Michigan’s oldest college newspaper
Vol. 142 Issue 26 - April 18, 2019
Administration plans more training on sexual assault prevention and reporting
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By | Nicole Ault Editor-in-Chief
See A3 for coverage of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s visit to campus
Recruitment process demands high standards By | S. Nathaniel Grime & Elizabeth Bachmann Sports Editor & Collegian Reporter
“Our coaches all emphasize that if you come to Hillsdale College you’ll have to buckle down and work harder than you ever thought was reasonable or necessary to succeed academically,” Director of Athletics Don Brubacher said. “It’s incredibly hard. If you’re not up to that challenge, and not willing to work every bit as hard academically as you are in your athletic endeavors, don’t come. You don’t belong here.” The athletic recruiting process at any college requires long hours, years of searching, and a careful adherence to NCAA rules. At Hillsdale, recruiters must also grapple with the school’s rigorous academic standards and honor code, which can be both attractants and deterrents to prospective athletes. “I’m not sure anyone understands the extent of the recruitment process,” Brubacher said. “It’s an extraordinarily time-consuming and high-pressure process. Nothing is locked down, even when an athlete shows up in the fall. It’s still not locked down until they have been with you for a week or two or three and have decided ‘Yes,
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this is where I want to be.’” Brubacher said that Hillsdale’s recruiting process begins much like that of any college. Recruiters start looking into students as early as their freshman year of high school but cannot make any formal contact with them until July before their junior year. Freshman Anna LoMonaco plays on the women’s basketball team at Hillsdale and said before the formal recruiting process began for her, she visited the school as a sophomore in high school. “I just came for an camp because my brother had actually visited Hillsdale,” LoMonaco said. “It was the first school I visited for basketball and I really liked it. I visited other schools, but nothing really compared to Hillsdale.” Within each sport, recruitment strategies differ due to style and approach. Some coaches favor face-toface meetings that give them the opportunities to get to know prospective athletes at a personal level early in the process, while others prefer telephone and email contact until the they become more sure of the athlete’s ability and interest. Ultimately, though, Hillsdale’s academic and moral standards play a significant part in both the recruitment and acceptance process for both athletes and coaches.
“The general approach is to find athletes who can compete in this level, but our coaches are immediately conscious of the academic standard of each recruit,” Brubacher said. “So a very high percent of the prospects are not pursued because they don’t meet academic standards.” Hillsdale’s high behavioral standard also plays a role in recruitment and acceptance. However the quality of a character is harder to judge than the quality of a GPA, so Brubacher and the coaches developed a strategy to find prospectives who will fit in at Hillsdale. “Our coaches all talk about the character of Hillsdale students along with community,” Brubacher said. “We hope that students who don’t like it will figure out that they don’t like it after a few of these types of conversations, and will discontinue recruitment.” These principles which can be deterrents to some students choosing Hillsdale can be strong attractants to others. “The first thing always is you will receive an education here that cannot be duplicated at any other college or university in the country,” Brubacher said. “It’s an extraordinary, unusual education that will be of immense value to you in your life. That is the primary pitch.”
See Recruitment A3
A “culture of silence” exacerbates the consequences of sexual assault, according to Hillsdale law enforcement in a meeting with Hillsdale College students and administrators last Friday — and the college administration intends to change that on campus by providing more preemptive education for students regarding sexual assault. As suggested by students at the meeting, the college will include training on sexual assault prevention and reporting in its orientation and programs throughout the year, said Dean of Women Diane Philipp in an email. The administration also intends to continue to meet with the group of students who gathered with them on Friday for
advice on how to share such ident Larry Arnn said the information and to increase college takes sexual assault face-to-face informative seriously and reacts with interactions on campus “severe steps” toward perpebetween students and law trators. “That has included enforcement officials. several times dismissal from “There are always opporthe college. Even in cases tunities to improve, and we where a young man has disare exploring ways to better respected a woman verbally educate students about their we speak to him about it and options for reporting sexual have imposed discipline. In assault as well as how the all cases of assault we offer college responds to such help to the victim in going reports,” Philipp said. “We to the police,” he said in an aim for clarity regarding email. the relevant policies and At Friday’s meeting, procedures, and both as a which the deans had preventative and in response planned for months in to any problems, we empha- response to conversations size responsibility, honesty, with students, about 10 male and respect.” and female students shared Besides improving educoncerns and suggestions cation and communication, with the college deans, Chief she said, the college does Administrative Officer Rich not plan to make significant Péwé, heads of college secualterations to its policies and rity, and local law enforceprocedures regarding cases ment officials, including the of sexual assault. Hillsdale County undersherHillsdale College PresSee Sexual Assault A3
‘He may have lost his sight, but he has not lost his vision’ Sajak, Arnn, Higley honor retiring Chairman Brodbeck By | Rachel Kookogey Collegian Freelancer “When the history of this school is finally written, these will be the golden years. And we have President Arnn and Chairman Brodbeck to thank for that,” said Pat Sajak, Vice Chairman of the Hillsdale College Board of Trustees. Last Friday, Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn and his wife, Penny Arnn, honored the retiring Chairman William J. Brodbeck ’66 with a program of a brief video and remarks from Arnn, board member Stephen Higley ’66, and future chairman Patrick Sajak. Guests — including faculty and students — mingled and ate hors d’oeuvres before the program and later danced to a performance from Brodbeck’s favorite band, The Diamonds. “Bill is not going anywhere. He will serve as Chairman
Chairman William J. Brodbeck ’66 will retire after years of service to the college. External Affairs
Emeritus and as a member of the board,” said Arnn in a letter to faculty and staff. “So we will not grieve, but party.” In his remarks, Arnn said Brodbeck has “done every-
thing right.” He emphasized Brodbeck’s decades of service to the college — from graduating with the nickname
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Dan Knoch retires after 43 years at Hillsdale By | Alexis Daniels Assistant Editor After 43 years at Hillsdale College, Mossey Library Director Dan Knoch will retire at the end of this semester. Knoch came to Hillsdale College in 1976, after graduating from Western Michigan University in 1975 through its American Library Association accredited program, and since then, he has progressed from librarian to director. As a director, he was responsible for everything that goes on in the library, including budget, personnel assessments, chairing meetings, and working with the faculty library committee. Now, he said he would like to focus being with his family as a grandfather. “I’m going to be more involved with my grandchildren. I’m going to babysit my boys, my grandsons, two days a week,” Knoch said. “They live in Hudsonville, near Grand Rapids. Mondays and Tuesdays after they’re done with school, I’m going to go up there and sit with them because their mom works Follow @HDaleCollegian
Hillsdale College Library Director Dan Knoch will retire from his position after 43 years working at the college. Collegian Archives
those days.” He also has a granddaughter in Kalamazoo, Michigan, he said, who he said he intends to help out with. “I often say after my first grandson was born, I’ve seen bumper stickers after the fact that said, ‘If I would’ve known my grandchildren would be
so much fun, I would’ve had them first,’” Knoch said. In his time at the college, Knoch has witnessed many changes at the library in the past 43 years, the most noticeable and difficult ones being technological. “The biggest thing with the
library by far is the computerization of the world,” Knoch said. “I mean, when I came here, it was card catalog, the college had a mainframe computer that they used for administrative stuff, and it was based before the personal computer.” The library initially had a card catalog system, where it recorded its stock on index cards; by the 1990s, it had an online catalog and progressed to a fully integrated library system. In 1994, Knoch said they added the section in the back of the first floor and the Heritage Room – the first additions since 1971. In 1995, the library added an internet system. “I said ‘The following summer, I’m going to take the summer off,’” Knoch said with a laugh. “It was very rewarding work, though.” The library has changed so much over the years that Knoch said he never felt like he was working in the same place. “Maybe that’s an excuse for staying here as long as I did,” Knoch said. “But the work was
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rewarding and impactful, and I enjoyed it.” Knoch said as a director, he looks back on past attitudes and actions and thinks there were times he could have been less strict, but the familiarity and the pace of the job has helped. With the staff, he said he is there not so much to direct, but instead to guide and support. Though he said he gets a lot of credit as director, much of the work is done by the librarians. “I always kid them about that, like, ‘Yeah you know the library director, he always gets the positive stuff,’” Knoch said. “I’ve always felt if you hired good people, that’s the best management you could possibly have. If you hire good people, you don’t have to worry about whether quality work gets done.” Public Service Librarian Linda Moore has been Knoch’s co-worker since their first day in 1976, and she said their relationship as co-workers and friends has grown from just the day-to-day interaction. “I’ll stop in his office, we’ll just chit-chat about what
happened last night or the weekend, any news that we have, how his family’s doing, his kids,” Moore said. “It’s been a nice relationship.” Moore said she will be retiring next year, but she knows that having Knoch in the library will be missed. “It’s the familiarity,” Moore said. “He’s been library director for almost 20 years, and he was a colleague for 24 years before that.” Junior Josiah Leinbach has worked at the library since he was a freshman, and he said his favorite memory with Knoch was that he remembered his name within two days of him being hired. “Dan takes a personal interest in his employees. He takes time to get to know them,” Leinbach said in an email. “He asks questions like, ‘How is your semester going?’ or ‘What did you do over break?’ and he actually wants to know.” An open house to celebrate Knoch will be held in the Heritage Room from 2 to 4 p.m. on May 10.
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