VOL. CXXXIII NO. 22
FRIDAY, ApRIl 29, 2022
CLAREMONT, CA
Space constraints force students into off-campus housing
SHS doublecounted some COVID cases JASPER DAVIDOFF In response to an inquiry from TSL, The Claremont Colleges Services confirmed this week that Student Health Services over-reported the apparent number of COVID-19 cases at the 5Cs in recent weeks, an error that translated to some of the colleges’ individual testing dashboards. More than one hundred positive tests were mistakenly reported since March 27, TSL found. In January, SHS began using antigen tests to determine whether those who had already tested positive for COVID-19 could be released from isolation after at least five days, the result of new guidance from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. If and when those people tested positive on the additional tests, the results were inadvertently added to case counts for the week, artificially inflating the totals, The Claremont Colleges Services spokesperson Laura Muna-Landa said in an email. “Tests completed for isolation release are follow-up tests of previous positive test results and should have been excluded from the count totals,” Muna-Landa said.
See COVID on page 3
UMER LAKHANI
Claremont McKenna College alums William Moses CM ’83 and Candace Valenzuela CM ’06 will now have the chance to leave an imprint in Washington: Both were recently appointed to positions within the Biden administration, joining Larry Andre CM ’83, who began in January as U.S. ambassador to Somalia.
COURTESY: THE WHITE HOUSE VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
CMC alum William Moses CM ‘83 and Candace Valenzuela CM ‘06 have recently been appointed to the Biden administration.
See CMC on page 3
See HOUSING on page 3
COURTESY: ClAREMONT MCKENNA COllEGE
A rendering of the new Robert Day Sciences Center, which will be constructed at the current CMC baseball field as part of the new Roberts Campus expansion.
$140M gift to fuel CMC growth ANUSHE ENGINEER Claremont McKenna College plans to double its campus footprint with new athletic facilities and a previously-planned science center, thanks to a $140 million gift from trustee and alumnus George Roberts CM ’66, the school announced in an April 22 news release. The development will add 75 acres of land east of Claremont Boulevard, currently an empty quarry owned by multiple 7C institutions, creating “the opportunity for CMC to realize all its future academic, social and residential opportunities,” the college said. The new and redeveloped
portions of campus will feature new administrative and academic buildings, student apartments, eight athletic and practice fields, a new aquatics center, a golf practice range, a recreational area and a Commencement Green. Additionally, three pedestrian malls will be created to “encourage interaction, engagement and public art,” the school said. The new Robert Day Science Center, which will replace the existing baseball field along Claremont Boulevard and Ninth Street, is slated to host the Kravis Department of Integrated Sciences, which CMC said in February will focus on “computationally-rich science curricula” and “science in the public sphere.” The department was intended
‘You’re the Shit!’ tackles imposter syndrome
Biden appoints CMC alums to roles in HUD, State and HBCU advisory board LUCIA STEIN
to coincide with CMC’s withdrawal from the Keck Science Department jointly operated with Scripps College and Pitzer College. C M C ’s a t h l e t i c f a c i l i t y, which opened in 2016, is also named after Roberts, following his unrestricted gift of $50 million to the college in 2012. The school said it hopes this latest gift will encourage further donations to “position CMC for continued leadership for generations to come.” To honor the gift, CMC’s board of trustees said it would designatae the portion of the school east of Mills Avenue the “Roberts Campus.”
As the academic year began coming to a close and housing draws for the next academic year took place across the Claremont Colleges, some of the 5Cs announced that students will still need to live in college housing off campus due to continuing housing constraints on campus. Claremont McKenna College said in March that 97 students would need to live in the Alexan Kendry apartments, about a mile south of campus in nearby Montclair. When only 78 chose the AK apartments as their top housing choice, the Dean of Students Office and the Associated Students of Claremont McKenna College jointly decided to randomly allocate the remaining 19 spots to students from the class of 2025 and class of 2024. ASCMC clarified in a March 31 email to students that no exemptions were being made for anyone in the classes of 2024 and 2025, and that all current first-years and sophomores were being placed in the lottery, with the exception of those who voluntarily chose to live in Kendry. Some CMC students reacted negatively to the news. Gina Gerrardino CM ’24 told TSL that she felt that her random selection for Alexan Kendry was unfair because the dean of students didn’t take into consideration her recently diagnosed ADHD. While living on campus this year, Gerrardino said she could make the relatively short trip as needed back to her dorm if she forgot required items for class, or get to class relatively quickly by foot if she found herself late. But she feels that her lack of a personal vehicle and having to depend on the shuttle may worsen these issues, which may in turn negatively affect her academic performance.
The White House announced March 31 that Moses will serve on the Board of Advisors for Historically Black Colleges and Universities. An executive order issued by President Joseph Biden on Sept. 3, 2021 statesthat the administration wants to “strengthen the capacity of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to provide the highest-quality education, increase opportunities for these institutions to participate in and benefit from Federal programs, and ensure that HBCUs can continue to be engines of opportunity.” The Board of Advisors for HBCUs will assist the administration in these goals. As manager of the Kresge Foundation’s Education Program and former director of the Watson Foundation, Moses brings insight to the federal government regarding the provision of continued educational opportunities for students from marginalized communities. CMC played a major part in developing his career interests
See BIDEN on page 2
COURTESY: SHANNY CORCORAN
“You’re The Shit” follows a college student experiencing imposter syndrome during her first year at college.
VIDUSSHI HINGAD & MENA BOVA For students, anxiety about their place in school and the
world are par for the course. Impostor syndrome lurks in questions like “am I good enough for this?” and “do I deserve to be here?” “You’re The Shit,” Spotlight
Musical Theatre’s latest student production, grapples with these worries and answers them with
See PLAY on page 7
SAMSON ZHANG • THE STUDENT lIFE
ARTS & CULTURE The brilliance of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” comes from its equal focus on style and substance, writes film columnist Gerrit Punt PO ‘24. Read more on page 5.
The student newspaper of the Claremont Colleges since 1889
OPINIONS
SPORTS
Pomona College is failing survivors of sexual assault by upholding outdated beliefs about victims’ visible suffering, argues guest columnist Nanea Haynes PO ‘22. Read more on page 8.
After winning a competitive 16-12 match against Whittier, the Sagahens posted a perfect 14-0 season againbst SCIAC competition and became crowned as conference champions for the sixth time in a decade. Read more on page 12.
INDEX: News 1 | Arts & Culture 5 | Opinions 8 | Sports 11
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ApRIl 29, 2022
Left behind: CMC professor breaks down the Democrats’ challenges on inequality ELISA MEMBRENO With a research focus on 20th century political and urban history in the US, Lily Geismer has been grappling with answers to a long-sought after question: why is inequality so hard for the Democratic Party to effectively combat? TSL sat down with the Claremont McKenna College history professor to discuss the course the Democrats took in the 1990s, and how it informed policies that some marginalized groups still feel the impacts of today. With her latest book “Left Behind: The Democrats’ Failed Attempt to Solve Inequality,” Geismer hopes readers take away that the party should not seek to implement policies that will win elections, but rather ones that will have fewer negative repercussions down the road. This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity. TSL: The political narrative over the past several decades has framed the Republican Party as the architect of the United States’ economic crisis. Your book, however, argues that the Democratic Party has played a significant role in creating conditions of inequality through advocacy for market-based solutions. How do you understand the Democratic Party’s ability to evade criticism? Lily Geismer: I think it’s common, especially amongst people who align with the left, to look to Republicans and either make fun of Trump or just sort of blame a lot of problems on the right. I think it’s important to acknowledge that there are many ways that the rise of conservatism has shaped what the Democratic Party has done and what’s been possible, but I think in a large part, market-based solutions to issues around inequality have come less as a reaction and more as the result of a particular ideology. TSL: Why is it important to draw attention to the ideology behind such policies? LG: I think one of the things that many people say is that it doesn’t matter if the intent was to try to use the market to do good if the result created problems of inequality. But I actually think it’s really important to understand intent, because it’s crucial to understand the consequences of those policies in order to come up with other types of solutions. TSL: Your book looks specif-
ically at policies implemented during the 1990s. To what extent should the Clinton administration be implicated in the current inequality crisis? LG: One thing that’s really important is that you can’t blame everything on one administration or one policy. So everything isn’t the fault of George W. Bush or the fault of Trump. And you can’t look to one administration to solve every problem either. But I do think that there are really important things that came into fruition during the 1990s and were implemented by Clinton that had long term effects on inequality. I think an issue is that when we think about the 1990s, it’s often seen as this decade of prosperity. When Clinton came into office, the Democrats had this attitude of pro-economic growth, especially growing the sectors of tech, finance, trade and real estate. There was a belief that those kinds of market-oriented, privatized solutions could address larger social problems. And some of the key policies that the Clinton administration implemented following this belief have had long-term effects on inequality, TSL: Can you provide examples of such policies? LG: A prominent example is the famous welfare-to-work policies which removed a critical source of cash-based assistance from many people. The idea was that long-term support would come from getting a job rather than being dependent on the government and that it would get more people in the workforce, which would grow the larger economy. But I think that the move away from cash-based assistance put many people in a much more vulnerable position as a result. A second example is programs around public housing. The Clinton administration had this idea of ending public housing as we know it by getting rid of big public housing developments that were kind of iconic in the 1980s. This program was called HOPE VI, and it’s still in place, but what it did was clear out a lot of these big developments, especially in major cities, and replace them with a combination of both market-rate and subsidized housing. In doing so, it removed a lot of people from public housing and made it really difficult to move back in. A critical element
Pomona prof John Seery makes it to ‘Let’s Make a Deal’
of the program was an attempt to encourage homeownership amongst moderate low-income people, especially people of color, putting them at the whims of the growing mortgage industry. There was also this element of worthiness that played into access. For instance, if you or one of your relatives had been convicted of a crime, you couldn’t move back into housing. A third piece of legislation that’s really important to think about was big deregulation of the banking industry, which famously culminated with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999. One of the things the Clinton administration tried to do was incorporate more people into the banking sector. But at the same time, banking itself was changing rapidly. And so deregulation took away critical aspects of the social safety net and opened up many more people to predation by private companies. We really see the effects of this converging in the financial crisis of 20072008. So while I think the Clinton administration isn’t solely to blame for the 2008 financial crisis, a lot of these policies laid the groundwork for what happened. TSL: You spoke earlier about the importance of understanding intent. What was the Clinton administration’s intent behind these policies? Was it to address inequality or was it to cater towards a certain demographic of wealthy liberals who would benefit from privatization? LG: It was kind of to do both, and banking deregulation is an example of this. The idea behind deregulation was that, when you have too much regulation, it stifles competition and doesn’t give as many options to consumers. If you can have more mortgages out there, for example, more people can buy homes, and in the United States, homeownership has been seen as a foothold into gaining economic wealth. And so the intent wasn’t only to cater to wealthy people, but that is definitely a critical component of it. You’re helping companies and helping them help poor people. Another key program I look at in the book is the New Markets Initiative, which was implemented towards the end of Clinton’s second term and encouraged big companies to open stores in poor and low-income communities. So in some ways that’s helping companies, but the idea was that it would help poor people as well.
COURTESY: JOHN SEERY
MAXINE DAVEY For Pomona College politics professor John Seery, a mission to provide students with a learning opportunity turned into the experience of a lifetime: a star appearance on the popular game show “Let’s Make A Deal.” To win the game show, contestants, known as traders, must decide whether to keep the objects they are given or exchange them for an unseen item of potentially greater value. The episode — season 13, episode 128 — aired April 1 and showcased Seery clad in a marching band uniform and brandishing a baritone saxophone, seemingly having the time of his life as he won a Southern California coastal yacht trip. Currently hosted by comedian Wayne Brady, the game show is known for contestants attempting to increase their chances of getting selected by wearing outrageous costumes. When asked how he got the opportunity, however, Seery made one thing very clear: “I want to say it was an existential test to see whether there’s any bottom to my general lack of self-respect,” he said in an interview. Seery taught a first-year seminar called “The Idea of Money” for the third time last semester, a class whose course description boasts the opportunity to attend a taping of “The Price is Right.” The first attempt to go to the show was foiled by Los Angeles traffic a few years ago, and COVID-19 eliminated any chance at attending in fall 2020. This year, Seery was hopeful he could make it happen, but COVID-19 complicated things once again when “The Price is Right” suspended Hollywood tapings.
But then, Seery said, “out of the blue last semester, I got an email seeking Southern California educators to audition for ‘Let’s Make A Deal.’ So I thought, hmm, maybe I could swap out ‘The Price is Right’ with ‘Let’s Make A Deal.’” At the time, the casting producer told Seery there would be an in-studio audience, so he thought he would be able to bring his students with him. However, Seery discovered after he was selected that there wouldn’t be an audience after all. The producers also asked Seery what his “bit” would be, since contestants are required to come in costume this season: “I said, ‘well, uh, I play the saxophone. Maybe I could come up with a marching band uniform.’ They said, ‘great, that’s it!’” On the verge of backing out multiple times, Seery cited the discovery of an incredible marching band uniform owned by his wife’s aunt, as well as sheer curiosity and the fact he’d made it that far, as reasons to continue. “I pursue truth wherever it leads me,” he joked. Despite proclaimed efforts to hide his television debut from the 5C community, Seery couldn’t resist sending his students a clip of him playing the saxophone on the show. “I was thoroughly impressed both in his saxophone prowess and ability to look so dapper in the band uniform,” Liam Lynch PO ’25 said. Seery’s steller cameo can be viewed on Paramount Plus. For broke college students, the service offers a weeklong free trial.
The issue with asking companies to do what was traditionally the responsibility of the government is that companies don’t have the same kind of obligations. So when they were not making profits, they left many communities that were dependent. TSL: Public trust in the government has declined over the past several decades. Biden’s trillion-dollar American Rescue Plan, for instance, has received very little attention or praise. If government solutions are more effective at combating inequality than market-based solutions, as your book argues, how should politicians and policymakers gain support from an electorate that continues to become increasingly wary of the government’s ability to enact change? LG: This is a critical point. I think one of the things the pandemic showed was the need for government solutions, and one of the things I argue for is not relying heavily on the private sector to solve social problems. I think the question of how to rebuild trust in government actually has to come from beyond the frameworks of government and from other kinds of movements. The labor movement, for instance, has the power to push at the corporate level but also at the institutional level. Looking to social movements has tradi-
tionally been a powerful force on the Democratic Party and on government more broadly in pushing for change. As a historian, when we look at where major social changes happen, it often happens from the outside and from the bottom up. And so that’s a place that I think actually could help to restore both a sense of common good and collective action, while also forcing certain kinds of government action. TSL: Looking forward, what takeaways would you like readers to walk away with after reading your book? What changes would you like policymakers to consider? PG: My hope is that both sides will realize the consequences of relying heavily on the market. I think the idea has become so powerful that it’s become almost unconscious. I also want people to think hard about the trajectory of many of these programs, both in terms of the political economy, but also the ways in which they’ve affected the Democratic Party itself. I think there’s been a lack of faith amongst a lot of people, not only in the government, but also the Democratic Party. I think it’s important to focus on what kinds of policies can lead to a stable coalition for the Democrats rather than just win elections, and how to use that coalition to create better political and social programs that can help more people in need.
BIDeN: Morse to serve on HBCU advisory board, Valenzuela at HUD Continued from page 1
Seery appeared in a marching band uniform, holding his baritone saxophone, in an attempt to get selected on “let’s Make a Deal.”
COURTESY: ClAREMONT MCKENNA COllEGE
CMC history professor lily Geismer’s new book focuses on the Democratic party’s challenges with addressing inequality in public policy.
in expanding access to higher education, Moses said in an interview, stemming from an undergraduate class he took on the Holocaust. When asked to relate the issues examined in the course to those in the current global state of affairs, Moses mentioned then-ongoing apartheid, which led him to pursue a Watson Fellowship in South Africa learning about the opposition movement. During his time abroad, Moses recalled asking an activist how he could help the struggle and being told to fight racism back home as well. Prompted by this experience to pursue making opportunities in education more accessible to students of diverse backgrounds in the US, Moses went on to serve as the head director of the foundation that brought him abroad. Originally, he concentrated on helping colleges find and nominate students of color for the fellowship, before shifting his focus. “It dawned on me that if I really wanted to get more students of color, I should go to colleges where students of color go to school,” Moses said, “and that’s when I first started looking at historically Black colleges.”
After his position at the Watson Foundation ended, Moses brought this interest in working with HBCUs to his role at the Kresge Foundation. “So for the last twenty, 25 years, I’ve been first interested in and curious about HBCUs, and for a long time kind of a champion of their great work,” he said. As he has yet to be sworn in, Moses said he only has a baseline understanding of what his role on the board of advisors will entail, but believes it will involve meeting with the other board members three to four times a year, which is one aspect of the job he said excites him the most. “I care so much about historically Black colleges and universities, it’s just such a thrill to know that I’ll be serving with people who also care so much about them,” Moses said. He brought up some of the leaders with whom he will work, including Lisa Jackson, a former head of the Environmental Protections Agency, Tony Allen, the president of Delaware State University and actress and activist Taraji P. Henson. In addition to his role as the managing director of the Kresge Foundation’s Education Program, Moses additionally serves as part of the leadership for College Promise, a non-profit founded to
provide free community college for all Americans. This gives him some experience in the realm of serving on a commission, he said, but being on the HBCU Board of Advisors will be “another step.” Despite his prominence in his field, Moses said he didn’t always know that this was where he wanted to end up. “Go into the fields that you care about, and work on them and build expertise, but know that sometimes, the path will take you in a way you didn’t expect… as you get exposed to new ideas and new things,” he advised current students. Valenzuela was appointed as the regional administrator for Region Six within the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs in March. Valenzuela’s accomplishments include fighting for faculty and staff while serving on her district’s school board, running for Congress in her district of Texas and working at Metrocrest Services, a nonprofit which addresses poverty in the Dallas area. Valenzuela will act on behalf of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas in her role, leading one of ten HUD regions across the country. Valenzuela will ensure the department actively helps families in her region, and manage the operation of HUD’s field offices within her territory.
HUXlEYANN HUEFNER • THE STUDENT lIFE
Moses expressed excitement about being able to support students of color through the advisory board.
NewS
ApRIl 29, 2022
Diving into new waters: Noah Haig HM ’22 to embark on Navy nuclear submarine training AMARA MIR With graduation just around the corner, seniors are gearing up for new journeys that await them. Some are headed to graduate school, some are still looking for jobs. But one senior is headed for an non-traditional yet unique experience: he’ll be working on a submarine. Noah Haig HM ’22 is set to embark on a five-year program as a nuclear propulsion submarine officer candidate with the U.S. Navy, becoming the first student at Harvey Mudd College to enter the program. The job of a nuclear propulsion officer candidate entails training to become an officer on nuclear-powered equipment, such as submarines or aircraft carriers, an engineer designing nuclear reactors or an instructor. Haig, a physics and math major, was initially contacted by a Navy recruiter on Handshake more than a year ago, who reached out to him about the program, providing links and additional information. When Haig contacted Career Services at Harvey Mudd, he found that no alumni had gone through the program, meaning he would be venturing into new territory. After doing his own research and seeking some independent advice, Haig accepted the offer last summer. After graduation, Haig will be headed to the Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island for 12 weeks, where he will undergo physical and mental training. Upon completing that program, Haig will be commissioned to the U.S. Navy as an officer for six months at the Nuclear Power School in Charleston, South Carolina. In these six months, Haig will be subject to the self-proclaimed most academically demanding program in the U.S. military, focused on technical science and engineering fundamentals. The program con-
sists of 40-45 hours weekly in class, with an additional 10-35 hours per week outside lecture. Following that, Haig will spend 26 weeks with hands-on training in Charleston at the Nuclear Prototype School, learning how to operate the nuclear reactor. In the last stage of his training, he will spend two more months at submarine school in Groton, Connecticut for submarine operation training. The program will culminate in Haig going to one of seven submarine bases in the U.S. for a remaining three and a half years of service, leading a division and porting around the world. “I’m excited. I think it’s gonna be super fun,” Haig said. “These submarines port all around the world for short stays. I’m excited to be in on a secret [since they’re] very tightlipped about what the submarines do and ... I think physically [submarines] are cool.” Despite the uncommon nature of such an experience straight out of college, Haig is excited about the work. “Just out of college, [I’ll] really be able to lead people [and] actually be in charge of a division of eight to ten people on the submarine,” he said. “I’m super excited about that aspect of it.” As for his future after the program, Haig said his plans are still flexible, depending on what his interests may be in five years, whether that be graduate school, defense contracting, an MBA program or continuing in the Navy. Regardless, he is hoping to build leadership skills as well as technical skills. “I think [these skills] will have some career utility depending on what direction I take it,” Haig said. “And then, [I hope to] just have a cool experience.”
pAGE 3
HOUSING: Oasis, CCA still in use Continued from page 1 “I feel like I will be less connected to the CMC community,” Gerrardino said. “One of the main reasons I decided to attend CMC is because of the tight knit social community I was promised, and being placed in AK pulls me out of that community.” Scripps College will not be placing students in off-campus housing and will instead let them choose to live at Scripps-acquired off-campus housing. “This year, we are accepting returning students’ requests to live at CCA, with pre-placement, to help offset and provide more on-campus options for other students,” Scripps spokesperson Rachael Warecki said. “CCA rooms not assigned during pre-placement will return to the pool for room selection.” In addition to Claremont Collegiate Apartments, Scripps said last week that students will also have the opportunity to live off-campus at College Park. They will receive perks such as a $200 Amazon gift card, paid Instacart subscription and a Green Bike through the Scripps Green Bikes
program, among other incentives. Pomona College will also place some students in off-campus housing at Oasis Apartments, Director of Housing and Operations Frank Bedoya said in an email to students. Studio apartments will serve as
double-occupancy rooms, while two bedroom/two bath apartments will serve as triple-occupancy spaces. Students were also offered the opportunity to choose Oasis during room draw rather than receive deferred housing during room draw.
EMMA JENSEN • THE STUDENT lIFE
Claremont Collegiate Apartments will continue to host 5C students.
COVID: At least one hundred positive tests double-counted from already-positive students Continued from page 1 TSL first discovered the error through an automatic screenshotting tool it developed to track changes in college data reporting for its COVID Dashboard project, the only publicly available tracker for cases across the 5Cs. On April 19, Pomona’s dashboard indicated 205 student positive tests had occurred between March 27 and April 16. But two days later, the screenshots show, the data changed to reflect 159 positives during the same time period. “TCCS has corrected the data, and the updated information is now reflected in the dashboard. The revisions do not alter the overall upward trend in cases after spring break, though
they do reduce the scale,” Dean of Students Avis Hinkson said in an email to TSL. “Numbers provided in messages I sent to all students that referenced counts on specific days were accurate.” Pitzer College’s dashboard, meanwhile, was revised to 101 positive student tests for the same three-week period, down from a previous total of 136. Harvey Mudd College’s dashboard decreased from 100 cases to 78. “The majority of the duplicate reported positives were contained to a small timeframe in the second half of the post-spring break surge, reflective of more individuals having follow-up antigen tests to determine if they were still positive or not,” Muna-Landa said. TCCS, the organization that administers SHS, first discovered
the issue on April 18 and informed the Consortial Response Group on April 20, Muna-Landa said. The data was corrected April 22 and the entire data posting procedure was reviewed “to ensure no other undetected data reporting issues.” Claremont McKenna College tests through a separate organization, as do faculty at Pomona, Pitzer and Scripps College, so those case counts were not affected. “PCR tests and antigen tests are tracked separately,” Muna-Landa said. “SHS also separately tracks the antigen tests used for early release from isolation and the antigen tests used for symptomatic individuals requiring an immediate test result. The latter antigen tests have always been included in the testing totals on our dashboard as they are initial tests, just as the Shield T3 saliva PCR tests are initial tests.”
CMC: East portion to be designated ‘Roberts Campus’ Continued from page 1
COURTESY: NOAH HAIG
Noa Haig HM ’22 will be the first Mudder to enter the Navy’s nuclear propulsion submarine officer candidate program.
“I hope this gift enables CMC to ensure its place as the college for the future, and provides the education and experience to help deserving young people contribute and compete in the world of the
future,” Roberts said, according to the release. Roberts co-founded global investment firm KKR & Co. in 1976, now one of the five largest private equity firms in the world. alongside Jerome Kohlberg and Henry Kravis ’67, who is also a trustee. Forbes puts his net
worth at around $8 billion. Students at the Claremont Colleges have recently protested the firm’s investments, citing them as environmentally detrimental and damaging to Indigenous lands in particular, and calling for CMC to remove the names of Kravis and Roberts from campus facilities.
For newer faculty, affording life near Claremont is its own exam JENNA MCMURTRY, JP FERRANTINO & AVERI SULLIVAN This is the second story in a series covering tenure, housing and affordability for faculty and staff at the Claremont Colleges. The Claremont housing market has changed since Pomona College economics professor Michael Kuehlwein and his family bought their permanent home in the 1990s. In just the past decade alone, Kuehlwein explained, the median home price in Claremont has exploded. “We bought our house 25 years ago for about $200,000. Now it’s worth close to a million,” he said. “Housing prices have gone up a lot, so I’m very glad we bought it when we did.” As of this March, the median price of Claremont home sales has been flirting with seven figures at approximately $990,000, an increase of 24.5 percent since last year. “It seems to go up every week,” Brad Johnson, Claremont’s community development director, said regarding the median sale price. In the U.S., it’s usually cheaper to buy a home than to rent. But the situation is flipped for the majority of California counties, including Los Angeles County, which is the fifth least affordable large county in the country. The skyrocketing housing market is not just a Claremont-centric problem, however. It’s a nationwide one, coupled with a rising inflation rate that has only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Kuehlwein said. “The housing market is all about supply and demand,” Kuehlwein said. “The supply of housing is fixed and can’t grow very easily. Claremont is no exception.” While the rising home prices may not affect some tenured professors like Kuehlwein, he explained that junior faculty will be forced to pay the price of housing
inflation. “It’s almost impossible to buy here, or to imagine living here because it’s just so out of reach,” Kuehlwein said. “The [Claremont] Colleges certainly help out by providing lower interest rates, so that junior faculty do not have to put as much for down payments. All of that helps, but I’m not sure that their efforts have been able to keep up with housing price inflation to make sure that living in Claremont is an option for all faculty.” One non-tenured Pomona professor said in a TSL survey that the cost of living near Claremont “limits [their] ability to engage with the campus community.” Adding that they’d like to live closer than their current commute, which depending on traffic can range from 45 to 75 minutes, the cost of living nearby severely limits where they can live. Even with a below market rent, the professor added that their “salary is significantly below the cut-off for what is considered ‘low income’ in LA County ($66,250 for one person in 2021, $75,700 for a family of two, etc.) despite teaching full-time at Pomona.” Without a substantial raise, the professor said, “that gap will only increase for 2022, especially given the high inflation.” Pomona currently offers housing rental programs, but according to its website, incoming tenure track faculty are given priority. Faculty must complete a Request for Housing form in accordance with the Real Property Office that manages all Pomona real estate assets by April to receive housing for the following academic year. Pomona faculty remain eligible for housing rental programs for a maximum of 6 years, according to the Faculty Rental program website, in order to “benefit new incoming faculty.” In addition, the college offers
home loans to tenure-track faculty, with a $555,000 maximum, but only for properties within a 5-mile radius of Alexander Hall, Pomona’s administrative building. Pomona is not the only college to offer housing assistance. The Claremont Colleges Services spokesperson Laura Muna-Landa said there are multiple cross-campus measures to support faculty. “Several [7C] institutions provide housing subsidies as part of hiring packages for a tenure track or tenured faculty,” Muna-Landa said in an email. “Some institutions own properties designated for faculty and staff rentals and may offer rentals at a discounted rate for a certain period. Other institutions may also offer loan programs to assist faculty in purchasing a home in Claremont.” Some faculty, such as Pomona’s Fernando Lozano, who currently heads the college’s Faculty Executive Committee and whose research focuses on labor economics, are not satisfied with the administrations’ housing programs. He said that the current programs are “insufficient.” But he has “engaged with the administration and they have been a very willing partner,” he said. Lozano pointed to the shortage of housing in Claremont as a cause for the price increases. He cited the “extremely harsh not-inmy-backyard policies and Prop 13,” the residential property tax cap policy passed by referendum in 1978, as the cause of the issue. In the greater context of the college, Lozano said, faculty housing benefits “make sense in two ways.” “One, [the colleges] can use the program to recruit faculty, as the program is more generous than those offered at the other Claremont Colleges, USC or UCLA,” Lozano said. “The second is that there are a lot of benefits from faculty living together. My best friends are all from the faculty, but
not because we are on the faculty. We’re friends because our kids went to the same school — our kids played on the same AYSO team.” Lozano said that faculty housing programs can be financially difficult for the college to justify, because they “[could] put that money in the stock market that will return 12 percent, instead of a loan that will return two and a half percent.” He also pointed out that the real problem is faced by the staff members. Lozano said “some of them have long commutes, and with the opportunity cost of commuting,” they can face real financial disadvantages. Pomona Dean of the College Robert Gaines said via email that “in my three years in the Dean’s office, no one has approached me [with difficulties securing housing]. Our Real Property office is a great source of support to our
faculty.” Even after being in Claremont since the late 1980s, one full professor at Pomona said achieving home ownership has long been a cause of concern for many faculty members. “Because [housing accessibility] has always been a problem, the current more senior faculty certainly struggled with it in our early years here” they said. “If we solved it, it often took several years of saving and we usually started in a ‘too small’ house that was frighteningly expensive.” A tenured Scripps professor said that “faculty housing used to be more subsidized for Scripps faculty and, in recent years, the rent went up a fair bit to be closer to market rent, but salaries have not really kept up. Housing costs are about 40 percent of my monthly budget,” adding that “many faculty cannot afford to live in Claremont. “ Visit tsl.news to read more.
EMMA JENSEN • THE STUDENT lIFE
Members of the 7Cs offer various programs to help their faculty afford to live in Southern California, but professors say more support is needed.
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The cost of increasing costs: tuition up 4.5 percent SAMSON ZHANG, RYA JETHA, MARIANA DURAN, REIA LI & JENNA MCMURTRY If she was able to put her academic interests first, Michelle Lee PO ‘25 would have likely majored in philosophy. But owing to the “burden of having [a] family contribution being higher than [she’s] comfortable with,” Lee has turned to a major that she thinks may have a better return on investment right after graduation — public policy analysis with a concentration in economics. “Pursuing your intellectual curiosity is an essential part of college,” she said. But to manage the financial restraints of a Pomona education Lee has already started thinking beyond her alma mater, instead viewing her college experiences from an economic standpoint. Lee said she’s felt that she has no other choice than to view her college experience through an economical standpoint, and has wondered how she might have directed her college studies differently if she wasn’t burdened by financial stressors. Earlier this semester, Pomona College, Claremont McKenna Col-
lege and Pitzer College announced plans to increase their respective tuition by 4.5 percent for the upcoming 2022-23 school year. Scripps College will follow suit with an increase to its tuition by 3.9 percent. Since the 2013-14 school year, tuition has increased by more than 29 percent at each of the 5Cs, outpacing national, Los Angeles County and California inflation rates. “People, insurance, food and utilities” were responsible for the greatest increases in Pitzer College’s expenses, Pitzer spokesperson Wendy Sattuck said in an email. Mary Lou Woods, assistant vice president and associate treasurer of Pomona College, said that rising expectations for school services have also driven an increase in spending. “The expectations of what the world wants us to provide continue to rise,” Woods said. “As students and families are weighing their options of different institutions, they’re [asking], is there a health and wellness center? Is there a rock climbing wall? There is a desire to have a very hands on student affairs [and support in addition to] the instruction side.”
Some professors who have been teaching at the 5Cs for more than a decade have noted that currently, more students seem to be taking classes in STEM fields and economics than in the past, sometimes prioritizing acquiring potential job skills over other personal interests.. “The liberal experience of the liberal arts has become less important as costs rise and students hone their collegiate ambitions,” Pitzer environmental analysis professor Paul Faulstich said via email. “It’s not necessarily some shortsighted, wealth driven myopic interest in making a bundle of money that’s driving this change; it’s driven by the need to make good, solid choices about how college will serve them over time and provide a foundation for livelihood.” Jada McCoy PO ’24, who receives financial aid from Pomona, noted that the cost of tuition has affected how she conducts herself in classes. “I feel like I need to be doing as much as possible, or I feel guilty if I’m not ‘excelling’ in a class because my family is paying for it,” she said. “It definitely comes with a sense of guilt, like I’m putting this extra
financial situation onto my family. So I need to bring back…the best results.” Like Faulstich and Thomas, Pomona sociology professor Colin Beck has noticed an increase in the number of students taking classes that they are less interested in, because they believe it will make them more marketable. Beck noted, however, that the rise in tuition costs is not the sole driving force pushing students to major in such fields. “Any account that links attitudes and behaviors to tuition cost in isolation from actual prices, affordability, the job market, social inequality, and other broader trends is just a bad analysis,” Beck said via email. Still, Lee’s resolved to balance the rising cost with what she hopes to get out of her education. “I’ve pretty much accepted that tuition is going to increase every year. What’s ultimately important to me is that my family sees the ways in which the money that we put in is concretely benefiting us as students,” Lee said. Rya Jetha contributed reporting.
SAMSON ZHANG • THE STUDENT lIFE
‘Critical community’: Pomona’s histories of Asian American mentorship KATHERINE TAN The history of Asian American activism at the 7Cs is rich, but not widely known across the student body. Like other affinity groups on campus, Asian American studies and centers were not established in Claremont until after hard fought battles. According to Mike Manolo-Pedro, the director of Pomona College’s Asian American Resource Center, “One of the main issues [in the way of establishing resources] was just understanding what Asian American students were going through at the time.” Manalo-Pedro referred to the November 1990 production of “The Mikado” at Big Bridges, which featured yellow-face and exaggerated exoticization of Japanese people, leading to protests organized by Pomona Professor of American Studies, Ethnicity, and Anthropology Dorinne Kondo. “A lot of students absorbed it as racist and stereotypical, [but] I don’t think [other] people knew that … I think everyone at the time on campus was just like, ‘Wow, we didn’t know this was a thing,’” Manalo-Pedro said. Getting the 7Cs to rally support around Asian students did not come easily, but progress eventually came as the product of efforts that spanned the course of several decades. One only has to look through the timeline compiled by AARC to learn the extent of APIDA activism in the 7Cs community. Asian Pacific Islander Desi American activism at the 5Cs gained traction following the suicide of an Asian American Pitzer student in April 1987. As a result, four Pomona seniors submitted a proposal calling for the creation of a 5C student center
for Asian American studies that same year, but the request was denied. In response to the denial, the Asian American Mentorship Program was established in August 1989 and the Asian American Resource Center was operational by the fall 1991 semester. When “Asian American experiences” — the first Asian American studies course in over a decade — was offered in spring 1991, nearly 50 students from across the 5Cs enrolled. However, events like the defacing of a mural on Walker Wall the following spring proved to show there was a long way to go in supporting Asian American students. The initial painting, which was intended to bolster support for a more robust department, was altered from “Asian American Studies Now” into “Asian Americans Die Now.” The death threat only continued to motivate the APIDA community to push for inclusion. Continued efforts included a sit-in at Alexander Hall in February 1993, a teach-in at Balch Hall for an Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies in 1997 and a rally for an Asian American student center by Pitzer students from 1997 to 2001, among other instances of activism. These cumulative efforts eventually led to the formation of the Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies in 1998, as well as a mentor program at each of the 5Cs, but the fight was far from over. St udents pushed for a 5C Asian American Student Center once more in 2002 and in 2007, but motions failed again. In 2002, Adboard, a 7C program, compromised with administrators and was allowed to both fund mentor
groups and help them grow. Groups like South Asian Mentorship Program and Indigenous Peer Mentoring Program weren’t established until spring 2016. “It’s kind of crazy … Asian rhetoric in the 1980s that caused the formation of AAMP and AARC [is] in parallel to the anti-Asian racism that’s going on today ... It’s always been around for sure,” Manolo-Pedro said. “Almost 35-40 years later, I think those larger racisms and stereotypes still persist. So it’s kind of almost cyclical in that way.” The AARC is a Pomona organization, with AAMP serving as a student-driven mentorship program under the center’s guidance. Each of the 5Cs’ Asian American student sponsor program report to their respective culture center. All the programs are brought together by the 7Cs program, the Asian American Advisory Board. Both the AARC and AAMP are very community based organizations, led by students who volunteer their time and at the moment, do not receive compensation. Manolo-Pedro makes a distinction between critical mass, which can come across as transactional instances of support versus that of fostering a sense of community with advocacy centered around community. “I think critical community is really focusing on how we can’t get people in the same room on the same page without building relationships first,” Manolo-Pedro said. As AAMP mentors and AARC interns, Saomai Nguyen PO ’23 and Kano Cheng PO ’22 have learned meaningful insights in their journey to helping their communities. Having joined AAMP with in-
tentions to streamline the support the program’s efforts, as well as to ensure the mentees are more selfaware of the white narratives that predominate college campuses, both see AAMP as a way to create a stronger sense of inclusivity towards underrepresented communities at the 5Cs. “For events where we talk about mental health, do we always want to believe in things like intergenerational conflict how we don’t get along with our parents, perpetuating this idea that like Asian parents are strict or conservative, blah, blah, blah. And how does that play into dominant white narratives about what immigrant or Asian communities are like?” Nguyen said. Nguyen highlighted AAMP’s history of focusing on east Asian culture and issues as “one of the reasons I didn’t feel as comfortable first year.” “The people who show up to AAMP are people who have a very clear and comfortable sense of what it means to them to be Asian American … I just didn’t,” Nguyen said. “That was in my experience from where I grew up, from being Southeast Asian, also from being a child of refugees, having that history.” According to Manolo-Pedro, the mission of AARC is to uplift underrepresented Asian students, especially intersectionalities of identities like Asian American and gender queer and Asian American and undocumented. He invites people to attend the events they have about uplifting underrepresented communities. “Folks who had that comfort, you know, they had that idea, being Asian American is like doing this and that and like going to these places to eat and like even
like a certain type of dress or way of talk or music that I listen to that. I just was like, wait, I don’t know, am I not Asian American?” asks Nguyen. Cheng said that to her, being Asian American is more about caring about others and organizing around others’ concerns, and not an identity based on shared culture or experiences. AAMP has grown to accommodate the needs of the community, but the safe space still came under attack by the administration’s recent restructuring proposal for mentor groups. Luckily, Adboard funds AAMP, so they are financially sound. “It was kind of weird because the AAMP mentors stopped getting invited to meetings with Dean Jackson and like all the mentorship groups. The beginning of, I think this semester, we just did not get those emails anymore. So we’re not invited to be in the room anymore,” Cheng said. Instead of fostering discussion between the student leaders, Cheng said, Jackson simply gave a PowerPoint presentation of his plans. “The closest we got to collaboration was working together on the town hall actively against administration. It was really nice to be able to build something together, even though it was like a high stress situation,” Cheng said. Manolo-Pedro said he’s proud of his students and the legacy they’ve build this year. “Having come back from the pandemic, they really built strong foundations of what it means to be in a trusting and loving community with each other,” he said. “So I really want to give a shout out to the students and our staff for pushing them forward.”
April 29, 2022
Arts & Culture
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Hisham Matar’s ‘The Return’ redefines the memoir RYAN ANDERS LILLESTRAND Everything you don’t understand is magic. Before any study or investigation, there is simply the thing itself, inexplicably there, weaving some captivating tale — an alchemy of words. It is mysterious and powerful and aweinspiring. About once every few months, a book does this. Hisham Matar’s memoir, “The Return,” is one such book. It sat, slender and unassuming, on my ‘to read’ shelf for nearly a year until I finally picked it up one afternoon. I had to stop after the first chapter. The sheer power of what I had just read went shooting through me. I put it down, both so I could sit and metabolize all I had just read and because I wanted to savor it. Another chapter felt gluttonous and unnecessary; one was enough. “The Return,” at its core, is about a son and his father. Matar, originally from Libya, is a 19-year-old university student in England when he receives the news that his father (a central figure in the anti-Gaddafi movement) has disappeared. Matar would never see him again. Twenty-two years later, Matar, riven by fear but moved by a desperate curiosity, finally decides to return to Libya for the first time in two decades to search for his father. Thus begins the arresting story of “The Return.” It is both the tale of a gripping international search and the quietly beautiful portrait of a boy who has become a man, seeking his father. Hisham Matar is an interesting writer, to be sure. For most of his life growing up, he almost exclusively read poetry, and it shows. The prose of “The Return” is masterful. He captures the subtle detail of light filtering into a room with as much grace and power as he recounts tense conversations with the last known people to see his father alive. Hisham Matar could write about quotidian tasks like doing the dishes or taking out the trash, and I’d still read it. It’s that inexplicable alchemy of words. But over the last few months, what was once ineffable has been given shape, form and flesh. In the past year, I have unintentionally read an uncommonly large amount of memoirs — drawn to the genre by something I can not express. So naturally, the memoir (why it’s been having such a “moment” in the last decade, what it’s really worth, etc.) has been on my mind.
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So why the memoir? Like anything, there are two sides to the proverbial coin. While classics of the genre, like Maxine Hong Kingston’s “The Woman Warrior,” do stretch back several decades, the explosion of the memoir as we know it now is a more recent phenomenon. In some more pessimistic moments, I might trace it back to an internet generation endlessly keen on sharing about ourselves with the world, wanting, needing, to be heard. We write about ourselves and our lives and read what other people write when they do the same. It can sometimes feel as if every book cover and page is silently screaming, “Look, here! Pay attention to me, I have something to say!” And yet, there is so much more. While this pessimistic view still occasionally grips me, I try my best not to subscribe to it. I believe the genre has far more to offer, and perhaps no memoir illustrates this better than “The Return.” Engaging with a memoir, either as the writer or a reader, is a powerful, potentially lifeshaping experience. As the writer, it can be deeply clarifying and healing. While “The Return” was surely at times excruciating to write, Matar did it. He faced the mystery of his father and his lost country. He reconnected with family members and places that had been lost to time and war — and, in the process, began to heal decades-old wounds. As the reader, it can be impactful and comforting. While no one else has Hisham Matar’s lived experiences, he taps into the universally-shared joys and struggles of family, homeland and loss of a parent, weaving it all into stunning art. The memoir is an intimate exchange between writer and reader. At its best, it possesses the power to profoundly change both parties. It throws open the doors of the human experience, laying out stories that capture and challenge us — offering a salve when we have none. Ryan Lillestrand PZ ’23 is a book columnist for TSL. This week, he is heavily procrastinating by building out reading lists for the summer.
COUrTESY: WiKiiMAGES FrOM piXABY
Hisham Matar’s memoir “The return” centers around his return to his native Libya to search for his father.
‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ is multidimensional magic
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“Everything Everywhere All At Once” follows Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh), a Chinese immigrant who gains the ability to visit other versions of herself.
GERRIT PUNT I’d heard nothing but great things about “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” but when I finally sat down to watch it, I’ll admit I was still a bit skeptical. The concept sounded wonderful. The cast seemed stellar. But as I watched the trailers and calculated how many Whoppers to eat per minute to make my box of candy last through the runtime, I couldn’t help but fear that this film would fall just short of all the hype. It’s not that I didn’t have faith that this film would be good, but I wasn’t sure if any movie could live up to the expectations thrust upon this one. Multiple people have told me that this film is the best they’ve ever seen. It’s the highest rated movie of all time on Letterboxd. Forgive my caution, but few things hurt enjoyment more than unrealistic expectations. I’ve been hurt before. And yet, despite everything I just said, I don’t think the hype has done “Everything Everywhere” justice. I say that not because this film is somehow even better than everyone says it is, but because the flood of praise directed towards this film’s creativity and innovation overlook something crucial to this film’s quality: “Everything Everywhere” has a lot of heart. But first, the fun stuff. As the title indicates, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” has a lot going on. The film follows Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh), a downtrodden Chinese immigrant with a failing laundromat, an audit from the IRS and a tenuous relationship with every single member of her family. After an encounter with a parallel version of her husband (Ke Huy Quan), Evelyn gains the ability to jump into the minds and bodies of alternate universe variations of herself, granting her their memories,
experiences and skills, which she must utilize to combat an extraordinarily powerful extradimensional threat. Through this premise, Evelyn and the audience are granted glimpses into the existences of Evelyns whose lives have taken vastly different trajectories. The film weaves a violent, emotional and wildly entertaining tapestry of parallel reality “what ifs,” while still keeping its action-packed pacing intact. It’s kind of like if “It’s a Wonderful Life” was an interdimensional martial arts movie (and wasn’t really anything like “It’s a Wonderful Life” at all). Truth be told, it’s hard to know what exactly to call this film. “Everything Everywhere” is a rule-bending, genre-warping, multi-stylistic chimera of a movie. It’s a chaotic sci-fi-action-comedy-drama about alternate realities and complicated family dynamics and immigrant experiences and … tax fraud. Sometimes, it’s also about rocks. I realize that tagline isn’t exactly concise or digestible, but to be honest, it’s still far too reductive. The film attempts to be a great multitude of things, and, amazingly, it succeeds at all of them. Whether it’s temporarily masquerading as a deadly serious Wong Kar-wai-esque character drama or a silly homage to “Ratatouille”, “Everything Everywhere” holds on to its smooth pacing, mesmerizing visuals and strong sense of identity. Having attempted to describe it, I feel as though this really shouldn’t work on a fundamental level. Having seen it with my own two eyes, however, I know that it does. It’s so engrossing that I forgot to ration my Whopper intake and ate the whole box before the second act (You thought the Whoppers thing earlier was just a one-off gag, but it’s come full circle. I call that “Chekhov’s Whoppers”). In its interdimensional splendor, “Everything Everywhere”
captures the scale of the multiverse and the cosmic insignificance of the audience, but it isn’t bleak or nihilistic. Evelyn’s fight to save her family (and every single universe while she’s at it) assures that, even when nothing matters, there are things worth existing for. It makes you feel small in a way that’s a little scary, but strangely affirming, like an existential crisis mixed with a big warm hug. As absurd, ambitious and outside the box as this movie is, the glue that holds “Everything Everywhere” together is its deeply sincere and solid emotional core. Underneath the hypnotic action is a deeply empathetic story and an assurance that every aspect of this film, no matter how zany, contributes something meaningful. It isn’t hard for sentimentality to be drowned out by spectacle, but “Everything Everywhere” uses its extravagance to elevate its substance. Rather than leaving it in the dust, every joke, stylistic exploration and cultural homage propels the film’s heartfelt narrative. It’s what allows a film with a nearly-omnipotent, multiverse-destroying antagonist to feel emotionally grounded. There’s no denying that creativity is important, but without an earnest emotional center, it’s far too easy for a novel idea to become something messy and unsubstantial. It isn’t too hard to make something that’s just plain weird, but “Everything Everywhere All at Once” shows that heart can elevate something strange into something spectacular. I laughed, I cried and, even if only for a little while afterward, I felt a little different about the universe(s). If you haven’t already, give “Everything Everywhere All at Once” a watch. The Gerrit Punt PO ’24 that wrote this is apparently from a parallel universe where he only includes like, five jokes in his articles. He’s also a little too amused by the phrase “Chekhov’s whoppers.”
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Summer films and TV shows to cure your finals-week blues HANNAH ELIOT
writing and acting in this show, particularly Gandolfini’s performance, are exquisite. In my eyes, it’s a masterpiece.
As the heat sets in and summer grows closer, it’s a great time to find some new (and old) films and TV shows to entertain yourself in the coming weeks. Finals are soon, and hopefully this list — including some of my all-time favorites — will offer you some escape and help you out if you feel like procrastinating, taking a study break or finding something to look forward to after finishing your last exam. “Y tu mamá también” (2001) In “Y Tu Mamá También,” Alfonso Cuarón tells an intimate, sexually charged story of two teenage boys taking a road trip with an older woman to a secret beach, set against the backdrop of early 2000s Mexico steeped in class conflict and other types of sociopolitical turmoil. I would say that this is probably one of my favorite films of all time, if not my favorite. The cinematography is stunning, and the acting is some of the best I’ve seen. Cuarón’s organic process of filmmaking allows him to construct complex characters who are shaped by both personal and national identity. In doing so, he gives his viewer a realistic lens into a moment of sociopolitical tension in Mexican history. “High Fidelity” (2020) Set during the summer in New York City, “High Fidelity” centers on Rob (Zoë Kravitz), the owner of a Brooklyn record store who’s flailing in the aftermath of her biggest heartbreak, courtesy of ex-fiancé Mac. Desperate to figure out why she’s had so much trouble with love, she tracks down her exes on a quest of self-discovery to answer that question. The fact that this show was canceled after only one season is a crime. Zoë Kravitz is totally mesmerizing as Rob. Another highlight of the show is Simon (David H. Holmes), Rob’s employee and gay ex-boyfriend, who gets his own episode, in which he relives his Top 5 heartbreaks. I watched this show for the first time
COUrTESY: JANUS FilMS
Film columnist Hannah Eliot SC ’24 recommends “Chungking Express” (1994) to those looking to delve more deeply into foreign films or something more challenging.
as a senior in high school; rewatching it as a sophomore in college has only deepened my love for it. Rob is a deeply flawed character, and the series bares her flaws with refreshing realism, making her highly relatable. Finally, the soundtrack of this show, curated by Questlove, is one of the coolest I’ve ever heard. “Dazed and Confused” (1993) This film is such a comfort film of mine and holds a special place in my heart. It tracks the adventures of Texas teenagers on their last day of school in 1976. While the film has a stacked ensemble cast — including Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck and more — it orbits around Randall “Pink” Floyd (Jason London), who drifts easily among stoners, jocks and geeks. Pink is both a star quarterback and a stoner, which presents a dilemma when his coach demands he sign a “no drugs” pledge. This film is unique in how it feels like a documentary, as if it were literally filmed on the last day of high
school in 1976, and no one had any idea they were being filmed. Not only is the soundtrack insane, but, be it the hazing, driving around, acts of vandalism, smoking weed, clinking beers, philosophical ramblings or hookups, every moment is thoughtfully captured, thanks to the fluid camera work and editing. This film shows life in high school for what it is, and the loose attitudes of its characters have a genuine touch to them. Wildly entertaining, “Dazed and Confused” is the kind of film with which you can simply sit back and live in the moment with its characters. It makes you feel a little reckless, aimless and hopeful in all the right ways. “Chungking Express” (1994) This is such a ridiculously beautiful film. Directed by Wong Kar-wai, this Chinese film centers around a take-out express restaurant and the various individuals who cross through it. The film combines two different storylines
— one that is more of a crime noir, the other, a rom-com — both suffused with the sweltering Hong Kong heat. The characters in this film don’t seem to know who they are. They wander around as loose individuals without families or homes, struggling with heartbreak and desperate for lovers they can never have. “Chungking Express” is beautiful, haunting and surprisingly funny. As this film deals with some heady, complex themes, I would recommend it for those looking to delve more deeply into foreign films or something slightly more challenging. “The Sopranos” (1999-2007) It’s time for you to finally watch “The Sopranos.” No matter what excuses you’ve made in the past — or if you’ve somehow never heard of it — this show is more than worth the watch. This HBO series from David Chase follows the life of Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), a depressed Italian mobster who begins to go to therapy. The
“American Honey” (2016) “American Honey,” a film that is both heartwarming and heartbreaking, is also one of the most immersive I’ve ever seen. While it feels a bit too long, it pulls you in for the ride as it follows Star (Sasha Lane), a teenage girl who runs away from home with a traveling sales crew that drives across America’s heartland selling magazines doorto-door. She falls in love with Jake (Shia LaBeouf), and settles into the crew’s lifestyle of hard-partying and shirking the law. Like “Dazed and Confused,” this film is more or less plotless and channels the liberating feeling of being young and reckless. However, “American Honey” comes with more ragged edges. It doesn’t shy away from baring the ugly side of youth, of running toward an uncertain future only to find that it is no better than where you came from. “Blue Crush” (2002) Rounding out this list is an old guilty pleasure. I grew up surfing, so it’s possible that watching “Blue Crush” over and over again as a kid was not a universally relatable experience. Nevertheless, this is still a fun watch with or without the nostalgia. The real draw of “Blue Crush” is not the acting or the script, but the visuals — from Oahu beaches to insane surf shots — which make up for an overly dramatic plot line. While this film takes itself a little too seriously, it sticks out as one of the few films about female surfers in a world of male-dominated surf films, silly dialogue and all. On a quality level, the superior surfing flick is still “The Endless Summer,” but this one is perfect if you’re looking for some escapism and mindless entertainment. Hannah Eliot SC ’24 is from San Francisco, California. She likes to surf and is on the search for more documentaries to watch.
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Arts & Culture
BEiNG rEEl
April 29, 2022
rEGUlArlY SCHEDUlED prOGrAMMiNG
‘The Northman’ — super gory but lacking in story
You don’t have to have to be a Breaking Baddie to love ‘Better Call Saul’ CLAIRE DUMONT
BEllA pETTENGill • THE STUDENT liFE
ADAM OSMAN-KRINSKY The saying “revenge is a dish best served cold” usually doesn’t refer to the physical temperature of an act of vengeance. But Robert Eggers’ “The Northman” attempts to adapt Hamlet into the setting of 10th century Iceland, where revenge takes place in the snow and in the worst of conditions. The only problem: the revenge is flimsy, with the film relying on gratuitous violence and overly expository writing to carry the story. A good revenge movie should have several things: characters you actually get to sit with and know, some sort of internal struggle that develops early in the film and gradually becomes more complicated, as well as violence — but violence motivated by difficult decision making and real pain. Something that “The Northman” did not offer me as a viewer was the opportunity to experience the pain of any of the main characters. The main character, Amleth, is only on screen for twenty minutes as a young child before the motivation for his revenge for the next two hours of the movie becomes apparent. The pain that the young Amleth is supposed to feel did not have the setup it deserved, especially since the context for the event is revealed just half an hour before the movie ends. This revenge had no mystery to it — it was just a search for a man that ended too quickly with a climax that took too long to unfold. And, even if the movie was re-written so that its 137 minute runtime was more engaging, it still used violence to a gratuitous degree. Now don’t get me wrong, my favorite revenge movies (“The Vengeance Trilogy” by Park Chan-wook) are incredibly gory and violent. Some parts of those movies are damn near unwatchable. What separates
“The Northman’’ from the likes of “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance” or “Old Boy’’ is the politics behind the immense violence. “The Northman’’ takes much of its political ethos from the fact that it is a period piece. Modern mythologies of Nordic countries in the 10th century understand Vikings as absolutely barbaric. The justification for their barbarism is tautological: they’re from the 10th century. In a way, one can understand this circular reasoning as almost pseudo-progressive — in that it is honest about how older European societies were absolutely brutal and grotesque. It resembles a concept of savagery that has been attached and attributed in racist ways to Indigenous societies in Asia, Africa and the Americas. But, if we’re being honest with ourselves, Eggers is not particularly interested in reversing any historical roles. The frequent disembowelings and decapitations occur simply because they are shocking to the viewer. Throughout watching the film, I could not help but think about how I’d much rather be watching Park Chan-wook’s trilogy. In those movies, we see the pain that the characters experience and that a lot of their pain can be mapped onto larger systemic issues that comment on the politics of South Korea. The viewer, then, understands the violence to be a reaction to being wronged. While violence (and brutal violence at that) is perhaps not the best course of action, it can be justified by the magnitude of the being wronged. In “The Northman,” it is hard to feel bad for Amleth because we really do not know much about him as a person with emotions. The violence he commits feels wrong because he does not feel
that it is wrong. The sadness he feels is performed because the “subversive” plot points are half-baked. They taunt the audience with things like incest instead of unpacking and showing us Amleth’s childhood. This is not to say that all revenge movies need to be like biopics, in that they show every trauma a character has since their birth. A revenge movie should be simple. “The Northman” expects viewers to know mythology (I had no idea about the pegasus flying up to Valhalla before I watched the film) and quickly grasp the evil characters who get introduced at the start of the film. I cringed at the violence, and laughed at the film more often than feeling emotions like sadness or disdain. This movie falls very easily under the “dudes rock” genre — in that it plays to everything someone might want out of a violent action film. It has sex, it has sexy people, it has violence and it has funny accents. What that incredible mix of things lacks, unfortunately, is depth. As soon as the movie ended, I felt overwhelmed, but not as though I had learned something about the human condition. The beautiful thing about a revenge movie is that it keeps revenge as an ambiguous thing to desire, because there is so much violent fallout. What “The Northman” succeeded in doing, however, was convincing me that revenge is stupid. Maybe that’s a good thing, but it is certainly not what I wanted. Adam Osman-Krinsky PO ’25 is from New York City. He loves movies and logs all his most recent watches on his letterboxd @ Adam0k and is currently looking for a new alter ego.
In the history of popular TV, spin-off series have a reputation for not being successful. Shows that have come out of “backdoor pilots,” or when an existing show airs an episode designed to act as the first episode of a spin-off, tend to fizzle out before they can even be fully released — or just aren’t as successful as the original. But in its six seasons, “Better Call Saul” has proven to be an exception. “Better Call Saul” is a spin-off series of “Breaking Bad,” which follows chemistry teacher Walter White and his ex-student turned partner Jesse Pinkman as he starts cooking and selling meth to pay for his cancer treatments. In the second season, lawyer Saul Goodman, played by Bob Odenkirk, is introduced to help Walter and Jesse navigate their legal issues and other problems that arise throughout the show. “Better Call Saul” takes place a few years before the events of “Breaking Bad,” where we meet Jimmy McGill, Saul’s real name, before he became what Jesse best described as a criminal lawyer (a lawyer that is a criminal, not a lawyer for criminals.) I started watching “Better Call Saul” after I had finished all five seasons of “Breaking Bad.” Throughout “Breaking Bad,” Saul’s character is more or less fully developed as a side character to the main actions of Walter and Jesse. Finishing the show and then going right to “Better Call Saul” made the show even more compelling because it took me back to when it was just Jimmy McGill. Despite knowing what will happen at the very end of the story, “Better Call Saul” is incredibly compelling for the way it shows his slow-burn transformation to the infamous “Breaking Bad” character. For the first three seasons, one of Jimmy’s main conflicts is his struggle to gain the approval of his older brother, Chuck, with an incredible performance from actor Michael McKean. Jimmy has to fight to get out of his reputation for being “Slippin’ Jimmy,” his nickname from his con artist past. He goes to law school to be a lawyer just like Chuck, but is constantly undermined and belittled by him. This dynamic creates some of the most memorable and incredible scenes I have ever seen, with amazing performances from both of them. Odenkirk is another actor that started in comedy and transitioned to more dramatic roles.
He perfectly creates Jimmy’s balance between his desire to be a better person and the draw to a life of scamming and questionable morals. His comedic prowess also gets a chance to shine, providing his own comedic relief amongst the seriousness of the plot. As Jimmy slowly transforms, Odenkirk’s performance changes to show the nuances of how he blends with Saul to create the character we know from “Breaking Bad.” His performance is complicated beautifully by the exceptionally talented actress Rhea Seehorn, playing Kim Wexler, a lawyer and Jimmy’s partner. Their relationship dynamic is unlike any other I’ve seen on TV, because although their relationship is definitely a part of the show, it doesn’t define either of them. The relationship is shown mainly through small gestures — tender moments shared between them. Kim is also one of the greatest examples I’ve seen in recent TV dramas, alongside Shiv Roy of “Succession,” of redefining female characters in the antihero genre. In the sixth and final season of the show, Kim is going through her own transformation on Jimmy’s path, and it is fascinating to see how her character is changing. Even though I watched “Better Call Saul” after “Breaking Bad,” I would still recommend it as a standalone show. My dad caught up for the recent season six premiere without ever seeing “Breaking Bad” and still appreciated and loved it the way I do. Of course, having the experience of knowing specific references to things that happen in “Breaking Bad” and characters that appear can enhance the experience, but “Better Call Saul” is good enough to stand on its own. Part of what makes “Better Call Saul” so great is the incredible writing and plot from the “Breaking Bad” team, Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. The plots are thoroughly thought-out, and each conflict gets resolved in ways that are both unexpected and seamless. Jimmy’s increasingly clever scams to win his cases or protect the people he loves can be confusing at first, but they have an incredibly satisfying payoff each time. If you aren’t already a fan of “Breaking Bad,” it’s possible that “Better Call Saul” has fallen off of your radar of new shows to watch. As it enters its sixth and final season, it is definitely worth watching to be a part of what I have no doubt will be an epic conclusion. Claire DuMont SC ’23 is one of TSL’s TV columnists. She is incredibly excited that “Barry” and “Better Call Saul” are back, and she is looking forward to having more time to catch up on shows over the summer.
COUrTESY: GrEG lEWiS/AMC/SONY piCTUrES TElEViSiON
Bob Odenkirk plays Saul Goodman in “Better Call Saul,” the spin-off of “Breaking Bad.”
With multifaceted career, Victoria Koenig dances to the beat of her own drum MAYA OLSON Theater and dance lecturer Victoria Koenig is one of Pomona College’s most prolific and effervescent professors. Her ongoing career has involved founding multiple ballet companies and schools, teaching, dancing professionally in several countries and, most recently, studying as a New Resources Student at Pitzer College. Her passion for dance began before she can remember. “I just danced around — that was kind of something I just did as a little girl,” she said. She started lessons around age seven, taught by a woman in her neighborhood. “Around age 10, [my teacher] said, ‘Vicky has talent, but I’ve taken her as far as I can, and she really needs more formal training,’” Koenig said. As her skill blossomed, she instinctively knew her goals. “It is something that you’re just driven to do,” she said. “You don’t want to do anything else — that’s just where you want to be. I’m the only person in my family that did not go to college, because I wanted to pursue a career. And now, I’m at Pitzer as a New Resources student, and it’s very exciting to be coming back to school.” As her career began, Koenig often traveled to perform and work with various companies. After growing up in the Los Angeles area, she spent time in New York and eventually took a job in Honolulu. “There was a very interesting ballet company there that was started by the mayor,” she said. “It was an actual civil service job; he started a ballet company with the city based
COUrTESY: ViCTOriA KOENiG
Victoria Koenig has been a part of the Claremont community for many years — as a professor and, now, as a student.
on a European model. I got to pioneer ballet in Hawaii. We flew on little airplanes to all of the islands and danced in sugar cane fields with a symphony. Those kinds of experiences you could never expect.” Alongside her own education and career in dance, she has always taught. Originally, it was her way to support herself and live on her own at 16. Now, she said confidently, she loves to teach just as much as she loves to dance.
Koenig has taught in many ballet academies throughout her life, alongside teaching at independent schools in Los Angeles. Eventually, she made her way to California State University, Long Beach, where she learned and taught under mentor Rebecca Wright. She founded the Los Angeles Chamber Ballet, and later the Inland Pacific Ballet and the National Institute of the Arts in Taipei. Now, she has returned to school through Pitzer’s New Re-
sources Program, which welcomes students who are 23 or older and “have not received a Bachelor’s degree or followed the path of a traditional four year college student.” “When I decided to pursue a professional career as a dancer, [I said] I could always go to school — I had to dance when I could dance. I would go to school when I was 60,” Koenig said. “And my joke is that I just missed my target by 10 years.” To reconcile this goal with her busy schedule, she had to let go of running her company and her dance school herself. She knew that to return to her own education with energy, she could no longer also tend to every detail of a company. “That freed up time for me to focus on teaching at Pomona and then taking on my academics,” she said. “I couldn’t be happier. It’s a thrill. [Going back to school is] a goal. It’s been a goal my whole life.” Despite her extensive resume, Koenig says her favorite class to teach at Pomona is the Beginner Ballet class, where she appreciates the high energy and excitement. She finds joy in teaching both new students and those with prior experience. “The most important thing to me is reaching those people and helping them feel good about their dancing,” she said. “Sometimes [students have] had more negative experiences with dance, which is why they’ve turned away from it. Wherever the student is in their mental space, I like to try to reach that and then provide them with an experience that’s going to be valuable.”
She also noted that the dance field can be a competitive and often harmful environment for dancers, especially as it impacts them growing up. “It’s such a shame because people lose that initial joy,” Koenig said. “Then the atmosphere is heavy … because it is such a competitive field, it becomes a competitive atmosphere. That’s the part I hate.” Therefore, she dedicates herself to a positive and forward-thinking approach in her own teaching. “Incidentally, that’s the part that is the hardest to try to weed out of an organization that you’re running,” she said. “I so much wanted to cultivate positivity and celebration of people wherever they are.” Her first ballet teacher cultivated a “cult-like environment,” according to Koenig. “That was kind of a scarring experience,” she said. “… [Students] need to be in an environment that’s promoting well-being and mental health.” However, many dancers have not been so lucky. “I call them the walking wounded,” she said. “I see them immediately when they walk in the door at Pomona. It’s so wonderful to be able to after a couple of weeks, them starting to trust and realize that they’re in a different space.” Koenig is always learning, even beyond her new classes, to be a better teacher. A friend of hers once told her, “I think you could teach anybody how to dance.” “Because it’s a challenge, and it’s an exciting challenge — to give somebody that empowerment kind of in their bodies, that they can actually not be weighted and just kind of stuck,” Koenig replied.
Arts & Culture
April 29, 2022
pAGE 7
What are 5C student interns earning? A look at pay transparency
lArKiN BArNArD-BAHN • THE STUDENT liFE
LARKIN BARNARD-BAHN It can be challenging to know if an internship pay offer is “fair,” especially when the internship search process is opaque. Many listings don’t display compensation, and discussions of pay are often stigmatized. While students enter the process often with only anecdotal knowledge of pay expectations, companies hold the advantage of institutional knowledge on the internship market. Ideally, companies would provide complete pay transparency, according to Ursula Diamond, Director for Student Opportunities at Claremont McKenna College. Full pay transparency means posting exact salaries for all employees, while partial pay transparency discloses pay ranges for roles. “Most industries and organizations prefer to keep [complete pay transparency] pretty quiet and hidden,” Diamond said. “They’re trying to recruit interns for the least amount of money possible, so the power is with the employers, and so it’s in their in-
terest to try and keep that kind of salary transparency as invisible as possible. Whereas on the other side, as candidates, you want as much transparency as possible.” For students applying for internships and jobs, pay transparency allows them to consider compensation before applying, as well as to better compare options and negotiate with employers. Pay transparency has even been called “the solution to the pay gap.” TSL conducted an anonymous survey of 100 5C students who had held paid internships. With a maximum hourly wage of $120 and a minimum of $7, the survey yielded a median wage of $20.50, a mean of $27.99, a mode of $15.00, and a standard deviation of $18.48. Those paid via stipend converted their compensation into hourly earnings. The full data can be found here. Among survey respondents, the most popular industry was technology, with 45 percent of participants, and the most pop-
PlAY: Musical supports self love Continued from page 1 a resounding “yes” — you are smart enough. Yes, you deserve to be here. It tackles imposter syndrome head-on, celebrating students and reaffirming their worth. The show follows main character Erica as she begins her first year of college, tracing the pressures she faces in the new setting. It centers around the feelings of imposter syndrome she experiences at school and how she eventually begins to combat them. “It really boils down to this feeling [that] everybody tells you, when you’re about to go to college, that these are going to be the best years of your life,” said Kendall Packman PO ’22, who plays the character of Thomas. “There’s so much pressure to succeed both academically … but also to succeed socially.” Not only is the show student-centric, but it’s completely student-written and produced. For playwright Annika Hoseth PO ’23, who also plays Erica, the process of writing it began over a year ago, in the midst of a fully virtual school year at the 5Cs. Feeling limited by the experience of doing theater over Zoom, she turned to songwriting as a way to reconnect with musical theater and reflect on her college experience so far. “I just kind of started falling in love with [writing] and using it as therapy, almost, and a creative outlet, from just having a really tough year,” Hoseth said. “Then by the end of the summer I had a full script, and I think I had pretty much all 13 songs.” Hoseth didn’t set out with the intention of sharing her writing with others, let alone turning it into an on-stage production. However, as she began writing, she started to feel like the show’s message was important for other people, especially 5C students, to hear. “I think especially at … a rigorous group of schools like the 5Cs, a lot of us have impostor syndrome and are trying to do so many things [and] trying to just really be the best students and everything [we] can be, and put a lot of pressure on [ourselves],” she said. After Hoseth made the decision to produce the show, she turned to Spotlight MT for help bringing it to life. There, she found a group of enthusiastic, high-energy people to help with all aspects of the show. For cast member Nisha Saboo PO ’25, who plays Ashley, the passion shared by the cast members has made the production process a delight. “Everyone is so incredibly open [and] everyone is so willing to have fun,” Saboo said. “A huge part of the show is that it’s meant to be silly, high energy, funny, crazy. So the best part about that is, although
we have emphasized the importance of setting boundaries, everybody brings everything to the stage — everybody is willing to try new things.” Those involved with the show want it to remind people that, no matter what it may feel like, imposter syndrome is not an isolated experience. “I have never met anyone at college who has not felt the imposter syndrome feeling,” Packman said. “And I think that’s the trick of imposter syndrome, that it makes you feel like nobody else feels that way, when everybody feels that way.” As the cast and crew developed the show, they focused on making it a reassuring and fun experience for the audience. Part of that process has included developing the show’s comedy, songs and dance to make them as engaging as possible. For choreographer Rosie Corr PO ’23, the inclusive nature of the show has been reflected in the choreography process. Instead of being a separate process, the show’s choreography was developed in direct dialogue with Hoseth and other members of the show. “One of the most fun parts for me is deciding where the dance is going to mirror the story and the mood and where it’s going to contrast a little bit,” Corr said. Close attention to detail is reflected in the show’s name — “You’re The Shit” — which plays on the dualities of the phrase’s meaning. “[Sometimes] you tell yourself, or other people might tell you, ‘you’re the shit,’” Hoseth said. “Sometimes you believe it [and] sometimes you don’t. Sometimes it’s a more surface level statement, or sometimes it comes from somebody who really knows you … it was something that could mean something different at the beginning of the show versus the end of the show.” The show’s collaborative, cheerful process reflects its core message: it’s okay to have fun and love yourself, no matter if you’re succeeding or failing. Its upbeat delivery is also designed to make the viewing experience engaging, encouraging and, above all, joyful. “I think it’s just a really fun break in your day,” Saboo said. “It’s an incredibly funny show. It’s sharp, it’s silly, it’s over the top and it’s everything that live theater should be.” “You’re the Shit” runs April 28— May 1 at the Seaver Theatre Large Studio. Seats are first-come, firstserve.
ular internship type was software engineering, comprising 27 percent of participants. Certain industries have larger internship budgets and are more open to negotiating pay than others, Diamond said. For example, if a consulting or investment banking firm brings in a large cohort of interns, they will likely earn the same amount with little room for negotiation. However, if a student believes a company’s pay offer is too low, negotiating an internship offer can be effective and serve as practice for post-graduation offers, when negotiation is more important. “You should negotiate, but be realistic,” Diamond said. “If you were to compare yourself to other people who have a similar background, similar resume, applying for the same paid internship, what are you bringing that increases your value to that organization? If it’s a return, you’ve worked there once before, [that’s a] great time to negotiate because you’ve already been trained by them, you know
the culture, you know the company.” Bringing data on industry pay standards can help with negotiations — this is where pay transparency comes in. “Because you can be like, ‘Actually, a lot of my friends are working in the same industry, or I’ve done my research, and this is the average amount they’re getting paid,” she said. Along with consulting with friends or college career centers, students can look to websites such as Salary.com, Glassdoor, Levels.fyi and PayScale. Diamond added that this information should be treated as a general indicator of pay expectations, as compensation varies widely by company, position and industry. Additionally, Diamond recommends using these resources when confronting the application question, “What is your expected salary?” If the application allows, write “negotiable,” she said. If it requires a number, use your research and submit a moderate estimate. “Lowballing is actually not too bad because they’re more likely to want to interview you,” she said. “Highballing is really problematic because that might exit you from the whole process early. So go with a low to moderate number or put in some kind of range to demonstrate that you’re willing to negotiate.” While the application may or may not include compensation details, Diamond stressed the importance of not mentioning pay until directly asked or given an offer. “If you talk about money as one of your interview questions, it signals to an employer that you may be more interested in the benefits than you are in the job,” she said. “And what they’re looking for is loyalty. What they’re looking for is somebody who’s really committed and excited to go into that work and work with a team.”
Once the employer brings up pay, Diamond advises using a three-step process to initiate negotiations: gratitude, excitement and ask. “Start with gratitude because they want to know that you’re grateful for even having the opportunity to be offered this job or this internship,” she said. “Then excitement. You are excited to join the team. They don’t want to negotiate with you unless they know you are negotiating in good faith. That if they make you the right offer, you will accept it.” When making the ask, she approved of using a number slightly higher than your goal, with the assumption that the employer will meet in the middle. However, she cautions against coming across as pushy or forceful. “Be polite, be professional, handle it with grace,” she said. “I often use the phrase, ‘I’m curious. Is there any room for negotiation on the salary number?’ Or ‘I was wondering, my expectations were a little higher on the salary. Is there any room?’ So you’re not demanding anything.” Moreover, negotiating isn’t necessary for every internship. “I hear this [myth] from students on my campus: there is an expectation that you always have to negotiate,” she said. “That if you don’t negotiate, you’re leaving money on the table and that every single person is special and deserves more money. Some industries that works, some skills and experiences that works, others it does not.” For students unable to do a paid internship, taking online courses, volunteering, working on personal projects and doing an unpaid internship can help bolster their skill sets, resumes and network, which can potentially lead to higher-paid positions, according to Diamond. Additionally, students can seek grants to fund unpaid positions. Read the full version of this story at tsl.news.
No objections here: Pomona’s Mock Trial team leads itself to success INDIA CLAUDY Normally, when seeking legal help, one would look past a lawyer lacking experience or leadership, but Pomona College’s Mock Trial team presents some convincing evidence to the contrary. This year, the team has met with much achievement despite not having a coach, an anomaly for a collegiate mock trial team. The team is entirely student-run — perhaps the reason why it has found so much success. Without a coach, the team is led by an executive board made up by the president, vice president, treasurer and social community chair. These positions are usually held by upperclassmen, and the team elects new leaders upon graduation. Current club president Meghna Lohia PO ’22 works with the rest of the team’s executive board to tackle every facet of the club, including those a coach might normally oversee. “Together we’re kind of in charge of every single thing that the club does from competing in tournaments, to training new members, to throwing parties,” Lohia said. “And all of that is really nice without a coach because it means that we are so self-directed … I think students on the team generally feel like they have a lot of initiative and autonomy to learn and contribute ideas.” With classes remote for all of last year, the club essentially shut down and wasn’t able to attend any practices or competition, nor bring in new members. Back in person since the fall, however, the club has made up for lost time and has about doubled its size by bringing in first-years and sophomores, totaling 23 students. One of those new members is Dylan Bousquette PO ’24. Bousquette had wanted to join the Mock Trial team since he was accepted to Pomona due to his interest in the pre-law track. Not only does he value his newfound knowledge of trial and law, but he also valued the group of people he found himself around. “I think that [the upperclassmen] have done a really great job of working to build community, and it’s a really great group of people,” Bousquette said. “Everyone would refer to someone as their Mock Trial mom or dad.” While balancing her studies with running Mock Trial can be difficult, Lohia appreciates the kind of environment that a student-run club creates. “I think being able to write
COUrTESY: pOMONA COllEGE MOCK TriAl
Despite their lack of a coach, Pomona College’s mock trial team is flourishing.
our own material and train each other has been really beneficial and teaches us a lot about teamwork and mentorship … I’m happy without a coach, and I really wouldn’t want to change that,” she said. Lohia does acknowledge one instance where having a consistent coach — rather than students who cycle out after four years — might benefit the program. “The one big downfall about not having a coach is that there’s no institutional knowledge that’s consistently kept,” Lohia said. “It’s really important that each generation of seniors passes down as much as they can [to] the next class.” However, she does think that the executive board tackled that issue effectively this year. “We’ve tried our very hardest to make sure that we have very thorough training [and] social events, [and are] creating a good vibe on the team,” Lohia said. “So, I think that [the new executive board] will carry that [knowledge] into the next year.” As one of the new students Lohia and the executive board worked to include, Bousquette finds their efforts to be a success. He said that not having a coach “creates a really trusting, less formal relationship that I think is good for the club.” While the Mock Trial team already has a community to be proud of, their growth and performance in competitions this year is also something to celebrate. The club members spent much of the fall learning about how to compete, as the club actively seeks out newcomers with no experience. Additionally, with the competitions held remotely this year, the whole club had to learn how to compete virtually. Then, in the spring, the club
split into three levels in accordance with the American Mock Trial Association’s rules. The groups are made based on ability and time commitment, with the “A” team being the most demanding of the groups. This year, the teams placed at their tournaments, and the A team even made it to the qualifying round for nationals. The team’s three levels also had many standout performances from individual students, resulting in numerous returners and newcomers bringing back awards. In total, the Mock Trial team earned more than a dozen prizes over the course of the semester. “We did extremely well,” Lohia said. “We had numerous freshmen win awards, numerous returning members won awards … Usually, you have a president that has three years of experience under their belt, but I really didn’t have that and no one on [executive] board has that. So it’s an incredible feat, from my perspective, that we were able to gather all these new members, [and] then set them up for success.” Lohia and three other seniors will graduate in May and leave the club in the hands of the rest of the team. Despite her parting from the team, Lohia will take a few lessons with her. “The public speaking skills, the teamwork, being able to manage different people’s identities and make sure everyone feels included and invited [will remain applicable],” she said. She attributes those lessons to the community and commitment of the whole team. “Surrounding yourself with people who make you feel really good about what you’re doing and make you feel like you can accomplish whatever you need to accomplish is so important,” Lohia said. “And I wouldn’t have stuck on the team if not for being surrounded by those kinds of people.”
OpiniOns
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APril 29, 2022
Walker Wall is right. Pomona protects assaulters NANEA HAYNES CW: mentions of sexual assault Would a victim of sexual assault really attend a sports game when the alleged perpetrator is a player on the team? This question weighed heavily on the judge of my Title IX case, who found my assailant “not responsible.” The virtual hearing following the seven-month investigation took place in a hot, stuffy conference room, tucked in the basement of Pomona College’s Smith Campus Center. Chips, fruit snacks and cookies were scattered across the table between my case manager and me. From 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., I sat there, facing the pixelated image of my assaulter. The verdict, which I had spent months waiting for and agonizing over: My behavior over the seven-month period of the Title IX process was found not consistent with that of a “real” victim. Even before the respondent was interviewed, the principal concern was not whether or not an assault had taken place. The principal concern was whether or not I had acted like the adjudicator thought a victim might act. His lawyer sent the investigator a list of my inconsistencies and accused me of “tak[ing] away from the validity of those individuals who truly are sexual assault victims.” He said I should “suffer severe sanctions” for coming forward with such accusations. Throughout the investigation and hearing, rather than focusing on the evidence of the sexual assault and rape I endured four years ago, the defense held a microscope over my general “behavior” during my senior year (read: years of therapy later) and made an assessment of whether those behaviors were consistent with someone who’s been sexually assaulted. Here were some of my supposed inconsistencies: • I complimented a classmate of mine who is also his teammate. • I introduced myself to neighbors in my residence hall. • I went to the Pomona-Pitzer vs. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps sports game. • I went to the game ten days
ANNA CHOi • THE STUDENT liFE
Pomona College is failing survivors of sexual assault by upholding outdated beliefs about victims’ visible suffering, argues guest columnist Nanea Haynes PO ‘22.
after calling Campus Safety on him for entering my residence hall. My wanting to feel safe at home and my desire to go to sports events with my friends was an “inconsistency” too large for this retired judge to wrap her head around. As a result, she concluded that I could not possibly be a victim. Attending that game was supposed to be a triumphant moment for me, in which I was able to support my friends without letting the assault ruin my college experience. I thought I had fully prepared to be around the team, which often perpetuated victim blaming, but I didn’t think the government-appointed professional would succumb to such blatant victim blaming from the defense. In her eyes, the only way for me to claim legitimate victimhood would have been to be unable to be around him in any capacity. By attending, I hadn’t behaved meekly enough. The outdated belief that the judge was subscribing to and perpetuating is that I am only permitted to respond to my
trauma within certain parameters. This is ludicrous not only because it eclipses and erases the unique realities of survivors (as anyone who attended Take Back the Night’s speak-out knows), but because it employs blatant ex-post rationalization. The verdict is out, but I still want to ask the Claremont Colleges community: Do you believe that my behavior after my rape can be used as evidence that my rapist is not responsible for his violent behavior? The verdict’s implication is twofold: that Pomona’s survivors all fit the same meek image of victimhood, and that my perpetrator’s punishment should only be proportional to my visible suffering. The investigator and the judge not only burdened me with expressing this deep, emotional suffering “correctly” — they revealed their arrogance by assuming my pain was something they could even begin to understand. Pomona cannot continue hiring retired, trauma-uninformed judges in Title IX cases. Any hope I had left for justice vanished when the judge herself criticized me
Why we need to repair the 5C whisper network CASSIDY BENSKO CW: mentions of sexual assault It’s Admitted Students Day at Scripps College, and I’m thinking about the incoming class. They’re excited and probably scared: it feels like every potential future is staring back at them in a wash of green and indie pop. And I am excited for them. But mostly I am plotting how I might introduce myself at Malott in August after the “Welcome” banners come down. The specter of August consumes me. Anti-sexual violence activists know August as the beginning of “the Red Zone”, or, according to the organization Promoting Awareness Victim Empowerment (PAVE), “the period of time between mid-August and Thanksgiving break where statistically more than 50 percent of campus sexual assault incidents occur.” Further, PAVE reports that “84 percent of the women who reported sexually coercive experiences experienced the incident during their first four semesters of college.” These early semesters, defined by the unknown, become the most dangerous. But slowly, as underclassmen spend time on campus, we begin to gather information about our surroundings. We collect information in a web of whispers, in experiences shared in the confidence of a dorm floor, through a friend of a friend, from an upperclassman you sat next to in class. Campus becomes familiar and so do our peers. Since we can’t be everywhere all at once, we begin to inform our interactions with the experiences of survivors. This practice culminates in “the whisper network” – a more apt descriptor for what has been historically characterized as idle, malicious shit-talking and gossip among women. Jia Tolentio, a writer for The New Yorker, defines this structure as “the unofficial information channel that women use to warn each other about men whose sexual behavior falls on the spectrum from creepy to criminal.” In this way gossiping is more than just a way to pass the time, it’s an act of self-defense. Understanding the absence of protection offered to survivors by the law, human resources, and Title IX, we turn to each other, compare evidence, and act accordingly. The structure of college poses a number of inherent barriers to this network. Most notable is the four-year graduation cycle that nearly guarantees the disappearance of institutional knowledge if it is not intentionally passed down. The information must also cross social circles, departments, years, and – at the 5Cs – campus-
for pursuing two Title IX cases in college. Again, what bearing does this fact have on the evidence I provided for my rape, other than that there are multiple rapists on this campus? Regardless of the specific contradictions in how they viewed my behavior, my behavior shouldn’t have been the focus of the case. The evidence of my sexual assault should’ve been the most significant consideration. The debate on my claim to victimhood is but one tiny sliver of my whole experience with Pomona’s Title IX office, which involved policy violations by both the administrators and the defendant. My story however, is not unique — many survivors at Pomona face the same victim blaming rhetoric that cost me my credibility and, at times, my self-worth. Despite how common this issue is, there is no currently existing solution for survivors. I would like to live in a place where, at the bare minimum, assaulters fear the repercussions of being caught. I want to go to an institution that demands
es. The whisper network is wildly imperfect, but when it works it can help to mitigate evasion of accountability. However, after a year of virtual learning and another of preventative COVID-19 policies, the pandemic has thrown a wrench into this already fragile network. Our gatekeepers of institutional knowledge — the juniors and seniors — have been faced with the already enormous task of passing down information. Yet this challenge has increased tenfold without the assistance of consistent club meetings, parties and cross-campus dining. The number of official opportunities for students to make broader connections has dwindled and with that social circles have become almost exclusively limited to a student’s year and host-campus. Older students have scrambled to reassemble the community they left behind in 2020, while new students fail to even conceptualize what a pre-pandemic consortium looked like. Upperclassmen have expressed to me how few underclassmen they know, sometimes only able to name one or two. Underclassmen attempts at nightlife are at times comedic, as an upperclassmen explains: it’s as though new students have tried to fill in the gaps by attempting to replicate the types of parties and experiences seen in movies and television. Every conversation with an upperclassmen about 5C culture post-COVID-19 contains the same refrain: “It’s just so different now.” Even the divide between the sophomore and freshman classes is immense. With fewer relationships
across years, campuses and circles, the whisper network has become smaller, patchier and less informed. This means that survivor testimony circulates slower, if at all. Thus, those who practice serial predatory behavior are able to easily evade social consequences by jumping from isolated social circle to social circle — whether that be by campus, year or both. As the year comes to a close, graduation ceremony preparations serve as a bleak reminder of the fragile nature of institutional knowledge. More students on campus now than ever before fall within the red zone — as both freshmen and sophomores experiencing their first semesters on campus — at a time when the whisper network is frailest. It is my hope that we can use our remaining time on campus to begin rehabilitating the network. Fall semester creeps towards us, and the 5C community vacuum offers tremendous potential for both danger and recreation in the ashes of old tradition. I implore upperclassmen to introduce themselves to the nearest underclassman and talk massive amounts of shit with them. I ask you to reach out to incoming freshmen and tell them what you wish you knew. The pandemic has left yet another rift in our social fabric, so please go gossip; it’s for the greater good. Guest columnist Cassidy Bensko SC ’25 is from Santa Clarita, California. They’re a certified tree hugger, goldfish enthusiast, and lover of comedy.
Guest writer Nanea Haynes PO ’22 hopes Pomona will take her feedback to heart. She wants to acknowledge Camilla Guo PO ’22, her confidant and friend, who was instrumental in writing this piece.
Women of color deserve their literary tragedies, too SHAY SURESH
BEllA PETTENGill • THE STUDENT liFE
justice for survivors — one that won’t paint over the message on Walker Wall but will instead listen to our demands. It is quite clear to me that Pomona College is failing survivors. While I believe that Title IX shouldn’t involve the Pomona administration at all, the least they could do is hire informed investigators and judges who would see through the defense’s victim blaming tactics. To return to the question that I argue we should not even be asking: Would a victim of sexual assault really attend a sports game when the alleged perpetrator is a player on the team? The answer — my answer — is simple: Yes. Had I known the system was so rigged that the question would not be whether or not I had been assaulted, but instead whether I showed any signs of spirit left, I wouldn’t have filed the damn case.
I unabashedly love sad books. And nowadays, there seems to be a new genre of fiction centered around sad women and their tragedies. Think “My Year of Rest and Relaxation” by Ottessa Moshfegh or “Conversations with Friends” by Sally Rooney. Reading these books and allowing myself to feel so strongly, to react so naturally, is cathartic and relatable. But the issue starts here: these stories are relatable because they lack the diversity to be multidimensional. White women dominate the literary “sad woman” genre; their explicit sadness is palatable for readers. But why is it easier to consume white women’s sadness over sadness that carries the added weight of trauma and prejudice felt by women of color? One of the first supposed “sad books” that I read was “Conversations with Friends.” The story depicts four characters navigating friendship and eventually romance. One of the female characters, Frances, is a generally typecast literary sad white woman: desirable, depressed, prone to bad decisions and even worse bad habits. She is undeniably sad but in a beautiful, haunting way. Her femininity and her sadness coexist amicably, her privilege apparent even in her despair. In her article “Cult of the Literary Sad Woman,” Leslie Jamison references a memoir by Margo Jefferson, another writer. As a young Black woman, Jefferson felt she was “denied the privilege of freely yielding to depression, of flaunting neurosis as a mark of social and psychic complexity. A privilege that was glorified in the literature of white female suffering.” And as Jamison reaffirms, our favorite victim is the distressed white woman, beautiful even in her sorrow. But women of color cannot be sad for the sake
of sadness, not in the same way. That sadness is inextricably tied to our identities and illustrated as such. In Alice Walker’s 1983 essay collection “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens,” she offers a keen response to Virginia Woolf’s famous thesis in her 1929 essay “A Room of One’s Own”: “Virginia Woolf wrote that in order for a woman to write fiction she must have two things, certainly: a room of her own (with key and lock) and enough money to support herself.” Walker then points to the example of Phillis Wheatley, “a slave, who owned not even herself.” Walker spotlights a foundational example of female writers of color and their unrecognized but equally significant contributions to literature. In doing so, she emphasizes the implicit privilege that allowed white women to be lauded for asking for rights not afforded to women of color. Because it is more possible for female writers of color to have a platform now, it is necessary to highlight the stories that allow women of color their tragedies, honoring trauma and sadness and letting the two coexist. Give those authors the platform given to writers like Rooney, one where they may write diverse sad stories about diverse and messy women. I think of a novel I recently picked up called “Luster”, by Raven Leilani. The main character Edie seems to be as bad a decision maker as Rooney’s Frances, with one reviewer writing that she “is a unique character, a young Black woman full of dissatisfaction who constantly engages in self-destructive behavior. She is flawed and bright, funny and broken, depressed and horny.” And to me, that is where the path ahead lies; in stories that allow women of color the space to be sad for the sake of being sad, to be irrational and complex and careless and at times, unpleasant. Shay Suresh CM ’24 is from San Jose, California. She loves literary fiction, indie music, and making Pinterest boards.
COUrTESY: MiNANFOTOS ViA PiXABAY
The genre of stories about women facing tragedies needs to be inclusive of the experiences of women of color, writes Shay Suresh CM ‘24.
OpiniOns
APril 29, 2022
Not speaking your parents’ native language doesn’t make you a bad Asian American ALEXANDER CHAO I stared intently at the lunch menu. It was in Mandarin and had no photos. I was doomed. The only thing I could read was “vegetable rice.” Great, my least favorite dish. Embarrassed to expose my poor Mandarin reading skills, I had no choice but to order it. Ordering food off a menu in Mandarin had never been my forte, but it has gotten significantly better over the 11 years I spent living in Taiwan. When I first moved to Taiwan from the United States as a seven-yearold, I often cried and complained about taking Mandarin class. I missed being back in America and longed to return in the summer. Whenever local Taiwanese people heard me speak fluent English and asked me if I was from the U.S., I would proudly nod my head. Besides my youthful stubbornness, attending an international American school in Taipei did not help my Mandarin improve quickly, either. Most of my teachers were American, so I learned every subject and conversed with my peers in English. The only time I did not speak English was during my hourlong Mandarin class. I remember being in the most beginner class and having one-on-one lessons with my teacher to learn the Chinese alphabet. If I complained to my parents, they would threaten to transfer me to a Taiwanese local school. As I got older and less attached to my naive American pride, I grew increasingly embarrassed about my poor Mandarin fluency. It became a constant
source of shame. I got frustrated that I could not communicate with a native easily, and got irritated when local people tried to communicate with me in their broken English. I can usually get by with short conversations, but once I engage in certain conversations like politics and philosophy, the holes in my vocabulary begin to show and people start treating me like a foreigner. I felt hurt. How is it that I spent 11 years growing up in a country where most people look like me and share the same history as me, but still get called a foreigner? At that point, I didn’t feel American either. In fact, when Americans ask me where I am from, I would answer Taiwan. No matter where I went, I was going to be called a foreigner. Naturally, I began to blame myself for my condition. It was my fault for not learning Mandarin more diligently. It was my fault for not going to a Taiwanese local school. Maybe I would have been better off if I stayed in the U.S. At this point, I was neither authentically Taiwanese nor an American. All these negative feelings brought me great shame. My guilt for being disconnected from my heritage was eating at me. I hoped these feelings would go away when I went to the United States for college, but they only came back stronger. In everyone’s eyes, I was Taiwanese, but how could I qualify if I do not speak, read and write Mandarin like a Taiwanese local? How is that possible if Taiwanese locals see me as a foreigner? As I began to think about
lUCiA MArQUEZ-UPPMAN • THE STUDENT liFE
why I was ashamed, I realized that I was trying to put myself in boxes that did not fit who I was. In my mind, I could only be Taiwanese or American, nothing in between. I did not see myself as Asian American, which I narrowly saw as people who spent most of their young lives in America. However, the more I thought about it, the more I became open to associate with this group because of our shared sense of displacement. According to Pew Research Center, nearly two thirds of Asians born in the United States (65 percent) speak only English at home. Many parents do not teach their native language to allow their kids to integrate into school and avoid getting put into English language development classes. Many Asian Americans also have never set foot in Asia. Although I did not experience the same level of pressure for assimilation that many Asian Americans growing up in the U.S. have faced, I do relate to the difficulty of improving one’s secondary language skills when fully immersed in an English-speaking environment. I experienced it during the seven years I spent in the U.S. and 11 years I spent attending an American school. Our inability to speak our parents’ native language fluently, or at all, is not a result of our personal failures or our parents’ failures. We are simply the results of our circumstances and upbringing, which were not conducive to learning our parents’ native language. We do not owe it to ourselves, our family or the Asian American community to change ourselves. As Asian Americans, we are different from just being Asian or American. We are our own independent entity. While it is an admirable pursuit to take steps to learn your parents’ native language, we shouldn’t do so out of shame or a sense of obligation. Learn it because it is fun and enjoyable. Learn it because you want to connect with your parents and heritage on a deeper level. Most importantly, learn it because you want to.
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After Ukraine, is Taiwan really next? CLAIRE TIUNN On March 20, the headline of the morning briefing from The New York Times was “Is Taiwan Next?” In the current context of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, readers immediately understand what is supposedly “next” for Taiwan: an invasion by China. As a Taiwanese person, I feel conflicted about headlines like this. Conversations with armchair political scientists fetishizing war aren’t new, but hypothesizing about war in a time when a full-scale invasion was imminent feels distasteful. I am not claiming that we shouldn’t compare Taiwan to Ukraine. However, I would argue that many of these comparative discourses are simplistic and demeaning, as they cherry-pick digestible facts that undermine centuries of nation building, culture and identity. I would like to challenge us, instead, to compare the methods used by the perpetrators of violence and unrest: Putin and Xi. These two autocrats undermine sovereignty by establishing a fraternal tie between the autocratic nation and its smaller counterpart. Putin claims that Ukraine is Russia’s “little brother,” united by a similar language and culture. Chinese newscasters have called for Taiwan to “come back home,” referring to Taiwan as “wan wan,” a diminutive and patronizing name for Taiwan. These sentiments are meant to persuade the international community that Ukraine and Taiwan are only temporarily “rebelling,” but that deep down, they belong to Russia and China respectively. As Putin and Xi analogize relations between two distinct countries to be brotherly and close-knit, this rhetoric reduces the nation building, sovereignty and autonomy of Ukraine and Taiwan to merely a younger, immature sibling of a bigger autocratic
country. Once this rhetoric — no matter how discreetly concealed — is believed by the international community, the public can easily justify the annexation of Crimea, the current invasion of Ukraine, the genocide in Bucha, and more. Ukraine and Taiwan, after all, were never truly independent; they are just appendages to larger countries. This rhetoric creates justification for Russia and China to continuously abuse their power. I’ve been asked questions such as “why doesn’t Taiwan want to be part of China if you speak the same language?” that preemptively assume that Taiwanese people do not have the capacity for self-determination. We should direct these questions to autocratic states instead. Why is it that we turn to smaller states and expect them to explain their multifaceted identity in mere sentences to prove that they deserve to have autonomy? That they don’t deserve to be invaded? Why is it that my peers ask how I would feel about an invasion in the land where I was born, raised, and grew to love? A place where my family and friends live, where the graves of my ancestors rest? Will China invade Taiwan? Not yet. The “yet” is important. Ukraine, and the international community, have continuously demonstrated the backlash China will receive if it chooses to invade Taiwan. We can just hope that when it does happen, we will be as resilient and strong as Ukraine. But more importantly, stand with, support, and donate to Ukraine. The war in Ukraine is a war against the free world, against democracy and sovereignty. Ukraine has proven, time and time again, that autocrats cannot abuse their power without repercussions. Our support for Ukraine will determine how authoritarians learn from each other in the future. Claire Tiunn (Chang) PO ‘24 is a politics and Russian & Eastern European studies double major. She learns most of her Russian from Russian rap songs.
Alexander Chao PO ’25 is from Taipei, Taiwan. He enjoys reading about nutrition, watching anime, and road cycling.
EDiTOriAl BOArD
Does the Roberts Campus really exemplify ‘responsible leadership’?
“75 years of responsible leadership.” The slogan is hard to miss, towering above Parents Field and on banners around the Claremont McKenna College campus. CMC is proud of what it has accomplished in the last three-quarters of a century, “educat[ing] its students for thoughtful and productive lives and responsible leadership in business, government, and the professions.” To cap off the celebration, last Friday CMC announced a $140 million gift from trustee George Roberts CM ’66, the co-executive chairman of global investment firm KKR and pillar of how far a CMC education can get you in the world of wealth. Roberts’ donations to the college have earned his name a place on the campus gym, an academic building, and the environmental studies center. His latest prize is the Roberts Campus, the school’s entire eastern half, which is expanding by 75 acres. Alumni are an important part of any college’s identity — just look at the celebrations at Pomona College, Pitzer College, and Scripps College this weekend. And CMC’s 75th anniversary campaign is centered on the impact its students have had and will have on the world at large. So what exactly is CMC celebrating in Roberts, with whom it has now redoubled a partnership for the existential future of the school? Great financial success, to be sure. Roberts and his partner Henry Kravis CM ’67 started their firm in 1976 with just $120,000 in capital. They were worth $9.1 billion and $8.7 billion, respectively, when they stepped down from their chief executive roles last October, according to Forbes. But that fortune didn’t come from nowhere. Roberts and Kravis proceeded with early business masterstrokes like acquiring RJR Nabisco in 1988, saddling it with $25 billion in debt, laying off 2,600 workers, and leaving the company in the dust seven years later. Investopedia called the episode “a prime example of corporate kleptocracy.”
Editorial Board
In 2005, the firm jointly acquired Toys ‘R’ Us, saddling it with $400 million in debt and seeing 33,000 workers laid off. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2017 and KKR walked away with at least $15 million, according to Marketplace. More recently, Roberts and Kravis have decided to test the profitability of infrastructure. In addition to KKR’s stakes in oil pipelines that cross Indigenous land, an issue raised this year by student activist group KKR Kills, the firm purchased a 90 percent stake in municipal water systems for Bayonne, New Jersey and Middletown, Pennsylvania. As Henry Johnson CM ’14 recounted in TSL, Bayonne’s water prices rose 28 percent under the new owners and, a New York Times investigation found, local oversight stagnated. Just this week, Buzzfeed News revealed that KKR’s $1.3 billion purchase of BrightSpring Health Services, which owns more than 600 residential facilities for people with disabilities, was followed by “a crisis … in its group home division, where conditions grew so dire that nurses and caretakers quit in droves, a state prohibited the company from accepting new residents, and some of the most vulnerable people in its care suffered and died.” “Overseen by KKR’s handpicked board of directors, BrightSpring executives in many cases kept wages lower than those at competing facilities or Walmarts, despite pleas from local managers that they were unable to safely staff the homes,” Buzzfeed reported. Medication went undistributed, citations for dangerous conditions soared and — you guessed it — “the KKR-controlled board approved a plan for BrightSpring to take on more than a billion dollars in debt.” You get the idea. Big picture: private equity firms’ acquisitions of retail firms saw 1.3 million Americans lose their jobs over a decade, The Washington Post reported in
2019, adding that “ten of the 14 largest retail bankruptcies since 2012 have been at private-equity-owned companies.” When firms like KKR try to ransack the healthcare space, people die. A 2021 National Bureau of Economic Research study found private equity ownership of nursing homes “increases the short-term mortality of Medicare patients by 10 percent.” That’s not to mention the vital role that KKR plays in propping up the oil and gas industry, hastening the destruction of our planet: 82 percent of KKR’s energy holdings are in fossil fuels, a Private Equity Stakeholder Project report found last October. Parasitic capitalism pays, and that money is funding Claremont McKenna’s campus expansion. We can argue about whether CMC’s new science center and athletics facilities will make the world a better place, but this editorial board would be thrilled to see the school justify how the relentless pursuit of billions in profits at the expense of jobs, lives and our shared future are an example of “responsible leadership.” By embracing Roberts’ millions with no questions asked, the school has continued to declare exactly what kind of conduct it is comfortable upholding. We know it’s unlikely that President Hiram Chodosh will make the financial blunder of acknowledging the harm his biggest benefactors have wrought since they graduated from Claremont Men’s College. But embracing “effective dialogue” on campus, which he has forcefully encouraged, necessitates practicing “intellectual integrity” — acknowledging all sides of an issue. So wouldn’t the choice to have that conversation give today’s CMC students a taste of some truly responsible leadership? TSL’s editorial board is comprised of its editor-in-chief and two managing editors, and does not necessarily represent the views of other TSL staff members. Anushe Engineer reported on CMC’s expansion this week and recused herself from this editorial.
THE STUDENT LIFE
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PAGE 10
OpiniOns Jasper’s Crossword: panic! at the Disconsortium
JASPEr DAViDOFF • THE STUDENT liFE
Academia needs to better accommodate writer’s block
ACROSS 1. Eats up (with down) 6. Newscaster Smith, casually 10. Perseus’ mom 11. Ivy League school that made this whole musical for their admissions site, so I watched that instead of filling out surveys during a mandatory college and career day in high school 12. The things I’m gesturing to over here 13. Kunis on Family Guy 14. Kind of surveillance that could create external panic 16. The Krusty ____ 18. NIMBY’s favorite complaint 19. They’re sitting on the bench 21. “We ___ farmers! Bum ba dum bum bum bum bum” 22. Pyramus’ bae 26. Kind of disease that could create external panic 28. Mint in a tin 29. Actress de Armas in Knives Out 30. Speaks of in an unbecoming manner
YIFEI CHENG The hallway falls silent as the last of your neighbors descend into slumber. Having slouched in front of your laptop for almost four hours, you impulsively raise your watch just when the counter reaches 1 a.m. Surprised at how much time has elapsed, you nevertheless refuse to return your gaze to the laptop, lest the flashing cursor on that irritating blank screen vex you even more. The essay is due Monday, but you have accomplished nothing besides typing out some unsatisfactory sentences and deleting them afterwards. You desperately attempt to write something down, but the muses, fickle as they always are, have deserted you tonight. Writer’s block has come for you. I have encountered this scenario more often than I’d like to admit, and it’s reasonable to assume that other college students have experienced similar difficulties. Writer’s block is simply inevitable, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. We cannot escape those chin-scratching, sometimes gut-wrenching, moments when writing, because nobody draws inspiration from an inexhaustible source, regardless of how accomplished or ingenious they are as a writer. In a recent interview, novelist Jhumpa Lahiri confesses that despite her proficiency with creating stories, she finds that writer’s block just cannot be avoided. Rather than viewing it as a frustrating impediment, however, she sees this phenomenon as a natural component of the writing process, where “ideas gestate within the mind.” Thinking takes time, and ideas don’t just appear out of thin air. While some authors disavow the term as a fiction that undisciplined writers use to justify their procrastination, their alternative approach — namely that “you can always write garbage,” according to Rumaan Alam — is just a different incarnation of writer’s block. Yes, drawing a blank on a writing assignment doesn’t mean that the student becomes physically incapable of writing, but in the absence of inspiration, their scribbling is no different than their premature thought process manifested on paper. At the end of the day, there is no hierarchy between the two types of writer’s block: silent preponderance and active scribbling are both constructive, as long as the writer keeps working on their ideas with the goal of writing in mind. This positive approach to writer’s block facilitates good writing, as it acknowledges the writer’s need to take time and think about what they are doing. The writer maintains an optimistic mindset throughout this process, knowing full well that after some prolonged consideration, they will eventually resummon their muses. One might even argue that writer’s block is a necessary prerequisite to effective writing, since if the author completes their work without ever pausing to reflect on their themes, organization and language use, that work might turn out to be substandard. An unexamined work is not worth publishing, and writer’s block, when resolved with a positive approach, enables the writer to undertake this crucial examination.
Despite the constructive and indispensable nature of writer’s block, many people (college students in particular) still view it as an excruciating experience that should be eliminated altogether. This view is more than understandable, as it represents how the incessant need for evaluation within the academia warps students’ writing process. Having lived through four midterm seasons, I know just how frustrating things can be when I get stuck on one writing assignment while being pursued by five other deadlines. I want to spend more time analyzing the prompt and drafting an outline, but those deadlines, alongside the punitive implications they entail, dissuade me from doing so. Instead of tackling my writer’s block with the reflective approach, I would instead strive to churn out as many lines as I could, despite my mind failing to keep pace with my hands. The outcome often proves disastrous: I would either sink deeper into the quagmire of literary blankness or disdain my thoughtless writing so much that I’d have to start over. This creates a vicious cycle of stagnation, where the writer, uncertain about how to proceed while facing the exogenous demand for constant productivity, has their creativity drained by this mentally taxing contradiction. By forcing students to write on demand and withholding from them the time necessary for overcoming their writer’s block, compacted deadlines make students dread academic writing and lose self-efficacy, leaving them satisfied with merely “getting that pesky assignment done.” Writing is no longer a challenging yet fulfilling process of knowledge creation. Instead, stifled by deadlines and the punitive academic tradition they embody, it becomes just another hoop to jump through. The academic traditions surrounding evaluation and discipline have distorted writer’s block from a natural occurrence into an intolerable hurdle, but there is still hope for revitalizing college writing. To accomplish this, institutions of higher education must discard their current conventions on student writing for a more flexible and collaborative alternative. While they should maintain a deadline system to keep courses structured, they should make deadlines serve only a suggestive role. Students should be allowed to turn in their work later than stipulated by the syllabus provided that they are putting in sincere efforts to overcome their writer’s block. Rather than punishing them for violating deadlines, professors should more actively engage with students struggling with their writing, and offer to assist them in their thinking process. With these simple steps, academic writing will once more become a worthy and enjoyable endeavor. Yifei Cheng PO ’24 is from Nanjing, China. He enjoys hiking, reading (especially fantasy literature), and playing Starcraft 2.
DOWN 1. Summer hours in NOLA 2. “Great one!” 3. Like some households 4. Spicy kind of pea 5. Observed 6. Academic conferences 7. Wyclef Jean’s birthplace 8. Island near the Statue of Liberty 9. Two fingers’ meaning 15. Under the radar 16. Star of Riverdale 17. Like much of Iowa 20. Mark with layers 23. Group I joined in middle school as an alternative to sing-
ing in the variety show 24. Hogwarts history professor 25. Crypto’s category 27. The Monty Python movies, e.g. 31. “It’s a possibility for me.” 32. Chose 33. Atrocious 34. Source of ba-dum in “ba-dum tsss” (I googled this and apparently sometimes the ba or dum is the kick, but get over that for now) 37. Dough for tamales 40. Obama-___ policies 41. Obama ___ size LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS
Two years later, Pomona is still living in 2020 FRANCES SUTTON
lUCiA MArQUEZ-UPPMAN • THE STUDENT liFE
32. Beginning 35. Swimsuit inner material 36. Kind of crisis that could create external panic 38. Taiwanese president Ing-wen 39. Find common ground 42. French “to be” 43. _____ and the Princesses of Power 44. Colors 45. Taking up arms
APril 29, 2022
Last week, Claremont Yik Yak was ablaze with the news that Pirate Party would be for Claremont McKenna College students only. Students were infuriated that they would not be able to attend the iconic party, arguably the best party on the Claremont social calendar, which takes place outdoors on CMC’s Parents Field. This is yet another disappointment caused by the Claremont Colleges’ stringent COVID-19 policies. Last Saturday night, hundreds of Pomona College juniors and seniors gathered in Walter’s Restaurant in the Claremont Village for an indoor, school-sanctioned Spring Formal, complete with food, wine, and a sweaty crowd dancing without any masks. I left the party feeling confused. Scores of data show that indoor social interactions like Spring Formal are far riskier than outdoor events. Why would the school deem Pirate Party, an outdoor event, more dangerous than what I just experienced? Not allowing non-CMC students to go to Pirate Party is merely one instance of abundant contradictory and excessive decisions that the Claremont Colleges have made in the name of COVID-19 safety. Cracking down on fun, safe activities for no legitimate reason is one thing. The more serious issue is the fact that COVID-19 policies have created an atmosphere of fear, anxiety, resentment, and anger; they have unnecessarily harmed students’ mental health and have taken away irreplaceable educational opportunities. Take, for instance, what happens when students test positive for COVID-19. Students are moved to a room in a designated isolation dorm, where they have to stay for anywhere from five to 10 days, often sharing a room with a stranger. On top of having no personal space, students are literally not allowed to leave, not even to go for a walk. The restrictiveness and loneliness of this time take a huge toll on students’ well-being. Madeleine Mount-Cors PO ’23, who recently moved to isolation at Oldenborg Center, noted the difficulty of recovering in such an environment, where “students are provided with no supplies such as simple over-the-counter medications, and are left to rely on friends to bring them the resources to be able to recover.” Mount-Cors added, “their policy feels disingenuous and performative.” Katherine Purev PO ’23, another student who experienced isolation, spoke of the mental health difficulties she experienced while in isolation, bunking with strangers in Oasis. “Basically, quarantine was brutal. I felt so claustrophobic…I felt immobilized physically but also mentally,” Purev said. “The presence of other people makes me feel like I can’t just relax, especially when I’m recovering from being sick.” Throughout conversations with my friends and classmates about college under COVID-19, the same question kept coming up: what does Pomona expect from us? The strictness of its policies is infantilizing, suggesting that it has no faith in its students to have any care for the larger community. Nick Morgenstein PO ’23 was especially disturbed by this fact. “It felt condescending and insulting that the administration didn’t trust us to safely leave our rooms for at least a small portion of our time in quarantine,” Morgenstein said. “Pomona students are deeply respectful and conscientious; I have no doubt that a student leaving for fresh air would be extraordinarily cautious and responsible.”
Students’ education also suffers from being put into isolation. Some professors are not able to — or choose not to — run hybrid classes, meaning that students who are in isolation for ten days miss ten days of class. Purev explained, “Some of my professors didn’t even respond to my emails telling them I had COVID-19 so I just totally missed class; others gave me a Zoom link, but of course listening in to a class on a computer is hard.” But it’s just not necessary to punish students in this way for getting sick; CMC has outfitted all of its classrooms with cameras and screens, making it simple and accessible for professors to include quarantined students by Zoom. All of this results in students being terrified of testing positive, not because of the sickness itself, but due to Pomona’s needlessly punitive consequences. The fear is intensified by stories about the Pomona administration giving harsh punishments for simple misunderstandings of a convoluted policy. Jude Iredell PO ’23 accidentally missed a third COVID-19 test in the fall semester because the testing center ran out of tests one Friday afternoon. Despite a school administrator promising to rectify the record, Iredell almost faced suspension for the entire spring semester until he convinced the administration of their mistake and had the decision overturned. I have heard of other cases like Jude’s, who didn’t end up as lucky as he did. It’s also important to note that Pomona is singularly conservative with its COVID-19 policies. Other schools have adapted their policies as we have gained more protections against the virus. Stanford University, for example, has suspended its policy requiring asymptomatic surveillance testing and no longer requires masks in most indoor settings. USC also no longer requires masks in indoor settings, and its vaccinated and boosted community members do not have to test weekly. Other liberal arts colleges are also not as draconian as Pomona. My friend Emily Hall, who attends Carleton College in Minnesota, paints a very different picture of isolation at her school: “People are certainly allowed to go outside, and people [in isolation] don’t have to isolate from one another.” Likewise, Bard College in New York, where my younger brother is in school, has not had any sort of mandatory testing or a mask mandate in months. Neither college, to my knowledge, has experienced a major outbreak. On top of everything, Los Angeles County no longer requires mask-wearing indoors. Even though our entire 5C community is required to be vaccinated and boosted, with very few exceptions, many of the 5Cs still have strict mask mandates. Only 37 percent of LA County residents are fully vaccinated and boosted. LA County also does not suggest weekly
asymptomatic testing for college students who are up to date on vaccinations. It is performative for Pomona to maintain such strict policies when students can stroll across the street from campus and be under practically zero restrictions in any restaurant, venue, or store. In a recent weekly update on April 20, Pomona College President G. Gabrielle Starr wrote, “We’ve learned that to live and learn well in a world of digital immersion, we need in-person, face-to-face education more than ever before.” We all know that Zoom class is a stunted facsimile of a liberal arts education; the leadership of our college acknowledges it frequently. But after a predictable uptick in COVID-19 cases in the weeks following spring break, many classes abandoned in-person instruction and went back onto Zoom. The administration canceled in-person dining and most in-person campus events for several weeks. Campus morale plunged as students lost out on opportunities such as foreign language lunch tables, guest speakers, plays and concerts, meaningful class discussions, and the precious social life that Pomona prides itself on as a residential college. The school began to resemble 2020, despite all the protections and knowledge we now have about the virus. What does it mean for the reality of campus life to contradict the public messaging of the college? This hypocrisy is what has bothered me the most about Pomona during COVID-19. It has been disheartening and demoralizing to live within an institution that claims to have students’ best interests at heart, but whose actions fail to live up to its own words. Countless times this year, I’ve sat bewildered in front of yet another terse email that sets out new rules without explanation or justification. Students would be happier and more understanding if Pomona would be transparent and honest, and if the college could communicate frankly and take responsibility when its actions are wrong or cause harm. As a senior about to graduate, I have a personal stake in all of this. I have been confused and angry about Pomona’s COVID-19 policies. I feel robbed of the rewarding, enjoyable senior year that the school could and should have spent my tuition on. I have heard the anger and disappointment of many of my classmates. I feel for the students on campus who have missed classes and learning opportunities, for those who received merciless sanctions, and for students whose mental health deteriorated in isolation. It makes me sad to watch the school I love decline in this way. I wonder how many of my classmates will look back fondly on their time at Pomona, compared to previous classes. If the school doesn’t change course, Pomona will continue to fail its students and graduates. Guest columnist Frances Sutton PO ‘22 is an art history major from San Francisco, California. She wishes she could go to Pirate Party!
JASPEr DAViDOFF • THE STUDENT liFE
Pomona’s COViD-19 policies throughout the year have been hypocritical and excessive, argues guest columnist Frances Sutton PO ‘22.
SportS
April 29, 2022
pAGE 11
Senior spotlight: Matthew Eberle PO ’22 heads to Switzerland for pro career
ABBEY liAO • THE STUDENT liFE
left: Eberle shoots a three-pointer in a game against Occidental. right: Matthew Eberle pO ‘22 makes contact with a Whittier defender as he charges toward the basket.
ELI WEISS Pomona-Pitzer forward Matthew Eberle PO ’22 credits everyone from his father to his former teammates for his success on the basketball court. Ultimately, though, it’s been his own mindset that has made him unstoppable and secured him a spot playing ball professionally in Switzerland. “[My father is] the one who put me into basketball and got me into it in the first place and he was there all throughout to drive me to games and fly with me to other cities to play club tournaments,” Eberle said. “I think he would have the most impact on my playing career up until college … He’s still an impactful guy on my career in college.” In his junior year of high school, Eberle began to really consider the possibility of a collegiate career. He started participating in camps around the country where he would be exposed to DIII scouts.
During this recruiting process, Eberle, who hails from Los Altos, California, became intrigued by the unique opportunities given to DIII athletes. “[DIII is] a pretty cool setup, with being at a really good school and also being able to play high-level basketball. Pomona really spoke to me being on the West Coast and also being in a great conference.” Once he arrived at Pomona, Eberle began to make the most out of every minute of practice and gametime. Eberle describes himself as an extremely competitive person, which speaks to his many accomplishments over his time as a Sagehen and especially in his senior year. When asked about his aptitude for the game, Eberle noted that channeling his emotions helped him mature as a basketball player. “I learned how to kind of control my competitiveness and make it kind of work for me on the court,” he said. “I think once
you get to the college game and you have the skills, you have kind of the physical tools that it just goes on to be about mindset, like who wants to win more, which player is going to do the most to help their team win.” Coming in as a first-year, Eberle entered a thriving team. In 2018-2019, P-P finished with a record of 26-3 while having two of the best players in Sagehens history — program leading scorer Micah Elan PZ ’20 and third leading scorer Daniel Rosenbaum PO ’19. These mentors established a winning team culture, contributing towards putting him on a path for success later in his college career. “[Rosenbaum] has had a lot of mentorship in my game, and I’ve strived to play like him throughout the years … and be the leader that he always was,” Eberle said. “So I think that’s one guy who has had a big impact on [my] game.” Eberle’s sophomore season
5C golf programs triumph at SCIAC championships
culminated in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. He turned a tough situation into a positive one and grinded to become a better and stronger player, taking the lessons he learned from his first two years with him. “Being a competitive person, I couldn’t come back to school without being a whole new player, totally different than what I was when I left. I think that motivated me to really work in 2021 and [at the] end of 2020 when things started opening back up a little bit,” he said. Eberle’s senior year was remarkable. He averaged 18 points per game on very efficient shooting splits. The standout aspect of his game was by far three-point shooting, hitting at an impressive 44 percent clip on six attempts per game. Eberle notes that his success this season was very much accredited to a change in position. Katsiaficas moved Eberle from small-forward to
power-forward midway through the season. This helped Eberle take advantage of his matchups on offense and make the most of his impressive shooting ability. Eberle rounded out his career on a high note. Winning their third SCIAC championship in a row was a great accomplishment for Eberle and the Sagehens. Eberle earned second team all-region and first team all-SCIAC. He expressed gratitude for his teammates and coaches for supporting him throughout his career and his successful senior season. “I appreciate all my coaches and all my teammates,” he said. “I love them a lot.” Eberle will take the lessons and skills learned from his time playing for Pomona-Pitzer and incorporate them into a career playing professionally in Switzerland “I have dual citizenship there,” he explained. “We’ll see where it takes me, but I’m excited to keep the career going.”
Athletes of the Week Claremont-Mudd-Scripps
Catherine Murphy CM ’24 Lacrosse Pleasanton, CA
In CMS lacrosse’s second-to-last regular season game on April 23, the Athenas came away victorious against opponent Cal Lutheran. During the course of the game, the Athenas met the net an impressive 23 times — their second highest goal count this season. Eight of those goals were made possible by sophomore attackers Catherine Murphy and Abby Parish CM ’23, who led the effort with four goals each. Murphy scored a hat trick in the first 15 minutes, helping the Athenas to an early lead. With ten minutes to go in the fourth quarter, she scored her final goal of the game, bringing her to a personal season-best. The Athenas will finish off their regular season in a matchup against Whittier this Saturday, on their home turf of Zinda Field.
COUrTESY: CMS ATHlETiCS
Pomona-Pitzer
Top: The CMS men’s golf team poses holding their championship trophy on the Morongo Golf Club course. Bottom: irene Jun CM ’24 chips a ball onto the green during the SCiAC Women’s Golf Championships.
HANNAH WEAVER Over the course of three days in Beaumont, California, the Pomona-Pitzer and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women’s and men’s golf teams took to the green to compete for the SCIAC championship title earlier this week. The P-P women and CMS men each won the overall team titles, with the CMS women and P-P men both finishing third, marking the P-P women’s golf team’s first ever SCIAC title. The individual titles were also swept by 5Cers, with CMS’ Yuefeng (Michael) Ma CM ’25 on the men’s side and P-P’s Abby Euyang PO ’22 on the women’s side. Ma finished with an impressive overall score of 214 and was the only competitor to finish under par. Euyang narrowly beat out teammate Katelyn Vo PO ’24, finishing one point ahead of her. Irene Jun CM ’24 was the top finisher for the CMS women, tying for second place overall. She finished seven over par, averaging 74 per round. For Jun and the rest of the CMS women, going into their biggest competition of the season was intim-
idating. “There’s definitely a lot of excitement and a lot of nervous energy, I think because it is such a much bigger-scale tournament,” she said. Some of that nervousness also stemmed from many of the team members contracting COVID-19 during the consortium-wide outbreak earlier in the month. “[Due to the team cases] we couldn’t compete in the second SCIAC [regular-season competition],” she said. “I think going into championships, it was a lot of just getting back into the whole rhythm.” The competition took place April 24 through 26. Each day, the players played one round on either of Morongo Golf Club’s two courses. According to Jun, a typical 18-hole round takes her four to five hours to complete, but rounds on Morongo’s courses took closer to 7 hours. “[Due to this,] it was definitely stamina-wise a lot different,” she said. The CMS women are a tightknight team which Jun said has been a new and beneficial experience for her. “Normally, golf is a sport that
is fairly individual, [but] coming into college and having it being with teammates, I think made it a lot more fun,” Jun said. For her, the highlight of the championship wasn’t her impressive third-place finish but having her teammates surround her on the final hole. “I think the best part was when you’re playing and you’re finishing on the 18th hole, and you have the rest of your teammates cheering you on,” she said with a smile. With their respective firstplace wins, the CMS men and P-P women automatically qualified to the NCAA Division III Championships, set for May 10-13 at the Mission Inn Resort and Club at Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida. Though they still have a chance at qualifying for nationals this year, the CMS women have their sights set on the upcoming season. “We have a really strong team and I think we have two incoming freshmen who are also going to be a strong addition,” Jun said. “So I think we’re gonna try to go for nationals.”
Nate Jakobs PZ ’23 Baseball Sacramento, CA
After taking two weeks off due to a canceled series at Willamette, the Sagehens returned to SCIAC competition against No. 4-ranked La Verne coming into last weekend and earned wins in two of the three games. Junior outfielder Nate Jakobs had stellar performances at the plate for Pomona-Pitzer, going 5-for-14 while recording 5 RBIs and a walk. Currently one of the most productive offensive players for the Sagehens as of late, Jakobs has batted an efficient .377 average while crushing 6 home runs and 25 RBIs thus far on the season. In the first match, Jakobs hit the game-winning RBI sac fly in the bottom of the twelfth inning and followed up this performance with a grand slam in the next game, featuring a 14-3 rout against the Leopards. The Sagehens will look forward to facing the Chapman Panthers in a season series this weekend.
SportS
pAGE 12
April 29, 2022
Sagehen women’s water polo crowned SCIAC champions after perfect conference season
ABBEY liAO • THE STUDENT liFE
left: Madison lewis pO ‘23 looks for an open teammate as a Whittier defender attempts to block her. right: Attacker Allison Sullivan Wu pO’ 22 catches a pass in a game against Whittier.
ALEX NASONI
Sports Calendar
With a little less than six minutes left in the first half of the SCIAC championship game, the Pomona-Pitzer women’s water polo team was cruising. Attacker Madison Lewis PO ’23 netted a goal with 5:17 left until halftime, putting the Sagehens up 8-3 over the Whittier Poets while replicating their dominant 12-6 winning performance against the same Poets just over a month ago. However, Whittier caught fire late in the first half, going on a furious 9-5 scoring run and carrying their momentum into a 13-12 deficit halfway through the fourth quarter. Game on the line, the Sagehens needed an answer to preserve their lead. Before this exciting back-and-
forth SCIAC championship affair, though, the Sagehens first faced Cal Lutheran in the semis to reach the big match. P-P came into the SCIAC postseason after a dominant 19-8 outing against La Verne on the final day of the regular season, riding a seven game winning streak while being a perfect 12-0 against conference competition. The Sagehens started the game against Cal Lu with a bang after Namlhun Jachung PZ ’24 found the back of the net in the opening minute. This was followed by flawless performances on both sides of the ball from P-P throughout the first quarter. At the back, Sagehen goalie May Lin PO ’24 kept the Regals scoreless by actively defending Cal Lutheran’s shots. The offense,
meanwhile, added three more goals from Allison Sullivan-Wu PO ’22, Nadia Paquin PO ’22 and Kaylee Stigar PO ’25 to bring the score up to 4-0 by the end of the first eight minutes. Despite the Sagehens rolling, the Regals refused to give up entering the second quarter; both teams intensely traded back-andforth possessions until Cal Lu put themselves on the board early in the quarter. P-P responded with sound defensive plays and translated them into transition offense, featuring goals by Madison Lewis PO ’23. Within one minute of the third quarter, Lucie Abele PO ’22 made a smooth, aggressive move and scored. This encouraged teammates Alexandra Szczerba PO ’25 and a second from Paquin within
P-P Saturday April 30
Sunday May 1
Men and Women’s Track & Field SCiAC Championships @ Whittier
Men and Women’s Track & Field SCiAC Championships @ Whittier
Women’s Tennis @ Cal lutheran
a minute apart late in the quarter, which came with a one-goal Cal Lu response. After the end of the third, the score expanded to 8-2. The Regals instantly responded in the final quarter, scoring two back-to-back goals to cut the P-P lead to four goals. Despite this push, Katherine Cullen PZ ’22 came up with her own consecutive pair of goals to enlarge the lead back to 10-4. After this back-and-forth, the game ended with last-minute goals from each team including a goal from Aurora Sheridan PO ’23 with only eight seconds to play. The final result was an 11-5 victory for the Sagehens, advancing them to face Whittier in the SCIAC final. Though P-P dominated the Poets early in the match, jumping out
CMS
Saturday Apr 30
Men and Women’s Track and Field SCiAC Championships @ Whittier Men’s Tennis vs. redlands vs. San Diego Christian College
to an 8-3 lead, Whittier struck a fire late in the second quarter to furiously rally back by a close 13-12 margin within the 3:46 mark in the fourth. But that would be the last goal scored for the Poets in the SCIAC postseason tournament. P-P responded with clutch goals scored from Paquin, Lewis and Cullen, effectively ending the game 16-12. Lewis was awarded SCIAC tournament MVP for her stellar three goal and four assist performance in the final. After defeating the Poets in the 2022 SCIAC postseason final, the Sagehens have achieved the postseason crown six times within the past decade. They earned the rights to host part of the Division III national championships, scheduled to face Augustana in the semifinals May 7.
Sunday, May 1
Women and Men’s Track & Field SCiAC Championships @ Whittier
Women’s Tennis @ redlands vs. Occidental
Men’s Tennis vs. Cal lutheran
Baseball @ Whittier
Baseball vs. Chapman
Softball vs. pomona-pitzer
Softball @ CMS
Women’s lacrosse vs. Whittier
Baseball vs. Chapman
2022
One Six-week Session: May 23 – July 1
Make your summer count! Catch up or jump start your year. Open to all students enrolled in any accredited institution Taught by Pitzer College & Claremont Colleges Faculty Full-Credit Courses • Housing Available Financial aid available for those who are eligible
• The Art World Since 1989 • Basic Acting Tools & Fundamentals • Beginning Ballet • Brain and Behavior • Consumer Society and Culture • Contemporary Exhibition and Curatorial Practice • Deviant Sex Cults? • Drawing Workshop • Environmental Justice • Fiction Workshop • Finance • Gender, Crime & Punishment • Globalizing Participation: Citizens Engaging the State Around the World • Intermediate Spanish • Introduction to Film • Introduction to International Politics • Introduction to Postcolonial Studies • Introduction to Statistics • Love and Desire in Modern and Contemporary World Literature • Microbiology • Pragmatics in Chinese Culture • Principles of Macroeconomics • Principles of Microeconomics • Psychological Disorders • Psychology of Mindfulness • Race and Ethnic Relations • Resistance to Monoculture • Screenwriting • Sociology of Education • Statistics • Surfing and the Politics of Race, Class, Gender and Culture • Sustainable Labor: The Future of Work
Registration Begins: March 21 • www.pitzer.edu/summer