May 1, 2015

‘Midway Murals Arts, p. 7

Greatest Moments of 2014-15 Sports, p. 9

The Last Sexy Mac Features, p.13

Advice for graduating seniors Opinion, p. 17

T HE MAC WEEKLY

themacweekly.com

Macalester’s Independent Student Newspaper Since 1914

Vol. 116, No. 12 May 1, 2015

SRC does not recommend Mac to host MIAC track and field conference fossil fuel divestment

By STEPH SHIMOTA Staff Writer Last week, the Social Responsibilities Committee (SRC) revealed its decision regarding the Fossil Free Mac proposal that Macalester divest from fossil fuels. The SRC did not pass the proposal on to the Board of Trustees or the president, which would have been the next step towards approving divestment. Additionally, the committee issued a recommendation that the action to divest not be taken. The student group met with the SRC twice this year in order to advocate for its proposal.

The group received the news from a memo sent to President Brian Rosenberg from the SRC, which was then shared with members of Fossil Free Mac. The memo stated that the two main reasons that the SRC rejected the proposal were the potential financial consequences of divestment and the belief that the act, which they viewed as being largely symbolic, would fail to have an impact on the

groups that students were targeting.

Members of Fossil Free Mac were upset about the decision, but plan to revise their proposal and keep working towards divestment. Members also say that they do not agree with the reasoning behind the SRC’s rejection.

In their memo, the SRC stated that they “felt that there is a significant chance that the requested action could have material negative consequences for the college’s investment performance and, by extension, reduce the income available for operations and financial aid.”

“We think it’s totally legit for them to be concerned and that they should interrogate this [proposal],” Fossil Free Mac member Jack McCarthy ’18 said in response to the SRC’s worries.

The SRC also expressed skepticism over Fossil Free Mac’s claim that divestment would not have financial consequences for the endowment.

“The committee felt that the case had not been made for a neutral or

Top: Sarah Jo Devore ’17 clears the water jump in the steeplechase.

Bottom: Tre Nowaczynski ’17 competes in the long jump.

Last week the Macalester Track and Field teams hosted two meets. On Thursday, April 23 the Men’s team put on the Bolstroff Twilight which saw 17 teams in competition, while the Women held the Janis Rider Invitational on Saturday, April 25. This week the teams competed in their final tuneups before hosting the MIAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships on May 8-9. Photos by Anders Voss ’16.

Fossil Free, continued on page 3

After a weeks-long process, MCSG passes budget for the 2015-2016 year

By MEG BRITTON-MEHLISCH AND CELIA HEUDEBOURG Associate News Editors In its last meeting of the year this past Tuesday, Macalester College Student Government (MCSG) passed the budget for the 2015-2016 academic year. After weeks of deliberation and reassessment of its contents, the passing of the budget took a mere ten minutes.

After the budget was tabled last week, the Financial Advisory Committee (FAC) reconvened to do a final calculation following last week’s appeals process. Jennie Kim ’15, the FAC Chair, opened up the

budget discussion by giving the a rundown of the numbers.

“For the Operating Fund, [or] all the events and publications, so not [including] capital, there’s $165,975.48,” Kim said.

“And there’s $11,514 in capital, which [makes] the total 2015-2016 school year budget for student orgs $177,489.48. So that’s what’s on the table right now. And in case you were curious, there will be about $39,577.52 left for operating for additional allocations.”

Discussion then moved to the minor budget adjustments.

Earlier in the meeting, prior to passing the budget, MCSG unchartered the Student Athletic Advisory Committee (SAAC) organization and restructured it within the framework of the student government. As a student organization, the SAAC was at risk of being in violation of either the NCAA requirements for recognition of Macalester’s definition of what can constitute an organization. Because the SAAC’s organization status was reworked,, the budget it had been allotted by the FAC was no longer applicable. The LB then unanimously voted to strike

the prior amount requested by the SAAC to zero, reducing the overall budget and increasing the additional allocations.

The only other modification to the budget was in regards to the budgets of orgs that had failed to complete an audit with the Student Organization Committee (SOC) chair, a triennial process required for all organizations. SOC Chair James Lindgren ’15, explained the consequences of this failure. “[Audits] were announced in January. There were three reminders sent. In the last one it was stated very specifically that if you don’t complete the audit by this date, the

following will happen,” Lindgren said. “And one of those was you will not be able to request a budget; you will not be able to reserve space.

You basically become a frozen, inactive student organization until you reactivate yourself in the fall by meeting with my friend Suveer [Daswani ’18, SOC Chair Elect].”

Six organizations found themselves on the cutting board: the Trads, Mr. M, Zabumba, Art History Club, Macalester Association for Sub-Continental Ethnic and Cultural Awareness (MASECA) and Mac Unitarian Universalists.

MCSG Budget, continued on page 6

Internship program and MCSG fund pilot program for summer internship grants

By MINJU KIM Staff Writer On April 26, the Internship Program announced the 11 recipients of the Macalester Summer Internship Grant. Recipients will receive $4,500 each for their summer internships, with the exception of two students who receive half of the regular amount because their internships are part-time.

The Macalester Summer Internship Grant is a pilot program for the summer of 2015 which provides

fundings to students who have fulltime unpaid internships. There is no regional or national restriction, so internships can be done anywhere in the world. Michael Porter, director of the Internship Program, said he has been advocating for this program for a long time.

“Every year since I’ve been here, I’ve been approached by all kinds of students who were hoping to find ways to fund their phenomenal internships during summer,” he said. “It has been horrible [to let students down] because we [did not] really have a financial program set

up to provide help through Macalester.”

Last year, however, the importance of funding students’ vocational education was recognized by Macalester’sstrategic plan. “That resulted in a committee being formed last December,” Porter said. “We worked on developing a skeleton of what the program would look like.”

However, the program was not meant to launch until summer 2016.

It was the collaboration between Macalester College Student Government (MCSG) and the Internship Program that made the pilot

program possible in 2015. “I was doubtful about making this happen this year,” Porter said. “But I forwarded the request to the administration, and they came back by the first week of April with a decision that they had found funds to be able to put together a pilot program this summer.”

He explained that the administration “saw the value in trying to start small and learn how [the school] could make this happen, and then be able to use the stories from the funding as a way to help convince the donors that they should

give to this program.”

As a result of the collaborative efforts of the Internship Program, MCSG and the administration, 11 grantees were selected among the pool of 44 applicants.

Qinxi Wang ’18 is the only first-year student to receive the grant. She will be working for Simularity, a startup company in the Bay Area which specializes in data processing, including machine learning and pattern analyzing.

Internships, continued on page 6

News

Page 2 • May 1, 2015

On the

BEAT:

What’s happening around campus and the region

The Mac Weekly

Editor-in-Chief Joe Klein • jklein3@macalester.edu Managing Editors Esha Datta • edatta@macalester.edu Jake Greenberg • jgreenb3@macalester.edu Lydia Karlson • lkarlson@macalester.edu Phineas Rueckert • pruecker@macalester.edu Rachel Wilson • rwilson4@macalester.edu News Editors Emily Gustafson • egustafs@macalester.edu Rachel Wilson • rwilson4@macalester.edu

Twin Cities

1,500 protesters march through downtown Minneapolis

According to the Star Tribune, approximately 1,500 people marched through downtown Minneapolis, starting at Gold Medal Park in Minneapolis on Wednesday night. The march was a show of solidarity with those protesting in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray after he was fatally injured while in police custody. Black men carrying a black coffin led the march for the protesters.

Violent chaos erupted in Baltimore this past week, when Monday riots in Baltimore led to at least 15 police officers being injured, more than a hundred vehicle or structural fires, nearly 200 arrests and the enforcement of a citywide curfew.

The unrest in Baltimore led Major League Baseball to close Camden Yards to the public for Wednesday’s game between the Orioles and the Chicago White Sox. The result was baseball’s first game ever in which the two teams played to a stadium empty of fans, with reporters and photographers the only witnesses.

“We don’t have to condone [the violence] to understand it,” said Minneapolis march organizer Lena Gardner.

“We just want them to know that we love them, we support them and grieve with them.”

By the time the march ended at 9 p.m., no one had been arrested, according to Minneapolis Police.

Southwest LRT questioned

According to the Star Tribune, the Southwest light rail line, the state’s largest transportation project, and its rapidly escalating costs, have raised questions about its viability.

Disputes over its route out of Minneapolis have dogged the process, potentially requiring an additional $341 million in funding and thus delaying its opening to sometime in 2020.

Currently, Southwest light rail is planned to provide transit from Minneapolis to Eden Prairie. Escalating costs are primarily driven by poor ground conditions along its pathway from downtown Minneapolis to Eden Prairie. To date $59 million has been spent on the project, according to Metro Transit. Alternatives to the light-rail include additional bus routes, as well as possibly formulating other modes of transit that could better serve the south-western suburbs. Currently, the Metropolitan Council said additional changes are needed to address operational and safety requirements, including light-rail crossings and improvements at freight and light-rail crossings.

Open house to be held to discuss changes to Cleveland Ave.

An open house will be held for proposed changes to Cleveland Avenue between Highland Parkway and Summit Avenue, including the striping of bike lanes. According to The Villager, Ramsey County is planning a street resurfacing on Cleveland Avenue between Randolph and Summit Avenues during the summer of 2015. The City is proposing to implement bicycle lanes on Cleveland Avenue between Highland Parkway and Summit Avenue as part of this project.

To implement dedicated bicycle lanes, all existing parking on the west side of Cleveland between Grand and James Avenues must be removed, except for parking bays south of Grand and St. Clair Avenues. Parking must also be removed on the east side of Cleveland between James and Randolph Avenues.

The forum will be held from 6-8 p.m. Wednesday, April 29, in the library of Nativity School, 1900 Stanford Ave. Preliminary layouts will be available for viewing. City and county staff will be on hand to answer questions.

Student Orgs

End-of-year events/performances

The African Music Ensemble will have their end of semester tomorrow in Mairs Concert Hall from 8 to 9:30 p.m.. The performance is directed by Sowah Mensah and will feature a guest dancer from Ghana.

Flying Fingers will also have an end of the year performance series in the Chapel on Sunday afternoon from 2-3:00 p.m.. This “Folktastic” concert will feature songs performed by six female folk artists from Macalester.

Department of Multicultural Life ‘Modern Minority Mutiny’

The DML and the MCSG Community Chest fund are co-sponsoring a talk entitled ‘Modern Minority Mutiny,’ which will feature local Asian American activists. The panel discussion will take place in Olin-Rice 350 from 6:30-8:00 p.m. this Monday.

about The Mac Weekly

The Mac Weekly is the independent newspaper of Macalester College and is entirely student-run. Funds for publication come from Macalester College Student Government and revenue generated from advertising sales. To request coverage of an event or issue or to submit a press release, contact the appropriate editor or email macweekly@macalester. edu. The Mac Weekly is free of charge, though hoarding papers is prohibited and considered stealing. An online edition of the paper appears each week at www.themacweekly.com.

The views and opinions expressed in the opinion section are solely those of the authors. They do no represent the thoughts of The Mac Weekly or its editorial staff. The Mac Weekly opinion section is a forum for free speech and debate, and articles will not be censored except in cases of threatening language or hate speech. Any concerns should be directed to the Opinion Editor, Jake Greenberg, at jgreenb3@macalester.edu.

Any general questions or concerns about The Mac Weekly can be directed to the Editor-in-Chief, Joe Klein, at jklein3@macalester.edu.

Associate News Editors Meg Britton-Mehlisch • mbritto1@macalester.edu Celia Heudebourg • cheudebo@macalester.edu News Copy Editor M.L. Kenney • mkenney1@macalester.edu Features Editor Jane Hornsby • jhornsb1@macalester.edu Associate Features Editors Esha Datta • edatta@macalester.edu Ellie Fuqua • efuqua@macalester.edu Food and Drink Editors Kate Rhodes • krhodes@macalester.edu Charlie Stanton • cstanton@macalester.edu Arts Editors Sophie Keane • skeane@macalester.edu Allie Korbey • akorbey@macalester.edu Sports Editors Max Horvath • mhorvath@macalester.edu Eliza Ramsey • eramsey@macalester.edu Associate Sports Editor Zach Gilfix • zgilfix@macalester.edu Opinion Editor Jake Greenberg • jgreenb3@macalester.edu Web Editor Joe Huber • jhuber1@macalester.edu Ad Manager Rachel Wilson • rwilson4@macalester.edu Spotlight Editor Phineas Rueckert • pruecker@macalester.edu Photography Editors Max Guttman • mguttman@macalester.edu Maddie Jaffe • mjaffe1@macalester.edu Design Editors Lydia Karlson • lkarlson@macalester.edu Associate Design Editor Nate Williams • nwillia1@macalester.edu Sports Multimedia Producer Bert Yaffe • byaffe@macalester.edu Staff Writers Chance Carnahan Sylvia Deyo Allison Dobscha Ariel Estrella Laura Gould Adriana Jereb

Adriana Jereb Rebecca Kline Ahren Lavis Steph Shimota Sam Swenson Emily Roebuck

Contributing Writers Jacob Kraus Patrick Blomgren Max Meyerhoff Dan Bomberg Akilah Sanders-Reed Yun Jae Choi Miriam Stoner Haleigh Duncan Emily Sylvestre Patrick Eickman Emily Wade Konnor Fleming Delia Walker-Jones Peter Hall Staff Photographers Joshua Koh Ahren Lahvis

Maya Rait Anders Voss

News

The Mac Weekly

May 1, 2015 • Page 3

Fossil Free Mac to revise its proposal in response to SRC Fossil Free, continued from page 1 positive investment result if the proposed action is taken,” the memo stated.

In addition to financial concerns, the SRC also worried that divestment might not make an impact on the audience that Fossil Free Mac hoped to reach.

“The goal of working through the endowment in the hopes of changing policy was seen as not as effective as more direct measures that the institution could take,” SRC student representative Sam Doten ’16 explained. “Furthermore, the impact of divestment measures on policymakers is very hard to measure. It’s very difficult to know if those changes are a result of our divestment.”

Students who have worked on the campaign refuted claims that divestment would not change the current power of the fossil fuel industry.

“If we want to avoid the worst

of anthropogenic climate change, you need to devalue fossil fuel companies,” McCarthy said. “That means divesting.”

“The idea is that the companies that we’re targeting have the largest fossil fuel reserves, and if they burn these reserves, science has proven that we’re going to raise the temperatures of our earth above a safe limit,” campaign member Sonia Pollock ’15 explained.

The seriousness of climate change does not appear to be an issue that Fossil Free Mac members will have to convince committee members about. The SRC expressed in the memo that it “would like to reiterate the concern that the committee members have about the climate change issue.”

“The decision was more one of institutional health than of personal stances,” Doten furthered. “[The committee] seemed really receptive to our arguments around morality and ethics,” Fossil Free Mac member Giulia Girgenti

’18 said. “They were really open to that and receptive to that, but we have to address their financial concerns, and we think revising our proposal will do that.”

One of the concerns that the SRC raised in their memo revolved around an estimation that, had the school not been invested in the 200 companies that Fossil Free Mac members propose divesting from, the school’s returns on investment would have been $21 million less over the past ten years.

Fossil Free Mac finds one major flaw with this rationale.

“That [estimation] was looking at if we had divested and didn’t touch the money. If we just pulled this out of the pool of money, we would be $21 million poorer, but that’s doing no reinvestment. That’s just taking that money out. Those same types of returns are totally possible with other types of investments,” McCarthy explained.

The group does intend to include a plan for reinvestment in its

revision of the proposal.

“We’re going to incorporate a reinvestment strategy into our proposal that’s focused on Socially Responsible Indexes and renewable energy companies and infrastructure,” Girgenti said. “We’re gathering information on how those investments would be profitable to the college and we don’t think they would lead to any negative financial consequences.”

The group acknowledged that a shortcoming of its original proposal was not including enough emphasis on reinvestment.

“I think because we didn’t have a reinvestment plan, it was easy for them to assume we were going to lose a lot of money through this,” campaign member Sophie Downey ’18 said. “I think if we come back with solid research that says that we’re not going to lose a lot of money, and that we can reinvest it in [a socially responsible] way that might [yield even larger returns], it will really help us.”

The response from the SRC does not mean the end for Fossil Free Mac. “Why would it be?” McCarthy asked. “We’re not just going to give up.”

Members of the campaign are uncertain of whether or not they will meet with the SRC again.

“We really just have to figure out what our options are for moving forward,” Pollock said. “We have to see what paths we can take.”

While many members of the Fossil Free Mac campaign that have been a staple of the movement since it began at Macalester two years ago are set to graduate this May, this past year has seen an influx of younger students who will carry the torch in the future.

“I feel like I’m leaving [the campaign] in good hands,” Pollock said.

• sshimota@macalester.edu

Safer pedestrian crossing at Snelling and Lincoln intersection

By JOE KLEIN Editor-in-Chief Due to a proposal by the High Winds Fund, crosswalk improvements are currently being installed on Snelling Avenue, in the hopes of making a safer environment for pedestrians around campus.

After a few months of having orange pedestrian safety flags at the intersection, flashing light signals were installed earlier this week, making the pedestrian safety features at that intersection more permanent.

“[The improvements] are good for staff and students, but there is still work to do to make Snelling safe.”

-High Winds Fund Director Tom Welna

The signals are visible to drivers going both directions on Snelling Avenue, and have two light displays facing in each direction. After the display is activated by a pedestrian seeking to cross Snelling, lights will flash in both directions, alerting oncoming drivers that a pedestrian is trying to cross. The lights will be visible many blocks away from the intersection.

According to High Winds Fund Director Tom Welna, the signals offer a “good, long term permanent improvement” to pedestrian safety in the neighborhood.

“The signals tell drivers from a distance that something’s going on ahead,” Welna said.

The High Winds Fund is a Macalester organization responsible for neighborhood relations and beautification. It originally proposed the improvements a few years ago to the Minnesota Department of Public Transportation (MnDOT) and the St. Paul Department of Public Works Department. MnDOT and

the City did not adopt the plan initially, but after recent incidents in which pedestrians were hit while crossing Snelling, the plan became much more likely.

Public officials began to install the enhanced crossings last fall, but cold temperatures arriving early made it difficult to install them, and construction had to be halted until this spring. Work at the intersection has been underway the past few weeks, and according to Welna, the signals should be active soon.

The crosswalk cost approximately $45,000, a cost which will be split three ways between MnDOT, the City of St. Paul and the High Winds Fund.

Last summer, two Macalester students were hit and seriously injured while trying to cross Snelling.

This was not the only time that a pedestrian was hit trying to cross Snelling, as many other individuals—including Macalester community members—have been injured at that intersection. A few years ago,

THE MOCK WEEKLY crashing into your hearts like the ACTC bus

Due to a proposal by the High Winds Fund, crosswalks on Snelling are currently being installed. Photo by Joe Klein ’16.

the High Winds Fund installed a median down Snelling, which slowed traffic and made it slightly safer to cross. However, Snelling is a state highway and has heavy amounts of truck traffic which contribute to dangerous conditions along the road. Because Interstate 35E, which runs through St. Paul, does not allow trucks on the road, much of the truck

traffic that runs through the metropolitan area goes on Snelling. “[The improvements] are good for staff and students, but there is still work to do to make Snelling safe,” Welna said.

•jklein3@macalester.edu

Look for me Tuesday @ Lunch

Page 4 • May 1, 2015

News

The Mac Weekly

The Lectures Coordination Board: First year in review

By M.L. KENNEY News Copy Editor The Lectures Coordination Board (LCB) at Macalester was first established through a student referendum in late 2011. In the following years, challenges and disagreements regarding the size, budget, advisors, scheduling and coordination kept the LCB from getting off the ground.

This year, the LCB was fully revived and brought two speakers to campus. Still, during Macalester College Student Government (MCSG) budget meetings in recent weeks, there has been considerable dispute about the role of the Board on campus and its right, or lack thereof, to handle its own affairs, including funds.

Before the proposal brought forward by MCSG student representatives, there was no organization or department on campus to fund the LCB, which is given $50,000 per year.

Currently, half of the funding comes from MCSG and Program Board. The other half is provided to the LCB through the student activity fee.

This past fall, Ezra Klein, political journalist and founder and editor-in-chief of Vox.com, came to Macalester to speak about polarization in Washington politics. In the spring, comedian W. Kamau Bell gave his talk “The W. Kamau Bell Curve: Ending Racism in About an Hour.” Both speakers were organized by the LCB. LCB member Jolena Zabel ’16, who is also a member of MCSG’s legislative body, said that the need for a Lectures Coordination Board emerged from students’ awareness of wellknown figures speaking at colleges in the area. For example, Bill Nye spoke at the University of Minnesota-Morris in October, and interest increased around bringing a popular media figure to campus, such as Stephen Colbert.

Zabel described the LCB as being “by students, for students.”

“The LCB started because there’s a demand on campus, first and foremost, for big-name programming, right?” she said. “So not a university professor-from-the-U level programming, but a Stephen Colbert, Bill Nye, Toni Morrison [level] kind of thing. And frankly, that requires big bucks and is more than what a single department or org can do.”

Prominent speakers, Zabel said, tend to draw a large percentage of the campus community and therefore can unify Macalester as a whole.

Zabel pointed out that the time chosen for Ezra Klein’s talk, a Sunday afternoon, led to an underwhelming turnout given the fame of the speaker, and that this was a learning experience for the Board.

“It really started a conversation on campus, and it was really powerful as an organizer of it to see students laughing, and to see a full room really engaging with something. There’s not that many events on campus [where] you get the student body in one room together.”

LCB member Jolena Zabel ’16

“I feel that we as a board learned a lot with that event, specifically with regards to scheduling and other logistics,” said LCB member Zane Vorhes-Gripp ’17 in an email.

Referring to W. Kamau Bell’s talk, which was followed by a reception where students could meet the speaker, Zabel said, “It really started a conversation on campus, and it was really powerful as an organizer of it to see students laughing, and to see a full room really engaging with something. There’s not that many events on campus [where] you get the student body in one room together.”

The LCB ended the 2014-2015 school year with excess funds due to a contract violation by Bell which discounted the event. Although this number was disputed in different accounts during the writing of this article—the number ranging from $5,000 to $14,000—Director of Campus Activities and Operations Joan Maze confirmed it to be between $10,000 and $11,000.

Zabel proposed a bill on March 24 to alter the LCB’s original charter so that it could collaborate with orgs and faculty more to work with academic departments and, according

to the MCSG meeting minutes, “synthesize funding.”

MCSG President Rothin Datta ’16 expressed his disagreement during the meeting. He said, “The bylaws of this group [exist so that] all the perspectives of the departments on campus are there when speakers come to campus. Money should come into [the operating fund]; the LCB is made just for speakers, not for handling requests.”

A bill that passed on April 14 amended Article X of the MCSG bylaws, which concerns the LCB. One amendment within the bill states that although a large part of the LCB’s objective is to collaborate with departments and orgs, they are not obligated to fund speakers as part of other programs, and reserve the right to choose where they will deposit their funds.

Additionally, the amendments removed Director of Academic Programs Ann Minnick from the advisory board, so that the board will only have one advisor, and therefore be consistent

“I fear that the LCB lacks oversight and they will become another place on campus where orgs and individuals will go for money. Orgs and individuals should actually come to MCSG for money, so everyone has an equal opportunity. ” MCSG President Rothin Datta’16

with other supervised committees. There will also be a chair of the student committee starting next semester, which will be voted on at the first fall meeting. Although the LCB’s aim is to use the entirety of its budget each year, members can still vote at any time of the year to return funds to MCSG, which the bill accomplished this year.

Datta disagreed with the current execution of the LCB, but still voted for the bill to pass.

“I voted for the bill only because I wanted to get the money back into the operating fund for this year,” he said in an email. “With Jolena’s bill, I fear that the LCB lacks oversight (only presenting its funding to the LB ‘when they see fit’) and they will become another place on campus where orgs and individuals and departments will go for money. I think this is bad because orgs and individuals should actually come to MCSG for money, so everyone has an equal opportunity.”

In an interview, Datta elaborated on his perspective of recent budget meetings, and said that he believes the LCB has too much free reign, in the sense that the new bill doesn’t require the LCB to present the state of its funds to MCSG on a monthly basis, as Datta said would have been normal protocol.

“It became pretty clear that the current LCB thinks that what they should be able to do is give money to other organizations on campus—that could be other departments on campus—to help pay for their [other departments’] speakers, which I fundamentally think isn’t part of the LCB,” Datta said.

Datta also criticized the LCB’s choice to help fund Zerlina Maxwell’s SPEAK Series talk about gender-based violence as part of Women’s History Month. “If people want to bring big speakers to campus, they should just come to MCSG.” Zabel, when emailed for comment on Datta’s remarks, emphasized what she views as a misunderstanding about the difference between collaboration and “simply being a funding resource.”

“We collaborated on bringing one speaker to campus this year, part of the SPEAK series, which we felt supported our mission of bringing big-name speakers to campus. We chose not to fund one speaker series at the end of the year due to short-timing and the disagreements about LCB in the LB,” Zabel wrote. “I, along with Suresh [Mudragada], Joan Maze, the current LCB, and other staff, believe the collaboration aspect of LCB is essential to its mission and its function as a programming entity.”

Maze spoke of the disagreements about the bill and LCB’s role as part of a larger misunderstanding.

“I think when people were discussing the issue, that was sort of where people were kind of miscommunicating.

Because LCB wasn’t saying, ‘We just want the right to give money whenever we see fit.’ They were saying, ‘Whenever it is possible and necessary, and whenever it is still in line with our mission, we would like to be able to collaborate.’”

Maze gave the example of someday, possibly, using a large leftover sum of money to help bring in another major

speaker as a reason for collaboration, as it was with Zerlina Maxwell this year. She also reiterated the mission of the LCB as being to bring in big speakers.

“Macalester usually wants people who are social advocates, who are prominent figures, and they usually come at a higher cost,” Maze said. “So I think the LCB wants some flexibility — if they see either a way to share costs, or lower costs by collaborating, they want to be able to have the freedom to do so.”

When asked for comment on Maze’s remarks, Datta said in an email, “I think it is a misrepresentation of the issue to say the LCB wanting to collaborate on projects like Maxwell is qualitatively different than giving them the discretion to hand money out. Their job is to bring big speakers, if collaboration is part of that, so be it.”

Datta wrote that other departments’ events, such as Maxwell’s talk, would have found funding from another place without the aid of the LCB. He also questioned the extent of the LCB’s power in giving that aid.

“The LCB is an unelected body, with far less oversight, now exercising discretion over issues it was never created to be involved with. Whether or not Joan thinks it will happen is irrelevant because it already has and the new bylaws make it even easier for it to happen again.”

Meanwhile, Zabel hopes to collaborate more with academic departments and the president’s office to eventually pay for an extremely high-profile speaker, such as Hillary Clinton.

“In the future, I would like there to be a longer planning time before speakers so that the future LCB has a wider range of speakers to select,” Vorhes-Gripp wrote. “In that way, speakers that may be bigger names would have more time to fit us into their schedule. Additionally, I hope that the future LCB is not afraid to experiment and try out different ways to bring speakers and host events, and to keep trying. The LCB has great potential, and I hope that the groundwork we’ve laid is built upon.”

“We have big plans, big dreams, and big goals and lots of good ideas,” Zabel said. “Every year we solicit student feedback [through polls and surveys], and there’s always so many suggestions. As long as students have good ideas and keep coming, I really hope LCB remains a strong presence on this campus.”

• mkenney1@macalester.edu

The Mock Weekly v succulent Look for me Tuesday @ Lunch

News

The Mac Weekly

May 1, 2015 • Page 5

// THE YEAR IN REVIEW // STORIES THAT SHAPED 2014-15 Through agreement with SunEdison, College goes 100 percent solar

At the end of this year, Macalester signed an agreement with SunEdison energy that will allow the college to offset 100 percent of its energy usage through solar energy credits.

Macalester will participate in a Community Solar Garden (CSG), investing in a large solar farm in rural Dakota County, purchasing part of the power created by that grid and receiving credits on its electric bill. The agreement reportedly could save Macalester millions of dollars over the lifespan of the 25-year agreement.

Many members of MacCARES contributed to the proposal, and the solar garden will begin operations in 2016.

by Joe Klein ’16, Editor-in-Chief

College campus officially goes smokefree beginning January 1

Macalester officially went smoke-free on January 1, and joined over 90 percent of all other colleges and universities in Minnesota. The previous smoking restrictions allowed smoking on campus, but only 25 feet away from campus buildings and was not strictly enforced.

The new policy originated in 2010, when a campus task force began considering new smoking policies for the campus.

While some students have responded to the new policy with confusion and frustration, the college stands behind the policy and sees it as a chance to promote a healthy, tobacco-free lifestyle. The number of students smoking on campus on a daily basis has dropped regularly over the past ten years.

Students vote not to renegotiate contract with MPIRG chapter

A referendum on MCSG’s contract with the Macalester chapter of MPIRG (Minnesota Public Interest Research Group) resulted in Macalester voting not to continue its contract agreement. MPIRG has historically received funds from MCSG through an opt-out mechansim in the student activity fee, yet student opposition and a campaign against the referendum led to the opt-out method being eliminated. Opponents claimed that MPIRG had an unfair relationship wtih MCSG and should be forced to budget like any other student organizaiton. By the end of the year, MPIRG sought to re-establish itself as a student organization, now going by MacPIRG to reflect more independence from the statewide group.

Strategic Plan passed by Board; focus on diversity, entrepreneurship

New faces join Macalester at start of year, many administrators leave

Macalester’s Board of Trustees passed the college’s Strategic Plan at their January meeting, creating a framework to guide the next few years of the college. The plan focused on many strategic priorities, including an emphasis on entrepreneurship and vocation, expanding diversity of students and faculty, adding a three-year residency requirement and a focus on problem-based learning and interdisciplinary concentrations.

The plan spurred criticism among students, who proposed revisions that would make the plan focus more on sustainability and diversity. The college is taking preliminary steps to implement the plan, including funding summer internships and hiring a Director of the Career Development Center.

The Lectures Coordination Board brought two high-profile speakers to campus in its first year of existence. In the fall, political blogger and analyst Ezra Klein spoke to a half-full Kagin Ballroom on gridlock and hyperpartisanship in Washington. Klein is a prominent blogger and recently founded Vox.com. In the spring, humorist and political commentator W. Kamau Bell, host of “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell” spoke to Kagin as well. Both speeches were well-received by students and community members.

At the end of the year, MCSG and LCB members debated how the LCB should be able to spend their remaning funds, and whether they could distribute funding to other on-campus groups seeking to bring speakers to Macalester.

The school year began with two new prominent faces arriving on campus, as new Chaplain Kelly Stone and Director of Campus Activities and Operations Joan Maze began working at Macalester.

Provost Kathy Murray announced in the fall that she would leave to become the President of Whitman College next year. Economics professor Karine Moe will become Provost.

Vice President of Student Affairs Laurie Hamre, Director of Campus Life Keith Edwards and Director of Safety and Security Terry Gorman all announced they will leave Macalester at the end of the year. Associate Director of Residential Life Coco Du was promoted to fill Edwards’ position, and a search for a new Vice President is currently underway.

Students move mock border wall back onto Old Main Lawn

After an art installation of a mock border wall, symbolizing the effect of borders and migration, was moved from its original location on Old Main Lawn to a more isolated area behind the theater building, a group of students woke up early the Friday of Family Fest and moved the wall back to Old Main Lawn.

The wall was a project by Elsa Goossen ’15, and coincided with Family Fest and the International Roundtable. It included various panels and displays on migration and borders.

It was originally approved by the International Roundtable Committee, but was later forced to relocate to a more isolated area across campus. After moving the wall back to the center of campus, no students involved were disciplined.

Lectures Board brings Klein, Bell to campus in first year of existence

High Winds Fund purchases 1721 Princeton, saves it from demolition

A historic house in the Tangletown neighborhood adjacent to Macalester was saved after the High Winds Fund, operated by Macalester, intervened and purchased the home.

1721 Princeton, previously owned by former Macalester professor Harry West and his wife, was sold to new buyers who sought to tear down the house and build two new homes on the lot. However, community opposition and intervention

by Macalester led those plans to be scrapped, and the High Winds Fund instead bought the house, saving it from demolition. Renovation of the house’s interior was just completed, and the house is now available to potential buyers, with a deed restriction that it cannot be torn down.

Student Assembly passes resolution calling on reduced income inequality

Macalester’s first Student Assembly in over ten years led to the overwhelming passage of a resolution calling on the school to reduce the pay ratio between the college’s highest paid and lowest paid employees. The organizers of the assembly, Macalester Students against Income Inequality, sought to fight income inequality by raising awareness of pay disparities on campus. Subcontracted employees on campus (including those at Bon Appetit and the Highlander) are not paid Macalester’s guaranteed minimum wage. At the assembly, some students raised issues about the accuracy of the statistics distributed by the organizers.

News

Page 6 • May 1, 2015

The Mac Weekly

Summer internship funding may continue Internships, continued from page 1 She will be helping the company analyze data, which relates to her academic and career plan. She said getting the grant enabled her to extend the duration of the internship.

“If I didn’t get the funding, I would have probably worked for a shorter term,” she said. “I originally planned to work for eight to 12 weeks, but now I can work for at least 12 weeks.”

Ilana Budenosky ’17, a rising junior majoring in studio art, is another recipient of the grant. This summer, she will be interning for Wonder Workshop Children’s Museum in Manhattan, Kansas.

“I will be sort of an artist in residence, helping them curate the exhibition about race and social justice,” she said.

“As an art major, I will be creating posters and original artwork for the exhibition.”

She said that she will be saving a lot of the grant and put some of the money to her tuition and work study that she was not going to have in the fall.

Even though she will be living at home and be provided with food and housing, the grant will enable her to work full time for the internship. “If I didn’t get the funding, I would have to take on quite a few hours in a paid summer job as a waitress, [meaning] I would have to spend less time on the internship,” she said.

Jolena Zabel ’16, a member of MCSG who worked with the Internship Program to develop the Summer Internship Grant, is also one of the recipients.

She received half of the amount compared to other students, because her internship is a part-time position. As a part of the Amy Ostermeier Human Rights Fellowship, Zabel will be working at the State Department in the office of the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights. “I study international studies, English and political science with a human rights concentration, so it is exactly in line with my career ambition,” Zabel said.

David Goldstein ’16 , another recipient of the grant, will also be working at the State Department, but in the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM).

“It is an organization that gives aid to refugees throughout the world,” he said.

“I’ll be attending night classes and different council meetings and doing networking.” Goldstein said he has been looking for a way to fund his internship ever since he was accepted as an intern for State Department. “[The grant] made the internship possible,” he said. “If I didn’t have significant funding, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.”

He plans to use his $4,500 grant towards his housing in Washington DC. “I will be living in DC the whole summer, and it costs at least $3,000 for housing.

The rest of it will go towards food,” he explained.

There were many criteria for the selection. “First and foremost, the quality of the application was an important factor,” Porter said. “We also looked at how the internship tied to students’ academics, their career plans, and what they would be doing specifically for the organization.” Also, the capacity of the organization to support interns also impacted the committee’s decision. “We wanted to make sure we have the diversity to address more of the student population,” Porter said.

Porter said that the program will possibly grow in following years. “Our goal is to run through the program this summer, and gain a lot of experience on how to run the program,” he said. “Next year, we will have a program that starts much earlier, so we will have much more time to make it happen.”

It is unsure how much the grant is going to expand next year. “It depends on how the fundraising goes,” Porter explained. “We are targeting 25 grantees right now, and that would actually be a good place to go because this does take a lot of time and energy administratively.”

MCSG budget passes after long debate Budget, continued from page 1 While there was some concern as to whether the advisors of the organizations had been notified of the freezing of the accounts, MCSG President Rothin Datta ’16 reminded the LB that this process was required by MCSG’s bylaws.

“I can just say that if we don’t do this we’re in direct violation of our bylaws and can then be referred to the Judicial Council and that action can be overturned,” Datta said. “And I’ll do that if it doesn’t happen, so we should just pass this. It’s a fact.”

With this reminder the LB passed the motion to freeze the organizations’ accounts, once again reducing the budget and increasing the additional allocation amount.

Following the amendments to the budget, Kim announced the new total budget amount as $163,054.48.

Though there were joking objections to passing the budget, the LB unanimously passed the 2015-2016 budget to a round of applause.

• mbritto1@macalester.edu • cheudebo@macalester.edu

• mkim2@macalester.edu

Food & Drink

To the Future: Getting to Know Next Year’s Food & Drink Editors Joe Klein ’16 and Kate Rhodes ’17 TMW: How do you plan to maintain the legacy of this year’s Food & Drink section?

KR: I want to integrate more perspectives into the Food & Drink section. Our writers this year have been absolutely amazing, but I think it is time to explore food that is in new areas of the Twin Cities, those usually left unexplored. I also want to interview students about the best dishes they cook at home, either on or off campus. Mac students are so creative that I bet they have tons of interesting dishes to share. And for those who live on campus, tips for fellow dorm dwellers are also always appreciated; have a great way to spice up your Ramen? Let us know!

JK: It’s going to be tough to top this legacy, since I’ve learned so much about my cookie tastes this semester without even realizing it. Food and Drink has a long legacy of writing about food & drinks. I hope to continue that. If I ever stray from that mission, you can hold me accountable. I’m excited to balance all the great work that Food & Drink of yore has done, while adding my own twist to it.

TMW: Are you planning to start any new columns? Ben Schwed ’15 set a high bar with Grub on the Green Line.

Allie and Kate also had the revolutionary Oreo column.

Other innovations on the way?

KR: Drooling in the Dorms? Still thinking of different column titles, but would love input! Passionate about eating and writing about it? Great! We would love to have you. Although the Oreo column had a great run, I think it is about time to retire.

There are a ton of other cookies in the world that still need to be explored.

Other than that I would love to include a weekly recipe column, either something from generations back in your family, or something you concocted that turned out to be great. It would be awesome to have a new dish in the paper each week that adventurous chefs can whip up at home.

JK: I come from a big Italian Catholic family that puts a lot of value on food and loves to cook. I bet you’ll see some old family recipes show up. Like Kate said, family recipes are great! I’d love to include a lot of those from different people, to get a wide group of voices in the paper.

Also, I’d love to include helpful tips and guides to grocery shopping on a budget, or quick recipes you can whip up at home — stuff that would be useful for people that are shop-

ping and cooking on their own for the first time. That was pretty difficult for me when I moved off campus, so I’d love to include a lot of go-to information on that. I’d write about the best grocery stores in the area (Aldi’s!) and cheap means that will last a long time. I’m really domestic and a homebody, so while I’ll definitely keep reviewing restaurants in the area, I’ll write a lot about food and drink in the home.

TMW: Why are you the right person to take over from the work of Charlie Stanton? I hear he was pretty great.

KR: Hm, I hadn’t heard that… just kidding, Charlie was the best! I worked on Food & Drink as Charlie’s co-editor all this past year and I think that I have learned the ropes of the section. I also think it gave me insight into what has worked and what needs to be changed. The section this year was solid but there could definitely be some changes, just to freshen things up.

JK: You heard right. I feel like it’s an honor to take over for Charlie. He was fantastic; he knows food, he knows drink.

Those are some pretty big shoes to fill.

TMW: Kate has a pretty good sense of the section. Joe, how do you hope to complement Kate’s experience as a co-editor?

JK: I’m excited for Food & Drink because I feel like it’s going to be something completely diferent from what I’ve ever done before. For the past three years, News has been my baby. I loved being a news editor and editor in chief, and feel like that’s my niche. But I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and try something different. I feel like I know pretty well how to run a section and manage writers, so why not use my creative side a bit and try out Food & Drink? But I can’t do it all by myself. I’ll be editor in the fall (Kate will do it in the spring), and I’d love all of your help — if you have any ideas for restaurants to review, or columns you want to write, let me know! I’m all ears.

What are your favorite Twin Cities haunts for grub?

Why? K: Definitely Korea Restaurant. It is by the University of Minnesota’s stadium right off of the Green Lne. It is a tiny place, easy to miss, under a karaoke bar and a hair salon. It is pretty cheap and offers some of the most amazing, fresh Ko-

Photo by Max Guttman ’16.

rean food that I have ever had. Having a hot bowl of Bi Bim Bop from Korea Restaurant during a Minnesota winter is one of my highlights in my two years at Macalester.

Korea Restaurant: 211 Beacon St SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414 J: You’d be hard-pressed to go up University and not find a great place to eat. One of my favorites is Bangkok Thai, though — it’s a family-run restaurant with fantastic Thai food, and the portions are generous. When my friends and I went there for the first time freshman year, we really underestimated how spicy it would be, and we finished our meals pretty much in tears. Worth every bite, though.

333 University Avenue West, St. Paul MN 55103 If you’re looking for a great coffee shop off campus, Claddagh Coffee on West Seventh is fantastic and just a quick bike ride away. They’ve got great pastries, and perhaps some of the best coffee I’ve ever had. It’s really quaint inside and has some beautiful artwork. If you’re looking to get off campus and find a fresh place to study, this is definitely worth the trek.

459 West Seventh, St. Paul MN 5512022 • cstanton@macalester.edu • krhodes@macalester.edu • jklein3@macalester.edu

A rt s

The Mac Weekly

By EMILY ROEBUCK Staff Writer

At its core, the “Midway Murals” project is only four walls and one man in the Hamline Midway neighborhood of Saint Paul. Its goals, including economic development, community engagement and bridging divides between immigrants and nonimmigrant community members, are as ambitious as the project’s leader, neighborhood resident Jonathan Oppenheimer.

Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, neighborhood partners and a recently completed successful campaign on the crowdsourcing site Indiegogo, Oppenheimer wants to flip the common, indifferent perception many Minnesotans have of the neighborhood on its head by transforming this half-mile stretch of Snelling Avenue with four massive murals.

With over 30,000 vehicles using it every day, Snelling is one of the most frequented roads in Minnesota. However, the Hamline-Midway neighborhood (nestled around Snelling just a five minute drive from Macalester’s campus) remains largely unseen. Unlike the areas surrounding Selby and Grand Avenues, high traffic has not brought streams of customers or investments to the Hamline Midway community. The reason is simple: driving through, many people cannot look past the graffiti-riddled and aging appearance of the street. Midway Murals hopes to serve as a reason to notice all that this community has to offer, both for people outside and within its perimeters.

“I was really excited when they reached out to me last fall about the idea,” says Councilmember Russ Stark, whose district includes the Hamline Midway neighborhood. “I think it’s a really great way to bring a little bit of life and color and interest back to a stretch of Snelling that is looking a little old and tired right now.”

Oppenheimer has commissioned four public artists to collaborate with business owners and the Hamline Midway neighborhood to design and implement four murals on the outside façades of four immigrant-owned businesses. Community listening sessions and business open houses to determine what the community wants represented in the murals are still underway. However, one thing is certain: each artist will create separate murals in July and August 2015 that is centered around the theme of “starting anew.”

Using a variety of techniques and mediums, Lori Green, Greta McLain, Eric Mattheis and Yuya Negishi’s murals will aim to reflect the continuously changing face of both the neighborhood and its surrounding city, creating an outdoor

May 1

museum worthy of, if nothing else, being noticed. The diverse artists all host impressive professional accolades. They are considered by many appreciators of the Twin Cities’ public art world to be representative of what the scene is all about.

“The artists that I’m working with are awesome,” Oppenheimer says, revealing a broad grin. “And I don’t say that lightly. I really respect them, so much. We’ve all become good friends in the last six months.”

In the Hamline-Midway neighborhood, many residents recognize a fairly palpable divide between many of the immigrant-owned businesses and the largely non-immigrant residential community. Stark says, “There’s a perception that some of the immigrant-owned grocery stores and cafes are primarily there to serve the East African community and that they’re just there and relatively ignored by the neighbors.”

This perception, coupled with Oppenheimer’s now close relationships with numerous immigrant business owners is one of the key motivating forces behind the project.

Oppenheimer openly addresses his trepidations of not having any official training in public art, creative spacemaking, bridging cultural divides or working with immigrant communities. Instead, he is relying on his real world experience and reaching out to those who are experts in these fields, soaking up as much as he can to achieve the most success.

While he recognizes the asset of his community-insider identity, he is quick to point out that organizing a project like this, which hopes to engage an incredibly diverse community, is just not that simple.

“In working with immigrant communities, I am still an outsider,” Oppenheimer says openly. His optimism and tenacity, however, would never let him stop there. “The complexity of doing this stuff is part of why it scares me, but it’s also really exciting because it’s what I believe in and it’s what I’m trying to do.”

With initiative and ingenuity like his, it isn’t not hard to believe that what he’s trying to do will soon become a reality.

The public planning process will continue over the course of five future community listening sessions and open houses to discuss the future of both the project and the wider Hamline Midway neighborhood. For Mac students who are sticking around the area for the summer, there will be a grand unveiling celebration towards the end of August. More information about the project and its long-term goals is online at MidwayMurals.com.

• eroebuck@macalester.edu

ARTS CALENDAR

Opening reception for the Senior Thesis Show

Law Warschaw Gallery, Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center & Gallery 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Off-Kilter Spring Concert

Mairs Concert Hall, Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center & Gallery 8:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

May 2

African Music Ensemble Concert

Mairs Concert Hall, Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center, Music Building 8:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.

Bodacious Hip-Hop Showcase: Origins Kagin Ballroom 9:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.

May 3

The 41st Annual MayDay Parade and Festival

Parade begins at the corner of 25th St. E. and Bloomington Ave. S. and travels south on Bloomington to 34th St. E., where the parade turns west towards Powderhorn Park.

After the parade has finished, the MayDay Tree of Life Ceremony and Festival begins, at approximately 3pm, in Powderhorn Park. The Festival ends at dusk.

12:00 p.m.

May 1, 2015 • Page 7

Swens N’ Dobs// THIS IS THE END

By ALLISON DOBSCHA & SAM SWENSON Staff Writers

Dear dedicated readers, We would like to thank you for flipping to our humble corner of The Mac Weekly each Friday to hear our thoughts on the cinematic arts. The time has come for the two of us to graduate, to move on to grander adventures in the wide world. We are grateful for your readership, and can only hope that you will continue to watch films with the same fervor and fascination that has motivated us to write this column. This week we highlight some of the movies we look forward to watching this summer. We toast your future film-going endeavors!

Love and popcorn, Swens n’ Dobs

Swenson:

The Avengers: Age of Ultron- By far the thing that I am most excited for this summer. I will admit to being a comic book movie nerd (though I have never had any interest in the comics themselves) and Marvel’s Avengers is the quintessential comic book movie. I am also excited to see how Ant-Man and Fantastic Four end up.

Mad Max: Fury Road- This movie looks very cool. While I am not sure exactly how important the plot will be to the film, I would see it simply for the visuals.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl- This is actually a movie that I just saw the trailer for and it looks pretty good. It’s definitely a part of the indie summer movie genre and will most likely not be playing everywhere, but it has a pretty great cast (Connie Britton and Nick Offerman).

Inside Out- I am an avid Pixar fan and so anything that they release (besides Cars) is something that I am guaranteed to go see. I have no doubt that this will be a great movie.

Minions- Oh, I love the Minions.

Trainwreck- I really don’t have much knowledge of Amy Schumer’s work, but from the trailer, this film looks like it should be full of laughs. And LeBron James makes a pretty amusing cameo!

Dobscha:

Jurassic World- The trailer looks cheesy, but I sure love dinosaurs, Chris Pratt and the original Jurassic Park. Definitely looking forward to this one.

Hot Pursuit- Reese Witherspoon plays a kooky cop tasked with protecting Sofia Vergara. It has one of those trailers that would make my Mom laugh really hard and then she would say “God, that looks terrible…” But if we’re being perfectly honest, it’s probably pretty funny. I’m hopeful.

Paper Towns- They keep making movies out of my least favorite John Green novels! I have a feeling I’ll end up seeing this one eventually. It looks like an adequate feel-good tearjerker (as all John Green stories are).

Antman- A superhero movie with Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly? Count me in!

Fantastic Four- A superhero movie with Miles Teller?

Count me in! (I’m a broken record when it comes to summer blockbusters) Go forth and enjoy the cinema! We wish you a very happy summer.

• adobscha@macalester.edu

• sswenso1@macalester.edu

May 1, 2015 • Page 8

S p o rts

The Mac Weekly

Presenting: The 4th Annual Al Storm Games world.

AS: Nobody ever talks about Christian Adams. So, to be the first, I’m gonna say Christian Adams. Somebody has to talk about him, right?

By MAX HORVATH Sports Editor On Saturday, May 2nd, Macalester will host the fourth annual Al Storm Games. The games feature a variety of competitions, and competitors who went through a very difficult application process. I was lucky enough to sit down with two members of the Al Storm Games Selection and Planning Committee, Jordan Black ’16 and Trey Muraoka ’16, and the games’ creator, Al Storm ’15 himself. We talked about the upcoming competition, made a few predictions and looked back on the history of this incredible event.

TMW: What three qualities would your ultimate Al Storm Games champion possess?

TM: Insanity, creativity and good looks! Can’t forget good looks!

JB: Athleticism if first, then its gotta be Al Storminess, frankly. You need to be able to think like him. There are only two things that matter.

AS: First is general griminess. You can’t be afraid to get real jiggy with it; you must be willing to get a little dirty. Then there’s pure determination, wanting it more than everyone else. Paul Schubring was out of the competition six or seven times, but through pure determination alone came back to win two championships. Then, of course, you’ve gotta be able to think on your feet.

TMW: What’s your favorite part of the Al Storm Games?

Jordan Black: I really love the hype surrounding the games. The fact that people are filling out TMW: Al, this is your last year hosting the games you created. Talk a little about your brackets, placing bets, really getting excited about these events is an amazing concept to me. journey.

Al Storm: I love the moments that you don’t see coming, but mostly, I live for punishments. I AS: Let’s just say it’s been quite the journey. I started these when I was a freshman and there were cant wait to see someone get slapped in the face with a fish. a total of six people there. It was something I created in under ten minutes. I went to my room and grabbed a horseshoe, an ace bandage, a bottle of white out, a spoon, some cards, some dice, TMW: A whole fish? Is that a real punishment? some tiger balm, an electrical cord and I created some games. Somehow they were fun, and you AS: Yeah baby. There’s an Asian fish market on University Ave, and for three dollars you can get got punished if you lost. The only competitors were Paul Schubring and Jole, and for the final a whole tilapia. It’s not even cleaned, it still has the organs and everything. When somebody gets competition I just threw a horseshoe into a dark field and told them to go find it. Somehow, we that to the face, its gonna be bad news, and I’m going to love it. made it fun for 45 minutes. Needless to say that was special, and needless to say we’ve come a really long way. I plan on going out with a bang this year.

TMW: Wow. So who’s your favorite to win it all?

Trey Muraoka: Bradley Cox, no question. It’s Brad’s year to shine. I’m cheering for Jole, but it’s

• mhorvath@macalester.edu gonna be Brad.

JB: I think the person that comes out of the play-in round is going to make a run. I really think it’s going to be Tre Nowaczynski. He’s got the gifts, he’s got them all. He’s just so gifted.

AS: I have to take Forest. He has a ton of all the x-factors. He’s definitely tenacious, one of the more tenacious beings I’ve ever seen. He has all the skills, and he wants it right in the heart.

Al Storm Games

TMW: Who’s your dark horse competitor?

TM: Rob Tomecek. Robby T is flying under the radar. I think he’s got the killer instinct.

JB: I don’t know this kid well, but I think Large Dan (Dan Klonowski) has a shot to shock the

7:00 p.m. Saturday | Kagin Lawn

Margaret Gehring: The beloved first-year coach bringing her program back to its roots

By MAX HORVATH Sports Editor At the college level, first-year coaches all face the same conundrum: how do they get athletes that they didn’t recruit, who have been at the school longer than they have, to buy into their vision? The answer, almost universally, lies in the relationships formed between the incoming coaching staff and the players. The earliest encounters, the first few conversations and the energy sensed by the players when they first meet their new coach have the potential to set the tone for either a smooth transition or a rocky one.

Luckily for first-year Track and Field Head Coach Margaret Gehring, people and energy are two of her many strong suits. Beloved by her players and possessed by a tangible strength of purpose, she is an ideal leader for Macalester Track and Field.

Coach Gehring has been around track and field for most of her adult life, and had successful stints as a head coach at both Ohio Wesleyan University and the College of Saint Benedict. She has served on several executive boards governing collegiate track competitions, holds advanced degrees in various sports-related disciplines from Smith College, University of Buffalo and Ohio State University and is a published researcher in the field of exercise science.

Despite her expertise, however, she found herself a bit rusty this winter after a 15-year hiatus from head coaching.

“About halfway through our first indoor meet, I had to stop, and thought to myself, oh no, I forgot how to coach,” she said.

“Luckily, by the second meet I was back on my A-game, but there was certainly some rustiness concerning the organizational aspects of coaching.”

Perhaps even more important than the strategic work Gehring does with her team, however, has been her reshaping and redefining of the culture surrounding her program. Her expectations, which she calls the “four C’s,” have become a staple of the team this year. She believes that it is imperative that their team communicate, that every member be fully com-

mitted, that the many different parts of the team cooperate, and that everybody contribute every day in one way or another.

She was also very clear from the beginning with her players about what their program would be about, paying particular attention to defining success. “If you just look at how we finished as a team in the indoor MIAC Championships, we look like a bottom tier program and, performance-wise, we are,” she said. “I don’t shy away from that, but I don’t dwell

“I really wanted them to understand my philosophy; I needed to tell them how I felt about us being a unified team and caring for one another, how I wanted us to hang onto our successes and get fired up about our history and the exciting year we had in store. Our amazing senior leadership and our culture did the rest.” on it. When I look at how we did throughout the year, we were much more competitive.”

Gehring has stressed to her team the celebration of individual achievements, and often cites examples of which she is especially proud. “There has not been one weekend this season where I have not had to go back into our top-ten list for at least one event and add a new score,” she said. “That is success. We broke two indoor school records this year. That, to me, is success.”

In addition to encouraging the celebration of in-season achievements, Gehring has tried to instill in her team a love for the history of Macalester Track and Field as strong and deep as her own. “Most people don’t realize our long, rich history in Track and Field,” she said.

Her office is like a shrine to Scot history, with old newspaper clippings and even older record sheets tacked to the wall right beside her desk, where she can easily access them. On

the shelf above her desk lay three championship trophies, each won by Macalester Track and Field teams during the early 1900s that she eagerly points to and marvels at whenever the subject comes up.

Without any prodding, she leaps into a retelling of the program’s storied and largely forgotten history, which features 21 MIAC Championship titles, including 11 straight won from 1959-1969. Since she became Head Coach, Gehring has reached out to the members of those championship teams.

Several of them will be present when Macalester hosts the MIAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships on May 8th.

“You don’t ever want to lose that kind of history,” she said.

Gehring hopes that by being aware of their program’s rich history, her athletes will be able to learn from the successes of the past and replicate them. She knows and has made sure they all know as well, that it will not be easy. Her energy and confidence, however, have bled into her team, and going into the conference meet, she knows that her athletes are in their best mental and physical form of the year. The potential downfall of all first-year coaches, the dreaded culture-change, seems like a distant memory. In its place is a program built in the mold of its leader, who refuses to take the credit.

“Early on, I met with my captains every other week,” she said. “I really wanted them to understand my philosophy; I needed to tell them how I felt about us being a unified team and caring for one another, how I wanted us to hang onto our successes and get fired up about our history and the exciting year we had in store. Our amazing senior leadership and our culture did the rest. My first year has been a great year because of things that were well outside of my control. I just got lucky.”

Ask anyone who knows Coach Gehring and her team.

Luck had nothing to do with it.

• mhorvath@macalester.edu

S p o rts

The Mac Weekly

THIS year

May 1, 2015 • Page 9

IN Mac SPORTS

10. Team IMPACT Drafts

5. Men’s Tennis Makes Playoffs

9. Smaranda Scores School Records at MIAC

4. Men’s Soccer Playoff Appearance

Two special moments for the Macalester Athletics community came away from the playing field this year. Both the Football and Softball teams joined with Team IMPACT, an organization that aims to bring collegiate athletics teams together with children suffering from life-threatening and chronic condition. In November, the football team drafted a pair of young brothers in the first ever Macalester Athletics Draft attended by members of every team. In April, Softball hosted a press conference to welcome their new six year-old teammate. The events were special reminders of the power sports teams have to create positive, supportive relationships.

Swimming sensation Smaranda Georgescu ’17 set three school records at the MIAC Swimming & Diving Championships in February, as she led the team to a 7th place finish. Georgescu broke the 50m Freestyle record in the prelims, and proceeded to shave another hundredth off the record in the finals, where she finished 10th in 24.53 seconds. Georgescu also broke the school record twice in the 100m Backstroke, where she finished 9th, taking two hundredths off from the prelims to the finals. The Nevadan swam on the team’s record-breaking 200m Medley Relay, which placed 4th. In total, Georgescu played a part in 124 of the team’s 209 points at the Conference Championships.

Men’s Tennis qualified for the MIAC Playoffs for the first time since 2010, falling 3-6 to #4 seed St. Thomas. The match was the most heavily attended of the season. Although the Macites dropped the first three doubles matches and put themselves in a very difficult hole, the support was still strong for the singles matches, where the top Scots showed well. Josh Doyle, Brian Utz, and Aidan Tirpack were all victorious in their #1, #2, and #3 singles matches, with Doyle and Tirpack coming from a set down to win in super tiebreaks. The future looks bright for the team, as they return their top three players next year.

Although the match itself was not one of the finer moments of Macalester’s sporting year, Men’s Soccer’s 5th place finish in the regular season that got them to that point certainly was. The Scots fell 2-0 in the quarterfinals of the MIAC Playoffs at Saint John’s. The team rode a four match winning streak into that match, which included a big win over nationally ranked Gustavus. Skipper Cole Erickson ’15, Keeper Zeke Vainer ’17, and Center Midfielder Alan Schembri-Wismayer ’17 earned All-MIAC honors for their play in the fall. Erickson has been a rock at the back for the Scots and will be greatly missed, but the team returns all other contributors and should make another run at the playoffs next year.

Left: #10 Alan Schembri Wismayer ’17 was a driving force on the Men’s Soccer Team. Middle: #1 Football got to celebrate many wins with a happy crowd during their wonderfully winning season. Right: Kimber Meyer ’17 earned her fourth All-American honor when she placed seventh at the National Cross Country Championships. Photos courtesey of Chris Mitchell and Steve Frommell

8. Freshman Fruh Erupts Against St. Kate’s

3. Logan Leaps To New Levels

7. Joe Giamberdino 3000m School Record

2. Kimber All “A-Meyer-Can” no.4

Regan Fruh ’18 was a gem for Women’s Basketball in what was otherwise a tough season. This was highlighted in the team’s 89-80 loss to St. Kate’s, when Fruh scored 33 points and gathered 10 rebounds. The performance was just six points off a Macalester scoring record, which was set 23 years ago. Fruh would go on to lead the team in scoring and blocks, and was named to the All First-Year MIAC team, as well as the honorable mention All-MIAC team.

In front of one of the loudest and most enthusiastic crowds seen at a Macalester track meet, Joe Giamberdino ’15 completed 15 laps 15 hundredths of a second faster than any Macalester student-athlete had before. Led through the mile in 4:38 by pacer Lachlan Hinwood ’17, Giamberdino completed the last 7 laps in four minutes. His 34 second final lap was just enough to dip under the record, as he crossed the finish line with a fist pump and new school record of 8:38.86. Giamberdino would go on to take four more seconds off of the record at the MIAC Indoor Championships the next weekend, running 8:34.63 to finish 4th.

6. Soccer SCORES Last-Minute Game-Winners

For Men’s and Women’s Soccer, it was the year of the last minute winner, as the Men won two games in the final minute of regulation, and one game in sudden-death overtime. Dylan Wong ’16, Zach Moore ’18, and Danny Baumann ’18 each scored one last-gasp goal, all coming in matches in which Macalester was expected to win. The Women won three overtime matches during the season, as they finished 7th in the MIAC. The wins proved to be crucial for the Men, as they narrowly qualified for the playoffs.

Logan Hovie ’16 placed fifth in the high jump at the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships to register Macalester’s highest finish on the individual level this year. After breezing over 1.98m and 2.04m on his first attempts, Hovie was one of just nine competitors remaining, and in a great position to earn All-American honors. The Neenah, WI native cleared 2.08m on his third and final attempt, clinching him fifth place and a new school record.

Kimber Meyer ’17 earned her fourth All-American honor in her fourth season this fall, when she took 7th place at the NCAA Cross Country Championships. The sophomore had a phenomenal season, dropping her 6k time down to 21 minutes, 30 seconds (5:46/mile) and finishing no worse than 7th in any of her seven races. She now hold the Macalester 6k record by over a minute. Meyer’s 3rd place finish at the Central Region Championships helped the Scots finish 6th in the region, their best placing in the past 10 seasons.

1. Football Makes historic playoff run

Seven consecutive wins, including one over nationally ranked Carroll University, saw Macalester Football advance to the MWC Championship Game in their first year in the conference. With a 30-27 win over Illinois College, the Scots sealed their first appearance in the NCAA Division III Playoffs, and their first conference title since 1947. Though the team trailed by seven early in the fourth quarter, two big drives and a last minute field goal gave the Scots the lead and the MWC Championship. The team would fall to the eventual National Championships UW-Whitewater in the first round of the playoffs.

May 1, 2015 • Page 10

The Mac Weekly

Sports

SIBlingS IN Sports

We caught up with these pairs of sibling-athletes to talk about home life, school life and impending graduations in olin rice. I have been so lucky to have her as a teammate the last two years. She has been a huge inspiration for me to work hard and push through every workout. Whenever I need motivation on the soccer field or the track I think of her. She always reminds how lucky I am to get to play and race. Most of all I will miss her telling me where all the good food is on campus is.

TMW: Favorite Mac memory together?

IG: Racing the 1000 meters together at our indoor home meet last year.

GG: And racing together on relay teams.

By LAURA GOULD, CHANCE CARNAHAN, ELIZA RAMSEY Konnor Fleming ‘15 and Ryan Fleming ‘16 are brothers on the football team at Macalester college. I had an opportunity to sit down with the two from Charlotte, Vermont earlier this week and discuss just about everything with them.

TMW: Do you guys get competitive with each other on the field or in the weight room?

KF: Are you allowed to tell the story about when you hit your power clean max? Can you censor that entire part?

RF: See, that actually got changed. Prior to out max outs you were talking to Hilly [Ben Hillman] in the LC parking lot about squat and bench and how I’d get you there, and I heard the quote “he still can’t touch my clean.” So naturally I took that as getting called out, and I was like I have to beat it now. You cleaned 280 right? So I was doing my cleans. I hit 265 for my first one, 275 for my second, and Coach Murray asked me if I wanted to cut it off. I said absolutely not, I‘m hitting 285. So I got my rep, I rip it up, get the full rep through, throw the bar on the ground, and almost at the top of my lungs, yell “Eat it Konnor.” Which then got changed from all the football guys to “Suck it Konnor.”

KF: Oh that’s not what I heard. For some reason I thought you said “F U Konnor”, and to be fair, the last we spoke your clean max was like 250.

TMW: You guys both used to have really long hair.

What was the reasoning behind that?

KF: My long hair started because myself and Ben Hillman, who was my roommate for my first three years and probably my best friend at Macalester, got into a slap bet with one another about who would go the longest without cutting their hair. We grew it out for right around a year, and then got together decided that this was enough.

It was very much time for a haircut, but we figured if we were gonna go for it, we were going to do something pretty righteous with it. We went to the Great Clips across the street. I told them I wanted to look like John Stamos on Full House, and Ben wanted to look like Billy Rae Cyrus.

We both had mullets for about a week, and then we realized how not sweet those mullets were.

RF: Mine was more part of the 20-Flowteen movement if you will. I think Coach J named it that. Well, I proposed the name and Coach J just absolutely stuck to it.

I grew mine since the beginning of sophomore season of football, had it straight through junior season, and got a couple pictures with the sweet hair coming out of the helmet. That’s what was really important to me. Once 2014 or 20-Flowteen was over, I decided to step it back down.

TMW: How does Konnor being an RA on campus make you feel Ryan?

Ryan: Well he did write me up on one occasion. It was his job. He was required to because I was there, despite the fact that I never left the staircase on the floor on which the posters were being torn down, which was what the whole fiasco was about. Most of my shenanigans I try to keep off campus anyway, so it’s easy to not run into eachother like that. But there was that one isolated incident.

KF: It’s protocol. Nothing personal. It could have been anyone. .

TMW: Konnor, So you’re graduating in a couple weeks... Any regrets? Any advice for your brother in his senior year?

Konnor Fleming ’15 and Ryan Fleming ’16 have been practicing their football intimidation tactics for a long, long time. Photo courtesy of Konnor and Ryan Fleming.

Ingrid Greene ’15 and Gretchen Greene’17 racing side by side down the home stretch of the 1000 meters at the home indoor track meet last year. Photo courtesy of Macalester Athletics.

KF: Man… I’d say one regret we already touched on was letting Ryan beat me in anything, especially in the weight room. As the technically smaller brother, I always took pride in being able to lift more than him, but so it goes. He’s grown up. Makes me proud every day. *chuckles* Words of wisdom? Stay after it man. There’s going to be a lot of opportunity, and I’ve grown a lot even in this last year, this last semester, when it’s sort of easy to check out. Whether it be on the field or off or whatever context you’re in, just stay after it man. There’s a lot of learning to do, a lot of growing to do, but you know that.

You’re doing it. You don’t need me to tell you how to do Macalester right.

TMW: Ryan, what are you going to miss most about not having Konnor around here?

RF: He is actually, as much as we give each other crap and everything like that, he’s a constant positive reminder of what I can be doing. On the football field he’ll be motivating everybody and all that kinda stuff. But also, in everyday life, it’s just nice to have that connection back to everything that I’ve had, everything that I’ve known, everything that I’ve done before. I think sometimes when I’m kinda just out of it or not feeling everything or whatever, it’s nice to fall back onto that. So I think that’s probably what I’ll miss most.

Ingrid ’15 and Gretchen ’17 Greene are two-sport threats hailing from Madison, Wisconsin. In the fall Ingrid plays soccer and Gretchen runs cross country but in the spring they team up to run mid-distance track together.

TMW: Gretchen, how important was the opportunity to go to school with your sister in drawing you to Macalester?

GG: At first I was not considering Macalester because I did not think I wanted to go to school with my sister.

Ingrid really wanted me to apply so I started considering Macalester. Once I had to make a decision about where to go, I began to think it might be nice to go to school with my sister. I did not realize how much time I would end up spending with her or how lucky I was to get to spend two more years in school with her. After she graduated high school, I did not think I would get to be teammates with her again, but it has been so great being teammates for two more years [in track].

TMW: Dream superpower?

IG: Super strength!

GG: To fly TMW: What is one memory from growing up you won’t ever let the other forget?

IG: The time she and Sylvia decided to play doctor and Gretchen pinned me down on the couch and Sylvia threw hot wheels cars at my face. I got a goose egg on my forehead. [Sylvia is the youngest Greene sister -Mac’20?!]

GG: I won’t let Ingrid forget the time she tried logrolling. We have some really funny videos of her falling right into the lake. [Gretchen is a world class competitive logroller. It must not be genetic.] Also, there was one time that she broke by finger when we’re playing catch.

TMW: Describe your sister in 3 words.

GG: Strong, funny, happy.

IG: Smart, funny, passionate.

TMW: What will you guys miss most when Ingrid graduates?

GG: I’ll miss having dinner with her, having sleepovers together, running together, studying together, watching her play soccer. It’s really nice to always have someone close who will hangout with me or keep me company studying. I will also miss sharing clothes with her.

IG: I will miss seeing Gretchen every day and working out with her in the LC and doing homework together

Alese Halvorson ’15 and Mara Halvorson ’17, have been swimming together since they were toddlers. The sisters are from Maple Grove, Minnesota and attended Wayzata High School. Alese is majoring in Applied Math and Statistics with a minor in Biology and a concentration in Community and Global Health. Mara is majoring in Anthropology. Bright eyed and smiling, the Halvorsons were excited to share a little about their experience as sisters and teammates at Mac. TMW: How is it being on the same team?

MH: It was really easy for me to join the team my freshman year because I had already gotten to know them through Alese. It was really fun. Everyone knows us separately, but we’re also a unit which I like. Sometimes one of us will say something and someone from the team will be like: “That’s very Halvorson.”

AH: The situation of Mara coming to the same school worked out really well because I was abroad in Singapore the fall semester that she started so the team got to know Mara as not my sister, but as an individual. It was a worry, at least a little bit, that [Mara] would always be associated with me, but the situation was perfect.

TMW: Alese, were you apprehensive about Mara joining you at Mac? AH: Not at all. I was the one who was pushing the most for her to come here. I didn’t want her to go anywhere else. I didn’t think anywhere else was good enough.

My family came for the conference meet my sophomore year and I remember my mom saying afterwards: “Oh my gosh, Mara just couldn’t stop saying how much she wanted to be a part of that team.” I think the community aspect is a huge deal here at Mac and that’s what set us apart in the end...I found out [Mara] was coming when my family was visiting and she handed me an envelope. In it was a copy of her commitment to Macalester and I just freaked out. I hung it on my door for the rest of a semester with a sign pointing to it that said “My sister’s coming to Mac!” TMW: What are some of your favorite memories from swimming or Mac in general?

AH: All of the times when I don’t have anyone to go to a meal with and I just text Mara. It’s just really nice to have a constant person here.

MH: I remember there was a funny story because one of my friends didn’t know Alese and she was like ‘wow, that girl looks a lot like Mara’ and then my friends were like “Yup, that’s her sister.”

AH: There are a lot of moments when we’re acting like sisters and then we realize that someone we’re with doesn’t know we are and then we have to explain it to them.

MH: One of our quirks is that when we see each other from across campus we tilt our heads really far to the right.

AH: I think we’ve actually gotten quirkier since being at Mac, because people don’t really care so we do it more publicly.

Alese Halvorson ’15 and Mara Halvorson ’17 have ensured that their family left an indelible mark on the Macalester swimming program.

Photo courtesy of Mara and Alese Halvorson.

The Mac Weekly

News

1721 Princeton

By JOE KLEIN Editor-in-Chief

1721 Princeton, the historic Tangletown home which was slated for demolition until it was bought by the High Winds Fund, was placed back on the market today for purchase by a new buyer. The house now has a deed restriction on it, preventing any buyer from tearing it down and building a new property on the lot.

The open sale concludes a few weeks of renovations, which the High Winds Fund performed to make the house livable once again.

The High Winds Fund, a neighborhood organization run by Macalester focused on community relations and beautification, exercised its right of first refusal on the lot and purchased the property from these new owners, saving it from demolition.

According to High Winds Fund Director Tom Welna, the cost of renovating the house was much lower than anticipated. While the previous

owners estimated that the house would require $300,000 in repairs. Welna said the High Winds Fund spent only about one-tenth of that.

“It’s not like we did a few large repairs.

We instead did 1,000 little things,” Welna said.

The house was structurally intact, and most of the repairs that the High Winds Fund worked on were maintenance projects that previous owners had fallen behind in.

These included patching and plaster work, restoring hardware and asbestos removal.

Now that repairs are completed, the house is listed for sale

on 1721princeton.com. According to Welna, the house will first be made available to previous potential buyers that had expressed interest in the house, and will then be placed on the open market in mid-May if a buyer is not found by that time.

In November, the house was sold by former Macalester professor Henry West and his wife to new owners, who released their plans to demolish the house, subdivide the lot and build two new homes on the lot. The Wests sold the house for $475,000 without realizing the new owners’ plans. Neighbors and community

May 1, 2015 • Page 11

A Look INside

activists rallied around the house, bringing awareness to historic preservation and housing teardowns occurring all throughout St. Paul.

Welna and the High Winds Fund have been publicizing the house and its renovations to the community. Macalester’s Staff Advisory Council had its Coffee Break at the house on Wednesday, and the group hosted an open house to neighborhood activists as well.

With the hardest battle — saving the house from demolition — won, the High Winds Fund is now focused on getting the house into the hands of a buyer who will continue to preserve and value the house in the future.

“Macalester has a long history of direct involvement in Tangletown,” Welna said.

“We had the opportunity to do something [here], so we took it.”

• jklein3@macalester.edu

Graphic by Lydia Karlson ’16. Photos courtesy of Baxtercreek photography.

Page 12 • May 1, 2014

F e at u r e s

The Mac Weekly

Bonding through difference at the Cultural House

By MORGAN MALATESTA Staff Writer The Cultural House, located at 37 Macalester Street, has been a fixture on Macalester’s campus since the ’80s. Currently, the space is a residential option, as well as a home to events like “In the Kitchen With…,” Fresh Fridays, story circles and the Cultural House Poetry Slam.

According to Demetrius Colvin, the Assistant Director of the Lealtad-Suzuki Center, the space has had “multiple iterations.” The house originally began as a “central hub for students of color.” Although it was not an official “Cultural House” at that time, the space was used much as it is today; cultural organizations and students of color used the house for meetings and events. The Cultural House poetry slam also began at this time for students of color to express their identities in a safe place.

For a brief period in the 1990s, the house was repurposed as the Eco-house. In the early 2000s, though, the Department of Multicultural Life reclaimed the house with the explicit purpose of turning the space into the Cultural House, a place to host intentional programming related to multiculturalism and talking across difference and to preserve the original mission and history of the house.

Currently, the C-House houses 11 residents who all work or volunteer with the DML in some capacity. According to Colvin, each resident’s work connects them more strongly to the mission of the house. They discuss “how to make [the space] more inclusive, have difficult conversations talking across difference and learn and grow from one another even though everyone is different.” Colvin stresses the importance of informal conversation instead of facilitated dialogue because it allows residents to carry conversations from the Cultural House into other spaces on campus, like classes or their work with the DML. Dagmara Franczak ’17 and Samia Habli ’16 are roommates in the Cultural House.

Both decided to live there because they had previous experience with the DML. They

wanted a space on campus to continue the conversations that they had been having in a small, close-knit community. Franczak volunteers with the Cultural House Staff and was in charge of Fresh Friday events about Ferguson and Charlie Hebdo. Habli is a Cultural House Program Assistant who works to promote conversation about social justice and multiculturalism issues through events that “encourage deeper conversations and personal sharing.”

According to Franczak, the kitchen is an important fixture in the Cultural House: “I love entering and studying there, just putting my books there, and people opening a laptop and laughing at a show. It feels like home.” Habli said, “I enjoy bringing my friends who don’t live in the C-House into a space where we cook and have great discussions.

Food gatherings are a big part of my culture...They give people a reason to get together, check up on each other, and support one another.”

Additionally, Franczak and Habli both emphasized a love for the small community within the Cultural House. Along with gatherings in the kitchen, there are opportunities to engage and bond with other residents. Habli elaborated, “My favorite part about living in the C-House is definitely getting to live with my roommate, Daga. We barely knew each other last year, but we’ve grown really close to each other...Our conversations about social justice, culture, politics and feminism don’t end in our staff meetings or weekly house meetings, but it’s something we constantly talk about.”

The two women encourage people to think about visiting or living in the Cultural House. According to Franczak, “The C-House is definitely a place for people to have the conversations that Macalester says that we have. We have different events that give people the space to talk about ideas in a smaller group ... there is a space on campus that you can stay in and know that there are people living there that are interested in these topics.”

Habli said, “I think the C-House is a great thing to have on campus because it provides both a safe space for people to talk about issues they care about, as well as a space to be vulnerable, challenged and maybe even uncomfortable in order to grow.”

• mmalates@macalester.edu

Andrew Latham: Newly a novelist, still a dedicated professor not more are to follow. The feedback for his book has so far only come from his friends, Goodreads and Amazon.

Latham is contracted to write a series, but that of course depends on the success of the first one. The second book is planned out for the most part, and the plot for the third On Wednesday Common Good Books hosted one of one is a little “sketchy.” our own, political science professor Andrew Latham, for Lathan has little time during the school year to work the launch of his new novel, The Holy Lance. The back on his novels, so “J-Term and summer break are sacred.” of the store, cleared out for chairs, could hardly hold the He dedicated two summers to work on The Holy Lance. group of Macalester faculty, students and many others As the current Chair of the Political Science department, who came for the book signing. Latham spoke of his novel Latham has a constant stream of duties, relating to both briefly, read a passage and answered questions from the his own scholarship and to that of students. Life as a chair audience, ushering his first novel into the Macalester and professor is “heavy lifting”; it was a commitment for community.

Latham to find the significant chunks of time required For Latham, a professor who teaches classes ranging write The Holy Lance. from Medieval Political Thought to Chinese Foreign Latham has found that his teaching at Policy, this is his first fictional work in what Macalester and his novel writing, have intertwined looks to be a line of many more. It also reflects at points. He teaches a course at Macalester a profound interest in the medieval time period called Medieval Political Thought. In that course, and a concerted effort to help his audience better Augustine is one of the great thinkers he teaches. understand the Knights Templar.

Augustine talks about his society being made up The whole project started around 2002. of citizens of the kingdom of heaven and citizens Following the attacks on the World Trade Center of the kingdom of earth. The only difference is on 9/11, Latham set out to research the changing that citizens of the first kingdom love God first character of war. He identified three eras: the and the citizens of the second kingdom love this medieval, the high modern and today. Planning life first. to compare the three at the conclusion, Latham In the book, there are very few people who never made it past the first case study. are citizens of the heavenly kingdom, whose In this case study, he researched the character priorities are to do what’s right and good first, of war from 1000-1500 AD. In this first stab at a and the majority prioritize power, glory, pleasure grand comparison of war, Latham was “fired up” and wealth. “I guess the way in which I show up and decided not to progress any further. in this novel is a lot of stuff I have taught and Once Latham was hooked on the medieval written about in the last few years, has found its period of war, he quickly came to love the way in there, in one shape or another,” he says. reality behind the Knights Templar. He had a Understanding war and violence are crucial keen interest in them and wanted to get inside their heads. A fictional quest, he thought, was the Professor Andrew Latham discusses his new novel, The Holy Lance. Photo by Mara Rait ’18. parts of Latham’s scholarship and book. He says, “They are an enduring part of the human condition. best way to achieve this goal. Of fictional writing Latham says, “It’s not scholarship but a natural extension novel writers. He planned the book to excruciating detail, It helps us understand what people fight over.” The violent of scholarship. It’s not completely unprecedented, but it’s writing short biographies for each of his characters. Once actions based on religious views in his book also reflect all of that was done, he researched medieval routines, an enduring condition. “We still have people who live, act unusual.”

The Holy Lance focuses on protagonist Michael Fitz clothing, food, military technology, armor and anything and sometimes kill on the basis of religious views.”

While Latham may have found a niche in historical Alan, a Knight Templar in the Third Crusade in the year that would strengthen the story and add to its historicity.

The book, as Latham says historical fiction novels fiction writing, he does not plan to be a full-time novelist.

1191. Fitz Alan performs exceptionally well in a counterattack and is assigned on a mission. With many other often do, may become victim to critics of its accuracy. “I love this job. I really do. Good department, good school, Templar Knights, Fitz Alan seeks the Holy Lance, a sort He sent it to a retired professor who lives in England to good city, good students, good colleagues. What’s not to of “Force Multiplier.” Simultaneously, there are several fact check its historicity and the draft was returned with a love? And I’m not blowing smoke here, it’s absolutely other groups trying to obtain the relic and others acting as few pieces of historical feedback. For example, “Father,” true.” In terms of the book, he says, “This is kind of gravy the way monks address one another, was not used in the for me.” obstacles to the knights.

However, the protagonist experiences a major identity medieval ages. However, he left the word because people • alahvis@macalester.edu crisis during this time. During the adventure, he struggles expect it and can relate to it.

The success of the book is difficult to measure at to balance knighthood with piousness and find his identity.

The novel is a story of all monks, so there is no sex or this point and may play a deciding factor in whether or

By AHREN LAHVIS Staff Writer

romance, only a “good, old-fashioned, swashbuckling adventure.”

For Latham, the motive behind the novel is to tell the story behind the Crusades, a historical phenomenon that is largely misunderstood, and the Knights Templar, an institution which he also believes to be quite misunderstood. “I’ve tried to do justice to them,” he said, “to empathetically tell their story and get the truth across.”

For Latham, the process of writing a novel was entirely new. Latham had extensive experience with academic writing, but the last time he had written fiction was in the sixth grade. He has always loved reading historical novels and already had a feel for their organization.

The process began with learning how to write fiction.

Latham did research and found several books for beginning

F e at u r e s

The Mac Weekly

May 1, 2015 • Page 13

STAFF LOVE: The many lives of connie karlen

By STEPH SHIMOTA Staff Writer As part of The Mac Weekly’s Staff Spotlight, Connie Karlen, Library Specialist at the Dewitt Wallace Library, sat down with reporter Steph Shimota ’17, (who also works at the library), to chew the cud (that’s a farm-related pun you’ll get later), and discuss ILL loans, nuns and being a Macalester neighbor.

Connie Karlen: So do you have a list of questions or can we just talk?

Steph Shimota: We can just talk. Why do you love working at the library?

CK: Why do you love working at the library?

SS: Hey, I’m the one interviewing you, Connie!

CK: I could do a question, and then you could do a question.

SS: Oh, that’d be kinda fun! What do you like about working at the library?

CK: I love helping people. And I really, really love Mac students. And I really enjoy working with the students I supervise. Mac students are amazing. And I love finding people what they need.

SS: Nice. Where did you go to school?

CK: Wait, wait, my turn to ask a question. What do you like about working at the library?

SS: I like helping people too. I also like seeing people and meeting new people. And also, the people I work with; they’re top-notch.

CK: Yeah, that too. I should add that.

SS: We’re surrounded by top-notchers. So, where did you go to school?

CK: I went to school at the University of South Dakota — twice.

SS: Twice?

CK: I got a bachelor’s in psychology, and then I went back and got a second bachelor’s in art — in painting. And then I got a MA in education.

SS: You’re a painter!? Whoa, I didn’t know that!

CK: Yeah, secrets!

SS: Connie’s mysterious past life revealed. Are you from South Dakota?

CK: Yeah, I grew up on a cattle ranch.

SS: Really? What part of South Dakota?

CK: Central. West of the Mississippi River. So if you’re from South Dakota, you say West River.

SS: Like west of the river.

CK: Yeah, but you don’t say the ‘of.’

SS: Cut down on time.

CK: Yeah. Have you seen that movie “Dances With Wolves?”

SS: Yeah.

CK: So the landscape in that film is a lot like the landscape that I grew up with — rolling hills...

SS: Whoa! Are there prairies there or is it like farms?

CK: Prairies and some farmland, but a lot of prairies.

SS: Cool! My grandpa used to farm where we live. Well, he lived across the road. He used our barn to store cows.

CK: To store them?

SS: Yeah, like when he was done using them, he’d like put them away in there.

CK: Oh, we never thought of that. We just let them be out there.

SS: Oh yeah, my grandpa was a thinker. He was like, “I’m sick of these! Into the storage barn with you!” Anyways, what do you like to do in your spare time?

CK: I have to say more stuff about me? (sigh) I’m a gardener, a big time gardener. I did not know [I could garden] until I tried about fifteen years ago. Before that I didn’t think I could do it. You only learn by going where you have to go….who said that? I don’t remember who said that.

Steph Shimota and Connie Karlen ’17. Photo by Katie Gabrio.

SS: I can turn to the ol’ Google for that.

CK: Yeah?

SS: Or I could just attribute it to you! ….or not. Not into plagiarism?

CK: We’re in a library for God’s sake!

SS: Sorry, I shouldn’t speak of such things!

CK: No! [Connie’s note: It’s Goethe….The Waking….awesome poem] SS: Did you always know you wanted to be a librarian?

CK: I’m not a librarian.

SS: Uh… What would you call yourself?

CK: I’m a library specialist. My degree is in education, not in library science. Did I always know I wanted to work in a library? No, but I’ve been around books a long time. I used to work at Scholastic Book Fairs, and before that I worked at Barnes and Noble, so I’ve been with books for quite a while.

SS: So, you manage interlibrary loans, right? If you could send the school one ILL-related message what would it be?

CK: Well, first that interlibrary loan is super cool and something the library — the college — supports. We don’t limit the

Bringing Sexy Mac!

view of our collection to just what’s in our building. We look at it more as comprising all of the materials that we are able to get for our patrons through interlibrary loan. So, I would first encourage every Mac community member to request stuff through interlibrary loan.

Now, if you ask me what’s something I wish a few patrons would do differently when placing ILL requests …. I would say give us as much information as you can. Put something in the notes field at the bottom of the request even. Help us help you. Sometimes we have to guess what patrons are seeking and need to send an email for clarification. If speed is of the essence then it’s a good thing to give us more information upfront. We like to help. I encourage anyone who has questions to stop by the library and talk with any student employee or staff member. Or send me an email.

SS: What’s your favorite thing about being at Mac? You said you like helping people…

CK: That’s my favorite thing about being at the library. I think Mac is pretty great. It’s not just an amazing place for students, but it’s also super cool as an employer, and it’s also super cool as a neighbor. So I get Mac from all sorts of different vantage points. Oh, another thing I love about Macalester is the opportunity to be a host family for international students. My spouse and I are hosts to two students right now, and we just love them. They’re part of our family, and will always be part of our family. Hi, Myriem. Hi, Frank.

CK: What’s your favorite thing about Mac? SS: I like being in the city, and I like that people are pretty accepting of one another. I think everyone here tries their best to do what’s right, and that’s really unique and pretty inspiring.

CK: And I like that [Macalester is] open. We should all be open to new ideas. We should all be open to change. I don’t think everyone is. That’s one thing I’d like to do — help people cope with change.

SS: What’s a good way to cope with change would you say?

CK: Well, understand that it’s constant. There will always be change. It’s just a matter of when it’s changing and how you react. Whether you are like a old brittle tree or a willow. You have to bend. And know it’s going to be okay. As Jullian of Norwich said, “All shall be well.”

SS: Who was she, a librarian?

CK: She was a mystic...another nun.

SS: Wait Connie, we skipped right over that [earlier in the interview]! Don’t do that! Where and when were you a nun?

CK: I was a Benedictine nun in South Dakota. Mother of God Monastery. For seven years. But I wasn’t born Catholic. I converted. I don’t consider myself Catholic anymore. It was an awesome place. There were/are awesome women there.

SS: What was the best thing about being a nun would you say?

CK: I learned a lot. Lots of amazing people. I also learned a lot about myself and about spirituality.

SS: Wow, I had no idea!

CK: I’ve had many lives.

SS: Which life are you on now?

CK: I’m on my Macalester library life and it’s pretty cool. I’m in the best place inside and out. • sshimota@macalester.edu

Farewell to a Beloved

By ARIEL ESTRELLA Staff writer As a first year, I had been invited to a pre-orientation retreat with the Bonner Scholars Program, a civic service engagement that I would spend the next four years a part of. I waited months to meet my cohort, but then heavy rain cancelled my initial flight. The 24-hour delay meant I missed the ride out to the retreat center: I would only make the second half of the scheduled programming and I would be left all alone at Macalester for days until they got back. I slumped around the then-empty campus waiting for the other Bonners to return, absolutely certain I would feel excluded from the group once they did.

I expected to be greeted in some way when I finally met them, but not with a chorus of cheers and definitely not with my peers running to me and collapsing their arms around me in hugs. Then, they were strangers, yet not strangers, to me. I was community, yet not community, to them. But even at this moment of not knowing, we found each other in such kindness.

Since that first welcome, I have been held many more times with such care, affection and affirmation. For all I have gained, I utterly appreciate Macalester and am thankful I will stand on that graduation stage in two weeks and a day. But I am also a survivor of many brutalities experienced before and after I got here. As such, I cannot deny the fact that my love for this community includes the potential and actuality of violence.

Ambivalence between celebration and hurt and articulation, learning and solidarity and violence, growth and stasis and disappointment marks so much of my learning at Macalester. I refuse to create a strict binary between any of these experiences, however, because their unexpected unions create my heart’s depth and compassion. I locate pain within joy and joy within pain because I view this process as a critical, pragmatic, radical engagement with all I consider beloved. I draw into beloved community within the resonances of our histories in their tragedies, triumphs and empathies.

Everything — every moment, every story, every victory and loss — sincerely and intimately known between trusted friends, allows us greater access to our axes of embodied knowledges.

Through our ambivalences about the experiences lived outside the binaries of emotion, we have raged and fought and mourned and cried and lived, laughed and loved. In all honesty, it dizzies me to know that what I have felt has, can and will be felt in so many others for reasons as similar and dissimilar to my own as logic could allow. Our (dis)unions, however, allow both for a more tender engagement with pasts not clouded with nostalgia, and for more loving tomorrows in the communities to which we hold ourselves responsible.

I am thrown into ambivalence once again as senior with graduation pressed to the forefront of my mind. I at once grasp onto my beloveds, love them, remember what they have given me, honor what I have given them and say farewell with as much . To mitigate these sentimentalities for myself, I find myself again and again taking a step back to reflect and indulge in the thrill of potential and change and interruption thrumming through me. It is truly a kindness to pause over my communities and find closures for the ways I know my communities right now.

The care I have received does not, and cannot, go unnoticed because your presence in my life has deeply changed me. When I walk across that stage in a few short weeks, I will do so with my heart heavy with the love I have for and have felt from all I hold as beloved. To that moment I will bring with me “Bringing Sexy Mac.” I realized so much of my potential through this column, and I am who and how I am today due to having a platform of such intense reflection. So thank you for this space where I have reflected and indulged and shocked myself into revelation.

And thank you for your readership and also for your attention, your support, your friendship, your mentorship, your challenges, your restlessness, your invitations, your laughs, your activism, your trust, your contributions to discussions, your Thursdays, your everydays, your everythingthat-brought-you-to-here’s...

Thank you for you. Thank you for me. Thank you for us.

Thank you, always, for your love.

• aestrell@macalester.edu

F e at u r e s

Page 14 • May 1, 2014

The Mac Weekly

Alumni: Where Are They Now?

David Arbit ’07, Twin Cities realtor have kind of started to recognize me in the community. I bump into people at the Farmer’s Market and they’re like, “Hey, I was at one of your talks!” And that really is fun. In terms of outreach, it’s also been really nice to interact with really impactful and very poignant organizations, such as the Project for Pride in Living, Hope Community, CommonBond David Arbit ’07 is a Geography and Political Science double major who was born and Communities and Habitat for Humanity. It’s been really meaningful for me to get involved raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Right after Mac, he headed to the Humphrey Institute of and to get to know some of these people.

Public Affairs and received a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning with a focus on Are there any unexpected hurdles? housing and economic development. Currently a research manager for the Minneapolis Sometimes, it has been the politics of the office and the workplace. Sometimes poliArea Association of Realtors, Arbit likes to spend his free time downhill skiing and bicytics can be really paralyzing. I don’t think it should be, but it really can be. cling. Now, he’s catching up with The Mac Weekly about life after Mac.

By EMILY ROEBUCK Staff Writer

Can you tell me about your path from school to now?

After I got my Master’s, I was an intern at the Department of Community Planning and Economic Development (CPED). First, I was in a position in the research department, then went over to business development, and then I became the consultant working under Empowerment Zone, which serves communities facing foreclosure, high poverty rates, low incomes and high educational and achievement gaps. I worked in that for a year and a half, and then this consulting thing kind of hit me. From CPED, I started consulting for Family Housing Fund and Greater Metropolitan Housing Corporation (GMHC). Actually, I was an employee of GMHC for about a year and an employee at the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, too. Then, I just applied for this job and I think it was fortuitous. It’s treated me pretty well: I’ve been able to have a lot of latitude and autonomy in terms of designing my own research projects, even having access to some capital in the budgets to buy software and stuff like that.

What does your current job entail?

We do policy work with local city councils on housing issues, city ordinances, stuff like that. We lobby for home ownership and property rights at the federal level as well. I am also registered with the Department of Commerce to be an instructor for continuing education credits to make sure that real estate brokers, agents, appraisers and lenders all stay abreast to the risks and successes and performance of the market and what’s happening with housing. We do a lot of outreach, we do a lot of data work, we do report production and we do a lot of media work. I do some public affairs and public relations. I’m all over the place, really.

Photos courtesy of David Arbit.

What advice would you give current students?

Take some geography courses; they’re so good! It is a field of study that really interweaves so many different disciplines and seems so much like the real world. I do find myself relying on that way of thinking, in terms of attacking problems from a holistic standpoint and thinking about solutions while really taking into account diverse perspectives. Also, your degree matters, but you can take so many things so many different ways.

I don’t want anyone to think that they’re destined to serve in one field and one field only.

What values from Mac have served you the most?

Mac, I think, really did instill that value of academic rigor and really investigating problems and talking about problems in society and within groups and across groups, people and thinkers. Also, the value of being good environmental stewards. I think that we have to keep that in our day-to-day in everything from building smarter housing right down to when I’m at the office and just not printing. It’s the micro and the macro.

Any advice to students entering life after Mac? We have such a diverse economy here, so I would first encourage them to really consider staying in the Twin Cities, because I really do believe in this metropolitan area as one that really, truly, does work. The other thing is to never abandon those values. It’s really, hugely important for more and more people to bring these ideas that are alive and well at Macalester into their different work environments and to spread them. And it’s really, hugely important to help people who are vulnerable, people in places that aren’t—well, let’s face it—where most Mac grads are. It’s important to put that in context.

Any final thoughts or words of wisdom?

Improve the world. Work that into your everyday. It is your duty.

• eroebuck@macalester.edu

What’s the best, unexpected part of your job?

I do a lot of public speaking, and people

At work with the sustainability network

By EMILY SYLVESTRE Contributing Writer The Sustainability Network brings together students from a variety of departments and organizations working on sustainability-related projects from around campus. You can get in touch with the network with your ideas or questions by emailing fbeckel@macalester.edu or gqueenan@macalester. edu, or by coming to the next (potluck!) meeting from 12:001:30 p.m. at the EcoHouse.

As a human, I intuitively understand cause and effect. If I don’t eat, I get hungry. If I poke my sister too many times she gets angry. Something that is harder for me to rationalize is, for example, riding my bike so that I don’t emit the carbon dioxide that is causing climate change. Global climate change is such a vast and systemic problem that any action I take personally will have no instantaneously visible feedback.

In choosing to ride my bike, my actions are not predicated on a tangible effect, but rather on my own faith that what I am doing will make a difference. There is no silver bullet that will solve these issues. I may never witness the effects of my actions, sustainable or otherwise. This is something that I grapple with personally every day.

Sustainability is the ability to endure and regenerate, to be resilient. A sustainable community remembers the past and imagines the future, while still being concerned with the present. A sustainable company, organization or institution considers long-term implications and consequences. Thinking

Combating systemic problems at multiple scales through sustainability work

in a sustainability framework involves considering multiple scales, levels and scopes. Sustainability is about the interconnectedness of issues and problems, and the necessity of considering systems rather than isolated issues.

I am interested in sustainability because I do not think that the problems that the world faces today have simple causes or solutions. If I fail to appreciate the complexity of a problem, I doom myself to frustration and failure in trying to solve it. I am interested in this complexity and in finding the balance between practicality and imagination that it will take to tackle global and local issues in the world today. That is not to say that I don’t get frustrated, because I often do. It is really easy to feel fed up with the world and sometimes it really gets me down. That is where my work outside the classroom comes in.

I believe that the best place to try out new ideas and hone your problem-solving skills is within your own community. When it comes to working in sustainability, there are a lot of great options at Macalester. For my part, I have chosen a combination of ways to be involved and engaged with my community. I work in the Sustainability Office with staff, fellow students and other departments on campus to manage recycling, energy consumption, food sustainability and composting. The students in the Sustainability Office are a part of a broad network of student workers and organizations across campus who are also engaged in sustainability work. The Sustainability Student Network meets every other week to talk about collaboration across projects and provide support. I do this work because I believe it contributes to a more sustainable Macalester community.

I was also one of many who last year helped organize

Macalester’s participation in a protest against Enbridge’s tar sands pipeline in Minnesota. MPIRG’s Environmental Taskforce along with many other interested students showed up in droves to tell legislators why this pipeline would hurt Minnesotan communities and ecosystems. I do this work because I believe it contributes to a more sustainable Minnesota.

I also work with Fossil Free Mac, which is an incredible group of thoughtful and dedicated people advocating for Macalester to divest from fossil fuels. Fossil Free Mac is a part of an international divestment movement that seeks to diminish the political power and social capital of fossil fuel companies by convincing institutions to discontinue their investments in these companies. I do this work because I believe it contributes to a more sustainable world.

It is hard to tell if I am doing the right things or making any kind of difference at all. Small victories can seem ridiculous in the context of broad systemic problems. My own contributions will only ever be a miniscule piece of the solution, what I like to call a “drop in the bucket.” Where do you find the courage to keep working despite that you may never know if you are making a difference? I have found that the most important part of working in sustainability is having faith.

• esylvest@macalester.edu

The Mac Weekly

Opinion

May 1, 2015 • Page 15

How well do you know the Syrian conflict? Find out with this quiz

By PATRICK EICKMAN Contributing Writer

b) Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq c) Ahrar al Sham

7) What city is the capital of ISIS? As the conflict in Syria continues into its fourth year, a) Mosul there is a great deal of confusion as to who the main players b) Felucia are and who is supporting them. Unfortunately, the American c) Raqqa news cycle does not take a great deal of time to delve into the variety of factions that are fighting in Syria, leaving the 8) ISIS assassinated a Palestinian leader named Yahya American public as well as policy makers dangerously ignoHourani in the Yarmouk camp before they attacked it. Which rant about the current crisis. I view this as a sin, as the war has left up to 306,335 dead, 5.1 million internally displaced group did Yahya Hourani belong to? a) Hamas refugees and nearly 3.5 million Syrian exiled from their native b) PLO land, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights. c) PFLP We should all agree that knowledge about the conflict is imd) Islamic Jihad portant, but do you know the intricate details of this civil war?

It is a daunting challenge, but as future leaders, it would be 9) Hamas is part of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has best for you to at least test your knowledge of this conflict. sided with the Syrian Revolution, in particular the Free Syrian Army and the Islamic Front. However, Hamas receives most 1) For whom is Hezbollah fighting? of its arms from Iran, and has built an important relationship a) Syrian government with the Iranian regime. Iran is a very important ally for Asb) Syrian revolution sad. Who have Hamas members in Syria sided with? c) Neither (neutral) a) Remained neutral b) Syrian regime 2) The Muhajirin wa-Ansar Alliance is allied to which c) Syrian revolution organization? a) Syrian government 10) Which group has killed more civilians than any other b) Syrian revolution faction? c) Iran a) Syrian government b) ISIS 3) The Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine c) Syrian revolution (includes all groups from FSA, Isworks in conjunction with the Assad regime in Syria. True or lamic Front, Al Nusra, Kurdish militias, etc.)

False?

Hopefully, you did well. But regardless of how you did, I 4) ISIS was created during the Syrian Civil War. True or hope this serves as a reminder to keep informed about political False? events as they unfold in today’s world despite, their horrific nature. It is also important to note that Syria, its history, and 5) What is Al Nusra? its people are far more than this conflict. This op-ed does not a) Alawite militia siding with Assad serve to educate one about Syria, just the current military sitb) ISIS armed branch uation. c) Al Qaeda’s Syrian branch Answer Key 6) The Islamic Front is one of the largest parts of the 1) A: Hezbollah as a Shia militia has sided with the Asrevolution and is a coalition of several factions. Can you tell sad regime in a deepening sectarian war. Assad’s regime is which faction is not a part of the Islamic Front? largely seen as favoring Shia and Alawite minorities, leaving a) Al-Tahwid Brigade

many Sunni’s to support the revolution whereas Shia militias and nations such as Iran send troops and arms to the Assad Regime.

2) B: This is an Islamic group fighting against the Assad regime.

3) False: it is neutral although a separate branch of the PFLP. The PFLP-General Command has sided with the Syrian regime and had unsuccessfully tried to subjugate the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk.

4) False: ISIS was a branch of Al-Qaeda in Iraq that had formed in the aftermath of the United States-led invasion of Iraq. Many former members of the Iraqi Baathist party have found their way into its ranks.

5) C: Al Nusra is Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria and is made up of foreign fighters ranging everywhere from Chechnya to Britain as well as Syrians themselves. They were formally allied to ISIS before ideological differences made them enemies. They are currently allied to most of the Syrian opposition.

6) B: Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq is a Shia militia in Iraq currently fighting ISIS. 7) C: Raqqa serves as an ISIS stronghold.

8) A: Although Netanyahu would have you believe otherwise, Hamas and ISIS are not the same thing, and have engaged in a great deal of combat in Syria.

9) C: Hamas members trained members of the Syrian revolution, and many have fought openly with various parts of the resistance. This has given them a lot of support from Qatar and Turkey, but cost them numerous weapons deals from Iran, which decided to give newer rockets to an organization called Islamic Jihad. However, as of the current situation, Iran and Hamas have agreed to disagree over Syria and Yemen, and now Hamas and Islamic Jihad work in coordination with each other.

10) A: Although ISIS kills brutality, the Assad regime through its bombings is able to kill far more civilians than ISIS could ever imagine. According to Syrian Network for Human Rights, Assad is responsible for 85 percent of civilian casualties while “extremist factions” are responsible for seven percent.

• peickman@macalester.edu

Extrinsic rewards: Where does our motivation come from?

By PETER HALL Contributing Writer More often than not extrinsic rewards are dangled in front of children and adults as a form of motivation. While this can be effective in getting someone to perform a task or activity to a certain extent, it can also have negative side effects on a person’s livelihood and behavior by reducing the amount of intrinsic motivation a person has to perform said activity or task at a later time.

Doing an activity because you want to is known as intrinsic motivation. In other words you “receive no apparent rewards except the activity itself,” as Deci said. Often, a person is motivated by intrinsic reasons when they find an activity interesting, challenging, competitive or enjoyable. Alternatively, extrinsic motivation is doing an activity for the pursuit of a goal (e.g. praise, trophy, money, victory). It has been shown that extrinsic rewards can have a direct effect on a person’s intrinsic motivation.

A study by Ledford Jr., Gerhart, & Fang outlined findings of previous studies of the effect extrinsic rewards has on intrinsic motivations: Deci and Ryan showed that extrinsic rewards, under specific conditions, have the ability to undermine intrinsic motivation. Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett showed that extrinsic rewards have the ability to decrease intrinsic motivation. Frey and Jegan again showed how extrinsic rewards could crowd out intrinsic motivation. Gangé and Deci alternatively showed that extrinsic rewards, under certain conditions, could indeed enhance intrinsic motivation.

What this means is that although extrinsic rewards can be useful, it still can reduce the amount of intrinsic motivation a person has. A study by Edward Deci further proves this point as well as showing the effects money and verbal praise have on intrinsic motivation. In the study, Deci began with two hypotheses: (1) When money is used as a reward, intrinsic motivation will decrease, and (2) when verbal praise is used as

a reward, intrinsic motivation will increase. For two out of the ton, et al. suggest that effective praise can help develop inthree experiments performed in the study, the effect of money trinsic motivation.Their research indicates that praise should as a reward was studied. Participants took part in performing be limited and used more as acknowledgement.” With proper a task in three different sections. In both experiments, the ex- use of verbal reinforcement and encouragement, intrinsic moperimental group was given money as a reward for completing tivation can increase, even though the act of the verbal praise a task during the second section, but received no reward in the is an extrinsic reward. first or third sections. The control group received no monetary The idea that extrinsic rewards can undermine and overreward throughout all three of the sections. power intrinsic motivation is an issue that can be applied to The results from both of these experiments showed that everyday life. Ask yourself if you enjoy a task or activity beinterest and motivation to complete the task increased during cause you actually want to do it and are interested in the acthe second section when money was a reward. However, when tivity, and not because of an incentive being waved in front money as a reward was taken away in the third section, par- of you. All in all, don’t let the extrinsic reward hamper your ticipants’ intrinsic motivation decreased to even lower than interest level in an activity you once found enjoyable. in the first section. This shows that once an extrinsic reward is introduced and subsequently removed, a person will lose • phall1@macalester.edu motivation to complete a task. This, for example, can have negative consequences on the behavior of a child at school, showing that students who are strictly motivated by extrinsic motivation may exert the minimal amount of effort required to complete a task.

In the third of Deci’s three experiments, he tested the effect of verbal praise and reinforcement on motivation. The set-up was similar to the first two experiments, only instead of a monetary reward participants received verbal praise for the completion of a task. The results from this experiment showed that verbal praise and reinforcement as an extrinsic reward doesn’t decrease intrinsic motivation like with the use of money as a reward.

This point is further reinforced by Julie Kelsey who said, “Research from Kohn and Huf- Our old logo from decades ago, as discovered by a Macalester print making class.

Page 16 • May 1, 2015

Opinion

The Mac Weekly

A response to “Thoughts after the Student Assembly on Income Inequality”

By HALEIGH DUNCAN Contributing Writer When the income inequality coalition began developing the student assembly and resolution, I was afraid that the campus would lash out against it and me as radical, as hostile, as the many insults which are thrown at organizers, student and otherwise, who want to create positive change. Like Hannah Mira Friedland, I had anxieties in sharing my voice on campus. Ultimately, I continued to be one of the more extreme people in the group, asking for the highest minimum wage ($15 rather than $14.17) and the lowest pay ratio (15:1 rather than 18:1). With the amazing, perseverant, motivated members of my group to provide a balancing act of political moderation, we strove to create legislation that could diminish income inequality on campus while trying to reinforce and support each other in our sense of being a positive presence on campus.

Hannah Mira Friedland shared her thoughts in an op-ed titled “Thoughts after the Student Assembly on Income Inequality” last week. I’m particularly impressed at her courage in sharing dissenting thoughts at the student assembly. In Friedland’s words, “Part of me was concerned about appearing like a jerk for being, I predicted, one of the few people present who disagreed with the ... proposal ... But the larger part of me felt that it was important to attend the assembly if I wanted my voice to be heard.” It is so important in any democratic process that every viewpoint is able to be heard and understood. While the income inequality coalition tried to stress in every advertisement that all were welcome at the student assembly, overtly political environments — and any honest conversation — can be very intimidating and difficult to navigate. I’m grateful to you, Hannah Mira, for examining this issue so closely, and for being so considerate to all of the voices which were shared in and out of the assembly.

In her article “Thoughts after the Student Assembly on Income Inequality,” one of the first points Friedland raises is that the price of attending an elite school is that the president “makes a ton of money” and “the lowest paid Bon Appetit and Highlander workers do not (in comparison to an elite college’s president),” and that this trend exists in other places as well. There seems to be an assumption in this idea that being an elite school

is a justification for this inequality between workers. I agree that this manifestation of income inequality exists in other places, but I would like to add that the nebulous qualifier of “elite” is irrelevant. McDonald’s is not considered an select or high-end corporation, but the executives of this company continue to consume billions of dollars while millions of workers world-wide struggle in poverty. This inequality exists in community colleges, state colleges — it is nearly ubiquitous. That does not make it an acceptable precedent.

Furthermore, being an “elite school” does not justify the working conditions of Macalester employees. I was attracted to Macalester not because it is an elite school, but because it is a school which claims to uphold values of community, both global and local. That value is betrayed by the exploitation of labor that is done predominantly against women, people of color and differently-abled workers on this campus. Macalester has both the means and the responsibility to be an ethical participant in the local and global community. Inequality is not excusable anywhere for any reason.

The next point elucidated made by Friedland reads, “As one of many students benefitting from financial aid brought in by President Rosenberg, who are we to tell him to do his job?” I myself am grateful for the financial aid I’ve received and acknowledge that I would have been unable to attend college otherwise.

This is something I have told President Rosenberg personally.

However, I have difficulty agreeing that accommodations for my socio-economic status constitute an obligation to never address issues on campus that affect me and the people around me. The income inequality that drags my family down is the same income inequality that subcontracted workers and adjunct faculty are experiencing right here on our campus. Being granted financial aid, while it has saved my life in more ways than one, does not mean that I forfeit my right to advocate for workers on this campus who receive poverty wages. This is an aspect of President Rosenberg’s job that we have the right and obligation to question. The income inequality coalition is not simply telling President Rosenberg how to do his job — we are asking him to use his power and his privilege to improve the lives of people on campus who are being exploited under his watch. That should not be a taboo activity.

Friedland also brought up the idea that those who are on financial aid and disagree with income inequality and other fac-

ets of campus life should “allow these expenses [financial aid] to be allocated elsewhere, and transfer to a different college that better exhibits the values the bill-writers are looking for in an elite institution.” To suggest that someone should evacuate any environment in which a problem exists, instead of attempting to change that space so that it is more just, seems like it would be very difficult to do in a society in which inequality and oppression are so omnipresent. I cannot simply depart the planet instead of asking politicians to take measures against global warming. I cannot avoid any and all rooms containing men instead of asking for better sexual assault policies. I cannot expunge myself from the earth instead of challenging myself and people who share my white identity to take responsibility for racism and civil rights.

And I will not leave this institution instead of fighting for the rights of its workers.

Macalester can do better. There is no reason why this is not possible. It is also very unfair to suggest that someone who cannot afford tuition should reject any possibility for socio-economic mobility based on the perceived necessity of their silence on issues of social justice. It’s particularly ironic when that silence would hinder the expansion of socio-economic mobility for other members of the Macalester community.

To address Friedland’s final point, this campaign did not begin because we do not have school pride or because we do not support President Rosenberg. This campaign began with the observation that workers on campus do not receive a living wage, with the developing context of the nationwide Fight for 15 movement and with the personal experiences of students who come from backgrounds of income inequality. However, I think Friedland has stumbled onto something critical with the concluding paragraph of her op-ed. The campus needs “something to rally around itself.” Macalester is a place with a waning sense of community. Part of that weakness is its failure to acknowledge every member of its campus, and when that acknowledgment occurs, its integrity needs to be demonstrated. Subcontracted and adjunct workers deserve a living wage immediately if we are to reinforce what it means to be a group of people who love each other and support each other, workers and students. The student assembly and its resolution are an attempt to restore that unity. We are a community. No exceptions.

• hduncan@macalester.edu

Do luxury goods really make us happy? attitudes in East Asian culture. Also, Western culture over time has shown increasing desire for self-presentation. This merging suggests that self-presentation attitudes are not only applicable to East Asian culture, but also to Western culture and at a much Why do we engage in luxury consumption which often faster rate than ever before. leads us to spend much more than what we would have spent on This interpretation is supported by the results of a study by comparable non-luxury items? We, as worldwide consumers, are Wiedmann, Hennigs and Siebels. In the study, researchers identilargely unaware of our motivation behind luxury consumption, fied four different types of shoppers based on the above variables which stems from our desire for esteem, wealth and satisfaction. and found a surprising result: the greatest percentage of shoppers We want to secure our social status by catering to others’ percepin the U.S. belong to the extravagant prestige-seekers category tions and display luxury goods as a symbol of our identity and (26 percent) followed by rational functionalists (23.7 percent), power. After all, we consume brand-name goods for pleasure. materialists (22.4 percent) and introvert hedonists (17.2 percent).

However, several studies indicate that luxury consumption Extravagant prestige-seekers display more self-presentation attidoes not effectively deliver us happiness. In this opinion editoritudes in that they are more inclined to favor social value aspects al, I explore different types of purchase intentions for luxurious of luxury goods by emphasizing prestige over quality assurance goods, the implications of cross-cultural differences, the major in order to impress others. This surprising finding suggests that findings and implications of relevant studies and possible solualthough our ultimate goal of buying luxury goods is an emotiontions to the problem of this mismatch between our intended goals al benefit, we are more drawn to social acceptance in order to be and actions. Solutions indicate that experiences, not material liked by others. goods, are better predictors of happiness.

The studies above indicate that we, regardless of our culturResearch has shown three major purchase intentions for al identity, unconsciously fall back to habitual luxury consumpluxurious items: self-presentation, self-expression and affect. tion for prestige and impression management and that luxury People with more self-presentation intentions buy brand goods consumption does not deliver us the happiness we think it does. to claim their status within the context of society. Perceptions of In fact, Wilson and Gilbert point out that happiness derived from social members guide one’s action more strongly than one’s own owning material goods is strong in intensity, but only temporary. judgment, and personal opinion is supplanted by the interests of In order to make ourselves truly happy, we need to spend our the group. On the other hand, people with more self-expression valuable dollars not on luxurious material goods, but on building intentions seek alignment in their identity and the brand. They new experiences. We may also increase our happiness by socialwish to express their individual uniqueness by finding approizing with others and engaging in helping behaviors. priate brand-match. Affect is a purchase motivation out of pure For example, schools and companies can adopt specialized emotional needs or happiness. The findings suggest that affect is programs that involve weekly meetings for students and employthe strongest predictor of luxury consumption in both cases. ees to share non-academic or non-work issues in their lives. We Although many cross-cultural studies examining purchase can also set a goal to donate a portion of our income to charity to intentions of luxury goods seek to find cultural distinctions in make our lives more meaningful. In a world with a central focus collectivist versus individualistic cultures, more studies seem on materialism, we need to stop and ask ourselves where our to reveal merging patterns in both types of cultures in the face consumption motivations come from and engage in actions that of globalization. Traditionally, collectivist East Asian cultures contribute to our happiness. displayed more self-presentation intentions, whereas individualistic Western cultures displayed more self-expression intentions.

• ychoi@macalester.edu However, Bian & Forsythe’s study indicates that there was almost no difference in self-expression and self-presentation

By YUN JAE CHOI Contributing Writer

MPIRG update

By PATRICK BLOMGREN & AKILAH SANDERS-REED Contributing Writers We are happy to announce that MPIRG (known as “MacPIRG” on campus) will continue to exist at Macalester! Thanks to the cooperation and input of MCSG and Campus Activities & Operations, we were able to rewrite our charter and come to an agreement on funding options through the Financial Affairs Committee budgeting process that was initially impossible under our old charter. This was the unknown ‘Plan C,’ and we’re happy this could happen.

We budgeted for $12,371 of which $7,211 were approved. This funding, although less than we hoped, allows us to still be recognized as a part of the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group. Thus, Macalester students will continue to have access to conferences like the Youth Democracy Summit, hold positions on the Board of Directors to govern the organization and engage with the network of lobby experts and other students that makes MPIRG a powerful voice for Minnesota students.

We will also continue to organize projects and programming on campus to raise awareness and make progress on social, environmental and economic justice issues. We are incorporating many of the concerns we have heard over the last year in order to build a more accessible, communicative and inclusive organization that will better uphold student organizing work at Macalester. If you have ideas, we welcome your input as we restructure!

Thank you again for your ongoing patience and interest. We know the past 13 months have been an unsettled question on the status of our organization. Rest assured that 44 years of history will not be ending anytime soon.

• pblomgr1@macalester.edu •asanders@macalester.edu

The Mac Weekly

Opinion

May 1, 2015 • Page 17

Real talk: graduates offer up advice on post-graduation life

By EMILY WADE Contributing Writer

Unless you’re kept up at night by your entrepreneurial drive, get off your high horse and take an entry-level office job. The title won’t be sexy and you may not be proud of it, Not everyone is the president of an international but you have to start somewhere. investment bank or working on a cure for AIDS a year after - Corbin, English ’11 graduation. Really, the majority of us were totally average recent college grads. Don’t feel bad about eating SpaghettiRemember how long it took to get used to being in O’s out of a can. college? It takes about the same amount of time to get used to - Kaylie, History & American Studies ’09 being out, so try to be patient. 28,000 Mac alumni made this journey before you did — you can do this too.

Although it worked well for me in college, it turns out - Neely, Political Science ‘06 being a pretentious asshole doesn’t pay the rent.

- Ruby, Physics ’14 Even if you end up working somewhere you don’t like, figure out where you want to end up. You don’t even have to Mac alumni are human, and while we all have intellectual tell anyone — just be honest with yourself at first. It can be merit and have accomplished great things and will continue very difficult, but it’ll be an enormous relief to have an end to, there’s nothing wrong with being normal for a minute and goal in mind. Once you have this end goal, things will start exploring life at your own pace. Don’t be afraid to take the happening for you. time that you deserve and need to figure out your future and - Oleh, Linguistics ’12 what you want out of life.

- Johnna, Russian Studies ’14 Stop telling yourself that if you aren’t in your ‘dream job’ that you are failing at life or betraying your degree. Instead, I graduated and went straight into working at a non-profit. focus on finding a job that gives you an opportunity to learn I was salaried and had health care. I was working forty hours and develop skills that will lead to your dream job. a week. I thought that was what I was supposed to do. Three - Ashley, Communication Studies ’05 months ago I quit to start a job working just above minimum wage and I’ve already gained more resume-worthy experience Buck up and grind. here than I did for two years at a non-profit. People told me I - Will, English & Educational Studies ’12 should feel lucky and not complain, all the while I fell into the deepest, hardest depression I’ve felt in five-plus years. Yes, At some point, you just have to go for something. There get a job after graduating, but if it doesn’t feel right please is no right job, no perfect career. Be brave, take a leap. You trust your gut and change. Debt and social pressure aside, you will only learn what you want to do by eliminating what you will figure things out. don’t want.

- Mariah, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies ’13 - Grace, English ’10 Don’t pay your debt.

- Anonymous, Philosophy ’12 I saved up my money, left my job and dedicated a year of my life to learning a whole new discipline. I’m now involved in the arts and can’t find steady employment. I always clear out my bank account to make rent, and I’ve had to borrow money from my parents for dog food, but I’m happier than I can ever remember being.

- Benjamin, Environmental Studies & English ’13

As long as you’re doing something that you learn from, you’re doing something ‘real.’

- Marcy, Geology ’13

It’s hard to see all of these amazing positions that you feel qualified or prepared for, and know there are just so many similarly qualified/excited and eager new grads going for the same things. Sometimes you just need to hear that from someone and bitch and complain about the process instead of having friends and family tell you, ‘It’ll work out.’

- Sydney, Media and Cultural Studies & Political Science Don’t be afraid to be selfish. You don’t owe anyone ’14 anything. Ask for help when you need it, and pay it forward when you can.

You will learn how to be alone more often, and sometimes - Liz, English & History ’13 question whether or not you enjoy your own company. Take yourself for walks and find an exercise routine that keeps you It’s okay to want a job for its benefits, location, flexible happy. Your friend circle will inevitably grow smaller and schedule and many other factors totally independent of its tighter, but you’ll also meet friends who didn’t go to Mac. mission. It’s okay to have jobs that aren’t saving the world.

Learn how to hold both and don’t write off either just because It’s okay to take a job that will make you financially secure, it doesn’t match your previous expectations. and more power to you if you manage to find one.

- Kelsey, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies ’14 - Sidney, Geography ’12

It’s so weird to switch from being around so many amazing, great friends and endless activities in a place you are intimately familiar with to somewhere new. I am slowly coming to terms with my fear. It’s hard when you see your friends being so successful in their fields right after college, but it is also so inspiring to see how everyone puts their ideas and skills into life after college, no matter what they are doing.

- Claire, Environmental Studies & Political Science ’14 It’s okay to rely on other people’s confidence in you until you can find your own confidence.

- Jackie, Economics ’12 Even though I’m happy with my path, I still get nervous when people ask me, “So what do you do?” The jobs that I’ve been happiest doing and have gotten the best experiences out of have been the jobs that people, especially Mac grads, look down on.

- Sophie, International Studies & Arabic ’14 Don’t let the ‘Mac-view’ of success make you feel like a failure. You change the world every day just by existing, with all your radical thoughts and feelings.

- Amber, English & International Studies ’14 Remember that nobody in your social network is entitled to a pithy explanation of what you’ve done and where you’re going, so tell them whatever keeps you centered. Struggling is fine. It makes you way more interesting in the long-run.

- Scott, Psychology & English (Creative Writing) ’14 Pursue the things that matter to you. Don’t compare yourself to the successes or failures of others, but focus on the ways in which you can accomplish your own goals, even if it’s only one little step at a time.

- Lora, Geography & Urban Studies ’13 Nothing is forever.

- Annie, German Studies ’07 Grade school and then college were the clothes you spent your life in, and for the first time you’re staring at yourself naked in the mirror, and it’s terrifying and weird and don’t waste your time on anybody who tells you you’re doing this wrong because there is no wrong way to be naked.

- Rebecca, Political Science, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies & Community and Global Health ’14 Be softer on yourself. Deep breaths, sweet peas. You will be more than fine. You’ll be magnificent.

- Jeanne, Hispanic Studies & Latin American Studies ’14 • emilyrachelwade@gmail.com

Dear Mac students: Please respect our public spaces

By REBECCA KLINE Staff Writer As my first year at Macalester comes to a close, I am left with an almost entirely fond impressions of Mac’s campus and student body. I love the friends I’ve made, I’ve learned a lot both inside and outside of the classroom, and I can’t wait to come back in the fall. However, I added the ‘almost’ because there is one thing that slightly tarnishes my view of Macalester’s student body. I’ve seen a lot of disrespect of public property on and around campus this year, and this disrespect deeply concerns me.

A few weeks ago, a painting on a wall of a public space on my floor was defaced. The painting was drawn on and the canvas was ripped. A drawing was carved into the wooden arms of one of the pieces of furniture in this public space on a separate occasion. Furniture from this public space is sometimes moved to places where it does not belong.

It’s important to emphasize that this space belongs to everyone, not just the people who spend a lot of time there.

The furniture and decorations in and on the public places at Macalester are provided for us by the school. The fact that

people feel that it’s okay to deface items that are provided for all students by the school is unacceptable. The students did not pay for these items. Therefore they have no right to physically change them as they please. We go to a school where being conscious of our environment and respecting our surroundings is heavily emphasized, so why are people so disrespectful to the spaces available to them?

Another related issue I have observed is that students generally do not clean up after themselves. People who spend lots of time in the aforementioned public space often do not clean up when they depart, leaving food trash and other waste on the furniture for someone else to clean up.

This behavior also carries over to Café Mac. I often notice students taking their dishes away after finishing a meal, but leaving behind napkins and food debris on the table for someone else to clean up. This is unfair to the individuals who do have to clean up these surfaces and spaces. I find the sentiment, “Oh, I don’t have to do it, someone else will,” to be quite selfish. We are young adults, and at this point in our lives we should know how to clean up our own messes, and not to leave them for someone else to deal with.

Obviously, this lack of respect for public places does not apply to every Macalester student. Plenty of us are very conscious about cleaning up and would never deface

public property. However, I feel as though many of us are guilty of disrespecting public places, even on a smaller scale. I’m sure I’ve left trash on a Café Mac table before, as have many others. Everyone makes mistakes, which I understand. But I feel that when trash is repeatedly left on a table and when a piece of artwork on a public wall is purposely ruined, we have gone past making a mistake and into the territory of disrespect. It’s time for Macalester students to take responsibility for the spaces around them.

We need to show each other that we’re capable of respecting our surroundings, instead of just saying we are capable, and then defacing public property.

• rkline@macalester.edu

Opinion

Page 18 • May 1, 2015

The Mac Weekly

Reflections on my first year: Trials and tribulations of adjusting

By SYLVIA DEYO Staff Writer In the past year, my feelings about Macalester and the people who attend it have gone up, down and all around as I’ve scrambled to form an opinion about my life here. First, let me preface that I wanted to go to college for over two years before I came here, so college came with a mixture of high expectations, long-overdue relief, and independence. As a result, I spent my first semester here happy, as I eagerly made friends and looked for a connection, any connection, with people that would indicate that they we would be long-term close friends.

I met many new people and formed close friend-groups with many people. I was happy to feel a sense of belonging within these groups. I felt so sheltered and I was content to hang out within these groups every weekend, trying to reinforce these friendships. As I left campus for winter break, I left feeling as though I had made a family and formed a place at Macalester all for me.

When I returned to campus, I then wished to continue moving forward with this progress: to continue meeting new people, to go out on weekends and emerge from the shell of comfort I had created with the assurance that I could always retreat if something went wrong. However, I found that by this point, everyone’s groups, including mine, had become so comfortable they had stopped reaching out. It was as though every first-year had reached their limit of friends and didn’t want to consider opening up to let new ones in.

Additionally, I found that even though Macalester is not a particularly athletically-focused school, many of the events on weekends were primarily for sports teams. Many people gained friends and connections through their participation in club sports. This was hard for me to grapple with because I had encountered this same issue in high school and had hoped for this exclusivity to end in college.

You see, I am not a sporty person. I have gotten into exercising thanks to the availability of the Leonard Center, but I am not competitive and have always dreaded any sort of sports games that required me to be so. I am not sure why I lost my competitiveness, maybe it was because I could not participate in sports between 4th grade and 11th grade because of foot problems, or maybe I just never really had it in the first place. Either way, I don’t feel any inclination to participate in sports and as a result I feel like I have been held back from much of the social life here at Macalester.

I have met great people and my mind has been opened to many new ideas and concepts. However, some of the encounters I’ve had have been liberal and open in name only. I have found that some people purport to be open and understanding, only to then not be open to having their minds changed or new ideas formed. Some people here have become so stuck in one mindset that it is hard for them to open their minds to hearing another person’s story without trying to fit the narrative into their already formed opinions.

I have found this tends to go hand in hand with people being overly politically correct. I understand that it is important to be politically correct when discussing contentious and

To what extent should we be PC?

By MIRIAM STONER Contributing Writer Political correctness may not be all that it’s cracked up to be. There, I said it. Though proponents of political correctness want to avoid excluding, marginalizing, and offending certain groups, political correctness creates an elaborate code of social behavior which is often militantly and didactically policed, paradoxically marginalizing those who do not comply, and therefore limiting discussion on important issues.

Certainly not every socially conscious, PC-abiding person chooses to police language.

However, as increasing numbers of well-intentioned people become aware of the troubling histories and connotations of their words, policing starts to feel important. When you’re aware of the discriminatory connotations of certain words and phrases, how can you permit them to be said? This is especially true in communities like Macalester where inclusion and social consciousness are so important.

But sometimes it’s hard to know where to draw the line. When do you let something pass without interrupting and instructing on the “proper” way to say it? Is it ok to use the phrase “rule of thumb,” though it points to the history of permissible domestic violence? Is it ok to say “f*** you” even jokingly, though the expression clearly threatens non-consensual sex? Soon every sentence is subject to scrutiny.

Such constant attention to “correctness” backed by the enormous normative influence we have given that correctness instills fear. The issue becomes one of intimidation and social power — who is right and who is wrong? The hot-button subjects political correctness often deals with make the stakes for this question particularly high. Perhaps the question really being asked on our campus is “who is progressive, open-minded and inclusive, and who is stuck in a rut, insensitive and ignorant?”

Under this kind of pressure, we are hardpressed to do anything but cave to normative influence. And we do, adapting PC language into our everyday speech. Studies have shown that whites shy away from identifying blacks by their skin color even when skin color is a crucial characteristic to differentiate one person from someone else. When we’re not sure if what we have to say will be deemed inappropriate, we don’t say anything at all. And in that case, how can discussion take place?

Most of us want to be respectful, inclusive and careful about sensitive subjects. We agree that there

are things that shouldn’t be said in most contexts: the N-word, the derogatory terms “fag,” “Jewed” and “Gypped” among others. But what about the blurrier areas? Sometimes it’s unclear how things should be said. Other times we hold beliefs incongruous to those deemed strictly permissible. If there is not space for “mistakes” to be made and for other opinions to be voiced, discussion is stifled. Everyone with a different view or an uncertain opinion shuts up.

We risk ending up pluralistically ignorant, convinced that everyone in our community agrees on hot-button issues and approves of this rigid code of language when in fact, more people may actually be interested in open dialogue. We all begin to sound the same, falling into groupthink patterns and regurgitating what we know is acceptable to avoid controversy and judgment. We end up dismissing the opinions of conservatives, belittling those unfamiliar with political correctness and ultimately suffocating debate with rules that predetermine our conclusions.

We need to ask ourselves: what are our goals in establishing political correctness? If the answer is to maintain a socially constructive community, to listen to each other, to learn to respect differences, to support diversity and to generate discussion, then there is no place for this imperious, absolutist form of political correctness.

On the contrary, we should refrain from immediately appealing to the standards of political correctness in debate, as the powerful norms established by political correctness shut down conversation with a clear right-wrong dichotomy. Instead we should hash out these ideas for ourselves, working together to decide what we believe about issues of power and discrimination. We should strive to be both authentic and sensitive, but also forgiving of “mistakes” in order to reduce the fear of speaking up. And perhaps most simply, we need to practice good listening, withholding judgments until we are sure we understand the other’s opinion and placing more value on that opinion than on linguistic specifics.

• mstoner@macalester.edu

sensitive issues, but sometimes I find this keeps many conversations from happening, as people don’t feel comfortable talking without knowing all the current terms. I have an agreement with my roommate that has worked well that we will try our best to be sensitive, but not at the expense of a thought not being spoken. And if that thought does offend the other person, which we try our best to make sure does not happen, we simply have to tell the other that it did and make the other person understand why and how to avoid that in the future.

We have an understanding that whatever we say, it is never meant to offend or hurt the other person and as such we are able to speak more freely in our room without fear of reproach or conflict. I’m not saying this is a sustainable model for campus-wide discussion, as it requires a certain level of trust and familiarity, however it is important to understand that sometimes getting the thought out is more important than being politically correct about it.

This may seem to be a very negative article. I’m sorry about that, but my mind tends to think first of the problems, then of all the positive aspects of life here. However, I will have to leave you wondering about my positive opinions, as my editor may not like me to submit a five-page paper on my ponderings. I will simply end this article by assuring that I have a multitude of positive opinions and thoughts on Macalester that far outweigh these small qualms.

• sdeyo@macalester.edu

The Mac Weekly

Opinion

May 1, 2015 • Page 19

Understanding and dispelling stereotypes about football players

By KONNOR FLEMING Contributing Writer It was just a few weeks ago that I had one of the most compelling lunch conversations in my entire time at Macalester. Joining a table of around ten football players, I sat down to a discussion of existentialism, post-structuralism, creationism and spirituality all bundled into one. I wasn’t overwhelming surprised, given the nature of students enrolled at Macalester, but it still did get me thinking: at how many other institutions around the country would football players be having a conversation like that at lunch, their time away from classes? And, maybe more importantly, at how many institutions around the country would anyone expect the football team to be having a conversation like that?

The answer to the former is likely “only a few.” More discouragingly, though, the answer to the latter is likely “even fewer.”

There is an unfortunate stereotype surrounding football players that depicts them as brutish, muscle-obsessed and generally unintelligent. This is rooted in both their appearance and their actions, and is held pretty commonly throughout the country. What is much less frequently acknowledged, though, is just why these sentiments are held.

Getting into this piece of the puzzle provides an explanation for the stereotype itself, and can help football players be seen in a much more positive light.

The most immediately apparent aspect of this stereotype is the hyper-muscular, dominant appearance. Such an appearance, past research suggests, perpetuates the perception that football players’ attitudes and behaviors are associated with their size. A larger and more muscular frame is seen as a predictor of the hyper-aggressive behaviors that correspond with the stereotype. However, in truth,

increased muscularity is important for functioning on the field and injury prevention. Football players strive for muscular bodies in order to be the best players they can be, not to have a larger, more aggressive appearance.

In understanding this, stereotype-holders can better recognize why football athletes appear the way they do.

Thus, they can better understand that appearance is not meant to fortify an accompanying personality, but to assist in their athletic endeavors. In doing so, the perpetual stereotype can, at least in part, be explained away.

With enough awareness more and more people can come to understand that football players, especially those at Macalester, aren’t the people that many expect them to be. I know this has been my experience, and I’ll tell you first-hand: Macalester football players are some of the best people with whom I’ve ever spent time.

In addition to appearance, another defining aspect of the stereotype is the attitudes and beliefs football players (stereotypically) hold. Wong and colleagues delved into research pertaining to this notion, looking at what is considered a particularly non-masculine behavior: crying.

Their research showed, coincidentally, what the stereotype suggests: football players’ opinions of crying was negative, seeing it as undesirable and uncharacteristic. This was untrue, though, when crying occurred in the context of losing a football game, as in this situation it was seen instead as positive and appropriate.

These results seem to suggest that, in keeping with the

stereotype, crying is a behavior contradictory to football players’ perceptions of themselves, though there is notably one exception to that. This is an important conclusion to come to, as it provides insight into the true sentiments of football players, even though it is in opposition to my proposal that this stereotype is rooted in falsity. Rather, it seems that there is some level of truth to the stereotype, and, in considering it in the future, it is important to be conscious of both the illegitimacy and the legitimacy of the stereotype.

So, maybe my experience at the football table that day was an anomaly. Maybe there is some truth to the fact that football players can be hyper-masculine and act in a way that portrays them as such. However, it is also important to be conscious of the fact that maybe this isn’t always true.

Maybe it’s the case that football players are seen in a certain light, one that is improperly representative of them as individuals.

I know I have a biased opinion, but I choose to believe that the latter is more true than the former, and that with enough awareness more and more people can come to understand that football players, especially those at Macalester, aren’t the people that many expect them to be. I know this has been my experience, and I’ll tell you first-hand: Macalester football players are some of the best people with whom I’ve ever spent time.

I encourage you to find out for yourself.

• kflemin2@macalester.edu

Normative influence on consumption and determinants of diet

By MAX MEYERHOFF Contributing Writer More than one-third of adults in the United States are considered obese by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although there is debate as to whether obesity itself should be considered a disease, excess fat undoubtedly leads to a variety of negative health effects. Nutritionists, health workers and trainers are always on the prowl for that magic bullet to solve obesity.

However, obesity has many determinants such as socioeconomic status, cultural practices, education level and neighborhood walkability, all of which make the search for a single cure an elusive quest. Instead, in order to understand the root causes of obesity and the subsequent health consequences, one must analyze all of these determinants in order to gain a better grasp as to the full array of consequential factors. One regularly overlooked factor is the impact of social norms on people’s dietary decisions. People forget the power that these social influences can have on health and how normative influences (social factors that lead to conformity) may alter our consumption choices.

Although we are regularly overwhelmed with informational advertisements regarding the health benefits of certain foods, normative influences may cause a greater shift in our behavior. A study by Robinson, Fleming and Higgs aimed to understand the factors that influence the amount and types of food in which people choose to indulge. In the study, subjects either received a message containing health related information about fruit and vegetable consumption or a message containing social normative information about the consumption of fruit and vegetables. The study confirmed that significantly healthier choices were made in the social norms condition as opposed to the health messaging condition. As a result, this study verifies the effect that normative influences have on eating habits.

With regard to the rational behind these normative behaviors, other studies have examined the innate influences of conformity which compel these actions. A study by Cruwys, Bevelander, Radboud and Hermans suggests that these consumption norms are motivated by goals of both affiliation and uncertainty-reduction, or the concept that a common activity such as eating habits arise from the need to foster a sense of certainty. By understanding these underlying motivations we can work towards overcoming the innate tendencies of social eating.

As a campus and community we need to become more aware of how our own choices and comments might inadvertently influence the health of those around us.

While the behavior of others may alter one’s eating habits, socially constructed rules surrounding food may also influence consumption decisions. These rules oftentimes take the form of strict eating-related regulations, in other words, what one may or may not eat. Defined rules regarding consumption, such as banning unhealthy foods in a household, may actually have negative health consequences. A study by Stok, de Vet, Renner and de Ridder delves into the effects of a milder form of social influence such as a suggested rule, as opposed to a restrictive command. In this study, participants were given a bowl of M&M’s while asked to complete a creative task. They were then either explicitly prohibited or mildly discouraged from eating the M&M’s. Results found that a restrictive rule induced psychological reactance and led to greater unhealthy consumption when participants were allowed to eat freely. This study suggests that restrictive peer or parental influences

may actually foster negative eating habits. Peers should be mindful when attempting to influence friends eating habits to use suggestive comments instead of directive and defined restrictions.

These findings on the normative influences of food consumption have many implications regarding peer norms and eating behavior. It also brings into question how parents raise their children, and whether restrictive rules regarding food might lead to unhealthy future eating habits. These parenting techniques can even extend into a child’s teenage years. As shown by Pedersen, Gronhoj and Thogersen, parents remain the main influencer of eating habits even among adolescents, with descriptive norms being more important than injunctive norms. In other terms, actions speak louder than words when it comes to encouraging healthy consumption choices.

This array of research emphasizes the influential role that peers and normative factors play in regards to dietary habits. As a campus and community we need to become more aware of how our own choices and comments might inadvertently influence the health of those around us. While these normative factors oftentimes have a negative impact, if we become more aware of how our own choices and comments could affect the health of others, we can change our personal behavioral habits and create a modeling effect to improve the health of those around us. By making healthier personal eating decisions and offering supportive guidelines to those who are trying to change their own eating habits, we can counteract the negative consequences of peer influence and create a more united and healthy community.

• mmeyerho@macalester.edu

Let’s form the Hillary Rodham Clinton coronation committee I’m looking to form a progressive, satirical group to garner the American and global community’s excitement for the coronation of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Ideally, the group would promote excitement online and off through creative demonstration, intervention and performance. I’m hoping to assemble thespians, policy-whizzes, web designers, eccentrics and other interested persons for the long-term run up to the crowning. Whether you’d like to plan strategy or just participate in

By DAN BOMBERG Contributing Writer

actions, every commitment level is welcome. Email me, Dan Bomberg, at the email below if interested to start brainstorming how we can express our, and help others express their, undying love for this unparalleled figure of American royalty.

•dbomberg@macalester.edu