March 18, 2022

The Oberlin Review March 18, 2022

Established 1874

Volume 151, Number 15

OCS Endowment Reaches $1 Million Lauren Krainess Contributing News Editor

encourage and expect all of us to continue with our primary purpose of serving our students.”

In addition to some faculty expressing their dissatisfaction at the situation by cancelling classes, a majority of the General Faculty voted in solidarity with Witmer’s motion. The motion passed among the 195 people in attendance with 86 percent in favor, four percent opposed, and 10 percent abstaining.

It will now go to the Board of Trustees, which is at liberty to decide the next course of action.

Witmer’s motion highlights that the payout rate from the endowment that goes toward compensation has been steadily declining. Between 2001–2015, the rate stood at 5.5 percent, but it was set at 4.4 percent for fiscal year 2022. Witmer proposes a one-time increase of the payout rate by 0.3 percent, which translates to $3 million every year toward compensation.

Witmer argues that this budgetary restriction has caused faculty compensation to fall behind the rate of inflation. However, the Board does not want to tie compensation to the endowment on the grounds that change in market conditions could introduce potentially significant and adverse impacts to the actual payout amount.

Over the course of the recent General Faculty meeting, numerous professors spoke about how they were directly impacted by the shift in health care plan and the harmful nature of certain administrative decisions. According to Associate Professor of Computer Science Cynthia Taylor the prevailing tone of the meeting was tense. “[Wednesday’s] faculty meeting made it clear that faculty are worn out, that we don’t feel supported by this institution, and that many of us are close to a breaking point,” she wrote in an email to the Review.

“It also made clear just how much this has personally affected the budget and finances of many of my colleagues. In today’s meeting, President [Carmen Twillie] Ambar said she didn’t want to address personal issues in response to a faculty member volunteering just how much this was financially and medically hurting their family, but when the administration makes decisions that materially harm our lives and the welfare of our families, I don’t know

Last week, the Oberlin Schools Endowment Fund reached $1 million. Since 1999, the fund has granted over $530,000 to projects and opportunities that enrich Oberlin City Schools students’ academic and extracurricular experiences.

OSEF funds learning opportunities for OCS students in academics, art, music, and athletics through grants that students, teachers, and community members can apply for. According to OSEF Board President Adam C. Freas, a majority of OSEF grants support classroom initiatives, such as the purchase of sensory chairs, science instruments, and books. However, the fund also supports extracurricular learning opportunities like field trips, community projects, and guest speakers.

“The schools can’t do everything, so we just try to help our students to better their education the best that we can,” Freas said.

Freas explained that OSEF has grown over the past 36 years, primarily due to individual and business donations, which OSEF solicits through an annual appeal letter. However, investment returns and fundraisers have also played a role in the fund’s growth. According to Freas, the OSEF Board realized that the fund was approaching $1 million late last fall, so it centered its fall appeal letter around asking recipients to help the fund meet this milestone.

After receiving several donations and investment returns, the fund finally reached $1 million earlier this month.

“Oberlin is a very supportive community, and we’re very appreciative of that,” Freas said.

According to Freas, the amount of money OSEF can give out in the form of grants is based on a small percentage of the fund’s three-year average amount. Thus, OSEF meeting the $1 million milestone doesn’t necessarily mean that the fund can drastically increase the amount of money it gives out. However, Freas emphasized that there is no dollar limit on what students, teachers, and community members can request from the fund. This year, he said OSEF has about $37,000 to give out in grants.

“Teachers can be very creative,” he said.

“Whatever their thoughts are — their ideas, their dreams — they can present those to us. We don’t put a cap on what they present or a dollar amount.”

When asked about how OCS benefits from OSEF, OCS Marketing and Communications Consultant Melissa Linebrink mentioned notable initiatives the fund has supported.

According to Linebrink, OSEF granted money to support the district’s Backpack Program, which helps combat food insecurity that students face on weekends without school meals. OSEF also financially supported the visit of Michael Williams, the author of the children’s book The Brown Crayon, to OCS. “We are grateful for the Oberlin Schools Endowment Fund for the financial support

See Faculty Frustration, page 2

See OSEF, page 2

Some professors canceled classes this week to protest stagnant faculty compensation.

Photo by Khadijah Halliday, Photo Editor

Faculty Cancel Classes, Demand Fair Compensation

Kushagra Kar Editor-in-Chief In response to the Board of Trustees’ rejection of a faculty motion to improve compensation, Oberlin’s Chapter of the American Association of University Professors recommended that faculty participate in a day of “RES(is)T(ance)” by canceling classes.

Additionally, during Wednesday’s General Faculty meeting, Professor of Mathematics Jeff Witmer introduced a motion that recommended ways to make adjustments to endowment spending in order to increase faculty pay.

“This action follows other responses to the Board’s letter of rejection, such as the face-to-face meeting between members of GFC and the Board of Trustees and protests last week organized by students and faculty,” wrote Matthew Senior, chair of the Department of French and Italian in an email to the Review.

While some AAUP faculty members expressed their dissatisfaction at the situation through the day of RES(is)T(ance), Oberlin’s deans maintain that the priority should be serving students, and that canceling classes works against the institution’s collective interests.

“Throughout the pandemic, our faculty have demonstrated their extraordinary dedication to teaching and to our students,” wrote David Kamitsuka, dean of arts and sciences, in an email to the Review. “Canceling class, given its impact on students, is not the right thing to do. I’m also concerned that faculty-initiated class cancellation puts students in a very hard position if they don’t agree or feel instrumentalized. Any such cancellation should be authorized through our faculty governance committees, and with the educational best interest of our students in mind.”

Dean of the Conservatory William Quillen echoed Kamitsuka’s message, adding that teaching is the institution’s main mission.

“As a school, teaching students is our primary mission,” he said. “It’s also the personal mission of all of our faculty and staff, who have devoted their careers to this work. I both acknowledge and thank our colleagues for their extraordinary work, and I CONTENTS NEWS

OPINIONS

03 Asian Diaspora Coalition Hosts 05 General Faculty Motion RecVigil ommends Solutions to Increase Faculty Pay 04 Students Call for Equitable Compensation, Better Treatment

07 A Sort-Of Detailed Guide to Doing Laundry at Oberlin College

The Oberlin Review | March 18, 2022

CONSERVATORY

ARTS & CULTURE

SPORTS

08 Mindfulness: An Attractive Invitation for Musicians

10 Long Island Night Overcrowded, Sweaty, Not Fun Anymore

THIS WEEK

11 New Yarn Store, For Ewe, Offers Creative Community for POC in Oberlin

14 Women’s Tennis Prepares for Conference Matches Through Division II Competition

09 Dance Groups in Oberlin

16 Two Oberlin Track and Field Athetes Earn All-American Honors

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Faculty Frustration Grows Over Stagnant Pay Continued from page 1

how we can do anything but take it personally.”

In addition to concerns with morale, Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Cognitive Science Program Paul Thibodeau wrote to the Review about issues with the Board’s perceived outlook toward compensation and the tone of their March 1 letter to faculty.

“For me, the current issue has more to do with morale and trust and community than it does with compensation per se,” he wrote. “The stagnant salary and cuts to benefits have been frustrating to be sure, and my family has had to deal with headaches associated with the new health care plan. But, more than compensation, the last few years have shown me that the Board operates by a different set of values than they claim to support. … My perspective is that the Board’s letter felt condescending and out of touch. The Board made promises to faculty. They broke those promises. They don’t seem to understand how that affects their relationship with faculty moving forward. Why should we trust anything they say?”

For Professor of Classics Ben Lee, the sum of these concerns reflects not only a decline in Oberlin’s standard as an educational institution, but also a discouraging trend for the future of higher education.

“Oberlin College cannot pretend to be a beacon of education if it does not give adequate health care and benefits to its own educators,” Lee wrote in an email to the Review. “We cannot pretend to be a community that is committed to social and economic justice, when the Board and administration bully the faculty and treat them so roughly.”

Many faculty, including Senior, are particularly concerned about the disproportional impact of the new health care plan. Unlike the old Preferred Provider Organization plan, which charged a percentage of income on premiums, the high-deductible plan charges fixed premiums and the same deductible and maximum out-of-pocket costs regardless of income. Senior believes it is incumbent upon President Ambar and the Board to develop an emergency fund to support individuals who are now burdened with larger medical bills.

“Along with many of my colleagues at [Wednesday’s] GF meeting, I ask President Ambar to be our advocate to the Board, not the conduit and go-between for their inhumane and out-of-touch policies,” he wrote. “I think President Ambar might actually have considerable leverage with the Board. She is a member of the General Faculty, she is our President.

She is in a position to push back against the austerity

measures and financialized outlook of the Board.”

Kamitsuka assured professors and students of his continued commitment to advocate for Oberlin’s community “As a long-standing member of our faculty, and integral to my role as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, I advocate on behalf of the best interest of our faculty, staff, and students in the division and the college more generally,” he wrote. “Everything I do is focused on this advocacy.”

Witmer’s motion is expected to be presented to the Board in its coming meetings, yet faculty are apprehensive about how the Board will handle the situation after their last response. In the meantime, faculty expectations on compensation and health care remain consistent with last December’s motion.

“I want them to commit to both reverting our health care plan to its previous options, and at the very least to regular cost of living raises for the faculty, if not a return to the 2013 plan to bring us to the median pay of the ‘Sweet Sixteen’ colleges,” Taylor wrote. “It’s clear that the Board would like to stall on this indefinitely by ‘investigating’ or forming committees or doing studies, and I think those responses are both inadequate and cowardly.”

Oberlin Schools Endowment Fund Meets $1 Million Milestone Continued from page 1

The Oberlin Schools Endowment Fund supports academic and extracurricular enrichment for the City’s students.

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor

The Oberlin R eview March 18, 2022 Volume 151, Number 15 (ISSN 297–256)

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

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they have provided the Oberlin City School District,” Linebrink wrote in an email to the Review.

Although many OCS students and teachers apply for OSEF grants for projects that enrich students’ experiences, community members and those not directly affiliated with OCS can apply for grants to support projects that benefit students as well.

Oberlin community member Tanya Rosen-Jones received two grants from OSEF to support the creation of the We Are Oberlin mural behind the Oberlin College Bookstore. Amazed that no one had defaced the original 1996 mural in this location, RosenJones researched and learned that its creator had incorporated middle school students into the mural’s creation.

“If young people get involved in a project, it brings a whole community together,” Rosen-Jones said. “There’s ownership and pride that can happen there.”

Rosen-Jones wanted to involve Oberlin High School students in painting a new mural over the original mural, contingent on permission from original artist Brenda Grier-Miller and her daughter Imani Miller-

Anisa Curry Vietze Kushagra Kar Gigi Ewing Ella Moxley Kush Bulmer Lauren Krainess Emma Benardete Angel Aduwo Lilyanna D’Amato Kathleen Kelleher Zoe Kuzbari John Elrod Zoë Martin del Campo Walter Thomas-Patterson Khadijah Halliday Abe Frato Wiley Smith Adrienne Sato Nikki Keating River Schiff Sierra Colbert

Annibel. Rosen-Jones said that part of the purpose of involving high school students was to demonstrate to students through the mural creation process that creating art is a viable career path.

“I decided I wanted to work with the high school students and show them that art is also a job,” she said.

Rosen-Jones also hoped to foster pride in Oberlin High School students by working with them to brainstorm ideas for the mural. During a threeday brainstorming session, Oberlin High School students considered what makes Oberlin special.

“I really just wanted to do something positive that could bring people together,” she said. “I’m hoping Oberlin kids can be super proud of where they come from.”

Rosen-Jones used the grants from OSEF to finance the installation of the mural and pay the muralists for their time in the brainstorming process. She emphasized that OSEF’s support played a key role in the mural’s creation.

“I’m grateful to [OSEF] for their support, believing in my vision, and believing in our students,” she said.

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Katie Kunka Claire Brinley Sumner Wallace Yuhki Ueda Isaac Imas Lia Fawley Kayla Kim Ella Bernstein Trevor Smith Grace Gao Adrienne Hoover Erin Koo Molly Chapin Clair Wang Holly Yelton Thomas Xu Nondini Nagarwalla

Asian Diaspora Coalition Hosts Vigil to Commemorate Atlanta Spa Shootings Kush Bulmer News Editor Geri Mishra The Asian Diaspora Coalition held a vigil on Wednesday in honor of the victims of the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings, as well as for all people who have been subjected to sexualized anti-Asian discrimination. Co-sponsored by the Filipino American Students Association, the Multicultural Resource Center, Survivors of Sexual Harm and Allies, and the Sexual Information Center, the vigil marked the one-year anniversary of the shootings, which took the lives of eight people, six of whom were Asian women. The vigil addressed sexual violence against Asian women amid an exponential rise in anti-Asian hate crimes since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The vigil was organized by College third-years and ADC cochairs Maya Yin Fahrer and Haley Sablay and took place on the porch of Wilder Hall. Several speakers addressed the crowd from the top steps of Wilder, expressing their personal experiences and reactions to the shootings. A crowd of students gathered in solidarity and in grief, sitting on the ground below the steps as the speakers spoke intimately of their life experiences as Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Following the event, students paid their respects before an altar adorned with oranges, flowers, and incense. Many wrote statements of solidarity and support on the sidewalk. As the stories and experiences elicited grief and memories of similar traumas, members of the congregation followed the main speaking event with a more intimate debrief conversation in a room in Wilder.

“It’s 70 degrees out, [and] I think that was like a gift from the Earth saying like, ‘You know, everybody’s sitting out in Wilder,

In a 4–3 decision on Wednesday night, the Ohio Supreme Court announced that it was rejecting redrawn Ohio state house and senate maps for the third time. The decision puts the Ohio primary — currently slated for May 3 — in jeopardy and continues to leave candidates and voters in limbo.

The Ohio Supreme Court is requiring that the Ohio Redistricting Commission produce a new and fair map by March 28. With just over a week to produce the new maps, the court also recommended that lawmakers on the commission employ an independent mapmaker and include greater public comment in the map-making process.

“The evidence shows that the map-drawing process for all three districting plans we have reviewed has been controlled by the Republican Party,” the Court wrote in its majority opinion.

The Oberlin Review | March 18, 2022

Thursday, March 10, 2022 12:35 p.m. A student reported that they received an iPhone notification that an Apple Airtag device had tracked their phone. The Oberlin Police Department was contacted and reported that they have received several complaints regarding the tracking messages. Apple was contacted and advised there was a glitch that occurs when an iPhone has Bluetooth activated. Apple said that this is an ongoing issue with such devices.

Friday, March 11, 2022

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor

and we’re about to say a bunch of really intense s**t to them,’” Yin Fahrer said. “Maybe it’ll ruin their beautiful sunny day, but it’s ruined so many beautiful sunny days for all of us. And so I think I want them to sit in their discomfort knowing that they’re potentially — and honestly, I would say, are — perpetuating stereotypes that directly cause antiAsian sexualized violence.”

Yin Fahrer expressed that these hateful stereotypes are predicated on the erasure of the Asian experience and representation, especially at Oberlin.

“You get this feeling that either I’m a body or I’m a caricature,” Yin Fahrer said. “And I think that’s where it comes in most at Oberlin.

I want people to realize that they are not as woke as they think they are. … I want people to hear what we say and realize that they have no idea that we were dealing with this, reckon with that, and realize that they’ve had no Asian-American or Asian global history education about U.S. imperialism, and know how that affects how they see us.”

College fourth-year Lea WatkinsChow felt empowered by the community surrounding her at the

vigil, highlighting the intimacy, care, and support she received amid the debrief conversation following the emotionally-taxing event.

According to Watkins-Chow, the vigil was rooted in Oberlin’s long history of multicultural solidarity and activism.

“I felt incredibly grateful to be in community with so many vulnerable, courageous people (specifically Asian women and queer Asians),” Watkins-Chow wrote in a message to the Review. “I also felt like we held space for so many people we don’t know or can’t name: all of the radical Asian Americans who have come before us at Oberlin.

In particular, (my understanding is that) in the late ’70s and early ’80s, Asian Americans on campus knew the radical political nature of the identity of Asian American. They organized alongside Black and Brown students and created spaces like [Afrikan Heritage House], Third World House, Third World Co-op, and orgs like Asian American Alliance. Sitting in that room felt like a continuation of the history of activism, resistance, and care

by Asian Americans on Oberlin’s campus.”

Ohio Supreme Court Decision Puts Primary in Limbo Ella Moxley News Editor

Security Notebook

“The evidence shows that the individuals who controlled the mapdrawing process exercised that control with the overriding intent to maintain as much of an advantage as possible for members of their political party. … The commission has again adopted a plan in which a disproportionate number of tossup districts are labeled Democraticleaning.”

The decision severely damages the ability of election workers to hold a full primary in early May. Ballots for people voting overseas were meant to be sent out starting today, but uncertainty around the redistricting process makes it impossible for election officials to determine what district voters will be eligible to vote in when the new maps are finalized.

“There was a discussion of maybe having possibly two primaries this spring — I mean everything is up in the air except making sure you’re registered at least a month before that election,” said Zeb Page, associate

professor of Geology and Oberlin College Votes member. “So I think that remains the important thing.”

The decision comes after months of contentious back and forth between commission members and the Ohio Supreme Court. Last month, commission members missed a deadline set by the Supreme Court to produce new maps which raised the possibility that members of the commission, including high profile Ohio politicians like Governor Mike DeWine, might be held in contempt of court for missing the deadline.

The Ohio Congressional Map is also being held up in state court. The commission approved the new map with 10 Republican, two Democratic, and two toss-up districts on March 2.

Lorain County was moved out of Ohio District 4 and into District 5 in the new map. The Ohio Supreme Court has not yet spoken on whether it will approve this map.

Ohio is one of five states that has yet to complete the redistricting process.

2:37 a.m. A resident of Talcott Hall reported a broken mirror in the secondfloor men’s bathroom. Campus Safety officers responded and found mirror fragments on top of the sink, counter, and floor. Fragments were cleaned up and disposed of; the remaining mirror was taped to prevent injury from the sharp edges. A work order was filed.

2:34 p.m. Officers responded to a report of a student stuck in their room on the second floor of Fairchild House.

A USB cord was found stuck in the top of the door. Once removed, the door was opened. A second call was received at 7:47 p.m. from a student reporting they were stuck in the same room. A maintenance technician responded and opened the door. The door was propped open by a magnet which apparently got stuck inside the door jamb.

Saturday, March 12, 2022 3:28 p.m. A non-College individual reported a vehicle stuck in the grass at a College-owned property on Woodhaven Place. A tow truck responded and moved the vehicle.

8:09 p.m. Officers and Oberlin Fire Department members responded to a fire alarm on the second floor of Langston Hall. Smoke from burnt food in the microwave caused the alarm. The area was cleared of smoke and the alarm was reset.

Sunday, March 13, 2022 11:05 p.m. An officer responded to Talcott Hall upon receiving a student’s request for transport to the emergency room. The student reported their hand had hurt since the day before when they were out in the cold all day. The transport to Mercy Allen Hospital was completed.

Monday, March 14, 2022 9:50 a.m. DeCafé staff reported the theft of an item from the store by an individual. Management’s attempts to speak with the individual before they left the area were met with negative results.

10:58 a.m. Facilities staff reported the catalytic converter from a College-owned box truck was cut and removed while parked in the Willard Court lot. The Oberlin Police Department was notified and also responded.

3:46 p.m. Student Health staff requested transport to the emergency room for a student who was not feeling well. An officer responded and transported the student to Mercy Allen Hospital.

Tuesday, March 15, 2022 12:20 p.m. Facilities staff reported a bagged smoke detector in an unoccupied room on the second floor of Firelands Apartments. An officer responded and the bag was removed.

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Students Call for Equitable Compensation, Better Treatment

Student-workers shared their experiences and concerns at the March 10 protest against stagnant faculty compensation.

Photo by Khadijah Halliday, Photo Editor

Nikki Keating Senior Staff Writer Last Thursday, over 200 students gathered in Tappan Square to stand in solidarity with professors against stagnant faculty compensation.

While this was the main focus of the protest, many students shared their own experiences and concerns about their treatment and compensation as student-workers at Oberlin, while also highlighting a lack of accessibility for disabled students and students of color and support for mental health issues.

The Office of Student Employment oversees over 800 student-workers each academic year, including many who work to fulfill their Federal Work-Study awards. According to the Office, students are not allowed to work more than 30 hours a week and are paid between $9.30–12.75 an hour. Student-workers at the faculty protest last Thursday revealed that they felt underpaid, undervalued, and overworked.

Several students stated that they have to work multiple jobs to make enough money to support themselves, and also feel they are put on display to showcase Oberlin’s commitment to balancing academics with employment.

“I do find that sometimes studentworkers are put in these very weird situations of having to represent the College,” said double-degree fifth-year Kopano Muhammad, who helped organize Thursday’s protest.

“I feel like I am kind of pushed into situations where I am asked to be, like, participating in respectability politics … I don’t have time to be performing for a college.”

On the other hand, Chief Human Resources Officer Joe Vitale maintained that students are compensated fairly for their work based on the scope of activities they do in their jobs.

“For all student employment, the rate of work, compensation, and review is determined by the scope of work and responsibilities,” Vitale wrote in an email to the Review.

In addition to extra work, students expressed frustration that they often do not receive timely compensation.

When she worked at the Admissions Office, College third-year Stephanie Shugert had a hard time negotiating when she would receive her paycheck.

“When I was a tour guide over the summer, I did not get paid until the end of the summer semester,” Shugert said. “I definitely went up to speak to my supervisors about me not getting paid. … I would let them know and they’re like, ‘Okay, no problem. The next two weeks, it should come out and everything should be on your paycheck.’ And then they didn’t. And so I went back again, and I was just angry and I ended up quitting.”

Many feel that increased compensation for both students and staff would improve the services and morale of many workers on campus.

“My work shifts between weeks,” College third-year and Teaching Assistant Joshua Jackson said. “Sometimes I am delivering DVDs, other times I am creating presentations. The most work occurs in the classroom … as I [go] back and forth between facilitating discussions and aiding in lecture or film presentations. … If I was valued,

I would be paid for my work more adequately.”

When expressing their concerns, students emphasized their support for the protest organized by Jane and Eric Nord Associate Professor of Africana Studies Pamela Brooks and Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Comparative American Studies Yveline Alexis, stating that the staff and faculty are not the problem; rather, the issue lies in Oberlin’s lack of proper compensation.

“I feel very valued by my professors that I assist in teaching,” Jackson said.

Students also brought up concerns about campus jobs paid through stipends rather than hourly pay.

Shugert spoke about this issue at the event. Shugert is the resident assistant of Zechiel House — the Latinx Heritage House. She discussed how she was the only RA at Zechiel, responsible for over 40 students in the dorm.

“I’m the only RA for a whole building,” Shugert said. “Other RAs are getting paid the same amount as me [and] only have 20 residents.”

The Office of Residential Education recruits and hires RAs, places them in dorms, and determines their stipend.

RAs cultivate and create communities within dorms and are tasked with the upkeep of certain dorm areas, halls, or wings — or entire dorms, in Shugert’s case. Yet, as RAs such as Shugert have expressed, the effort they put into their work has no effect on what they are paid.

“All RAs are paid $3,150 per semester,” wrote Director of

Residential Education and Assistant Dean of Students Andy Sadouskas in an email to the Review. “RA stipends are reviewed yearly.”

While many schools also significantly reduce or completely cover food and living costs for RAs, Oberlin only takes five percent off food and living costs.

Students hope the conversation about the treatment of student workers and faculty will open up a discussion on the College’s employment policies, as well as improvement in the resources and support for disabled students and students of color and for those that face mental health issues.

Top: College third-year Reggie Goudeau addresses the crowd.

Bottom: Students gathered in solidarity with faculty to demand better compensation.

Photos by Khadijah Halliday, Photo Editor

US Senate Primary Primer Democratic Tim Ryan is the current United States representative for Ohio’s 13th District, and he serves as the co-chair of the Congressional Manufacturing Caucus.

In his role, he has worked to combat the opioid crisis in Ohio and supported investment in clean water infrastructure for Lake Erie. If elected to the Senate, Ryan hopes to raise wages, make health care more affordable, invest in education, rebuild public infrastructure, and revitalize manufacturing.

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Morgan Harper previously served as a Senior Advisor at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Director of Policy & Advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project.

She also co-founded Columbus Stand Up!, which organizes volunteers to assist with pandemic response and voter mobilization. Her campaign calls for refreshing antitrust and labor laws, implementing Medicare for All, and closing the wealth gap with systemic reparations.

Republican Josh Mandel is a former Ohio state treasurer and state representative.

In 2012, he ran for Senate against Senator Sherrod Brown. Mandel touts his accomplishments of increasing transparency in state spending and enabling taxpayers to pay taxes in cryptocurrency. He is a supporter of former President Donald Trump’s America First agenda, religious liberty, and the pro-Israel movement.

Mike Gibbons is an entrepreneur and recently served as the Ohio finance co-chair for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. As a senator, Gibbons hopes to defund Planned Parenthood, protect the Second Amendment, and reform health care.

As a businessman, he also hopes to introduce a flatter tax code and reduce regulation on businesses to promote job growth.

March 18, 2022

OPINIONS Established 1874

OSCA Greatly Misunderstood by NonOSCA Students Emily Vaughan

When I first decided to sign up for a co-op, I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. I knew that I would be responsible for cooking some of my meals and cleaning up after said cooking, but I knew nothing about the bureaucratic and legislative aspects of being in a co-op. It wasn’t until I joined Pyle Inn co-op at the beginning of this school year that I learned what I was getting myself into.

With our hand signs during discussions, terms for pieces of equipment, and general culture, from the outside the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association definitively looks like a cult.

There’s an air of mystery surrounding OSCA and how it functions. What is a Hobart? What about a DLEC or KitchCo? Why are we always talking about llamas? But beyond these questions about specific co-op rituals and terms, students who aren’t OSCA members lack a surface-level understanding of how the organization works. Just last week, the Review published an article (“Old Barrows, Brown Bag Co-ops to Remain Closed” The Oberlin Review, March 11, 2022) that called the nowclosed Fairchild co-op a housing and dining co-op, but it is widely known by students in OSCA that Fairchild, also known as Fairkid, was a dining-only co-op until it was closed in March 2020. In fall 2020, it was reopened as College-operated dining. Prior to the 2021–2022 school year, the building operated as a traditional residence hall, but it now serves as a first-year dorm.

Another co-op that has not been in operation since the shutdown in March 2020 is the Brown Bag co-op.

Brown Bag allowed students living off campus or in Village Housing to pick

up groceries and prepare food in their own kitchens. The College does not offer a similar alternative dining option, which greatly limits the abilities of students living in Village or off-campus housing to become independent and cook for themselves.

Oberlin requires all students to be on a meal plan. Even the smallest and least expensive meal plan is more expensive than OSCA, not to mention the fact that the cost per meal swipe is significantly higher for smaller plans. Unfortunately, OSCA is no longer as affordable an option as it could be. There is currently a policy in place that removes the amount students can save by joining OSCA from their financial aid packages, though OSCA is taking steps to counteract this problem.

On a more lighthearted note, I would like to offer some answers to common questions and misconceptions about OSCA. Firstly, we eat more than rice and beans. Today, we had cheesy pasta bake and tofu! We also have granola, bread, and lots of other tasty baked goods.

The Hobart is what we call our lovely industrial dishwasher, nicknamed after the manufacturing company. Not too exciting.

A DLEC is a Dining Loose-Ends Coordinator. Each co-op elects two at the beginning of the semester. To quote one of Pyle’s DLECs, College third-year Sammy Siegel, “The job of a DLEC is mostly to lead discussions and elections and to do anything else that needs to be done around the co-op.”

And as for the llamas? Well, the llama is a hand symbol made in OSCA to propose an idea during discussion that will be voted on. It originated as a joke between friends in Harkness, and eventually spread to the other co-ops as a standard discussion procedure.

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The Oberlin Review | March 18, 2022

Volume 151, Number 15

General Faculty Motion Recommends Solutions to Increase Faculty Pay Editors’ Note: The following motion was presented in Wednesday’s general faculty meeting by Professor of Mathematics Jeff Witmer as part of a broader conversation around faculty compensation. The motion was presented following the Board of Trustees’ rejection of a Dec. 15 faculty motion and passed with 86 percent voting in favor, four percent opposed, and 10 percent abstaining.

Jeff Witmer Rationale: The future of Oberlin depends on having a strong and engaged faculty to deliver an educational program that attracts students to the College. All employees matter, and extracurricular activities will always be an important part of the life of a student, but we rise or fall based on the quality of the educational experience that we offer. Oberlin cannot expect to provide academic and musical excellence if we cannot attract and retain outstanding faculty, or if the faculty we have are demoralized.

Oberlin has many needs and there are countless ways we could spend money, but investing in the educational experience through the faculty should be front and center.

In its recent letter, the Board stated that spending on instruction and research, as a share of the budget, has remained “almost the same” since 2010, but the percentage

has actually dropped from 48.3 percent to 46.6 percent over the decade, with the difference between those two percentages representing close to $3 million in annual spending that is not, today, supporting instruction (e.g., through faculty compensation). This graph shows the most recent 11 years for which data are publicly available.

In 2013, the Board of Trustees made a commitment to improving faculty compensation, stating, “Oberlin College should set a goal of achieving salary parity (meaning the median of the salary range) with the Sweet Sixteen Schools in each continuing rank (Professor, Associate Professor, and Assistant Professor),” and “Oberlin College should establish a strategic indicator to monitor annual progress toward this goal.”

Having an annual evaluation of where we stood relative to that goal indicated a serious commitment to investing in the quality of the faculty, but that commitment seems to have been abandoned.

For many years (2001–2015), Oberlin used a payout rate from its endowment averaging over 5.5 percent. The Board of Trustees determined that having such a high payout rate, well above the average used by peer institutions, was not sustainable and has set the FY22 payout rate at 4.4 percent, a figure that is to be reduced by 0.1 percent per year until it reaches 4.0 percent . However, reducing the payout rate to 4.4 percent , heading lower, has resulted in such severe budgetary constraints that faculty compensation has fallen well behind inflation, to say nothing of comparison to peer institutions.

It is true that the AAPR One Oberlin report ­­— where one repeatedly reads of the academic and artistic excellence that must be provided by the faculty — recognized the need for budgetary reductions and some savings in benefit costs across employee groups, but the GF approval of that report was not intended to signal acceptance of a health care plan that, unique among our peer set, has no options. The College had already reduced retirement contributions and to follow this by the move to a CDHP-only plan will only make recruitment and retention of faculty more difficult in the years ahead.

Any spending today is implicitly taking money from the future of the College, but saving money for the future must be balanced against the needs of building a strong College today. The cost to faculty morale and to the ability to hire and retain quality faculty must be considered. We believe that the College has the capacity to invest in its future via the faculty. For example, increasing the payout rate by 0.3 percent would provide roughly $3 million per year (which, coincidently, is roughly the amount that has been removed from instruction and research support in recent budgets).

We know that the College’s resources are limited and that the demographic situation is going to get worse in the coming years, with the number of 18-year-olds declining. We think it is better to enter those years as a top-tier, if somewhat poorer, school than as a lower-tier, but relatively wealthier, school.

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Opi n ions

Successful Institution Determined By Its Faculty Peter Woods On March 1, the Board of Trustees sent the kind of message to faculty and staff that has historically sparked civil unrest and even touched off revolutions in countries across the globe.

On Dec. 15, 2021, the General Faculty voted on a motion asking the board to return to the faculty compensation plan of 2013 and restore to all Oberlin employees the choice between the Preferred Provider Organization and Consumer-Driven Health Plan health plans, to which we had access until Jan. 1 of this year. This motion had overwhelming faculty support, but we received a letter from the Board of Trustees in response that was not only antagonistic, but condescending.

Rather than honor the 2013 commitment to ensuring competitive faculty salaries, the board has authorized President Carmen Twillie Ambar and her team to conduct a new, long-term compensation study, after which the trustees will reassess our calls for more equitable compensation.

The message was one of continued austerity. After years of belt-tightening, the workload has increased and wages have remained stagnant, with real earnings falling due to inflation. The board appears to believe that the sacrifices we have made are not enough and that the payoff we’ve been promised can be delayed indefinitely. The mood among the faculty, however, is one of growing impatience and even disenchantment.

While we wait, we have seen the salaries of other faculty members at our peer institutions rise. The matching of retirement contributions for tenured faculty members was suspended during the pandemic, and

now we have lost our choice of health care coverage, with many seeing their copays and prescription drug costs triple. The result is that many great faculty members have left, are leaving, or are considering leaving, and it has become difficult to hire the best professors and offer the highest-possible quality education to our students.

The need for a new study was addressed at our most recent General Faculty meeting on March 16 of this year. It seemed as though President Ambar felt that nine years is a long time, and that it is important to take another look at the peer groups against which we are measuring ourselves to determine whether the comparison is reasonable. I and several of my colleagues feel that this sounds like a way of reevaluating where we stand among our peers so that faculty salaries at Oberlin will no longer be compared to the top tier of institutions.

This brings me to what is most concerning about the board’s attitude. Their letter noted that the two greatest sources of income for the College come from student tuition and donations. My concern, and that of many faculty members, is that our administrators are making decisions that specifically threaten both of those sources of income. In its pursuit of austerity, the board is dismissing the reality that faculty and staff here have been pushed past their limits. Because of this, the quality of an Oberlin education, and the very future of Oberlin, is at stake.

As I mentioned above, we are facing the threat of unsustainable attrition in our faculty ranks, and with salaries and benefits as low as they

are, we are unable to replace those who leave with professors of equal or greater experience and expertise.

Visiting assistant professors are hired in favor of keeping tenure lines open, and lecturers are hired in favor of visiting assistant professors. We will likely be able to fill the positions we need, but we will not be hiring the best. This environment is also convincing longer-serving faculty members to retire earlier than planned, which robs us of much-needed institutional memory.

At the last meeting, I was given the impression that one reason students cited for not choosing Oberlin was that it didn’t provide enough opportunities for internships or place enough students in careers outside of academia. This apparently necessitated that the College defer increasing compensation until we have captured a larger share of students who are looking for something other than a liberal arts education. But it is not the object of a liberal arts college to appeal to every student.

Oberlin has a long-standing reputation for being an incredible place for learning and growing as a human being and sending students on to great careers. We will never attract every kind of student, but instead of shoring up our ability to attract as many students who are interested in an Oberlin education as possible, we are trying to change the formula so that we can find broader appeal. This is not an effective marketing strategy and, when it comes to something as crucial as the future of Oberlin, it doesn’t make sense.

Every student I’ve spoken to has said that they chose Oberlin specifically because they wanted the leg-

endary liberal arts education that this institution provides. They want a challenging environment that offers diverse and dynamic options so that they can choose how to educate themselves beyond the specific course of study they’ve chosen.

These students, and our faculty, know that success is about much more than having a well-paid job after college, securing an excellent fellowship, or getting into graduate school.

Successful people are those who develop a lifelong love for learning, an enduring desire to understand the world around them in all its diversity, and the critical thinking skills with which they can ensure that truth and fairness guide both them and their communities into the future. One of the incredible things about Oberlin is that we provide the framework for this success by fostering an environment that is committed to educating the entire individual, not simply the career-oriented parts.

Much is made of the looming demographic cliff that threatens the future of all but the top-tier institutions of higher education. We are told that a better future awaits us and that, if we can tighten those belts one or two more notches, we’ll eventually get there. In the meantime, we are cutting funding to liberal arts at one of the best-respected liberal arts institutions in the country. As we race after the glittering object on the horizon, we are dropping diamonds from our pockets as if they weigh us down, and there is no guarantee that the glitter will be gold. In the end, it is the faculty who are paying the price out of our own pockets, while our students lose the quality of their education.

Letter from 2017: Faculty Salaries at Oberlin College Editors’ note: This letter is a reprint from the Review’s Dec. 8, 2017 issue.

This letter was sent in an email on July 17, 2017 to Chair of the Board of Trustees Chris Canavan by Professors Chris Howell and Kirk Ormand. In light of the continuing and increasingly fierce debates around faculty compensation, the Review has decided to feature this letter.

The letter is published in full, with minor edits to style.

Dear Mr. Canavan: Thank you for your communication this spring, in which you explained Oberlin’s current financial crisis and the board’s decision to freeze salaries next year. While we recognize the seriousness of our current situation, we find it inadequate and depressing that neither the board nor the administration has the leadership or imagination to address this crisis in any way other than by eliminating raises for faculty and staff.

Allow us to review a bit of recent history. At its June 2013 meeting, the Board of Trustees of Oberlin College approved a resolution to create “a new strategic indicator of success to monitor our position on faculty compensation, including appendices tracking the College’s progress by rank, with a goal of reaching at least the median among the Sweet Sixteen institutions in each continuing rank.” [Emphasis added.]

The resolution also asked the College’s administration to “present a plan to the Board in December 2013 for achieving

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that goal.”

The board resolution followed from a set of recommendations proposed by a Joint Advisory Group on Faculty Compensation and Support composed of trustees, faculty, and administrators.

It was a remarkable, and remarkably rare, collaborative process in which the members of the advisory group met regularly for a year and examined in detail issues of the appropriate peer group for comparison purposes, cost of living, salary relative to benefits, relative endowment size, faculty retention, and morale. It was only at the end of this exhaustive investigation that the recommendation to target the median of the Sweet Sixteen peer group was made.

It is worth remembering that the advisory group was created because of the steady and unmistakable decline in the comparative position of Oberlin faculty salaries. In 2000–01, Oberlin was ranked ninth in its peer group and the average faculty salary for all ranks was 1.6 percent below the median. By 2011– 12, we had dropped to 14th and the average faculty salary was 7.5 percent below the median for the same peer group. To put that in terms of dollars, the cumulative loss of salary for the average Oberlin faculty member compared to the mean, without benefit of compounding, during that 12-year period was $48,400.

Following the board resolution, a strategy was devised by the General Faculty Council and senior administrators, and approved by the board,

to achieve the faculty compensation target over a five-year period through increases in salary in two forms. First, salary pools of four percent per year in order to match the average increase of our peers so as not to fall further behind. Second, to add $400,000 to the pool each year for five years in order to catch up to the median.

It is important to understand that the salary pools of our peer institutions have consistently increased by roughly four percent per year over a long period of time. That is the reason the strategy adopted for reaching the median chose four percent salary pools to stand still, and $400,000 increments to catch up.

Indeed, the median salary pool increase of our peer group for the last two years has been 3.8 percent and 3.9 percent.

There is not yet compelling evidence to suggest that salary increases among our peers are entering a period of secular decline. And Oberlin’s strategy was working, albeit slowly. By 2015–16 we had clawed our way back to 12th in our peer group and more than halved the gap below the median to 3.5 percent.

The board resolution on faculty compensation was trumpeted to faculty in fall 2013, incorporated into the 2015 Strategic Plan (Strategic Recommendation 3.3), another broad-based, collaborative, and exhaustive process, and used in the materials advertising Oberlin to prospective presidential candidates.

That commitment lasted three short years. Faced with a structural deficit

that some people on the board have been well aware of for many years, and with a short-term deficit in next year’s budget of $5 million, the board has taken the only step that they ever seem capable of taking when faced with financial strain: all non-union salaries will be frozen next year, a move that will not save even one half of next year’s deficit. The results are entirely predictable, and will be poor. Our salaries will drop to near the bottom of our peer group within two or three years, and we will remain there as a matter of financial strategy. Hiring and retention will suffer. Our best early-career faculty will leave, as several have over the past three years. Morale will plummet.

To reiterate: in choosing to both eliminate the catch-up increments and freeze faculty salaries, Oberlin has not only given up on its commitment to move towards the median of its peer group, but consciously decided to move in the opposite direction, towards the bottom of that group. The board has chosen to reverse a key recommendation of the Strategic Plan that it approved a scant year earlier.

That a board commitment proves to have a shelf life of only three years, that broad collaborative examples of shared governance are rendered almost instantly moot, and that the institution chooses to rely upon paying its faculty less than their peers, is depressingly familiar. The consequences for our ability to recruit, retain, and motivate an excellent faculty are equally predictable.

The Pandemic Has A Sort-Of Detailed Worsened Anti-Asian Guide to Doing Laundry Sentiment, But it Isn’t New Charlotte Glesner-Fischer Last year, after the March 16 Atlanta spa shootings, I called my moms, two lovely white women living in a New Jersey suburb of New York. My voice breaking, I told them that I wasn’t sure that I wanted to come home because I feared being a victim of a hate crime. I admitted feeling both guilty and thankful that I had the privilege of being able to make choices to help protect my safety. When former President Donald Trump repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the “Chinese flu,” the “Chinese virus,” and “Kung flu,” he gave bigoted Americans the green light to spew horrible sentiments and physically attack the unluckiest among us. Both the media and our institutions seemed shocked at this rise in anti-Asian hatred. The AAPI community in the U.S. was not.

The first time I realized being Asian was more than just a difference in ethnicity was in kindergarten. A friend casually told me how thankful she was to not have a flat face like mine and I must feel lucky not to need glasses because if I did, they would just slide off my face as my nose was flat: “Omg, just like Voldemort’s!” I started wearing glasses less than two years later and chose transition lenses. They stayed on my nose and reduced the jokes about my thin, squinty eyes. In middle school, teachers would often call the Asian girls by each other’s names and, when the mistake was pointed out, brush it off. “Sorry, you two look alike.” We didn’t. Middle school and high school were a series of, “Of course you’re in advanced math, it comes naturally to Asians,” and “I should’ve known you play the violin.” Otherwise intelligent, liberal people seemed to believe that my life decisions and values were evident and predetermined simply because I was Asian.

As I grew older, interactions became more verbally intense, but thankfully never physically violent.

I heard, “Go back to where you came from!” and I always wanted to reply, “I’m from New Jersey. Are Jersey people not welcome here because of the Jersey Shore show? If so, I get it, I really do.” But I was too afraid or embarrassed to do so. I eat my egg-bacon-and-cheese-on-a-bagelwith-salt-pepper-and-ketchup. I love pork roll (not Taylor ham). I support the Philadelphia Eagles and Phillies, never the New York Yankees but maybe sometimes the Mets. I love to go “down the shore,” and I can’t pump my own gas. In many ways, I’m a classic Jersey girl, so I am baffled by the focus on my appearance and the stereotypes that come along with that.

The United States is a country of immigrants, yet I have been asked countless times, “Where are you really from?” Every time, I hear, “You look Japanese or Chinese or Korean — I don’t know which — you basically all look the same.” The fact is that although I was born in China and lived there for nine months, I have lived in New Jersey for 20 years. I arrived with nothing but my birth certificate, a cow onesie, and the videos my mom filmed on an old camcorder.

The Oberlin Review | March 18, 2022

I want to say — but I don’t — that I am as American as you, who have given yourself the authority to call me out. Maybe I was not born here but I was definitely raised here; required to stand every morning for the Pledge of Allegiance and getting days off from school for President’s Day and Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. I don’t want to hear that you are “very into Asian women,” or that I am “really pretty for an Asian.” I find it annoying when you coo, “Come be my lil’ dumpling, my lil’ bowl of rice!” I hate it when you ask, “Do you eat dog? Are you going to eat your dog?”

I know that prejudice against Asians is not a new phenomenon in the United States. It is ingrained in the stereotype that Asians are the “model minority” and lousy at athletics and driving. It is heard in the fake accents used by comedians, employers, politicians, classmates, and strangers. It is seen when you enter an Asian neighborhood and walk through a gate of outdated “orientalist” decor. The difference today is that anti-Asian sentiment can be recorded on our phones and shared through social media and news outlets. This documentation and recognition of the prevalence of anti-Asian sentiment seems to have awakened in many Asian Americans and their allies the refusal to brush aside the hateful and hurtful comments and abuses and the heartbreaking acts of violence.

The reported 150–164 percent increase in reported hate incidents reveals that prejudice against Asians has become more prevalent and more public. Responding to the recent increase in recorded violent attacks, Congress passed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act. However, this legislation is only a step in the action needed to combat anti-Asian sentiment, especially since it does not cover any incidents that do not classify as severe hate crimes.

The U.S. has an incredibly diverse Asian community, each with different countries of origin, family dynamics, immigration stories, involvement in ethnic culture, and more. This wide range of personal narratives should be celebrated and validated. Instead, individual experiences are lumped together.

Asians outside of Asian countries have become the perfect chameleons. First-generation immigrants often do not teach their kids their native languages, preferring to focus on English. Asians have gotten too good at blending in and hiding — at not being seen for what they are in these environments: a minority. In China, parents want their kids to grow into dragons and phoenixes, not chameleons. It is time for Asians in America to strive to be dragons and phoenixes, to stand out and shine in their individuality.

Hopefully, then, this prejudice and bias against Asians in the U.S. will come to an end.

at Oberlin College Elle Giannandrea Columnist I know laundry is a chore. I know that for most college students, doing laundry is at best, mundane, and at worst, a hassle. And I especially know that no matter what I write here, most people will go on using whatever laundry room was conveniently provided in their halls. I accept all of this, but I can’t help but feel as though something needs to be said.

There are laundry rooms on this campus that I consider disgusting. There are also laundry rooms on this campus that I really quite like. In the past two months, I have sampled a variety of facilities across campus and made note of which ones I consider superior. So, without further ado, here is a comprehensive summary of the laundry experience in Barrows, Noah, Kahn, Talcott, and South Halls.

My first foray into campus laundry was in Barrows, where I live. Our laundry room consists of three washers and dryers, which serve about 130 students.

At first, I took no issue with this, and it wasn’t until I made the cataclysmic error of pulling back the black rubber gasket around the door of one of the washing machines that my troubles began. Lying in the chasm between the drum and door of the washer was a mat of hair bound together by the deformed remnants of lint, soap, and deteriorating bits of whatever it was students had forgotten to take out of their trouser pockets. I dealt with this on a psychological level by observing that when I ran the machine, my clothes rarely came close to the rubber band, and I dealt with this on a practical level by buying a big jar of sanitary wipes and wiping down the band and the inside of the door each time I put on a wash. About a month later though, I walked into the laundry room to find the radiator torn partially off the wall and a line of cigarette butts strewn across the floor. Thus began my journey to seek a better place to wash my clothes.

I first landed in Noah, where I happily did my laundry for the rest of the semester. Coming from Barrows, it was nice to have a larger array of washers and dryers, and even nicer to have a little sitting room in which to wait. Unfortunately, a friend of mine who lives in Noah eventually informed me that he wasn’t sure those washing machines were running hot water. I mentioned this to my mother one night on the phone, and she told me that if this was the case then the soap in my clothes probably wasn’t getting properly washed out. I tested her theory by taking a load of towels I had just washed and running them under some tap water. Sure enough, each towel rinse revealed a stream of water so soapy you could probably have used it to wash another batch of clothes. I haven’t been back since.

Kahn is the Four Seasons of firstyear, on-campus housing — the Ritz Carlton of Oberlin College. Although most of Kahn’s amenities are locked behind doors requiring Kahn-specific key cards, the door to the laundry room is, oddly, always propped open. Kahn is home to five dryers and four washers, all of which run warm water. As an

Illustration by Holly Yelton, Staff Cartoonist

added bonus, Kahn also has two metal poles on which you can hang your more delicate ensemble pieces to air-dry. The only issue with Kahn’s laundry room is that, due to the dorm’s rather large student population, it’s almost always full by midday. Sundays seem to be the busiest, with Saturday afternoons being the next-most popular time slot. However, if you are willing to start your laundry at some obscene hour of the day, it will be well worth it.

Talcott’s laundry room has the aura of a homey bomb shelter. The peeling yellow paint, withering sink bowl, and six-foot door frame all served to remind me of those shelters in people’s back gardens during WWII. Everything works, though. The room is surprisingly clean, as are the machines. Although the floor is made of concrete, the space didn’t feel damp or dusty, meaning that the only real issues with the room were aesthetic. If I can’t live in Talcott next year, I might still visit once or twice to wash my clothes.

I would rather eat dryer lint than do my laundry in South again. A strange smell hit me on the way down the basement stairs, then I found myself a souvenir in one of the washing machines: a Whip-It! whipped cream charger lodged firmly in the dreaded rubber gasket. Classy. The paint peeling at the walls and the slanted tile — slick with barely dried puddles forcing their way into swollen grout — made the space look like the bathroom in Saw. Apart from the cream charger, my second-favorite find was an unusable condom dispenser which had a single quarter stuck firmly in the top slot. I don’t think I will be returning any time soon, but if there are any budding microbiologists out there, I highly recommend swabbing one of the South Hall washers.

I know that it can be frustrating to deal with the monotony of a chore like laundry, especially when life demands your time and energy for a seemingly endless list of other things that need to be done first. I also know that making demands for the school to change the infrastructure of our laundry systems on campus would be laughable. So instead I encourage you to do something else: shop around. Take advantage of the numerous laundry facilities on this campus. Make laundry a routine that you enjoy. Keep the laundry rooms that you use clean and free of abandoned clothes. Seek inner peace. Write to your local congressperson. Become a martyr of your own deliverance. And for God’s sake, please remember to clean out the lint tray.

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C on s e r vat ory

March 18, 2022

CONSERVATORY Established 1874

Il Matrimonio Segreto Talks Class Consciousness, Familial Love

Mindfulness: An Attractive Invitation for Musicians Walter Thomas-Patterson Conservatory Editor

Conservatory vocalists rehearse in Bibbins.

Photo by Photo Editor Abe Frato Adrienne Sato Senior Staff Writer From March 24–27 in Hall Auditorium, the Oberlin Opera Theater will stage Domenico Cimarosa’s most famous opera, Il Matrimonio Segreto (“The Secret Marriage”), under the direction of Associate Professor of Opera Theater Jonathon Field.

Oberlin Conservatory vocalists, who will sing the piece in its original Italian, are set to perform alongside the Oberlin Orchestra under guest conductor Christopher Larkin.

Live supertitles translating the Italian will be available for the audience.

Il Matrimonio Segreto, a drama full of twists, turns, and betrayals, tells the story of a wealthy merchant, Geronimo, who lives with his two daughters, Elisetta and Carolina, and his sister Fidalma. The family’s young secretary Paolino has been secretly married to Carolina for months.

In order to confess their marriage without upsetting her father, Carolina and Paolino hatch a plan to get Count Robinson, a wealthy nobleman, to marry Elisetta.

The plan goes awry, however, when Count Robinson shows up and falls in love with the wrong sister, creating a complicated love triangle that only gets trickier as the opera progresses.

Il Matrimonio Segreto was first performed in 1792, which means some of the dialogue and dynamics are unfamiliar to modern American audiences.

“The challenge of an opera — especially the one we’re doing, which is an 18th-century opera — is how to make it relevant to today’s context,” said Conservatory second-year Benhur Ghezehey, who plays Geronimo in the opera.

Ghezehey mentioned that despite some of these disconnects, many of the concepts present in the opera can still apply to modern-day life.

“Even though the opera is 200 years older than us, it’s still a relevant human story because nothing has changed,” he said. “This is the human condition. It’s a lesson for our society how far we have come and how we need to improve.”

Ghezehey also spoke on the difficulties of conveying all of these sides in a way that is true to the character but also in a historically accurate manner.

“How did an 18th-century Italian act?” he asked. “How do they talk? How do they move? … I also see how fathers act because I’m portraying a father. How do fathers act toward their daughters, toward their family? … Acting is inspired by real life as well, and

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the craft is how you take that real life and blend it with the historical to give something that is both true onstage and can be convincing.”

These questions of how to act in ways that are appropriate to Italian citizens was, among other reasons, a factor that helped Field make the decision to put on Il Matrimonio Segreto.

“I always like to do a piece each year in a foreign language because it really helps train our singers to think and act in a foreign language,” Field said. “We also went with a piece … that young singers could learn from. … It’s a piece that is done by a lot of conservatory-type schools across the country.”

Field also mentioned that the small cast that this opera requires was appealing because they weren’t sure how many singers would be able to perform with the ongoing pandemic.

Ghezehey is excited for the performances and for the audience to experience the silly, dramatic story.

“It’s a very neat, very witty way of storytelling,” he said. “There is a lot of entanglements that come, a lot of confusion, a lot of love. It’s a family comedy. … Whether it’s in the 18th century or the 21st century, it’s the same.”

Field expressed similar sentiments, and emphasized how exciting it was to play dress-up.

“It’s a funny musical piece, and audiences really enjoy it,” he said. “The cast is very enthusiastic about what they’re doing.

To see them in these period clothes during the period movement is really going to be very, very exciting. I recommend this one very highly for people to come and see. It’ll be fun.”

For Conservatory second-year Alan Rendzak, the marriage provides a foundation for the unpredictable turns in this wild and comedic opera.

“Il Matrimonio?! The marriage summarizes the many problems to be encountered in this opera buffa,” Rendzak said. “At points it seems nothing works out, but then everything works out only for shit to hit the fan. But hey, you’ll have to come to see if things can be fixed once more.”

Il Matrimonio Segreto will show on March 24–26 at 8 p.m. in Hall Auditorium and finish with a matinee on Sunday, March 27 at 2 p.m. Tickets are available for $10 ($8 for Oberlin students) online, by visiting Central Ticket Service noon to 5 p.m. weekdays, or by calling 800-371-0178.

Volume 151, Number 15

I can remember that night quite clearly, for its events are branded into my memory. I was set to perform in a recital of a Beethoven sonata — a piece I had worked on for months — whose opening D-major ascending octaves offer a regal introduction into a quintessential work of Beethoven’s early period.

On the day of the recital, I remember playing the piece over and over again in the practice room, trying to assuage my fear of a memory slip, the one event that would spell disaster for my reputation as an artist and a performer. Just minutes before I was set to perform, I stood backstage trembling with fear, hearing the performer just before me finish her Chopin ballade.

I envisioned what the experience of going up on the stage would be like — there was me, the piano, the audience, the lights, my appearance, and my reputation. I had a Sisyphean task ahead of me. I would have to play to protect what I had; I would have to walk a delicate tightrope.

As I sat down at the piano and began the piece, I could feel the sheen of sweat on my fingertips and an uncontrollable quivering in my knees. I tried to force myself to become engrossed in the music, to just let myself fall into a state of flow, a oneness with the music. But the harder I seemed to push, the harder I asked myself to fall into the flow of the melodies and harmonies and accompaniment, the more quickly a new thought ricocheted inside my head, “When will it happen? When will you have a memory slip, when will you embarrass yourself completely?”

And soon enough, it happened. As that thought reached a crescendo, I froze, having experienced a memory slip that would left me on track to play just a sliver of the piece. What I had so feared was happening in a recital in front of my peers and professors. A voice from the audience murmured, “Start from the beginning.” It was a voice whose timbre I recognized. It was my piano teacher who bore witness to my collapse.

At that moment, as I restarted the sonata, the performance anxiety I had suddenly evaporated, for what was there to be afraid of anymore?

In having that memory slip, I had given the audience a piece of my inner me; I showed them I was vulnerable, and for me that was rock bottom, how much lower could I go?

Funnily enough, my performance of the sonata went smoothly from there. It felt like the audience and the piano were within me and there was nothing I could do but give them what I had.

At that point I lacked the insight I have now. After the performance, I remember bursting into fits of uncontrollable sobbing; I imagined the disgust my professors and peers would have at having bore witness to a catastrophic failure.

But in the months after that event, I began a journey toward grasping what music performance truly meant. I began ingratiating myself with the inner workings of my mind, trying to understand how I could train my brain to face the prospect of performance anxiety.

In my journey toward exploring my mind, a journey that is still ongoing, I soon stumbled across the idea of mindfulness, and specifically how it relates to the high-stakes challenge of piano recitals. One of the core concepts of mindfulness theory that I have worked to adopt is the idea of becoming aware of one’s own breathing.

I offer this story to encourage my fellow Conservatory musicians to take advantage of the plethora of Conservatory wellness programs that are offered, including most pressingly, the upcoming mindfulness workshops with conductor, philosopher, and author John Thomas Dodson. As the founder of the Blue Heron Mindfulness Living, he specializes in applying Buddhist mindfulness theories to the art of music performance.

One of the key aspects of his course is the idea of oneness as a performer: “There is no boundary between the fingertip and the piano key, between the breath and the note, between the bow and the string. No longer is there an interior voice commenting on the happenings around us.”

In this present moment, as I reflect back on that memoryslip-laden recital, I see the ways in which the mindfulness Dodson espouses could have helped me as a performer in that moment. I realized I could have washed away the separateness with which I viewed the performance — the piano, the audience, the lights, the reputation — and replaced that perception with a oneness, a oneness that is encapsulated in the power of musical performance to tell a deeply personal story, a story that is naturally imperfect.

Yet reading about such ideas and practices from afar only does you so much good. To actually experience the power of Buddhist mindfulness to enrich you as a performer, you must attend the upcoming sessions offered by John Thomas Dodson on March 20 and 27. I hope to see you there.

T h i s We e k

Thrill, Movement, and Community: Dance Groups at Oberlin

The Flyers

The Oberlin College Aerialists, or the Flyers, describe themselves as “Oberlin’s place for those who hang upside down!” Aerials are an acrobatic form utilizing apparatuses suspended from the ceiling. The Flyers perform on a variety of equipment such as corde lisse, aerial silks, static trapeze, and lyra. Typical practices include conditioning tailored to each individual. “Everyone has their own goals that they are working towards — cartwheels, handstands, ankle hangs, etc.,” says College thirdyear Evelyn Lazen. “We do warm[ups] together and do ab [workouts] at the end as a group.” The Flyers have close ties with OCircus and the Oberlin Tumbling club, with members often overlapping and performing joint shows. This semester, the Flyers plan to perform with OCircus for a show in May. Keeping in line with a thrill for heights and a thrill for play, the Flyers’ group traditions are scaling buildings and tipsy partner acrobatics. Obies interested in joining can contact the Flyers via email at oflyers@oberlin.edu.

Courtesy of Sarah Herdrich

AndWhat!?

“And who?”

“B****, where?”

“AND WHAT!?”

This call-and-response has become an iconic staple of the AndWhat!? pre-show hype up. AndWhat!? is Oberlin’s women and trans hip-hop group created by Black women, for Black women and allies. Each semester, AndWhat!? hosts performances at the student-run music festival Solarity and an end-of-semester showcase. All of the choreography is composed by members themselves. “AndWhat!? is where we go for a few hours a week and dance as a group, as a supportive space and attempt to have a break from the everyday stresses of college and young adult life,” said College fourth-year Charlotte Glessner-Fischer. “It is a group with mentorship where people can ask upperclassmen or anyone they need [for] advice. It’s not just a dance group; it’s a mini community.” To foster this community environment, AndWhat!? organizes bonding sessions for their members at least once a semester. Keep up to date on when they’re throwing down next on Instagram @oberlinandwhat.

VIBE Dance Co.

Courtesy of Daniel R. James

The Oberlin Review | March 18, 2022

Courtesy of Instagram @oberlin_solarity

VIBE Dance Co. is a student-run dance organization specializing in jazz and tap styles. Although this specialization sets them apart, it hardly constrains them. VIBE has choreographed pieces to pop icons such as Lady Gaga and Britney Spears, big band swing music, eccentric alternative artists, and even partnered up for a show with Oberlin a cappella groups.

In May, VIBE will host a performance at The ’Sco, and in late April, they will perform at the spring 2022 Student Dance Showcase. In addition to preparing their own choreography, VIBE also hosts dance workshops open to those of all levels. “[The workshops are meant] to engage the larger dance community and have fun exchanging skills and technique,” said College fourth-year Windley Knowlton. But first and foremost, beyond technique or skill, VIBE hopes to foster an accepting community.

“We’re also planning on hosting a VIBE clothing swap as a bonding event that also engages with the local community and ends up with donation boxes for Goodwill,” Knowlton said. Keep an eye out for what’s next on Instagram @vibe_dance_company.

Written and Designed by Wiley Smith, This Week Editor

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A r t s & C u ltu r e

March 18, 2022

ARTS & CULTURE Established 1874

Volume 151, Number 15

In Loving Memory: Fun Long Island Night Lilyanna D’Amato Arts & Culture Editor When I was a first-year, Wednesday night at The Feve felt like some mythical mirage of upperclassmen heaven. It was exclusive, a forbidden wonderland, a place my friends and I dared not enter for fear of expulsion or the sideways grimace of some cool, tattooed fourth-year. We stayed within the confines of Marg Night, pushing our bodies against windowsills and squeezing dozens of people between Lupitas’ small, lacquered booths. Maybe we grossly overestimated the fun happening through the warmly-lit, second-floor windows of The Feve, or maybe the dream of Long Island Night has dissipated as we’ve gotten older. Or maybe, just maybe, the fun has gone downhill.

College fourth-year Jocelyn Blockinger feels that The Feve has become too crowded. By the time 10 p.m. rolls around, she finds herself in a sweaty mass of strangers.

“I feel like I used to turn around and see friends everywhere but now I just don’t know anyone,” she said. “I’ve just lost my credit card and been berated by strangers after taking my sweet time in the bathroom too many times. Not to mention, I can’t rationalize waiting 30–45 minutes for a drink that I know will make my old, tired body unhappy in the morning.”

Blockinger says the Thursday after Long Island Night has become one of her least favorite days

of the week. Maybe, for fourth-year students like Blockinger, weekday drinking has just lost its glamor.

“I’m not myself,” Blockinger said. “My ‘hangxiety’ rages as I walk through King [Building] at 9:30 a.m., terrified to stop and talk to a passerby or, worse, a professor. The hangover just isn’t worth the experience. I blame it on the first- and second-years.”

Since Lupitas ended its weekly dollar-margarita deal, The Feve has become the town’s sole hotspot on weekdays. Coupled with the enforcement of ObieSafe policies at Splitchers, once the most popular destination on Wednesday nights, Long Island Night has now become the only place to grab a midweek drink with friends. While The Feve may have represented a sophisticated upperclassmen haven in years past, now it feels like the entire campus is vying for a table.

College fourth-year Malcolm Seymour-Jones, who strictly orders a scotch-neat whenever he goes to Long Island Night, blames The Feve’s jampacked atmosphere on the lack of splitching.

“Now that Splitchers doesn’t serve alcohol and ObieSafe requires students to wear masks inside, there isn’t a draw,” Seymour-Jones said. “Now, people just stay really late at The Feve instead of going to dance at The ’Sco. Long Island Night starts crowded and ends crowded. It’s packed; there’s just nowhere else to go.”

Last week, Seymour-Jones, dead sober, got lost

in a sea of second-years. His friends had to pull him out of the chaos. One of those friends, College fourth-year Milo Hume, said that was the moment he realized things had gotten out of hand. Although he wants to, he can’t bring himself to sympathize with younger students.

“I want to get it — really, I do,” Hume said. “But, at the same time, I don’t care that they don’t have Marg Night or that Splitchers isn’t as fun. That’s not my problem. I paid my dues. I cried at Splitchers. I got rejected at Marg Night. I’ve been there.

And now it’s my Feve time, and I can’t let them ruin it for me. So to the young ones, I say: go get some frickin’ Orloff and go drink it in your frickin’ Kahn double. Pay your time. Pay your dues. And get off my Feve.”

Blockinger agrees, issuing a cry to revolution.

“This travesty is the result of poor choices and lack of underclassmen supervision,” Blockinger began. “This must end. Viva Lupitas! Fourth-years, we ask of you: why idly stand by and watch our traditions fall by the wayside? We must take action.

We must reclaim Lupitas as our own. The tepid waters behind the bar at The Feve have tried their hardest to weather the freshman storm, though nothing could have prepared them for the rapture of peeling, fake Arizona driver’s licenses.”

Despite all this talk, rest assured you will see all of these people at The Feve come Wednesday. No one knows where the thrill has gone, but we all go every week, hoping to reignite the spark.

Maslenitsa Gathering Highlights Crisis in Ukraine

The Russian department’s gathering for Maslenitsa was punctuated with the ritualistic burning of the chuchela effigy in Tappan Square.

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor Isaac Imas Production Editor This Saturday, the Russian department hosted a gathering for Maslenitsa, a Slavic holiday traditionally marked by a week of festivities before the start of Lent. The holiday has over a decade-long history of being celebrated at Oberlin. This year, students and faculty came together for an untraditional Maslenitsa. The mood, far from celebratory, was darkened by the ongoing war waged against Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The event shed light on the crisis in Ukraine, while simultaneously serving as a reminder that atrocities committed by Putin should not result in a wholesale rejection of Russian cultural heritage.

Faculty in Residence and Lecturer in Russian Maia Vladimirovna Solovieva described the origins of Maslenitsa at

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Oberlin. “[After a] long, long winter, students get crazy and bored,” Solovieva said.

“Someone approached me in the Russian house, saying, ‘Maia Vladimirovna, let’s burn something!’ I said, ‘In order to burn something, you have to build something.’”

Maslenitsa, which has pagan origins, symbolizes the battle between winter and spring at the threshold between the seasons. Spring’s eventual victory is heralded by the ritualistic burning in effigy of the chuchela (or “scarecrow”), also called Lady Maslenitsa, who symbolizes winter. Students at Oberlin have historically marked Maslenitsa by fashioning a doll out of scraps of cloth and burning her in Tappan Square.

“We believe that, when this chuchela burns, winter goes away, all bad things go away, and new life comes,” said Daria Makarova, the Russian department’s

Fulbright Scholar. “As you see, winter has gone, so maybe it’s because of burning the chuchela.”

In past years, Maslenitsa was a day of song and dance, as well as an opportunity for students in the Russian department to get acquainted with Slavic customs and foods, practicing their Russian vocabulary while learning to fry traditional pancakes called blini. To celebrate as normal, heedless of the war in Ukraine, would have been impossible.

“Originally, the event was planned for March 5, and war started on [Feb.] 24,” Solovieva said. “I was so close to canceling, my colleagues and I were talking a lot about it, and I decided, ‘Okay, I’m gonna do it, but it has to be a different Maslenitsa.’ … It wasn’t a celebration, and it was clear from the beginning. We wanted to talk about the tragedy — what happened, why it happened, but we also wanted to give people [the] educational part, and some sort of hope. If it is a celebration, it’s a celebration of life. It’s a simple reminder: we continue to live, and we have to continue.”

At an informational session before the burning of the chuchela in Tappan Square, faculty and students spoke about the different tone of Maslenitsa this year, and why they chose to commemorate the occasion despite Russia’s shameful position on the international stage.

“Maslenitsa is a week of excess and celebration, leading up to a longer and quieter period at traditionally 40 days, a difficult, long time,” said Tom Newlin, chair of the Russian department. “A period of self-denial, but also reflection and contemplation and even atonement.

And we’re marking Maslenitsa — maybe not quite celebrating it, but marking it. … Actually, we’ve already entered that period of Lent, of reflection. I think this is in that spirit. And Lent is a time of giv-

ing things up, of casting things off that you maybe feel you need. And I think there’s a temptation … to cast off Russian culture; throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak.”

While underscoring his ultimate concern for Ukrainian suffering, Newlin argued that Russian culture, in this moment of Russian ignominy, should retain its merit.

“Russian culture has a lot to teach us about what’s going on right now, even as Russia is the horrific aggressor,” he said.

“I think if [Putin] had read War and Peace, he might have found fair warning of what happens to an alien army, when unprovoked it invades another land.”

Katie Frevert, fourth-year Russian and East European Studies, and Creative Writing major, is experiencing an internal conflict in weighing in on the war in Ukraine. As a student heavily involved with the REES department and yet not materially affected by the tragedy unfolding abroad, she finds herself being more intentional about the implications of her coursework.

“I think in some ways, the fact that we’re all gathering now — despite COVID, despite the war — is an act of solidarity in and of itself,” Frevert said.

“And showing that we, in America, do not conflate Putin with the people of Russia. And that we understand that the citizens of a nation are not represented always by its leader. And that, I don’t know — that we are capable of understanding what it means to resist, and what it means to understand a culture besides just on a surface level. And I think that gives me hope that what I’m doing as a student of Russian is useful in some way. And that I’m not just studying the language of an oppressor, I’m studying the language of people who are resisting the actions of their government.”

Soul Session Celebrates Oberlin’s Black Community Sierra Colbert Senior Staff Writer On March 11, Afrikan Heritage House hosted Soul Session Allstars: The Alumni Edition as a continued celebration of Black History Month. For the past few years, Black History Month programming at Oberlin College and Conservatory hasn’t extended beyond the month of February, but this year, events have been organized running up through the end of March. A plethora of events have already been hosted around campus, from lectures to fashion shows, all in an effort to highlight and celebrate Black voices and the Black community at Oberlin.

Soul Sessions in particular is a monthly event hosted by Afrikan Heritage House that seeks to foster community and showcase Black talent. In a typical session, students and faculty members are free to perform songs and poems, freely expressing their creativity in an open, welcoming environment.

See Soul Session, page 12

Soul Sessions, a monthly event hosted by Afrikan Heritage House, fosters community and showcases Black performers.

Photo by Abe Frato, Photo Editor

New Yarn Store, For Ewe Offers Creative Community for People of Color in Oberlin

Lisa Whitfield, OC ’90, will open her yarn store, For Ewe: An Inclusive Fiber Community, in mid-April.

Photo Courtesy of Emerald Goldbaum Emerald Goldbaum For Ewe: An Inclusive Fiber Community, a new yarn store located at 181 West College Street Suite 23, will open its doors in mid-April — in time for Local Yarn Store Day on April 30. The owner, Lisa Whitfield, OC ’90, is a Conservatory alumna and Oberlin resident. Before the store opens, it will also host a Yarnie Happy Hour from 2–4 p.m. on March 20.

Whitfield has been knitting and crocheting since childhood but only got involved with the fiber community in 2017 after the death of her mother.

She used fiber arts as a way to grieve; in the month after her mother died, she completed 52 projects.

“The knitting started to bring me joy,” Whitfield said. “It started to give me purpose in my grief, and I wanted to share that with other people who wanted or needed to knit, touch yarn, crochet, or something, because it had done so much for me personally. I wanted to give that gift to other people to get them through hard times.”

As a Black woman, Whitfield was inspired to open the store to include more people of color in the fiber arts community. Whitfield noted fiber artists of color began to speak out about discrimination that

The Oberlin Review | March 18, 2022

they had faced as minorities in white-dominated spaces, often not being treated like serious customers in shops. In 2019, a vocal participant in the discussion spoke at an event that Whitfield’s friend organized. Following the event, Whitfield started to think seriously about opening her own store.

“It was the first time I actually said out loud to anybody other than my husband that I wanted to open a yarn shop and it was really well received,” Whitfield said. “People were like, ‘That’s awesome, you should do that.’ It was the first time I felt supported in the idea.”

After that, she began working for her friend’s yarn store, Around the Table Yarns in Shaker Heights, OH where she picked up the experience needed to run her own store.

“Pam Berskon and her partner Beth Billings gave me invaluable experience,” Whitfield said. “I watched them do everything. … I’m so grateful to them — they were incredible business mentors.”

Whitfield envisions For Ewe as a space where everyone in the Oberlin community feels welcome.

“I know that inclusivity means different things to different people,” Whitfield said. “I come from a diverse background, and my family is diverse. I’m a Black woman, I’m married to a white man. I have

biracial children, one of whom is gay and the other of whom has autism. I understand a few things about diversity. … I want everyone to be comfortable. I don’t care if you’re old or young. I wanted to have affordable yarn so people who don’t have a lot of money can buy something pretty.”

Sunday’s Yarnie Happy Hour event will be a “yarn tasting,” at which patrons can take small samples of yarn and “taste” them by knitting or crocheting a swatch with all materials provided. There will also be knitting and crocheting kits, knitting needles, crochet hooks, and skeins of yarn for sale.

Whitfield stressed the importance of trying different materials to find the right fit and sniffing her yarn to make sure she likes it. She expressed hope that both the College and town’s sizable fiber arts communities will find space to intermingle at her store.

“I want students to come,” Whitfield said. “I want them to come here and feel comfortable.

Aside from these two rooms [of the main store] I also am renting the room across the hall, where I’m going to put a table, so people can just sit and knit.

I’m gonna put some books in there so they can find patterns and read and just chill. If students want to just come and chill for an hour between classes … they can decompress.”

There are a lot of resources on campus for students to knit or crochet together, but few connect student crocheters and townspeople. Lila Sanchez, a first-year College student and crocheter, said that while they mostly crochet on their own, there are many groups on campus that they believe to be welcoming. The opening of For Ewe marks the first yarn store in town since the closing of Smith’s Knitshop, and students are excited to have access to a yarn store that’s closer to campus.

“Over Winter Term, I know [the College] had this stitching group that met like twice a week, and there are some more unofficial ones,” Sanchez said.

“I know that Ben Franklin’s and Ginko Gallery are the places to get yarn, but I guess I kind of found that out on my own.”

In town, there is also growing interest surrounding the store’s opening. Eboni Johnson, the outreach and programming librarian at Oberlin College Libraries, as well as a member of City Council, mentioned that the sense of community in knitting mostly stopped during the pandemic.

“It’s hard … because I like to be with people — I think lots of us like to be with people — but it’s kind of hard to sit and knit and talk to people when you’re six feet away,” Johnson said. “It doesn’t feel as community-ish.”

As the town prepares for the opening of For Ewe, fiber artists are hoping to see the revitalization of a once thriving artisan community.

Tickets for Yarnie Happy Hour can be found on For Ewe’s website.

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A r t s & C u lt u r e

Soul Session Offers Students Safe Space to Connect in Times of Need

Continued from page 11

This month’s Soul Session was unique and included an alumni host, DaQuan Williams, OC ’20. College third-year Jillian Sanford, a residential assistant of Afrikan Heritage House, explained that the addition of Williams’ voice was very important, especially as the community attempts to revitalize the popularity of the event’s popularity after the COVID-19 shutdown.

“Bringing him back, the hope was to engage newer students with the House and explain to them what the history of Soul Session is and why it’s important to us,” Sanford said.

The return of Soul Session is not a responsibility that Williams took lightly. During his time at Oberlin as an RA of Afrikan Heritage House, Williams saw the organization of Soul Sessions as one of his primary duties.

“Usually that’s a part of the job description — to bring folks together as often as you can — and Soul Session is the best way to do that, especially given how Oberlin works,” said Williams. “There’s always something happening in terms of events and things like that, so Soul Sessions are a good way for the Black community to just come together, have a moment to express ourselves, and be in community with one another.”

For Williams, another important aspect of the event is inviting all Obies into the space to share in the experience, and he feels that it is immensely important for non-Black students to take the opportunity to listen and ap-

preciate Black voices.

“We encourage you to engage with us in this way because this is what we’re doing for us, this is what’s keeping us happy and sane and going on this campus,” he said. “It really does mean a lot when students show up, but it also means so much more when you take the time to engage with us to learn about our culture and learn about the things that we want to see non-Black people at Oberlin continue to do.”

It is this commitment and appreciation for the tradition of Soul Session that Afrikan Heritage House Director and Faculty in Residence Candice Raynor says made Williams the obvious host of this year’s Black History Month session.

“I definitely chose him for a reason,” said Raynor.

Williams wanted to center this Soul Session around three themes: love, joy, and peace; beginning with a meditation seemed like the best way to get in touch with those themes. This was something that Raynor found particularly powerful. “[We’re] seeing an uptick in students in crises this year,” she said.

“And then for third- and fourth-year students who were here over the summer, they’re on semester four in a row, so DaQuan felt like it was something he wanted to do. … I thought it was different and a nice way to start out with a calming breath to get everyone in a nice, calm space to just

breathe for a minute.”

Of course, the main event of a Soul Session is the performances. From musical performances to spoken word, Soul Session provides a space for students to express themselves.

However, Raynor explained how this form of community-building and artistic expression is more than just entertainment.

“It’s therapeutic in a lot of ways for students who are going through stuff that they’re not really speaking about publicly to hear from someone in their community that, ‘Hey, I’m going through this also, I’ve gone through it and I’ve come out the other side,’” she said. “I think that can be encouraging, so I think it’s a very therapeutic space.”

Perhaps the best example of the connections built in this space is the tradition of audience members throwing a shoe when a particular performance speaks to them. The sole of the shoe symbolizes the soul of the thrower. To Williams, this tradition symbolizes what Soul Session is all about.

“I like to call them offerings,” Williams said. “When someone is getting up to perform, it’s a very vulnerable space that they’re in. It’s a time where all your walls have to come down, and you have to be present, and when you’re singing into the abyss, you don’t have that feedback, that call and response from the audience, but the offerings are there to just reestab-

lish that trust between the audience and the performer.”

In terms of revitalizing the Soul Sessions after COVID-19, Sanford feels optimistic about the impact of Friday’s event.

“At the end of Soul Session, we were all very proud of how it went,” she said. “We had a great turnout — younger students, older students, a wide variety of people, a lot of talent that happened … the energy was really, really good.”

Williams hopes to see a rise in turnout to Soul Sessions, and offers a message to students who may take up the torch in leading the events.

“I want to see more students who have the ability to host Soul Session, and things like that in the Black community, take on that leadership position, because it’s a great way to explore different talents,” Williams said.

As on-campus activities begin to reemerge, Sanford is looking forward to the future of Soul Sessions.

“While last year we were really struggling with COVID and were trying to find community and build community, this year we’re really trying to continue to build on that and continue to bring back traditions that have been lost,” Sanford said.

“Soul Session is not a new thing, it’s a long-standing tradition, and it’s really one of our main events that helps build community and helps showcase different Black art forms at Oberlin.”

Oberlin Chabad Hosts Frat-Themed Purim Erika Scharf Staff Writer On Wednesday, Chabad at Oberlin held a celebration for Purim, a Jewish biblical holiday often involving masquerading in costumes, donating to the poor, and making hamantaschen cookies. The holiday is a celebration of the deliverance of the Jewish people, specifically when Esther saved the Jews from a genocide. “[Purim] commemorates when Queen Esther stood up to the evil powers who wanted to kill the Jewish people and ultimately saved the Jewish people for all of history,” said Purim host and Chabad Rabbi Shlomo Elkan. “Every year on the Jewish calendar, we commemorate the holiday with big celebrations.”

College third-year and Chabad board member Theo Canter explains that, despite its history, Purim is a joyous event.

“Theoretically it’s a scary thing, but the fact that [we were] saved not only serves as a relief but as cause for celebration,” Canter said. “The idea is that the date is celebrated with costumes, standing on your head, eating, and drinking.”

The Chabad event consisted of a large feast, readings from the Book of Esther, and even a comedy sketch retelling the story of Purim written by a Chabad board member. One of the customs of the holiday is dressing up in costumes; this year’s theme at Oberlin’s Chabad house was “Fake Frat.” Rabbi Shlomo explained that while the religious holiday doesn’t require a theme, Chabad comes up with one every year to get people in the festive spirit.

“Over all the years that Chabad has done a Purim party at Oberlin, we always have had a theme,” Rab-

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bi Shlomo said. “A couple of years ago we did Roaring Twenties; we’ve done a Harry Potter theme, Purim in the tropics. Together with our student leadership team every year, we always think of a fun theme. This year, we leaned into the party culture a little bit ironically because Oberlin does not have a fraternity culture.”

Purim celebrations also include acts of charity. Rabbi Shlomo explains that this year, given the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine, the funds are being donated to aid Jewish Ukranians.

“This year in particular, because of everything going on in Ukraine, all of the funds that we’re collecting are going to help the Jewish community of Ukraine,” he said.

Photo by Khadijah Halliday, Photo Editor Canter also added that there is a plan to visit Jewish inmates at the Grafton Correctional Institution in Grafton, Ohio.

“Some of us are going with Rabbi Shlomo to celebrate with Jewish inmates,” Canter said. “We’re gonna sing, dance, eat, and read with them.”

While Rabbi Shlomo underscored the importance of preserving a space for Jewish students, he also invites all students to join in learning about the holiday.

“The Jewish community at Oberlin is the primary audience,” Rabbi Shlomo said. “But of course anyone who wishes to join in learning is always welcome.”

ON THE RECORD

Artist in Focus: Eva Sturm-Gross’ Creatures and Tables

Kathleen Kelleher Arts & Culture Editor

Photos Courtesy of Eva Sturm-Gross

This past Wednesday, I chatted with College fourth-year Eva Sturm-Gross, a Studio Art and Religion major with a special interest in Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism. Eva is a talented multimedia artist; their works feature strange animal-like creatures and domestic scenes of breadmaking and shabbos tables. We met in the print lab and talked over a light table illuminating their most recent work in progress, a print of a person in a Purim mask walking over water with a giant fish in it. I watched as they meticulously made tiny dots of ink in perfect lines, one for each scale on the fish. Eva was preparing this piece for their trip to the Southern Graphic Council conference in Madison, Wisconsin with YeoPress, where it would serve as a part of a print exchange.

It was the eve of Purim, a Jewish holiday celebrating the rescue of the Jewish people from Haman.

Eva’s father, James Sturm, is a cartoonist and founder of the graduate school program Center for Cartoon Studies. Eva says that growing up immersed in the comic world helped them see beyond superhero comics or Little Lulu; instead, they see comics as a versatile and reproducible medium that works well as a format for communication for visual processors like themselves. After COVID-19 struck, when Eva wasn’t attending Oberlin classes, they filled their time with work and study at the Center for Cartoon Studies, where they learned the tools to dive deeper into comic work.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell me about what you’re working on these days.

In the summer and fall, I was working on a series around tables. I made some prints and sculptures of tables, and then I built a full-scale table. Through that process, I was trying to explore the table both conceptually and materially. Now, I’m kind of trying to figure out what I want to do next.

What does the table mean to you?

In Judaism, after the diaspora — the destruction of the temple — the home was considered the temple and tables, the altar. So the table, to me, was this really interesting intersection between a masculine, spiritual thing and a more feminine material and domestic space. I saw it as a ritualistic convergence site. But it could be so many things; it could be decked out in so many ways.

How did you start working with wood?

I started working with wood when I was six years old. I got my first pocket knife and I carved a lot as a kid. I carved a lot of spoons, and then I learned joinery and got into making wooden puppets; I made one with joints, and I made one with just hands and a head. I took a sloyd class, which is a kind of Swedish greenwood carving, with Professor of English DeSales Harrison over Winter Term. Then I took a joinery class with Professor of Studio Art and Africana Studies Johnny Coleman, who just retired — he’s really awesome. That gave me a lot of tools to be able to make furniture and things involving joints. With my printmaking, I work with wood a lot, too — I think there’s something about trees that’s very enduring.

The Oberlin Review | March 18, 2022

At Eva’s most recent exhibition, a part of the Half-Time senior studio art show, I was struck by the way Eva’s pieces filled up every part of the space. The table they made was central, standing in the center of the collection of works, with a wooden spoon hanging over it by waxed wool yarn. Eva’s corner truly belonged to them and no one else; even some of the frames around Eva’s pieces were made by them. I expressed this to Eva; they laughed and nodded, now deep in focus on the task of etching deep textured lines into the fish’s tail, with what looked like a stained, old, flathead screwdriver.

That’s something that’s very important to me. I made a lot of the things that I hung works on; I put together the thread that put the puppets together — I actually spun it out of sheep’s wool from my neighbor’s sheep and then coated it in beeswax.

That’s been a material that I’ve been really into, this wax-coated wool. You know how sinew binds things and restricts it, holding it in place a bit? It almost does that, but it’s not like sinew.

I’m working on this print right now for Purim; hopefully I’ll be able to give an artist proof of it to Rabbi Shlomo. I’ve been really into fish recently, because I keep dreaming about them. And Adar — the month that we’re in according to the Jewish calendar — is connected to fish, which are also connected to good luck. They’re also about concealment, because they’re under the surface — like the truth that’s concealed. That’s what Purim is about, the concealment that’s revealed, which is ultimately the divine.

It seems like you work a lot in reproducible media, especially

in prints. Does that mean something to you — the ability to create the same image over and over again?

I generally like working with things that are very process-oriented, and I like working reductively, so printmaking is good for that. There’s also something about having an object that is then able to produce an infinite amount of works. When you make a painting, it’s this very precious art object without a pure functional role; it’s just a painting.

When you make something like a table, there’s a function to it, and then it makes sense why there’s only one of them.

But for something that’s just visual, I kind of wonder why make it singular, when you want more people to see it, or have it, or interact with it?

The first piece of Eva’s in my collection was a card about the Song of Songs. Eva had cut up a large print — in essence mutilating their own art. I had one fragment of it, and at every YeoPress sale, I acquired another; pieces of a puzzle in the corner of my room. It feels appropriate to own this one piece in fragments, never truly uncovering what the full piece looks like. At the most recent maker sale, I also bought a print Eva had made of hands kneading bread rather than finally purchasing the full form of the Song of Songs piece. I feel I must continue collecting it in fragments.

I have your prints in my home. Many of them, five now.

That’s the dream, you know.

This display from Eva’s junior show over the summer features three separate pieces. In the center is a doll with a ceramic head, hands, and feet made by Eva, and its midsection made up of a cloth print of a bowl. The doll is strung upside down, its feet tied to a wooden spoon, which is in turn tied to the ceiling by wax yarn that Eva spun themselves. Eva described how the archetype of the upside-down man seeking wisdom comes from a Talmudic, or perhaps Midrashic, story about a rabbi who ties himself upside down to gain wisdom, along with a similar Norse story and the Hanged Man card in Tarot. Behind the hanging doll are three identical scroll boxes rolled up to different lengths, which are set out with the sephirot, also resembling a Shabbos table.

This marionette-style doll has a human body with a bird head, mostly because Eva doesn’t like depicting human faces. Eva says the hybrid bird-doll is unfinished, and that it serves mostly as a place to experiment with joinery. They foresee making clothes for the doll, or maybe even creating a mechanism that will allow it to move. Eva motioned to holes in the doll’s palms where leather runs through, using their own ink-stained hands as a visual reference while they described the way dowels and leather straps fasten its joints together.

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S p or t s

Women’s Tennis Prepares for Conference Matches Through Division II Competition

The women’s tennis team has been preparing for the upcoming conference season by competing against Division II schools.

River Schiff Senior Staff Writer Tomorrow, the women’s tennis team will play DePauw University in their first North Coast Athletic Conference matchup of the season. The team has been preparing for conference play in an unusual way: instead of competing against Oberlin’s peers at Division III schools, Head Coach Constantine Ananiadis purposefully scheduled Division II matches.

“If you want to beat the best, you gotta play the best,” Ananiadis wrote in an email to the Review.

The team currently has a 3–6 record, but Ananiadis said this is due to playing Division II matches.

“We have a good team this year with lots of potential and we could easily be 9–0 if I had scheduled easy non-conference teams,” Ananiadis wrote. “But how does that prepare us for DePauw, Kenyon, and Denison?

They’d look like three-headed monsters if we didn’t play these tough matches in February and early March to prepare us.”

Third-year women’s tennis player Dina Nouaime believes that playing schools at the Division II level has helped her teammates prepare to face any challenges.

“A lot of the teams in Division II are more vigorous in terms of competition, play, and mindset,” Nouaime said. “In Division II, there’s different rules, too — competition being seven

points as opposed to nine, and doubles only counting as one point ... We have to come out more explosive to secure that initial point.”

After the shock of Division II competition, the desire to win will fuel the team in future competitions.

“We’re all feeling motivated against the teams we have these sort of rivalries with,” Nouaime said. “What we faced so far has really prepared us and hardened our mentality.”

Fourth-year women’s tennis captain Francesca Kern says she believes there isn’t that big of a gap in between Division II and Division III team abilities.

“Oberlin is a lot better than a fair number of Division II teams,” Kern said. “We chose to play a lot of com-

Courtesy of GoYeo

petitive teams, which was really good because we have a high level of ability on our team all around. We competed really well, which only prepares us for our season ahead.”

Kern is eager to prove what the Yeowomen can do.

“I’m really excited for the season because I believe we have the best team that I’ve experienced during my time at Oberlin,” she said. “Especially considering our inability to compete in previous years due to COVID, I’m just grateful for the opportunity to play and compete with a high likelihood of success for me, personally, and for the team as a whole. I’m really looking forward to spending the rest of the season bonding with my teammates before I have to graduate.”

Brittney Griner Arrested in Russia, WNBA Needs to Protect its Players

Continued from page 16

considered to be college basketball’s player of the year. After her impressive college career, she went on to the WNBA and had huge success.

“She then won a WNBA championship in 2014 and was selected as one of the best 25 players in league history in 2021,” NYMag wrote. “She has two Olympic gold medals to her name. In the gold-medal game against Japan in Tokyo last summer, she dominated, scoring 30 points to clinch an easy victory.”

Griner isn’t the only WNBA player who has traveled to Russia to augment her salary. In 2015, WNBA player Diana Taurasi was paid $1.5 million by UMMC Ekaterinburg so that she could sit out the WNBA season and be well-rested for the Russian season. Taurasi says that it felt “backwards” having to “go to a ‘communist’ country to get paid like capitalists.”

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This is Griner’s seventh season in Russia, which is probably the only leverage she has in the country right now. The billionaire owner of UMMC Ekaterinburg, Iskander Makhmudov, is reportedly close to Putin, which could help her case. In addition, throughout her remarkable career with the Ekaterinburg team — which she has played for since 2014 — Griner has helped the club win four EuroLeague Women’s championships. However, if she can be classified as a ‘hostage,’ Griner will join more than 50 American citizens who are currently held hostage or wrongfully detained overseas.

Although her arrest is believed to have happened in February, news of Griner’s predicament didn’t arrive in the U.S. until March 5, when Russia revealed that they were holding her.

Soon after, Griner’s wife posted about the situation on Instagram.

“There are no words to express this pain,” she wrote. “I’m hurting, we’re hurting.”

Since then, campaigners have been working to free Griner. Given that she is a WNBA legend, it’s shocking that Griner’s team and the league have only issued brief statements about her arrest. As one of the most powerful sports leagues in the country which has prided itself in being involved in numerous social justice campaigns, the WNBA should be doing so much more. Leagues have the responsibility to protect their athletes, and it’s extremely disappointing to see the WNBA take such a small role in trying to help one of their most prominent athletes.

One reason the case may have been swept under the rug by the WNBA is the sensitivity between Russian and American officials since the invasion of Ukraine. In addition, Griner’s

wife specifically asked for privacy on Instagram. However, another likely motive for the league’s silence is that they are directly to blame for Griner being in Russia in the first place.

If the league paid its stars the way other sports leagues do, Griner likely would have just stayed in the U.S. This tragedy sheds light on how female athletes are undervalued in the United States. If women’s sports were more respected in the U.S., then these athletes wouldn’t have to travel around the world to get paid the amount of money they deserve. Now more than ever, there is a demand to pay female athletes a proper salary. The American sports community need to wake up and demand changes from the WNBA. There is absolutely no reason a country with such homophobic laws like Russia should treat an LGBTQ+ basketball player better than the WNBA does.

OC Manatees: Oberlin Welcomes New Swim Club Andrea Nguyen Staff Writer The OC Manatees swim club, a new group established with the goal of providing a non-competitive space for swimmers of all levels to practice together, is preparing for its first practice. The club’s opening will mark the first time in Oberlin’s history that the College will have a club swim team with an open membership.

Founded by College second-years Arya Menon and Sophia Cartsonis, the OC Manatees team is the middle ground for people who don’t want to swim at a varsity level but would prefer to swim with others during open pool hours.

“Going to Phillips [gym] and going to the pool alone can be scary for some people,” Menon said. “So this is kind of to create a space that’s more accessible.

If you want to swim, here’s the place to do it.”

Similar to the rugby and frisbee clubs on campus, the OC Manatees strive to create an environment where College and Conservatory students can share their love of swimming with each other. Menon and Cartsonis created the club with the goal of cultivating an open and positive community that doesn’t rely on improving times, how often you come to the pool or the gym, or what your body looks like.

Last year, Menon had thought about

Robert Carr Pool is now home to the OC Manatees swim club.

creating a club team but wasn’t sure where to start. During the fall semester, she mentioned the idea to Cartsonis in conversation. Cartsonis, who also thought of creating a swim club this year and swam on the varsity team during her first year, quickly signed onto Menon’s plan.

Cartsonis sees this new club as an opportunity to create an inclusive space and offer the chance for people

to improve their swimming abilities in whatever way they want.

“We are looking at potentially having some fun game days, competitions at other schools, and maybe offering adult swim lessons to those who are interested in water safety,” she said.

“Most people that are joining are interested in building a community and improving their mental and physical health. Most importantly, this is meant

Courtesy of Oberlin Athletics

to be a good time.”

Eventually, Cartsonis and Menon hope to run the club as a cooperative system where everyone is involved in the organization’s operations.

As of right now, the OC Manatees plan to attend some swim meets with nearby schools, but they are open to anybody who is interested in participating. So far, 50 people have signed up.

OHS Boys Basketball Finishes Successful Season Behind Coach Russell

The Oberlin High School boys’ basketball team finished another successful season.

John Elrod Contributing Sports Editor The Oberlin High School boys’ basketball team finished another successful season earlier this month going 12–2 in conference play and 14–9 overall. The team’s season ended with a heartbreaking overtime loss to Fairview High School in the district semifinals, but there was much to be proud of, including a share of the Lorain County 8 championship.

This successful basketball season helped continue a streak of personal accomplishments for Head Coach Kurt Russell this year, after he was named The Oberlin Review | March 18, 2022

LC8 Coach of the Year in February. The recognition also came within the same academic year that he was named Ohio Teacher of the Year and a National Teacher of the Year finalist for his work as a social studies teacher at OHS. While teaching and coaching, Russell is never focused on personal awards. Still, he recognizes the importance of team successes like winning the conference.

“It gives them a lot of confidence,” Russell said. “It can build up high self-esteem as well. It’s not about winning or losing for me, but it makes me happy for these young men.”

Senior guard and Second-Team All-

Courtesy of Oberlin High School

LC8 honoree Marius Harrell believes the team’s close-knit nature led them to success.

“We started off not playing as a team as much, but we came together and started winning, sharing the ball more, and we got the conference championship,” Harrell said.

Senior guard Andre Yarber, also named to the All-LC8 Second Team, was disappointed with how the season ended, but he’s excited about what the team accomplished.

“I was most proud of how we came together towards the end,” Yarber said.

“Even though we came up short in the district semis, we still worked togeth-

er, and at the end of the day we’re still brothers. We’re still glad we got to put a banner on our wall for the conference [championship].”

The Phoenix, who have now secured three straight winning seasons, including a share of two conference championships during that span, look to continue their success despite losing seniors like Yarber, Harrell, and FirstTeam All-LC8 honoree Ty Locklear.

“We have some great young men — Marius, Andre, Ty, and Dayvion Witherspoon — who are all leaving,” Russell said. “We need to develop some younger guys, [which] we have not done a particularly great job at yet.

This summer is going to be key for us to develop these younger kids.”

Next year’s team will rely heavily on junior forward Isaac Thompson, who was named to the All-LC8 First-Team this year and dropped double-doubles in both of the team’s playoff games.

Harrell, who plans to continue playing basketball after graduating, has high hopes for future OHS boys’ basketball teams — including a trip to the state championship.

“We want to see them go farther than we did,” Harrell said. “We want to see them go all the way to Columbus.”

Yarber — who is headed to Muskingum University next fall to play football after an accomplished career on the gridiron for the Phoenix — believes some members of the basketball team have to mature in order to continue the squad’s tradition of success.

“What I hope to see is them become more mature,” Yarber said. “They’re a little younger than us so they aren’t as mature. I’m sure this summer [the coaches] will fix that.”

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March 18, 2022

SPORTS Established 1874

Two Oberlin Track and Field Athletes Earn All-American Honors

Sarah Voit sails through the air to earn indoor All-American honors.

Matt Rudella This past weekend’s NCAA indoor track and field championships in North Carolina were a massive success for the Yeowomen, boasting two top-five finishes and two All-American nominations, among other achievements.

The weekend was kickstarted by third-year weight thrower Iyanna Lewis and fourth-year pole vaulter Sarah Voit, who both ended with All-American recognition.

Fourth-year pentathlete Clare Tiedemann also set a school record and personal best. The weekend closed with fourth-year triple jumper Malaika Djungu-Sungu, who posted a strong 11.36 meters and improved from the 19th to 17th seed.

Sarah Voit had a remarkable performance in the pole vault, topping her own program record of 3.9 meters with a 3.95-meter, second-place finish. Despite her success, Voit says that the championship performance hasn’t hit her yet. “[I was] just focusing on doing the best that I could at the meet, and then after the meet was over, it’s back to work and school and training and the rest of life,” she said.

Voit’s 3.95 meters put her in a tie for first with Ithaca College’s Meghan Matheny. They both failed to clear the 4-meter bar, leading to a tiebreaker that Voit unfortunately lost due to having more faults. This kind of tight battle in the championships would get in a lot of athletes’ heads, but not Voit’s.

“Honestly, I was not really thinking about that at the moment,” Voit said. “I get into competition mode and really control and repress all unnecessary emotions during the competition. Pole vault is hard enough to think about, and if I really started to think about how high the bars are that I’m jumping at or actually realize that I am battling for a national title with one other competitor, that kind of awareness and pressure in the moment is too much, and I’d probably end up crumbling under that sort of mindfulness.”

However, this doesn’t signal the end for Voit, as she’s planning on finishing on an even higher note in the spring season.

“My goals are to get into a better mindset than I had indoors so I can enjoy the season more and take more pride in my accomplishments, to stay physically healthy, and to improve some technique aspects of my jump,” she said. “If I do all these things, I’ll be able to jump well, be in a great spot to win outdoor nationals, and be proud of myself regardless of what I do at that specific meet.”

Iyanna Lewis, who entered as the eighth seed, was the second top-five finish for the Yeowomen, snagging fourth place overall, with a personal best and program record of 18.49 meters, and passing previous record holder Ana Richardson, OC ’18. Breaking Richardson’s record has been a goal of Lewis’ for a while, so she was elated when she realized she finally passed it.

“I memorized Ana Richardson’s mark in hopes that one day I might pass it,” Lewis said. “Seeing the mark, I knew instantly that I had accomplished the biggest goal I

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Volume 151, Number 15

Brittney Griner’s Story Highlights Need for Change in WNBA

Courtesy of D3photography

had set for myself, and that I could walk away, regardless of what place I got at the meet, knowing that I proved it to myself that I could do it, and knowing that I earned it.”

Lewis earned this mark through daily practice in a month-long grind leading up to this moment, and by not questioning any of her coaches’ tactics or her own abilities.

The change of coach, the pandemic, and losing a season last year led to a jump in progression from her first to her third year.

“This gave me a new appreciation for what I’m doing because I recognize now that these opportunities are not guaranteed,” Lewis said. “It allows me to come to a competition both with grit and desire to do well but peace in knowing that I’m happy to be there at all.”

Lewis also made it clear that the new throws coach, Rocco Mitolo, gave her the boost she needed to get to nationals.

“I think that he did a great job at figuring out exactly what I needed to achieve my goals,” Lewis said. “I have a lot of trust in what he and all the other coaches tell us to do, simply because of how many conference champions, All-Americans, and national champions have come through this program.”

Continuing the momentum of the spectacular weekend, pentathlete Clare Tiedemann posted a point total of 3,183, besting her own program record of 3,157 points and moving from 21st to 13th place. Tiedemann was thoroughly impressed with her finish, especially after moving up eight seeds and having a tough start.

“My opening race, hurdles, wasn’t what I was hoping for it to be and that’s where I usually derive most of my points from,” Tiedemann said.

Tiedemann, Voit, and Lewis are all looking to build off of their performances in the spring, where they will compete outdoors and are more comfortable.

“I think I am much better at the events I do outdoors,” Tiedemann said. “I’ve improved a lot in the 60-meter hurdles, but those are highly dependent on block starts and the ability to accelerate in a very short time. My strengths, however, are to continue to accelerate over each hurdle for the whole race. So now I have a lot more hurdles to get over and more time to pass competitors!”

The bond between these team members is stronger than ever, and Tiedemann made it clear how much her teammates’ success means to her.

“Seeing my teammates succeed feels just as amazing as succeeding myself,” she said. “I know just how hard they work and how mentally tough they are. Both Iyanna and Sarah have been dealing with injuries and pain, and have been doing everything in their power to both take care of themselves and still compete hard. And Malaika has been incredibly busy this semester and last balancing so many things on top of track and still steadily improving all season.”

This tight-knit group put together one of the most memorable performances in Oberlin athletic history, and all four will look to improve on their already jaw-dropping numbers in the outdoor season.

Brittney Griner, one of the most recognizable players in women’s basketball, plays against New York Liberty.

Courtesy of Sarah Stier, Getty Images

Zoe Kuzbari Sports Editor WNBA Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner was apprehended in Russia this past month and faces drug-smuggling charges for the possession of vape and “hashish” products. The arrest comes at a tumultuous time, threatening Griner’s safety as the war continues between Russia and Ukraine.

Griner, a queer Black athlete, travels to Russia every year to play basketball during the WNBA’s offseason, but there are major concerns about her well-being due to Russia’s antagonistic views toward the LGBTQ+ community. Griner’s decision to play in a country that oppresses LGBTQ+ people may perplex some, but it simply comes down to the fact that the WNBA has severely underpaid her, as it has historically underpaid its athletes.

In Russia, Griner makes about five times more than what she makes in a season for the WNBA. Last season, her base salary on the Mercury was only a little over $220,000. On the other hand, UMMC Ekaterinburg, Griner’s team in Russia, pays her over $1 million. It makes sense that she would travel to and play in Russia during her time off from the WNBA, but she shouldn’t have to fly across the world to get paid what she deserves.

Griner’s salary in the U.S. is more than enough to live off of. But for a professional athlete at the top of her field, $220,000 is nothing. For context, Stephen Curry is currently the highest-paid athlete in the NBA, earning $45.8 million just this season — that’s 204 times more than Griner’s salary.

Last year, Griner earned the honorable distinction of being one of the best athletes in the league.

She is considered the “apex of her sport.” Similar to Curry, she is the best of the best and a living legend, but she is not nearly as respected by the WNBA as Curry is by the NBA and, as a consequence, she has been severely taken advantage of.

“She was second in scoring, sixth in rebounds, first in blocks (she’s on track to become the WNBA’s all-time leader in that category), and, according to most advanced metrics, the best offensive player in the league,” New York Magazine wrote.

In 2012, Griner won an NCAA national championship for Baylor University and was widely See Brittney, page 14