Vol. CXXIX, No. 5

Opinions

Life & Style

International correspondent Helena Shannon PO ‘18 dishes on the frustrating, inevitable study abroad slump.

Jolo Labio PO ‘20 calls out the microagressions that English-speaking international students deal with from their American peers.

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THE

STUDENT

LIFE

The Student Newspaper of the Claremont Colleges Since 1889

CLAREMONT, CA

FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 2017

VOL. CXXIX NO. 5

5Cs Address Trump’s Immigration Policies, Limit Admissions for DACA Students Kellen Browning

Liam Brooks • The Student Life

Aldair Arriola-Gomez PO ‘17, a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals beneficiary and Mexican citizen, in his room at Pomona College on Friday.

Keck Faculty Respond to Trump Administration’s ‘Threat to Science’ Julie Tran

The majority of the W.M. Keck Science Department faculty signed a statement supporting science on Feb. 15 in response to the Trump administration’s recent attempts to vet scientific research before being published and to censor scientific findings on topics such as climate change. “The pursuit and communication of unbiased information and the free exchange of ideas among all people form the very basis of our scientific community,” the statement noted in response to the mounting anti-science rhetoric fomented by the Trump administration. “The scientific approach upholds informed decision-making based on continuous efforts to formulate and test hypotheses, collect data and information, and critically examine the evidence.” The statement, however, is not officially endorsed by Keck, as it was not introduced for a department vote. “There were questions [among the writers] about the proper procedure about issuing such a statement,” said Patrick Ferree, associate professor of biology at the Keck Science Department. “This might be the first of such statements raised by the faculty in our department, and we want to be careful. We are currently discussing the crafting of such policy.” According to Ferree, the statement was formulated in order to protect the “free, objective pursuit of science,” which he claims was under threat of restraint by the current federal administration and its supporters. Specific regulations that concerned Ferree were the proposed restrictions on the publication of scientific research. Ferree thinks the Trump administration has played on public fears to overstate the controversy of ideas like climate change. “The goal is to better communicate to the public how important it is that we have all of the facts,” Ferree said. “We need undistorted facts that are not filtered so that we can make the best decisions as citizens,

not just as scientists.” Andre Wakefield, professor of history at Pitzer College, also supports the collaborative statement and explained in an email that these concerns not only affect natural sciences, but human sciences as well. “The Trump administration does not only pose a threat to science, but to all evidence-based inquiry,” Wakefield said. “The administration, led by the President himself, has done much to undermine those networks of trust and reliability. If that strategy succeeds, we will have completely hollowed out public faith in science, evidence, and fact.” Lars Schmitz, assistant professor of biology at Keck, said that he is concerned by how the media has contradicted information that has been proven with scientific data and extensive research. He explained that the falsifying of information undermines educators and the education system. “I am an evolutionary biologist, and I am personally concerned about what may happen with the teaching of evolution because I have never seen so many outspoken evolution critics in charge of education,” Schmitz said. “There should be no controversy because there is absolutely no doubt from a scientific perspective that evolution is happening.” Before the recent outbreak of anti-scientific sentiment, Ferree had planned to teach a first year seminar course at Pitzer College modeled after associate professor of biology Anna Ahn’s Science vs. Pseudoscience course at Harvey Mudd College, solely due to his personal interest in the subject. However, this course now also serves to support the Keck statement and his belief in the critical assessment of evidence-based findings. The course “will focus on how students can recognize pseudoscience and the basis of why there is pseudoscience, as well as give students tools to critically think

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Aldair Arriola-Gomez PO ‘17 has friends, support, and a stable community at Pomona College. But he’s aware that his life could be torn apart at any moment. Arriola-Gomez, a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals beneficiary and Mexican citizen, says the possibility of DACA’s elimination is “an issue that’s always in my mind.” DACA, which permits certain U.S. residents who entered the country illegally as minors to apply for a status that prohibits deportation and allows work eligibility, is the result of an executive order, which means it could be rescinded instantly by President Donald Trump, who has long had a contentious relationship with Mexico. In the first speech of his presidential campaign last June, Trump famously accused the United States’ southern neighbor of sending rapists, drugs and crime across the border. One of his campaign’s central policy proposals was the construction of a border wall to curb illegal immigration, and on Jan. 27 he threatened to send U.S. troops to Mexico if President Enrique Peña Nieto failed to control “bad hombres.” Trump’s administration has moved quickly to address illegal immigration; on Feb. 21, the Department of Homeland Security

released two memos detailing new practices for immigration officials. The memos include rules implementing remote video conference hearings so that undocumented immigrants caught crossing the border can be immediately deported and have hearings later; directing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to “plan and implement enhanced counternetwork operations directed at disrupting transnational criminal organizations”; and creating the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement Office. Notably, however, the memos make no reference to DACA, which former President Barack Obama signed into law in 2012. People must reapply to DACA every two years, and the fee is $465. The DACA process is terrifying for many undocumented immigrants because they have to give the government personal information about who they are and where they live, Arriola-Gomez said, which “is a little scary for any undocumented immigrant to offer that up.” “If [Trump] was to cancel DACA, many DACAmented students and people are worried that that data that has been given to the government will be used to target those people,” he said. Although Arriola-Gomez isn’t

See IMMIGRATION page 2

PO, PZ Tie for Second Among Liberal Arts Colleges for Fulbrights Emma Hsu Pomona College and Pitzer College tied for second on a national list of undergraduate liberal arts institutions with most students awarded Fulbright Fellowships for the 2016–17 academic year, according to a report published by The Chronicle of Higher Education on Feb. 19. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program provides fellowship grants for U.S. graduating college seniors, graduate students, young professionals, and artists to study, conduct research, and/ or teach English for one academic year in a participating country outside the United States. The program is primarily funded by an annual appropriation from Congress to the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations in foreign countries and in the United States also provide direct and indirect support. Pomona and Pitzer had 60 applicants each, 15 of whom were awarded either a Fellow-

ship Research Grant or an English Teaching Assistantship. Fellowship Research Grant awardees typically work on individually designed research projects with advisors at foreign institutes of higher education, while English Teaching Assistants are placed in classrooms abroad to provide assistance to local English teachers as both language instructors and cultural ambassadors. During the 2016-17 school year, seven Pomona students were awarded Fulbright Fellowship Research Grants and nine were awarded Fulbright English Teaching Assistantships (one Research Grant recipient declined and accepted a Watson Fellowship instead). Three Pitzer students were awarded Fulbright Fellowship Research Grants, while twelve were awarded Fulbright English Teaching Assistantships. This past fall, the most popular countries for Pomona applicants were Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Colombia, Morocco, and South Korea. Pomona fellowships and career advisor Jennifer Locke said that at Pomona, the myriad opportunities

See FULBRIGHT page 3

Slavoj Žižek Discusses Applications of Philosophy Amanda Larson Co-founder of the Slovenian Liberal Democratic Party and prominent intellectual Slavoj Žižek spoke at Pomona College’s Rose Hill Theatre on Tuesday, Feb. 28. Žižek, a follower of Hegelian philosophy, is known for his theoretical combination of philosophy and psychoanalysis, and his ability to apply dense academic theory to pop culture and modern-day politics. Žižek’s talk focused on how the process of producing something can result in a “surplusenjoyment,” an idea which can be applied not just to the production of material things, but

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to psychological processes. At one point, Žižek compared the functioning of ideology in our everyday lives to the augmented reality game Pokémon GO. “Instead of taking us out of the real world, and throwing us into an artificial space, [Pokémon GO] combines the two. We look in reality, and we think in reality through the fantasy frame of the digital screen. This frame supplements reality with virtual elements, which sustains our desire to participate in the game... What the technology of Pokémon GO externalizes is simply the basic mechanism of ideology... the primordial ver-

See PHILOSOPHY page 3

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Dominic Frempong • The Student Life

Title IX Coordinator Daren Mooko to Leave Pomona After 20 Years Jack Carroll Associate Dean and Title IX Coordinator Daren Mooko will be leaving Pomona College at the end of the year to become vice president of student affairs and dean of students at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, according to a Feb. 24 email from Pomona College Dean of Students Miriam Feldblum. Mooko has been with Pomona College since 1997 in various roles. He first served as the director of the Asian American Resource Center, where he helped create the 5C Asian American

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Advisory Board, the Pomona Bias Incident Response team, and the Claremont Colleges Department of Asian American Studies. In 2008, he became the Associate Dean of Students for Student Leadership and Development. In this role, he watched over judicial affairs and launched new leadership programs at Pomona. During this time, he also started to work as Title IX coordinator. He was officially promoted to Title IX coordinator and Clery Officer by Pomona President David Oxtoby in 2015. TSL had the opportunity to in-

See TITLE IX page 2 NEWS................................1 LIFE & STYLE.....................4 OPINIONS........................7 SPORTS.............................9

NEWS PAGE 2

MARCH 3, 2017

THE STUDENT LIFE

IMMIGRATION: Despite Strict Policies, Trump Promises to ‘Show Great Heart’ Toward DACA Program Continued from Page 1 sure that sort of targeting would occur, he is constantly worried about his family members, who do not have DACA protection. “It’s not just me — I’m not here in this country by myself,” he said. “There are also other people who I care about who don’t qualify for this program].” Despite his tough stance on immigration, however, Trump has shown sympathy for the DACA program. “We’re gonna show great heart,” Trump told reporters at a press conference Feb. 16. “DACA is a very, very difficult subject for me, I will tell you.” “To me, it’s one of the most difficult subjects I have because you have these incredible kids, in many cases, not in all cases,” he added. “And some of the cases, having DACA and they’re gang members and they’re drug dealers, too. But you have some absolutely incredible kids, I would say mostly.” On Tuesday, Trump unexpectedly expressed openness for a bill that would grant legal status to many undocumented immigrants. “The time is right for an immigration bill as long as there is compromise on both sides,” he told reporters. Pomona College Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Seth Allen wrote in an email to TSL that approximately 4 percent of the college’s 1,640 students are either DACAmented or undocumented, which amounts to about 65 students. Arriola-Gomez believes this number is significantly higher than at other Claremont colleges, which he said have different rules about whether undocumented students can apply for financial aid and scholarships. Allen said Pomona treats all students who graduate from U.S. high schools as domestic students for purposes of admissions, regardless of documentation. “Pomona’s admissions and financial aid policies of need-blind admissions and meeting 100 percent of demonstrated need for

undocumented students is longstanding and predates DACA, supporting Pomona College’s goals of attracting a most intellectually capable and talented student body, regardless of citizenship,” Allen wrote. At Claremont McKenna College, undocumented and DACA students are likewise treated as domestic students in the admissions process, Vice President for Admission and Financial Aid Jeff Huang wrote in an email to TSL. Huang noted that these students can apply for financial aid and merit-based scholarships due to the California DREAM Act. Though Harvey Mudd College declined to provide statistics about undocumented students, Vice President for Admission and Financial Aid Thyra Briggs wrote in an email to TSL that undocumented students are considered international students for the purposes of financial aid. Admissions for international students at HMC is not need-blind, meaning that students who need financial aid are less likely to be admitted. Scripps told TSL in 2012 that its policy toward undocumented students is the same as HMC’s, but in an email to TSL, associate director of media and public relations Karen Bergh worte that this year the college started a policy of admitting one undocumented or DACA student and providing that student need-based financial aid. “Our senior management team continues to explore additional programs and policies that will unify, educate, and support Scripps students, faculty, and staff who face uncertain outcomes as a result of changing federal policies,” Bergh wrote, sharing information Scripps has previously written on the subject. “We will not voluntarily provide any information about immigration status or other personal and private information about our students to federal agencies.” Pitzer College, which declared itself a sanctuary institution last November, emailed a statement saying that it “will not be releasing recruitment, financial aid or admission information for the protection and

PZ Senate Seeks to Prevent Embezzlement Emily Diamond

Pitzer College Student Senate is adding a policy to their constitution stating that all student activities funds must remain in the budget of the student organization and not be used for personal benefit. Student Senate Secretary Shivanu Kavuluru PZ ’19 has also started to perform audits on all Pitzer clubs to ensure they are active and properly using their funds. This change comes after Pitzer Student Body President Josue Pasillas PZ ’17 noticed that merchandise sales from a former club were never returned to the club’s funds or student activities. Recent allegations claim that the money was directed into a personal Venmo account. On Jan. 29, Pasillas proposed a bill that would no longer recognize the accused club as an official student organization, would dissolve the club, and “reallocate all funds to the Student Senate budget committee for purposes of school pride and traditions.” The bill was presented to the Senate on Feb. 12 and passed 25-0. “Hearing that [money] may have gone into a personal Venmo account is kind of frightening,” Kavuluru said. However, Brian Carlisle, vice president of student affairs at Pitzer, noted that at the time this event occurred, there were no policies or bylaws in the Student Senate constitution prohibiting clubs from profiting off money subsidized by the Student Senate and student activities fees. Due to the absence of written policies in the Student Senate constitution stating where profited money should be directed, there are no legal ramifications for this action. “There are people who believe that it’s unethical and unprofessional, but everyone is going to have a different opinion on it,” Carlisle said. “I would argue [directing money into a personal Venmo account] did not violate any policies.” Pasillas confirmed that there was no policy stating where the money should go, but he said it is “unethical to make money off of student activities funds for personal gain, as that is not the intention of the budget.” The leader of the accused club could not be reached for comment by press time. Carlisle believes this event will allow Student Senate to use their voice to provoke change. “Students have a powerful shared governance voice and now is the opportunity for them to ex-

amine and potentially refine the policies and procedures around the use of student activities fees,” Carlisle said. Pasillas agreed. This event “is a message to a student senate, saying this is proof that we need a reform of our student budget guidelines and how we allocate funding and how we oversee the funding,” he said. “Currently we have a set of rules that have no teeth and so I’m working with the treasurer right now to rewrite all our budget guidelines.” Currently, all Pitzer clubs receive some funding through Student Senate. At the end of every academic year, the Senate holds a budget allocation session where clubs present a breakdown of their budget and the Senate decides the amount of money they can give the club. Though clubs will continue to receive funds, Student Senate will check that all money allocated to clubs is used responsibly. “One of the main responsibilities that I take to heart is making sure that student activities funds are prioritized through what the student body needs and wants. I wanted our student activities funds to be used efficiently and to the best of the ability to benefit the student body,” Pasillas said. According to Kavuluru, there have been cases where students created a club, received funding, and then used the money for personal benefit. There are also clubs that become inactive, so the money allocated to them remains stagnant. “We need to start being a little bit more careful about what we do when we’re giving clubs money because there are always affinity and identity groups who deserve and need more funds,” Kavuluru said. The revised guidelines will note that all student activities funds must remain in the budget of the student organization and not be used for personal benefit. However, Carlisle urged students to question whether it is unethical to make money off of the Student Activities Fund for personal gain. “What if a student was doing it to help make money, to help pay for their tuition or their books or their fees? Does allowing people to profit promote entrepreneurialism? These are issues that are really important to vet through the student governance process,” Carlisle said.

Liam Brooks • The Student Life

The possibility of DACA’s elimination is “an issue that’s always in my mind,” says Aldair Arriola-Gomez PO ‘17. privacy of students safeguarded by this status.” In 2012, Pitzer told TSL that it had four undocumented students currently enrolled. Ángel Pérez, Pitzer’s then-vice president and dean of admission and financial aid, wrote in an email to TSL that undocumented students were placed in a separate category from domestic and international students, and could be eligible for a special scholarship. Today, Pitzer’s website says it awards one need-based scholarship to an undocumented California high school graduate each year. Though Pitzer wouldn’t disclose admissions statistics, it is explicit about its support for undocument-

ed students. In his sanctuary announcement to the school community last November, Pitzer President Melvin Oliver said that Pitzer “will not voluntarily comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or other public authorities, in any investigation of the immigration status of any member of our community.” Similarly, CMC Dean of Students Sharon Basso told students in a November email that “unless legally compelled to do so, CMC will not permit [United States Citizenship and Immigration Services] officials to conduct immigration enforcement activities and CMC will not voluntarily produce documents or otherwise provide information in

relation to any student’s immigration status.” Pomona President David Oxtoby expressed a similar sentiment. “We neither share … immigration status information nor permit ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] or any law enforcement agency to conduct immigration enforcement activities on our campus,” he wrote in a November email to Pomona students. “If government agencies act to compel us to do so, we will use our voice in the community and our legal resources in support of our students, staff and faculty.” Oxtoby’s “Statement in Support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program

and our Undocumented Immigrant Students” has more than 600 signatures from college presidents around the country, including those of all five Claremont colleges. Arriola-Gomez appreciates the support network he has in Claremont. “I’m comfortable and thankful that I have a community that I can talk to about these issues — I’m not by myself,” he said. Still, his chief concern is for his family. “It’s one thing for colleges and institutions to support DACAmented students,” Arriola-Gomez said, “but I wouldn’t want to stay here if my family members were deported.”

TITLE IX: Mooko Reflects on Pomona’s Growth and Diversity Continued from Page 1 terview Daren Mooko following news of his departure and asked him about how the college has changed, how it can continue to improve, and what he will miss most. TSL: How have you seen Pomona grow and change in your 20 years here—especially in the areas you work in? Daren Mooko: I’ve seen growth in many forms of diversity, in terms of religion, racial diversity, ethnic diversity. I’ve seen this community grow tighter together. I’ve seen faculty, staff, and students continue to develop very strong relationships that I think make Pomona such a special place. I think accordingly, we attract faculty, staff, and students who are looking for something like that. With respect to Title IX, I’ve seen the college make tremendous strides from 1997 until today and probably none more significant than the last five to six years and I think that was a result of federal guidance and students voicing their concern—pushing the college to be better. I think there is a lot more work to be done, but I think we have made huge strides. TSL: Would you be comfortable saying Pomona is a good model for other schools to follow, with respect to these issues? DM: That is difficult to say. Three to four years ago I might have been more likely to say that, but the reason I’m less likely to say that [now] is because other colleges and universities have their own cultures and when I look at the intricacies of how we do things here, I realize that it just doesn’t work with their culture. You don’t even have to look far.

There are policies and procedures at the other 5Cs that work perfectly for them but might not work perfectly for us. So, it’s hard to say we are a model for other schools. The one area where I think we do very well—I think there is a sense of transparency at this college that may not always be that true at other places. Everyone from the chair of the Board of Trustees all the way to me, there is a privilege and priority given to transparency—of process, numbers, policy, procedures—we are always erring on the side of transparency. TSL: What do you hope for Pomona in the future for Student Affairs, Title IX, and Diversity? DM: What I hope for Pomona with respect to student affairs, diversity, Title IX … is to stay on a very similar trajectory. I think what we are doing is good work. We have more work to do but we are headed in the right direction. With respect to diversity issues, President Oxtoby really set a tone when he came in and created the President’s Advisory Committee on Diversity. The fact that he set up an advisory committee was not that earth-shattering but [what] was insightful on his part when he did it was that he included faculty, staff, and students on that committee. As a result, that committee, and therefore the college, really views diversity through a lens of how faculty, staff, and students interact with each other. I would love to see that community, that kind of problem-solving, goal-reaching, aspirational work that weaves in and out of all faculty, students, and staff. That to me is something valuable. I think with respect to Title IX, I would love to see it continue on a trajectory where we are always open to student feedback—we

are always being responsive to what students are telling us is happening, what is working, what is not working—and with the EmPOWER Center coming on board in the last year, I would love to see more educational intervention in the years to come. TSL: What will you miss most about Pomona? DM: The list is too long. First and foremost, I will always miss the people here, starting with the stu-

dents and all my colleagues—faculty and staff. It’s just a world-class institution with world-class people. It has been such an honor and privilege to be around so many people that I constantly learn from. I think that one area that is overlooked a lot is how faculty and staff learn from students. That has been such a blessing—so I think first and foremost, the people. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Courtesy of Pomona College

Daren Mooko, Pomona’s first full-time Title IX Coordinator, is leaving after 20 years with Pomona College.

Correction The class year of Prisca Diala PO ‘18 was incorrect in the Feb. 27 article “P-P Sprints Ahead in Opening Meet.”

TSL regrets this error.

NEWS MARCH 3, 2017

THE STUDENT LIFE

PHILOSOPHY: Žižek Applies Theories to Current Events Continued from Page 1

Lia Francis-Bongue • The Student Life

Marxist and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek lectures in a packed Rose Hills Theater at Pomona College on Feb. 28.

studies who draws heavily on Žižek for her own work, thought Žižek was effective. “He himself is a performer. But I think for any student— whatever major they are—when you read his work, there’s going to be one sentence you could actually relate to,” she said. “And it’s very hard ... for someone who’s trained to be a philosopher [to do that]. Even though [Žižek is] using jargon, [he can]

PZ Middle Eastern Students Find Solidarity Emma Hsu

Pitzer College Student Senate welcomed a new identity group, the Middle Eastern Student Association of Pitzer College, on Jan. 30. Chance Kawar PZ ’17 and Hajar Hammado PZ ’18, interim copresidents of MESA, came up with the idea of forming the group last year and had been working on the bylaws ever since. They said they had been waiting to introduce the group to the Student Senate, and decided this semester was a good time to debut it, due to President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders and the current political climate. “Our main purpose,” Hammado said, “was to have a student organization that provided a gathering place for students of Middle Eastern origin or descent, and to come together for the purposes of organizing, learning, sharing, and healing together as a community.” Hammado personally identifies as a Muslim Syrian-American. Since both of her parents moved to the United States when they were young, she has never been to Syria. “Even though I’ve never had the chance to visit my father’s side of the family, unfortunately now is not the time to visit Syria,” she said. “Especially now, with the recent executive orders, I think a lot about how if my parents hadn’t moved here to go to college and decided to stay in Syria instead, I would probably be someone trying to find somewhere to go as a refugee.”

Hammado believes that sharing personal identities is a pivotal aspect of MESA. “It’s nice to have a place where everyone, like myself, identifies as Middle Eastern, to talk about our different experiences, and what is currently happening in our world and how that affects us and our families. “I’m very proud of (our varying identities),” Hammado added. “For instance, me being SyrianAmerican, and Chance being Palestinian-American… we are able to come together as a community as well as connect with our culture.” MESA member Ilyssa Yahmi, an exchange student at Pitzer, agreed that the group is special. She identifies as Algerian, Berber, and French, as she was born, raised, and educated in different places. “I found MESA to be a place where people are eager to hear about you,” Yahmi said. “I met people and friends there with whom I share similar goals, values, and struggles. I personally feel in a bubble where everyone cares about protecting your identity, which is really important. ... I learned to have an open-minded spirit, regardless of political tension.” According to Hammado, MESA is planning on hosting a variety of events, including a community dinner with Pitzer President Melvin Oliver and gatherings at snack on Tuesday nights. MESA meets every Wednesday night in Skandera Hall, P105, but this is subject to change.

KECK: Statement Expresses Support for Scientific Research

Continued from Page 1 about things that really impact society, such as climate change and immunizations,” Ferree said. “It’s an opportune time to address a lot of cases where there are incorrect perceptions of these topics that are contrary to what the data actually says.” Ferree and Schmitz agree that scientific misinformation stems from communication barriers between the researcher and the general public, as average citizens are typically not experts on the processes of research and data analysis. Therefore, in order to diminish this gap between researchers and the public, Schmitz plans to work with various disciplines, such as media studies, in order to make research results more accessible and understandable. He is also planning for his applied phylogenetics class to present evidence of evolution at local high schools to raise awareness on these topics and allow 5C students to actively engage in outreach projects. “We as scientists have to get better at communicating what we work on to citizens so we can maximize

FULBRIGHT: 5C Environment Fosters Qualified Candidates Continued from Page 1

the knowledge of citizens so that they can make good, informed decisions about policies. We owe it to them, and it’s a huge responsibility for researchers,” Ferree said. Professor of philosophy, science, technology, and society at Pitzer College Brian Keeley agrees with the statement as well. “I’d like to see the statement publicized broadly, as it reflects what many of us at the Claremont Colleges believe and affirm to be our role in larger society,” Keeley wrote in an email to TSL. The statement has been officially endorsed by Pitzer and Scripps College, and HMC released a similar statement on Jan. 16. “We will continue to oppose those movements and actions which threaten to strangle science education in our public schools, to pass off pseudo-science as science, or to de-fund crucial federal sources of support for scientific research and development,” HMC’s statement read. Keck’s statement has been presented to Claremont McKenna College for endorsement, but has not yet been addressed.

still kind of make people see what [he’s] critiquing. And he’s very good at that.” Students said that by making his topics relevant to current events, Žižek forces his listeners to consider the presence of ideology in their everyday lives. “The whole point is that whether or not he’s right, he gives you the feeling that there’s a lot more going on in politics, in psychology. He draws these

really interesting connections which probably require his understanding of history and psychology,” Neel Kumar PO ‘18 said. “What he does really well … is show you that his ideas are present. You don’t have to buy his whole critique, you don’t have to buy his whole response to it, but you have to agree with him that [the ideas are] there.”

to explore teaching and research, support from faculty and staff, one-on-one advising sessions, and write-ins for applicants seeking feedback on their essays, make students excellent candidates for the Fulbright Program. “I think being a small campus with a lot of resources gives Pomona students opportunities to take initiative,” Locke said. “I’ve met students who have helped a professor’s lab become more efficient, developed curricula to teach underrepresented high school students about college, or written and filmed a documentary—all before their senior year. All of these are fantastic examples of leadership, and all could potentially lead to an excellent Fulbright project.” Pitzer ’s associate director of the office of fellowships and scholarships, Sandy Hamilton, said that Pitzer’s abundance of resources also allowed its Fulbright applicants to be outstanding candidates. Nigel Boyle, Pitzer’s interim dean of faculty and vice president for academic affairs, “was instrumental in setting up workshops for students who wanted to apply to the Fulbright program. We also give the students a lot of support through resources such as the writing center and meetings with faculty and staff to help them become strong applicants,” Hamilton said. Although the majority of applicants for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program are undergrad-

uate seniors, recent graduates and alumni are also eligible to apply. Some undergraduate institutions do not sponsor or provide resources for their alumni applicants, but both Pomona and Pitzer do. Hamilton said this is a factor that contributes to the high number of Fulbright students at Pitzer. “It’s hard to get to your senior year … without meeting someone who has applied for the Fulbright, and applicants often encourage other students to apply.” Locke said. Ben Cohen PO ’16 is currently in Kiev, Ukraine, using a Fulbright grant to work on a project about a new ethnographic museum in the city of Zhmerynka that examines “the history of the city and region, the social and political factors that have shaped the Jewish community over time, and the role such a museum plays in preserving historical memory at a time when Ukraine is undergoing a vigorous period of nation-building and identity formation,” among other topics. Cohen said that the skills he learned at Pomona have been invaluable to him, as they have allowed him to pinpoint specific areas of focus for his project. He credits Pomona for teaching him how to be flexible with research, continuously refine and revise his work, and explore research questions using a multi-disciplinary approach. “This is the beauty of research and the flexibility the Fulbright program gives you to explore new things, but none of it would be possible without my Pomona education,” he said.

Conservative Pundit Criticizes Welfare, Black Culture in Athenaeum Talk Samuel Breslow “The African will starve rather than engage in a regular system of agricultural labor, unless impelled by the stronger will of the white man,” wrote Samuel A. Cartwright in July, 1858, invoking the stereotype of black people as inherently lazy as a defense for slavery. 158 years later, in a Feb. 1 talk at the Marion Miner Cook Athenaeum, Fox News commentator, Wall Street Journal columnist, and Manhattan Institute senior fellow Jason Riley bemoaned the fact that “it’s become almost taboo to talk about black cultural problems” and listed “negative attitudes towards work” as an example. In his talk, “The State Against Blacks,” Riley argued that social welfare efforts that have been in place since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society initiatives in the 1960s have been counterproductive. Riley began by illustrating what he saw as the failure of re-

cent administrations to help black people through welfare policies. “We can show empirically that things have not been going very well for blacks during the Obama years,” he said. “The track record on the black underclass is appalling.” He then cited the rapid decrease in black poverty from the 1940s to the 1960s, along with other statistics, as evidence that black people can advance faster in an environment without welfare. Riley also noted that graduation rates of black students rose after California ended affirmative action at its public universities, which he argued was because black students were then better matched with their college. Instead of relying on welfare, he preached that black people must work to change their culture. “The problem is a black subculture that promotes attitudes that are not conducive to learning and academics,” Riley said. As an example, he cited an incident in which his young daughter had accused him of “sounding

white” after he used academic language with her. He advocated for the government to adopt the view that different racial groups are going to behave fundamentally differently, and that society should seek to ensure equal opportunity for black people rather than trying to enforce equal outcomes for them. He criticized questioners who operated on “the premise that if we don’t have parity in outcomes, something must be wrong,” arguing that “in a society as diverse as America, you can’t do that.” “Different groups advance at different rates,” he said. He also took aim at the belief that there is systemic police violence against black people. “We don’t even talk about black crime anymore. We talk about black incarceration rates, as though the two are unrelated,” he said. “The idea that trigger-happy cops are gunning down black men is a myth.” During the question and answer session, some students chal-

lenged Riley to provide alternative policies capable of helping black people besides welfare, to which he responded that he was against overambitious government policies in general. Others accused him of conflating correlation with causation through his use of statistics. Several times, he got into testy exchanges with students who asked him to defend statements that he felt he had not made. “I think you’re misunderstanding a large portion of what I’ve said,” he said to one woman. Despite their opposition to some of his views, many attendees appreciated the opportunity to hear them. “These discussions are welcome,” said Natan Sebhatleab CM ‘17. Ath Fellow Sarah Sanbar CM ‘17 concurred. “I thought it was very useful, since it wasn’t really a perspective that we hear as often,” she said. “I like it when controversial people come.”

Totem Sculpture Erected at CMC Elinor Aspegren A 40-foot, stainless steel sculpture painted white and created by late artist Ellsworth Kelly was installed at Claremont McKenna College on Feb. 15. The sculpture, donated by George Roberts CM ’66, is part of CMC’s initiative to bring more art to campus.

“

I think the statue looks out of place and lacks artistic value and meaning despite the Dina Rosin

“

sion of augmented reality. Did Hitler not offer the Germans in 1930’s the fantasy frame of Nazi ideology, which made them see a specific Pokémon, the Jew?” Timely examples and metaphors marked Žižek’s talk, which was co-sponsored by Claremont Graduate University’s cultural studies department, and the departments of media studies, politics, and philosophy at Pomona College. In an interview with TSL, chair of media studies at Pomona College Mark Andrejevic spoke of Žižek’s eccentric style and relevance in pop culture. “He’s a pretty big name philosopher in the sense that he kind of bridges academic and popular media, culture, both in the work that he does and also in his own academic practice,” Andrejevic said. “He writes columns for a whole range of popular press newspapers, and he reflects on contemporary political events, contemporary media events.” Andrejevic thinks Žižek’s theories are also relevant to the field of media studies. “He’s somebody whose work is quite influential in the field,” Andrejevic said. “There are a number of scholars working in media studies who draw on his philosophical texts and his media analysis to offer their own take on the cultural, political, and aesthetic stakes of media texts and practices.” However, one did not have to be philosophically literate to enjoy the talk. Jung-Hsien Lin CGU ’17, a graduate student in cultural

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“President [Hiram] Chodosh’s administration has been really supportive of increasing the presence of art, notably in that we held an art summit with students last year to discuss the needs of CMC students for better access to art classes and an art space,” CMC Art Council Co-president Kris Brackmann CM ’17 wrote in an email to TSL. “For many of the older alums, the Kelly totem is to be located

near CMC ‘hallowed ground,’ in close proximity to site of the original Story House,” CMC Public Art Committee Chairman and trustee Christopher Walker CM ’69 wrote in a press release. “For current students and younger alumni, the Kelly totem could be taken as inspiration for setting a high bar for their personal achievements.” The Kelly sculpture has been placed on the site of the Story House, the three-story mansion that constituted the CMC’s only permanent building on campus for the first year and a half. The Story House was later converted into a dormitory and dining commons before burning down and being renovated into the Facilities and Campus Services department. “I think the statue looks out of place, and lacks artistic value and meaning despite the hefty price tag,” Dina Rosin CM’ 20 wrote in an email to TSL. While she is not a big fan of the statue aesthetically, Rosin commended CMC for taking efforts to expand public art on campus. Brackmann also praised the encouragement of increased student involvement on art committees on campus. “Students had never sat in on the [Public Art Committee] meetings before, which is an honor for us to be invited to hear their updates as well as give updates about what Art Council achieves on campus with direct effects on students,” she wrote.

Alexander Landau • The Student Life

Artist Ellsworth Kelly’s 40-foot, white-painted stainless steel sculpture lies between Parents Field and Collins Dining Hall and sits on the former site of Story House.

LIFE & STYLE PAGE 4

THE STUDENT LIFE

SEX COLUMN

Can’t Bring ‘Em Home: Sex Slip-Ups Overseas Travel makes everything more exciting. Even ordinary activities, such as getting lunch or taking public transportation, are more exciting when you’re traveling. You can feel the new culture surrounding everything you do. Of course, the adventure seeker’s dream is the abroad romance. But sometimes cultural differences make a romantic night challenging, or even just odd. I spoke with a few of my friends about their best sex stories from abroad. Jenna the Gym Rat: I was abroad in Argentina for the summer and going to the gym every day to stay in shape. The gym in my city was not as nice as the gyms I’m used to—the decor wasn’t particularly aesthetically pleasing and there weren’t little TVs to look at, so working out was a little dull and dreary. I was toughing it out on the treadmill one Wednesday when this beautiful older man started using a weight machine near me. We locked eyes, a few times, but I realized I was too nervous to make a move. Luckily, he wasn’t afraid to approach me. He walked up and started speaking to me in Spanish. I must have looked confused, because he followed up by saying, in English, “you’re very beautiful.” Caught off-guard, I laughed and said thank you. He followed up by asking, with perfect pronunciation and fluency, “would you like to go out sometime? I need to practice my English.” That Friday, we went out. I realized he was in his early thirties, and I felt very grown up and cultured as we sipped our beers from the only local brewery. We spent hours that night discussing literature and culture and love. At around three in the morning, we grabbed a cab so that he could make sure I got home safe. We started making out, and I almost came from just being fingered in the back of the taxi. I was convinced that I had found my dream man. I felt like the study abroad romance champion. But then I realized something—he had a ring on his finger. “Are you married?!” I shouted. “Yes,” he told me. I must have looked stunned because he added, “It’s common here to do this, even when you are married.” I got dropped off pretty soon after that. I’m still not entirely sure how true his “cultural norm” was. PDA Paige: One of my goals while studying abroad in Morocco was to strike up a romance, preferably with a local. Despite my expectations, I started dating another American from my program. He looked exactly like white Jesus, with long blond hair and pale blue eyes. The two of us stood out like sore thumbs. Much like Jesus, my abroad-

boyfriend loved to preach, mostly about the ills of society. He believed that society was way too uptight about sex, and that we should challenge those norms by acting sexually in public. Mind you, this is Morocco, with much more restrictive cultural norms around sex than the United States. One day, we got coffee in a busy part of town. We got in a bit of a squabble, then we made up. To solidify our reconciliation, he took our “goodbye hug” a step farther than usual. While standing on a crowded street he grabbed my butt, started kissing me, and dipped me backward, holding the pose for at least 15 seconds. We attracted a bit of an audience, and, although flattered, I was embarrassed. He starts to head in the opposite direction, but before he gets too far away he turns around and shouts “it’s a shame we’re not having sex tonight!” in English. I think he thought no one around would understand, but I noticed three or four faces shocked, giving away their comprehension. Out of fear and mortification, I basically ran home. Disco Dana, the Dog Lover: While I was studying abroad in London, I spent a weekend at a hostel in Spain. I headed there alone, just to see how it felt to solo travel. I met a bunch of other young travelers, including one French guy. He was probably around 26 or 27 and had a serious indie vibe. He was staying in his own room in the hostel, since he had been there for a while. He invited me over one night to hook up. Just as we were getting started, I hear a whimper outside the door. “Oh, hold on, it’s just the dog” he said. He got up. I expected him to shoo the dog away. Instead, he let the dog in. It’s giant—a Rhodesian Ridgeback. “He belongs to the owner. He won’t bother us,” he tells me. We proceed to have sex. In front of the giant dog. I wasn’t a fan. In the morning, we woke up and started getting dressed. He pulled out his phone and started playing French disco music. I danced a little. “Do you like this music?” he asked me. I shrugged and smiled. “Sure, it’s fun!” I said. We danced some more. Then he stopped me, looked me straight in the eye, and told me, “you are now a girl of the disco. From now, to the end of your life, you will be a girl of the disco.” To this day, I am still a girl of the disco. To this day, I still feel weird around Rhodesian Ridgebacks. -Jill Unexpected

MARCH 3, 2017

Tackling Hunger in America: Activist, Author Opines on Poverty Tarini Sipahimalani Joel Berg stood at the front of a classroom at Scripps College to talk about his self-help book for the nation, America, we need to talk, something he humorously called a carried-away rant, on Wednesday, March 1. According to Berg, people should stop blaming America’s problems on corrupt politicians or the political system. While there may be faults on both ends, we must accept our role in America’s democracy and thereby the system as well, and start to focus our energy on what we can do to repair what has been broken, he said. “America, I’m hurt and angry. I love you ... but I’m not in love with you anymore,” Berg said, reading the introduction of his satirical self-help book, which is written as if an angstfilled letter to a lover gone rogue after a turbulent rough patch. Berg went on to enumerate America’s numerous past errors, including her most recent: handing the GOP nomination to Trump, whom Berg called “a

buffoon.” “Nothing is new under the sun,” Berg said, comparing present-day America to Nazi Germany. “We are a nation of antiimmigrant immigrants.” But despite these flaws, Berg argued that individuals needed to take responsibility and action for the good of the country. “The Republicans need hearts but Democrats need spines,” he said. Addressing people who don’t take responsibility for their country’s problems, Berg said, “Get over yourself. We have a personal relationship with the country and society. And like all relationships, both sides have to work on it.” Barring the issue of blame and responsibility, Berg also acknowledged our lack of understanding when it comes to issues like hunger and poverty. He said that middle-class families who are under the poverty line temporarily are almost ten times as likely to suffer from hunger compared to the continously poor. Meanwhile, Berg defines hunger as the “lack of political power to the poor people.”

“Our new normal is far more poverty and hunger than when the recession started. I don’t accept that as normal,” Berg said. In fact, Berg identified healthcare as one of the root causes of these problems. “The reason Canadians are happier is because they have free healthcare and less hunger.” With a set of obstacles to obtaining healthcare, low-income Americans are more frequently ill, and consequently working less, facing large amounts of health care debt, and digging themselves deeper below the poverty line, according to Berg. “Hard is a mother looking her kid in the eye saying they can’t afford dinner,” he said. To Berg, this results in a perpetual cycle of income inequality. There are indubitably many issues that need to be fixed, and according to Berg, the first step is to “recruit and unite.” Berg said that people should take action to help the middle class out of poverty and hunger if they want to take steps toward a progressive nation. “If you can tell who the third

place contestant of the bachelor is, you can learn the difference between the US and state senates,” Berg finished. Yohichi Tagami, a Japanese language resident at Pomona College’s Oldenborg Residence Hall, enjoyed the lecture. “Everything was new to me. I learned a lot,” he said. “[Berg] also has a lot of experience that he brought to his lecture.” Bharathrham Kodungudi PO ’20 thought the talk was very interesting, appreciating Berg’s frequent comedic moments that kept him engaged throughout the lecture. “It was not as organized as I thought it would be; it felt a lot like a rant. He just kept rolling with whatever he was saying,” Kobuntubi said, but nonetheless “the points made were very interesting.” “Given that many people here are on the left, [him] coming here and calling out people on the left as spineless [and not taking action] is very important especially when it’s backed up by this evidence,” Kobuntubi said. “I think he was very good at that.”

Sexual Rights Activist Breaks Down Abortion Barriers Andrea Hernandez “Who in here has an extra $500 dollars for an emergency? Raise your hand if you do.” The audience waited. Nobody raised their hand. “An abortion can cost between $500-700 in the first trimester. It goes up as the pregnancy goes on,” guest speaker Yamani Hernandez said. “And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.” Hernandez, who spoke to a group of students at Pomona College on Tuesday, Feb. 28, is the executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds, a network which helps low-income women remove financial and logistical barriers to abortion access. The organization provides help with medical costs and offers transportation, safety escorts, and emotional support throughout the abortion process. The network values intersectionality, compassion, autonomy, and collective power, and believes that people should be able to determine whether and when to have children, according to Hernandez. “Part of the reason we have

trouble talking about abortion is because we have trouble talking about sex,” Hernandez said. “Because of this, we often talk about abortion in a two-dimensional perspective. We consider cost, or whether it’s legal or moral. But we don’t take into consideration the complexity of what it actually takes for people to access care.” From the moment someone finds out that they’re pregnant, depending on where they live, they might already face legal challenges, Hernandez said. The recent Ohio case, where the court tried to pass a six-week ban on abortion, “was actually a case of bait and switch,” she added. “The six-week ban seemed inhumane, so they changed it to 20 weeks, which made it seem humane. But it’s not humane,” Hernandez said. “If you can’t afford your procedure from the moment you’re pregnant, the clock is ticking. It takes a while to raise the money you need ... If you’re not prepared for that kind of expense, you’re probably not prepared for 18-20 years of expenses related to raising a family.” The realities are that many people, especially those who are undocumented or low-income,

face significant challenges when it comes to accessing abortion care. These challenges not only include the cost of the procedure, but also the legal paperwork, parental or judicial obstacles, and access to transportation, as not everyone can afford to travel out of state to have an abortion. The network is a grassroots organization which is mostly volunteer-run, has offices across the country, and is currently in 38 states, as well as Ireland and Mexico. On their political side, they hope to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which prevents public insurers from covering abortion costs, end the criminalization of abortion, and repeal parental laws which prevent people under the age of 18 from getting an abortion without parental consent, among other things. Laura Trost PZ ’19 said she particularly enjoyed “how Hernandez talked about the issue in a multidimensional context; it’s not all black and white.” In an interview with TSL, Hernandez talked about how her drive to become an abortion activist began with an emotional encounter with a young girl in 2006.

“I was working with a 14-yearold girl who already had a baby. She found out she was pregnant again, so she tried to hire a bunch of students to beat her up so that she would miscarriage. She said it was easier to explain getting beat up than to have an abortion. It was life-changing to know that at that time people still felt that way about abortion. And nowadays, it seems like little has changed,” she said. She also expressed how she hoped that the conversation about abortion would normalize with time. “It’s a part of life, it’s part of sexual health; people should not be afraid to talk about it,” Hernandez said. She hopes that students will get involved, even if not professionally. “Volunteer. Fundraise. Call your senators. Be proactive,” she said. “The reality is that seven out of 10 Americans believe that no matter where you live you should be able to get abortion care. Don’t let the vocal minority win.” To find out more, visit the network’s website at abortionfunds.org.

FOOD COLUMN

Farmers Market and the Privilege of Organic Eating

Molly Edison

For many people, socio-economic status is one of greatest factors contributing to food decisions. No matter how aware a person is of the issues associated with GMOs or pesticides or how much they desire to eat fresh and local food, certain food purchases aren’t possible for the majority who aren’t wealthy. Farmers markets provide fresh, local, often organic food grown on small farms. The target customers of farmers markets are most often wealthy and white. While someone with disposable income is able to spend $6 on four ounces of cheese, many low-income people often struggle to get food on the table. Statistically, low-income people are much more likely to be overweight or obese, and suffer from Type II Diabetes and other weightrelated diseases more than people with more economic security (Diabetes in Control). The American agribusiness system that pumps billions of dollars into corn and soy subsidies produces innutritious, inexpensive food. When it comes to getting the most calories per dollar spent, processed and unhealthy food is undeniably the most effective. Many low-income families often receive government assistance through Electronic Benefit Transfers (EBT). According to the United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, starting in 2004, EBT was implemented in all 50 states as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Guam. The sector of EBT that provides funds for the purchase of food is known as the Supplemental Nutri-

tion Assistance Program (SNAP). In California, SNAP goes by the name CalFresh. Both programs electronically issue monetary benefits which subscribers can use to purchase food at most grocery stores and food marts according to California Electronic Benefit Transfer Project. On May 13, 2016, by a unanimous vote, the Los Angeles City Council instructed the Los Angeles City Attorney to write an ordinance that would require that all farmers markets within Los Angeles city limits accept CalFresh. This applied to 57 different farmers markets at the time the ordinance was written (Los Angeles Times). While EBT, SNAP, and CalFresh all provide necessary assistance to low-income people and families, these benefits can typically only be spent at selected locations and on selected goods. Farmers markets are the best way to access fresh, local, quality produce, and until recently, there was nowhere for SNAP benefit money to be spent at farmers markets. Even if an EBT receiver wanted to make healthier choices for their body, the local economy, and the environment, they would not be able to spend their benefit money at farmers markets. Before the ordinance, over 50 percent of farmers markets within the city were not able to accept EBT. The Los Angeles Food Policy Council aided in training and equipping merchants with the necessary tools to accept EBT, allowing merchants to request free point of sales systems for EBT and shortening long waiting periods for the federal applications required (Los Angeles Times). LA County farmers markets are

now able to accept EBT through a system that allows vendors to easily receive the money they earned. At various farmers markets, including the Claremont Forum Farmers and Artisans Market, customers using EBT can go to the main market manager’s booth, buy a certain amount of credits (represented by wood coins, laminated paper, or other means), swipe their EBT cards, and use their credits to buy food goods throughout the market. When the market closes, vendors take all of the credits they received to the market manager’s booth and receive cash or check payment (Los Angeles Times). This system varies, but is efficient in allowing EBT users to shop throughout the market, centralizing the payment so that each booth doesn’t need its own EBT point of sales system, and allowing vendors to be compensated. When you go to the farmers market this weekend to buy a green juice and sunflowers, stop by the market manager booth, and take a look at the EBT system. So often we take for granted having access to healthy food whenever we want, especially at colleges with such acclaimed dining services. McConnell Bistro often has produce from Huerta Del Valle, and Bon Appetit advertises a commitment to local and ethically sourced food. This means that on my meal plan, I have access to a variety of healthy options from local sources. This is far from the truth for so many. The county-wide ordinance is just one step in the fight for food accessibility. Everyone should have the opportunity to eat healthy food, support the local economy, and be more environmentally responsible through their food choices.

Kyla Smith • The Student Life

LIFE & STYLE MARCH 3, 2017

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THE STUDENT LIFE

Health and Empowerment Symposium Focuses on Marginalized Voices Riley Mang The Intercollegiate Feminist Center for Teaching, Research, and Engagement hosted the Women’s Health and Empowerment Symposium at Scripps College on Friday, Feb. 24, and Saturday, Feb. 25. The weekend conference brought together scholars, activists, students, and community members to address various issues of environmental and reproductive health and justice, gender-based violence, and women’s empowerment in politics. Foregrounding the work of women of color, the conference focused on various issues of intersecting identities in health and public policy. The conference began Friday with a focus on women’s health, specifically as it relates to environmental and reproductive justice. The day featured panel discussions with local educators, organizations, and activists whose work and research pertains largely to communities of women of color and marginalized communities locally and globally. Among the panelists were Pitzer College sociology professor Alicia Bonaparte and Claremont Graduate University applied women’s studies professor Dionne Bensonsmith. Katrina Rapp PZ ‘17 works at the intercollegiate Health Education Outreach Center, where she and other Peer Health Educators design programs that educate the community on issues of mental, sexual, and reproductive health.

She attended the symposium to learn about the various ways in which health practices are gendered and racialized and to hear about the work of local activists in addressing these prejudices in the health system. “As a white, middle-class woman, there is so much I cannot know about how different communities relate to the health system and are targeted by prejudices within it,” she said. “Being able to be a more inclusive educator is something I’m continually working toward.” Saturday featured Marj Plumb, co-creator of the Women’s Policy Institute (WPI), which is part of the Women’s Foundation of California. The institute is a ninemonth fellowship program aimed at arming those often excluded from politics with knowledge of how the system works at the local level. Graduates have gone on to advocate for causes they are passionate about at the state capital. Plumb gave the audience a three-hour, abbreviated version of the program, demonstrating the process of getting a bill passed into law. The audience ranged from public policy students and scholars to novices eager to learn how they can make changes in their communities. Zakiya Luna, a professor of sociology at UC Santa Barbara, participated in both days of the conference, first as a moderator of the Reproductive Justice panel Friday morning and then as an audience participant on Saturday. In the classroom, she aims to connect her material with real-world

L.A. Novelist Brings Fresh Take to Immigrant Narrative Ariel So Asian American writer Jade Chang spoke about her debut novel, The Wangs vs. the World — a riches-to-rags tale about a Chinese American family who loses their business—at Scripps College’s Hampton Room on Tuesday, Feb. 8, as part of the Tuesday Noon Series. Living in Los Angeles, Chang has covered arts and culture as both a journalist and an editor. She is a recipient of a Sundance Fellowship for Arts Journalism, the AIGA/Winterhouse Award for Design Criticism, and the James D. Houston Memorial Scholarship from the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. When introducing The Wangs vs. the World, Chang remarked that while the Wang family is not her family, the two “share the same family history.” Like the novel’s patriarch, Charles Wang, both of Chang’s parents came from large landowning families who had lived in mainland China for generations until their land was taken during the Communist Revolution and the family fled to Taiwan. “Charles Wang, [is] from that same world as my parents,” Chang said. “He grew up in Taiwan, then immigrated to America. And he made a fortune in cosmetics.” The book, as she described, is set during the late summer of 2008, during the financial crisis, when Charles Wang loses all of his property: his “gorgeous house,” “cosmetics empire,” “warehouses,” “stocks,” “everything.” Homeless and penniless, Charles Wang gathers his family to embark on a road trip from Beverly Hills to New York, where the eldest of the Wang whildren, the performance artist Sina, still has a home.The novel follows their journey across the United States. According to Chang, she had always wanted to write a book and began about ten years ago. At the time, she was still working as a journalist. She found it hard to write fiction while “doing serious writing,” so she took another job at a luxury magazine as an editor. After finishing the book, Chang sent her first manuscript out to many publishers, several of which responded with the “one big question” regarding her novel: “Are these characters Asian?” Chang said that many publishing company agents would push her to bring those Asian characters out of her novel if that was the case. “It’s interesting because the message essentially was: ‘As an Asian writer, as a person of color, there’s one kind of story we want you to tell, and if you’re not telling that story, we don’t really know what to do with you,’” Chang said. Eventually, Chang said she decided to start from scratch and

began writing what she hoped to be “a different kind of immigrant novel.” Instead of focusing on the idea of “not fitting in,” she wanted to represent immigrants “who [saw] themselves as being completely central to the country,” those who were prepared to “knock shit down” and “remake the world in their own image.” This would be what she hoped to be “a big fat middle finger to the traditional idea of the immigrant idea.” At the talk, Chang also read several excerpts from the novel. One came from a stand-up routine performed by the middle Wang child about identifying the difference between different Asians, particularly whether one of them was Chinese or Korean. “I’ll tell you a secret. We can’t tell the difference either ... We all do kinda look alike,” he says, getting big laughs on stage in the novel. Naomi Shroff-Mehta SC ‘20 said she especially liked the “distinctive voice” in The Wangs vs. the World, which she found “different from most immigrant novels.” Shroff-Mehta said she was particularly struck by Chang’s portrayal of the older sister, as she “brought in an additional layer of examining feminism and the art world.” Lillian Liang HM ‘18 agreed that Chang brought a new perspective to the immigrant idea. “I think [Chang] succeeded in writing a different kind of immigrant novel in that the second generation voices seem to take up more space and be more comfortable in their own skin … while still being relatable,” Liang said. Several students also shared their thoughts on the comments Chang got from publishers. “It makes me feel really frustrated that her publishers only wanted her to write about Asian ethnicity,” Liang said. “In Asian American Literature, we were talking about the fact that publishers have altered the appearance/titles of books to make them more “exotic”/ Asian and more marketable. It’s a case where capitalism plays into orientalism and making Asians/Asian Americans seem more ‘other,”’ she said. Nicole Hsu SC ‘20 had similar opinions about the publishing industry. “ Pe r h a p s the p ub lishe rs wished to use Westerners’ fixation with ‘exotic oriental myth’ to grab the white reader’s attention,” Hsu said. Despite certain frustrations, Haley Goodman CM ‘17 said the talk brightened her day. “I thought Chang brought a bubbly energy that worked to beat the lunchtime grogginess,” Goodman said.

applications. “In many people’s minds, academic settings are separate from the real world,” Luna said in an interview, “but even the classroom we’re standing in has been affected by policy. Women and people of color used to not be allowed in schools. We used to not have disability ramps. That all changed due to policy.” According to their website, 76 percent of WPI fellows are people of color, 28 percent are queer or identify as something other than heterosexual, 24 percent are transgender people or identify as gender non-conforming, and 16 percent are people with disabilities. “I think for many people, policy seems like something that doesn’t feel accessible, and when you add in the reality of people’s lives, many people feel like their legislators don’t really represent them,” Luna said. “For a lot of people, it can also just seem really scary, and sometimes when we’re scared about something we don’t try to pursue it. I think it’s important to demystify the policy process and make it more accessible to people across the board.” Audrey Dow, a WPI alum, advocate for higher education legislation, and mother of four, brought her fifteen-year-old daughter to the conference, where Dow spoke about her positive experience as a WPI Fellow and the success of her work in public policy. Dow joined the WPI in its second year, when her daughter, Isabelle, was just three years old.

Alyssa Alfonso • The Student Life Marj Plumb of the Women’s Policy Institute answers questions during a Women’s Health and Empowerment Symposium workshop on Feb. 25.

Though she had a degree in public policy from the University of Southern California, she embarked on the training program in order to learn exactly how to get a bill passed through the legislature. “When you go to Sacramento, and you see the folks that are there, it’s still a traditionally white, maledominated space,” she said in an interview. “Legislators don’t get the benefit of hearing from women or women of color about the things

they’re seeing on the ground. [The Women’s Foundation] is bringing a whole different group to Sacramento.” After graduating from WPI, Dow went on to graduate school where she earned a master’s degree in public policy. When she is not pushing bills in Sacramento, she is raising her children with a keen awareness of local politics. Her daughter Isabelle is proud to grow up with a politically active

mother. “It gave me a sense of confidence to see that she could do something so powerful and to have someone as a role model to have such strong opinions ... that could be me,” Isabelle said. “I felt like it was empowering.” The weekend provided a diverse audience with perspectives on local issues and information about how to get involved in advocacy alongside a network of allies.

Tufts Prof Criticizes Israeli Colonialism

Ella Harris • The Student Life Thomas Abowd of Tufts University analyzed colonial urbanism in contemporary Palestinian and Israeli realities on Feb. 28 at Scripps College.

Samuel Breslow In a well-attended talk at Scripps College’s Balch Auditorium on Tuesday, Feb. 28, historian and urban anthropologist Thomas Abowd argued that Israeli urban policy in Jerusalem should be viewed through a colonial framework. “There has to be an acknowledgement by the Israeli government that they do not have the sole right to govern Jerusalem,” Abowd said. Abowd portrayed the Israeli government as an op-

pressive, occupying force through a number of examples, including a controversy around the construction of the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem (which he accused of disrupting the Mamilla Muslim Cemetery), the depopulation of the Sheikh Badr Palestinian Arab village in the late 1940s (part of which is now a park), the poor conditions in the Aida refugee camp, and the story of a man who was shot by an Israeli sniper after poking his head out a window to call for his daughter during a curfew in 2001. He also characterized the separation wall that snakes through the city as a “racial project” targeting

Palestinians, rejecting the Israeli government’s view that it is a security barrier against terrorism. Ultimately, Abowd felt that a shift in perspective away from a mindset that premises decolonization on the elimination of either Israelis or Palestinians will be necessary to resolve the conflict. “The boundaries of the mind seem every bit as material as the checkpoints, walls, and bulldozers that proliferate across this fractured urban space,” he said. Many attendees found his points agreeable, but a few dissented. “I think Dr. Abowd gave a very particular and biased description

of the city of Jerusalem that doesn’t account for many of the nuances in the conflict,” said Deena Woloshin SC ‘18, who recently spent six months living in the city. The talk was organized by the Scripps College Humanities Institute as part of their spring series, the theme of which is “Walls, Borders, Fences.” It aims to examine “the relationships between social, spatial, and political divisions in a variety of historical and geographic contexts,” according to an online statement.

Ath Speaker Explores Arabic Traditions in Physical Science Catherine Ward British-Lebanese scholar Nader El-Bizri ended his teaching tour at the Claremont Colleges with a lecture, “Arabic Classical Traditions in the History of the Exact Sciences,” at the Marion Miner Cook Athenaeum the night of Tuesday, Feb. 28. El-Bizri is an architect, historian, philosopher, and mathematician teaching at the American University in Beirut. El-Bizri was brought to the Claremont colleges with a Mellon Global Fellowship grant and gave guest lectures and talks at Pomona College this past week. “I felt such a warm, welcoming environment when I came here,” he said. “Almost over the past 12 days I felt like I was a member of the faculty on campus. It was a lovely occasion for me to connect with at least five colleagues that I know … they are teaching in the various colleges here. I felt at home!” In his talk, El-Bizri spoke

about the Arabic classical traditions in the history of the exact sciences (often referred to as the physical sciences), with a focus in optics. He spoke mostly about the work of Ibn al-Haytham, a tenth century Iraqi mathematician, philosopher, and astronomer. El-Bizri went into specifics on al-Haytham’s methods and research, and how his writings were used to come to major scientific discoveries in optics and a variety of different fields in the exact sciences. According to El-Bizri, al-Haytham’s work with camera obscuras to understand how pictures were projected helped early physicians understand vision and optic nerves. His research on the phenomena of how the moon appears larger at certain angles was also helpful to astronomers perplexed by these type of visual problems. Al-Haytham also made significant discoveries in geometrical mathematics, specifically pertaining to volume.

El-Bizri, who received a degree in architecture at Harvard University’s graduate school of design and a PhD in Philosophy from the graduate faculty of the New School of Social Reseach in New York, mainly stuck to the technical subject matter during his talk. He responded easily to convoluted questions during the Q&A portion of the event. However, some audience members felt that the lecture was difficult to understand. Mohammad Batal CM ‘18 and Thomas Schalke CM ‘18, two philosophy, politics, and economics majors, were impressed with ElBizri, but struggled to understand the lecture. “It was very interesting, he was clearly an expert,” Schalke said. “I don’t think he tailored it well to the audience of the Athanaeum. You need to be more generalist and expand on what you’re talking about. Put it in a political frame of reference or contemporary connection, something along those lines.”

Batal agreed that the lecture was heavy, but as a Middle Eastern American student he was happy to see representation from the Middle East. “The subject matter was very compelling and there was a lot of material to choose from,” Batal said. “He went very in depth on one case. I would love to learn about Arabs in the exact sciences more generally.” Marie-Claude Thomas, a visiting professor who teaches Modern Arab Culture and Thought at CMC, was impressed with El-Bizri and said that she would like to see more Arabic speakers at the Athanaeum. “It is good for the students to get to know the Arab contribution to societies, and for people to know that they are not villains. Also it is good for the Arabic community to not feel like they are left behind. Because many Arabic people are upset that institutions do not remember the Arabic contribution,” said Thomas.

LIFE & STYLE PAGE 6

MARCH 3, 2017

THE STUDENT LIFE

INTERNATIONAL SPACES

Helena Shannon There comes a time in the fiveor-so-month lifespan of a semester abroad at which everything seems to be falling apart. Life in your country seems just so overwhelmingly frustrating, and even menial tasks seem difficult. Going to the store? A nightmare. Ordering a coffee? A disaster. Going to classes? Endless suffering. Hello, from that place. I will briefly explain the expected emotional cycle of an international student. Initially, upon arriving in the host country, you are at the ultimate peak of happiness. You are discovering a brand new culture and city and language and you are overjoyed to be out of the Claremont bubble. Life couldn’t be better. But slowly, as classes start, things get a bit greyer, a bit more frustrating. The frustrations build up, as does the homework, and eventually, come halfway through the semester, you find yourself riding the metro, trying not to cry, thinking: “I have made a horrible mistake.” You have arrived at the slump. However, slowly you realize that your time in this amazing (albeit sometimes frustrating) place is limited and that you need to make the most of it while you can. So you start to make compromises, strategies to cope, and you start to accept cultural differences. I haven’t gotten that far. I’m still in the crappy part, yet I think that a lot of pre-slump study abroad students underestimate how truly miserable this part of it actually can be. No matter how many times your program warned you that this was coming, you still can’t know exactly when it’s going to come or how hard it’s

Surviving the Study Abroad Slump

going to hit you. For me, the slump started when I arrived back in Paris after my weeklong trip to the U.K. On the train ride home, I was so excited to be back in Paris, my city. Upon arriving in my room, however, I almost immediately felt miserable. Paris didn’t feel at all like my city. My room didn’t even feel like my room. It all felt strange. As I tried to go to classes and do homework, the sensation of hopelessness worsened. Everything felt so much harder when it was in French, and I had no idea how I was going to pass my upcoming midterms when I couldn’t even understand my lectures. Even wandering through Paris had lost its spark. You really don’t appreciate all of the resources so readily available at the Claremont Colleges until you have to find them yourself. For example, it is not hard to find printers, water fountains, medical care, and places to sit outside without being bothered by creeps who shout at you. I hadn’t slept, I hadn’t done an ounce of homework, I was constantly on the verge of tears, and I’d started stress-eating Chipotle and McFlurries. In short, I felt awful. However, the worst feeling that came with the slump was the feeling of wrongness and isolation. This wasn’t what my study abroad experience was meant to be like! I was wasting it by spending hours watching YouTube videos, and I was doing the wrong thing by engaging with others in English so much. I thought that no one else felt that way, so I was wrong for being the only person who seemed so sad and miserable when everyone else was having the time of their life.

Then I realized that I wasn’t the only person who was sad and miserable. As I started to talk to other people who had studied abroad, or other people on my program, I discovered that everyone was sad. I wasn’t wrong, I wasn’t abnormal, and I wasn’t falling apart. I was, actually, right on schedule. That doesn’t mean that it made the slump disappear completely, but it lifted all of the negative moral judgments I had placed on it, making it all much more bearable. I still have quite a bit of work to do. I need to find strategies to cope with cultural differences and re-discover some of the joy that I felt at the beginning of the semester, but at least I’m not doing it alone. For people who are planning on studying abroad, or people who are currently abroad, when that feeling of hating everything about your host country comes knocking and you feel like human garbage, all alone on Sad Sack Island, worry not. You’re not alone! You’ve got plenty of friends on Sad Sack Island, and all you need to do is talk to them. Well, actually, that’s not all you need to do, but that’s the first step. The second step is knowing yourself. If you’re the kind of person who needs to wallow a bit, do it! If you’re the kind of person who needs to cry for an hour, do it! If you’re the kind of person who needs to talk this out with someone—a parent, a friend, or a counselor—go for it! Because even though everyone is experiencing the slump, not everyone is going to experience it to the same degree or in the same way. Just be patient with yourself, with others, and try to remain grateful to be having such a unique experience.

Ye Olde Student Life

Audrey Jang• The Student Life

Syrian Scholar, HMC Professor Shares His Story Annie Wan

Pomona College Photo Archive, Special Collections, Claremont Colleges Library. View of the Pomona College Greek Theater after the 1938 flood.

Claremont has experienced an unusually wet winter this year, but the hydrophobic among us can at least take solace in the fact that our morning commute to class does not (yet) require a boat. Prior to the completion of San Antonio Canyon dam in 1956, Claremont was periodically inundated with flash floods, the largest and most destructive of which was documented in this front-page article from our March 3, 1938 issue. Classes at Pomona College remained in session “for all who find it feasible to participate,” but they were cancelled at Scripps College. Reports in subsequent issues estimated the damage in Claremont at $275,000, equivalent to $4.8 million today. Compiled by Samuel Breslow PO ‘18 Storm floods Claremont Claremont lies under mud and debris this morning after the biggest storm in history joined melting snows from the mountains to sweep Pomona valley last night and yesterday with so much water that local hyd[r]ographers were unable to measure its volume. Nearly 7½ inches of rain fell in 24 hours to 6 o’clock last night at the city hall rain guage [sic], raising the storm total to nearly 10 inches, almost equal to the season total from August through February. The weather bureau predicted more rain today. Flood waters from San Antonio creek, swollen by the storm and melting snows due to recent warm weather, burst check dams at the mouth of San Antonio canyon, poured across Monte Vista avenue below Baseline road and spread along Foothill boulevard into Claremont, where it augmented other storm waters to inundate streets and sidewalks with a raging torrent. Pomona College suffered principally on the men’s campus, where Clark hall patio lay under 3 feet of water, fraternity and other basement rooms in Clark hall filled to various depths, first floor rooms in the south side of Clark hall received several inches of water, and streets and athletic fields accumulated rocks swept in from the land above town. Scripps College suffered as flood waters poured from Foothill boulevard across the athletic field and campus into basement and first floors of several buildings. Other college buildings on both campuses remained comparatively dry as flood waters swept closely by. No estimate of damage to the colleges or the town was available. - Many buildings in town were barricaded against the flood waters where they swept over curbs, which were battered at several intersections by debris hurled by the torrent. On campuses and throughout Claremont the storm had humorous aspects despite the damage it caused. Collegians sported attire from boots and overcoats to bathing suits. Some sloshed in protective covering from head to toe, others waded barefooted, barelegged, and grinning. Adventurous spirits improvised boats and bobbed about on swirling seas. More serious were grim crews that responded to emergency alarms yesterday afternoon in an attempt to divert San Antonio creek flood waters past Claremont along Foothill boulevard by barricading streets with sandbags. Claremont residents joined county forestry forces in the battle but their efforts were largely in vain. College men hurled their energies against the tide on campus with stone and sandbag barricades but also with small success. What little gains they made during afternoon and early evening were lost when a levee which encompasses the check dams at the mouth of San Antonio canyon fell before swollen creek’s onslaught, releasing additional flood waters to sweep aside barricades.

Ahmad Adib Sha’ar was walking with his wife on the streets of eastern Aleppo when a bullet punched through the air past his face. “I was walking with my wife. I noticed that something was in front of my face. It went to the wall in front of me,” Sha’ar said. It happened so fast that the professor and researcher was barely able to process the fact that he had just made it past a brush with death. It was at that moment that he realized it was too dangerous to stay in Syria for much longer. “My brother was killed because a rocket fell on the café he owned, killing him and four of his workers,” Sha’ar said. “I escaped death twice. [The other time], one rocket fell just 10 meters in front of me.” Currently a professor at Harvey Mudd College, Sha’ar was forced to abandon his life in Syria and relocate to the United States. He is one of 4.9 million Syrian refugees who have had to flee their homes since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011. Sha’ar comes from eastern Aleppo, once the most populous city in Syria and an area that recently came to international attention for the human rights violations caused in the brutal guerrilla war between government and rebel factions. A middle-aged man with a kind smile, Sha’ar hardly seems like a man who has experienced unimaginable hardships and been forced to flee his home country. He has been at HMC since May 2016 and is now teaching two halfcredit courses, one on cryptography and one on communications. Additionally, Sha’ar has been prolific in his research, finishing two papers during his time in Claremont. One of these he submitted to the magazine Advanced Mathematics of Communications. In honor of the college that accepted him as a visiting professor, Sha’ar named his newly-discovered algorithms the “Harvey Mudd codes.” In Aleppo, Sha’ar taught computer science at the private Mamoun University. He was able to come to the United States through the Scholars at Risk Fellowship by the Institute of International Education, a New York-based organization that enables outstanding professors, researchers, and public intellectuals from countries in turmoil to pursue their academic work in safety. Although he is currently hosted by HMC, Sha’ar is beset by the same sense of rootlessness that has plagued other Syrian refugees, as their home country becomes uninhabitable and much of the outside world continues to reject them. “We have security, but unfortunately the program to which we

came is considering us visitors,” Sha’ar said. “Each year there are new arrangements to find us another place, which I feel makes us like Gypsy doctors, or Gypsy scholars.” His wife and children are now scattered across the globe. “I have a son in New Zealand, I have a son in Hungary, I have three married daughters in Germany, and one son in Wisconsin, and one son here with me,” said Sha’ar. “Except my eldest girl, all of them are [displaced] due to the war in Aleppo.” Twenty years ago, Sha’ar bought a traditional Syrian house, which he renovated and lived in with his family. However, the house was severely damaged by a bomb that landed in its vicinity. Its doors are kept open, so that every night looters come seeking its bounty. Neighborhood upon neighborhood in eastern Syria is now empty as their inhabitants have either died or fled. Once a thriving metropolis, the wartorn Aleppo is now virtually uninhabitable. Although the Syrian government, headed by President Bashar al-Assad, won the battle for Aleppo in December 2016, Sha’ar said that the situation in Aleppo is far from normal. “In the previous two months, we are not seeing that people are returning,” Sha’ar said. “Ninety percent of the houses are not inhabited by their owners. There is no safety to return back to.” More than 6 million refugees are now in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq, with more in Europe and the United States. As the situation grows more pressing, countries are still debating about what to do with these refugees. “People have lost their jobs, they lost their houses,” Sha’ar said. “If the international community does not work together to solve these problems, these will be factors that turn their children towards violence.” The surge in refugees has featured prominently in the antiimmigrant rhetoric of right-wing parties across the globe. U.S. President Donald Trump’s travel ban on citizens from countries that are predominantly Muslim, although overruled by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, has nonetheless inflamed these sentiments. “America used to be the country of refugees, of people who are seeking freedom of religion,” Sha’ar said. “This is the wrong decision because this will increase the feelings against the USA in Muslim countries.” Despite all that he has been through, Sha’ar said that he still harbors a deep love for his country, to which he fervently hopes to return one day.

OPINIONS MARCH 3, 2017

PAGE 7

THE STUDENT LIFE

THE STUDENT LIFE SEAN OGAMI, News Editor KELLEN BROWNING, News Assignment Editor ELINOR ASPEGREN, News Associate LIAM BROOKS SAFA ARSHADULLAH, Life & Style Editor Production Editor SOPHIE PETERS, Life & Style Editor ANIKKA VILLEGAS, Life & Style Associate CHRISTOPHER ESKILSON KATE DOLGENOS, Opinions Editor Content Editor JO NORDHOFF-BEARD, Sports Editor LAUREN ISON Editor-in-Chief

GRACE OZONOFF-RICHEY, Senior Design Editor ELIZABETH LEADER, Senior Design Editor DAPHNE YANG, News Designer MEGAN ROBALEWSKI, Life & Style Designer NOOR DHINGRA, Opinions Designer CHRISTINA BECK, Sports Designer

The Student Life, the oldest college newspaper in Southern California, is produced and managed by students of the Claremont Colleges and published weekly. The Editorial Board consists of the Editor-in-Chief and two Managing Editors. Aside from the editorial, the views expressed in the opinions section do not necessarily reflect the views of The Student Life. Email letters, questions and concerns to editor@tsl.pomona. edu. Email tips to liaison@tsl.pomona.edu; email advertising inquiries to business@tsl.pomona.edu.

MATTHEW LEE, Senior Copy Editor DONNIE DENOME, Copy Editor ANDREW MEDINA, Copy Editor

No, I Didn’t Use a Thesaurus

DOMINIC FREMPONG, Graphics Editor ALYSSA ALFONSO, Photo Editor MEGHAN JOYCE, Photo Manager DONOVAN NEW, Video Director MONICA ACOSTA, Distribution Manager WESLEY LIANG, Business Manager ALEXA STRABUK, Senior Advisor

TSL welcomes Letters to the Editor, which can be submitted by mail, by email, or in person at the Fishbowl in Walker Hall. Letters must be under 400 words (although when an issue is particularly salient, we reserve the right to allow letters to run at a longer length) and submitted by 4 p.m. Wednesday of the week of publication. We reserve the right to decline publication of submitted letters and will not accept anonymous letters, letters containing profanity, factually inaccurate letters or letters making personal attacks. TSL also reserves the right to edit for spelling, punctuation and grammar. Letters may be signed by a maximum of three persons. All letters become the property of TSL and may not be reprinted without prior permission from the Editorial Board.

EDITORIAL BOARD

Emotional Labor and Objectivity

If you’ve attended a community dialogue or are part of a seminar class this semester, you’ve probably heard about “I-statements.” If you haven’t, here’s the short version: by only speaking about your own personal experiences rather than those of different people, you avoid making assumptions and help base the conversation around things you know. Most of the time, this approach is great. But it also puts marginalized students in the position of having to explain and articulate their own experiences to others, which often means that they must repeatedly educate different people about the same systems of oppression. This repetitive process is a form of emotional labor: the twofold stress of living marginalized lives in society with the expectation of explaining that positionality to those not experiencing it. Emotional labor can come from personal interactions as well as those solidified in institutions. Here at TSL, for

example, our opinions section publishes op-eds from staff columnists as well as guest submissions, many of which have to do with topics of identity, from race to gender to mental health. Often, the writers of these columns are students who are personally affected through these channels—people of color, women, and trans and queer folk. We unfortunately can’t afford to pay our opinions columnists—or any of our writers, for that matter—so we don’t excuse ourselves from this problematic framework. Writers and visual journalists for other sections, too, are expected to separate their personal investment in order to remain objective, even when many important stories these days deal with issues surrounding identity. At the same time, we hope to function as an outlet for those wanting to voice their thoughts and feelings. Objectivity is as core to journalism as the first amendment, say journalism teachers everywhere. “The truth” is the truth

TSL SAYS

Messing up on live T.V. You had one job...

Awarding alleged sexual abusers

because it’s objective, the argument goes, and by peeling away subjective lenses, the “real” story can be revealed. We accepted this without question, but lately it doesn’t seem to always ring true. Arguments about objectivity have turned into arguments about identity; if writers are blind to their own privilege, they won’t be objective, even if they, and their editors, believe they are. The best we can hope for is to circle that truth and approach it from all angles, while avoiding the exploitation of emotional labor. We invite discussion on how to best negotiate this balance. For example, last year we reserved one issue’s opinion section “for students of color to voice their experiences” following protests by students of color at Claremont McKenna College. As we continue to report on identity politics at the 5Cs, we welcome feedback on every step of the process. How can we tell stories that are true to the writer as well as the reader?

Bitcoin That CS5 class will get you rich The inevitable fall of financial institutions in the digital age

Interfaith solidarity Muslims and Jews uniting against hate

Good Reporting Washington Post getting the scoop

False flag narratives Because people terrorize themselves?

Lying under oath It’s just perjury

Anikka Sophia VIllegas • The Student Life

Jolo Labio Columnist “Wow. That was so powerful and well-written!” A huge grin lit up my face. My friend’s parents—who were visiting for Pomona College’s Family Weekend—complimented my opinions piece on American neocolonialism in TSL’s Feb. 17 issue. “You must have used a really big thesaurus.” My smile faltered. Of course, I thought to myself. It’s because I’m not from “here,” because my skin doesn’t look like yours, because my name rings foreign to your ears. Apparently, that means words like “ubiquitous”, “neocolonialist”, and “aquamarine” are no longer mine to use. Their patronizing comments left a harsh taste in my mouth. Still, I figured that they didn’t intend any malice. In order to prevent a potentially awkward social situation, I forcibly swallowed my discontent, nodded curtly, and plastered on a tight-lipped smile. “Thanks?” For us students of color— especially those who identify as international—backhanded compliments regarding English proficiency are commonplace. You’d think that at Pomona College, an institution dominated by a ‘politically correct’ culture, this would not be the case. Yet, some of my classmates are shocked that I’m from the Philippines. Upon further elaboration, they always assume I’m a Filipino-American living in California, primarily because I “speak well in discussions.” Last semester, one of my professors

commented on the fact that I “write as well as a lot of the Americans” in my class. What students, professors, and parents fail to realize is that I spoke both Tagalog and English as a little kid. This stems from the Americanization of the Philippines as a United States colony from 1898 to 1946. On the other hand, some international students acquired English proficiency much later. Considering sociocultural differences across countries, neither narrative is ‘superior’ to the other. However, this is a testament to the incredibly diverse linguistic experiences of both international and domestic students of color. In spite of this, many—often, white—Americans make hasty generalizations about our language proficiency through modest expectations disguised as compliments. Ultimately, this is because many white, middle-to-upperclass Americans speak General American English, an idealized variety that lacks any distinct regional, ethnic, socioeconomic characteristics. Consequently, they possess linguistic privilege, the undue ability to police how ‘other’ people speak English. In the United States, English speakers enjoy a variety of advantages: they obtain easier access to mainstream educational institutions, such as intensive preparatory secondary schools and elite college institutions, and English serves as cultural capital—from ordering at a restaurant to communicating with peers in a professional setting. Consequently, many international students and immigrant families face social, economic, and political pressure to attain English proficiency. For example, my high school Korean classmates spent hours memorizing English vocabulary lists and grammar rules, all to ace their standardized tests and English proficiency exams for selective American universities. Yet, because of inherent differences in sociocultural upbringing, domestic and international students of color may speak and sound dissimilar to the idealized General American English. This creates a power dynamic, wherein POC-spoken English is belittled

by the socio-politically dominant, middle-to-upper-class white Americans. This often manifests in racist, ‘comedic’ caricatures in television shows and mass media that mock foreign accents. However, if domestic and international students of color obtain high levels of English proficiency, we still face backlash from middleto-upper-class white Americans. This is exhibited in backhanded compliments, often abound with qualifying language that trivializes hard work and intelligence. In some cases, the reception may not be complimentary at all. Tiffany Martinez, a Latinx student at Suffolk University, was accused of plagiarism after using the word “hence” in an essay. To her professor, ‘hence’ was “not her word.” It belonged to the thesaurus, to the Oxford English Dictionary, and to millions of wealthy white Americans. Just not to her. Ultimately, this linguistic privilege is grounded on racism, classism and elitism, which undermines the identity of domestic and international students of color. We domestic and international students of color are tired of swallowing our discontent, nodding curtly, and plastering fake smiles in the face of microaggressions. We deserve to take ownership of our linguistic experience. If English is meant to be a cross-national language, then all individuals, regardless of their race or class, should have equal stake in its usage. In fact, the Western-centric pedestal we place English on must be broken down through increased accessibility for non-English speakers, as well as increased visibility for other languages spoken by ethnic minorities. In doing so, we can slowly decolonize forms of communication in the United States. So no, I did not use a thesaurus. I used “ubiquitous,” “neocolonialist,” and ‘”aquamarine” because I understood and deliberately chose those words. Those words are as much mine as they are yours. Jolo Labio PO ‘20 is from Manila, Philippines. Catch him every MondayThursday at 7:59 AM, furiously sprinting to his 8 a.m. at Mason.

Weekly Comic: Living Like Clockwork

Sophie Reingold • The Student Life

OPINIONS PAGE 8

MARCH 3, 2017

THE STUDENT LIFE

Why Does CMC Hero-Worship Henry Kravis?

Henry Johnson Guest Columnist

Henry Kravis’s surname is everywhere at Claremont McKenna College. It adorns both the campus’s biggest building and its most sprawling student resource center: the Kravis center, a megaplex of classrooms and offices, and the Kravis Leadership Institute, an endowment that sponsors a sophomore “changemaking program,” dispenses quarter-million dollar awards to non-profits, and hands CMCers their most CMC-ified resume ornament, the leadership studies sequence. On Thursday night, then, I was surprised to see it appear in a place far, far removed from the refuge of learning and civil discourse in Claremont: Trump’s twitter feed. Alongside a torrent of personal musings, ravings about leakers, and philippics against the failing New York Times and other fake media, Trump tweeted, “Big interview tonight by Henry Kravis at The Business Council of Washington. Looking forward to it!” This flattering sentiment would not at all be out of place in Claremont. The student body and administration alike fete Kravis whenever he comes to campus. Students throw him softball questions at Ath talks, and the administration gushingly thanks him for his support at awards dinners. Trump would feel at ease in this lovefest. He proposed Kravis as an ideal treasury secretary as far back as June 2015, to which Kravis meekly responded, “that was scary,” and then again last May. Kravis’s name persisted as a top choice even weeks after the election, according

to financial insiders reached by the New York Times. As a student, I hadn’t thought much about the cult of personality around Kravis. He and his cousin George Roberts were showering CMC with money, transforming the architectural landscape with a supergym and an administrative flagship, but also rewarding the goodly works of non-profits and gilding the path to success with paid internships for a next generation of “changemakers.” Where is the harm in such benign philanthropy? In view of Trump’s presidency, his avowed respect for Kravis, and staggering disrespect of all principles held dear by the humanities and liberal arts, this money takes on a darker sheen. Trump, after all, can’t even take the time to read a book. What does it say about CMC that such a man adores the same person whose largesse is attributed with defining the ethos of the campus? Kravis, it goes without saying, uses his spare cash for more than just charitable donations to his alma mater. In 2012, he dropped at least $200,000 into Mitt Romney’s Super PAC, and in the current election cycle, he took advantage of a new tenfold increase in the maximum allowable donation to a party to fatten GOP coffers with $334,000. Kravis’s love of leadership extends to the political sphere as well; in 1997, he founded the Republican Leadership Council. Now, it appears his decades of promoting unbridled free market policies under Republican politicians could pay off in a major way. Kravis and the private equity

company he co-founded, K.K.R., are at the forefront of a private-sector push to buy up chronically underfunded public services, improve them, and then flip them for a profit. Trump has touted this sort of publicprivate partnership as a model to offset the costs of his trillion dollar infrastructure plan. In recent years, K.K.R. has tested the business advantages of buying failing public infrastructure in Bayonne, New Jersey, and Middletown, Pennsylvania. In both cases, it bought a 90 percent stake in the rights to maintain and operate municipal water systems over 40-year and 50-year periods, respectively. K.K.R. claims these deals have brought residents better service and modernized technology without tax increases. But the contracts also guarantee revenue to the company, which means taxpayers do have to pay for the project through higher user rates that go towards meeting the firm’s revenue baseline. This helps ensure that private equity companies investing in water systems earn returns of anywhere from 8 to 18 percent, more than what a for-profit water company would make. When residents of Bayonne used less water than predicted, the burden fell on them to make up for the revenue shortfall, and rates jumped 28 percent, according to a New York Times analysis. As a Republican-controlled government eschews public funding and looks to the private-sector instead, what happens to the people these policies are supposed to benefit? “My reaction was, ‘Oh, so I guess I’m screwed now?’” a mother of

Liam Brooks• The Student Life The Kravis Center at Claremont McKenna College, just one of the many buildings funded by the Trump-respected Henry Kravis, on March 2.

two who lives in Bayonne told the Times. Already, K.K.R. is reportedly shopping its profit-making venture around to potential buyers. Has CMC also put its future in the hands of K.K.R.? Judging by the campus’s architecture, the prominence of the Roberts Day School and plethora of Kravis scholarships and grants, you’d be excused for thinking so. To be sure, CMC has an imperative to collect donations, and endowments from Kravis and Roberts have funded scholarships for countless students, but there comes a point where an overwhelming infusion of money from one set of donors begins

5Cs Should Support Autistic Students Adam Mitchell Guest Columnist In light of President Trump’s recent comments on autism, in which he described the increasing rate of diagnoses as “horrible,” it is important to examine how autism is regarded at the 5Cs and work to foster a greater community understanding of autism. Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction and nonverbal communication, extremely repetitive behavior, and sensory overstimulation. The autism spectrum describes the vast range of these conditions, including Asperger’s Syndrome, which is similar to autism but causes no delay in the development of verbal communication. The causes of autism are still debated and researched today. However, in 1998, British gastroenerologist Andrew Wakefield published a study which claimed that vaccinations directly cause autism. While this study was determined fraudulent and was retracted, the belief that vaccines cause autism still permeates much of American society. Autism is a political battleground, with some groups advocating that it is a disorder and needs to be cured, and others arguing that it is a variation in the human genome and should be accepted as a difference. As a result, the way in which one refers to autism is usually considered a political act. ‘A person with autism’ describes the condition as a disease

and disorder, while ‘an autistic person’ describes the condition as part of the individual that should be accepted. I believe that if the campus understood more about these issues, then autistic students would feel more accepted. For instance, at Pomona College’s Residence Hall Staff training last September, which I attended as a chair of Pomona’s Judiciary Board and an Orientation Adventure leader, the presenting dean discussed sexual assault and inappropriate sexual advances. A student raised their hand and asked: “What if the person making the advances does not know that they are inappropriate?” The dean replied: “Yes, if the person has autism or something like that, then we will try to work with them, but in the end, they must take responsibility for their actions.” In my opinion, this statement reinforced the stereotype that a person with autism is unable to socially understand when another person does not want sexual advances to be made. If there were other autistic individuals in the room, I can only imagine how this must have made them feel. To me, the comment and lack of response from anyone in the room made me question whether I should ever flirt with someone. In my opinion and that of the majority of the medical professionals with whom I have spoken, the social difficulties of autistic individuals do not inhibit them from understanding when

a person is receiving unwanted attention. The social struggles are typically more nuanced such as difficulty making eye contact, reading body language, or understanding sarcasm and figurative speech. A greater community understanding could also allow autistic students to feel more comfortable in our campus’s public spaces. As a result of overstimulation, autistic individuals often cannot attend large social gatherings or loud parties without having enormous support and overcoming enormous difficulty. I am not suggesting that parties turn down the volume of their music or make the environment less stimulating, since that is the nature of parties. But perhaps there could be more autistic-friendly social gatherings that have less bright lights and a moderate level of music. Finally, I believe that if there was a heightened community understanding of autism and increased autistic representation, more autistic students would feel like they belong at the 5Cs. In my three years at the 5Cs, I have not found any role model, professor, or staff member who is on the autism spectrum. While there are numerous possible explanations for this, one troubling possibility is that there are simply not many autistic role models on campus. However, other possibilities include that I have not encountered an autistic role model simply because I have not met every older adult on campus, or because those professors

or role models with autism do not publicize the fact that they are autistic. Another possibility is that many professors who are on the autism spectrum have not received formal diagnoses because autism is medically understood much better now than a few decades ago. Regardless of the explanation, it is troubling that the difficulties faced by autistic students and the wider topic of neurodiversity are not publicized or discussed in Pomona College news or ASPC publications. In my experience, and from those whom I have talked with as well, autistic individuals are told from an early age that they do not behave normally and will subsequently experience difficulties holding a job or having a typical, independent adult life. This is not helped by the fact that a significant portion of autistic individuals live in group homes or with their immediate family members late in life. For these reasons, a wider community understanding of autism, the support of autistic role models, and the support of our student government and fellow students are immensely important, especially now that deeply-concerning comments about autism are being made. Adam Mitchell PO ‘18 is a physics/astrophysics major from Portland, Oregon. He enjoys running and can often be found lamenting the fact that it’s not raining.

We Must Fight Against Private Prisons and Jeff Sessions

Simone Bishara Columnist Attorney General Jeff Sessions is lackluster for a lot of reasons. He lied about having connections to Russia during his confirmation hearing. He very slowly decided to denounce President Trump’s grossly inappropriate comments about women. Now, he has rescinded the former Attorney General Sally Yates’s memo about phasing out private prisons. As I’m sure is obvious, Sessions is on a not-so-short list of people that I feel are incapable of running a major arm of the government. However, regardless of my opinions, he is our Attorney General. That means we must continue protesting and making sure to pay attention to the things he does that might get swept under the rug in the general chaos of the new administration. That means raising hell when we take steps backward in allowing major corporations to exploit the most vulnerable populations of our society. Private prisons have ridden

the train of anti-blackness all the way to the station of mass incarceration and have ended up with billions of dollars in profit. Let me start at the beginning of this mess, to see if we can piece it back to 2017 and Sessions. Mass incarceration is the phenomenon that has caused the total incarcerated population to increase from approximately half a million in the 1980s to over two million in 2014. The size of the private prison population has also risen by 90 percent in the last 15 years. Private prisons have actually invested in practices that encourage incarceration. These practices include, but are not limited to, policies like the 1994 Violent Crime Control Act signed by former President Bill Clinton. The act landed money for more cops on the streets and the construction of new prisons. Though later Clinton admitted to the potential negative consequences of his action, we still see policies being pushed through that result in disproportionately longer sentences. These policies are usually masked by euphemistically named initiatives like “crime prevention” and “job creation,” but are almost always ways to subjugate racial minorities, especially Black men. Following the Civil War and the end of slavery, the modern prison system in America has had the sole function of locking up Black men and exploiting their labor (as seen in 13th by Ava DuVernay). Young Black men also have a three in four chance of being incarcerated in their lifetime (a statistic pointed out by

Michelle Alexander in her book The New Jim Crow). The same statistic is one in seventeen for white men. Those numbers don’t lie, and there are obvious cultural and economic forces that have resulted in those discrepancies. Mandatory minimums are a good example of the types of policies that blindly shove people into prisons. This policy means that judges must sentence offenders to a minimum amount of time regardless of the extenuating circumstances of the crime. For certain drug-related offenses, Black people are disproportionately given high sentences. For example, the possession or transport or intent to sell crack cocaine comes with a minimum sentence that is exorbitantly higher than that for powder cocaine. This unfairly targets the poor Black folks that have more commonly used crack cocaine. These policies do not come from thin air or sheer racism or greed. They are created at think tanks that politicians and special interests (or corporations) are part of—most notably, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC has been handing legislation that has been created by and for corporation profit to Republicans for over 45 years. Not only do the contributing corporations have a direct hand in influencing the types of issues that are raised, but they have the money to hire the best and brightest to create solutions that further grow their pocket books and hurt the American

people. It is important to note that ALEC is excited by the opportunity to work with the new administration. In a press release dated just a month before the inauguration of our new President, ALEC claimed it would be playing a major role in the new White House. They stressed the necessity of a fresh, “free-market” approach to our country’s situation and suggested that they may be the ones with the solution. This is almost comical, considering that ALEC is responsible for pushing some of the most damaging legislation that frames the conversation about incarceration. Explicitly with the intent of increasing the profits of certain member groups, also. Even while we’re experiencing and living through the disastrous consequences of ALEC’s actions and suggestions, they are pushing the agenda that they are the cutting-edge. And here we’ve come full circle. Private prisons have little to do with meeting “future needs” and more to do with meeting future dollar amounts. And these organizations are claiming ownership over the next administration’s decision making. It only begs the question: whose pocket is Jeff Sessions in, and how far is he willing to go to turn a profit for them? Simone Bishara is a third-year at Pitzer College studying Sociology. She hopes to one day pursue a career in juvenile justice.

to shape the fundamental experience of learning at CMC. It is manifested in the buildings, in the immense pull that economics and finance exerts over underclassmen, in the absence of any discussion of alternative theories of political economy. It is threatening to subsume the school’s many other excellent, critical-minded departments. The problem is not that CMC accepts donations from Kravis, but the manner in which it celebrates that money. Absent a critical debate, it can be difficult for students to see what companies like K.K.R. are doing to the U.S. economy—shift-

ing wealth from the middle class denizens of places like Bayonne to corporate boardrooms—when the fruits of that extraction are also flowing to CMC. Now that Trump has taken office and sung the praises of Kravis as well, he is holding a mirror to CMC and the company it so strongly identifies with. Maybe Kravis does deserve a hero’s welcome, and his acquisitions of public works are a solution, but at the very least, an honest debate is in order. Henry Johnson CM ‘14 was a history-government dual major. He now works as a Cairo-based journalist.

Weekly Crossword

Simone Bishara PZ ’18

Across 1. Unknown, with no signature, abbr. 5. Story 9. Young men’s outdoors gp. 12. Comp- ending 13. Lincoln and Shinzo 14. Olive or vegetable 15. Purple yam-like veggie 16. Small, sour bites you eat with the rind 18. Pitzer’s school fruit 20. Hotmail provider 21. “When in ___” 23. Agnus ___, religious 27. Snow activity requiring lifts 30. Santa __ Winds 31. Done in the oven 32. Geo. shape 33. VP who doesn’t like gay folk 35. Location of a CalPoly up north 36. Cognizant 38. Weapon or firearm 39. Soft pat 40. Japanese soup 41. Face crater, hair follicle 42. Your beau thang 44. Peanut butter chocolate cup 49. Music festival or photo type 53. Jewish frat 54. Dark beer 55. Persian country 56. Camel’s do this to unsuspecting tourists 57. Ability to see the dead 58. Secretary 59. Embroider on tough surface Down 1. Low voice 2. Close 3. Different, in Spanish 4. Pretty colored gas 5. Words on bowl of Halloween

candy 6. Aladdin’s sidekick 7. “Please permit me” over text 8. Lawyers, abbr. 9. Snake or feathery accessory 10. Use a chair 11. Lou Gehrig’s disease 17. Back button on Word 19. Small, purple fruit 22. Tropical, pitted fruit 24. Toward New York 25. Spanish island 26. DON’T GO 27. Ponzi 28. Hairy fruit 29. Ret. accts. 31. Zellwegger, of “Bridget Jones Diary” 34. Sour dessert fruit 37. Electronic man, abbr. 41. Shapely fruits 43. Opera 45. Absence of difficulty 46. Beginning of the school year month, abbr. 47. Cool story 48. Star Wars bad guy 49. What some fruits are baked into 50. Sign ups for school and jobs 51. Sleep in the middle of the day 52. More, in Spanish

Answers

SPORTS MARCH 3, 2017

PAGE 9

THE STUDENT LIFE

Sports Calendar

March 3 - March 9

Pomona-Pitzer Friday, March 3rd

CMS MEN’S TENNIS

Stags Singles Smash Bates, Brandeis

EDIT O

Baseball PIC R’S K V. Whitter 11:00 a.m., 2:30 p.m.

Women’s Tennis V. Johns Hopkins Sewanee, TN 9:30 a.m.

Women’s Lacrosse At Whittier 11:00 a.m.

Women’s Water Polo V. Cal Baptist 12:30 p.m. V. Sonoma State 6:45 p.m.

Women’s Water Polo Claremont Convergence Tournament V. Concordia 11:45 p.m. V. UCSB 7:15 p.m.

Baseball At Whittier 2:30 p.m. Saturday, March 4th

Softball At Whittier 12:00 p.m., 2:00 p.m.

Women’s Golf Desert Classic Primm, NV 8:00 a.m.

Sunday, March 5th Women’s Tennis ITA National Indoors 9:00 a.m.

Men’s Golf Desert Classic Primm, NV 8:00 a.m.

Wednesday, March 8th

Track & Field Multi-Dual Meet 10:00 a.m.

Women’s Water Polo V. Caltech 4:00 p.m.

Women’s Tennis ITA National Indoors 9:00 a.m.

Women’s Lacrosse At Redlands 7:00 p.m.

Men’s Tennis V. Redlands 10:00 a.m. V. Christopher Newport 3:00 p.m.

Thursday, March 9th Men’s Tennis V. Mary Washington 4:00 p.m.

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Friday, March 3rd

Baseball At La Verne 11:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m.

Men’s Tennis Pacific Coast Doubles 8:00 a.m.

Softball At La Verne 12:00 p.m., 2:00 p.m.

Women’s Water Polo Claremont Convergence Tournament V. Caltech 1:45 p.m. V. St. Francis 6:45 p.m. Baseball V. La Verne 2:30 p.m. Women’s Basketball V. UT Dallas 5:00 p.m. NCAA Tournament 1st Round Men’s Basketball V. Whitworth 5:30 p.m. NCAA Tournament 1st Round

Lacrosse V. Chapman 1:00 p.m. Men’s Tennis V. Concordia 4:00 p.m. Women’s Water Polo Claremont Convergence Tournament V. CSUMB EDIT OR’S PICK 11:45 a.m. V. APU 6:00 p.m. Sunday, March 5th

Saturday, March 4th

Men’s Tennis Pacific Coast Doubles TBA

Track & Field SCIAC Multi-Dual Meet 10:00 a.m.

Thursday, March 9th Men’s Tennis V. Swarthmore 6:00 p.m.

Men’s Tennis Pacific Coast Doubles TBA Women’s Tennis V. Caltech 10:00 a.m. V. Christopher Newport 2:00 p.m.

Scores Pomona-Pitzer

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps

Women’s Water Polo P-P 17 St. Francis 3 Fresno Pacific 13 P-P 11

Women’s Tennis CMS 9 UT Dallas 0 CMS 6 Trinity 3 CMS 7 WashU 2

Men’s Tennis Chicago 7 P-P 2 Women’s Tennis P-P 9 Redlands 0 Baseball Chapman 12 P-P 2 Men’s Basketball CMS 70 P-P 64 Women’s Golf 3rd place Track & Field Men 4th place Women 5th place Men’s Tennis P-P 5 Kenyon 4 P-P 7 Case Western Reserve 2 Baseball Chapman 11 P-P 1 Chapman 9 P-P 7 Softball La Verne 3 P-P 1 La Verne 2 P-P 1 Women’s Lacrosse CMS 16 P-P 6 Occidental 12 P-P 11 Men’s Tennis TMU Invitational, 11th place

Men’s Tennis CMS 7 Bates 2 CMS 5 Brandeis 4 Baseball CMS 5 Bates 4 CMS 6 UPS 2 UPS 3 CMS 1 Men’s Basketball CMS 70 P-P 64 CMS 77 Cal Lutheran 71 Women’s Basketball CMS 65 Chapman 54 Track & Field Men 6th Women 2nd Softball CMS 1 Occidental 0 CMS 4 Occidental 0 Lacrosse CMS 16 P-P 6 CMS 21 Whittier 0 Women’s Water Polo APU 14 CMS 8 Women’s Golf 1st 649 Men’s Golf 5th 849

Meghan Joyce • The Student Life

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps tennis player Jay Yeam CM ‘20 returns a serve in a match against Brandeis University on Feb. 25.

Torrey Hart Tennis is not commonly thought of as a team sport, but last weekend, the Claremont-MuddScripps Stags (2-0, 0-0 SCIAC) made a case to change the script. In their first two matchups of the season against the Brandeis University Judges (3-2) and the Bates College Bobcats (0-2), the men won 12 of 18 matches overall and 10 of 12 singles matches. The first match of the day set a winning tone, with the doubles team of Freddie Simental CM ’19 and Jake Williams HM ’20 taking down the Bates team of Josh Leiner and Josh Quijano 9-7. However, this was the first of only two doubles matches won by CMS. “I was a little disappointed with our doubles play which could be a little sharper, but I think we did all the right things,

we just didn’t execute really well,” Head coach Paul Settles said. “We tried some teams out that we hadn’t been practicing a lot with, so it was kind of a new look for us.” Indeed, the singles matches were where the Stags dominated. They won all six of their matches against Bates and won four of six against Brandeis. Even more impressively, four first-years made their collegiate debuts and all won their respective matches. “I was particularly impressed with the way the freshmen performed in their first college tennis matches,” said senior co-captain Daniel Morkovine CM ’17, who came back to win both of his singles matches after two 8-6 losses in doubles. “I believe that two different freshmen clinched the matches and overall they played extremely well and with a lot of confidence, which is always difficult to do on the first day of a college career.”

Settles stressed that he wasn’t very concerned about the doubles losses because it was just a trial run for some of the doubles pairs, some of whom might not play together again for the rest of the season. “We had two really established teams from the fall who were really successful, Daniel Morkovine and Julian Gordy, and Glenn Hull and Nico Perodi,” he said. They’ll be back together next weekend.” Both Morkovine and Settles noted that tennis is much more of a team effort than people like to give it credit for. Individual results are effectively meaningless alone, as the team must win a majority of the combined nine doubles and singles matches to get a win. “Every day we are practicing together on court and hanging out off court and the biggest thing is that everyone has the same goal: to make everyone around themselves better, and for the team to win,”

Morkovine said. According to Settles, this team aspect is where the key to collegiate success lies. “It’s really important for each of those matches to ‘stay on their court’ and stay focused, and not really be impacted too much by what’s around them,” he said. “And that’s the really interesting dynamic of a college tennis match, is that momentum can shift so radically just by what happens on another court.” In addition to adding some outstanding first-years on the team this season, Morkovine added that senior leadership will play a crucial role in the coming weeks, on and off the court. The Stags will head to La Jolla this week to participate in the annual Pacific Coast Men’s Doubles Championship and will kick off conference play at home against California Institute of Technology at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 4.

CMS SWIM & DIVE

CMS Diver Hollimon Makes Splash at NCAA Regionals Claire Wendle If you’ve watched the Summer Olympics, chances are at one point you’ve stumbled across the diving competitions. The way each diver flips and spins in the air, slipping into the pool with barely a splash, seems effortless, but behind those flawless dives are years of practice. Some divers at the Claremont Colleges are making their own splashes and have had very successful seasons despite the challenges of diving. Kendall Hollimon CM ’20 has had an outstanding college debut and is finishing up his first season as a Stag. On Feb. 24-25, he won the men’s 1-meter competition at the NCAA Region 2 Diving Championships with a

score of 478.50, outdiving second place by 10 points. He dove at a 23.50 degree of difficulty, which was the highest in the entire field of divers. Hollimon also set a pool record in the 3-meter competition of 372.85 in the Sixth Street Rivalry dual meet against PomonaPitzer on Feb. 13. His top 3-meter score this year is 611.20. “My parents wouldn’t let me not do a sport as a kid, and so I decided to swim,” Hollimon wrote in an email to TSL. “When I got into the pool I saw how high the tower was and demanded to jump off it. And so the next week I was enrolled in diving classes and have been diving ever since.” Even with almost a lifetime of experience, Hollimon still struggles with the technicalities of the sport. Each new skill takes

time to learn, he wrote. “The most challenging part is definitely learning new dives,” he wrote. “It’s awful. I’ve wanted to quit because of it at least 40 times. The most rewarding part, though, is when you’ve finally learned them and begin to enjoy them.” It is no surprise that such a challenging sport takes up so much time. Hollimon gives all his time to perfecting his dives. “I don’t have any time for any other sports,” he wrote. “Diving basically owns me, and the off season for club is three weeks in August.” It takes year-round dedication to become an elite diver, and Hollimon’s time and persistence have definitely paid off. “I just want to stay on top of my game and do better at nation-

als than I did this year. There’s always room to improve,” Hollimon wrote. With only one year of collegiate competition under his belt, he has plenty of time to do just that. Hollimon will end his season at the NCAA Championships the weekend of March 15 in Shenandoah, Texas. He will be joined by Maia Presti SC ’18, who has also dominated the diving scoreboards. She placed second on the 1-meter board at the NCAA Region 2 Championships. Her dives, performed at a 23.00 degree of difficulty, earned her 464.80 points for the weekend. In the 2017 SCIAC Championships, Presti won the 1-meter event with 504.35 points, after having lost that event by just one point two meets prior.

P-P Athlete of the Week CMS Athlete of the Week Women’s Basketball

Men’s Tennis Graham Maassen PZ ‘17 Santa Barbara, California

The Pomona-Pitzer men’s tennis team dominated in singles matches at the ITA Indoor Nationals in Cleveland, Ohio, and an especially notable performance came from Graham Maassen PZ ‘17. The senior played a great match against Siddarth Rajupet from Case Western Reserve University, winning the first set 6-2 and the second set in a tiebreaker 6-4, 7-6, (7-4) to win the No. 2 spot. His win helped clinch a fifthplace finish for the Sagehens, who will play their next match at home against Redlands University and Christopher Newport University on Saturday, March 4, at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Kris Brackmann

CM ‘17 Mercer Island, Washington This week, Kris Brackmann CM ‘17 was named to her third consecutive SCIAC First Team in women’s basketball. She is part of the historic Athenas senior class that has won the SCIAC tournament for four years in a row and has made four consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances. The Athenas reached the second round last year which was a first in program history. This year, she has started every game and averages 11.4 points per game and is second ranked nationally in Division III free throw percentage at 92.2 percent. She also averages 2.1 steals and 5.5 rebounds per game, career highs in her senior year.

SPORTS PAGE 10

MARCH 3, 2017

THE STUDENT LIFE

CMS TRACK & FIELD

Rossi Relays Track Meet Fields Success for CMS

Blaise Malley The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men’s and women’s track and field teams opened their respective 2017 seasons with the 21st annual Rossi Relays, held at CMS’s own Burns Track and Field

Complex. The Rossi Relays are an unofficial meet and will not count towards eventual NCAA tournament qualification. Both the men’s and women’s teams had relatively strong starts to the season, with the Stags coming in sixth of 17 teams, and the Athenas finishing

second among 18. Both teams also saw impressive individual performances in their season debuts. For the Athenas, Vaiva Palunas SC ’17, the winner of both the SCIAC and NCAA Regional Athlete of the Year in 2016, picked up where she left off last season,

coming second in three of her throwing events: the discus, the shot put, and the hammer throw. CMS also brought back Tyra Abraham SC ’18, the 2016 Division III national champion in the women’s 100-meter race. In this particular meet, she ran in the

distance medley, where she and her Athena teammates finished in third place. Abraham also placed second in the 100-meter dash with a time of 12.27 seconds to Brie Courseault of Fresno Pacific University, but first out of all Division III competitors. Lauren Mott CM ’17 also had a strong performance, finishing fourth in the javelin throw, and was able to put a positive spin on the entire meet. “It went well, being the first meet,” she said. “I think we all found some things we can work on to improve for this weekend and that’s what’s really important.” Given that this was an unofficial event, the focus of the weekend was more to see the areas of strength and what needed improvement, as well as getting back into the swing of competition, as opposed to the results themselves. Mott said that this season, she wants to improve on her javelin

Meghan Joyce • The Student Life

throw but that her “goal is the same as everyone’s: practice hard and always give the best performance you can at any given meet and the rest will follow.” The Stags also put forth a selection of strong individual showings to start the season. Cam Van CM ’17, who last year won the SCIAC title in the high jump, continued his winning ways, finishing first in the meet with a 6 foot 4 inch jump. Elsewhere, the team of Thomas D’Anieri CM ’20, Matthew Guillory HM ’19, Ben Iten HM ’19, and Joshua Sealand HM ’17 placed second in the men’s distance medley, racing a time of 10:12.78. The performances gave Mott something to look forward to, and she said that “as a team we plan to retain our conference titles.” The next step in that process is the first official SCIAC meet, at Pomona-Pitzer, on Saturday, March 4.

Mary Jane Coppock • The Student Life

CMS mid-distance runner Carmen Mejia SC ‘18 leads the pack in the 4x800m relay during the 21st Annual Rossi Relays on Feb. 25.

CMS MEN’S BASKETBALL

Sagehen Basketball’s Hope for Hoops Championship Dashed by CMS Kellen Browning

Trailing a confident and aggressive Pomona-Pitzer men’s basketball team 26-8 midway through the first half of the SCIAC quarterfinals, No. 1 seed Claremont-MuddScripps looked like it was about to get blown out on its home floor, dashing the team’s conference championship and NCAA tournament hopes. But just like they have done all season, the resilient Stags excelled in the face of adversity, outscoring the Sagehens 62-38 the rest of the game to pull off a miraculous, 7064 win Friday, Feb. 24, and propel themselves to a home matchup in the SCIAC championship game. CMS would go on to triumph 77-71 in its title fight against Cal Lutheran the following night, and will face Whitworth College in the first round of the NCAA tournament in Walla Walla, Washington Friday, March 3. Thanks to a 10-0 run late in the first half against Pomona-Pitzer, CMS trailed by only five at the buzzer. Center Kendrick Morris CM ’18, who led CMS with 17 points, nailed a turnaround jump shot with eight minutes left in the second half to erase the 18-point deficit and tie the score at 50, sending the packed CMS bleachers in Roberts Pavilion into hysterics. Moments later, guard Evan Davis CM ’19 drained a pull-up threepointer to give CMS the lead, and the two teams fought a physical, back-and-forth battle for control the rest of the way. Morris capped his outstanding night with a monstrous block on guard/forward James Kelbert PO ’20, who was driving to the basket with 44 seconds left in an attempt to get the Sagehens back within 3. P-P point guard Micah Elan PO ’20 missed a three-pointer out of a timeout, but Kelbert grabbed the rebound and scored to make it 67-64. After Stags point guard Michael Scarlett CM ’18, who had 11 points, missed a shot to put the game out of reach, clutch big man Morris got the putback to go in. Sagehen guard Corbin Koch PO ’19 missed a three with 1.8 seconds left, and the rest was history. The entire game was chippy, aggressive, and foul-heavy. The Sagehens shot 13 of 18 from the free throw line—one of the main reasons for their first-half success— while the Stags went 12 of 15.

P-P WOMEN’S LACROSSE

Sagehens Stumble in Sixth Street Rivalry Matchup Melissa Petito

Liam Brooks • The Student Life

Cecil the Sagehen holds his head in his wings as the Pomona-Pitzer men’s basketball team blows an 18-point lead against the Claremont-MuddScripps men’s team on Feb. 24.

Center Mitchell Finkel PO ’17, who finished with 11 points and 8 boards for the Sagehens, also had 5 fouls, while forward Jack Ely CM ’18 and guard Miles President HM ’20 led the Stags with 4 apiece. Players frequently dove to the ground fighting for loose balls, and the fast pace and high stakes of the contest led to plenty of turnovers, especially by the Sagehens. Kelbert was everywhere, stealing the ball and hitting clutch shots. He brought energy and hustle off the bench, tallying 11 points and 5 rebounds, but was also guilty of 3 of P-P’s 16 turnovers, which CMS capitalized on to the tune of 22 points. With the score tied at 53, Kelbert attempted a bounce pass to a teammate, but it went out of bounds, prompting head coach Charles Katsiaficas to scream “Don’t thread the needle!” from the sidelines. Still, Katsiaficas was pleased with Kelbert’s aggressive play. “He’s a very good defender, and he guarded their best player most of the night, Scarlett, and he did a really good job on him and made Scarlett work for everything he got,” Katsiaficas said. Koch also had 3 turnovers, while Elan added 4. Guard/forward Adam Rees

PO ’20 led the Sagehens with 16 points off the bench, and Elan, who found Finkel beneath the basket over and over, had 7 assists. Katsiaficas lauded Elan’s passing and decision-making on the night, and said he’s happy with his team’s effort, despite the loss. “I thought they really competed really hard tonight,” he said. “You can always talk about this play or that play, and how you might have liked to do something different or better, but the bottom line is they came and they left it on the court tonight, and I was really proud of them. Versatile forward Riley Hall CM ’17 finished with 11 points, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists for the Stags, and President chipped in 11 points of his own. CMS coach Ken Scalmanini was elated after his team’s thrilling comeback victory. “I think those are the best wins, right there,” he said. “The resiliency, how hard we worked. It seemed like things were not going too good at the beginning … and we didn’t panic. I’m really proud of them, ‘cause that’s the hardest thing to do, is when they’re down and to be able to come back and get it.”

The notorious Sixth Street rivals Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Pomona-Pitzer met on the women’s lacrosse field at Pomona College last Saturday in their second match of the season. These agile and equipped teams each showed their inner fire as they relentlessly fought for each point. The Athenas forced an early lead in the first half, earning eight consecutive goals over the Sagehens. Last year, the Sagehens were the SCIAC tournament and regular season champions but eventually lost to Cortlandt State in the first round of the NCAA tournament. They lost many key graduating seniors but have brought in a lot of new players to fill some big shoes. Christian Rowe PZ ’20 was able to force a goal in the first half for the Sagehens, her first collegiate goal of the season. The Athenas then went on to score three successive goals and closed out at halftime with a score of 11-1 in

favor of the Athenas. Throughout the game, eleven different Athena players scored goals. However, the Sagehens found more of their rhythm in the second half. The Sagehens never gave up, especially Lilly Thomey PO ’19, who scored a career best of five goals for the Sagehens, all in the second half. With the true, modest heart of an athlete, Thomey recounts how the “career high was only possible because [of her] teammates who were able to set her up and send solid passes to the middle of the eight,” fully contributing to her success. The match ended with a score of 16-6, another victory for the Athenas early this season. The Athenas advance their record to 2-0 in SCIAC season play as the Sagehens fall to 0-2 in season play. Though the Sagehens did not pull out a victory this match, the game was full of excitement and achievement. Rowe recounts how her “team did a good job of not letting up even when the score wasn’t what [they] wanted” as their defense and overall communication im-

proved over the duration of the game. The Sagehens have a young team this year, as over half of their team is comprised of first year students. With new faces comes a copious amount of fresh talent. Lauren English PO ’19 described the excitement of her team “working out some new things on the offensive and defensive sides of the field” as they grow together throughout the season. Moving forward, Thomey thinks her team is “working to better understand each other as players and how to accentuate each of [their] talents to make the overall team better” for this upcoming season. The Sagehens are feeling optimistic for upcoming games and continued their season play on Wednesday, March 1, against the Occidental College Tigers, where they lost 12-11. Their next game is on Saturday, March 4, on the road against the Whittier College Poets. The Athenas won against Whittier 21-0 on March 1 and next face Chapman on Saturday, March 4.

Alexander Landau • The Student Life

Juliana Clark SC ’20 passes the ball to a teammate despite a block by Rebecca Long PO ‘17 at the P-P vs. CMS Lacrosse game on Feb. 25.