Curate Women's Summit:
Jonesville School:
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The annual women's summit return.
Police arrested a student after threats sent Jonesville students home.
Courtesy | Curate
Logan Washburn | Collegian
Michigan’s oldest college newspaper
Track and Field:
Women's throwing team is currently ranked first in the nation for DII.
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Courtesy | Isabella Sheehan
Vol. 146 Issue 16 – February 2, 2023
www.hillsdalecollegian.com
DeSantis appoints Spalding to board of Florida public college Matthew Spalding, dean of Hillsdale’s Van Andel Graduate School of Government, accepted a position on the board of trustees at the New College of Florida. Appointed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Jan. 6, Spalding will advise the college on its transformation into a classical liberal arts school. “I have known Governor DeSantis since he was a congressman and have been working with the Florida Department of Education on his civic literacy initiative,” Spalding said. “I was honored by the appointment.” Spalding, the former vice president of American Studies at the Heritage Foundation and founding director of its B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics, is one of six board members
DeSantis appointed this month to remove political ideology from public education. Spalding is serving on the board in a personal capacity and will remain at Hillsdale. Since becoming governor, DeSantis has commissioned the Board of Trustees to execute education reforms, opposed transgender ideology and critical race theory, and supported parental rights in education. “Florida is where woke goes to die,” the governor said in November. Also appointed to the board was Hillsdale’s spring 2022 Eugene C. Pulliam Distinguished Visiting Fellow Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute best known for his education activism. Labeled a partisan “leadership overhaul,” media outlets like the New York Times and Politico have decried the
appointments to be a “hostile takeover of a liberal college,” according to the New York Times. Spalding rejects the criticism — and said that the board aims not to make New College a carbon copy of Hillsdale but reclaim its position as Florida’s central liberal arts institution. “The claim that this a ‘hostile takeover’ of New College is not correct,” Spalding said. “The intent is to renew New College and return it to its liberal arts mission. The significance of doing that in this moment at a public university within a major state system is historic, not only for Florida but as a model for a nation where governors and legislature have the responsibility over public education.” A member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts College, the New College admitted its first class in 1964 as a private nonsectarian liberal
arts school. Chairman of the first Board of Trustees Philip H. Hess said in a 1964 New York Times article that “the college would stress freedom of inquiry and the responsibility of the individual student for his own education.” When the school fell into debt in 1975, the board sold it to the University of Southern Florida. In 2021, it was absorbed into the State University System of Florida, where it remains as the state’s honors college. DeSantis, who has jurisdiction over the state’s public university system, said on Tuesday that a strong board of trustees might save New College from being “completely captured by a political ideology that puts trendy, truth-relative concepts above learning.” Spalding echoed the governor’s efforts.
said she appreciated the cleanliness and the updated interiors of the house. “The experience has been positive in terms of the housing itself,” Asher said. Because the amenities are nicer, the rent is higher than other off-campus housing options, according to senior Michael Thelen. Both Asher and Thelen said the rent reflects the value residents received. “The current rent is more expensive than any of the other off-campus properties I know of, but Norton’s properties are also significantly nicer than any other off-campus properties,” Thelen said. Now that the college owns the houses, they will offer
single and double rooms at the same prices as dorms, according to Gravel. However, students who choose to live in the houses will qualify for the off-campus meal plan. Gravel said the college would not give the new houses resident assistants—a difference from most dorms. Instead, they will have one adult staff member coordinating maintenance and work orders for all four houses. Asher said she is concerned the college’s purchase of these properties will create more difficulties for students searching for housing off-campus. “Off-campus housing in Hillsdale can be hard to find,”
Asher said. “Although the college has said it wants to maintain something of an off-campus feel in the Norton properties moving forward, I think limiting students’ ability to rent decent rooms close to campus that aren’t college-owned is a net-negative, especially for upperclassmen.” Thelen also said he was worried about the off-campus living experience and how it will change with the college owning the properties. “I really don’t think that the experience of living at these houses will be improved with the college’s acquisition,” Thelen said. “I think this will more or less destroy the living experience
that the properties were originally intended to provide, while also costing students more money.” Junior Holly Stover viewed the college’s purchase as a better alternative than selling the properties to investors. “I think it can be a good thing that Norton chose to sell these properties to the college,” Stover said. “This way they can be guaranteed to stay as Hillsdale housing.” Despite student concerns, Norton believes the properties will continue to be popular housing choices for students. “We wanted these houses to be a place where people can have good memories and socialize,” Norton said.
By Haley Strack Senior Reporter
Matthew Spalding will serve on the board of a Florida college. Courtesy | Hillsdale College
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College purchases off-campus Norton houses, open to students this fall By Elizabeth Crawford Collegian Reporter
The college purchased four off-campus houses from Vice President and General Counsel Robert Norton, which will be available as on-campus housing for fall 2023. Associate Dean of Women Stephanie Gravel said the college intends to honor Norton’s leases with current residents until the end of May. In the spring, students will apply for the new housing like they would for dormitories. “The houses will be on the housing form for fall of 2023,” Gravel said. “Anybody will be able to apply for those, so you won’t need off-campus permission.”
“We had been approached by other people, wondering if we wanted to sell the property,” Norton said. “We would love to see these houses owned by the college instead of investors.” The newly-acquired Chase, Kempton, Carriage, and Hill residences sit on the corner of Fayette and Hillsdale streets, a block away from main campus. After complete renovations—some which involved raising the buildings’ foundations to create better basement height—the Norton properties have become popular choices for students seeking off-campus housing. Sophomore Madison Asher, a resident in Hill House,
Radio Free Hillsdale to find a new larger home in Stanton Building By Josh Newhook Digital Editor WRFH 101.7 FM Radio Free Hillsdale will move to a new location in the Stanton Building later this year. “It’s roughly triple what we have for space now,” General Manager at WRFH 101.7 FM Scot Bertram said. “It’s significant, which is great because we have always been a little tight on space here. Having a larger footprint can work much better for us logistically.” The new studio will be located in the basement of the Stanton Foundation Building for Classical Education. The space previously functioned as the cafeteria and kitchen when the building housed Mauck Elementary School. For more than seven years, the radio station has been squished into two small studios in the Fred A. Knorr Memorial Student Center next to the Old Snack Bar. Because of its connection with the marketing and public relations departments, Chief Administrative Officer
Rich Péwé said the radio and podcast programs would fit well with the growing complex. After they move in, the Stanton building will be full. “It’s going to be a hot corner down there,” Péwé said.
to do.” The new space will feature a main studio and two smaller studios, a control room, an office for Bertram, and a green room where radio students can hang out. The two smaller studios can be
The new WRFH station is under construction. Jack Cote | Collegian
The current station is located in a space that existed before the radio station came about. “The rooms were what they were here, so we sort of retrofitted them to get functional,” Bertram said. “But now, everything will be easier
used by students to edit and record without having to work around scheduling with the limited studio space they have now. “It’s difficult to schedule things out to make sure everyone has the proper amount of time,” Bertram
said. The large main studio, on the other hand, can be used for shows and interviews with four or five people, he said. “It will be easier to do more live shows,” Bertram said. “Right now, three people in that room is crunched, but with a larger studio and better studio furniture, it will be much easier to talk to each other.” Most of the existing equipment will be reused in the new studios, along with radio equipment the college bought from Fox News Host Laura Ingraham after she decided to stop doing her radio show in 2018, Bertram said. Having a separate control room will also have the benefit of minimizing background noise. “There’s some background noise that sometimes pops into things as we’re on the air or recording,” he said.
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Survey finds two degrees of separation Applied Math Club spent a semester studying social connections between students. Here’s what they found. By Michael Bachmann Assistant Editor
Have you ever peered out from a packed Sizzle line in Saga and felt as though you knew just about everyone in the crowd? According to the math club, you probably do. In a study conducted last semester called Degrees of Arnn, the club found that 96% of students are two degrees of separation or less away from one another. “That means that there is only 4% of people who you don’t know and who none of your friends know either,” said Jack Graham, president of the math club. The math club collected its data through a survey that was sent to 200 randomly selected students last semester. Each student was asked if they knew the other 199 students in the survey. Of the 200 students who received the survey, 45 responded. According to the results,
the average student knows 40% of campus, or about 700 students. “Personally, I thought the number would be a lot lower,” Graham said. “When we were originally testing it out, I only knew about 20% of the people.” Since the study was conducted via Google Surveys, senior and club secretary Emily Balsbaugh was able to observe the results in real time. “Mathematically, I'm unaware of surprising revelations but existentially, it was fascinating to see other groups on campus that you have no connection to,” Balsbaugh said. “It was weird to see the social groupings on paper.” The study also shows that, on average, students know about 10% more of campus than they are known by.
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