 State Senate bid, worked to bring Whaley to this venue as part of a two-stop visit in Lorain County.

“Nan Whaley’s campaign got in touch with me last week and said that she wanted to make a stop in Lorain County and she hadn’t been to the City of Oberlin yet this cycle,” Sandler said. “And so I suggested that they come to Oberlin because Oberlin is a bastion of progressivism, since its founding — both the College and the community. And sometimes the most reliable progressives get ignored by Democratic candidates because they know that they have their support … but I think that can be dangerous because then those folks who give that support can feel taken advantage of or taken for granted.”

Whaley said that she wanted to show Oberlin students, who rarely remain in Ohio after graduating, what the state has to offer and make it a place where students would feel comfortable living post-college.

“I think Oberlin’s a key community, and certainly the students of Oberlin are key for the state,” Whaley told the Review.

“Too often I run into Oberlin graduates that don’t stay in Ohio, and so I want Oberlin graduates to have opportunities to consider Ohio even if they’re not from here. That’s not happening right now with this extreme radical politics, so we need to be a commonsense state for people to say, ‘Yeah, I liked it here, and there’s opportunity for me here, and I could live here because I have freedom.’”

Though less than 24 hours passed between the announcement of the event and the event itself, according to Sandler, the turnout was strong with around 70 total attendees and an approximate 60–40 split between City residents and campus community members.

During her talk in Oberlin, Whaley spoke to various issues at the heart of her campaign such as reproductive justice and raising the minimum wage. Whaley pledged that, if elected, she would raise the Ohio minimum wage to $15 per hour.

“We wanna make sure that we get to the issues that are affecting working Ohio, making sure people’s pay goes up [by] raising the minimum wage [to] $15 an hour and making sure that one good job is enough no matter where you live in this state,” Whaley said. “It is the key to growth, and our One Good Job Plan does that by building jobs from the middle out instead of the top down.”

The Oberlin Review | November 4, 2022

Nan Whaley spoke to City residents and campus community members at Slow Train Cafe.

The coffee shop was filled with attendees despite minimal advance notice for the event.

Photos courtesy of the Nan Whaley campaign

3

Ne New wss OFF THE CUFF

Dr. Jessica Kirzane, Translator and Professor of Yiddish at the University of Chicago they think that you take something that’s already famous and already has an audience and you bring it to new audiences, or something where there is already curiosity — but you can create that curiosity. I guess the other thing that I try to teach my students about translation is that you have to keep your English language audience in mind. You want to be respectful to the Yiddish, but I think that your primary loyalty has to be to the comfort of your English language audience — making sure that the English is fluid, comfortable for people to read, and doesn’t feel stilted or like it’s pulling them back into Yiddish.

Then it becomes hard work, and I don’t think that Miriam Karpilove was hard work to read in her own Yiddish — she should feel as much fun in English as she did in Yiddish.

Dr. Jessica Kirzane

Jeramie Robinson Last Friday, Dr. Jessica Kirzane, a translator and professor of Yiddish at the University of Chicago and editorin-chief of In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies, delivered a talk titled “Translating Yiddish Feminism at Oberlin College.” Dr. Kirzane discussed her translations of Miriam Karpilove’s works Judith and Diary of A Lonely Girl and spoke about her own work in connection with feminism as she strives to recover the voices of women in Yiddish literature. This talk was part of a series of events commemorating 50 years of Jewish Studies at Oberlin.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity and was conducted prior to the lecture.

How did you arrive at studying the connection between Judaism and feminism?

I guess I’ve always been interested in feminism, and I was always interested in women’s writing and women’s voices.

Even as a kid, I used to read this series called Childhood of Famous Americans, which had these biographies for sevenyear-olds, and I only read the girls. So I’ve always been interested in women’s lives and biographies, but I didn’t connect that to my study of Yiddish in grad school, in what I was doing.

Looking back on it, I think it’s because I wasn’t presented with very many women writers, and I understood that there was an assumption that there weren’t a lot of women writing in

Photo courtesy of Jessica Kirzane

Yiddish among some of my professors and the scholarship. I sort of assumed that was what existed in the world.

Then I was researching a footnote for my dissertation, and one of my advisors suggested I should have a robust footnote about the idea of “free love” — an ideology that was espoused by radical leftists saying that love shouldn’t be bound by institutions like religion or government. I didn’t know very much about it, so I just typed the term into the Yiddish Book Center, and Diary of A Lonely Girl popped up as the second hit. I started reading it, and I was kind of surprised and delighted because it was something I had never thought existed. It sounded a lot like me. It was funny and about a woman’s life, so I started translating it. I started at a very lucky moment when there was this slowly growing momentum around publishing women writers, and I’ve sort of become part of this world of Yiddish translators who are working specifically on women who wrote in Yiddish. In the past five years, there have been multiple volumes that have come out all at once, so it feels like we’re in this watershed moment where it’s impossible to have a syllabus on Yiddish literature in America without including a woman.

How do you maintain a balance between preserving the original work in Yiddish and bringing that same original life to the work in English in connection with your focus on feminism?

In addition to translating the individual words, you also want to translate the mood that you get from the piece or the heart of the piece. To do that, I think you have to be a good writer in English. I sometimes say to people that I like translating because you get to do all of the fun parts of writing without having to make up the story — which is the thing I find hard to do. You get to think about words and phrases, how to make things sound right, and get into the nuts and bolts of writing. Then I get to celebrate this other person and her wonderful work. I would never praise myself the way I praise Miriam Karpilove, and this gives me the opportunity to really promote something without feeling uncomfortable in doing that. It’s a collaborative thing, and maybe this is a feminist thing; it’s not just about me as an individual, but it’s my collaboration with Miriam Karpilove and all of these other women who are involved in translating women writers in this movement that we’re building. I get to be part of promoting all of that.

As someone who works closely with students, translating Yiddish literature — specifically works written by women — what do you find is one important piece of knowledge to approach this topic with?

When people think about translators,

Is there anything you hope that the Oberlin community will take away from the work you’re sharing here?

In addition to translating, I am the editor-in-chief of an online journal called In geveb. It’s free and it’s online, so I hope that people who find this

interesting will start reading that.

It’s a great way to plug into the global Yiddish community. It would be a great next step for people.

Diary of A Lonely Girl in particular, I think, really resonates with college students. It’s about a single woman who is living away from her family and dates a series of awful men who are trying to pressure her to have sex with them. I think there’s something really powerful about knowing that has always happened, that it’s not a new phenomenon, and that this is a woman who is extremely strong in her selfconviction — she won’t be trampled on or put up with that behavior. I hope that students will feel similarly and learn about how to be strong in those kinds of situations.

Could you tell me a little bit about your background?

Well, let’s see. I grew up in New Jersey and in Virginia, and also a little bit in England — my family moved a lot. I went to college at the University of Virginia, and I got a B.A. in English Literature and in Jewish Studies. I was working on American Jewish fiction.

While I was there, the summer after my Junior year, I got an internship at the Yiddish Book Center which is in Amherst, M.A., so I went there on a summer program thinking, “I’ll learn a little bit about Yiddish — sounds interesting, maybe it will help me with my learning about American Jewish literature.” I kind of fell in love with the community there and the passion people had for Yiddish, so I kept on taking Yiddish after that. I came back to my university, they happened to have intermediate Yiddish at the time, so I took that. Then I went to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for a year, and I took Yiddish and Hebrew there. Then I went to grad school at Columbia where I got my Ph.D. in Yiddish Studies, and now I’m at the University of Chicago teaching Yiddish language.

What drew you to Oberlin College as a community for this talk?

I was invited by Shari Rabin — and I was really excited to get the invitation.

This is the first time I’ve spoken in person about this book since March 2020. I was invited to speak in a class this morning, and I was in a room with people who had read the book before, and I’ve never had that happen before.

It was really cool.

Multicultural Visit Program Hosts More Than 70 Students in First Regular Session Since 2020

Continued from page 1

Many MVP attendees have applied Early Decision and been accepted in recent years. These students state that it was the community and diversity that encouraged them and strengthened the appeal to attend.

“MVP was the biggest part of me coming to Oberlin, especially because I didn’t know what Oberlin was until a counselor here told me to apply for MVP,” Cyril Amanfo, OC ’22, an Admissions counselor, said. “I met people who I still know now.

I saw everything that Oberlin really had to offer in less than 72 hours. So it was really the biggest part of why I’m here now.”

Each prospective student was paired with one of 30 student ambassadors, giving them a chance to explore the campus with one of their future

4

classmates, as well as ask their hosts questions about the Oberlin experience.

At the end of the program, prospective students can speak with the Admissions Office as well as ask questions to current students. After the weekend is over, MVP participants are sent a survey asking them to detail their experience.

“I really enjoyed Oberlin,” prospective student Toni J. Dismuke, who hails from Atlanta, said.

“Since it is in Ohio, [I] thought it was gonna be a very quiet, very small town. I thought that the days were gonna be empty, and you’re just gonna sit in the dorms, but there’s something happening every five minutes. Like when we first got here, there was a parade going on. They drew us in, and we danced in the middle of this circle. It was just something to

do, and it wasn’t performative. These events were happening with or without us. And it’s just the fact that they’re very open and that people were doing things for them. It’s not a show, this is how it is.”

There are several MVP programs starting back up this year, and College students can expect another round of prospective students on campus in the coming weeks.

“This is one of the most important programs to me that we put on college-wide because I know it got students like myself here,” Amanfo said. “It puts up an opportunity for students who otherwise wouldn’t have that opportunity. And that’s just really special to be part of that team now and watch students have that same opportunity.”

November 4, 2022

OPINIONS Established 1874

LETTERS TO THE EDITORS

Volume 152, Number 7

State Ballot Issues 1, 2 Address Non- City Partnership With Problems, Should Be Voted Against LCCC Pilots Equity Planning Process To the Editor:

Neither party is talking about the statewide ballot issues. Issue 1 and Issue 2. I repeat, statewide.

So what’s the story? As far as I can tell, the Republican-majority legislature voted to put them on the ballot. They didn’t pass them as legislation. These legislators are asking you — quietly — to make them amendments to our state constitution, only removable by another statewide vote.

Issues 1 and 2 are not grassroots proposals or initiatives because they are for non-problems — dare I say, fake problems.

We already have a bail system, judges already use their judgment about public safety, and people are pushing for bail reform. So Issue 1, to require that judges consider public safety — which they already do — is not respecting judges. Further, it also takes power from the Ohio Supreme Court and gives it to the legislature to set bail considerations. It could further punish innocent people with jail time. The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio Policy Counsel Patrick Higgins called this “guilty until proven wealthy.”

We also already have a voting system which requires citizenship to vote in judicial, state, and federal elections. Sometimes local entities,

such as school boards and city councils, want non-citizens or not-yet-citizens to participate in local elections. Only one locality in Ohio, Yellow Springs, has done this so far. (Eleven municipalities in Maryland and two in Vermont allow non-citizens voting in local elections.) Issue 2 would ban local entities from allowing their non-citizens to vote in local elections. So this too addresses a non-problem.

Perhaps political operatives hope that anti-non-citizen language will motivate some Republican voters to vote. In a revealing piece in GQ Magazine in July 2019, Jay Willis concluded that this effort across various states “has less to do with real-world election security concerns than it does with facilitating Republican wins at the ballot box.”

“Issue 1 has everything to do with politics and nothing to do with policy,” ACLU Ohio Policy Director Jocelyn Rosnick said.

I don’t actually know what motivated these ballot proposals. I just know they’re unnecessary and that they limit our ability to make more finely-tuned policies. Please vote against sneaky Issues 1 and 2.

My thanks to the Review for Ava Miller’s Oct. 28 article on the City of Oberlin’s new partnership with Lorain County Community College (“City Partners with Lorain County Community College to Provide Industry Certificates to Residents”). As the article notes, this workforce development initiative will allow Oberlin residents with financial need to complete LCCC FastTrack programs, which link directly to high-demand jobs available in the county, at no cost to them in terms of tuition and fees.

The LCCC partnership is the first major initiative that has resulted from the City’s social equity planning process. The City will soon be hiring a social equity coordinator, who will work to move forward in other areas of the social equity plan including housing, health, mental health, police relationships, economic opportunity, government, justice, transportation, food empowerment, sustainability, and recreation. I am especially hopeful that the City will be able to have a significant impact with affordable housing. The City is also working with Cleveland’s Center for Community Solutions to develop detailed data on social equity disparities in Oberlin and to survey residents about various questions related to social equity.

All of this positions Oberlin well to make significant progress in improving social equity in our City.

Ray English Director of Libraries Emeritus Member of Oberlin City Council

Aliza Weidenbaum Oberlin resident

Ne w s

Office of Financial Aid Advises Next Steps on Securing BidenHarris Administration’s Student Loan Debt Relief Funds Ava Miller Senior Staff Writer On Aug. 24 this year, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris announced that they would provide targeted student loan debt relief to those fiscally impacted by the pandemic. The U.S. Department of Education would provide up to $20,000 in debt cancellation to Pell Grant recipients, and up to $10,000 in debt cancellation to non-Pell Grant recipients. Borrowers are eligible for this relief if their individual income is less than $125,000 or if their household income totals less than $250,000.

According to Michele Kosboth, the College’s director of financial aid, this program is available to currently enrolled Oberlin College students, alumni, and College employees.

“This includes people who have been in repayment as well as those who have yet to begin repayment, but have borrowed Federal Student Loans prior to June 30, 2022, and which are currently held by the federal government,” Kosboth wrote in an email to the Review.

This program comes at a time when the total cost for four-year colleges is increasing. The White House noted in a press release that the total cost of a four-year college education has almost tripled, even when inflation is taken into account.

“Federal support has not kept up,” the statement said. “Pell Grants once covered nearly 80 percent of the cost of a four-year public college degree for students from working families, but The Oberlin Review | November 4, 2022

now only cover a third.”

A borrower’s relief is capped at the amount of their outstanding debt.

For example, a borrower with $15,000 of outstanding debt can only receive $15,000 even if they would otherwise be eligible for $20,000 of relief.

Many borrowers will be able to receive relief without applying because income data is already available to the U.S. Department of Education. For borrowers whose income data the U.S. Department of Education doesn’t have, the Administration has launched a simple application. The application does not require borrowers to upload

any documentation.

“The Biden administration encourages everyone who is eligible to apply, but there are 8 million people for whom they have data who will get relief without applying, unless they opt out,” Kosboth wrote.

Due to a federal court order, applications are still being accepted, but loan discharge is currently suspended.

While the Biden administration cannot currently issue debt relief, it can proceed with reviewing applications and preparing to transfer them to loan servicers.

College second-year Natalie Levine

believes that the program is a good beginning but further action is needed.

“I think this is a step in the right direction, but there’s definitely more that should be done to support those who are struggling to access education,” Levine said.

Borrowers are advised to apply by mid-November in order to receive relief before the expiration of the current repayment pause on Dec. 31.

This applies to borrowers who were previously in repayment. To apply, go to https://studentaid.gov/debt-relief/ application.

The Office of Financial Aid encourages students to apply for the Student Loan Debt Relief Plan.

Photo by Abe Frato

5

Opi n ions

Registration and the Vote: More Than a Symbolic Act Reprint from The Oberlin Review Sept. 10, 1971 Editors’ Note: This article is a reprint commemorating decades of Oberlin students’ participation in the democratic process. The Editorial Board encourages eligible students to excercise this right. While the Review has checked this piece for accuracy, given the amount of time since its original publication, some facts could not be confirmed and have been published in their original form.

Marcie S. Berman OC ’72 Early this year, Congress passed an amendment to the Constitution giving the one-and-a-half million Americans who are between the ages of 18 and 21 the right to vote. Had a well-placed majority of the group been enfranchised in 1968 and voted Democratic, Richard Nixon would have been defeated. However, the question of whether or not the alternative Canada was preferable is not the subject of this discussion. The subject is the power of the student vote.

Prohibition Efforts Almost immediately following the passage of the 26th amendment, many of the states took action to prohibit campus town voting. Through the use of both legislation and litigation,

the precedent was established for requiring students to vote at their home residence or to vote through absentee ballots. The purpose of preventing students from voting on their campuses is quite clear; residents of campus towns often number fewer than the students. In many towns, if a majority of the students voted, they would elect members of their own community to the school board, the city council, and (where they exist) the mayorship.

The first campus to accomplish such a coup was, not unexpectedly, the University of California at Berkeley.

A movement guided by the Association of Students (whose president was Oberlin graduate Eric Wollman) succeeded in electing three candidates to the city council and a mayor on a radical slate.

The City Council The Oberlin City Council is composed of seven members. Of the seven, two are elected at large and the other five are selected by their wards. Since the majority of the campus is located in a single ward, students should theoretically be able to elect three members to the council. In actuality, they cannot even vote in Oberlin, never mind run for office. The law of the state of Ohio read as follows: “One may register if the residence requirements will be met by the date of the next election. A student at an institution of learning in the state does not

get a residence in the state and as such a person shall establish or acquire a home for permanent residence.”

Is the system impervious?

Although the law has a certain ring of finality to it, it would be a mistake to think that the system is impervious to change. Following a series of legislative battles and court cases, 16 states have moved to allow students to vote on their campuses. In one particular situation, eight individuals from the University of Michigan were rejected by the registrars in Ann Arbor. The key phrase when the case was brought to court was a section of the state election code which states that no electorate should be considered to have “gained or lost a residence” by virtue of entering the armed forces or going to college. The court ruled that such a clause, when used to deny the students the option of registering in their college town, violated both the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment and the Michigan constitution.

Registration Details Registration to vote in Oberlin is being held in the community center on South Main Street on Sept. 11, 15, 18, 20, 21, and 22. A town clerk, when questioned over the telephone, stated that she has been directed not to ask for proof of residence. However, her awareness of the law regarding students and her uneasiness regarding

her ability to enforce it would seem to indicate that the situation may change.

Any students who are moved to follow the Michigan example will probably find that they will not have any serious trouble in being barred from registering. Unless, of course, the board of elections has decided that by not making an issue of the residency rules, they will prevent a court case. Although a few students may squeak by, the number is not likely to be anywhere near as high as if the law changed with all the attendant hue and cry.

In Sum So as the solution now stands, students could (and should) move to change the laws, but the likelihood is that we will have the ability to vote by absentee ballot in any elections this year, including presidential primaries and, at least in the Democratic primaries, voting will be more than a symbolic act this time.

Unfortunately, many states have a registration deadline in September, and registration by mail is prohibited.

However, for those who 1) are not registered, 2) have a later deadline, or 3) will be going home before that deadline, a trip to the town hall would be a good idea.

Cambodia invasions, John Mitchell, economic game plans, and four more years of Richard Nixon are not necessarily inevitable.

Delays in Third-Year Consent Training Send Mixed Messages Cecily Miles One of the barriers to consent taught in the mandatory Consent 301 is the existence of power dynamics between upperclassmen and underclassmen. An underclassmen’s ability to truly consent is complicated, and therefore problematized by the power differential between them and their older counterparts.

This is a problem which the College considers important for upperclassmen to be aware of, apparently so much so that it bears re-teaching. Consent 301, which had previously been piloted as optional, is now mandatory for third-years. The updated consent training workshops beginning this month are being held by the Title IX Office and the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, and purport to help third-year students in their new positions as upperclassmen.

I think this is an issue that would benefit from deeper exploration in a series of more specialized or more comprehensive workshops. College consent education has rightly been criticized for operating on a false assumption that the all-too-prevalent violation of consent on campus is predominantly a matter of ignorance. It holds that most potential offenders have no intention of violating consent and will be prevented from doing so if given a more exact understanding of what consent entails, while ignoring the phenomenon of sexual assault as an act that is knowingly and willingly perpetrated.

This latter category should certainly be addressed more. Regarding the former, I think that a useful line of exploration would be into those situations in which consent is freely and actively given, yet, for reasons of which a participant might not be aware, is somehow dubious. While some might purposefully exploit these situations, I think that it is also plausible that a well-intentioned upperclassman might be both aware and respectful of the necessity of consent and that it must be uncoerced, yet ignorant of the ways in which certain other factors might influence potential partners to say yes when they wanted to say no.

The dynamic between upperclassmen and underclassmen could — and I would argue should — be taught thoroughly at the start of Oberlin students’ consent education. By making Consent 301 mandatory, the Title IX office and the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion are suggesting that it is insufficiently addressed in Consent 101. Despite this apparent shortcoming in the introductory course, this problem will not be immediately remedied when students begin their third year, either.

Rather, only half of incoming third years will receive their training in the fall, while the rest will receive it in the spring semester. The Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion even permits some students to defer their training to the first semester of their fourth year in case they are going abroad during the semester in which they are scheduled to attend.

This means that students whose training comes

later will have already been upperclassmen for an entire semester or even a year before they receive sufficient training on how to deal with their newfound status. In creating this delay in the rollout of its training sessions, the College sends a conflicting message about their necessity. If Consent 301 is important enough to be mandatory, why allow students to go without it for so long? If it is not important enough to be a priority, why should students be expected to attend?

In the Consent 101 workshop I was required to attend in my first year, I remember a strong sense among students of being inconvenienced by having to take time out of their schedules. However, I never got the feeling that this had devolved — in myself or in my peers — into apathy. Consistent with Oberlin’s reputation as a school that values social justice and which has a student body that cares, we understood the importance of education regarding consent and the barriers that might inhibit it.

If the Title IX office and the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion want third-, fourthand fifth-years to utilize their education on their unique relation to younger students, then it should be taught earlier: either it should be covered in better detail in Consent 101 or at the beginning of their third year. If Oberlin College wants students to be receptive to the workshops’ material and to take the time to attend the workshops at all, it should be unequivocal in communicating their importance.

The school’s current policy detracts from that message.

SUBMISSIONS POLICY

The Editorial Board encourgages anyone interested in submitting an Opinions piece to email the Opinions Editors at opinions@oberlinreview.org to request a copy of the Opinions primer. Opinions expressed in editorials, letters, op-eds, columns, cartoons, and other Opinions pieces do not necessarily reflect those of The Oberlin Review staff. Submission of content to the Review constitutes an understanding of this publication policy. Any content published by The Oberlin Review forever becomes the property of The Oberlin Review and its administrators. Content creators retain rights to their content upon publication, but the Review reserves the right to republish and/or refuse to alter or remove any content published by the Review. It is up to Senior Staff’s discretion whether to alter content that has already been published. The Oberlin Review appreciates and welcomes letters to the editors and op-ed submissions. All submissions are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board. All submissions must be received by Wednesday at 4 p.m. in the Opinions email for inclusion in that week’s issue. Full-length pieces should be between 800 and 900 words; letters to the editor should be less than 600 words. All submissions must include contact information, with full names and any relevant titles, for all signatories; we do not publish pieces anonymously. All letters from multiple writers should be carbon-copied to all signatories to confirm authorship. The Review reserves the right to edit all submissions for clarity, length, grammar, accuracy, and strength of argument, and in consultation with Review style. Editors work to preserve the voice of the writers and will clear any major edits with authors prior to publication. Headlines are printed at the discretion of the Editorial Board. The Review will not print advertisements on its Opinions pages. The Review defines an advertisement as any submission that has the main intent of bringing direct monetary gain to a contributor or otherwise promoting an event, organization, or other entity to which the author has direct ties.

6

Lectures Should Prioritize Professor Input Over Student Opinion Elle Giannandrea Opinions Editor During course registration last spring, I was embarrassingly only able to secure two seats in courses that I was interested in. As an undecided rising second-year, I didn’t have much standing in the registration process and thus ended up returning home for the summer with a meager half of the following year’s academic plan in place.

One of these courses, however, was a lecture I was immensely grateful to have gotten a seat in. It was a popular class in a subject that I was interested in, taught by a professor with a long list of impressive credentials and academic publications in his staff bio.

All summer, I cherished my seat in this course, and when I returned to Oberlin in the fall and the day finally came that I could attend the first class, I walked into a packed room — burgeoning under an increase in admissions — and watched despondently as the tone of the class was set.

The professor, young-ish and eager to connect with his new cohort of students, spent the hour not so much lecturing, but wondering aloud and handing over the ideas he wanted to cover to the students in the class. Each time he would do this, a field of hands would shoot up — more often than not from the same pockets of the room — followed by the same voices eager to have their opinions heard on a Thursday afternoon. I realized then what many of you may find to be true about at least one of the courses you’ve taken at Oberlin so far: my highly qualified professor was not going to be teaching this class — his students with the most long-winded thoughts were.

I’ll admit that part of the reason I hold such a grudge against these classes is because I am one of these students. Years of teacher’s pet domestication and an only child’s propensity to talk to adults have turned me into somewhat of a low-level conversational narcissist.

From grades one through six, the most common comments on my report cards had something to do with my inability to keep quiet or sit still. And while it’s true that I do sometimes talk to fill the awkward silence of a mute classroom, most often, it’s because I just can’t help myself.

Throughout my time in high school, a mantra I heard whenever someone would complain about having to do “useless” math or write an essay on a book no one knew the name of was that the purpose of school was to teach you “how to think.” I think this trend of students running classes may be an extension of that idea. In college, I’ve heard the theory that in order to teach someone something, you can’t simply tell them what to think; rather, you have to lead them to theoretical conclusions on their own so that they may learn how to The Oberlin Review | November 4, 2022

approach a problem and engage in academic discussion. This is particularly true in the humanities, where there are supposedly “no right answers” (although, in my opinion, plenty of wrong ones), but it also applies to more quantifiable subjects like mathematics or language, in which teachers will occasionally spend large swaths of time making a group of confused semiadults stare at a chalkboard until someone meekly hazards a guess out of discomfort.

I strongly dislike this style of teaching, not only because it encourages my own bad habits but also because personal experience has led me to observe that classes which clearly delineate what students can contribute and what professors will have to teach are generally the most productive and conducive to a student’s progress.

In fact, it was through this rigid teaching style that I first learned what good writing should look and sound like. In my freshman year of high school, I had an English literature teacher — incidentally, an Oberlin alum — who was notorious for not accepting any answer or suggestion that went against her own beliefs about the texts we read in class. She not only had her own rubric for the work we turned in, but also a numbered, sentence-by-sentence breakdown of what an English paper should look like that we were to refer to when submitting work.

The year before I took her class, I had been asked by a different English teacher how I had “gotten through the whole year” without knowing how to write an essay. I now feel that writing is one of the few things I can do well. I don’t want to give the impression that this was an enjoyable experience.

I was an average student, and I went on to dislike this teacher for three years, thinking in turn that she strongly disliked me. However, I’m forever grateful for whatever teaching philosophy she may have had — that she was primarily concerned with teaching us what to think, what to write, not how.

Likewise, the professors I have encountered at Oberlin who lecture and instruct in a similar manner have taught me the most thus far. I dropped the course I mentioned earlier for a history class in which I’ve raised my hand under a dozen times; it quickly became one of the highlights of my semester.

In the context of academia, I’d much rather have people think I know nothing than assume that I must know something. Higher education, especially as an undergraduate, provides us with one of the few times in our adult lives where ignorance is accepted. For the time being, I’ll answer whatever questions are flung my way as best I can, but I can only hope that my future at Oberlin will be filled with classes that tell instead of ask.

Media Scrutiny of John Fetterman’s Health Unnecessary, Abelist Emma Benardete Editor-in-Chief On Oct. 25, Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate candidates, Republican Mehmet Oz and Democrat John Fetterman, participated in their only formal debate prior to the midterm election. Despite the substantive responses to questions that covered large swaths of policy, including abortion, gun control, and immigration, one topic remained at the center of discussion and coverage about the debate: the accommodations made so that Fetterman could participate.

This past May, Fetterman suffered a stroke, causing him to struggle with auditory processing. Due to Fetterman’s disability, screens were set up in the debate venue that displayed captions so he could follow along. What should have been a tangential detail instead devolved into an ableist media circus. The focus of the debates shifted away from discussions of policy and onto Fetterman’s very reasonable need for accommodations.

The core of the issue is that reporters do not trust a disabled person to serve as a senator. Not only is this unduly shifting support away from the best candidate, it also sends the message to disabled Americans that they are not trusted to do their jobs because they don’t fit the image of what a competent person should look like.

It may be tempting to place the blame for this kind of rhetoric exclusively on right-leaning media outlets, but it does not lie with them alone. To be clear, that sector of the political media ecosystem has certainly been having a field day with Fetterman’s accommodations. In The Hill’s Oct. 25 story titled “Five things to watch in the only Pennsylvania Senate debate between Fetterman and Oz,” Fetterman’s health topped the list. Fox News published an article the following day with the headline, “Fetterman’s lingering stroke effects would clearly handicap him as senator, GOP Senate experts say.”

The fact is, left-leaning or largely politically neutral news outlets have also questioned Fetterman’s competency due to his stroke. Before the debate, The New York Times published an article titled “Pennsylvania Senate Debate Will Have Real-Time Transcriptions to Accommodate Fetterman’s Recovery.” After the event, the newspaper published another news article titled “​​Fetterman, Showing Stroke Effects, Battles Oz in Hostile Senate Debate.” Almost every recent article from the Times on the debate mentions Fetterman’s stroke in the headline or first paragraph. The beginning of a post-debate recap from the politics section of NBC’s website called into question Fetterman’s fitness to serve, and an Axios story in the politics and policy section went even further, calling Fetterman’s performance “painful.”

“Multiple sources wondered why Fetterman agreed to debate when he clearly wasn’t ready. Fetterman struggled at times to respond to the moderators’ questions, even with the assistance of a closed captioning device,” the Axios article reads. By equating Fetterman’s struggles with a lack of preparedness, the article sets an ableist expectation of who deserves to have their voice heard. Struggling to answer questions is a result of Fetterman’s disability, and being disabled should never disqual-

ify someone from being considered “prepared” or good enough to debate.

Beyond the implication that Fetterman’s less-than-perfect speech renders him unfit to serve in the Senate, the coverage of Fetterman’s health also brings up the issue of confidentiality and trust. Fetterman’s doctor, Dr. Ramesh R. Chandra, who has been closely following his recovery, has confirmed multiple times since the incident that Fetterman is fit to serve.

“If he does what I’ve told him … he should be able to campaign and serve in the U.S. Senate without a problem,” Chandra wrote in a statement in June.

In mid-October, Chandra said that Fetterman had no work restrictions. Despite assurances from Fetterman’s medical team, news outlets have continually questioned his choice not to release all of his medical records. A story from The New York Times called Fetterman “cagey.”

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published a news article called “Medical experts weigh in on John Fetterman’s stroke recovery after U.S. Senate debate with Mehmet Oz.” Are Fetterman’s doctors not trustworthy enough medical experts?

Why should a bunch of external physicians be employed to speculate about someone’s medical history?

In my view, the most egregious move in this whole debacle is the Post-Gazette’s editorial board endorsing Oz in the Senate election as of Sunday, Oct. 30 (though to be fair, the Post-Gazette editorial board has been publishing problematic articles since 2020 when they endorsed Donald Trump, breaking a 48-year hiatus from endorsing Republican presidential candidates).

The rationale for endorsing Oz was disconcerting, as it was largely contingent upon what the publication deemed a lack of transparency from Fetterman for not releasing his complete medical records, demonstrating a lack of trust in Fetterman and his care team, as well as egregious disregard for privacy and the confidentiality of medical records. It is also worth noting that Oz seems to have released his medical records not out of a sense of duty but as a means to draw more attention to Fetterman’s stroke, releasing them after a Post-Gazette editorial called on both candidates to do so, which was likely prompted by Fetterman’s stroke symptoms.

While I understand wanting confirmation that Fetterman will be able to execute senatorial duties, his doctor has disclosed the information necessary to determine his capacity to serve. The Post-Gazette wrote that “all candidates for a major elected office should release their medical records, as did Mr. Oz. If you want privacy, don’t run for public office.” However, it is incredibly common for candidates to run for office without releasing complete medical records. We don’t often talk about it because not every candidate for office is disabled. This has only become an issue during this election because people have the false notion that existing as a disabled person merits excessive public scrutiny of one’s health.

There should be a certain amount of confidentiality granted surrounding medical records regardless of someone’s job, and voters shouldn’t have to see every detail to have faith in a disabled person to execute the duties of public office.

7

T h is We e k

International Students Miss Families, Reflec Cal Ransom This Week Editor

While any student can experience homesickness at college, with Parents’ Weekend and Thanksgiving approaching, students with family members in the United States are able to reconnect with support systems from home in ways that many students with parents outside the U.S. cannot. In most cases, international students only see their parents twice during the academic year for longer breaks — granted travel expenses and visa paperwork permit.

“My parents asked if they should come for Parents’ Weekend,” Ada Ates, fourth-year Neuroscience and Computer Science major, said.

“I said, ‘No, not for two days only,’ … it would take them two days to get here [from Turkey].”

Ada Ates sits with her parents.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, families from outside of the U.S. hoping to visit their children have faced additional challenges. There is now a backlog in visas required to enter the United States after the pandemic curtailed the Department of State’s ability to process applications in 2020. On an average month in 2019, 60,866 applicants were waiting to schedule an interview to get their visas. As of Sept. 30, 2022, the number of applicants waiting for an interview was 435,063. That’s seven times the number of people in 2019.

Courtesy Ada Ates

“My mom is scheduled for her appointment in March of next year, and my dad and my brother in June — they can’t visit until they have their visa ... they’ll probably only see Oberlin in my sophomore year,” College first-year Karthik Ranganadhan said.

Ates, whose parents didn’t visit because of the cost, said her first Parents’ Weekend made her feel different from her domestic peers.

“It was weird because I met all [my friends’] parents, and they asked about mine, and they’re probably never going to meet them,” she said.

Karthik Ranganadhan poses with Monday Sundays, a group that gets together and eats ice Courtesy Karthik Ranganadhan cream on Mondays to celebrate the new week.

During breaks, when domestic students often go home, international students who can’t go home find support from family, friends, and student organizations.

“I encourage international students to get involved in organizations a lot,” Assistant Dean and Director of International Student and Scholar Services Josh Whitson said. “When it comes to things like Thanksgiving break, where many domestic students might be going home but international students often do not, having those connections in the student organizations is usually really helpful because a lot of the time, the organization will have an event [over break], or everyone will go for the special Thanksgiving meal at [Stevenson Dining Hall] together.”

Ates (center) sits on her grandmother’s lap with Courtesy Ada Ates her cousins.

ct on Finding Community Away From Home Some international students can also get off campus by visiting extended family and family friends during breaks.

“Fortunately, my mom has one of her really old friends who lives in Chicago, … one of my dad’s old friends is in Utah, [and] my grandmother found relatives who live in Cleveland [who] I was with for fall break,” Ranganadhan said.

Ranganadhan sits with his parents, brother, and grandparents.

Courtesy Karthik Ranganadhan

Whitson says outsiders often underestimate how lonely international students are during holidays.

“Often for the student, if they’re coming from somewhere that doesn’t celebrate Christmas, and they don’t celebrate Christmas, it is another day for them,” Whitson said. “They’re happy to have the day off. … But then when it’s, say, Chinese New Year, that’s often when an international student is gonna be like, ‘I have to go to class, but my friends back home in China don’t have to go to class cause everyone has off right now,’ and, ‘Wow, I really wish I was with my family because this is when the family gets together.’”

Ates has dinner with her extended family.

Courtesy Ada Ates

“I still talk to my parents every day,” Salma Ahmed, a second-year Psychology major, said.

She added that it’s hard to miss special occasions like birthdays, but she still sings “Happy Birthday” over FaceTime.

“I like that I’m still connected to them,” she said.

Salma Ahmed poses with her mother. Courtesy Salma Ahmed

Juliana Gaspar bakes with a group of Brazilian students.

Courtesy Juliana Gaspar

A r t s & C u lt u r e

November 4, 2022

ARTS & CULTURE Established 1874

Volume 152, Number 7

Students Eager to Utilize Makerspaces, Face Barriers to Entry Leela Miller Senior Staff Writer A makerspace is an environment dedicated to tinkering, designing, inventing, and collaborating. It’s a place where students can actualize far-out ideas with laser cutters, sewing machines, and 3D printers and nosily watch as peers build musical light bulbs or wearable synths.

Many Oberlin students are eager to access these kinds of spaces; we’re a crafty bunch. However, makerspaces are often inaccessible to those not enrolled in specialized academic programs. The Art Fabrication Lab, for instance, is a highly sought after resource typically only available to Studio Art students. Even harder to access is the Theater department’s set shop which, according to student employee College second-year Elijah Freiman, is only authorized for use by theater professionals.

In years past, students had the option of visiting Wilder Hall to use the craft supplies in the craft room and the fabrication materials in the Oberlin Student Makerspace. The craft room — where students can find sewing machines and looms — is still open, but it is meagerly stocked with supplies, the door is unlabeled, and, according to

The TIMARA makerspace allows students to craft and experiment.

Photo by Erin Koo

Director of Student Involvement Tina Zwegat, it will be closed for renovations beginning in December.

Organizations that primarily utilized this space are inactive this semester, and many former student leaders have recently graduated. Abe Reshad, director of language technology and academic support, said that the current inactivity of the organizations can be mainly attributed to COVID-19, which temporarily made it impossible for clubs tied to physical

spaces to exist and for knowledge to be passed down between student officers. Reshad teaches and oversees 3D printing in Oberlin’s Language Lab, and he has aided makerspace club members in using 3D printing technology in the past. Now, he’s hoping to help rustle up enough student interest to restart the organization.

“I think it’s really valuable to have a space where students can create things … especially physical ones because everything’s so digital right

now,” Reshad said. “There’s a lot of learning that takes place in a space like that.”

Luckily, there are other accessible makerspaces on campus. The TIMARA makerspace, located in the basement of Bibbins Hall, is home to a treasure trove of equipment for students interested in electronics, craft, and the exciting intersection of the two. The room that it’s housed in is small, and there isn’t enough space See Oberlin, page 12

Piano Technicians: The Unseen Artists of the Conservatory Gracie McFalls Senior Staff Writer In the early hours of the morning, before the music-making of the day begins, piano technicians are hard at work tuning pianos.

There are 250 pianos in the Conservatory, many of which get tuned daily. Tuning a piano takes even the most skilled technician about an hour, and there are only a handful of people in the Conservatory equipped to do the job.

The impact of this daily task is enormous. Every student in the Conservatory interacts with a piano at some point before graduating. First-year students take an introductory piano class upon arriving at Oberlin, pianos are almost always used for demonstrations in theory and aural skills

classes, and every performance major collaborates with pianists for recitals or even for national and international competitions. In short, having properly tuned pianos is vital not only for student learning but for the reputation of the Conservatory as a whole.

This is all taken care of by the Piano Technology department. However, tuning pianos is not the only work they do; in fact, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Tucked away in the basement of Bibbins Hall, the department is home to the Artist Diploma in Piano Technology program, an immersive two-year mentorship that accepts a small number of students and turns them into expert piano technicians. Inside the workshop, four Steinways take center stage. Scattered around them are wood shavings, spare piano parts, and coiled-up strings.

John Cavanaugh, director of the Artist Diploma in Piano Technology program, tunes one of the many pianos available to Conservatory students.

Photo by Erin Koo

10

A diagram illustrating the “periodic table of wood” hangs proudly on a door. In a corner lies a table full of drying coffee mugs. It’s clear that this is not only the studio of a craftsman but an artist.

John Cavanaugh, director and creator of the Artist Diploma program, devised the program because he saw a need for piano technicians who were not only technically skilled but artistically savvy as well. By teaching students in a music conservatory setting, the program aims to bridge the gap between pianists and technicians through collaboration.

“We’re the only school that does this,” Cavanaugh said.

Upon graduating from the program, 90 percent of students are offered jobs in top positions at major music schools and acclaimed piano factories. Wenqin Yi OC’ 20, who was recently offered the top piano technician position at Michigan State University, is one of those alumni.

“A lot of young kids, they graduate, and they have difficulty getting one job,” Yi said. “But with piano technology, you spend two years and then you have a stable, strong skill that you can make a living with.”

The students in the program come from a wide range of backgrounds. Some came to Oberlin knowing a bit about piano maintenance, and some were pianists themselves.

Among the members of the class are a retired high school music teacher, a student who is 70 years old, and a former restaurant owner.

“The students I went to school with were people who were tired of the rat race,” Cavanaugh said. “It’s a very eclectic group of people who are interested in this.”

The work of a master piano technician is interdisciplinary. A skill that combines mechanics, woodworking, math, physics, and the manipulation of tone and voicing, working on pianos is often equated to working on an elaborate crossword puzzle.

Unlike crossword puzzles, however, there is the additional challenge of working with a piano’s organic materials, as the materials in pianos expand and contract with weather changes. This leaves piano technicians with the difficult task of restoring pianos while constantly keeping the future in mind. Every move a technician makes could See Artistry, page 13

Oberlin College Archives Adapt to New Media Formats Dlisah Lapidus Arts & Culture Editor The Oberlin College Archives, Special Collections, and Libraries are resources established to conserve the history of the school and community for future reference.

The nature of an archive is not only to reflect on the past, but to facilitate the preservation of our present reality for future generations. With content transforming from easily file-able paper documents to more complex, encrypted digital media, archives all over the world are struggling to adjust their conservation systems for these new media documents.

Prior to the creation of the digital College archive, techniques were developed to file online records. To add a digital document like an email to an archival collection, it would have to be printed and put in a physical folder.

“That is kind of how we have approached digital content; things were printed out and brought into the physical archives,” College Archivist Ken Grossi said. “Now we are becoming more formalized in terms of dealing with electronic records. Email is really difficult — you can imagine how many people have email accounts and computers on campus. When it comes to maintaining and preserving the records, it is no different from the paper record. We want to organize documents so that they are easy to find. It is just a matter of how to store them.”

Many techniques used to protect documents and archives are now inadequate for the digital environment, as early methods of creating and storing digital content have become obsolete.

“A difficult aspect of digital preservation in general is the amount of time and resources required to re-format

media and maintain equipment and software to ensure accessibility and usability into the future,” Academic Engagement and Digital Initiatives Coordinator Megan Mitchell said. “For a long time, CD-ROMs seemed like a perfect storage solution. Fast-forward, and computers no longer come with built-in disc drives. If you have an external disc drive, the issue then becomes, who has a computer running the Windows 95 operating system that is needed to access the content on the disc?”

The Oberlin College Archives currently refers to standards set in place by the Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative, which assists schools, institutions, and national archives as they expand online. These institutions must also set their own internal standards for approaching digital archives. There are two primary concerns with the move to digital archives: improving accessibility and more expansive preservation methods. “[The College Archive] is trying to create both an archival record and a usable record for images to have longevity and to be available in the future,” Visual Resources Collection Curator Heath Patten said. “These digital images are able to be used in many different ways, not only for the Oberlin community and College, but the world as a whole. [Ken Grossi] and I, along with other members of the library staff, sit on what we call a Triple D Task Force. It’s about digitization, digital preservation, and digital archiving. This taskforce is in the process of finalizing a report of what our standards are going to be for digital projects. All of this information will come out in the public domain so that people can see what we’re doing as libraries move into the 21st century.”

The many new technologies being developed for digital archives allow content to be used by a wider audience without geographic or physical limitations.

“We are looking toward new techniques for capturing and presenting imagery. For example, I was working with Abe Reshad in the Cooper [International] Learning Center to create a 3D scan for an exhibit of a sculpture,” Patten said. “Through the use of a digital program, we created a three-dimensional image that we were then able to print. This allows anyone to physically interact with the work of art, addressing issues of accessibility.

Somebody with no vision or low vision may not be able to access a digital image, but in a 3D, tactile format, it becomes an accessible resource for them as well.”

The culture that surrounds digital media emphasizes its short-term nature. Online content receives little advocacy for long-term preservation, in part because of the limited resources for effectively preserving it. Additionally, the speed with which content is produced and shared and the variation in its exposure to the digital public leave archivists to wonder how best to approach the medium. While many archives focus on ancient history and natural history, contemporary content is constantly being created and disappearing before it can be saved.

“As we create content, you have to think about its lifespan,” Patten said. “The question is, how are we going to present it? How are we going to store it? What do our repositories look like? Who has access to those? On what platforms will we deliver the materials? These are things that we have to think of as we digitally archive.

When I was younger, there were magnetic tapes and vinyl, and then CDs came out; we felt like that would last forever. But now we know CDs are defunct technology.

The newest technology is never permanent. So we always have to think about the future and what that will look like.”

Behind the Scenes of OMTA’s Original Production, Portal Juliana Gaspar Arts & Culture Editor College second years Lila Iyengar Lehman, Charley Schmidt, and Jaka Jacklin separately shared their experiences working in tech for show Portal. the show is co-directed by College second-year Abigail Nordan and College third-year Becca Dulaney, and runs from Nov. 5 and 6. The Portal cast and crew were informed that they would not have access to the space they originally thought they would perform in only a few weeks before they opened. Lehman, who is on lights, Schmidt, who designed the set, and Jacklin, who is managing sound, each faced individual struggles when reworking their original plans. Behind the scenes for lights, sound, and set is a rewarding and enriching but strenuous process, and they are all happy with the final product of the show.

These interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

How has the change in setting been for you as the lights designer?

Lila Iyengar Lehman: It’s definitely been stressful for me, especially because I’m pretty new at lighting design.

Last year, in the fall semester, I worked on the production of Dance of Hands. I wanted to be assistant stage manager, but they needed a lighting designer and I thought, “I guess I can learn how to do lights.” The second show I did was The Theory of Relativity last year in Wilder Main Space. Because it was in Wilder, I felt like, “Okay, I know how it works, I can totally design lights for Portal.” So when we had to change locations, it was very freaky for me. This transition not only required moving all the lights, but learning about a lot of new equipment that I never had to deal with before. The actual lighting design itself wasn’t that difficult, it was more about if the design could be done with fewer lights, because we didn’t have access to as many.

The Oberlin Review | Novemeber 4, 2022

We have these three big trusses, which are like 10-foot-tall tripods, and each of them can hold four lights. We had to limit ourselves and how many lights we used because I could have had 24 or 25 at Wilder; that was my plan. So I just had to rework the plot a little, which wasn’t that difficult. The difficult part was trying to work with fewer lights.

Has this abrupt change been a learning experience for you in any way?

LIL: Honestly, it’s been good in a lot of ways. The Oberlin Musical Theater Association got people to help me throughout the process. Double-degree second-years Nelson Gutsch and Andrew McCracken both work in the lighting shop. On the actual moving day, they had to show me how everything worked with the trusses and the installation. It was the kind of thing where having someone who understood a little better than me to answer any questions I had was really good. When all this was thrown at me, I just wanted a month or two of practice and experience with the equipment before I had to put it into action immediately. I’m sure there are some things that could have been more thoroughly done if I’d had more experience with the equipment. It’s been stressful for me, but it’s also been a big learning experience. I’ve learned a lot of specifics about how to plug everything in, all the different cable connections, how everything’s wired, and how it all has to be set up. We also got eight new LED light fixtures. I’ve learned a lot, but right now, at this very moment in the middle of production week, I have a hard time seeing that as a silver lining, because I’m so overwhelmed.

How have the cast and crew dealt with this together?

LIL: The community is so lovely. I haven’t gotten a ton of time to get to know all the actors, but they’re all incredible

people. At first we didn’t know if we’d even have a show, because we were told Wilder wasn’t available and they were trying to find us a new space. Everything was really up in the air for a couple of days, and we had to inform the cast of that. When we told them, they were all so supportive. No one had any thought of giving up, which was really motivating for us. Everyone totally stuck with it throughout the whole process. It is disheartening when tons of things go wrong, and we all definitely felt that, especially in these last couple of days of tech rehearsals. However, everyone’s been super, super supportive of one another. I think that’s the thing that really allows a show to survive and make it through — the people involved. Every theater performance is about the unique group of people who are putting it on.

What does your job as set designer entail?

Charley Schmidt: Interestingly enough — and probably an issue on my part — when I first signed up for this, I thought my job as set designer was just to design the set. It turns out the designer for any specific aspect of tech also manages the process. So, I designed the set, I made the budget, purchased the materials, built the set, and moved it into Langston Hall.

How did you physically manage the new space?

CS: We took the piano out of the room and we put all of the chairs on one side.

In Wilder, you have a lot more space, and the way we were oriented, it was a much longer space and not nearly as wide. The hardest part was probably the windows.

They’re such gorgeous, nice, enormous windows, and that’s not really a problem for me, it’s much more of a lights problem — it does interfere with the theater lighting.

The directors already had an idea of what they wanted the set to look like. So I was looking at the drawing, and from that I just needed to make it work within the space. I wanted to use what we had in storage to keep the budget low. For that reason, I looked at what we had and what we could use. Then I figured out how I would take those things to make the most realistic version of what the director wanted. It’s very much a collaborative process, so you have to really be in touch with the other people in the project.

What has the change in venue been like for sound?

Jaka Jacklin: From a technical standpoint, the change between venues has been all right for sound. The majority of my job was recording lines and creating sound effects. For the sound effects side, that was easy. I just needed to take the audio files and my computer from one location to another, no change required.

However, for the lines of one particular, that one was a little bit different. The lines and the recordings themselves were tailored to the venue; we were going to make it feel like there was someone speaking on stage who wasn’t really there. Because we changed stages, that obviously meant that the effect was ruined. The week before tech week was a scramble for me and the voice actor for GLaDOS. The hardest challenge was just making sure we got to record all the lines in time, because the change in venues really did throw a wrench into that plan.

We had about a third of the entire show’s lines recorded and suited for our original venue when the directors told me what happened. Aside from that, nothing else was hard. It was definitely a hassle, but in the end, I think I created something that at least sound-wise I can definitely be proud of. Location doesn’t matter when we’re doing the show itself.

11

A r t s & C u lt u r e

Christ Episcopal Church Hosts Free Weekday Community Meals Selena Frantz Located at Christ Episcopal Church, Oberlin Weekday Community Meals strives to provide free hot dinners for all members of the Oberlin community.

The service prides itself on a “no questions asked” policy, meaning the organization welcomes everyone, regardless of their possible reason for attending. Monday through Friday, from 5 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., anyone can visit the church to pick up a freshly made meal.

According to Andy McQuery, who serves as rector of the Christ Church parish, this organization is unique to the area. Though there are other food distribution centers in Oberlin, none operate with the regularity of OWCM. “Most of them are at most once a week, maybe once a month,” McQuery said. “But nobody’s doing 80 meals a day every day, 50 weeks out of the year.”

The program started as a sit-down group meal, but due to the pandemic, the church shifted its services to takeout and drive-up options. In addition, the program offers delivery services to Concord Manor, a low-income housing complex. People are also welcome to take multiple meals for others if needed.

“You walk in the door, you tell us how many meals you need, we will give you what we have until we’re out,” McQuery said.

On account of the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of meals necessary to serve all visitors has greatly increased.

Making these meals, though time-consuming, is a source of enjoyment for the two cooks, Tabatha Watson-Brown and Luis Allende, who run the parish kitchen. They spend hours a day finding, buying, and cooking fresh food, most of which is sourced from local farms and markets. The creativity and hard work put into each meal is always appreciated by the community members.

“I knew that they enjoyed [the food] because of the flavor that we put into it,” Watson-Brown said.

“And besides flavor, we put love into it. We both love cooking.”

Allende, who previously worked at a food truck, shares Watson-Brown’s passion for cooking, as well as a love for community service. “[We help] the people that don’t have ways to eat,” Allende said. “We can make it for them if they can’t cook it.”

Individuals from all spheres of the Oberlin community benefit from this program, and McQuery highlighted the variety of reasons that bring people to each meal.

“It isn’t just people who are necessarily struggling to make ends meet, although that is a part of it,” McQuery said. “There are some folks in the community with various disabilities, for whom

shopping or cooking is either difficult or not really within their scope. And we’ve got some senior citizens [who come] too for the same reason.”

Christ Church opened its doors to the OWCM program in 1983. Though it is a church-run service, the staff works to make the space available for all community members, regardless of relation to the church.

“In terms of recruiting volunteers and for members of our advisory board, this is something we really wanted to be Oberlin generally, not just Christ Church,” McQuery said.

Over the next few months, the program plans to expand its services even more in time for its 40year anniversary in 2023.

“I think [the expansion] will diversify the communities we can serve [and] give us greater reach and opportunity,” McQuery said.

Eventually, Oberlin Weekday Community Meals would like to reopen its sit-down services, as well as continue its drive-through and takeout options.

“Part of its mission is that we understand that for the human condition, being fed is more than food,” McQuery said. “Companionship and community is important for the soul, too.”

Oberlin Weekday Community Meals also welcomes any college student in need of a meal to stop by and grab one.

Campus Makerspaces Underutilized, Lack Sufficient Crafting Supplies Continued from page 10 or equipment for large numbers of students to use it simultaneously, but Abby Aresty, the technical director and lecturer for TIMARA, says that the space is “slowly scaling up,” while also making an effort to prioritize safety and cost-effectiveness.

“Our goal is always to increase the accessibility of the space, but to do so in a way where we don’t completely overwhelm ourselves,” Aresty said.

“We have a sewing machine, an embroidery machine, a knitting machine, a 3D printer, a desktop mill used for circuit fabrication, and more recently, we purchased a laser cutter, which can be used for fun projects like paper speakers or flexible circuits,” she said.

“That’s the range of tools — everything from electronics to more craftbased stuff, and ideally we kind of blend them together when possible.”

Aresty highlighted fascinating student works that exemplify this blend of the technological and the tactile.

Take, for instance, a “pillow synthesizer,” which makes a range of noises when pressed in different spots.

Fourth-year TIMARA major and makerspace Teaching Assistant Gabriel Baskin has been involved with the space since fall of 2019, although his involvement in the beginning mostly involved cleaning up student messes.

Baskin said that his time working in Aresty’s labs has helped him develop skills in different technologies in the space, motiviating him to lead workshops in some of those techniques.

“I think having exposure to tools and techniques broadens the horizons of what you can envision yourself doing,” Baskin said. “I think even the fact that an embroidery machine is available will inspire students to make embroidery, … and that can be said for many of the tools in here. …

There’s a lot you can come up with on your own, but you cannot be introduced [to every tool] yourself. I think spaces like these are really the locus of education.”

Thinking about other makerspaces in the area, Aresty recommended that students with access to transportation make use of the Fab Lab at Lorain County Community College

The TIMARA makerspace hosts a mill and 3D printer.

12

— about half an hour away — and the Sears think[box] at Case Western Reserve University, about an hour away.

Both of these facilities are free to use and have considerably more hours of availability than Oberlin makerspaces do. As far as on-campus resources, Aresty admitted that they are “dispersed,” but she excitedly encouraged interested students to reach out to professors or get involved with some type of crafting space as an entry point into learning more about other crafting-related opportunities and resources.

“The more that people interact with that sort of ‘hands-on’ world, the more they can make connections and build up different skills,” Aresty said.

Second-year College students Elijah Freiman and Sean Norton are determined to do exactly that; they want to make use of all crafting resources openly available on campus. According to Norton, they were turned away from the Studio Art and Theater fabrication spaces, only to find that the makerspace in Wilder Hall was stopping operations. Then, by scouring

Photo by Erin Koo

the Oberlin website, Norton found mention of the fabrication lab in the Physics Department’s Wright Laboratory.

Norton reached out to Professor of Physics Jason Stalnaker, who oversees the fabrication space in the laboratory, and asked if he could be trained in order to use the space. Stalnaker agreed, and both Norton and Freiman underwent a nine-hour-long shop training.

“Eventually, [Stalnaker] showed us the list of people certified to use the machine shops, … and there were only two people other than us,” Norton said. “One of them had graduated in 2018, and the other had graduated last year … It was a totally underutilized space by the student body.”

So, what did Norton and Freiman do once they’d been certified to use the space? They made a cider press, of course. Now Freiman’s dorm room has become an apple cider factory, and they are giving away gallons of the stuff to their friends. “[Stalnaker] made the point today that we could have saved ourselves lots of man hours and a good amount of money by purchasing a juicer,” Freiman said, laughing.

For makers determined to persevere after having difficulty accessing resources in certain departments, there are fabrication labs available for use and mentors willing to help.

However, limited hours, finances, and amounts of physical space can make it difficult for makerspaces to widely publicize their resources and for less persistent craft hobbyists to get involved. Norton, Freiman, Aresty, and Baskin all expressed a desire for these barriers to entry to be lowered and for access to makerspaces to be expanded. Oberlin is a campus full of creatives, and more accessible makerspaces would mean more opportunities for exploration, experimentation, and self-expression, and would allow imaginative people to bring their eccentric ideas into reality.

Orientalism in Pop Culture Highlights Need for Informed Representation Aatifah George Every passing year brings more and more entertainment media for us to consume. Whether that be TV shows, movies, or video games, we are seeing more diverse and inclusive stories than ever before. However, these stories are not always accurate or well-informed representations of marginalized identities and backgrounds, nor are they always properly funded, researched, or valued for the issues they aim to address. Unfortunately, many calls for proper representation are simply swept under the rug, and we are continually left with the same questions: why are we not telling more people’s stories, why aren’t they more genuine, and why aren’t those same people included in the process of telling them?

Orientalism is a term many have probably heard and maybe even used, but it is unlikely that they could fully explain its meaning or how it manifests in storytelling. Defined by Palestinian scholar Edward Said in 1978, Orientalism is the interpretation of Asian cultures by Westerners that is often objectifying, stereotyping, and prejudiced.

Orientalism is most commonly used to describe depictions of the Middle East and North Africa. Orientalism is a heavy, complicated topic, so I’m going to leave it to you to watch YouTube videos about it during your next lunch break. What I’m specifically here to talk about is how we still see pesky examples of Orien-

talism in the media today. While representation has gotten better and more well-intentioned, it is often ultimately disappointing and leaves us wondering why we haven’t solved this pervasive issue.

House of the Dragon, the prequel series to Game of Thrones, aired its first season finale Oct. 23. I’m not well-versed in GoT lore myself, but considering the show’s character and set designs as well as the new show’s set aesthetics, there is clearly quite a bit of Islamic, Middle Eastern, and Arabic influence in this adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s saga.

It doesn’t take much internet browsing to get an idea of how Orientalist themes and stereotypes heavily played into the original series, especially with the portrayal of the Dothraki people. Their resemblance to MENA cultures (or perversions of them) and stereotypes is uncanny.

Just by looking at the furniture, windows, wall arches, and other statement decor pieces in the new show, I can see some Arabian design elements. One of the main countries House of the Dragon was filmed in was Spain, which has a long history of MENA cultural influence and immigration before the Spanish Inquisition. Political and military events of the eighth century led to a large population of Muslims and Arabs in southern Spain, near North Africa. This period of history would eventually be known as Islamic Spain. Given this context, there is a precedent for Arabic language, Is-

lamic art, and Islamic architecture in House of the Dragon, but then there is just as much of a reason to depict Middle Eastern and North African characters (and actors to portray them). The design looks great and fits the context, but it stops at the aesthetics.

All of this is subtle compared to other heavy hitters like 2021’s Dune, which came under criticism for its clear usage of classic MENA concepts — which is true to the books — without consistent casting to include MENA actors. None of this is meant to make blanket statements, but it’s food for thought, since we are continuing to see the same issues and not address the root of the problem: lack of inclusion at every level of development. It’s very important in any form of storytelling to do thorough research into the various sources or cultures you’re drawing from and to work with experts on these said fields, because doing poor research or just guessing always shows in the final product.

As an aspiring game artist and expert button masher, I am especially attuned to you about this topic in video games.

In this industry, we are still seeing frustratingly silly mistakes regarding representation that highlight a lack of basic understanding of other cultures and lack of commitment to working with people from MENA backgrounds. Just last year, Hitman 3 debuted with completely backwards and disconnected Arabic throughout the entire first level.

Call of Duty: Vanguard that same year

disrespectfully featured pages of the Qur’an strewn all over the floor beneath players’ dirty boots and blood. Possibly worst of all, after more than 10 years of people telling tone-deaf developers that Six Days in Fallujah, a game set in 2004 that depicts a massacre of Iraqi civilians, is not appropriate, it is set for release next month. Violent, perverse depictions of Middle Eastern people in video games are nothing new, but we should not still be seeing such outrageous choices. Many of these issues would not even be a problem if studios and development teams would simply hire more creative and talented people of color.

In using diverse casts, incorporating different cultures and traditions, and representing people and ideas that are often misunderstood and underrepresented, there is a moral imperative to get things right. You must work with people who truly understand the content you are including, and you must be telling your story in a way that is respectful to the communities you are borrowing from or speaking on behalf of. Not only does it help dispel misinformation and harmful preconceived notions, but it also makes for much more engaging and enriching art. At the end of the day, all of these forms of media are aiming to do one thing: tell a story. No one can make an AAA game or an Oscar-winning film by themselves, but you are an integral piece of the puzzle. The best person to tell your story is you.

Conservatory Success Relies on Piano Technicians Continued from page 10

make or break the piano and its ability to endure temperature and humidity changes.

Andrew Bertoni, OC’ 88, works on the maintenance of the pianos in the Conservatory classrooms and Robertson Hall practice rooms, as well as the piano in the Cat in the Cream, which is his personal favorite.

“There are certain times a year where I go around because I know that there are a lot of strings breaking because of the change in humidity,” Bertoni said. “So the bridge on the piano is moving, and the strings are getting pulled, and they tend to break.”

Despite the constant maintenance, the Piano Technology department remains a foreign part of the Conservatory to many, including pianists.

“There are a couple of people on the piano faculty that come down here and have known me for 21 years, and they look around here like, ‘whoa’,” Cavanaugh said. “We always say, ‘Are you lost?’ They’re just upstairs, but they live in a totally different world — they have a totally different mindset. They call us the unseen artist. We’re the artists who work on the pianos, but no one knows. We’re like the elves who show up.”

A piano technology workshop is held in Bibbins Hall basement.

Photo by Erin Koo

The Oberlin Review | November 4, 2022

John Cavanaugh is the director of the Artist Diploma program.

A piano technology workshop is held in the Bibbins Hall basement.

Photo by Erin Koo

Photo by Erin Koo

13

S p or t s

MLB Playoff Expansion Encourages Underdogs

The Philadelphia Phillies and the Houston Astros are competing in the sixth game of the World Series Nov. 5.

Photo Courtesy of ESPN

James Foster Staff Writer This year, the MLB altered the playoff format of the World Series, expanding the postseason bracket from 10 teams to 12 teams. Six teams from the two leagues: the American League and the National League, made the playoffs. The change came for multiple reasons. One was declining viewership which decreased by 12 percent between 2019–21, leading to a substantial decline in revenue.

The MLB also wanted to lower the average viewer’s age, which is currently 57 years old.

In addition, the MLB also expanded the Wild Card Series, which grew IN THE LOCKER ROOM

from a one-game playoff series to a best-of-three series. In both the American and National League Wild Card Series, the visitors of the first game in their respective series ended up on top, with the Philadelphia Phillies, the Cleveland Guardians, and the Seattle Mariners winning their first two games and the San Diego Padres winning their first and third games.

Broadening the playing field allows the opportunity for more underdog teams. Fans seem to thrive on this story: the team that is expected to lose miraculously pulls out an upset and takes down the expected victors. Nearly all sports movies revolve around the premise of a mismatched

by just one game over the Milwaukee Brewers and have made the most of their opportunity thus far. The Phillies swept the third seed St. Louis Cardinals in the Wild Card Series before taking down the second seed Atlanta Braves in the Divisional Series and the Padres in the Conference Series. The Phillies lost just one game in each of their last two series, defeating the Braves 3–1 in a best-of-five series and the Padres 4–1 in a best-of-seven series.

As of Nov. 4, the Phillies are just two games away from becoming World Champions, although the Astros, last year’s runner-up, are in a 3–2 lead.

Baseball fans are currently tuning in to witness the Phillies’ unlikely ascent to the top of baseball at rates that prove the new changes to the MLB postseason are a success.

Over the course of the 2022 playoffs, compared to the 2021 playoffs, the amount of 18 to 34-year-old fans watching rose 22 percent, along with a 9 percent increase in viewership of people 17 and younger, and ratings for the 2022 Divisional Series were up 21 percent from the 2021 Divisional Series, with 3.4 million people on average tuning in. These trends are promising for the MLB and the future of baseball, which relies on young people to carry the fame and legacy of the sport.

Natalie Dufour, Volleyball Player, Political Organizer

Andrea Nguyen Sports Editor Zoe Kuzbari Contributing Sports Editor Second-year Natalie Dufour is a middle hitter on the volleyball team, where she has been setting career-high block assists for multiple games. Volleyball isn’t her only passion, however — she is also a Peer Advising Leader, the Vice President for Academic Affairs on Student Senate, a member of Sunrise, and a Cole Scholar, where she is currently campaigning for Charles Booker’s U.S. Senate campaign in her home state of Kentucky.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What made you pick Oberlin?

I knew that I really wanted to play volleyball in college, and I also wanted to go to a small liberal arts school that was known for its academics., so I started reaching out to coaches and going through the recruiting process. In the end, it was down to two schools: Oberlin and a school in Pennsylvania, and I visited both. When I got to Oberlin and saw the campus, I really disliked it. I told my mom, “I can’t go here. It is way too flat and none of the buildings match.” Then during my tour, the tour guide was really nice, and then I met the team for one practice. We had dinner afterward at the Feve, and I was introduced to the legendary tater tots.

Immediately I felt like something clicked. I felt like I could automatically have a home and a place where I fit in. Also, it was a very diverse team — people from all over the country, from all racial and ethnic backgrounds, which is really cool because I haven’t been exposed to that being on a volleyball team in the middle of rural Kentucky. The other school I visited was my perfect location and ideal campus, but the team was full of a bunch of white girls from Pennsylvania. I was like, “I can’t do this again, ’cause this is my high school.” When I chose Oberlin, I knew it was the right choice when my number — number 11 — was open.

And it has been the right choice.

How has your experience on the team been?

It’s been really incredible. I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through my first year without the girls on the team. You have this group of people that are never going away because you love each other,

14

yet lovable team defying the odds and coming out on top over the best of the best. Movie watchers enjoy this plot thoroughly, and their feelings are magnified when the underdog story unfolds in professional sports. The story evokes empathy, and fans feel satisfaction when the underdog wins (provided they are not active fans of the other team).

Despite the change to MLB, the American League had no surprises. The Tampa Bay Rays snuck into the playoffs as the sixth seed, but were swept in the first American League Wild Card Series by the third seed Guardians, a team that would’ve automatically been in the Divisional Round in past years. Meanwhile, the fifth seed Mariners swept the fourth seed Toronto Blue Jays, earning themselves a clash with the first seed Houston Astros.

However, expanding the playoffs made a significant impact on the National League Playoffs. In the professional sports world, underdog stories occur with some regularity, but rarely at the magnitude of this year’s playoffs.

In the Wild Card Series, the Padres, the National League’s fifth seed, took down the fourth seed New York Mets before upsetting the first seed Los Angeles Dodgers 3–1 in the Divisional Series.

The Phillies earned the sixth seed

you’re there for each other. We are all sisters in a way.

It’s also been nice being part of the athlete community, having this group of people who I know I can be like, “Oh, I saw your game,” and automatically start conversations.

What else do you do on campus?

I’m the Vice President of Academic Affairs on Student Senate. In my role this year, I’ve been meeting with various individuals and groups like the Academic Advising Resource Center, the library board, which I’m on, Dean Kamitsuka, and students on our committee. We try to figure out how we can best enhance the academic experience of students on campus and make sure that students know that the administration and the student government want to listen to them and their concerns.

I’m also a part of Sunrise; I’ve been part of it the whole time I’ve been at Oberlin. Sunrise is an environmental justice organization that works under the banner of the Green New Deal, and I worked in a similar climate justice organization during high school. We’re currently working on affordable and sustainable housing in the city of Oberlin, so it’s great getting to work with the local government and officials and dealing with climate problems that really affect all of us.

Finally, I’m also a Peer Advising Leader. Last semester, all the PALs taught a course on climate change. I got to talk about one of my passions and also connect with students who maybe weren’t fully decided about Oberlin.

What academic areas are you interested in, and what are your majors and minors if you have decided yet?

I am planning on declaring a Politics major and Spanish and French minors. When I was trying to think about what I wanted to major in, I was talking to my mom because I was like, “All these colleges are asking me to put what my preferred major is or what I wanna study. I don’t know what I wanna major in.”

She said “Natalie, what do you care about? What do you want to do with your life?” I just told her, “I wanna help people.” Politics seemed to be a way that I could work to maybe enact large-scale change in our society.

A year ago, I applied for the Cole Scholars Program, and I was one of 11 students accepted. We took an electoral politics class last spring semester and were placed on political campaigns across the country.

Natalie Dufour, volleyball player and aspiring Politics major.

Photo Courtesy of Amanda Phillips

I went home for the summer to work on Charles Booker’s race. He is running against Rand Paul, one of the current Kentucky senators in the U.S. Senate.

Booker is the person who inspired me to be interested in politics in the first place; he seemed like he actually cared about the people that he was representing rather than money, power, or things that it seems other politicians primarily care about.

It was great to be able to go back and work for his campaign. I got to meet so many great people and see that change is possible in an extremely rural and red-voting state like Kentucky. I’ve continued working for the campaign this fall, and I’m actually going back this weekend for Election Day so I can do everything I can to push for this victory that Kentucky really needs.

Fall Sports Bid Farewell to Senior Athletes Chris Stoneman Senior Staff Writer In the past few weeks, men’s and women’s soccer, volleyball, and field hockey all paid homage to their graduating classes through senior night games.

The first honorees were men’s soccer fourth-years Jon Schafer, Alec Gembala, Jesper Soelvberg, and Zack Butter, who were all recognized prior to the team’s Oct. 19 match against Hiram College. The Yeomen sent them out in style with a dominant victory over the Terriers, recording a blowout score of 5–1. Goals were spread out evenly throughout the depth chart, with Schafer capitalizing off a corner for a remarkable header at the 55th minute mark and second-year Xander Francoeur putting in his seventh goal at the 72nd minute mark, the most made on the team this year.

For Gembala, the last game was a touching moment, but he was glad he celebrated with his teammates, especially since the four seniors had a lot of playing time together for their final game on Fred Shults Field.

“Having the guys on the soccer team has been great for me,” Gembala wrote in an email to the Review. “I don’t think my experience here would have been nearly as good without them. The last game of the season was pretty emotional, as soccer has been part of my entire life and even more important these past few years. I would say I am pretty lucky to have played this game and make the type of friends I have.”

A particular spotlight was cast on fourth-year Camille Franklin, the team’s only women’s soccer graduating member, during their matchup against Ohio Wesleyan University this past Saturday. Though the game ended in a tie, the Yeowomen put on a formidable performance against the Battling Bishops.

As the night’s honoree, Franklin did not disappoint.

The midfielder had a strong defensive performance and almost secured an Oberlin victory with a narrowly missed shot that bounced off the goal. Along with Franklin, third-year goalkeeper Benji Maddox put on a stellar showing, shutting the opposing offense out entirely in both halves. After Franklin’s final match, the team carried her above their heads with joy and celebrated the end of her collegiate career.

“I loved being a part of this team for four years,” she said. “There is something so special about Yeo Athletics. I have made so many amazing friendships while I was here, and I am so sad to leave. I have achieved so much at Oberlin College, and I am so thankful for everyone that has supported me along the way.”

Volleyball celebrated fourth-years Lucy Myers, Iyanna Lewis, Lindsey Felton and Zoe Kuzbari Friday prior to their game against Alma College. In a back-and-forth five-set rollercoaster, the Yeowomen were unfortunately unable to emerge victorious and lost with a final score of three sets to two. Myers put on a stellar showcase in her final game at Oberlin, producing a career-high 53-assists.

“Although it wasn’t the result we hoped for, it was a tough fought game,” Myers said. “We’re hopeful

that it gave us the energy and momentum we need as we enter conference play this coming weekend! My favorite part of my volleyball career at Oberlin has been my teammates and the lifelong friendships I’ve formed. I wouldn’t be the player I am today without my team, and it’s been exciting to see how far we’ve come these past seasons.”

Before its Saturday match against The College of Wooster, field hockey honored four seniors — fourth-years Jackie Oh, Post, Vanessa Baker, and Meredith Warden — on Bailey Field. Like volleyball, the Yeowomen lost in close fashion to the Scots, with a stinging final score of 1–0. However, senior goalkeeper Post provided a great performance, making six key saves throughout the match.

“The arch of growth during my time at Oberlin is the best it possibly could’ve been,” Post wrote in an email to the Review. “Senior day was incredibly special: my teammates, coaches, and senior parents made a huge effort to honor us. Getting my 100th save in the season in that game also made it special.

The mark the team has left on me is hard to describe: my teammates taught me how important the pursuit of passion is, how to assume grace in ourselves and one another, and most of all how to celebrate family.

Really couldn’t have asked for a better experience this fall!”

Football will honor its seniors Saturday, Nov. 12 at a home game against Wooster, and cross country will honor its seniors at the end of outdoor track season in the spring. We at the Review wish the very best to our graduating athletic class!

The Men’s soccer team honored seniors Jon Schafer, Alec Gembala, Jesper Soelvberg, and Zack Butter before kickoff.

Photo Courtesy of Lucas Draper

Field hockey seniors Jackie Oh, Meredith Warden, Vanessa Baker, and Post smile on Bailey Field.

Courtesy of Lily Jurman

Women’s soccer senior and captain Camille Franklin poses with her mom.

Courtesy of Kali Bateman

Volleyball seniors Zoe Kuzbari, Lindsey Felton, Lucy Myers, and Iyanna Lewis were celePhoto Courtesy of Oberlin Athletics brated before their game.

Intramural Doubles Pickleball League Brings Fun, Competition Continued from page 16

“We both signed up for cornhole and had a lot of fun with that,” Wood said. “It’s nice to just still be competitive but try a different sport now and kind of take a break from football.”

Although Bilingual Staff Therapist Libni López and Executive Director of the Career Development Center Anthony Pernell-McGee “lost terribly” to fourth-year men’s soccer players Jon Schafer and Zack Butter in their Tuesday afternoon game, they The Oberlin Review | November 4, 2022

still enjoyed the exercise break and the chance to meet students. “[Pickleball is] an opportunity to meet other faculty, staff, and students outside of whatever work that they’re doing or their office,” López said. “It gives you a little bit of a break … from your office to get your body moving.

It makes the day a little bit easier.”

Schoenhoft said that just like the cornhole league prior, the pickleball league provided the opportunity

to unite different members of the Oberlin community. In fact, many of the pickleball competitors played in the cornhole league, like Ephraim and Wood. She also said that there are more intramural leagues, including basketball for the winter and softball for the spring, for players to enjoy, even hinting at the return of another pickleball league.

“You don’t have to have a ton of experience,” Schoenhoft said. “[In

the] cornhole league prior we had student athletes, we had non-student athletes, we had staff. I think that’s the whole point: to bring a lot of different diverse communities together.”

The league runs until Nov. 22 in West Phillips gym, playing on Mondays at 7 p.m. and Tuesdays at 12:15 p.m. and 7 p.m. Faculty, staff, and students are welcome to watch.

15

November 4, 2022

SPORTS Established 1874

Volume 152, Number 7

Oberlin Men’s Cross Country Sweeps NCAC Championships

The men’s cross country team poses at the NCAC Championships.

Celia Perks On Saturday, Oct. 29 the Yeomen placed first in the North Coast Athletic Conference Championship at The College of Wooster, the highest score in the program’s history. The team previously placed second in 1990 and 1994. Together, the entire cross country team cultivated enthusiasm, Obie spirit, and community that allowed them to clinch the title.

The Wooster cross country course is notorious for its grueling environment and lengthy hills, but this challenge did not prevent the men’s team from

Photo Courtesy of Levi Rex

crushing each expectation set on the eight-kilometer course.

“The hills at Wooster’s course were brutal, especially the final half-mile incline,” second-year Walter Moak said, a sentiment echoed by many of the runners. “[We] had to establish our position earlier in the race.”

Head Track and Field and Cross Country Coach Ray Appenheimer, who has been at Oberlin for 19 years, was incredibly proud of his standout athletes, especially the fourth-years. Captains Chase Sortor and Sam Russ set an early pace and provided confi-

dence. Niels Vanderloo and Matt Walton ran lifetime personal bests, and Ross D’Orfani finished eighth, earning his third career all-conference award. Moak, who placed ninth, improved 32 places from last year’s NCAC Championship and kept the team in the lead, while second-year Jonah Barber finished in the top five out of Oberlin runners despite some race-day challenges.

Appenheimer described how the victory was a team effort and explained how the coaching staff and team will use this accomplishment to propel their future seasons. “[It was] not just the five runners who scored, not just the 12 who ran,” he said. “It was everyone … determined to celebrate every moment of the race and every moment of that day.”

Cross country is often viewed as an individual sport, but this could not be further from the truth, as the team relied on each other for support and motivation. Russ and Sortor greatly contributed to the win by encouraging positivity and a strong team mindset. Russ ran relentlessly and fearlessly but also focused on having fun.

“Contributing to the team victory on Saturday is the highlight of my running career,” Russ said. “We viewed the race as a celebration of all our hard work and our love for one another.”

Sortor also motivated his teammates to draw strength from one another. “[My teammates] are some of my biggest inspirations and continually push me to be a better athlete and leader,” he said.

Before the race, he was shaking with nerves because of the daunting course but Barber still managed to run enthusiastically and thanked his teammates for helping him. “[I] contributed solely by feeding off my teammates ahead of me, behind me, and around me,” he said.

After the races concluded, Coach Appenheimer, Associate Head Cross Country Coach Izzy Alexander, and Volunteer Assistant Coach Anna Scott, OC ’22, were named the NCAC Coaching Staff of the Year for the men’s division. Together, the three coaches pushed each athlete to reach their maximum potential and ultimately, victory.

Despite the conclusion of the season, the entire cross country team will continue to train, practice, and compete especially in preparation for the winter track and field season.

“Let’s not spend time talking about successes, let’s attend to the things that make us successful — our effort, our attitude, our belief in ourselves and the people around us,” Appenheimer said. “If we do that, then our success is all but assured.”

Yeofit and Rec Organize Intramural Doubles Pickleball Kayla Kim Contributing Sports Editor While the brief window of time between fall and winter sports seasons means fewer opportunities to watch the Yeowomen and Yeomen right now, there’s still a sport for avid Oberlin fans to attend that’s currently in full swing. On Mondays and Tuesdays, faculty and students alike serve, dodge, and volley against each other in friendly matches, competing as part of the Intramural Doubles Pickleball League.

As previously reported in the Review, pickleball’s popularity experienced a 650-percent surge of interested players in the past six years, and especially skyrocketed during pandemic restrictions in 2020. Due to its acclaim and the success of Oberlin’s intramural cornhole tournament a few weeks prior, Associate Director of Campus Recreation Sara Schoenhoft decided to organize the league. Before, the only place for the Oberlin community to play the sport was at the Splash Zone courts.

The league is organized into random doubles groups every week rather than a bracket.

Surrounded by the din of neighboring basketball

16

practices, the games usually take place in front of an audience of one and since there are no referees, the players are left to settle on the rules and scores themselves. They play in three sets for best out of 11 points. In between sets, the players can be seen trying to cool themselves off with paddles, talking strategies with their partner, or chasing the small yellow balls across the court.

Despite the informality, the level of play and excitement from competitors rivals some professional tennis games. For instance, this week, Associate Dean of Students Thom Julian delivered a Serena Williams-style ace in one of the nail-biting sets against women’s soccer players second-year Zoe Garver and third-year Brynn Adams.

Meanwhile, football first-years Treyce Wood and Ben Ephraim continued to defend their two-game winning streak, defeating College fourth-years Naomi Friedman and Jessica Norris in a brief but heated game.

Wood and Ephraim said that pickleball is a refreshing athletic environment compared to the intensity of football practices while still offering fun and competition.

See Intramural, page 16

First-year Kai Kashey competed in the Intramural Doubles Pickleball League Monday night.

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor