Life & Style
Opinions
Catch up on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” with a review of the performance and Q&As in our spread.
Donnie TC Denome PZ ’20 argues that as an autistic person, hiding their identity is utter exhaustion.
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THE STUDENT
LIFE
The Student Newspaper of the Claremont Colleges Since 1889
CLAREMONT, CA
FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018
VOL. CXXX NO. 9
5Cs Announce Admissions Decisions For Class Of 2022 Jaimie Ding
Dominic Frempong & Sarah Wong • The Student Life
P-P Baseball Takes Weekend Sweep Over CMS Noah Shapiro The Pomona-Pitzer baseball team (20-9, 11-4 SCIAC) pulled off a series of shocking comebacks last weekend, taking three games against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (15-16, 6-9 SCIAC), and completing a season sweep of the Stags for the second year in a row. Game one of the series took place Friday at CMS’s Bill Arce Field, and although it took extra innings, the Sagehens were able to pick up a 6-5 win on the road. CMS held a 4-3 lead through seven innings, but in the top of the eighth, the Sagehens plated two runs to take a 5-4 lead, thanks to a CMS throwing error and the third RBI single of the day for Brian Knapp PO ’20. Despite not getting a hit in the next two frames, the Stags were still able to force extra innings. In the bottom of the ninth, still trailing by one, Ryan Motter CM ’19 was hit by a pitch. As he tried to steal second, the throw ricocheted into the outfield and Motter advanced to third. A wild pitch then brought him home to tie
the game. In the tenth inning, it was the Sagehens’ turn to benefit from throwing errors; Seth Stone PZ ’20 was hit by a pitch and then advanced to third after a failed pickoff attempt. Hunter Hennigh PZ ’21 sacrificed a fly and brought home the unearned run. Brett Super PZ ’21 shut the door on the Stags in the bottom of the tenth and P-P snuck back across Sixth Street with a wild win that foreshadowed the games to come Saturday. In game two, as the series shifted to P-P’s Alumni Field, the Stags came out looking for revenge, and were able to build a commanding 7-3 lead through the first six innings. In the bottm of the sixth, the Sagehens tapped into a bit of the comeback magic that propelled them to the series sweep. With two on and two out in the sixth, Knapp stepped up to the plate and changed the momentum of the game with one swing of the bat. His three-run bomb to left field off Konnor Kwok CM ’20 pulled the Sagehens within one and forced a
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5Cs Release Class of 2022 Admissions Decisions Each of the 5Cs recently announced its admissions rates, with several of them experiencing increases in applicants and some yielding record-low acceptance rates. Pomona College, Scripps College, and Pitzer College saw a surge in the number of applicants this year, pushing down acceptance rates. The number of applicants for Harvey Mudd College stayed about the same, and decreased at Claremont McKenna College. After enrolling 329 students in the class of 2021 — the largest incoming class in the college’s history — Scripps’ acceptance rate plummeted from 33 percent to 24.1 percent this year. The college accepted fewer students this year and utilized the waitlist more to prevent having to house first-year students off-campus again due to over-enrollment. According to Scripps spokesperson Elizabeth Hamilton, the target class size for the class of 2022 is around 250 students. Scripps admitted 90 out of 281 Early Decision applicants and 671 out of 2,917 Regular Decision applicants. ED applicants make up 35 percent of the acceptance pool. Pomona had 10,245 applicants this year, the most in its history, pushing its acceptance rate down from 8.2 percent to a record low 7 percent. The target class size is 410-415 students from the regular acceptance pool and 20-25 students from the transfer pool, Pomona Director of Admissions Adam Sapp wrote in an email to TSL. “Pomona admissions officers put in long hours over the course of many months to complete the application review process,” Sapp wrote. “We were humbled and excited to admit such a diverse and academically talented group of first-year and transfer students.” Pomona did not provide data on early decision applicants to TSL before press time. CMC’s admission rate dropped from 10.4 percent to 8.9 percent despite receiving
Scripps College is currently investigating two different incidents of vandalism, one of which involves someone posting a flyer (pictured above) with apparent anti-Semitic commentary on a Jewish student’s door, and another where racist graffiti was written on flyers affixed to a bulletin board.
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Pomona College is among a group of small liberal arts colleges under investigation by the Department of Justice for potential antitrust violations, according to a Wall Street Journal article published Wednesday. The DOJ appears to be investigating whether the schools share specific identifying information about individual applicants accepted under early decision. Reports indicate that the schools involved use this information to check whether students are applying to more than one early decision school or submitting regular decision applications after being accepted under an early decision agreement, which violates the terms of the binding agreement. The DOJ issued letters last Thursday and Friday to at least seven highly selective small liberal arts schools, including Pomona, Williams College, Amherst College, Wesleyan University, Middlebury College, Wellesley College, and Grinnell College, instructing them
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DOJ Investigating PO Early Decision Data Sharing Practices Marc Rod
Courtesy of Anonymous Source
fewer applications this year. The college admitted 558 students, compared to 658 students last year. Pitzer received 4,358 applications this year, a 16 percent increase from last year. The college’s admission rate dropped from 15 percent to 13.2 percent, or 577 students, and is expecting a class size of 266-271, according to Yvonne Berumen, vice president of admissions and financial aid at Pitzer. Pitzer admitted 135 out of 456 ED applicants and 441 out of 3902 RD applicants. ED applicants make up 23 percent of the acceptance pool. HMC’s admission rate increased slightly from last year’s 13.9 percent to 14.5 percent. It received 4,101 applications, only slightly more than last year’s 4,078 applications. The target class size is 225 students, according to HMC Vice President of Admissions and Financial Aid Thyra Briggs. HMC admitted 88 out of 465 ED applicants and 506 out of 3636 RD applicants. ED applicants make up 39 percent of the acceptance pool. “We’re excited as always about this group of admitted students and for our campus to get to know them,” Briggs wrote. “We become very attached to these students throughout the process and love imagining how they’ll connect with the rest of our community.” Pomona and CMC’s admitted student pools have similar proportions of first-generation students — around 19 percent — while HMC and Pitzer ’s admitted pools are about 12 percent first-generation students. Scripps’ admitted pool is 7.3 percent first-generation students. There is significant variation in the percentage of non-white students in each admitted student pool at each of the 5Cs. Pitzer admitted the lowest percentage at 43.3 percent of its admitted student pool, followed by Scripps with 45.3 percent, Pomona with 55.2 percent, and Mudd with the highest percentage of 62 percent. CMC did not provide TSL with racial diversity data be-
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to preserve records relating to the sharing of admissions information, the Wall Street Journal reported. “Students applying by early decision choose a path and process with conditional requirements,” Pomona College spokesperson Mark Kendall wrote in an email to TSL. “Per the Common Application early decision agreement, applicants are made aware that Pomona at times shares limited information with other institutions in order to verify their continued commitment to the early decision process.” Kendall added that Pomona complies with the National Association for College Admissions Counseling code of ethics. He declined to comment on the DOJ letter specifically. Pitzer College spokesperson Anna Chang told TSL that Pitzer did not receive a letter from the DOJ. Scripps College and Harvey Mudd College did respond to a request for comment from TSL on whether they have also received letters from the DOJ or share early admissions data with other schools.
See DOJ page 3
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APRIL 13, 2018
THE STUDENT LIFE
ADMISSIONS: PZ Had Highest Female-Male Ratio Continued from Page 1 fore press time. The percentage of female students accepted was higher than the percentage of male students accepted at each of the 5Cs. Pitzer had the highest femaleto-male ratio in its acceptance pool — 57 percent female to 39.2
percent male. HMC also had a notably high female-to-male ratio in its acceptance pool — 54.5 percent female to 45.5 percent male. “Female admitted students typically yield differently from men at STEM institutions,” Briggs wrote, explaining the higher percentage of female students in HMC’s acceptance pool.
Eleven students that deferred their acceptance in a previous year will also be joining this year ’s class at Pomona. There are also six deferred-acceptance students at HMC, 14 at Scripps, and 15 at Pitzer. CMC did not provide data about students that have deferred their acceptance to TSL.
PO Students Discover RecordBreaking Physics Of Petunia’s Explosive Seed Dispersal Erin Slichter A flower species’ seeds are breaking records in physics, blasting out as rapidly spinning projectiles that travel up to 20 feet, and Pomona College discovered it first. A study published last month by Pomona students and physics professor Dwight Whitaker attracted national attention, including from The New York Times, when it revealed that the seeds of the Ruellia ciliatiflora — commonly known as the hairyflower wild petunia — rotate at the record-breaking rate of 1,660 times per second. Though the seeds are only a tenth of an inch across, the plant’s backspin and vertical orientation generated by the launch mechanism contribute to the striking phenomenon. “This rotation rate is the highest-reported rotation rate for any biological projectile,” said Eric Cooper PO ’18, a student who worked on the project. Whitaker began researching the physics behind ruellia seeds at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in 2012. “We started looking at them
in the lab, and we realized that they went really fast, and they blew up, and they were kind of beautiful-looking,” Whitaker said, “but it took us a long time to realize what was actually scientifically interesting about them.” Carolyn Cross PO ’13, Molly Mosher PO ’18, and Cooper, some of Whitaker ’s physics students, joined the project soon after. To understand the fluid dynamics of the disc-shaped seeds, Cross and Whitaker threw CDs down hallways, off the tops of buildings, and from a CD launcher hand-built by Cross. They observed that the CDs flew more stably when thrown with the same characteristics as ruellia seeds: oriented vertically and thrown with a backspin. Cooper and Whitaker worked out the equation of motion for rotating discs, proving that they will naturally assume a vertical orientation. This minimizes air resistance and allows the discs, or seeds, to travel farther. The team then began to record the seeds being launched to analyze them in slow-motion.
To the team’s excitement, The New York Times reported on the study March 9. “I didn’t even realize, when we were doing the research, that that was the magnitude of what our results would be,” Mosher said. “I didn’t realize that it would be that impactful.” Cross said the attention the study received reassured her that the public is interested in science. “It sort of reminds me that … sciences and physics and biology are really interesting to everyone out there,” she said. “That’s where I get really proud — bringing science to everyday people and inspiring them to look at the world around them.” Whitaker said there are still important questions left unanswered, particularly related to the biological and ecological aspects of this phenomenon. “It’s great that we can measure all these aerodynamic properties of seeds, but the scientific questions we’re trying to answer are ‘why does the seed do this [and] what’s the purpose of exploding and sending your seeds far?’” he said. “I won’t pretend that we’ve answered that question at all yet.”
Editor’s Note On March 30, TSL ran a story titled “Consortium Vice President Of Student Affairs To Resign,” which included several quotes from an anonymous email claiming to have been sent on behalf of a group of students and professors. The email made unproven allegations that the article’s subject, Denise Hayes, failed to address the needs of students with mental health struggles and discriminated against Jewish and Muslim student groups to further an agenda that supports her own Christian beliefs. TSL attempted to identify the source and verify the claims, but was unable to do so before press time. In hindsight, TSL regrets publishing those allegations without better sourcing or verification, and TSL apologizes for this editorial misjudgment. Since publication, TSL has gathered additional information that supports the allegations made in the email described in the article, so TSL does not believe any changes to the article are necessary at this time. If you have additional comments about this topic you wish to share with TSL, please email editor@tsl.news.
CGU’s New President Faces Tempestous Departure From UNLV Glen Williams
While Len Jessup will be welcomed to Claremont Graduate University as its new president this summer, he is no longer welcome by many at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he is currently president. According to LasVegasNOW, a Nevada CBS affiliate, “in January, according to published reports, Jessup was advised by Chancellor Thom Reilly to find another job or risk being fired.” The concerns Reilly had with Jessup included “practices at the dental school and fundraising and management at the medical school,” according to The Nevada Independent. Jessup, who became UNLV’s president in January 2015, spearheaded construction on a new UNLV medical school, but costs soared well beyond expectations. “It’s very troubling that we feel like we were told this $100 million was pretty solid [to build the medical school],” Regent Trevor Hayes said in an interview with the Las Vegas ReviewJournal. “To go from that to $232 million is mind boggling. This is just not acceptable.” In his evaluation of Jessup, Reilly criticized Jessup’s poor oversight of the dental school, which led to potential safety issues. TSL reached out to Jessup, but his office said he was unavailable for an interview. Despite these controversies, CGU’s Board of Trustees unanimously selected Jessup as as CGU’s new president. The selection process went smoothly due to “the combination of Len’s outstanding record of achievements with a warm and intellectually open nature that will bolster the character and traditions [of CGU],” search committee chair Donald Baker and CGU’s Board of Trustees chair Tim Kirley wrote in a press release. The press release, which quoted an April 3 email sent by Kirley to the CGU community, described Jessup as “a gifted administrator” and a “practicing scholar” and praised Jessup for his work to enhance UNLV’s reputation. “I’ve enjoyed many opportunities in my career, both as a professor and administrator, and I am honored and excited to join the CGU community,” Jessup said in the press release. “I am looking forward to working closely with everyone at CGU to move this excellent university to the next level in every way.” CGU’s president of the Graduate Student Council, Marquisha Spencer CG ’18, expanded upon
Courtesy of Claremont Graduate University
Len Jessup, president of University of Nevada, Las Vegas, will be welcomed to Claremont Graduate University as its new president this summer, though he has come under fire at his current institution.
CGU’s reasoning for choosing Jessup. “I think specifically that his experience aligned with our needs,” she said. “When he came to campus, there was an obvious and undeniable connection with the various constituents on the campus. He’s clearly a visionary. He has the same spirit of hope as many on the committee.” CGU’s search committee was aware of the controversies during the hiring process, which encouraged more students to participate in the forum during Jessup’s visit. The allegations against Jessup did not change the committee’s desire to hire him, according to Spencer. Students asked about the issues, but they were generally satisfied with his answers, she said. Reilly explained Jessup’s departure from UNLV in a statement from Nevada System of Higher Education and confirmed that he had issues with Jessup’s management of UNLV. “It is fair to say that I have significant concerns about operational issues I have observed at UNLV,” he wrote. “Those concerns are well known to President Jessup,” he added. “We have engaged in a forthright and professional dialog about those concerns for several months — including by way of his annual performance evaluation.” He denied, however, that he asked Reilly to leave in January. “March 5 President Jessup expressed to me his frustrations — that he did not want to continue as president, and that he was looking for other opportunities,” he wrote. “We never had a conversation prior to our March 5 meeting about him leaving the presidency.” Jessup attributed his departure to disagreements between some regents and himself about the direction of UNLV.
“As evidenced by the constant change in leadership in the office of the UNLV President over the past decade, the current UNLV/ NSHE governance structure makes long-term sustainability a challenge for any UNLV president,” Jessup said in a letter to the UNLV community. Jessup wrote in the letter that he was frustrated with how his departure has been portrayed in the media. “I have expressed my disagreement consistently and have, unfortunately, been met by personal and professional attacks by the Chancellor and some Regents, unfounded and unjustified opinions, and media ‘leaks’ that appear to be calculated to damage not only me but UNLV and the UNLV Foundation,” he wrote in the same letter. Despite the controversies, Jessup remained popular with some in the UNLV community, and his departure “generated a backlash among UNLV faculty and administrators, and among major donors,” including the rescinding of a $14 million gift to the medical school, according to The Nevada Independent. Jessup has a doctorate in management and organization behavior from the University of Arizona, Tuscon, and earned a master of business administration and a bachelor ’s degree in information and communication studies at California State University, Chico. His research examines entrepreneurship, innovation, and information technology. Jessup’s tenure as President of CGU will begin July 1. Spencer is eagerly anticipating his arrival. “I think there’s an overwhelming sense of excitement around the campus for the arrival of Jessup,” she said. “I graduate this year, so I’m a little bummed out that I won’t be able to work with him.”
Four of 5Cs Annouce 2018 Commencement Speakers Yasmine Razzak During the past several months, Pomona College, Scripps College, Claremont McKenna College, and Harvey Mudd College have announced noted experts as the speakers for their 2018 commencement ceremonies. Pitzer is “still finalizing the details” and “simply [does] not have the contract signed yet,” Melissa M. Burrows, executive assistant to the Pitzer vice president of student affairs, wrote in an email to TSL.
Pomona College
Legal scholar Kenji Yoshino and political theorist Danielle Allen will speak at Pomona College’s 125th commencement May 13. Yoshino is a professor at New York University Law. He previously taught at Yale Law School and served as deputy dean. Allen is head of Harvard University’s ethics department, where she leads a research lab. Yoshino specializes in explorations of constitutional law, while Allen studies classical democratic theory, sociology, and historical political thought as lenses to view modern issues of citizenship. Allen “speaks to the breadth of the liberal arts and has shown a deep commitment to bring tests of ethics and equity to questions ranging from the foundations of democracy, to incarceration, drug policy, the economy, and education,” Pomona President G. Gabrielle Starr wrote in an email to TSL. Yoshino’s book “Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights,” was Pomona’s first-year book selection in 2009. Both Yoshino and Allen are widely published. Yoshino contributes to the New York Times Magazine’s “The Ethicist” Column and The Stanford Law Review as well as appears frequently on news networks. Allen is a contributor to The
Washington Post and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, among other accolades. “Part of Pomona College’s mission is to prepare students to turn transformative ideas into reality,” Starr said. “Prof. Allen and Prof. Yoshino are wonderful examples of what can happen when you link knowledge, curiosity and a passion for justice.”
Scripps College
Civil rights activist and awardwinning journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault will be the featured speaker at Scripps’ 88th annual commencement May 12. Born in South Carolina, HunterGault grew up in Atlanta during the Jim Crow Era. As a high schooler, she was passionate about journalism and applied to the University of Georgia at Athens, which had a well-known journalism program. The university denied HunterGault’s 1959 application on the grounds of “limited space,” but Hunter-Gault sued the university for racial discrimination and won in 1961, becoming the first black woman to enroll there. Upon graduation, Hunter-Gault became an acclaimed journalist and author. She has worked for The New Yorker, The New York Times, PBS, NPR, and CNN. Hunter-Gault was one of the first reporters to interview Nelson Mandela following his release from prison in 1990, according to PBS. For her Africa coverage, Hunter-Gault won two Emmy Awards and two Peabody Awards. Hunter-Gault also authored four books about the black experience, including her autobiography “In My Place,” and has been the recipient of numerous accolades, including a 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award from The Washington Press Club Foundation. She was inducted into the National As-
sociation of Black Journalists Hall of Fame. “She so fittingly exemplifies the mission of Scripps College through her lifelong work and efforts to push boundaries, not settle for the status quo, and expand access and opportunities for others,” Scripps President Lara Tiedens wrote in an email to TSL.
Claremont McKenna College
Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, will speak at CMC’s 71st annual commencement May 12. A native of Northern France, Lagarde has been described by The Guardian as “upstanding and elegant,” with “a precise intellect and unnerving stamina,” and was ranked by Forbes as the fifth most powerful woman in the world in 2014. After attending law school in Paris and a earning a master ’s degree in political science, Lagarde moved to the U.S. in 1981 to join law firm Baker and McKenzie, and became the firm’s first female chair 18 years later. Following her law career, Lagarde was appointed France’s minister of foreign trade in 2005, and, in 2007, became the first woman in any of the G8 countries (a political group of eight of industrialized democracies) to serve as minister of finance and economy. In 2011, Lagarde became the first female director of the International Monetary Fund, and was re-elected for a second five-year term in 2016. In 2016, Lagarde was found guilty of negligence — but not punished — by a French court for not appealing a decision that used taxpayer money to pay off business magnate Bernard Tapie while she was minister in 2008, according to The New York Times.
Lagarde is committed to getting more women in the workforce to support economic growth. “Inequality is sexist,” she told an institute at Wellesley College, according to CNN. Lagarde has also advocated for continued personal improvement and hard work. “Success is never complete. It’s an endless combat,” she said in an interview with a French newspaper cited by The Guardian. “Each morning one must put one’s capacities to the test once again.”
Harvey Mudd College
Pioneering astrophysicist Nergis Mavalvala will speak at at HMC’s 60th annual commencement ceremony May 13.
Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Mavalvala moved to the U.S. in 1986 to attend Wellesley College, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in physics and astronomy. She later completed her doctorate in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she is currently a physics professor. Mavalvala’s research centers on detecting gravitational waves and quantum measurement science. In 2016, she was part of a group of scientists that discovered ripples in the fabric of spacetime — the result of two black holes colliding — the first evidence suggesting the existence of the gravitational waves Albert Einstein predicted almost a century ago. Mavalvala is also celebrated
for breaking barriers as a female LGBTQIA+ scientist of South Asian descent. “I am just myself,” Mavalvala said in an interview with NewNowNext, “but out of that comes something positive.” Mavalvala continues to conduct pioneering experiments and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2017. She has high hopes for the next generation of scientists. “I want them to live a life of integrity, and be kind”, she told Massive Science. “When I talk to my students, nothing makes me more proud than when they discover something in their labs. But I am proudest of them when they act with integrity, collaborate, and are kind, dignified citizens.”
Lia Francis-Bongue • The Student Life
All of the Claremont Colleges except Pitzer College recently announced noted experts as the speakers for their 2018 commencement speakers.
NEWS APRIL 13, 2018
THE STUDENT LIFE
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Pomona Proposes Substance Policy Revisions Student Government Elections Attract Few Candidates, Voters Alexandra Branscom
Pomona College is proposing updates to its points system for substance policy violations, including increasing point penalties for alcohol to equal those for marijuana and increasing point penalties for underage drinking. Associate Dean Christopher Waugh and the alcohol and drug subcommittee of ASPC’s Student Affairs Committee announced the proposal in an email to students April 6. They said it was in response to student feedback, including a student body poll. The college enacted the point system two years ago after students suggested that the monetary fine system was unfair to low-income students. The point system is similar, with equitable ratios of points to fines, but the associated penalties are residence life sanctions, including room draw penalties and suspension from on-campus housing. The major proposed changes to the point system involve increasing the point penalties for underage alcohol use from one point for a first offense and two points for additional offenses to four points for a first offense and five for additional ones. This brings the penalties in line with those for marijuana use. The committee also proposed decreasing the points penalty for hard alcohol use on South Campus from three and four points to one and two points for first and additional offenses, respectively. Changes to the punishment levels are also being proposed, including increasing the threshold for a housing suspension from 16 to 20 points. The proposed changes would also allow students to decrease their point totals more quickly, losing three points per every 100 days without a violation, rather than two. Waugh emphasized that the increase in points is less impactful than students might think because the amount of points needed for different levels of punishment are also being raised.
“I think a lot of folks are concerned about increasing the alcohol points, and that is leading to more fear and hysteria,” he said. Waugh also said the college is not proposing lowering penalties for marijuana due to safety concerns. “One of our concerns about [lowering penalties for marijuana] was that it might imply that we or the college would be saying, ‘you can use cannabis. We are going to lower our warrants with that,’” he said. “Many at the college may think that [marijuana is safe] and many will not, but the fact is we don’t have the science to say that it’s safe.” After extensive research, the committee determined that marijuana itself is evolving and its effects are too unclear to award fewer points for marijuana use than alcohol use, Waugh said. “There’s not enough information. The science hasn’t caught up to cannabis right now and that’s because it’s been difficult to study. It’s been illegal in most places. There are ethics involved with that,” he said. “Also, the substance itself has evolved so it’s almost a moving target. The [Food and Drug Administration] hasn’t even regulated it because it’s still illegal.” Even though the state of California has legalized marijuana use for individuals over 21 years old, Pomona cannot permit its usage on campus; if it did, it would would lose its federal funding. This raises issues for students who rely on marijuana for medical purposes. One student, who requested to remain anonymous, consumes THC-free edibles for a chronic health condition. “It is entirely possible to legally consume marijuana products in a way that no one else will notice — edibles — and also in a way that does not intoxicate you,” the student said. Waugh acknowledged that some students have legitimate medical needs for marijuana products, and said Pomona will address this issue in the fall. Waugh’s email also acknowl-
edged that many students of color have been concerned that the enforcement of the points system unfairly targets them. Waugh wrote that well over 60 percent of students who have received points are white — although he added that this does not mean that students of color are not being targeted — and that 30 out of 32 resident assistants are students of color. “I believe firmly that no RA is targeting any student,” Waugh said. “We train extensively on it. We hire people who are committed to community. We have a terrific group of staff and I admire them.” Autumn Martin PO ’19, an RA on the committee, said that RAs do not enjoy giving out points to begin with. “RAs aren’t there to stop fun, we
are here to stop egregious behavior and things that aren’t safe,” she said. “We get the job so we can actually be a resource to people and do events and make sure we are supporting our residents.” She said she wants students to know that the subcommittee is working on addressing the racial targeting complaints. Waugh also said that he wants to hear from students about this topic. “I want to make sure that I am open to lived student experience. ... I invite students to let us know if they believe there is targeting,” he said. Pomona is soliciting student comments on this topic for 30 days. Students interested in providing feedback can email SAC@ pomona.edu.
Sean Ogami • The Student Life
DOJ: Pomona Told To Maintain Records, Communications Continued from Page 1 Claremont McKenna College spokesperson Peter Hong told TSL he would look into the situation, but did not provide additional information by press time. A dean of admissions at one of the New England schools that received a DOJ letter said their institution swaps information with about 20 other schools, including application identification numbers, names, and home states of applicants admitted early decision, according to the Wall Street Journal. “It’s a very informal I-show-you-
mine, you-show-me-yours kind of thing,” an enrollment official at one of the schools involved said in an interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education. “We don’t want to put out offers of admission to students who’ve committed to other places. This process is just verifying that somebody hasn’t been admitted to another college under a binding early-decision program.” A 2016 U.S. News and World Report article reported that a group of about 30 schools, including Amherst College, share lists of early decision admissions, according to Amherst Dean of Admission and Financial
Aid Katharine Fretwell. The DOJ letter asks the colleges to maintain a variety of materials related to the issue, including any agreements to “exchange or otherwise disclose the identities of accepted students with persons at other colleges or universities,” as well as internal documents, communications, and records relating to this topic or such agreements. Admissions officials contacted by Inside Higher Ed said they did not believe that sharing early decision information violates any laws because students, their parents, and their high school counselors sign a
waiver on the Common Application allowing institutions that admit them early decision may share this information. Some admissions officials seemed befuddled by the DOJ’s interest in this matter. “The purpose of this is to make sure that students are living up to their end of the bargain with early decision,” one admissions official told The Chronicle of Higher Education. “It’s not impinging the student’s access to educational opportunity. I can’t understand why the Justice Department is concerned about this.”
Jaimie Ding Even though 5C student government officers have control over huge sums of money that all students are required to pay and their actions can impact every student on campus, many students are choosing not to run for office or vote in elections. In recent years, the 5C student governments have frequently filled more than half their positions through uncontested races, and voter turnout has been as low as 21.5 percent. Nine of the 14 positions in SAS, seven of the 14 positions in ASPC, three of the seven positions in ASCMC, and four of the five positions up for election on Pitzer Senate Executive Board were uncontested in election cycles during the past month. ASHMC was unable to provide TSL with data regarding uncontested positions before press time. “[Having uncontested elections] removes the aspect of a voter check, which is always dangerous in elections,” Skye Jacobs PO ’21 said. But Irene Yi SC ’19, the previous executive vice president and incoming president of SAS, does not believe uncontested positions pose a huge concern. “I think that the people that do run do it for really good reasons because they are really committed about the field … [and] the position that they’re going into,” Yi said. Charles Dawson HM ’19, formerly an ASHMC senator, agreed. “I think that, once elected, all of the officials do a really good job of representing their constituencies,” he said. However, Dawson added that there are some downsides to this situation. “I think it is unfortunate that there’s a lack of breadth in initiatives that get proposed as part of the campaign platforms, but ... overall it doesn’t really diminish the representative capacity of ASHMC,” he said. Even when there are contested elections, candidates often struggle to get students to vote. In the 2018 student government elections, Claremont McKenna College had the highest turnout at 53.7 percent, followed by Scripps College at 44.7 percent and Pomona College at 42.1 percent. However, Pitzer had only half that at 21.5 percent. ASHMC Senate Chair Nick Richardson HM ’20 did not provide specific data for Harvey Mudd
College to TSL before press time. “It wasn’t in my face,” Raoul Sojwal PZ ’21 said of the Pitzer Senate candidates’ campaigning efforts. “I didn’t hear much about what they were planning on doing in the Student Senate, I just kind of saw their names.” At CMC, Skip Wiltshire-Gordon CM ’19 said many students do not vote due to a combination of apathy and a lack of understanding about how student government operates. “I think a lot of people just aren’t really clear on what ASCMC does,” he said. “I know obviously we get emails [and] there are big pushes for transparency every year, but students still aren’t really up to date, nor do they really appear to care too much about what’s going on, frankly.” At Scripps, Annarose Hunt SC ’21 said one of the causes of low voter turnout is the fact that students do not always know that elections are happening. Hunt only knew about the SAS elections after her roommate had been elected as sophomore class president. Information about SAS elections is sent out through email, but she said the emails sometimes get lost due to the sheer quantity of them. “In general, I feel like Scripps is really bad at communicating things that are important versus things that are kind of mundane and everyday,” Hunt said. Dawson reported similar issues with email communication at HMC, as important emails tended to “get lost in the sludge of student senate emails that get sent out.” Yi thinks contested elections could also help increase voter participation, because “people get more excited about who’s running.” Student governments also make efforts to inform students about elections and boost voter participation. Scripps incentivizes voting by throwing a pizza party for the class with the highest voter turnout. Candidates give speeches at the Student Union, which are broadcast live on Facebook and recorded for students to watch later. Posters with candidate platforms are also placed in the on-campus dorms. At CMC, candidates give a speech at evening snack, and their statements are published by the CMC Forum. Candidates for ASPC give speeches during a dinner at Frank, and their candidate statements are emailed to the full student body.
Are Harvey Mudd’s Tough Grades Failing Students? Glen Williams
Claremont McKenna government professor Charles Kesler recently received the 2018 Bradley Prize, which includes a $250,000 stipend. Kesler was one of three recipients of the award, out of an application pool of nearly 200. Recipients of the award are honored for “advancing the ideals of freedom in both academia and public policy,” a CMC press release said. Kesler is a political scientist, and was described by Politico as “the Intellectual Avatar of Trumpism” in an article titled “50 Ideas Blowing Up American Politics (and the people behind them).”
Pomona Forms Sexual Assault Task Force
Pomona College is forming a new committee on sexual violence intervention and prevention, President G. Gabrielle Starr announced in an email to students April 3. “Pomona College is committed to providing a safe and nondiscriminatory educational, working and residential environment for all,” Starr wrote. The committee will evaluate current policies and the culture surrounding them, increase support for survivors, and monitor reports of sexual misconduct, among other responsibilities. The task force will also be “promoting a climate of safety and awareness,” her email read.
Podcast Host Jad Abumrad Visits Pomona
Jad Abumrad, host and creator of acclaimed podcasts “Radiolab” and “More Perfect,” visited Pomona College Thursday. In a conversation moderated by Pomona politics professor Amanda Hollis-Brusky, Abumrad talked about the trajectory of his career and the benefits of a liberal arts education. Prior to the official talk, Abumrad met with selected students for a Q&A including specifics about the inner workings of his podcasts and challenges he faced as a journalist. Abrumad’s “Radiolab” is one of the most popular podcasts in the U.S., and has been recognized with numerous accolades, including a Peabody Award. Its website describes it as a “show about curiosity. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience.”
ASCMC Proposes Wellness Vending Machine
At the April 1 ASCMC meeting, senators suggested a wellness vending machine that would dispense products such as Plan B One-Step contraceptive, tampons, pregnancy tests, and condoms, according to The CMC Forum. This initiative follows a similar SAS proposal from earlier this year and an ASPC initiative completed in 2014. The machine would be located on CMC’s campus, but would be available to all 5C students. .
—Laney Pope
Visit tsl.news for an additional news bite!
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Getting a good grade when everyone gets a good grade is completely meaningless and is no reflection on my skills or learning.
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CMC Government Professor Receives $250,000 Prize
Harvey Mudd College openly acknowledges that its standards for a high grade are difficult to meet and lead to lower average grade point averages for its students; the school even includes a letter with each official transcript explaining the school’s lowerthan-average GPAs. At the time the letter was last updated, in 2014, the median GPA — 3.35 in 2007 — was two-tenths of a point behind peer institutions. Some students claimed this standard negatively impacts their post-graduation prospects. Others, however, said harsh grading can help motivate them and more accurately assess their skill level.
Bea Metitiri HM ’12
“The rigor of the curriculum is reflected in the rigor of the grading; over the 50-year plus history of the college only seven students have earned straight A’s for all four years of study,” the letter reads. By contrast, Pomona College has recently made efforts to fix grade inflation; 59.7 percent of the
grades it distributed in 2009-2010 were A’s. The HMC letter attributed some of students’ struggles to HMC’s notoriously difficult core curriculum. “GPAs at Harvey Mudd tend to be lower during the first two years when students are engaged in a rigorous and broad core curriculum,” it notes. “They typically increase in later years when students are focused on courses in their major.” The topic of grading at HMC was recently explored in a student and alumni email chat with more than 30 entries. While all alumni in the chat ultimately did find jobs, many said that a lower GPA made the process more difficult. Harry Fetsch HM ’20 said HMC needs to balance the desire to portray itself as having a rigorous academic atmosphere with the post-graduate needs of its students. “I think one of the reasons Mudd keeps the average GPA low is because they want to preserve their self-image, but I think there are other ways to do this without hurting graduate prospects,” he said. Some current students wrote in the email chat that they hoped Mudd’s prestige and reputation as a difficult school will help mitigate the impact of a lower GPA, but responses from alumni indicated that this has often not been the case. “Mudd isn’t as well-known as it’s made out to be at Mudd,” Rachel Sherman HM ’15 wrote in the chat. “I was a math [and computational biology] major, and applied to mostly biology departments and a couple of CS departments ... and very few people I interviewed with or spoke to had heard of Mudd or its reputation.”
Max Tepermeister HM ’20 said that he attended Mudd partly because of its academic quality and reputation in the hopes that it would help him secure desirable post-graduate opportunities. However, he felt that “going to Mudd actually makes it harder to get a job afterwards because of grades.” However, Judy Fisher, director of the Office of Career Services at HMC, disputed these ideas in an email to TSL. She said Mudd alumni do not have difficulty finding employment. “We do an annual report every year based on our senior survey. Over the past two years, for those seeking full time employment, 85 percent had accepted offers at graduation,” Fisher wrote. “For two years, the career center has been cited by Princeton Review as No. 1 for job placement.” HMC is working to expand its reputation, Fisher wrote, and she and the school regularly reach out to companies. Some students suggested issuing grades on a curve as a compromise that would allow Mudd to retain its rigor without jeopardizing students’ post-graduation plans. Other HMC students disagreed with their peers’ concerns about grades and appreciate the satisfaction and motivation a difficult class provides, they said. “Getting a decent grade in a notoriously difficult class actually means something. It’s an accomplishment,” Bea Metitiri HM ’12 wrote in an email to TSL. “Getting a good grade when everyone gets a good grade is completely meaningless and is no reflection on my skills or learning. It’s just a another checkbox on my way to a degree.”
SPORTS PAGE 4
APRIL 13, 2018
THE STUDENT LIFE
COMMENTARY
Love Thy Enemy: Angels’ Shohei Ohtani Transcends Allegiances
Courtesy of AP Photo/Jae C. Hong via Flickr Commons
The Los Angeles Angels’ two-way star Shohei Ohtani has gotten off to a torrid start to his first MLB season, with two wins already on the mound and three home runs at the plate.
Torrey Hart S eve n t e en ye a r s a g o t h i s Wednesday, Ichiro Suzuki made a name for himself in the Major Leagues. Despite being a highly anticipated international signee — and the first Japanese position player to be one — Ichiro’s performance had been underwhelming in his debut Spring Training, and it was unclear if he would find success in the Majors. On that April 11, 2001, Ichiro stood in right field in Oakland as the Mariners played the AL West rival Athletics, and the notorious “Bleacher Creatures” heckled him, throwing everything from coins to racial slurs. They would continue to do so until the bottom of the eighth, when he unleashed an absolute laser to third base, throwing out runner Terrence Long. As an Oakland native and lifelong A’s fan, I see this as shameful scar on the fan base’s historically unprejudiced reputation. Regardless, with that throw, Ichiro silenced critics for the duration of what is a surely Hall of Fameworthy career. If you follow baseball even remotely, Ichiro’s breakout should sound eerily familiar: two-way player Shohei Ohtani’s story is unfolding the same way. Despite posting a 27.00 ERA and looking like a high school-caliber
hitter at the plate during Spring Training, Ohtani’s Big League debuts both at the plate and on the mound have ranged from good to literally perfect thus far. In his first start, he consistently fooled A’s batters, going six strong innings and getting a win. He then singled in his first at-bat and homered in his first three home games. Last Sunday, in his first home start, he took a perfect game into the seventh inning against the A’s, striking out 12. As I watched Ohtani put down A’s batter after A’s batter, I guiltily found myself rooting for him. The thought dawned on me: Is this cursed situation divine retribution for Oakland’s treatment of his fellow countryman all those years ago? Indeed, Ohtani plays for the division rival Los Angeles Angels, which in Mike Trout already have the best player of a generation, and in Albert Pujols have an impending Hall-of-Famer. And yes, Ohtani’s success directly opposes the A’s. But with the Astros heavily favored to win the division, and the A’s simply not looking like a Wild Card-caliber team, the timing might just be perfect for me to put aside allegiances and appreciate what Ohtani is doing for the game of baseball. At the most basic level, regardless of how well he does, baseball fans should appreciate the gravity
of what Ohtani is trying to do: become the first legitimate twoway player since Babe Ruth a century ago. On top of this, we get to watch the less-than-innovative Mike Scioscia figure out the nearly unprecedented logistics. What a time to be alive. On a more complex level, Ohtani already challenged the norms of free agency in the Major Leagues, taking far less money than he could have made a couple years from now in order to pursue the game he loves while still in his prime. So far, Ohtani’s success cannot be overstated. He has hit for more power than Aaron Judge, struck out more batters than Max Scherzer, and brought crowds to Angel Stadium like it has not seen in years. I experienced Ohtani Fever in person last Friday; his second inning home run infused energy back into the stadium and jumpstarted an Angels comeback (over the A’s, of course) from six runs down. Every time he stepped up to the plate, men, women, and children alike locked in on the game, eager to watch him make history. The A’s and Angels will play each other a whopping 19 times this season, and if Ohtani stings us every time, that would be just fine: he is forcing atonement for Oakland fans’ sins of 2001.
CMS WOMEN’S TENNIS
No. 3 Athenas Tennis Rolling, Eager To Host NCAA Tournament Delaney Hartmann
With a 6-0 record in the SCIAC, the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women’s tennis team (20-2, 6-0 SCIAC) seems favored to repeat as conference champions this year and capture their 20th SCIAC title. But the team has a bigger goal in mind than another conference championship. This year, the Athenas are looking for their first national title in program history. CMS has been a contender on the national stage for most of the last 10 years, and came close to a championship last season. After being ranked No.1 for the better part of 2017, CMS finished in a close third in last year’s NCAA tournament, falling short of Williams College and Emory University who went one-two. This year the Athenas boast a veteran team, and are confident about their chances. From last year’s team, CMS welcomes back five all-SCIAC players and three all-Americans. “It’s not pressure, but we know that we have a chance, and everyone wants [a national title],” Madison Shea CM ’20 said. They’ll have one main advantage over their opponents: the NCAA tournament, which will be played May 21 to 23, will be hosted by CMS. “We are excited to have nationals on our courts this year and hopefully knock out the favorites,” Jessie Cruz CM ’19 said. The favorites for the national title remain the same as last year, as Williams, Emory, and CMS will
Sarah Sundermeyer • The Student Life
Catherine Allen SC ‘19 smashes a forehand in her doubles match with teammate Caroline Cox CM ’21 against Redlands last Friday.
likely be duking it out again on the big stage. The Athenas had a chance to play both Williams and Emory earlier in the season, and emerged with two extremely close losses, falling 5-4 to both teams. The only CMS losses of the season came to these top two rivals; with their current 20-2 record, the Athenas are prepared to put up a fight for a national title. Cruz attributes much of the difference between winning and losing their close matches between those top teams to staying mentally strong for the entire match. “You have to be there for every point and not let anything go by, because the little things can make a big difference,” Cruz said. Facing some of the best teams in the country, the Athenas know they
need to “play every point like it’s a big point,” Cruz added. The team’s most recent victories came in SCIAC play. The Athenas easily defeated No. 25 University of Redlands (9-8, 3-1 SCIAC) 9-0 at home April 6 and the Whittier University Poets (2-11, 0-4 SCIAC) 9-0 away April 7. “Even though the games this weekend weren’t super competitive, everyone played hard and it was an entire team effort,” Shea said after the pair of matchups. The Athenas also took down the No. 7 Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens (9-6, 3-1 SCIAC) April 12, defeating their rivals in a marquee matchup at home 8-1. They will face off next at Cal Lutheran University (4-9, 1-2 SCIAC) April 14.
Athenas Smack Rival Sagehens Hank Snowdon
Pictured at right, PomonaPitzer attacker Sonia Olson PZ ’20 loses the ball after a contest from Claremont-Mudd-Scripps defender Luisa Valles CM ’20 Wednesday April 11. The Athenas smacked their Sixth Street rival in the matchup, winning 17-3. The game was absolutely dominated by CMS, who controlled every facet of the game. On the offensive end, CMS generated scoring chances with ease. After jumping out to a 5-0 lead, the team never looked back, and eventually won by 14. The Athenas were led by Evan Murphy CM ’18, who scored four goals and added an assist. Corie Hack CM ’19 also tallied four goals. The Athenas generated 41 shots, scoring on 17 of them, while Pomona-Pitzer only produced 14 shots total. CMS’ stifling defense shut down the
Maya Jotwani • The Student Life
P-P offense for the entirety of the contest, and was able to force 31 Sagehen turnovers. The rivalry victory extended CMS’ winning streak to 13 games, as the Athenas haven’t lost since they faced Division I foe University of California, Davis at the start of the season. They also extended their regular-season SCIAC win streak
to a stunning 21 games. The last time CMS lost a conference regular season game was to P-P in 2016. CMS will next take the field April 14 against the University of Redlands (7-7, 3-4 SCIAC), while the Sagehens will travel to face Occidental College (9-5, 5-2 SCIAC) on the same day.
COMMENTARY
Stanley Cup Playoffs: The Best Time Of The Year Danny Klain
We’ve finally made it to midApril, which means my favorite postseason in all of professional sports has arrived: the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Nothing beats the NHL postseason. In single game, the tension is palpable, as any sort of mistake or stroke of luck can lead to agony or joy. With hockey, the marginal differences that make the game hang in the balance become crystal clear when it’s all on the line, making it by far the most entertaining postseason in of all professional sports. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the competition this season and how it could all shake out. Should I be planning on celebrating finishing my finals by going to see the Ducks? Is THIS the Caps’ year? TSL has answers to your questions about the Stanley Cup Playoffs. In the Western Conference, the competition seems as tough as ever. Last year’s Stanley Cup runnerup, the Nashville Predators, had no sort of Stanley Cup hangover, posting the best record in the NHL, collecting 117 points, and winning the Presidents’ Trophy. Led by media starlet PK Subban and stand-out goalie Pekka Rinne, the Preds posted one of the NHL’s best defenses, allowing the second fewest goals in the league. They are motivated to get back to the Stanley Cup, so I would be stunned if they don’t cruise past the Colorado Ava-
lanche in the first round. The other headline opening series in the West features the surprise of the season, the Vegas Golden Knights. Given the difficulties that inherently come with an expansion team’s inaugural season, it’s very rare to see them make the playoffs, let alone win their division. However, although they have been successful, they will be challenged in the first round when they face off against a Los Angeles Kings team that counters all their strengths. While the Golden Knights have had an explosive offense all year, with five players scoring over 20 goals, the Kings defense is arguably the best in the league. Carried by vets who have been around for the Kings’ Stanley Cup years — like Jonathan Quick, Anze Kopitar, and Dustin Brown — don’t be surprised to see the Kings pull off the first round upset. To wrap up the rest of the Western Conference, the Winnipeg Jets and their balanced team bring the right mix of goals and hard-nosed defense against a solid but average Minnesota Wild. Expect the Jets to fly right by. In the final first round matchup, we have teams that are pretty similar. The Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks post really solid defenses — both ranking in the top 10 in goals allowed — but unimpressive attacks, finishing 19th and 13th respectively in goals scored. I do think the Sharks’ slightly better offense combined with their
impressive penalty kill percentage will lead them to victory in what will likely be a seven-game series. However, my younger self holds in hand a VHS copy of “D2: The Mighty Ducks” and demands me to remind you that “Ducks fly together.” In the Eastern Conference, some of our staples for the past few years remain, while a few teams that have struggled recently are back in the playoffs: The Philadelphia Flyers, Tampa Bay Lightning, and New Jersey Devils all missed the postseason last season. The most intriguing matchup in the East is the rematch between the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs, who faced off in the first round in 2013. After Boston blew a 3-1 series lead, one of the craziest game sevens in postseason history took place. Down 4-1 halfway through the third period, the Bruins pulled off an insane comeback, winning 5-4 in overtime to claim the series. Just like the Jets, the Bruins are insanely balanced, finishing sixth in goals forced and fourth in goals allowed. Meanwhile, the Toronto Maple Leafs are lead by a threeheaded monster of youth. Star centers Auston Matthews, William Nylander, and Mitch Marner are all 21 years old or younger, and each scored over 60 points this season. After challenging the Washington Capitals last postseason, the Leafs showed that they have the potential to be a NHL playoff staple for the next decade, and could win
a few Cups along the way. These young stars should make this series another classic one, but ultimately I think they’ll fall short again in a game seven. If you don’t have a team to watch this postseason, I’d recommend following this series closely. In the rest of the Eastern Conference, we have the ridiculous Tampa Bay Lightning, propelled completely by their insane offensive firepower; they scored 17 more goals than any team this season. Look for Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos to lead the Bolts over the New Jersey Devils with ease. From the Metropolitan Division we have our usual players, as the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins are likely set up for yet another second round matchup. The Pens must be licking their chops, hoping for another opportunity to play the Caps, who they’ve beaten in the second round of the playoffs each of the past two years. In order to get there, the Penguins will have to beat a veteran Philadelphia Flyers team. With Claude Giroux, Shayne Gostisbehere, and Jakub Voracek, the team is pretty top-heavy and lacks stellar goalie play. Given this lack of depth, and Pittsburgh’s strength on the power play, I think the Penguins should advance. Last but not least is my favorite team, the Washington Capitals. This part is complicated. This season has been different for the Caps: they had a lot of roster turnover, Braden
Holtby didn’t dominate the net, and they did not come out with the best record in the NHL. However, the Caps finished the season with a 12-3 record in their last 15 games, and seem to be playing well at the right time. Thus, I have convinced myself, for the 10th year in a row, that it is the Caps’ year. However, in reality, I’ve accepted that they’ll get to the second round and lose. I’m not let-
ting my heart get broken like that again. (Disclaimer: this is definitely not a reverse jinx.) They will take on the Columbus Blue Jackets, and they should beat them easily, as Columbus doesn’t have anyone who can match up well enough to stop the “Rocket” Richard Trophy winner, Alex Ovechkin. However, they’ll definitely get rolled in the second round by Pittsburgh — you heard it here first.
Courtesy of s.yume via Flickr Creative Commons
This year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs should go down to the wire, with perennial superstar and league-leading goal scorer Alex Ovechkin looking to lead the Washington Capitals to their first Cup in franchise history.
SPORTS APRIL 13, 2018
PAGE 5
THE STUDENT LIFE
P-P & CMS BASEBALL
BASEBALL: Sagehens Sweep Rival Stags Behind Three Miraculous Comeback Victories
Continued from Page 1 pitching change from CMS. “I had faced [Kwok] the day before and was looking for a pitch out over the plate, a mistake to get barrel on,” Knapp said. “I thought [Kwok] made a decent pitch … but I was able to stay through it well enough to get it in the air. I wasn’t trying to do anything but hit the ball hard” John O’Malley CM ’18 stepped in to relieve Kwok, but his arrival on the mound couldn’t solve the Stags’ problems. The next man up, Nolan McCafferty PO ’20, was hit by a pitch, and Jeremiah Quezada PZ ’20 followed up Knapp’s home run with a two-run shot of his own, putting the Sagehens up 8-7. Quezada had a similar approach to Knapp as he stepped up to the plate. “I never think I need to hit a homerun. I always just want to make good contact with the ball and drive it somewhere,” he said. With the Stags’ offense sputtering, the Sagehens continued their scoring deluge in the seventh. With men on second and third with two outs, Hennigh slid a single through a gap in left field to put P-P ahead 10-7. But Motter’s RBI single in the bottom of the eighth gave CMS some life, and a solo home run from CJ Novogradac CM ’19 in the ninth pulled the Stags back within one with one out in the bottom of the last inning. Despite giving up the lead, the Stags never went down without a fight. “There is always a chance to come back in such a close game,” Novogradac said. However, Super was once again able to pull through on the mound for the Sagehens, striking out the last two batters to seal the 10-9 victory. Determined to not get swept by their rivals, the Stags shrugged off the disappointing defeats and got out to another hot start in game three, leading 6-1 through six. Entering the bottom of the
seventh, CMS pulled starting pitcher Justin Hull CM ’20, who had thrown brilliantly, allowing one run on four hits in six innings. Then things fell apart for the Stags. “When we were down 6-1 in game three, I told the guys to keep fighting and put some pressure on them,” Sagehen coach Frank Pericolosi said. “Their pitcher was doing a great job and we were fortunate to get that rally in the seventh.” O’Malley came in to relieve Hull, but walked Duncan Skerrett PO ’18 to lead off the inning and was immediately pulled for Brandon Mitchell CM ’21. Knapp, the first batter to face Mitchell, hit a single into right field to put men on first and second with no outs. The pair advanced to second and third on a passed ball and Skerrett scored soon after on a single from Quezada and an error in the field. It only got worse for CMS. An RBI single from Bryce Rogan PO ’18 drove home Knapp, and Cade Hulse PO ’18 then loaded the bases after another Stags’ error. Another passed ball brought in Quezada and shrunk the lead to 6-4, causing CMS to make another pitching change, bringing in Danny Porras CM ’21. Facing the new pitcher, Stone singled home Rogan and Hulse, and then advanced to third on two wild pitches. Two more singles, a walk, and an error behind Porras gave the Sagehens an 8-6 lead with the bases loaded. “In a momentum change like this, where everybody is hitting, you often go up to the plate with a bit more confidence,” Quezada said. “You want to keep the rally going so you do whatever you can to put the ball in play and make the other team make plays.” CMS, scrambling for a solution after watching their five run lead disappear into thin air, made the third pitching change of the inning and brought in Kwok. Immediately after the pitching change, the floodgates opened for real, as Quezada knocked a double into right field to clear the bases.
P-P And CMS Track Compete At P-P Invitational
Thummim Mekuria • The Student Life
Hank Snowdon Dylan Madden PZ ’21 (second from left) runs the 400m dash April 7 in the PomonaPitzer Invitational at Strehle Track. Madden finished 35th overall in the 11-heat race. The invitational saw 1,500 athletes from Division I, II, and III schools, NAIA programs, as well as some professional runners, participate. P-P and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps were among the many teams that competed, and both squads had notable finishes. For the Athenas, Emily Bassett CM ’18 continued her record-setting year, breaking her own program record in the hammer throw by throwing 58.94 meters. She remains second in the country in Division III. The CMS women also impressed in the 4x100 meter relay. Sabrine Griffith CM ’19, Danielle Honan CM ’21, Nirel JonesMitchell CM ’20, and Tyra Abraham SC ’18 finished in 46.82, breaking the program record and the SCIAC record, while also setting the top time in
Division III this season. The Stags were led by Michael Wagenveld CM ’19, who notched the highest Division III pole vault mark at the meet at 4.80 meters, good for the eighth-best mark in Division III this season. The hosting Sagehens also enjoyed a solid day on their home track. Danny Rosen PO ’20 posted the meet’s top Division III time in the 1500-meter run at 3:54.84, good for sixth in program history. In the 5000-meter run, Owen Woo PZ ’21 ran 14:58.53, another top time among the Division III athletes at the meet. Meanwhile, Helen Guo PO ’20 continued to climb the P-P program leaderboard, as her 4:31.59 in the 1500 moved her to third in P-P history. On the field, Jessica Finn PO ’18 finished fifth overall at 38.88 meters in the javelin, another top mark for Division III athletes Saturday. CMS and P-P will return to action Saturday, this time on the other side of Sixth Street, at a SCIAC Multi-Dual hosted by the Stags and Athenas.
P-P Athlete of the Week Baseball Brian Knapp
PO ‘20 Redwood City, California
Chloe Ortiz • The Student Life
Pomona-Pitzer first basemen Cade Hulse PO ’18 swings at a pitch April 7 in one of the Sagehens three victories over rival CMS during the weekend.
By the end of the inning, the Sagehens had drove home 10 runs, nine of which were unearned, and the Stags had committed three errors as well as a slew of wild pitches and passed balls. Knapp credited the high-scoring inning to unforced errors by the Stags and persistence by the Sagehens. “We were all putting the ball in play and fortunately the ball bounced our way a few times,” he said. “We were also able to cycle through a lot of their pitchers in the bullpen and keep wearing them down.” The Stags gave the Sagehens a scare in the ninth, as they put up three runs and had the tying run on base, but a pitching change by P-P stopped the rally, and Peyton Holm PO ’18 was able to strand two Stags on base to end the game. With their third defeat of the weekend, CMS fell under .500 for the season. With nine conference games remaining, the Stags are currently in seventh place in SCIAC, but just three games back of making the conference tournament. “The series was a frustrating one, but it’s over and we cannot change it,” Novogradac said. “It
was a great experience for the younger guys on the team. The freshmen and sophomores put together some great at-bats in tough situations and I’m excited to see how we perform in the next three series.” Meanwhile, the Sagehens moved into a tie with the University of La Verne for second place in the conference. The two teams will meet next weekend in a series that could prove critical for seeding in the SCIAC tournament. Pericolosi said the team is approaching the big match-up as it would any other. “The SCIAC is very competitive and balanced this year, every weekend is tough,” he said. “We just have to keep working hard and getting better.” The final game marked the Sagehens’ sixth consecutive victory over rival CMS. Over the last four years, P-P has gone 10-2 against the Stags. “To win all three games in dramatic comeback fashion and to do so against our rival gives us some momentum heading into the stretch run of the season,” Knapp said. “We’re happy with the results.”
In the Pomona-Pitzer baseball team’s (20-9, 11-4 SCIAC) incredible weekend sweep over the rival Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Stags (15-16, 6-9 SCIAC), no Sagehen had a bigger impact than Brian Knapp PO ’20. The lead-off hitting center fielder was an absolute force at the plate, going 7-of-15 with six runs batted in. Those seven hits included a three-run homer in the second game of the series, a double in the third game, and three RBI singles in the first. The Sagehens now sit in second place in the SCIAC, and hope to win the conference tournament at season’s end.
CMS Athlete of the Week Women’s Lacrosse Evan Murphy CM ‘18 Pleasanton, California
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps lacrosse player Evan Murphy CM ’18 completed her senior day and final battle with Pomona-Pitzer (9-5, 4-3 SCIAC) this past week, and it’s hard to imagine that the games could have gone any better for the superstar midfielder. Murphy tallied three goals in a resounding 18-6 victory over Occidental College (9-5, 5-2 SCIAC) April 7 on her senior day. She followed that with four goals in a dominant 17-3 win over rival Pomona-Pitzer and added an assist on the evening. Her stellar senior season has helped lead the Athenas to an incredible 13-game win streak, which they will look to continue April 14 against the University of Redlands (7-7, 3-4 SCIAC).
P-P MEN’S TENNIS
P-P Men’s Tennis Team Fights Through Doubles Struggles To Defeat Pioneers Jacinta Chen
The Pomona-Pitzer men’s tennis team (13-8, 4-1 SCIAC) had dropped all three doubles sets to the Lewis & Clark College Pioneers (9-5, 5-1) April 7, and things were looking bleak. To avoid a huge upset by the No. 33 Pioneers, the No. 12 Sagehens were faced with the challenging task of winning at least five of the six singles matches. Although they had just minutes between the doubles and singles matches to regroup, the Sagehens showed their strength by flying out into the singles competition in full force. Jed Kronenberg PO ’21, Sam Malech PZ ’18, and Sam Gearou PO ’19 made quick work of their Pioneer opponents, winning 6-1, 6-1 at No. 1 singles, 6-1, 6-1 at No. 5 singles, and 6-1, 6-2 at No. 6 singles, respectively. Their brisk wins tied the overall match score 3-3. With three matches remaining, the fate of the Pioneer-Sagehen battle was in the hands of Octave Bellet PZ ’20, Josh Gearou PO ’19, and Marko Mandic PO ’18 at No. 2, 3, and 4 singles. Bellet flew past his opponent 6-2, 6-4 to help pull the Sagehens one match ahead of the Pioneers, while Josh Gearou clinched P-P’s victory with a 7-5, 7-5 win. After winning the first set 6-3, Mandic tied the second set at 6-6. In full lockdown mode, Mandic captured the second set tiebreaker 7-1 to highlight a 6-3 match victory for the Sagehens. Josh Gearou stayed positive on the team battles despite the doubles defeats. “Each match was close and I felt each doubles team played smart doubles,” he said. “The energy level from the players on and off the court throughout the match was very high.” The Sagehens have struggled in doubles matches all season long, and Josh Gearou was pleased that P-P responded well to adversity. “I was most proud of the team’s ability to recover from the doubles setback and win every singles match. Our team’s ability to be un-
Alec Lei • The Student Life
Octave Bellet de Giacomoni PZ ’20 approaches a forehand volley in his doubles match against Lewis & Clark April 7 as teammate Kalyan Chadalavada PO ’18 looks on.
fazed after going down in doubles has been a key part of our success this year in our singles matches,” he said. Kronenberg agreed, recalling the Sagehens’ equally hard-fought 5-4 comeback over the Brandeis Judges (10-2), after dropping all three doubles matches in February. “The heart we’ve shown this season, especially when down in singles, has been incredible to see and it’s so fun competing with everyone,” he said. Kronenberg credited the teams’ success to the senior Sagehens for leading the large roster of underclassmen by example with unrelenting on-court determination. “I’m really proud of how hard we fight to win when we are in a tough situation. A lot of that fighting spirit comes from our senior captains,” he said. “Seeing how hard guys compete on a daily basis is really important and they’ve taught us really well.”
Coming into the match against the Pioneers, the Sagehens had a tough 8-1 loss to No. 8 Gustavus Adolphus College (15-8) fresh in their memories. With this in mind, they focused on fine-tuning their singles and doubles play in practice. “We talked a lot about finding a way to win close matches in singles, when all the pressure is on you. That really showed against Lewis & Clark since we came out and played really strong competitive tennis on big points,” Kronenberg said. Josh Gearou said the team also emphasized playing “smarter ” doubles prior to facing Lewis & Clark. “Some aspects of doubles we tried to focus on after these matches were hitting more balls through the center at the net and the baseline, hitting lobs to throw off aggressive net players, and hitting lower and harder at the net players from the baseline,” he said. Since the SCIAC Champion-
ships are just a month away, the P-P men hope that they can play their future doubles matches with more energy. “We have to be able to start the match with the intensity we had when we were losing 3-0,” Mandic said. As they make a final push for a possible spot in the NCAA playoffs, Josh Gearou also noted the team’s desire to continue honing their doubles play in practice. “Going into the rest of the season, I am feeling confident about my game and my ability to win in big matches. I think the same can be said for the rest of the players in our singles lineup,” he said. “I’m a little nervous about our doubles lineup, but I hope that in the next weeks we can find the right ingredients to put together some wins in our doubles spots, giving us a better chance to win some of the big matches we have coming up.”
LIFE & STYLE PAGE 6
APRIL 13, 2018
THE STUDENT LIFE
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
HIP-HO P FAIR IES FLUTTER IN POMO NA ’ S PR O DU CTIO N As if slapstick comedy, mischievous magic, Elizabethan spoken word, and romantic mayhem weren’t enough, Pomona College’s production of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” also includes hip-hop dancing fairies. The play, directed by Assistant Professor of Theatre and Dance Carolyn Ratteray, turns Shakespeare’s comedy into a genderbending and thought-provoking performance, as presented last weekend, April 5-8. I attended the preview April 4 and was amazed at the sheer talent and ridiculous fun of the play. Written in 1595, the play tells the tale of marriage woes, love trian-
gles, a disapproving father, tricksters, scheming husbands, silly craftspeople, an asshead, and yes, a fairy kingdom. This production takes place in “the really not too distant future,” according to the program pamphlet. Hermia (Maya Barbon PZ ’21) and Lysander (Gbeke Fawehinmi PO ’19) are in love. Lysander is typically played by a man, but in this show played by a woman. Hermia’s father Egeus (Owen Halstad PO ’21) wants her to marry Demetrius (Ben Hogoboom PO ’19), who loves Hermia, while Helena (Winnie Stack PZ ’18) is in love with Demetrius. Chaos ensues as the various lovers flee into the forest
and are put under magic spells by Oberon, King of the Fairies (Shanawar Zahoor PZ ’21), who is fighting with his wife Titania, Queen of the Fairies (Megan Marshall PO ’20). Everything about the play contributed to its beautiful, mystical, and hip-hoppy atmosphere. The set incorporated deep blues, purples, and greens, from the color-changing lighting to the graffiti backdrop to the long strands of leaves and flowers hanging from the ceiling. I could almost see the fairy magic floating in the air on stage. The costumes, designed by Wardrobe Supervisor Devon Horn PO ’18, made the world
come alive. The fairy dancers wore traditional hip-hop style clothing but with red and blue glittery touches that sparkled when they danced. Puck, the trickster fairy, and Oberon and Titania, all wore bright, crazy wigs, and equally vibrant makeup. The humans in the story wore dull, plain costumes when outside the forest, but their clothes changed into more colorful attire after spending time in the fairy realm. The hip-hop element was probably my favorite part of the show. Soft, rhythmic tracks played in the background of some of the scenes. There was one long hip-hop dance in the first
act, performed by the fairies, and two in the second act. The dances, choreographed by Pomona Lecturer in Dance Elm Pizarro, perfectly blended hip-hop style with a magical, fantastical setting. The way the fairies walked and moved in regular scenes looked like they were dancing, too. The actors managed to make Shakespeare’s lines sound like spoken word poetry and rap. Puck (Berto Gonzalez PO ’20) speaks almost completely in rhyme. When speaking his monologues to the audience against the hip-hop background music in perfect tempo, it sounded like a hip-hop rap verse.
The actors all recited their complex Elizabethan English lines without any mistakes. Their comedic timing and use of exaggerated body movements were equal to those of professionals I have seen perform Shakespeare’s plays in the past. The great part about having actors who can command the language so well is that even the audience members who are least versed in Shakespeare can understand what is going on. I could tell what was funny even when I didn’t know what the character had just said. Throughout the show, the audience was full of laughter and applause, and I left feeling immensely joyful.
DELVE DEEPER INTO THE DREAM WITH THE DIRECTOR TSL: How did the idea to do this production come about? Carolyn Ratteray: It was in the back of my consciousness as a pretty interesting and magical piece, but also a piece that is not really talked about in terms of really interesting power dynamics that were fascinating for me to explore. ... Our own egos get in the way of our relationships and having control and power over others. There’s a lot of that in “Midsummer.”
CAST TALKS CHARACTERS, ACTING, AND SHAKESPEARE TSL: What did you like most about your character, and what did you like least? Megan Marshall PO ’20 (Titania): I really like the way [Titania] is able to take up so much space and how much power she has because I feel like that’s something I personally don’t get to experience in everyday life. I think the thing I like the least [about her] is how much Oberon manipulates her, even though that’s not about her personally. Winnie Stack PZ ’18 (Helena): What I like most about Helena is her drive for love. Despite the fact that Demetrius has rejected her multiple times, her hopeless romantic passion keeps her determined through whatever hurdles come her way. What I like least about her is her lack of self confidence and self-respect. Jon Wilson PO ’19 (Nick Bottom): The physicality and voice affectation is really fun to play with, and getting to play with my pitch. … Bottom has this very huge monologue at the end … and that’s an absolute blast, but it ruined my voice every night. Berto Gonzalez PO ’20 (Puck): Puck is probably the most fun character that I’ve played so far in college. Getting myself out of my own skin and into the skin of something so otherworldly was great. It allowed me to really escape myself, while also drawing on my own experience to influence my interpretation of Puck. … I think Puck’s least flattering characteristic is his unending dedication to his master. TSL: What was most challenging about playing your character? Maya Barbon PZ ’21: Taking Shakespeare’s text and trying to understand everything that is being said. His words are so beautiful, but it can be a challenge to translate it all and properly broadcast what we are saying to an audience.
JW: About halfway through the process there is a tendency to just get a little bit frustrated. You hit a wall sometimes, and it feels like you can’t quite break through. … For me, it’s a fear of not being good enough, not performing well, or the audience not liking me. Once you can access that, it’s easier to break through the wall and say that doesn’t really matter, and the self-consciousness goes away. Ben Hogoboom PO ’19: I think the most challenging part was not [to] judge my character. It’s really hard to play somebody that you don’t like, and I think you try to make choices that don’t really feel like a real person. … What Carolyn [the director] would often say is that “you have to find the love in every scene.” Gbeke Fawehinmi PO ’19: I think the most challenging part for me was figuring out how to show the effect of fairy magic on the character. … I thought that this “love” [for Helena] should be shown differently from the love that Lysander feels for Hermia, more lustful and excitable. TSL: What do you like best about “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”? MB: It’s a Shakespeare play about
true love, struggling actors, and magic. What’s not to like? I especially love our production. It is so beautiful visually, especially when we go into the magical forest. WS: What I like most about “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is how it is such an ensemble and community-driven show. I like that there are so many different worlds and perspectives the audience gets to experience in just one play. BH: I like how human it is and how easy it is to relate to. I think it’s hilarious how there are people marrying for the wrong reasons, people marrying for the right reasons, this sort of stereotype of the actor who is sort of a blockhead. … All these things that are really relatable now were just as common in Elizabethan England. GF: What I like most about “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is that it’s not centered around certain characters, but rather it’s a conglomeration of different storylines with different characters interacting in hilarious ways. You have the court, the lovers, the fairies, and the mechanicals, and each group adds a special aspect to the show. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
TSL: What was your favorite part about directing this play? CR: This is a really passionate and talented group of students, and we did a lot of extra hours of rehearsal outside the assigned 6-10 each night. When doing Shakespeare, there’s a lot more work to do in terms of handling the language and the technique involved in speaking Shakespeare, in addition to “What’s my character? What’s my moment?” From day one, these actors were completely game. I feel really lucky as a director. It’s been an absolute honor to work with these really talented artists. And the dancers who came in, they’re multitalented. They’re just doing amazing work, too, so it’s been a lot of fun to see all the talents come together in the room. TSL: What was the most difficult part about directing this play? CR: As always with any large cast, it’s coordinating schedules, but also the most rewarding part is the same as the most difficult part: making the language come alive. I think some people’s attitude toward Shakespeare is “Oh, I don’t understand it. It’s not accessible.” But when the actors really know what they’re saying, when we’re clear about what story we’re telling, then
the audience can’t help but see what story we’re telling. TSL: What do you like about this play in general? CR: I liked that at every level in this play — whether it’s in the court or the woods — there’s a really fun and interesting examination of power dynamics. I think people can think of “Midsummer” as a really light and frilly play, which it is. It’s really magical and light and fun, and it’s a comedy. But, it also has this really serious dark underside in terms of the fairy king is basically drugging his partner in order to get what he wants. In modern day language and understanding, that’s a horrible thing to do. It’s interesting to highlight the power dynamic — the tensions. The examination of relationships in all areas of the show had been really interesting for me. TSL: What is special about your specific production of this play? Did you change anything? CR: Because we had two women playing Hermia and Lysander, we did change some of the pronouns when characters were referencing them. I also placed some women in roles typically assigned to men. Is it so much different? Or is it just, every director is going to have their particular take or approach to a piece? … I’m an African American cisgendered female. I’m queer. [So,] using the lens like “Why can’t there be a queer lover storyline in this?” seems pretty normal and natural to me. When I read Shakespeare’s language, there is such a musicality in so many of the speeches because of the rhyme pattern that Puck speaks in. As soon as I hear that, it reminds me of spoken word and hip-hop, so why not incorporate that lens into it as
well? … Shakespeare’s words were meant to be heard. Hip-hop is also form of poetry meant to be heard. The king and queen are in a battle, so “Oh, how do I tell that story?” For me, one of the first things that comes to mind is [that] I’ve always seen dance battles as a way of telling a story about two opposing forces. The genre where I’ve seen dance battles is hip-hop. So that’s where that came from. TSL: Is there anything else you would like to add? CR: Just to give another shoutout to the students I’ve been working with. It really moves me to work with a group of such talented and dedicated artists. It’s been a pleasure, a deep, deep joy, to go through this journey with them. And shoutout to the choreographer and all the designers who [made] this come to life. It looks beautiful. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
LIFE & STYLE THE STUDENT LIFE
APRIL 13, 2018
PAGE 7
SANSKRITI 2018 INCLUSIV ITY , CO LLAB O R ATIO N , AND SO UTH ASI AN CULTUR E
Between a love triangle, traditional folk dances, Urdu poetry, and classical instruments, this year’s Sanskriti was a colorful whirlwind that celebrated South Asian culture. Presented April 6 at Pomona College’s Big Bridges Auditorium, the show was dynamic and full of energy. Claremont Tamasha, a 5C Bollywood dance company, organizes the annual Sanskriti, which is a cultural and entertainment show featuring classical, Bollywood, Punjabi, South Indian, and hip-hop performances. Similar to years past, the 2018 show emulated Bollywood movies with a classic, cheesy story as well as a range of performances. Some of the highlights included folk dances, such as Bhangra and Dandiya. The former is a highenergy, traditional Punjabi dance performed by students dressed in the colors of the rainbow. The latter originated in western India and featured dancers with sticks in their hands. Two musicians played the santoor — an indo-persian string instrument — and the tabla — an Indian percussion instrument. This year’s show was also the first time Sanskriti at the 5Cs featured a South Indian dance medley. Claremont Tamasha emphasized enthusiasm and inclusivity to all performers, and put on seven of the dances at Sanskriti. “Tamasha’s goal is to reach as many people who want to participate in Sanskriti or just dance,” Jahnavi Kothari SC ’19 said. “So you don’t need to have any prior experience; it’s inclusive to everyone.” As a result, the event was dependent on word of mouth; friends would encourage each other to participate. Latisha Shah CM ’18 spoke about how the process of recruiting danc-
ers was flexible and welcoming. “We ask them to try it out. We [aren’t] like, ‘Oh you come, and then you have to be in the dance,’” Shah said. Kothari added that the spirit of the process was more important. “There’s no pressure to be doing the right steps and everything,” Kothari said. “It’s all about having fun and providing us with your energy and enthusiasm.” This low-pressure strategy was successful. Many of Kothari’s friends who were involved in a dance organized by Scripps College students wanted to do a secondary dance with Tamasha because of how much they enjoyed dancing in the inclusive environment. Yuki Ratna PZ ’19 emphasized the lack of a hierarchical system with the choreography and rehearsal process. “Choreographers do teach the dance, but it’s very collaborative, in that students can give in their input,” Ratna said. “There’s no sort of structure that [says] ‘This is how it has to be.’ … Seniors can become best friends with freshmen.” Planning for the show actually began in November, when Claremont Tamasha started brainstorming ideas to uphold the tradition of having a dramatic storyline interwoven into the show. “If someone just went to a show [of] just performances, there’s no flow. So, we tried to create a storyline to connect everything, just to make it fun for the audience,” Shah said. Each college also organized their own dance. Though Pitzer College’s dance was noticeably missing from this year’s lineup, it turned out that the Pitzer dancers had simply collaborated with the dancers from Pomona to perform one piece together. Claremont dance groups Groove
Nation and Pangea also performed at the show, providing the show with a hip and modern twist that was refreshing to watch. Because the show was free, marketing was integral to the success of the show. Trailers that were posted on the Claremont Tamasha Facebook page featured rehearsals, clips of dance sequences, and sneak peaks of the love triangle. Sanskriti has also steadily gained popularity within the 5Cs over recent years, and Ratna attributes this to people’s growing interest in South Asian culture. “India as a country itself is so diverse,” Ratna said. “There’s always this intrigue about the different cultures and diversities that India holds. I think that makes people so interested and intrigued as to what Sanskriti really is.” Appreciation of diversity and culture is inherent in the show. Performers — South Asians and nonSouth Asians alike — all brought out an exciting energy that was intensified by the lively music and vibrant lighting. Each impeccably executed performance garnered an uproar of applause with audience members cheering for their friends to come back onstage. It was as if the community itself was shining. The hugs and heartfelt words shared at the end of show to send off seniors in the Sanskriti community was especially touching. Claremont Tamasha hopes to continue making Sanskriti fun and enjoyable for both performers and audiences. “We just want to make it better every year and more inclusive every year, and encourage as much participation as we can get,” Ratna said. “Because at the end of the day, we want people to have fun.”
All articles in the “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” spread were written by Leah Kelly, and the photos were courtesy of The Theatre and Dance Department of the Claremont Colleges. Captions from top, going clockwise: The set was alive with fairy magic, incorporating deep blues, purples, and greens. The director of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Carolyn Ratteray. Courtesy of Carolyn Ratteray. Jon Wilson PO ’19 took on the role of Nick Bottom, a weaver in practice whose true calling is the stage. The costumes, designed by Wardrobe Supervisor Devon Horn PO ’18, contributed to making the world come alive, shining and glittering when the dancers moved. The dances in the show, choreographed by Pomona Lecturer in Dance Elm Pizarro, perfectly blended hip-hop style with a magical, fantastical setting.
The article in the Sanskriti spread is written by Mabel Lui, and the photos were taken by Chloe Ortiz. Captions from top, going clockwise: Claremont Tamasha emphasized enthusiasm and inclusivity to all performers, and put on seven of the dances at Sanskriti 2018. The folk dance Bhangra, a high-energy, traditional Punjabi dance performed by students dressed in the colors of the rainbow, was one of the highlights of the night. Choreographers and dancers utilized a collaborative approach to the various dances, helping to increase bonding and create an atmosphere that was dynamic and full of this collaborative energy.
LIFE & STYLE PAGE 8 ASK JASPER
APRIL 13, 2018
THE STUDENT LIFE
What Is Love: Sugar, Spice, And All Other Advice
Dear Jasper, What is love? Baby don’t hurt me Don’t hurt me No more Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me No more What is love? Yeah I don’t know why you’re not fair I give you my love, but you don’t care So what is right and what is wrong? Gimme a sign What is love? Baby don’t hurt me Don’t hurt me No more What is love? Baby don’t hurt me Don’t hurt me No more Oh, I don’t know, what can I do? What else can I say, it’s up to you I know we’re one, just me and you I can’t go on Sincerely, What is Love? Dear What is Love?, Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me I ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed She was looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb In the shape of an “L” on her forehead Well the years start coming and they don’t stop coming Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running Didn’t make sense not to live for fun Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb So much to do, so much to see So what’s wrong with taking
the back streets? You’ll never know if you don’t go You’ll never shine if you don’t glow Hey now, you’re an all-star, get your game on, go play Hey now, you’re a rock star, get the show on, get paid And all that glitters is gold Only shooting stars break the mold It’s a cool place and they say it gets colder You’re bundled up now, wait till you get older But the meteor men beg to differ Judging by the hole in the sat ellite picture The ice we skate is getting pretty thin The water’s getting warm so you might as well swim My world’s on fire, how about yours? That’s the way I like it and I never get bored Hey now, you’re an all-star, get your game on, go play Hey now, you’re a rock star, get the show on, get paid All that glitters is gold Only shooting stars break the mold Hey now, you’re an all-star, get your game on, go play Hey now, you’re a rock star, get the show, on get paid And all that glitters is gold Only shooting stars Somebody once asked could I spare some change for gas? I need to get myself away from this place I said yep what a concept I could use a little fuel myself And we could all use a little change Well, the years start coming
and they don’t stop coming Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running Didn’t make sense not to live for fun Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb So much to do, so much to see So what’s wrong with taking the back streets? You’ll never know if you don’t go (go!) You’ll never shine if you don’t glow Hey now, you’re an all-star, get your game on, go play Hey now, you’re a rock star, get the show on, get paid And all that glitters is gold Only shooting stars break the mold And all that glitters is gold Only shooting stars break the mold (“All Star” by Smash Mouth) Best of luck! Sincerely, Jasper
***
Dear Jasper, Me and my significant other have been together for over two years. We still love each other, but sometimes it’s hard to keep our flame alive and still be exciting. Do you have any advice for how we can spice things up? Sincerely, Searching for Spice Hi there, Searching, This is a common problem a lot of couples face, so know you are not alone! The most important thing here, as with most aspects of any relationship, is commu-
nication. I am assuming that when you refer to keeping the “flame alive,” you are talking about the romantic aspect of your relationship. If this is an incorrect assumption, my apologies in advance! In the case that you are referring to romantic life, I suggest whenever you sense that you both have time and space to talk, bring up this issue. You can arrange a time when you are both free from distraction and obligations to ensure a productive conversation environment. Then, I suggest framing the issue as something you are personally feeling as opposed to something that is inherently wrong in the relationship. This could look like: “I love you a lot, but I sometimes wish we could do more spontaneous and different things in our romantic life. Is there some way we could make our romantic life more exciting? What would you be interested in?” Emphasize that these are things you are feeling; communicating is key to maintaining a healthy and fulfilling relationship. Definitely try to engage your partner so that you can figure out what would be desirable for the both of you. Relationships are a two-way street, after all. The way to spice up your relationship would be unique to you and your partner’s relationship. There is no one formula for this. Once you open the door to conversation about this aspect of your relationship, hopefully you can begin working towards a more fulfilling relationship for the both of you. Wishing you well, Jasper
Anikka Sophia Hoppe Villegas • The Student Life
Sparkathon To Open The Gates 5C Students Respond To Coachella’s Political Controversies Of Design Thinking Karen Song Human-centered design thinking, a panel of judges from one of the nation’s fastest growing financial software companies, and a group of eager students will come together this week for a day of collaboration and problem solving. Sparkathon, hosted by Pomona Ventures and sponsored by Intuit Inc., will take place at the Hive at Pomona College for the first time April 13. This year’s challenge will explore the different difficulties of artificial intelligence automation within the workforce and the education of workers regarding possible responses to these obstacles. Although the event is largely focused on creative problem solving, Pomona Ventures hopes that Sparkathon will inspire more people to learn about the entrepreneurship industry and make lasting connections with those who are already involved. Fabian Fernandez-Han PO ’20, one of the four Pomona Ventures members hosting Sparkathon, said one of their main goals was to make this event more open and welcoming than others of this nature. People are often intimidated by the corporate atmosphere of these types of competitions, Fernandez-Han said. “At the 5Cs it can be difficult to find direction. A lot of my friends say product management or consulting sounds interesting, but
they don’t know where to start,” Fernandez-Han said. “This is especially true for first-generation, low income students who don’t have parents with experience in these industries.” He said he wants to level the playing field so that anyone can learn more about entrepreneurship. Another one of the members in charge of Sparkathon, Marie-Nicole Jeffroy-Meynard SC ’18, spoke about her personal experience as a Scripps College student who didn’t get much exposure to the entrepreneurship industry until she joined Pomona Ventures in her junior year. “As Scripps students, we’re not really pushed to compete in this kind of thing,” Jeffroy-Meynard said. “That’s why I joined — so that I could get exposure to the entrepreneurship and business world. And that’s why I hope this event will act as an introduction for more Scripps students who want to explore that.” Although this event is the first of its kind, Pomona Ventures hopes to make it a recurring competition with a new challenge or theme every year. The event will feature a crash course on design thinking — a methodology of solving problems that highlights the consumer and focuses on empathy. “A really big part of design thinking is solving problems, but also identifying problems to help a specific person or consumer,” said Fernandez-Han, who has previ-
ously trained in the method. The majority of the event will be spent in groups that can be chosen before the competition or placed together by Pomona Ventures. In creating new groups, Fernandez-Han said that their main goal is to have diversity, whether it be gathering folks from different schools, cultural backgrounds, or levels of experience. This will allow for a greater and more productive range of ideas, he said. Both Fernandez-Han and JeffroyMeynard have emphasized the fact that Sparkathon is open to people of all backgrounds and interests, and will act simply as an introduction to the world of entrepreneurship. “We’re trying to make it fun with snacks and break times, so it doesn’t feel too intense like a lot of hackathons,” Jeffroy-Meynard said. “But we still want participants to be able to show off their professional skills in a professional setting.” The registration is open until they reach their maximum capacity of 100 participants, and the specific prompt for the competition will remain a secret until the day of. “I think it’s important for people to know that they don’t need experience in entrepreneurship whatsoever [to register],” Fernandez-Han said. “It’s about students from all over the 5Cs integrating entrepreneurship into something they’re already passionate about.”
Courtesy of Fabian Fernandez-Han
Pomona Ventures meets in the hive to discuss how to address problems in design thinking.
Molly Antell • The Student Life
Maya Zhou Each year as mid-April approaches, plenty of college students make their way to the desert of Indio, California, with face glitter, neon wristbands and high spirits in tow. Their final destination? Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, bastion of “good-vibes” escapism. Given the prestige of this annual festival, many attendees may overlook the political backlash that Coachella has faced in recent years. In 2017, the spotlight was on Philip Anschutz, founder of Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), the festival’s parent company. Reports surfaced tying Anschutz to several conservative organizations and antiLGBTQ+ groups, such as Alliance Defending Freedom and Family Research Council. For decades, he has operated with minimal outcry despite accounts of his far-right politics, including Greenpeace’s 2013 charge that he was a “financier of climate change denial.” While Anschutz has dubbed claims of him being anti-LGBTQ+ as “fake news” and “garbage,” many users took to Twitter to proclaim that this revelation would stop them from attending Coachella. However, in typical fashion, tickets still promptly sold out. This isn’t the first time that the celebrated festival has faced controversy. “Tipi” rentals, the donning of Native American headdresses, bindis, and more have resulted in media outrage about the cultural appropriation that is so prevalent at Coachella. Yasmin Istanbouli SC ’19, who attended the festival in her first year of college, was troubled by all of the “problematic outfit choices” she witnessed.
“Cultural appropriation is a large part of Coachella. I saw a big number of people wearing the Keffiyeh, which is a Middle Eastern headdress worn by mostly Arabs and Middle Eastern people,” Istanbouli said. “This one scarf with its specific pattern holds so much culture, history, resistance, and meaning, yet a bunch of white people are walking around with it tied around their mouths or necks as a fashion statement.” Others have also criticized the costliness of an event that is supposed to espouse freedom and inclusivity, with one journalist even calling it “an oasis for douchebags and trust fund babies.” According to a Time article, Coachella tickets range from $429 to almost $1,000. That’s excluding the costs of lodging, transportation, food, and alcohol. The cost is one of the reasons why Nick Lewis PO ’19 has never attended and doesn’t plan on attending Coachella. However, Lewis doesn’t feel as though he is missing out. He said if he were to get into festivals, he would prefer smaller-scale ones. Ryan Finley SC ’20 attended Coachella last year and is planning to go again. Coming from a single parent, lower-middle class household, Finley acknowledges that there is a lot of privilege in being able to attend Coachella. “It’s something I have to save up for, and even when I am there, I feel off and sometimes out-of-place,” Finley said. Istanbouli agreed with this, naming the large celebrity presence at Coachella as an example of the aspect of privilege. For instance, popular stars like Rihanna, Kylie Jenner, and Vanessa Hudgens have all graced the white-peaked tents of the Coachella VIP area, she said.
“It really shows how Coachella is the kind of festival that focuses on a specific group of people: celebrities and rich people,” Istanbouli said. Given all the recent controversy, can 5C students still find their bliss in the picturesque Coachella Valley? Alex Hammond SC ’19 attended the festival as a first-year. She said that, overall, she had a good experience and enjoyed the cathartic effect of seeing many of her favorite artists perform live. However, she decided not to go back again, citing the political backlash that AEG has faced as playing a part in her choice. “As a queer person, I was pretty uncomfortable with the actions of Anschutz,” Hammond said. “Especially after Citizens United [v. Federal Election Commission], I think people have even more of an obligation to ‘vote with their wallet.’” Istanbouli was unaware of where her money was going when she first attended Coachella in 2016, but after she claimed to found out, she vowed to never attend again. “Last year, a friend of mine even had an extra ticket for me, which I could’ve taken for free, but I just could not get myself to go knowing all that I know now,” Istanbouli said. Like Hammond, Lewis believes that if the allegations against Anschutz are indeed true, then the public must unite against the organization by boycotting future events and festivals. “This, coupled with a strong voter turnout come November, will send a clear message about where our country’s political future lies,” Lewis said. “Ignoring the political motivations of an organization or individual goes against all of the work activists put in, especially in the case of Coachella, as our age bracket is critical to their success.”
OPINIONS APRIL 13, 2018
THE STUDENT LIFE MEGHAN JOYCE Editor-in-Chief KELLEN BROWNING Managing Editor ARIEL SO Managing Editor
SAMUEL BRESLOW, News Editor MARC ROD, News Editor LANEY POPE, News Associate MEGHAN BOBROWSKY, Life & Style Editor SAMANTHA RESNICK, Life & Style Editor WHITNEY WACHTEL, Life & Style Associate DONNIE DENOME, Opinions Editor ANIKKA VILLEGAS, Opinions Editor HANK SNOWDON, Sports Editor DAPHNE YANG, Senior Design Editor CASSIE WANG, Senior Design Editor MIN HYUNG LEE, News Designer KELLY HO, Life & Style Designer CHRISTINE LIN, Opinions Designer JILLIAN BATIUK, Sports Designer
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Zuckerberg’s Senate Hearing A booster seat for bonus height
An assassin is among us Bee-ware of Hank Snowdon!!
Old people in Congress What is the Facebook?
Harming endangered species #ProtectBees2k18 :’(
Pomona Mention on LA Times Crossword Right on time for 4/7
Smucker’s Uncrustables Epistemologically ravioli
They missed the inside joke Pomona wasn’t 47down
Glorified PB+ Js Ontologically not ravioli
Weekly Comic: Prospering From The Prospies
Claremont Colleges Should Emphasize Transparency, In-Person Communication With Journalists Kellen Browning Guest Columnist I recently became aware that The Claremont Colleges Services, which supplements the 7Cs with support like the Honnold-Mudd Library and Campus Safety, requires journalists to submit their questions for sources in writing, and does not permit members of TCCS to conduct in-person interviews with reporters. I’ve been a journalist for nearly five years, two in Claremont, and I’d never heard of anything like this before. This policy deeply concerns me. Inperson, face-to-face interviews are the staple of any story because they provide context to quotes and allow both interviewers and interviewees to have a more fluid discussion than an email exchange or a phone call allows. To me, an organization that prohibits in-person conversations with reporters is trying to obfuscate and delay stories, and has something to hide. That may not be true of TCCS, but that’s the impression they’re giving. Emailed questions give sources the chance to converse with public information officers, lawyers, and spokespeople who will water down responses to bland, uncontroversial, and boring statements. Speaking in person requires interview subjects, who are purportedly knowledgeable in their fields, to be well-prepared and much more honest. People are more likely to tell the truth when they don’t have time to think about how to hedge their answers. Quotes from face-to-face interviews are better and more genuine. TCCS spokesperson Kim Lane told me the email rule was implemented three years ago, before she came to Claremont. “It is my understanding that the policy was developed to ensure that we provide accurate information, document our responses, and keep a record of the types of inquiries that we receive,” she wrote in an email to TSL. If I’m seeking an administrator’s opinion on an issue, there should be no need to doublecheck that against some rulebook; an immediate, in-person response sounds fine to me. If I’m asking for statistics, sure, send me a follow-up email after we’ve talked. As for documenting responses — by all means, document away. Take notes, bring a public information officer buddy, or record your own version of the conversation if you have to. But keeping reporters at arm’s length altogether tells me that TCCS is afraid their administrators will wilt under in-person media scrutiny from student reporters. If that’s true, I think we need some new administrators.
I ’m s u r e t h a t ’s n o t t r u e , though. Our administrators, from what I’ve seen, are smart, talented, competent employees, and I’m sure they can handle some questions without a day’s advance notice. The individual 7Cs have their own ways of responding to media. Like TCCS, some methods are frustrating, while others are transparent and make me more inclined to believe they want to be cooperative. Pomona College’s former Dean of Students Miriam Feldblum was one of the most accessible administrators I’ve communicated with, and was always more than willing to answer my questions. When I investigated a spike in alcohol transports in the fall of 2016, she gave me a long, inperson interview, and addressed the problem head-on. Here’s to hoping that Pomona remains as transparent and open with reporters now that Feldblum is gone. Based on my interactions with their public information officers, my hunch is that it will. When reporting on the controversy surrounding Pomona’s new art museum, as well as its hiring of sociologist Alice Goffman, PIO Marylou Ferry was prompt and helpful. And they’ve got flexible scheduling: “Depending on schedules, we provide in-person, phone, and/or email interviews,” Ferry noted in an email to TSL. Harvey Mudd College is also exemplary when it comes to responding to media inquiries. Last spring, in the midst of a month of protests, meetings, and sit-ins sparked by TSL’s publishing of the leaked Wabash Report, President Maria Klawe was willing to do an impromptu interview and answer my questions in person, immediately following a contentious event in which furious students bombarded her with questions. She didn’t seem angry about my article, nor did she insist on speaking off the record, bringing in a public information officer, or even going out of earshot of students. Klawe’s openness during a time of immense strife and struggle at Mudd is commendable, and should be a model for other schools to follow. Judy Augsburger, HMC’s director of public relations, said in an email to TSL that Mudd will use “whatever communications vehicle is most appropriate and most convenient for both the interviewer and interviewee — whether that be in-person meetings, phone conversations, live video interviews or via email.” I haven’t done much reporting at Pitzer College, though TSL’s news editors tell me Pitzer is prompt about responding to media inquiries. But Scripps College and Claremont McKenna College both have policies that require journalists to go through the school’s public information officer (PIO) for all requests, which is unnecessary and
wastes time for those involved. Is the media relations department afraid a rogue faculty member will reveal privileged information? Maybe not, but again, that’s the impression journalists get. The good news, though, is that Scripps’ PIO, Karen Bergh, does an admirable job fielding media inquires. Last spring, when I was working on a story about the Scripps resident advisor strike, she provided information promptly and set up an interview with President Lara Tiedens when I asked for it. Not quite as accessible as HMC, but still not bad. Recently, however, it seems Scripps has slipped a bit in terms of timeliness of replies. TSL reporter Lauren Koenig, who wrote a story last week about Scripps housing, said she struggled to get quick responses to her questions. “Communicating over email and phone can take days, and sometimes emails fall through entirely,” Koenig told me. “It can be cumbersome and frustrating to get the information we need as writers working under tight deadlines, when we have to go through PR for even data-related inquiries.” At CMC, when TSL has requested information via email for stories, such as with the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps track suspensions earlier this semester, PIOs Joann Young and Peter Hong have been happy to oblige. But when I tried to arrange an in-person interview with Dean of Students Sharon Basso for a story about CMC’s new security program, it didn’t go so well. I was asked to provide emailed questions — which, again, is likely to elicit worse and delayed responses. I finally got the interview when I informed CMC we’d be publishing a story with or without comment from Basso. Miraculously, an opening in her schedule appeared. Hong thinks asking for an interview with several days notice is not enough time for an administrator. “I actually think providing you an interview with a vice president in a week’s time is quite reasonable,” he told me. “If one wants to have a discussion of a significant college policy, it is important to schedule a meeting in advance to thoroughly cover the subject, rather than talk about it spontaneously.” We’ll have to agree to disagree. I think a 20-minute chat about a program that has been in the works for months, if not years, shouldn’t be too hard to arrange and to talk about it. I guess this goes back to my perception of administrators; apparently I’m overestimating their abilities to stay informed and answer questions without preparing first. Kellen Browning is a Pomona College sophomore and TSL’s managing editor for news and sports. Have a news tip? You can probably find him drinking boba at Milk and Honey.
TSL is hiring! We’re looking for: News writers Sports writers Graphic designers Web developers Email jobs@tsl.news for more information or to apply.
Nina Potischman • The Student Life
OPINIONS PAGE 10
APRIL 13, 2018
THE STUDENT LIFE
Facebook’s Scandals Blur The Lines of Internet Consent Maddy Neff Columnist
Earlier this year, I wrote an article about Facebook’s fake news problem, battling between protections of free speech and government regulation. Since then, a few factors have shifted the Facebook conversation in a new direction. One: Cambridge Analytica made psychological profiles of U.S. voters during the 2016 election with data mined from Facebook users. Two: Mark Zuckerberg gave a testimony before Congress regarding both Cambridge Analytica and Russian collusion. Both of these events bring up a bigger problem within Facebook’s business model regarding consent. I have had numerous conversations about my recent doubts about Facebook and my plan to delete my account. To my surprise, I have received many skeptical responses to my decision. My twin sister believed that I was making the wrong choice. My friend thought I was joking. And the list goes on. I realize that many people use Facebook to communicate with distant relatives and friends, and there are most certainly other reasons to have an account. To be clear, I am not suggesting that everyone go out and delete their account, but I would like to explain my reasoning to get rid of mine. In my opinion — one that is likely echoed elsewhere — Facebook has failed to keep its promise and maintain it mission
of “[bringing] people closer together,” and instead, has made an environment created to build connections become associated with fear and anxiety over the security of personal information and the possibility of fake news. Roughly a month ago, The New York Times Magazine reported that Cambridge Analytica used Amazon’s “Mechanical Turk” service, an online marketplace “where users can complete small tasks for commensurately modest sums of cash” in order to get information from American Facebook users. In exchange for installing an app and taking a personality quiz, Cambridge Analytica was able to gain access to millions of Facebook profiles and rewarded its participants with a few dollars and, ultimately, stripped them of their privacy. This information was eventually used to target voters, working in favor of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. In response to this, Paul Grewal, vice president and deputy general counsel at Facebook, denied that this was a data breach and argued that Facebook users “knowingly provided their information, no systems were infiltrated, and no passwords or sensitive pieces of information were stolen or hacked.” Grewal was not wrong; this was technically not a privacy breach. People who subscribe to Facebook’s service consent to data collection. However, back in 2014, Facebook had a “feature”
that made users turn over their Facebook friends’ information through apps, which Cambridge Analytica, and other third parties have used to collect data from millions of profiles. While this was written in fine print, deep in the user agreement,
the big picture does not appear to be consensual. As I listened to Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before Congress earlier this week, I thought about his initial response to Facebook’s involvement in the Russian Collusion scandal back in 2016, calling
The Atlantic came to their senses and fired Kevin Williamson on April 4 because of new information that surfaced about his podcast and 2014 controversial tweets on abortion. It is still unacceptable and antithetical to the publication’s values that he was hired in the first place. If this current trajectory of fetishizing #NeverTrump conservatives continues as President Donald Trump goes even further into the deep end of presidential doom, more and more “Shitty Men in Media” are going to be undeservedly forgiven for prior offenses regardless of their level of contrition. Then, when they lose their jobs, they will be treated as if a head of state has died. Media Matters for America, a liberal organization dedicated to analyzing the reliability of American conservative news commentary, investigated Williamson’s controversial tweets about abortion and revealed that his views were much more than just simple tweets. In a podcast, Williamson said, “I am absolutely willing to to see abortion treated like a regular homicide under the criminal code. … I would totally go with treating it like any other crime up to and including hanging.” Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-inchief of The Atlantic, issued another memo when firing Williamson and said, “The tweet was not merely an impulsive, decontextualized, heat of the moment post, as Kevin had explained it.” Goldberg became editor-in-chief in 2016, worked for The Atlantic for nine years prior, and has won many awards for his foreign
policy coverage. At first, it is hard to believe that Goldberg could be convinced by a man who has documented reprehensible views on women, people of color, transgender people, and poor people, but Williamson’s prestige as a prominent conservative writer carries more weight than his beliefs. In the social media age, one can say whatever one wants to say in 280 characters, and it will be on the internet forever. Goldberg’s perception that Williamson’s tweet was not something written in the “heat of the moment” does not place sufficient blame on Williamson. Even if the tweet was written speedily, Williamson did feel that he should send it out at that moment and represent himself to other people. In tweets, as in conversation, people do not always think about the effects of what they say beforehand. The fact that this statement was taken out of context should not be a more acceptable excuse because it is a tweet. As time marches on and the volume of people’s social media feeds increase, liberal publications will continue to hire people like Williamson because they want to “expand their audiences” and “be ideologically diverse.” Said publications will not thoroughly vet their writers’ feeds because of the amount of information to sort through and the question of what can be overlooked. Goldberg’s statement and his use of the phrase “parted ways” martyrs Williamson and makes his firing seem less serious than it should be perceived. It trivializes his tweets and the significance of hiring a writer at a publication such as The Atlantic.
Immediately, The New York Times opinions columnist Bret Stephens opined that because Williamson’s views on an abortion were in a tweet, not a book, that made it not as grave of a position to hold and paraphrased a quote from Jesus in the tweet that accompanied his article. (Keep in mind that Bret Stephens also wrote that Woody Allen is unjustly accused of rape and child molestation, despite major evidence to the contrary.) Other conservative pundits spoke about Williamson as if he had died, when in reality he had just lost a job at a prominent liberal magazine, which is neither the end of the world nor a situation as extreme as death. Since Williamson is one of the first and most extreme conservative writers for this to happen to, other conservative writers have evaluated this debacle as a notable loss to America’s moral fabric. In the #MeToo era, after a story surfaced about a man who has allegedly sexually assaulted women, those men are often treated in the same way that Williamson has been. A misogynistic tweet matters just as much as a man’s built up history of sexual assault, and thus should be evaluated with the same level of critical skepticism and distrust. Tweets are microcosms of what people believe, and to think otherwise discounts the value of social media and its ability to amplify voices or spread information quickly. Jo Nordhoff-Beard SC ’19 is an English major from Seattle. She misses The Hills, loves avocados, and once wanted to be a YouTube star.
Letter To The Editor: Ethics Of Anonymous Sources Peter Hong Guest Columnist To the editor: Anonymous sources in news reporting are a tool of last resort, used only when illuminating information cannot be gleaned from on-the-record reporting. Such sources should be used only after a journalist has made an assessment of the credibility of the information through additional reporting; even if the information is not established as certain, it should at least be deemed to have enough substance to print. When an anonymous quote disparages a person or institution, it must
first be established that the statement has merit, and the subject must be given an opportunity to respond. TSL has unfortunately flouted these standards in at least two recent stories. An April 6 story on security at CMC quotes an unnamed source as saying new security staff at CMC would “add to a sense of campus militarization and is likely to make some students feel unsafe.” This anonymous quote was a baseless allegation made without accountability. More disturbing was a March 30 story about the departure of Consortium Vice President Denise Hayes. That article quoted allegations of reli-
cannot anticipate risks that not only seem to be very obvious, but also could be easily fixed. For these reasons, I sign off. Maddy Neff SC ’21 is a politics and Middle Eastern studies major from Palo Alto, CA. Maddy is stressed out about life.
Courtesy of Anthony Quintano via Flickr
The Atlantic’s Loss Of Williamson Is No Tragedy Jo Nordhoff-Beard Columnist
it “pretty crazy,” and the idea that Facebook had prior knowledge of Cambridge Analytica’s data collection in 2015. This is an instance in which I both resent and lose trust in ‘big tech.’ I have been — and still am — disappointed that Facebook
gious discrimination by Hayes from an anonymous email, again with no factual basis. The use of an anonymous source in the April 6 security story was disappointing. In the March 30 story on Denise Hayes, the journalistic malpractice was disgraceful. Peter Hong Hong spent 20 years as a journalist with ABC News, BusinessWeek Magazine, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. He is Associate Vice President for Public Affairs and Communications at Claremont McKenna College.
Emoji Puzzles!
Anam Mehta • The Student Life
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Olivia Truesdale • The Student Life
ZIPLINE
FREE SHIRTS
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UNICORN
OPINIONS APRIL 13, 2018
PAGE 11
THE STUDENT LIFE
For Autism Acceptance Month, Think #RedInstead Donnie TC Denome Columnist CW: Ableism, anti-autism speech, death I have an automatic, almost traumatic, reaction to puzzle pieces these days. Nothing against actual puzzles, really. They’re boring, time-consuming activities that I don’t find interesting, but they’re not terrible. What puzzle pieces have come to stand for, though — autism “awareness” — disturbs and scares me. The simplifying down of the rich, complex lives of autistic people to puzzles that are missing a piece — and that can be fixed through the right combination of therapy and behavioral modification — shows just how far we have to go. “Autism” is short for “autism spectrum disorder (ASD),” a diagnosis that encompasses a number of previously differentiated disorders, including Asperger’s Syndrome and Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. Symptoms of ASD vary widely based on age, cultural background, and the individual, but generally include trouble interacting with others, not understanding social cues, sticking to a strict routine, having intensely focused special interests on specific topics, and moving or talking in a repetitive and stereotyped manner. Despite the fact that autism can be diagnosed for anyone at any age, it is heavily associated with elementary school white cisgender boys. I am autistic; I am a non-binary person who was diagnosed at age 11. I am now 19, almost 20, and the way autistic people are continually spoken over both upsets and angers me. It is perhaps because of the young age of the stereotypical “autism patient” that autistic people are often deprived of our autonomy as well as shoved to the side within our own healthcare and decisions. It is easier to ignore the wishes of a 5-year-old than it is to devalue those of a 15- or 50-year-old. When autism becomes synonymous with a non-speaking, asocial small child, as it has in the popular consciousness, it becomes even easier to sort all autistic people into two groups: those who are assumed to have the same communicative skills as the stereotypical autistic child and those, by virtue of them having more “normal” communicative skill, can’t possibly be genuinely autistic. I’m not going to lie here: I am more independent and more “typically” functioning than many autistic adults. I speak, communicate, and act in “normal” ways. My repetitive actions — stims, short for “self-stimulations” — are unobtrusive and socially acceptable. I don’t have comorbid intellectual disabilities, which are common in autistic people. I fall in the category of “too independent to be autistic,” yet I still am. April is Autism Acceptance Month, and I use “acceptance” deliberately over “awareness.”
Sophie Reingold • The Student Life
Virtually everyone is aware that autism exists and affects people, but autistic people are still far from being accepted. Autism “awareness” too often focuses on what autism “takes away” from families and how it affects those around autistic people, not autistic people. When “awareness” organizations talk about how “Autism Speaks. It’s Time to Listen,” they don’t consider that autistic people, who have immeasurably complex identities, are speaking, but people don’t listen to us because we’re either too “low functioning” to make sense or too “high functioning” to count. Furthermore, Autism Speaks, one of the best-known autism awareness charities, whose 26-person Board of Directors only has two autistic members, has repeatedly promoted vaccines as a cause of autism (they’re not), allied with a center that uses electric shocks as a method of behavior control, and produced a video where a mother talks about wanting to kill her autistic child. I’ve written before on where these scare tactics and “mercy killing” discourse around disability leads to: actual disabled people being killed by loved ones. Autistic people may not suffer from autism, but we do suffer from people’s misconceptions around autism and what it means.
There is not a cure for autism. Focusing on a cure, instead of therapies and accommodations that help autistic people interact with our worlds, actively harms us. Cure mentalities leave out anyone who isn’t interested in a cure (including many autistic adults). When funding that could go to therapy and support services is diverted toward cure research, vital services go underfunded. Much of the research, money, and time that go into cure ideology could go into therapies to help autistic people deal with symptoms, especially when those symptoms are debilitating within our environments. There are ways to treat and help people cope with more unpleasant symptoms of autism that don’t involve portraying autism as a terrible spectre that “takes away” seemingly normal children. In a cure-focused world, the puzzle piece has become the symbol of autism. It is used by groups like Autism Speaks and the Autism Society, neither of which advocate directly for self-advocacy, as well as used by the professional journal, Autism, whose articles often do not center the voices of autistic people. Research shows that while people associate the puzzle piece with autism, they don’t have positive views about it. In the study, “[par-
ticipants] associated puzzle pieces with imperfection, incompletion, uncertainty, difficulty, the state of being unsolved, and, most poignantly, being missing.” Kabie Brook, writing in the aforementioned journal, Autism, states that “I am a fully rounded human, as are all of my siblings within the Autistic community; we cannot be pigeonholed or symbolised by any one thing, we are far too individual for that.” Puzzle pieces force autistic people into a social role where we are seen as inherently lacking and second-class citizens because of our differences. Autistic people can be and are self-advocates regardless of our ability to communicate in a “typical” way. It is truly disturbing that so many people refuse to work toward a world in which autistic people are welcomed as self-advocates, or members of communities that both welcome our strengths and support our weaknesses. Autism awareness without acceptance of autistic people leads to the belief that autism is a disease, not a different neurotype that is just as worthy, if atypical. If autistic people are missing puzzle pieces, everyone is missing a few puzzle pieces. It’s just that non-autistic people are supposedly quirky or different, rather
than “damaged” or “ill.” I can say, as an autistic person who has skill in “acting” non-autistic, performing neurotypicality has its drawbacks. The price I pay for hiding my identity and perfecting my act at all times is utter exhaustion: physical, mental, and emotional. When I am alone in my room, I can be myself. I can make noises; I can jump and roll and flap my hands without fear of being seen; I can rock back and forth to calm myself. My body and my identity once again become my own. This very human cost — the fact that we, as autistic people, cannot be ourselves in public — is almost never shown in ads by agencies begging for “research” money. It’s outweighed by a parade of vignettes of parents talking about how terrible their lives are because of their (often non-speaking) autistic children and how desperate they are for help, such as the “I am Autism” ad that portrays autism as an incurable disease worse than cancer. If those parents are desperate and angry about their child’s autism, I can only imagine the horror that is being their child: at the mercy of an angry parent and a world that doesn’t understand them or how they communicate.
When those children become adults, we are deprived of independence and identity based on how well we can pass as non-autistic. For many of us, the exploitation of our stories (and stories of those around us) doesn’t end at age 18. Because April is Autism “Awareness” Month in popular parlance, my social media — and probably a lot of other people’s, too — has been inundated with people calling to #LightItUpBlue, an Autism Speaks slogan that apparently refers to the (shaky) idea that more boys than girls are autistic. Nope. Light it up #RedInstead. We, autistic people, are literally dying to be understood and accepted. We’re not going to go away, and we’re not going to just become non-autistic because nobody gives us the deserved attention and place to speak. Autistic people are, and will, always be experts on autism, just as all disabled and neurodiverse people are experts on their disabilities and neurodiversity. We know what our lives are like, and we know what we need in order to function well. Listen to us. Let us lead. And, please, accept us for who we are. Donnie TC Denome PZ ’20 is a public health major from Sunnyvale, CA. In their spare time, they enjoy knitting hats.
Oldenborg Must Better Incorporate Non-Pomona Languages Aalia Thomas Columnist Two weeks ago, 16 students who had applied to live at Pomona College’s residence hall Oldenborg received an email informing us that our applications could not be considered. Due to an abundance of applications for the six languages that are taught at Pomona, singles for students hoping to pursue other languages will not be made available in the 2018-2019 academic year. In the past year, Oldenborg’s Hindi-Urdu table has become one of my favorite parts of being at Pomona. Once a week, South Asian students from all over the 5Cs come to eat and speak at what we call our “cross-bhasha” (cross-language) table. There are so many of us that we have to put together four tables for everyone to fit. Having not really found my groove within on-campus AsianAmerican or South Asian mentoring programs, I found myself growing comfortable among the crowd that I spent my Thursday lunches with, the first “desi” group I’ve ever been part of since I moved away from India almost a decade ago. It’s also been rewarding for me to be able to practice my mother tongue outside of my family, and the opportunity to pursue this in Oldenborg felt significant. This year ’s HindiUrdu hall is small, housing only four people, but it’s still an important space in which the language can be represented on Pomona’s campus. The fact that it will no longer exist next year is a major disappointment.
The reasoning provided in the email about Oldenborg’s decision to cut Hindi-Urdu this year, along with Arabic, Korean, and Portuguese, was that they “have received so many applications in the traditional six languages and need to accommodate those languages first.” The use of the word “traditional” in this email only serves to emphasize why the “non-traditional” languages should be accomodated. Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish are all part of a tradition at Pomona, as they have academic departments with faculty, funding, and a variety of classes. They are part of a network of language departments at the 5Cs. These languages have daily tables at Oldenborg. They also have the language resident program, which provides an avenue for mentorship and many cultural events. These are all wonderful resources which I’m glad the college provides, but none of them are available for HindiUrdu. It is not represented even through conversation classes, where the differences between Hindi and Urdu would be easier to navigate. This is precisely why it should be prioritized when it comes to Oldenborg’s residence hall. For those who look to Oldenborg to provide a feeling of a community away from home, the de-prioritization of Hindi-Urdu is especially difficult. “As an international student from New Delhi, the only space I have to talk in my native tongue is in my hallway,” said Tulika Mohan PO ’20, who lives in Oldenborg this year. “If these rooms are given to languages [that] are
already supported at Pomona, we are left with no space where we can be truly comfortable voicing our thoughts and sharing our culture.” Oldenborg presents itself as a center for international learning, but limiting its residence hall to six languages is a deviation from its responsibility as a cultural hub. Over time, it has come to be more than just a facility to support Pomona’s language curriculum. “The students who come to the Hindi-Urdu table do not have a grade tied to their attendance. They are there for the pure love of the language and community,” said Shaila Andrabi, the HindiUrdu language table mentor who has been involved in this community for the past 30 years. For example, students who are native speakers of the languages taught at Pomona, but who have never taken classes in that language or otherwise are still able to apply to live in the designated language hall. However, creating space for non-Pomona languages at Oldenborg only when there isn’t high demand for Pomona languages makes the former seem less valued on a campus where they are already underrepresented. Looking ahead to Oldenborg’s future, with plans for redesigning in the works, the center should take a more active role in encouraging the practice of a various languages — and not just when it’s convenient. Aalia Thomas PO ’21 is a Los Angeles local, originally from New Delhi. She loves dog-spotting, “Work” by Rihanna, and the swinging benches between Lyon and Mudd.
Cassie Wang • The Student Life
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