TABLETOP GAMING
12 STONES
Is Dungeons and Dragons obsolete? Columnist Blair Frank thinks not
SWING AND A MISS
Founders of the student-run theater group look to the future
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Last-place Missionaries swept by first-place Pacific Lutheran in embarrassing fashion
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WHITMAN COLLEGE Walla Walla, WA Volume CXXVI Issue 9 whitmanpioneer.com A ,
AS W C ELE CTIO N Executive Council elections took place on M onday, April 5
Music department to undergo big changes by LIZ SIENG Staff Reporter
Vice Presidential and Finance Chair candidates John Loranger and M att Dittrich w ere elected in uncontested races. data compiled by AS W C
Holocaust survivor speaks to campus, community by LEA NEGRIN Staff Reporter
Over the next two years, sweeping changes in the music department will leave it almost completely unrecognizable. By the end of 2011, a total of four music professors (out of six that teach regular, classroom-based courses) will have le the department. Set to retire next year are Dr. Lee ompson, professor of music and head of piano and accompanying studies and David Glenn, department chair and director of jazz studies. Dr. Edward Dixon, associate professor of music and director of the Whitman symphony orchestra, is currently spending his last semester as conductor. is major shi in the department
Lee Thompson teaches applied music and piano accompaniment. He will leave Whitman after the spring 2011 semester.
began with Dixon’s decision to retire, but picked up signi cant momentum when Dr. Robert Bode, professor of music and head of choral and vocal studies, also decided unexpectedly to leave this semester, resulting in mixed reactions from students and professors. In 1986, partners Bode and ompson arrived in Walla Walla and began teaching at Whitman. Having formerly served as the department chair, Bode currently directs Chorale and Chamber Singers and teaches voice lessons, conducting and 19th-century music history. Like all professors of the music department, Bode teaches classes in applied music and history. “Even though he wasn’t acting as the chair, it always felt like he was the boss M U SIC D EPA RT M E N T, page 7
PH OTO S BY F E N N ELL Robert Bode has been with the department since 1986. After this semester, he will take a post at University of Missouri, Kansas City.
Record number of students One year later, bomb threat admitted to class of 2014 investigation unresolved Declining yield prompts the Office of Admission to admit more students, even as the number of applicants declines by 3.6 percent. by JOSH GOODMAN Associate N e w s Editor
A record number of prospective students received the good news that they have been admitted to Whitman this year. In total, the O ce of Admission admitted 1,490 of the 3,191 applicants for the class of 2014. e increase in admitted students, up from last year’s 1,443, comes despite the rst dip in applications received since 1995. A record 3,309 students applied last year, though this year is still the second-highest on record. e percent admitted rose from 43.6 percent last year to 46.7 percent for the class of 2014. Director of Admission Kevin Dyerly attributes the decline in applications to a decreasing number of high school seniors nationwide, as well as economic concerns. “ is year’s dip has to do with families making decisions in the middle of the recession related to their college search and ultimately some students not deciding to pursue Whitman because of cost, whereas a year ago they had already made their decision before the
When Lilly Black landed in Walla Walla earlier this week, it was the rst time she set eyes on the college her grandson, sophomore Ryan Smith, attends. However, she came for more than just a family visit. Last night at 7 p.m., hundreds of students and members of the Walla Walla community gathered in Maxey Auditorium to hear Black recount her trials as a Holocaust survivor. She appeared as a guest speaker for Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, which falls this Sunday, April 11. “Every time she has told me her story, I’ve learned something new,” said Smith as he introduced his grandmother. Black stepped up to the microphone and stared out at family members and strangers, all of whom were all there to listen to her story. “I really thought that Ryan was going to bring his class, and that would be it,” she said. Black has spoken before about her experience but, according to Smith, never for an audience as big as the one that greeted her last night. Black captured the audience with her story of hunger, desperation and nally liberation. As a 14-year-old from Romania, Black was taken with her family to Auschwitz where she and her sister were by CONNOR GUY separated from their parents. e two of A&E Editor them would survive, but not a er living For the rst time since Menomena’s Dein ve di erent concentration camps cember 2009 concert in Reid Ballroom, and experiencing hunger, forced labor W EB is sponsoring a major band’s perand unfathomable cruelty. formance at Whitman. On May 6, W EB “ ere are things there, I tell you, will collaborate with K WC W to host a [that were] very inhumane,” said Black. concert featuring two popular bands: Since 1992, Hillel-Shalom, Whitman the U K group Los Campesinos! and the College’s Jewish organization, has been Los Angeles experimental punk band bringing Holocaust survivors to cam- No Age, currently signed to the Seattle pus to tell their stories. Sharon Kauf- label Sub Pop. man-Osborn, Hillel-Shalom adviser According to W EB’s Music Entertainand counselor at the Whitman College ment Director, junior Matt Coleman, Counseling Center, has been a driving the process of getting a band to come force behind many of the lectures. Ac- to campus was arduous, and he did encording to Kaufman-Osborn, people’s counter setbacks, but the ultimate result interest in the Holocaust lectures has was a real success. always been strong and the generosity of “It’s not like you can just snap your the speakers has always moved her. ngers and a band will be here,” he said. “ e Holocaust survivors who have “It’s a lot of work, and it really doesn’t S U R V I V O R , page 2 depend a whole lot on who’s in charge,
market tanked,” he said. However, a declining yield, or percentage of admitted students who ultimately enroll, prompted the increased admissions. Dyerly said that Whitman’s growing reputation accounts for those declines. “ Ten years ago we were competing more with a regional peer group in the northwest,” he said. “While we still cross over with the likes of Puget Sound, Lewis and Clark and Willamette, more and more of our admitted students [are deciding between] Stanford and Whitman or Dartmouth and Whitman. We don’t win that one as much as we lose that one.” Whitman plans to enroll 390 to 395 rst-year students this fall, consistent with previous years. In response to increased economic concerns, for the rst time, the O ce of Admission mailed out nancial aid awards with admission letters. While a higher percentage of applicants applied for nancial aid than in previous years, President Bridges is con dent that A D M I SSI O N S , page 3
by MOLLY SMITH Editor-in-Chief
Last ursday, April 1, the memory of the previous year’s anonymous bomb threat on Hunter Conservatory was on the mind of Dean of Students Chuck Cleveland. “You always have concerns that someone could do it again,” said Cleveland. ese concerns are especially real in light of the fact that the Walla Walla Police Department has yet to close its investigation of the April 1, 2009 threat, which is believed by many to be an April Fool’s Day hoax. “ is case is an open case, still under investigation,” said Sergeant Matt Wood of the Walla Walla Police Department Detectives Unit. Although there is no expected closure date, active work on the case ceased sometime last summer. Last year, on the evening of March 31,
2009, ve Whitman students and President Bridges received an e-mail with the subject line “[bombthreatslol] Hi, lets play a game.” e sender also attempted to send the e-mail to both the community and student listservs, but it did not go through. “Rearrange the last initials of the C Ced to nd out where the bomb is going to explode tomorrow at 6:30 p.m. Add a U..cuz no one has that last name,” the e-mail read. According to the police department report, Whitman Security determined that the probable location of the bomb was Hunter Conservatory because the rst letter of the students’ last names, in addition to the ‘U’, spelled H U N TER. e next morning, Hunter was evacuated and the Walla Walla Police Department conducted a sweep of the building. T H R E AT, page 2
Los Campesinos! concert part of larger trend to hold events in spring who’s organizing it. It really comes down to the artist, and whether they want to come or not. Walla Walla’s a great place, but I mean, it is like ve hours from anything. So that’s one of the di culties I encountered. You just have to roll with the punches.” As a relatively new organization formed through a restructuring of ASWC Events, Campus Activities Board and several student activities programs at the end of last year, W EB has had to adjust to a new framework while planning concerts this year. Another new aspect of this semester’s concert will be the involvement of Whitman’s radio station, K WC W. According to senior Andrew Hall, the station’s cogeneral manager, strained relations between K WC W and the former ASWC Events Board kept the station from W EB, page 7
RECESSION IN WALLA WALLA How has Walla Walla fared during years of recession? W hat has made this tow n more stable than many of its neighbors? W hat job prospects do graduates have?
Looking de eper than the statistics, this w e ek’s Feature explores the real-life effects of the recession from various perspectives in the com munity. page 4
JAC O BS O N A member of the NBA jersey-clad Whoopsie-Daisies skies for a disc during last weekend’s Onionfest. The Whoopsie-Daisies tied for third with the Whitman Sweets.
Whitman Sweets host 15th annual Onionfest by JAY GOLD AND BIDNAM LEE Staff Reporters
O n the night of Saturday, April 3, a mass of reveling ultimate Frisbee players from Missoula, Mont., Seattle, Portland and elsewhere ooded Tau Kappa Epsilon’s backyard and spilled onto the adjoining parking lot behind the house known as Figi. is gathering provided a lucid illustration not
only of how monumental O nionfest ‘10 was—which included 29 teams and approximately 500 players—but of how much the tournament has grown in the 15 years since its inception. Looking through a retrospective lens, it is somewhat absurd to think that what has become such a populous tournament began with just four teams. O N I O N F E S T, page 10