Michigan’s oldest college newspaper
www.hillsdalecollegian.com
Vol. 147 Issue 13 – November 30, 2023
Snow fell in Hillsdale Sunday, Nov. 26, as students returned to campus after Thanksgiving break. Erik TEder | Collegian
New Kappa Alpha Psi chapter to form on campus By Erin Osborne Collegian Reporter Hillsdale College’s department of economics, business, and accounting hopes to start a chapter of the Kappa Alpha Psi business fraternity by the end of the spring semester. “Business is the way that free people take care of themselves and others,” Department Chair and Associate Professor of Economics Charles Steele said. “It’s central to our system of self-government.” The fraternity will be connected to the national Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, and seeks to involve students of all majors in business. In order to be a chapter of the fraternity, Kappa Alpha Psi will have a minimum of 40 members. “A lot of people come here for a more traditional liberal arts education,” Assistant Professor of Business Doug Johnson said. “After they leave
Hillsdale, they may want to go in a different direction, and we want to provide an opportunity for those people to have some experience in business.” Steele said for students who are non-business majors, the fraternity will help with their resumes and allow them to gain experience. “We have really capable people across all majors,” Steele said. “What a business fraternity can do for them is help them get a foot in the door.” It has been more than 10 years since Hillsdale College has had a general business club. The previous club, Students in Free Enterprise, was active in the 2000s. “Students in Free Enterprise changed the name to Enactus, because some of the international chapters didn’t like the phrase ‘free enterprise,’” Steele said. “We now have an accounting club, but it’s very specialized. Praxis is our economics club,
Mark Simon visits campus, speaks on Jimmy Lai’s plight
Mark Simon spoke to the Alexander Hamilton Society during his visit to campus. Courtesy | facebook
By Thomas McKenna Assistant Editor As Jimmy Lai spent his 1,197th day in prison on Nov. 20, his “right-hand man” Mark Simon told Hillsdale faculty why the Hong Kong dissident refused to escape the country before his arrest. “Somebody said to him, ‘Jimmy, why won’t you leave?’” Simon said. “He said, ‘I don’t want my kids to think that for 25 years I drove this thing, pushed this thing along and then all of a sudden, when times get tough, I leave thousands of people in jail.’ He said, ‘I’ve had a good life.’” Before his August 2020 arrest, the pro-democracy activist and media tycoon was pub-
lisher of Apple Daily, a Hong Kong newspaper shut down by Beijing in 2021. Simon was one of his top advisers and a senior executive at Apple Daily. “It’s a blur because this person would be picked up and that person would be questioned,” Simon said. “Three or four hundred cops at least came out to Apple Daily. Jimmy was arrested and paraded around the newsroom in handcuffs.” Simon met with faculty in a private luncheon in the Dow Hotel and Conference Center, sat down with College President Larry Arnn, and spoke to students at the Alexander Hamilton Society.
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but this would also tie Hillsdale to a national organization.” Hillsdale College also has a business honorary, although students are not admitted to the honorary until they are about to graduate. “The professional fraternity is a developmental activity over the course of your time at Hillsdale College,” Johnson said. The new fraternity will host speakers and provide networking opportunities, and students will have the opportunity to participate in business case competitions. “In case competitions, students go and compete with other students to solve business problems,” Steele said. “It provides a great experience in problem solving, professional presentations, and connecting with each other.” Case competitions also allow Hillsdale students to get recognition in the professional world.
“This provides an opportunity for the students, but also exposes people to what Hillsdale has to offer,” Johnson said. “It enhances the reputation of our students.” Steele said students may also do some pro bono work. “We’ll likely be doing some pro bono work in terms of consulting, either for friends of the college or for people here in Hillsdale County,” Steele said. Johnson said the fraternity will meet the desires of the students and enhance the reputation of Hillsdale College’s business students. “What the fraternity ultimately becomes will be determined by the students,” Johnson said. “It’s the students’ organization.” Sophomore and marketing major Summerlin Williams said she sees the fraternity as an opportunity to gain experience for a variety of the fields that she is interested in.
“I came to Hillsdale interested in business, but not sure that I wanted to go into business so this is a great way to see the opportunities in the field,” Williams said. “Having opportunities that will help foster my abilities in business will help me either know how to run my own practice as an ophthalmologist, or be able to completely own and produce my own music and transactions.” Junior and president of Hillsdale College’s American Marketing Association chapter Carlie Steele said she hopes that Kappa Alpha Psi and the American Marketing Association can work together to enhance the abilities of business students. “It’s important for business students not to get pigeonholed into their specific focus,” Steele said. “I think that this will help to round them out, and bring together all of the people in the department and help them to learn about business.”
Metz builds connections with Chick-fil-A By Tayte Christensen Collegian Reporter Hillsdale students may soon eat “Mor Chikin” as Hillsdale College Dining Services works toward bringing Chick-fil-A to campus. Metz Executive Chef Adam Harvey said the dining service’s goal could mean a physical building on campus in the future. “We just want to establish relationships with Chickfil-A,” he said. “Eventually, we want them on campus in some capacity, whether that be an established building or not.” As a company, Metz International’s standing relationship with Chick-fil-A allows it to bring the restaurant’s food to college campuses across the country, said general manager of Hillsdale College Dining Services Jeffery Cassell. “Metz International has a relationship with Chickfil-A,” he said. “That relationship looks different depending on the college. On some campuses, we run Chick-fil-A Express.” While having a brickand-mortar restaurant on Hillsdale’s campus is not an option quite yet, Cassell said Metz will continue to build a relationship with Chick-fil-A.
“Chick-fil-A’s values really align with that of Metz and of the college,” Cassell said. “That is something that is really important to us because if we are going to partner with a company, we want to make sure that we hold similar values and are working to promote the same things.” Chick-fil-A has made frequent appearances this semester in the Knorr Family Dining Room, said Tammy Cole, Metz operations manager. “These Chick-fil-A nights have been happening about every two weeks,” Cole said. “We heard from students that they wanted more options for dining. And at Metz, we wanted to bring in something innovative for students to enjoy.” The next Chick-fil-A night in the dining hall will take place on reading day, Dec. 6, at dinner. Getting these hundreds of Chick-fil-A sandwiches to campus takes some logistical planning, Cole said. “We place an order with Chick-fil-A, and they do two deliveries – one at about 5 p.m. and another at around 7 p.m.,” she said. “There are about 400 sandwiches in each order, so a total of about 800 sandwiches every time.” Outside the dining hall, Cole said Chick-fil-A has made
appearances at various campus sporting events. “It’s been popular,” she said. “We’ve done it in that way in part to get a crowd to come support Hillsdale athletics, and it’s been effective.” Cassell said ultimately, Metz wants to do what it can to best serve Hillsdale students. “It’s all about what Metz can bring to the table,” he said. “We as Metz want to enhance our offerings on campus.” If Metz is able to bring Chick-fil-A to campus in a more permanent way, Cassell said he hopes it would provide students with a feeling of home. “It was brought to my attention that only 17% of Hillsdale’s student population is from Michigan, and Chick-fil-A is hard to find in Michigan,” he said. “That means that all other students are from places where Chick-fil-A has more of a presence. For these students, Chick-fil-A is like a taste of home, and we want to be able to bring that to them as much as we can.” Cassell said the Chick-fil-A nights in the dining hall will continue despite the cost of the events. “It’s not cheap,” he said. “My debit card hurts twice a month now. But we’ve heard good student feedback, and we are going to continue this.”
Hillsdale expands charter school network By Elyse Apel Digital Editor This year, the Hillsdale K-12 Education program has expanded the schools in its network to 106. As more American K-12 students switch to public charter schools every year, the program continues to grow, said Kathleen O’Toole, assistant provost for K-12 Education. “We are growing every day due to an overwhelming amount of interest in quality K-12 education and the work of Hillsdale College,” O’Toole said. “We get calls and emails nearly every day with the same encouraging request ‘I want to start a classical school in my community, can you help?’ We answer this question with a resounding yes.” The K-12 Education program partners, at no cost, with charter schools around the nation to bring a classical education curriculum to students and training for teachers and school leaders. College President Larry Arnn said it is important to remember that schools are local and should be controlled locally. “The overarching thing wrong with most things the government does is centralization. The national government cannot be good at controlling everything. Local things are better locally controlled,” Arnn said. “Schools are very much local in their nature. Chief authority in them should be in the schools, where the teachers and the parents are gathered with children.” Charter schools and the K-12 Education program helps students achieve a deeper education, Arnn said. “Everybody there has responsibility for something they have a keen interest in achieving,” Arnn said.
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