Volume 133, Issue 14

Sports

Community

"It’s not the stage for anything political. I don’t want that because I’m a pure sports fan"

Arts

Community speaks on the executive order concerning immigration

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Community speaks on the executive order concerning immigration

page 8

the

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Scarlet & Black Volume 133, Issue 14

thesandb.com

February 6, 2017 • Grinnell, Iowa

Immigration ban sparks response by students and administration

By Lily Bohlke & Mira Braneck bohlkeli@grinnell.edu braneckm@grinell.edu

CONTRIBUTED

Left: Sawyer's work fights fascism in the loggia; Right: Art SEPC board, depciting anti-fascism works, vandalized.

Anti-fascism imagery criticized, vandalized

By Lily Bohlke bohlkeli@grinnell.edu Over the course of the last week, unidentified people have removed or vandalized two separate art pieces that represented protest and resistance to the new presidential administration.

Clio Sawyer*, a student at Grinnell, created and hung posters across campus that read “No Safe Spaces for Fascist Scum” with an image of a boot stomping and destroying a swastika.

The day after Sawyer put them up, another student hung a poster in response that reads "In Staub Mit Allen Feinden Gross-Deutschlands" which translates from German to “Into Dust with all the Enemies of Great Germany” accompanied by an image of a fist crushing three enemies and a caption reading “Taken in Summer 1940, Germany” with a quote from a Belgian communist leader, Georgi Dimitrov. The student also photocopied the original poster and next to it wrote, “January 24, 2017 at Loose Hall Entrance,” to compare the original poster with the sign from Nazi Germany.

According to Professor Dan Reynolds, German, the enemies

depicted represent the U.K., France and “International Jewry”.

“World War II had broken out, and France and the U.K. were at war with Germany,” Reynolds wrote in an email to The S&B. “Germany by this time had occupied or annexed half of Poland, all of Austria and the Czech half of Czechoslovakia in the east, Belgium, the Netherlands, and part of France in the west.”

According to Reynolds, the juxtaposition between the three posters provides commentary on nationalism in America. “[American nationalism today] seems less concerned about communism in the post-Cold War era and more obsessed with migration, race and Islam,” Reynolds wrote.

“What I find ironic is that the image of a boot crushing a swastika is also familiar within communist iconography, such as the Treptow Memorial in Berlin, where a Red Army soldier stands on a crushed swastika.”

Sawyer’s poster concerns how anti-fascism opposition rhetoric impacts communities.

“When fascists feel emboldened, they tend to do a lot of really awful shit, and in general, fascism accumulates power by testing

people,” Sawyer said. “So the more you show them you’ll tolerate it, they’re seeing that you’re not going to fight back and they’re just going to push the envelope further and further.”

Sawyer had been using this poster and other art pieces to protest against and to resist fascism, which they associate with the new Trump administration.

“We’re living under the beginnings of a fascist regime. Any kind of visceral response to that should be justified,” Sawyer said.

“For me personally in that moment it was this means of dealing with my feelings of powerlessness. … If people were feeling anger towards this and had a lot of thoughts of aggression towards this new regime and the rise of white nationalism in the U.S. and people were like, ‘you can’t feel that,’ I think art is a really important way to communicate that you’re experiencing things too.”

In a separate incident, the Art SEPC bulletin board was torn down, including a sign that read “ART RESISTING FASCISM IS THE BEST ART,” last Wednesday.

According to Professor Lee >> See Art as protest page 3

Since the inauguration, President Donald Trump has signed 18 executive orders. One of these, signed on Friday, Jan. 27 entitled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States” restricts travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries, prevents refugees from entering the country for 120 days and prohibits Syrian refugees from entering the country indefinitely.

In response, the Grinnell community mobilized to support its international students with a slew of events that occurred this past week. On Monday, the College held a Candlelight Vigil and Art in Response event. On Tuesday, in Main Hall Dining Quad, there was a letterwriting campaign and direct action strategy workshop. On Wednesday, the Rosenfield Program sponsored a teach-in in ARH 302 and Campus Democrats organized a call-in event at Bob’s Underground Cafe.

The CRSSJ was one campus organization planning events for the week, in addition to the Student Government Association (SGA), the Office of Intercultural Affairs, and the International Student Organization (ISO). Deanna Shorb, Dean of Religious Life, hoped that the events, as well as the open arms of the CRSSJ and the College itself, would lend a level of support to the affected students.

“We would like for those students to feel supported in every

way possible,” Shorb said. “There’s only so much that anybody can do ... we know that a lot of people would really just like to probably continue with life as it was and is ... but we feel like if we don’t take the time to say, we understand that life has changed for you, to some degree, and if there’s anything within our power to do to give a grand welcome and let you know that we’re here every day to support you, we want to do that. So CRSSJ is partnering with our colleagues at Intercultural Affairs and [ISO] to try to find how best to support all students who might be having a hard time with a variety of executive orders, but specifically the immigration ban.”

Shorb wrote to the Muslim members of the Grinnell College community to lend her support and to offer help in any way that she and the CRSSJ could. “Please know that this is a sanctuary, that I do condemn this decision that has been made, that I think it in no way reflects what some people may be suggesting,” she said, describing what she had written in the letter. “It says that the very principles I think that the representatives and the current leader in Washington and his party promote to put forward, which would be Christian, mostly, that I know no Christian principles that reflect this lack of a welcome. I find it to be xenophobic and Islamophobic.”

Students, faculty and activists on campus have lent their support as well, through vigils and different community actions. >> See College takes action page 2

KOSUKE YO

Community activists gathered at Saint's Rest in response.to executive order.

Innovation fund Autumn Wilke made new assistant announces chosen projects dean for diabilities resources

By Zane Silk silkzane@grinnell.edu

Grinnell College announced on Jan. 26 the projects selected for funding by the Innovation Fund. The nine chosen projects cover a range of areas with a particular emphasis on digital technology and addressing issues of diversity. Now in its fifth year, the Innovation Fund was created for faculty, staff and students to test out new approaches to teaching and scholarship.

The Innovation Fund supports both pilot projects, which can receive up to 50,000 dollars annually over

three years to implement an idea, and planning projects, which are focused on determining feasibility in advance of implementation and can receive up to 10 thousand dollars. This year, six pilot projects were selected, along with three planning projects with the opportunity to apply to be pilots next year.

Of the five projects that aim to harness technology in different ways, three are specifically focused on the emerging area of digital liberal arts, which seeks to bridge traditional academia with digital tools >> See Innovation Fund page

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CONTRIBUTED

Students went to Spain with the Global Learning Program last year. The U.S. Course Embedded Travel Project will make trips like this more frequent.

Monday Putting Face to Policy: Students’ Perspectives on Travel Restrictions JRC 101, 7 p.m.

By Steve Yang yangstev17@grinnell.edu Autumn Wilke will serve as Grinnell’s new Assistant Dean for Disability Resources, taking on part of the role vacated by Jennifer Krohn’s retirement and continuing her work on disability and accessibility on campus, according to a campus wide email sent out on Jan. 24. Wilke has been the coordinator of disability resources, and will continue the work of coordinator until a replacement is found. The College anticipates a new hire before the end of the spring semester.

Upon arriving at Grinnell in 2011, Wilke first served as a residential life coordinator (RLC) before becoming the coordinator of disability resources.

In this role, she works on day-today accommodations for individual students, and promotes disability as an intersectional identity on campus.

As assistant dean, however, Wilke will move towards envisioning a broader scope for changes at the College and continuing the efforts that Jennifer Krohn has initiated as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) coordinator.

“As opposed to doing day-to-day

Tuesday 20 Minutes@11: Daniel Strong

Thursday OrgFair

Falcouner Gallery, 11 a.m.

Second Floor JRC, 11 a.m.

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individual accommodations ... I’ll be thinking about systemic changes to the campus in terms of accessibility ... the physical and digital environment, and ... change across the board. That involves education, training, policy changes and ... universal design and accessibility,” Wilke said.

Wilke mentioned that a significant part of her efforts will be directed towards fulfilling the recommendations and plans outlined by the Disability and Accessibility Task Force’s findings, a large document spanning over 70 pages that was published last fall.

She noted that the College has done a good job of meeting compliance requirements and civil rights laws, but added that her work does not end with compliance.

“It’s about the intent of the law, not just the way that’s it’s written.

Through the work of Joyce Stern [Dean for Student Success and Academic Advising], Jennifer Krohn, [Professor] Ralph Savarese [English] and other folks, we’ve been looking at that beyond-compliance framework for a while,” she said. “We’re in a good place ... to understand how to start to do that. The foundation for beyondcompliance is already there.”

Along those lines, she will continue to work with online resources, early arrival for students with disabilities, instituting support groups for students with particular kinds of disabilities and leading campaigns to raise awareness about unintentional barriers to access.

Specifically, Wilke emphasized the need for a change in Grinnell’s attitudinal environment, or the ways that consciously and unconsciously reinforce ideas about who belongs where. She said that for people with visible disabilities as well as those who have invisible ones like herself, providing an inclusive atmosphere is

Thursday Scholar's Convocation: Expert on Climate Change and Politics JRC 101, 11 a.m.

Thursday

>> See Disability resources page 2

HELENA GRUENSTEIDL

Artists@Grinnell: Edourad DuvalCarríe: Art in the North Caribbean Falcouner Gallery, 4 p.m.

Features 4 | Sports 5 | Community 7 | Arts 9 | Opinions 11 |

News College takes action after Trump Presentation on Posse Plus Retreat: "Us versus them" bans travel from 7 countries Edited by bohlkeli@grinnell.edu & braneckm@grinnell.edu

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GARRETT WANG

Justin Leuba '18 calls their representatives at the call-in night this week.

Continued from Front Page At the day-long letter writing campaign in Main Quad on Tuesday, students wrote to their Iowa and state representatives. Students were encouraged to write their thoughts, and were given the addresses of the senators from all 50 states.

New York native Louise Carhart ’17 wrote to Senator Chuck Schumer, condemning what she sees as hypocrisy on his part with his involvement in the new Trump administration. “[Schumer] has been approving Trump’s cabinet picks, but then comes out after he passes this executive order being like, this is un-American, this is terrible ... [saying] I’m going to do whatever I can to fight this injustice,” Carhart said. “But then he’s been voting for all of Trump’s cabinet picks, so I had to tell him that that was wrong.”

At the call-in event, students were given the names and numbers of Iowa state and federal representatives and a list of different issues concerning both levels of government. They then called and left messages with their offices.

Justin Leuba ’18 first proposed the idea to Campus Democrats leader Austin Wadle ’18. “Justin reached out to me ... wanting to organize an event like this, a call-in just to make sure that students are getting civically engaged,” they said. “There was a need to have students voices heard to stop really bad policies. ... We know that there’s been a huge resurgence of this kind of civic engagement that we haven’t seen in a while.”

Luke Jarzyna ’18, one student at the call-in, felt motivated to act in the wake of the recent political turmoil. “I don’t want to be passive on the cusp of what could be a moment of historic change,” he said. “I feel almost as though it’s my duty, in a way.”

Amelia Darling ‘20 felt that attending events like the call-in is one of the most effective ways she can fight the new administration’s agenda. “There are a lot of really fucked up things happening in our current political climate,” she said. “I feel really helpless and this is the only thing I can actually do because I live in Iowa and I can’t really protest, so I can just make phone calls.”

The Rosenfield program sponsored an Executive Order Teach-in, which focused primarily on the travel ban and its implications. Professor Sarah Purcell, Director of the Rosenfield Program, introduced the Teach-In by saying, “This particularly is an issue that is hitting home at Grinnell with some of our international students.

Regardless of political opinion, this affects our students.”

“Since the election, I have talked to quite a few students who support Donald Trump, and people who are on the Republican side, so I definitely know that that is an element of the student population. And, I think directly helping international students is a different order of activity. That is not partisan, that’s taking care of Grinnellians,” Purcell said in an interview with The S&B. The Teach-In featured Purcell, as well as Professor Caleb Elfenbein, Religious Studies; Professor Peter Hanson, Political Science; Professor Wayne Moyer, Political Science; Karen Edwards, Director of International Student Affairs; and Professor David Cook-Martín, Director of the Institute for Global Engagement.

After Purcell’s introduction, Elfenbein spoke on some of the different contexts surrounding the executive order, including the dehumanization both abroad and in the U.S., as well as Islamophobia and an expected increase in hate crimes towards Muslim-Americans and immigrants from the affected countries.

Hanson, who specializes in part in constitutional law, compared

the immigration ban to the history of immigration policy in the U.S. going back to the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 and a lot of the rhetoric that was used towards immigrants in the 1920s. He then went on to address congressional obligations and limitations of executive orders. “[For Congress to act] it is going to take some time and the reason for that is even though the president’s national approval ratings are somewhere between 35 and 45 percent, his support among Republicans remains strong.

And because our congressional districts are extraordinarily homogenous, it is very likely in many Republican Congressional districts his rating is above 50 percent. If that changes, we can expect Congress will put a serious check on him because they follow their political incentives,” Hanson said.

Next, Hanson talked about potential political transformations, specifically in California and states that followed suit. Before 1988, California was a red state. Antiimmigration policy towards Latin American individuals and growing Latinx population caused the political climate to shift towards blue. Hanson finished up his portion by encouraging people to mobilize.

“Social movements cause change.

Political mobilization causes change.

The courts are a short-term option.

Courts mirror society. What causes change is people making their voices heard,” Hanson said.

Moyer argued that the executive order is counterproductive to U.S. foreign policy in various ways. In 1951, the U.S. signed a treaty promising to accept refugees escaping violence in their countries.

“President Trump apparently didn’t know about it and Angela Merkel reminded him about it when they talked on the telephone last Saturday,” Moyer said.

In addition, this order has an affect on soft diplomacy, which is how other countries view and wish to interact with the U.S. It also is going to affect our relations with various European countries, undermining the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

“The current leaders of these countries are counting on the support of the U.S. to strengthen their electoral defenses, and Trump’s election didn’t help in the sense that he is both a nationalist and a populist. The refugee ban strengthens nationalist forces, the governments are weakened, it aggravates what already is present in Europe which is a lack of trust particularly in Trump, who is very ambiguous on his foreign policy commitments and has very little credibility in Europe and his propensity to twist facts does not help at all,” Moyer said.

Edwards followed by explaining that the executive order not only influences politics, but emotionally impacts Grinnell students and faculty, as well as people all over the world.

She also talked about xenophobia and its role in influencing an order like this one.

Finally, Cook-Martín spoke about the importance of understanding the implications of the president’s actions, so that people can raise questions and challenge executive orders. He then went on to talk about the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which changed the quota system that had been based on national origin and race.

“This is not a slight move of the policy needle in a particular direction.

If it stands, it is a massive shift in the kind of immigration policy that we have had over the last 220 years. ... What this executive order then represents is a going back to pre-1965 era. It’s the first time since then in 52 years that we are now selecting on that kind of basis. If you take the span and scope of this, it’s a massive shift,”

Cook-Martín said.

Right after Cook-Martín, the floor opened up for questions. Students, faculty, staff and community members raised questions about various topics, including the firing of acting Attorney General Sally Yates, potential upcoming military action, actions Trump might make next, precedents being set, the potential criminalization of peaceful protests and finally how this all happened.

Moyer mentioned that Republican representatives were not consulted about this order. Elfenbein and CookMartín talked about bureaucracy, and border control and customs.

“When agencies within the federal bureaucracy don’t adhere to federal court decisions, that’s deeply alarming.

Thinking about the department of homeland security, and border control, that really seems to be one of the big questions,” Elfenbein said.

“This discretion has been there for a long time and there are many cases in which there are abuses of that discretion. This is simply revealing some of the underlying practices that are already in place,” Cook-Martín added.

During the question and answer session, Professor Kesho Scott, Sociology, offered her thoughts about the president's economic agenda, and about the changing face of political mobilization and social movements.

“In terms of civil disobedience, many of those activities are organized by small groups of people and it catches fire in the hearts of other people. What seems to be happening now is that people really are accepting that there’s no one size fits all way of using their privilege to help something,” Scott said. “They were reporting that more lawyers were going to airports and saying, ‘how can I be of help to you?’ They didn’t want fame, they didn’t want to be on TV, they just wanted to do the right thing.

This is a very different way we’re going to understand movements in this country.”

Events like call-ins, write-ins and teach-ins are some of the ways that Grinnellians have been partaking in actions against the executive order; however, the organizing efforts extend past campus limits, as the community members of the City of Grinnell begin to organize as well. On Thursday night at Saint’s Rest, there was a community meeting for any activists looking to get involved with issues regarding the Trump administration in general.

Professor David Harrison, French, helped organize the meeting.

“Along with some other people, I as a private citizen have been trying to organize people to respond to the agenda of the Trump administration in a way that is the most useful,” he said.

Acting as a concerned citizen, and outside of his role of a Grinnell professor, Harrison began the organizing process with several other faculty members and community members after being inspired by “Indivisible,” a guide written by former congressional staffers that tells average civilians the most effective ways to lobby their congressional representatives for change.

Harrison saw the meeting at Saint’s Rest as a first, organizational step, which he hoped would result in a network of local activists working together to stay informed and enact change. “We’re going to try to create a distribution list of these individuals to be able to inform them of what’s going on and what action should be taken,” he told The S&B on Wednesday, before the meeting.

“Furthermore, we hope to have individuals come forward at this meeting who are willing to take charge of monitoring any legislative or executive action in a particular issue area.” He hopes that by having people spearheading specific issues, activists can streamline communication, and ultimately end up with one person writing a weekly “to-do list of actions that can be taken in specific areas.”

Harrison, while potentially looking to take charge of monitoring a specific issue, largely looked to be inspired. “I would like to be inspired by other people’s passion, other people’s leadership, other people’s ideas.”

On Sunday, Feb. 12, SGA is hosting “Learning to Lobby” in JRC 101 from 2 to 5 p.m., which will be followed the next day by a trip to the offices of Senators Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley in Des Moines.

Editor’s Note: Louise Carhart is the Sports Editor for The S&B

By Candace Mettle mettleca@grinnell.edu

Last Tuesday, representatives of the College’s Posse students held an interactive presentation based around the discussions held at this year’s Posse Plus Retreat. Every year, the Posse Foundation hosts a weekend getaway to converse about current events in U.S. politics with fellow Posse members, faculty and administration members and invited non-Posse students. The topic for this year was “Us versus Them,” a take on the social divide that has plagued the both campus discussion and national politics since the election. Although social grouping is hardly new to American politics, Posse believed that recent climate warranted new discussion.

To start off the presentation, James Crusoe ’17 from D.C. Posse 10 told the audience the 15 year history of Posse at the College and the retreat.

“At [Grinnell] specifically, Posse was used to bring diversity to the campus not only through any sort of racialized diversity or socioeconomic diversity, but also voices and really encourage the leadership aspect of the Posse,” Crusoe said. “The goal of Posse Plus Retreat is to synthesize what’s going on the world, what people are thinking, to be vulnerable and put yourself out there and hopefully be able to take that energy that comes from posse plus retreat and to our campuses.”

Crusoe went on to describe the points of discussions during the retreat: the election, conflicts at the College, the refugee crisis and climate change.

Student Government Association President Anita DeWitt ’17 and SGA Vice President of Academic Advising Rachel Aaronson ’17 invited students

to the retreat and began the first interactive discussion for the night: a Posse favorite called “Stand” that aims to encourage personal reflection and group support. The game works by someone (the leader) asking a question. Participants stand up if they can relate to the question. DeWitt and Aaronson led the game, asking questions that revolved around when and where participants feel marginalized, or a part of an “Us.” Next, DeWitt and Aaronson opened the floor to talk more generally about what “Us versus Them” means to the people in attendance. To get more specific, DeWitt and Aaronson asked about pairs of “Us versus Them” at the College.

Attendees vocalized that they believed an “Us versus Them” mentality exists between the student body and faculty and administration; people of color and white students; and athletes versus non-athletes.

The impacts of these binary relations cause campus life to be less communicative and collaborative.

However, the audience also believed that sometimes it is okay to be a part of an “Us.” Not everyone has to be the same — in fact, what makes society so interesting is when there is a multitude of identities.

Additionally, attendees talked about how important it is to be around people who have similar life experiences in order to feel comfortable, or at least not alone, in difficult life situations.

To conclude the night, the Posse retreat students shared the “Action Posters” they made at the retreat and invited the audience to look at and discuss them. The purpose was to delineate how to resolve the “Us versus Them” divide when engaging at the College, in politics and the new U.S. administration.

Jennifer Krohn retires from disability resources

SARAH RUIZ

Jennifer Krohn mingles at her retirement party in the Harris Center gymnasium.

Continued from Front Page an obligation to all.

“Including people with disabilities is part of our community.

That means looking at ... etiquette, implementing policies and procedures ... and involves training, not just onetime educational programs but how we provide opportunities for faculty, staff and students,” Wilke explained.

Krohn joined Grinnell in 1989, and recently celebrated her retirement on Wednesday, Feb. 1. In addition to starting the incredibly popular “Puppies and Pancakes” study break, Krohn has served as an associate dean of student affairs, the dean of students and began work on the Accessibility Services and Accessibility Committee in 2007. As an ADA coordinator and research associate, Krohn provided recommendations for compliance and accessibility issues on campus, with an emphasis on physical accessibility devices, such as hearing loops and wheelchair ramps.

“In the fall of 2007, I started my work in accessibility. At that point, we had very few ramps and many barriers on campus,” Krohn recalls. “When a student [who needed accommodations] ... came to Grinnell, we had to get the campus ready for him. For example, we spent ... close to $60,000 on concrete renovations alone.”

Krohn mentioned that in concurrence with those changes, the College designated a budget of approximately 100,000 dollars in budget for accessibility work, after including disabilities in the diversity mission of the College. By bringing together administrative staff from all over campus to form a committee and pursue a vested interest in accessibility,

administrators had to learn various terms and how to identify barriers on the fly. However, progress accelerated once the discussion began, and soon the graduation stage, more student housing, Mears Cottage and the natatorium became more accessible.

“We just didn't have any understanding of that at all. By 2012, we had done the gross physical work. The large-scale physical work, and now there’s smaller things and details,” she said. “We built the knowledge base on campus about why we do accommodations and why we make things accessible.”

"Including people with disabilities is part of our community."

Autumn Wilke, associate dean of disability resources A majority of those efforts centered on meeting and exceeding the vague accessibility guidelines set by the ADA, which Krohn was proud of spearheading. She says that she will remember her time at Grinnell as one in which she fought for the health and wellbeing of the students, from work with the Poweshiek County Mental Health center to making sure that housing and residential life were positive features in students’ lives.

She also noted her work supporting the establishment of the walk-in counselling center, an originally temporary installation created after a cluster of suicides at the College that became permanent. In the campuswide email sent about about Wilke’s new position, Dean Michael Latham praised Krohn for being “a tenacious and determined advocate for students, staff, and faculty.”

News

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Students use art to protest

Edited by bohlkeli@grinnell.edu & braneckm@grinnell.edu

Ologie marketing firm does outreach for the College

By Philip Kiely kielyphi@grinnell.edu

CONTRIBUTED

A group of students that travelled to North Dakota sewed this banner in to support Standing Rock protesters.

Continued from Front Page Running, art and art history, visual art has historically been used as a form of protest and resistance against things that people think are wrong. She says that art is “an activity that notices things,” and she teachers her students to observe carefully to understand and make sense of the world around them.

“We spend an incredible amount of time looking and analyzing with our eyes what we actually see,” Running said. “I think art is an incredible tool for being able to look at something – whether that be an object or a political situation or a social situation and be able to extricate information from that act of physically looking at something.”

Last semester, Running and two groups of students sewed two banners: one in support of protesters at Standing Rock, which pictured two heads of buffalo with the words “We Stand,” and one in support of those protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) which pictured an anatomical heart with images of waterways in the shape of Iowa moving through it.

Art can also be used as a soothing method in hard times. While these two uses of art, resisting and healing, can go together, they are not inherently the same.

“I think they’re two different things. If you’re asking for art as a tool of soothing, I think that’s a totally different thing than art as a tool for mobilizing or getting a particular

message to the public,” she said.

The recent Women’s Marches across the country saw the use of art as both protest and healing.

Countless women participated in the PUSSYHAT PROJECT, knitting pink hats with ears and wearing them to the marches to make a statement.

Running attended the march in D.C. with a pussy hat on her head.

"The visual, and physical, is definitely a method with a long, long history, faught with controversy, and that isn't new. All forms of debate ... are also places where people have protested over time."

Professor Lee Running, art and art history “When driving from Iowa to Washington D.C., at every rest stop, people knew who we were and where we were going because we had a visual signifier on our heads. … We were hugged and talked to and the rest stops were full of women all the way across the country,” Running said. “People talked about this being a cathartic act to knit these. I talked to many women who were knitting them in mass … putting our hands to work in a time that seems like there is so much that is so wrong.”

Sawyer was similarly inspired by the art at the Women’s Marches because protest signs did not have one

Innovation Fund sponsors 6 projects and 3 planning projects Continued from Front Page and modes of inquiry. One of those, a pilot project, is entitled Curricular Implementation of the Digital Liberal Arts, and beyond the scope indicated by its name will include a feasibility assessment of a possible Digital Studies Concentration.

“In building Digital Studies at Grinnell, we want … to create new courses that focus on digital methods while still drawing on our disciplinary backgrounds,” wrote Professor Erik Simpson, English, who is co-leading the project, in an email to The S&B. “This summer, the first stage of our project will involve working with student collaborators to develop pilot courses in History and English that introduce students to digital methods in those disciplines.”

In a similar vein, one of the funded planning projects is the Grinnell College Immersive Experiences Lab (GCIEL) led by David Neville, a digital liberal arts specialist at the College. The project will explore how virtual reality (VR) and related technologies can provide exciting new possibilities for teaching and research.

“There’s so much you can do with either data visualizations, or large datasets, with VR or 3-D. You could … recreate lost environments with it, [and] there’s cultural heritage sites that you could do,” Neville said.

Among the three projects that focus on diversity and identity, one project will connect the College to high schoolers from the Meskwaki Native American Settlement, another will tackle the issues disabled Grinnellians face and the last will connect students to resources tackling racial marginalization.

The nine projects given funding were chosen from 12 applications by a committee staffed by professors,

two alumni and a member of the administration. After the applications were submitted last September, the committee reviewed the projects and asked for clarification before submitting recommendations to President Raynard Kington, who made the final decisions on funding.

The U.S. Course Embedded Travel Project is the only funded proposal that does not share a common area with other projects. While most courses with embedded travel include international locales, Professor Sarah Purcell, History, who is co-leading the project, wants to expand the number of educational experiences that incorporate domestic excursions.

Funded as a pilot, this project will channel that money to support at least five courses with embedded travel over the next three years.

“There’s a growing emphasis on … site-specific research, the idea of getting students out of Grinnell and able to go look at situations on the ground,” Purcell said. “Whether it’s for research, or a supplement to course materials, or to talk to alums. And so we just wanted to make sure that there was an opportunity for courses that were focused on the United States to be able to pursue that.”

While some students may be more excited by the idea of visiting foreign destinations, according to Purcell there are multiple benefits of adding opportunities for domestic courseembedded travel.

“There’s no passport required to travel within the United States, so for students who might face a barrier to international travel, it’s important to have opportunities to enrich classes,” said Purcell. “The United States is a really important part of the globe, so in order to make the world our classroom we need to be able to look within our borders as well.”

slogan and was instead made up of the collective thoughts and actions of the millions of people who attended.

“I was moved at how many signs were made out of cardboard and Amazon boxes and tampon boxes specifically,” Running said. “To have a march in which the signs are made out of corporate rubbish has its own meaning.”

As cathartic and inspiring as art can be, however, Sawyer cautioned against using it as the only form of resistance, particularly against fascism and the current administration.

“I don’t think art is insignificant, but I don’t think it’s the biggest part of resistance. I think the biggest part is to have a sustained, cohesive mobilization from leftist organizations, because fascism doesn’t start and end in America with Donald Trump,” they said.

Running also outlined some concrete actions which can act together with making art.

“I encourage my students to use visual as one way in tandem with essay writing and letter writing and I think there are lots of ways to resist.

The visual, and physical, is definitely a method with a long, long history, fraught with controversy, and that isn’t new,” Running said. “All forms of debate, letters to the editor, letters to politicians, are also places where people have protested over time.” *Name changed to protect the anonymity student

Grinnell College has recently hired Ologie, a Columbus, Ohio-based marketing and strategy firm, to further the college’s marketing and outreach efforts. The company has a large roster of higher-education clients and intends to build a powerful platform for Grinnell to tell its story.

In a presentation last Thursday, representatives from Ologie described the goals for the partnership. “[One goal is to] raise the awareness, recognition, visibility and reputation of Grinnell College with prospective students and their parents, current students, faculty and staff, alumni, business and community leaders and other key external audiences,” said Patrick Locy, a senior account manager at Ologie.

This sort of language is common in the industry, but essentially the company intends to help promote Grinnell as a prestigious institution.

“Some of this language is … what happens when you take marketers and the people who write contracts and put them together,” Locy said.

The College hired the firm as a continuation of the previous work done on marketing, specifically the Arts and Sciences Survey and the Crane Research.

“To keep the momentum going, we had done this work with art and science, we had done the work with Crane, and really just the acknowledgement that we need to continue down that path and that we need to be competitive in the marketplace,” said Jim Powers, director of communications at Grinnell College.

The College selected Ologie out of a number of top firms.

“We sent out a number of RFPs

[request for proposal], we had identified about 15 nationally known firms that specialize in higher-ed marketing ranging from really small boutique firms to larger studios … narrowed it down to three, and invited those three firms to campus. They made presentations, we reviewed the material, thought about fit and chemistry with Grinnell and then made an offer to Ologie once we got excited about their work,” Powers said.

The firm hasn’t produced much yet, as they are still getting a feel for the campus and culture.

“Right now we’re very much amid the strategy phase,” Locy said.

The company’s philosophy on higher-ed marketing is to build a compelling brand through interesting, authentic stories. The brand, or the complete image of the College, is supposed to truly represent the campus experience.

“At some college campuses ‘brand’ can be a dirty word, but we don’t agree with that. … Great brands are built on clear positioning and a great story,” said Kyle Kastranec, an associate creative director at Ologie.

The presenters emphasized that all communications and marketing need to be authentic and truthful in order to have the desired impact. “[Ologie makes a] genuine representation of the culture, campus, and experience,” said Erin Burk, an executive strategy director at Ologie.

The firm will also assist with the implementation of Vision 2030, President Kington’s long-term plan for Grinnell.

“All of these efforts can work together really well,” Burk said.

Hopefully, with the help of Ologie, Grinnell will be able to continue to tell its ever-growing story effectively and enticingly.

XIAOXUAN YANG

Grinnell hires new marketing firm, Ologie, to further the College's reputation and branding efforts.

Kumail Nanjiani '01 to speak at this year's commentment

CONTRIBUTED

Kumail Nanjiani '01 will be back on campus for 2017's commencement.

By Nandita Banik baniknan@grinnell.edu At this year’s graduation ceremony, stand-up comedian, actor, writer, podcast host and Pakistani-American Kumail Nanjiani ’01 will join the ranks of Zadie Smith and Judith Butler in addressing the class as a commencement speaker.

Most recently, Nanjiani has lent his voice to Prismo for the Emmy Award-winning animated series “Adventure Time.” He is also in the main cast for the Emmy Awardnominated series “Silicon Valley” where he plays Dinesh Chugtai, a programmer specializing in Java.

After getting his start in Bob’s

Underground Café, Nanjiani graduated with a double major in computer science and philosophy.

His last visit to Grinnell was in 2010, during which he performed stand up at Harris Center for students including Paul Hutchison’s “Taking Comedy Seriously” tutorial class.

Choosing a commencement speaker involves a committee, nominations and a list of potential people to invite. Jenelle Veit, Coordinator of Commencement and Conferences, forms a commencement committee every year including students from the graduating class. Last April, she formed the 2017 committee.

They assisted with last year’s

commencement and nominated speakers for this year.

Even though there are no general guidelines to the nomination, the students felt that speakers from past years have been often writers and therefore they decided to choose someone outside of the writing world. After they narrowed down the list to around 10 speakers, they sent it to administration executives, who can rearrange the order of the names and eliminate any they feel necessary. However, Veit states that usually there is no rearrangement of the list. In fact, this year the executives went forward with the top person on the list — Nanjiani.

After the first name is finalized, Veit contacts agents and they work together on the logistics. She admitted that the lengthiest part of the entire process is working out the dates and contract with the speaker. Luckily, this year, Grinnell got their first pick. Nanjiani agreed to come back to Grinnell and will be speaking on May 22.

Veit also mentioned that she is open to suggestions. So far, Nanjiani has nothing else planned for his visit to campus, but if anything else comes up she would be happy to speak to his agent.

“I am really excited. I have followed him on Twitter for a long time. He [was] a computer science major, politically active and funny on twitter — he is the perfect Grinnellian. I am glad we have someone who can do good for the world and talk on stage,” said Toby Baratta ’17.

Baratta mentioned that as the SGA Diversity & Outreach Coordinator, she is especially pleased that Grinnell has started inviting more diverse commencement speakers. Her hope, as a computer science major, is that Nanjiani will be open to drinks with the computer science department.

Features

Edited by kielyphi@grinnell.edu

3

Grinnell Republicans form new organization

GARRETT WANG

Russell Abernathy '20 and Pete Zelles '20 lead the Campus Republicans' well-attended first public meeting.

By Zane Silk silkzane@grinnell.edu In a time of dramatic political events on the national level, two firstyear students are shaking up campus politics by reviving Grinnell’s Republican club. Russell Abernathy ‘20 and Pete Zelles ‘20 hope their chapter of campus Republicans will increase political diversity and provide a platform for like-minded students.

In high school, Abernathy was involved in a small Republican club, while Zelles’ school lacked any similar opportunities. Given that both

were looking to college as a chance to become politically active, it may seem counter-intuitive that they chose as school with a well known leftward tilt. However, for Zelles, the ideological makeup of Grinnell was actually a reason to attend.

“One of the big reasons that drew me here is that I wanted to have my opinions challenged…. I don’t want to be just with people who believe the same things I do, just preaching to the choir. Grinnell certainly isn’t the choir,” Zelles said.

The pair has received some pushback from their peers, which has

varied in intensity. However, both are staying committed to welcoming those who fundamentally disagree with them.

“I received a few comments, like people calling us racists or bigots, and that’s something … I have encountered a fair amount. And to those people … we are always open to discussion,” Abernathy said.

Perhaps surprisingly, the co-founders have also received plenty of positive feedback from those who disagree with their viewpoint.

One such example comes from the recent Posse Plus retreat.

“The vast majority of people I talked to were very supportive, if not of our ideologies… of us being able to express our viewpoints in a very far-left college,” Zelles said.

The response, unsurprisingly, has been warmest from fellow conservatives. The club’s private Facebook group has about 40 members just one week after the group began hanging posters, a number which suggests there may be a surprising number of conservative students at Grinnell. It is those students that Zelles and Abernathy say that the club is first and foremost here to serve.

“We wanted to create a more permanent political club that represents traditional conservative ideals, represents the constitution … to allow students that otherwise felt alienated based on their political affiliation or ideological viewpoints, to give them a space to express their ideas,” Abernathy said.

Both Abernathy and Zelles are adamant that the Campus Republicans do not support any particular politician. However, as Trump pushes the Republican Party towards white nationalism and economic protectionism, the co-founders’ commitments to the individual rights, constitution and free markets may leave them increasingly far away from the GOP mainstream. And yet, for the time being, they are sticking with the Republicans.

“Because our main point of view is to support the group of people that best uphold constitutional ideals … if the time comes that the Republican Party no longer meets that we will reevaluate … the club’s standpoint,” Abernathy said.

During the period between when the club was founded in late Novem-

ber and its first public meeting on February 1, Abernathy and Zelles have been focused on getting things up and running. Alongside launching the club’s weekly meetings, the pair is currently applying for funding from the Student Government Association (SGA) and getting ready for “Learning to Lobby” on February 5. The event, which aims to provide students with tools for political advocacy, is being organized by SGA with involvement from both the campus Republicans and their Democratic counterparts. Looking further down the road, the co-founders have many ideas.

“In the works, we have some panels for people to come and ask questions about our club, the party, our ideology … So that’s really to open the communication lines to a lot of people that otherwise might not know much about what we stand for,” Abernathy said.

“Starting either late this semester, or early next year, we’d like to starting bringing in speakers to campus.

Then, we’re looking to host more policy focused events, maybe one or two every semester,” Zelles said.

While they know the club’s increasing visibility will lead to further pushback, both Abernathy and Zelles believe strongly in the value it will contribute by adding to Grinnell’s political diversity and by creating a space specifically for students on the right.

“It’s a place for people of like-minded ideologies to discuss their opinions without ridicule from people that do feel extremely angry against the Republican Party,” Abernathy said. “It’s a place for those to come and talk about their opinions without being shamed or attacked.”

Math department welcomes Lecturer Pye Phyo Aung

By Ridhika Agrawal agrawalr@grinnell.edu This year, the Grinnell College Mathematics department welcomed a new lecturer, Pye Phyo Aung. He is teaching Calculus I and Calculus II this semester.

Aung received his undergraduate degree at Concordia College in Moorhead and his master’s in Applied Mathematics from Johns Hopkins University. He went on to finish his PhD at North Dakota State University, after which he was a visiting professor at University of the Pacific.

Now he is a lecturer here in Grinnell.

His keen interest in mathematics started right from an early age.

“When I was an undergrad, a math teacher showed me her copy of ‘Fermat’s Enigma,” said Aung.

“After that I got interested in mathematics.”

Apart from teaching at Grinnell College, he is also involved in research work.

“My research area is in something called homological algebra, which is a branch of abstract algebra.

My doctoral dissertation is in homological algebra,” Aung said.

His passion in research also started early, emerging from the opportunities he was afforded at Concordia College.

“I was a mathematics and physics major as an undergrad, so I knew undergraduate mathematics. When I was a student I did some undergraduate research in physical chemistry, that is research on the mathematics cycle of physical chemistry,” Aung said.

If you work hard enough, everybody can get an A Lecturer Aung As a lecturer, Aung is still trying to figure out his teaching pattern.

“I’m not sure if I have a particular style of teaching,” he said. But “in mathematics, I think many instructors strive to do something called assisted discovery. So we try not to teach the theorems to students. We let them, we help them discover those facts and theorems on their own… It’s not always possible to do it all the time but that’s what the course standard is.

A lot of the math teachers want to do that,” Aung said.

But time has proven to be an issue

Lecturer Pye Pho Aung is a recent addition to the Math department. He is visiting on a one-semester contract. that this method of pedagogy runs up against.

“Sometimes we are successful, sometimes we are not that successful because there is too much to cover and it all depends on the time constraint.

But, if I have to name a teaching style, that’s the teaching style a lot of the math teachers use,” Aung said.

He also considers how his students receive his method of teaching and tries to reach to all types of students.

“I don’t think there is a single ideal student. Obviously talent plays an important role but for introductory classes for example like in Calculus I and Calculus II, if you work hard

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enough, everybody can get an A,” Aung said.

Apart from mathematics, Mr. Aung also has multiple hobbies.

“I like to listen to music and I like to read. I don’t have a single favorite book, it keeps changing and it depends on my mood. I also like the outdoors and hockey,” Aung said.

Peer organizational mentors provide support, resources

HELENA GRUENSTEIDL

Juliet Torres '19 and Jane Jordan '18 head the peer organizational mentoring program.

By Lily Seibert seibertl@grinnell.edu Last spring, the College launched a Peer Organizational Mentoring program, currently staffed by Juliet Torres ‘19 and Jane Jordan ‘18. The program, funded by an Arthur Vining

Davis grant, aims to help students with a variety of academic struggles ranging from procrastination to navigating extracurricular activities. Several students have already made use of the guidance and advice that the mentors offer.

“I’ve used academic support

services on campus before and I felt like I understood how to navigate that system to help other people,” said Jordan.

Both mentors went through a lengthy application process that included participating in three interviews, providing a resume and cover

letter and displaying their own study habits. Since then, they have noticed certain patterns associated with the kinds of questions they get most frequently and which methods of assisting students have been effective.

“The majority of the people I worked with last semester were first years who just needed help with knowing what type of resources there were…I reassured them that it is a hard transition into college, but these are now things you have to consider: time management, how to read, how to write. A lot of that stuff isn’t really enforced in high school as much as college,” Torres said.

Often though, the component of emotional support becomes just as important as concrete study advice.

“A lot of the time it’s just nice to have someone to talk to about it… and people often, in my experience, will figure out in talking about it what the next steps are for them with often very little prompting from me.

There’s a certain amount of stigma attached with struggling academically, so having this resource is huge,” Jordan said.

While some students stop by only once to ask a minor question, others have made regular appointments with the mentors and developed relation-

ships. In particular, Torres worked with a first year who was nervous to attend office hours. For multiple weeks, they discussed strategies and proper etiquette for confidently approaching a professor.

“We talked about how to introduce yourself, what to talk about, also the benefits of talking to your professor. You feel a lot more comfortable in the class … No matter how extroverted you are, it can be really intimidating to go in and talk to your professor,” Torres said.

Working towards the future of the program, the mentors plan on spreading the word regarding their presence on campus as well as on the work they do to help others. In order to accomplish this goal, they will plan study breaks as well as increase their presence on social media.

Additionally, they will begin a partnership with a program connected to academic advising that supports first years struggling academically. In the meantime, the mentors continue to make a difference through their opportunity to help fellow students with organizational difficulties.

“Our position exists with paid professional staff, but I think it’s really unique to have students providing this kind of resource,” Jordan said.

Sports

Edited by carhartl17@grinnell.edu

5

Rock the Natatorium: Grinnell climbers to compete this semester

By Philip Kiely kielyphi@grinnell.edu Grinnell’s Rock Climbing Club has recently branched out to participating in climbing competitions (comps) across Iowa. Last semester, a small group of students went to Climb Iowa for a comp, and there are plans to attend four more this semester.

“If you’re a beginner, you’re welcome to come and you might win. If you don’t win, you still have a shot at taking home some free stuff" Stuart Hoegh '17 “Stuart [Hoegh ’17] and I just like climbing, so we were like ‘why not get people together to start doing

some competitions.’ Competitions are fun, one, because you get to meet other people, and two, you get to climb on something different,” said Robin Crotteau ’17.

Competitions provide climbers with a unique test of skills. Generally, participants have a set amount of time to attempt as many routes as they can.

“There’s different types of competitions, the ones that we’re going to, a lot of people think that it is [scored on] speed, it’s not, it’s [scored on] difficulty. These are called Red Point competitions … you have three hours to climb as many routes as you want or can,” Crotteau explained.

“The easier routes have lower scores, the harder routes have higher scores and so they take your top five routes and they tabulate that and the person with the top score wins.”

Like many other sports and activities, there are various divisions

that climbers compete in. “There’s usually beginner, intermediate and advanced divisions, then it’s divided by gender,” Crotteau said.

"These are called Red Point competitions … you have three hours to climb as many routes as you want or can” Robin Crotteau '17 “That’s something that we like to emphasize: there’s different divisions. If you’re a beginner, you’re welcome to come and you might win.

If you don’t win, you still have a shot at taking home some free stuff that’s pretty cool because they usually have raffles at the end where you can win some really cool prizes,” Hoegh said.

There are prizes in every division, as well as sometimes costume contests or raffles.

“They have stuff like crash pads, tee shirts, chalk bags, there’s always chalk, stickers, just gear from climbing and outdoor companies that they want to give to people at the competition,” Crotteau said.

Competitions are fun, one, because you get to meet other people, and two, you get to climb on something different” Robin Crotteau '17

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Crotteau takes on the hardest route on the Grinnell wall. During her semester abroad, she would often climb among Chileans.

Hoegh added that he won his new favorite sweatshirt at the most recent comp.

The club is taking people to several comps at various Iowa colleges

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Stuart Hoegh '17 and Robin Crotteau '17 stand ready to climb the Half Dome of Grinnell. this semester. “[Our goal is to] bring home a gold for Grinnell, get in the trophy case,” Hoegh said.

According to Hoegh and Crotteau, the competitions are not usually overly competitive, and are instead more like gatherings with prizes.

Both Hoegh and Crotteau recommend beginners to try their luck.

“Especially with Saturdays at this time of year…you can’t really do much outside, there’s not really a whole lot going on, so it’s a good way to spend a Saturday,” Hoegh said.

The competitions will be at other colleges, so they are also a good way to meet other students.

“The next comps are at different colleges, so, whereas the last comp we went to was a lot of adults and kids, these are mostly college-aged kids, so it will be cool to meet other college kids that also like to climb

and see what other walls do at other colleges, see how they set their stuff up,” Hoegh said.

“[Our goal is to] bring home a gold for Grinnell, get in the trophy case" Stuart Hoegh '17 The College and the climbing wall cover the cost of travel and admission, and the wall provides shoes and harnesses. Participants only need to know how to belay to compete.

“Grinnell has so much great funding so it was kind of like ‘why not?’” Crotteau said.

The next two competitions are Feb. 11 and 25. In April, they plan on attending an outdoor climbing competition. To sign up for a competition email Hoegh at [hoeghstu17] or Crotteau at [crotteau17].

Sports Report Swim and Dive

Tennis

The Swim and Dive team was named a Division III Scholar AllAmerican Team by the College Swimming Coaches Association of America. This honor is awarded to teams that maintain a 3.0 grade point average.

"It's always a goal for both of our teams to work as hard in the pool as out of it, and it's really nice to be recognized as Scholar All-America teams by the CSCAA," said Chloe Briney '17.

The Grinnell Men's Tennis Team was picked to win the Midwest Conference (MWC) last week. The 2017 vote was conducted by league coaches. Coming in a close second to Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, Illinois, Grinnell had six first-place votes and 48 points in total. Lake Forest had pne first-place vote and 42 points in total. In the past, the team has won 13 MWC titles in a row and has a streak of 127 conference wins against opponents from the league.

This streak goes back to 2002.

Maria Venneri '18 was named Athlete of the Week for her performance in the Grinnell Invitational.

Last Saturday at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN ten Grinnell women won as the team beat the opposing team. Maria Venneri '18, Beth Tsuha '17 and Chloe Briney '17 won twice over the course of the meet.

On the men's side, Brodie Mikuta '19 was named the Midwest Conference Men's Swimming and Diving Performer of the week for the first time.

Upcoming Schedule: - vs Central College

Feb. 5, 9 a.m.

- vs Truman State University

Feb. 5, 4 p.m.

- vs Carleton College

Feb. 12, 10 a.m.

- vs Saint John's University

Feb. 12, 1:30 p.m.

- vs Ohio Wesleyan University

Feb. 17, 5:30 p.m.

- vs Wheaton College (Ill.)

Feb. 18, 8 a.m.

- vs University of WisconsinWhitewater

Feb. 18, 3:30 p.m.

Women's Track and Men's Basketball Field Basketball Last Tuesday, the Women's team beat Monmouth College 55-46 at home. This win allowed the Pioneers to stay in the race for the Midwest Conference Tournament. Overall, the Pioneers are 8-5 in league games and 10-8 in total. The Pioneers finished the game shooting 27.7 percent from the field in three quarters and made 46.2 percent of their tries during the last ten minutes to claim the W. This week's Game Leaders were Kayla Morissey '18, Leah Greenberg '17, Sophia Gatton '17 and Alex Neckopulos '17.

Upcoming Schedule: - vs Illinois College

Feb. 4, 1 p.m.

- vs Knox College

Feb. 8, 5:30 p.m.

- vs St. Nortbert College

Feb. 11, 1 p.m.

- vs Knox College

Feb. 14, 5:30 p.m.

- vs Illinois College

Feb. 18, 3 p.m.

- Midwest Conference Tournament

Feb. 24-25

At the Hilltop Invitational hosted

by Cornell College on Saturday Jan. 28, the men's team had strong individual performances across a variety of events.

- Andrew Shults '19 came in fourth in the 60-meter dash, thirdbest in Grinnell history.

- Ibuki Ogasawara '17 was fourth in pole vault.

- James Page '17 was seventh in the weight throw.

On the women's side, both relay and indivdual performances were strong. Overall, the Pioneers came in fourth place.

- Samantha McConnell '17 was second in the pole vault.

-Carolyn Peckham '17 was third in pole vault.

- Tori LaVerdiere '20 was sixth in the pole vault.

- Jordan Maddaus '19 was third in the 60 meter dash.

- Yolana Martin '20 was fifth in the 60 meter dash.

- Gwen Holtzman '19 was fifth in the 60-meter hurdles.

- The 4x200 relay team of Maddaus, Cara Bresnahan '19, Martin and Valencia Alvarez '20 came in fourth.

Last Tuesday, the men's team sustained a close loss to Monmouth College at home. Losing 118-111, the team fell behind in the first half and never recovered the leave. Monmouth was able to successfully shoot free throws to raise their score to 118.

Grinnell is 8-5 in the Midwest Conference (MWC) and 11-7 overall.

This week's Game Leaders were Nathan Balcom '18, Griffin Boehm '19, Vinny Curta '19, Jacob Ekstrand '18, Michael Porter '17, Ky-Sean Johnson '19 amd Julian Marx '17.

Vinny Curta '19 was named Athlete of the Week.

Upcoming Schedule: - vs Illinois College

Feb. 4, 3 p.m.

- vs Knox College

Feb. 8, 7:30 p.m.

- vs St. Nortbert College

Feb. 11, 3 p.m.

- vs Knox College

Feb. 14, 7:30 p.m.

- vs Illinois College

Feb. 18, 5 p.m.

- Midwest Conference Tournament

Feb. 24-25 Compiled by Louise Carhart

HUNG VUONG

The swim team practices this last week.

CONTRIBUTED

Haley Lopez '17 dribbles in the Darby Gymnasium.

CONTRIBUTED

Julian Marx '17 plays against Ripon College.

Sports

6

Edited by carhartl17@grinnell.edu

SUPER BOWL LI

By Carter Howe howethom@grinnell.edu

The New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons will face off in Super Bowl Ll this Sunday. With many regarding New England quarterback Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick, who have already won four Super Bowl championships together, as two of the greatest coach and quarterback combos of all time, the Patriots are favored to win.

“I think the running game … is going to be particularly important. I think they’re both going to be able to throw; you know they’re both MVP quarterbacks,” Michael Retelsdorf

Despite this, Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, who was the third overall pick in the 2008 NFL draft and won this year’s Pro Football Writers Association NFL MVP award, certainly does not lack talent. Both quarterbacks this year have much at stake: Ryan has the chance to win his first Super Bowl and the first in Falcon history and Brady the opportunity to be the first quarterback to win five Super Bowls. Many analysts also say that Brady will be considered football’s greatest quarterback if he wins this year’s championship.

According to Grinnell diving coach Michael Retelsdorf, who has coached football in the past, this game will be all

12

TOM BRADY Height: 6’4” Weight: 225 lbs Born: August 3, 1977 College: Michigan Experience: 17th season Superbowls won: 4 of 6 Touchdowns: 28 Yards (2016): 3,554

about compromising the quarterbacks.

“I think that the defenses are both solid,” Retelsdorf said. “What I’m really emphasizing is whoever can get these MVP quarterbacks to make the first mistake … whoever makes that through the duration of the game where it’s pressured on them I think that’s who’s going to win it.”

Because each team has an excellent quarterback, the running game will also be important.

“I think the running game … is going to be particularly important. I think they’re both going to be able to throw; you know they’re both MVP quarterbacks,” Retelsdorf said.

Retelsdorf also said that he thinks the media is trying to over-dramatize this game; pushing a dramatic narrative with Atlanta as the underdog pitted against the dynastic Patriots.

“I believe that they’re trying to give us the perception of what [The Falcons] are, that they’re an underdog.

I am buying into that … I think New England’s going to win and I think it’ll be by two touchdowns … [the media] are setting this thing up for a big failure if it doesn’t happen … If he does win he’ll be the greatest quarterback ever, if he’s not now,” Retelsdorf said.

However, the coverage of the game has changed his views and Retelsdorf now believes that Atlanta has more of a chance.

“I think Atlanta has a chance, and I didn’t way before the media got to me, but now I’m like ‘oh they’re the underdog they’re not supposed to win, and if they do

it’s the greatest upset’,” Retelsdorf said.

Retelsdorf included that he thinks the stakes seem to be so high with this year’s game because of ties between the New England Patriots and Donald Trump.

“I think Atlanta has a chance, and I didn’t way before the media got to me, but now I’m like ‘oh they’re the underdog they’re not supposed to win" Michael Retelsdorf “I would say it’s almost a little political this year and … you hear about Kraft and Trump … I don’t want to make it sound political because I don’t think it truly is, but it just has that feel to it.

If you’re not for Atlanta, you’re for the majestic dynasty and gosh well if I don’t like them, I’m a Vikings fan so I don’t like either of them,” Retelsdorf said.

Brady, Belichick, and Patriots owner Robert Kraft are all good friends with Donald Trump. Trump has said he regularly plays golf with Brady, and a red Make America Great Again hat was once found in Tom Brady’s locker. Kraft was also present at an inauguration dinner held by then president-elect Trump.

All three men insist that their bond with Trump is apolitical and is based on years of loyalty and friendship. In an interview with the New York Daily News, Kraft, a lifelong Democrat and donor to both Obama campaigns, said that after his wife Myra died Trump called him every week for a year and invited him to events to console him.

Despite this insistence that the connection is removed from politics, protests have sprung up in Houston, where the game is being held. These are expected to continue to take place, possibly even at the game itself. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner has said that local, regional and federal law enforcement have been deployed to prevent violence from occurring and ensure safety, though no credible threats have yet been found, NBC News reported.

Retelsdorf said he is getting more excited about the game because of Brady’s chance to pass Joe Montana in his mind as the greatest quarterback ever.

“I’m getting more and more excited because it’s a legacy game and …

Brady is the only guy who I could see [passing] Montana with what I’ve seen here in real life, so whether it’s vegan or vegetarian or whatever’s going on something’s right,” Retelsdorf said.

"I don’t want to make it sound political because I don’t think it truly is, but it just has that feel to it" Michael Retelsdorf All in all, Retelsdorf said he is just looking for an exciting game and hopes that politics are left out of the matchup.

“I do want to emphasize that I hope that the game is portrayed as a true sporting event and it’s not the stage for anything political. I don’t want that because I’m a pure sports fan,” Retelsdorf said.

super facts

Coach Bill Belichick Super Bowls: 6 Record: 246-123 Age: 64

Coach Dan Quinn Super Bowls: 1 Record: 21-13 Age: 46

MATT RYAN Height: 6’4” Weight: 220 lbs Born: May 17, 1985 College: Boston College Experience: 9th season Superbowls won: 0 of 0 Touchdowns: 38 Yards (2016): 4,944

2

Community Oil spill cleanup begins Veteran's Memorial update:

Edited by vitaioli@grinnell.edu

in Northern Iowa

CONTRIBUTED

Northern Iowa oil spill reportedly causes no ground water contamination

By Carter Howe howethom@grinnell.edu A diesel pipeline near Mason City in Northern Iowa spilled 46,830 gallons of diesel fuel on Jan. 25, according to company estimates. Magellan Midstream Partners, the owner and operator of the pipeline, originally estimated 138,600 gallons had spilled in order to ensure an effective response, but has since downgraded their estimate after the pipeline was refilled in order to resume operations, the Des Moines Register reported. The cause of leak is currently unknown though according to Jeff Vansteenburg, a Field Office Supervisor for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR), “This leak is not the result of excavation as is often the case with pipeline ruptures.”

The cleanup is currently going smoothly, according to Vansteenburg.

All of the liquid diesel fuel has been pumped up and the cleanup crew is currently working on removing contaminated soil and recovering the affected area.

“Right now they’re still removing soil. I think we’re looking at maybe they will be hopefully finishing up by next week. After the soil is removed they’ll come in with clean fill material they’ll put that back in…and as final cover they’ll add black dirt back on,” Vansteenburg said.

Pipelines as a means of transporting petroleum and natural gas have become a contentious issue in recent years as large-scale projects like the Keystone XL pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline have been proposed. In recent months in particular, high-profile protests over the Dakota Access Pipeline drew attention to the carbon emissions from oil and natural gas that pipelines facilitate and the potential damage to nearby groundwater. While the Obama administration decided not to further pursue completion of both the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines, President Donald Trump recently signed executive orders to revive the projects.

Vansteenburg also said that there

are no reports of groundwater contamination and that the cleanup crew has been working quickly to prevent potential contamination. Frozen ground is believed to have also worked in the favor of preventing water contamination.

“They’ve started working down in the soil layer. In some areas it was only 6 to 12 inches. In other places they kept going until they got down there, probably 4 to 6 feet down, so the idea is to get all of it out as fast as it can before it has an opportunity to migrate. There’s been no indication that there’s been any contamination to ground water,” Vansteenburg said.

Vansteenburg and the DNR believe that Magellan are at this point following their legal obligations in regards to an oil spill, but Federal agencies have not yet finished investigating this incident.

“Magellan seems to have complied with all existing regulations. We have a rule that requires reporting of a hazardous incident within six hours, they complied with that,” Vansteenburg said. “They notified not only local law enforcement but the national response center and our offices within an hour. … We have a requirement that they need to do remediation, they need to do cleanup. They’re doing that. …

As far as any of our rules go, there was no violation.”

Magellan will also be paying for the entire cost of the cleanup, “To the best of my knowledge they’re footing the entire bill,” Vansteenburg said. “As far as remediation cleanup, that’s all the responsibility of Magellan.”

A new section of pipe was welded in and the pipeline is currently transporting diesel again.

Despite the spill, Vansteenburg is confident that the cleanup will be completed thoroughly and effectively.

“We have people that are monitoring the situation I have people that are there almost every day. … At this point the cleanup continues to move forward and they’ve got a lot of men and materials out there. So they’re putting everything into it that they have available," Vansteenburg said.

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7

Issues of gender, patriotism and art

By Andrea Baumgartel baumgart1@grinnell.edu Nearly 50 years ago, the Grinnell Veterans Memorial Building was new, frequented and a source of pride for local veterans. Now, 834 Broad Street has fallen into disrepair — from heating and plumbing break downs to a bout of asbestos in 2012 — and stands locked and empty. The Central Park project is currently underway, including the area surrounding the building. Emotions are starting to run high as the fate of the building hovers in limbo and time inches towards November, 2017. At that time, voters will decide whether or not to approve a tax levy that would set aside money (approximately $125,000 a year, at around $20 a year for a $50,000 home) for the building.

The issue of deciding when, if and how the building will be repaired and repurposed, however, is complicated.

First, the issue of gender balance on the Veterans Memorial Commission, the group that oversees decisions regarding the memorial, has come to light. According to section 69.16A of the 2017 Iowa Code, all appointed boards, commissions, committees and councils (effective January 1, 2012) must have a gender balance, meaning a roughly equal number of men and women members.

The Veterans Memorial Commission — all of whom must also be veterans — formerly had 5 members: 2 women and 3 men. But both women stepped down from their positions (one due to a new job and schedule; the other due to a move) in 2016. The commission is currently all male, with two empty seats.

Randy Hotchkin, retired US Air Force Master Sergeant and owner of RJ’s Barber Shop on Main, has expressed a desire to fill one of the commission’s empty seats, most recently resulting in a debate with Mayor Gordon Canfield at the city council meeting on Jan. 9. Yet, despite Hotchkin’s repeated efforts, Canfield has repeatedly refused his requests to be appointed, citing the gender balance clause of the Iowa Code.

"Despite Hotchkin’s repeated efforts, Canfield has repeatedly refused his requests to be appointed, citing the gender balance clause of the Iowa Code."

In a letter posted on the Grinnell Veteran’s Memorial Building Facebook page, Hotchkin states that he believes that the delay on the part of the city to reinstate the commission is a way to “cripple the Vets Commission and sabotage any attempts to save the Veterans Memorial Building.” The letter itself has been liked and shared multiple times by members of the group, with some comments going so far as to claim that the city is anti-veteran. Hotchkin said he does not believe that the city council is anti-vet, but has expressed concern that veterans are not being prioritized.

In another portion of the letter, Hotchkin cites the mayor’s reappointment of two male members to the Human Rights Commission in

December of 2016 — which technically violates the gender balance rule. “I guess gender wasn’t a concern then?” wrote Hotchkin.

“It isn’t our practice to kick somebody off because their term is up,” said Canfield. “[The Human Rights Commission] had been formed before the Iowa Code gender rule was established.”

“I will not stand for, and I will not go to my grave if we don’t properly honor the veterans. ... We cannot half-ass this.”

Mayor Gordon Canfield

While the same exception is not being made for the Veteran's Memorial Commission, Canfield maintains it is not an issue with Hotchkin or the Commission, rather there are larger concerns about the usage of the building going forward.

“I have no faults with Randy.

There are other people who have requested to be on the committee. We have purposely held off because the building has been such a controversial issue. Sometimes a little time can calm people down. We will be making appointments by February, I hope. There are two women who are eminently qualified, [whom] I have spoken to at length.”

Hotchkin stressed that he supports whatever the outcome of the tax levy determining the building’s funding for repairs, and that he will continue to try to play a role in honoring veterans.

“I get that there’s probably people out there that are hesitant to give [money] because they believe the city isn’t committed to the building. I told the mayor that we need a strong commission to plan an [alternative] memorial if the vote is shut down.”

Financial concerns are perhaps the biggest obstacle of all to the renovations. Canfield estimates that total costs would amount to $2 million dollars. Even with the tax levy, more funds would be needed. In an interview with The S&B in Sept. 2016, the Veteran’s Commission estimated repairs would amount to $1-$1.5 million.

Canfield feels a strong commitment to both the veterans and the commission, which make up a vibrant part of the community.

“I will not stand for, and I will not go to my grave if we don’t properly honor the veterans. ... We cannot half-ass this,” Canfield said.

“The people who say it is a controversy are the ones who are highly critical. They have no creative thoughts on … how [the building] should sustain itself,” Canfield said.

“They just want it built. And to just build a building, that would get voted down. People don’t want to pay taxes for no reason.”

Still, the Mayor remains hopeful, saying that once the commission is re-formed, “We’ll be evaluating all the different options.”

One of these options—arriving at near-perfect timing—may bridge both sides together. Endorsed by the community on the Veterans Memorial Facebook Page and spoken highly of by the mayor is a proposal by Tom Lacina — not a commission member, nor a veteran, but a lawyer.

In addition to being a lawyer,

Lacina is the director of the Grinnell Area Arts Council as well as a farmer. This past summer, the Grin City Collective artist residency, which was located on his farm, closed down.

“There was a little bit of a gap,” Lacina said. “We had a lot of college students and creatives in the town alike that would like to come out there.”

Lacina came up with a plan to turn the Veterans Memorial Building into an artist’s residency, filling the void left by Grin City’s closing.

His proposal was recently presented to the city council, and was well-received from both sides.

Lacina’s proposal acts as a catalyst, renewing the community’s ongoing commitment to the Memorial’s renovation.

“I’m not desperately looking to save the building,” he said. “I’m just excited about what could be a great location, and great use for, the building.”

Lacina's proposal would turn the decrepit building into another space for creativity to flourish in Grinnell and establish the community as one dedicated to the transformative processes of art.

“I think an artist’s residency could be a dynamic addition to our downtown. We’d have close to two to three dozen national visiting artists per year involved in activities in the downtown area,” Lacina said.

“They’d have displays, show or read their work if they’re writers, and basically touch the lives of Grinnellians — veterans and others who will learn a lot from hearing from artists.”

“To me, there are no sides.

I’m just like — if this is a good thing for the community, let’s see if we can do it.”

Tom Lacina While the collective and art exposure would not be exclusively for veterans, there would be preference given to veteran applicants, along with a possible stipend.

“I’ve been meeting with veterans, meeting with artists and meeting with the council. I’ve been meeting with everyone. To me, there are no sides. I’m just like — if this is a good thing for the community, let’s see if we can do it,” Lacina said.

Although his proposal is the most detailed yet, Lacina admits that there are many pieces that go into turning the idea into reality.

“The mayor is quite correct in saying that there is work that needs to be done.”

Even if the levy is passed, more funds will be needed to repurpose the building into a true artist’s residency.

“The levy, grant-writing, donations and support from the city are the big ones,” Lacina said. “The more sustainable the program, the more likely there will be support from everybody. I’m trying to create dialogue by pulling together people who aren’t necessarily accustomed to being a part of the same project — veterans and artist folk. Not that there’s not an intersect — there definitely is — but …I think that joined together, it’ll be quite a formidable and active group.”

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LEINA'ALA VOSS

The site of the Veteran's Memorial has been empty for six years after it was closed due to asbestos.

Community

8

Edited by vitaioli@grinnell.edu

Grinnell community speaks on President Trump's immigration executive order

On Friday, Jan. 27 President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning the acceptance of refugees from any country for resettlements in the United States and banning immigrants from seven, muslim-majority countries — Iraq, Iran, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, and Yemen. The S&B’s Keli Vitaioli asked Grinnell community members downtown to share their opinions on this executive order.

“A lot of people are mad at him, but the people elected him. That’s the democratic thing, you know what I mean.

Harpers and everybody else are writing the magazines being like, ‘ah Trump Trump,’ okay, well then how did he get there. I mean, I’m not the president, that’d be cool but to be honest with you, I’m probably not qualified. We got here by immigration, I get that. I don’t remember a lot of terrorism back then, but I’m not really the person to say yay or nay on that. If they need something fixed, call me. Other than that, I figure the President and his advisors probably know more about it than I do.”

— Tom Eaton

“I’m going to Iowa city this weekend to protest. I went to the Women’s March and I’ve been to all these marches because I think that almost everything Trump’s doing, I don’t want to curse, but it’s very wrong. I try to stay as informed as possible … I’m so mad about it. I just don’t think it’s ok.”

— Alaina Heng

“I would agree, I guess I’m concerned. Not just about the immigration ban, but a lot of things. I have no idea what’s going to happen and where it’s going … We went to India for the wedding of a college student that we were host parents for, so we had kind of a look at the world at large, and it saddens me to think of the ‘America First’ philosophy and ultra-patriotism.”

— Mary Schuchmann

"They say that [immigrants] take jobs from Americans, but its not like that, and sometimes people even treat [immigrants] like criminals, but the thing is, one comes only to work, the only thing we ask for is a job, nothing else" — Carlos Jara

“Im embarrassed for our country. What more is there to say?”

— Mari Duke

“I voted for Trump. I totally believe that what he’s doing for the country so far has been right spot-on. He’s doing exactly what I voted for.”

— Jill Hanson ALL PHOTOS BY SOFIA MENDEZ

Fashion show with a hearty cause

By Mineta Suzuki suzukimi17@grinnell.edu On Feb. 3 at 3 p.m., St. Francis Manor and Seeland Park, a nonprofit nursing facility, showed off their Iowa fashion flare at the “Go Red for Women Fashion Show.” Eight women will model in the show, proving that the rules of fashion are simple: wear red. “[We host the event] to provide fun and fellowship for women as well as to remind them of the risk factors and warning signs of heart disease,” wrote Shelley Schrack, administrative assistant at St. Francis Manor, in an email to The S&B.

There will even be a prize for the “One Red-Hot Lady” of the event, awarded to one lucky attendee.

HELENA GRUENSTEIDL

Vonda's store in downtown Grinnell models an all-red dress in the window to advertise the Wear Red fashion event.

Movies at the Strand

Indeed, Feb. 3 is widely recognized as National Wear Red Day, originally launched by the American Heart Association in 2003. On this day, women are encouraged to wear red to raise awareness of cardiovascular disease, which remains the leading cause of death for women today.

Involving the local community, St. Francis Manor will serve as the heart of such activism. The red-inspired outfits will be provided by the Christopher & Banks clothing

PATRIOTS DAY

Showtimes:1:00 p.m. 6:30 p.m.

Marky Mark takes the big screen again, this time in the heart-wrenching tale on the 2013 Boston Bombing.

store in Williamsburg, 40 miles away from Grinnell. Once the curtain falls after the show, the clothing will be available for purchase.

This will be the fourth year St. Francis Manor celebrates the National Wear Red Day and the third year they do so with a fashion show.

Two years ago, 150 residents filled their Social Center, marking it one of the most popular events at St. Francis Manor.

“[We host the event] to provide fun and fellowship for women as well as to remind them of the risk factors and warning signs of heart disease.”

Shelley Schrack One of a few differences from major shows, like Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, is that there is no audition. The result is a mature diversity of ages, rarely found at a New York Fashion Week show.

“We wanted a range in age and range in length of time living here at Seeland Park. The models range in age from 74 to 93! We have 2 models who just moved here last year and one who has lived here for 14 years!” Schrack wrote.

The event is also open to the public. The residents of St. Francis Manor as well as any attendees are

SPLIT Showtimes: 1:10, 3:50 p.m., 6:45 p.m., 9:20 p.m.

In this thriller, three teens are abducted by James McAvoy as a nine-year-old, James McAvoy as a British woman, James McAvoy as a man with OCD and James McAvoy as 20 other personaliteies.

invited to wear red and participate together, all while enjoying hearthealthy snacks. There will even be a prize for the “One Red-Hot Lady” of the event, awarded to one lucky attendee.

“They all are good sports and like to have fun! One will even be strutting her stuff sporting a walker!” Schrack wrote.

Entertainment with a hearty purpose and models with experience — what more could you want to see this weekend?

The American Heart Association began the Go Red for Women campaign in 2003, aimed at raising awareness and hopefully preventing some of the lives lost every year to heart disease, which is the number one killer of women.

The event also aims to put a

“We wanted a range in age and range in length of time living here at Seeland Park.

The models range in age from 74 to 93!"

Shelley Schrack spotlight on an all around heart heatlhy lifestyle — eating right, staying active and keeping a fresh fashion sense.

For more information, visit www.stfrancismanor.com or call 641236-7592.

LA LA LAND Showtimes: 1:20 p.m., 4 p.m., 7 p.m., 9:40 p.m.

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone pretend to be musicians in a grand Old-Hollywood-style allusion. John Legend plays piano and also the villan.

Arts

9

Edited by coghlann17@grinnell.edu

New media room opens in Burling basement Michael Cummings cummings@grinnell.edu After years of hard work and logistical planning, Grinnell’s Digital Liberal Arts Collaborative opened a new media room in the basement of Burling Library, adjacent to the room which houses the College’s DVD, CD and microform collections.

The project was spearheaded

by Digital Liberal Arts Specialist Mike Connor, who won an Innovation Fund grant several years ago to begin working on the project.

"I think it's important for students to learn how to craft messages in [media] as well as writing."

Mike Conner, Digital Liberal Arts Specialist “This came out of an Innovation Fund, I want to say, four years ago,” Conner said. “I proposed the Innovation Fund because I felt like we needed equipment and space and expertise to offer assistance to faculty and students in creating media, and also that those things can serve as a resource for not just instruction-related media or assignment-related media, just for students, faculty and staff.”

The room houses camcorders, tripods, a green screen, lights and other equipment needed for film production. It is also home to a computer set up with video editing software.

“With the equipment that I

have and the way this room is designed, it’s most appropriate for filming a talking head video or an interview,” Conner said. He added that he will soon be installing a high-quality microphone for projects that only require audio.

Since the project took off, several students and student groups have expressed interest in the room. One such student, Melissa Fandos ’17, will be working in the room as student employment.

“She will be here six hours a week, just kind of as office hours … just sort of for students and even faculty who need assistance,” Conner said.

Fandos applied for this job because she is interested in film production, but has struggled with finding resources to explore her interest at Grinnell.

"The College's mission statement says something about developing students who can write effectively, even eloquently, and in my mind, 'write' in that sentence ought to include producing media that communicates the message in effective and eloquent ways."

Mike Conner, Digital Liberal Arts Specialist “I really like film production, but there’s no opportunities for it here,” Fandos said. “So I was like, ‘this is awesome,’ to be able to get experience to put on my resume

SHAY CHEN

Students can rent out the new media room in Burling basement, and ask for help on editing from student workers. while I’m at school is really helpful.”

Fandos hopes that the room becomes a step in the direction towards building a film program at Grinnell.

“It’s a positive step. There’s a lot more that needs to be done, but I’m excited about this opportunity for sure,” Fandos said.

Conner was more cautious, but also expressed optimism regarding the room’s curricular use.

“I don’t see myself playing a role as far as the curriculum goes, and because of the limitations of the space, I don’t know if that

would serve a role either, but depending on who’s on the faculty and what their interests and expertise is, all of this equipment could be used by someone who wanted to do a short course or wanted to introduce a component in an existing course that would involve some film production,” Conner said.

"This is awesome to be able to get experience to put on my resume while I'm at school. " Melissa Fandos, '17

Conner’s long-term goal in using this space is to develop all Grinnell students’ aptitude in media production.

“I think it’s important for students to learn how to craft messages in that medium as well as writing,” Conner said. “The College’s mission statement says something about developing students who can write effectively, even eloquently, and in my mind, ‘write’ in that sentence ought to include producing media that communicates the message in effective and eloquent ways.”

Olivia Caro explores binaries in "rastros de dos cajas" that may not be as obviously at play in society.

“In thinking about binary structures, I was thinking about gender binary, but I was also thinking a lot about, because this was a topic in a lot of my classes last semester, of racial binaries,” Caro said. “So I’m half Puerto Rican, and [racial binary] is just something I’ve definitely been thinking about as being someone that is half Puerto Rican, half white, and talking about where Latino people stand in a racial binary system that is definitely present in the US.”

KOSUKE YO

Olivia Caro's "rastros de dos cajas" opened in Smith Gallery last week.

Keli Vitaioli vitaioli@grinnell.edu Olivia Caro’s Smith Gallery show “rastros de dos cajas (traces of two boxes)” applauds the basic human instinct that even the best mothers can’t condition away: to play with our food.

The exhibit is a visual installation, which opened last week, featuring four looped videos projected onto the walls of the gallery

of hands squishing, and then recreating as it loops back, blackberries, an egg, an avocado and Jell-O. Underneath each of the videos is a representation of the floor the foods were squished over, all featuring remnants of the food itself.

Focusing on color and texture, Caro sees the exhibit as representing the binary structure, from squished to un-squished, at play in society.

“Our theme for our class last semester was invisibility … and so

I was thinking about what I wanted the piece to be about and was thinking about personal experiences and how I could tie my work into personal experiences because I think that can make it more effective, instead of being like, ‘oh I’m going to talk about world hunger,’ that’s too large. Start smaller, start with yourself,” Caro said.

In putting the title of the exhibit in Spanish primarily, followed by English, Caro evokes another binary

"The first time I filmed [the egg video], I had my friend Josh [Anthony, '17] doing the squishing, ... and because of the pressure it takes to break the shell if it's not on a hard edge, it made a huge mess."

Olivia Caro,'17 Video installations aren’t Caro’s typical medium. The work for this exhibit is the third video project they have done at Grinnell. Last semester, Caro worked with their fellow Studio Art majors on a combination video and painting piece displaying the melting of menstrual blood popsicles.

The video installation emerged

as an extension of Caro’s midterm project, which featured similar images of food being squished but as one long video with more items.

“So then for my Smith show …

I was like, oh wouldn’t it be cool if I could display those big rather than just on the TV screen. I could project them onto the wall, and maybe have a couple of them. Then talking to my advisor [Professor] Lee Running, I came up with the idea of having the things on the ground,” Caro said. “rastros de dos cajas” was also inspired in both color and texture by an exhibit of Alex Da Corte at MASS MoCa which featured videos of hands covered in flour, placing cherries on fingers and more.

The most exciting part for Caro was not knowing how the foods would squish on camera without any previous practice. Things did get a little messy, and not all the videos turned out quite as planned on the first try.

“The first time I filmed [the egg video], I had my friend Josh [Anthony '17] doing the squishing, … and because of the pressure it takes to break the shell if it’s not on a hard edge, it made a huge mess,” Caro said. “The egg was ten feet up the wall of the studio, it was all over me, it was all over him, it was all over the studio, it was everywhere … the studio smelled like egg for a while.”

Jamila Woods kicks off concerts Halley Freger fregerha17@grinnell.edu Grinnell Concerts returned with another stacked lineup this semester. Chicago-based soul singer, songwriter and poet Jamila Woods kicked things off with a concert this Saturday at 9 p.m. in Gardner Lounge.

A number of artists have featured Jamila Woods, her soulful voice demanding attention on tracks such as Macklemore’s “White Privilege II.” She’s widely known for her collaborations with Chance the Rapper, including “Sunday Candy” and “Blessings.” Last year, Woods released her much-anticipated debut full-length, “HEAVN,” which shows off her gospel and soul infused R&B. The album was critically acclaimed by the likes of Pitchfork and Rolling Stone as one of the best of the year.

“HEAVN” explores black girlhood, presenting self-care as a crucial aspect of the fight against oppression. In her press release for the album, Woods explains, “For black and brown people, caring for ourselves and each other is not a neutral act.” Woods effectively portrays loving and healing, not as antithetical to struggle, but as an intrinsic part of fighting.

In “Lonely Lonely,” the hook

builds from a dreamy wash of layered vocals to a powerful version of the chorus to Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want to Wait.” Woods sings in a smooth, somewhat melancholy voice, “I don’t wanna wait for my life to be over / to let myself feel the way I feel. I don’t wanna wait for our lives to be over / to love myself however I feel.” Woods reimagines this

90s pop hit in order to express a desire to embrace herself and her emotions.

Even her deeply personal and emotional songs pack a political punch.

Through her lyrics, Woods skillfully navigates difficult subject matter with a sense of hope. “LSD,” a song about her hometown of Chicago, exemplifies her poetic lyricism. She sings, “A body

of water inside me / reminds me of oceans, though I’ve never known one.”

In addition to creating music, Woods is the Associate Artistic Director of Young Chicago Authors the non-profit behind the Louder Than a Bomb youth poetry slam festival.

In “Blk Girl Soldier,” Woods lists a number of brave black women as

freedom fighters who “taught us how to fight,” including Rosa Parks, Audre Lorde and Assata Shakur. Woods, like these women, is unafraid to address the realities of patriarchy and white supremacy. Now, as our country is rife with these forces of oppression, we need an album like “HEAVN” to remind us to love and to fight.

CONTRIBUTED

The Spring Concerts line-up kicked off with Jamila Woods on Saturday.

10

Arts

Edited by coghlann17@grinnell.edu

Grinnell Artists: Elliott Maya '18 "so human it's almost monstrous"

NORA COGHLAN

Megan Tcheng tchengme@grinnell.edu When Elliott Maya ‘18 slid into the plastic-lined seat across from me, the hustle and bustle of the Spencer Grille lunch rush instantly blurred into the background.

Sporting a purple lipstick-tinted grin and the kind of effortless look that everyone hopes to achieve (but, quite frankly, could never possibly imitate), Elliott did not have to ask for my attention. Instead, with their unassuming confidence and sheer quality of character, Elliott quietly and effortlessly drew me into their world.

Elliott’s mind works in a way that is entirely their own.

As I quickly learned, Elliott lives in a constant state of self-reflection and self-critique. At any given moment, their mind is filled with an endless store of questions, which can range from musings like “How do you describe the taste of someone else’s mouth?” to thoughts like “What language does brick speak?” Their internal interrogations, in turn, motivate their artistic expression and allow for the outward extension of their art.

“If you’re crying about something, make art about it. If you’re scared about something talk about

it, but also talk to it… and try to get down to the root of it,” Elliot advised.

“Constant interrogation of yourself and the things that are around you is important.”

Unlike many aspiring artists of our generation, Elliott possesses a level of poise and unapologetic honesty that cannot be learned. Their artistic expression draws directly from the heart – not from the sappy, clichéd land of Valentine’s Day greeting cards and pot-bellied cupids, but rather from the raw and resounding terrain of shameless self-expression.

As Elliott articulated, “I don’t want to play by the rules because the rules haven’t gotten us anywhere.

I want to be scary in the purest of ways… so human that I’m almost monstrous. I want to be so raw and open that people won’t know what to make of me.”

Over the course of our half-hour long interview, Elliott delved into the specifics of their perspective as an artist, an activist and a current college student. Without hesitation, they divulged private triumphs and challenges, discussed fears and debated hot-topic politics. With each passing minute and each shifting dialogue, Elliot articulated their goals as an artist and refined the mechanisms of their

artistic process.

Specifically, as a poet, author, visual artist and self-identified activist, Elliot approaches their art through the focused lens of self-expression.

Drawing from a range of themes, including those of race, gender and sexuality, they blend elements of social activism and personal experience into their art.

“My perspective is first and foremost as a person of color, secondarily as a queer person, and third, as a

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trans and disabled person,” Elliott explained. “My work is either asking people to address those same issues or exploring how I interact with that dissonance.”

Over the course of their artistic career, Elliott’s work has taken on a range of tones, topics and viewpoints.

Drawing inspiration from their environment and from their daily life, they have produced works of poetry, prose and visual art that discuss the nuances of identity, race and family. Elliott’s most recent works attempt to unravel their personal experiences with depression and mental health.

“In our society we don’t like to see ugliness, let alone other people’s ugliness, because it feels too honest and raw… [Instead,] we have this inclination to turn away and to not address people’s suffering,” they explained. “We need to respect the fact that we’re in pain and that it hurts.

For me, it was a political act of vulnerability to show firsthand what [pain] could look like for some people and to feel it publicly and to not feel ashamed.”

The personal nature of Elliott’s art plays into both their final product and their artistic process. As an English and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies double major with an American studies concentration,

Elliott has spent the last three years of their college career balancing their art with the demands of student life. For them, however, maintaining that balance involves an important trade-off between personal drive and the acceptance of one’s own limitations.

“Because of our society and the way it works, we have this drive to continue producing, to the point where I don’t think I do things for fun anymore,” Elliott confessed. “Art is a way that you learn to look at the world, and it’s important. But it’s also important to step back and say ‘I’m doing this because I enjoy it, not because I’m getting something from it’ … Right now, I’m learning how to do exactly that.”

Before we headed our separate ways, I asked Elliott to share their advice for future artists and for any individual who is struggling to find something to say. Their simple response mirrored their unapologetic and determined approach to artistic expression.

“Be as loud as you need to be, but also find the strength that is quietness” they advised. “People aren’t going to like you and people aren’t going to like your art for a long period of time, for a myriad of [reasons]. But that doesn’t mean that your art isn’t valid or important.”

NORA COGHLAN

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Opinions

Edited by mettleca@grinnell.edu

Life During Wartime

Max Fenton

The R(ead)sling List Emma Soberano

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States embarked on an aggressive campaign of finding, prosecuting and executing Axis war criminals. In the years after Japan surrendered in August 1945, and the Allied military occupation began shortly thereafter, a series of war crime tribunals were founded to try Japanese military officials. Arguably the most well-known of these courts, the Tokyo War Crimes Trials, tried over 5,700 Japanese officials for conventional, common crimes against humanity and wartime atrocities.

Hopefully Senate Democrats will grow a backbone and resist the injustices of the Trump Administration, especially as they relate to human rights issues.

One of the most “conventional” of these crimes was torture. Records and testimony show that multiple Japanese military officers utilized a wide array of cruel torture methods. One such method of torture reported by Allied POWs in Japan was the dreaded “water torture” or “water treatment,” wherein massive amounts of water were poured onto victims whose faces were often covered with cloth.

The fact that our stance on torture has regressed in the last 70 years is unbelievably worrying.

This was to simulate the experience of drowning, and ultimately inflict psychological and physical damage to elicit a confession or information. Court records and eventu-

al convictions indicate that this “water torture” was considered one of the most despicable and serious of torture methods, and several Japanese generals were eventually executed for ordering its use.

70 years later, “water torture” became a topic of great discussion once again, though it is no longer known by that name. It has since become known as "waterboarding", infamous for its endorsement by the Bush Administration during the failed War on Terror. The authorization for such atrocities came from the highest echelons of the Department of Defense and the CIA. Since the revelation of torture and other atrocities committed

by American soldiers during that lengthy conflict against an imaginary, amorphous enemy, the United States no longer has the moral high ground when it comes to the issue of torture. Grainy photos and testimony of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and other American detention centers are seared in the collective memory of the global community.

Five years after Abu Ghraib came to light, the Obama Administration prohibited waterboarding and several other interrogation methods in 2009.

Civil liberties groups worldwide hailed the administration’s move. Despite this step in the right direction, all bets are off with the incoming Trump Administration. On January 24, the Senate confirmed Representative Mike Pompeo (R-KS) to be Director of the CIA. Though the current interrogation methods used must be listed in the Army Field Manual, Pompeo’s command opens the possibility of policy change for the worse.

When asked by Senators whether he would bring back waterboarding and other such “enhanced interrogation techniques,” he answered that he would strongly consider it.

Considering also that in 2014 he described CIA operatives who tortured detainees as “patriots,” it is looking increasingly likely that policies like waterboarding and other previously banned interrogation methods will be reinstated. Though fears that Pompeo may restore torture seem overblown, one only need look at his rhetoric to grow worried. Pompeo also claims that American Muslim leaders are complicit in terror attacks like 9/11

because they “didn’t speak out,” a claim which is demonstrably false.

He has been a frequent guest on noted racist Frank Gaffney’s anti-Muslim radio show, and has characterized the War on Terror as a battle for good (Christianity) and evil (Islam) drawn on religious lines. Guess which side he falls on?

Since the revelation of torture and other atrocities committed

by American soldiers during that lengthy conflict against an imaginary, amorphous enemy, the United States no longer has the moral high ground when it comes to the issue of torture.

The fact that our stance on torture has regressed in the last 70 years is unbelievably worrying. The same tactics we once executed foreign military officers for using are in fair play in the era of Trump. But where is the outrage? Mainstream media has only lightly touched on Pompeo’s torture record as part of a larger campaign to normalize the presidency. Even more worrying are the spineless Democratic senators who voted for Mike Pompeo in spite of his disgusting record, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

If the Democrats and their Senate leader cannot mount a challenge to someone who condones torture, can they really be trusted to resist the more worrying aspects of Trump’s campaign promises? Hopefully Senate Democrats will grow a backbone and resist the injustices of the Trump Administration, especially as they relate to human rights issues.

Published in 2003, Margaret Atwood's "Oryx and Crake" is a science fiction tale, which, like the best of its genre, is at once alien and all too familiar. Using language at turns lush and starkly sparse, Atwood weaves a tale of mystery, survival, and the collapse of both civilization and friendship. "Oryx and Crake" follows Snowman, once known as Jimmy, as he cares for a tribe of strange humanoids called "Crakers" in the aftermath of an initially-unexplained disaster. As Snowman navigates his environment, and teaches, protects and curses the Crakers, we learn his history and how closely it entwines with the history of his post-apocalyptic world through a series of flashbacks and reflections.

At its core, "Oryx and Crake" is a warning against the dangers of neoliberalism and a meditation on the importance of scientific ethics.

Written amidst advances in genetics and cloning, "Oryx and Crake" is set in a world in which science has few limits, and ethical constraints on bioengineering are laughable.

Jimmy is the son of two biologists whose work is to grow human organs for harvest in pig hybrids called "pigoons." Yet Jimmy is an outsider in this scientifically-structured society, relegated by his aptitudes to the world of words. Crake, Jimmy's enigmatic and scientifically brilliant best friend, serves as a foil, and it is no surprise when they both fall in love with the same woman, Oryx. While the novel focuses on exploring Jimmy's relationship with the titular pair, it at times falls into cliché. Unfortunately, this is the case with Jimmy's fetishization of the flippantly philosophical Oryx, a young Asian woman sold into prostitution as a child. Though Oryx reappears throughout the novel, her characterization is weak when compared to Jimmy's, and her relationship with him shallow when contrasted with Jimmy and Crake's strained friendship.

Atwood succeeds both in building a world and in her portrayal of the development of a close friend-

11

ship over the course of two very different lives. Ultimately we find that these two successes are not so disparate – Jimmy's relationship with Crake continues after the world's end, morphing into Snowman's relationship with the Crakers and their post-collapse surroundings. Thus, despite some flaws in the execution of Oryx's character, Atwood crafts a tale which is well worth the read, particularly as the world around us changes in ways some of us may have previously found hard to imagine.

I've paired the novel with a Riesling because the variety is refreshing, acidic and moderately complex, much like Atwood's writing. Riesling isn't the lightest of wines – you can feel in your mouth that it has some heft and that's due partly to the alcohol content – but its slightly tart bite makes it somewhat refreshing. Rieslings are generally distinguished by their gasoline aroma and perceived sweetness; they're so fruity you may think they're sweet, meaning they have lower alcohol content and high residual sugar. However, they tend to have medium-high alcohol and low sugar, but our brains interpret fruity notes as "sweet." The Riesling I've picked is 2015 Kungfu Girl from Washington State, and it's on the mild side, both in sweetness and gasoline/diesel smell (which goes away if you swirl the wine). I chose a Riesling partly because of the somewhat off-putting gasoline scent – much of "Oryx and Crake" takes place in a tech-heavy future, and the somewhat tar-like chemical smell the wine gives at first sniff echoes the tone of the novel's world.

Like "Oryx and Crake", however, once swirled and tasted, Kungfu Girl shows a pleasant side which reminds me of green and yellow fruits (or in the case of the novel, a world slowly retaken by nature): green apple peel, pineapple and a bit of nectarine come to mind. It's an incredibly drinkable wine, with a nice clean finish, much as "Oryx and Crake" is a swift, elegant read.

Both wine and novel are pleasant to experience and may leave you lingering over them, though perhaps only briefly.

For a non-alcoholic pairing alternative, try: Equal parts seltzer water and apple juice, lemon and grated ginger to taste.

On the Posse Retreat, and Immigration

Over the weekend, I had the privilege to attend the Posse Plus Retreat where we discussed the theme of “Us versus Them.” In the beginning, I was a little irritated by the retreat’s overwhelming emphasis on identity politics, yet I was also keenly aware of the facilitators’ motivations to use identity politics to have us engage in a specific rhetoric that promoted tolerance and acceptance. Within this “safe space,” a few individuals “came out” as having voted for Donald Trump. It was clear that within the structure of the retreat that these boys were to be lauded for the courage to reveal their conservative political leanings where they were the minority among us “liberals.”

That same night, President Trump signed the Executive Order to ban the entrance of refugees and immigrants, even green card holders, from seven Muslim majority countries into the United States. I was livid and felt that my anger was being policed by the nature of the retreat. I grew increasingly frustrated by the overarching opinion that the “Us” and “Them” should work together to “reach a middle ground” and “understand where

the other side is coming from.” The retreat was so entrenched in its dialogues of identity that conversations regarding systems of power and oppression were mostly ignored.

At one point in the retreat, a friend and I had the opportunity to have a conversation with a student who voted for Trump. He came up to my friend after a large group discussion, having felt that her comment was a personal attack towards him.

She seized this opportunity to ask him which specific parts about Trump’s campaign had appealed to him.

“Hilary said she was going to take away our guns,” he responded.

Whether or not he realized the fallacy of his retort, I realized that maybe a middle ground does not exist between me and someone who could vote for a man that speaks with such hate and vitriol against Muslims, Mexicans, women, members of the LGBTQA+ community, people with disabilities —anyone that is marginalized. I realized that this young boy, a political science student like myself, was simply too scared to lose his privilege.

He felt that Trump’s presidency could protect his privilege, probably

The Scarlet & Black Staff Editors-in-Chief

Managing Editor News Editors Features Editor Sports Editor Arts Editor Community Editor Opinions Editor Copy Editors Photo Editor Business Manager Staff Writer Honorary Editor

Teresa Fleming Eva Lilienfeld Steve Yang Lily Bohlke Mira Braneck Philip Kiely Louise Carhart Nora Coghlan Keli Vitaioli Candace Mettle Michael Cummings Jon Sundby Sarah Ruiz Jenny Dong Andrea Baumgartel Zane Silk Sally Yates

shaken up by movements such as “Black Lives Matter” and a growing body of voices that challenge white privilege in the United States. How scary it must be for him to imagine a society where his identity, his story, his experiences are constantly invalidated, silenced and forgotten.

I realized that this young boy... was simply too scared to lose his privilege.

The problem with the “Us versus Them” discourse intended to evoke a desire to reach the “middle ground” between two distinct groups of people is that it ignores the larger, systemic power relations that constructs the “Us” by simultaneously excluding the “Them”. To speak specifically about immigration, in her book "Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America", Mae M. Ngai argues that in the aftermath

of World War I, an “interstate system based on Westpahlian sovereignty” was introduced within the reinforcement of nation-states and re-conceptualized the distribution of human rights. Ngai further explains that nationalism played a powerful role in excluding war refugees from claiming rights, as it was only membership to a nation-state that could guarantee an individual’s protection.

Without recognizing its role in creating the refugees in the first place, the United States implemented “hypernationalist immigration controls” to explicitly cast out refugees from entering its borders. Since World War II, however the United States has strived to portray itself as a benevolent receiver of immigrants (until recently), a place of desire for refugees who were escaping the less than satisfactory political systems of their homeland. Within this nationalist framework of understanding immigration, the United States’ absolves its participation in the production of refugees and the dialogue about the unequal power dynamic that exists between the “Us” and the “Them.”

The reality is that a “middle ground”

cannot exist in a context when the “Us” already occupies the higher, more privileged ground than the historically subjugated “Them.”

When the marginalized individual (“Them”) meets the desired “middle ground” with the more privileged individuals (“Us”), the terms and conditions of that “middle ground” will benefit and give more power to the privileged individual more so than to the marginalized individual from a systemic point of view. The identities and lives of so many marginalized groups in this country have been, and are, under attack, for too long.

We cannot compromise our anger through mere tolerance when historical legacies of oppression are already deeply ingrained and institutionalized to protect the “Us” while endangering the “Them.” Our fury should not be tampered by the seemingly benevolent rhetoric that “peace and love” can fix the inequality that exists between “Us” and “Them.” Instead, we need to shift the burden of fighting against oppression onto the shoulders of those who have long perpetuated it.

No matter how unwilling and scared they may be.

SPARC Policy The Scarlet & Black is published on Fridays by students of Grinnell College and is printed by Times Republican of Marshalltown.

The newspaper is funded in part by the Student Publications and Radio Committee (SPARC) and also relies on advertising revenue to cover operating costs. All publications funded by SPARC are copyright of SPARC and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without specific written consent from SPARC. Contributions The Scarlet & Black welcomes story ideas from students, faculty and other members of the town and college community. If there is any story that should be covered, please email newspapr@grinnell.edu or visit thesandb.com Send letters to the editor via email at newspapr@grinnell.edu or mail them to Box 5886. The author’s name must be included, but letters can be published anonymously in certain occasions. Letters will be printed at the discretion of the editor. The opinions expressed in this section do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial staff. The S&B reserves the right to edit any and all submissions.

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the

Back Page Volume 135, Issue 14

"The best thing since the front page!"

Photo of the Week

thesandb.com

Got a backpage-worthy photo? Submit it to [mettleca] and earn $5 for contributing a winner!

The snow melts, revealing the sky's beautiful reflection in the afternoon

Arbitrary Analysis Social Calendar

LIAM LI

Bey's Twins

Snedge

Friday

7:15 p.m. Queen of Katwe @ Harris Cinema Center 9:30 p.m. Queen of Katwe @ Harris Cinema Center 10:00 p.m. R.A.D. Gardner @ Main Hall Gardner

This week, Andrea Baumgartel '19 and Megan Tcheng'19 polled students asking: Superbowl or Burrito Bowl

JRC

Saturday​

wl

bo Super % 6 3

10:00 a.m. GC Invite @ Athletic Fields 10:00 a.m. Jamila Woods @ Main Hall Gardner

Like what you see?

BEAR ATHLETICS bowl Super % 38

@thesandb /thescarletandblack thesandb.com @newspapr

You'll Never be Judith Butler You know what doesn't contribute to discussion? Springkling abstract theory into your comments WITHOUT explaing what it means. If no one in the class knows what you are saying, then we cannot have actual discussions. It ends up becoming a conversation between you and the professor while the rest of us stare blankly out the window because we have no idea what to say in response. Just take the extra 15 seconds to explain the theory. We both learn that way.

-Rene Ayala '19

Burr Bowito 64% l

or

check us out:

Rants & Raves:

Being pregnant

Burr Bowito 62% l

No Central Iowa Family Planning

Pub Quiz Winners

1. The Fempire Strikes Back 2. Aaron Weerasingle / Separation of Church and Taint 3. Steve Bannon's Cargo Sharts

Staff Shoutout

Shoutout to Blue Ivy! You'll be a great big sister and mentor to your siblings. We hope there's a Destiny Child's 2.0 group in the future.

Students speak about what’s on their minds in 100 words or fewer, and you’re invited! If you have a rant or a rave, email it to [mettleca]

Say It To My Face

I can't relate to Bessie

.

If you're going to fire me from a job, have Thank you, dining hall, for offering nonthe decency to tell me before I show up the dairy sorbet on Wednesday evening. It was next day. It's not that hard and makes it less glorious. awkward for the both of us.

-A Proletariat

-Andrea Baumgartel '19

Externships First and second years-- please apply for externships! We have so many great alums (the most recent is from 2016) who are opening their lives to us. It's a great way to spend Spring Break.

-Candace Mettle '19