Michigan’s oldest college newspaper
Vol. 143 Issue 11- November 14, 2019
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Naumann receives Daugherty award at fall convocation By | Nolan Ryan Editor-in-Chief
Christ Chapel was set to hold a convocation for the first time, as faculty, students, and others prepared to honor academic achievement as well as several special guests on Thursday. The all-school average GPA for the 2019 spring semester was 3.399. The all-women’s GPA was 3.486, while the all-men’s was 3.317. Pi Beta Phi earned the Greek scholarship cup for sororities with a 3.520 GPA, while Alpha Tau Omega won for the fraternities, with a 3.302 GPA. Assistant Professor of German Stephen Naumann was chosen to receive the Daugherty Award for Teaching Excellence at the event. “Dr. Naumann has consistently demonstrated the features of teaching excellence that the Daugherty Award was created to celebrate,” Dean of Faculty and Professor of History Mark Kalthoff
said in an email. “Those features include outstanding classroom teaching, conscientious student advising, notable collegiality, rigorous scholarship, and engagement in campus life beyond the classroom. Dr. Naumann’s excellence has been clear in all of these areas.” Guests invited to the ceremony included local business leaders and the women commissioners, as well as contractors who worked on the chapel and chief architect Duncan Stroik and his wife, Ruth. The main scheduled speaker was Michael Ward, senior research fellow at Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford. Ward delivered the college’s commencement address in 2015 and participated in the college’s online course on C.S. Lewis. He is the author of “Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis” and serves as professor of apologetics at Houston Baptist University.
Graphic by S. Nathaniel Grime
Marijuana one year later
Players huddle before the game. Courtesy | Carson McNellie
Despite state legalization, college policy remains
Volleyball clinches top spot in conference tourney By | Liam Bredburg Assistant Editor After standing tied for first inAfter standing tied for first in the G-MAC for the majority of the season, the Hillsdale College Chargers cemented their status as first in the conference and as top contenders for the conference championship in two weeks. The Chargers delivered an impressive 3-0 win on Friday over the Walsh University Cavaliers, who were undefeated in the conference until this point in the season, and a powerful 3-1 win over the Malone Pioneers on Saturday. The Chargers continued their in-conference win streak with the two weekend wins and now sit at 50 conference games in a row without a loss. Junior Allyssa Van Wienen was awarded her sixth G-MAC Offensive Player of the Week award for her stellar performance in two weekend games. Van Wienen is the only player in school history to be awarded player of the week six times in a season, breaking the record of five previously set in 2011 by Ashlee Crowder. Van Wienen averaged a .543 hitting percentage and 4.0 kills per set over the weekend. In a Friday matchup between the two undefeated teams, the Chargers won with set scores of 25-18, 25-13, and 25-15, respectively. Follow @HDaleCollegian
Sophomore Karoline Shelton performed extremely well on both sides of the ball finishing the match with 15 kills, a .500 hitting percentage, 10 digs, and two block assists. Her 15 kills were the most on the team. Junior Allyssa Van Wienen finished with 12 kills and a .500 hitting percentage contributing greatly to an unstoppable Hillsdale offense. The Chargers offense put up an impressive .378 hitting percentage as a team while committing only eight hitting errors. Junior Lindsay Mertz put together a strong performance on the defense and offense with 37 assists, four digs, and three kills. Sophomore Maggie DePorre had nine kills and two digs in the match. Senior Taylor Wiese had 15 digs and an ace in the match. After winning the match, the Chargers raised their record to 20-3 overall and 9-0 in the G-MAC. Hillsdale remains just outside of the top-10 teams in the country remaining in the number 11 spot for the second week in a row. Head coach Chris Gravel credited the win in part to the Charger offense and the blockers, saying,“This past weekend the team set goals to challenge Walsh on their serve receive in order to get the team out of system, and the blockers worked on shutting down their middle and out-
side attacks.” The Chargers remained at home on Saturday for a Senior Night in which they played the Malone Pioneers, defeating the team in 3-1. The win came with set scores of 25-22, 20-25, 25-20, and 25-19. Senior Dani Jones set a career high for kills in a match with 11 kills in the match. Van Wienen led the Chargers with 16 kills and had a .556 hitting percentage, with three digs and five total blocks. Mertz had 37 assists in the game. Wiese led the defense with 20 digs and two service aces. The Chargers finished the weekend with a 21-3 overall record and lifted their record in the G-MAC to 10-0. “We can accomplish anything together if we have the heart and will,” freshman Audrey Riley said. “I definitely don’t think about it when we play our opponents though. In the end, rankings do not mean much. It is how well we perform and how hard we work.” Hillsdale will play their last two conference games of the season this weekend versus Ursuline and Lake Erie before beginning the G-MAC tournament next week. “I am confident that if the team continues to challenge themselves mentally and physically in the upcoming weeks, we will see ourselves grow and accomplish the goals we set out for ourselves” Gravel said.
By | Cal Abbo Assistant Editor A year after Michigan voters approved a ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana use for individuals over the age of 21, Hillsdale College has neither changed its policies nor has it seen more usage among students, according to Dean of Men Aaron Petersen.“Drugs can be a dangerous threat to our mission of developing the minds and improving the hearts of students,” he said. “We will continue to be on guard against anything that undermines our mission and purposes together.” Even before the vote, marijuana use among college students nationally was on the rise, according to a University of Michigan study released in 2018. It found that 43% of full-time college students ages 19-22 had used marijuana in the previous 12 months, up from 36% five years prior. Also, 24% of students reported using marijuana in the last 30 days, showing an increase of 5% since 2013. Last year, after the legalization of marijuana, Hillsdale’s administration decided to maintain a policy that bans students from “use, posses-
sion, distribution, or being in the presence of any amount of a controlled substance.” The federal government still defines marijuana as a controlled substance. College President Larry Arnn noted that even if the law changed at the federal level, the college would likely keep its current policy. Shortly after the ballot initiative passed, he told The Collegian there is “strong evidence that [marijuana] is bad for one and hurts one’s ability to think and work at a high level.” Petersen said the Dean’s office takes marijuana use very seriously. He emphasized the severity of the violation and said that students can be sent home and suspended if they are caught using it. Petersen added that his office is ready and equipped to help someone who comes up asking for help. “We’ve always worked with students who come to us,” he said. Scientists studying marijuana have noted that strains in 2019 are much more potent than those in decades past. This can cause serious problems for younger students who have little experience using marijuana. According to a study published in 2016 in a biology journal, Biologi-
cal Psychiatry, samples from 1995 contained an average of 4% THC, the psychoactive chemical found in marijuana. In 2014, the average THC content rose to 12%. Simultaneously, CBD levels, which help reduce the psychoactive effects of THC, plunged. This means the THC to CBD ratio exploded from 15:1 to 80:1 in just a couple decades. Police Chief Scott Hephner said he didn’t know what to expect when the ballot initiative passed, but, according to him, marijuana use has not become an issue for the community. Michigan’s ballot initiative left some room for municipalities to pass ordinances re-regulating marijuana. In December 2018, just after legalization, Hillsdale’s city council voted to prohibit stores that sell marijuana from operating within city limits. Hephner said the city made a good decision when it voted not to allow retail establishments to distribute marijuana.
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Radio alumnus takes third in national award By | Nolan Ryan Editor-in-Chief
A recent graduate from Hillsdale brought home an award from College Broadcasters, Inc. this month. Shadrach Strehle ’19 took third place in CBI’s Best Special Broadcasts (Audio) category for his 10-minute radio drama episode titled “Patmos, Wisconsin.” Strehle’s work — one of four finalists nominated earlier this year — focuses on a cop in the small town of Patmos, Wisconsin, a fictional location created by Strehle. “It was a final project for the advanced radio production class. We were tasked with putting together a radio
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project drama,” Strehle said. “I thought about a couple different horror things, like things happening below the surface. If you’re driving through a country road and you see a barn, you have no idea what’s going on. Or in New York City, if you see a warehouse, what’s going on inside? The sense of paranoia and worry was what I was going for.” The pilot episode, which Strehle created for a class in his last semester at the college, follows the officer and his partner as they are called to a crime scene where a woman from California has been “ritualistically scarred,” Strehle said. The rest of the plot posits questions to the
mystery of how she came to be in Wisconsin and what happened to her. Strehle said the simple story of the episode was meant to emphasize, more than anything, the audio production. Strehle said he experimented with different audio techniques, especially soundscapes, a collection of sounds that creates an environment and setting for the listener. “I’m a huge fan of soundscapes, especially ones that illicit really strong horror elements. I don’t like watching it, but I like making it,” Strehle said. In one scene that Strehle
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