Issue 135 Volume 15

Travelling exhibits "Dread and Delight" and "Reckoning with the Incident" open in Faulconer.

Arts page 5

Students enjoy testing out virtual reality equipment as part of "I Love Data Week."

Features page 4

Grinnell Historical Museum declares 2019 the "Year of Cornelia Clarke."

Community page 8

Scarlet & Black the

Volume 135, Issue 15

College addresses accusations of racial discrimination in the Spencer Grill

February 8, 2019 • Grinnell, Iowa

Logan, Wallach, Anand win SGA executive roles

By Eva Hill hilleva@grinnell.edu

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Ana Segebre '19 at work in the Spencer Grill, a popular place of employment on campus.

By Kelly Page pagekell@grinnell.edu The Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers (UGSDW) published a report on Jan. 21 alleging a possible pattern of racial discrimination directed towards student employees at the Spencer Grill. The report shows that, since 2017, more international students and students of color have faced disciplinary actions and been fired from the Grill than their white coworkers.

Grill employees operate under a system of “cuts” similar to a “three strikes” system. Every time employees break a rule, they receive a cut from Grill supervisors. After three cuts, they are fired.

According to the UGSDW’s report, “the median domestic white student worker receives 0.6 cuts a semester, while the median student worker of color/international student worker receives 0.9 cuts a semester.”

Once a student gets three cuts, the Assistant Director who oversees the Spencer Grill, Lisa Thornton, contacts them to tell them that they have been fired from the Grill. However, the UGSDW website describes a racial disparity in this procedure.

Their report states “For student workers who do receive a third cut, student workers of color/international student workers are more likely to be fired than their domestic white peers by 24 percentage points. Since January 2017, over 25 [percent] of African American student workers and nearly 20 [percent] of international student employees lost their jobs, compared with just 5 [percent] of domestic white employees.” This means that white students who receive three cuts are more likely to keep their job than their international or domestic student of color coworkers.

“What it comes down to is extra leniency given to white students,” said Cory McCartan '19, union advisor and the author of the report.

In November 2018, McCartan decided to investigate the data collected by Dining Services about cuts and firing from the Grill. The union asked for this data after hearing from many Grill employees that they were concerned about discrimination.

Since Dining Services does not hold Friday Track and Field Darren Young Classic Bear Auxiliary Gym, Atheetic Fieldhouse, 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

on to records of cuts and terminations indefinitely, data from before 2017 is not available.

The College issued a Special Campus Memo contesting the results of the data, arguing “The College has already undertaken its own analysis of the data relied on in the report and has found the limited data insufficient to draw meaningful conclusions.” The College has not made their own analysis public, but plans to hire a third-party investigator to look more closely at the possibility of discrimination.

What it comes down to is extra leniency given to white students.

Cory McCartan '19, advisor to UGSDW Leslie Gregg-Jolly, interim chief diversity officer of the College, said “I think it’s a really serious allegation and we need to treat it with utmost attention and that’s why I think it’s critical that we get this external evaluator. We cannot make any conclusions or decide what we want to do until we have an independent investigation.”

Although the College is sponsoring this investigation, McCartan was left with the impression that “[The College is] really trying to do the minimum necessary to sort of patch this up and move on,” after he and Sam Xu '20 met with Mary Greiner, assistant vice president of human resources at the College, and the College’s lawyer, Frank Harty.

When McCartan requested a meeting with College administrators, he said he expected Greiner to include more people in the meeting.

He reports having carbon copied Gregg-Jolly on preliminary emails about the meeting.

McCartan said, “it was sort of notable who wasn’t in the room, such as the chief diversity officer, anyone from Dining Services or anything, so schedules are hard to coordinate, but if they say they take this seriously they should really have more room to talk about it.”

Since the UGSDW report came out, McCartan says a handful of stu>> See College page 2 Saturday Bae Goals Bagel Breakfast JRC 209, 9:30 a.m.

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On Thursday morning, the 2019 Student Government Association (SGA) election results were released via email to the Grinnell student body. Voting lasted from 12 p.m. on Feb. 3 to 12 p.m. on Feb. 5, with a short grievance period following.

Regina Logan '20 won the presidency with 727 votes against 66 votes of no confidence; Logan ran unopposed.

Gracee Wallach '20 will take the role of vice president of academic affairs (VPAA), having received 422 votes to the 352 of her opponent, Max Hill '20. Saketan Anand '21 will be the new vice president of student affairs (VPSA), with 397 votes to Quinn Ercolani '20’s 394.

In her platform, Logan outlined a six-point plan for her presidency, which she published on her campaign’s Facebook page. The plan consists of publicizing college resources, improving student representation, fighting for students’ money through improving management of both student fees and campus wages, prioritizing safety and inclusion, reviewing SGA policies and fulfilling Grinnell’s social justice mission.

Logan said, “I wanted to run for president because I really believe in students’ ability to govern themselves. … I firmly believe that

Grinnell [College]’s campus is a better place when there are students making autonomous decisions, and I think that student government can be a vehicle for us to realize that. I think that as president, that can be a role where I empower other students to find those decision-making positions, and to continue to push administrators at this school to get them to see why it’s beneficial for students to be decision-makers.”

A central point of Logan’s platform is to make SGA more transparent and accessible to all students and to make students more aware of the resources that are available to them. Going along with one of the six prongs of Logan’s plan for office, publicizing college resources, she wants to make sure that students know about opportunities like the textbook lending library.

Wallach said that she was especially excited to be able to make changes in academics at the College, which she said is ultimately why students attend.

“The position of academic affairs is really what got me excited about this because I think that I and a lot of other students have issues with how the College functions academically, but those sometimes get a lot less airtime than student-affairs issues,” she said.

Wallach’s platform had five main

points: enforcing administrative accountability, increasing institutional accessibility, amplifying student voices and needs, decolonizing curriculum and ensuring course consistency.

She said, “I really feel like emphasizing decolonizing curriculum was something I was really excited about. Specifically, I’m on the sociology student educational policy committee and I’d say that’s my biggest academic administrative experience at Grinnell. … I want to work toward empowering SEPCs to learn more about what they do, increasing their ability to have a voice in a lot of different processes, and then working to have a syllabus review process, where SEPCs look at the syllabi for all the courses in their major each semester.”

Wallach said part of the review will involve looking at course curricula to see where a greater diversity of readings and assignments could be introduced.

Anand said that although he has not been a member of SGA in the past, he has plenty of first-hand organizational experience in student life at the College. “… I was a Freesound manager last semester, and I’ve been part of TinyDorm for over a year now.” Anand was inspired to run after attending >> See SGA page 2

HSSC opens for classes amidst ongoing construction

By Keli Vitaioli vitaioli@grinnell.edu

As the College opened for the spring semester, so did the doors to the newly designed, still-in-progress Humanities and Social Studies Complex (HSSC). On Jan. 22, while students and faculty attended class in the building for the first time, construction workers carried on installing whiteboards, painting classrooms, hanging lights and more to keep up with the fast pace of the massive construction project. The new addition, which broke ground in Dec. 2016, has opened on schedule and is transitioning to the renovation stage of the project while the building is in use.

In the renovation phase, the work being completed is largely aesthetic, involving interior demolitions and comparatively limited crew sizes. This makes sharing the space amongst members of the College and workers much more manageable.

According to Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College Michael Latham in an email Monday SGA Organization Fair JRC, 11 a.m.

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to The S&B, work on the new addition should be finished by spring break as the atrium is completed and new furniture arrives. Before classes began, all the offices were completed and most of the classroom spaces.

Construction on the HSSC as well as the new admissions building and renovation of Younker Hall for ADA compliance has been contract-

ed to McGough Construction, based in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. McGough has subcontracted a number of construction companies to tackle these three major projects, peaking at 300 contractors working simultaneously on the HSSC last summer.

Director of Facilities Management Rick Whitney notes completion of a project this size has required nu-

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While the renovation stage has been reached in the new addition of the HSSC, the atrium is still under construction. >> See Labor page 2 Tuesday "The Statistics of Lynching" with Kesho Scott Faulconer Gallery, 11 a.m.

Thursday Proposed Title IX Changes and Grinnell JRC 225, 4 p.m.

Features 3 | Arts 5 | Sports 6 | Community 7 | Opinions 9

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SGA elections conclude

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several student senate meetings last semester and seeing the kinds of policies and issues they discussed.

One of Anand’s project’s while in office will be to work on reopening Bob’s Underground Café, located in the basement of Main Hall. The plan would begin by figuring out a way to have the space open more often throughout the week and hopefully working toward a way to fully reopen it as a dining facility.

“Maybe for next semester, we’re in the process of putting management together, putting together a plan, looking at how we can purchase stuff and stock the place to maybe get it going like the Grill.”

Anand also listed increasing transparency between SGA and the student body as a major goal for his term asVPSA. “I think SGA isn’t very transparent itself, so I really want to work on being more transparent and accountable.”

Anand beat his opponent, Quinn Ercolani, by just three votes.

News Construction on HSSC continues through Spring Break

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

Continued from Front Page

merous individuals working together to keep on schedule as they complete their own disparate duties.

“It was really quite impressive to see unfold how many people, including designers, consultants, contractors, construction professionals, as well as college faculty and staff work as a team to bring the HSSC from concept to reality,” wrote Whitney in an email to The S&B. “ITS and Facilities Management worked very hard during the months leading up to the opening and especially during the winter break to relocate faculty into the new building, install technology in classrooms, and coordinate work with our construction firm,” wrote Latham. “They deserve a great deal of credit for helping us meet that deadline.”

One of the subcontractors hired

by McGough, Wilkie Sanderson, is currently working on carpentry related renovation projects and have been on site through McGough since June of 2018. The workers from Wilkie Sanderson are unionized under the United Brotherhood of Carpenters union (UBC).

The workers are contracted to 40hour, or five eight-hour work days per week. The HSSC project has required a lot of work outside the typical week, however, with workers coming in both Saturday and Sunday as well as working ten-hour days.

For all work beyond the 40-hour work-week, workers are paid time and a half, with double time on Sundays, as part of their union-negotiated contract.

David Holt, a field supervisor with Wilkie Sanderson, noted that as of late, the workers have been back to their typical 40-hour work week, but for the past two months, seven-day work weeks and ten-hour days have been typical.

Regarding working in the HSSC as students are there, Kevin Lynch, a construction worker under Holt and also employed through Wilkie Sanderson, noted that working in occupied spaces is not a norm he is used to, but does seem to be more common as time goes on. As the major work in the space is done, it is safe for students to use while the work continues and they finish making the HSSC “look pretty,” according to Lynch.

“It used to be that building in-

dents have decided to initiate grievance processes which could help them get their jobs at the Grill back on the grounds that they were discriminated against.

McCartan said that he was told at the meeting that “[The College was] going to try to get those grievances thrown out on technical grounds,” those being that too much time has passed since the students were fired.

However, in an interview with The S&B, Gregg-Jolly said, “I have no knowledge about what you just described [about throwing out the grievances] … The statement that you made does not resonate with the practices in my office” and said that she was not aware of the meeting.

While the investigation is ongoing, McCartan wants the College to make sure that no discrimination happens in the meantime.

Gregg-Jolly said out that students could come to her to start a grievance process or seek resources while waiting for results from the investigation.

“I’m happy to meet with anyone about what that means, how they might go about the process,” she said. “We also have an ombudsperson who is a confidential resource, so anyone can go to the ombudsperson. We do have a non-retaliation policy at the College as well, even with that some people don’t feel comfortable coming forward necessarily, so we have an intercultural affairs department where people can

talk to people like [Associate Dean of Students & Director of Intercultural Affairs]Maure Smith-Benanti also. And part of the grievance process is that people can just come talk to me or Maure, someone they feel comfortable with, and learn about the possibilities.”

McCartan also wants the Grill to start keeping more-detailed records of cuts and firings, but the lawyers allegedly told him that the College did not have to, and therefore would not keep better records. But Gregg-Jolly said, “I don’t know anything about that.”

Despite a lack of coordinated responses to the allegations from the administration, the results of the third-party analysis will be made public sometime in the future.

Sustainability Student Research Fund offers $5,000 Alumni grant

By Nora Paul paulnora@grinnell.edu The Environmental Studies Concentration Committee recently announced the opportunity for students to apply for a summer research grant of up to $5,000 through the Sustainability Student Research Fund. Enabled by the donation from Board of Trustees members Kathryn Mohrman '67, Edward Senn '79 and Michael Kahn '74, the fund will support a project that focuses on sustainability in either the natural or social science fields. This is the second year this grant has been awarded.

The Sustainability Student Research Fund has a central aim of supporting discovery and initiative in the field through faculty-student collaboration. The Environmental Studies Concentration Committee, chaired by Professor Keith Brouhle, will be reviewing applications and distributing the award.

The application is similar to that of a Mentored Advanced Project (MAP), including a project description in which students

formally ask their research question and present preliminary research based on existing literature. Students will also need to describe how they would approach their question in their research. The research experience is expected to take place over an eight to ten week period in a learning endeavor which will be guided and supported by a faculty sponsor.

“There was desire in the funding agreement that it be faculty-directed and approved, so I think the board members wanted to empower students to engage with this research but also wanted them to do so in a mentored environment … in a supported way,” said Brouhle.

Last year’s grant recipient used geospatial data and mapping to explore the role of agriculture in Iowa and the environment at large. The research examined the interaction between farming practices and natural processes and resources, concerning issues such as soil and water contamination. It also studied the relationship between agriculture and the town. Finally, given the changing farm structure and new

patterns of agriculture, the recipient sought to conceptualize a more sustainable town and college and evaluated what resources Grinnell has to prepare for such a future.

The committee is not only looking for proposals that will integrate knowledge from coursework at the College and also addresses the “question of long-term sustainability and a broad impact makes one application stand out over another,” Brouhle said.

The grant expands existing oncampus opportunities to engage with sustainability. Student groups such as Student Environmental Committee and Eco-Campus promote sustainability on campus, and the College has both standing and ad hoc committees comprised of faculty and administration members to ensure environmental vigilance in its policies and practices. The College also offers science courses that integrate fieldwork into the curriculum, particularly with visits to Conard Environmental Research Area, as well as numerous offcampus study and internship opportunities.

Solar panels installed outside Eco House on East Street, part of the College's current sustainability efforts.

faculty,” Latham wrote. “This may very well be the first truly integrated Humanities and Social Studies center, and we’re thrilled to see where the intellectual exchanges will lead” For some students, the updates in technology are impressive additions to the new space.

Tanvi Jindal '20, who attends sociology and economics courses in the HSSC, finds the equipped classroom brings new ease to group work. “ I really like that some classrooms have their own personal computers so if you’re working on a project you don’t have to share computers, like I have to in [economics],” Jindal said.

Others, like Yuya Kawakami '20, who attends global development studies in the HSSC, are impressed by both the physical beauty of the space and the accessible nature of it.

“I like the aesthetics of the building. I like how they preserved the outer of the ARH and kind of built around it ­­— that’s pretty cool," Kawakami said. “[It is] more spacious for sure, and I think it’s more accessible in many ways. There’s an elevator, there’s chalk walls all around the room, so it’s easier for the professor to teach from more places.”

CLS summer internship funding decreases

Grill cut system under investigation for potential discrimination

Continued from Front Page

spectors wouldn’t give occupation until everything was absolutely done, now when we get down to just the beauty stuff they’re willing to pass off the occupation after all the safety stuff is completed,” said Holt.

One of the beautification projects that Holt and Lynch are currently working on is the installation of “fins” around the second and third floor hanging walkways.

“3,000 of these fins we installed,” Holt said. “They’re all designed to trap sound so the atrium here isn’t as echoey and loud.”

The College praises the work that has gone into making the building energy-efficient and sustainable. It has been modeled to use less than half of the energy required by code.

Students, administrators and faculty have been impressed by the new space and the opportunities it allows for student learning. Latham is excited for the interdisciplinary nature of the space, bringing together members of the College across the humanities in ways unheard of at other schools.

“This should help to foster more collaboration across fields, facilitate team teaching, and promote collaborative research among students and

MINH TRAN

CONTRIBUTED

Last summer, Tommy O'Donnell* '20 was funded through the CLS for an internship the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space in New York where he curated this exhibit on Political Punk. *Disclaimer: Tommy O'Donnell is the Sports editor for The S&B

By Esther Hwang hwangest@grinnell.edu This year, the College will continue to offer summer internship funding by application through the CLS, albeit with a decreased budget for the summer of 2019.

The shrinkage in this summer’s funding opportunities has more to do with fluctuations in donations and department funds than it does with administrative decisions.

“Funding for summer internships comes from a variety of resources, including departmental budgets (e.g. the CLS, academic departments), program budgets (e.g. Environmental Studies, Rosenfield Program), and donor gifts,” wrote Mark Peltz, dean of the CLS, in an email to The S&B. “In 2018, the College allocated more than $485,000 to support unpaid and low-paid internships, which was a new all-time high for us. For this upcoming summer, right now it appears we’ll have around $400,000 to support summer internships.

There is time to close this gap before the second funding deadline, and I’m hopeful we can do so.”

Time is not up for the CLS to gather the funds, and each dollar will help students who can’t afford to fund their own summer away from home develop their career goals. In an economy that thrives off the unpaid work of interns, it can be particularly difficult for students in the arts, humanities and social sciences to find paid internships.

“Because some industries customarily pay their interns (e.g., technology, business, finance) and others do not (e.g., human services, government, performing arts), we see more funding allocated to supporting student experiences in industries where internships are typically unpaid,” Peltz wrote.

However, the CLS does not in any way prioritize students from certain fields over others.

“It’s all about approaching the grant application as a grant application, taking it seriously, and really taking the time to reflect strategically on what this internship is going to do for you. And then

on the interview,” said Rachel Harvith, director of arts, media, and communications in the CLS. Therefore, there is no advantage or disadvantage for students to get funding based on which field they are applying for. The CLS does, however, prioritize giving funding to students with low-income backgrounds or those who cannot afford to do an unpaid internship.

Harvith is enthusiastic about providing resources for students in arts, media and communications fields, and she highly recommends students to come in at any stage in their internship process to talk through their process.

“There’s lots of other resources to find internships, but if you go into GrinnellShare and you go under My Career Community, under Summer Opportunities — whenever I have a spare moment I work to build this out. Whenever I find out things about places that always offer summer opportunities in arts, in media, in communications. And I’m trying to prioritize opportunities that pay something, or the organization is so big that it would make a huge impact on this student’s career.”

The CLS internship funding application is available through Grinnell Share. Some grants, like the Rosenfield Grant or the Open Research Grant, are due on March 10.

Others, like the Noyce/Intel Grant or the Arts & Museum Administration Grant are due April 14.

With all of this information, it is crucial to consider that an internship’s value comes from your own passions. Harvith advises to look into opportunities with organizations of interest that may not have official internship roles.

“That’s part of this equation too, is that I want students to really understand that they’re not screwed if they don’t have the word ‘internship’ after every single summer,” she said.

“It’s not about what the title is. It’s about the skills that you bring and the organizations you’ve been involved with regardless of whatever the title is. So don’t take an internship unless you’re absolutely in love with what you’re going to be doing.”

Features

Edited by anderson14@grinnell.edu

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I Love Data Week 2019 aims to promote inclusion, diversity through discussions of data

By Kelly Page pagekell@grinnell.edu

Next week, Grinnell students can explore new uses of virtual reality, learn about ethical data visualization and see various guest speakers talk on the future of data. These activities can all be found on the posters hanging around campus advertising I Love Data Week at the College.

The week is the College’s answer to various data-appreciation weeks, which are held annually at colleges around the country. Katie Walden, a digital liberal arts specialist for the College, played a big part in organizing the week.

“We wanted to dispel that myth that only certain people work with data … because no matter where you are on the spectrum of being a data person, not being a data person, being interested in issues of advocacy, equity and social justice, there is room for everyone in these conversations and I hope that students are able to attend,” she said.

The effort to involve students who may not see how their academic or personal lives overlap with data grew out of observations made by the people behind Data Analysis and Social Inquiry Lab and data services in the library. Many students in the humanities often do not reach out to them for help with data resources. They hope that humanities majors and undeclared first- and second-years learn that, although they are not studying math or social sciences, they can be empowered through an understand-

ing of data science.

“We are all connected to data structures and I think for a lot of students, and I put myself in this boat, I have a humanities background, I am not trained as a data scientist, but yet to live in the 21st century world, in order to participate fully, you need to know what’s going on with data and not be scared of it,” Walden said.

I Love Data Week happened to overlap with Sex Week at the College, as well as The Wilson Center’s hackathon, HackGC, so, as Walden explained, “We just took all the weeks of hack and sex and data and put them together.” That is why the posters for the week include STI testing and a Pub Quiz themed around reproductive justice and public health data.

Other notable events occurring during the week include “Student Experience as Data,” where students can learn about the results of the student-athlete social norms survey (11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. February 12, Noyce 2021), and a Humanities Center Guest Speaker named Karen Tabb Dina who studies ways to assess depressive symptoms in health care settings to improve health outcomes for women (7:30 p.m. February 13, JRC 101). Students can also participate in two Data Challenges in which they can learn more practical skills for data visualization (7:30 to 9 p.m. in the Forum’s Digital Liberal Arts Laboratory on February 11 and 14).

Another particularly interesting aspect of the week is the involvement

of the Grinnell College Immersive Experiences Lab, which is hosting a virtual reality (VR) workshop. Most students are probably unaware of the Immersive Experiences Lab, which focuses on finding ways to use virtual reality in the liberal arts and may point towards an exciting new horizon in education.

Digital Liberal Arts Specialist David Neville, who started the lab, believes that VR is the future of the liberal arts and that one day students may carry VR headsets around with them to classes.

“It would do so much to augment a liberal arts education. For instance, if there was an app to investigate the Roman Colosseum and you go over to the fieldhouse where you don’t have any walls to walk into and you have your headset on that doesn’t have any cables, essentially you could walk through the Colosseum and get a sense of the scale of it and what went on in there,” he said.

Students who attend the VR workshop on Feb. 15 from 4-5:30 p.m. in the Forum’s Digital Liberal Arts Laboratory will be able to explore ancient Mayan architecture using a VR experience created by Heather Richards-Rissetto, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Nebraska.

Neville said, “It’s data about something that you can experience and look at and interact with and visualize and have a sense of presence in, and not necessarily some data that’s just on an Excel spreadsheet.”

CONTRIBUTED

Students work on virtual reality projects through the Grinnell College Immersive Experiences Lab.

Bringing Sex Week Back

By Eva Hill hilleva@grinnell.edu

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

This coming Sunday will mark the beginning of Grinnell College’s second-ever Sex Week. The week will feature events that range from free STI testing (from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the second-floor lobby of the JRC; anyone who gets tested gets a cup of hot chocolate or hot cider) to an “I Love Sex Data” Pub Quiz night, which is presented in collaboration with I Love Data Week, an event occurring over the same week.

Many organizations are coming together to put on various events, including the Title IX Office, the Peer Educator Program, the Body Positive Club, Student Health and Counseling Services (SHACS), the Asexual Support Network, Grinnell Advocates, the Sexual Health Information Center, Student Wellness, the Student Athlete Mentor program and Residence Life.

Emily Howe, Grinnell post-baccalaureate for sexual respect and harm reduction, explained the origin of Sex Week. The first Sex Week began with the introduction of an on-campus STI testing day, a necessary resource after the city of Grinnell’s testing clinic shut down due to funding issues.

“Deb Shill [director of health services at the College] … invited us to help promote [the STI testing day], and in thinking about how to promote that, we started wondering, well, what would be good at getting students excited? And in talking with students and working with various different student groups, we decided creating a bunch of different events and calling it Sex Week — we thought a lot about the name, and we ended up with Sex Week — would be really good,” said Howe.

Last year’s week was a success, with high turnout across all events, which led to the renewal of Sex Week this year. Leah Johnson '19 will be running the kickoff event of the

week: “Bae Goals,” a bagel breakfast in JRC 209 at 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 10. “[People] will have the chance to make valentines for their friends, because it’s the week of Valentine’s Day, and also to have conversations with people about healthy relationships and about what people’s ‘bae goals’ are,” Johnson said.

Johnson explained that she had run a similar program last year as a community advisor for Norris, and that she’d seen positive results with students having good conversations about communication, consent and relationship dynamics.

Gwen Holtzman '19, who is also involved with the planning and program administration for the event, emphasized the importance of inclusion within this year’s set of events.

“Everyone, when they hear the word ‘sex’, probably thinks of a slightly different thing, and we really want to include all of those things, so no one person is like, ‘well, nothing there applies to me,’ or ‘I’m in this situation and therefore I feel left out,’ because, definitely, I think sex can be that umbrella term that includes everything,” she said.

One of the last Sex Week events will be “Breakup Gardner” on Friday, Feb. 15, another event intended to cover topics not always discussed in conventional relationship education.

“Break-up songs are great, but also, sometimes at Valentine’s Day there’s a lot of focus on relationships, but what if you’re not in a relationship, or what if you’re not technically dating someone? But then also, wearing my sex and sexuality educator hat, I don’t think we talk enough about breakups, and how you break up.

We talk about what’s a healthy relationship and what’s an unhealthy relationship, but what do you do if you want to get out of a relationship?

How can you do that in a healthy way?” Howe said.

Sex Week events will take place every day from Sunday, Feb. 10, to Saturday, Feb. 16.

LIZ PAIK

Leah Johnson '19 is hosting a bagel breakfast event called Bae Goals as part of the College’s upcoming Sex Week.

Features

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Edited by anderson14@grinnell.edu

S&B Cribs: Living the high Connie Coleman retires after 25 years life just off of High Street at Grinnell College

By Montserrat Castro Gomez castromo@grinnell.edu

INGRID MEULEMANS

Noah Segal and Jacob Friedman, both '19, present their beloved betta fish Norm while wearing “I Heart Norm” pins at their apartment.

By Ingrid Meulemans meuleman@grinnell.edu Friends since their first year, Jacob Friedman '19 and Noah Segal '19 decided this year to make the plunge and rent an apartment. For Friedman and Segal, 934 High Street was the perfect fit.

The apartment is eclectically decorated and instantly welcoming. The main room features a gray leather sofa set passed down from the landlord, a “Field of Dreams” movie poster and homemade curtains courtesy of the Wal-Mart textile aisle.

Describing their section of the multiunit house as comfortable, Friedman attests to its perfect location.

“It’s nice to have a little retreat.

We’re so close to High Street but we get some distance,” he said.

One problem they do have with the house, though, is the couch.

“These couches are actually terrible.

If you sit on it for longer than five minutes it starts to slide out from under you,” Friedman said.

They’ve also had some problems with finding the relics of past renters inside its cushions.

“I’ve found in this couch a 900page novel and a Gameboy, and there’s like two phone chargers, three batteries, nine pencils, two dice just all buried down there,” said Segal.

“And there’s more stuff in there too. Every time you lose your keys you dread sticking your hand in the cracks,” Friedman added.

Besides Freidman, Segal, and all the odds and ends they have found in the sofa, there is another important presence in the house.

“Norm, my fish. I’ve had him since second year. He was liberated from Wal-Mart. He’s been a staple of this house and of college. He doesn’t move that much but he’s definitely alive. Everyone likes to come over and say hi,” Segal said of his beloved betta fish.

“They live forever apparently,” Friedman said, “but every time I look at him I feel like he’s going to die.”

Before posing for their obligatory Cribs group shot (in which Norm is obviously included) Friedman

made sure they were both wearing their “I Heart Norm” buttons.

“I went to the world food prize organization in Des Moines this summer. And Norman Borlaug, the man credited with saving more lives than any other person in human history, is also named Norm. So, I just took a bunch of these pins because we heart our Norm,” Freidman said.

When they’re not doting on Norm, Friedman and Segal spend their time entertaining and hosting lots of game nights.

“We’re big gamers,” Friedman said. “Board games, some video games, all games.”

Friedman and Segal are also avid Survivor fans and have recently been re-watching old seasons.

934 High Street is also often the meeting place for Chalutzim, Grinnell College’s Jewish student organization.

“Jacob and I are two of the co-leaders of Chalutzim, so we also host different meetings and events.

We haven’t had an off-campus base for that organization before, so that’s really cool. When there’s something, we’re hosting it. It’s important for a group to have a place to go that’s not just the JRC,” Segal said.

Of their dynamic as roommates, Friedman says that they “complement each other.”

“I’m definitely less concerned with upkeep. I lived here this summer, and when I was working in the garden I would just track mud and vegetable through the house. Then when Noah came, he just had a couple days of concentrated cleaning and organizing and decorating. It’s way nicer now,” he said.

“We’ve had fights,” Segal said, “But we work through our issues.”

“Yeah. First to draw blood and that’s the person who wins,” Friedman said.

Overall though, Friedman and Segal get along well and have a good time.

“We’re friends, so we can call each other out,” Segal said. “Yeah,” continued Friedman, “We’re similar in a lot of ways and different in others. Just like all people.”

Connie Coleman started working at Grinnell College in the year 1993.

Shortly before that, she had quit a job at a restaurant she had worked at for 12 years, and when a job opened at the College, she applied.

“Well, I didn’t even apply, I just went and talked to them and they said you’re hired,” said Coleman.

That job was at the bakery, where she worked for 10 years. Afterwards, the tendons on her shoulders detached, so even though she couldn’t work heavy jobs like those in the dining hall, she worked at what then was called “Grab and Go.” It was service for students which provided take-out lunches, which Coleman helped prepare and serve for three years.

“I wouldn’t have been able to keep working in dining, because to swipe the cards, to do a couple of them my arms would ache, so I had to find a new job,” Coleman said.

By that time, she was already extremely well-liked among students.

One student put out a petition for the administration to give Coleman a job because they didn’t want her to leave.

According to Coleman, this petition received more than 900 signatures.

Consequently, she was given the job at the information desk, where she worked from 2006 until the day she retired at the end of January 2019.

She said that her favorite part of working at the College was the students and her interactions with them.

“Some of them would come home with me on Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas with our family, and some of them still write to me on email or Facebook,” Coleman said. She was made an honorary member of the class of 2006 and again 10 years later in 2016, which she stated was a great

honor to her.

“There have been several students that, they don’t look at you, they don’t do anything and stare straight ahead and then eventually they’ll say, like ‘Hello, Connie.’ I think it’s just really neat to interact with them,” Coleman said.

Before retiring, many students had the opportunity to write Coleman goodbye and thank-you notes.

They were a variation between big hearts, thank-you notes and some with writing on both the front and back. A few days before leaving the College, some of the staff organized a party for Coleman in the Student Affairs office, where they tied the notes up in ribbons to surprise Coleman. Students wrote a total of 530 notes for Coleman to take home after retirement.

“The notes, they just make me cry. I mean, happy cry. I just finally got through them all yesterday,” Coleman said. “I just read a few at a time because I wanted to be happy about retiring, and it was like, I would just start crying every time I read some of them.

It makes me sad, sometimes, when I think about not continuing working.”

Coleman expressed her surprise at the number of notes and amount of gratitude she received from students, stating that most of the things they were thankful for she did very naturally.

“I’m really really glad that I made an impact, because I didn’t feel like my job was that much, just sitting there. It wasn’t a demanding job like the ones I had worked all my life,” Coleman said.

Apart from being at the information desk, some of Coleman’s responsibilities were to unlock classrooms in the mornings, set up JRC 101 and do the students’ payroll. She stated that while working there, she wanted to make a lost-and-found system that “actually worked,” since there were a lot of things that nobody ever picked up.

“They need to get someone happy sitting down there. And someone with more skills with the computer,” Coleman said.

CONTRIBUTED

Connie Coleman worked at the JRC information desk for 12 years, until her retirement last week.

ACESS advances Grinnell’s selfgovernance mission

By Abraham Teuber teuberab@grinnell.edu There is perhaps no clearer example of the importance of self-governance at the College than the existence of All Campus Events Student Safety (ACESS). ACESS is a student-run organization that staffs all parties and concerts at Harris and Gardner to make sure they run smoothly, safely and inclusively.

In recent years, ACESS has grown from a smaller group of students to about 30 employees. This includes two Co-Directors, Gabby DeRoche '19 and DJ Coleman '19, as well as Outreach Coordinator Jamal Poole-Preston '19. All three students started as regular staff, were promoted to chief status and then attained their current administrative positions.

“I definitely would say all three of us act as liaisons between a lot of the administration, the chairs that coordinate the events and the general student body, especially because our staff and chiefs are the student body,” said DeRoche.

Students who work for ACESS undergo extensive training to become employees, including active bystander training, Title IX training, Clery Act training, de-escalation training and Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) training for suicide and self-harm prevention. From there, ACESS staff car-

ry out several responsibilities.

“They deal with people who are intoxicated or under the influence and guests who need to come into parties so there can be community members or people’s friends. They also deal with people who are unruly and doing disrespectful things, acting biased or whatnot.” said Coleman.

Outreach Coordinator Poole-Preston emphasized the significance of ACESS presence at events.

“Our staff is kind of like that mediation point, because things happen at events. The moment that the first inclination is to go and call campus security, it can escalate drastically… It’s all about communicating and making sure that we are able to handle a situation as quickly and efficiently as we can,” he said.

ACESS was specifically created to be a peacekeeping body at student events, not as a disciplinary presence, though sometimes students who ACESS aims to help misunderstand the intentions of the student staff.

“I feel like a lot of students, when they get intoxicated or under the influence, forget that we’re also students and some of us have definitely been in the same situations. If they have security guards come in, they’re 30, 40-something year-olds, and they don’t have very much experience on this specific campus. I do feel like Grinnell [College]’s campus is very

unique, especially when it comes to a lot of situations involving different biases, so being able to understand and actually place yourself in the situation is very important,” DeRoche said.

Additionally, Poole-Preston described ACESS’ contribution to the culture of self-governance at the College.

“Having a student-led security force is important so that we can maintain the semblance of self-gov and maintain a community where the people that are supposed to be protecting you are also your classmates and friends. There’s a level of empathy and understanding that you just wouldn’t get in other situations,” he said.

As a work study position for students, ACESS is always hiring and in need of student workers. Raven McClendon '22 started her staff position last semester and praised the job for its flexible hours, the valuable qualifications with which it supplies students and the unique work environment.

She also highlighted her and her coworkers’ commitment to the safety of their peers rather than any motivation to carry out disciplinary action.

“I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble, I don’t think anyone on ACESS is. We’re just trying to look out for you, making sure y’all have a grand old time but a safe old time as well,” McClendon said.

LIZ PAIK

Jamal Poole-Preston, Gabby DeRoche and DJ Coleman, all '19, work with ACESS in order to provide a safety service to students from their peers at campus-wide events.

Arts Faulconer begins semester with two major exhibits

Edited by fruchter@grinnell.edu

5

By Candace Mettle mettleca@grinnell.edu Faulconer Gallery is currently showing two major traveling exhibits, “Dread and Delight: Fairy Tales in an Anxious World,” a contemporary interpretation of fairy tales from around the globe, and “Reckoning with ‘The Incident’: John Wilson’s Studies for a Lynching Mural.” The John Wilson exhibition is the first in the U.S. to show all of Wilson’s preparatory work for “The Incident.”

Though the two concurrent exhibits are separate shows, both works deal with questions of agency, overcoming adversity and challenging who truly has power.

“This is one of the few times that we’ve installed our shows [with] little barrier in between them … it was after we really started working with [Dread and Delight] when we started to realize they are quite related,” said Lesley Wright, director of the gallery.

Dread and Delight was organized by the Weatherspoon Art Museum at University of North Carolina at Greensboro and curated by Emily Stamey '01. The exhibit brings works in various media to Grinnell which focus on the intersection of race and gender in the western-European interpretations of fairy tales.

According to Wright, “The fact that [Stamey] picked artists who are of color, who are genderfluid, means this isn’t a traditional way of looking at fairy tales, which … allows us to re-

SARINA LINCOLN

"Dread and Delight" deconstructs views of race and gender in fairy tales and "Reckoning with 'The Incident'" features studies for a lynching memorial. ally broaden the conversation.”

Wright considers Ghadada Amer’s piece “Les Flâneuses” to be one of the most representative of Dread and Delight. Amer uses painting and embroidery on a white canvas to show a medley of recognizable feminine figures. The audience can spot Snow White in the right-hand corner of the canvas, with glamour models behind her head.

“On one hand you have Snow White, the first Disney princess, a very little girl interpretation of what it means to be feminine and desirable, and then you have images from Playboy and Hustler, a totally different notion of being women, and see how these collide,” said Wright.

The Wilson exhibit, organized by Yale University, provides an intimate look at the development of Wilson’s

W@G: John Garrison

seminal mural that depicts what immediately happens after a lynching.

The audience can interpret the anxieties Wilson, an African-American man, may have felt regarding his identity in the United States. Tilly Woodward, curator of academic and community outreach, said that the exhibits both discuss generational trauma and identity.

“If the story is always about black people being portrayed through trauma, it’s not enough … if the princess is always white and blonde, that’s not enough,” Woodward said. “I think [Dread and Delight] switches things up that in a way carries over … some of the things Wilson is trying to question and grapple with.”

Wright emphasized how John Wilson focused heavily on the mother embracing her child seen in the piece,

On Wednesday, Feb. 6, Professor John Garrison, English, spoke about his new book, “Shakespeare and the Afterlife” at the first “Writers @ Grinnell” event of spring semester.

The book examines depictions of the afterlife in William Shakespeare’s works, or, in other words, how the bard imagined what happens after death. Each chapter begins with a survey of several different works on a particular theme and ends with extended analysis of a particular case study.

Professor Garrison stated that even though most people are familiar with the ghosts in Shakespeare’s plays, his texts also depict other types of otherworldly characters and visions of heaven and hell that are quite startling for Shakespeare’s cultural context.

Four years ago, Garrison received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to teach a course on an enduring question: What happens after death? He taught the course as a first-year seminar.

The goal of the course, according to Garrison, was to think about how a particular culture’s belief about the afterlife reflects that culture itself.

“It was really from that grant and that course that I realized that there was a book’s worth of material to talk about,” Garrison said.

In order to write the book, Garrison reread all of Shakespeare’s plays and poems and researched their cultural context. Garrison looked at a variety of materials from the renaissance: handbooks for clergy who were dealing with the dying, diaries of people for whom death was impending, sermons and depictions of heaven and hell.

“I would see something in a manuscript and I would realize it echoed very closely from one of Shakespeare’s plays, so as soon as I saw that I started writing about the connection,” he said.

The book came to fruition or-

ganically as Garrison moved back and forth between the cultural context in which Shakespeare was writing and the texts themselves.

“Shakespeare and the Afterlife” was released by Oxford University Press simultaneously in hardback, paperback and as an audiobook narrated by actor Steven Crossley. Garrison, who has not read or opened the book in fear of encountering a typo, stated that he felt he was particularly lucky to have the audiobook format.

“Since Shakespeare is so auditory, and [since] what we think of as Shakespeare’s appeal is the beauty of his language, I think it really helps the book come alive to have it read aloud,” Garrison said.

Garrison stated that writing the book reinvigorated his attitude towards Shakespeare and helped him rediscover plays that he wouldn’t have normally considered teaching.

Garrison stated that it was a departure to think about theology or religious elements in Shakespeare’s work — his previous work had analyzed Shakespeare’s relationship to the peace movement.

Early on, Garrison decided to study Shakespeare because he realized the immensity of the Bard’s influence in all different kinds of discourses: political, historical, economic and medical. He asserts that Shakespeare is often the origin point for a particular word, phrase or archetype.

Garrison believes that the study of Shakespeare should continue because his texts are constantly being re-adapted by a diversity of communities and creative artists in such a way that it becomes raw material that comes alive again for different purple to be receptive to looking at fiber art.”

“As we think about how to reuse and find new imagery from old things, Shakespeare is often the touchstone that still proves very powerful,” Garrison said.

Garrison is currently working on a book focused on Shakespeare’s sonnets and the way memory operates within them.

out to Intercultural Affairs, faculty of color and Concerned Black Students to include underrepresented voices in programming surrounding the show.

Woodward organized a digital storytelling workshop in November to contextualize the exhibit so as not to perpetuate violence against those who are all too familiar with systemic violence. The digital stories are featured as part of the exhibit.

The planning for the exhibit stands out to Woodward as requiring more care and collaboration among people outside of the gallery than previous shows. She hopes to implement this planning experience into future shows.

“There’s always thoughtfulness that goes into planning,” Woodward reflected. “But I think this … is a really special one."

Inside the Arts: Casting Twelfth Night

By Julia Anderson anderson14@grinnell.edu

By Montserrat Castro castromo@grinnell.edu

despite the fact that he was a father..

“Maybe he thought that would be the most resonating image for his audience,” she said.

Grinnell College already owned 14 out of the exhibit’s 23 pieces thanks to Kay Wilson, the College’s curator of the collection, and welcomed the artist himself to campus in 2004.

After Wright and Woodward received concerned feedback regarding the exhibition’s violent subject matter and discussed the concerns with their Yale colleagues, Yale decided it was best if Grinnell College was the first stop for the exhibition.

“I had to take a step back and say, ‘we have another audience here that we’re not even thinking about, and that’s people who know this story really well,’” Wright said.

Wright and Woodward reached

The Theater and Dance department recently concluded the casting process for the College’s production of Shakespeare’s comedy “Twelfth Night,” to be directed by Professor Ellen Mease in her last directorial project before retirement. The choice of play is fitting, as Mease first directed “Twelfth Night” at the College in 1979, 40 years ago. The production is dedicated to Ed Moore, Grinnell College’s former resident Shakespearian, who passed away in August of 2018.

“Twelfth Night” will utilize Shakespeare’s original text with modern flourishes.

“The music is kind of catered to a [19]30s or 40s theme, and the costuming is kind of 70s, ” said Amelia Zoernig '21, who was cast as Valentine, attendant of the lovesick Duke Orsino. “But [Mease is] very true to the text. ” In casting the show, Mease emphasized the importance of employing Shakespearian text. Auditions were open to all students, regardless of previous experience, but the first round of auditions required students to read Shakespearian text. Students also had the opportunity to show off additional talents, from juggling to stage combat.

After individual auditions, Mease conducted callbacks in a way somewhat unique compared to other performances.

“Callbacks for [Mease] are a lit-

tle different compared to the rest of the theater department because she has everyone sit in for everyone. Basically, everyone sits in the audience … and watches everyone do whatever she has called them back to read,” said Molly Stone '20, who was cast as Viola, one of the play’s central characters.

Through this process, the director has the opportunity to see all potential actors perform monologues and observe actors' chemistry.

“It is competition. It’s the best audition, the most plausible and immediate, natural and honest behavior onstage, and the chemistry that can be revealed only when you are pairing a Viola with an Orsino in their most intimate scene and do several pairs of potential Violas and Orsinos,” Mease

said.

“Twelfth Night” presents an additional challenge to the casting process.

The narrative thrust of the play relies on the mistaken identities of Viola and Sebastian, a pair of twins. For these roles, the director had to identify two actors who could be somewhat realistically mistaken for each other.

“The twins make a special problem in ‘Twelfth Night.’ You can’t have a Sebastian and Viola who differ in height by a foot or in weight by 50 pounds, because that just makes Olivia and Orsino look like buffoons if they can’t tell the difference,” Mease said.

“Twelfth Night” will run from Friday, March 8 to Sunday, March 10 in Roberts Theater.

SARINA LINCOLN

Ellen Mease gives feedback to actors rehearsing for this spring's production of “Twelfth Night.”

Spring Concerts lineup released

By Emily Barber barberem@grinnell.edu Last Saturday night, soft blue light lit Gardner Lounge as Chicago-based singer-songwriter Sen Morimoto took the stage. Standing at a keyboard, Morimoto crooned, rapped and saxophoned into the microphone while his drummer kept the beat. What started out as a small and quiet crowd slowly grew in size and enthusiasm as the music began to get faster and more emotionally charged.

Morimoto punctuated his act with questions for the audience: “Do you guys feel like you do a lot of work here [at Grinnell]?” and a declaration of love for his drummer: “I really love you, did you know that?”

Next up came Lala Lala, a four-person group whose bassist is the aforementioned drummer for Sen Morimoto.

The lead singer, Lillie West, clutched the microphone close to her mouth as she thanked the College and her bandmates for making the night possible. Lala Lala featured drums and an electric guitar. Their sound was fast-paced and the audience quickly began to stomp and dance to

the rhythm.

Sen Morimoto and Lala Lala are the first bands to perform in Grinnell College’s Spring Concert series.

Looking back on the event, Student Government Association Concerts chair Cassidy Christiansen '20 thinks the show went well and is excited for the upcoming artists in the spring lineup.

Christiansen said this semester will feature more student band openers, including Prairie Dogs (Rachel Eber and Lily Dawson, both '21), Pictoria Vark (Victoria Park '21) and Marco (Saffold '20).

Though Christiansen acknowledged that the College generally does a decent job bringing in racially and gender diverse groups, they said that they also see a “real absence of diversity in the music industry.”

Generally, Christiansen said, the groups that contact the College and ask to perform are “white indie bands.” While last semester featured many of these bands, this spring’s lineup, Christiansen said, doesn’t include any bands that feature “cisgender heterosexual white men.”

Although Christiansen gets the final say in the matter, the Concerts

Committee and the general student body have a say in who they book.

Christiansen, who was on the concert committee for two years before becoming chair, said they haven’t always felt they had much influence over which artists the Committee brought to Grinnell. In an attempt to make the artist selection process more democratic, Christiansen relies on their committee to suggest bands and utilizes Facebook to get input from students. Their goal as Concerts chair is to “take into account as many different opinions as possible.”

Christiansen acknowledged that not everyone likes their band choices.

“The thing with this job is that people are never going to be completely happy with my decisions,” they said.

However, Christiansen stands by the artists they pick, and has tried to support smaller, more local artists this semester instead of bringing in big names.

“I just wish Grinnell students would give artists they don’t know more of a chance.” Christiansen said.

“I know if people actually listen to the artists on the lineup they’d find some music they really like.”

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Edited by odonnel@grinnell.edu

Men's basketball book their place in MWC Tournament

By Kate Irwin irwinkat@grinnell.edu

Last Saturday, the Grinnell College men’s basketball team won against Monmouth College. The win not only secured the team a place in the Midwest Conference Tournament (MWC), but ended their losing streak against Monmouth.

“Mentally just getting over the hump of knowing that not only could we compete with [Monmouth], but that we could come away with a victory against them was important for the guys,” said Dave Arseneault Jr., the head men’s basketball coach.

“As seniors, we never really beat Monmouth in our entire career here, so it was finally good to take

CONTRIBUTED

This year's co-captains,Vinny Curta '19, Griffin Boehm '19 and Ky-Sean Johnson '19.

Basketball topples leaders

By Tommy O'Donnell odonnel@grinnell.edu Last Saturday, the Grinnell women’s basketball team put in arguably their best performance of the season to topple league leaders Monmouth College in an enthralling contest.

“It feels incredible … definitely exciting for us, but I’m just excited to move forward because, at the end of the day, it’s just another game,” said Sasha Thomas '22.

“It felt really good … we knew we’ve been able to play to that competitive level with some of the best teams in our conference,” said Daria Guzzo '19.

Earlier in the season, they took Monmouth College to the wire away from home but eventually lost by nine points. This time, the Pioneers managed to win with a strong defensive performance that held Monmouth 13 points below their season average.

Individually, Thomas and Guzzo had stand out performances. Thomas, who played 38 minutes, knocked down a career high five 3-pointers on the way to a game high 17 points.

“It was great. It was definitely tiring, but I had my team to support me the whole time,” she said.

The season so far has been relatively inconsistent for the Pioneers, who currently sit sixth in conference standings with a 6-9 record.

“We’ve definitely had ups and downs … but our plan right now is to just end the season as strong as we can,” Thomas said.

“I would say overall we are disappointed that we don’t have a few

more wins, but I think our team is learning and growing each practice and each game and that is a big part of the overall process that we talk about,” wrote women's basketball coach Dana Harrold in an email to The S&B. With three games left, the team is looking to take this momentum as far as they can. First up is a trip to St. Norbert College, which has proved a difficult opponent for the Pioneers for a number of years.

“St. Norbert has been playing very well lately, but … if we focus on our game plan and execute on both sides of the ball, we will have a chance to beat them on their floor,” Harrold wrote.

With a strong core of young players, the women’s basketball team is optimistic of what they are capable of achieving in the future.

“I’m very excited … since most of our team is underclassmen. The more experience we get, the more our chemistry will grow. The future is definitely bright and I’m looking forward to the upcoming season,” Thomas said.

“We have excellent leadership in our senior class right now who have worked hard for four years to establish a positive team culture on and off the court, a hardworking, gritty mentality and I think our young team will work hard to continue these things after our seniors graduate,” Harrold wrote.

The Pioneers end their 2018-19 campaign against Lake Forest College in Darby Gymnasium on Saturday, Feb. 16, at 1 p.m.

CONTRIBUTED

Women's basketball celebrate victory over Monmouth College on Feb. 2.

By Lily Seibert seibertl@grinnell.edu

them down,” said Vinny Curta '19, who is one of three captains.

“It was definitely a bounce-back game too, because [Monmouth] was our first opponent we played coming back from winter break, and we had lost to them by 28 points. To come back and flip that margin, win the game and keep the streak going was really big for us,” said Griffin Boehm '19, another team captain.

The team has not played in the MWC Tournament since the 201415 season, making this win even more meaningful. For the seniors on the team, this will be the first time they will compete in the tournament.

“My dream was to always play in the NCAA Tournament prior to coming to Grinnell, and no team in Grinnell has done that in a really long time, so the first step is obviously you need to make Conference.

Then if you win Conference, you go to the NCAA Tournament from there. So it’s just a stepping stone in my greater overarching goal,” Boehm said.

The team has three games left before the MWC Tournament. Their next game is this Saturday at St. Norbert College. This game is important, as it will decide the team’s ranking going into the Tournament and if the game will be held at St. Norbert, who are the current league leaders, or at Grinnell.

As seniors, we never really beat Monmouth in our entire career here, so it was finally good to take them down.

Vinny Curta '19 “This is a pretty big game in terms of who’s going to get that home court advantage for the Conference Tournament,” Curta said.

Both Curta and Boehm attribute the team’s success to their chemistry and talented first-year class.

“I think this year is pretty special because we have a pretty good first-year class. They’re very talented and they’re producing at a level that first years don’t normally produce at. They’ve made a really big

impact on both ends of the floor, from the start of the season,” Curta said.

On the other hand, coach Arseneault believes that strong fourthyear leadership is one of the reasons why this season has been so successful.

“Just the way that [the Captains] have approached everything, everything from the end of last season in terms of the off-season workouts that they’ve been responsible implementing, to the way that they communicate with some of our younger players, and the way that they lead on and off the court.”

No matter where the team places in the rankings for the conference tournament, coach Arseneault is happy with how the season went.

“Win or lose, I’ve just been really proud and excited with how the team has performed this year.”

The Pioneers will end their 2018-2019 regular season campaign against Lake Forest College in Darby Gymnasium on Saturday, Feb. 16, at 3 p.m.

Alumni revisit campus for 30th anniversary of Super Bowl tradition

By Tommy O'Donnell odonnel@grinnell.edu

Every year, over 100 million football fans come together to watch the Super Bowl, and this tradition is no different for a group of Grinnell alumni.

David Shearer '93, Haywood Wilson '93, Howard Gardos '92, Mike French '93, Paul Egan '93 and Scott Wittstruck '93 revisited Grinnell last weekend to celebrate the anniversary of a tradition that began 30 years ago.

“It started in the dorm lounge … I would say mostly thanks to Howard,” said Wilson.

“The first time we ever did it was January 1990. That was in Rawson lounge. As HAC (Hall Activity Coordinator) I made chili for everyone,” said Gardos.

The original group consisted of nine Grinnellians, but two members, Difei Liu '93 and Nathan Hadley '93, have passed away, and Onur Akmehmet '93 has moved to Turkey. Since graduation, the friends have continued to meet up every year to watch the game, even though they all live in different parts of the country.

“We live all over the country: Baltimore, Philly, Davis [California], Madison, Cedar Rapids [Iowa], Long Island. … We’ve all gone our own ways, but one weekend a year we always get together, … no matter what’s going on in our lives, … we always get to see each other and that is a real treat,” Gardos said.

Finding the right place to host the event every year has been a challenge, but the group found a clever way of making it work.

Egan said, “Since we all wanted to see each other every year, we add up all the costs and divide them by the number of people that are there.”

Gardos added, “Right out of school, you know you are only just getting started. If someone has to fly from New York to California and someone else had a two hour drive, … it’s different. So it was a good way in the beginning to keep everybody going, ... but we still do it.”

CONTRIBUTED

Grinnell alumni revisit Rawson Hall, the birthplace of their 30 year Super Bowl tradition.

Although brought together each year by the Super Bowl, the tradition is far more focused on rekindling friendships than watching a sports game.

“This get-together that we have done every year was not so much about football, but about getting the chance to hang out together.” Gardos said.

“At Grinnell, we never really did sporting events, but we somehow gathered around football. Not all of us were even real big football fans,” Wilson said.

For some, the thought of even watching the game is unthinkable without their friends with them.

“It’s a testament to the quality of the people in this room that I am here at all because I hate sports in all forms,” said Shearer. “I’d prefer that the opera would be the thing to gather us all together.”

They have met in 18 states over the 30 years, but to mark the 30th anniversary, they decided to meet up where it all began.

“I mentioned doing it here [in Grinnell], because we talked about it and figured, what better place to do the 30th than Grinnell,” Wilson said. “It’s really good to be back here.”

Thirty years on, the group were not shy to admit how much the College and town have changed.

“Grinnell over time has changed, it has modernized for the better. How

they are rebuilding around the ARH … it’s pretty cool,” Gardos said.

“It’s a totally different place … campus was so much smaller back then … I saw that sports complex [the Bear] and really wished we had that.

When I played football the gym was a glorified closet,” Wilson said.

Even with the drastic development of the College, the group still hold Grinnell and their college experiences very close to their hearts.

“Grinnell represents to me, since I moved around a lot as a kid … as close I have got to a home town because I met these guys here. It may seem kinda weird, but I almost see Rawson as my birth place,” said Wittstruck.

When asked who’d they like to win, an overwhelming consensus was reached: “Anyone but the Patriots … the Rams.”

For this group, the Super Bowl weekend is the one time a year they can rekindle old friendships and reminisce about their college days.

“I still believe those four years at Grinnell were probably the best four years of my life … I owe it all to these guys in this room,” Wittstruck said.

“Scott [Wittstruck] makes a good point. We really are like family, because sometimes we’ve had some really awful arguments but we always seem to come back to each other … we always seem to get past whatever it is,” Wilson said.

Women's Soccer receive Platinum Ethics Award

The Grinnell women’s soccer team recently received the Platinum Ethics Award for their 2018 season, an honor given to teams with zero yellow or red cards throughout the course of an entire season. The Pioneers represent just one of seven NCAA teams at all levels to achieve this feat.

“I think it’s kind of something that just happened,” said co-captain Gwen Holtzman '19. “That’s not to say that we don’t always strive to play at a high level, which obviously involves playing good soccer, and also playing clean soccer. So I think that’s inherently one of our goals.”

Co-captain Eliza Bunnell '19 credited head coach Kirsten Koester for fostering a culture that always regards sportsmanship as a cornerstone of the team. “[Coach Koester] has always

said we play pretty soccer,” said Bunnell. “We don’t resort to getting dirty when things aren’t going our way. We hold our own and play the game.”

Soccer players can earn yellow and red cards for displaying unsportsmanlike conduct, a term that often encompasses excessive roughness. However, the Pioneers managed to balance a fine line between playing aggressively and keeping their composure on the field. Despite never receiving a card, they played at a high tempo and maintained control of several tight matches.

“It’s the kind of award where sometimes you think, oh, did they lose all their games?” said Holtzman. “We actually won the most games in the past five or six years.

So what I was so impressed with was the team was able to be so successful and be so competitive while still keeping our heads.”

While both captains stressed

that unlucky cards or accidental physicality can happen to any team, there are certain measures players can take to lessen their chances. For example, limiting retaliation against opposing teams and de-escalating tense situations play an important role in keeping games as clean as possible.

Holtzman and Bunnell are two of the eight senior players graduating this year for the Pioneers. However, they both feel satisfied with their final season, knowing they played hard with sportsmanship in mind.

“I think it’s a great way to go off,” said Bunnell. “I think it’s really nice to have a strong season where we’re really successful and winning games. And also to be recognized in this way is kind of like an indication to me that we’re playing good soccer, we’re playing the sport well and the way it should be played and not playing it dirty, which are

things that I take pride in.”

Despite the strong leadership and expertise that the seniors bring to the team, the captains are confident that the rising seniors and other team members will be able to fulfill the team’s high expectations, both in terms of performing well and

maintaining strong ethics.

“I think really we’re building a program and each year we get a little stronger in different ways, whether it’s winning more games or getting less cards, or whatever it may be year to year,” said Holtzman. “I do think we’re on an upward trend.”

LILY SEIBERT

Co-captains Eliza Bunnell '19 and Gwen Holtzmann '19 collect the Platinum Ethics Award.

Community

Edited by taylorse@grinnell.edu

7

The rebuilding process begins for El Molcajete owner, staff and patrons after devastating winter fire

ANDREW TUCKER

El Molcajete, a downtown Grinnell restaurant, was damaged beyond repair in a fire on December 17. Now the owner. manager and employees of the restaurant must begin the process of rebuilding the restaurant and their lives.

By Eyerusalem Desta destaeye@grinnell.edu

Just before the College’s winter break, El Molcajete in downtown Grinnell caught fire on Dec. 17. The building was a complete loss.

Héctor Corona, the manager of the restaurant, explained that the cause of the fire is still being investigated.

“What actually happened is still curious because the firefighters

didn’t find anything wrong with [the restaurant]. It looks like something with the electricity on top of the dining room area, or [it] could have been the furnace. It was a two-monthold furnace so it was pretty brand new,” Corona said.

Thankfully, “it didn’t spread out to the whole restaurant and neither to [the] neighbors,” Corona said. It was largely the dining area that was affected by the fire and “everything else [in] the restaurant — the kitchen

[and] the storage room — is okay.”

The plan is to rebuild the restaurant, but Corona explained that the time period is up in the air.

“I have talked to the owner [of the building] and he said he was going to try to rebuild. They started to demolish the dining room area last Friday. He doesn’t have a date to rebuild. He said this would be done in six months. Probably more, probably less — you never know,” Corona said.

In the meantime, Corona said

that the Grinnell community has been very helpful and generous.

“There have been some of the people gathering some money for us so it feels good for us. Like for me, I’m the manager, I have to pay my rent, my bills. The chef has two little children and his wife in his own home too and he pays bills and rent. So, it was a nice thing from all the people here in Grinnell to help us with that money,” Corona said.

There is a long period of time without work before rebuilding.

Corona said that “if not for [the community’s help] we wouldn’t be here right now, we would have to move out of town to work somewhere else because we’re used to doing the Mexican restaurant. Going to another place to be a server or a chef would be kind of weird because we don’t even know the menu of that place.”

He said that this initiative was started by the Rev. Wendy Abrahamson at Saint Paul’s Church and parishioners at the First Presbyterian Church in Grinnell.

Community members continue to help the business.

In addition, the restaurant wants to make sure to keep some of the workers, like the chef, paid because the chef is “the head of the restaurant,” Corona said. The insurance company is still investigating but may start paying the employees.

“Hopefully the insurance works out for now to get most of the employees get paid, like the chef. We can’t find another chef that good so

we don’t want them to leave because the chef is basically the head of the restaurant. If he’s not there the restaurant would be different.”

It has been a bit longer than a month but the investigation is a long process, with seven insurance companies and one private adjuster investigating.

When we open ... people coming to eat, that would support us for sure Héctor Corona, manager of El Molcajete On a positive note, Corona explained that the dining area of the restaurant may look a little different when it opens back up.

“We were trying to change some stuff [in] the dining room area. We were thinking about getting nicer booths instead of those weird looking ones. If we reopen, all the customers will be amazed,” Corona said.

To help, Corona said that Grinnellians can come to support the restaurant when it reopens.

“When we open ... people coming to eat, that would support us for sure."

When the restaurant does eventually reopen it awaits a warm welcome from Grinnellians, both from the College and the surrounding community. The response to the fire and the misfortune facing the staff of El Molcajete from the community is a silver lining in this unfortunate situation.

Two student houses burgled on the same night, raising questions about safety for off-campus housing

By Maxwell Fenton fentonma@grinnell.edu

In the early morning hours of Saturday, Jan. 26, two off-campus College student houses experienced very similar break-ins. Though no one was physically hurt, the residents of both houses were left feeling shaken at the incursion of a stranger into their homes.

At 1018 East St., Nolan Boggess '19 awoke around 3:50 a.m.. to a presence in his room. After realizing there was an intruder in the house, Boggess said “hello,” and the stranger quickly fled.

Boggess immediately called the Grinnell Police Department, who investigated in and around the house. The police found that the stranger had broken a window to climb into the home.

According to Boggess, the police stayed until they received another report of a break-in down

the street. A stone’s throw away at 1030 East St., Judith Tong '20, Anh Thu Pham '19, and a third friend were asleep in the basement of their off-campus home.

Tong awoke around 4:30 a.m. to a presence in the room, but at first was unsure of what was happening.

She shined her phone screen around the area and spotted an individual laying down in between her and Pham’s beds.

Like Boggess, Tong called out “hello” to the stranger, who stirred for a moment and eventually left the home. The fact the individual did not acknowledge the greeting — a hello or otherwise — made Tong concerned.

Tong and the other residents of her home searched every room in the house, but could not find the intruder. All the doors in the upstairs room of the house were open, which Tong suspects was the individual checking if the home was occupied.

Safety Tips from Police chief Dennis Reilly Chief Reilly offered multiple tips for staying safe in the event of a breakin. His tips, lightly edited for clarity, are listed below.

1. Remain calm – most will experience an adrenaline rush, which may assist in heightening one’s senses, but excessive reaction can result in panic that leads to a lack of critical information being relayed to responding officers.

2. Alert - as it relates to others in the residence, intruders generally do not like attention being drawn to them. Yelling at the intruder to get out, while either escaping the residence or finding a safe place, will alert roommates/ neighbors while hopefully creating the attention needed for the suspect to flee.

3. Flight - If one can safely exit the residence while calling 911, do so and find a hiding place outside. With mobile devices today, and if able to do so safely, snap a photo of the intruder. Staying on the phone with 911 provides responding officers with live updates of what is taking place and where the suspect is located. If you flee the residence, be loud to attract attention.

4. Lockdown - If flight is not possible, with sheltering in place being the option, let 911 know where you are hiding and stay there unless safely exiting becomes an option. Find an object in that place that you could use as a weapon.

5. Defend yourself - If confronted, and the suspect does not leave and/or confronts you, be prepared to defend yourself and do so. Inform the suspect that you are on 911 and police are responding. Describe the person to the 911 operator.

6. Law enforcement arrival - Once law enforcement arrives let them find you, unless instructed otherwise, if you are inside. If you are outside approach the officers – making sure that you keep your hands exposed and telling them who you are. Providing a description of what you are wearing to the 911 operator is helpful for arriving officers.

7. Suspect flight - If the suspect leaves, and you are comfortable in doing so, maintain (at a safe distance) a visual on the suspect and convey this information to the 911 operator, who in turn will relay the information to responding officers.

Movies at the Strand

SARINA LINCOLN

Two student houses, at 1018 and 1030 East Street, were burgled the night of Saturday, Jan. 26. The Grinnell Police Department has speculated that the burglaries could have been a homeless community member looking for shelter.

The residents called Campus Safety, who in turn called the police. Back at 1018, the police received a report of a second breakin on East Street and went to 1030, where they searched the home and the perimeter for any signs of the intruder. The police did not pinpoint

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a clear means of entry into 1030, though Tong mentioned they saw marks at the back door which could indicate a pry bar was used to jimmy open the back door.

“Based on the time frame and proximity of these two incidents, coupled with the actions of the offender, at this point we believe the same person is responsible for both incidents,” wrote Grinnell Chief of Police Dennis Reilly in and email to The S&B. After both houses were investigated, the GPD returned to discuss safety issues at the residences.

According to Boggess, “[The police] came back and just told us to ensure we locked our doors and windows at night … and that they would update us with any info.

We followed up and it seems like they’re taking the case seriously since this sort of stuff doesn’t happen in Grinnell too much.”

According to Tong, the police mentioned that the perpetrator was likely a homeless individual seeking shelter from the cold. Temperatures that weekend reached below -5 degrees Fahrenheit, which causes frostbite with prolonged exposure.

Esther Hwang '19, also a resident of 1018 East Street, noted the seeming absence of resources for the homeless in and around Grinnell

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in the aftermath of the break-in.

“After we heard it was a homeless person, we would have conversations about where people go during the polar vortex … there are no homeless shelters in Grinnell, and I’m not sure if the churches do anything,” Hwang said.

I think everyone in my house was pretty shaken up after the events. For me, it has been hard to realize that my room, a place of safety for me, was broken into. I haven't been sleeping too great, but my whole house has really rallied together to support each other.

Nolan Boggess '19 The residents of both houses feel troubled by the occurrence of a break-in.

“I think everyone in my house was pretty shaken up after the events. For me, it has been hard to realize that my room, a place of safety for me, was broken into. I haven’t been sleeping too great, but my whole house has really rallied together to support each other. We just hope nothing like this happens again,” Boggess said.

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8

Community Historical Society dubs 2019 the 'Year of Cornelia Clarke,' Grinnell resident, alumna and forgotten artist

Edited by taylorse@grinnell.edu

By Zoe Fruchter fruchter@grinnell.edu The Grinnell Historical Museum has named 2019 the “Year of Cornelia Clarke.” But who was Clarke, and why does she merit this designation?

Cornelia Clarke is a study in contradictions. She lived in Grinnell for most of her life, yet her photography depicted subjects from around the world. She photographed nature, yet the technology of the time was not well-adapted to such subjects. She was a renowned photographer in her time, yet her work was misattributed and discarded following her death.

The closer I got to look at these photographs, the more amazed I was.

Professor Emeritus of History Dan Kaiser

None of the contradictions concerning Clarke’s life, however, cloud her photographs, which bridge the gap between scientific documentation and art, featuring natural imagery such as milkweed pods or blossoming fungi that leap out of their austere backgrounds.

Exhibited collectively for the first time at the Grinnell Area Arts Council in an exhibit curated by the Grinnell Historical Museum, Clarke’s remarkable clarity of vision and technical control over her medium distinguishes her work not only as exceptional for its time but worthy of contemporary study and admiration.

Yet the originals of Clarke’s prolific career were almost relegated to a dusty corner of the University of Iowa archives. To trace the origin

of her work and discover why it was almost lost, one must start at the beginning of Clarke’s life in Grinnell.

Born in 1884, Clarke grew up in Grinnell, raised by a single father following her mother’s death in childbirth. She gained a deep appreciation for nature and the technical skills of plate photography from her father. Clarke attended Grinnell College and majored in English and History, taking a year off after her third year to travel in Europe with her father. She first achieved recognition for her posed photographs of dressed up cats that served the basis of the 1912 picture book, Peter and Polly, earning her the nickname of Grinnell’s Beatrix Potter.

Clarke expanded her photographic reach after Peter and Polly, beginning her career in nature photography in the 1920s.

Clarke’s work, documenting plants, insects and animals, was published in various journals, magazines and newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times and the World Book Encyclopedia. Clarke earned various awards from organizations including American Photography and Photo-Era magazine for her intricate depictions of nature.

“The closer I got to look at these photographs, the more amazed I was,” said Professor Emeritus Dan Kaiser, history, and a local expert on Clarke, when remembereing the first time he saw the negatives.

Kaiser had identified Clarke as an interesting story for his local history blog, Grinnell Stories, in 2017. While researching her, he realized that the negatives of her work had disappeared. Frustrated by the disappearance of Clarke’s work, Kaiser set out to track down her

SOFIA MENDEZ

The work of Cornelia Clarke, a Grinnell alumnus, was displayed at the Stewart Galley in an exhibition curated by the Grinnell Historical Society entitled "Forgotten Photographs." original photographs.

By chance, Kaiser noticed an Iowa Annals listing of their new acquisitions that included a collection of 1100 glass plate negatives, attributed to Henry Conard. The negatives had been saved from the dissolution of the University of Iowa’s botanical school. Clarke had willed over 3,000 glass plate negatives of her photography to Henry Conard, former Grinnell professor and namesake of the Conard Environmental Research Area, following her death in 1936.

Conard retired from Grinnell in 1944 and became involved with the botany department at the University of Iowa following his retirement, most likely taking the negatives with him.

SOFIA MENDEZ

Negatives of Cornelia Clarke's were rediscovered by Professor Emeritus of History Dan Kaiser, and he and the Grinnell Historical Society have worked to identify her work, dubbing 2019 the "Year of Cornelia Clarke."

Kaiser made the connection between Conard and Clarke and traveled to the State Historical Society of Iowa archives to investigate. He realized that although the plates were labeled as Conard’s, most of the prints had a stamp on the back: “Cornelia Clarke, nature photographer.”

Clarke’s stamp clearly claimed the photos as her own, but appraisers had overlooked her ownership in favor of Conard’s more established, and male, name.

This is a case where a woman's reputation was a in a man's hands and he didn't treat it very well.

Professor Emeritus of History Dan Kaiser

“Henry Conard did a lot of great things here, not all having to do with botany, but I think he really let Cornelia Clarke down,” Kaiser said.

“This is a case where a woman’s reputation was in a man’s hands and he didn’t treat it very well.”

The treatment of Clarke’s photos following her death paralleled her lived experienced as a single, woman photographer in the early 1900s.

Kaiser tracked down records at the Smithsonian Museum from the journal Science Newsletter, which published Clarke’s work, showing that the magazine paid her a dollar per photograph. Adjusting for inflation, a dollar in 1930 is only the equivalent of around $15, today.

“It was a scandal, even then,” Kaiser said.

Since his initial blog post, Kaiser has become “fascinated” with Clarke.

He petitioned to get Clarke inducted into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame.

His petition last year was declined,

but the application remains open for three years, and Kaiser intends to submit additional materials to the Hall of Fame.

Teaching Russian history during his tenure at Grinnell, Kaiser says that his research on Clarke has affected him more personally than much of his other work. He views his work to tell Clarke’s story through writing and putting together the exhibit as an effort to “right the scales.”

The exhibit at the Grinnell Area Arts Council features 25 photographs from the 2300-negative cache found at the State Historical Society. Many of the prints are tinted pink due to damage incurred at the University of Iowa, but the hue does not diminish the striking quality of Clarke’s work on a larger scale.

Pea pods, still lifes of peaches and dandelion seed pods splitting apart filled the Arts Council’s gallery space alongside information about Clarke’s career and life in Grinnell. The exhibit was organized by subject matter. Eric Jarvis, event coordinator for the Arts Council, assists artists in hanging their shows at the gallery. For this installation, he was assisted by five members of the Historical Museum. A calendar with Clarke’s photographs titled “The Year of Cornelia” is also on sale at the Museum and prints are available to purchase by request. The exhibit received a warm reception from the community, with communitymembers of all ages visiting the show throughout its tenure.

“I wish she were here to enjoy some of it,” said Kaiser.

The “Forgotten Photographs: Cornelia Clarke’s Botanical Images” exhibit has closed, but her work is available on Digital Grinnell and on the State Historical Society of Iowa website.

Grinnell Professor Lee Running's artwork installed in Iowa Capitol building

By Eva Hill hilleva@grinnell.edu

In December of 2018, the Governor’s Office in the Iowa Capitol building was made the site of a new artistic piece: a five-by-sixand-a-half-foot mural created from colorful vinyl layered on the glass of the waiting-room window. The creator of the piece is Professor Lee Running, art.

Running said that the piece is now a member of a larger group of artwork commissioned by Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds in 2018.

“Governor Reynolds has decided that for her term, she wants to have [art made by] women artists from Iowa in her office … Up until now it’s all been framed works, like canvases or photographs, that are on easels in the space,” Running said.

The first woman governor of Iowa, Reynolds won election in 2018 after succeeding Terry Branstad in 2017. With this win, she also became the first woman to be elected governor of Iowa in her own right.

“I was contacted because she was [officially elected] and she wanted to do something for that first event, and I’ve been doing a lot of site-specific work on glass, and so I proposed putting something specific onto the [window] in the office,” Running. said She was first

contacted by the Iowa Arts Council, an organization that previously awarded her a fellowship and grant in 2017.

The piece in the Governor’s office depicts a magnified western prairie fringed orchid, an endangered plant native to the Midwest.

“It was really important to me to put something on the [window] that used to be very common but now is very rare,” Running said.

“This beautiful fringed botanical specimen that’s very small, that’s very easy to overlook — I wanted to make it really massive.”

The western prairie fringed orchid has been on the endangered species list in the United States since 2008, and is experiencing dangerous decreases in population in the wild. Running used specimen samples from the College herbarium as drawing guides. The samples were from 1860 and 1920, when the plant was still a common feature of the Iowa landscape.

Running x-rayed the samples and projected the images onto sheets of adhesive vinyl, which she then cut out and layered on the window to create the final image. Under the x-ray and magnification, she said, “You can see the veins inside every one of them, all of the details.”

Running said that she draws inspiration from nature when creating artwork.

“I think I’m happiest when I’m outside. … I’m a collector of small things, and I think that interest sort of moved directly into sculpture for me, and into drawing.”

Running was born in Minnesota but grew up in Colorado and did her undergraduate degree in New York.

She says that moving to the Midwest

has given her a new perspective on the world. “Moving here, I had to learn to look differentlyw … Iowa [has] taught me a lot about learning how to see,” she said.

Running has created other large site-specific works in Iowa in the past as well. One, a permanent installation, is located in the

auxiliary chemotherapy suite of Grinnell Regional Medical Center, and is comprised of botanical etchings on window glass and murals on the walls. In addition, Running has done a two-story piece at the Upper Iowa University atrium, which is also a botanicalson-glass project.

IOWA ARTS COUNCIL

Professor Emma Lee Running installed this artwork in the waiting room to the Governor's office in December. The project was sponsored by the Governor's Office and the Iowa Arts Council.

Edited by irwinkat@grinnell.edu

Opinions Dear Cheryl: Lamp-in-Law

9

By Phoebe Schreckinger schrecki@grinnell.edu

This Week in Wellness: What is stress, anyway?

A word on the College and more to support unionization

Regarding the student worker unionization struggle: If working conditions, wages and supervision were fair, the students wouldn’t be agitating for a union in the first place. The push to unionize is directly related to poor conditions, otherwise there would be no impetus.

That said, the work done by the students under the present system IS an integral, but accidental, part of learning at Grinnell. It teaches them that fat cats making $600,000 yearly are hellbent on squeezing every last cent possible out of their workers and will hire fancy lawyers to do it, or stoop to extortion — threatening the student financial aid packages if they participate in the union.

Do poorer students need the educational experience of fitting tiring manual labor into their studies and having less time for academics and socialization to remind them of their place? How many credits do the students earn for working in the dining hall?

If working in the dining halls is so educational, why aren’t the very wealthy students required to partake in the experience? Why isn’t it a mandatory, need-blind distribution requirement? Do poorer students need the educational experience of fitting tiring manual labor into their studies and having less time for academics and socialization to

remind them of their place? How many credits do the students earn for working in the dining hall? Do the wealthy students get credits for watching the poorer students serve them?

If working in the dining halls is so educational, why aren't the very wealthy students required to partake in the experience? Why isn't it a mandatory, need-blind distribution requirement?

That Grinnell should be at the forefront of reversing a standing progressive labor opinion is obscene. The college needs to back down and ENCOURAGE the students to unionize — that's a REAL educational experience for both the college and students — and ask why the College is paying $600,000 a year for a reactionary executive whose actions shout “ruling class.”

This is the college that produced Harry Hopkins, not Herbert Hoover.

The college must drop this dreadful legal action to stay true to its heritage.

And it needs to start looking for a new progressive president. And meanwhile, let’s call the standing executive “President Hoover.” It will be a nice sobriquet for him to carry both to his next job and for the rest of his career.

— Eleanor Alice Benecki Class of 1976

By Eva Hill hilleva@grinnell.edu What is Stress, Anyway?

It hasn’t even been two weeks since everyone got back to campus, but classes, sports and work are already in full swing for many students. With all these things, some people are probably experiencing a fair amount of stress – but what is stress, why does it happen, and what can we do to prevent it?

The human nervous system, which encompasses the brain, spinal cord and extending nerves, can be divided into two smaller systems: the central nervous system (comprised of the brain and spinal cord) and the peripheral nervous system (everything else). The peripheral nervous system can then be split again into the afferent or sensory division, which responds to outside stimuli by sending impulses to the central nervous system, and the efferent or motor division, which carries impulses from the central nervous system to the peripheral nerves. The motor division then divides again into two more systems: the somatic nervous system, which regulates voluntary motor control, and the autonomic nervous system, which regulates involuntary responses to stimuli.

Stress reactions are regulated by yet another division, of the autonomic nervous system into the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems. When a potentially threatening stimulus presents itself (for example, an attacking leopard, or the sudden realization that you’ve forgotten about a paper due

tomorrow), your sympathetic nervous system discharges. This causes a cascade of hormone releases that activates the fight-or-flight response, generally represented by feelings of panic, aggression, and/or intense anxiety. Once this response has occurred and it is clear that any immediate physical danger has passed, the parasympathetic nervous system returns the body to its resting state.

human error. Gawande argues that bringing checklists into the professional world has the potential to revolutionize the way we prevent mistakes, citing examples ranging from a five-step list that dramatically reduced central line infections to the story of a plane that crashed because it was too complicated for humans to fly without step-by-step instructions.

Chronic stress, characterized by prolonged stress caused by frequent exposure to stressful stimuli, can have numerous negative effects on your health.

This week’s music: This recommendation comes from my sister, who plays the violin and is much more well-versed in the world of classical strings than I am.

She suggests Grieg’s Holberg Suite in G Major, a five-part piece with each part inspired by a form of eighteenth-century dance. It was written to celebrate the 200th birthday of its namesake, playwright Ludvig Holberg.

Chronic stress, characterized by prolonged stress caused by frequent exposure to stressful stimuli, can have numerous negative effects on your health. The American Psychology Association has linked it to insomnia and named it a potential contributor to the development of conditions including depression and heart disease. In situations where the stressor is not life-threatening, it can be useful to know how to activate a parasympathetic response so that you can slow down sudden stress more quickly. A good way to do this is to take slow, deep breaths, in for four seconds through the nose, and out for four seconds through the mouth. If you regularly practice this technique, which is commonly used in mindfulness meditation, you can become better at quickly stopping a stress response when you feel it happening.

Obviously, breathing exercises are not a substitute for medication when necessitated by a panic, mood or anxiety disorder, but if you’re feeling generally stressed about school, work or anything else, practicing some deep breathing can’t hurt, and it may even improve your daily life.

This week’s book: Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto is a book about checklists, but it’s also a compelling abbreviated overview of the recent history of

This week’s recipe: High-protein salad This is one of my favorite things to make if I’m feeling low on energy. The fresh, sharp taste of the balsamic vinaigrette and olives blends nicely with the flavor of the soybeans, and the hardboiled egg provides some extra substance to make a more filling dish. This salad can be made entirely with ingredients that can be found in the dining hall (soybeans are in the vegan section) and it makes a great vegetarian alternative.

Ingredients: Your favorite lettuce (I like romaine or spinach) Cooked, unsalted soybeans Chopped raw mushroom Chopped tomato (cherry tomatoes work best) Chopped hardboiled egg Sliced black olives Balsamic vinaigrette Instructions: 1. If making this in the dining hall, start by putting the soybeans in a small bowl to avoid cross-contamination in the vegan section.

2. Add lettuce, mushroom, tomato, soybeans and olives to salad bowl or plate. Toss lightly.

3. Add egg and drizzle with dressing. Toss again.

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SARINA LINCOLN

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Spectacles

Social Calendar Friday

6:15 p.m. Shabbat Table @ Main Hall Quad Dining Hall 7:15 p.m. Coming to America @ Harris Center Cinema 9:30 p.m. Karen Meat w/ Katie Sin and Prairie Dogs @ Gardner Lounge

Glasses

The S&B Crossword

Eye Goggles

By Ned Watson '22

Saturday

9:30 a.m. Track and Field Darren Young Classic @ ATHL Fieldhouse 11:30 a.m. SOL Potluck @ Noyce 1021

Sunday

9:30 a.m. Bae Goals @ JRC 209 7:00 p.m. Campus Council @ JRC 101

Snedge

This week, Sarah Licht '22 and Abraham Teuber '22 polled 100 students asking: Thug Life or It's a Bug's Life?

HSSC

SOUTH LOGGIA

Like what you see? check us out:

@thesandb /thescarletandblack thesandb.com @grinnellsandb

Across 1 A picture of a New Yorker?

10 Rear access road 11 Lightweight programming language 12 Dictionary of American English, for short 15 Pertaining to the cornea 17 Second-to-last spar 19 To miscarry a lamb 20 American public health org.

21 Aunt, to a child 22 Garden shelters, in two parts 26 Synonym for expand 29 A picture of Father Time?

31 Patrol routes 32 'Z,' in British English 33 Oneness, unity

Rants & Raves: I am more and more frustrated with the fake promises this school has when it comes its commitment to self gov. I am not talking about the administration, but instead SGA thinking they can change things.

Their acts seem to only benefit themselves, not the student body. But hey, what can I say we all love the taste of power.

— Just a Little Annoyed

34 Devotee to 35 "Someone told me" 38 Edge, poetically 39 Make possible 40 A picture of a G.I.?

45 Indian hypermarket chain 46 Like Bob Dylan, with "the" 48 Ascended 49 EU trade agreement, for short 50 Measure in baking 53 Cheat (on) 56 The state of lacking in experience 58 Gender identity field, for short 59 Witty 60 Tricky President 61 A picture of a joke?

Down 1 Chatter, slangily 2 Sunburn-relieving herb 3 Labor law org.

4 Counterpart to Barbie 5 Superficially attractive 6 Sweet, as a voice 7 Minnesota Twins third baseman Mike 8 Pair, duo 9 Portable computer 12 A waltz, e.g. dance 13 What marijuana substitutes act as a...

14 Touchdown time, for short 16 Carpenter's tool 18 Aland islands port 22 Genuflective gentry 23 Strange 24 Sign 25 Foot suffix 26 A step on a ladder 27 A molecule with non-zero charge 28 Crime of drunkenness, for short 30 A white, long-plumed animal 34 Happy, to Hans 35 Black ink, historically from South Asia 36 West African cassava staple 37 Living for the elderly, for short 38 "Gross!"

41 Radio tracking devices used to prevent shoplifting, for short 42 Bear, to Caesar 43 Twelve, in many languages 44 Intensely, as feelings 47 Pastureland (var.)

48 Cloth 50 Written words 51 ACM theory symposium 52 Phnom follower 54 "Uhhh" 55 Grain for bread and whisky 57 Try (after)

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].

Can someone explain to me what goes through men's heads when they decide to wear shorts in the winter? Do they want to cause me distress?

Or do they just want to feel the wind on their leg hair?

— Tim Gunn

The Patriots' win was a national disgrace.

— A Disappointed

Chiefs Fan