Volume 135 Issue 17

Winter weather leads to school closings and snowball fights, but the city is out of salt.

Community page 4

Swim the butterfly, sting at the MWC meet.

Swimming and diving sweep the conference.

Jacob Leder ‘20 directs a gender-bending open space production of Sam Shepherd’s “True West.”

Sports page 6 Arts page 7

Scarlet & Black the

February 22, 2019 • Grinnell, Iowa

Volume 135, Issue 17

thesandb.com

“Moving On:” Posse Plus Retreat reflects on Kington outlines next State of the Union and Grinnell steps for College and post-Posse program UGSDW

By Zoe Fruchter fruchter@grinnell.edu

At 3:12 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 21, Grinnell College President Raynard Kington sent out a Special Campus Memo entitled “Moving On,” which informed students, faculty and staff of the actions the College will take in the “near future” to improve the student work experience in response to the concerns raised by the Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers’ attempted expansion efforts, including partial union expansion and the creation of a new financial aid task force.

In 2018, the union attempted to move to include all workers employed by the College. The College opposed the union’s attempt, arguing that student on-campus jobs are primarily educational. The conflict went to the National Labor Relations Board and incurred backlash from alumni.

Thursday’s email represents an acquiescence on the College’s part to support the stated goals of the student union expansion; the College went as far as supporting possible “selective expansion” of the Union to certain non-dining positions on campus, according to the email.

According to Jacob Schneyer

‘21, UGSDW member at large, the union received a letter from Kington a few hours before the special campus memo. Schneyer said that the letter stated that the administration would draw up a list of expanded membership positions within the next ten days, after which the administration would meet with UGSDW representatives to negotiate these terms.

“It’s very, very good that they’re willing to negotiate,” Schneyer said.

“This is clearly the result of pressure that our members have been applying through direct action and other parts of our campaign this whole time.”

In a statement to The S&B emailed by the College’s senior content strategist for media relations, Lisa Lacher, Kington wrote that this step forward in terms of College and student union relations is because the union indicated only recently that it is willing to consider an option for selective expansion of the union. “We believe there is an opportunity to reach a solution in a way that does not undermine the College’s educational mission,” wrote Lacher.

Schneyer said that the union cannot agree to any deal with the College of which their members don’t >> See UGSDW page 2

By Montserrat Castro Gomez castromo@grinnell.edu This past weekend, the Jordan Creek Parkway Marriott hotel in Des Moines hosted the penultimate Posse Plus Retreat (PPR) in which Grinnell will participate. Posse scholars, along

Community fines: Not your crime? Still your dime!

By Sarah Licht lichtsar@grinnell.edu Community fines are a feature of dorm living in which residents share the cost of damages occurring on their floors or in their buildings.

Joe Rolón, director of residential life, said that the idea of community fines is the best option for many universities. “There is always a cost attributed to replacing items or cleaning of large messes. So if no one individual or group of people are identified or take responsibility, then the cost is divided [equally] among the specific residence or

floor where the damage or mess occurred,” Rolón said. If the person responsible for the damage comes forward, however, the community fine is dropped.

Although splitting the cost equally does lower the fine that each resident must pay, it also ensures that all residents on the floor or dorm in question face some of the punishment for something that they did not do. Some interviewed residents of Loose, a dorm which has been hit with multiple community fines this year, say that it is unfair to have everyone pay if the people responsible do not take

accountability for their actions.

“If something happens once and there’s a fine, I think that people should have the decency and selfgov-ness [not] to do it again,” said Zoe Whittle ‘21.

Loose residents also noted the impact that these fines have on low-income students. “[Community fines] would disproportionately affect low-income students who may or not have the extra money to pay for a mess or damage they didn’t make,” said Charles Peppers ‘22.

Rolón said that community fines might not be the most effective way >> See Students page 2

Anne Harris to join College administration as VPAA

By Eva Hill hilleva@grinnell.edu

Starting July 1, 2019, Anne Harris, current vice president of academic affairs at DePauw University, will begin serving as Grinnell College’s Vice President of Academic Affairs.

Harris has dedicated her time at DePauw to furthering diversity and inclusion both on campus and in the community of Greencastle, Ind. Outside of her administration responsibilities at DePauw, Harris specializes in Medieval art history and taught at DePauw prior to becoming DePauw’s vice president of academic affairs.

During her time at DePauw, Harris led a faculty development plan centered on inclusive teaching and Friday Woodcarving with Professor Andelson Church of Christ, 1127 Elm Street 3 p.m.

JEMUEL SANTOS

Posse scholars, mentors and invitees gathered at the Posse Plus Retreat this past weekend in Des Moines. The attendees engaged in dialogue on tough issues such as what it means to be American in today’s political climate.

support for diversity, while also coorganized annual faculty workshops on race, dialogue and communitybuilding. She developed new cocurricular centers for students, focused on media, entrepreneurship and community engagement.

“Professor Harris is also deeply committed to enhancing student learning and the inquiry-led curriculum that Grinnell promotes. She works closely with students and is an excellent listener too. I am very confident that she will excel at Grinnell,” said current Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of the College Mike Latham.

Latham was involved with Harris’s hire, and will work with Harris until he departs the College for his new position as President of Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawai’i next academic year.

Harris described her future responsibilities at Grinnell College as being focused on supporting and aiding in student success.

“I think of it as waking up every morning thinking through what students learn and how they learn. What that means, in practice, is thinking about the whole student, the whole faculty member, and the whole staff member as each individual contributes to discovery and inquiry and can be supported in their development to do so,” Harris said. “It means thinking about the curriculum and research as they advance knowledge and experience — and being a good steward of the educational resources of the institution.”

Of all her accomplishments at >> See New page 2

Friday Iowa Flute Festival Bucksbaum, 3:30-9 p.m.

Monday “India on the Global Stage: Music, Dance, and (Neo) Nationalism...”

Bucksbaum, 4:15 p.m.

Follow us on Twitter @thesandb and on Instagram @grinnellsandb

with their fellow student, faculty and staff invitees, attended the retreat and engaged in conversations on a variety of topics that they could then reflect back onto the community.

The Posse Foundation is a program that identifies talented students

with leadership skills from all over the country and financially helps them attend colleges like Grinnell.

These students receive mentoring and coaching before, throughout and after their college experience to help >> See Posse page 3

Institute for Global Engagement hosts Global Symposium

By Alanis Gonzalez guptasha@grinnell.edu This week, the Institute of Global Engagement hosted a group of visiting academics and administrators from around the globe that are participating in the institution’s first Global Symposium. The theme of the symposium is “collaboration”, focusing on Grinnell’s relationship with global partners and higher education on a global scale.

Multiple talks will be held throughout the week, with guest speakers and Grinnell College Faculty discussing various topics. This includes the liberal arts education on a global scale, creating international student friendly campuses, and to tag with the theme, the navigation of academic global collaboration.

The Symposium and the institution itself are recent additions to the College. While speaking with Jonathan Larson, Associate Director of Off-Campus study, he commented that, “Our thinking with this first conference type event that relatively new Institute of Global Engagement is going to sponsor was to bring together representatives of several different institutions abroad where we’ve had a relationship or starting to develop one or even exploring one and to have those partners help us in a multi-day conversation about how to develop and strengthen partnerships with institutions in different parts of the world.”

Although select events have been reserved for faculty, most are open for students to attend. Larson commented >> See New page 3 >> See Grinnell page 2

ANDREW TUCKER

On Thursday evening, Grinnell faculty gathered for a panel discussion on “Undergraduate Research with Faculty” as part of the IGE symposium.

Wednesday Poetry Slam Faulconer Gallery, 7:15 p.m.

Thursday Writers@Grinnell Roundtable in Harris, 4:00 p.m.

Reading in Harris, 7:15 p.m.

Community 4 | Features 5 | Sports 6 | Arts 7 | Opinions 9

News Students and Residence Life debate the effectiveness of community fines

2

Edited by schultej@grinnell.edu & vitaioli@grinnell.edu

Continued from Front Page

to discourage damage to public areas in dorms. “For some, a financial cost – no matter how small – is enough to warrant students taking pride and ownership in their halls. For others, they may not care and continue to choose to cause damage or disarray in the halls,” Rolón said.

I appreciate having a clean, shared space, and I feel like, as we live together, we should have some respect for each other.

Mica Lin-Alves ‘22 Self-governance is most effective when all members of the College are willing to do what is best for everyone. In cases where people are not willing to take responsibility for their actions, as seen with community fines, everyone is penalized. Aside from the monetary loss from community fines, damages to dorms impact all residents of that dorm.

“I kind of wish people would clean up after themselves some

more. I appreciate having a clean, shared space, and I feel like, as we live together, we should have some respect for each other,” said Mica Lin-Alves ‘22, another Loose resident.

A perspective often left out of discourse on community fines and self-governance in general is that of the people who have to clean up and fix any dorm damages. The onus is largely on facilities management to clean up excessive messes, which they should not have to deal with.

“I think it is also important to note the impact that this has on custodians. Custodians are not servants. They are people that deserve respect. By leaving behind an egregious mess for custodians to clean, it implies a great disrespect.

Custodians are a vital part of the Grinnell community. Damages in the halls and flagrant messes show a lack of respect to custodians, to the residence hall, and the community.”

Rolón said on behalf of the Facilities Management staff members who have to pick up after messy students.

Still, Rolón remains optimistic

that community fines will eventually be no longer be caused. “I am hopeful that once this is understood,

UGSDW optimistic about negotiations with administration Continued from Front Page approve, especially since a deal could potentially exclude certain union members from the formal bargaining unit. To this end, the union plans to discuss negotiating with the College at their regularly scheduled general meeting in March.

Schneyer stated that the union is willing to make previously stated concessions, such as a cap of wages and not asking for information covered by Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. In response to one of the union’s arguments that the College does not pay students enough to support themselves as a part of financial aid, Kington wrote that Board of Trustees Chair Patricia Finkelman ‘80 is appointing a Board Task Force on Student Financial Support and Success led by alumna and Boston University School of Law professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig ‘94 to evaluate Grinnell’s financial aid from the perspective of students and the institution. The task force will consist of students, faculty, staff and alumni. More information on the specifics of this task force is forthcoming in the following days.

Kington also wrote that Dean of the Center for Careers, Life and Service Mark Peltz will head an initiative “to ensure that students’ personal

growth and professional development are an even more central focus of these opportunities.” Additionally, Kington specified that the College will create a position to focus on this effort.

In an email to the S&B, Peltz wrote that he envisions the individual holding this position to serve as a resource for students.

“Meeting one’s economic needs and achieving one’s personal, civic, and professional goals should not be mutually exclusive,” Peltz wrote.

Peltz cited Service Learning Work Study positions as an example of College programming that provides that opportunity to achieve all these goals.

Service Learning Work Study participants volunteer or intern for community organizations and get paid through the federal work study funding, giving students who may not have economic privilege to hold an unpaid internship or volunteer position the opportunity to do so with compensation.

Susan Sanning, the associate dean and director of service and social innovation for the CLS, said that outlining educational goals at the beginning of the program allows SLWS participants to have an educational experience while working.

“I’m really glad that the campus [the College] is taking the potential of campus employment seriously, from

CONTRIBUTED

On Feb. 8, UGSDW members protested at the Board of Trustees event, pushing for the College to continue to negotiate with students.

SHABANA GUPTA

In the Norris first floor lounge, someone has removed the pillows on multiple lounge chairs. The residents of Norris will be expected to cover the cost if they are not returned.

a professional perspective, personal perspective and civic perspective,” said Sanning.

Peltz wrote that “helping students simultaneously meet their economic needs and attain their education goals is on the minds of the Board of Trustees.”

Members of the union disrupted the meeting of the Board of Trustees on Feb. 8 to negotiate a “labor relations framework,” according to the letter they released following the actions.

“They can tell that we can make it legitimately harder for the College to function if they don’t pay attention to us and that makes them have to take us seriously,” Schneyer said.

Kington wrote that the title of the memo, “Moving On,” is “intended to communicate proactive steps and actions the College is undertaking to address several issues that have been raised in recent months.”

“My guess is that he wants to portray this as the beginning of the end ... I don’t think that’s accurate. To me this is just another step in the process,” Schneyer said.

Schneyer said that he has not seen confirmation yet that the College has recognized the union’s key principle of collective bargaining, that it’s up to the workers themselves if they can unionize.

“That [lack of recognition] will not result in a deal, so then we will not be moving forward,” he said.

In a separate statement to The S&B, emailed by Lacher, Kington wrote that “The conversation in our community about the expansion of the union has been very difficult, and it is time for us to move forward with a shared deep devotion to this college.

I am hopeful that the steps described in the Campus Memo will contribute toward addressing a number of the concerns raised in these debates and, as important, be the first steps toward the healing of our community.”

then there will be little to no damage in the halls and thus no need to dispense community fines.” In the

meantimes, it is still on students to hold one another accountable and pay fines when they do arise.

New VPAA comes from DePauw

CONTRIBUTED

Anne Harris, the College’s new vice president of academic affairs, is joining the College from DePauw University. She served in the same role at DePauw, and plans to remain committed to “individual discovery and inquiry.”

Continued from Front Page DePauw University, Harris cited her work in diversity and academic inclusiveness as some of her proudest achievements.

Something she especially liked about her position was, “being able to think concretely (through grants, workshops, curricular change, pedagogical innovation) about how a college community is in a perpetual state of becoming, of striving for greater diversity, more belonging, and more valuing of multiple perspectives.”

On a day to day basis, though, Harris takes inspiration from two meaningful quotes. They are, she said, “John Dewey’s statement in 1916 that ‘Democracy must be reborn with each generation, and education is its midwife, and Dolores Huerta’s statement in 2016 that ‘Education is the new civil rights movement.’”

Harris is also excited to be part of

Grinnell College, which she describes as a “living and learning community that fosters individual discovery and inquiry,” in addition to the greater community of Grinnell, Iowa.

During her time at DePauw, Harris was dedicated to building and strengthening the relationship between the college and the community.

This is something she plans on continuing in her new position. Harris is excited become a member of the College and continue to promote the administration’s commitment to social justice.

Harris said that, most of all, she is excited by the “vibrant excellence of the College and its constituents,” overall, and says she is looking forward to having “the opportunity to be a part of an institution that, in its commitment to social justice, will ask hard questions of itself and of the society it can shape.”

News

Edited by schultej@grinnell.edu & vitaioli@grinnell.edu

3

Posse still a vital presence as it enters its final year

Continued from Front Page

them not only develop their potential, but also to shape their community in positive ways.

“There are a lot of groups and programs whose leadership was mostly comprised of posse scholars for a long time. SOL, CBS, QPOC are some examples of student groups that had a strong Posse presence,” wrote Rene Ayala, ‘19, a Posse DC 11 scholar, in an email to The S&B. In addition, Posse created a strong bond between students and their mentors, who were mostly faculty and staff within the college.

Many of these mentors have mentioned that they learned a lot about Grinnell through their mentees, and that their views and relationship with the institution have significantly changed.

“Oftentimes we talk about a transformative experience for students, but I don’t think we talk enough about the reciprocal relationship where our interaction with a particular group of students might be transformative for professors and staff,” said Professor Steve Andrews, English. Andrews was a mentor for Posse DC 10, which graduated from Grinnell in the class of 2018.

The College ended their relationship with the Posse Foundation after the fall of 2017. Given that the last class of Posse scholars will graduate in May of 2020, this retreat marked a step closer to the end of Posse at the College.

“This retreat really gave me hope that people still support us and care about us. Even though Posse will be stopping, these connections, this community and what Posse represents will continue on at Grinnell,” said Taylor Gaskins, ‘20, a DC 12 Posse scholar that attended the event.

The PPR has long been acclaimed by faculty, staff and students as a very inclusive and diverse

environment in which all of these different groups join together to get involved in discourse.

“There were no power dynamics. We were having conversations with all kinds of people with no preconceptions and no stereotypes, just simple communication and open conversation,” said Saketan Anand, ‘21, who attended the event as an invitee.

Andrews, who also attended the retreat, noted the advantages to providing the space at the retreat for these seemingly distinct communities to engage communally in discourse.

“The nice thing about this retreat especially is the way in which it exposes the intersectionality of Grinnell as an educational structure so that it’s not just professors and students and the academic curriculum,” Andrews said.

The main theme discussed in this year’s PossePlus retreat was the State of the Union. On both a broad and more personal scale, the attendees discussed the meaning of the State of the Union — for the country as well as for them individually.

“We analyzed the differences between the single story of what it means to be in America, or what the nation is, versus all these other people’s stories that aren’t told and are left invisible,” Gaskins said.

Gaskins stated that one of the objectives of the retreat was not only to understand what exactly the State of the Union means and what it means to live in America, but also to come up with specific action goals for creating the change they want to see in the community.

Some of the action goals that the attendees derived from these conversations and which the participants hope to achieve within Grinnell include cutting down meat consumption on campus, creating an SGA newsletter, supporting Intercultural Affairs in promoting trans inclusion on campus, building infrastructure

LIZ PAIK

Taylor Gaskins ‘20, a DC 12 Posse Scholar, VPSA-elect Saketan Anand ‘21 (top) and Professor Steve Andrews, English and mentor for DC 10 Posse, attended the PPR. All noted that Posse has been a vital voice on campus. within Student Affairs, among others.

Even though Posse scholars will no longer attend the College after next year, they definitely left a big mark, as evidenced in their action goals. They have set high standards for Grinnell’s different positions of leadership.

“We’re going to miss their lead-

EXPLORE YOUR PASSIONS. COMPLETE DEGREE REQUIREMENTS. Block A: May 30 - June 22, 2019 Block B: June 26 - July 20, 2019

Application and More Information at coloradocollege.edu/summer

ership, and we’re going to miss their activism,” Andrews said. “I would like to see the College take some of the processes that Posse students go through and try to sustain it here on campus.”

After being asked about how the administration feels about the end the College’s relationship with Posse,

Joe Bagnoli, dean of admission and financial aid, wrote in an email to The S&B: “Our current Posse Scholars and Posse alumni have made this community far more capable of serving the needs of those who are underrepresented in higher education than there is space in this issue of The S&B to explain.”

Continued from Front Page

backgrounds around a single table, conversations quickly sprouted. Attendees were able to speak to the higher education systems in various continents and regions. Not only was the varying structure of higher education discussed, but within just an hour the versatility of the liberal arts education and how it is being reframed throughout the world came to light.

Elainia Gupta ‘22, who attended the lunch, said, “The lunch was a great opportunity for schools in different countries to discuss and share ideas on what we can learn from each other.”

The kick-off event included a keynote address given by Cheryl Matherly visiting from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with responses from Shastri and Lelourec.

Matherly addressed how globalization supports the liberal arts education and how it is being implemented in various institutions. At the end of her address, Matherly gave suggestions for how to properly “globalize” an institution, saying, “globalization has to be woven throughout everything a college does.”

The symposium also brought to the surface important questions that they hope administrators, faculty, and students alike should be asking themselves: Are we engaging in intentional, interdisciplinary, global conversations, in and out of the classroom?

How can we learn from our global partnerships not only academically but culturally? Is our campus truly welcoming to various cultural backgrounds? These questions are key to ensuring that the diversity represented in the flags hanging above in the grill are a genuine representation of not only Grinnell’s student body, but its values as an institution.

IGE kicks off faculty and student symposium that he felt, “that there was an important conversation that we needed to encourage involving faculty and staff but to the extent that students have been a part of the governance and have provided their own feedback and input on different activities at Grinnell, it seemed particularly important to get some students present to offer some ideas.” Larson said that the event aimed to attract people with “different hats” by inviting collaborations among faculty, students and administration, and not only academics in order to combine multiple perspectives on the globalization of higher education.

IGE hosted nine administrators and academics that included: Vanita Shastri representing Ashoka University in Delhi, India, Shikha Jhingan representing Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, India, Hun-Wah Lam and Lieke Schreel representing Leiden University College in The Hague, Netherlands, Melissa Hu representing Nanjing University in China, Ceri Bevan and Colleen Cotter representing Queen Mary University of London in The United Kingdom, and Laurie Bereau and Lesley Lelourec representing the University of Rennes 2 in France. Aside from giving talks, the visitors were introduced to Grinnell through campus tours, lunch with students, a formal welcome dinner followed by a performance from the Grinnell Chamber Orchestra along with other events and activities throughout the week.

A lunch held on Wednesday afternoon in JRC 101 provided a more informal setting for students to engage with the visitors. With students and faculty from various countries and

ANDREW TUCKER

The Institute for Global Engagement is a new addition to the College community and discusses education in a globalized world.

4

Community

Edited by taylorse@grinnell.edu

Grinnell plows ahead despite extreme weather

ANDREW TUCKER

Grinnell has experienced several bouts of extreme weather that put a serious strain on city workers and resources as well as the Grinnell-Newburg School District.

By Shabana Gupta guptasha@grinnell.edu The weather in Grinnell has been colder in the past few weeks than in any year since 1996. As the city runs low on salt for the roads and city workers go on overtime, street maintenance is becoming a problem.

Duane Neff, Public Services Director for the City, described the situation. “Financially, we’re still doing okay, but there’s a lot of overtime,” he said. “We’ve been getting a little rest in between, enough to keep [city workers] going.”

There are always about 12 people working, with some workers working shifts for 14 hours straight.

With current snowfall estimated at 15 inches, Grinnell is working hard to keep the roads as safe as possible until the next salt shipment. That means that major intersections have priority, while everywhere else is being rationed.

The winter weather has also adversely affected the GrinnellNewburg School District, which has been forced to delay or cancel classes numerous times. In the month of January, ten of the twenty school days scheduled were either delayed or canceled.

Over 800 tons of salt have been used so far to keep the roads clear this winter. Recently, a shipment of 50

Primary Health Care opens new clinic in Marshalltown

By Seth Taylor taylorse@grinnell.edu

Primary Health Care (PHC), an Iowa organization that provides services to low-income and at-risk individuals, recently opened a new Specialty Health Clinic that is open to Grinnell students and community members. The new clinic will provide “affordable, comprehensive, confidential family planning services, education and reproductive health care,” according to a press release.

Based in Des Moines, Primary Health Care strives to serve patients who have “barriers to care,” said Marissa Conrad, the Director of Marketing, Communications, and Fund Development at Primary Health Care. “That might be income level, that could be lack of transportation, it could be [that] they don’t speak English as a first language,” she added. “Whatever needs they may have, we try to meet them where they’re at.”

According to Conrad, PHC served 37,695 patients in 2017. Of those patients, 62 percent were at or below the federal poverty level. PHC is a federally-qualified health center, and they have access to the Title X family planning grant. This means that many of their services can be offered at a discount to low-income individuals.

Conrad also said that, while the clinics operated by PHC are not free, “We will never turn anyone away, regardless of their ability to pay.”

In addition, PHC offers accommodations for immigrants to the United States or those who do not use English as their first language.

“We have interpreters on staff at all of our clinics, and if we don’t have a person who speaks their particular language or dialect we can utilize our language line to be able to communicate with them in their own language,” Conrad said.

PHC operates 14 medical, dental, and satellite clinics in Des Moines, Ames, and Marshalltown, and since 2016, when Central Iowa Family Planning (CIFP) in Grinnell

Movies at the Strand

abruptly closed, PHC has worked to fill the void left behind.

PHC’s Mobile Health Clinic, which has visited Grinnell several times, offers medical services to those who may not be able to travel to one of PHC’s clinics, and in 2017, as the College and community members struggled to make up for the services lost when CIFP closed, shuttles were arranged from Grinnell to Marshalltown, where Medical and Dental clinics are operated by PHC. The medical center in Marshalltown provides general medical and preventative care, such as check ups and immunizations, mental healthcare, family planning and “supportive services,” which range from helping patients find a job to helping patients apply for federal aid.

The new Specialty Health Clinic, located at 704 May St. in Marshalltown, won’t expand those services, but it will expand capacity, said Conrad.

“It’s actually just an expansion of space,” she said. “We’ve always provided the OB/GYN and the family planning services at the Medical Clinic, but that clinic is really bursting at the seams. We really needed to expand to be able to see the additional patients.”

The building, formerly owned by Choices Family Planning Clinic, was converted by PHC into the new clinic and officially opened Feb. 13. It now houses the Marshalltown OB-GYN, prenatal care and family planning team, and offers reproductive exams for all genders, birth control, emergency contraception, HIV and STI testing and treatment as well as pregnancy testing.

The Specialty Health Clinic will be open Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.. But for those who can’t make those times, the PHC Medical Clinic — just a mile away — is open Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

For more information or to schedule an appointment, call the Specialty Health Clinic at 641-7534021.

tons was used in three days. Last year the town only used 650 tons of salt throughout the entire winter.

Salt shortages are exacerbated by shipment delays from the company in Kansas that supplies Grinnell’s road salt.

“The biggest problem we’re having now is just delivery to us,” Neff said. “When they called us, they said they had been sitting at the mine for 20 hours.” There are currently five more loads that are schedules to arrive.

Until then, the city will use brine, which is a salt and water mix, and sand.

These options are poor alternatives in the long run. When snow melts or there is rain, Brine gets washed away

and becomes useless to melt snow.

Sand is also a poor substitute because it makes the streets dirty and can be carried by water into the storm sewers.

This clogs the storm sewers and can cause further problems in the future.

The County Engineer assistant Terry Pickett has noted a few problems that have occurred due to the large amounts of snow. A couple of mail boxes were accidentally hit by snow plows as workers cleared the street, though that is the extent of property damage that has been reported to Pickett’s office.

On the other hand, city equipment has suffered damage. There have been instances where the equipment has

broken while clearing roads.

“Things happen when you get into big snow events, but we’ve been able to keep up with that,” Pickett said.

“Our crews have been doing this for a lot of years, so they’re pretty prepared on how to handle this situation.”

Rural areas often have more trouble than big cities when snowstorms hit.

“We’ve had people call in and wonder when there’s a [snowplow] blade that’s going to come through,” he said. It isn’t possible to have a set schedule for when roads will be cleared in rural areas. Snowdrifts and other obstacles slow the plows down and make it difficult to predict how long each area will take.

“If you live in rural areas, we always try and get at least a one-way path cleared at least once in the first day.” Picket said. “It’s been since the late 80s that we haven’t been able to get that.” In addition to asphalt and concrete roads, the county plows over 700 miles of gravel road.

“Every once in a while you have a bad winter. I’ve been here a while and this is the worst one I’ve encountered,” Pickett said.

The town has multiple areas where they dump large amounts of snow in order to keep roads and sidewalks clear. “We have filled 3 areas this year, where last year we didn’t even fill one,” Nuff said.

The Grinnell Herald-Register reported that snowfall for this winter is over 30 inches, and the record snowfall during an Iowa winter is 65.55 inches in the year of 1959. Nuff predicts Grinnell will break the record of 40 days of snowfall in the coming week.

City dumps old trash disposal system in favor of new, automatic pick-up

By Eva Hill hilleva@grinnell.edu

In the spring of 2019, the city of Grinnell will be implementing a new automatic pick-up program for trash disposal. The program requires Grinnell residents to choose a new waste cart for their property before the Feb. 22 deadline. If they do not choose a specific time, all residents will receive the medium-sized cart, which holds 65 gallons.

To select a small or large cart (35-gallon or 95-gallon), residents must either visit selectmycart.com/ grinnell or call 844-458-9570. The first cart will be free to residents; after that, any replacements or changes will cost $50.

With automatic pickup, workers do not move garbage bags from the cart to the garbage truck. Instead, a pneumatic arm attached to the truck lifts the cart and dumps the contents into the trucks, hence the need for the new carts, which are shaped to allow for being picked up by the arm.

Grinnell City Manager Russell Behrens explained the reasoning behind the new automated system.

“The primary reason we made this switch is for employee safety and wellness,” he said. “We experience quite a bit of worker

injury in the solid waste department, so that’s a big part of the reason we’re going to the automated system. The other piece of it would be to gain efficiency. We think that we’ll probably be able to take what we’re doing now in four days and do it in three, and we should be able to do that pretty easily, so that’ll save a little bit on staff time, in addition to improving the work environment for those employees.”

As with the current solid waste collection system, Behrens explained, Grinnell residents will continue to pay for disposal services based on the amount of garbage they generate. Per month, the cost will be $8.50 for the 35-gallon cart, $12.50 for the 65-gallon cart, and $16.50 for the 95-gallon cart, plus a $5 flat fee each month. Previously, residents had to pay for waste disposal by buying individual marked disposal bags, priced at $1.30 plus tax.

For large items over 60 pounds in weight, residents could purchase $16 disposal stickers and arrange with the Public Service Department for a specialized pickup.

“One of the things that we’re hearing from residents that they’re going to enjoy about this system is that they’ll no longer have to buy the yellow bags,” Behrens said.

In addition to the changes to the garbage disposal program, the city is also eliminating its curbside recycling pickup program. As a result, residents will either have to move their own recycling to the public service building so it will be taken to a recycling facility, or elect to purchase a larger waste cart to accommodate both the property’s garbage and the material that would otherwise have been recycled.

Behrens said, “I will elect to bring my recycling down to the public service building and dump it there, so the amount of garbage I’m generating won’t change.” But he reminds residents who are not planning to carry out their recycling to choose a larger cart size so that they’ll have enough room for their waste disposal.

Behrens said that the new system will increase efficiency by eliminating a time-consuming component from the workdays of drivers of the city’s waste-disposal trucks. “The way it’s done right now, our driver has to drive to the stop, park the truck, get out of the truck, throw the garbage in the side of the truck, get back in the truck, engage the truck, and drive to the next stop, so obviously [the new system] will save quite a bit of time.”

ANDREW TUCKER

The City of Grinnell will switch to an automatic pick-up system for trash this spring, which requires these new carts.

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD

Showtimes: 3:40 p.m., 6:30 p.m., 9:00 p.m.

Join gronckles, bewilderbeasts, hideous zipplebacks and deadly nadders in the third and final installment of this celebrated trilogy.

GREEN BOOK

Showtimes: 4:00 p.m., 6:45 p.m., 9:30 p.m.

What's the Oscars without a little pre-show racial controversy? Green Book provides that for this year's awards.

ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL

Showtimes: 3:50 p.m., 7:00 p.m., 9:40 p.m.

From the industry that regularly brings you overproduced CG fight scenes adapted from popular manga — more of the same.

Features

Edited by anderson14@grinnell.edu

Senior Class Gift Committee Fundraises for Jack Gustafson '19 On-campus memorial

By Montserrat Castro Gomez castromo@grinnell.edu Every year, the Senior Class Gift Committee encourages seniors to donate to a certain fund, organization or project that holds significance for the class. This year, the senior class decided on choosing a gift that would honor Jack Gustafson '19, who passed away last spring while studying abroad in Freiburg, Germany.

During the summer of 2018, Michelle Gustafson, Jack’s mother, reached out to the College and expressed her interest in creating a Memorial Fund. After the Senior Class Gift Committee unanimously agreed to take on the project, Jack’s closest friends on campus created a specific committee for the memorial and have been looking at different options through which to honor him and assure his permanence in Grinnell.

Carrie Stallings '19, Jack’s best friend and a member of the Memorial Committee, said the process has been a slow one. Last semester, students voted to pass a student initiative proposing to name the Ceramics Studio in South Campus loggia after Gustafson. Ultimately, though, the initiative could not come to fruition because those who proposed it were unable to meet the College’s financial expectations.

The committee, formed also

by Myles Becker, Sarah McCarthy, Henry Jantzen and Patrick Sheehan-Klenk, all '19, met for the first time this week following a year of ongoing issues and conversations about the memorial. The meeting allowed the committee to reach a final decision on what the memorial will actually entail.

I think everybody from every capacity that’s been involved in it has been really thankful to have the opportunity to take their grief and make something really meaningful out of it.

Carrie Stallings '19 The memorial will be placed in the Sue Berne Terrace, one of Jack’s favorite places on campus. It will consist of a rosebud tree, also Jack’s favorite, planted in the terrace with a plaque. The plaque, in addition to his name and class year, will potentially include a quote from Jack’s father, “All were better for knowing him.” “[That quote] is something that really resonated with everyone because he was such a positive human being. He was legitimately the nicest person I think I’ve ever met, and he was a friend to anyone,” Stallings

Women of Color group to begin meeting through SHACS

By Eyerusalem Desta destaeye@grinnell.edu

CONTRIBUTED

The Senior Class Gift Committee is collecting donations to cosntruct a memorial for Jack Gustafson '19 in the Sue Berne Terrace. said. She is also searching through Jack's annotated copy of The Practical Cogitator, his favorite book, for a small line to add to the plaque.

The committee is comprised of students who knew Jack more intimately and can make decisions on his memorial accordingly.

“It’s definitely not a responsibility that I wished upon anyone. It’s really hard. But simultaneously, I think everybody from every capacity that’s been involved in it has been really thankful to have the opportunity to take their grief and make something really meaningful out of it,” Stallings said.

The total cost of the memorial will be $5,000, which goes towards future maintenance of the space and memorial. “The money is used as a means to maintain the space of the memorial for basically an infinite amount of time. If the tree were to get ill or had to be replaced, we’d be guaranteed that it could be taken care of for however long Grinnell College is open,” said Bryce Lew '19, a member of the senior class gift

committee.

Michelle Gustafson donated the first $1,000 to the fund, and the rest has come from fundraising done by the committee. The committee has been hosting monthly events to fundraise and plans to host a senior gala closer to graduation.

This semester, Student Health and Counseling Services (SHACS) developed a Women of Color group led by doctoral fellow counselor Yunyoung Garrison and graduate assistant counselor Erin Cannella at SHACS. The group provides a space in which women of color can foster community and discuss a wide array of issues related to identity and wellness.

Group meetings have yet to officially begin as the leaders are currently working to spread the word to interested students. Garrison and Cannella “plan to begin running group sessions once [they] have enough people interested in attending,” they wrote in an email to The S&B. The group plans to meet every Thursday from 4 to 5 p.m. and ideally will have about six to eight members. Anyone who identifies as a woman of color and is interested is welcome to join.

The identification of a need for a group like this in Grinnell, as well as the success of previous SHACS groups focusing on identity, sparked the initiative for the Women of Color group. “SHACS previously has offered other groups, including groups focused on interpersonal relationships and men and masculinity. Previous groups were received well, and we are now trying to expand our offerings to meet the variety of needs and identities represented on campus,” Garrison and Cannella wrote.

The group leaders plan to structure the contents of the meetings based on student interest in order to focus on the topics most relevant and potentially beneficial to the group’s members.

5

According to Garrison and Cannella, the Women of Color group “is fairly unstructured, though typically we will offer time and space for group members to check in and decide how we can use our time as a group in the most meaningful way.”

In order to foster an inviting atmosphere, contents of each meeting will remain confidential. Garrison and Cannella will “ask group members to commit to keeping material shared and identities of other group members confidential in order to promote a safe and supportive group atmosphere.”

Generally, central topics of discussion will focus on existing in a predominantly white state as a woman of color, as well as issues that women of color often encounter in the smaller community at Grinnell College.

“Some may share their experiences and emotions related to lack of understanding by others about what it is like to live a life as a woman of color, particularly in a predominantly white state such as Iowa,” Garrison and Cannella wrote.

Specifically, members might discuss particular experiences in their daily lives, such as microaggressions by peers or faculty members, as well as how to cope with such issues. Garrison and Canella believe that “[g]roup members may also talk about ways to develop effective coping skills to navigate racialized spaces and how to honor their stories as women of color.”

Garrison and Cannella hope that members will form bonds with others who share many of their experiences by “[talking] about their desire to develop meaningful relationships/ allyships with peers who hold similar identities and experiences.”

He was legitimately the nicest person I think I’ve ever met, and he was a friend to anyone.

Carrie Stallings '19 Although the Senior Class Gift is a way to encourage class participation among seniors, students from other class years, as well as faculty and staff, are encouraged to donate to the Memorial Fund for Jack. Donations can be collected through personal contributions to the committee or through Venmo, using the username grinnell2019 and indicating that the donation be put towards Jack’s memorial.

LIZ PAIK

Erin Cannella and Yunyoung Garrison lead the Women of Color group to promote wellness and community among women of color.

Grinnell pets provide comfort, emotional support to their student owners

By Kelly Page pagekell@grinnell.edu Many Grinnell College students have roommates, but for some, that roommate walks on four legs and meows. Pet ownership is fairly popular among students at the College, many times for the emotional support that animals can provide.

Elena Voisin '19 shares their apartment with Mango, a small and spirited cat who got her name because she was the size of a mango when Voisin brought her home. Voisin was working at Almost Always Open the day before Thanksgiving last year when Mango came into their life unexpectedly.

“One night, half an hour before closing, someone had found her in the

Subway parking lot and she wouldn’t stop following him around, so he just walked in the store with her and he was like I don’t know what to do with this cat, so I was like if you can hold onto her for another half hour, I’ll take her in. She just kind fell into our lap,” said Voisin.

Voisin is allowed to have Mango in their apartment because she eventually became their official emotional support animal. “It’s nice to have someone to talk to. She can be very very sweet and affectionate. And sometimes she can really sense if you’re having a bad day, like if I go curl up in bed she’ll come and check on me and lick my face. She just fills me with such happiness,” Voisin said.

Grinnell College cat owners such

SARINA LINCOLN

River Morel '22 lives with their cat Sage, a registered emotional support animal through the College, who they call their "soul flame."

as Claire Eide '19 echo the emotional support that a pet can offer. “There are days when you come home from a shitty meeting or like, you weren’t prepared for class, you’re just feeling gross and he’ll just come up to you and purr. It’s a really calming experience,” she said of her cat, appropriately named Cat. Cat, an extremely affectionate black cat and a gargantuan at 15 pounds, was abandoned twice by his owners (who named him George Bush and Noche) and ended up at Poweshiek Animal League Shelter (PALS), where Eide adopted him last summer.

While some students adopt animals while attending the College, River Morel '22 came to Grinnell with their cat Sage, who they described as their “soul flame.” Sage, an Aries, is an incredibly wise black cat who, despite being slightly nervous sometimes, loves adventure.

“We’re destined to be together and I just adopted her two years ago.

Someone texted me a picture of this cat in the morning with like big blue eyes, and I had just woken up from a dream and I was like yes, I want it. I was like in delirium and my parents were mad, but she’s an angel,” Morel said.

Although no animal shelter would generally recommend impulse-adopting cats, Sage and Morel ended up being a perfect match. Sage is Morel’s official emotional support animal at the College, which allows them to live together in the dorms, and Morel certainly sees their bond with Sage as a source of emotional support. However, Morel pointed out that keeping cats engaged while living in a dorm

can be difficult.

“I think you have to make sure that they can be enriched. I feel bad this winter because she can’t go out in the snow, so I’ve been letting her out in the hallway more and letting her run around, but I think it would suck if she was just in this room,” they said.

One benefit of dorm living for cats, however, can be the sense of community they foster among residents who can play with and keep them active throughout the day.

A cat owner who wishes to remain anonymous because their landlord does not know about their animal companion says that when they lived in the dorms with their emotional support cat named Bodhi, they were not the only one who Bodhi emotionally supported. Bodhi, a Cancer who can play with string toys for hours on end and bounces around the room like an acrobat, quickly became a friend to many students.

“The people that I live with benefit from him as much as I do. … In the dorms, I would leave cat toys on the floor and leave my door unlocked, and people could go play with him, and that was really great. It provided a really great sense of community around me and was just a very natural prosocial thing,” they said.

This cat owner adopted a cat at the recommendation of a mental healthcare provider after sharing their feelings of loneliness in relationship to mental health. Cats can be very useful for students dealing with depression because, as the student explained, “I now have a bare minimum that I need to do during the day for someone else, and that’s sometimes much easier for

me to accomplish than things for myself.”

Although cats are a very popular pet option, there is a definite culture of rodent ownership at Grinnell.

Abby Hansen '21 lives with a hamster named Briar. She says that hamsters are smarter than many people think and can provide emotional support just as well as cats. “When I’m stressed, I can just take him out and he can run around and have a good time,” she said.

Briar is a Taurus who loves eating hard-boiled eggs from the Dining Hall. At the sound of Hansen’s alarm in the morning, he hops against the side of his enclosure until Hansen gives him a treat.

Hansen said the biggest issue she faces in parenting Briar is finding pet sitting for him during breaks, which is a common issue for Grinnell College pet owners. Cat owners often need to give their cats muscle relaxants so they can fly or drive long distances with them. Pets who need to stay at Grinnell year-round must often be handed over to other students during breaks.

Though pet owners find ways to make it work, it is important to know one’s limits when considering adopting an animal. Cats and hamsters can play an important emotional role in their caretakers’ lives, but the process of declaring an emotional support animal at the College can be long and arduous. However, if prospective pet owners can work through the hurdles of student pet ownership, it can pay off for the emotional wellbeing of the student and their community and provide homes for beautiful animals.

Sports

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Edited by odonnel@grinnell.edu

Men’s Basketball finishes regular season with big win

By Seth Bartusek bartusek@grinnell.edu

Last Saturday, Grinnell Men’s Basketball finished up their regular season schedule with a thrilling 125-119 win over Lake Forest College. With this win, Grinnell moves

CONTRIBUTED

Men’s Basketball defeated Lake Forest on Senior Day.

to 19-5 overall, 15-3 in conference, while also going undefeated at home for the first time in seven years.

Among several notable players was Vinny Curta ‘19, who scored 39 points en route to the Pioneers victory while also setting the NCAA DIII record for career free throws attempted, 942, breaking the previous record of 928. Also factoring in to the Pioneers win was Jackson Qualley ‘22, who scored 24 points, Ky-Sean Johnson ‘19, with 18 including six three-pointers, and Will Beebee ‘22, who added 14 points and four rebounds.

“I think our chemistry and camaraderie was on display primarily and our ability to keep putting points on the board top to bottom was most distinct,” said Griffin Boehm ‘19.

“Our intensity was consistent and the competitive nature was there, but we also had guys buying into roles and stepping up and making shots when we needed it.”

The Pioneers began the game in an early hole, giving up a substantial lead to Lake Forest at the 10-minute

Football coach attends prestigious academy

By Sarah Licht lichtsar@grinnell.edu The Grinnell Pioneers Football Coach Jason Martinez was given a spot at the prestigious NCAA and NFL Coaches Academy to expand on his coaching abilities. The twoday Coaches Academy in Tampa, Fla. provides coaches from Division I to III leagues an opportunity to expand their knowledge and insight into the world of college football.

A football team’s ability to perform ultimately comes down to the coach’s ability to lead, and Martinez said the academy helped him develop his coaching skills to a higher level.

“During the two-day academy, the NCAA leadership development staff and the National Football League Player Engagement were able to educate and train us in a variety of areas that encourage effective coaching and improve student-athlete well-being at both the college and professional levels,” said Martinez.

The Academy covered many different topics to help improve Martinez’s skills both as a tactician and an educator. The academy covered topics such as effective communication with school administrators and student athletes and having mentorship that builds a healthy student-athlete culture when off the field, as well as more technical themes like budget management and coaching strategies.

Coach Martinez said that “understanding that the essentials to a posi-

tive team culture on and off the field is more than just Xs and Os [wins and losses]” was the most important lesson learned from his time at the Academy.

The academy has also helped Martinez recognize the role and opportunity he has to make a difference to the lives of his athletes. “As a leader within our program, I now understand how much of a positive impact I can make in our athletes lives on and off the field for their four years at Grinnell College but also as they continue to grow over the next forty years of their lives,” he said.

He also found that helping and building positive relationships with each individual on the team will help them improve vastly. “The biggest impact that we can make as coaches is in the areas that don’t involve scheme and play calling but rather the individual person’s development.” Martinez said, “Moving forward, I will continue in my efforts to create positive opportunities that are impactful and focused on making our athletes better as individuals on and off the field, as well as continuing to expand my own knowledge to the areas of mental health and well-being, leadership, and intentionality.”

More than anything, the Coaching Academy reaffirmed Martinez’s love for coaching. “I want to make a positive impact on young people’s lives and to give back to a sport that gave me far more than I could ever repay,” said Martinez.

CONTRIBUTED

Football Coach Jason Martinez, who took part in the NCAA coaches academy.

mark of the first half. Contributing to Lake Forest’s hot start was Sam Husting, who made seven straight three-pointers in the first half, ending the game 11-14 from deep. However, the Pioneers made a comeback, driven by Curta breaking the free throw attempt record mid-way through the first half, and took a 63-62 lead into the second half.

Our intensity was consistent and the competitive nature was there, but we also had guys buying into roles and stepping up and making shots when we needed it.

Griffin Boehm '19 The Pioneers continued to put on the pressure throughout the rest of the game, going on several scoring runs. Lake Forest evened the score with four minutes to go, but Curta put the game away by making two free-throws with a minute left.

He finished with a double-double,

39 points and 10 assists, becoming eighth in school history in free throw attempts and seventh in school history in assists in a season, with 149 assists.

“There were a lot of momentum swings throughout that game; they hit a ton of threes and had a bunch of huge dunks so you have to give them credit for that,” Boehm said. “To respond to those types of big plays in the fashion that we did especially late in the game is huge for us.”

It was Senior Day for the Pioneers, and the team, as well as the crowd, honored their three graduating players, Boehm, Curta and Johnson, for their accomplishments over the past four years.

To respond to those types of big plays in the fashion that we did especially late in the game is huge for us.

Griffin Boehm'19 “We have a lot of young guys, I think 20 of our 26 players are un-

derclassmen, and they have been big role players for us down the road,” Boehm said. “But playing with Vinny [Curta] and Ky-Sean [Johnson] is great, we all have different roles and are effective in different ways so we can all be on the court at the same time or play on different lines and bring different things to the table.”

Saturday’s back-and-forth affair against Lake Forest was only a preview of what is yet to come this postseason. The Pioneers finished second in the Midwest Conference, qualifying them for the Conference Tournament that begins today. They will rematch against Lake Forest in the first round, this time playing on a neutral court at St. Norbert in De Pere, Wisconsin.

“I feel like they gave us their best punch [on Saturday]. They shot really well from the field and hit 1831 from three which is impressive,” Boehm said. “But coming out on top of that game really sets us up well for Friday and gives us some momentum going into the Tournament.”

Athletics attempts to increase student usage of facilities in the Bear

By Tommy O’Donnell odonnel@grinnell.edu The Charles Benson Bear ‘39 Recreation and Athletic Center offers a wide variety of facilities for all students to use, yet many of these facilities are not being utilized as much as hoped.

Andy Hamilton, Director of Athletics and Recreation, believes that more needs to be done to advertise all of the spaces available. “This is an area we struggle with, we don’t do a good job of marketing and promoting,” he said. “It’s typically by student word of mouth … we do some promoting with faculty members so that they can push it out to their students … this is an expansive facility ... trying to figure out ways to utilize it better and have students utilize it better is important for us.”

One of the less well-known spaces in the Bear is the climbing wall.

Run by members of the Grinnell Outdoor Recreation Program (GORP), the climbing wall is open from 4:15 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday.

Max Tetrick ‘19, the student climbing wall manager, plays an important role in keeping the facility functional by hiring students and creating time schedules.

Tetrick was quick to point out that any students who are interested in using the wall can come and try it out, regardless of prior experience. “I would say the majority of the students that come to the wall have no experience climbing, they’re just kind of curious about it and show up … we can provide any sort of training they need, whether that just be very basic training to come and climb easier things, or more intense training if they want learn how to belay and belay their friends.”

If these times do not fit a student’s schedule, the bouldering wall is also available for students to use during the Bear opening hours. Currently, the climbing wall has a relatively low usage rate. Tetrick said that approximately 50 students per week

ELENA COPPELL

The climbing wall is open for students to use during the regular Bear opening hours. use the wall.

In an attempt to increase participation rate, GORP members put on events every semester to give students the opportunity to learn more about using the facility. “One event that we usually try to do every semester to increase the number of people coming is called ‘Wallapalooza’ … it’s basically an event when we buy a bunch of snacks and try to advertise it a little bit more and that usually helps increase our numbers a bit,” Tetrick said.

I would say the majority of the students that come to the wall have no experience climbing, they’re just kind of curious about it and show up.

Max Tetrick'19 Another underutilized facility in the Bear is the dance studio, situated above the Russell K. Osgood Pool.

Although many students know that this space is available in the Bear, the overriding reason for its low usage rate is the fact that students are unaware of how to book the space.

For students wanting to use this space, Hamilton said “They [students] need to go to the equipment cage, they could also ask at front desk … and the nice part of that is there is access to music … and there is also

some fitness equipment in there.”

Students must note that they cannot use the facility on their own; at least two students must be inside the space at any point due to health and safety reasons.

For students who want to find a new place to study, the Bear also offers a number of different spaces to work in. “There would be three places that I could recommend. One is down by the concessions stand in the below ground level, there is a little lounge there with the high chairs.

The other two places are the upstairs classrooms on the second floor … if you go immediately upstairs and pass by the fitness center, there’s two very large classrooms and there’s access to technology … those are two classrooms that aren’t normally utilized and they’re always unlocked,” said Hamilton.

Hamilton said he wants to make sure that all of these spaces are more accessible to students to improve their college experience. “I would hope that we can create an environment and a welcoming atmosphere for students to use the Bear for their own personal wellness. I think … the ‘how’ is maybe more due to getting the information out and letting people know of the great opportunities … we strive to let everybody know that everybody’s individual access has the same equity … its a matter of communication and getting the message out better.”

Pioneer’s swim and dive sweep MWC Tournament honors

By Eva Hill hilleva@grinnell.edu Last Sunday, the Pioneer Men’s and Women’s Swim Teams dominated the Midwest Conference (MWC) championships, taking home both titles. For the women’s team, it was their seventh consecutive win, and their 20th in the past 21 years; currently they have a total of 24 MWC wins.

For the men, the title was their fourth in a row, and their 16th in the past 18 years, with the men’s team having 41 MWC wins in total.

Madeline Peak ‘21 came in first in the 50-meter freestyle with a time of 24.04, making her the new conference record-holder for the event. In addition, Peak, along with Enya Gamble ‘22, Olivia Konieczny ‘21, and Kaia Clarke ‘21, made up the relay team that broke the previous conference record with a time of 1:37.47.

On her record-setting 50-meter free, Peak said, “It was really exciting,

because [the previous record for that event] was one of the oldest records on the board, from 1988 – I’ve been looking at it for a while.” Regarding the relay team’s record-setting time, she said, “We all got really excited about it — it was just a really fun group of people.”

Kai Vorhies ‘19, one of the captains of the men’s team, described how he felt heading into the championships. “Anything could go wrong, but we were really confident going in that we’d win, and we put a lot of work in throughout the season to get to where we were, so it felt good to win.”

Nikki Schlegel ‘22, who was named Outstanding Newcomer Representing a Women’s Championship, won the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 2:06.36. She was four seconds faster than the runner-up and recorded the second-fastest time for the event in conference history.

All three swimmers interviewed emphasized the importance of the car-

ing environment fostered within the teams. Peak explained that she wasn’t sure if she was going to continue swimming after high school, but meeting the people on the team convinced her to join. “They’re some of the nicest people I’ve ever met — they’re such a great community of people,” she said. “[Joining the team] is definitely one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.”

Vorhies said, “We’re focusing a lot more, in recent years, on team image and making sure anyone can feel welcome on the team — not that that’s been a problem, but that’s one of the main things we want to be on the swim team. We’re there to be with the people who choose to be on the swim team, so making sure that everybody who wants to join can join and have a good time is one of the most important things.”

Head Coach Erin Hurley won Coach of the Year Representing a Men’s Championship, and Vorhies emphasized the importance of her role on their continued success, “Erin is

legitimately — I’m biased — but it’s not stretching any bounds to say Erin is one of the best coaches to have existed in the history of this planet.”

Schegel summed up the team’s chemistry by explaining the supportive environment she witnessed at the conference: “On Saturday night, when I had [400-meter individual medley] finals, I played my walk-up music, and the whole team was on the other side of the pool, dancing and getting me

hyped up, and it was really special and I couldn’t stop smiling – I was trying to stay focused before the race but I just couldn’t stop smiling, and that really gives a testament to how my team is always making me stay relaxed and stay present in the moment and not be so serious, and it helped me out with that race, because it’s always really mentally exhausting and physically exhausting, so I was really grateful.”

CONTRIBUTED

Nikki Schlegel ‘22 and Head Coach Erin Hurley receive their awards.

Arts

Edited by fruchter@grinnell.edu

Inside the Arts: Jacob Leder '20 on directing a gender-flipped version of “True West”

ELENA COPELL

Audrey Boyle '21, Jacob Leder '20 and Nicole Rosengurt '20 in rehearsal.

By Abraham Teuber teuberab@grinnell.edu This semester at Grinnell, political science and theatre and dance major Jacob Leder '20 is directing an innovative production of Sam Shepard’s “True West.” Premiered in 1980, “True West” explores themes of masculinity and brotherhood in one of

the esteemed American playwright’s more realist plays. The show depicts the chaos that occurs upon the reunion of two formerly estranged brothers, Austin and Lee. However, in Leder’s production, Austin and Lee are sisters, played by Audrey Boyle '21 and Nicole Rosengurt '20.

“True West” is sponsored by the Grinnell Area Arts Council’s Open

Space program, an opportunity that allows students to apply to direct a show of their choosing in the Loft Theatre in the Grinnell Arts Center.

Leder knew going into the project that he was interested in changing the genders of the main characters. While he praised the play, he also said that its major themes are rampant in other theatrical works of the 20th century.

“We can take … themes that I think are so much richer than the tensions of brotherhood, and then explore those through casting women and exploring new dynamics and also just bringing out [themes] that maybe [go] by the wayside in traditional versions of this play,” said Leder.

Award winning actor, director and writer Ethan Hawke, who currently plays Lee on Broadway, proposed the idea of directing the show with the main characters as women to Sam Shepard before the late playwright’s death. Shepard immediately disagreed with the idea. Leder’s production of “True West” is possibly the first genderflipped version of the play.

“He’s an incredible playwright, but I think as you take old texts that

have been admired in the patriarchy, you can subvert them and do new things and that’s really exciting,” Leder said.

Leder, Boyle and Rosengurt all commented on how the change in casting definitively transforms the tone of the show and dynamics of the characters. Rehearsals only started the week of Feb. 17, but the modifications to the show have already provided some unique challenges.

“We’ve realized … that we need to be very vigilant about making sure these characters are women and we’re playing them as women, because we didn’t make the choice to be women playing men. … In the first rehearsal, we kept referring to them with he [pronouns] … and I [said] we need to make a decision to refer to them as she/ her. Even when we’re not talking about me and Nicole, we need to talk about them as women.” said Boyle.

Rosengurt praised the new message and representation the show offers when Austin and Lee are played as women.

“We don’t see a lot of bad women characters, women who are just not

7

likable, or violent, or do crazy dumb things, or aren’t nice to each other and aren’t victims. … [Austin and Lee] are not likable characters. … To give women the agency to be unlikable and awful and do nasty things without [the audience thinking,] ‘Oh, she’s acting like a man’ is a nice bit of power to have and a nice exploration of the different roles that women can take,” Rosengurt said.

While the gender dynamics certainly transform the show, Boyle and Rosengurt emphasized the excitement of the core of the show’s plot.

“There’s so many moments that are just surreal. … Some of those are in the script, and some of them we’re leaning into. … Get ready for the wacky, wild West.” Boyle said.

Other students involved in the production are actors Conner Stanfield '21 and Harry Gale '20, as well as technical designers Carlos Ventura '20 and Ananya Munish '20. Performances run the weekend of April 19 at the Loft Theatre. Tickets will be available the week of performances at the Bucksbaum Center for the Arts.

Iowa Arts (ob)Scene: The world’s only Lil Peep cover band

By Cait Mohr mohrcait@grinnell.edu

What is the standard against which we evaluate the humble cover band? Is the cover band, in all of its corniness and imperfection, ultimately striving toward some kind of heavenly essence of the original?

Or, is the cover band meant to revel in its status as a crude simulacrum of its predecessor, emphasizing the uniqueness of those performances forever lost in the sands of time?

These are the questions that plagued me in the sweaty, heterosexual swamp on the top floor of Gabe’s Iowa City last Saturday, where vapors from no less than ten different Juul knock-offs in the audience banded together to assault my senses with an odor I can only describe as “dog food beer bong.”

The phrase “dog food beer bong” is not something that comes to mind when listening to Lil Peep, a rapper whose discography oozes restrained emotionality and weaves a perennial longing for meaningful

human connection alongside the sense of alienation that many of us with depression are all too familiar with. The phrase is, however, perfectly apt for describing the general vibe of a Lil Weep and the Crybabys [sic] show. An opening cover of “Benz Truck,” entirely performed in a sort of pained shouting, nearly sent me into shock. Lil Weep had successfully eradicated any of the agonized yearning in Peep’s music and replaced it with the terrifying aura of the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket.

This concert had the manic energy of a boys-only frat party at the precise moment when Travis Scott’s “Sicko Mode” comes on shuffle. Lil Weep, with eyes nearly popping out of his skull at all times, seemed to have a sort of power over the drunken crowd of University of Iowa business majors and GOTHBOICLIQUE aficionados. During a frenzied cover of “Cry Alone,” I was alerted by my friend that a very affectionate couple to our right was spurred into some lip action at the utterance of the

lyrics “I wanna burn my old high school into the ground.”

Even between songs, when Lil Weep’s band attempted to maintain the manic energy with Nicki Minaj remixes and a very reliable hype man, a couple of shirtless men in the front row were drunkenly yanking at the chains keeping the speakers suspended in mid-air. Even the instrumentals were bizarrely disordered, with abrupt DJ scratch effects puncturing the flow of emo riffs like the backing track to a Limp Bizkit single. Indeed, Lil Weep and the Crybabys were definitively more Fred Durst than Gus Åhr.

Despite their flaws, Lil Weep and the Crybabys ultimately won me over. In retrospect, inherent to all of the shouting and chaos was a sort of outpouring of emotion that came from a place of identification and respect, a possible continuation of what Lil Weep may have seen as Peep’s unfinished project.

In the midst of the dog food beer bong odor and drunken make-outs, I felt a sort of kinship with the room

Lil Weep performed at Gabe’s Iowa City on Saturday, Feb. 16.

when the occasional “LONG LIVE PEEP” was chanted. After all I, like the rest of the crowd, paid $12 to party in homage to a rapper I loved dearly and discover how exactly someone could bear the responsibility of being the world’s only Lil Peep cover band. When it comes

CONTRIBUTED

down to it, there is something beautiful about being able to lose your mind to a wedding-singer-tier cover of “Witchblades” among others who are as enthralled by the sound of the GOTHBOICLIQUE tag as you are.

Yes, a Lil Weep show is agony, but it is also ecstasy.

Trio brings the Baroque to Bux

By Eva Hill hilleva@grinnell.edu

By Ingrid Meulemans meuleman@grinnell.edu

By Cait Mohr mohrcait@grinnell.edu

Just before 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 16, the audience section of Sebring-Lewis Hall filled with a murmur of anticipation of the musicians arriving through the stage doors to perform a program of baroque music.

The most immediately noticeable feature of the stage was an elegant black harpsichord with gold trim. Also on stage were two music stands, one at standing height and one, less extended, facing a chair upon which was leaning a viola da gamba (a 15th-century instrument that resembles a cello with broader sides and no endpin).

The auditorium’s cherry-wood back wall and mint-green walls created an oddly timeless feeling, as if it were unclear whether the audience was in the present, the Baroque era or far in the future.

Performing that night was a trio of musicians accomplished in Baroque, Renaissance, and operatic styles.

Mezzo-soprano Suzanne Lommler, a vocal professor at Grinnell and Simpson Colleges, has performed in lead roles at Haymarket Opera in Chicago and Opera Kelowna in British Columbia.

Jory Vinikour, harpsichordist, is an internationally recognized two-time Grammy nominee. Craig Trompeter, cellist and violist da gamba, is the artistic director of the Haymarket Opera Company, and has performed with the Chicago Symphony, Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Smithonian Chamber Music Society.

Professor Jennifer Brown, music, was responsible for bringing these performers to Grinnell. She said that it has been a longtime dream of hers to bring the three musicians together to perform at the College: “[Lommler] had worked with [Vinikour and Trompeter] for many years, and they were great friends, but I also had known each of them independently, and I thought, well, wouldn’t it be great

to have a concert that featured all three of them?”

The trio began the evening with two pieces by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell, “Sweeter than Roses” (1696) and “An Evening Hymn on a Ground” (1688), followed by a performance of Girolamo Frescobaldi’s all-instrumental Canzona in A (1628).

Then came Barbara Strozzi’s 1651 “L’Eraclito amoroso,” after which Lommler stepped out for the next two instrumental pieces: Martin Marais’ “Le Labyrinthe” (1717) and Bernardo Storace’s “Ciaconna” (1664). Vinikour provided a brief introduction to the Storace piece, explaining that almost nothing is known about the composter; all but one book of his work being lost in earthquakes in Italy during the 18th and 20th centuries.

On bringing baroque music to Grinnell, Brown said, “I think it’s important to bring any kind of music that is done by top-notch professionals in their field, but particularly for me, as I teach this material here, it is very directly related to what I’m doing in the classroom, in my music history courses, and in Collegium [the Collegium Musicum, an early music performance ensemble] and especially in my baroque improvisation seminar — they were able to assist directly with

that with a workshop they gave.”

To finish out the first act, Lommler returned to the stage to perform Benedetto Ferrari’s 1641 piece “Amanti, io vi só dire.” Throughout the act, each musician’s skill shone through: Vinikour’s ability was especially highlighted by the complex “Ciaconna,” while the mellow smoothness of Trompeter’s viola da gamba demonstrated his artistry at “shaping” the line of the music and Lommler’s rich vibrato revealed the emotional side of the music.

Trompeter’s viola da gamba demonstrated his artistry at “shaping” the line of the music and Lommler’s rich vibrato revealed the emotional side of the music.

After intermission, Trompeter switched from the viola da gamba to the baroque cello. The two instrumentalists played George Friedrich Handel’s sixmovement Suite in G Minor (1720).

Lommler then joined Vinikour and Trompeter for a performance of the tragic cantata La Lucrezia (1709), also by Handel. Lommler’s voice and expressions took center stage to make it an enthralling finale. After a standing ovation, all three returned to the stage for a performance of “Habanera” from the 1875 Georges Bizet opera “Carmen.”

The harpsichord was integral to the music of the Baroque Era.

EVA HILL

Arts

8

Kaya Prasad

Edited by fruchter@grinnell.edu

Infinite Coincidence Competes Impressively in Kansas

On Feb. 8 - 9, Grinnell College’s very own Infinite Coincidence braved the icy roads to venture to Kansas City for the Heartland Regional round of the 12th Annual College Improv Tournament.

Approximately 12 collegiate improv teams from the Heartland region of the Midwest competed at the event, which took the form of three preliminary rounds throughout the day and a final at night. In each round, teams had 20 minutes on stage to improvise whatever they wanted.

Each team was judged by a panel of local Kansas City improvisers, who assessed the teams based on the categories of Supporting Moves, Characters, Clear and Strong Relationships, Objective/POV, Environment and Stage Technique/Presence.

How did Grinnell’s team fare against their competitors? Infinite Coincidence senior member Nolan Boggess '19 told the S&B about the outcome of the team’s trip.

SHABANA GUPTA

Kaya Prasad in rehearsal for her MAP, which integrates anthropology, religious studies and dance in an exploration of exile and identity.

By Anneliese Stattelman stattelma@grinnell.edu Kaya Prasad '19 has been exploring the world through movement since she was 2 years old. Since then, she has combined her passions of community building, theology and anthropology into her dancing career.

The Grinnell fourth-year is currently working on her Mentored Advanced Project, a 30-minute dance performance entitled “Negotiating Boundaries: Identity and Exile.”

Prasad’s combination of community engagement and dance began in high school where she performed with an ensemble who did community service events like benefits for the children’s hospital or nursing homes.

Her already impressive repertoire of ballet, jazz, tap and modern dance techniques was expanded upon when she came to Grinnell. She joined the salsa club, was part of the inaugural membership of the contra club and took up swing dancing.

“I always felt like dance was really important to me not just for the art form but also as a place to be with people and a way to build relationships with people, and to make friends. Some of my deepest and most lasting friendships have come through dance … I love being able to dance with people and get to know them through dance,” said Prasad.

When she was a first-year, Prasad performed in Taylor Watts’ MAP, “A Choreographic Exploration of Le Commerce Triangulaire [the Triangular Trade].” “[The MAP] was an anthropology and choreography map with some French history involved in it too.

I thought it was so cool that Taylor Watts was doing a project that combined dance and something really academic. Those had always been my two separate worlds,” said Prasad.

After taking a semester off of

dancing to travel to Kunming, China for study abroad, Prasad enrolled in a linguistics short course at Grinnell that involved dancing as well as a choreography class.

I always felt like dance was really important to me not just for the art form but also as a place to be with people and a way as a place to be with people and a way to build relationships with people.

The two classes had a profound effect on Prasad’s relationship with dance. She said that having the space and time to work with “people who think like Celeste [Miller, associate professor of theater and dance] about dance as something that can be used as a medium of creating knowledge and not just something that you do with your body to look cool or look pretty” awoke in her heart “this realization that I am a dancer and that’s a good thing.”

Prasad decided to rework her plan for her last year at Grinnell and incorporated dance into her independent major. She decided that for her senior thesis she would do a choreography MAP. “The MAP is integrating all of the components of my independent major and so it draws on anthropology, religious studies, and dance. There are a lot of layers to it.”

Prasad spends about 16 hours a week in the dance studio: eight hours of Dance Ensemble and eight hours of rehearsals for her MAP. To create movement for her MAP, Prasad has selected some texts from the Hebrew bible and Christian scriptures that speak to the theme of exile and identity on national, religious, spiritual level.

Her MAP explores the “purpose

exile serves in bringing us from the brokenness that we’re living and closer to the wholeness that we’re made for.” To explain these themes, Prasad conducted interviews with family members about immigration and living in a multicultural family. She interviewed her grandfather, who immigrated from India, about “living in a culture that makes him feel like he doesn’t really fit.” She also interviewed her dad and two aunts about growing up “halfway between” two cultures.

“I’m looking at how those stories have intersections with the universal story that emerges from the biblical narrative. I’m writing text that will be spoken as part of the performance along with the dancing.”

I'm looking at how those stories have intersections with the universal story that emerges from the biblical narrative.

Prasad has completed sections of her performance, and the work she has already created is powerful and intriguing. Her dance movements emphasize the spoken dialogue, giving life and imagery to a text that is provoking on its own.

Prasad is also collaborating with musicians who are composing music based on the same biblical texts she is using to make movement, as well as other dancers. In the future Prasad plans to go on to the professional world of dance and apply what she has learned from her anthropology and theology classes to keep studying people, individuals and communities.

“Dance is not just an art form for experiencing yourself,” she said.

“It’s also an art form for connecting with people through ideas and through movement.”

The Oscars

This past weekend, Grinnell College’s fiercest and most fiery competitors made the intense, long journey to Kansas City to bring a trophy home for the Pioneers to make JB proud. That’s right. Long-form improv troupe Infinite Coincidence competed in the regional round of the College Improv Tournament.

I know what you're thinking: how do those beautiful beings DO it? And I am here to tell you how.

You usually aren't doing too well if you decide to do improv competitively!

After a long week of classes, we packed up two cars (shout out Tommy Hexter '21) to begin the journey to victory. We immediately hit traffic in Des Moines but listened to podcasts to keep our brains sharp as that bad alto in choir who sits next to you.

Five college improvers jammed in a car listening to podcasts? Proof that heaven exists!

As the sun went down and our tummies began to rumble, my car pulled a fast one on the other car and secretly stopped at a Wendy’s about an hour outside of Kansas City (even though Joseph Knopke '19 told us he had a “bounty” of food at his house, where he was letting us all stay).

As we ordered our Frostys, I had the peculiar and brief realization that everyone in that gas station Wendy’s was birthed at one point and has so many problems of their own. What a world we live in!

Trying to shrug off the shock, we finally arrived at Joseph’s house with no thanks to Samuel Dahlke '19’s TERRIBLE navigation. We then went to bed and dreamt of the Gatorade shower we would feel tomorrow when we clenched the trophy (which we found out was only a … plaque).

After glorious breakfast, we headed to the local library to rehearse. Yes, improv troupes DO rehearse. We usually do scenes that are about 45 minutes in length, but we only had 20 minutes at the competition. Therefore, we had to make up a

whole new form to present — a metaphor of the struggles of LIFE. We rolled up to the competition ready to GO. We head into the venue in a dark basement and immediately heard the shrill anxiety, energy and odor of fifty college improv performers. You usually aren’t doing too well if you decide to do improv competitively! After nodding at the other teams (never get to know them, otherwise they might use the information you give against you) and watching them belt the warmup song the DJ chose (“Party in the USA”), we were ready to go.

In the first part of the competition, there were three rounds of three teams competing. The team that scored the best according to the judges (surprisingly, not just your mom in a disguise) in each round advanced to the finals. I will not go into the gritty details, but we scored second place in our first round. OUR CHANCES WERE GONE! WE SCREAMED AND CRIED! PLEASE MAKE IT NOT SO! Well, we weren’t actually that dramatic, but we were bummed … until we learned that we were the wild card pick to go to the finals!

As we ordered our Frostys, I had the peculiar and brief realization that everyone in that gas station Wendy's was birthed at one point and has so many problems of their own. What a world we live in!

We fueled up on BBQ and prepared for another round of competition. The final round was the best part of the competition! It was so much fun performing in front of a lot of strangers and just having fun with my buds on stage. After some great performances, we found out we got third place. Although we would not be going on to the finals in Chicago, we knew that it was all about the friends we made along the way and since we all knew each other before competing, we learned nothing.

The film industry’s illustrious awards show, the Oscars, will air on Sunday, Feb. 24. While the Academy will be making the final decisions, The S&B’s Abraham Teuber ‘22 and Sarina Lincoln ‘21 consulted some local Grinnell cinephiles to ask them about their best picture pick of 2018.

I know nothing about the Oscars, but I hope [“Black Panther”] wins because I think that the conversations that came out of it being such a mainstream movie really took conversations of afrofuturism out of academia, and I really appreciated that because I didn’t know much about it beforehand. — Rachel Hinkley '21

I am a long-time fan of Spiderman, but I am a comic purist. … I thought the animation style of [“Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse”] was gorgeous, and to do a comic book movie in a comic book style felt visually eloquent. … I definitely hope it wins Best Animated Feature. — Dan Strauss '21

I hope “Black Panther” wins one of its seven Oscar nominations just so I can say “Black Panther” was an Oscar award-winning movie. — Linnet Adams '21

“Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald.” … it had a ridiculously paced plot line, but the special effects were great; it was visually gorgeous. — Emily Sannella '22

“A Star Is Born,” because of the music and also I was impressed by Bradley Cooper, because he was the director but also his acting was really good. … Also, Lady Gaga’s voice was great and I was surprised by how well she could act. …

I cried a little in the end! — Maya Adachi '21

“Bohemian Rhapsody” was fantastic. It gave such a beautiful rendition of Freddie Mercury’s story, as well as the whole development of his character, and [I appreciated] how they accurately portrayed his sexuality. — Eleanor Wried '22

Opinions This Week in Wellness: How do you beat procrastination?

Edited by irwinkat@grinnell.edu

By Eva Hill hilleva@grinnell.edu Last week, while talking with a friend at dinner, we discussed our similar experiences having difficulty getting started on homework and attending review sessions, even though there was not necessarily something else to do instead of schoolwork. I decided then — Wednesday of last week — that I wanted to write this week’s column on procrastination. I planned that I would do the research on Thursday and Friday, and then have the whole weekend to prepare my article (you can probably see where this is going).

It is currently 10:40 p.m. on Tuesday night (The S&B copy is due on Wednesday). I have just finished taking a break from working on the previous paragraph to write the recipe below, which really is very good — making and eating it this weekend provided a great excuse for me to put off my work. I like writing this column a lot; I can think of many worse jobs than researching and writing about topics that I find interesting. So why do I have so much trouble getting started?

Psychology Today suggests that there may be several different causes of procrastination. One source of procrastination may be fear of failure, resulting in a form of self-sabotage. Other possible causes include fear of success and the ensuing responsibility given to a person who has shown they can excel and paral-

ysis brought on by worrying about the project not turning out perfectly.

A 2016 Forbes article cites a 2015 study where people were instructed to think of the time they had left until future events in different divisions of time (i.e. years, months, days, etc.). The study found that people who thought of the time until the events in smaller intervals considered them to be sooner and started preparing for them earlier than the people who thought about the time in larger intervals. Based on these results, the article’s author suggested using the time-interval method and thinking about the happiness your future self would feel to have the task done, rather than your current desire not to do the task.

Would it have helped me to think about the due date for this column being in 168 hours, rather than in a little less than a week? I’m not sure, but it seems like a reasonable strategy to try for my next installment.

Another strategy that may help with reducing procrastination is dividing your work up into smaller, more manageable chunks, so that each time you think about starting the task, it’s not the whole thing you’re starting, just a small piece.

Dividing up your work this way can have unforeseen benefits as well: you may find that there are parts of your work process that are redundant or unnecessary (if you notice I haven’t written a book and music recommendation this week, it’s because I realized that removing those two sections would help fix two problems I’ve had in the past: struggling to come up with good recommendations each week, and having to shorten the main section of the column in order to make room for them).

The most helpful strategy I’ve ever been taught for procrastination, however, is much simpler than any of the above: instead of procrastinating, take a designated break from your work. Tell yourself that you are free to do whatever you want for a certain amount of time (make it a

substantial amount, maybe an hour or more) without any guilt about not doing your work. When the time is up, you’ll have spent the time during which you would otherwise have been guiltily procrastinating by having an actual mental break without the stress of wanting and not wanting to do something at the same time.

This week’s recipe: Beef and bowtie soup My take on this recipe is closer to being a stew, or maybe a pastaand-sauce dish, than it is a soup, so if you prefer your soup to have more liquid, use a larger pot and add another can of broth. The vegetables I’ve listed here are more guidelines than requirements — I’ve seen variations of this recipe with spinach, corn, or mushrooms, for example.

Ingredients: 1 can beef broth 1 can diced tomatoes Garlic salt ½ lb. ground beef 2-ish medium-sized carrots Approximately ½ yellow onion About 1 cup farfalle pasta Olive or canola oil Parmesan cheese Instructions: 1. Dice the carrots and onion.

2. In a medium saucepan, combine broth and tomatoes. Add carrots and pasta (not onion), cover, and leave on high heat.

3. While pasta and carrots cook, in a frying pan, sauté the ground beef and onions in oil until the onions are translucent and the beef is completely browned.

4. When beef and onions are cooked, add to saucepan. Make sure to also transfer the leftover beef fat, to increase the flavor of the broth.

5. Add garlic salt to taste and cook until pasta is al dente.

6. Serve hot with freshly grated Parmesan (keeps well in fridge for 2-3 days and can be reheated).

The College Should Fix Off-Campus Housing Policy

By Pete Zelles zellespe@grinnell.edu

With room draw approaching and many rising seniors considering their living situation for next year, the issues surrounding off-campus housing in the Grinnell area once again rise to the surface. Under current Grinnell College Residential Life policy, a relatively small handful of Grinnell College students are granted permission to seek off-campus housing for the coming year; seek being the operative word.

The College’s policy for granting off-campus housing permissions creates a catch-22: the local housing market dictates that students who wish to live off-campus must seek housing and sign a lease usually no later than winter of their third year.

However, residential life refuses to offer off-campus permission to students earlier than February.

The benefits of off-campus housing are self-evident. Our on-campus housing costs nearly $600 per month, while off-campus rent is often between $300-450 per month. Many students, particularly by their senior year, simply cannot afford the College’s exorbitant rates. This forces an increasing number of students into signing legally binding off-campus leases accompanied by high security deposits, knowing full-well that Grinnell College may reject their off-campus

housing application. Due to this, the result of a rejected housing application can be devastating. As security deposits often run in the high-hundreds of dollars, students can be left liable for a pricey deposit as well as thousands of dollars in rent, all of which they are formally barred from using by the college.

The local housing market surrounding the college is a prime example of a market failure. There is a disequilibrium in place in which the quantity of houses supplied by landlords does not equal the quantity of houses demanded by students to live off campus. As much as we Grinnellians may not like to see our town in this light, each year, student demand for housing significantly outweighs local short-term housing stock. Due to this, several potential solutions present themselves.

First, more short-term rental properties could emerge, although, this option is problematic for several reasons. Not only would it decrease the long-term housing stock on which local Grinnell residents rely, but it would undoubtedly heighten tensions between local Grinnellians and Grinnell College students. Therefore, this option is far from ideal.

Second, rents within the current short-term housing stock could rise dramatically to counteract this market imbalance. Put bluntly, unless

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we want to create the San Francisco of Iowa, this is a poor option.

Lastly, the college could reconsider its antiquated residential life policy. An earlier release and potential increase in the number of off-campus housing permissions would allow students adequate time to seek housing without the need to sign a lease before college permission has been granted.

The College’s policy surrounding this issue has been particularly obtuse. Residential Life regularly counters this by stating that most rising fourth years who apply for off-campus housing permission are ultimately granted it. This statement ignores the fact the current College policy actively discourages students applying in the first place. The grueling process of seeking housing and signing a lease without any guarantee of off-campus permission from the Grinnell administration results in a student body pressured into living in grossly mispriced on-campus accommodations.

The solution is an easy one; however, the administration is unwilling to relinquish even a small level of control over our housing.

Yes, we are a residential college, but when a dorm room costs a student the same per month as the local average rent for a one-bedroom apartment, something has gone terribly wrong.

Trigger warnings cannot account for everything

By Anonymous

I took a class where students gave warnings before sharing their writing. Warnings included “a little violence,” “allusions to sex,” “intimacy,” “VIOLENCE” and, perhaps my favorite, “existential dread”. I appreciated the effort, but I often found them amusing. Wouldn’t be nice if life issued content warnings for “little violence”? I imagine it would go something like this: “Dear living, we are experiencing some turbulence.

In the next few hours to days expect mild to severe panic attacks, insomnia and crushing rage.”

I do not believe in trigger warnings because I do not believe in safe spaces, or at least the spontaneous manufacturing of a safe space by announcing and wishing away the possibility of it not being safe. However, the merit in trigger warnings resides in providing the other with the choice not to engage with an object if it reminds her of a moment or an event in which her will was ignored or surmounted. I wonder, though, if in announcing that a piece of writing includes “allusions to sex” as a way of issuing a warning, the writer already predetermined the “allusion to sex” to be potentially threatening and hence undermined the very agency they wanted to grant in the first place. In this piece, I want to explore how, to use Roxane Gay’s eloquent wording, “no matter how hard we try, there’s no way to step out of the line of fire.”

I had already begun my undergraduate career when the College began its massive multi-site, multiyear construction project. When I was twelve, I was, for the second time, sexually assaulted. It took place in a construction site near my home, in my school uniform. I spent the next decade vigorously avoiding construction sites, a ludicrous effort. The scent of fresh paint, the dust from the concrete, the sound of the drill all return me, return my body to the scene in which the boundaries of my body and psyche were forcefully defied. Why is it that we speak in the passive voice when discussing the violations, the active violations, committed against

9

our bodies?

The first day of the semester, as I do every morning, I walked into an unfinished Humanities and Social Sciences Complex. Some days, I cope better. I am even charming.

Other days, I go through the day on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for something horrible to take place, waiting for me not to be able to stop it. Sometimes it is not obvious that is what I am doing. I am just irritable, frustrated at the drawn shades in the classroom, annoyed by the slightly high-pitched voice of my male classmate. I am only awakened to my body keeping vigilance when I feel the searing pain on my shoulder traps, where I had held the tremendous tension of the day.

Other days are much harder. My coping mechanisms fail me. As I sit in the classroom, I could feel my body slowly shutting down, working hard to disassociate. I direct all my energy towards staying awake, sometimes quite literally, so I could do the work that I love and feel privileged to do. I have expended my energy in not disassociating that by the end of the day I am too exhausted to do anything else.

In those days, I get angry at myself, at the ways that my body fails me.

I pride myself in having a pretty high ego strength, so the shame of knowing that I am still held hostage by events that transpired ages ago becomes unbearable. Triggers have an adverse relationship to control. It reminds one that she does not have a complete command over the way she inhabits and interacts with the environment that surrounds her. So, it is not just that construction sites trigger me, but in the very nature of the triggering, the construction site reenacts the violence done onto my body by, albeit momentarily, soliciting an involuntarily distress. My contention with trigger warnings is in large part rooted in the involuntary surrender of power. Considering that triggers are rooted in an event where one had to forcefully surrender control, encountering the failure of coping intensifies the pain of inhabiting a violated body, an altered psyche.

Phoebe Schreckinger ‘19: Dear Cheryl

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Social Calendar

Friday

6:15 p.m. Shabbat Table @ JRC 209 7:15 p.m. White Chicks @ Harris Cinema Center 10:00 a.m. HIIT Class @ BEAR Dance Studio 1:30 p.m. Intramural Badminton Tournament @ BEAR Auxiliary Gym 10:00 p.m. 90s Harris @ Harris Center Concert Hall 7:00 p.m. Visiting Baroque Trio Concert @ Bucksbaum

Sunday

10:00 a.m. Black Church at Grinnell @ Herrick Chapel 10:30 a.m. Bagel Brunch @ Main Hall Gardner Lounge

Snedge

This week, Sarah Licht '22 and Abraham Teuber ‘22 polled 100 students asking: Danny DeVito or a large baby?

JRC

Like what you see? check us out:

@thesandb /thescarletandblack thesandb.com @grinnellsandb

Across 1 A gouge in a cliff 5 “_____, me hearties!”

10 Gesture 14 Mister, to Hans 15 Dipper’s twin in “Gravity Falls” 16 Killed 17 A small, ornamental case (crosswordese) 18 Friends 19 Ivanovich imperials 20 To taunt 21 Zealous (var.)

23 Digital low resistance ohmmeter abbrev.

24 German glorified

Rants & Raves: Send me your rants and raves.

— Not creative enough for this

balloonist of WWI 25 Can’t go over shorthand 26 Mother, in Britspeak 28 “Star Trek” Corps of Engineers abbrev.

31 “Animal, ____, or mineral?”

34 German glorified conqueror of the Franco-Prussian War 37 Followed by “dragons” on some old maps 38 Any, in the Highlands 39 MI truck manufacturer

KATE IRWIN

Dad Jokes

The S&B Crossword

Saturday

HSSC

thesandb.com

“The best thing since the front page!”

By Ned Watson '22

Down 1 Textbook rental website 2 To stop working 3 Dutch Caribbean island 4 Sorrow 5 Online retailer 6 Be mine, ___ 7 On fire 8 Hungarian hormone scholar 9 Timeline abbrev.

10 Behave badly 11 “My turn!”

12 River north of Boston (var.)

13 Conservation International president Gary 22 Great War battle site 27 A habitual drunk 28 Cow leather 29 Of the nobility 30 Christmas suffix 31 “secret” prefix (lack of clothing store) 32 Organic foods 40 Aliens objection 43 German glorified 33 Specialty auto astronaut of WWII parts provider 48 Titter 35 With C, “Star 49 Where land and Wars” droid water meet 36 Woodwind 50 New-age energy instruments field 40 Calls forth (an 51 What ___! emotion) 52 A Korean automo- 41 Stealthy bile 42 Pressure 53 Thing 43 Cargo exchange 54 A lift port 55 Move stealthily 44 A blind Rihanna?

56 Medicate 45 Surprise 57 Made an enemy of 46 Cars 58 Snarky 47 Call-signs 59 Snake sound 55 Social Security abbrev.

Students speak about what’s on their minds in 75 words or fewer, and you’re invited! If you have a rant or a rave, email it to [irwinkat].

What’s up with so few Harris parties this year? Can people take one for the team and start hosting?

— Just want to dance the night away

Pick up your shit in Kistle. It’s a library, not your dorm room.

— Cleaning

up after my peers is not what I’m paid to do