4.23.15 Hillsdale Collegian

Page 1

Michigan’s oldest college newspaper

Vol. 138 Issue 24 - 23 April 2015

www.hillsdalecollegian.com

Justice-Templeton retires after 44 years Amanda Tindall News Editor

(Anders Kiledal/Collegian)

Women’s basketball welcomes coach Jessie Fox Collegian Reporter

Hillsdale.

Last week, the Hillsdale Athletic Department announced the hiring of Todd Mitmesser as the new women’s basketball head coach for the 2015-2016 season. Mitmesser gers this week. After 24 years of coaching three different collegiate programs across the country, Mitmesser has found himself coaching a half hour from his hometown: Coldwater, Michigan. Mitmesser said that because he grew up nearby, he knew of Hillsdale. When he saw the job opening, he began researching the details. “The more I looked into the job, the more I felt that it was a great opportunity because professionally as well,” he said. “I was really excited when I heard that Mr. Brubacher was bringing me out for an interview.” he was happy to see a variety of different skills in the team. “There’s a lot of talent here,” Mitmesser said. “We have players that can do a multitude of things offensively and I think that in eager to learn the style. The combination of those two things can really lead to success for the program.” Hillsdale’s players were equally excited to meet their new coach. Junior Ashlyn

Coach Mitmesser. When we interviewed him, he was very positive and excited about the opportunity to be at Hillsdale,” she said. “He seemed very passionate about making his players better, but also understood the schedules.” Mitmesser said he plans to concentrate on returning to the fundamentals before teaching his players to run a bunch of plays. “Coach Mitmesser will make us a more well-rounded team. I’m excited about improving our skills as individuals as well as the potential for our team to be great next year,” Landherr said. Mitmesser coached high school teams while studying history education at Berea College, a liberal arts school in Kentucky. “I just love the game. You put the ball in the basket a couple times and it keeps you coming back,” Mitmesser said. “I played basketball in high school, from a very young age actually, and I probably wasn’t talented enough to play at the collegiate level, so I started coaching.” man and junior varsity basketball, softball, and boys and girls track at the local high school. Mitmesser and his wife then moved to Nebraska where he taught and coached basketball at three different high schools. Mitmesser landed a varsity coaching job at Lincoln East High School and the Nebraska Coaches Association named him the “Coach of the Year” in 2004.

It was after his six successful seasons in Lincoln that Mitmesser gained the assistant coaching job at the University of Evansville with head coach Tricia Cullop. “I am very happy to have worked with somebody like Coach Cullop for seven years,” Mitmesser said. “I learned so much and we had some success at both of those schools.” In his three seasons at Evansville, Mitmesser helped the team win a conference championship in 2008. Mitmesser then coached for another four years with Cullop at the University of Toledo where his team won three division titles and the Women’s National Invitation Tournament championship in 2011. “It was really fun from a professional standpoint to be a part of that success,” Mitmesser said. “It was very rewarding to see the players achieve their goals. It was an experience that you just don’t get to go through very often.” Mitmesser said that seeing his players develop and succeed is his favorite part of coaching. Mitmesser then coached at Stony Brook University for two seasons. When the head coach, Beth O’Doyle, was offered the headcoaching job at Virginia Commonwealth University, Mitmesser decided to stay in Long Island, taking a year off to coach his children. Mitmesser and his wife Susan have two children: Marian, 9, and Edward, 7. He said that his family was excited to move to Michigan where they would be closer to his parents.

After almost 50 years spent at Hillsdale as both an undergraduate and a professor, Professor of French Ellen JusticeTempleton ’71 is retiring at the end of this year. Having graduated from Hillsdale in 1971 and completed graduate work at the University of Michigan before coming back to the college, JusticeTempleton said she has seen and experienced many changes since she has been at Hillsdale. “It’s been an amazing ride here,” she said. “It’s been a tremendous evolution of the campus. The physical plant is beautiful now, and there are beautiful campus buildings. The students have become even more enjoygot here. I always had good students, from the very beginning. The best students back then could hold their own right now, but the general changeover in the college is very apparent in that there are more of that kind of student.” Justice-Templeton said she didn’t know what career she Hillsdale, but her time studentteaching at Hillsdale High School and the education classes she took at Hillsdale led her to teaching. “I really enjoyed trying to connect with students and showing students things that opened up their mind a little bit,” she said. “I enjoyed the high school students. I thought I wanted the chance to teach more literature

and the great ideas.” The teaching of great literature and delving into great ideas is exactly what many of her students said endeared them to her. Sophomore Kathryn Wong has taken two classes with her, and said that she enjoyed them greatly. “I’ve only had her for classes that are literature classes,” Wong said. “In both of those classes, she does an excellent job of getting us to go beyond the plots. In a French class, it’d be really easy to just stick with the plot. She helps us bring together imagery and symbolism and getting to the deeper themes of the text, which is something I really appreciate.” For Professor of French and the next chair of the department Marie-Claire Morellec, JusticeTempleton has been both a great co-worker and a dear friend for the past 20 years, since Morellec started teaching at Hillsdale. “She was not only a wonderful colleague and a wonderful chair — very easy to work with — but also became a really close friend, so I think her retirement is sweet and sour,” she said. “Sweet because we’re happy that she’s going to be retiring and doing the things that she deserves to do, but sour in the sense that we are seeing her leave, and that’s going to be quite a transition. We’ve been relying on her in so many ways for so long — these are going to In preparation for her retirement and Morellec’s new posi-

See Retirement A2

Proposal 1 faces ‘uphill battle’ Macaela Bennett City News Editor

(Hannah Leitner/Collegian)

Gina Relays’ history Sam Scorzo Sports Editor

With the 49th annual Gina Relays starting today, Hillsdale College remembers one of its most decorated athletes. The meet commemorates Gina Van Laar Lanser, the 1988 class Valedictorian, President’s Ball Queen, Outstanding Senior Woman, and the college’s only crosscountry national champion. “Gina is a treasured person always in my heart and in the hearts of many at Hillsdale College,” said Dean of Women Diane Philipp, Lanser’s track coach during her time on campus. Eight years after graduating from Hillsdale, Lanser and her unborn daughter Megan Michelle died in a car accident.

After her death, Philipp and the Bill Lundberg decided the college needed to honor Lanser. Lundberg recalls asking the athletic director at the time, Jack McAvoy, what the team could do to honor Lanser. Philipp and Lundberg suggested naming Lanser’s best event, the 5K, in her name, but McAvoy declined and instead renamed the Hillsdale Relays meet in her honor. At the 1996 meet, Lanser’s parents and husband were named honorary referees and the Chargers organized it so a cross was throughout the meet. “The Gina Relays are such a great way for her beautiful legacy to live on at Hillsdale,” Lundberg

See Gina A7

INSIDE

On May 5, Michigan voters will choose whether or not to raise state taxes by $2 billion to structure. Although Proposal 1 would increase the amount of state money Hillsdale County receives for road work by 70 percent in 2018, many residents say the bill is too complicated for them to vote yes. “It’s a priority of mine to repair the roads, but I don’t believe this is the best way to do it,” Councilperson Patrick Flannery said. “We should expect better of our legislature. The major hangup for me is the number of things attached to it that are not connected to roads.” These extras include: an increased sales and use tax rate from 6 to 7 percent, a higher wholesale fuel tax, increased

“It’s not going into a black hole, and if it does pass, the county road commission and city would see quite a lot more revenue coming in,” Leutheuser said. Roughly one-third of the new revenue would go to non-trans-

portation projects, such as public schools. Hillsdale County Road Commission Manager Stan Clingerman estimates Hillsdale County would receive about $7 million per year — up from $1.4 million now — by 2018 under the proposed tax system. Another complaint about the bill is that it requires four changes to the Michigan Constitution and is “tie-barred” to eight legislative bills that will go into effect if passed. “This proposal probably raises more taxes than it needs to and gives less money to roads than it could,” Professor of Political Economy and former Michigan Deputy Treasurer Gary Wolfram said. “What is preferred is a proposal that doesn’t require a constitutional amendment and is a straight increase in the gas tax and vehicle registration.” While Leutheuser, who joined the state legislature after it passed Proposal 1, said he sympathizes

with frustrations about the bill, he recognizes improving Michigan roads is urgent. He added there is not a backup plan if the proposal fails. “There’s not something we can just pull out of our pockets the next day. I want people to be aware of that,” Leutheuser said. “But I am in the optimistic, honeymoon phase as a freshman that we would all roll our sleeves up and get right after it again.” Wolfram said he also believes the legislature will propose another road-funding option if this fails in May. “We have a different, more free market legislature now than what passed this bill,” Wolfram said. “I don’t believe it will be three years until another solution comes along.” Wolfram said he intends to research the bill more before deciding how he will vote, but he

See Prop 1 A6

BPU issues health advisory after sewage spill Kate Patrick Assistant Editor

The Hillsdale Board of Public Utilities issued a “No Contact” Health Advisory after untreated sewage water backed up in a pipeline east of Logan Street and spilled out of a manhole into the wetland area between Logan and Superior streets and the drainage ditch next to the Baw Beese Trail. The BPU cleared the blockage causing the spill, but the advisory will be in place until April 27 for safety purposes, accord-

The Classics of Hillsdale Hillsdale classicists win national award. A2

Setting records Emily Oren and the Men’s 4x400 relay set school records over the weekend. A8

Shakespeare in the Arb presents ‘Cymbeline’ This year’s student production runs next weekend. B1

A Drive down country Lane Country music artists Chris Lane and Natalie Stovall open at CHP. B4

(Breana Noble/Collegian)

vehicle registration fees, raised earned income tax credits, and more public school funding, according to a March 25 Mackinac Center policy policy brief. The brief added that the average Michigan household should expect a state tax increase of between $477 and $525 in 2016, but these numbers depend on a “household’s actual purchases of taxable goods.” Michigan Rep. Eric Leutheuser said he hears three main objections to Proposal 1: it is too complicated, too big, and that a tax increase is not needed at all. Leutheuser admits the bill is “more complicated and messier” than he would like, but a redeeming quality is that the money is al-

ing to BPU Director of Water and Wastewater Operations Nate Rusk. “After we got the blockage cleared, we discovered someone had shoved some sticks down through the holes in the manhole lid,” Rusk said. “So the sludge started coming out of the two holes in the lid, which got into the swamp and fed into the drainage ditch that goes under Logan Street and toward Willow Street.” The BPU placed sandbags in the wetland area between Logan and Superior streets to prevent the untreated water — known as “sludge” in the wastewater treat-

ment process — from spreading. The BPU also installed a pump near the spill to send sludge to the Hillsdale Wastewater Treatment Plant, Rusk said. “We’ll do that until we get most of it out of there, we did some today and we’ll do it tomorrow,” Rusk said. Because the Baw Beese Trail is right next to the spill, the BPU issued a health advisory to anyone using the trail. kids on the bike path, and we didn’t want anyone going off the path into the wetland,” Rusk said. The BPU is currently awaitHillsdale sewage plant to receive $7 million upgrade High ammonia levels in Hillsdale’s water prompt the BPU to make changes. A6

(Anders Kiledal/Collegian)

News........................................A1 Opinions..................................A4 City News................................A6 Sports......................................A7 Arts..........................................B1 Features....................................B3

ing further direction from the Michigan Department of Economic Quality, and it contacted the Branch-Hillsdale-St. Joseph Community Health Agency for suggestions for cleaning up the spill. Rusk said the BPU conducted samples from the St. Joe River — where the wastewater treatment plant releases treated out of the ordinary. “Everything was well within the limits, so that’s fantastic, it’s really good,” Rusk said.

Thank you, Dr. Somerville Senior Jack Butler professes his debt of gratitude to English Professor John Somerville. A5

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