Collegian 10.30.2025

Protestants shut out Catholics by goals alone

By Elijah Guevara Assistant Editor

The Protestants triumphed once more against the Catholics in a 3-0 win at Campus Rec’s annual “El Clásico” soccer game Oct. 25, retaining their title as champions for the third year straight.

“This right here is our Hillsdale College super bowl,”

there on the field to get that ball into the net. We can’t win this on faith alone. We’re gonna have to do a little bit more.”

The Protestants’ first goal came within the first five minutes of the game when senior and team captain Jacob Beckwith made a free kick, which Protestant freshman Joseph Shipp deftly kicked into the goal.

By Moira Gleason Executive Editor

Voters will head to the polls to choose the next mayor of Hillsdale on Tuesday, Nov. 4, as criticism of city staff and road repair funding divide the two candidates seeking a oneyear term.

Ward 2 Councilman Matthew Bentley and former mayor Scott Sessions will face off in the special election. The winner will hold the office for one year and then decide whether to run again in 2026 for a full, four-year term. Key issues on the line next week include retention of city staff, special assessment districts for road repairs, and an ongoing homelessness problem.

Bentley and Sessions, who both had children graduate from Hillsdale College, have openly encouraged students to vote in the election.

City Staff The two candidates differ on how they view city staff and criticism within city government. Five city officials have resigned since March: the city’s engineer, zoning administrator, airport manager, and two public utilities supervisors. Sessions blames Bentley and Mayor Pro Tem Joshua Paladino for creating a “negative culture” in city politics.

Catholic senior Patrick Hamilton said. “Catholics versus Protestants is a tale as old as time. It was so exciting to watch, although during my time here, we’ve yet to score a goal.”

Protestant senior and Campus Rec member Dominic Taranto said he believes a soccer game is a healthy way to settle disputes between Protestants and Catholics.

“This is one of Campus Rec’s favorite events to put on,” Taranto said. “We love poking fun at the whole Catholic versus Protestant thing, while at the same time having just a really fun event for the students to enjoy.”

Scores of students, separated by red- and blue-colored clothing, cheered with Vatican flags and makeshift signs on the sidelines of Hayden Park’s turf field.

Catholic senior Daniel Doyle said he was counting on the Catholic team to improve after two years of losses.

“The Catholics need to step it up a little bit,” Doyle said. “Do some good works out

By Elijah Guevara

Assistant Editor

All three of Hillsdale College Mock Trial’s teams competed in tournaments Oct. 25-26, with veteran upperclassmen team

Actors Reus winning first place at Tufts University’s invitational tournament.

Actors Reus finished with a final ballot score of 7-1, sweeping Harvard University 2-0 in the first round, splitting with Rutgers University 1-1, and defeating Haverford College and the University of Maryland 2-0 each. Senior and team co-captain Chloe Noller won a 17-rank outstanding witness award.

The student crowd was rife with jeers and trash talk between the sides. Catholics chanted anathemas from the Council of Trent, while Protestants responded with the chant “Read your Bible!” and written taunts on signs like “Buy indulgences now,” and “Meat on Fridays.”

Characters in costumes made appearances at halftime, with Protestant senior Lewis Thune sporting a fake beard and black cap, portraying John Calvin, while the infamous “pope” — Catholic senior Aidan Christian dressed in a pope costume, a tradition he has kept for three El Clásicos — joined the cheering crowd of Catholics to boost morale.

After Protestant junior Zac Briley reenacted the hammering of the 95 Theses on a poster to Protestant cheers, Christian approached him, grabbed the 95 Theses sign, and tore it in half, prompting triumphant shouts from the Catholics.

Hillsdale residents can vote from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Nov. 4 at the Hillsdale Community Library at 11 E. Bacon St. College students can also register to vote in local elections if they are 18 years old and have been a resident of Michigan for the last 30 days, according to state law. Students not yet registered to vote in the state can register in person at the county clerk’s office up until or on Election Day using their campus address.

“A negative atmosphere on council has hurt staff morale and driven away good employees,” Sessions said. “Restoring respect and teamwork is essential to effective governance.”

Bentley said this narrative of negativity is unfounded, and that he has a decent working relationship with the council and city staff and will continue to cultivate those relationships should he become mayor. Any criticism of city staff aims at accountability, he said.

By Christian Papillon Assistant Editor

The Hillsdale football team snapped a three-game losing streak with a 35-10 win against Lake Erie College Oct. 25, moving them to 3-5 overall and 2-4 in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference.

“We were executing at a really high level in all three phases of the game and were able to generate a number of big plays,” head coach Nate Shreffler said. “Good things happen when you have a lot of guys doing a lot of things right.”

Sophomore quarterback Colin McKernan threw for 173 yards, completing 11 of 14 passes,with two touchdowns and no interceptions.

“I felt locked in,” McKernan said. “I was out there

battling and having fun. It doesn’t get much better than that.”

nan and Boyce also combined for 82 rushing yards, including a rushing touchdown by

quarterback Eli

McKernan on Hillsdale’s first possession of the game.

“When you can run the

ball, you have a pretty good chance to be balanced in your offense,” Shreffler said. “Colin McKernan and Eli Boyce did a tremendous job on Saturday, taking what the defense gave us. They made their reads, threw on time, were accurate with their throws, and the wide receivers made the catches. They also did a great job pulling the ball on option plays and hurting Lake Erie with their feet.”

The game also featured a 90-yard kick return touchdown by junior receiver Shea Ruddy, which erased a fumble that resulted in a Lake Erie touchdown on the previous play.

By Christina Lewis and Sydney Green Assistant Editor and Senior Reporter

was to save $330 billion as part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” His committee increased the savings to $350 billion, which was then reduced to $280 billion after the bill went through the U.S. Senate. After a meeting with the U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon last night, Walberg said they are “little by little” disassembling the U.S. Department of Education. Education is mainly for providing a workforce that is trained and capable, according to

By Evelyn Kniffen Collegian Freelancer

What do a missing microwave and a lawn covered in plastic forks have in common? According to senior Aidan Christian, it’s revenge. At 11 p.m. on Oct. 18, Christian and the men of the off-campus house Casablanca walked outside and found their lawn covered in dozens of plastic forks. A few days later, it was confirmed: this prank was

of the House Committee on Education and Labor, Walberg said the goal

Freshman

Boyce added 63 passing yards with one touchdown. McKer-

Students played in “El Clasico”

Alex Buehrer

Matthew Bentley. Courtesy | City of Hillsdale

Scott Sessions. Thomas McKenna | The Collegian

Sophomore Quarterback Colin McKernan rushes a touchdown with senior Carter Cushman behind him. Courtesy | Ashley Van Hoose

Team Actors Reus. Courtesy | Aaliyah Dobson

From left to right: juniors Angelina Gardner, Josiah Jones, congressman Tim Walberg, Jackson Casey, and Maria Adamow. Moira Gleason | The Collegian

Illustrated by Maggie O’Connor

Campus reacts to Gaza peace deal with doubts

By Francesca Cella Collegian Reporter

Many Hillsdale professors and students say they doubt that the Gaza ceasefire deal enacted earlier this month will resolve conflict between Israel and Hamas, but Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies Michael Weingrad said it seems promising.

“The way I look at the Gaza peace plan is ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen,’” Weingrad said. “At the same time, I’m hopeful about this plan.”

Israel and Hamas instituted a U.S.-proposed ceasefire agreement Oct. 10, which stipulated the release of Palestinian prisoners and the return of all Israeli hostages. But tensions remain high in the Gaza Strip, as Hamas has yet to return all bodies of the deceased Israeli hostages, and Israel has prohibited aid from entering Gaza by closing the only crossing into the region.

Sophomore Yahli Salzman is a citizen of Israel and has a brother in the Israel Defense Forces who has been deployed in Gaza several times since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks. Salzman said the ceasefire deal is a relief from the bloodbath of the last two years.

“I remember one of the first times talking to my brother after he got out of Gaza for the first time, he said, ‘It smells like death,’” Salzman said. “That’s just such a strong sentiment to show how bad this war was on multiple fronts.”

Salzman said he hopes Israel can move on to better times and end the fallout of this war.

“I think the ceasefire is in the best interest of everyone,” Salzman said. “So many people have died in these past two years: Gazans, Israelis. It’s not worth it. People say, ‘This war is good. This war is actually doing something.’ No, it’s not. People are being torn away from their families. Young children haven’t seen

their dads in two years because they’ve been in a Hamas tunnel and they haven’t been able to see the light of day in two years.”

Weingrad said the U.S. alliance with Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar to form the ceasefire deal is likely to have a better outcome than previous peace attempts. President Donald Trump’s success in stabilizing Israel’s foreign relations in the 2020 Abraham Accords suggests Trump may be able to orchestrate a business-driven peace deal, according to Weingrad.

“One of the things that Trump seems to do on the world stage is to think outside the usual boxes,” Weingrad said. “He certainly had huge success at least in his first term with the Abraham Accords. What part of my

to see a difference between Hamas and the Palestinians,” Weingrad said. “It’s this idea that there is a Palestinian political culture that is not as dedicated as Hamas is to realizing its own aspirations only through carnage and destruction. I think it is a conceptual problem to make that distinction from a Palestinian identity that is about the destruction of Jews.”

But senior William Deaton said Israel’s retaliation to Hamas’ attacks has gone beyond what was necessary. He said Israel is “trying to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people,” referring to Israel attacking a hospital and Catholic church in Gaza over the summer.

“I understand the need to defend their territory from a terrorist organization, but

“Will the deal solve the problem? No. As long as the Palestinian population lives within Israeli borders in large numbers, the problem won’t go away.”

hopes for the Gaza plan are that he is attempting to overflow Hamas and the Palestinians and the usual suspects in these failed peace processes with a different cast of characters, a different set of countries, and leaders who are more interested in American interests, Israeli security, and deals and business rather than war and fanaticism.”

Weingrad, who spends several months of the year doing research in Israel, said Hamas is representative of Palestine and its fundamental opposition to Israel. A peace deal with Hamas does not address the broader political conflict, according to Weingrad.

“If there is a flaw in the peace plan that jumps out at me most, it is the attempt

SAB combines Fall Fest and Maker’s Market

By Caroline Bonomo Collegian Freelancer

Students and parents enjoyed live music, fall treats, a student market, and outdoor activities at the Student Activities Board’s annual Fall Fest and Maker’s Market Oct. 24. This year, SAB combined the Fall Fest and Maker’s Market events into one event featuring crafts, food, vendors, games, and live music.

“Students get to come with their friends and families,” junior and SAB creative team member Martha Kennedy said. “You can paint pumpkins and eat donuts, and just have a good time. This year, we combined Fall Fest with Maker’s Market so that students’ families could come to both while they are in town.” Kennedy expressed gratitude for the opportunity to organize the event as the creative lead.

“Fall Fest typically has pumpkin painting, but this year we also had tote bags,” senior and SAB media team member Emma Kate Mellors said.

Fall Fest also featured several musicians performing country, indie, folk, and acoustic music. Sophomore Frank Fehringer performed a variety of songs, covering artists such as Jack Johnson and Noah Kahan.

“The live music is awesome,” sophomore and SAB team member George Mehan said. “It’s great to have it and it adds so much to the environment of the event.”

Students showed off their talents, products, and small businesses at the Maker’s Market booths, including baked goods, jewelry, clothing, and cards.

Senior Catherine Frawley said she has sold handmade watercolor cards at Maker’s Market for three years.

“I love the vibe of Maker’s Market, and I love seeing all my friends here,” Frawley said. “I love it when people stop by my table and smile and laugh at my cards before finding their favorite one.”

that the peace deal cannot resolve the bigger issue, which is the conflict between the Israeli and Palestinians.

“It’s one of those dilemmas in politics that doesn’t have an easy answer,” West said. “Will the deal solve the problem? No. As long as the Palestinian population lives within Israeli borders in large numbers, the problem won’t go away.”

Assistant Professor of Theology Don Westblade said Trump’s involvement was crucial to bringing about the ceasefire.

“I do think that Trump deserves to take a bow for this,” Westblade said. “That’s not to say I love him for everything he does, but I think he has done something fairly indispensable in this latest development. Not single handedly — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to cooperate. But I don’t know that anybody else would have been able to get so many Arab states on board in pressuring Hamas to let the hostages go.”

Alexander Hamilton Society president and senior Malia Thibado said she is concerned about who will govern Gaza going forward.

they are killing civilians,” Deaton said. “That’s despicable.”

Netanyahu said in a July statement that the church was hit by “stray ammunition.”

Deaton said Israel’s attempt to expand its borders will continue to cause friction with neighboring countries.

“I doubt that a lasting peace is possible,” Deaton said. “There is a very strong movement in Israel, and especially in their Parliament, that is calling for a greater Israel. That includes the Gazan West Bank, and it includes lots of the other Middle Eastern countries around them. Benjamin Netanyahu has not denounced that.”

Professor of Politics Thomas West agreed with Weingrad

Mock Trial from A1

“I am immensely proud of the team,” Noller said. “They worked so hard this past week to tighten up the gaps from last week, and really took charge of their own material. It was an excellent tournament, and I felt like we brought the same level of competition to every round.”

The other upperclassmen team, Mens Rea-lity Stars, kicked off their season at Emory University’s Peach Bowl Invitational. They finished with a record of 4-4, losing to the University of South Carolina 0.5-1.5, beating one Rhodes College team 1.5-0.5, losing to another team from Rhodes College 0-2, and then sweeping Stetson University 2-0.

Senior and team co-captain Valerie Check won a 17-rank outstanding witness award, while senior Patrick McDonald, who is living in Washington, D.C. this semester on WHIP but flew to Atlanta to compete, took home a 19-rank outstanding witness award.

Mens Rea-lity Stars includes Check, senior and team co-captain Nathan Emslie, senior Leonard Fritz, sophomores Erin McDonald and Ianna Chan, and freshmen Sammy Thompson, Ellie Bear, and Margaret Jackson.

“Both Valerie and Patrick did incredibly,” Emslie said. “Patrick played a different

Hungarian ambassador speaks on the ‘good life’

By Christina Lewis Assistant Editor

Leadership means acting as a guide for a group’s journey, according to János Csák, former Hungarian ambassador and minister of culture and innovation in Hungary.

The President’s Office sponsored Csák’s visit last week.

He delivered two speeches: “Leadership: Virtues and Techniques” and “Offense vs. Defence: Challenges to Western Civilisation.”

In his first speech, he said it is important that leaders know who they are, where they come from, and where they are going. Good leaders pursue a good life, according to Csák.

“A good life means that it should be good for your family, wife, children, parents, and beyond that, friends and fellow citizens,” he said.

People should nurture the good life, not just contemplate it, according to Csák.

“There’s been a lot of talk about putting the Palestinian Authority back in control,” Thibado said. “You want to have a democratic Gaza. You’re not going to get that with the Palestinian Authority because the Palestinian Authority is literally just the political wing of a former terrorist organization. You’re not going to get any better and it’s just going through the cycle again.”

“If you want to be a leader, have a vision, and have a vision of the unity of order,” Csák said. “You cannot put the whole world in order. You cannot put all the American cities in order, but you can do it with your organization, with your family, with your community. And, if we are lucky, and many people do it, all of a sudden, we will see a great country.”

Junior Sophia Mandt said it is important for students to hear those like Csák, who are engaged in the arena of politics.

“I love Hillsdale, and I love listening to the professors and stuff here because they very much know the contemplative life, but the active life matters too, and I don’t think it’s necessarily wise to just totally retreat from it when you can’t just let our culture go to whoever will take it in its place,” Mandt said.

In his second talk, delivered on the 69th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, Csák said he would give a realistic assessment of how the political state of affairs looks from a

kind of role than he usually does, but he brought a lot of energy to it, and he was extremely well-prepared. Valerie cross-examined the defendant and delivered our opening argument, and she did a very good job in both of those roles.”

In Cleveland, the freshmen team New-lo Contestant-ere competed at Case Western Reserve University’s Spartan Throwdown Invitational, ending with a final ballot score of 3-5. They tied with

torney and having full ability to move around to give statements was super fun.”

Noller said the opposing teams at Tufts performed so well that Actors Reus wasn’t sure where they would place — and didn’t even get to find out the results at the tournament.

“We finished our fourth round but had to leave to catch our flight,” Noller said. “We faced excellent competition, and so it felt like the results could have gone either

“Hitting high-level competitions helped us to match the competition and stay practicing, polished, and clean.”

Miami University 1-1, lost to Ohio State University 0-2, were swept by Northwestern University 0-2, and then defeated the University of Rochester 2-0.

The competition was held in a downtown Cleveland courtroom, which junior and team co-captain Brennan Berryhill said made the tournament feel more real.

“Being on the witness stand and actually looking up at the jury box during the tournament helped me to get into character a lot more,” Berryhill said. “Also, being an at -

central European position in a global and European context.

“There is no individual freedom without constitutional freedom, and there is no constitutional freedom if there are no free citizens,” Csák said. As a smaller nation, Hungary relies on big powers who are interested in preserving and respecting Hungarian interests, Csák said.

“We were in the Soviet empire between 1947 and 1990. That meant that central countries became periphery, and there is no worse thing for a country than to be on the periphery,” Csák said.

People must come to terms with their heritage and identity, and choose to cherish it, according to Csák.

“In my opinion, if we in the West don’t respect our Judeo-Christian roots and our families, why would other people respect us? Why would our way of life be attractive to other people?” Csák asked at the talk.

Csák also spoke about the war going on in Hungary’s neighboring country, Ukraine. If Hungary chooses to impose sanctions on Russia, then the Russians will counteract with their own measures, according to Csák.

“When I talk about the balancing act, our policy is to make as many players on the international ground to be interested in our success,” Csák said.

Junior Clara Bozzay said she walked away from Csák’s speech with a new understanding of current events, primarily regarding the state of Central and Eastern Europe.

“I think my biggest takeaway from the lecture was how much we as Americans have left to do in order to preserve what we’ve built,” Bozzay said.

way. But while we were waiting to board our plane, our coach Justin Lee, who was in communication with the coaches at Tufts, told us to gather around and broke the news that we had won 7-1 and took first place.”

Junior Gabriel Higbie, a member of Actors Reus, said he was proud of how well the team worked together to take first at Tufts.

Emslie said he looks forward to improving Mens Rea-lity Stars’ efficiency in future tournaments.

“We did well, but looking forward to facing Notre Dame this weekend, we’ll be focusing on working as a team and making things cleaner with objections, cross-examinations, and repping materials,” Emslie said. “It was a good learning experience, and a good start to the season overall.”

Berryhill said despite Newlo Contestent-ere’s losses, he was impressed with the freshmen’s performances and their improvement from the previous weekend, especially since they faced off against three teams that placed in the top five at Case Western.

“The freshmen have been really impressive,” Berryhill said. “Even though a lot of our team was hoping to get one or two more ballots, especially on some of those tight, close rounds, it shows that we’re hanging with very quality and experienced opponents. I think if we put in the work these next couple of weeks, we can start to flip those ballots.”

“Everybody was fairly confident, and we had really good communication and flow throughout the entire trial,” Higbie said. “The rounds gave everyone the opportunity to learn, and hitting high-level competitions helped us to match the competition and stay practicing, polished, and clean.”

Fall Fest on Oct. 24

Emma Kate Mellors | Student Activites Board

New ski club to help students hit the slopes, aims for Austria

By Frederick Woodward Circulation & Ad Manager

Just in time for colder temperatures, Hillsdale students have formed the college’s newest athletic club: Hillsdale College Ski and Snowboard Club.

The Ski Club plans to give students the opportunity to hit the slopes, regardless of skill level, according to club president junior Connor O’Donohue.

“We want to give students the opportunity to enjoy Michigan winters, whether

they’ve skied before or not,”

O’Donohue said. “People complain about the weather all the time, but we want to give students an opportunity to have fun together and to enjoy the awesome winters we have here in the state.”

The Ski Club hosted its first meeting Oct. 27. During the meeting, club leadership unveiled the group’s first resort event: a weekend trip to Caberfae Peaks in Cadillac, Michigan.

O’Donohue said that the trip would take place on Jan. 13, the day before spring

Briley, however, said he was unfazed by Christian’s tactics.

“The pope tore my sign because he doesn’t respect good theology,” Briley said at halftime. “We’re actually confident we’ll win because we’re confident in our salvation and in our great team.”

In the second half, the Protestant team broke through the Catholic team’s defense twice more, with freshman John Cassiday scoring in the 15th minute. Later, sophomore Charlie DeVries scored in the 36th minute.

Catholic team head coach and junior Max Cote said despite the loss, he was pleased with the team they had this year.

“Although it sucks that this was the third year in a row that we haven’t scored, I think just by watching the game, you can see we had a lot more control in the midfield and made a lot more opportunities to score and make shots on the goal than in the past couple years,” Cote said.

While Cote lauded the

from A1

“I hope to be the last chair of the House education committee, and she hopes to be the last Secretary of Education,” Walberg said. “We won’t have the votes to abolish the department, but I bet by the time we finish this term, we will have a Department of Education that is a shadow of what it once was.”

Walberg served as a pastor before entering politics. When Walberg became involved with the right-to-life cause in his county, people started to ask him if he would run for state house.

“I said, ‘No,’ but then God said, ‘Yes.’ I think the churches, in days gone by, built society, they built morality,” Walberg said. “I think it’s starting to come back a bit. I think Charlie Kirk is a real instigator of that. And, I think seeing young people now, high school students that are passionate about reforming America and going back to values that they see as values that can be a

classes begin.

“There are still a few spots left, and if any other people with a car would like to drive, we can add spots to the trip,” O’Donohue said. “Lift Tickets will cost $29. If you don’t have skis or a snowboard, rentals are available for an additional $29.”

Club vice president and sophomore Peter Kaiser said the group has an ambitious long-term vision, with hopes to stay in Hillsdale’s Rockwell Lake Lodge or travel to Europe.

“In club leadership, we’ve been talking about making a trip out to New England or Colorado over spring break,” Kaiser said. “While it isn’t set in stone, after talking with the administration, there’s a decent possibility we could use college shuttles and stay at Hillsdale’s cabins as well for our in-state trips. Our most ambitious goal, though, is to make a trip to Austria by senior year.”

O’Donohue emphasized that the club is open to skiers and snowboarders of all skill levels, welcoming both beginning and returning enthusiasts.

“If you’ve never skied before, this is a great way to get into it,” O’Donohue said. “We have a number of experienced skiers who we know are going to be coming on some of these events we’re having, and they

Protestant team’s performance, he said he can see Catholics learning from their mistakes next year.

“I don’t doubt that we’ll come back next year,” Cote said. “The future looks a lot brighter for Catholic soccer.”

Protestant team coach and junior Peter Gilchrist said the Protestants’ abilities and dedication helped pull the winning team together.

“It’s just the talent of our players who really put it out on the line there,” Gilchrist said. “They really gave it everything, and at the end of the day, we came away with the win.”

Although the Protestants swept 3-0, Gilchrist said he noticed the Catholics had vastly improved from previous years.

“This matchup gets closer, despite what the score may say,” Gilchrist said. “I think next year and the year afterward, it’s going to become an even better game, and I look forward to seeing them next year.”

blessing to society, so keep the church involved.”

Freshman Evan Myers said it was interesting to hear the firsthand experience of someone involved in politics.

“I’m from Washington state, and the politics there are so different. It feels a lot more divisive, and so I think it was really encouraging to hear from a politician who’s also a Christian and has those values in mind. It just gave me a bit more hope than I had before in our politicians coming from an area that is very, very liberal and, in a lot of ways, anti-Christian,” Myers said.

Junior Michael Rupe said he appreciated Walberg’s pragmatism in regards to party politics.

“We have this really bad tendency of sticking to our own little clique within the conservative movement,” Rupe said. “But he was very up front. He says there are things we have to keep in sight that are more important, that we have to put above our own interests to work as a party.”

would love to help you learn

hue said. “We’ve been working with multiple different ski areas to get the best group rates for our trips, and we’ve been able to get the cost of skiing substantially lowered — people are surprised at how affordable a ski trip can actually

As winter weather rolls in across

LittleFromlefttoright:sophomoresConnorO’Donohue,PeterKaiser,andMarcelle atBoyneMtn.lastspring.Courtesy|ReaganKobach

hobby,” Kobach said. “I made an Instagram account, didn’t even have to promote it, and we gained over 100 followers just from people excited about a Hillsdale skiing club.”

Sophomore Marcelle Little is one of the club’s experienced skiers, and earliest members. She said she remembers asking her orientation guide during her first time on campus whether

people how to ski, but I did, and I found this was a really fun way to share what I love with them, and watch them learn, as they keep building from there.”

The financial commitment for prospective members, according to O’Donohue, is intentionally minimal.

“There aren’t any dues to join the club, and there’s no financial obligation,” O’Dono-

campus, Little said she is confident the ski club will be an attractive alternative to the winter blues. “It’s really a good club, and such a wonderful sport,” Little

“Come do what you love, hear about our plans, and meet new people that you had no clue were into the same winter sports you are — it’s really a great time.”

Registrar’s Office allows freshmen to make their fall schedule

By Henry Fliflet Collegian Freelancer

Hillsdale freshmen chose their own fall semester schedule instead of being assigned one by the Registrar’s Office, according Associate Registrar Lacey McConnell.

The Registrar’s Office said the change was important because both faculty and students felt more comfortable and less stressed at the beginning of the semester.

“For freshmen, they’re stressed about getting what they need,” McConnell said. “For instructors, the roster changes, they’re being hunted down to get an add card signed, to get off of a wait list. We just kept saying there’s got to be a better way.”

Twenty years ago, when each incoming class was smaller, it was fairly easy to build schedules for incoming freshmen and then revise them as necessary, said McConnell.

As the school grew, however, managing all of these schedules became too chaotic, according to McConnell.

Instead of letting freshmen pick classes randomly, the registrar’s office started by writing curriculum guides and emphasising the role of academic counselors before making the system official.

“It ultimately came down to our registrar getting permission from the provost office to do this, but our office said, ‘hey, you know, we’ve got to make a change,’” McCon-

nell said.

Other than some expected bugs, such as needing to add class sections at the last minute, McConnell said letting freshmen pick their classes over the summer before coming to campus worked well. Students were less stressed coming to campus knowing that they wouldn’t need to do any last-minute rearranging, McConnell said.

“In retrospect, it was way easier being able to register for my own classes,” freshman Will Davis said. “The hardest part was that I didn’t know anything about any of the professors, but I really liked being able to set up my schedule so that I could have more time off on certain days.”

Christy Maier, director of

student affairs, said she thinks most students were happy with the courses they picked.

“They have felt a sense of ownership in their schedules,” Maier said in an email.

Freshman Jordan Nelson said knowing he had to spend so much time taking core classes made picking his own schedule fairly easy.

“This spring, I’m definitely more confident now that I know more about the professors and have advice from other students on who to take,” Nelson said.

Spring course registration opens on Nov. 11 for seniors, Nov. 13 for juniors, Nov. 18 for sophomores, and Nov. 20 for freshmen.

Alumna awarded grant from Arnn’s former honorary

By Faith Miller Collegian Reporter

The Phi Kappa Phi National Honorary awarded Hillsdale College alumna Vivian Turnbull ’25 an $8,500 scholarship for graduate studies.

Turnbull was one of 48 Phi Kappa Phi members nationally awarded the scholarship this summer. The national honorary offers scholarships to assist students with graduate school. Turnbull will put her scholarship toward her degree at the University of Notre Dame Law School.

“I was very honored to be selected for the school. I was hopeful that maybe it would come through on the national level, but I certainly wasn’t holding my breath or expecting it,” Turnbull said. “Winning was a very pleasant surprise to

have over the summer.”

Phi Kappa Phi is recognized nationally as an exclusive academic honorary. Every year, the Hillsdale chapter invites the top 10% of the senior class and the top 7.5% of the junior class to join. Turnbull joined the honorary as a junior, according to Don Westblade, assistant professor of religion and president of Hillsdale’s Phi Kappa Phi honorary.

“Phi Kappa Phi is the one that Dr. Arnn was in when he was an undergraduate, and the one that he preferred that Hillsdale had,” Westblade said.

“Being a member is just a way of saying ‘I’m one of the better people in this college as a part

“She was the one that the local chapter nominated and, thankfully, she received one of those scholarships.”

Turnbull’s rule is to apply for everything. The chances of winning are zero if you don’t apply, she said. The application included a writing sample, personal statement, and letters of recommendation, among other things.

“My personal statement was similar to the personal statement that I used for law school, and that talked about growing up a military kid and seeing a lot of veteran homelessness and being really interested in possible legal solutions to that,” Turnbull said.

“I’ve never had a better student — a brighter student — than Vivian.”

of a national honorary society.’”

Hillsdale College’s Phi Kappa Phi chapter selected Turnbull’s application to nominate nationally, according to Westblade.

“We had three or four applicants, and the college is allowed to nominate one of those applicants to the national competition,” Westblade said.

Joseph Postell, associate professor of politics, said he wrote Turnbull’s letter of recommendation.

“I think the world of Vivian, so I obviously wrote her a very strong letter of recommendation,” Postell said. “But I played a minor role. She obviously got it on her own merit.” Postell said he was not sur-

prised by Turnbull winning this scholarship award.

“She’s just extraordinarily intelligent. In 15 years, I can say I’ve never had a better student — a brighter student — than Vivian, just really remarkable and extraordinary. But that’s not it. She’s just an incredibly kind and thoughtful person who I think cares more about people and her relationships with other people than advancing or changing the world,” Postell said. “She always stayed grounded. She wants to help veterans, she wants to work in a less notorious, less prolific environment, but she wants to actually help people.”

Turnbull said her time at Hillsdale, including her time in Phi Kappa Phi, and her professors, especially Westblade, Postell, and Professor of Politics Mickey Craig shaped her into the person she is today.

“I’m so grateful for this opportunity. I really appreciate the Hillsdale chapter nominating me and Professor Westblade was so instrumental in this, and he was just such an encouragement and such a help in the application process,” Turnbull said. “Also Dr. Postell and Dr. Craig, my academic advisor, for all of his advice and support over the years, he’s been wonderful as well.”

Hillsdale had a ski club.

Walberg

El Clasico from A1

Sophomore Marcel Little at Boyne Mt. last year.

Courtesy | Reagan Kobach

Vivian Turnbull ’25 studied politics at Hillsdale. Courtesy | Vivian Turnbull

Opinions

The Paris heist

is whimsical.

I love it.

Maxwell

News Editor | Ellie Fromm

Opinions Editor | Caroline Kurt

City News Editor | Alessia Sandala

Sports Editor | Elaine Kutas

Culture Editor | Ty Ruddy

Features Editor | Megan Li

Social Media Manager | Skye Graham

Circulation & Ad Manager | Frederick Woodward

Assistant Editors | Christina Lewis | Sophia Bryant | Elijah Guevara | Lewis Thune | Adriana Azarian | Gemma Flores | Christian Papillon | Jamie Parsons | Lauren Bixler | Grace Brennan

D.C. Correspondent | Tayte Christensen

Web & Puzzle Editor | Matthew Tolbert

|

O’Connor

| John J. Miller | Maria Servold

By Catherine Maxwell Senior Editor

Imagine: Four men pull up to the Louvre Museum with two scooters and a ladder. They slice through the window into a glittering, gilded gallery and snatch France’s priceless crown jewels. They’re gone in less than seven minutes.

This isn’t “Ocean’s Eleven.” It’s an October morning in Paris.

After a year of grisly assassinations and murder-filled headlines, last week’s Louvre heist restored a sense of whimsy to crime. It feels like a mystery novel brought to life — an impossible-sounding scheme, a successful getaway, and a baffled country.

The thieves arrived at the Louvre at 9:30 in the morning, in broad daylight, just as the museum opened. They rode a truck-mounted elevator to a window of the Galerie d’Apollon and fled on a pair of scooters.

internet’s whimsical interpretation of the spectacle, The New York Times dashed everyone’s hopes — assuring the public that the young man was just a random passerby and not a modern-day Hercule Poirot.

Still, the crime is objectively hilarious. Robbing the Louvre should be impossible in 2025. Between advanced security cameras and laser grids, classic art heists simply don’t happen, abandoned to the 20th century or George Clooney movies.

Except they do, and it’s the Louvre’s own fault. As more information emerged about the robbery, it became less of an impressive feat by the thieves and more of an indictment of the museum’s poor security.

won’t be compensated.

Even more embarrassing, the Louvre heist was no lockedroom, Agatha Christie puzzle. The thieves pulled off a smashand-grab, one of the simplest burglaries in the history of crime, and one considered too unrealistic for a detective novel.

The Louvre’s director, Laurence des Cars, called it a “terrible failure,” and she’s right — but she could have avoided it. Staff have reportedly been warning about security weaknesses for years, but the museum ignored concerns over outdated alarm systems and cameras. A current economic and political crisis is complicating plans to overhaul the overcrowded and understaffed building.

this is how the French celebrate No Kings Day.

For a few hours, it even looked like the case would get its own Sherlock Holmes, when an image of a young man standing outside the Louvre in a trench coat and a fedora went viral. Seemingly oblivious to the

Andrews gets women wrong

By Caroline Kurt Opinions Editor

If Helen Andrews is right, this Opinions page is a reign of terror.

Andrews, a conservative political commentator, made gender-pessimism go viral this month with her essay, “The Great Feminization,” in Compact Magazine.

In the piece, Andrews advances the existing theory of the “Great Feminization,” which she deems the “most significant event of our century — and a potential threat to civilization.” As greater numbers of women have entered historically male-dominated fields such as law and academia, Andrews claims, female group dynamics of toxic empathy and cohesion have created wokeness and cancel culture.

“Wokeness is not a new ideology, an outgrowth of Marxism, or a result of post-Obama disillusionment,” Andrews wrote. “It is simply feminine patterns of behavior applied to institutions where women were few in number until recently.”

Andrews’s tweet announcing the essay has 6.5 million views and counting. It’s already triggered a slew of responding essays, with commenters disputing Andrews’s Hobbesian gender-absolutism (Erika Bachiochi), her claim about the feminization of law (Ivana Greco), and her Nietzschean undertones (Rachel Lu). What is even more obvious — and most erroneous of all — about Andrews’s argument is her profound and merciless pessimism about women, moral education, and complementarity between the sexes.

Andrews consistently equates femininity with irrationality and emotion and masculinity with rationality and justice. Though Milton might smile upon such a view, any serious student of history or keen observer of everyday life knows men and women share the same human nature. The particular gifts of femininity — what Pope St. John Paul II termed the “feminine genius” — Andrews dismisses, treating women instead as deficient men, holding up the worst female behavior against

the best male behavior.

Perhaps in backlash to the liberal dismissal of sex-based gender roles, Andrews tempts her readers to overemphasize the differences between men and women to the point of rendering them absolutes. She never mentions the role moral education and religion play in helping both sexes overcome their worse proclivities and develop virtue. Instead, the subjects of Andrews’s work are static, defined once and for all by their sex.

The “Great Feminization” is a masterclass in zero-sum thinking, which if true, creates a bleak landscape for everyone. Andrews mimics the flaws of the very movement she rebels against, as Greco observes in her response, “Beware the New Battle of the Sexes.”

“The liberal struggle for gender equality has often pitted women and men against each other in a zero-sum game: For women to advance, men must step aside,” Greco wrote in The Dispatch. “While Democrats struggle to extricate themselves from their own battle of the sexes, strategic conservatives should not launch a new one in their own backyard.”

Men and women were created for one another, and for this reason we thrive the most together, in a society that honors our shared nature and complementary differences.

Though few of our generation might read Andrews’s theory, we can expect to see — if we haven’t already — the trickledown of her thought. Her argument tempts us by proposing an all-encompassing answer to legitimate problems like cancel culture. Yet the only “theory of everything” that holds is the law of love, something “The Great Feminization” leaves totally aside. It is our job, then, as young people currently in academia and poised to enter the workforce, to prove Andrews wrong — to grow in virtue, give one another grace, and demonstrate a hope beyond her imagining.

studying English.

Meanwhile, art heists are back, and reading about the Louvre thieves is just as fun as watching Brad Pitt sneak into a casino vault.

Still, the fun nature of the crime shouldn’t downplay its tragedy. The crown jewels — some belonging to wives of the Napoleonic dynasty — are worth $102 million and possess priceless historical value.

The Louvre was last robbed in 1998, when a thief stole a small, 19th-century landscape by Jean Baptiste Camille Corot in broad daylight, and it was never recovered. Luckily, the French police seem less baffled this time around. They arrested two men Oct. 25, almost a week after the theft, and are analyzing 150 DNA samples left at the scene. The suspects “partially admitted” their role in the theft, but the jewels remain missing. Even the arrests add to the mystery. One official says a private collector may have hired the thieves to steal the jewels; meanwhile, detectives — the non-fedora-wearing kind — are rushing to find them before they’re irreparably damaged or cut and melted down into sellable pieces.

Catherine Maxwell is a senior studying history. Editor-in-Chief

There was one security camera on the side where the thieves parked, and it was pointed away from the building. Outdated interior alarms and cameras slowed response times. Unarmed security guards rushed visitors out of the building instead of locking it down or confronting the thieves. The cases holding the crown jewels had been replaced years ago and no longer triggered an automatic safe when disturbed. Worse, the museum never bothered insuring the crown jewels and

At the same time, one could argue that if you murder your monarch, you lose the right to your crown jewels. Or maybe

There’s still a chance France surrenders to the thieves — the international embarrassment hasn’t stopped them before. But the rest of us should enjoy the mystery. It’s not every day you can see the jewels and steal them, too.

Be kind — you'll live longer

By Brennan Berryhill Collegian Freelancer

Researchers have pinpointed a phenomenon they call the “helper’s high,” which is a bit like a “runner’s high” except it doesn’t require excruciating suffering to attain.

Allan Luks, the former executive director of the Institute for the Advancement of Health, wrote a book with Peggy Payne called “The Healing Power of Doing Good.” They interviewed thousands of volunteers who reported feeling this “helper’s high,” described as “a feeling of warmth, increased energy, and a sense of calm after doing something kind for someone else.”

Kindness is often seen as an act of pure, selfless altruism, but really it is a reflexive good that benefits the caregiver as much as the care-getter. That’s why the Dalai Lama said, “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” Kindness is not simply a religious obligation or a virtue that must be worked toward. Even the golden rule — “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” — implies that kindness is a two-way street between self and others. It is an act that

psychologically and physically helps the giver as much as the recipient.

That’s not dogma. It’s biology.

Performing kind acts for others releases chemicals such as dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. Dopamine rewards the body with feelings of pleasure, serotonin increases satisfaction and well-being, and oxytocin even reduces inflammation. This doesn’t mean holding the door for people is some Holy Grail of health and happiness — Indiana Jones could have saved himself a lot of trouble if that was the case — but the benefits of kindness are real.

The biological effect extends to fiscal kindness. Giving on a budget can cause headaches, but studies show that generosity reduces literal heartaches. According to Harvard Health, a study assigned older adults suffering from high blood pressure either to spend their money on themselves or others. The two-year study demonstrated that spending more money on others correlated with lower blood pressure. Another study compressed the timetable to six weeks and a $120 budget, yet the results were the same — the more that people spent on others, the more their heart

health benefited. A bevy of research shows that spending money on others is linked to greater happiness.

Kindness is like investing in the stock market. It may cost something up front, like time or energy, but it will pay dividends over time — at least, this stock market always will. The “ripple effect” of kindness is a common phrase, but in practice it is remarkable. In 2018, the University of California, Riverside, asked employees of a company to perform small acts of kindness toward their co-workers, such as making coffee or writing thank-you notes, over a four-week span. Employees who benefited from the gestures were 278% more likely to do kind acts for others than employees who never received special kindness. Each act of kindness spread to an average of three other people.

Human beings are lakes. A healthy lake needs an outflow of water as much as it needs an inflow, and likewise people need to give as much as they need to receive. I’ve found this to be true in my own experience. The most consistent way to escape a mental funk, I’ve discovered, is not to indulge myself with something fun, but instead to give someone a compliment or a gift. I’ve had

bad days this semester, but self-affirmation never lifted my mood as much as telling one of my friends that he’s an amazing singer, or another that she’s clearly a caring person. In a world hypersensitive about mental health, the phrase “Be kind to yourself” has become a cultural truism. Biology shows this maxim cannot be divorced from the charge to be kind to others. Some readers might shy away from being kind for apparently selfish reasons, since virtues should be pursued for their own sake, but that misses the point. As a Christian, I believe the biological benefits of showing kindness testify to the intricate design of a creator who wove love of self to love of others so tightly that humans cannot be fulfilled until they “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Kindness is a fruit of the spirit, and like a fruit, it grows when its seeds are scattered. Even for non-Christians, it’s axiomatic that ripples can’t spread across the water if a stone isn’t cast. Say something nice to your coworker or your classmate. If nothing else, you’ll live longer.nger.

Brennan Berryhill is a junior studying English.

Letter to the Editor

Looking for love? 'Host,' don't 'throw' parties

By Ezra Phillips and Lewis Thune Guest Writer and Assistant Editor

“To find love, throw a party,” wrote Opinions Editor and senior Caroline Kurt in her Oct. 16 column.

The ghost of Jay Gatsby looks on in silent agony.

We suggest an important qualification to Kurt’s argument that throwing parties can be a solution to singleness. Our disagreement lies in the distinction between two terms: to “throw” and to “host.” The editor properly represented the tact and skill behind “hosting”

a party while using it interchangeably with “throwing” a party. To equate these terms is understandable, but they are markedly different.

Choosing to look for Ms. or Mr. Right at parties only makes sense if they’re the kind that are hosted.

Hosting a party requires an actual occasion to celebrate — a purpose for existing that’s beyond itself. This might be a time-honored tradition, a holiday, or an engagement. It demands real intention to curate the environment to dodge professional boozers, unbearably loud music, and the like. This creates an alarmingly tolerable

atmosphere filled with people of like backgrounds, interests, or friends. It’s the type of event where fun doesn’t require guileless sensory overload. If your future spouse is at a party, he or she is at this one.

But if a student fears social pressure, blind dates, or the dreaded “campus rumor mill” so much that it prompts them to “throw” a party to find someone of the opposite sex, they simply don’t deserve to.

On Hillsdale and other college campuses, “throwing” means to put on a raucous event with little to no thought behind it, as in, “We’re throwing this weekend.” Essentials are limited to drinks, darkness, and a complete disregard for personal space — without the sting of conscience. Occasional features can reportedly include minors in possession and fraternity pledges vomiting on the neighbor’s lawn. For those looking for love, we echo Mr. Gatsby and strongly recommend students stop “throwing” parties. Remember, old sport: Gatsby only got the girl because Nick hosted the two for tea.

Ezra Phillips is a senior studying English. Lewis Thune is a senior studying politics.

Caroline Kurt is a senior

Let homeschoolers play sports

New bill would open Michigan athletics to more students

By Megan Li Features Editor

Playing volleyball in high school is one of the best decisions I have ever made.

My private school enrolled fewer than 200 students and the coach took whoever could fill the roster, including homeschooled students. Playing with that ragtag team taught me lessons in humility, strength, and the importance of teamwork and sacrifice.

But the Michigan High School Athletic Association prevents homeschooled students from that same opportunity to play high school sports. Michigan should overturn that restriction with a new bill proposed by state Sen. Joe Bellino.

Senate Bill 589, introduced last month by Bellino, a Republican who represents part of Hillsdale County, would allow homeschooling families who pay local taxes to participate in government-funded public-school programs, including athletics and extracurriculars. Currently, the MHSAA, which regulates public-school athletics, requires public-school enrollment for students to play sports. Many states allow homeschooled students to participate in public school sports, but Michigan is one of the 20 states that does not,

'M&M'

By Adriana Azarian Assistant Editor

You will die.

according to homeschooling advocacy group Coalition for Responsible Home Education.

The MHSAA’s restriction denies taxpaying homeschoolers an important opportunity for character formation and athletic excellence. Although homeschool athletic coalitions exist, they can’t match the resources of taxpayer-supported public schools. Bellino’s bill would allow parents already paying for those programs to benefit from them, without surrendering their authority over their children’s academics.

The opportunity to participate in athletics is an essential part of education. Studies show former highschool athletes are more likely to occupy high-status jobs than people who did not play a sport, in part because they possess traits valued by employers: stronger leadership, confidence, and self-esteem. Players not only improve in their particular sport, but also develop the intangible qualities of teamwork, humility, respect, work ethic, and passion. They learn to hustle despite letdowns and frustrations, to push themselves to their limits, and to give 100% because 97% is not enough.

I experienced this growth during my two years on the varsity team. I was never much of an athlete, but my

parents understood girls can become women and boys men on the field and the court. During one of the most important games of the season, my pitiful attempt to rescue the ball sent it hurtling into my teammate’s face instead of over the net. The referee stopped the game to let her stumble off the court, a hand over her eye, tears streaming down her face. I felt so guilty that I tried to follow her off the court. My coach didn’t let me. That day, I learned to put mistakes behind me and keep going because the game does not stop, both on the volleyball court and in life itself.

Playing volleyball stretched me to my limits, and those growing pains taught me the strength and virtue every human being is capable of. Michigan should give homeschooled students that same opportunity. Their differences in educational background matter little in the face of the connections they can form with teammates and coaches and allows homeschooled and non-homeschooled students to learn from one another. My private school allowed homeschoolers to play on our team, and I found myself looking forward to practices so I could get to know my teammates more, rather than seeing them as strangers who did not belong.

is for memento mori

We like to ignore this inconvenient fact. The morbid and macabre are improper in pleasant conversation. Our language has more than 200 euphemisms for “die,” such as “pass away” and “bite the dust.” But despite our best efforts to push mortality aside, we still parade death and decay in dress and decorations on Halloween, a brilliant annual celebration of our mortal condition.

ingly replaced by memorial services and “celebrations of life,” wherein the deceased’s remains are missing, no one wears black, and attendees merely eulogize without closing a coffin or burying the dead. There is no finality when the ritual dodges the heaviness of death. We have done both the living and the dead a great disservice.

The MHSAA forms an athletic cartel against homeschoolers and denies them a crucial aspect of their education and formation of character. By using sports as a weapon against non-traditional forms of schooling, the organization fails in its duty to communities and students. If public schools worry that opening their sports to homeschoolers would lure more families away from traditional schooling, they should focus on improving their own curricula rather than imposing bans on certain students — whose parents are contributing to their programs.

Opening teams to homeschoolers will cultivate talent in an environment of educational diversity, which helps the school along with the student. This way, while public schools expand their pool of players, homeschoolers find fellowship among their peers and have the opportunity to give their talents to the community. Bellino’s bill will build up all students, no matter where or how they learn, and that is what a community is meant to do.

Megan Li is a junior studying economics.

Three cheers for tariffs

By Charles Hickey Collegian Reporter

The cornerstone of President Donald Trump’s economic policy is something he called the “most beautiful word in the dictionary”: tariffs. Since January, Trump has tacked steep tariffs on a veritable smorgasbord of imports from international foes and allies alike.

Tariffs are as American as apple pie, as a quick glance through our nation’s history will reveal. But these taxes on imported goods have been historically low since the end of World War II, thanks to global free trade agreements. This explains why Trump’s decision to resurrect tariffs sparked predictions of domestic stagnation or even a global trade war from economists and commentators.

Even our beloved professors made these forecasts. Almost the entire economics department signed a letter to the editor in the Collegian (“Trump’s Tariffs are Fundamentally Flawed,” April 10, 2025) predicting Trump’s tariff policy would “stifle investment.” For Hillsdale’s economics majors, the level of drama on campus rivaled “Love Island.”

But almost a year later, strong economic growth and an outpouring in domestic investment have thoroughly vindicated Trump’s bold tariff strategy, refuting the president’s doubters.

Economic stagnation is nonexistent. The nation’s Gross Domestic Product — a measurement of total economic activity — is up almost 4%, while the stock market is reaching all-time highs. Nevertheless, from a purely economic viewpoint, high

tariffs are bad. They’re taxes on American businesses — not foreign countries — which raise the prices of consumer goods. But we must consider tariffs politically, too.

High tariffs are not the permanent norm. Trump is using temporarily high tariffs as short-term leverage to secure hundreds of billions of dollars in investment from our allies. For example, once Japan agreed in July to invest $550 billion in the U.S., Trump dropped tariffs on their imports from 25% to a tolerable 15%.

With our consumer-driven economy as the envy of the world, other countries will do almost anything to keep access to American customers. Even rival superpower China realizes their economy would spiral without their number one customer: America, which purchased $500 billion worth of Chinese products in 2023.

Just a few weeks ago, China declared sweeping new export restrictions on rare earth elements, over 90% of which are processed and refined by China. With near complete Chinese control over these critical components of computer chips and magnets, Trump threatened to place 100% tariffs — a virtual trade embargo — on China. Now, China is signaling that it will walk back the restrictions. Tariffs are more than a simple tax. In the hands of a capable president, they are a weapon, part of a complicated power struggle between proud nations.

Charles Hickey is a sophomore studying the liberal arts.

On Halloween, look away

By Anna Broussard Design Editor

Baby dolls covered in red paint hung from the trees. I couldn't look away, but I

changed the film industry — it desensitized audiences to the films of the 21st century, which make it look harmless by comparison.

Halloween, or “All Hallows’ Eve,” is the night before the Feast of All Saints, when Christians remember the dead believed to be in heaven. It calls to mind the brevity of life and the effects of the present world on the next. Although the holiday carries less religious weight, the remembrance of death remains central to its festivities. And we need it, because only by remembering death can we truly live well. While going through old family pictures, I found a photo of my distant cousins, then little girls, smiling and sitting on my great-grandfather’s fresh grave in the 1950s. It disturbed my 21st-century American mind. I’m the kind of person who shudders just driving past a cemetery. I still don’t like to think about my proximity to dead people, and I especially don’t like to think about how I’ll one day become food for worms myself.

Yet the more I contemplate it, the more familiar and less scary it becomes.

Christian monks have often kept human skulls as reminders of mortality. See Caravaggio’s famous painting of St. Jerome for an example. Halloween serves a similar function today. It arrives in the season when nature looks and smells of death: falling leaves, browning grass, and waning sunlight. It’s difficult to avoid the subject of death when you see it every time you leave the house. Then Halloween smacks you in the face with it: graveyard tours, stories of ghostly hauntings, and costumes of the grim reaper and the undead. Deep down, we are still mystified and disturbed by death. You will leave behind everything and everyone you know to go — where? Eternal bliss? Weeping and gnashing of teeth? Nothingness? These questions demand answers, and the stakes are high. Modern medicine has eradicated diseases that slaughtered our ancestors, and today, most of us have a decent shot at making it to our full lifespan of threescore and ten, as the Psalmist says. We have postponed death, and thank God for it. But because death no longer lurks just around the corner, at least not as often as it once did, we think about it less, to our detriment. Forgetting death means we have trouble facing it when it comes. Wakes and funerals were once assumed to be the next logical step after someone died. It was a chance for family and friends to see their loved one’s lifeless body, accept that a person was truly gone, and receive support from others. Family members donned black for months to tell the world that the worst had happened. Death was integrated into life. Today, funerals are increas-

We fear death because it ends our earthly joys, but it is equally our liberator from this life’s sorrows. It’s freeing to remember that every humiliation and failure, every material success, my appearance — it will all die with me. No one will pass my grave and applaud me for my college GPA, or weight, or possessions. Nor will anyone recall that one time I said that really stupid thing or got a C+ in a particular English class. It will be forgotten forever. All things will pass away. We must face death to reconsider our own lives. Among the most common regrets of dying people are not spending enough time with loved ones, spending too much time working, and wishing they had enjoyed life more. But if we lived every day aware of death, we would live better. Remembering death ahead of time is also remembering to live with intensity and

intention, to strive for truth, to leave legacies behind, to love people better.

Halloween in all its morbid glory remains a helpful acknowledgment of our end. Ready or not, death will still find every one of us. So eat the candy, but memento mori.

wish I had. Years after seeing this Halloween display in a neighborhood near my home, I can still feel that sickening twinge in my stomach.

I never should’ve looked.

Many Americans say Halloween is harmless, and that it exists for kids to dress up and trick-or-treat. While this is true, it is hard not to notice the disturbing costumes, morbid displays, and gory movie trailers that appear each October — or earlier. And we don’t know how to look away.

Humans are fascinated by what ought to disturb them. When a car barrels into the concrete barrier on the highway, traffic slows as passersby gawk at the wreckage. True crime junkies listen to graphic details of brutal murders. Maybe they just want to know what happened, or they want to learn about sociopaths. But we need to look away more.

Fifty years after its release, “Jaws” is a treasured film, but when it was first released, it was considered horrifying. Director Steven Spielberg described watching an audience member exit a 1975 preview viewing to vomit after watching the titular shark devour someone. Yet “Jaws”

Curiosity is natural and not in and of itself evil, but we rarely consider the damage of allowing our eyes to repeatedly examine the morbid. It marks our souls. With every breaking news clip of a brutal murder, we forget we are witnesses to someone’s last moments on earth. For example, millions witnessed the gory death of the political activist Charlie Kirk, whose assassin shot him in cold blood. The prevalence of clips like this normalize our loss of precious innocence.

Crime coverage used to focus on factual evidence rather than psychoanalysis, and movies like the aforementioned “Jaws” were disturbing to all audiences for their graphic scenes. Now children play violent video

games as a social activity, and there are entire genres of TV devoted to the crimes of serial killers. Is it really for the interest of true crime to have two 2025 documentaries on the graphic crimes of John Wayne Gacy?

Our experience is different from older generations: We are numb to violence, entertained by horror, and unaffected by gory scenes. And as we lose sensitivity to the violent and morbid, our tolerance of evil’s thrill grows. For those who like to be scared or disturbed, things must become scarier and more disturbing, murdering our innocence.

As horror movie trailers and crime podcast ads are plastered across our feed,

most exposure is inevitable. But consider how you spend your time and what you consume: Is it spent fixating on the disturbed? Is the innocent part of your soul uneasy after you watched an assassination video or clicked down a rabbit trail of violent videos on YouTube? Protect yourself. Look away from the ugly images — even those people normalize — avoid violent and grotesque media, and don’t make evil your entertainment.

Halloween is optional, but protecting your innocence is not. I spent my entire childhood disregarding Halloween, with our house cloaked in darkness so neighbors wouldn’t come by or think we participated in the holiday. I resented my parents for not allowing me to wear a princess tiara and parade around asking for candy. But I understand now there was a darkness to Halloween my parents did not want to expose me to, because images like those bloody baby dolls hanging from the trees never really leave your mind.

Adriana Azarian is a senior studying politics. Illustrated by Maggie O'Connor.

Anna Broussard is a senior studying politics. Illustrated by Maggie O'Connor.

City News

Share the Warmth to open for final year at Sozo Church

The shelter is searching for a

By Alessia Sandala City NEwS Editor

Overnight shelter Share the Warmth of Hillsdale County will open for its eighth and final season at the Sozo Church Nov.

1 before moving to a new building next year.

The shelter currently has 40 beds, but Executive Director Penny Myers said organizers are looking to expand and operate year-round when they find a new building. Share the Warmth provides guests with a bed, shower, laundry room, and hot meals overnight during the coldest months of the year.

“It’s just that the arrangement has run its course and Share the Warmth needs its own facility,” said Samuel Negus, Hillsdale College’s director of program review and accreditation and a member of the board. “Ideally, I think we would like to grow in the direction of being a year-

round shelter, rather than just the four months of the worst weather in these parts.”

Myers said the board hopes to raise $750,000 to purchase a new building in the next three months through the Hillsdale Community Foundation’s annual Great Give.

“In looking at buildings, we figure that we’re going to have to have at least $600,000 to purchase a building that would fit our criteria,” Myers said. “And then we’ll have to get an engineer and an attorney, and all of that.”

Myers said the shelter is limited in options for its new building due to city zoning regulations.

“We’ve been pretty much told that we’ll have to stay along Carleton because we can’t go into a residential area,” Myers said. “We’re not going to fight the city on that, because I have children and grandchildren, and I under-

new building to house the county's homeless year-round

stand the concerns. Sometimes we do have addicts in here, and we never know who’s going to come through that door. We give everybody a chance.”

independent and run according to their own rules.

Myers said Share the Warmth does not take any type of government assistance because they want the shelter to remain

“If they want to try to tell us how to run day-to-day operations, we’re not taking their money,” Myers said.

Since Share the Warmth is independent and operates out of a church, Myers said orga-

Jonesville ‘road diet’ nears completion

By Moira Gleason ExECutivE Editor

Construction on US-12 for the City of Jonesville’s “road diet” is set to wrap up by the end of October or early November, according to Jonesville City Manager Jeff Gray, as Hillsdale residents anticipate a similar project beginning in 2027.

The project narrowed Chicago Street in downtown Jonesville from two lanes in each direction to one lane in each direction, preserved the existing center turn lane, and added buffered bike lanes on both sides of the street. Coldwater, Tecumseh, and Quincy have all adopted similar road diets in the past 10 years. Gray said the road diet aims to strike a balance between accommodating through traffic on US-12 and making parking and foot traffic safer for downtown businesses.

“Those front parking spaces are places that it can be a little scary to get out of when traffic is right up against you on a five-lane section,” Gray said.

The new traffic pattern adds a three-foot “buffer zone” between the parallel parking lane and the bike lane. The extra space allows residents to open their car doors safely without worrying about cars passing each other in the outside lane.

“I don’t know how many times I have watched a mirror get clipped off,” said Zack Bigelow, co-founder of Ramshackle Brewing Company on Chicago Street. “At least once a week.”

Jonesville Bakery owner Laura Udzik said the construc-

tion for the road diet has hurt her business because drivers have avoided the construction in downtown Jonesville. But, as residents get used to the new configuration, she said she hopes business will return and parking will be safer along the street.

“It might just be until people get used to it, but the other day I have seen a couple of people pass people in the bike lane already because they’re impatient,” Udzik said. “So that might be causing an issue and might not be safe in the future.

ville to benefit local businesses.

Jonesville’s contribution to the project comes to just under half a million dollars, Gray said.

Adding bike lanes helps qualify for an $800,000 Transportation Alternatives Program grant through the state. The Michigan Department of Transportation will also invest about a million dollars in street repairs. By applying for these state grants, Gray said the city was able to accomplish more work than anticipated for the same price.

An engineering study commissioned by the city of

It might be too early to tell.”

Conversations for the road diet started as far back as January 2022, when the Downtown Development Authority was planning to update Jonesville’s streetscape. When the project coincided with the Michigan Department of Transportation’s plan to resurface all of US-12 through Jonesville, the DDA used the opportunity to change the lane configuration in Jones-

Jonesville found an average of 14,400 vehicles per day drive through Jonesville on US-12, which becomes Chicago Street through downtown. The figure puts it squarely in the feasibility range for a road diet, but the study recommended changing the timing of the traffic lights in order to accommodate the traffic volume in a three-lane cross section.

When the council first intro-

duced the road diet, public reactions were mixed, Gray said.

Most concerned citizens warned that squeezing five lanes of traffic into three would result in greater congestion and traffic problems on the road, according to records from a 2023 public forum. Gray said city staff have tried to address residents’ concerns throughout the process.

“The volumes just don’t shake out that way,” Gray said. “We will have to have MDOT adjust the timing of how the signals function based on the volume because the volumes change, but it isn’t quite as dramatic as doubling the traffic in the lane.”

As of Oct. 30, the Michigan Department of Transportation has yet to change the timing of the signals, causing backups through downtown. Gray said when construction wraps up and the timing is adjusted, the current traffic holdups will abate.

Other residents said the addition of bike lanes, which end abruptly outside of the downtown area, would add an additional safety hazard and waste taxpayer money.

Bigelow, who is a Hillsdale resident, said he believes the tradeoff of adding bike lanes in Jonesville in exchange for the state grant was worthwhile.

“It’s just painting two lines on the road to get a lot more money to fix our infrastructure,” Bigelow said. “It’s just paint on the road. They didn’t widen anything; they didn’t shrink anything. It’s literally just paint on the road.”

Hillsdale prepares for Halloween fun

By Elaine Kutas Sport S Editor

With Halloween just around the corner, Hillsdale is busy gearing up for the holiday. The community offers many events both on Oct. 31 and leading up to it for adults and kids alike.

For family fun, the City of Hillsdale’s official trick-ortreating hours are 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 31, but the festivities start even earlier. The Hillsdale Community Library hosts its own public trick-ortreating event from 4:45 to 5:45 p.m., before community hours start, according to Library Director Rebekah Dobski.

“Our event is for any families that are ready to start trick-or-treating or to start the night of going out and walking around,” Dobski said. “We have

candy and snacks for trick-ortreating, as well as little fun things that they can do. Last year, we had temporary tattoos and little Halloween games where they could win prizes. We also have donuts and cider when they are on their way out.”

Those 21 and older can enjoy the “Haunting in the Hills Halloween Bash” also on Halloween, from 8 p.m. to 12 a.m. at The 1910 Pub, located at The Hills of Baw Beese golf course. According to its website, this event will feature a live DJ, a costume contest, and discounted drinks.

The Hillsdale Brewing Company hosted a Halloween-themed bingo night Oct. 24, and the Hillsdale United Brethren church hosted its third-annual trunk-or-treat

Oct. 25 to kick off the week of festivities.

HUB Children’s Director Alison Bahre said the event is a great way for the greater Hillsdale community to see the ministry that the HUB offers.

“We just want the community to feel loved and know that we're here,” Bahre said. “We want to love on our community, and it’s really just a fun event for people to come out and spend time with their families and loved ones.”

Ellie Dice, a junior whose family has lived in Hillsdale for the past six years, said Hillsdale’s tight-knit community is on full display with all the Halloween events the town holds.

“I think, honestly, that trickor-treating has become way less popular, and almost every church does a trunk-or-treat,”

nizers have structured the shelter in a way they have found to be effective when deciding who stays at the shelter and what the rules are.

“We provide pajamas for them,” Myers said. “We launder their clothes every night, and then they put on the pajamas, and we wash their clothes. So in the morning, when they leave, they’re in clean clothes so they can go out to the community.

Our hope is that they’ll get jobs and try to become productive members of society.”

Myers said she is not sure if Camp Hope’s closure will affect the number of guests Share the Warmth will have this season, but that some of Camp Hope’s guests came to Share the Warmth last year amid rumors that Camp Hope would shut down. However, they didn’t end up staying once Myers explained the shelter’s code of conduct and expectations.

Annette Frederick has volunteered at Share the Warmth for the past three years. She said she feels safe around guests and enjoys hearing to their stories.

“The main thing is just sitting and listening to them,” Frederick said. “They like to talk about their childhood, and then they get up until today. Some of them will talk about if they’re having an addiction issue that they’re trying to do better with, and what they’d like to do.”

Frederick and Myers agreed that Share the Warmth would not have grown to what it is today, or be planning an expansion, without the support of the community.

“Everything we’ve ever needed in here, this community has provided,” Myers said. “So when you hear stories of people saying that this community doesn’t care about the homeless people, that is not our experience at all.”

Historical Society honors preservation

By Anna Northcutt CollEgiaN rEportEr

The Hillsdale Historical Society presented awards for the restoration, preservation, and beautification of two nineteenth-century homes and the Old Litchfield Cemetery Oct. 27.

The awards are designed to recognize people who took steps to preserve, restore, and generally improve the condition of a historic element of their community.

The first house to win a Preservation Award was built in 1870 by the Watkins family, who lived in the house for five generations, said Marie Williams, the mother-in-law of the house’s current owner, Dr. Ed Sutherland.

After Sutherland’s wife, Anna Williams ’11, died six years ago, Marie Williams said her son-in-law wanted to raise his children on a farm.

Sutherland bought a farmhouse on 240 acres of land located about halfway between Hillsdale and Coldwater, the city where he worked, according to Williams.

Sutherland restored and added bathrooms, staircases, electricity, and other new features. He also added a wraparound porch to the house and, in the future, hopes to renovate the kitchen and build a carriage house that can serve as a garage, Williams said.

The second house, built in 1867, was the childhood home of the current owner, Julia Bauer.

“My dream was always to remodel the house,” Bauer said.

Dice said. “Generally, just throughout most of the world now, parents are scared, and trick-or-treating just doesn't happen. But I think that communities — Hillsdale, especially — still value actually making the holiday something for the kids, and I think that speaks to how much everybody cares about making it fun and memorable.”

Dobski said Hillsdale’s strong community is visible during the holiday.

“Hillsdale is a very connected community,” Dobski said. “In the past, we’ve had almost 400 people here for the Halloween event, which is a lot of exposure to show people that we are here and to provide another fun opportunity for families.”

Bauer’s grandparents had bought the farm from a local, but Bauer said no one ever put any money into it.

In addition to gutting the

house from top to bottom, a process that filled up 15 dumpsters, Bauer said she was able to add a wraparound porch — a longtime dream of hers — and make various repairs and upgrades to the walls, electricity, plumbing, and more.

The Hillsdale Historical Society also presented a restoration award to the Lightfield Area Historical Society for the preservation of the Old Litchfield Cemetery.

The cemetery’s rows of graves include Civil War soldiers, said Robert Kline, a board member of the Hillsdale Historical Society, but had been neglected over the years.

The cemetery’s restoration was initiated by Larry Gagnon, who died last summer.

“I can’t even tell you the amount of passion he had for the cemetery,” said Oaklee Gagnon, Larry Gagnon’s wife. Larry Gagnon invited Bobbie Mathis, a cemetery preservationist and member of the Union City Society for Historic Preservation, to take a look at the Litchfield Cemetery. Because the Litchfield Cemetery was last used around 1892, Mathis said special types of lime and other materials had to be sourced from companies such as Atlas Preservation in order to restore the tombstones while maintaining period accuracy.

“Every stone needs a different type of fix,” Mathis said. Sandra Thomas, president of the Litchfield Area Historical Society, expressed her confidence in the value of the work she and the other members of the society are doing.

“Somebody up there is watching and really appreciates what we’re doing,” Thomas said.

The Jonesville "road diet" plan. Courtesy | City of Jonesville

Annette Frederick folds laundry at Share the Warmth. a lessia s andala | Collegian

‘Forever chemicals’ drip into nearby groundwater

By Eleanor DeGoffau CollegiAn reporter

An old landfill has been seeping “forever chemicals” into the City of Hillsdale’s groundwater since the early 1970s, according to the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. The contamination was discovered three years ago when a resident’s water tested positive, according to EGLE. Since then, the state has identified one other city resident whose water tested above safe levels for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

State officials put the landfill, named Lucas Landfill, on its official watch list in May 2025. But the state is still investigating how these toxic chemicals have affected residents’ drinking water and the local environment.

PFAS are a group of manmade chemicals that are found in manufacturing waste, firefighting foam, food packaging, and more, which can be dumped into the environment by industrial companies. The chemicals are called "forever chemicals” because they are difficult to remove from the environment and don’t decompose. If ingested by humans, PFAS can decrease fertility, cause developmental delays, and increase cancer risk, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, although the EPA says more research is needed.

Clay Joupperi, Jackson district geologist and Lucas Landfill site lead at EGLE, said

EGLE first identified Hillsdale as an area of concern when a resident self-tested their water and found positive results. Over the next few years, Joupperi said, more state tests identified the source of the PFAS as an old landfill.

Although EGLE knows the contamination is coming from the landfill area, Joupperi said tests could not demonstrate exactly what type of material is excreting PFAS into the ground.

“We really don't have good records of what was dumped there or who dumped trash

the landfill exceeding safe levels. They found the water contained 45 units of PFOA, a specific type of PFAS, for every trillion units of water, or 45 parts per trillion. This is well above the safety criteria of 8 parts per trillion set by EGLE.

But EGLE only found two nearby homes whose drinking water tested above safety standards, despite testing many wells in the area. The state provided the residents who tested above safety levels with bottled water.

Joupperi said the ground-

PFAS in 2024.

But compared to drinking water wells, the contamination of local streams and rivers is more concerning to Geoff Rhodes, a toxicologist at the Water Resources Division at EGLE. Rhodes said EGLE has not yet completed surface water tests around the landfill, so the landfill could be affecting local fish and wildlife populations.

“We don't have any surface water data for this PFAS site,” Rhodes said. “The data we do have for the Hillsdale area is relatively low, but given this

possession of the property, we had a knock at the front door,” Stockdale said. “We were working on stuff, and they said, ‘Yeah, I’m here from the state EPA, and I don’t know if you know this, but there’s a contamination thing in your area, and we want to test your water.’”

Stockdale’s water sample tested positive for PFAS but below the level of concern.

Stockdale said that although the state isn’t worried about this amount, he wants to take precautions through water filters.

there, but obviously, there's some contamination there that was not properly handled,” Joupperi said.

The property of the former landfill, named Lucas Landfill, is now privately owned at 2200 Mauck Road, just one mile northeast of Hayden Park. Lucas Landfill was in operation from 1972 to 1983, until it was shut down due to poor environmental practices, according to Joupperi.

Between 2022 and 2024, EGLE tests at the landfill site reported PFAS concentrations in the groundwater beneath

water is not affecting many homes because the subterranean water appears to be flowing north-northwest, away from the highest concentrations of people.

However, Joupperi said the team still has a lot to learn about the exact location of the groundwater.

“We want to ensure that we know where this plume is, where it's going, and where we could find safe water for these houses that's the ultimate goal,” Joupperi said.

Hillsdale’s municipal water tested negative for all types of

new PFAS site, that's something we need to go back and revisit.”

Two Hillsdale College staff members own property close to the former landfill.

Calvin Stockdale, senior director of institutional advancement, lives two properties down from the former landfill. He was not informed of the contamination site while purchasing the property. Soon after, he was told that he lives near a toxic location and would need to have his water tested every year.

“The week after we took

Bentley, Paladino discuss future of Hillsdale

By Anna Broussard Design eDitor

The City of Hillsdale should be informed on ways to hold city officials accountable, according to Mayor Pro Tem Josh Paladino and Ward 2 Councilman and mayoral candidate Matthew Bentley.

The Hillsdale College politics honorary Pi Sigma Alpha hosted a discussion on town politics and the mayoral race Oct. 28, its first event since the honorary's revival this year. The panel, moderated by Assistant Professor of Politics Daniel O’Toole, included issues such as the roads, crime, and budgetary spending in the city.

According to junior Zack Briley, president of the politics honorary, Bentley’s opponent, Scott Sessions, was unable to attend.

Election from A1

“Before accountability comes clarity,” Bentley said. “We need clearer lines between council and city staff and who is responsible for what. I am of the opinion that it's the council's job to, in some sense, drive the agenda as they hear from their constituents. This is called representative government.” Sessions, who held the mayor's gavel 2013-2017, said he wants to rebuild trust and culture within the city government.

“Hillsdale is such a great community to live in, and I am truly honored to call it my home. What makes Hillsdale special isn’t just beautiful surroundings — it’s the people,” Sessions said. “I want to be a voice for all of Hillsdale, for everyone who lives here, works here, studies here, and calls this city home. Because together we make Hillsdale the community we’re all proud to be a part of.”

If elected, Sessions said he would institute a chain of command within city government.

“The city council goes to the mayor, and the mayor goes to the city manager, and the city manager goes to the staff,” Sessions said.

Bentley said he would like city residents to participate

“We invited Scott Sessions, the other mayoral candidate, to attend, and he declined,” Briley said.

Paladino and Bentley shared their backgrounds and how they started in town politics. Paladino said serving on the council is more than just being involved in the community.

“So many people just run on, ‘I want to serve my community.’

But what type of community do you want?” Paladino said. “This is something that people need to get more involved with, and they need to actually go into town politics with an agenda, political principles, and statements on issues.”

Bentley said the structure of the city council works against change, and his focus is helping city officials to do their jobs.

“What Josh and I have done so far is try to introduce real

more in city politics by joining committees and speaking up at city council meetings. The people should hold the council accountable, and the council should hold the city staff accountable, Bentley said.

“There is no threshold for knowledge, as my case proves,” Bentley said. “I got on city council [last] November, knowing none of the issues and none of the players, and you learn as you go. And it can and should be fun.”

Road Repairs

A councilman since 2024, Bentley said he decided to run for mayor to oppose the M-99 Traffic Calming Plan, or “road diet,” which would narrow Broad Street from four lanes to three through downtown, reconfigure the middle lane as a turn lane, and add bike lanes.

The issue of the road diet is now mostly dormant after the city council approved the plan over the summer and allocated $135,000 toward the project in August, Bentley said. The elected mayor will have little leeway to stop the road diet now that it has been approved, but Bentley said he would be open to revisiting the decision in the future.

Sessions, who initially opposed the road diet for safety reasons, said it is better to con-

politics and hold people accountable,” Bentley said. “But the process still tyrannizes people. People don’t really have a voice, so unless the people get involved, including the college people, nothing will change.”

According to Bentley, addressing issues on the ground is difficult because the mayoral position in Hillsdale lacks statutory power outside of the city council.

“My issue is the roads and what I call accountability for city staff and council,” Bentley said. “That involves some reference to both the agenda and clarity for people to get involved. If we can’t get people motivated and involved, then we’ll just go on with the current status quo.”

Bentley said the council is meaningless without the citizens of Hillsdale, and the

tinue the project. He said the road diet would save the city money overall, since state grants and other funding for the road diet would cover repairs the city will already need to make.

As Election Day nears, Bentley said his campaign comes down to special assessment districts, which require individual property owners in a designated district to pay up to $5,000 for repairs on their street. Bentley said he wants to reform the system and lower the residential caps because residents will not tolerate the current price tag of special assessments.

Residents in a district can override the council’s approval by collecting letters from a majority of property owners opposed to the special assessment.

A group of citizens on Barry Street rejected the city’s special assessment in April 2025, The Collegian previously reported. The council would need to vote 7-1 to override these objections.

“If the council doesn’t take responsibility and reform the special assessment program, it will become all but obsolete,” Bentley said.

Sessions said he supports the equitable use of special assessment districts but wants to bring back the Funding Alternative Identification Recommendation

council should evaluate the relationship between the council and the city manager to effect change.

“We don’t have much ability, and without a majority of council, we are just voices in the abyss,” Bentley said. “So what is the relationship of the council and the mayor to the city manager and the city bureaucracy?”

At the end of the panel, Paladino said changing the way the city does politics is the most important aspect of being on the council for him and Bentley.

“One overarching problem is that we have so many agencies and departments, and there is very little political control of them,” Paladino said. “We want politics back. We want the people to decide where their money is spent and where their resources go.”

committee to explore sustainable ways to fund infrastructure improvements.

“We need a long-term funding strategy that keeps our roads and utilities maintained without relying solely on increased taxes or assessments,” Sessions said.

Homelessness Concerns about homelessness have increased in recent weeks after the city removed the Camp Hope structure Oct. 16. The charity housed 16 homeless residents but was voted unsafe for occupancy by the city council.

Sessions said he wants to partner with local organizations and community leaders to address homelessness in a way that treats homeless people with dignity while also maintaining public safety. To achieve this, he said he would reconvene the Homeless Task Force. The task force last convened in 2022 and recommended more rigorous law enforcement and a permanent homeless shelter.

Bentley said he does not see a reason to reconvene the task force but would support putting its previous findings into action. He said the next steps are to support HOPE Harbor and Share the Warmth, both of which are seeking to establish permanent shelters in the community.

and contaminants,” Diener said. “So I wouldn’t change anything about living here. If I had known that there was this problem before purchasing the home, I still would have purchased it. We love where we live and are happy to live in the country. If we lived in a city, we would have more air pollution issues.” The owner of the former landfill property could not be reached for comment by The Collegian.

The Lucas Landfill site is one of 328 PFAS-containing sites in the state of Michigan. Rhodes said St. Clair County has the highest concentration of PFOA, the most dangerous type of PFAS to humans. Although some manufacturing plants are beginning to use effective filters for their wastewater in Michigan, Rhodes said it is still extremely difficult to remove existing PFAS from the environment.

“Our family put in a water softener and a reverse osmosis filter, and those both help to reduce contaminants in the water, especially the reverse osmosis filter for drinking water,” Stockdale said.

David Diener, assistant professor of education, owns property south of the landfill, but his water always tested below safety criteria for PFAS. While he does not think the situation is ideal, Diener said people take risks all the time for what they love.

“We live in an age in which we’re surrounded by toxins

“Even the best source reduction efforts can't entirely clean up a watershed,” Rhodes said. “Once it's in the environment, it's very hard to get out of the soil. It is just going to take quite a lot of time.” EGLE will continue to report on PFAS levels in the area and increase the number of samples in the surrounding water, Joupperi said. The updated data for PFAS sampling and a map of all testing locations are available at Michigan PFAS Action Response Team’s website under “PFAS Sites.”

Hillsdale Hospital partners with new radiology group

By Gemma Flores AssistA nt eD itor

Hillsdale Hospital began a permanent partnership with the Florida-based Premier Radiology group Oct. 21 to reduce wait times for radiology test results.

“I am elated to welcome back our long-time partner, Premier Radiology,” Jeremiah J. Hodshire, president and CEO of Hillsdale Hospital, said in an email. “We have over a decade of experience with them, so I know firsthand the high-quality services they provide our community.”

Hillsdale Hospital has partnered with Premier Radiology on and off over the past couple of years, according to Kyrsten Newlon, Hillsdale Hospital’s director of communications and donor development. Oct. 21 marked the beginning of a permanent working relationship between the two entities.

“This is something that has been a long time in the making,” Newlon said. “We’ve been working for the past few years to find the best possible way forward with our radiology group. Ultimately, Premier Radiology was the best solution to that. We are only one day into the official start of the agreement with them and, already, some of our patients are returning to using our radiology services.”

The former radiology group Hillsdale Hospital used to interpret results was unable to keep up with the hospital’s needs, according to Jamie Caldwell, medical imaging manager at Hillsdale Hospital. With their radiology results backed up, patients at Hillsdale Hospital often had to wait abnormally long to receive their diagnoses.

“In less than one week, the new group has caught up 99% of the exams that were

waiting,” Caldwell said. Newlon said the abnormally long wait times for radiology results were uncomfortable for Hillsdale Hospital patients.

“It’s definitely something that really matters to us, that our patients have timely results,” Newlon said. “Timely results matter to clinical outcomes. They matter for our patients to put their minds at ease. Sometimes radiology tests are used to diagnose some scary conditions, and we want to make sure that those wait times are not causing stress for those patients.”

According to Newlon, the partnership was made as a solution to patients’ complaints of long wait times for test results.

“This is a direct response to our patients’ feedback, and we know they’re going to be a lot happier now,” Newlon said.

This change also ensures reduced stress on the radiology staff at the hospital, she added.

“This is a permanent partnership,” Newlon said. “Every hospital needs a radiology group to read test scans. We want to make sure our radiology team has a permanent, dependable relationship with the group moving forward so that when a provider orders a test, that test is performed and the provider and patient get those results right away.” According to Newlon, the change reflects the hospital’s mission to improve the lives of its patients.

“Our mission is to be a guardian of the healthcare services for our community, and we’ve heard our patients,” Newlon said. “We know it’s going to help improve care across the board. It’s definitely something that we are looking forward to seeing the results of.”

SportS

Robert Thompson: the highest ranked Hillsdale golfer ever

By Faith Miller Collegian Reporter

Junior Robert Thompson is ranked eighth in the nation for NCAA Division II golf, making him the highest-ranked ever for a Hillsdale golfer. But his love for the sport began well before college — even before kindergarten.

“I started when I was 3 years old,” Thompson said. “I saw a classic set of clubs at Walmart, and I wanted them. So, then I got into golf. It’s the only sport I liked, and it was the only sport that I was halfway decent at, so it’s what I did. I kind of sucked at catching and throwing, and golf didn’t involve those, so I liked it.”

From Charlotte, North Carolina, Thompson attended Myers Park High School. He placed in the top 15 at both the 2022 and 2023 North Carolina High School Athletic Association 4A Conference State Championships and joined the starting lineup of the Hillsdale golf team

his freshman year. This year, Thompson was ranked third in the nation Oct. 15, and the team was 25th in the nation, the second-best ranking it has had since the program restarted in 2014.

Thompson’s recent success on the course is due to his strategic thinking, according to head coach Luke Kelly.

“Rob’s consistency has been really good, but he also has just not made big mistakes,” Kelly said. “So he kind of has plotted himself around the golf course really well, whereas other guys tend to, at times, hit it all over the place and make big numbers. Rob’s been really good at staying away from big numbers and in limiting his damage when he is out of position, which is kind of all it comes down to.”

Thompson said his playing this fall has improved from his playing in the spring season last semester.

“Last fall, I had a good fall, and then I had some really bad

targets last spring, so I don't think the team was really expecting me to do too well this fall, but they’re all really happy for me,” Thompson said. “I didn’t expect to do this. I was

expecting to do better than last year. I think last year, after the fall, I was 77th, so I was hoping to be 50th or better. But I

wasn’t expecting to do this well, because I wasn’t playing that great in summer golf. And then I started playing well about a week before the season started.” Thompson said he chose Hillsdale because he knew he could not pass up the offer to play golf and attend a great school.

“It was the only offer I had, and it's Hillsdale,” Thompson said. “It’s a good school. It is a conservative school, which was nice because there aren’t many of those.”

Kelly said Thompson has grown in his skills in many ways

Club Sports

throughout the season.

“I saw him improve something each and every round,”

Kelly said. “And then by the time we got to the first tournament in the season, it really seemed like he was ready to go. I think, more than anything, from what he had done in the past to what he’s doing now, his consistency has really improved.”

Thompson’s teammate, junior Oliver Marshall, said Thompson faced the season with more confidence this year, which has aided him in his success.

“We’ve been teammates now for three years, and it’s been pretty impressive to see him improve,” Marshall said. “He’s definitely gotten significantly better, especially just from last year to this year.”

Thompson is the highest-ranked player in the entire history of the college’s golf program.

“They only just restarted the [golf] program a couple years ago, but he’s even better than

any of the guys that were playing back in the ’60s,” Marshall said. It’s pretty awesome, and I’m definitely really happy for him.”

Kelly said Thompson’s recent success is not limited to the golf course, as he is succeeding academically as well.

“I know he struggled when he first came in, especially as challenging as Hillsdale can be at times, but he's really started to excel, and he was an Academic All-American last year,” Kelly said. “I think all those things combined are what’s making Rob special currently.”

The players set goals for themselves and the team at the beginning of the season and, according to Kelly, they have big plans for the spring.

"We didn't set a goal of winning regionals or making the national championships or winning the national championships, but obviously that's why we're here, and that's what we want to do,” Kelly said. “The sky is the limit for this team.”

FROM A10: Rugby dominates Math Maze

By Jamie Parsons Assistant Editor

The Hillsdale club rugby team beat John Carroll University 38-14 in the first round of the Allegheny Rugby Union Playoffs, with College President Larry Arnn making a guest appearance at the team’s last home game Oct. 25.

“When we wrapped up the game, we went over to the fence on the side of the field and, of course, Dr. Arnn was there,” sophomore Peter Kaiser said. “So we all went up to shake his hand and take a picture with him, and after a brief moment when I could kind of get him aside, I said, ‘Well, Dr. Arnn, I might not know much about the good, but I do think that rugby may have something to do with it.’”

Then, Kaiser said, Arnn looked at him and smirked.

“Well, I think rugby is the good,” Arnn told him.

Sophomore Ike Lindley opened the scoring with a try in the left corner of John Carroll’s in-goal area, setting the score at 5-0. Senior and head coach Judah Newsom missed the difficult conversion kick that followed, causing Hillsdale to miss out on two extra points.

Newsom didn’t allow the missed kick to affect his performance, scoring the second try of the game and a conversion kick to earn Hillsdale seven points and a 12-point lead

Some kids would run up to the football players, matching the players with their appearance on playing cards handed out at the event.

“I can relate to that,” senior and football player Connor Pratt said. “I did the same thing when I was a little kid. I would run up to the guys at high school and college games and try to get autographs. It is cool to be on the flip side of that.”

Pratt said community events like Trunk-or-Treat are just as important to students as they are to families.

“It is very easy to isolate within campus events,” Pratt said. “Remembering that there is more to the world at large than college and the things you are focused on gives you an appreciation for your ability to be here and do these things.”

Pratt encouraged other students to invest in the community.

“You get as much out of it as you put into it,” Pratt said.

over John Carroll.

Senior Andrew Agbay scored the third try for Hillsdale, coupled with a conversion kick by Newsom to bring the game to 19-0.

John Carroll managed to score a try and a conversion kick in the last few minutes of the first half, setting the game at 19-7 going into the break.

The Chargers’ quickly gained momentum in the second half of the game, with Agbay and junior Angel Jimenez both scoring tries and Newsom making both conversion kicks. The plays gave Hillsdale a 33-7 lead.

Senior and backs coach Luca Vitale said he admired how the players stayed focused in the game despite their large lead.

“What really stood out to me and made me proud was our guys played with 100% concentration till the end of the game, even when we were up,” Vitale said. “And they let us continue to run the score up.”

With around 15 minutes left in the game, John Carroll scored its second and last try and conversion kick, making the score 33-14.

Jimenez scored the last try of the game, adding another five points on the board for Hillsdale. Senior Tommy Smith missed the conversion kick, leaving the Chargers with 38 points.

Senior Joseph Johnson said a highlight of the game was the players’ ability to work well as a team.

“It was mostly teamwork,” Johnson said. “We saw our guys run for like 50 yards, then get pummeled, but then one guy would just pick the ball up and keep on going. It was no selfish ball, we just kept on fighting and it was amazing.”

After the end of the game, Arnn stayed back to talk to the players and take a picture. Vitale said the team knew Arnn was coming, and it meant a lot to them.

“We’re a club team, so we don’t get a ton of institutional support,” Vitale said. “So to get symbolic support from the head of the college gives us a lot of hope that rugby will continue at Hillsdale and continue to become more established and recognized.”

The Chargers will travel to Steubenville, Ohio, to play Franciscan University in the ARU Playoffs Semifinal Nov. 1. Franciscan is the No. 3 ranked team in the nation for Division III rugby, but the Chargers believe they have a good shot at taking them down.

“They are good, they are skilled, no one is questioning that,” sophomore and forwards coach Charles Hickey said. “But they are smaller than us, we have a crack forwards pack, and we are going to physically overpower them.”

A path starts at the top-left corner and exits at the bottom right, only passing through squares orthogonally. The numbers around the border indicate the number of squares in that row or column that the path passes through. It cannot pass through bolded barrier segments, and it never passes through the same square twice.

Above: The Charger volleyball team decked out in costumes. Below: The football team poses at their trunk. James Joski | Collegian

Thompson at 13 competing in a golf tournament. Courtesy | Robert Thompson

Shotgun Five athletes dominate events Swim

Young team touches in sec ond

By Lucy Billings Collegian Freelancer

The Hillsdale women’s swim team placed second at Bethel Invite, defeating Lindsey Wilson University and North Central College in its second meet of the season, hosted by Bethel University in Elkhart, Indiana, Oct. 25.

In the final scoring the Chargers held 91 points over Lindsey Wilson at 174-83, 195 points over North Central with 216-21, and lost to Bethel by 59 at 168-119.

Head coach Kurt Kirner said he was proud of the team’s effort during the meet.

“Definitely an all around team effort,” Kirner said. “We are making headway toward the midseason as we get healthier. Our team spirit and comradery has been exceptional.”

Among the first-place finishes was freshman Sasha Babenko’s 100 backstroke with a time of 58.24. She also led off the 200 free relay, in which the team finished second with an overall time of 1:40:57. She placed fourth in the 100 freestyle in 56.41 and fifth in the 50 freestyle in 25.61.

“Our team’s focus heading into this meet was to give everything we had," Babenko said. “Practices have been tough lately, so our main goal was to keep our heads up and compete with full effort. I was proud of myself for putting all my faith in God and trusting His plan. The faith I had in Him allowed me to win the 100 back.”

Freshman Rylee Harris took third place in the 200 freestyle with a time of 2:01:56. She placed fifth in

Football from A1

“Anytime you can get a touchdown on special teams, it’s a big deal,” Shreffler said.

“But being able to do it after the scoop score really got the momentum back on our sideline.”

Ruddy led the Chargers with 107 receiving yards and 139 return yards, en route to winning the GMAC Football Special Teams Player of the Week.

“It's a great honor to be selected as special teams player of the week,” Ruddy said.

the 200 backstroke in 2:17:49, sixth in the 50 freestyle in 26:15, and was also on the 200 freestyle relay team placing second.

“Every race is a lesson and we all have things to take from reflecting on our past races,” Harris said. “Our coaches are great and help us make race plans, reflecting on our past races. We want to keep getting better every meet and continue to be there for each other and support each other.”

Other high-scoring swimmers included freshman Avery May and freshman Kate Potwardowski. May took first in the 1000 freestyle with a time of 10:50:81, first in the 500 freestyle in 5:17:37, and third in the 100 freestyle in 56:39. Potwardowski finished in first place in the 200 breaststroke with a time of 2:30:89 and second place in the 100 breaststroke in 1:08:89.

Sophomore Yvonne Botha finished second in the 200 backstroke in 2:15:97. Sophomore Ella Malone placed third in the 200 butterfly in 2:17:15. Junior Inez McNichols placed second in the 400 individual medley with a time of 4:59:24.

“We wanted to get some updated times to see how we are progressing as we get closer to our midseason invitational,” Kirner said. “At our midseason we will be rested and suited up for best times.”

The team will compete against Albion College and Davenport University at home on Nov. 7, and against Aquinas College and Indiana Wesleyan University at home for Hillsdale’s senior meet Nov. 8.

By Daniel Johnson Collegian Reporter

Five Hillsdale shotgun athletes finished on the podium at the Michigan College Shoot at the John Halter Shooting Sports Center Oct. 25, placing first overall for both men and women with a score of 1429 out of 1500.

The Chargers competed in the Trap, Skeet, and Sporting Clays divisions against six teams from Michigan and Indiana, nearly sweeping all three events.

Senior team captain Leif Andersen took first overall in the men’s division with a combined score of 287/300, with freshman Zach Hinze and senior Davis Hay taking second and third respectively. Junior team captain Madeline Corbin took first in the women’s division with a combined score of 282/300, while sophomore Taylor Dale took second.

Each competitor shot at 100 targets in each of the three

Cross Country

events, earning a score equal to the total number of targets hit in all three events. The total team score is a combination of the top five scores in each event.

Hinze won men’s Trap after shooting 100/100 targets, while Hay and Corbin both shot 99/100, with Hay taking second and Corbin placing first in the women’s category.

In Skeet, senior Kyle Fleck and Hinze tied for first with a score of 99/100, with Hay and freshman Max Versluys tying for second, and Corbin again taking first in the women’s division after all shooting 98/100.

Andersen took first in Sporting Clays with a score of 92/100. Junior Luke Johnson, Hay, and Dale tied for third.

“This was a good showing for us overall,” head coach Jordan Hintz said. “Just in depth. We had a lot of good scores across the board from the team.”

According to Andersen, the team competed while running the event at the same time.

“Three hundred targets a day is pretty taxing, right?” Andersen said. “But then we’re also trying to run the shoot, whether that be loading machines, scoring, or helping out Jordan where we can.”

Corbin said that shooting well while running the meet demonstrated the team’s resilience.

“It just goes to show how capable we are to shoot when you have three other things you’re doing while competing and still put up a good sport,” Corbin said. “I think it’s a great confidence booster.”

According to Hintz, the goal of the shoot was to bring attention to shotgun teams from colleges in the region.

“The goal of the shoot at the beginning was to highlight the shooting teams and spotlight them for their schools,” Hintz said.

According to Andersen, the shoot measures the team’s progress.

“We use it as a way to mea-

sure our progress through the year,” Andersen said. “You can compare, well, ‘how did I start the beginning of the semester? How did I end?’”

According to Hintz, the shoot showed real improvement for the team.

“We’re definitely moving in the right direction,” Hintz said. “Our performances have improved time and time again.” Hintz added that the shoot gave the team momentum going into the next semester of competition.

“At this shoot we were down two of our teammates, meaning there’s still opportunity for more improved scores,” Hintz said. “Next semester we should be at full strength the whole time. We’ll keep working hard and really see what we can do.”

The shotgun team’s next competition is the USA Shooting Selection Matches in Tucson, Arizona, Nov. 17-22, where members of the team will contend for a spot on team USA.

Kuzma wins, teams place fourth and fifth

By Anna Stirton Collegian Reporter

The men’s and women’s cross country teams placed fifth and fourth, respectively, at the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Championships this past Saturday, with sophomore Ally Kuzma taking the individual champion title and earning first team All-GMAC honors in the women’s 6K race.

ing it early so I could build a big enough gap between them and me.”

Head coach R.P. White said he was excited about Kuzma’s performance.

“She’s just a phenomenal runner, and I think this race is just another piece that will help her actualize what her potential is,” White said. “This is just another thing to add to her accolade list in her very young career.”

and ended up sneaking into the first-team all-conference with a huge race.”

Sophomore Victoria Stonebraker was the next scoring runner for the Chargers, earning 26th place in 22:41.9. Freshman Grace Tykocki and junior Savannah Fraley followed in quick succession, earning 39th and 40th place with 23:09.6 and 23:11.1, respectively.

were challenged getting off the line, and we didn’t do a good job. From our poor position early on, we just couldn’t make up enough ground.”

Freshman kicker Dylan DeDario was perfect on five extra point attempts. It was the first time this season the Chargers made all their kick attempts in a game. DeDario credited his recent success to a consistent kicking unit lineup.

“The more our unit works together, the more our timing is going to get better,” DeDario said.

The Chargers’ next game will be on the road against Thomas More University Nov. 1.

“Though I feel honored, I do wish each one of the guys on the kick return unit could share in the award. We all put so much work into that unit, but I'm the one who gets all the recognition. Those guys are giving it their all every time we're out there to get me to the end zone. So let this be a shoutout to all the guys on that unit.”

Executing a personal record performance of 20:29.1, Kuzma became the third Charger woman to win this title in the past three years. Leading up to the championships, Kuzma said she was well aware that she was in the running for the title.

“I was feeling pretty nervous,” Kuzma said. “I knew that I had a shot to win, but there was plenty of talent in the field where it could have gone any way.”

Knowing that she was going to be challenged by intense competition, specifically top runners from Walsh University and Cedarville University, Kuzma said she approached this race with an intentional strategy.

“My plan was to sit and then just kinda go hard the last mile,” Kuzma said. “I knew that because they’re so talented, I really needed to play my strengths, which meant push-

Junior Eleanor Clark also earned first-team All-GMAC honors with a ninth-place finish in a time of 21:57.5, breaking the 22-minute barrier for the first time.

White said he was not only impressed with Clark’s stellar performance but also with how she helped lead her teammates to success.

“She did a beautiful job leading a couple of her teammates into a really good early position,” White said. “Then she just kept plugging away

White said he was pleased with the performance he saw

on the women’s side.

“They were aggressive and assertive,” White said. “We did a great job plugging ourselves into the positions relative to where we think we could’ve finished.”

On the men’s side, White expressed disappointment about the results but acknowledged that there were added challenges.

“There are multiple teams with much more depth here, so that made things just a little bit different,” White said. “We

Senior Gabe Phillips led the Charger men, earning his second first-team All-GMAC honors with a third-place finish in the 8K with a time of 24:16.4. Junior Caleb Youngstedt earned second-team AllGMAC honors, placing 17th in 24:53, while senior Nathaniel Osborne placed 21st in 24:55.9, just shy of all-conference. Two freshmen rounded out Hillsdale’s scoring runners, with John Richardson placing 30th in 25:14.9 and Jefferson Regitz placing 42nd in 25:29.0.

“That race wasn’t a race that played to our strengths very well,” Osborne said.

“We were hoping to repeat our team title. That definitely didn’t happen, we didn’t perform in the way we wanted to.”

However, the team is ready to bounce back and confident in their ability to do so.

“We’re looking forward to regionals,” Osborne said. “I think regionals has a course that really plays to our advantage.”

Both the men’s and women’s teams will compete at the NCAA Division II Regional Championships in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Nov. 8.

If you had to be from a country other than the USA in the Olympics, which would you choose and why?

Brazil – they have a great volleyball team, and it is warm there.

What building should Hillsdale add next? Indoor pickleball courts first thing.

What's your favorite non-sport recreational activity? Fishing.

Do you have a favorite quote or Scripture verse that inspires you? "We love because He first loved us." 1 John 4:19.

Senior Gabe Phillips finished third overall. Courtesy | Anna Roberts

Kuzma and Clark pose with their medals. Courtesy | Anna Roberts

C harger S port S

A10 October 30, 2025

Chargers best Northwood — again

By James Joski Collegian Freelancer

Fiction came to life as a long procession of children dressed in costumes ranging from the Eye of Sauron to Patrick Star opened their candy bags wide to students and athletes cloaked in the likenesses of Barney, Ronald McDonald, and everything in between.

The eclectic gathering was part of the Student Athletic Advisory Committee’s sixth annual Trunk-or-Treat located in the parking lot across from the George Roche Sports Complex Oct. 26. The event featured cars lined up with their trunks functioning as front porches.

Kids visited each “station” operated by a differ ent student group as they would a house on the street.

as Rapunzel, said that for many young girls, the princesses are the highlight of the day.

“For little girls, this is the big moment for them because we are not just girls wearing princess dresses,” she said. “We are that princess and so they are usually shy and struck by awe but really excited.”

Carlson said she remembered how excited she was to see princesses when she was young, and wanted to give that back.

Associate Athletic Director and faculty advisor to SAAC Nikki Walbright, said that the event aims to achieve both SAAC goals for civic service among student-athletes and NCAA Division II initiatives for fundrais ing toward the MakeA-Wish Foundation.

Although geared toward athletes, Wal bright said Trunk-or-Treat is open to all groups on campus.

“We are trying to make magic, interact with them, and make their day,” Carlson said.

At the start of the line stood the volleyball team, dressed up as everything from a banana to a dinosaur.

“I think its really cool,” sophomore Caroline Lanicek said. “A lot of these kids and their families will come and support us at games, and so it is just nice to give back to them because they support us in everything we do. They are always here for us.” Among the kids was Demetrius Mekas and his father, Andrew Mekas.

“Trick-or-Treating used to be in the dorms, but in 2020, they had to stop it because of COVID, so I started it,” Walbright said. “SAAC organizes it, and it is for the athletic teams, but I have always invited the dorms and campus groups to come out as well.”

One of these organizations was the Liberty Princess Company.

“It is technically not affiliated with the campus, but it is exclusively Hillsdale students, and we dress up as princesses for various community events,” said sophomore Alethia Diener, who dressed as Snow White. “People can request us, and it is completely free.”

Fellow member sophomore Ava Carlson, who came

Dressed as the Eye of Sauron, Demetrius Mekas towered above the rest. Andrew Mekas said the costume had been an idea since midsummer and took 10-12 hours to create.

“It was a cool idea and it was big,” Demeterius Mekas said. Hillsdale custodian Ryan Litley and his daughter Iris Litley dressed as Ghostbusters.

“I’ve always been a huge Ghostbusters fan,” Ryan Litley said. “I think when she saw my costume she was like, ‘I want one of those.’ So we made it happen.” Near the end of the line, the football team set up a mini ob-

course in front of their

By Grace Brennan Assistant Editor

The Hillsdale volleyball team beat rival Northwood University at home Oct. 24, winning its second five-set match against the Timberwolves this season. Hillsdale now stands 5-3 in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference and 7-10 overall.

Friday night was one of the closest matches all year for both the Chargers and the Timberwolves.

The first set was off to a slow start but Hillsdale rallied with a 6-0 run, including two kills from freshman Grace Drake that led to a 25-19 victory. Drake said the Chargers won the set with aggressive plays, which carried throughout the whole game.

“I think we showed some really good fight and resilience in the first set with a strong finish,” Drake said. “The thing that really helped us finish the first set and the last two was staying aggressive. It’s easy to get nervous when the game gets tight and I think we did a good job swinging away in those situations. We’ve been focusing on playing fearlessly and it really showed up for us this weekend.”

Hillsdale led the second set 23-22 with blocks from junior Emory Braswell and sopho -

more Jenna Southland, but Northwood scored the final three points taking the set 2523.

The Chargers were even more in control of the third set, leading 22-18, but with a late rally the Timberwolves took another match scoring the final eight points of the set, yet again winning 25-23.

In the fourth set, Hillsdale was at one point trailing the Timberwolves 24-23 and scored the last three points taking a 26-24 victory, forcing the match into a fifth set.

According to head coach Chris Gravel, sophomore Caroline Lanicek was a big help in the fourth-set win.

“The key play in set four when Caroline got a kill to stop Northwood from winning the match was a big kill,” Gravel said.

The Chargers seized control

of the fifth set immediately with a 5-1 run that included kills by junior Molly Kennedy, sophomore Hannah Baker, and Lanicek. The Chargers finished the match with a block by Kennedy and Drake to take a 15-9 set victory, winning the whole match.

The third set was a small setback for the Chargers, but they channeled the aggressive

energy they started with into the last two sets, according to sophomore Ellie Fles.

“I think we had a positive intensity going into the last two sets that came from working as hard as we could for the person next to us and really celebrating each other’s successes,” Fles said.

Braswell said the team has been working all season to get to this point, and looks forward to making progress every week.

“I’m really proud of our win against Northwood,” Braswell said. “We have been working extremely hard in practice to stay disciplined and that showed in our fight and determination to win on Friday. We still have lots to work on, but it is encouraging to see hard work pay off. We were really able to get our offense running which was very effective.”

Having solidified their spot in the top six in the overall standings in the GMAC, the Chargers will travel to Ohio this week to play Ursuline College Oct. 30, Ashland University Oct. 31, and Lake Erie College Nov. 1.

"Rugby is the good."

Senior Adi Sysum jumps to spike senior Josie TeSlaa's assist.

Courtesy | Ashley Van Hoose

stacle

trunk.

The club Rugby team poses with Dr. Arnn after their win.

Courtesy | Jeremy Jones

Senior Emory Braswell prepares for a hit.

Courtesy | Ashley Van Hoose

Iris Litley and her father, Ryan, dressed as Ghostbusters. James Joski | Collegian

Demetrius Mekas as the Eye of Sauron, and his father, Andrew. James Joski | Collegian

Culture

'Looking for Light’: Finding art in everyday life

By Lauren Bixler

AssistA nt Editor

You might recall walking past a portrait of Pat and Lesley Sajak in the lobby of Kendall Hall, or of a girl practicing her violin in the echoey halls of Howard Music Hall. If neither of these are familiar, maybe the painting of the Founding Fathers on the cover of the U.S. Constitution Reader jogs your memory. They all have one thing in common: Sam Knecht.

“I find inspiration for my art every day — almost every moment. I’m constantly aware of my surroundings, the scenes and people in them,” Knecht said. “Often I contemplate how what I’ve noticed might work as a painting.”

Much of Knecht’s art captures the Hillsdale spirit because he knows Hillsdale.

On the opening night of his gallery, crowds of fellow pro-

support his show. I was able to meet some of the alumni that Professor Knecht taught during his 40 years of teaching at Hillsdale College,” junior and art major Maria Grazia Stroik said. “It was beautiful to see these reunions take place and see how tight-knit the art department is, bringing together the past and present art students in the celebration of a professor who poured so much energy into building the art department we see today.”

Some of the most gripping pieces in Knecht’s collection

fessors and friends filled the entryway of the Fine Arts Building. The parking lot was so full that a line of parked cars formed along the sidewalk next to Niedfeldt Residence.

“My favorite part of the gallery opening was meeting the large range of Hillsdale community that came out to

Currently displayed in the Daughtery Art Gallery until Friday, Nov. 21, the exhibit “Looking for Light” features the many works of Knecht — an emeritus professor of art who chaired the college’s art department for 34 years — containing portraits from former Presidnent of Hillsdale College Ransom Dunn to Knecht’s friend Henry Packer, and to sights familiar to Hillsdalians and Michiganders alike.

are his portraits. The individual hairs on someone’s head, the smooth transition between a cheek and a nose, or the folds of a button-up shirt — the intricacy is beautiful. He uses media such as watercolor, oil on linen, and egg tempera to build the different textures that form these images.

“‘Blue Door’ is an egg tem-

pera painting of my friend Henry Packer. He lives a simple existence ‘off the grid’ in the country,” Knecht said. “While portraying him I took advantage of the benefits of egg tempera, which is well-suited to fine line detail. It’s a runny form of paint that dries very quickly, thus allowing a buildup of lots of detailed strokes. It’s great for all kinds of interesting textures.”

Associate Professor of Art Anthony Frudakis, who met Knecht 34 years ago, said Knecht’s technique is one of the reasons why he was such a valuable professor and colleague.

“Sam was indispensable to the art department for decades,” Frudakis said. “He gained respect from all of his colleagues for the breadth and skill of his knowledge in teaching and in his paintings. And when we say paint, we’re not just talking about oils, but we’re also talking about watercolor and egg tempera. Each one of these is a specialty unto its own.”

Junior and art major Nora Shipp shared the same per-

spective as Frudakis, but with a student’s eye.

“He clearly has a very good technique, which is what Hillsdale really emphasizes in the art department — having the ability to capture life around us — I think that’s a really special thing and it comes through very clearly in his paintings,” Shipp said.

Although Knecht may view the world through the vision of an artist, not everyone else does. For those who may not be artistically inclined, he said there is still a way they can adopt an artist’s eye.

“I recommend looking at a scene, or a person, and tune in to shapes and colors. Even noticing empty spaces can be a delight,” Knecht said. “It can be like noticing pearl drops of sunlight popping through tree foliage, or the tilt or turn of a friend’s head during conversation.”

This sort of vision brings new life to the same objects, a theme in Knecht’s art that Shipp pointed out.

“What’s really struck me is how he has a lot of paintings that are of the same place, and

you can see the little changes that he makes in the light quality or the time of year that they’re done,” Shipp said. “And so that’s interesting to see ways artists bring different, unique life to the same subject matter.”

Frudakis said Knecht’s relentlessness inspires artists to create with the same fervor over decades.

“It’s inspiring to see in Sam this continued search for beauty through his work. I haven’t seen any let-up in that energy and passion in his work for all the time I’ve known him up till the present day. That is a remarkable accomplishment,” Frudakis said. “It inspires the rest of us young fellows like me who are only 72.”

Even though Knecht is retired from teaching, he said he does not intend to retire his paintbrush.

“I have no plans to stop painting,” Knecht said. “I’m blessed with very good health and look forward to at least a decade or two involved with painting. I’m just getting started and have lots to explore.”

Hillsdale College Symphony Orchestra performs for parents weekend

By Lilly Faye Kraemer

More than 72 student musicians and two student vocalists from the Hillsdale College Symphony Orchestra packed the stage of Christ Chapel on Oct. 25. The audience listened to pieces from the Romantic era selected by Professor of Music James Holleman. Romantic music is best known for its rich harmonies, dramatic climaxes, and nationalistic melodies embedded in each piece. The concert’s repertoire included two works by German composers: “Lohengrin: Prelude to Act III” by Richard Wagner and excerpts from the opera “Hansel and Gretel” by Engelbert Humperdinck. Holleman chose “Symphony No. 2 in D Major” by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius to conclude the concert.

“We had more rehearsals for this concert than we will for the next one, so I was able to pick heavier music,” Holleman said. “I do ask the students what excites them. I don’t take requests, but I do love their suggestions, and Sebelius came up a lot. It’s one of my favorites.”

The concert was nearly two hours long and featured student vocalists senior Rachel Dunphey and senior Sophia LaBonte during the “Abendsegen” except for “Hansel and Gretel.”

“The human voice always brings in a deeper emotional element,” said senior Alya MacManaway, who attended the performance. “Of course, the orchestra sets the scene, but when you hear the human voice it just touches your heartstrings in a different way.”

The “Hansel and Gre -

tel” excerpts were a favorite of Kevin Franco, a sec

lots of recurring themes. The instrumentation is ex

“It’s a great Romantic motivic work with

ing to Holleman, it is a joint effort to bring these

challenging pieces to life during rehearsal. Holleman also said that in the orchestra there are only 10 music majors, while the rest of the musicians play in the orchestra as an elective.

“Everyone practices the pieces on their own so we are able to get better a lot quicker,” freshman and trumpet player Samuel Goetz said. “It’s nice just being able to get in there and play a piece.”

Holleman credits the orchestra’s sound to the students.

“These students just lift me,” Holleman said. “They energize me, they rock my world. They’re just amazing.”

In terms of technical difficulty, “Lohengrin,” by Wagner, was the most complex because of the sheer number of notes, according to Franco.

“The ranges of all the instruments are pushed to their

limits, so the cellos, for example, have to go much higher than they normally do,” Franco said. “The low brass has to be much more nimble, its notes are faster than they normally are. It’s a professional grade repertoire.”

The orchestra received a standing ovation when the final notes settled from Sibelius’s “Symphony No. 2.”

“For the strings, the winds and the brass to play the repertoire we played tonight at this level, I hope people understand how special and difficult it is to put an orchestra on stage and play this consistently,” Holleman said. “I’m absolutely over the moon thrilled right now.”

Sam Knecht uses

“Blue Door (Henry Packer),” egg tempera on panel, by Sam Knecht. Ty Ruddy | Collegian

“Sixth Street Afternoon, Calumet, Michigan (plein air),” oil on linen, by Sam Knecht. Ty Ruddy | Collegian

The orchestra takes in the applause. Lilly Faye Kraemer | Collegian

C U L T U R

Forrest Frank: avoiding awards brought undue attention

By Francesca Cella Collegian Repo Rte R

The day before the Gospel Music Association awarded him artist of the year at the Dove Awards Oct. 7, Christian pop artist Forrest Frank posted a video on social media explaining he would not attend upcoming award shows because he does not want the worldly recognition for worship music.

“I’m convicted, personally, that a line I can draw is that I will not receive a trophy for something that is from Jesus and for Jesus,” Frank said in the video.

Frank’s commitment to glorify Christ rather than himself is inspiring, but he should glorify Christ by using his gifts and accepting their rewards.

Deciding not to participate in awards has the opposite effect: He has drawn more attention to himself with his absence from the Dove Awards ceremony and his series of posts about why he will no longer participate.

Although unintentional, this should encourage Frank to be more careful how he uses his platform, even when spreading the faith. The role of a Christian artist is to spread the Gospel with his work, but it’s dangerous to post personal convictions to 6.3 million followers about how you avoid glory and make donations. It turns a personal conviction into a sermon and makes a show of humility.

Many fellow award nominees commented on Frank’s Instagram post, praising his decision and willingness to follow his personal conviction. But country rap artist Jelly Roll criticized Frank in an Instagram comment. “[He] won’t receive [a] trophy for something from Jesus for Jesus, but will take the profits from something from Jesus for Jesus,” Jelly Roll said. “Maybe I’m missing something here lol.”

After news outlets such as Fox News, The New York Post, and People featured stories about Frank’s decision not

to participate and Jelly Roll’s subsequent comments, Frank responded with another video. He said he’s had qualms about profiting from worship music, but justified having a multi-million dollar income by suggesting he donates some of his profit.

“What I do with that money after it legally comes to me I’m never going to tell anybody because your left hand isn’t supposed to know from your right hand,” Frank said. “I might give 90% of my money away, I might give 10% away, or somewhere in between, but y’all are never going to know that.”

What could have been a simple trophy won at the Dove Awards earlier this month became a viral exchange with Jelly Roll and a justification for Frank’s profits. What was a chance for Frank to perform his award-winning worship music and accept this honor became a controversy.

No one would have criticized Frank for attending the Dove Awards. He’s poured

his heart into creating music and has been very successful. While his music is from Jesus, it’s also from Frank using his God-given talents and inspiration.

Now, Dove Awards attendees are responding with explanations of why they participated. Frank placed a negative connotation on attending award shows, and artists want to defend themselves. By saying he wouldn’t take a trophy for music given to him by God, Frank implied receiving such a trophy would be taking credit for the work of God. No Christian artist wants to do that.

The Dove Awards ceremony is the wrong place to protest receiving a trophy. It doesn’t feature the provocative fashion show of the Grammy Awards. Instead, it displays classy performances of Christian music artists and stirring speeches of thanks to God. Frank gave the same kind of speech — he just set himself apart by doing it on Instagram and protesting the praise.

‘Tron: Ares’ is strange and unsatisfying

By Jayden Jelso Collegian Repo Rte R

Disney is back with another installment in the “Tron” franchise, but this time, it didn’t quite deliver.

“Tron: Ares” hit the big screen Oct. 10, debuting with a measly $33.5 million at the box office in its first weekend. It is set to lose Disney $132 million overall, according to Deadline, a Hollywood entertainment magazine.

Years after the events of 2010’s cult-classic, “Tron: Legacy,” this third installment follows an AI program — named Ares — that serves the villainous

Dillinger (Evan Peters), the CEO of Dillinger Systems. Eventually, Ares gains human-like emotions and turns on Dillinger. Ares spends the rest of the movie protecting Eve Kim (Greta Lee), the heroine and leader of Encom, a rival tech-company.

The main problem with the film is familiarity. There are already multiple movies with an AI model gaining human consciousness and going rogue. We see this in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Mission: Impossible,” and “Ex Machina.” Additionally, there were no fresh takes on the modern conversation surrounding AI. Instead, the filmmakers chose to say the same thing others already have — if AI becomes too self-aware, bad things will happen.

The AI-going-rogue trope is so tired at this point that audiences expect it. As such, “Tron: Ares” is very predictable and there aren’t many surprises. It is easy to guess what will happen in the story 30 minutes before it does. This also means the action scenes are easy to yawn at, despite having good camera-work and decent choreography.

Jared Leto’s performance as the titular character, Ares, is dry and uninteresting, and his attempts at conveying emotion aren’t believable. At one point, he tries to sacrifice himself for Eve, and though the music swells dramatically, the audience can’t help but laugh at Leto’s blank expression.

Greta Lee’s portrayal of Eve is also dull. Her character is driven by the desire to honor her late sister, and though this is good ground on which to set a character arc, nothing really comes of it. The friendship between her and Ares is uncomfortable, as the audience can’t help but wonder if she, a human, is romantically drawn to Ares, a cluster of pixels. They do not end up in a romantic relationship, but one can’t help but raise an eyebrow.

One of the most interesting parts of the “Tron” franchise is its setting, a digital world called The Grid. This movie severely underuses it, and though “Legacy” built a setting that felt both tangible and aesthetically unique, its portrayal in

“Ares” fell flat. There are a couple of action scenes that take place inside of The Grid, but its design is no more interesting than an everyday WiFi router.

Perhaps the most popular and recognizable element of “Legacy” is its score. Daft Punk crafted a soundtrack that cemented them as genre-defining composers for science fiction, masterfully blending synth and orchestra. Because the duo broke up in 2021, Disney hired Nine Inch Nails to compose “Ares,” and its score isn’t half of what Daft Punk created in 2010. Oftentimes, NIN’s score sounds more like nails on a chalkboard than it does music. The soundtrack is barely playable on its own, another difference from the endlessly repeatable score in “Legacy.” Additionally, there isn’t a scene in “Ares” that doesn’t have music, and that’s to its detriment, as it makes supposedly calm scenes feel chaotic. Even in scenes that attempt to evoke silence, a synthy screech plays in the background.

Though the majority of the film is flawed, there are some upsides. Evan Peters’ portrayal of Julian Dillinger is the most interesting part of the movie. His performance as a young but deranged CEO is suspenseful. The film even has references to Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” connecting its philosophical themes into Peters’ character — he is a naive young man who creates something he ultimately can’t control, and the consequences catch up to him.

Despite a few good elements, “Tron: Ares” is an unsatisfying attempt at a franchise reboot. At this point, it’s better for Disney to leave The Grid and pursue other sci-fi avenues.

Lambert hosts poetry night at Sohn Residence

By Anna Stirton Collegian Repo Rte R

Women of all years filled the Sohn Residence lobby Oct. 20, curled up on couches, perched on armrests, and sitting cross-legged on the floor listening intently to Assistant Professor of English Christina Lambert read and explore pieces by one of her favorite poets: Denise Levertov. This is the second year Sohn has hosted a poetry night with Lambert in fulfillment of the dorm academic event requirement.

“Even though it was our academic event, it was something more cozy and communal,” said senior Emily Schutte, head resident assistant of Sohn. The event attracted more people than expected, Schutte said. Many women from dorms other than Sohn attended, including freshmen.

“I was really impressed by how much the freshmen at the event spoke up and seemed passionate about the subject,” sophomore and Sohn resident assistant Lucy Jansen said.

Lambert said she first encountered Levertov while studying for her comprehensive exams in graduate school, and has since fallen in love with her work. Lambert taught a 400-level English seminar on Levertov last spring, and she is currently working on publishing a book on Levertov and T.S. Eliot.

“My whole world is Levertov right now,” Lambert said. But her extensive expertise on this poet was not the only reason Lambert chose to bring the poet’s work to Sohn.

“These poems are accessible and hospitable in a way that we can gather and read them on a Monday night without a lot of background,” Lambert said. “I think the most import-

ant thing events like this allow for is that you don’t associate the act of reading poetry with school and assignments, but that you understand that it’s an activity of leisure.”

Lambert’s opening question set the tone for the evening: “What is the relationship between the imagination and the Christian faith?”

Under Lambert’s direction and using Levertov’s words as a guide, students discussed how poetry can be a catalyst to both prayer and knowledge of the faith. Within her poem “What The Figtree Said,” Levertov describes Christ as “the Poet who speaks in images.” Lambert said poetry can be an instance of God using what we love to draw the soul closer to himself.

“That was really poignant to talk about, because it can sometimes feel as though the world of imagination is not necessarily evil but not

Frank said he didn’t intend to elicit such a dramatic response, and was surprised by people’s reactions.

“I posted my personal conviction and it triggered a lot of people,” Frank said. “I had no idea that was going to happen.”

It seems like Frank has scruples about the life of a Christian music artist and feels a tension between his desire to be humble and his desire to do his job well. Frank’s decision not to attend the Dove Awards satisfied neither: he received more attention and didn’t perform his art. Frank was so concerned about avoiding glory that he drew himself more into the public eye.

Pranks from A1

Senior Joshua Mistry, another Casablanca resident, said Christian issued the men of Tortuga an ultimatum regarding the un-forking of their front yard.

“Aidan told them he would continue to mess with their utilities and other items in their house until they removed the forks from the front yard,” Mistry said. “So they did that, and they put them all in the backyard, and inside the prongs of the forks they wove fake million-dollar bills with Trump’s face on it.”

Senior Joseph Duncan, a resident of Tortuga, said the pranking was motivated by a desire to bring off-campus houses together.

“It’s good for the culture, good for the seniors to get out of their house and still be able to have fun and play with one another even though they’re moving off campus and moving out of college life,” he said.

“We tried to meet their demands. We paid the debt, we cleaned up their front yard, and we’re working on ending world hunger.”

Pranking isn’t only limited to one-time events between off-campus houses.

Senior Jonathan Williams, one of the head resident assistants in Simpson Residence, said pranks have historically been a way to encourage a sense of culture within dormitories. According to Williams, the men at Simpson have a prank battle — they call it the Civil War — every year for just this purpose.

in keeping with the apparent strictness of faith,” Schutte said.

Within some of the selected poems, Levertov uses words to explore well known religious and biblical scenes in an unconventional but revealing light, Lambert said.

“I think that’s the importance of imagination,” Schutte said. “Even though there is one truth, there are multiple means of coming to that same conclusion, including using literature, using poetry, as a means of sparking that.”

Schutte said this poetry night marked the continuation of a tradition they hope to preserve in coming years.

“It was really exciting to see how many people were interested in learning about this topic,” Schutte said. “We really hope to maintain this event as a tradition of something we started.”

“I say Civil War, which can sound really violent, but it’s just all-out chaos; guys are spraying Silly String in each other’s faces, pie-ing guys in the face, or chucking marshmallows at each other,” Williams said. “In order to get ourselves to the point of war, we like to stir the pot with pranks. Guys will take down posters, put up funny memes of each other, put fruit in showers. It’s all fun and games until a prized relic is stolen from either of the head RAs — then war commences.” Williams mentioned a few pranks in particular that stood out to him.

“The funniest thing had to be placing a drop of hot sauce onto the toothbrushes of the south side RAs,” Williams said. “You’re getting ready for bed and out of nowhere your mouth starts flaming up. That’s hilarious. This also happened to some deodorant. Can’t even imagine how bad that was. However, let’s

just say this wasn’t even the most ‘fowl’ prank of the whole week.”

Andrei Olaru, a freshman living on the north side of Simpson, said that he and his fellow Northerners had gone pretty gung-ho with the pranking.

“South side has smashed a couple pumpkins in our rooms,” Olaru said. “It’s their retaliatory measure, often. I think we started the pumpkin-smashing, and they got us back. It’s all in good fun, though; no one has gotten seriously upset about it.”

Senior Nathan Rastovac, another Simpson head RA, said he enjoys seeing Simpson men brought together over the chance to play pranks on other Simpsonites.

“The freshman bonds that you see are from homecoming, inner-dorm pranks, and other events — it’s just one of those aspects that builds the bigger culture as a whole,” Rastovac said.

Although Hillsdalians love a good prank, they can usually tell the difference between being funny and crossing a line, according to junior and head resident assistant of McIntyre Residence Ineka Pastermack.

“Pranks in general can be taken too far, but I don’t necessarily see that happening here,” Pastermack said. “The pranks are always harmless and funny, and I think honestly most of them are tastefully done.”

Pastermack said that beyond being funny, she has found that pranks have strengthened her friendships.

“We do take things quite seriously here,” Pastermack said. “It’s made a lot of other people laugh, and that’s good, because we shouldn’t be taking ourselves too seriously. It’s a good reminder that life is too short to be boring.”

Mistry said that Tortuga and Casablanca’s pranking is well-intentioned and a good way to maintain connection between the two houses.

“Most of the guys that live there are people who we’ve known since we were freshmen, so they’re some of our closest friends,” he said. “When you’re in a dorm, you become friends with a lot of the people you live with, and then when you’re off campus or in the Suites or something like that, you’re farther from them, you’re not seeing them every day, and pranking is a fun way to reengage with that.”

“But,” Mistry added, “I guarantee that within the next six or seven days, Tortuga will feel the gentle and proportional wrath of Casablanca.”

Julian

Forrest Frank during his first headlining tour in Sept. 2024. Courtesy | Observatory North Park Instagram

The poster for “Tron: Ares.” Courtesy | IMDb

The Demons of Donnybrook

‘Our roommate went and grabbed his holy water.’

hear voices, and got super paranoid about the house, and then he’d snap,” Martin said. “He would take all the glasses on the table and start throwing them against the walls, breaking them.”

Johnson and Martin said the same roommate would take loaves of bread and shred them around the house while they studied.

“It was insanely disturbing, there was nothing funny about it,” Martin said.

down to the basement, where this room was,” Johnson said.

As they crept downstairs, they decided to check the lock on the back door. The smell of sulfur grew stronger as they descended, and Martin slowly reached for the door handle.

“DJ was right behind me, I went up to the door to make sure it was locked,” Martin said. “I was looking out the window of the door, and there was nothing out there. Then, sure enough, a loud bang hits on the window.”

structed them to go to bed, saying they were just spooked.

“We went upstairs but then we went back downstairs,” Martin said. “Our roommate who was studying was now upright in blankets on the couch with a violin bow in his hand, staring straight forward, looking terrified. He looks at us and says, ‘I can hear the windows, they have been opening and closing.’”

the door to the garage. The metal shed just flew open with a huge bang. Inside the door was just blackness. And all three of us just froze and watched the door, waiting for something to come out.”

Martin said they were paralyzed with fear and wanted to find out what had caused the door to open.

By Anna Broussard Design Editor

The heavy metal door flung open with a bang, and three roommates huddled 20 feet away. They edged up to the door and found nothing inside, nothing to explain how the door into the garage had flown open.

Martin described an evening where the roommate said he needed to talk with him but began acting erratically. According to Martin, the roommate then locked himself in his room for three days, chain-smoking cigarettes, wearing a black suit, red tie, and fingerless gloves.

They jolted and looked out, but nothing was out there.

The fear was tangible, Martin and Johnson said. They got their roommate to go outside and investigate.

“We went outside — you

“The basement looks back at you. The shadows are watching you.”

“DJ went inside, got a flashlight, came back to us, and it took us 15 minutes to inch our way up to this door,” Martin said. “We finally get to the door, and we shine the flashlight in there — nothing. There was nothing in there, but it was unbelievable the way the door just flew open.”

“Do not take your eyes off that door,” a roommate whispered in the darkness to Luke Martin ’17 and David Johnson ’17. They stood facing the door outside of the garage at the then-off-campus house, Donnybrook.

Martin and Johnson currently run the band “Lost Mary,” which has 155,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Their song “Donnybrook” was written about the haunting memories of living in the house.

In 2016, Martin and Johnson were living in Donnybrook for their junior year. The house, which has since been demolished, had a legend of one room in the basement where multiple people had gone insane.

“It’s the basement room, and there’ve been multiple cases of people who’ve stayed in that room, and have gone crazy: schizophrenic and paranoid,” Martin said. “The older Donnybrook generations were into weird things. One of them drew pentagrams in one of the closets. There was another guy who was a selfclaimed pagan and would worship the tree in the back.”

Prior to living there, Martin and Johnson were unaware of the oddities that had occurred at Donnybrook in the years past.

“People would say ‘Did you know Donnybrook is haunted?’” Johnson said. “At the time, it was kind of cool and creepy. But then one of our housemates, who was living in that basement room, started snapping.” Martin interrupted: “He started to tell us he would

“There was something very demonic about it,” Martin said.

The following weeks, Johnson, Martin, and their seven other roommates devised a plan to remove the roommate from Donnybrook.

“We knew we had to get this guy out of the house. We

called it the fourweek plan,” Martin said. After they had succeeded and the room mate had moved out of Donny brook, Martin said it soon became evi dent there was some thing else going on.

“I was in Johnson’s room, and it was probably 12 a.m.,” Martin said. “We heard a gunshot in the distance. So we turned off the lights, looked outside, and didn’t see anything. DJ [John son] then goes downstairs to get some water, and he comes back up into the room, and he says, ‘Dude, I smell sulfur in the house.’” Johnson said the two went to the living room to investi gate.

“Our buddy was there studying and then we went

“It felt like all of my guts were just coming out,” Johnson said.

Martin recounted the moment he realized something was not right.

“I turned around, DJ looked at my face and I had gone pale white because something hit the door, but

grabbed your baseball bat,” Martin said, indicating Johnson. “I grabbed my buck knife, and our roommate grabbed a samurai sword. We went outside and we started inching our way around the side of the house, and we got to the edge on the other side of the garage. All three of us are stand-

Johnson said they were trying not to think it was paranormal, and they tested the door to see if the wind caused it to swing open.

“We’re trying to be super rational,” Johnson said. “We were like, ‘Was it the wind?’ ‘was it just something weird?’ We were feeling the door to see how heavy it was, how quickly it swung, and how loud the bang had been.” At that point, Martin said, it all began to feel

“Our roommate went and grabbed his holy water,” he said. “We went to each individual room of the house, saying his Latin prayers and sprinkling holy water in each and

The three roommates made their way through the entire house, and they finally came to the basement room where their former roommate had

“We opened the door, turned on the light, there were flies everywhere,” Martin said. “But it was January and there

Martin said they quickly sprinkled the room with holy water and left the room. They did not enter

In the following weeks, seven of the eight roommates experienced sleep paralysis.

“I experienced it, too,” Martin said. “One roommate would wake up and he would see this other kid standing over his bed, and he couldn’t move, stuck in sleep paralysis.” Another roommate, Andrew Kern ’18, said his sleep paralysis would happen at the same time as his roommate that shared his room.

“We would have dreams where we had the same dream at the same time,” Kern said. “We were both in the dream, and we were both being attacked by a demon. I remember sitting up in my bed and, gasping for air, and then over in his bed, seeing him sit up and ask, ‘Did you see that?’”

Without a doubt, the basement was haunted, Kern said.

“The basement looks back at you,” Kern said. “The shadows are watching you. You’d hear windows opening and closing by themselves. There’d be footsteps when nobody’s there. If you went out in the woods — just everywhere you went, the shadows were watching you. There was definitely a very palpable darkness.”

When their junior year ended, Martin and Johnson attempted to forget the haunting memories of Donnybrook, but it has since been difficult to forget entirely.

“Before he moved out of the house, the roommate stayed in the garage for a few days,” Johnson said. “The lyrics ‘The Devil’s next door in the cabin cell’ were because of that.”

The song, which has more than 370,000 streams on Spotify, was a way for them to move on from the experience, Johnson said.

“Think of a friend of yours, if they started acting incrementally stranger and stranger,” Johnson said. “You know something’s going on, you might even get used to it, but at some point it gets abnormal.”

Best and worst Halloween candy? The Collegian weighs in

Big candy is the best candy

Catherine Maxwell | Senior Editor

Fake strawberry over fake chocolate

Candy is evil, with few exceptions

Lewis Thune | Assistant Editor

Alessia Sandala | City News Editor Worst Best Best Worst Best Worst

Whatever candy you buy, buy it big: full-sized Twizlers, standard Reeses’s Cups, sharing-size Snickers. If you’re not experiencing a sugar rush (or a sugar crash) by the end of the night, you’re doing it wrong. Variety is also important. Packets of Sour Patch Kids or boxes of NERDS can balance out chocolate or make up for the lack of a giant Hershey bar. Options are better, but it doesn’t have to be perfect — there’s at least one person on campus who’ll eat that questionable Whopper. Ultimately, be generous with the candy. No one wants to walk away from a front door or a party with a single piece of stale bubblegum. Shower your friends with sugar, and let them figure out the rest.

When costumed children are doorknocking for Halloween treats, the worst trick to receive is a bite-sized candy bar.

There’s a time and place for the one cubic-inch Milky Way, but it’s not a pumpkin basket on Oct. 31. Tiny chocolates are perfect for a quick sugar spike or a sweet treat for the guilty-minded, but they’re an insult to the spirit of the evening.

This year, bite-sized candy should bite the dust.

When Halloween rolls around each year, hundreds of types of candy come to mind. But one candy stands out from all the rest: the strawberry Laffy Taffy, the perfect mixture of delicious, artificial strawberry flavor and satisfying chewiness. A strawberry Laffy Taffy is a joyful experience, with its bright pink wrapper and iconic jokes under the flap on the wrapper. It’s an opportunity to set your siblings up for disappointment from a cheesy dad joke, while you struggle to eat the sticky candy without getting it stuck in your braces or getting a cavity. Each piece is wrapped in humor and brings laughter to a night meant for fear.

Then there’s the Hershey bar. It’s the king of Halloween, but still goes down as the worst candy. As a Pennsylvanian, even I am forced to admit Hershey bars are the most basic candy. Yes, they’re an American classic, but the overly sweet chocolate, with its unique tang that gives it a somewhat sour flavor, leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Hershey bars are the unsalted french fries of the trick-ortreating world. They’re chalky, dry, and lifeless. Hershey bars have remained the same for as long as anyone can remember, and when you reach into your candy bag only to find a Hershey bar, disappointment is the only proper reaction.

There are two tests to consider with candy. The first: Can this wholly unreasonable dose of sugar justify itself with an interesting medium or flavor? The second: Is it honest about its answer to the first test? Very few Halloween candies in both the chocolate and non-chocolate categories can satisfactorily pass these tests. Thus, very few are worth your time and money. Chocolate candy greatly improves when frozen — especially 100 Grand, the most interesting, and M&M’s, the most honest. With non-chocolates, Lifesavers pass with flying colors. They are properly fruit-tasting and packaged conscious of the fact that they exist solely for a sugar hit. The same goes for Dum-Dums, an appropriately small sucker in many flavors.

No amount of freezing, however, can save the unappealing Heath bar — I hate toffee — or redeem the 3 MUSKETEERS bar, a compulsive liar among chocolates, which is little more than whipped sugar. Also steer clear of Laffy Taffy, which is an insult to both laughter and taffy. Many among us will extol HiChews, Werther’s, and Swedish Fish. To this I respond: We’re college students, you aristocrats! Celebrate Halloween accordingly. Who can even afford those?

Donnybrook was torn down over the summer.

Courtesy | Daniel Doyle

Students exchange textbooks for oven mitts in preparation for Maker’s Market

By Lauren Bixler Assistant Editor

While munching on Meckley’s donuts and sipping Checker Records coffee, families made their way through this year’s Maker’s Market, included in Parents Weekend festivities for the first time.

The Student Activities Board combined the sixth annual Maker’s Market with Fall Fest, an event which always aligns with the fall semester Parents Weekend. This partnership worked well for the community and the business, according to senior and cookie vendor Mary Boudreaux.

“It was super fun to see all of the parents and siblings come,” Boudreaux said. “I think it was a great idea to combine it with Parents Weekend and Fall Fest so that family members could get a sense of the college community.” Tables of student wares lined the South Quad. A notable stop along the way was senior Rachel Moeller’s tastefully arranged art display. The table showcased charcoal drawings, watercolor postcards of vege tables, small paint ings, and a book of her sketches, all alongside her decor — a tin of watercolor paints, small tubes of paint in a “Lemon Tea” box, and the antique tissue box that serves as her artist toolbox. This was her first time selling at Maker’s Market, but the promise of profit was a secondary goal to sharing her artwork.

you can capture in a painting, and seeing life from almost an external perspective helps you to appreciate it more,” Moeller said.

Many of Moeller’s pieces for sale showcased the beauty of everyday things, such as the fine lines of a friend’s face, the front of her home, or gourds from the Hillsdale farmer’s market. She said most of her artwork, though, was not made in tentionally for the event — she curated a few watercolor postcards for her audience, but she went in with few expectations to sell anything.

would actually wear, and that are a little more subtle. So when somebody asks you, ‘What does that shirt mean,’ you’d be like, ‘Oh, it’s based on this Bible verse,’ which can maybe lead into some evange -

is, I see a lot of AI-generated or stock imagery that people put on shirts to sell. And I really don’t like it. It looks very cheap,” Wood said. “Another part of why I hand draw it is creation for the glory of God and

“I’ve been crocheting for a few years, and it is just a hobby. Honestly, I sell them because I end up with an army of mini stuffed animals that I have nothing to do with,” White said.

“Even though I’m entrepreneurial in a way, I was very thoughtful in the way I put together my design and put together my stand,” Moeller said. “I was praying before this, and I was like, ‘If I sell one work, God, I’m happy with that.’ That honestly makes me very pleased, and I’ve sold more than that. And hon estly, that’s another stop along the Maker’s Market, sophomore Gabrielle Wood showcased shirts from her business, Cloud Creations. Wood hand-designed the 100% cotton, Comfort Colors shirts with phrases such as “The Lord Will Provide” and verses such as John 15:5 and Ephesians 6:1617. Wood crafts and designs her products with the intention to add more options for young Christians seeking faithful attire, she said.

“I love the beauty of simple things, everyday things, the beauty of creation, the beauty of life, and the little moments that

“I want to create Christian shirts that don’t look tacky and corny and that people our age

tion to the spiritual value of the shirts, Wood said she uses her strength as an artist to create her de-

that way.” Adding to the lineup of Maker’s Market, baked goods and trinkets exhibited the niche interests and hobbies of nior Anna White

are hand-drawn and hand-designed. The philosophy behind drawing my own shirts

scribed her “army” of crocheted animals that she has sold at the market for years.

In preparation for Maker’s Market, White said she ramps up crochet production, but she is usually already working through one or two projects at a time during her regular class load. Although she enjoys crocheting plushies, the joy of Maker’s Market comes from something more, she said.

“What I enjoy over the years is when people I have sold to before come back and say, ‘Oh, I recognize that, I bought that this many years ago and I still use it.’ So that’s really fun to know that people remember I do this and are still getting joy out of it,” White said.

A corridor of the market hosted the Hillsdale Homestead and artis anal baked goods.

Boudreaux

Mary Margaret Maleski displayed trays of about 300 cook ies, with both regu lar, gluten, and dairy-free options. They served free samples of an herbal tea, which they said paired nicely with their array of sprinkled sugar cookies, chocolate chunk cookies, and iced pumpkin cookies.

“Mary Margaret is a very organized person and had all of the recipes and respective pricing planned out in advance, which definitely helped. We decided to make all of the cookie dough ahead of time and freeze it, so that we could work

around our schedules and not have to try to make everything at the last second,” Boudreaux said. “The morning of Maker’s Market, we started baking and decorating cookies at 10 a.m. and worked all the way up until 2:30 p.m. or so.”

The pair decided to sell cookies for fun — they often bake in Dow Residence, so Maker’s Market gave them the chance to do something they love, with a slight entrepreneurial gain, Boudreaux said.

“Obviously, both of us wanted to make some money, but I’m a bit of a weirdo and actually really enjoy anything related to customer service, so I was honestly mainly there just for the fun of selling things,” Boudreaux said.

Whether at the market for purely making a profit, or just for the opportunity to participate in a hobby, Moeller said vendors should utilize the opportunity to build their character and put themselves out there.

“I think it’s really important for students who have creative talents to share their gifts with the world and be okay with being vulnerable with their work,” Moeller said. “It doesn’t always matter whether or not you sell something — sometimes it’s for you, and it’s a matter of you growing in confidence with your own work.”

Quick Hits with Rebekah Bollen features

Compiled by Jayden Jelso Collegian Reporter

In this Quick Hits, Dean of Women Rebekah Bollen discusses the Upper Peninsula, Dean of Men Aaron Petersen, and popcorn with peanut butter M&Ms

What is the strangest food you’ve ever eaten?

Haggis in Scotland stands out as one of the most memorable things I’ve eaten, and one I’d prefer not to repeat.

Where are you from, and what’s the best thing about home?

I was born and raised in Wilmington, Ohio, in the country on a small hobby farm. All of my extended family lived in the same town, which I knew was special growing up, and I’ve only grown in gratitude for the opportunity to have such a close-knit family. Home has always been and will always be one of my favorite places.

What is your favorite movie and why?

“Far and Away.” This is purely a nostalgic pick. I can still remember watching it for the first time on a family vacation.

The lead character’s love of the land always tugs at my heart. To quote a line from the opening scene: “Without land, a man is nothing. Land is a man’s very own soul.”

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

If I had to venture a guess, I imagine I will be planning another bucket list trip with my husband, perhaps finally checking off Antarctica, working for the college, trying a new creative hobby, and tending to rows and rows of beautiful flowers growing on a piece of land in the country.

If you could listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?

How is this the hardest question!? Can I pick silence? I love music, but I find that I choose silence more and more with each passing year. I love all that you can notice in life when there isn’t a constant playlist in the background.

What is an accomplishment you’re most proud of?

I’ve visited 28 countries since graduating college, and that number and all the memories

it represents always reminds me of a journey in my 20s and 30s that I’m proud of. Recently, I completed my first throughhike on the Pictured Rocks Trail in the Upper Peninsula, covering 20 miles on day one. It pushed me physically in a new way and was a fun challenge.

What appealed to you about the dean of women job?

I began my career at the college as the director of student activities, and I quickly fell in love with the daily contact with students, faculty, and staff. The work is challenging, dynamic, and full of purpose. The mis-

sion and the people drew me to the work, but it is my conviction that daily service to our campus, particularly to the women of the campus, is one of the most important ways I can spend my days.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve received?

Though it has been several decades since I was a Hillsdale student, I still recall and sometimes share words of caution from my father. He told me that while college is a great gift, a set of years dedicated to learning, discernment, and preparation, this time focused on the

self is not meant to be selfish. He urged me to be mindful of growing in selflessness, not selfishness. I believe this wisdom applies to many stages of life, not just the college years.

Favorite late-night snack?

Popcorn with Peanut Butter M&Ms.

What is everyday life like working for the college?

No day is ever the same, and the work shifts with the academic seasons. An average day includes four to five hours of meetings with students, a few hours for projects or meetings with staff across different departments, and managing the constant influx of emails. More importantly, the days are often filled with friendship, joy, and energy as we’re surrounded by students and fellow staff who are on mission and grateful to be part of the Hillsdale community.

What was the funniest thing you’ve experienced as the dean of women?

Is there anything funnier than working with Dean Petersen on a daily basis?

What are your favorite fall activities?

Long drives down country roads in the early evening light, coffee shop stops for a seasonal beverage, and hikes with my husband.

Coffee or tea?

I love coffee, though I am becoming quite partial to a good matcha latte.

What encouragement do you have for the freshmen this year?

Create a weekly rhythm of reflection, apply what you learn, and be present each day. “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” —Lamentations 3:22-23

What is a valued lesson you’ve learned as the dean of women?

Surround yourself with honest, godly, and passionate people who will continually challenge you to grow, grieve with you when things are difficult, and always remember to leave time to celebrate both the little and big joys in life. Community matters.

Senior Mary Boudreaux ices pumpkin cookies in the Dow House kitchen. Lauren Bixler | The Collegian

Senior Rachel Moeller with her art pieces. Lauren Bixler | The Collegian

Senior Anna White’s array of crochet plushies. Lauren Bixler | The Collegian

Sophomore Gabrielle Wood’s Cloud Creation t-shirts. Lauren Bixler | The Collegian

Bollen has visited 28 countries since graduating college. Courtesy | Rebekah Bollen