(Anders Kiledal/Collegian)
Freshmen raise the bar
4% transfer students
(Carsten Stann/Collegian)
Michigan’s oldest college newspaper Breana Noble Assistant Editor
Admission to Hillsdale is more competitive than ever, and the class of 2019 faced the highest odds of being accepted than any other class currently on campus. The acceptance rate dropped six points from last year’s to 49 percent, as the college had almost 100 more applicants, according to Senior Director of Field Recruitment Zachary Miller. “We were more selective in who we admitted and better at the back end of those we thought would eventually matriculate,”
Vol. 139 Issue 1 - 3 Sept. 2015
Miller said. Of the students that were accepted to Hillsdale, 41 percent chose to attend the college, up from last year’s yield rate of 38 percent. “We gave it our best effort in trying to reach those students and help them see, after they’ve been admitted, to see why Hillsdale is a great fit specifically for them,” Miller added. “I think we did a good job, a better job with postadmission recruitment, and that allowed us to be a little more selective on the front end.” While the high school GPA mean remained consistent with the preceding three years at 3.81, the ACT average increased from
Hillsdale to leave GLIAC, join G-MAC
After competing in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference for 42 years, Hillsdale College has decided to leave the conference after the 20162017 academic year. Effective July 1st, 2017, Hillsdale, along with four other GLIAC schools, will join the Great Midwest Athletic Conference. “As a college, we have always been committed to partnering with like-minded institutions,” Director of Athletics Don Brubacher said. “These schools have academic and athletic environments similar to our own, which
INSIDE
(Courtesy of Abi Wood)
Traveling into one of the most dangerous regions discussed in modern news never phased junior Ramona Tausz. When Tausz first heard of the opportunity to earn a summer journalism internship at the Times of Israel, one of the top English-language publications in the multilingual country, she jumped at the chance. With John Miller, director of the Dow Journalism Program, she assembled her application and made plans to spend the summer in a far-away country as the program’s first overseas journalism intern. Tausz wrote and edited as an “Ops & Blogs” intern, living in Jerusalem with Abigail Wood ’14 and taking full advantage of her unique opportunity. Israel’s small size allowed Tausz to visit many
A welcome guide to Hillsdale Mapping off-campus houses and places to study around the campus and community. A3
Chargers ready for kick off Football season begins Saturday night as Hillsdale hosts the University of Findlay at 7 p.m. A6
Hillsdale alumna wins award Jillian Melchior wins fellowship for foreign correspondance. A2
‘Pure Photography’ comes to campus. Syracuse University art exhibit offers chance to debate the nature of photography. A4
(Courtesy of Jillian Melchior)
“Our core focus in what we look for in students hasn’t changed,” Miller said. “Our students remain academically prepared to be successful at Hillsdale, naturally curious, but they’re also involved in their schools and communities. They want to be involved in Hillsdale, and they’re men and women of good character who want to come to Hillsdale for the right reasons.” The faculty are eager to see the impact the freshmen will have on the school as students have already showed interest in being involved on campus following a “great turnout” at The Source on Tuesday, said Anthony Manno, Director of Student Activities.
“They have a diversity of interests and talents that they’re going to bring to campus,” Miller said. The students took a survey following orientation, and while the orientation schedule did not differ much from last year’s, the responses from students were “positive,” according to Miller. Sophomore orientation guide Megan Michaelis told The Collegian, while entering college is a “whirlwind” experience, the freshmen appeared “more relaxed than I think was.” “[They felt] that they’ve been taken care of,” Manno said. “They felt they were welcomed, and that’s a really great compliment.”
A summer among legends
will allow our students to prioritize their studies.” University of Findlay, Lake Erie College, Ohio Dominican University, and Walsh College will also leave the GLIAC in favor of the G-MAC. The GLIAC headquarters provided a prepared statement when asked to comment. “The GLIAC appreciates the contributions made by these institutions throughout the years in making our league one of the top Division II conferences in the country. We look forward to the process of restructuring the GLIAC
See G-MAC A5
tries are represented in the class. Michiganders make up 33 percent of the population and are joined by international students from Australia, Canada, England, Germany, Iceland, and Kenya. While home-schooled students are a larger portion of the class with 16 percent this year, public school students account for a majority at 54 percent of the group. Private school attendees experienced an eight point drop from last year, now down to 30 percent. Transfer students make up 4 percent -- half of last year’s rate. Though the group was selected more acutely, what the admissions office looked for in incoming freshmen remained constant.
Chris McCaffery Columnist
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Stevan Bennett Assistant Editor
29.06 to 29.22, breaking the class of 2018’s bar as having the second highest average. “The decreased acceptance rate and impressive academic profiles of the incoming students point to a strong fit for our campus and classroom,” Associate Dean of Women Rebekah Dell said. “But just as all students who have come before them, this incoming class will have to work hard and apply themselves to truly benefit from their Hillsdale experience.” The only students to have outmatched the current freshmen in this area are those who graduated last May, whose average was 29.32. In total, 41 states and six coun-
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places in the area, such as Nazareth, the West Bank, Jericho, and the Sea of Galilee. Tausz said these locations’ connection to her Christian faith shaped her experience of the land. “As a Christian, it was fascinating to visit the Holy Land and walk in the steps of Christ,” Tausz said. “When you go and visit places like the Western Wall, you want to enter into a historic reverie and join in communion with the generations of people who have been in that place.” Though Jerusalem and the landscape of Israel have been shaped by the centuries since the men described in Christian scripture walked in the city, Tausz learned that the rich tradition acknowledged by the inhabitants makes the accumulated legends and myths of the city alive and active in places like Zion, claimed and fought over by Jews and Christians, or the Temple Mount, in Mus-
lim hands but sacred to the Jews. “The thing you hear all the time in Jerusalem — it’s told constantly — is that it’s a city where ‘the legend is stronger than the fact,’” Tausz said. “It’s the larger reality we have to deal with. They cling to those myths and those legends because they realize that there’s more to truth than mere fact.” Miller said Hillsdale College aims to provide a regular opportunity for a student from the college to intern in Israel under the mentorship of writer and editor Lela Gilbert, who helped Tausz acclimate and settle into Jerusalem this summer. The potentially recurring program was organized by Hillsdale College General Counsel Robert Norton, who acquired funding and contacted Gilbert about her role. Tausz said the summer presented some practical difficulties. Since Hebrew is the native tongue, she
said she found reporting with a language barrier difficult, though working with the opinions section made things easier, and provided the opportunity for a young journalist to engage with the area’s issues and events from the inside. “I got to work with the huge outpouring of submissions following the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” Tausz said. “The outrage following that announcement was just incredible.” Tausz remembers other cultural differences too, such as the harsh memories of the summer of 2014’s Operation Protective Edge, the accompanying missile attacks from the Gaza strip and the common fear of Christian proselytization. “There’s a complex web of different fears, different dreams, different hopes that you sort out when you’re in a journalism position over there,” she said.
‘Twelfth Night’ rehearsals get underway. Professor of Theatre George Angell stages Shakespeare in 18th-century Bermuda. A4
(Anders Kiledal/Collegian)
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