4.21.16 Hillsdale Collegian

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Softball ranked fifth in the midwest The Chargers clinched a spot in the GLIAC tournament and played their final home games of the season. A12

Michigan’s oldest college newspaper

Congressman Walberg Adresses Heroin Epidemic After being labeled as a ‘High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area’ legislators discuss possible soultions. A9

Choir Concert this weekend College and Chamber Choirs will perform at College Baptist Church on Sunday. B1

Vol. 139 Issue 24 - 21 April 2016

www.hillsdalecollegian.com

Land of the gods Collegiate Scholars to travel to Greece—not Turkey Wikimedia Commons | Courtesy

By | Breana Noble Assistant Editor Just 36 days before the Collegiate Scholars program planned to leave for Turkey, it changed the destination of its annual trip for rising seniors to Greece, after the U.S. Mission in Turkey on April 9 released an emergency message concerning the first two places on the itinerary. “There are credible threats to tourist areas, in particular to public squares and docks in Istanbul and Antalya,” the message read. Shortly thereafter, American media picked up the story, and this added to the cause for concern, Collegiate Scholars Director Richard Gamble said. April 9 was also the first day Americans deployed B-52 bombers to Qatar, its first time doing so in the Middle East in 25 years. “The fact that the security message identified especially the waterfront, we spend a lot of time on the waterfront in Istanbul. Istanbul is one the most beautifully situated cities in the world, and Antalya is an amazing Mediterranean port,” Gamble said. “The fact that the warning had become so dire and so specific to our itinerary, it became just too difficult.” The program used to go to Rome, and although Tuku Tours, the travel company that Collegiate Scholars used to book the Turkey trip, also does tours in Italy, the directors chose Greece because it was less expensive. Rescheduling the trip, however, caused the trip to shorten from 22 days to 13, due to changing from the Turkish lira to the European Euro. Plane tickets were also more expensive, but students did not pay more than the $1,500 they already had shelled out. “The college absorbed 100 percent of the extra costs,” Gamble said. “That was amazing. The college took decisive action and did everything necessary to make this work.” This trip marks the first

time the Collegiate Scholar program, formerly known as the Honors Program, will not visit Turkey in the past 13 years. It notified juniors in the program of the change April 11, and the change in destination allowed for three students who recently had pulled out of the trip over safety concerns to rejoin. That put the number of participants at 31, the largest the program has ever had. Associate Professor of Classical Studies Eric Hutchinson, who will take over the Collegiate Scholars in the fall, said he and Gamble were monitoring the situation in Turkey for the past year due to several terrorist bombings. “At the point the U.S. Mission released its alert, it didn’t seem prudent to take a group of students there,” Hutchinson said. The U.S. State Department issued a travel warning for Turkey as early as Sept. 3, 2015, one day after it approved the departure of government family members living in the Adana, Turkey, U.S. Consulate, which is in the southeastern part of the country. The program changed the itinerary first in October 2015 to avoid Ankara, Turkey’s capital, after a terrorist bombing killed more than 100 people. Gamble said he contemplated changing the trip then, but after speaking with students, a majority of the students still wanted to go to Turkey. Collegiate Scholars have not visited southeast Turkey since 2014. Since September, the State Department has issued four other travel warnings to Turkey, with special concerns concerning travel in the southeastern region. It also removed government personnel’s families from Izmir, also a location on the Collegiate Scholars’ trip itinerary and where Tuku Tours’ office is, and limited official travel to Turkey to “mission-critical” cases only on March 29. “I know this looks so drastic,” Gamble said. “Looking at

Cause of water discoloration discovered By | Philip H. DeVoe Assistant Editor Discolored water occurring in Hillsdale College’s water systems the week of March 6 was due to non-harmful iron deposits, Board of Public Utilities Director Mike Barber said. “When a water system is shocked by turbulence, the iron can be loosened and put back into suspension,” Barber said in an email. “Staining could occur if the water was used for washing clothing.” The system was flushed to reduce the impact of the iron deposits and help return the

water to a normal color. Barber said the water was always within requirements set by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and that the water was not dangerous. “Though there may be an unusual taste to the water due to the iron in suspension, there was never a danger to the population if consumed,” Barber said. He added that running the tap will typically clear the water of discoloration and refresh the system, but that it took a long time to completely purge the water because of how much water was affected.

it now, the U.S. was preparing for the B-52 bombings by getting the families of U.S. military and diplomats out of sensitive regions. We were certainly aware of that and watching that. At no point did the U.S. say not to go there.” The State Department did not issue any security messages at the time of the program’s 2015 Turkey trip. Greece itself does not have a travel alert, but the State Department did issue one for the entirety of Europe on March 22, the day of the attacks in Brussels, Belgium. “International travel always carries risks,” Gamble said. “Students and families know this trip is voluntary. We work hard to keep the trip safe and instructive. Looking at everything that is happening, your options become simply to travel nowhere.” Hutchinson said the pro-

gram picked Greece because it aligns well with the program’s purpose. Greece combines classical, New Testament, Byzantine, and modern elements. “It accomplishes a lot of the things the trip is supposed to accomplish,” Hutchinson said. “For Hillsdale students, since the Greeks do loom so large in a lot of what we do, it’s a really great alternative to what we were going to do.” Although the students will miss out on Troy and the Hagia Sophia for now, places on the itinerary include Athens, ancient Mycenae, Corinth, and Delphi. “I was disappointed because I’ve had friends go there the past couple of years who talk so highly of it,” former Collegiate Scholars Co-President junior Luke Zahari said. “At the same time, Greece is pretty cool, too. As a person studying classics, it’s very exciting to go

see these things firsthand that I’ve seen in textbooks.” As a classics professor, who only has visited Athens and some of the Greek islands, Hutchinson said “all of it” excites him. Gamble said he has never been to Greece and looks forward to visiting, but he has plans to head straight from Athens to Turkey for an Aegean cruise. He’ll return to Turkey in October for a conference, as well. “That’s how confident I am in Turkey still,” Gamble said. Gamble notified Tuku Tours the evening of April 10, it returned an itinerary the next morning. The program had the details reinvented by April 14. “I would very much like to see us continue working with Tuku Tours, who has been so great to us,” Gamble said.

See Greece A6

‘Three Shades of Blue’

to perform at CHP

The Student Activities Board announced on Wednesday that the band Three Shades of Blue will headline the organization’s 10th anniversary Centralhallapalooza on April 30. Facebook | Courtesy

County GOP Chair chosen as delegate Frobel will attend national convention in July By | Vivian Hughbanks News Editor Hillsdale County GOP Chairman Glenn Frobel will be a member of the Michigan delegation to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, this July. Frobel, who supports Donald Trump, said it’s impossible to predict what will happen. “I’ll just take it a day at a time, I guess,” Frobel said. “I’m going to be the only non-corrupt one there.” Frobel was chosen to be one of Michigan’s 59 delegates at the state Republican convention on April 9, according to the Michigan Republican Party.

Hillsdale and Branch counties have an agreement that the counties will alternate in sending a representative to each convention every four years. “It’s worked out for a long time between our counties like that because we’re smaller counties than the Eatons and the Jacksons and Lenawees and the Monroes and the Washtenaws of the world,” Frobel said. Michigan’s delegation also includes Rep. Justin Amash, who supports Ted Cruz, Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, who supports Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and Michigan GOP Chairman Ronna Romney McDaniel, who supports Donald Trump. To win the Republican nomination outright, a candidate needs to win 1,237 delegates

— a majority of the total delegates from the 50 states. In Tuesday’s New York primary, Donald Trump picked up 89 delegates while Ohio Gov. John Kasich gained 4 delegates. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, won no candidates Tuesday. New York solidified Trump’s delegate lead. To date, Trump controls 845 delegates, Cruz 559, and Kasich 148. At the convention in July,

See Delegates A8

Wikimedia Commons | Courtesy Follow @HDaleCollegian

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Stock market tumbles, college cuts budget by 5.5% By | Macaela J. Bennett Editor-In-Chief Hillsdale College will cut its operating budget by 5.5 percent this upcoming year, due to a potential decrease in revenue resulting from the struggling stock market. Student tuition, gifts, and the endowment, which relies heavily on the stock market, each constitute about a third of the college’s revenue. Vice President of Finance Patrick Flannery said when any of these areas are negatively impacted, he reviews the budget cautiously. When the stock market dropped in January, Flannery said he “pulled the trigger” and told every department to cut its budget by 5.5 percent for the next fiscal year. From there, each department head chose how to cut costs in the best way for them. “Everyone understands and wants to work as a team,” Flannery said. Across the board, staff and faculty emphasized that they do not believe students will notice the budget cuts. Director of Athletics Don Brubacher said that while it’s never fun making cuts to an already tight budget, he believes Hillsdale is better than most colleges about anticipating cuts in a way that makes the process much easier to manage. “From my observations, Hillsdale is better managed than most,” Brubacher said. “Others won’t start cutting until they are already in a huge deficit, and then they are in a bad place.” Brubacher said that the cuts in the sports department will not impact student scholarships. Instead, he will look to save money on things like travel and technology. Chief Administrative Officer Rich Péwé agreed that the cuts in the departments under his purview are unlikely to affect students. “We don’t have a lot of areas where we have discretionary funds, so it will create a little pain for sure,” Péwé said. “But I don’t think the students will notice the cuts because we won’t be operating facilities any differently.” Look for The Hillsdale Coll egian


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