April 18, 2014

The Oberlin Review

APRIL 18, 2014 VOLUME 142, NUMBER 21

Local News Bulletin News briefs from the past week Oberlin Alum Wins Pulitzer Vijay Seshadri, OC ’74, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry this past week for his collection titled 3 Sections (Graywolf Press).

The committee called his award-winning work “a compelling collection of poems that examine human consciousness, from birth to dementia, in a voice that is by turns witty and grave, compassionate and remorseless.” Seshadri, who began his career in poetry at age 16, said that he was largely inspired by contemporary American poets of the mid- to late 1900s. “I still haven’t told the real story of my life,” Seshadri told NPR in a Monday night interview. “So of course Orwell is right … [when] he says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their lives. No one tells the real story of their lives, including me.”

Oberlin Seniors Launch “In Town” App Two LaunchU program participants, College seniors Ty Diringer and Nathan Teetor, recently launched the alpha version of InTown, a free smartphone application that “helps strengthen friendships.” According to the application’s website, “InTown is a mobile app for people who travel. We’ll tell you in advance when you’re headed to the same place as a friend.

InTown helps you sustain and strengthen friendships, so moving away doesn’t put distance between you.” Diringer’s founder2be profile says that “Using the two friends’ calendars and preferences, InTown suggests a meeting time at an event or a restaurant both users will enjoy.”

Sources: NPR and intownfriends.com

Students, College at Odds Over Policy Change Madeline Stocker and Kate Gill News Editors Since the campus learned of the proposed changes to Oberlin’s financial aid policy last week, students have organized, demonstrated and drafted a counter resolution, effectively intimidating administrators into postponing implementation of its policy until the fall of 2015. Students challenging the policy argue that it demonstrates the College’s lack of commitment to lowincome students and a disregard for OSCA’s financial viability. Moreover, the nature of the policy’s creation gave rise to concerns regarding the process by which College policies are amended and enacted.

Although the policy was posted on the College’s site, it was neither disclosed nor readily visible to currently enrolled students. Though Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Debra Chermonte and Director of Financial Aid Robert Reddy claim that they were “days away” from releasing the information to the student body when the change was first uncovered, organizers argue that the College’s lack of transparency and unwillingness to consult with students during the formulation of the policy is unacceptable.

While the College concedes that administrators failed to confer with students, it disagrees that the new policy is inconsistent with a commitment to low-income students. On the contrary, Chermonte and Reddy claim that, if implemented, the policy would redirect monetary resources to the financial aid packages of students with demonstrated need, rather than to all OSCA members without consideration of financial circumstance.

All administrators quoted in this article — with the exception of College President Marvin Krislov — refused to meet with Review reporters. Assistant of Financial Aid Lucas Brewer, Assistant Director of Financial Aid Cathy Belfiore, Associate Director of Financial Aid Amy Knowles, Director of Residential Education Adrian Bautista, Associate Director of Residential Education Rebecca Mosely, Director of Business Operations and Dining Services Michele Gross, Assistant Director of Students and Assistant Director of Residential Education Kourtney Arcaba, Assistant Director of Housing Administration Sean Lehlbach and General Counsel and Secretary Sandhya Subramanian all refused to comment on the record.

College junior Neoma (top right) facilitates a discussion group at the Cat in the Cream on Sunday. In the meeting, students discussed their opposition to the recent policy changes, as well as possible courses of action. Zoë Madonna

Policy Comparison: Some of the changes to the financial aid policy include adjustments based on meal plan, off-campus housing and participation in OSCA. Before this year, the College did not adjust the financial aid package of students who lived or dined in OSCA — which has, traditionally, cost thousands of dollars less than Campus Dining Services and Residential Services.

This past Sunday, College President Marvin Krislov sent an email to the student body, announcing his plan to delay the policy’s implementation by one year and consult with OSCA. “We value OSCA and the community and values that it brings,” Krislov said in an interview with the Review.

“The reason that we decided to delay any sort of change is because we wanted to work with OSCA and the community to make sure that the effects of this won’t have unintended negative consequences.”

Although this delay may allow students and administrators one year to collaborate, students are wary of placation.

“I think it’s a relief for a lot of people … but on the other hand, a lot of people — myself included — feel like this is an effort to placate us or quiet us down so we think we have all the time in the world,” said College junior and Fairchild Co-op Dining Loose Ends Coordinator Evan Delano.

Student Response: Galvanized by their anger, over 100

Sex Trafficking in Lorain Lorain County is the epicenter of Ohio’s human trafficking ring.

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students gathered in front of the Cox Administration Building to protest the changes last Thursday afternoon. At the demonstration, student speakers voiced their fervent opposition and shared their somewhat scarce information with the crowd.

Students have continued to challenge the policy, disseminating information through Facebook and organizing events throughout the week. On Sunday evening, students assembled in the Cat in the Cream to discuss their course of action, which includes a petition and a resolution, endorsed by the Student Senate, to repeal the new policy.

The document, titled “Resolution for the Repeal of the Recent Changes to the Oberlin College Financial Aid Policy,” cites a list of student concerns regarding the new policy, alongside a set of solutions.

“Oberlin will permanently revoke the new financial aid policy,” the resolution states. The document also demands transparency and correspondence with the student body when future policy changes are under consideration.

“In order to create greater transparency, accountability and student participation at this school, we call for all proposed policy changes concerning financial aid or the cost of attending Oberlin to be presented to and voted upon by attending students. This entitles full democratic participation in all financial decisions which affect the student body, now and into the future.”

Rhinos in Repose Not Just for Kids OCircus!’s production of King Bidgood dazzled all ages last weekend.

See page 10

INDEX:

Opinions 5

This Week in Oberlin 8

The Rhinos will perfect their craft in the less-competitive spring season.

See page 15

Arts 10

Sports 16

College junior and organizer Zach Crowell noted that the current versions are not final drafts.

“The first draft of the resolution and the petition were supposed to be general outlines of how students feel.

The actual policies can be discussed and debated by a much larger section of this campus, even though more than a couple dozen people worked on this resolution and petition. This isn’t a policy paper. We’re just trying to lay out goals.”

The most recent demonstration occurred on Wednesday, when students gathered outside the General Faculty Council meeting to peacefully voice their opposition to the new policy. The Council is the only administrative body that maintains the power to override any decision issued by the senior administration.

The Upshot for OSCA: Although students have expressed opposition to nearly every aspect of the modified policy, perhaps most viciously critiqued are the changes that impact OSCA members. While the policy changes remain veiled in ambiguity, students have extrapolated at least one potential effect — the possible collapse of OSCA. OSCA President Katherine Pardue, who met with Chermonte, Reddy and Vice President and Dean of Students Eric Estes, explained that “adjusted accordingly” means that See New, page 4

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The Oberlin Review, April 18, 2014

Ohio a Major Hub for Interstate Trafficking Louis Krauss Staff Writer

The Human Trafficking Collective conducted two sessions this past week, in which the group’s Director Mindi Kuebler educated students and community members about the pervasiveness of human trafficking in Ohio. The state’s key location between major Midwest and East Coast cities makes Ohio a convenient place for traffickers to transfer victims.

According to Kuebler, 590 trafficking crisis calls were made to the national trafficking hotline in 2013, adding to a total of 2,502 since 2007.

The two most common types of trafficking are labor and sex trafficking. Baby trafficking, in which women are forced to bear children, has also become more prominent. According to Kuebler, traffickers typically trap their victims under the guise of caring, often buying them food and providing shelter. After the trafficker establishes trust, they may force their workers to either labor on a farm or become prostitutes, depending on the type of trafficking.

Kuebler noted that Ohio’s increased awareness of trafficking can be attributed to the emergence of task forces. As the task forces publish information, the public can improve their knowledge of what human traffcking is and where it is occurring.

“Toledo, everyone’s heard they are one of the top cities in the country for trafficking,” Kuebler said. “That is in large part because they have a human trafficking task force. They were the first task force in the country. They know what they’re doing and they’re out there 24/7 looking for traffickers and pimps.”

Kuebler explained that the biggest challenge lies in finding and punishing the perpetrators who own and manage workers. Since money is transferred between multiple parties, the actual pimps are rarely, if ever, caught in the act of trafficking.

“We know who the pimps are in Lorain County. The FBI knows who they are,” Kuebler said. “But they have to be caught in the act before they can get arrested.”

Victims are often incarcerated because it is much easier to identify the sex worker than the client.

“The johns will go to john school, where they talk about why they went out and purchased someone. They ask, ‘Will you ever do this again?’ They say no, and then they walk right out. Meanwhile the victims are in jail because officials claim it was their decision to become a prostitute,” Kuebler said.

State officials in Lorain County have identified several restaurants, including one in Oberlin, that use labor trafficking victims, as well as some from surrounding farms. Because labor and sex trafficking are both very common globally, Kuebler added that trafficking is not a female-only issue.

College senior Alyssa Phelps, who co-founded Projet Unbound, an Oberlin student group that works to combat human trafficking, said that all forms of trafficking are prevalent.

“I think that’s the goal: to not have a bias,” Phelps said. “I think what you hear about more is sex trafficking, and what I know more about is sex trafficking. But that doesn’t mean that labor trafficking is any less important. And I think it’s important we don’t make this a gender issue.”

Project Unbound recently shifted its focus from international to Lorain County trafficking.

The group runs the Project Unbound Challenge, a seven-day event that raises money for the Human Trafficking Collaborative. The upcoming challenge begins on April 21 and concludes on April 27.

“We give $30 loans to any kind of team, and they have seven days to make money, and then all the profits go to the Human Trafficking Collaborative,” Phelps explained.

Project Unbound co-founder and College senior Ty Diringer noted that since trafficking victims are less inclined to come forward, other national human rights issues often draw more public attention.

“I think there were a lot of other bigger issues,” Diringer said. “The war on drugs, the war on poverty and all that. This is more hidden. There [are] not really a lot of advocates for victims of trafficking, or they remain silent.”

He said that victims often feel trapped in debt and have nowhere to go.

“A lot of it is coercion or reliance on drugs or a bond that you have to pay,” Diringer said. “And then there’s a fear of getting out. A lot of [them] don’t know where to go, because they’re homeless or immigrants a lot of the time. And if they do tell the police they’re seen as prostitutes, and they’re often sent back to Mexico or wherever they’re from. And then they’re in the same situation that forced them into trafficking in the first place.”

Kuebler emphasized that there is no “stereotypical” trafficker; trafficking happens everywhere, by all types of people. According to a report by the Ohio Attorney General website, there were 30 reported incidents of sex trafficking and 83 reported incidents of labor trafficking in the past year.

Emeritus Professor William P. Norris, 1943–2014

William P. Norris, who taught at Oberlin College from 1978 until his retirement in 2004.

Courtesy of Oberlin College

Students, faculty and Oberlin residents attend an informational meeting for the Project Unbound Challenge, a week-long fundraiser held by the Human Trafficking Collaborative.

Project Unbound seeks to help fight human trafficking locally by inspiring students to be social entrepreneurs.

Rachel Grossman

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April 18, 2014

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Bill Norris, emeritus professor of Sociology and founding chair of the Comparative American Studies department, passed away this Saturday at a retirement community in Cleveland. Prior to beginning his 26-year tenure at Oberlin, Norris served in the Peace Corps in Brazil, researching the survival strategies of people living in favelas and working as a community organizer. While at Oberlin, Norris conducted research on poverty in Lorain County and on the experiences of LGBTQ faculty and students in higher education. Norris also led the way for progressive institutional reforms that help define Oberlin today, including the addition of a clause about sexuality in the College’s affirmative action policy, the institution of domestic partnership

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benefits for College employees and the creation of a tenured position in Sexuality Studies. Norris was instrumental in the expansion of the Multicultural Resource Center to include LGBTQ issues and received the MRC’s first “living legacy” award in 2010. In The Source, Professor of Russian and Comparative Literature Tim Scholl said of Norris, “His activism was quiet and sustained, led by the heart but governed by the head. ... I won’t forget a question Bill once asked when I moved to a neighborhood populated with 30-something [auto] workers, most of whom had never met a gay person before and had certainly never had an opportunity to discuss the subject openly. I had plenty of stories of nights in garages drinking beer around half-dismantled cars, but Bill once asked how my activism was coming along. Activism? I thought we were just having fun. But I began to understand the potential Bill saw in even these seemingly casual exchanges. For Bill, activism began with educating and continued through a sustained process of listening and involvement.”

Oberlin faculty and staff joined family and friends at yesterday’s burial service, held in the Wade Chapel in Cleveland’s Lakeview Cemetery. Professor Norris is survived by his partner of 30 years, Clayton Koppes, his daughter, Faryl Janis, her husband, Greg Doughty, his grandchildren Griffin and Charlotte Doughty and sisters Melissa Filley and Alison Wilson.

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The Oberlin Review, April 18, 2014

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Off The Cuff: Emily Troiano, senior director in the Information Center at Catalyst Emily Troiano is a senior director at the Catalyst Information Center, a nonprofit organization based in New York. Her research explores the role of women in the workforce, and she authored an online tool, “First Step: Women in the World.” On Tuesday, she gave a talk titled “Women at Work: A Conversation with Emily Troiano.”

Troiano sat down with the Review and discussed her career path, unwritten rules and Sheryl Sandberg.

whole life, and suddenly it wasn’t ‘it.’ [I experienced] a ‘now what?’ I looked into teaching; I worked at Brown University in career services and while there, I got my master’s in library science. I sat at this consulting firm for two years, and I realized pretty quickly that I didn’t want to be there. I wanted something that was mission-driven. I wanted to be at an organization that was making a difference, which led me to Catalyst.

How did you first become involved with the Catalyst Information Center?

It’s a long story, [and] a long road [to] my career path. It’s funny to share it [and] to realize how many different turns I’ve had; it’s not unusual. [Certain] students have a very straight path — grad school, this and this — but for a lot of people it’s going to really change throughout their lives. I actually started out in journalism. In high school, I fell in love with it; it was what I wanted to do, my passion. I went to college and I majored in it, and my first big internship was reporting, and I liked the stress of it.

[At first] it was really exciting, but then I had to [cover] a lightning story in Florida. I was sent out to interview the son of a woman who had been hit by lightning. And all I wanted was to drive this poor kid to the hospital — he didn’t know what was going on. For me, this was the first [time I knew] it wasn’t really working. That night, I went out with some of the more serious reporters, and I [admitted that] I was having some discomfort with this, and one said, “Oh, once I had to interview a woman who [had] run over her own child; don’t worry, you get used to it.” And I said to myself, “I don’t want to get used to this.” After journalism, I was 23 and I had been pursuing this career my

And what do you do there?

What is your primary set of responsibilities?

The biggest part of my job, timewise and attention-wise, is answering questions. Catalyst is a member organization, so we have member companies — various organizations around the world — and we work with them most closely. They can contact the Information Center for just about anything. Say they want data about people who work in advertising — what are the numbers and trends for women in advertising? Or maybe a person who is thinking about going to Japan — what are women like in Japan? Otherwise I write reports of products; I run a department now [of] four people or so.

Your talk was advertised as a discussion of unwritten rules for women. What are some of those unwritten rules?

Within any organization, there are explicit rules, and there are rules that are implicit. So in a classroom there’s a syllabus, but there are other things to note beyond the syllabus.

In a workplace, it might be what behaviors are valued that are needed to advance. This is really important for women, and for anyone who isn’t part of the dominant culture of an organization, which is [typically] white men. There are networks that form in these organizations, [and

Friday, April 11 Thursday, April 10 1:14 a.m. Officers responded to a report of individuals burning an item on the sidewalk east of Dascomb Hall. The fire had been extinguished by the time the officers arrived. Members of the Oberlin Fire Department also responded to check the area and confirm that the fire was extinguished.

4:30 p.m. An officer responded to the Conservatory office to pick up a recovered item turned in to them. The item was returned to the Security Office for safekeeping.

2:56 p.m. A student reported that he lost his wallet and a practice room key while on spring break in Georgia.

3:18 p.m. A student reported the theft of a rented bicycle from the front of South Hall in the early evening on April 4. The bicycle is a 10-speed brown Cruiser and is valued at approximately $45.

3:15 p.m. A student reported the theft of his wallet from his backpack while in a common space in the King Building. The wallet was army green with a Velcro closure and contained an ID, credit cards, a driver’s license, assorted gift cards and approximately $60. The ID was canceled, and the relevant banks were notified.

aren’t actually better negotiators than women. Some are better than others, but women are the ones getting penalized while men [aren’t].

To a certain extent, Sandberg addresses an audience that is more privileged — as in, women who can afford to lean in, more so than lower-class women. How might you respond to that criticism in support of her?

Her story is very much based in her perspective — MBA-type people, tech people. And that’s not the full spectrum. And again, I think it can’t just be this, “You do better and you change.” It has to be done in tandem with an organization working with hourly wage women, especially those women who don’t have a voice. Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In is one piece of this puzzle.

Emily Troiano, whose recent research includes examining women’s status through the lens of shifting demographics, refining education, and the delayed improvement of women’s equality.

women] are less likely to be a part of those networks. Catalyst has done a lot of research into that. One of the rules is [that] it’s not just hard work.

You have to go beyond that. You have to distinguish yourself.

On a more personal level, how do you tolerate sexism and stay on task, or maintain your motivation?

I think the most important thing is [that] it’s not about fixing the women. It’s about fixing the organizations. I’ve interviewed the CEO of a phone company recently, and she was asked that question. And she said, “You know, I would give a very different answer in 2005 than

10 p.m. An Oberlin resident reported receiving a flyer at his home indicating that student residents of Elmwood Place would be holding a “fundraiser” on Saturday evening. Contact was made with the student involved, and they were advised of party procedure.

11 p.m. Officers were requested to assist a student who fell on East College Street, possibly dislocating her shoulder. The student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital for treatment.

Sunday, April 13 2:14 a.m. A Communications officer reported an individual lying on the ground across from the Security Office. Officers responded, and the intoxicated student was transported to Mercy Allen Hospital.

I would today.” [In 2005] I would form a support group and do certain things to make change. But if I experienced [sexism in the workplace] now, I would get out and get a better job; Because that organization isn’t getting it. Find a place that fits with your values better. So I found a place where I didn’t have to deal with that.

What are you thoughts on Sheryl Sandberg and the whole “lean in” phenomenon?

Catalyst is actually partnered with Sheryl Sandberg, so there’s something going on there. And what I like is this idea of development.

Although she’s addressing women, everyone can benefit from that. Men

1:54 a.m. The Oberlin Police Department requested assistance at a Village Housing unit on Elmwood Place regarding a Domino’s Pizza sign observed in the window. Officers made contact with the occupants. The sign was recovered, and no charges were filed.

8:17 p.m. A student reported a violin and case missing from the first floor of Robertson Hall.

The instrument and case were located in a practice room on the second floor and returned to the owner.

Monday, April 14 1:45 p.m. Officers responded to a Life Safety Inspection on the second floor of Kahn Hall. A residential advisor identified two bottles of alcohol in plain view,

By the same token, let’s say you can identify sexism in your workplace, but you can’t leave because you don’t have an alternative.

How do you then improve your situation without leaving?

That is a much harder question.

For Catalyst, when we look at the organizations we’re working with, we have such an interest in manufacturing plants, hourly wage workers who feel like they don’t have a choice, [and] it totally sucks. Catalyst itself has a lot of resources, and a big one is trying to find a mentor and a champion and a sponsor. If an organization has an ethos that isn’t very supportive of women or minorities or LGBTQ people, find allies in the organization. A lot of research groups started as grassroots organizations without support from the top down. You can start from the bottom up.

Interview by Kate Gill, News editor Photo courtesy of Emily Troiano

two baggies containing a substance consistent with marijuana and a rolled joint with an odor of marijuana. The suspect marijuana items were confiscated and turned over to the Oberlin Police Department.

Wednesday, April 16 10:20 a.m. A custodial manager reported broken ceiling tiles in East Hall. Officers located several broken tiles in the stairwell.

6:59 p.m. Officers and members of the Oberlin Fire Department responded to a priority one fire alarm at Burton Hall in the first floor TV lounge. The cause of the alarm was smoke from burnt noodles found in the microwave.

The area was cleared of smoke and the alarm was reset.

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The Oberlin Review, April 18, 2014

New Financial Aid Policy Threatens OSCA’s Future Continued from page 1 every dollar a student saves by being in OSCA will be deducted from their financial aid package. The real implications of the phrase have not been finalized; yet without more information, students assume the worst.

Many have bleakly predicted that the new policy will erase all incentive to live in OSCA for students on financial aid. Although several administrators have framed this theory as extreme, many students, including Pardue, consider it a legitimate fear.

“If enrollment goes down, our membership goes down,” Pardue said.

“So instead of being at 615 members, which we’re at right now, we’re going to be at 594. If we do not have 594 members at all times next year, then we have to pay for the vacancies. We do not have enough money to pay for not having 40, 50 people, much less 300 [fewer] people. We don’t have the money to do that.”

“If there [is] no longer any financial incentive to live in OSCA, our membership will go down,” Pardue said.

“OSCA is a lot of work. Yes, there are people that would stay. Those are the people that don’t need to have jobs to go to this school. [But] if OSCA has to shut down, or if students can’t get money from OSCA, there are going to be students that can’t go here anymore. ” According to Pardue, Reddy responded to this claim by acknowledging that OSCA requires a significant time commitment. During the meeting, Reddy offered to add $7.95 for every average co-op hour to OSCA members’ financial aid package. For most members, this wage would amount to approximately $32 a week, or $827 dollars a year.

For Pardue, such compensation is hardly fair.

“That’s stealing,” she said. “That’s what that is. It’s completely ridiculous, and a terrible idea. OSCA is the bestpaid job on this campus for students; it’s $25 an hour if you work in a fourhour or five-hour co-op. For [Brown Bag Co-op] it’s $100 an hour. It’s great, and that’s why people join.”

Unanswered Questions: A chief source of anger is the lack of transparency and the administration’s relative silence on the issue.

“I had been in meetings with people that helped make that decision over the past month, several meetings just to talk about OSCA things,” Pardue said. “There was ample opportunity for them to talk to us, and they did not.”

Students were not notified of the policy change, but rather discovered it on their own.

“The Financial Aid Office updated its website and other materials for prospective students in late 2013 to coincide with the time period in which applicants were finalizing their college applications for admission and financial aid,” Chermonte and Reddy said in an email to the Review. “A thorough communication to the campus community was in progress and days away from dissemination when the issue surfaced last week.”

Pardue said her meeting with Michele Gross, director of Business Operations and Dining Services, only served to convince her that the administrators themselves were confused about the policy.

“[Gross] did not know that it involved housing. She said she had been consulted by the administration ... and was told that she should not tell us, and that all students should find

gressive institution at the forefront of social change,” Delano explained. “But if it’s going to deny low-income students an education more than it ever has — increasing tuition and decreas-

the best thing to do is talk to the people in financial aid.”

Policy Precedent: In the wake of their discovery, stu-

In an effort to clearly depict the recent changes to the financial aid policy, students created an infographic that compares the past policy to the newly modified version. Some of the changes include revisions to co-op charges, off-campus housing and meal plans.

Review Staff

out at the same time because she was told it affects all students and not just OSCA. Essentially she did not know really what the policy was.”

According to Pardue, certain members of the administration avoided her over the past week, and the meetings she did secure were unsatisfactory. “[At a meeting] one of the admissions officers said, ‘I know this is uncomfortable for you,’ and [College third-year senior] John Bergen said, ‘I want to stop you right there. It’s not uncomfortable. This is people having to call their parents and saying, ‘Do you have any more money? No? OK, I have to go somewhere else now.’ That’s horrible. That’s not uncomfortable.’”

The new policy, in all its vagueness, has generated confusion as well as anger — given the ambiguity of “adjusted accordingly,” many students have formed their own hypotheses.

“It’s been a complicated research process because no one has all the information,” Delano noted. “There are little bits and pieces of the information coming from lots of different sources.”

“Presumably it was up [on the website] for an unknown period of time before people noticed it … the policy was put up sometime between February and this past Thursday … I haven’t talked to anyone who knows more specifically,” Delano said.

Many students have said that the new policy compromises Oberlin’s values and commitment to diversity, in particular to low-income students, students of color and mentally and physically disabled students, who are historically more likely to receive financial aid.

“Oberlin has prioritized admitting students of color and low-income students, but it has never prioritized those students being able to graduate from this [college],” College junior and organizer Neoma said.

“The new changes to financial aid are scary,” Neoma added. “And they’re scary because they are an escalation of a problem that Oberlin already has, and they’re also scary because it’s happening to me and my peers right now.”

Delano agreed.

“Oberlin likes to call itself a pro-

ing financial aid; it’s contrary to [Oberlin’s] image.”

Yet Chermonte and Reddy both disagreed, arguing that contrary to student belief, these issues were considered during the drafting process.

“The proposed change in process would treat all students equally when awarding financial aid by taking into consideration costs associated with their actual housing and dining choices,” Chermonte and Reddy said.

“Oberlin has — and will — continue to meet 100 percent of demonstrated financial need. The proposed change in process for developing a given student’s financial aid budget only refines the determination of a student’s level of need, based on actual costs. If implemented, the process would appropriate financial aid resources in a way that is more fair and equitable to all students. This in turn provides the College with more capacity to enroll a wide range of students, particularly those who have high levels of financial need.”

However, many students believe the new policy threatens their ability to pay tuition.

“Since they explicitly state that they will decrease your financial aid if you live off campus, I have no problem believing that they will decrease your financial aid if you have a lower meal plan,” Neoma said. “I would not be able to go here at all under the new policies on the website.”

According to Krislov, Oberlin is more generous than students may think — more so than peer institutions.

“I understand that people are anxious,” Krislov said. “The way we work financial aid is that we meet everybody’s need. If you have a concern about whether or not your package is meeting your need, you go to financial aid and you talk about it. Some people may not like the packages that they’re offered, but we do them according to very well established procedure; we use the forms that the federal government provides. Frankly we are very generous, much more so than many of our peers. If students have individual concerns about their circumstances,

dents have researched and reconsidered other policy changes made in the past decade. Several of these innovations were discussed in the meeting at the Cat in the Cream.

Under particular scrutiny is the College’s modification of its study away policy. Much like the amendments to the financial aid policy, the changes in the study away policy were formulated without student input. The past policy allowed students in approved study away programs to pay the costs of tuition, room and board of the program, while the modified policy charges students the equivalent Oberlin tuition, in addition to room and board costs

see where money is cut from. That really lays bare what the College values, and which students they think are important.”

Both policy changes came partly from “A Strategic Plan for Oberlin College,” a document dated March 5, 2005, whose stated goal is to “ensure academic, artistic, and musical excellence as well as financial sustainability in the years ahead.”

According to Dean of Studies and Vice President of Strategic Initiatives Kathryn Stuart, the financial aid policy was largely conceived from one of the plan’s financial strategies, which states that the College will “continue to reduce operating expenditures by identifying and implementing additional efficiencies throughout Oberlin’s operations in order to meet its listed financial goals.”

“The decision to apply financial aid to meet the cost of a student’s chosen housing and meal plans, rather than exceeding it, was viewed as a means of distributing the College’s resources in a fair and equitable manner,” Dean Stuart said in an email to the Review.

Another poorly received component of the plan stated that, “currently [Oberlin’s] most critical financial priority must be to realize more net tuition revenue per student and to do so in ways that honor Oberlin’s long traditions of racial and socioeconomic diversity.”

Students interpreted this statement to mean that the College prioritizes revenue over its student body.

“If this is [the] College’s most critical financial priority … then the College might just have its priorities mixed up, and we should address that,” wrote one student in the Defending Oberlin Financial Accessibility Facebook group.

Currently the College is initiating another strategic planning period for this year. The administration recently

From the left,College junior B Arlene Álvarez and College sophomores Kaia Austin, Mattis Deutch and Madison Szathmary demonstrate outside the General Faculty Council meeting on Wednesday.

Sam White

within their program. At the time, students argued that the new policy might deter low-income students from studying abroad. The College’s transition from a need-blind to a needsensitive admissions process was also mentioned in Sunday’s meeting.

“It demonstrates their lack of true commitment for supporting [marginalized] students,” said College junior and Tank Co-op Housing Loose Ends Coordinator Pablo Cerdera. “It would be not thinking critically to ignore the connections between all of these different types of marginalized students, and I think that these changes, as well as the lack of funding for the MRC … It’s interesting and telling to

proposed the framework, which will occur in the next few years. In their resolution, student protesters mindfully included assertions regarding the upcoming plan.

In the upcoming year, students and administrators will continue to collaborate and reshape the policy.

“Many of the best approaches and ideas come from students or [collaborating] with students. I’m open to finding the best solutions together this coming year,” Estes said. “This, of course, will require a lot of sharing of information in both directions. I know I learn a lot from students in the day-today, and it makes me better at my job.”

April 18, 2014

Opinions The Oberlin Review

Letters to the Editors Continuing the ROI Conversation To the Editor: In Erik and Michele Andrews’ April 4 letter, “Response to Apel’s ROI Article” (The Oberlin Review, April 4, 2014), they spoke about the importance of Oberlin’s graduates preparing for their futures.

We appreciated their thoughts and are also impressed that their student took this kind of initiative in his first year.

Preparing for successful careers is a critical need that is supported by the faculty, administration and by our alumni. Over the past two years, Oberlin has taken a number of steps to increase services, resources and programming available to our students. The Career Center and the Alumni Association are working together and with other College partners to address the needs of our students — including a stronger alumni network, the main issue of concern in the Andrews’ letter. Along those lines, we would like to mention two initiatives currently under way.

The first is an upgrade of our alumni online directory. We will be launching a new online presence this fall, which will allow for alumni to provide more robust career information and will better facilitate mentoring connections between students and alumni. Students and alumni should watch for updates later this year, and we encourage all alumni to update their information with as much detail as possible, specifically so that students and other alumni can find professional connections.

While we are enhancing our system, we would like to mention that the current alumni online directory, OBIEWeb, does have a lot of valuable information available, including information on many alumni who are physicians. The best way to start a search is to use the key-

word search function. If you enter “surgeon,” you will find 79 matches. The term “physician” yielded 516 hits. One can enter specific terms, such as “obstetrician” or “medical ethics,” and focus on particular interests.

If you are a student or alumnus who is not having success with a search, please contact the Career Center or Alumni Office for assistance.

While you will forever be able to access the software and the alumni information it houses, be certain to start by having at least a short conversation with staff. This will help you fully benefit from its use and understand the key navigation strategies that will help you avoid frustration and unnecessary disappointments along the way.

Our alumni volunteers are driving the second initiative.

The leadership of the Alumni Association is reviewing its programming, and one of their priorities for the future is enhancing professional connections and networking for students and alumni. In addition to encouraging more alumni to complete their online profiles and to host students who have internships and Winter Term opportunities, the Association is also encouraging the formation of alumni groups based on professional fields and expertise.

The first official professionalbased alumni group will be for health career alumni and its formation is already under way. The alumni leading this effort are physicians, and their primary interest is in better supporting current students who are interested in health-related careers.

We have much work ahead of us, but we are partnering to enhance professional opportunities and connections for students. We have a creative and passionate community that begins with four or five years on campus but continues for a lifetime; our goal is to strengthen the mechanisms for connecting individual

members of the community with each other and better support our newest members as they prepare to leave Oberlin College and Conservatory for the next stage of their lives.

– Danielle Young Executive Director, Oberlin Alumni Association Richard T. Berman Career Center Director

Career Center Director Responds to Complaints To the Editor: In two recent letters to the editors regarding the Career Center, the first published March 7 by College senior Aidan Apel (“Oberlin College Ranked U.S.’s Worst Return on Investment,” The Oberlin Review, March 7, 2014) and the second submitted by parents Erik and Michele Andrews (“Response to Apel’s ROI Article,” The Oberlin Review, April 4, 2014), constructive criticism was offered, and we always learn from and improve our services when issues or opportunities are brought to our attention. After all, this Career Center isn’t ours; it belongs to Oberlin students and our volunteers from the wider Oberlin College community. This said, I am compelled to address an issue that arose in both letters, and it is not the issue central to either previous letter (another letter written jointly with my colleague Danielle Young from the Alumni Association will likely also appear in this issue, and that one does address the Andrews’ chief concern).

While I am flattered each letter favorably referenced my being hired a little more than two years ago, I remain unsettled by the wording in the letters.

Their having stated that “… we need more Richard Bermans …” excludes by omission my colleagues in the Career Center, See Response, page 6

SUBMISSIONS POLICY The Oberlin Review appreciates and welcomes letters to the editors and column submissions. All submissions are printed at the discretion of the editorial board.

All submissions must be received by Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at opinions@oberlinreview.org or Wilder Box 90 for inclusion in the following Friday’s Review. Letters may not exceed 600 words and columns may not exceed 800 words, except with the consent of the editorial board. All submissions must include contact information, with full names, for all signers. All electronic submissions from multiple writers should be carbon-copied to all signers to confirm authorship.

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Editors will contact authors of letters to the editors in the event of edits for anything other than style and grammar.

In no case will editors change the opinions expressed in any submission.

The Opinions section strives to serve as a forum for debate. Review staff will occasionally engage in this debate within the pages of the Review. In these cases, the Review will either seek to create dialogue between the columnist and staff member prior to publication or will wait until the next issue to publish the staff member’s response.

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Opinions expressed in letters, columns, essays, cartoons or other Opinions pieces do not necessarily reflect those of the staff of the Review.

Page 5

The Oberlin Review Publication of Record for Oberlin College — Established 1874 —

Editors-in-Chief Rosemary Boeglin Julia Herbst Managing Editor Julian Ring Opinions Editor Sophia Ottoni-Wilhelm

Lack of Transparency Surrounding Changes to Aid Policy Unacceptable Since students learned of the controversial financial aid policy change, tensions have been high. Within hours of their discovery, students were organizing demonstrations and circulating information.

Obies are angry, and they have a right to be. Whether or not the policy change affects them, they likely know someone whom it does affect.

The equally great injustice, however, lies nowhere in the text itself — rather, it’s in the College’s flippant lack of communication with both current and prospective students and their parents regarding the revision’s details.

The result, of course, is that there are a lot of questions and very few answers surrounding the recent change, which in turn leads to misinformation and confusion. College administrators have repeatedly attempted to deflect student inquiries and instead refocus the conversation on this institution’s larger goals for financial accessibility and its “historic commitment to providing access to students representing the socioeconomic spectrum.”

The question is not, as the College would like to pose it, whether Oberlin provides “more robust” financial aid packages than comparable institutions, nor is it whether OSCA, as a whole, pulls financial resources from the College that the administration has, apparently, decided are best dedicated elsewhere. The issue is that this policy was discreetly posted on the College’s website sometime in the last couple of months, after which administrators sat on their hands and waited to see if anyone would notice. When they did, the College removed the OnCampus post that described the change in detail and conceded that they blundered in not foreseeing the staunch student opposition and concern regarding this change.

This policy amendment will determine whether or not OSCA can provide an alternative for students struggling to afford to study at this college — which, with next year’s tuition creeping above $48,000, is one of the most expensive institutions of higher learning in the country, regardless of its generous financial aid packages. Even basic questions like, “Will this policy increase the average cost of Oberlin for affected students?” are evaded by senior College administrators. There is no excuse for the fact that none of the College’s top personnel know the answer to this and other basic questions about a policy they originally intended to implement as early as next year. But, frankly, we doesn’t buy it.

The more probable conclusion to draw when confronted with blatant refusal to answer basic questions, however, is that these individuals do in fact have the answers. If indeed the College was hoping to institute this change without a student response, it clearly doesn’t know its student body. It seems obvious that, at a school with over three-quarters of its students receiving financial aid and nearly a quarter in OSCA, a major policy shift affecting these groups would make headlines.

While the College has quietly agreed to postpone the policy’s implementation for a year, the problem at the heart of this issue remains: Administrators clearly don’t feel the need to be straightforward with the student body, even about matters as sensitive and precarious as financial aid.

Perhaps this can be a learning experience for the administration; when attempting to initiate change, they could save everyone — including themselves — considerable time and frustration by being transparent about the policy and implementation process from the beginning.

Editorials are the responsibility of the Review editorial board — the Editors-in-Chief, managing editor and Opinions editor — and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the Review.

Opinions

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The Oberlin Review, April 18, 2014

Letters to the Editors cont.

Response to Career Center Complaints Continued from page 5 who individually and collectively contribute so importantly to the support of our students and recent graduates in their explorations and pursuits of meaning, purpose, fulfillment and engagement in the world beyond Oberlin College.

We comprise a relatively new team in the Career Center, one that embraces change, growth and an increase in outreach, services, programs, connections and quality advising.

Almost all of us were new to the Career Center staff at the point in time the Andrews referenced (Fall 2011). I was here less than a month in February 2012. Gayle Boyer and Nick Petzak started the preceding fall. Donna Russell and Linda Gwinn had not been in the Center much longer. Oberlin alumna Arisa Williams and former Cinema Studies faculty member Brian Doan had not yet joined us.

This team we have in place right now is amazing. They are incredibly dedicated and skilled in their respective roles at the Center. Anyone who has worked with and come to know Linda, Donna, Gayle and Arisa will attest to their kindness, tireless work ethics, skills, areas of expertise and undeniable enthusiasm for the awesomeness of Oberlin

students and their great promise for making important contributions to the world beyond campus. We are also nothing short of fortunate that we work collaboratively with Nick Petzak (Coordinator of Fellowships) and lucky that former visiting professor in Cinema Studies Brian Doan chose to help us this year in an interim advising role.

There are other key staff members as well.

Seven gifted Oberlin students serve as peer advisors in the Center (and they also advise us on where/how we can improve our services and outreach), and other student assistants exceed our expectations daily with administrative tasks such as entering hundreds of newly identified internships in our opportunity database.

Not only is the whole greater than the sum of its parts, I would, as a still new director, be ineligible and unqualified to receive anyone’s compliments if it were not for this team that lets me stand on their shoulders. The work they do for Oberlin is not about it being their jobs. As Career Center specialists, each of my colleagues would have little difficulty securing other employment. The work they do for Oberlin and the extent to which they champion Oberlin students is motivated

Emma Snape Student Senate This week, Student Senate passed a resolution encouraging the administration to repeal the new financial aid policy. The resolution, which was written by and brought to Senate by a group of students organizing to defend financial accessibility at Oberlin, condemned the new policy’s elimination of the cost benefits of OSCA, lower meal plans and off-campus housing, which make it financially possible for students to attend Oberlin.

Student Senate would like to express our full support of this resolution and reaffirm that we, as a group, call for greater transparency from the College administration, an increase in student involvement in the implementation of new policies that affect students and greater financial accessibility.

The full text of the resolution can be found on the Senate website. After discussing the resolution, Senate discussed this year’s annual Student Senate Referendum.

We revised the language in the questions and added new questions before confirming and approving the final draft of the referendum. The referendum addresses topics such as student health, financial accessibility, environmental sustainability and Senate itself and requires 50 percent of the student body to complete it.

Finally, three Senate open forums will be held in April, and all students are encouraged to attend! The topics of the forums are the Tobacco Ban (April 7), How Senate Can Better Represent Me (April 23) and Student Health (April 29). As always, the weekly Senate Plenary meeting will occur Sunday at 7 p.m. in Wilder 215, and all students are welcome to attend!

Cold War Enemies Inject Ideology into Geopolitical Conflict Sean Para Columnist Recent events in Ukraine are truly unsettling. It is disturbing how quickly a political crisis can spiral out of control and lead to violence. Ukraine is being pulled in two directions: east and west. Only time will tell which side prevails. However, both Russia and the United States are, as usual, adding an ideological edge to what is primarily a geopolitical conflict.

A separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine has been the most recent and dramatic development in the crisis. The seizure of a government and security administration building by pro-Russian militiamen — acting in concert with covert Russian special forces — has led to a full scale uprising in the Donetsk region, while other parts of eastern Ukraine, such as Luhansk and Kharkiv, remain restive. While the population is divided, there is obviously significant local support for the separatist action and demands for a referendum in order to gain autonomy from the central government in Kiev.

The population of eastern Ukraine has been largely alienated from the central government.

Since the Maidan Revolution in February, the government has been dominated by Ukrainian speakers, and draws most of its support from the west of the country. Kiev’s turn toward Europe and away from Russia destroyed much of its legitimacy in the eyes of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east.

The launch of an “anti-terrorist operation” on Tuesday further divided the country, as many eastern Ukrainians now feel that their own government has declared war on them. While the support for a Russian incursion or annexation should not be overstated, there is a significant constituency in eastern Ukraine that wishes to remain loyal to Moscow rather than move toward the west.

Although ideology plays a role on each side, geopolitical interests are central to the rationale of both Washington and Moscow. This is not to say that Russia does not believe it is in the right in attempting to prevent a brother nation from falling under corruptive American influence.

However, Russia is primarily motivated by a desire to keep Ukraine in its sphere of influence. The U.S., meanwhile, does wish to see a free and democratic Ukraine. How-

ever, it also means to check a resurgence of Russia’s power and curb Russian military expansionism.

Russia’s grievances in the Ukraine crisis are not without basis. The U.S. has continuously broken its promises not to expand the NATO alliance eastward. The current government in Kiev is dominated by Ukrainian speakers and has still refused to allow regional referendums on autonomy, instead offering separatists a national referendum, which would almost certainly preserve Ukraine as a unitary state because most of the population would be against federalization. Obviously, Russia is in the wrong for repeatedly violating Ukrainian sovereignty, first with the Crimean incursion and now with covert support of the armed militias that have taken over so many government buildings in eastern Ukraine. However, both sides deserve some of the blame for the current situation.

The U.S.’s warnings, threats and sanctions have had little effect on Russia’s actions. Putin and his cronies care little about what the U.S. or the rest of the world thinks of them.

They are concerned primarily with reasserting Russia’s presence on the world stage

after the catastrophic demise of the Soviet Union. The ailing Russian economy does not seem to be much of a concern, either, nor do the possible effects of greater sanctions. Any solution to this crisis will have to take Russia’s interests into account.

These two great powers continue to heap blame on each other for the escalating violence in Ukraine. The Kremlin blames the CIA, and the White House blames clandestine Russian operatives. Both countries are covertly attempting to influence the outcome, Russia more openly due to the thinly veiled use of Russian operatives in eastern Ukraine. On Thursday, four-way talks between Russia, Ukraine, the U.S. and the EU yielded an agreement that calls for the separatists to lay down their arms in exchange for amnesty, and commits Russia and Ukraine to de-escalating the crisis. However, the talks did not include a final agreement or touch on the contentious issues of the crisis, such as the legitimacy of the current government in Kiev, the federalization of Ukraine or the tens of thousands of Russian troops still massed on Ukraine’s eastern border. Unsurprisingly, many in the West are still worried about President Putin’s true intentions.

Birthright Leaves Young Jews Ill-Equipped to Engage in Difficult Conversations Yonah London Contributing Writer Polarized conversations about Israel are nothing new to me. Nevertheless, when hundreds of Jewish college students and recent college graduates return from Taglit-Birthright trips to Israel every year, I am surprised to find that their conversations about Israel are often as superficial as the ones I experienced as a kid in Jewish day school.

A few times a year, my Facebook page is crowded with pictures of college students on Birthright trips wearing Ray-Bans, throwing up peace signs, sitting on camels and boasting of Jewish victories over the course of history. I roll my eyes. Not because it’s a bad thing to go on a fun vacation in Israel, but because programs like Birth-

right ignore or vastly simplify Israel’s social and political ills.

Recently, Birthright expanded its eligibility requirements, opening up the possibility for many more young Jews to take advantage of its free trips. My Facebook page again lit up with various friends’ gleeful plans to take part.

I was unamused.

Birthright’s goal, according to its website, is to fulfill the “birthright of all young Jews to be able to visit their ancestral homeland,” which the site describes as a “building block of Jewish identity.”

The site also states that “the vision of Taglit-Birthright Israel is to strengthen [the] Jewish identity” of its participants.

The Birthright model would seem to make intuitive sense.

Young Jews go to Israel for an “educational” experience — they

hike, float about in the Dead Sea, snap some selfies and leave raving about their love for the land and their strengthened Jewish identity.

Where Birthright fails is in preparing Jewish young people for their return home, where conversations about Israel can range from nuanced calls for a two-state solution to outrage at discriminatory Israeli policies and practices and, at the extreme, call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, the return of all Palestinian refugees or a binational state.

Birthright has not prepared its alumni for these conversations.

Many Jewish students returning from trips to Israel do not know how to respond to denunciations of Israel’s human rights abuses and violations of international law. All that they have been prepared to say is something along the lines of “Israel changed my life.”

Extolling Israel’s virtues is one possible response, but it is a response that denies the realities of the human rights abuses associated with the occupation. As far as I can tell, raving about the beauty of the Negev desert or the emotions of visiting a Jewish country that rose out of the ashes of the Holocaust hasn’t convinced any BDS advocates to start buying carbonated water dispensers or spa products produced in Jewish West Bank settlements.

To be sure, the superficial treatment of these issues is not limited to Birthright. In 2011, I participated in a four-month high school program in Israel organized by the Union for Reform Judaism. Even that program, organized by one of the most liberal branches of Judaism, failed to delve into the details of the oc-

cupation and the conflict with the Palestinians. Though I enjoyed the sites as much as anyone, my lifechanging experience was in coming home and finally discovering the importance of pushing back when I felt my generation was being fed propaganda.

If programs such as Birthright want to cultivate an enduring Jewish connection to Israel, they should start by promoting thoughtful and critically minded dialogue rather than sending young Jewish adults back to their jobs and campuses with a fairytale narrative about Israel and its accomplishments. Let Birthright instead create a generation of Jews who can intelligently question both Israel and its critics and advocate for peaceful solutions that ensure both Israel’s future and the human rights of all people.

The Oberlin Review, April 18, 2014

Opinions

Page 7

Netflix’s House of Cards Plays a Kiss My Sass: Mean Game of Political Chess Three’s Company Ruby Saha Columnist

Against my better judgment, I started watching House of Cards a few weeks ago. I can’t say I expected much, especially after my disappointment with Scandal: Kevin Spacey is not an actor I’ve ever been excited about, and the set-up seemed predictable and staid, mired in politics I didn’t care much about and political intrigue that hardly intrigued me. I had no idea what a House whip (or as Frank puts it, “hwhip”) was until I finally Googled it three episodes in.

But dear God, I am hooked. I don’t know where this show has been my whole life. It’s the most magnetizing thing I’ve seen since the criminally underrated Orphan Black.

It’s definitely a show that takes itself a little too seriously. Frank’s internal monologues are pretentious and bombastic, demonstrating that they are hardly snatches of an unguarded mind but yet another side of his perpetual performance of a constructed, multifaceted persona.

Yet I’ve come to eagerly anticipate the moments where Frank breaks the fourth wall, always reminding us that we are accomplices to his schemes, that we root for him as he manipulates the people around him like chess pieces on his political board. I find myself expecting that moment at the end of a scene where Frank slowly lets his gaze slip directly into the camera, which often functions as his version of an eyeroll. (I think my favorite one so far is when Frank is forced to go bird watching with influential billionaire Raymond Tusk, glaring into the camera as he is handed a pair of binoculars.)

Because each season is released in its entirety on Netflix, House of Cards is a really interesting study in what it means to produce a show that is consumed season-by-season, as opposed to episode-by-episode, and it’s clear that the show runners have given it some thought. Most episodes end with the most outrageous cliffhangers that somehow don’t matter, because the only thing stopping you from finding out what comes next is your own self-discipline. The storyline is byzantine to an extreme, with characters playing bit parts in the first few episodes only to resurface as key components of the most elaborately planned political

revenge plot I’ve had the pleasure to watch play out on television.

There are so many things about this show that appeal to me. The characters are fantastically drawn, with such beautifully poetic dialogue that often says so little and reveals so much. It’s a master class in acting, with simple gestures and facial twitches that speak volumes; Robin Wright’s cheekbones alone give Kevin Spacey a run for his money. It’s also great to watch Corey Stoll, OC ’98, on screen as a hapless senator who is his own worst enemy and an unfortunate pawn in Frank’s political game of chess. It’s also gorgeously shot, with some of the best cinematography I’ve seen in a television show.

I like that there are things the characters do that don’t have an immediately obvious function or satisfying payoff, the way most shows do when characters or props are introduced. In a very unusual moment of kindness, Claire hands a homeless man $20 bill; later in the episode the man throws the same bill at her in the shape of an origami crane. She consequently becomes obsessed with the art of origami, folding swans, roses and frogs. Peter notices them in her bag, strikes up a conversation about his kids and she hands him a few. There’s a suggested frisson here that ultimately leads nowhere, and there’s no satisfying resolution to this particular thread; it ends up getting lost in the twisted political machinations of the later episodes.

When it comes to writing, I’m usually a strong proponent of the Vonnegut method: “Rule #4: Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.” However, in a show where the characters can start to seem like a collection of manipulative, unfeeling automatons, every small, unexplained habit turns into strangely reassuring evidence of the characters’ humanity.

I’m not often a fan of U.S.-converts of British shows — good examples like Elementary and Shameless are almost always exceptions to the rule. But I have to applaud the way the American version of House of Cards successfully approaches the challenge of converting a show to a completely different set of political rules. As trite as it seems, it really does demonstrate how universally shitty politics can be, no matter which side of the pond you’re on. The saying is true: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Aid Policy Amendment Deserves Full Hearing Machmud Makhmudov Columnist and Student Senate Liaison The backlash over the discovery of Oberlin’s recent changes to the financial aid policy — which has subsequently been delayed for a year — has sparked a variety of activist responses on campus.

From petitions to rallies to policy meetings, students have been actively engaged in responding to the policy changes. For purposes of full disclosure, I’m a member of Student Senate and have been involved in parts of student activism over the course of the past week.

The source of discontent over the news of the policy change differs from student to student. For many, there exists a very tangible fear that living and eating at Oberlin will no longer be affordable to them. For others such as myself, frustration is tied up in seeing the duress and feelings of helplessness of our peers and sensing that Oberlin may be deviating from its values. From my perspective, the most pressing of these problems is derived from a sense of confusion about what the policy could and couldn’t potentially do.

As far as I’m aware, the first information made publicly available simply stated that financial aid packages would be “adjusted accordingly” for students who chose reduced housing or dining options. Upon speaking with the Office of Admissions and Office of Financial Aid, many students discovered that this means receiving a dollar-for-dollar reduction in their aid packages if they choose less expensive housing or dining options.

Moving forward, it’s imperative for the administration to have the opportunity to fully explain the policy, how it was devised and how it will affect most students. But in my opinion, understanding what it really means requires thinking systemati-

cally about financial aid distribution and methods of cost savings at Oberlin.

Quite frankly, the disproportionate amount of high-income students in Oberlin’s co-ops does beg the question of why it makes sense to automatically subsidize all OSCA members. For example, why are we giving more than $5,000 in annual savings to full-pay students in OSCA when we could be applying that money to giving more generous aid packages to students that actually need it, both in OSCA and out?

That’s a conversation that should be held between a variety of parties on campus, but unfortunately the process by which financial aid policy decisions are made — particularly this one — has left students in the dark.

As communicated in a statement that Student Senate presented at this Wednesday’s General Faculty meeting, the process of amending financial aid policies needs to be transparent and accessible to students. Otherwise, Oberlin runs the risk of perpetually finding itself in our present state: confused, frustrated and disconnected as a community.

Faculty members received Senate’s message from Wednesday well, and a number of them are already reaching out to find out how they can support students. I speak for myself and many others in expressing gratitude to the faculty for showing so much support for their students.

Now more than ever, it’s important to present a unified front and extend a willingness to work with any members of the campus community that are dedicated to maintaining Oberlin’s accessibility and quality of education — be they students, faculty, staff, alumni or administrators.

Most importantly, we must stand for transparency in the decisions that affect Oberlin students drastically, both now and in the future.

Sophia Ottoni-Wilhelm Opinions Editor The following is a submission from a real Oberlin student: Dear Sophie, My girlfriend is interested in having a threesome — so much so that she has placed it on her Oberlin bucket list. She considers herself straight and has never experimented with women. I, on the other hand, have hooked up with a man and was really not into it. I think she is open to the idea of another woman, though I know that she would prefer a “devil’s threesome.”

While I am fairly attracted to the idea of a threesome, I don’t think I would be comfortable with another man, and I’m also somewhat worried about it having a negative effect on our relationship. What should I do?

–Potential Swinger Dear Potential Swinger, If you’re interested: I’m 5’ 2’’ and have blue eyes, brown hair and sculpted quads. I do yoga every other morning and run five or six times a week. My mom says I have an “electric” personality. I can lick my elbows, do the splits and would in no way be opposed to Lord of the Rings roleplay. If you’re worried about the awkward post-hookup conversation, don’t be! I got a 2300 on my SATs and have an extensive (and mildly creepy) knowledge of manatees. I also had to memorize tons of French poetry in 8th grade and would have no qualms reciting verse if the mood requires escalation. My preferred sexy jams include “Let’s Get It On,” “Ride,” “Love in This Club” and anything by John Mayer.

For reference and recommendation contact: Rachel Webberman, Chris Sundby, Jon Stewart and anyone named Ben. Literally anyone.

But, all joking aside, you raise some excellent questions.

You went to Oberlin for a reason, and I’m guessing it wasn’t to get in touch with your inner conservative. I completely understand wanting to be open to new experiences and people, sexually and otherwise.

I’ve been asked to have a threesome twice during my time here. Both times I was very flattered, although not interested. Why was this? Because threesomes are weird. I didn’t want to intrude on a friend’s relationship (the first time I was asked), nor did I want to hook up with people I barely knew (the second time I was asked).

My responses were completely contingent on the place I was in emotionally and sexually: It had nothing to do with me judging the concept of a threesome in the slightest. Yes, threesomes are weird... but so is Oberlin. This is a place where Magic: the Gathering is cool and board shorts aren’t.

Where you can wear your great aunt Bertha’s button-up but GOD FORBID anything khaki. I was going to advise that your girlfriend keep threesomes on her post-collegiate bucket list, but then I realized that if she really wants it to happen, Oberlin’s a pretty good place.

You used passive voice a number of times in your submission. You say “I think she…” and “I don’t think…” throughout, suggesting you aren’t sure of what either of you wants. My advice is to sit down with her and have a conversation about what you’re both comfortable with.

If there are places where your comfort levels overlap, that’s great! Go for it. But if either of you feels uncomfortable — and I can tell by your tone that you aren’t 100 percent thrilled — you shouldn’t do it. You seem really openminded and sweet, but that isn’t a reason to do something you don’t want to do.

Besides, anything that makes you uncomfortable will not be fun for anyone else, and, when it comes down to it, threesomes are all about the group’s happiness.

You’re welcome, Sophie Failing at life? Relationships? Wanting answers? Then want no more! Write to Sophie at opinions@oberlinreview.org and your life will never be the same again. That’s a guarentee. All submissions will be kept anonymous, so feel free to divulge your dirtiest secrets and darkest fears.

CALENDAR

Vernon Johns Reception and Movie Oberlin College Theater Presents: Screening Ghosts Friday, April 18 at 4 p.m.

Friday, April 18 and Saturday, April 19 at 8 Hallock Auditorium, AJLC p.m.

Join the Johns family at the 25th annual Vernon Hall Auditorium Johns Celebration Reception and screening of the documentary Reconstructing Oberlin’s Vernon Johns, hosted by the Office of Admissions. Edward T. Lewis will be speaking at 5 p.m., followed by a celebratory dinner at Afrikan Heritage House.

Oberlin College Theater will be performing Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts, a drama centered on the life of Helene Alving and the moral dilemas she faces in her miserable marriage and her relationship with her son. Tickets are $5 for students.

Student Dance Showcase Friday, April 18 and Saturday, April 19 at 8 p.m.

Warner Center, Main Space Come see the Student Dance Showcase, featuring pieces by student dancers and choreographers.

Free and open to the public.

Arb Community Service Saturday, April 19 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Arboretum

Help preserve the natural ecosystem by removin litter and invasive plants.

This Week Editor: Sarah Snider

rb Community Service aturday, April 19 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. rboretum

Thyagaraja at Oberlin: 12 Hours in OSlam! Poetry Showcase South India Tuesday, April 22 at 9 p.m.

Tuesday, April 22 from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Afrikan Heritage House, Lord Lounge elp preserve the natural ecosystem by removing Apollo Theatre Join Oberlin’s Slam Poetry Club for a “magical”

ter and invasive plants.

Head over to the Apollo to celebrate South Indian music, dance and film with various live performances, as well as a screening of Ship of Theseus.

The full schedule can be found on Oberlin’s online calendar. Free and open to the public.

night of student poetry. This event is free.

Want Practicum in Journalism Credit?

Write for this section!

Email managingeditor@oberlinreview.org

Arts The Oberlin Review

Page 10

April 18, 2014

OCircus!’s King Bidgood Delights All Ages Andrea Goltz Whenever the page in the OCircus! production of King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub yelled, “Help! King Bidgood’s in the bathtub and he won’t get out!” audience members in Philips gym last weekend knew they were in for another great, highly entertaining act. The plot of King Bidgood is simple: a childish king has gotten in the bathtub and refuses to get out, prompting the royal page to call for help. Each and every time, a different group heeds the request and attempts to entertain the king out of his extended bath.

While the show was definitely designed to be accessible to the many children in the audience, the lead actors played a huge part in keeping the show interesting and entertaining even for the 12-and-up crowd. College senior Joshua Selesnick shone as King Bidgood. Even when he was not the center of the action, he maintained his cheery attitude, reacting with childlike mirth to every act. Rosycheeked and smiling, he successfully captured the king’s toddler-esque tenacity. The show’s narrator, played by College sophomore Austen Read-McFarland, also contributed to its good-humored nature. In a high wicked-witch-ofthe-west style voice, Read-McFarland delivered almost every line of the show with a charisma that further energized the enthusiastic cast. College junior Sarah Cayer’s turn as the page entrusted with coaxing the king out of his bath was impressive for its perfect mix of guile, frustration and obsequiousness in her movements and reactions. College first-year Roux Nemaei’s role as the Queen, though small, showcased her chemistry with Selesnick and humorous sarcastic faces helped to enhance King Bidgood’s childish believability.

The main attraction of OCircus!’s presentation was, as always, the real circus-style acts that, in this case, came out of the woodwork to mobilize King Bidgood. A jump rope routine directed by Obie Jump organizer Jenny Mentzer was the first diversion, helping to situate the audience in the show’s childish, fairytale world. Furthering the routine’s charm, it was performed by a passel of adorable, surprisingly talented young girls, each of whom wielded her own jump rope in addition to participating in group tricks like double-dutch and one especially memorable triangular formation. While a few girls struggled with the most

difficult tricks, their overall enthusiasm made these few mistakes endearing rather than distracting.

Though the children didn’t return until a brief cameo at the end of the show, the production’s good humor didn’t suffer in their absence. The aerial silks and hoop and the pyramid acrobatics acts both artfully integrated their elegant choreography into the childish storyline. The two aerialists, College seniors Karellyn Holston and Sam Karpinski, exhibited their talents in harmony with the act’s spunky, uplifting music, which prompted them to charmingly playact at the appropriate swells. The aerial act, and the pyramid acro act that followed, both succeeded in fitting their routines into the larger framework of the show — the aerialists were mischievous thieves causing disruption in the castle, while the pyramid acrobats entertained the king as jesters.

The other primarily acrobatic act was incorporated into the show’s plot with similar ease, although its haunting choreography lent a slightly darker tone. The acrobats acted as courtesans at a dance, and though the act did have moments of good humor, it was more serious and elegant than the others. The courtesans’ ball was lovely and stood out pleasingly in the seemingly nonsensical world of King Bidgood.

The acts that best embodied King Bidgood’s essence, though, were parkour and tumbling. The conceit of the parkour act — a jousting match interrupted by a ninja with a double-ended red lightsaber —was just as ridiculous as King Bidgood’s refusal to get out of the tub. The charisma of every one of the performers, from the championship-winning jouster to the two “horses” was remarkable, no matter how small the role. The tumbling routine was likewise delightful. Performers were dressed in swimsuits and the act was pool-themed (to the bathtub-bound king’s delight). Audience participation heightened the act’s tension — performers leaped onto a springboard and were catapulted over the head of the visibly nervous audience member standing in between the board and the mat.

Even though she looked a little scared as the performers leaped over her, the participant still could not stop smiling and laughing, mirroring the reaction of the rest of the appreciative audience.

Suffice it to say that it was very easy to feel like a child

Seniors Karellyn Holston (top) and Sam Karpinski perform an aerial silks act at OCircus!’s show King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub, which took place at Philips gym last Friday and Saturday nights. The show attracted a large crowd of students and Oberlin families.

Sela Miller

again during the performance of King Bidgood. Between musician Delwin Campbell’s sweet, simple score and the ecstatic energy of the performers, one felt immersed in a pool (or, more aptly, a bathtub) of childlike wonder. In fact, it is because of the performance’s simplicity, rather than in spite of it, that King Bidgood was such a success. It was a shame that the page had to pull the plug.

GHOSTS Challenges Contemporary Questions of Morality Michelle Polyak Staff Writer Adultery, euthanasia, syphilis — who could ask for more in a play? The Oberlin College Theater Department’s Main Stage production of Henrik Ibsen’s classic play Ghosts will supply all three this Thursday through Saturday. Under the direction of Professor Matthew

Wright, chair of the Theater department, the production is looking to make a lasting impression with the audience.

Written in 1881, Ghosts is widely recognized as a commentary on 19th-century issues of morality. The play opens with a speech by protagonist Mrs. Alving, played by double-degree junior Katy Early. She is dedicating

Double-degree junior Katy Early and College senior Colin Wulff rehearse their upcoming show, GHOSTS. The production, directed by Professor and Chair of the Theater department, Matthew Wright, will run from April 17–19.

Courtesy of Katy Early

a newly-constructed orphanage to her dead husband, Captain Alving. Mrs. Alving considers Captain Alving a degenerate because of his excessive philandering during their marriage and reveals the truth about the creation of the orphanage to her spiritual advisor Pastor Manders, played by College senior Brian Gale: She built the orphanage to deplete her husband’s wealth. Her son Oswald, played

by College senior Colin Wulff, has recently returned home after traveling Europe for much of his life — mostly due to Mrs. Alving’s desire to keep him away from his father — and is suffering from congenital syphilis. To complicate matters, Oswald soon falls in love with his mother’s maid Regina Engstrand, played by College senior Sarah Rosengarten.

Mrs. Alving struggles throughout the play and is constantly forced to make difficult ethical decisions. She questions the traditional morality surrounding issues of euthanasia, incest and sexually transmitted diseases. According to Wright, the difficult moral issues addressed were the driving force for bringing this play to Oberlin.

Moreover, he chose to stage Ghosts because of its place in the canon of theater history, which still resonates with contemporary issues.

“One of the main reasons for doing a production like this is for the opportunity to investigate Western theater questions set forth by the totally subversive Ibsen,” he said.

Wright also explained that the department aims to make connections between its plays and other arts features at the College. This show runs concurrently with Between Fact and Fantasy: The Artistic Imagination in Print, an exhibit at the Allen Memorial Art Museum that, among other things, features art made in the same era that Ibsen wrote Ghosts. The play and exhibit share the same philosophical notions as well, and Wright took his cast to this exhibit in order to help the group better understand the era. “It showed how gray life was like then, literally and symbolically,” Gale said.

In addition, the actors extensively researched the era and characters they were assigned. “I explored Norway’s history, cultural stigmas at the time regarding bohemian Paris, the symptoms generally associated with advanced syphilis, and lastly, Ibsen’s own remarks on the job of the actor and what he thought to be required of them in order to achieve the realistic quality he strove for in Ghosts and other plays, especially in the second half of his career,” Wulff

said.

The task of representing a period piece accurately and eloquently can be arduous, but the cast and crew are optimistic about their final product. Gale described this production as the best he has been part of during his time at Oberlin, noting the positive rapport among the cast as well as Ibsen’s challenging source material.

Wulff expressed similar sentiments: “[The show] also feels appropriately like a culmination and a final passage. Most of all, it’s reflective of my experience with theater at Oberlin because I find I am still learning useful things at an appreciable rate while enjoying myself immensely.”

Even though the play first premiered 130 years ago, its central issues still hold a great deal of weight today. “[Ghosts] deals with a lot of explicit issues that are still deemed taboo subjects,” said Rosengarten. “It is definitely a critique with various complex issues that makes you think how such a rigid way of thinking complicates everybody’s lives.”

Tickets for the show can be bought at Central Ticket Service.

General admission is $11 for the public, $8 for seniors, alumni and staff, and $5 for students. Tickets will cost $3 more at the door.

Arts

The Oberlin Review, April 18, 2014

Page 11

Body Positive Burlesque Show Stays Tame Mary Fischer On Tuesday, amid controversy over the cancellation of Safer Sex Night, the ’Sco opened its doors for the Sexual Information Center’s second-sexiest campus tradition: the annual Burlesque Show. While the show turned out not to be so explicit after all, it was attended by a diverse crowd whose support and high spirits made an otherwise tame evening successful and, as presumably intended, empowering for the attendees.

To most, “burlesque” refers to a sexy variety show, usually staged in nightclubs and featuring plenty of nakedness. The SIC’s program, however, was intended to play toward the burlesque’s earlier, less extravagant and less sexualized tradition, with a noticeable lack of nudity. This relative modesty complemented the new direction the SIC seems to be pursuing: a more serious, nicely formatted, safe space for discourses around sexuality. Whether this made the event more or less successful is a matter of taste and what expectations one

brought to the show.

After a fun and cheery opening act by OSteel, who defined sexy as taking one piece of clothing off (most of them were initially wearing big sweaters) and dancing a little, the Hotsie Totsies raised the temperature with a well-choreographed 1930s-style vaudeville dance. Any kind of recording or picture-taking device ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

This relative modesty complemented the new direction the SIC seems to be pursuing: a more serious, nicely formatted, safe space for discourses around sexuality.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– was forbidden, ensuring a safe space for a small striptease show, and the crowd was happy to contribute to the comfortable and open atmosphere. The cheering was motivated by excitement and pride,

especially from the female members of the crowd. At a “professional” burlesque show, performers must radiate confidence, and the goal is to be sexy and sensual; for the SIC’s show, what seemed more important was an appreciation of the courage it takes to display one’s own body and own one’s sexuality.

The next two acts, a Primitive Streak improv set and a short burlesque dance, captured this modest theme in a fun, comedic way that definitively served to lighten the atmosphere. The purpose of incorporating not only one, but later a second improv group, Kid Business, into the show, however, was somewhat vague.

While comedy and parody were part of old-fashioned burlesque shows, the improv did not seem to resonate with the sexy but shy theme of the night. That being said, both groups had great performances and were simply overshadowed by those acts that incorporated dance, music and the kind of sexiness the audience was looking for.

Particularly entertaining was the performance of “Rhys and Siena,” who mas-

tered a partner dance with striptease.

Not afraid of physical contact and nearly nude, they twirled and spun around each other confidently. Equally high in energy and admirable in terms of precision in execution was the performance of the Umoja Steppers, Oberlin’s student step team. The team’s confidence, in particular, radiated from every step the dancers took. The second part of the performance featured a very strong feminine drive in the troupe, which was definitively one of the highlights of the night.

The end of the show marked the high point of the night, even though it was not necessarily the most “burlesque” part of the event, and much of the audience had already left. The Fry Boyz Jazz Ensemble was not only easy on the eyes, but also played with such passion that almost no one in the audience could watch without dancing and laughing. At the end of the night, the SIC’s Burlesque may have been light on the “burlesque” and the nudity, but it was rich in fun, confidence and empowerment.

Improv Troupes Find Humor in Low Places Matthew Sprung Staff Writer Sometimes improv comedy gets weird — but even though this weirdness can turn newcomers off to the genre, it’s also the best part of the show. To kick off the two-day Oberlin College Improv Conference last Friday, three professional improvisation teams performed what could be considered “extra” long-form improvisation, staying on stage continuously for fifty-minute sets at a packed Cat in the Cream. The anticipation that usually draws crowds to this annual conference is the name recognition of the headlining act, the hugely popular group Upright Citizens Brigade, but the two other acts of the night also got their share of laughs — and yes, things got very weird.

As the room quieted down, the first of the groups, Austin-based troupe ColdTowne, jogged out to face the eager crowd. ColdTowne asked for a suggestion from the crowd, be it a line of poetry or a single word, or, as one member added, “something meaningful to you.” When the audience suggested a recent breakup, the group casually took turns telling personal stories, the details of which would be used as the loose framework for the rest of their performance. Things soon took a turn for the worse, though — from the first sketch featuring a character named “Big Dave,” the group started to lose momentum. Instead of working off one another, each performer seemed to be vibrating at their own frequency.

Too often, scenes devolved into two performers offstage and two onstage improvising a conversation, in-

cluding a tedious scene of a senator getting a shave in a barbershop. Instead of one of the offstage performers jumping in to keep the scene fresh and surprising, the two onstage were left pushing each other — and the audience — deeper and deeper without any support. The difference between a more experienced improv group and a lesser one is how the group anticipates and diverts the scene’s momentum away from even a single moment of lull, which they do by playing seamlessly off one another to maintain their energy and find harmony ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The difference between a more experienced improv group and a lesser one is how the group anticipates and diverts the scene’s momentum away from even a single moment of lull.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– with the audience. Although ColdTowne did win some big laughs, they didn’t distinguish themselves as a truly top-tier group. The funniest moments were couched in awkward scenes, and the audience laughed more for the punch lines than for any efficiently impulsive construction from the group.

Watching the next group, Baby Wants Candy, immediately after ColdTowne was like watching college basketball follow the high-school varsity team. Based out of Chicago, Baby Wants Candy put a refreshing spin on the

comedy form by turning their entire performance into a “completely improvised musical,” complete with an accompanying piano player and drummer. The musical’s audience-suggested premise — and subsequently the name of the never-before-seen musical — was “The Price of Science.”

Baby Wants Candy found its bearings during the first song, while members showed off their talent at improvisational song. As a soloist repeated the title, the rest of the group danced around in unison singing alternating harmonies and witty one-liners. The effect was that of a Disney song mixed with Avenue Q, made even more impressive because of its improvised quality. In the brief transitional scenes between songs, the group would rapidly reach consensus on the next song while generating a hilarious narrative around science and religion, complete with two separate story arcs.

One of the two storylines, that of a girl who desperately wants to become popular, tracked the girl’s new friend Samantha, who teaches her how to be cool by being “slutty, but not too slutty.” The two narratives built cohesively around one another and resolved over the course of six songs. The final conflict, which ended up as “We gotta find the internet to be cool!” was tied up with the final scene, in which a black Jesus accompanied by seals sang “We Found the Internet.”

After Baby Wants Candy’s strong, if surreal, finish, the evening’s headliners, Upright Citizens Brigade’s tourSee Spontaneity, page 13

Takács Quartet Recovers After Brief Faltering Start Clara Shannon The Takács String Quartet fits right in at Oberlin. The Budapest-founded and Boulder, CO-based ensemble has been acquiring awards — including the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance — since its founding in 1975, and is world-famous for its unique blend of drama, warmth and humor. As such, it’s no surprise that it was welcomed with open arms as part of the Artist Recital Series last Sunday. The quartet performed works by Shostakovich, Webern and Beethoven in an intense and satisfying program that overcame its early missteps for an uplifting conclusion.

Although the quartet takes

its name from original first violinist Gábor Takács-Nagy, the only founding members that remain in the ensemble are cellist András Fejér and second violinist Károly Schranz; the other two current members, first violinist Edward Dusinberre and violist Geraldine Walther, have joined the ensemble since 1993. The quartet has been the recipient of several prestigious awards, including two Gramophone Awards and the 2011 Award For Chamber Music and Song presented by the Royal Philharmonic Society in London. The Takács Quartet was also the first string quartet to be inducted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame, alongside such classical music icons as Leonard Bernstein and

violinist Jascha Heifetz.

Sunday afternoon’s recital in Finney Chapel began with Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 68. Surprisingly, the quartet’s approach to the piece felt almost too timid at times, as if the chapel’s size overwhelmed the ensemble’s interpretation of the soft melody. Still, the performance was refined and emotionally complex, with an appealing eerie and mysterious feel.

Dusinberre prefaced the second piece, Webern’s Six Bagatelles for String Quartet, Op.9, with a small speech explaining the difficulty of the preparation that went into rehearsals of the piece. The piece itself was very short — under five minutes — and so complex that an

uninformed or inexperienced listener would have trouble understanding its lack of tonality and seemingly arbitrary rhythmic motives. The performance was also marred when audience members left the hall at inappropriate times, creating a distracting stir. Fortunately, the next piece, Five Movements for String Quartet, Op. 5, also by Webern, was, despite its similar level of complexity, markedly more successful in engaging the audience.

The early lull in the performance was fortunately only a temporary slump, though, as the quartet proved with its performance of Beethoven’s String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132.

The piece propelled the listener

through a series of intense emotions, communicated expertly by the experienced quartet. The players seemed extremely connected to one another and to the music, making it easy to lose oneself in its lush harmonies.

While the third movement was uncharacteristically long for a string quartet, its simple beauty was captivating.

Although the concert was uneven, the quartet eventually hit its stride, and the program was executed with precision and passion. It wasn’t the best performance Oberlin has seen this year, but when the quartet allowed itself to play with strength and conviction, the effect was impressive, and a fitting end to an impressive season.

Arts

Page 12

The Oberlin Review, April 18, 2014

Death and the Maiden Examines Insanity, Gender Roles Paris Gravley Staff Writer The theory of Chekhov’s gun states that in storytelling, a loaded gun should not be mentioned if it never goes off. This dramatic principle emphasizes the importance of details and their resolution — why have the gun in the first place if it’s never going to be shot? In Death and the Maiden, a play that ran at the Little Theater from April 10-13, there is a loaded gun that never goes off, both literally and metaphorically: a trial that does not get a conviction. The result was a tension-rife, suspenseful experience that left audience members poignantly unsettled.

Death and the Maiden, directed by College senior Sophie Weisskoff, keeps the audience guessing about the reliability of its characters. For most of the play, Paulina Salas, played

by College junior Erin Amlicke, seems to be mentally unstable.

In her first scene, she pulls a gun from a bureau as approaching headlights illuminate her shaking hands. When her husband, civil rights lawyer Gerardo Escobar, played by College senior Anthony Watkins, enters and assures her nothing is wrong, Paulina’s trustworthiness is immediately called into question.

Further doubt is cast on Paulina’s reliability when Dr. Roberto Miranda, played by College senior Alexander Bianchi, enters the play. He picks up Gerardo when Gerardo’s car breaks down in the first scene — and Dr. Roberto’s car is the same one whose headlights frightened

Paulina. Paulina eavesdrops on Roberto and Gerardo’s genial conversation, and to Paulina’s horror, Gerardo asks Roberto to spend the night, given the late hour. Paulina then creeps into Roberto’s room, knocks him out, binds him to a chair and gags him. Paulina’s motivation for her violent actions is still obscured, and any doubts of her insanity are eliminated. She must be crazy.

Quickly, though, as Roberto begins to seem questionable, Paulina’s actions seem more and more justified. According to Paulina, Dr. Roberto was among the men who blindfolded, tortured and raped her under the country’s previous regime, which explains her violent actions toward him. Nonetheless, her evidence is insufficient for Gerardo. She recognizes Dr. Roberto, not by sight, but by the sound of his voice and the smell of his skin. Gerardo, and the viewing audience, are then placed in the jury’s position. Is Dr. Roberto really as innocent as he claims? Or are Paulina’s accusations true?

The brilliant thing about Death and the Maiden is that the metaphorical gun is never fired; they never resolve the main conflict. In the final scene, Paulina, Gerardo and Dr. Roberto are sitting at a Schubert concert as the piece Death and the Maiden edges towards its climax. As the lights fade and the music builds, Dr. Roberto stares unwaveringly at Paulina, the graphic description of his supposed crimes still lingering in the air. Did he do it?

The audience will never know,

just as Paulina will never get peace for the horrendous abuse she endured.

It’s a complicated, dark and brilliant play, and much of it relies on the actors alternately persuading the audience of their guilt, innocence, trustworthiness and dishonesty. The way Watkins touched Amlicke, the way Amlicke shook when she held the gun, the way the two danced around each other in a tense game of lies and truth made for an immersive and intense experience. Even Bianchi, who spent much of the play sitting in a chair, was both terribly creepy and tragically innocent.

It was a meticulously directed and well-acted rendition of an ambitious play.

Perhaps what was most exciting, as evoked by the play’s well-executed production, was the idea of female trustworthiness and the slippery slope women can be subjected to with the use of the adjective “crazy.”

At the play’s beginning, Paulina seems completely irrational, in need of medication and some serious handholding by her husband. The audience is inclined to write her off as the needy wife whose dark history interferes with her husband’s political ambitions. When she is hostile toward Dr. Roberto, a likeable doctor introduced as Gerardo’s car-trouble savior, she is further forced into the “crazy lady” box so often associated with emotional women.

Because she is trapped by this “irrational woman” perception, Gerardo — and the audience — are disinclined to believe her.

Though she affirms the truth of her story over and over again, to the point of begging Gerardo to –––––––––––––––––––––––––––

It’s a complicated, dark and brilliant play, and much of it relies on the actors alternately persuading the audience of their guilt, innocence, trustworthiness and dishonesty.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––– believe her, it just isn’t enough.

And so she is pushed to the wayside, her voice silenced.

When she places a gun to Dr. Roberto’s head and threatens to shoot him unless he confesses, the men in the play start to take her a little more seriously. But even then, they decide they are

going to placate her, and Gerardo and Roberto work together as the opposing team. Gerardo ends up telling Roberto exactly what he needs to confess in order to make her happy, and Roberto happily complies. Paulina is dissatisfied, despite getting the confession she wants.

This feeling of desertion and frustration was one that many audience members could relate to. Despite Paulina’s “craziness” and the audience’s inclination to discredit her, there is also a subtle sense of closeness between the viewer and Paulina.

You want to believe her. You want her to be right. Combined with the unresolved ending, this empathy leaves the audience as dissatisfied with the outcome as Paulina is. But this ambiguity is necessary. Like the play’s ending, truth and morality in the real world can be just as ambiguous.

College junior Erin Amlicke played Paulina Salas, the troubled female protagonist in Death and the Maiden. The show ran in the Little Theater from April 10–13 and explored issues of truth and morality.

Courtesy of Erin Amlicke

On the Record with Co-Chairs of Annual Dandelion Romp Contradance Festival Could you give a little more explanation of what contra dancing is?

DS: It’s not super easy to explain, but the closest thing to it is line dancing.

HL: The way I explain it is: Imagine what someone would have made you do in a middle school gym where you have to get in a line and have a partner, and you think the boys have cooties. It’s kind of upsetting. Then imagine it now, with people you really enjoy being around. The whole point is to be dancing with someone and having fun without being intimidated, and that’s not upsetting at all.

DS: Yeah, there’s a lot of emphasis on community involvement and dancing as a whole. You dance with everyone in the room. It’s not like blues, where you have only one partner.

HL: You’re dancing for yourself and your community.

College seniors Jeremy Rubinstein and Hayley Larson and junior Donal Sheets joined forces this semester to organize Dandelion Romp, which took place last weekend. The Review sat down with them this week to discuss Dandelion Romp’s history, the contra community and the event’s highlights.

So what exactly is Dandelion Romp?

Jeremy Rubinstein: It’s a three-day-long festival of primarily contra dancing, but [it] also includes other forms of folk dance and folk music. Sometimes there is music without dancing.

Hayley Larson: There are also workshops for musicians and a lot of other events.

JR: But really the main feature of the event is these big contra dances in the evenings on Friday and Saturday and then the farewell dance on Sunday.

Donal Sheets: There are usually about 300 people at those dances.

What do you know about the history of contra dancing and Dandelion Romp?

JR: Contra is a traditional dance that is associated with New England but is also popular all throughout the United States. It was developed out of English country dancing, kind of like what you see in Jane Austen movies and dates back to around Shakespeare’s time. The word ‘contra’ actually comes from a French corruption of the word ‘country.’ It came back into fashion in the late 20th century.

DS: And this is [Dandelion Romp’s] 15th year.

JR: I think it was started off here with faculty members playing a much more prominent role, then gradually it became delegated to more students. The format of a three-day weekend is really common in the contra dance community.

HL: But it’s also pretty unique that we had the opportunity to run the event. Most festivals aren’t led by students. Usually, you have to be older and better connected in the contra dance community.

Tell me a little bit more about this contra dance community.

DS: There’s probably at least one festival in the U.S. going on

somewhere every weekend. For example, there were three last weekend. [Dandelion Romp] had a fair amount of students, but it is probably more than half people not from Oberlin and from all over the place. There was a large group that came up from North Carolina and also from Chicago.

HL: You very commonly get people traveling a long distance for a specific caller or band.

JR: I talked to someone during the weekend that said that eventually you get to a point where you can go to any contra dance in the country and know people there. I think that reflects the flow of people — how far people will travel just because they are really into contra dancing.

DS: I travel a lot with my band, and it’s very rare that I don’t see someone I know from the contra community.

What were some highlights from last weekend?

HL: I really liked the ‘silly contras.’ One of the callers is known for adding things to make things more fun. She would call out a traditional move and then say something like ‘now come up the hall like a zombie.’ This is very unique to her, but it definitely gives a playful tone to the dance when she does that.

JR: I didn’t get to go to as many workshops this year as a cochair. There was an interesting workshop on flatfoot dancing and another one called ‘body music,’ which is a type of percussion using different parts of your body. For me the most memorable aspect was the feeling of success when I realized how many people were there and how much they were enjoying themselves. This has been my favorite event for the last three years, and suddenly I was an organizer, and still everything worked out.

DS: It’s a pretty cool feeling watching 300 or 350 people all dancing together with huge smiles on their faces.

JR: Another highlight is seeing the intergenerational aspect of it. One of the performers brought his six-year-old, and one of the professors brought his mother. She is in her 80s and is deaf, but she reads lips and is a great dancer.

Interview by Phoebe Hammer, Arts editor Photo by Effie Kline-Salamon

The Oberlin Review, April 18, 2014

OSTA’s Shakespeare Production Confronts Rape Culture

Arts

Page 13

Feature Photo: Colors of Rhythm

Annelise Giseburt Production Editor William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure: In fair Vienna do we lay our scene, where, due to the negligence of the city’s Duke (played by College junior Luke Taylor), debauchery and venereal disease have run rampant for the past 20 years. The Duke decides the time has come to make his city right again, and so he puts his deputy Angelo (College sophomore Peter Elgee) in charge while the Duke disguises himself as a friar and tries to solve Vienna’s problems from the ground up — or is he just messing around? Angelo implements the strict laws that have fallen by the wayside during the Duke’s reign: Brothels are pulled down, and anyone caught having sex out of wedlock will be put to death. One such offender is Claudio (College junior Mike Sederquist), and it falls to his sister Isabella (College junior Sophie Zucker) to plead with Angelo for Claudio’s life. Despite the fact that Isabella was about to take her vows to become a nun at the beginning of the play, first Angelo and later the Duke himself make sexual advances toward her without taking into account anything she says. Basically, it’s complicated.

The Oberlin Student Theater Association sets out to tackle this thorny plot in its production running Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in Wilder Main.

Director and College sophomore Anna Gelman has wanted to stage a production of Shakespeare’s convoluted comedy for years. “When I was 17, I studied in Russia for three months, and my dad was there with me for the first few weeks, and the last thing that my dad and I did together was … go see a production of Measure for Measure,” Gelman said. “So besides the synopsis that my father gave me, I could have been extremely lost, but instead I had a ridiculously powerful emotional reaction to it. I’ve kind of been obsessed with it … and planning my own personal production since I was 17.”

Gelman’s production transplants the story from Vienna to a mishmashed America that culturally spans from the ’50s to the ’70s. “The clothing ... goes through a couple of decades, actually, stylistically, which each [is a] response to where each character fits within a timeline of American history and social constructs,” said College sophomore Sonya Berg, Measure for Measure’s costume designer. Music also helps set the tone of the play — Gelman described the soundtrack as a Beach Boys Pandora station. However, there is one notable exception to the oldies: Robin Thicke’s controversial “Blurred Lines” chillingly plays at the close of the first act.

Judging from Measure’s dress rehearsals, the issues addressed in the play remain poignant 400 years after it was originally written. The term “rape culture” may not have been coined until relatively recently, but the idea behind it is central to Measure for Measure.

Taylor, who plays the Duke, expounded on some of the play’s central problems.

“Something that Anna’s really stressed that I’ve really enjoyed a lot is the nature of power, and [how] those with power … use it,” he said. “I think the Duke on the surface thinks he’s benevolent, but really he’s not, and he’s never been told ‘no’ before in his whole life. These women … have power, but it’s as a sexual object. And then, as soon as the Duke wants to take that away from [Isabella], there’s no question [that he can].”

Although Measure for Measure could be classified as a comedy — there are marriages at the end — the play’s final moments, when Isabella finally has her voice and agency totally stripped from her, are when the play is at its most problematic and disturbing. “I think the only thing I want to say about it is: I made a strong decision about the end of this play,” Gelman said. “I think [Isabella] not saying anything, slash not being allowed to say anything, says it all. That being said, the end of our show’s the scariest thing I’ve ever come up with in my life. ... Every single time we’ve rehearsed it, we’ve been like, ‘Are we safe? Is everyone safe? Is Sophie safe?’ It’s pretty intense,” Gelman said.

Considering the dedication of the cast and crew, the production promises to be as intense as the rehearsals. Tickets are available for $3 at Wilder Desk in advance and $5 at the door.

Upright Citizen’s Brigade Dazzles at Cat in the Cream Continued from page 11 ing company, came out with palpable confidence to huge applause. While their demeanor at first came across as smug — they began their act with brief reviews of the preceding two acts, as if they needed to assert their authority — they instantly erased any bitter taste with sweet execution. Proving they had done their homework, the members kept the audience engaged by asking the audience about campus happenings like the cancellation of Safer Sex Night and porn star Ron Jeremy’s visit.

UCB’s best moment came from their crafted scene of a pair of conservative parents turning their child into a cybernetic Charles Barkley, as the mother flipped between personalities of herself and a demonic internal twin named Mary who got stuck inside her at birth. The group ran with this narrative for the better part of their time onstage, leaving the crowd with more than enough humor to remember. It was wacky, yes, but it also had that intoxicating mix of creativity, fun and spontaneity that only improv can capture completely. Even the worst act of the night wasn’t all that bad, and all three had the audience cracking up. Besides, how often does one get to laugh at a cybernetic Charles Barkley?

College senior Joelle Lingat captures the audience’s attention at the 18th annual Colors of Rhythm showcase. The event featured dancing, music and spoken word performances with an overarching goal of empowering marginalized groups to develop and articulate their voices.

Kaia Austin

Page 14

IN THE LOCKER ROOM

Sports

The Oberlin Review, April 18, 2014

Women’s Track and Field

This week the Review sat down with women’s track and field seniors Sophia Brancazio, Lauren Taylor and Molly Martorella to discuss Nationals, setting conference records and injuries.

How is the season going so far?

Sophia Brancazio: The team’s been great, especially with a lot of new people.

Molly Martorella: The boys’ distance team is fucking killing it.

SB: And the sprinters too. This year we actually have a really good 4x400 [meter relay] and 4x100 [meter relay] team, which has not happened in, like, four years.

Lauren Taylor: I think on the women’s side, we had a lot of injuries, and a lot of people graduated last year that were really strong sprinters. A lot of upperclassmen have been injured, which is just really unfortunate.

Lauren and Molly, you recently ran times in the 10K that rank within the top seven in the nation; how did that feel?

LT: Last year was the first year we went to Bucknell University [Bison Outdoor Classic], which is the race that we ran the 10K in, and it was just a really fun experience.

You run at night and it’s under the lights; it’s a great opportunity to run well, and I think we all just took advantage of it. Sarah Jane [Kerwin] is the other one who is right up there with us, which is really awesome.

MM: This could be the most people that qualify for Nationals in outdoor track.

The team has set a lot of NCAC records this year; do you expect the trend to continue?

SB: Tiffany [Henry] has not really competed in outdoor yet, because she has been busy with a lot of other commitments, but once she gets back into it she’s going to

Sophia Brancazio (left), Molly Martorella and Lauren Taylor do well. In indoor conference she broke the record like five times.

LT: Throwers are just so impressive, especially in their consistency.

It’s really neat to watch them train, because they all have individual times where they meet with the coach, and I think that their mindset is just awesome.

SB: And even those people that aren’t breaking a lot of records, they are still constantly improving by a lot — by several feet a week.

What is your favorite event to compete in?

SB: The 200 [meter dash]. I love the 200.

LT: The 10K is the best. When you have a good 10K you just feel the most happy you have ever felt.

MM: I like the 5K personally. If you go out hard, you can survive the middle.

SB: I like the 200 because it’s not like the 100 [meter dash], where if you have a really bad start it ruins your whole race. It lets you get up to your top speed without getting extremely tired, and you come around the curve and feel so fast.

You have all dealt with season-ending injuries in your Oberlin career. How have you rebounded from them?

SB: Usually I get injured near the end of the season, so I just have to power through it, but this year I got hurt in the fall, and then Winter Term, and then spring break.

MM: I think a lot of it is [that] our team is so good about reaching out, and so even if you are missing a lot of time at practice or runs, they are really good about being supportive. The team has helped me stick through it.

LT: When you’re injured during cross country you have a lot riding on the season, so you need to focus on the end goal, not the dayto-day. The team talks about larger goals, and you’re not so focused on running this weekend, but running in two months, which really helps.

I think the coaches, especially [Assistant Coach] Dani [Hunt], have been really focused on injuries and have worked with us to make sure we have the seasons we want to have. There is a really fine line between training as hard as you can and getting injured.

What has been the highlight of your track and field career at Oberlin?

SB: For me it was the North Central [Gregory Invitational] meet last year. On the sprints end, we don’t really get people to these big meets and to Nationals, so for me it was my first really big meet.

Everything before the race that could go wrong did go wrong, but we still ran a really amazing race.

That was my most successful race.

LT: I would say Bucknell last year. It was my first 10K I had ever raced, along with Sarah Jane and Kyle [Neal]. It was the first opportunity where we ran, and we ran a minute faster than our projected time. It was the first time a lot of us realized we could be really good at the 10K. It was one of the moments where when you finish the race, it felt like you could run another 10K immediately because it was just so fun.

MM: I think that my sophomore year conference performances were good. I took on a lot and I competed really well on those days, both indoor and outdoor.

What do you do to prepare for a race?

SB: I have a routine, and if the routine gets messed up, then all hell breaks loose. I get extremely quiet and if anybody talks to me, I give them the death stare.

MM: Over the years, I have gotten less specific about what my regimen is. Typically, the night before, I will roll and stretch and not eat anything too risky. On the morning of race day, I really like to do a shake-out earlier on in the day.

LT: Senior year of high school, I had a very specific routine that I followed, and I would get so mad if it got disturbed. But being in college made my routine difficult to follow.

The only thing I do now is paying attention closely to what I eat. I think shake-outs are really great before longer races, which is just two miles that you do the morning before a big race.

I also have very specific socks that I wear. I have two pairs that are my racing socks.

What are your personal goals for the rest of the season?

SB: To run again. That sounds really sad, but it would be really nice if I could get to like 80 percent of where I was last year. It would make a huge difference for our 4x100 team. I want to be back by conference.

LT: I think I am just really looking forward to being able to get the chance to run a fast 5K. It’s really nice to have the buffer of being qualified for Nationals and not having to worry about qualifying the week before, like we did last year. It will be really great to have our conference meet at Oberlin.

MM: This year it has been hard for me to generate concrete goals, but my goal this year is to just be racing and enjoy it. I think I am still going to run fast, but don’t know what that is going to look like by the end of the year.

Interview by Sarah Orbuch, Sports editor Photo by Zach Harvey

— Women’s Lacrosse —

Second Half Struggles Doom Yeowomen Against Allegheny Sarena Malsin The women’s lacrosse team has played well recently, winning two of its last three games to push its record to 7–3. The Yeowomen defeated the Ohio Wesleyan University Battling Bishops 10–9 on April 9 and trounced the Washington & Jefferson College Presidents by a score of 18–3 on Saturday afternoon. On Thursday night, the team’s winning streak ended as they fell to 15–9 to the Allegheny College Gators.

The Yeowomen’s win against the Presidents came with ease; Head Coach Lynda McCandlish referred to it as “not a challenge — a stress-free game.” Ten different Yeowomen scored to secure the victory.

“This shows how much depth we have and the wide range of skills the whole team possesses,” said first-year goalkeeper Alexa L’Insalata.

Senior defender, co-captain and Review Sports Editor Sarah Orbuch and sophomore defender Emily Kipling each got their time in the limelight, scoring their first and second goals of the season respectively. Sophomore midfielder Grace

Barlow racked up four goals to add to her team-leading season total of 35.

The Yeowomen dominated on Washington & Jefferson’s turf, leading 27–8 in total shots, 21–9 in ground balls, and 14–9 in draw controls. Barlow and first-year attacker Marissa Maxfield led the team in draw controls with three apiece.

Barlow highlighted the attack’s success as critical to the team dynamic.

“We had a very balanced attack, which is important because our attack is very young. The more confidence we have, the better we can play as a team.”

The Yeowomen’s win over the Bishops wasn’t as easily achieved. The team broke ahead in the first half after trading goals with the Bishops when senior Sarah Andrews, sophomore Suzanna Doak, firstyear Sara Phister and Barlow scored consecutive goals to give the team a five-goal lead.

Although the Yeowomen were ahead 8–5 at the half, the Bishops came back with the first two goals of the second half to keep the game a nail-biter to the end.

This win was the product of strong perseverance by the Yeowomen.

“We were consistent in the first and second halves. They came back, but we were able to hang on to the ball and keep possession,” Barlow said.

“The defense did great anticipating [the Bishops’] attack,” McCandlish said.

“They caused turnovers that gave the offense some great opportunities.”

McCandlish cited several defenders as standouts, specifically Orbuch, Kipling and first-year Courtney Bolden, along with another strong performance by L’Insalata, who leads the North Coast Athletic Conference in save percentage and made 10 saves against the Bishops.

From the goal line, L’Insalata thought the team’s positioning looked good the entire week.

“In both games, we improved spreading out and getting back on transition. It’s evident we took what we learned in practice and applied it.”

Even though the game against OWU was more challenging, Barlow noted the importance of the team’s mental composure when playing the Presidents.

“It’s important that we maintain mental focus — playing our game and our

defense. The past few games have been good practice for us to maintain intensity despite what the scoreboard shows,” she said.

L’Insalata echoed the importance of maintaining composure.

“We’ve already passed the benchmark of winning games from last year, and now it’s about proving our skill to the other teams and getting focused,” she said.

Against the Gators, the Yeowomen stormed back from a 6–1 deficit and trailed by just one late in the first half. Ultimately, however, their efforts fell short after the team failed to continue its strong play in the second half.

Though the final score may not have reflected it, the team felt it was just a few plays away from making the game a closer one.

“If some shots would have gone our way, the score would have been different,” McCandlish said.

The Yeowomen will travel to Hiram College to take on the Terriers this Saturday before returning home for their final week of play, beginning with a 7 p.m. game against Wittenberg University on April 23.

Sports

The Oberlin Review, April 18, 2014

Page 15

— Women’s Rugby —

Rhinos Hone Skills During Relaxed Spring Season Grace Barlow The women and trans*-inclusive rugby team is gearing up for the stretch run of its spring season. While the Rhinos’ official season is in the fall, the team continues playing friendly matches in the spring.

The Rhinos are coming off an up-anddown fall season, in which they went 2–2.

This semester, the team competed in a tournament at Hiram College on Saturday, Feb. 22, as well as a friendly match against the Kent State University rugby club. The February tournament resulted in two wins and one loss for the Rhinos, good enough to place them third out of six competing teams.

Sophomore scrum-captain Kaïa Austin said she was thrilled with the performance.

“Every person in the line scored, which was great for the team,” she said.

Last weekend, the Rhinos took on Kent State University, which resulted in a 59–0 loss for the team. Despite what the scoreboard showed, the team was pleased with its performance against a team that consistently competes in the national tournament.

“We don’t feel too bad, despite the huge disparity,” Austin said. “We made them work for it and played really well.”

As the team gears up for the last leg of its spring season, it hopes that what it learns now will carry over into future years.

“Retention is key,” Austin said. “We’ve had pretty high turnover, which is great for team numbers, but not all of the players have playing experience.”

First-year Beth Minahan echoed this sentiment. “It’s hard to come in not knowing a lot about rugby, which can be discouraging, and retention would be key to fixing that,” she said.

Without a coach, improving can be difficult, but sophomore Ellie Flessner is optimistic about the team’s ability to secure one.

“We’re looking for options,” Flessner said.

“There is a possibility of a coach from a men’s club in Cleveland, which would be great for the team.”

In addition, the Rhinos are looking to increase their members’ commitment athletically. “I’d like to see the team united through athletics, as well as the social aspects,” Minahan said.

The social aspects of the team, such as the inclusion of trans* people, have been key to the club for several years, and serve as a uniting factor for all players. The Rhinos have historically led the way for trans* inclusion with regard to Oberlin sports and require a trans* allyship workshop for all players on the team.

“We really strive to make everyone feel comfortable on the team, regardless of their gender identity,” Austin said.

First-year Beth Minahan runs through a tackle in a tournament at Hiram College. The Rhinos will face Tiffin University in the Bishop Bowl on April 26.

Anne Chege

“The role of safety coordinators — players that anyone on the team can reach out to if they feel unsafe in any way — on the team is really important,” Flessner said.

“We hope that anyone who doesn’t identify on the gender binary feels comfortable.”

The team will wrap up its spring season in the coming weekends as it travels to face Tiffin University in the Bishop Bowl on April 26. The Rhinos will then finish with a home game against the University of Akron on May 3.

— Men’s Tennis —

Yeomen Bested by Nationally Ranked Kenyon Lords Suzanna Doak Last Monday, the Yeomen battled the Kenyon College Lords at home. Though both teams fought hard, in the end the Lords bested the Yeomen 9–0.

In doubles play, first-year Ian Paik and junior Soren Zeliger fought for the top seat, but fell just short, losing 6–8.

Heading into the meet, the Yeomen knew they would have their hands full with a talented Kenyon team.

“The biggest challenge going into it was probably their name and history as a program, leading us to give them more respect than we should have,” Paik said. “They’re a top 15 team in the nation that has some of the best players headlining their lineup and very little drop from their 1 to 6.”

In the No. 2 match, sophomore Callan Louis and first-year Abraham Davis were beaten by the Lords 4–8. The Yeomen also fell in the No. 3 match, as the Lords’ Andrew Herring and Robert Turlington defeated senior Charlie Marks and first-year Jeremy Lichtmacher. The two were just barely outdone in a close 6–8 match.

In singles, Paik played well and fell just short to Kenyon’s Wade Heerboth. Paik had a strong showing in the first set, though he ultimately fell 6–7. Heerboth then defeated Paik more soundly in the second set, winning 2–6.

In the second seed, Louis went up against sophomore Sam Geier before eventually dropping his set 1–6.

The Yeomen dropped the remaining matches as well, but the team still feels as if it learned from the loss, and it is approaching future games with a more mature approach.

“I think the bigger changes our team has made are [in] our attitude and demeanor on court and the willingness to stay in points longer and grind out longer points and matches,” Paik said. “A lot of these changes are due to our new focuses in practice as well as having almost a full season under our belts, especially for us first-years that make up more than half the team.”

Marks agreed. “We are learning that we compete at the same level as the highest teams; the next step is believing that we can beat them as well. Allegheny will be another tough team, and our goal is to win,” he said. “After competing with many of the top teams in the country this season, we know what we are capable of, and now with the season coming to a close it’ll be fun to see where that takes us.”

The Yeomen record sits at 11–11; they will play their last conference match at Allegheny on Saturday at 4 p.m.

Editorial: Drafting a Quarterback Early Can Be Risky Continued from page 16 also looks especially egregious, as he has become the top defensive player in the game, plays for the division rival Houston Texans and has tormented both QBs for the past three seasons.

If a team considers one of this year’s top quarterbacks to be an elite, can’tmiss prospect, then it should absolutely pull the trigger early in the draft, but I find it hard to believe that any team will rate one of the top three QBs higher than one of the top five position players.

Four out of the top five picks in the draft will be made by teams in need of a quarterback, but that doesn’t mean they should all select one. A case could be made that the Texans and Browns are a solid QB away from making the playoffs, but the Raiders and Jaguars clearly are not.

As much as taking a great QB in the draft can help a team, taking a bad one can destroy a franchise. If you take a quarterback early on, you’ve got to give that player at least two or three years to develop. If that development doesn’t go as planned, coaches and general managers end up losing their jobs.

It still seems likely that some team will take a quarterback in the top five.

Chances are that at least one out of Maziel, Bridgewater and Bortles will become a solid NFL QB and lead his team to the playoffs. No matter how good Watkins is in his first NFL season, it’s highly unlikely he’ll single handedly turn his team’s fortune around as we’ve seen QBs like Luck do in the past. But Luck was a once-in-a-generation type prospect, and his first season should be looked at as the exception, not the norm.

Obviously I don’t have the resources that NFL teams do to make the informed decisions they do, but if I were picking at the top of this year’s draft, there’s no way I could pass on one of the elite non-quarterbacks. Sometimes taking risks is necessary to reap the rewards, but passing on one of the position players and taking a quarterback is an unnecessary risk.

Sports The Oberlin Review

Page 16

April 18, 2014

——Women’s Men’s Lacrosse Lacrosse——

Yeomen Trounce Tigers on Senior Day QB or Not QB

Nate Levinson Sports Editor

ing that a strong end of this season can carry over to next year.

“We want to end the season with a win and let that set the tone for next season,” Jackson said.

Basile noted that winning the team’s final game would give the Yeomen back-to-back winning seasons.

The Yeomen are also viewing this final game as an opportunity to set up a strong foundation for

the offseason and next season.

“We’re losing a lot of seniors this spring and I’m hoping these last two games will be a chance for our younger players to mature and gain some confidence heading into offseason workouts,” Basile said.

The final game of the Yeomen’s season will take place at The College of Wooster this Saturday at 7 p.m.

— Softball —

Oberlin Spoils DePauw’s 8–0 Conference Record Michaela Puterbaugh After losing 12 of its previous 13 games, the softball team beat the DePauw University Tigers twice last Saturday on its home field. The Yeowomen won 5–2 in walk-off fashion in the first game, and seized a 6–3 win in the second game.

The pair of victories put an end to the team’s slump and spoiled the Tigers’ formerly perfect North Coast Athletic Conference record.

The Yeowomen’s record now sits at 6–16 overall and 3–7 in the NCAC.

“Beating DePauw did not look that different than how we have been playing all year long; it just finally went our way,” said Head Coach Mimi Mahon.

In the first game, junior Katie Pieplow smacked a three-run walkoff home run in the bottom of the seventh inning to win the game for the Yeowomen. The homer was her second of the season and added to her team-leading RBI total of 24.

“Our strongest point is that we are fighters. We come out hard, we score first and we put the pressure

112 pitches for strikes, while going two-for-four with a double at the plate. King also pitched the last two innings of the second game, getting the final five outs to earn the win. “[King] is someone that just gets a lot of ground balls, which in softball is great, and if you can get that, then we can make the plays.

She has pitched well all year long and has been very consistent,” said Coach Mahon.

During the second game, sophomores Caroline Hamilton and Jenny Hill each contributed to the score, with a run scored and an RBI, respectively. Junior Jenny Goldsmith had two RBIs, and firstyear Sami Mericle scored both a run and an RBI to give the team just enough to edge out the Tigers.

Next up for the Yeowomen is a doubleheader against the Wittenberg University Tigers in Springfield, Ohio.

“I think we should just continue to ride this high that we have and be confident in what we’re doing.

If we continue to stick to our game plan and be aggressive, then we’re going to beat them too,” said Coach Mahon.

The Yeowomen return home April 19 for a double-header against the Hiram College Terriers.

See Editorial, page 15

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Junior Katie Pieplow eyes a pitch during a home double-header against the DePauw University Tigers. Pieplow leads the Yeowomen with a .321 average and 24 RBIs. Allison Gannon

on throughout the whole game.

With that being said, we are not always consistent when we come out to the field, but we have become so much better about that,” Pieplow said.

Practices leading up to the double-header were devoted to focusing on game scenarios, such as learning how to score with a runner on second or limiting the number of errors to maintain the lead.

“We have talked a lot about having confidence and knowing how to close the door, because we have had a ton of leads in games where we have made some mistakes or errors and the [other team] come[s] back from that,” said Coach Mahon.

Senior pitcher Emily King also talked about the importance of a pregame strategy.

“Well we’ve always worked on run-downs,” she said. “We have a drill that we do for them all the time, and it really paid off against DePauw. We had some major outs come from getting DePauw players out in run-downs, so that was really great to see all of our work paying off.”

It was clear that King’s hard work in practice carried over to Saturday, as she threw a complete game in the first half of the double-header, throwing 81 of her

t this new t pu sp a no

year Eric Hager each had a hat trick. Sophomore Matthew Fox and junior Sean Seaman each added two goals. Little, first-year Kinori Rosnow, sophomore Chris Husted, and senior Matt Rogers added one apiece. The Yeomen outshot the Terriers 70–11 and won the groundball battle 56–20.

With only one game remaining, the Yeomen are hoping to finish the season on a high note, know-

o

Men’s lacrosse seniors Paul Paschke, Connor Jackson, Mickey Fiorillo, Noel Myers, Kirby Livingston and Matthew Rogers pose for a picture. The team won its Senior Day game 17–4 over the DePauw University Tigers.

Erik Andrews

The quarterback position is the most important in all of sports. A great quarterback has the ability to take an otherwise mediocre team and transform it into something great, a feat not so easily managed by any other position, regardless of the sport.

But getting a great quarterback isn’t easy, and getting one of the elite ones almost always requires drafting them early in the first round. There are players like Russell Wilson, Tom Brady and Drew Brees who have overcome the odds to become great quarterbacks after falling out of the first round, but this is hardly the norm.

The 2014 NFL draft provides a supremely interesting case study, since the draft boasts five elite prospects, none of whom are quarterbacks. Two are edge rushers (Jadeveon Clowney and Khalil Mack), two are offensive tackles (Jake Matthews and Greg Robinson) and one is a wide receiver (Sammy Watkins), all of which are important positions, but not on the same level as quarterback.

Can’t-miss prospects like Andrew Luck and Peyton Manning were no-brainers as top picks, but the same can’t be said for this year’s crop of quarterbacks, Teddy Bridgewater, Johnny Manziel and Blake Bortles.

Teams looking for reasons to take position players over QBs early on need look no further than the 2011 draft.

That year, Jake Locker went eighth to the Titans, while Blaine Gabbert went 10th to the Jaguars, ahead of future Pro Bowlers J.J. Watt, Robert Quinn, Mike Pouncey and Ryan Kerrigan. Locker and Gabbert, meanwhile, have been both ineffective and unable to stay healthy — reasons their teams are once again picking in the top 10 of the draft. Passing on Watt now

ead! Please d

After three consecutive losses dropped its record below .500, the men’s lacrosse team defeated the DePauw University Tigers on Saturday and the Hiram College Terriers on Wednesday to push its record to 7–6.

On the heels of a 9–13 loss to Wittenberg University the previous week, the Yeomen faced the Tigers hoping to rebound.

Ultimately, they were successful and came away with a 17–4 victory.

“DePauw was a great win for us,” said sophomore defender Matthew Basile. “It’s always fun to beat up on a conference opponent.”

Head Coach Topher Grossman was also pleased with the team’s performance and final victory. “I’m really happy that everyone was able to contribute to the win against DePauw,” he said.

Nine different Yeomen scored against DePauw.

Senior Connor Jackson led the team with six goals, and sophomore Alex Wagman had an impressive four goals.

Seniors Paul Paschke, Mickey Fiorillo and Kirby Livingston each contributed one goal to the score. Sophomores Nick Lobley and Barrett Kelly, junior Austin Little and first–year Jack Fabrizio also added one goal apiece.

The Yeomen outshot DePauw 54–20 and also won the groundball battle 33–22. First-year Jason Gibson won 11 of the 18 faceoffs taken during the game.

In addition to being a great win over a conference opponent, the victory against DePauw was especially important for the seniors, since the game was played on their Senior Day. “It was an awesome way to send our seniors — Kirby, Noel, Mickey, Connor, Paul and Matt — out on their last home game in such a dominant fashion,” said Basile.

The Yeomen improved their winning streak by two wins, defeating the Hiram College Terriers 21–1 Wednesday night.

Wagman led the team in goals, scoring four.

Jackson, Lobley and first-

t ins

Sloane Garelick