Vol. CXXXV No. 2

VOL. CXXXV NO. 2

FRIDAY, September 22, 2023

CLAREMONT, CA

Rishi Sunak’s 2018 $3 #GrassNotGlass: Why some CMC million donation to CMC students are frustrated with criticized in UK media placement of new art installation PETER DIEN & ANNABELLE INK A new artistic installation at Claremont McKenna College (CMC) sparked controversy among students and faculty for diminishing green spaces on campus. “Qwalala,” by artist Pae White SC ’85, is the newest addition to CMC’s public art program, which strives to “integrate art into all aspects of campus life and provide an opportunity to engage with the arts and others constructively,” according to the program’s webpage. The installation of “Qwalala,” a glass sculpture spanning 250 feet, has garnered significant criticism from CMC students because of its location on MidQuad. According to Kian Shah CM ’25, Mid-Quad was once a popular place for students to decompress and connect with friends. “Around lunchtime, there would be a minimum of 30 to 50 people at any given time. And now you look at Mid-Quad, and there’s basically zero students sitting around the wall, or just generally in the vicinity,” Shah said. According to White, however, the piece’s location was intend-

ed to foster community among students. “My hope is that students will gather in those spaces and feel inclined to have an intimate space to talk, to read, to just hangout,” White said. “I mean, this piece becomes active when students or viewers are engaged with it.” Moreover, the piece is meant to interact with the environment around it. Because of the varying way in which the lights and shadows hit the sculpture throughout the day, it is constantly changing. Devanshi Guglani CM ’26, the current co-president of the Student Art Council, commented on the art’s impact on CMC’s campus in her speech at the sculpture’s dedication and community reception. “‘Qwalala’… encapsulates the essence of artistry, and a deep connection to nature,” Guglani said. “It is especially magnificent in comparison to our former bland landscape, as you can see from the ‘before’ images of Mid-Quad that we have put up.” Although the photos referenced in Guglani’s speech were an accurate representation of CMC’s Mid-Quad prior to the

construction of “Qwalala,” the actual site differed from renderings of the sculpture and construction images posted on the CMC Instagram on Jun. 21, which displays grass in areas that are now covered with shrubbery or gravel. Some students across CMC criticized this lack of green space. Sophie Wolters CM ’26 expressed concern over how it might impact the area as a social space on campus. “A lot of upperclassmen would tell me what their experience was like before [‘Qwalala’] was built, and they said that the grass area was like the hub of CMC,” Wolters said. Now, the once heavily-trafficked area is largely covered by glass and gravel. Last June, students circulated a survey advocating for the relocation of the art piece to a less utilized area. The petition, titled “Grass Not Glass,” garnered traction among students, claiming that the wall divides and diminishes important social spaces in MidQuad. Ethan Choi CM ‘25 was the

See QUALALA on page 2

COURTESY: CLAREMONT MCKENNA COLLEGE

#GrassNotGlass — students have criticized CMC’s recent installation of “Qwalala,” a glass sculpture spanning 250 feet, because of its location on Mid-Quad.

OPINION: Pitzer administrators must learn from last year’s mistakes SOPHIE MCCLAIN As we move into a new academic year, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on the past one — specifically on the ways in which Pitzer College and Claremont Colleges administrations responded to student activists last spring. The 2022-23 academic year at Pitzer was defined by student activism movements to support unionizing workers and their labor rights. Pitzer claimed to celebrate this, touting core values of student engagement and social responsibility and proudly stating that student activists were demonstrating the very identity of Pitzer College. However, my own experiences and those of student organizers I talked to showed me that the actions of the college, specifically those behind closed doors, did not align with these statements. Last spring, a final class assignment drove me to write an interview-based paper comparing the opinions and experiences of Pitzer students and Pitzer administration around campus activism. While writing, I interviewed many student organizers involved with the

Claremont Student Worker Alliance (CSWA) who shared stories alleging the suppression of their activism by administrators. I also got the chance to sit down one-on-one with a former member of the Pitzer administration in April. After a brief introduction, the administrator told me that they would not be answering any of my questions. I was told by the administrator that they could not comment on current events at Pitzer even though the majority of my interview questions were about this administrator’s personal experiences with on-campus activism, not current events specifically. They then told me that my project did “not read like research” and focused the rest of the conversation on critiquing their perception of my research rather than taking the time to engage in a discussion with me. The administrator also told me that my research would never be approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB), failing to recognize that projects of oral history and

See PITZER on page 7

COURTESY: SIMON DAWSON

CMC is garnering international news attention as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s opposition digs up CMC donation.

AMBIKA GUPTA Recently, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has come under fire for a $3 million donation he and his wife, Akshata Murty CM ’02, gave to Claremont McKenna Colle ge (CMC) in 2018. Th e move has drawn criticism from some UK media and politicians, who believe the money should have been spent on the nation’s schools instead. This criticism comes as UK primary and secondary schools continue to struggle with obtaining adequate funding. In recent years, s o m e s c h o o l s h a ve e ve n delayed their academic year or switched to partial or full remote learning due to the deterioration of their buildings, according to a list published in The Guardian. Sunak’s donation to CMC was used to create the Murty Sunak Quantitative and Computing Lab (QCL). The QCL is home to high-tech computational facilities and offers one-on-one support and tutoring for quantitative issues such as mathematics, computation, statistics, programming, data analysis and visualization.

According to CMC’s website, the QCL “serves as the transdisciplinary campus hub and comprehensive support center for students and faculty seeking assistance with a broad spectrum of quantitative issues.” Since its opening, the QCL has served as an important center for academic support on campus. Specifically, the QCL seeks to make quantitative skills accessible to all students regardless of background, including students from historically underrepresented communities. “I think the QCL is great, and I’ve worked [there] with friends just as a study space,” said Nikhil Agarwal CM ’27, who has received help at the center. “I think the investment has definitely paid off.” While students at CMC view the QCL as both an important resource and a convenient study space, left-leaning publication The Independent described the donation as a nonessential “handout.” The Yorkshire Post quotes Daniel Callaghan, the Liberal Democrat candidate for the Prime Minister in the upcoming election: “While every single school across his own constituency struggles to make ends

See SUNAK on page 3

5C climate rally crosses intergenerational lines to call for environmental action CRYSTAL WIDADO On Friday, Sept. 15, more than 40 students, faculty and residents of Claremont gathered on Walker Beach for a climate rally in coordination with protests planned around 54 countries.

As a part of the September 15 Day Against Climate rally led by the Fridays for Future campaign, rally organizers and attendees spoke about visible weather extremes from recent months and the need for real action. “There’s a bigger one in [Los

Angeles], there’s one in New York and there’s one in Berkeley. Every drop counts,” rally organizer Ash Shaah HM ’24 told TSL. Inspired by a similar event held last year, 5C student orga-

See RALLY on page 3

EMMA JENSEN • THE STUDENT LIFE

Rally organizers invited residents from Pilgrim Place, a retirement community in Claremont, to join the conversation.

ARTS & CULTURE On Sept. 14, poet and essayist Ross Gay read selections from his collection of essays, “Inciting Joy,” speaking candidly with students in a dscussion exploring hope, passion and suffering.

The student newspaper of the Claremont Colleges since 1889

OPINIONS

SPORTS

Opinions writer Rowan Gray CM ’26 makes the case for Collins as a convenient, reliable dining experience . It may not have the glitz and glamor of Mallott or the Hoch, but it is home to a damn decent grill — and Dole Whip when the machine isn’t broken.

Grappling with life’s problems… and each other. The Claremont Spartans, the 5Cs newest club sport, are looking to change the culture surrounding wrestling for the better and help their members in the process.

INDEX: News 1 | Arts & Culture 4 | Opinions 7 | Sports 9

News

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Care-First Classrooms: a new approach to learning at the 5Cs ZOE SOKATCH For the past two years, professors across the Claremont Colleges have been trying out a new form of teaching and learning style called “Care-First Classrooms.” Courses implementing this program use non-punitive practices to create an environment that is more accessible and enjoyable for all students. This semester, there are 19 care-first classes being offered, according to the 5C Transformative/Restorative Justice Collective. 10 are at Scripps College, four at Pitzer College, three at Pomona College, and two at Harvey Mudd College. Claremont McKenna College (CMC) does not have any care-first classes for the fall semester. The movement began in the fall of 2021 when a group of students in Scripps politics professor Tom Kim’s Practicing Abolitionist Democracy course formed a working group focused on how to support student survivors of sexual harm. The students then formed an independent study group that spring, which became the Care-First Collective in the fall of 2022. Within this collective is the Care-First Classroom Campaign. These student groups meet weekly and host events for faculty involved in the program. In a zine created by the CareFirst Classroom Campaign in the fall of 2023, members wrote, “in designing the space around the needs and strengths of those who occupy it, we create a space that actually serves us, instead of serving institutional systems that overtly or not, are designed to uplift majority populations.” Care-first classes implement multiple practices while creating this uplifting space. “The idea behind care-first is that no two classrooms have the same needs, and thus, there is no universal set of practices that can be applied across every class,”

Scripps orchards are currently on a 45-day quarantine to prevent the spread of an invasive fruit fly. On Aug. 28, Scripps College Facilities and Operations informed students by email that a single fruit fly from an invasive species had been detected in the citrus at Scripps. The email told students to follow the 45-day quarantine by consuming fruit from Scripps trees only on campus, double-bagging waste fruit and vegetables and halting compost efforts. Bactrocera dorsalis is an invasive species native to Southeast Asia that spread from Hawaii to the mainland United States in the early 2000s, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. If the female fruit fly lays eggs in fruits or vegetables, the larvae feed on the plant, potentially causing bacterial infections if humans consume the fruit infested with maggots. The California Department of Food and Agriculture, which detected the fruit fly, is unsure of how it ended up at Scripps, according to Steve Lyle, director of public affairs for the department. Fruit within the quarantine area is still edible as long as it does not contain larvae, Lyle said. Scripps is in the “monitor and control phase” of the quarantine and no additional recommendations for treatment have been given yet, Joya Salas, Scripps’ landscape operations manager, told TSL via email. Erica Matthisen SC ’25 is the garden coordinator for Scripps Student Garden, a club that manages a small garden at the college. She said that the detection of the fruit fly means that the club has had to stop composting because “fruit flies love compost.” “It’s a little bit sad because I feel like it’s important for us to be able to compost and now we can’t compost at the community gar-

‘QUALALA:’ Students gripe over location

Continued from page 1

SASHA MATTHEWS • THE STUDENT LIFE

the zine said. Some of the care-first class strategies include daily checkins about students’ access needs, making the syllabi a conversation between students and professors and the process of “ungrading.” Ungrading, according to the zine, is the process of grading based on how “nourishing their experience has been and how they’ve grown, rather than in terms of the ‘goodness’ of the work they produced.” This semester, Pitzer Assistant Professor of Art Sarah Gilbert is teaching a care-first class called Sustainable Sculptures that focuses on experimenting with different found materials to create sculptures. “It’s really about bringing students into a conversation about their own learning,” Gilbert said. “You take away all the language about punishment and it’s really about how we have this opportunity to do something this semester, what do we want to do together and what’s important to you?” Gilbert has also put emphasis on check-ins at the beginning of each class, a strategy that Noura

Here’s what to know about the fruit quarantine at Scripps REIA LI

September 22, 2023

den,”said Olivia Rose SC ’26, a member of Scripps Student Garden. Other than that, Matthisen said that the efforts of their club have been minimally affected. She continues to eat fruit from the garden and hopes that the quarantine will successfully eradicate the fruit flies. “We’re hoping that it was just a fluke, it was just one fruit fly, it died lonely,” Matthisen said. “[And] when they do the research after the quarantine, they’ll find no fruit flies and then we can just go back to business as usual.” Although some sources refer to the fly as the “Asian fruit fly,” it is more commonly known as the “Oriental fruit fly.” The fly was named at a time when the United States referred to all of Asia as “the Orient” and people or products from Asia as “Oriental,” terms that have since been critiqued as exoticizing and discriminatory. Signs at Scripps informing students about the fruit fly and the quarantine have had the word “Oriental” crossed out with marker. The fly is thought to have traveled to Hawaii with U.S. military troops and supplies returning from fighting World War II in the Pacific region, according to the Texas Invasive Species Institute. In August, the fruit fly was also found in large swaths of two counties in the Bay area, Contra Costa County and Santa Clara County, resulting in quarantines of around 100 square miles in each. Lyle said that, although the detection at Scripps is unrelated to those in the Bay Area, the flies are a common occurrence in California. “We detect Oriental fruit flies pretty much every year in California and successfully eradicate them,” Lyle said.

NICOLE CEPEDA • THE STUDENT LIFE

Coulibaly PZ ’27, a student in her class, supports. “Honestly, it’s really helpful because sometimes you’re just not in the right headspace for class,” Coulibaly said. Coulibaly also said that having space to explain feelings of being unable to participate in class on a given day takes off a lot of pressure. To her, this ‘person first, student second’ style of learning creates a sense of community throughout the classroom. “It has made the class closer, we get to know each other a bit more everyday,” Coulibaly said. “I have a lot of empathy for the people in my class.” Despite this positive impact, Gilbert feels that other professors can be dismissive of the care-first agenda, which can sometimes feel isolating. She highlighted that people may think that care-first learning is letting students off the hook, but in fact, there is a reverse effect. “I’m very confident that my students work harder because of the care-first methodology and they do better work because of it,” she said.

student that originally posted the survey, which is no longer accessible. He was recently accepted to the Board of Trustees Campus Planning & Facilities Committee. TSL reached out for an interview from Choi, but he declined to comment. Even without this platform, many students continue to vocalize their perspectives on the art piece. Shah stated that the #GrassNotGlass movement is not new. It originated with the redesign of both the hardscape and the landscape in North Quad — which Shah claimed used to have a “significant amount of grass” — in the 2020-2021 school year. Commenting on the current state of the movement, Shah argued that the location for “Qwalala” would be perfect in the context of CMC’s $140 million eastern half expansion — but, he emphasized, CMC is still eight to ten years away from completing construction. “I think in the public art process, there might have been a bit of overlooking of the students’ needs,” Shah said. “Along with the development of the new Roberts Campus expansion, the campus still needs to function as a campus and provide those [green] spaces for gathering and social interactions.” In CMC’s public art process, where the artist is allowed to “advocate for a particular location on campus for the installation of the artwork,” art sites are chosen after the piece is bought. After viewing CMC’s public art process online, Georgia

McGovern CM ’24 advocated for more transparency in the decision-making process. “I definitely think there should be more transparency,” McGovern said. “A lot of it is decided behind closed doors, and by the time students hear about it, the plans are already in full effect.” Claire Moore CM ’26 said that the CMC party culture is now heavily concentrated in North-Quad due to the lessening grass areas around dorm halls, especially in Mid-Quad. “Unfortunately, a lot of social life at CMC is concentrated in North-Quad, which has quite a big party and drinking culture,” Moore said. “I think having more open spaces for social events that aren’t in North-Quad would help CMC deal with the issue of not having a very inclusive social life for all students.” Moore said more communal outdoor spaces would be beneficial to CMC students. “It would be good to get students out of their rooms and out of enclosed spaces – it’s good for mental health to be out in the sun,” Moore said. “We’re in beautiful Southern California and I think that having a lot of green spaces is representative of a school’s value for its students, student life, student happiness and just general well-being.” Despite the critical discourse surrounding the location, White hopes the piece will be a crucial part of the greater Claremont community, which she has been deeply embedded in since before her time at Scripps College. “Claremont has always been a big part of my life,” White said. “To have [my art] come here was thrilling.”

SHS transitions from 7C to 5C

ANDREW YUAN • THE STUDENT LIFE

Claremont Graduate University and Keck Graduate Institute are no longer partnering with Student Health Services and Monsour Counseling and Psychological Services, meaning graduate students won’t have any options for in-person care.

KATIE BREEN As of Jun. 30, Claremont Graduate University (CGU) and Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) are no longer partnering with Student Health Services (SHS) and Monsour Counseling and Psychological Services. The shift away from SHS leaves CGU and KGI with exclusively online resources for graduate students and without the option of in-person health care for physical or mental health services. Graduate students are still able to schedule medical and mental health visits through 7CHealth, the Claremont Colleges’ telehealth provider. Tim Lynch, director of executive & advancement communications at CGU, explained that the school spent several years gathering and analyzing data to make this decision. “7C Health addresses access by being available any time of the day in multiple languages,” Lynch said in an email to TSL. “Our assessment showed that our students prefer telehealth and teletherapy over coming to campus for services.” Much like CGU, KGI also severed ties with SHS because the health provider was not able to serve the more flexible needs of graduate students. “Students’ use of SHS was minimal because all our students must have personal health insurance, and SHS does not bill student insurance plans,” Nick Simonton, director of marketing and communications at KGI, wrote in a statement to TSL. “Additionally, our students required appointments past 5 p.m. and on weekends when SHS was not open.” Simonton said the financial

savings from this change will allow KGI to invest additional funds into programs that will benefit students. KGI will continue to partner with SHS in other ways, as the shift will only affect in-person services at SHS. “As part of our commitment to our students’ health, we continue to contract with SHS to provide telehealth services that offer a connection outside SHS’ regular business hours,” Simonton said. Vaishnavi Mansabdar, a student at the School of Community and Global Health currently pursuing her public health doctorate at CGU, said she is disappointed in the school’s discontinuation of in-person, on-campus care, as it makes health services more inaccessible to international students. “During COVID-19, SHS support was life-saving from tests to vaccinations, it was a one-stop student health support,” Mansabdar, who is from Mumbai, said in an email to TSL. “For students like myself who are new to the country, new to the healthcare system, on-campus services are life saving and basic necessities.” Mansabdar also spoke on the limits of the virtual 7C Health services, noting that it’s not ideal for certain health events. ”A person who is having allergic reactions utilizing virtual care will not be able to identify potential asthma attacks,” Mansabdar said. “Virtual care is helpful because it increases your network but it also has its limitations.” Some services that are offered in-person through SHS cannot be offered in a virtual format, such as STD testing, strep testing, X-ray services, immunizations and more. Students at KGU and CGU must find alternative, off-campus providers for treat-

ments and services that require an in-person consultation. On the other hand, Oscar Guerrero CG ’24 said he was looking forward to the added flexibility of virtual health services. To Guerrero, while on-campus healthcare is important, “the telehealth that CGU has now subscribed to also provides timely and flexible health solutions to students.” Guerrero also noted that telehealth could be better for students that commute. “COVID has changed how we look at [healthcare], and two or three years ago, telehealth wouldn’t even have been an option,” Guerrero told TSL via email. CGU first announced the shift on Mar. 28, in an email announcing the expanded partnership between CGU and TimelyMD, the Claremont Colleges’ virtual care partner. Some students at CGU weren’t initially aware of the institution’s move away from SHS. Guerrero said that this dispersion of information from administration to students could be more efficient. “CGU as a whole relies on email as its primary way of informing students of things that are happening, but that leads to a proliferation of emails where information tends to get lost,” he said. Despite the first announcement getting lost in the shuffle of emails from the university, both Guerrero and Mansabdar said CGU hosted several workshops following the announcement, which allowed students to have space to ask questions, share concerns and receive support through the transition away from SHS. “I appreciate the work they [the administration] do and feel a sense of trust and reassurance knowing that they work hard to make CGU an accessible place to students,” Guerrero said.

News

September 22, 2023

Pitzer students express mixed feelings, frustration around dining changes

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RALLY: Claremont residents join students Continued from page 1

ENOCH KIM • THE STUDENT LIFE

Recent changes at McConnell dining hall, the Pit Stop and the Shakedown have sparked conversation among students.

ENOCH KIM As Pitzer students get into the swing of the fall semester, recent changes at McConnell Dining Hall, the Pit-Stop and the Shakedown have sparked conversation across campus. Specifically, students expressed frustration about the elimination of meal swipes at the Pit-Stop and dining hall restrictions, while the newly renovated Shakedown has been a hit. At McConnell, students are no longer allowed to take utensils or plates to eat outside or in the adjacent patio area of the dining hall, known as the Apron, said Miguel Menjivar, general manager of Bon Appétit. The change, he said, is a return to pre-pandemic policy. “The reason we have someone standing by the door is because we did go for two semesters with people being used to taking things out,” Menjivar said. “So we have to gently remind them that ‘hey, you can’t let these [plates] out, grab a container and then you can do that.’” However, Alex King PZ ’23, who attended Pitzer before the pandemic, said the Apron was once an accessible place with regular plate and utensil usage. “Before COVID-19, you could take your plates and silverware and eat on the patio,” King said. “I’ve noticed that a lot of things have become more bureaucratic and walled off and harder to access, which I think is kind of a bummer because a big draw of Pitzer, at least for me, was how free and open … everything and

communal everything felt.” Bree Reed PZ ’23 felt similarly about the changes to McConnell. “Prior to the pandemic was the best McConnell has ever been in my opinion,” Reed said. “I remember feeling a lot less anxious going into the dining hall, being able to take our plates out to eat, or being able to go to the mounds with food.” Feven Aklilu PZ ’26 told TSL that she went to McConnell often last year, but now avoids the dining hall because she can’t eat outside to dodge the crowds anymore. “I feel like the outside area was the one place where people would kind of enjoy themselves and debrief,” Aklilu said. Another change that generated student grievances was that the “Pit-Stop [has] entirely stopped taking meal swipes, which has made it way harder to actually eat outside of normal standard dining hall hours,” Sara Kimura PZ ’25 stated. Menjivar said meal swipes at the Pit-Stop were taken away because of inadequate refrigeration and extra burden on the staff due to the extra preparation time. A more popular change, however, was the transformation of the Shakedown from a cafe to a taquería. Menjivar cited a 50 percent increase in Shakedown turnout over the last couple weeks as the result of a summer spent trying out different recipes. Menjivar said his time in school as a San

Francisco student and the absence of good taquerías leading to “20 years of looking for good tacos” inspired him to renovate the Shakedown. M e n j i va r t h e n s p o k e o f student feedback behind the Shakedown changes, and encouraged students to come with concerns. “Everybody’s always welcome to come and send an email and talk to me,” said Menjivar. “I’m always at the door, greeting people. And I’m always open to communication.” Still, student frustration has spilled onto the plates of dining hall workers. A dining hall worker who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation told TSL that they wanted students to know that they could talk to management about their feedback on the changes. “You can come to management at any time, because management sees what’s going on, they just need to be spoken to,” the worker said. “[Tell us] what we can do to make this place run better.” The worker also said that they hoped students would remember that employees are not the ones who make the policy changes. They said a student yelled the expletive “fuck you!” at them after being told dining hours had ended. “We’re not there to be the bad guys,” said the worker. “We’re there for you guys.”

nizers from different clubs and groups around campus led a forum-based rally to bring the Claremont community together in its efforts to address the climate crisis. “We had two meetings about it and canvassed at the 5C club fair. This has been in the works for around 2 weeks,” Sidney Tchanyoum HM ’25, rally organizer and emcee of the event, told TSL. Representatives from Claremont Students Workers Alliance (CSWA) and 5C Prison Abolition Collective took turns taking the microphone to speak out on climate change. Rally organizers also invited residents from Pilgrim Place, a retirement community in Claremont, to join the conversation. Students from different campus organizations spoke about the importance of viewing climate change from an interdisciplinary perspective. Blessing Roland-Magaji SC ’24, an organizer for the 5C Prison Abolition Collective, spoke out about the intersection between climate change and the prison industrial complex. “A lot of times, we don’t think about how people who are incarcerated are on the front lines of the environmental justice movement,” Roland-Magaji said. “There’s a lack of evacuations during disasters in prisons. There’s increasing instances of incarcerated people being left behind during evacuations, like during Hurricane Harvey in Texas.” Some speakers at the event pointed to mass production, overconsumption and capitalism, saying they were at the core root of the climate crisis. Other attendees connected the climate crisis to labor justice, Indigenous rights and justice for oppressed

people around the world. “I am here today because I feel like I’m powerless,” Callie Dawson HM ’26 told the crowd. “I know that we are currently losing the fight against the will of a few. The will of the people who have way too much power and who want to keep that power.” Dawson also shared her experience with climate anxiety and growing frustration with lack of action towards worsening climate change. Following Dawson’s comments, Carol Billings, a resident at Pilgrim Place, took Dawson’s hands and affirmed that she was doing enough for the climate movement and her own community. Other Pilgrim Place residents thanked Dawson and Shaah for their cross-generational work with Pilgrim Place residents in sustainability efforts such as recycling, compost and water conservation. Residents from Pilgrim Place spoke about their involvement in climate lobbying, starting local green initiatives and working with students from the Claremont Colleges to address the climate crisis. Billings also spoke about the political action taking place at Pilgrim Place. “I’m so glad you’re doing this because it’s been on my heart ever since I was a kid. I’ve been watching the planet change for a very long time,” Billings told the crowd. Jordan James PO ’25 wrapped up the event by speaking about the importance of having hope for the future. James described his own experience gaining inspiration from community and international action for justice. “I think we are going to win,” James said. “If somehow this doesn’t work, at least we shared our last moments in community with each other. At least we tried our very best, we went out dancing and smiling and not sitting around and waiting for someone to do something.”

EMMA JENSEN • THE STUDENT LIFE

Rally organizers invited residents from Pilgrim Place, a retirement community in Claremont, to join the intergenerational conversation.

SUNAK: 5C students Pomona ranked fourth highest see no contradiction private college for financial aid Continued from page 1 meet because of years of Tory underfunding, Rishi Sunak is handing millions of pounds to a private school in California…You couldn’t make it up. This man is out of touch and needs to go. We deserve better.” These referenced schools were built with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) — a lightweight construction material. The typical lifespan of RAAC is 30 years; schools were largely constructed with RAAC during the 1950s to 1990s, when the material was commonly used. At this time, it was also used to build courts, hospitals and other public buildings. The Mirror, a UK tabloid, ran the headline: “Out-of-touch Rishi Sunak gives $3 million to US college as UK schools can’t afford basics,” decrying the use of the funds on “a mega-rich U.S. college” with “state-of-the-art chairs at £650 a throw.” Agarwal, however, didn’t find a correlation between the donation, which was made before Sunak was appointed Prime Minister, and the state of British schools. “I don’t think there’s any way if you are really being fair…[to] say that there’s really much connection between the donation and the state of the schools,” he said. Maximilian Min PO ’26, an international student from the UK, felt similarly. “Personally, I don’t believe that Rishi’s donation to CMC should be held against him: His personal, private finances do not seem related to the issue of

the underfunding and safety concerns of state schools in the UK,” Min told TSL. “The issue of underfunding of schools precedes his tenure in any high-ranking office so I see nothing wrong with what he has done.” Aside from this perceived lack of connection between events, Agarwal pointed out that the public’s opinion of this donation and their interpretation of the reasoning behind it is ultimately what matters the most in politics. “ [ S u n a k ’s ] p o l i t i c a l o p ponents — the Labour Party — will say that this is yet another example of the Tories choosing to prioritize their rich, wealthy friends in the private sector, rather than focus on the needs of the vast majority of working families in the United Kingdom,” Agarwal said. Although Sunak and Murty’s donation has been highly criticized since it became public in Jun. 2023, it is not the first time that the couple demonstrated their commitment to CMC. Murty, a member of the CMC Board of Trustees since 2011, is a part of the Finance & Operations Committee and Campus Planning & Facilities Committee. Prior to their most recent donation, she and Sunak established the Akshata N. Murty ’02 and Rishi Sunak Professorship in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and the CMC in Bangalore Program.

LUCIA MARQUEZ-UPPMAN • THE STUDENT LIFE

MARCELLA TODD & COURTNEY CHEN At the beginning of the 20232024 academic year, Pomona College was ranked the fourth best private college for financial aid by the Princeton Review. Pomona joined the ranks of Vassar College, Princeton University, Yale University, Vanderbilt University and 15 other schools that made headlines earlier this year for their generous financial aid programs. The Princeton Review’s ranking is based on the percentage of students who received aid, the percentage of need met for the students and the percentage of students whose needs were fully satisfied, as reported by the college. The ranking also consid-

ered students’ satisfaction with the financial aid they received based on student survey data. Along with Claremont McKenna College (CMC) and Harvey Mudd College (HMC), Pomona College practices need-blind aid. When asked about the factors that lead to Pomona’s recognized financial aid, Paul Dieken, director of financial aid, explained that they “package students up to their full calculated need” and fund them up to their full need. Dieken added that Pomona’s financial aid as presented by the college does not include loans. The office also packages international and undocumented students with aid. According to Pomona, 58 percent of students receive financial aid in some form, including loans

and private outside scholarships. In the 2021-2022 school year, the average award was $61,621. This is significantly more than the $23,080 provided to students on average by private institutions across the US. It also exceeds the average award at Mudd, where 45 percent of students receive financial aid in some form, with an average award for the 2021-2022 school year of $44,743. Likewise, 47 percent of CMC students receive financial aid. Alessio Narvaez PO ’26 reflected on his positive experiences with Pomona’s financial aid office. Upon his acceptance, he reached out to the office to appeal his aid package because his financial circumstances had changed. “I managed to have calls and email exchanges with my financial aid advisor for a few days in a row throughout this process,” Narvaez said. Narvaez notes the financial aid office’s generosity as a key factor in his college decision process. “If it weren’t for the additional aid I received, I wouldn’t have been able to attend Pomona, so I am incredibly grateful,” Narvaez explained. Dieken stated that while the office is “very happy to be acknowledged this way, Pomona is not a ranking-fixated school.” According to Dieken, the office is continually striving to make improvements. This year, Pomona has 11 fully funded students in the initial run of its refugee program. In the future, they hope to implement a wider variety of similar programs. Dieken also indicated an interest in funding more books for students and increasing funds for emergency travel.

Arts & Culture

PAGE 4

Los Tigres Del Norte Plays Free Concert in Pomona’s Fox Theatre ADRIANA MACIEL “On Sept. 8, 2023, we have Los Tigres Del Norte!” Mayor of Pomona Tim Sandoval said as he introduced the iconic Mexican Norteno band to a full house at Fox Theater. The crowd went absolutely wild throughout the night. Two weeks before Hispanic Heritage Month began, fans from all over the Inland Empire and Los Angeles county lined up mid-day, getting ready to see one of the biggest Mexican Norteno bands live and for free. The concert was seven years in the making, a result of the work put in by Mayor Sandoval and Pomona’s Latinx community. With over seven Grammy awards and 16 nominations, Los Tigres Del Norte has millions of fans across North and South America, regularly playing sold-out tours and selling over 32 million copies across all of their albums. They are now one of the most recognized groups in the Norteno genre, popularized by their songs covering the Mexican diaspora and political movements. Los Tigres Del Norte were formed in San Jose in the early ‘70s. The band’s active members include Jorge Hernandez (director, lead vocals and accordion), Hernan Hernandez (Electric bass and vocals), Eduardo Hernandez (accordion, saxophone, 6- string bass and vocals), Luis Hernandes (6-string bass and vocals) and Oscar Lara (drums). Evelyn Solis Cabrera PZ ’25 was one of the concert’s many attendees. She, alongside many other fans, saw this event as important and impactful for the Inland Empire community. “It brought a lot of Latino students from the 5Cs and a lot of Mexican and Latino families from around the Inland Empire together,” Cabrera said. Jesus Ceja PZ ’24 shared his feelings on how this concert bonded the Latinx students here at the Claremont Colleges. “5C Latinx Students found something to do off campus that they really love,” Ceja said. “First years that were there had this cool little concert to go to [in] their first weeks of being here. And I know that was a bonding experience for them.” Winning the hearts of many fans old and young, Los Tigres Del Norte played some of their best-selling and most popular songs that had every

person in the theater singing and dancing. Throughout the concert, they had many ‘surprise songs’ for the crowd, including renditions of “Por Tu Maldito Amor” and “Hermoso Carino” by the beloved “Rey de la música Ranchera’’ Vicente Fernandez, which Kassandra Soriano Martinez PZ ’25 found especially inspiring. “I was about to cry,” Martinez said. “ I think [Vicente Fernandez is] also a big part of the Hispanic community as well. His songs are bangers so I love that they also did that and it just made the crowd more riled up.” The band also paused during the show to engage the audience in a friendly singing battle between the men and women in the crowd with the song “Los Mandados.” The band seemed to think the women took the win, and so did Luis Mendoza Ramirez CM ’25. “I was trying to pull my weight for the men but the women won for sure,” said Mendoza Ramirez. They also brought in a live mariachi band and Folklorico dancers, who also held flags of all Latin American countries to represent Latinx pride and culture. The band closed out the show with some classic songs such as “La Puerta Negra” and “Un Dia a La Vez.” At the end of the show, Mayor Sandoval surprised not only the audience but also the band with a street sign, announcing the band will soon have a street named after them in the city of Pomona. One side of the sign displayed the name “Calle Hernandez” (Hernandez Street) in honor of the Hernandez brothers, who started the band. On the other side was the name: “Los Tigres Del Norte.” After Mayor Sandoval unveiled the street sign to the crowd, everyone started screaming and cheering. Martinez described what the moment meant for her and the Hispanic community at large. “I was shocked, but I was very happy for them,” Martinez said. “Just because it’s such a big accomplishment for the Hispanic community and it just goes to show how all their work is actually paying off. I think that was one of the best parts of the night.”

ADRIANA MACIEL • THE STUDENT LIFE

Los Tigres Del Norte plays to a full house at Fox Theater in Pomona.

HIDDEN GEMS

September 22, 2023

CMC men: It’s time for a fashion consultant

NORA WU • THE STUDENT LIFE

LISA GORELIK Dear Men of Claremont McKenna College (CMC), The reign of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) shirts, pajama pants and flip flops has been long and difficult to watch. But it is now time to retire your go-to ensemble and embrace a new era of fashion. Men’s fashion at CMC is stagnated in conformity, but some students believe this actually has a positive influence on campus. “It is free like there’s no judgment on what you wear,” Len Korol CM ’25 said. “No one should ever feel like they have to dress in a certain way or style to fit in and if you are perfectly content and comfortable in the way that you dress now, then you shouldn’t feel the pressure to change that.” However, there also seems to be a pressure to NOT care about what you wear, to the extent that men at CMC are almost discouraged to experiment with their style. Because the broader environment is usually underdressed, people don’t feel comfortable dressing up, because that would make them stand out. Athena Ke CM ’26 named this as her least favorite aspect of men’s fashion at CMC. “There’s no pressure to be at least decent when you have to be,” Ke said. “The overwhelming fear of overdressing … I don’t think it’s just about people having bad taste. It’s people lacking motivation or confidence to make a change, to dress up a little bit.” Another aspect of fashion that some CMC men seem to miss or lack is the value of fashion as a reflection of your identity. “I don’t think [CMC men] use [fashion] as a means of self-expression. Even if they do, they [all] come off as the same guy, ”Ke said.

Shiah Sarkowsky CM ’25 added: “Exploring your own fashion is, by and large, an extension of exploring yourself. Don’t be afraid of the judgment of others; you care way more about yourself than other people care about you.” We have to destigmatize dressing up for no particular reason. Being able to wear whatever you want without feeling judged does not only extend to underdressing and dressing comfortably, but also to any other type of style or aesthetic. The most important thing is that you have the freedom to choose how you want to dress, and that everybody feels comfortable in their choice. Are you feeling inspired? Ready to elevate your wardrobe and try out some new looks? Well, the students of CMC and I have a few tips for you. Anastasia Nikolaeva CM ’25 suggested adding some basics to your collection. “A classic, really well-fitting pair of jeans, and a really well-fitting black or white t-shirt,” said Nikolaeva. “I know that sounds simple, but I think that you can never go wrong with that. What’s even better is that you probably already have these items in your wardrobe, or if you don’t — then it’s time to invest in a timeless, good quality pair of jeans that is going to not only last you a lifetime, but is also going to be a staple in your wardrobe.” Let me speak your language for a second: You gotta invest in this stock (a good pair of jeans) that will secure you a future return on your investment. Sarkowsky gave some timely advice if you are considering purchasing the Adidas Samba sneakers. “If you’re reading this now, once it’s published, you’re a little late to the Samba game,” Sarkowsky said. “So just be a little bit more patient. Wait till the next thing comes, it’s probably coming

very soon.” Again, don’t invest when the stock is high. Look out for the up-and-coming stocks and invest while they’re low (I’m a literature and philosophy major). One of the main things that can ruin an outfit is the shoes, especially if you sport athletic sneakers with a pair of jeans or cargo pants. I would suggest investing in a timeless pair of sneakers, like Nike Dunks, Jordans or Air Force Ones. Time has shown that they aren’t going anywhere and their versatility is yet another plus. And some general advice? Get up ten minutes earlier in the morning. It’s not going to make a huge difference to your sleep schedule, yet according to José Najas CM ’25, it will make a massive difference towards the quality of your outfit —and, in turn, in how you feel throughout the day. “If you wake up, and you put some effort into your appearance, that rounds a mentality of discipline and effort that then translates over to different activities you are going to do throughout the day,” Najas said. “If you wake up and just throw whatever you want to throw on, that might not set that same kind of perspective on how your day is going to look.” Korol shared a few words of encouragement and inspiration to all CMC men. “I think we’re at an upward trend,” Korol said. “We may never dress as ‘in style’ as Pitzer College, but we’re taking steps and one day maybe we’ll get there.” I truly believe that we can all, as a collective of students at CMC, create a more supportive environment for experimenting with fashion. So the next time that you see someone sporting an outfit that catches your eye — compliment them, no matter their gender. Elizaveta (Lisa) Gorelik CM’25 is from Moscow, Russia. She wants the men of CMC to know that her door is always open for any styling/fashion advice.

Angels, deities and found family in ‘Corrupted Vessels’

NATALIE ORTIZ One common theme in art by and about members of the LGBTQ+ community is found family, where people who are not biologically related come together and form ‘families’ of their own. It isn’t hard to see why so many are drawn to these stories: Many LGBTQ+ people do not have the best relationships with their biological families and have to look elsewhere for the love and support they need. Found family challenges the idea that blood relations are the most important and enduring ties one can have. However, even these families are not perfect. In their debut novella “Corrupted Vessels”, Briar Ripley Page demonstrates that found families are not immune to abuse or unhealthy dynamics. The majority of “Corrupted Vessels” is from the point of view of 15-year-old River, a transgender runaway who lives with the older, perpetually cheerful Ash in a dilapidated house without running water. Ash is an unusual person: they claim to be able to speak to angels and that they and River embody the fire and water element respectively. The earth element comes in the form of Linden, a normal college student who is drawn to their house by the sound of River’s singing. Linden comes from privilege and is put off by their way of living — Ash and River do not wear regular clothes for one, only hand-sewn robes they never wash. As Ash and Linden spend more time together, tensions arise within the group, culminating in a ritual that has disastrous and life-altering consequences for everyone involved. “Corrupted Vessels” is not what I expected it to be — despite some dark elements and the talk of angels, anyone looking for a straightforward horror story or supernatural tale will be disappointed. Page allows the reader to come

to their own conclusions about the events that occur. Are there really angels and prophecies in this world, or is Ash just mentally ill? No answer is given. In fact, just when the reader is confident writing off Ash as delusional, Page complicates things by having River start hearing a voice coming from a photograph. The decision to keep things ambiguous is an interesting choice and ripe for discussion. I also enjoyed the vivid sensory details, imagery and figurative language. The sex scenes are soaked with bodily fluids. Rotting porch steps “squelch and creek” under

Linden’s shoes. A cockroach rests “in the moist cave” of a corpse’s open mouth. A decomposing body “splits open like an overripe peach.” This might not be strictly horror, but Page’s flair for the grotesque comes through nonetheless. My biggest criticism concerns the character of Nora, Linden’s friend who anchors them in the “real world,” away from the divine ceremonies of Ash and River. She feels underdeveloped, and I wanted to know more about her. This weakness is especially apparent compared to River’s characterization, which was my favorite

part. When they first meet, Linden accidentally misgenders him, causing River to develop a grudge. He resents Linden for having access to testerone and resents Ash for sewing him a robe that makes him look like a girl. Speaking from personal experience, this bitterness is common among LGBTQ+ people. Given how hard it can be to access hormones or safely be out, their feelings are understandable, if not necessarily healthy. The need for found family comes from rejection. The ingrained fear of being alone can lead

JOANNE OH • THE STUDENT LIFE

to codependency among those who have no one else to turn to, as is the case with Ash and River. Their relationship is reminiscent of a parent and a child or an older sibling and a younger one. It is also reminiscent of a cult leader and their follower. River trusts Ash completely and does not question them. He grows increasingly jealous of the attention that Linden is getting from Ash because it threatens the one bond he has. Ash genuinely cares for River, but just as many parents are unable to accept their children’s full humanity and autonomy, Ash sees River as having been made for them and does not react well when this view is challenged. I appreciated this nuanced take on abuse and harm: we are all capable of hurting the ones we love and I get tired of abusers in fiction being one-dimensional villains when people are more complicated than that. No one here is wholly good or evil. As Ash puts it when introducing themself to Linden: “We are all of us neither one thing nor the other in this house.” Though they mean it in reference to all of them being trans, it applies to more than just gender. Page even offers the possibility of redemption in the end when Ash finally breaks down and admits wrongdoing. Following an unsuccessful suicide attempt, the dynamics switch: River becomes the strong, capable one who urges Ash to keep living. The two head off into the future, away from what is left of Linden and away from the lives they had before. They don’t know where they’re going, but they’re going together. Overall, “Corrupted Vessels” is an engaging read with a lot of depth despite its short length. I read it in two sittings and am still thinking about it. Page excels at capturing the messy realities of interpersonal relationships and delving into their characters’ not-so-nice thoughts. I am looking forward to reading more from them.

Arts & Culture

September 22, 2023

UTI Improv’s “First Day of Kindergarten”: Oppenheimer, Trader Joe’s and dating within the friend group ANNA PETERSON With dimmed lights and unbridled Thursday night enthusiasm, an intimate audience of dedicated 5C comedy fans gathered for an evening of laughter. On Sept. 14, improv troupe Underground Theatrical Institute (UTI) performed their first show of the semester, “First Day of Kindergarten,” at Dom’s Lounge. The show consisted of several games in which the actors invited the audience to give verbal recommendations for locations, people, animals, objects and relationships to base their skits around. In their first act, “Press Conference,” member Eliza Levy PZ ’26 exited the stage and the troupe asked the crowd to propose a person, an event and the location of the incident. The audience suggested “Oppenheimer had an affair in Dom’s Lounge.” Levy then rejoined the scene and fellow actors began posing questions to help them correctly guess their role. Actors cleverly used puns involving the words “bomb” and “explosion” to prompt Levy to guess their character. They also incorporated more direct questions about the nature of the incident and location while relying on Levy to add their own comedic charm to the bit. UTI member Lily Wellington PZ ’24 spoke on the importance of audience participation in cultivating

an inviting atmosphere. “The best thing about the audience is that they really want to support you and laugh and they want to be in the moment with you,” Wellington said. Playing on a combination of both popular and 5C culture, the group especially struck a chord with the crowd through their rendition of “Scripps Presents.” In this game, three members took the stage and assumed the roles of host, speaker and translator. The translator, relying solely on the gestures, hums and expressive facial movements of the speaker, would deliver a comedic narrative. The topic in question? Dating within the friend group. With lines like “one of the best things a friend can do is get you off,” the audience’s laughter seemed endless. Wellington spoke on the team’s ability to execute without foreknowledge of the skit’s direction or, in this case, verbal communication between actors. “You have to build a chemistry with each other so that when you get on stage, you’re subtly communicating with your scene partner, and the audience doesn’t see that communication, but they see the final product,” Wellington said. After the performance, the actors thanked the audience for

attending and mingled with participants in the crowd. Team members also chatted amongst themselves and celebrated the success of their first show. Charlotte Imbert PO ’25 discussed how improv fosters a sense of community at the 5Cs, both within and beyond the troupe. “[Improv] is a really big way for us to meet people at other colleges,” Imbert said. “You always feel like you’re learning more about each other and being vulnerable with each other and that enables you to build that sense of connection with people that you wouldn’t [have] in a classroom.” Tierney O’Keefe SC ’25 elaborated further on the team’s ability to nurture community during their shows, creating a space for entertainment and camaraderie among peers. “I think it’s also beautiful to be able to provide content or comedy for 5C students,” O’Keefe added. “It’s exciting to be able to let people laugh.” UTI plans on holding several more shows over the course of the semester and even holding open practices for students who want to try out improv for the first time or gain more experience. You can keep up to date with UTI’s efforts on their Instagram account @uti_rofl.

PHILY OEY • THE STUDENT LIFE

On Sept. 14, improv troupe Underground Theatrical Institute (UTI) performed their first show of the semester, “First Day of Kindergarten,” at Dom’s Lounge.

NOTES OF A FIRST GEN

Have you called your mom today?

CAMILA NAVARRETTE Every morning I call my mom; every morning she picks up. During my orientation adventure, I overheard someone tell their friend that they should probably text their mom because it had “been a couple of days.” My jaw almost dropped. A text? A couple of days? I am a first-generation student, and my Salvadoran family has always been central to my life. I have also always felt intrinsically bound to my mom as we both had to grow in a new country with a new language. Now, I’m more than two thousand miles away, yet again in a new world. My arrival in Los Angeles was not glamorous, to say the least. I sat alone on the cold floor of LAX Terminal Five for almost three hours, waiting for a friend I was moving in with. Usually, waiting at the airport would not have been as depressing as it was. But I was across the country, facing a huge and permanent change in my life and environment. Surprisingly, the trip to LA was harder than the actual feeling of being all moved in. The day after moving in, sleep had helped the feeling of homesickness subside. That being said, everyone deals with being away from home differently. Maybe you’re the type of person that, while you’re trying to fall asleep at the end of the day, homesickness keeps you up. Or maybe you sleep very well at night! For me, homesickness is in the strange taste of platanos from Frank compared to the taste of platanos from home. Homesickness is seeing kids play on the Quad and being reminded that across the country, my sister is playing in my backyard. Homesickness is unintentionally calling the small Blaisdell room upstairs “home.” So… when you’re sad, try these things out! Decorate your room to remind you of home! I made it a priority to put up pictures of my sister on the wall. Her face appears eleven times in my room and her photos are in constant rotation on my home screen. Plan your next visit home. Whether that be for Thanksgiving or even after the end of your years at the Claremont Colleges, knowing when you’ll be home will keep

LUCIA MARQUEZ-UPPMAN • THE STUDENT LIFE

you motivated and focused on something other than missing home. As someone who moved across the country for college, it’s not possible for me to go home whenever I like. I’m comforted when others share their feelings of homesickness, but I also feel isolated when my friends casually discuss taking the train home for a long weekend. Since arriving here in August, the next time I will be back home is not until winter break, which can feel like forever in my experience. Ask for help! You’re not alone in experiencing these feelings. There is strength in sharing how you feel as you create an environment for others where it’s safe to share your own firstyear experience, particularly as a first-generation student. In addition, the 5Cs have resources like the Monsour Counseling Center and class deans to help you adjust to this big change. A peculiar but particularly useful tip is to visit Target, Walmart or any retail store that you have back home. These, for the most part, look the same as every store nationwide. Perusing the aisles of Target in Montclair feels comfortably like wandering the aisles of a Target in northern Virginia with my mom and baby sister sitting in the shopping cart. Last but not least, call your mom, dad, parents, guardian or a hometown friend. It’s hard to see their faces so close to you yet so far away and smaller on the phone screen, dim from the glares of the California sun. It was hard for me to see my mom so pixelated on my screen, but it undoubtedly had a soothing effect on my anxieties. I called my mom this morning. Have you called your mom today?

PAGE 5

Coffee and Community: Three of the workers behind the Pit-Stop SOPHIE MCCLAIN On a typical morning, the PitStop is packed with students grabbing their coffees to-go or a quick breakfast before their first class. The blend of student voices, coffee grinders and espresso machine creates a comforting ambiance throughout this small but homey space. For some, such an environment may be overstimulating in the morning, but for many Pitzer students, a trip to the Pit-Stop signifies the start of a new day. While there are many cafes scattered across the 5Cs, the PitStop has become an essential space for not just Pitzer but other schools as well. This is in large part due to the three regular workers at the Pit-Stop: Viridiana Garcia, Ulysses Heredia and Freddie Guerrero. Every day, these three bring kindness and excitement to their interactions with students. “My favorite thing about working at the Pit-Stop is the community,” Heredia shared. “I feel like we have a strong community that either comes for coffee or just to hangout.” When asked about their favorite parts of working at the Pit-Stop, Garcia and Guerrero were quick to share similar answers. “My favorite thing about being at the Pit-Stop is probably being able to build different relationships with [students],” Garcia said. “I feel like in [McConnell] you don’t get that same connection.” For Guerrero, a big part of the appeal of working at the Pit-Stop is talking to the students. “I like to talk to people,” Guerrero said. “At the dining hall I can’t do that. Over there it’s just like ‘lets go, lets go’ … Over here it’s like more chill or relaxed.” Another part of what makes the Pit-Stop so special is its size. With only three tables and two small couches, the cozy space creates a more intimate atmosphere for its customers. The number of workers is also small — most of the time it is just Garcia, Heredia and Guerrero working. Occasionally, they are joined by other McConnell staff members when lines get long. The small space and staff allows the Pit-Stop to be a space for creating and cultivating student-worker friendships. However, the size also has its drawbacks. Only so many students can be inside at once before it starts to feel claustrophobic. All three workers wish the space could be

ESHA CHAMPSI • THE STUDENT LIFE

For many Pitzer students, a trip to the Pit-Stop signifies the start of a new day.

expanded. “I think if we had a bigger space … it’d be more useful for the Pitzer community,” Heredia said. “[More] people [could] come here and hang out, or people [could] come and study.” Guerrero echoed this sentiment. “I would expand it, to be honest,” Guerrero said. “I kind of wish we got some new chairs and new furniture probably … That would be perfect.” Regardless of the sometimes cramped nature of the space, students often still choose the Pit-Stop over other campus cafés. Ashley Fliegel PZ ’26 shared that even though places like The Hub or Café 47 can have more food or drink options, the Pit-Stop remains her goto choice, mainly for its welcoming environment. “The staff is so warm and they work really hard,” said Fliegel. “We’ve all seen how long that line gets and they always tend to each student with equal care and consideration.” Heredia also shared an important point about the openness of the PitStop environment. “Students and staff are welcome to come even if they don’t buy anything,” Heredia said. “We still like to have people here and just hang out.” Garcia elaborated on Heredia’s point. “I wish that [the students] knew that we genuinely care about you guys,” Heredia said. “When we ask you ‘how is your day going?’ we genuinely mean that. So I hope that you guys feel that.” The Pit-Stop has been a staple across the Pitzer community, bridging gaps between students, faculty and staff. The positive interactions the Pit-Stop fosters every morning can set the tone for a new and exciting day for each student who visits.

Walk Barefoot, Live Grounded: A Connection to Nature and Self JULIA SKAGGS Amidst our technologically interconnected world, Marina Shishkina SC ’25 finds it easy to become disconnected from her natural human needs. Searching to bridge the gap between a separated mind, body and external environment, she found the answer: barefoot living. “I experience a sense of detachment from my environment when I’m consumed by the allure of social media,” said Shishkina. Certain individuals at the 5Cs see the practice of being barefoot as a proactive way to reconnect with the earth and interweave the body and mind. Put simply, Chloe Lampert PZ ’27 chooses to engage in a barefoot lifestyle as a means for her to be more in touch with her environment and self. “It reminds me to slow down,” Lampert said. “It allows me to be more observant of my surroundings and my impact on them as well as their impact on me.” In a similar sense, Marina Shishkina SC ’25 perceives the custom as a new form of consciousness. In other words, Shishkina conceptualizes our feet as storytellers of life and our emotions. “It’s as if little sensors on your feet are able to answer questions on your emotions more deliberately,” Shiskina said. Barefoot enthusiasts like

Shishinka believe that this activity helps them lead to a more grounded form of existence in temporality and self. In 2021, Shishkina embarked on a journey of barefootedness for two weeks as a part of an art performance piece. “I could really feel everything that was going on and happening to me during those two weeks,” Shiskina said. “It allows me to … react the way I want to react. Feel the way [I] want to feel. Be the way I want to be.” Meanwhile, the practice can extend beyond spiritual and mental health to physical self-care as well. For barefoot practitioner Juliana Jaasma PZ ’26, her journey began as a matter of addressing her underlying health issues. “My family and I experienced a lot of foot problems, such as bunions,” Jaasma said. “For a long time, we thought it was a genetic issue.” Jaasma tried various inserts and other forms of mitigation, yet was still feeling this overarching sense of discomfort. “Then, my mom and I tried wearing foot spacers and being barefoot whenever possible,” Jaasma said. Jaasma has now experienced several health benefits as a result of adopting this way of life. “I’ve seen considerable improvements in my toe mobility, balance and athletic performance.” Jaasma said. “For instance, I’m able to wig-

gle my toes more when I’m doing certain yoga poses.” Similarly, Cristian Rosales PZ ’25 has seen notable improvements in his athletic abilities through barefootedness. “After going barefoot more frequently, I have been able to correct my running posture,” said Rosales. When Lampert is faced with negative comments surrounding her lifestyle, she is interested in looking deeper at these conventional social norms. In other words, Lampert is asking the broader questions — getting to the root of these judgements. “What makes you feel that being barefoot is unsafe or abnormal?” Lampert said. “Where does that idea stem from? Furthermore, how does my footwear, or lack thereof, affect you?” Practitioners believe that in an experience that is intimately woven with the self, it is important to begin practicing to the extent of which you are comfortable. “When you’re starting out, don’t overdo it,” Lampert said. “Grass and sand are always safe bets. Your feet will adjust overtime and it will gradually get more comfortable to walk on asphalt, dirt paths, rocky terrain and eventually even gravel and seashells!” Shishkina conceives of the practice as being a fundamental aspect of the authentic human condition. “Afterall, it’s the part of us that touches the ground,” said Shiskina.“I think everyone should be barefoot.”

ANDREW YUAN • THE STUDENT LIFE

Juliana Jaasma PZ ’26, one of many barefoot enthusiasts at the 5Cs, practicing on a Slackline.

PAGE 6

Arts & Culture

September 22, 2023

The Ath Living Wage Debate: Economic Radicalism at the Claremont Colleges Debate Union ANANYA VINAY Claremont McKenna College’s (CMC) Athenaeum was established with the intent of housing lively debates. The Sept. 12 discussion between Audrey Strevey PO ’25 and Yui Kurosawa CM ’26 kindled this spirit of discourse, centering around the following proposition: The United States should establish a guaranteed living wage. Strevey won the national Social Justice Championship on oceans policy earlier this year. Kurosawa is one of the top public performers for the Claremont Colleges Debate Union (CCDU), participating in panel discussions and various types of debates. The debate was moderated by Cameron Quijada SC ’25. On the side of the proposition, Strevey presented a fast-paced case for a guaranteed living wage. The living wage in Los Angeles is $80,000 a year, which is more than half of what an average American makes. To combat the cost-of-living crisis, Strevey proposed a guaranteed living wage of $70,000 to all Americans, funded by taxing the rich and redistributing wealth. She emphasized the ineffectiveness of social programs, claiming that 40 percent of Americans eligible for welfare don’t receive it. Strevey believes that Americans can reimagine what it means to work, enhancing the strength of labor unions, providing more options for work and revaluing those who have deemed unworthy due to their lack of “productivity.” On the opposition, Kurosawa’s

argument focused on the ineffectiveness of the above proposal to people who it would be designed to help. “A guaranteed living wage doesn’t make people rich,” Kurosawa said. “It makes people think that they’re rich.” Kurosawa said that improving existing inadequate social programs is more sensible than Strevey’s living wage proposal. “Difficult logistics and [flawed] social programs [are] not justification[s] to spend $18 trillion a year to give $70,000 to every single person in the US,” Kurosawa said. “Let’s strive to improve those [social programs]. That’s more publicly accountable than [putting] $18 trillion into the US economy.” According to Kurosawa, billionaires and people living under the poverty line should not get the same amount of money because need varies significantly. Strevey pushed back on this point, arguing that a guaranteed living wage would benefit unions, give workers more choices and reduce healthcare costs. Attendee Ashley Fliegel PZ ’26 agreed with Strevey’s arguments. “It surprised me that [Kurosawa] focused on the financial feasibility of the [proposition’s] proposals rather than other factors,” Fliegel said. Kurosawa said that Strevey’s proposal would cause heavy inflation, which would raise prices and increase national and generational debt. “[The proposal] creates the illu-

COURTESY: MAYA KURKHILL

LEFT TO RIGHT: Cameron Quijada SC ‘25, Audrey Strevey PO ‘25, Yui Kurosawa CM ‘26.

sion of a solution because now you don’t have people who are absolutely destitute, you don’t have people with empty paychecks, but what you do have are [higher] prices … things are going to be significantly more expensive,” Kurosawa said. Halfway through the debate, the audience was permitted to ask the debaters questions. When asked how she planned on reducing poverty through welfare programs, Kurosawa addressed the economic system as a whole. “If the alternative is to create a socialist government in which we give $70,000 to every single person in the United States while creating absolutely crazy inflation and generational debt, I think … a welfare

state is much better,” Kurosawa said. Strevey clarified that her proposal is a negative income tax which involves wealth redistribution. “The way a negative income tax works is that you take money away in different stages based on the level of income that people have,” Strevey said. “And then everyone gets given back $70,000. So if you’re making more than $70,000, you’re probably going to be in about the same situation as you were before.” At the end of the debate, the majority of the audience voted for the proposition; however, the debaters left in good spirits with one another. Strevey discussed how debate has had a positive influence throughout

her life. “What I enjoy the most about debate is being able to take on different perspectives and having to discover a way that I think is ethical to argue for policies that I never thought of before,” Strevey said. Kurosawa described debate as reaching beyond just the issue discussed in a given session, looking towards its applications to everyday life. “Debate is more of a strategy game than a content game,” Kurosawa said. “Debate humanizes the other side … when they’re arguing diametrically opposed to your beliefs, you engage in the debate knowing they’re also people with compassion and rational beliefs and critical thinking.”

Community, conversations and connections at the Draper Center JOANNA LAM During Orientation Week at Pomona College, every incoming freshman runs through the famous stone gates between 6th Street and College Avenue. Inscribed on these gates are the words: “They only are loyal to this college who, departing, bear their added riches in trust for mankind.” These words are aligned with the vision of staff members and student coordinators at Pomona’s Draper Center for Community Partnerships,

EMMA JENSEN • THE STUDENT LIFE

Staff members and student coordinators at Pomona’s Draper Center for Community Partnerships.

a space that supports community engagement activities for 5C students. Allowing students to apply their learning to benefit the local community, the Draper Center runs several programs that work throughout the Inland Empire. Gina Yum PO ’25 is the current coordinator for the Food Recovery Network, which works to redistribute food from Pomona dining halls to nearby community centers. Her passion for sustainability and waste management motivated her to restart the Food Recovery Network and become one of the student coordinators last spring. Yum described one of her favorite aspects of working with the Draper Center. “The Draper Center … facilitated my connection with the world outside of … Pomona College by working in the Inland Empire,” Yum said. Kristin Walters PO ’23 joined the Draper Center after her freshman year as a teacher assistant for the Pomona College Academy for Youth Success (PAYS), a college access program for local high school

students. She is now on the staff of the Draper Center as a post-baccalaureate (post-bac) for educational outreach. “We’re all on this one-track college lifestyle,” Walters observed. “One thing the Draper Center does is put you with people who didn’t live the same life you did or have the same interactions, or they speak different languages.” Diana Rodriguez PO ’19, like Walters, was a student volunteer at the Draper Center before she became a post-bac upon graduating. Rodriguez points out the socioeconomic disparities between the Claremont Colleges and the city of Pomona, which students who primarily stay on campus tend to overlook. The Draper Center also provides numerous programs for students to become more involved in their work. The program both Rodriguez and Walters highlighted was Alternabreak, a week-long community engagement trip during spring break. Rodriguez participated in the Alternabreak trip to San Francisco during her freshman year. “Alternabreak is one of the best

Poet and essayist Ross Gay on why you don’t need to be an optimist to incite joy ZOE DORADO Poet and essayist Ross Gay kicked off the Humanities Studio’s 2023-2024 “Joy” Speakers Series at Pomona College’s Rose Hills Theater on Sept. 14 with a reading of “Inciting Joy,” a collection of essays described by U.S. poet laureate Ada Limón as “a book that will break your heart.” “There’s so much suggesting that we’re not connected, whether it be you and me, us to the trees, or the soil, or the air, or the light,” Gay said. “The more I sort of realized the depths of joy, the more I sort of felt like, ‘Oh, this is just something that I’m always going to be interested in.’” Gay covers these ideas throughout “Inciting Joy,” in which he proposes readers see joy not as the absence of sorrow, rage or grief, but as something that inherently coexists with these emotions. When writing, Gay tries to maintain his curiosity about his emotions. “It’s less of an exploration than it is a kind of inquiry,” Gay said. Particularly striking was how Gay subverted the typical hierarchical author Q&A. When Eileen Kim PO ’24 asked how one can, in the midst of day-to-day obligations, prioritize joy and explore their passions, Gay opened the question to the audience, making it a collective conversation. Talia Day PO ’27 took the opportunity to respond to Kim’s question. “I’m wording this in a silly way, but just living is sometimes enough,” Day said. “You’ll find that when you’re living and just being yourself in the moment you’ll find things that you love to do.” Amanda Eric PO ’25 shared similar thoughts placed in an institutional context. “I just finished reading this book called ‘Rest as Resistance’ by Tricia Hersey,” Eric said. “She has an amazing collective called the Nap Ministry and [within the book] she explores this idea of rest, specifically for Black women, trying to find ways of dreaming about possibilities that are beyond capitalism.”

ways to get involved in your first year if you don’t necessarily know what you like because it is touching different community-based work,” Rodriguez said. With an eye towards the future, the Draper Center has even greater plans to connect to the Inland Empire community. On Oct. 15, the city of Pomona will hold the grand opening of the Pomona College Community Engagement Center, a second branch of the Draper Center. Both Walters and Rodriguez shared excitement at the prospect of making their community-based and educational services more accessible to all residents. “It’ll be like having Draper Center in the actual city,” Walters said. “I think that’s so beautiful because now we get to do even more work, and we’ve made so many community partners by starting this journey.” Despite everything the campus organization has accomplished, Rodriguez believes the staff members and student coordinators are proudest of the community that they’ve built together.

“If you ask a lot of the Draper Center coordinators now, all of their friends are from the Draper Center,” Rodriguez said. “Outside of the affinity groups on campus, I feel like you can’t really find that in other places.” Walters recounted her challenging first semester at Pomona as a low-income student, which caused her to consider dropping out. She credits the community at the Draper Center for helping her persevere and graduate college. “[Working with] PAYS, I found a group of other volunteers who understood me, [and] understood my background and lifestyle,” Walters said. “The Draper Center gave me some opportunities that I never thought I could have, being low-income and coming from Florida.” Walters concludes by revealing what she attributes to the success of the Draper Center: teamwork. “It’s all a team effort,” Walters said. “I think that’s what makes the Draper Center work so well … Partnership with students, staff members, our community and just building around that … That’s what makes it work.”

FILM FILES

“Bottoms” doesn’t take itself seriously… at all HANNAH ELIOT

COURTESY: GRETCHEN ROGNLIEN

Poet and essayist Ross Gay kicked off the Humanities Studio’s 2023-2024 “Joy” Speakers Series at Pomona College’s Rose Hills Theater on Sept. 14.

This led to Gay’s next question: What does it mean to collectively arrive at freedom? Eric described how she felt the most free when she was able to imagine “other ways to move or exist throughout the world,” be that through dancing or resting. Gay posed a question in response: “Wouldn’t it be nice if there were accountability teams for resting or for playing?” The sense of community in motion was palpable. As people all around the room shared their thoughts, the nearly 200 audience members swiveled their bodies to face each other, and the stage and podium Gay stood at seemed to disappear. When the event ended, the audience was still fully engaged. Elizabeth Tulac, a former teacher at the Mary B. Eyre Children’s School, shouted out how as a self-proclaimed “old person,” finding joy takes time. “All those annoying senior citizens, they’ve found it, so if you don’t find it today, you’ll find it one of these days,” Tulac said. Similarly to how Gay resists the commodification of joy, he also resists the commodification of pain. “None of us has a dearth of

heartbreak,” Gay said. “We’re all heartbroken. But there is something very… damaging to be compelled to perform the heartbreak. People who love you aren’t gonna make you perform heartbreak.” When Sinqi Chapman PO ’27 asked about the significance of hope and joy in imagining a future, Gay described his complicated relationship with “hope.” “Some people will often say [my] work is so hopeful, or it’s optimistic,” Gay said. “To be honest, I don’t feel optimistic at all. Nor do I feel pessimistic,” he said. “But I spend time describing the ways that we’re capable of caring for one another and making each other possible … I want to not only be able to know it and celebrate it, articulate it, share it, but I want to be able to contribute to it, to some extent.” It’s as if joy isn’t inherently optimistic or hopeful, but rather signifies that we’re alive, that we’re in an intimate relationship with the world. “It’s like noticing that the trees make it possible for us to breathe,” Gay said. “I’m describing a thing that is true. Now, it will be true tomorrow.”

If you go to Scripps, you’ve probably already seen it. But for all the bisexual virgins who haven’t, “Bottoms” is the new sex comedy from “Shiva Baby” director Emma Seligman. “Bottoms” kicks off with two friends, PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri), who are both horny, lonely and lesbian. Tired of being nobodies at their suburban high school, they decide that this year will be different for them. They WILL get laid. “Do you want to be the only girl virgin at Sarah Lawrence?” PJ asks Josie. On one hand, there’s PJ, who wears her emotions on her sleeve and bluntly crushes on popular cheerleader Brittany (Kaia Gerber). But where PJ is loud and brash, Josie is quiet and shy. For those who have watched “Superbad,” she is the Michael Cera to Sennott’s Jonah Hill. Josie might be crushing hard on cheerleader Isabel (Havana Rose Liu), but she’d rather say nothing and just focus on making it through the year. Going along with a rumor that they spent the summer in juvenile detention, Josie and PJ gain a new, tough reputation. Not only are they unpopular outcasts — “the ugly, untalented gays” as their high school principal calls them — but now, they’re criminals. Desperate to get their crushes’ attention, they decide to start a fight club where girls knock each other out while bonding over their sexual trauma. If “Bottoms” had an older brother, it would be the aforementioned “Superbad,” the 2007 comedy about two nerdy seniors doing everything possible to buy booze and get laid before graduation. But unlike “Superbad,” this is a film that doesn’t care if cishet white men can see themselves in it or not. One of the best parts about this film is its commitment to the bit. It knows the entire premise is absurd, so it doesn’t feel bound to any kind of realism. The dialogue doesn’t feel even slightly natural; the violence escalates steadily, breaking the boundary between silly and horrific. There are times when PJ’s jokes cross the line, but Sennott delivers them with such audacity and wit that they never derail

BELLA PETTENGILL • THE STUDENT LIFE

the movie. Absurdist comedies are tricky because once you establish the heightened tone, you have to maintain that threshold even amidst plot and character development — or the entire thing can fall apart. “Bottoms” understands that, keeping the jokes coming at a breakneck speed. Even the quieter, more emotional moments appear to operate on a higher frequency. Is that always a good thing, particularly in a final stretch that barrels into a climactic musical number, pacing and arcs be damned? Of course not. But ultimately, it’s tough to knock a film that has this much personality, this much ridiculous humor and this good of a cast. “Bottoms” maintains a high level of mania throughout, with displays of violence and gay frustration that ultimately work to smooth out any typical high school movie tropes. Rachel Sennott can continue playing the same character in every film (i.e. herself) and I’d be fine with it, Kaia Gerber is used exactly the right amount and scene-stealing improv from Marshawn Lynch is a highlight. While its stars are all in their mid-to-late 20s, the film doesn’t try to age them down visually, which only adds to the humor. “Bottoms” may not appeal to everyone. But its commitment to its own bit can’t be topped. Hannah Eliot SC ’24 is from San Francisco, California. She likes to surf and procrastinate getting her driver’s license.

Opinions

September 22, 2023

PAGE 7

PITZER: Administrators should work with student activists, not against them Continued from page 1 journalism, as mine was, do not fall under IRB standards. Instead of taking the opportunity to teach me, like an educator should, they went out of their way to be condescending. It is quite distressing and disillusioning to walk away from a conversation with someone who holds so much power at your college with the sense that they disregard you as both an academic and a worthy participant of college governance. My experience with the administrator left me feeling embarrassed and belittled. Unfortunately, I was not the only Pitzer student with a similar experience. Quin Mumford PZ ’24, who served as the vice president for internal affairs on Pitzer Student Senate last year, told me that after attending and speaking at the delegation to the Board of Trustees on Feb. 9, he received an email from another administrator saying he needed to be “more respectful” when interacting with board members. “I find it very insulting that [they] could come to me, an individual who represents the students, [and] make such an abhorrent demand,” Mumford told me. Last October, Elena Hockensmith PZ ’24 had a meeting with the same administrator that I did to discuss concerns about events on campus. When Hockensmith attempted to share her and CSWA’s concerns about the way dining hall workers were being treated by a manager, the administrator refused to engage in conversation and asked Hockensmith to leave their office. Things at Pitzer have changed a lot since my experience and the similar experiences of many other students. Pitzer has a new President, Strom Thacker PO ’88. Many previous administrators have left the college. CSWA members won their campaign to rehire the Pitzer Three and student-led actions have come to a current pause.

SASHA MATTHEWS • THE STUDENT LIFE

However, I remain skeptical about what this year could hold should there be another surge in student-led organizing. If another student movement emerges this year, all eyes will be on President Thacker and other Pitzer administrators to handle things differently. In the spring, Pitzer College failed its students and its core values. Instead of valuing dialogue, inquiry and action, like they claim, Pitzer repeatedly ignored the voices of students who challenged them. But it

doesn’t have to be like this going forward. I urge President Thacker and the rest of the administration to view any sort of future challenges by students not as threats, but as proof of the students’ love and care for our community. Mistakes are human and college administrations are not an exception to this reality. However, the repeated harsh retaliation and emotional belittling that Pitzer administrators subjected students to last spring was not a mistake but an active choice.

Pitzer owes it to students like myself to make different choices. If Pitzer wants to truly embody the core values of social responsibility and student engagement, administrators need to work with students to create a more supportive campus. When students raise concerns and try to hold the college accountable, administrators should actively listen and ask how they can do better. Student activists should always feel comfortable, safe and heard in these conversations. No one should ever feel

deterred from raising their concerns out of fear of retaliation. The matter of another student movement at Pitzer is not an if but a when. When that movement comes, I can only hope that the Pitzer community will be in the spirit of the core values the college claims to hold. Sophie McClain PZ ’24 is from Oakland, California and studies American Studies and Philosophy. She loves reading new books, hanging out with friends and spending way too much money on coffee.

Can we eliminate ASPC apathy? ANJALI SUVA On Sept. 12, I was left underwhelmed as the results of the ASPC elections drifted listlessly across my phone screen. The elections, held in the second week of the school year, featured students gunning for First-year Class President, North Campus representative and South Campus representative. Coming from a high school where students had little say in the functioning of student government and lacked real power in affecting change around the school, it was easy for me to fall into the same attitude of disillusionment and ap-

athy toward ASPC elections. Other first-years I spoke to shared this mindset and it was hard for us to believe that our votes would count toward any meaningful change. This is an alarming thought about an institution meant to serve us for the next four years. As I witnessed in my old school, students are less likely to speak up when there’s a problem and less likely to believe that their situations will improve. This, in turn, prevents ASPC from finding solutions. Some first-years — like myself — especially lack the motivation or incentive to vote, considering that many barely know their own

candidates. Having arrived on campus less than a month before the election, many of the names on the ballot were complete strangers to me. Doubts about their motivations for running and their competence were inevitable. And to many of us, the election outcome didn’t matter since we could not know how any of the candidates would fare in their desired position. We hardly knew them as students, let alone as our future representatives, since the campaign period lasted a mere six days in total. This is hardly enough time for candidates to familiarize themselves with future con-

SASHA MATTHEWS • THE STUDENT LIFE

THE STUDENT LIFE Senior Staff EMMA CONSTABLE, Production Editor ISHA RAHEJA, News Designer JAKE CHANG, A&C Designer AIDAN MA, Opinions Designer

MADELEINE SHIMKUS, Sports Designer AARON MATSUOKA, Copy Chief ANNALISE CHANG, Copy Chief EMMA JENSEN, Photo Editor

ANDREW YUAN, Photo Editor SASHA MATTHEWS, Graphics Editor ANNABELLE INK, News Editor SARA CAWLEY, News Editor

REIA LI, News Associate ZOE SOKATCH, News Editoral Assistant TANIA AZHANG, Arts & Culture Editor CARTER SOE, Arts & Culture Editor

stituents. Adding to that was a general feeling of confusion as students only had a vague idea of what these roles actually entailed. There was also the issue of accessibility regarding the candidate forum. The forum, held at Rose Hills Theater, helped connect candidates with the student body, but some students could not attend due to other commitments. ​​This was dismaying, as the forum was one of our few chances to meet with candidates. There also seemed to be many apparent solutions to this problem, such as recording the forum or holding the election speeches in dining halls as in previous years. These feelings of apathy around elections and ASPC are further amplified by the fact that upperclassmen have told me about their experiences of being unable to achieve their campaign goals. Paper towels in bathrooms, better heat mitigation measures — all of these are recurring issues. The lack of success in solving such common problems, whether due to structural barriers or the fact that these measures were not prioritized, has contributed to an indifference from the student body towards ASPC. Many of these unfulfilled promises boil down to the fact that there simply isn’t enough time in a year to see projects to the finish line. “I am a little disillusioned every year because if it’s a changing body you’re always going to be set back a little bit,” Nathan Flores PO ’26 told me. “Last year we had a lot of momentum going at the very end [of the year] because we all understood what we had to do, but now we have to start over. So there’s always this continuity issue.” Flores previously served as South Campus representative and now serves as commissioner of the Equity and Inclusion committee. Regardless, I believe that Po-

mona students do not have to remain stuck in their apathy. The best way we can combat this is through our own involvement in student affairs. The student body is integral to ASPC’s functions. We can exercise our power to its fullest by attending ASPC senate meetings on Thursdays from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Smith Campus Center. We can start petitions for paper towels in bathrooms, better access to mental health services, more day trips and more if we believe we are not being heard. We can send out mass emails to senate members, spread the word on particular issues through Instagram and mobilize as best we can. Rather than relying on representatives alone — some of whom may not realize the priorities of the student body — it is also up to us to get our message across. Communication goes both ways. Representatives should also uphold their commitment to serving the student body by sending out anonymous surveys through email asking for student concerns. They should also have multiple avenues of communication — letting the student body know when, where and on which platforms they can be contacted, for example. Students also have the option of directly involving themselves in student affairs through ASPC’s many committees, including the Equity and Inclusion Committee, Food Committee and Residence Halls Committee. There are also various smaller positions within ASPC, such as the senate aide position. Both ASPC and the student body have the same goals. But ensuring that these goals are carried out requires us to go the extra mile to eliminate the impassivity around APSC. Anjali Suva PO ’27 is from Orange County, California. She loves watching horror films, reading fantasy books and just about anything that allows her to avoid touching grass.

Editorial Board MAXINE DAVEY, Editor-in-Chief MARIANA DURAN, Managing Editor BEN LAUREN, Managing Editor MAYA ZHAN, Arts & Culture Associate DANIA ANABTAWI, Opinions Editor KAHANI MALHOTRA, Opinions Editor ANSLEY WASHBURN, Sports Editor

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TSL’s Editorial Board consists of the editor-in-chief and two managing editors. Aside from the editorial, the views expressed in the opinions section do not necessarily reflect the views of The Student Life. Singles copies of TSL are free and may be obtained at news stands around campus. Multiple copies may be purchased for $0.47 per copy with prior approval by contacting editor@tsl.news. Newspaper theft is a crime; perpetrators may be subject to disciplinary action as well as civil and/or criminal prosecution.

Opinions

PAGE 8

September 22, 2023

Hear me out on Collins ROWAN GRAY Well, in case you missed it, a new year just started — and with the influx of all the first-years, it’s time for that yearly conversation: Which dining hall is the best? In that perennial debate, Collins tends to get a lot of idle hate. Critics say it’s boring and mediocre, that it gives hospital or corporate cafeteria or that it’s filled with Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) football team members and hungover future wealth management advisors. And sure, they’re totally right about all of that. But let’s dive a little deeper than we usually do with our analyses of Claremont McKenna College (CMC) experiences and see if there are any other narratives going on under the surface. If you would, give me a little bit more of your time — I’m here to tell you that Collins can be a lot more than you might assume. “Man, that was a great meal” is not frequently a sentiment someone expresses after leaving Collins. But to interpret that as a problem is somewhat missing the point of Collins. Collins exists not to provide us with gourmet experiences; it’s here to keep us going through the day. You won’t find Pitzer’s catfish or Mudd’s steak there, but you will find a consistently good salad bar and a damn decent grill. In the real world, and especially in the CMC world, not every night is an opportunity to have some revolutionary culinary experience. We’re usually too tired for that — we want something convenient and reliable. But that’s sort of the problem we have with Collins — when we’re fighting about how bad it is, none of us can imagine wanting anything normal or non-ex-

MAX RANNEY • THE STUDENT LIFE

ceptional. We presume that we’re all willing to take the excesses of constantly novel experiences even if they come with the inconsistency of dining halls like Frary or McConnell. That consumerist instinct

to be constantly in search of the new best thing in exchange for giving up stability or reliability is something we so easily reject intellectually, but the second the conversation turns to dining halls, it’s everyone’s rhetor-

MANHOLE SANDWICH: A COMIC BY SASHA MATTHEWS

ical crutch. But even that analysis somewhat misses what Collins is in a CMC context. In case you’re unaware, there’s a lot of conversation at CMC about how communities are created, main-

tained and located — and Collins is a core part of that dialogue. I’d argue that Collins, especially during late night snack, has a pretty specific vibe that doesn’t really exist anywhere else at CMC or at any of the other colleges. It’s a comfortable communal space — everyone’s sedated with corn dogs and ice cream, coming together after a long day. It’s where the ASCMC presidential candidates give their speeches, it’s where community organizing goes down, it’s where friendships are born. If you’ve ever been there on a busy night, you’ve seen a sizable crowd of CMCers from every community at the college milling around. Most importantly, Collins is a powerful metaphor for what it means to be a CMC student. Late night snack was created because so many of us are up late working for our competitive cutthroat extracurriculars so that we can get that internship our junior year summer. But it’s become so much more than a place for us to fill up on coffee — we’ve used it as an escape from the reality of much of life at CMC. For those few minutes when you’re there, you don’t exist as your elevator pitch — you exist as you. And that is kind of the story of CMC: It’s about the struggle to create a community from a space that was not designed for it. It’s about breaking the rules gracefully and deliberately. It’s about subverting normality and using what you have to rise above. But yeah, Collins is lowkey mid. Rowan Gray CM ’26 is from Sharon, Massachusetts. He wants you to know that all Oxford commas in this piece were violently deleted by his copy editors.

MANHOLE SANDWICH: A COMIC BY SASHA MATTHEWS

How eating alone feels

Boob Wizard

JJ’s Crossword:Claremont Claremont fun facts Fun Facts 1 ACROSS 5. The football game you don’t want to miss, P-P vs. CMS, September 30 6. Swift who visited the Claremont colleges in 2012 7. Claremont: The city of ____ and PhDs 8. Oldest standing PO building

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DOWN 1. Pitzer dining hall where Claremont Running Club will be having dinner on September 29 2. Abbr. for 7C institution founded most recently, in 1997 3. Located in Walker, pick up gently-used items at no cost from 7:00 to 9:00 P.M. on Sundays and Tuesdays 4. CM field that the Fly Fishing classes practice on

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COURTESY: JJ HOFFMAN & GLORIA LEE

Sports

September 22, 2023

PAGE 9

A new era for club sports: rebranding fosters unity and sparks enthusiasm AMEYA TELI & ANSLEY WASHBURN Rivals on varsity level, teammates for club: Sixth Street nemeses are coming together to redefine what club sports are at the 5Cs. For the first time, ClaremontMudd-Scripps (CMS) and Pomona-Pitzer (P-P) are merging their club programs, aligning heated rivals on the same team. Since 2012, leadership over club level athletics at the 5Cs has been under the joint discretion of both organizations’ directors of recreation. CMS Director of Recreation Matt Ryan and P-P Director of Recreation Dominique Williams have been working together to secure funding, schedule field space, oversee registration and help manage all of the other logistical workings of college club sports. However, until this year, they have not presented themselves as one organization externally. Claremont Club sports have a new logo and merch to display it on. According to Williams, the changes taking place are part of a collective effort with Ryan to create a sense of unity amongst 5C club sport teams. “We wanted to make sure that [the logo] included all the 5Cs, which is why the arch has each institution’s primary colors,” Williams said. Despite the logo being the most obvious new development,

the shifts happening in the management of club sports extend beyond a new color palette. Williams and Ryan have made it a priority this year to equip club teams with improved safety measures and support personnel. One of the first steps in this program is offering free CPR training for any member of a club team during the semester. “We’re looking to make sure that every club has at least two or three individuals who are CPR certified, so we’re going to be offering [CPR training] free of charge this semester,” Williams said. “We will also provide them with part-time athletic trainers at their home events.” Club sport athletes see the benefits of this collaboration in increased access to services and practice spaces. For example, women’s field hockey captain Sajni Sheth-Voss SC ’26 can take her team to all of the campus gyms. “We have access to all the resources that both school groups can provide,” ShethVoss said. “[We have] access to Roberts and CARW and more help from both sides of the administration.” However, athletes are not the only ones excited about the new changes. Ainsley Murphy SC ’26 works as a club sports event manager. Despite being hired

COURTESY: DOMINIC WILLIAMS 5C Club Sports recently rebranded and added a new logo.

and paid through CMS, Murphy works with students across the consortium. Murphy is excited about the transformation that club sports are undergoing. “I think [the changes] are going to make for a better community for the club sports workers, and a better community for the club sport athletes,” Murphy said. “Instead of [separation] between CMS and P-P, club sports finally have a unifying symbol.” Regardless of excitement from athletes and employees alike surrounding the rebrand,

according to Williams, many people at the 5Cs remain in the dark about the rebrand and how club sports work. In order to increase awareness, Williams and Ryan got creative. As an incentive to increase attendance at games and advertise club sports to potential players, T-shirts, hats and other items bearing the new 5C club sports logo will be given out at club games. “We’re going to make sure that we have giveaways at different games and things like that this coming year,” Williams said. “Make sure to

come out and support.” Murphy said that she is optimistic about the impact that the innovations are going to make and is looking forward to experiencing the improvements first-hand. “I’m super excited for this year,” Murphy said. “I’m excited to see the changes that Matt and Dom have been working on. I’m excited to see the community that we are going to build. I love that at my job, I don’t feel like I’m just working for Scripps or for CMS, but actually doing something that helps all five schools. It’s awesome.”

Athenas women’s soccer skid continues with 1-0 loss to Redlands ANSLEY WASHBURN, HAROLD FUSON & ADAM AKINS On Wednesday, Sept. 20, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) women’s soccer suffered a disappointing 1-0 loss to the Redlands Bulldogs at 7 p.m. on Pritzlaff Field in their third conference matchup of the 2023 season. Following a victory in their season opener against George Fox, the Athenas went winless in their next five games, bringing their overall record to 1-4-1. CMS’s primary challenge this season so far has been starting games off strong, conceding in the first 10 minutes in four of their past five losses. According to defender Annie McKinely CM ’25, going into the game, the team was looking to change this pattern, working to drive hard in the opening minutes of the game and set a strong tone. “Last game, our mantra was focusing on the first five minutes,” McKinley said.

“We’ve conceded a goal in the first five minutes of quite a few games. So we want to make it our goal to come out flying in the first half.” And for the first five minutes, the Atheneas did command the pitch. Captain Kaitlyn Helfrich CM ’25 directed dangerous attacks, applying continued pressure on the Bulldogs keeper to keep CMS off of the scoreboard. However, in the seventh minute of the game the momentum was quickly broken up. On the Bulldogs’ first offensive drive, a loose cross ricocheted off the head of a CMS defender, sneaking over the outstretched hands of goalkeeper Sadie Brown CM ’26. Still, according to Flora Glantz CM ’25, the Athenas did not go down easily. “I think that we held strong through the 90 minutes even after they scored that first goal,” Glantz said. “We knew that we had a lot of time ahead of us and it was just more

attack-minded.” From the kickoff following the goal to the end of the game, the Athenas laid on consistent pressure, outmatching the Bulldogs’ intensity and controlling play through the center with superior technical ability. Forward Riley Zitar CM ’26 found five shots over the course of the game. Three of these were on goal, single-handedly surpassing Redlands’ overall team total of two. “I think that [Redlands were] physically bigger, but our technical side is much better than them,” Glantz said. “So even though they were maybe a little stronger, we’re able to kind of dribble through them and create those chances.” The Athenas had their most promising opportunity in the final moments of the first half, when a Bulldogs defender took a CMS defender down mere feet outside of the penalty box. After the referee awarded that

Bulldogs defender a yellow card, all 11 Athenas packed into the box. Brown left her box to take the freekick, leaving CMS’s defensive half unguarded. Pritzlaff Field was silent in anticipation of the kick, but, as was too common an occurrence that night, the ball squibbed out of play without finding an Athena’s boot. Brown said that trailing by just a goal inspired CMS to make a risky play in hopes of it paying off. “We throw people out there just to try to get more chances,” Brown said. “So it’s like, ‘we’ve already gotten a goal behind us. What’s to stop us from pushing forward?’ We’ve become more aggressive in the sense that they’re not getting any more balls behind us. So it reinvigorates us.” Undiscouraged, CMS kept their heads up and sprinted back to close out the final minutes, resulting in yet another shot on goal to close out the half.

After the halftime whistle the Athenas kept up their intensity. The small and shifty CMS side dominated a Redlands team that physically outmatched them, finding chance after chance, but suffered from a lack of confidence and decisiveness in the final third. Approaching the end of the second half, the Athenas earned consecutive corners, controlled play in the middle but still failed to execute the equalizer they needed. “I think our work rate was there and our touches were there,” Glantz said. “It was just that final execution that we’re missing. We’re working on finishing those shots, getting the shots on target in the corners, which will hopefully lead to some goals.” The Athenas said they hope to bounce back and earn their first SCIAC win against Whittier on Saturday, Sept. 23 to gain some momentum approaching the Sixth Street Rivalry game against Pomona-Pitzer on Saturday, Sept. 30.

ADAM AKINS • THE STUDENT LIFE On Wednesday Sept. 20, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) women’s soccer lost 1-0 loss to the Redlands Bulldogs in their third conference matchup of the 2023 season.

COURTESY: CMS ATHLETICS Riley Zitar CM ’26, who had 5 shots against Redlands, dribbles during the Athena’s lone win this season against George Fox on Sept. 1.

Sports

PAGE 10

September 22, 2023

High school hopefuls travel from around the nation for P-P baseball camps ADAM AKINS

ADAM AKINS • THE STUDENT LIFE A high school baseball player fields a ground ball during the P-P baseball camp.

Matthew Nishimura PZ ’24 squats behind the pitcher ’s mound, staring intently into the batter ’s box. The pitcher, a high schooler, delivers a fastball that catches the batter looking. Nishimura delivers a decisive shout — “You’re out!” — ringing up the batter and drawing the inning to a close. Four years ago, Nishimura was standing in that very same batter’s box, having traveled from Hawaii with friends for a chance to show Pomona-Pitzer (P-P) coaches what he could do for the team at the P-P Baseball Camp. P-P baseball, led by head coach Frank Pericolosi, has been running camps since 2012, allowing students interested in showcasing their skills to meet coaches, compete against

other players and understand the culture of the P-P team. These camps allow players to run through a full pro-style workout, a combine test, batting practice and a live game. “Last year was a big number for us,” Pericolosi said. “We [added] about five or six guys from our camps.” Players who have participated in the Sagehens’ camps often return to help the new class of recruits get a feel for the P-P baseball program. As one such player, Nishimura described taking speed measurements for pitchers, recording statistics, running various drills and coordinating workouts. “It’s really interesting being on this side as a player,” Nishimura said. “Back [when I came to camp], I was scared to play in front of Coach Pericolosi … [Now] getting to be right

behind them, talking in their ears … I totally love doing that.” The camp also allows pitchers to spend time in small groups with the Sagehens’ pitching coach, Jacob Staub, allowing them to showcase their mechanics and pitch mix while building a relationship with prospective coaches. Noah Pershing PZ ’27 made the trip from the District of Columbia metro area for the August iteration of the camp, hoping to walk-on to the team this season. Despite not making the team, Pershing was happy with the experience and opportunities that came with it. “One thing that I thought was very meaningful was that every player had a quick opportunity to have a chat with Coach Pericolosi,” Pershing said. “It was a lot of positive feedback, and I really enjoyed the opportunity.”

Beyond the Mat: New 5C Spartans wrestling club is committed to redefining the sport’s culture

ANSLEY WASHBURN

With all the ingredients ready to go, the Claremont Spartans, the newest dish on the 5C club sports menu, just need a little more time in the oven. The 5C co-ed wrestling club is in the beginning stages of its development, but founder Saif El Mosalami PZ ’26 believes the club could become a full-fledged team with consistent practices and competitions in the near future. After only officially beginning to recruit members a few weeks ago, there are already dozens of interested students of all genders and skills from every school. The sport holds deep cultural, religious and emotional significance for the club’s founders, who are hoping to share their love of the sport in a supportive space — free from the toxicity around weight that can hang heavy in the sport. El Mosalami said he had the idea to create a wrestling club during his freshman year after he noticed enthusiasm among his peers but found no opportunities to meet the demand. “Everyone I was around had a lot of interest in [wrestling] and I saw it basically as a hole in club sports,” El Mosalami said. Last spring, El Mosalami discussed the idea with his club rugby teammate Yohanan Brown CM ’26, and the two former high

school wrestlers decided to form the club. Though all the members of Spartans’ leadership have prior experience in the sport, Brown explained that the club hopes to serve not only as an outlet for veteran competitors, but also as a learning environment for those trying the sport for the first time. “We want to create a space that’s open to everyone,” Brown said. “No one needs any skills to join. We’re going to meet them at their level and have fun throwing each other around.” Although fun and competition are at the core of the goals of the club, for some members, the activity of wrestling has a deeper significance. Ali Abu Bakr ’26, one of the Spartans’ founders and vice president of the Muslim Student Association (MSA), explained that for himself and other Arab-Muslims, wrestling and self-defense is a cultural and religious practice. “It’s what our prophet did, so it’s a good thing to do. He wrestled and so it’s part of our religion to wrestle,” Abu Bakr said. “I don’t think [the club] is going to be marketed specifically toward Muslim students in any way. But that demographic is definitely there, so we will reach out to them.”

SASHA MATTHEWS • THE STUDENT LIFE The Claremont Spartans, the 5C club wrestling team, are the Claremont Colleges’ newest club sport.

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps

Athletes of the Week

Ethan Gretzinger

Natalie Bitetti

PZ ’24 Palos Verdes, CA Football

Friday, September 22

Saturday, September 23

Men’s Water Polo vs. Air Force CSUF Titan Invitational

Women’s Cross Country @ The Master’s Invitational

Men’s Water Polo vs. Biola CSUF Titan Invitational Volleyball vs. Chapman

Friday, September 22

P-P

Gretzinger led Pomona-Pitzer to a victory against Pacific (Ore.) University in the Sagehen’s home-opener. Trailing 9-3 at the half, Gretzinger spear-headed a rally late in the game to put the Hens on top 24-17. Gretzinger threw for 255 yards, completing 22 of 29 attempts, with three touchdowns. The Sagehens look to continue their success from last week in their first SCIAC competition against La Verne on Saturday.

Bitetti ran a 6K time of 20:32.7 this past weekend, the second fastest in program history. Bitetti placed 10th at the University of California Riverside Invitational, helping the Athenas to a 3rd place finish against a field of largely Division 1 opponents, including UC, Irvine and the University of Arizona, who both placed after CMS. The Athenas compete again this Saturday at the Master’s University Invitational.

CMC ’24 La Crescenta, CA Women’s Cross Country

CMS

Pomona-Pitzer

Men’s Cross Country @ The Master’s Invitational Men’s Water Polo vs. Austin CSUF Titan Invitational

Football vs. Cal Lutheran Volleyball @ Occidental Men’s Water Polo @ Cal State Fullerton CSUF Titan Invitational Women’s Soccer @ Whittier Men’s Soccer vs. Whittier

Women’s Golf The William’s Invitational

Men’s Soccer vs. Chapman

Men’s Cross Country @ The Master’s Invitational

Football vs. LaVerne

Volleyball vs. Whittier

Men’s Water Polo vs. MPSF Tournament

Sunday, September 24

Saturday, September 23

Women’s Soccer vs. Chapmen

Men’s Water Polo @ USC MPSF Tournament

Women’s Cross Country @ The Master’s Invitational

Volleyball @ CalTech

Women’s Golf The William’s Invitational Men’s Water Polo vs. MPSF Tournament

Sports Calendar