Vol. CXXX, No. 8

THE STUDENT

LIFE

The Student Newspaper of the Claremont Colleges Since 1889

CLAREMONT, CA

FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 2018

NEWS

VOL. CXXX NO. 8

Scripps Vows Not To Place Students In CGU Apartments Next Year

Apparent AntiSemitic, Racist Vandalism Riles Scripps Marc Rod

“In my opinion, students are as safe taking classes at CRC prison as they are at any of the 5Cs,” Pitzer College Dean of Faculty Nigel Boyle said. Read more on page 2.

LIFE AND STYLE

Called “the plant-based burger that bleeds,” the Impossible Burger aims to emulate the texture and taste of meat.

Claremont McKenna College’s Sustainability Fund and Collins Dining Hall collaborated to serve this vegan alternative on March 29. Read more page 4.

Chloe Ortiz • The Student Life

Breanna Kim SC ’21 waits for the shuttle to pick her up outside Honnold Gate and take her to the Claremont Graduate University apartments.

Scripps is working to ensure no students have to live at CGU this fall, after 38 first-years were forced to live off-campus this year.

LIFE AND STYLE

SEE PAGE 2

CMC Hires Private Security Kellen Browning

When Alessandra Yu PO ’19 started college, she struggled to find a creative writers’ community that spanned the Claremont Colleges. So she created 5C Wordsmiths, the organization responsible for bringing well-known speakers such as Rupi Kaur and Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye to campus.

Read more on page 5.

OPINIONS

Opinions columnist Zachary Freiman PO ‘20 argues that in order to uphold values of health and wellness, Pomona College ought to expand P.E. courses to include food and nutrition. Read more on page 7.

SPORTS

Claremont McKenna College is contracting with a private security group to employ a director of public safety and several CMC-only security officers who will promote safety on campus, assist with event planning, and investigate thefts, among other responsibilities.

Brian Weir, the incoming director of public safety, works at private security firm Allied Universal and is a former Air Force commander.

Weir will start later this month and work during the days. He will hire two or three other security officers to trade off night shifts starting next academic year, said Sharon Basso, CMC’s vice president of student affairs.

The CMC-only security will not replace Campus Safety officers, Basso said. Instead, the public safety officers will “amplify and enhance what Campus Safety is already doing.”

Basso, who announced Weir’s hiring in an email Thursday, said she and other deans have been oncall most nights to respond to student concerns or emergencies, but “we can’t do that, continually.” The new officers will fill a similar role.

Basso hopes having several CMC-only officers will contribute to a “campus environment where our students get to know the folks that are trying to help keep us safe.”

She said dozens of CMC students were involved in determining whether there was a need for a greater security presence on campus, including resident assistants and members of ASCMC. Discussions started nearly two years ago and students expressed consistent support for such a role, Basso said. Last year, Allied Universal visited campus and spent hours talking with Campus Safety and CMC students, she added.

“This is not something we would have pursued if students

weren’t supportive of it,” Basso said.

Former ASCMC President Sami Malas CM ’19, who was involved in many of the discussions, said he thinks CMC-specific officers will be helpful.

CMC-specific officers might be more well-versed in the college’s policies than Campus Safety, Malas said, “because [Campus Safety has] to manage the five policies at all five campus and understand that they are different.”

Nicholas Mendez CM ’21 said he’d heard of the program in the past but doesn’t know much about it. He doesn’t think Campus Safety or the new officers will be utilized much at night, but thinks additional security could be beneficial.

“Just having more eyes around at night could help people feel safer walking around and help prevent abuse of CMC’s alcohol policy,” he wrote in a message to TSL. “The only concern that I have is that it may change the atmosphere of the campus, but I hope and believe that it most likely won’t,” he added.

Julie Tran CM ’20 was unaware of the plan to hire additional security officers, and believes CMC could find better ways to spend its money, but thinks more security couldn’t hurt.

“I also think because we have a ‘wet’ campus, the school is more liable for what happens to students,” Tran wrote in a message to TSL. “With the increased security, [CMC] can better cover its tracks.”

Tess van Hulsen CM ’19 hadn’t heard about hiring more security until Thursday, but thinks having closer relationships with campus security officers is a good idea.

“Sometimes [Campus Safety] feels too impersonal, as I’ve never really encountered the same officers more than once [or] know their names,” she wrote in a mes-

The struggling CMS softball team, now 8-8 in the SCIAC, dropped both games to Cal Lutheran Saturday. Read more on page 8.

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Molly Antell • The Student Life

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Scripps College is currently investigating two separate incidents of vandalism — one that seems to be anti-Semitic and one which involved racist language — directed at individual students, Dean of Students Charlotte Johnson announced in an email to students Thursday morning.

In the first incident, someone posted a flyer for a Claremont Hillel event about Israel, marked up with pro-Palestinian messages and an accusation of white supremacy, on a Jewish Scripps senior’s door and wrote on the student’s whiteboard Monday.

The student, who is a former Hillel president, told TSL she has deliberately kept her views on Israel private at Scripps, and that the incident is therefore blatantly anti-Semitic.

“I’m not involved, nor have I ever been involved, in any of the Israel organizing on campus,” said the student, who requested to remain anonymous. “I’ve so explicitly stayed out of that. It’s definitely because I was Hillel president” that she was targeted, she said.

She said that she kept her views private so “any Jewish student [could] feel comfortable speaking to me about any topic,” including Israel, without feeling like they would be coming into conflict with her.

While Claremont Hillel is a Jewish student organization and does not list an

See SCRIPPS page 2

Ath Talk Recalls CMC’s Destruction Of Nearby Mexican Neighborhood Christine Lin

Seventy years ago, Arbol Verde was a vibrant Mexican-American neighborhood on the eastern edge of Claremont. Today, about 80 percent of the homes there are owned by Claremont McKenna College, most of which house college faculty and staff. The CMC parking lot and Biszantz Family tennis courts sit in other parts of the former neighborhood.

Arbol Verde is bordered to the north by CMC, to the west by Pomona College, to the east by Claremont Boulevard, and to the south by First Street. Although it was historically inhabited by Mexican immigrant families working for the local citrus industry, the Mexican community has largely disappeared following demolitions led by the city of Claremont and expansion by CMC from the 1960s through the 1990s.

Decades later, parties on all sides of the conflict are coming together to process their difficult shared history.

Matthew Garcia, a Dartmouth College historian whose family has lived in Arbol Verde for generations, discussed a book he wrote on the neighborhood at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum Wednesday night.

Garcia maintained a neutral tone in his talk, expressing hope that his presentation would further open up dialogue on the history of the neighborhood.

The presence of many significant figures in the neighborhood’s history — including former CMC president Jack Stark, who oversaw CMC’s expansion into the area, as well as former residents and activists — created a mood of reconciliation.

Before the talk, Garcia was honored with a traditional Mexican song by Al Villanueva, chair of the Arbol Verde Preservation Committee, in recognition of his contributions to peace through his work.

One of the key instances of contention was the 1968 construction of Claremont Boulevard, which cuts through Arbol Verde and was used by the city as a means to erase the Mexican community.

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“Construction of Claremont Boulevard was not an innocent creation of a county road. It was intended to make people that lived on the east side, including my family, dry up and blow away in the wind,” Garcia said.

Prior to construction, Pomona professor Robert Herman conducted a study for the city that referred to the Mexican community as a “problem” and recommended the local church be demolished to encourage integration.

While Garcia placed responsibility primarily on the city, attorney and former Claremont resident James Sanbrano emphasized the role of the colleges. He said the expansion of the boulevard was for the “private use of the colleges” because CMC had been interested in closing off Mills Avenue, a road that split the western part of the campus from the Bauer Center.

Stark said the city was responsible for the construction of Claremont Boulevard.

“CMC owned a lot of houses on Claremont Boulevard that we tore down. We gave the city land that we owned if they gave us Mills,” he said. “Yes, I favored it because we were better off having Mills closed.

Yes, we benefited from it, but we did not propose it.”

Both Garcia and Sanbrano said the city did not hold public hearings or follow due process, denying residents the chance to voice opposition.

Destruction of Arbol Verde did not stop with the boulevard. Between 1977 and 1990, CMC bought many properties in the neighborhood and evicted all non-CMC residents, Garcia said.

After CMC acquired all the property to the south of Sixth Street and north of Harwood Place, it successfully requested in 1992 that the city rezone the area to allow CMC to demolish existing homes and build a parking lot and athletic facilities, he added.

At the time, city residents expressed outrage about the rezoning decision.

“Shame, shame on you CMC that you made it impossible for anyone living in or near the east barrio to ever buy a home once the property was in an estate,” Mary Peterson wrote in a letter to the city council.

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“Shame, shame, on you Claremont City Council that you have voted to destroy [Arbol Verde].”

The impact of gentrification on the neighborhood’s cultural landscape is worrisome, Sanbrano said.

“The houses weren’t worth a lot, but they had more of a community atmosphere than tennis courts,” he said.

Stark denies that the college deliberately worked to expel the Mexican community.

“It’s true that CMC bought up the property and it’s true that the Mexican community that was there is not there anymore,” Stark said.

“But we never knocked on anybody’s door asking them to sell.

They came to CMC, and most who came to us were not Mexican, but landlords renting to graduate students.”

CMC has made efforts to repair relations with Arbol Verde residents through community outreach sessions.

Villanueva said his organization had a peace meeting with CMC in July 2011, during which they agreed they would no longer have an adversarial relationship with the college.

CMC committed to preserve what remains of the neighborhood and donated land to the city that became El Barrio Park. In return, Villanueva’s organization supported CMC’s master plan, which involves future construction projects.

“There were tensions that existed but we were proud to turn our relationship into a much more positive and constructive one,” said Matthew Bibbens, CMC’s vice president of administration and planning.

Garcia mentioned several avenues other colleges have used to address historical injustices — including funding research institutes, providing scholarships to descendents from impacted communities, and sponsoring topical campus art — although he stopped short of explicitly recommending CMC pursue these avenues.

CMC plans to keep the area of Arbol Verde located south of Harwood Place zoned residential for at least another 30 years, Bibbens said, although athletic complex expansions are planned for the East Campus property across Claremont Boulevard.

NEWS................................1 LIFE & STYLE.....................3 OPINIONS........................6 SPORTS.............................8

NEWS PAGE 2

CMC: Some Concerned By Added Security Continued from Page 1

sage to TSL. “I think there is a sense of security/safety in having officers you know by name.”

But Ben Culberson CM ’20, who also learned about the initiative for the first time Thursday, has some qualms.

“It does concern me a little bit that they’re private security,” he wrote in a message to TSL. “I just generally don’t feel comfortable with more

security than we maybe need.”

Students aren’t the only ones with misgivings. A person employed by CMC, who asked to remain anonymous out of concern for job safety, is worried that “an additional security presence on campus will add to a sense of campus militarization and is likely to make some students feel unsafe.”

Basso said discussions about additional security were “not a response to the Athenaeum scenario,”

during which student protesters blocked access to a talk by conservative commentator Heather Mac Donald last April. But the anonymous employee is skeptical.

“The planning may have begun before the Heather Mac Donald incident, but I find it hard to believe that the incident is not a significant factor in how the plans have been developed,” the employee said.

Jaimie Ding contributed reporting.

SCRIPPS: Student Reports Pattern Of Anti-Semitism Continued from Page 1 official position on Israel or Zionism and is not a pro-Zionist advocacy organization, Hillel International, its parent organization, does hold a pro-Israel position.

“It’s cut-and-dry anti-Semitism because someone targeted Hillel,” she said. “To have someone act … based on perceived political perspectives is very upsetting.”

Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine wrote in an email to TSL that the incident was not affiliated with SJP, that “we firmly believe that the Jewish people are not uniformly responsible for acts of the State of Israel,” and “we condemn all acts of discrimination which of course includes acts of anti-Semitism.”

In the second incident, “racist graffiti was written on flyers affixed to a bulletin board” on the door to a Scripps Resident Advisor’s room at the Claremont Graduate University apartments, where a group of first-years and two RAs are currently living, according to Johnson’s email.

The CGU RAs declined to comment.

The Jewish student said Monday’s incident was not her first anti-Semitic experience on Scripps’ campus. She said students have taken Hillel fliers off her door and someone on the Scripps quad once screamed “fuck Jews, fuck Zionism” at her.

“This is by no means the worst anti-Semitism that’s happened to me,” she said. “There is a huge problem with campus climate. …

There is definitely a trend going on, and I wish that it was taken a lot more seriously by students, by administrators, and by members of the community.”

The student said she wished the people who put the flyer on her door had spoken to her about their issues with Hillel or her personally, rather than using vandalism to convey their point.

“It’s really disappointing that the Scripps community doesn’t feel they can [talk to me] or they feel that that’s the way they need to take out anger,” she said. “And it’s just upsetting that someone would feel that strongly about me as an individual that they would go that route.”

The student also said she is

disappointed in the response she has received from Scripps administrators.

She said she did not feel administrators had adequately followed up with her about how she wanted to respond to the incident, and she felt she had to push administrators to take action, including sending the email to students about the incident.

“I think that the problem is that the Scripps administration is only going to do what they legally feel like they have to do,” she said.

In her email to students, Johnson expressed her support for the students reporting the two incidents.

“Harassing an individual or group because of their religious beliefs, race, or ethnicity is never okay, and is contrary to the values of the Scripps community,” she wrote.

Johnson encouraged any student with information about either vandalism investigation to contact Title IX officer Sally Steffen. Campus Safety director Stan Skipworth said neither incident had been reported to or was being investigated by Campus Safety.

Jewish Chaplain and Hillel Director Danny Shapiro called the incident anti-Semitic.

“Under no circumstances is it appropriate to target or harass

students based on their religion, nationality or ethnicity,” Shapiro wrote in an email to TSL. “Hillel is working to support the victim and all students, as we work to build a campus where diversity is respected and differing opinions are expressed through productive dialogue.”

The former Hillel president said she reported the incident in part to push for greater institutional change and support for Jewish students at Scripps.

The incident may not be the first of its kind at the 5Cs this semester.

During spring break, a mezuzah — a Jewish religious item traditionally placed on doorframes — was removed from a dorm room door, Pitzer College Vice President of Student Affairs Jim Marchant announced in a March 28 email to students.

Pitzer’s investigation of the incident is ongoing as of Thursday, according to Marchant.

“While it is hoped that its disappearance is simply a misunderstanding, if the mezuzah was removed and taken intentionally it is not only an act of theft, but it could be considered a bias-related incident,” Marchant wrote in the March 28 email.

Samuel Breslow contributed reporting.

Courtesy of Anonymous Source

Scripps College is currently investigating two different incidents of vandalism, one of which involves someone posting a flyer (pictured above) with apparent anti-Semitic commentary on a Jewish student’s door, and another where racist graffiti was written on flyers affixed to a bulletin board.

5C Students Head Behind Bars For Classes Sophia Sun

More than 100 5C students are going to prison next year — for class.

As the latest step of a program launched in 2014, Pitzer College will be offering 10 “Inside Out” courses next year — four in the fall semester and six in the spring — which will allow more than 100 students to take a class at two prisons: the California Rehabilitation Center, Norco and the California Institution for Women.

They will learn alongside an equal number of inmates — or, as organizers call them, “inside students” — who will receive free academic credit from Pitzer for the course work.

The classes offered in the fall at CRC Norco are Linguistics Discrimination, taught by Nicole Holliday; Intro to U.S. Politics; taught by Thomas Kim; and HIV-AIDS: Science, Society, and Service, taught by Karl Haushalter.

Pitzer has offered three Inside Out courses a year since forming the program in 2014, according to Tessa Hicks Peterson, assistant vice president for community engagement.

In the past, students took classes at CRC such as Prison Autobiography, Latino Politics and Linguistic Discrimination.

Pitzer’s program is modeled on the Inside-Out Prison Education Program, founded in 1997 by Lori Pompa, a criminal justice professor at Temple University. More than 100 colleges and universities now take part, though Pitzer is one of very few to offer credit to inmates for its prison-based courses. Ultimately, Pitzer is working with Norco Community College to set up a program providing admission to and credit transfer from Pitzer to a California State University campus for inmates upon their release.

“There have been over 10 such classes at the CRC already,” Pitzer College Dean of Faculty Nigel Boyle said. “In all case, the inside students, the outside students, and the faculty all say it was one of the

APRIL 6, 2018

THE STUDENT LIFE

best academic experiences they’ve ever had. I get to see all the teaching evals, so I can vouch for that. Plus every faculty member that does such a class wants to do more.”

Although students will be mixed with inmates in classes, Boyle said safety is not a major concern, because inmates are specially selected by prison officials.

“The education staff at the prison are in charge of selecting who can participate in the class, and the inside student must not have any behavior violation record,” he said.

Faculty and students are trained and prepared for the class, “but there has not been a single problem,” Boyle said. “Parents sometimes express a concern, but, in my opinion students are as safe taking classes at CRC prison as they are at any of the 5Cs.” The inmates selected have all at least finished high school, and some attended community college.

By bringing two different groups together to share experiences beyond campus gates and prison walls, Pitzer aims to improve students’ understanding of others and sharpen their political and social thinking, according to Pitzer press release.

Giang Nguyen PZ ’19, who has participated in the Inside Out program before, said the students and inmates interacted well.

“We would chat casually at the beginning of each class, then have discussions which were initiated by the professor,” she said. “We managed to have normal and interesting conversations but I also felt that both parties were quite reserved.”

Simone Bishara PZ ’18, who took two courses through the program, said the experience was similarly impactful.

“It’s important to give prisoners an idea of what’s on the outside,” she said, “just as it’s important for us to realize what they have gone through. There’s a vulnerability, an openness that comes from the discussions we have there.”

The Inside Out program influenced Bishara’s future career plans.

The experience “changed how I see my future. I’d like to be a lawyer who focuses on prison abolition or criminal justice reformation,” she said.

The interactions with the inmates also had an impact on Nguyen.

“It was an important reflection on my own education and privilege,” Nguyen said. “To see inside students working so diligently and sharing their knowledge under any circumstances was inspiring. I remember one insider saying to me that ‘the chance to take this class is my light in prison.

It keeps me alive.’ His words are unforgettable.”

The chance to take this class is my light in prison. It keeps me alive.

-A CRC inmate

Boyle referred to the feedback the inmates provided about the class.

“Some inside students commented on the power of the openness of their conversations,” Boyle said. “They said they felt like they opened up to one another and they felt like they were treated equally and that made them feel ‘normal’ and connected with the world outside.”

Bishara said the inmate she interacted with was surprised to learn people in the outside world cared about the lives of prisoners.

“He felt there was something on the outside he could be a part of,” she said. “His reaction reaffirmed for me that vulnerability and empathy exist in every corner of the world, including the really dark ones.”

Scripps Implements Changes To Avoid Repeating CGU Housing Issues Lauren Koenig

After 38 Scripps College firstyears were forced to live off-campus at Claremont Graduate University apartments due to over-enrollment last fall, the college is trying to learn from its past mistakes. It has made changes to admissions and housing policies for the 2018-2019 academic year, including opening the the traditional home of the Scripps president as a dorm.

The Scripps admissions office admitted fewer students for the class of 2022 than the class of 2021 in the hopes of enrolling fewer people, Scripps spokesperson Elizabeth Hamilton wrote in an email to TSL. The college also plans to utilize its waitlist more than in past years to ease the number and rate of admissions. These changes to admission policies may help mitigate the current housing issues.

Scripps will renovate Revelle House, a home currently available to Scripps President Lara Tiedens, to house up to 20 Scripps students starting in the fall semester, Director of Campus Life Brenda Ice announced. The house will feature two quads, a triple, four doubles, and one single.

Jackie McVay SC ’21 said she would like to live in a Revelle House double because of the community that she anticipates there.

“The shared living space in the

Revelle House sounds like a unique place to call home,” she said. “It’s an exciting opportunity. ... I’d love to have access to the backyard and gardens.”

Even with the extra space, though, tensions from this past year linger, particularly over how much to compensate the students who had to live at CGU and commute to Scripps via shuttle.

For housing selection this year, those students were allowed to pick on-campus rooms even before rising seniors.

“I know a lot of upperclassmen are probably unhappy and feel inconvenienced because of our priority housing,” said Alexa Sanchez SC ’21, who lives at CGU. “I just feel like after the year we’ve had, we deserve to live with our friends and have a great year on campus.”

One particular point of contention is that students living at CGU will be able to pull their friends into their priority housing along with them.

Claire Pukszta SC ’19 said she is frustrated with the administration’s decision.

“They forget that other rising Scripps students have also had extremely difficult rooming situations.

We have lived in buildings without air conditioning and have lived in rooms exceeding their intended capacities,” she wrote in a message to TSL. “We have sat quietly and dealt with rooming at Scripps for the last

three years because we were promised good housing senior year.”

Scripps is not planning to use CGU or other off-campus options for housing during the upcoming school year, Hamilton wrote in an email to TSL. However, Hamilton declined to comment on whether CGU or other off-campus housing will remain an option the college will consider in the future.

Many students at CGU housing have expressed dissatisfaction and frustration with their living situations.

“After living at CGU this year, I’ll probably never consider living off campus,” Sanchez said. “My roommate and one of my suitemates actually moved out second semester. ... The transition was a little difficult and just reminded me how temporary and makeshift the community at CGU was.”

Sanchez said living at CGU has generally made socializing more difficult.

“I’ve found my communities and I’m very thankful for that,” she said.

“It just took a lot more effort to find those spaces and those communities than if I would have lived on campus.”

However, some CGU first-years say there are positive aspects to living off-campus. In an opinion column for TSL, Rui-Jie Yew SC ’21 wrote that she believes the physical separation between school and home was beneficial for her mental health.

SHS Aims To Launch Hormone Replacement Therapy Program

Meghan Bobrowsky

After years of ambiguity, disorganization, and a dearth of doctors certified in hormone replacement therapy, Student Health Services is working to get an HRT program off the ground.

In the past, SHS staff prescribed hormones to at least one student. Dr. Maria Dunton prescribed testosterone to Quentin Barth HM ’19 once before Dunton left The Claremont Colleges in fall 2017, Barth told TSL. The prescription allowed Barth, who uses The Claremont Colleges Student Health Insurance Plan, to buy a six-month supply of the medication at a pharmacy for a reduced price of about $25. Depending on insurance, testosterone injections can cost upwards of $750 for a five-month supply, according to testosteronetherapy.org.

Before Dunton, Barth had a doctor in Los Angeles who prescribed him testosterone. However, he said that situation wasn’t ideal because the nurse didn’t correctly read his charts and made insensitive jokes.

Dunton’s departure created these types of difficulties again for Barth and other students seeking HRT at the 5Cs, especially since Barth said Dunton planned to roll out an official program under an informed consent model last semester.

The model allows transgender clients to access hormone treatment and surgical interventions without undergoing mental health evaluation or referral from a mental health specialist, according to the Journal of Humanistic Psychology.

“I remember telling all my friends

about her plans because I was really excited by them,” Barth told TSL. Dunton currently works at Pinnacle Medical Group in San Bernardino, California, according to the group’s website. She could not be reached for comment before press time. It is unclear why she left.

Following Dunton’s exit, Barth said nurse practitioner Nancy Aceves was willing to copy his previous prescription but “didn’t really know what she was doing or all the things to check for with the blood tests.”

“I don’t think she really had the background to know what sort of things could go wrong in the same way Dunton did,” he said.

Barth thinks that if SHS can find a doctor who is knowledgeable and culturally competent about transgender issues, an HRT program should exist.

“Accessing necessary medical care definitely shouldn’t be as hard as it is,” he said. “If SHS got a good doctor to run a hormone program, that would make me very happy.”

SHS is working toward such a program with Monsour Counseling and Psychological Services and the Queer Resource Center. The three organizations have created a trans healthcare committee to discuss the best practices for transgender students, appropriate referrals, and how SHS can better serve its transgender students.

Before her departure, Dunton was a member of this committee.

Currently, SHS providers refer transgender students off campus to the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at the Children’s

Hospital Los Angeles — one of the largest transgender clinics in the United States, The Claremont Colleges Services Vice President for Student Affairs Denise Hayes wrote in an email to TSL. Upon request from the prescribing doctor, SHS’ lab can obtain specimens and monitor lab results. SHS is also equipped to conduct pre- and postoperational exams, Hayes wrote.

The Claremont Colleges’ Student Health Insurance Plan covers up to $100,000 of gender reassignment benefits per policy year, according to the QRC’s website.

Before an extensive HRT program can be put in place at SHS, however, Hayes wrote that the committee needs to identify specialists in hormone treatment who can train providers to become initial prescribers and/or provide hormonal maintenance care.

The push for an HRT program comes amidst a staffing shortage at SHS, which has caused restricted hours of operation.

Concurrently, SHS is searching for a new director following the departure of Dr. Nayan Shah last fall, and HRT is a priority in the hiring process, Hayes wrote.

“We are asking each of the candidates for the position of director of SHS about their experiences in prescribing hormone replacement therapy and their willingness to pursue training in this area,” Hayes wrote.

In the meantime, Hayes encouraged transgender students to use other resources available to them as 5C students, including the QRC, Monsour, and the Chaplain’s Office.

U.S. Senate Candidate Kevin De León Comes To Pitzer College

Pitzer College alumnus, U.S. Senate candidate, and current California State Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de León PZ ’03 held a rally at Pitzer Wednesday.

The rally began with words from de León’s former professors about his time at Pitzer, and he was introduced by Pitzer Student Senate President Hajar Hammado PZ ’18.

During the rally, attended by about 100 people, he spoke about raising the minimum wage, health care reform, sanctuary state legislation, and other issues.

De León said he was grateful for his time at Pitzer. After the rally, he took photos with students who attended the rally and ate lunch at McConnell.

— Laney Pope

CMC Visiting Professor Earns American Academy Of Arts And Letters Award

Claremont McKenna College visiting professor Mary Gaitskill was awarded the Arts and Letters Award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

She was one of eight writers to receive the $10,000 award; some of its previous recipients include Ray Bradbury, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Flannery O’Connor.

Gaitskill is a novelist, essayist, and short story writer, whose works include “Bad Behavior,” “Two Girls,” “Fat and Thin,” and “The Mare.”

According to a CMC press release, Gaitskill will teach literature again at CMC in the spring of 2019 and 2020.

— Laney Pope

Distinguished Diplomat Offers Foreign Policy Solutions At Athenaeum

Veteran American diplomat William Burns visited the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum Tuesday night, discussing a variety of contentious foreign policy issues in regions around the globe.

The former deputy secretary of state and ambassador to Russia proffered views mostly in line with the civil service establishment, defending Obama-era initiatives such as the Iran nuclear deal and the Trans-Pacific Partnership and expressing concern about the Trump administration leaving many high-ranking positions in the state department vacant.

— Samuel Breslow Check online for additional bites about SAS elections and the student health services director search.

LIFE & STYLE PAGE 3

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THE STUDENT LIFE

Dynamic Duo Brothers Illuminate The Worlds Of Biology And History Through Podcasting Stephanie Du From a disappearing squid to the adventures of Napoleon in Egypt, Jeremy Snyder PO ’19 and his brother, Ross, cover fascinating science and history topics on their podcast, Microcosm. Snyder is a biology major while his brother is a government and history major at Georgetown University.

The podcasts, posted on their website Microcosm, consist of various topics within science and history, such as “The Fungus Around Us” and “Hijacking Hiroshima.” In each podcast, the two brothers have a casual conversation to explore the lesserknown information within each topic.

Microcosm has a fanbase at the 5Cs. Maddie Zug PO ’19 often listens to the podcast.

“My favorite part of the podcast is the dynamic between Jeremy and Ross,” Zug said. “The way they joke so naturally and play off of each other makes each episode fun and easy to listen to. They both have a talent for distilling complex topics and conveying their passions in a way that makes me excited to learn and listen.”

On a sunny afternoon, Snyder sat down with TSL to answer questions about the origin and future of Microcosm, along with his own podcast-creating process.

TSL: Who came up the idea for podcasting?

Jeremy Snyder PO ’19: My brother and I came up with it together. We all went on vacation together as a family. We were just trying to pass the time and ended up spending a whole several hour conversation about the things we were learning in school and had a really good time of it. I told him about this idea of doing a podcast, and he was really interested in doing that together.

TSL: How did you come up the name of the website, Microcosm?

JS: It actually took us forever to think of a name. The name is

related to the fact that what we are most interested in are the things that are glossed over worlds of detail.

TSL: What can you tell us about the podcasting process?

JS: For my brother and I specifically, the underlying premise of the show is that the other brother doesn’t know what the episode is going to be about until we start recording it.

When I find an interesting topic, I try to link little tidbits and fun facts together into a cohesive story. Being a biology major, there are things I know a fair amount about, but I want to be really solid on the topic, so I do a lot of research and fact-checking.

Usually, I would build an outline on the things I want to touch on: statistics, figures, or just various facts I want to cite. We don’t really do scripts because we found that with the conversational style of it all, a script is just way too constrained.

During recording, we set up a date and record our conversation over Skype using a USB microphone. Then, the person leading the episode would edit the recording and potentially add in sound effects.

TSL:Why create podcasts and not videos?

JS: Originally, I was interested in doing that in a video format.

Photography has been my other main interest for a long time, so it made sense to do a visual medium.

But my brother and I are in different places, so we wouldn’t be able to record videos together, so I guess I felt like the component of doing it with him was more important than doing it in some kind of visual format. I also think that podcasts are so popular largely because they are so compatible with this desire to multitask. People listen to podcasts while they’re

doing laundry or studying or driving, which is something you can’t do with a video.

TSL: Have you done any advertising for your podcasts?

JS: Not in a typical sense. When we released the first episode, I made a big Facebook post about it. It was my own personal advertising.

TSL: Have your listeners ever contacted you two?

JS: A couple of times. People will tell me they liked an episode, and they would reference something they learned on an episode.

I found there’s a lot of people who listen that I would never have expected. My brother’s and my high school English teacher reached out to us last week to tell us that he happened upon it and loved listening to it. That meant a lot.

TSL: Have you encountered any struggles during this experience?

JS: Balancing the podcast with school is a substantial difficulty.

This project matters to me a lot, and I would like to set out time for it. But researching itself takes 10-15 hours. It’s a huge time commitment, and with a full class load, a campus job, and sports practice, making the time for it all is definitely a big challenge.

TSL: Looking back on your experiences podcasting with your brother, what are some moments that stand out?

JS: The things I remember most and treasure most are random snippets of conversation that have nothing to do with the podcast.

What I love about this, more than anything else, is having a pretense to spend time with my brother.

For the podcast itself, it’s really fun doing something that I feel excited about. Over the course of my call, he’s there with me. Being able

Courtesy of Microcosm

Jeremy Snyder PO ‘19 and his brother, Ross, explore their love for science and history, respectively, on their podcast, Microcosm.

to see him get excited about these things is totally the best feeling.

TSL: Out of all the podcasts, which one is your favorite?

JS: The first one we made, “The Fungus Around Us,” is my favorite. The subject of fungi and mycology is super close to my heart. I think it’s one of the coolest subjects in the world.

TSL: What is the future of Microcosm? Have you thought about expanding?

JS: I think so. We’re wrapping up this first season. But, we aim to do a lot of planning for the second season over the summer.

In terms of expanding, I’ve started to think about [how] we would bring more people on

board, in wake of how much time I spend on this. I would definitely appreciate people helping out. If I had all the time in the world, I would love to be able to expand the website by adding more visuals and resources. So, people would hear about it in the podcast and then be able to go on the website and see what I’m talking about.

Collins Dining Hall Supervisor Reflects On Job, Working With Students Meghan Bobrowsky

While some people boast about knowing absurd amounts of sports or history trivia, Claremont McKenna College’s Collins Dining Hall supervisor Ezekiel Chavez prides himself on knowing many names of students and instructors. In fact, he claims he knows more names than any other dining hall worker.

Although the tall, dark-haired 40-year-old said he’s a “rookie” compared to other staff members who’ve been at Collins for 10-20 years, Chavez has been greeting students for almost three years now.

“Working at Collins, it’s a good atmosphere,” he said, smiling while still wearing his black hat from work with his straight hair tucked back. “That’s why you have people who have been there that long.”

Chavez, a Rancho Cucamonga native, wrestled in high school and attended Chaffey College for a few years before starting in hospitality management, where he’s been for the past 15 years. He’s also fluent in American Sign Language for his younger sister who is deaf.

Previously a general manager for Buffalo Wild Wings in Rancho Cucamonga, Chavez said the significant pay cut he took to come to CMC was worth it, noting the close proximity to his home in Montclair as well as the dental and medical benefits he receives.

“When you work at a retail shop, you don’t really get that kind of benefit,” he said. “You have to pay out of pocket for those things.

Working for the school, you get so much more.”

As for the job itself, Chavez works 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday — setting up breakfast, getting shifts covered if someone calls in sick, and reporting attendance after meals.

He said the Collins staff keeps track of how many students from each college eat at Collins to have an idea of how much food to provide the following year.

One recent day, for example, Collins had around 700 visitors.

“We have a projection of around 700 [people], so we know how much food to prepare for that day next year,” Chavez said.

Aside from these duties, he also prepares custom orders for students.

“There’s a lot of students who are from the South,” Chavez said.

“They like Creole food, and we don’t serve too much of it. So maybe one day out of the week, we can accommodate that for them.”

Sometimes, though, students crave comfort foods not out of homesickness, but because they want to go into a test feeling good, and having strawberries and whipped cream for breakfast will do that.

As if on cue, a student stopped

Maya Jotwani • The Student Life

CMC’s Collins Dining Hall supervisor Ezekiel Chavez, who has been greeting students for about three years now, says he is a “rookie” compared to other staff members who have been there for 10-20 years.

to confirm with Chavez about a special meal pickup at Collins that evening. Chavez’s response: “You got it!”

Not only is he accommodating to students — he’s also observant.

Chavez said he notices a change in students’ attitudes at different points in the semester.

“In the beginning of the year, everybody is happy and perky.

But around midterms and finals, people are a little more serious,” he said. “Even sometimes if you say hi, they’re so much in the zone that they don’t even realize you say hi to them.”

Generally, however, Chavez said 5C students are more respectful than customers at Buffalo Wild Wings.

“We had a lot of crazy people going into Buffalo Wild Wings,” he said. “You have to deal with profanity. You have to deal with obnoxious people, people spilling beers and getting drunk. Whereas, right here, people have a little bit more respect.”

Some of these respectful people are also professors whom Chavez

has befriended. He describes them as “some of the best mathematicians in the world.”

“Just the connections that you make working at Collins are great,” Chavez said. “You’re surrounding yourself with people that have good ambitions and motivate and inspire you to do better.”

And although being a supervisor would usually require a college degree, Chavez said he got the job by having equivalent experience.

But, landing the position was no easy feat.

Altogether, Chavez said it took about a year from the time he found the job posting on Craigslist to getting hired. While he didn’t seriously consider the job at first, Chavez, whose father is a Harvey Mudd College alum, was more eager to apply once he discovered the position was at The Claremont Colleges.

As for the future, Chavez said he plans to continue working at Collins.

“The quality of life is good,” he said. “So, why change something that’s good?”

LIFE & STYLE APRIL 6, 2018

PAGE 4

THE STUDENT LIFE

FOOD COLUMN

The Impossible Burger: Good For Environment, But Not Tastebuds

FILM COLUMN

‘The Death Of Stalin’ Allows Us To Laugh Amongst Political Chaos Ben Havetz

Courtesy of BagoGames

Mabel Lui • The Student Life

The Impossible Burger, a plant based patty that attempts to emulate the taste and texture of meat, was recently served at Claremont McKenna College’s Collins Dining Hall.

Mabel Lui The Impossible Burger aims to give consumers exactly that — the impossible. Made entirely from plants, the burger patty attempts to emulate the taste and texture of meat, while reducing the use of Earth’s dwindling natural resources.

When Claremont McKenna College’s Sustainability Fund and Collins Dining Hall collaborated to serve this Impossible Burger to students on March 29, I knew I couldn’t miss an opportunity to try “the plant-based burger that bleeds.”

Sam Becker CM ’19 and Alex Brussell CM ’19 spearheaded the event.

After watching the documentary “Racing Extinction,” Brussell became aware of “the effects that raising cattle for beef production have on climate change and ecosystem destruction,” he said.

His interest in Impossible Foods and food technology prompted him to apply for funding to host the event from the Sustainability Fund, which was created by Becker and the Environmental Affairs Committee to provide grants to support student sustainability initiatives.

It turned out that Collins was already serving the Impossible Burger, just not in burger form.

“It was mostly served as ground beef, or they would make a curry dish with it or something like that,” Brussell said.

That’s where the Sustainability Fund came in.

“The Impossible Burger, as it stands right now, is a little bit more than two times as expensive as cheap

ground beef,” Brussell said. “So in order to have an event as big as the one we had, we needed to subsidize Bon Appetit on behalf of Collins to buy [the burger].”

The line for the burger was long — it circled several tables in the main seating area of Collins — but that didn’t faze me or my roommates, who are vegetarian and pescatarian.

Visually, there was no difference between the Impossible Burger and a regular beef patty. Like regular meat, it was red-brown and nicely charred on both sides.

Taste-wise, however, I am sad to report that the Impossible Burger was impossible for me to fully enjoy.

It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t revolutionary. The well-done patty did not taste like meat, though I’m sure some people might beg to differ.

While condiments and toppings helped disguise the Impossible Burger as real meat, the taste of wheat — one of the ingredients of the patty — gave it away for me.

The texture was similar to a traditional beef burger, but being exposed to heat for too long (given it was served in a college dining hall) created a crunchy surface on the patty that was unexpected and somewhat unwelcome.

In reading other reviews as I dealt with my disappointment, I found out that other taste-testers preferred the burger when it was cooked medium rare as opposed to well-done, because cooking it for less time produced a more mineral and meaty flavor.

While the burger I ate didn’t impress me, there’s certainly a case to be made for the environmentally

friendly substitute for meat.

According to its website, the Impossible Burger “uses 95 percent less land, 74 percent less water, and creates 87 percent less greenhouse gas emissions.”

These are commendable statistics, and I can only see the success and popularity of the Impossible Burger moving in an upward trajectory.

After all, the event was resoundingly popular. For that meal, 1,069 people ate at Collins, and on the same day last year, the dining hall only had about 450 people swipe in for dinner.

For Brussell, the main goal was to raise awareness, and “to let people know about some of the surprising statistics and the savings you get by eating the Impossible Burger over a traditional ground beef burger,” he said.

For Becker, the Impossible Burger event was also about presenting the notion of choice.

“A choice that doesn’t sacrifice the pleasure associated with meat consumption, but provides one with the peace of mind that they’re eating an ethical food and a food that is not contributing to significant climate change and other environmental issues,” Becker said.

My final verdict? I have to give props to the event organizers, who came up with an original idea that attracted meat-eaters and plantbased eaters alike.

The event was certainly successful in promoting sustainability, and I look forward to seeing more sustainable choices being made in our dining halls.

When asked about political satire in President Donald Trump’s era, Armando Iannucci (Creator of “Veep” and writer/ director of “The Death of Stalin”) said “What’s happening now is so absurd. When the person at the center of it is his own entertainer, when he’s in a sense making content for television, it’s difficult to do something that exaggerates that.”

Perhaps this is why Iannucci’s latest film, “The Death Of Stalin,” is a period piece. In a world where the self-parody of the Trump presidency is unspoofable, Alec Baldwin getting on “Saturday Night Live” and making fun of Trump will never match the insanity of Trump himself. Instead, “The Death Of Stalin” parodies the power struggle for control of the Soviet Union after the death of Joseph Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin).

The central humor behind “The Death of Stalin” does not lie in grand comedic set pieces but in the mundanity of hideous acts. This choice allows the film to play on the banality of evil, and let Iannucci’s famed dialogue become the star feature of the film.

The best example of this is the film’s running joke on

how one of Stalin’s advisors, Vyacheslav Molotov (Michael Palin), is simply unable to keep track of who is an enemy of the state and who is an ally. Jokes like these are peppered throughout the film’s dialogue, and force the audience to laugh at the brutality of the USSR. As hilarious as the film’s dialogue is, none of it would work without the actors’ performances.

In fact, the casting of the film itself acts as its own form of satire.

Instead of having American and British actors attempt to replicate their characters’ historical Russian accents, each individual in the entire cast speaks in a natural accent.

Steve Buscemi plays Nikita Khrushchev with a fast-talking New York accent that gives the character a delightfully crafty menace, while Jason Isaacs performs Field Marshal Zhukov with Yorkshire bravado, providing the character with a hilarious hypermasculine contrast to the impish politicians.

In the film’s funniest performance, Rupert Friend gives Vasily (Stalin’s son) a posh rich kid accent that allows the character to embody the hilarity of the stereotypical whiney son of successful parents. These historically inaccurate accents allow the film’s performances to boost the

satire of its masterfully crafted dialogue.

However, the film is not perfect. Iannucci’s camera work has improved since his last film (“In The Loop”), but his camera still mostly serves the purpose of recording his masterful dialogue.

Perhaps as Iannucci becomes more experienced as a director, his camera work will further develop. The lack of artistry in the film’s cinematography does not detract from the film’s strengths, but it does prevent the film from reaching true levels of masterpiece.

Most importantly, the film’s humor accomplishes what all great political satires attempt.

It forces the audience to reckon with the morality of laughter. The film’s parody of the USSR does not shy away from revealing the brutal human rights violations present in Stalin’s totalitarian regime.

By making the audience laugh at the oppression of Stalin’s regime, the film allows the audience to both view and confront the absurdity of totalitarianism.

In an age where the American political process seems to be heading toward chaos, “The Death Of Stalin” permits us to laugh in the face of our own country’s disarray.

4/5

Courtesy of “The Death of Stalin”

The politically charged, satirical film “The Death of Stalin” (2018) recently hit theatres, drawing viewers to examine the absurdity present in the totalitarian regime of the USSR and how that may resemble the American political process they are living in today.

Is Netflix Taking Over The Movie Industry Through Your Computer Screen?

Victoria Anders Who doesn’t enjoy a latenight Netflix session to catch up on “Stranger Things,” re-watch “Friends” for the 20th time, or catch some feels with “Moana?”

But, have you ever watched a Netflix original movie?

The first-ever Netflix feature film was released Dec. 12, 2013 — a documentary titled “The Short Game” about 7- and 8-year-old golfers. You have probably never heard of it.

Netflix has since produced and released over 200 feature films only available on its online platform. These include dramas (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny” and “Beasts of No Nation” were the first two, both released in 2016), comedies, short and featurelength documentaries (“The Square,” “Icarus”), and even specials (“A Very Murray Christmas” starring Bill Murray).

The upcoming original film list provided by Netflix for the remainder of 2018 and beyond is both long and ambitious.

According to fellow TSL film columnist Ben Hafetz PZ ’20, Netflix films range from “indie films [that] are by far their best content” to “prestige films, or awards bait” and “traditional blockbuster films [that] are genuinely awful.”

Netflix and other non-network-produced TV series have become a staple at TV-based award shows, most recently with Aziz Ansari (“Master of None”) taking home the Golden Globe this past January and Claire Foy (“The Crown”) winning the same award in 2017.

The plighted “House of Cards” and gripping “Orange Is the New Black” have also been big winners of Emmy Awards in the past.

Other online production houses like Amazon and Hulu have similarly received high praise (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and “The Handmaid’s Tale,” respectively, this year at The Golden Globes and Emmys).

A debate continues on whether Netflix-produced films should even be considered “real movies” and therefore judged by the Academy (Oscars) as well as Hol-

Courtesy of Netflix

Netflix has produced and released over 200 feature films since 2013, such as “Mudbound” (2017, pictured), an Oscar nominee for Best Film starring Mary J. Blige and Casey Mulligan, and the oscar nominee for Best Documentary Feature “The Square.”

lywood Foreign Press (Golden Globes).

Are they TV movies or feature films? Are the cast members eligible for the biggest acting categories open to feature films, or only to less prestigious TV movie awards?

Despite this, drama films like “Mudbound” (2017, starring Mary J. Blige and Carey Mulligan) earned an Oscar nomination for Best Film, Idris Elba earned a Screen Actors Guild award for “Beasts of No Nation,” and “The Square” became the first Netflixproduced film to be nominated for an Oscar in Best Documentary Feature.

Though their comedies and dramas are (at times) notewor-

thy, the film genre that Netflix has explored most and executed best is arguably documentary.

“The Square,” released prior to any of Netflix’s fictional films, depicted the Arab Spring movement centering on the “Egyptian Crisis.” The 18-day “Egyptian Revolution” against President Hosni Mubarak and his regime began at Tahrir Square Jan. 25, 2011, following similar uprisings in Tunisia beginning in December 2010 and subsequently in February 2011 in Libya.

During the revolution, an estimated 846 people died and nearly 6,500 were injured during the two-week period, with more casualties in the weeks and months that ensued.

The film tells the story from the ground, following a group of young protesters and political revolutionaries starting in early 2011, though it has been criticized for only depicting the “young, semi-cosmopolitan, and vaguely leftist” activist sphere, a description which does apply to the majority of Tahrir protesters at the time. “The Square” gained a 100 percent ‘certified fresh’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the Oscars nomination, and three Emmy’s at the 66th Awards.

“13th,” directed by Ava Duvernay (“Selma”) expertly defines America’s prison industrial complex and school-to-prison pipeline. It condemns what is known as the New Jim Crow

laws, while challenging ideas about the “intersections of race, justice, and mass incarceration in the United States.” It led to Duvernay’s second leading Oscar nomination following Best Director for “Selma.”

Biographical films on Tig Notaro (“Tig”) and Lady Gaga (“Gaga: Five Foot Two”) have been somewhat successful, while “Amanda Knox” (2016) captivated those who remembered the reallife murder-mystery and reeled in those who didn’t know about it. Even just this year, Netflix-distributed “Icarus,” which depicts large-scale Russian athlete doping schemes, won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Netflix original films have largely relied on social media, especially Facebook, for advertising. Their gross rating point, reach, and most importantly, quality will certainly continue to improve. In its efforts to become not just a streaming service with some original content, but a mass content producer, Netflix has and will butt heads with Disney as it did just last August (which led to the latter pulling its distribution deal with Netflix in favor of beginning its own streaming site).

I have no doubt that Netflix shows and films will keep coming, and the awards and accolades will follow as Netflix continues to develop its independent programming.

LIFE & STYLE PAGE 5

APRIL 6, 2018

THE STUDENT LIFE

BOOK COLUMN

‘When Breath Becomes Air’ Explores The Meaning Of Life, In Death

Got Problems?

Jasper’s Got Answers

Nina Potischman • The Student Life

Tarini Sipahimalani At each stage of his life — from English student to philosopher and neurosurgeon — Paul Kalanithi has searched for what makes life worth living in the face of human mortality.

“When Breath Becomes Air,” the autobiographical book which he details this search, is nothing like the traditional coming-ofage novel. And yet, it’s exactly that. Except, the ‘coming-of-age’ happens right before death, as the book provides a firsthand account of Kalanithi’s transformation from a curious student at Stanford University to a neurosurgeon-turned-cancer patient.

This is where his pursuit for meaning becomes ironic.

Despite sorting through literary works, philosophical pieces, and even interacting with those faceto-face with death in a medical context, he only came close to an inexplicable understanding and embracing of his question when he himself became the patient upon his cancer diagnosis.

Throughout his development as an adolescent and doctoral student, Kalanithi was consumed “by the question of what, given that all organisms die,

makes a virtuous and meaningful life,” which he believed was encapsulated in the intersection between body and psyche.

Guided by this obsession, he decided to pursue degrees in English, history, and philosophy in order to satisfy his intellectual cravings.

Despite his incessant search for answers in the humanities, Kalanithi realized “that the questions intersecting life, death, and meaning, questions that all people face at some point, usually arise in a medical context.”

Therefore, he decided to concentrate in neurosurgery, as the brain most directly reconciles one’s sense of identity through a comprehension of one’s experiences, ultimately enabling one to answer the question: “What makes life meaningful enough to go on living?”

This rumination on what makes life worth living might be the most fundamental principle underlying the newfound comfort of “wearing one’s matured skin,” which accompanies a coming-of-age novel.

The pursuit of an identity into adulthood requires an evaluation of what life means in that moment to an individual, based on their developed values and beliefs.

“The tricky thing about terminal illness (and life, probably) is our values are constantly changing. You

try to figure out what matters to you and then you keep figuring it out.”

Kalanithi is forced to confront his very question on life’s meaning during his dealings with terminal illness. He ages mentally as his figurative ‘coming of age’ quite literally accelerates the maturation that usually accompanies one’s dealings with questions of immortality.

But, he also ages physically upon diagnosis, struggling to repress the dulling pain in his back, and the physical transformation of his body leads to his positional transformation from neurosurgeon to patient.

Written from a view that is not short of pure empathy, solicitude, and grave thought, we hear from a medical member who goes beyond repairing what is physically broken. Seeking life’s worth, he concerns himself and his patients with hope and an understanding of life’s vibrancy during its ensuing end.

Though Kalanithi’s writing doesn’t linguistically measure up to some of his revered greats like Charlotte Brontë and Samuel Beckett, it does fully embody his voice. The way in which Kalanithi communicates his story punctures the pages with intense rumination

5C Wordsmiths Bridges Colleges Through Creative Writing

and emotion. It is in his written philosophical ideas that he relates to the transformational trajectory of his own life that we are able to glean his discussion on immortality — something he ironically struggles to find earlier in literature.

Approaching death summons one to appreciate the life they’ve lived up till that point — an obvious thought that we have all heard in one context or another.

However, Kalanithi conveys this thought with such beauty that despite the incomparable condition that both he and his readers experience, readers feel the communal purging of emotions that shadow a coming-of-age tale. In fact, Kalanithi’s story encourages us to evaluate the states of our lives at this very moment.

This book literally defines ‘coming of age’ as a proceeding toward death. Embracing death, a difficult feat to conquer, can only be achieved in knowing one’s life has been worthwhile.

Kalanithi’s beautifully tragic tale jolts us into finding the beauty embedded in our individual lives. It both spreads and swells the flash of warmth that accompanies a traditional coming-ofage tale, which tells us we are not alone.

Ask Jasper, appearing twice a month in print for The Student Life, is an advice column for all of your relationship conundrums.

Romantic or platonic; serious, sexy or silly: the line is open, and Jasper is all ears! Share your anonymous stories:

http://bit.ly/askjasper

#Adulting Part III: Finance 101

Courtesy of 5C Wordsmiths’ Facebook

The 5C Wordsmiths were recently able to host Slam poets Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye for a performance and workshop.

Karen Song When Alessandra Yu PO ’19 started at college, she struggled to find a creative writers’ community that spanned The Claremont Colleges. So, she took matters into her own hands, giving birth to the creative writing club 5C Wordsmiths.

With the scattered variety of creative writers who had formed small groups in their individual schools, event planning, communication with faculty, and resource gathering was frustrating to say the least.

Yu wanted a community that would allow for all creative writers across the 5Cs to write together, support each other in the creative process, and share any writing events that happen.

“The goal was to be the United Nations of creative writing at the 5Cs,” she said. “We wanted to bridge faculty and students from all schools and departments.”

The Wordsmiths have never been and will never be a closed group. Yu emphasized that “the Wordsmiths” is an umbrella term, which encompasses the entire creative writing community as a whole. While there are workshops and retreats that writers can attend

together, the group is open to any and all creative writers who are interested.

The only members of the Wordsmiths who hold regular meetings and apply for specific roles are the Wordsmith Agents. Yu and Sarah Tran PO ’20 have acted as coordinating or managing agents who manage the group as a whole, and each of the other agents oversee a particular branch.

“Everything about the Agents team is student-led and very flexible,” Yu said. “We only have seven agents, so we don’t have the capacity to have more than one person in each branch. It would be great to have more agents to balance the work, especially in tech.”

Even with a relatively small team of agents, the Wordsmiths have been responsible for some of Pomona College’s most popular events.

In 2016, the organization brought Rupi Kaur, poet and author of bestselling works such as “Milk and Honey,” for a talk in which more than 500 students attended. More recently, they were able to host slam poets Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye for a performance and workshop.

“Because we’re an open community, we don’t see the same people at every event we host,” Yu said. “We would love to get to know the larger Wordsmith community even better, which is why we want to start doing mixers.”

Other than the proposed mixers, the Wordsmiths try to bring as many interested people as they can for an annual creative writing retreat at Pomona’s Halona lodge, a retreat center in Idyllwild that can be reserved by all Pomona students and staff.

At the retreat, writers have a fresh environment to hash out their works and also a space to share tips, compliments, or criticisms with one another.

“The spaces have helped me meet a lot of new people and get exposed to different approaches to creative writing,” Yu said.

“It brings in a lot of perspective when I’m working on my writing.”

In years to come, the Wordsmiths are hoping to expand even further, reserving creative spaces and holding monthly workshops.

They will also be a part of kickstarting a new on-campus literary magazine, Careless.

Sean Ogami • The Student Life

Yijie Wang Growing up involved some major financial milestones in my life: getting my first credit card, receiving my first paycheck, and obtaining my first internship funding.

When talking with my parents and friends, I would often hear about the importance of time management. However, I’ve realized that money management is an equally important skill, especially as a college student trying to balance personal finances including school tuition, bank account, and Zipcar renting.

Two years ago, I signed up for my first credit card in order to build credit. I received the

credit card in a fancy envelope inside my mailbox. Full of excitement, I immediately opened the package and went through to activate my account. Under the novelty, I made my first purchase with the credit card at a grocery store.

Having the incentives of accumulating cashback on purchases, I bought more using my credit card than I had expected. Although paying for $4 boba drinks and $2 cookies did not seem like much at first, these seemingly insignificant expenses added up quickly. I started to keep an eye on my every expenditure by writing purchases down and calculating my monthly totals.

My first credit score appeared six months after I created my

account. I took the card with me to travel globally during summer and winter holidays. Now, I mainly use it to pay for books, meals, flight tickets, and other large purchases.

Before I entered college, my friends often told me that building a good credit history would make it easier for me to get the loan for and buy, for instance, a car or house in the future.

Since then, I’ve learned how important it is to balance my own credit. In fact, managing my account in college has enhanced my skills for long-term financial planning. I would recommend to other students that they start building their credit history and read articles about the best credit cards for adults by Adulting TV.

OPINIONS PAGE 6

APRIL 6, 2018

THE STUDENT LIFE

THE STUDENT LIFE MEGHAN JOYCE Editor-in-Chief KELLEN BROWNING Managing Editor ARIEL SO Managing Editor

SAMUEL BRESLOW, News Editor MARC ROD, News Editor LANEY POPE, News Associate MEGHAN BOBROWSKY, Life & Style Editor SAMANTHA RESNICK, Life & Style Editor WHITNEY WACHTEL, Life & Style Associate DONNIE DENOME, Opinions Editor ANIKKA VILLEGAS, Opinions Editor HANK SNOWDON, Sports Editor DAPHNE YANG, Senior Design Editor CASSIE WANG, Senior Design Editor MIN HYUNG LEE, News Designer KELLY HO, Life & Style Designer CHRISTINE LIN, Opinions Designer JILLIAN BATIUK, Sports Designer

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Letters must be under 400 words (although when an issue is particularly salient, we reserve the right to allow letters to run at a longer length) and submitted by 4 p.m. Wednesday of the week of publication. We reserve the right to decline publication of submitted letters and will not accept anonymous letters, letters containing profanity, factually inaccurate letters or letters making personal attacks. TSL also reserves the right to edit for spelling, punctuation and grammar. Letters may be signed by a maximum of three persons. All letters become the property of TSL and may not be reprinted without prior permission from the editorial board.

TSL SAYS

Befriending the president over room draw thx lara! :) <3

Spring Fling Time to fling some spring

Losing friends over room draw It’s a dog eat dog world

Trying to do homework during Spring Fling No studying in the academic courtyard this weekend

FRESH Taro boba at Scripps Dinner now slightly closer to being worth $17

Not knowing where $40,000 went @PZSenate wya

The Impossible Burger WHY does it need to be JUICY

Not knowing where $130,000 went “Ask my lawyer” - Donald Trump

There Is Space In Between Rui-Jie Yew Columnist I grew up in the hermetically sealed suburbs of Silicon Valley. There, the identities I felt pressure to perform, as an Asian-American, did not necessarily feel prescribed by my classmates’ ignorance or even by the media so much as they felt a result of the weight of my school being 70 percent Asian.

There was explicit dialogue about the high school in my neighborhood being overly intense — how students placed too much weight on their test scores, were too competitive, studied too much, etc.

However, there was an even more powerful, yet quiet understanding within the student body that competition was a necessary component of our lives, that test scores were important, and that we should continue to study.

“Asianness” looked normal at my high school. I once had a substitute teacher who joked that if he spun around with his finger pointed out and stopped randomly, his finger would end up pointing at a “nerdy Asian girl.” Still, it was only normal in the sense that the values associated with being Asian were expected from all of us, as we expected these values from each other.

Yet, the fact that there were more of us did not make me feel any more free.

In the book “Trespassers?: Asian Americans and the Battle for Suburbia,” Willow LungAmam, Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at the

University of Maryland, College Park writes of the Californian high school I attended.

“At Mission High, the invisible power that White students and parents held included their quiet acceptance of their own normativity,” Lung-Amam writes.

“Meanwhile, despite being in the numerical majority, AsianAmerican students at Mission High were constantly reminded by their classmates, administrators, and neighbors that they operated on the margins of normal suburban American life.”

As a high school student, I felt that acculturation meant learning to navigate within the blurry boundaries of my Asian identity.

There seemed an attractive sense of belonging that came with every aspect of myself that fit my “Asianness”: drinking boba, stressing out over the SATs, liking math.

Yet, this sense of belonging could have very well been problematic, a sense of belonging that might have had more to do with whom I thought I should be, rather than who I really am.

YouTuber ilikealison, who has over half a million views on her channel and who has spoken for numerous panels on the Asian YouTube community, says, “The terms Asian and Asian-American encompass broad, diverse lived experiences ... but instead of highlighting the multiplicities of what it means to be AsianAmerican, we generate lists of what it should mean to relate and belong.”

However, it seems all too easy for the “broad, diverse lived experiences” of Asian-Americans to be sociologically shoved in a different direction, such that,

in the end, we are only afforded one cloth from which to cut our stories.

Near the end of her essay, “Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan briefly begs the question of why there are not more Asian-Americans in creative writing programs and why there are so many Asian-Americans in engineering programs. On podcast “Perfectly Imperfect,” guest Jennet Liaw asserts the importance of talking about her Asian background when discussing her career in design and illustration.

Mitski, a Japanese-American singer-songwriter says: “It just means so much to me, and it keeps me going when someone like me is in the audience, or someone younger than me who is East Asian, and a girl, comes up to me and says ‘I needed to hear this. I needed someone like you around to look up to.’”

While highlighting one’s racial identities could ultimately truncate the complex narrative of one’s humanity, it could also bring awareness to the specific obstacles and privileges people face as a result of their racial identities.

By telling our stories in their emotional entireties, in sharing how we brave through the resistance that our unshackled cores face, when struggling against our seemingly determined realities, we widen the sociological space for the inclusion of the “broad, diverse lived experiences” that have for too long been suppressed.

Rui-Jie Yew SC ’21 is a computer science major from Fremont, CA. She enjoys drinking milk tea, calling her mom, and talking to strangers.

KenKen 10÷

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Elodie Arbogast • The Student Life

Weekly Comic

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Sarah Wong • The Student Life

Jordan Wong • The Student Life

OPINIONS APRIL 6, 2018

PAGE 7

THE STUDENT LIFE

Traditional Conservatism Too Often Excused In Age Of Trump Jo Nordhoff-Beard Columnist I have loved magazines ever since I was a little kid. I love reading longform stories about subjects of which I know very little because they provide so much insight into an unexplored world.

The Atlantic has always been one of my favorites, that is, until their recent decision to hire Kevin Williamson, a renowned conservative writer who has espoused racist, misogynistic, and transphobic beliefs, to name a few, on the justification of ideological diversity and the inclusion of more conservative voices in a liberal writing space.

Since the beginning of the Trump administration, The Atlantic has published many articles that have provided new insight into the administration’s key figures and decision makers, and has been critical of Trump’s decisions.

Many of my favorite writers, like Ta-Nehisi Coates, McKay Coppins, Julia Ioffe, and Vann Newkirk II, work at The Atlantic, writing about alleviating racial justice in public health policy, the Russian intervention in the 2016 election, and the overwhelming systemic racial inequities in America that white people know exist but actively reinforce.

March 22, 2018, The Atlantic did something I found to be antithetical to its mission of being inextricably tied to the advancement of civil rights when they hired Kevin Williamson.

Williamson used to be a correspondent for the National Review and has tweeted that all women who have abortions deserve to be hanged, has compared an African American child to a primate and traveling through the Midwest to Marlow’s journey in Heart of Darkness in the same paragraph, and has referred to transgender actress Laverne Cox as “an effigy of a woman.” What separates William-

son from a writer at “Breitbart” or “Infowars” is that he is an avowed #NeverTrump conservative, which has a lot of cultural caché at the moment, as the Republican party searches for a unified identity.

Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, justified his decision to hire Williamson on the basis of ideological diversity and said to his staff in a memo: “It is also my job to make sure that we are ideologically diverse. Diversity in all its forms makes us better journalists; it also opens us up to new audiences.”

Goldberg also said that “conservatives made ideologically homeless by the rise of Trump are some of the most interesting people in America, and I want to read them whenever I can.” In this statement, Goldberg argues that Williamson’s personal views do not detract from his political opinions, but in the age of social media, it is impossible to separate the two.

Goldberg’s statement asserts that Williamson should be given a pass for all of his controversial comments and beliefs because of his critique on the president from the perspective of a conservative.

Fox News has fully played into Donald Trump’s more hardline views in their news coverage, and more traditional conservatives like Nicolle Wallace who has shows on MSNBC. The feminist writer Jessica Valenti, who has had two abortions, wrote in response to Williamson’s hiring in a Medium post: “The Atlantic is sending a clear message: that the worst kind of harassment and intimidation women face — extremism that has been directly linked to real life violence — is acceptable.”

Last October, a spreadsheet called “Shitty Men in Media” circulated as a whisper network in the post-Weinstein era for women to identify harassers and abusers for other women to avoid. This list

was only online for 14 hours, but it had over 70 entries by the time it was taken down. Moira Donegan, the creator of the list, came forward three months after the list was put up when rumors surfaced that she was going to be outed by the polarizing female journalist Katie Roiphe in an article in “Harper’s.”

After the list was released, Donegan’s relationship ended, and she lost friends and her job. She watched a list created to protect her fellow women in media blow up and impact global internet culture more than she ever thought possible.

Donegan was not given credit for her efforts to create a unifying force in a time when sexual assault stories about formerly respected people come out every day. Womanhood and female autonomy, the identities that she sought to defend, ended up hurting her in the end.

The media classifies people in categories according to ideology and creates hierarchies from the respective ideologies based on whatever is the most culturally valuable.

Right now, being a high profile conservative pundit in an age of extremism is put on a pedestal of moral rectitude. People are willing to overlook Williamson’s glaringly horrible beliefs because he criticizes Donald Trump, but it is possible to recognize Trump’s dangerous behavior, impulsive personality, and hold racist and misogynist views.

I could easily avoid reading Williamson’s forthcoming columns because they do not have a direct effect on my life and there are so many articles from which to choose that cater to my values and interests. But, a man who says these hateful, violent statements should not be given a platform by a liberal publication to spread his views any more than they already exist.

I am sick of the media profiling and fetishizing #NeverTrump-ers as if they are a group of people

For A Healthy Student Body, Focus On Food Zachary Freiman Columnist While away on spring break, I made note of something that I have subconsciously known for years: I don’t know how to cook. At all. For the first time in my life, I needed to prepare real meals for myself, and I was ill-equipped to do so.

In past instances of hunger, I have been able to microwave rotisserie chicken, whip up some outof-the-box macaroni and cheese, or just throw together a peanut butter sandwich. However, a week spent undernourished without someone to make dinners for me highlighted my utter inability to take care of myself in this regard.

At school, I have no need to cook for myself. I swipe into a dining hall three times a day, and eat three-course meals prepared for me by experienced professionals.

Having returned from break, my sense of urgency in learning how to prepare food dissipated. Be that as it may, soon enough I’ll be thrust back into the world, conceivably hungry and nutritionally deficient.

According to Pomona College’s website, Pomona places “high value ... on [the] health and wellness” of its students. The college requires at least two courses in physical education for all students in order to adhere to this principle.

Yet, the College is not exploring all routes towards healthy living for its students.

One such element to wellness, food and nutrition, is not an educational priority at Pomona. In fact, there are no cooking classes offered at the 5Cs. The logic is profoundly

unsound: there is nothing more fundamental to physical education than an understanding of the preparation and nutritional value of the foods we consume each day.

In addition to the practical components of learning to prepare food self-sufficiently, learning to cook and prepare food is of critical importance from a health perspective.

Americans are dying from obesity; 18% of deaths in the United States are attributed to that disease.

Nevertheless, we continue to consume ungodly amounts of sugar, a substance that may be more addictive than cocaine and is found in everything from processed foods, soda, and condiments to hidden sources, such as granola bars and yogurt.

Without proper understanding of the detrimental effects some foods can cause our bodies in the long term, we will continue to ingest our killer.

Before coming to college, my knowledge of nutrition consisted of elementary-level diagrams found in my school cafeteria — the pyramid of food: its apex, sugar, and its base, grains — and health documentaries on Netflix (I highly recommend “Fed Up”).

No poster or video, though, is able to adequately instruct food preparation, nor inform of the nutritional properties, or lack thereof, in the most fundamental process of consumption to us, heterotrophs.

The best way to learn is through person-to-person instruction.

Perhaps some students, particularly females upon whom the societal burden of caretaking is often placed, receive one-on-one

lessons from parents or caretakers at home. I, unfortunately, did not receive such schooling from my two working parents — not to say that I ever expressed any interest in learning.

Yes, there are instructional apps, online videos, and cookbooks, but we are not expected to complete our exercise — or academic — courses with YouTube instruction. Videos and books are no substitute for inperson instruction from an expert.

Dialogue between student and instructor, as well as personal feedback, are essential components in the stew of a successful learning experience at college.

Just as our P.E. classes are taught by knowledgeable experts who train us in the ways of sport and physical fitness, so too ought the College apply this model to the teaching of food and nutrition: their importance to our health is equal to, or likely greater than, that of physicality.

Pomona is currently under preparing students for the realworld responsibility of cooking one’s own food and accounting for its nutritional value. Although not an end-all be-all solution, in order to provide well-rounded health education for students, Pomona should expand its P.E. courses to include not only exercise, but cooking and nutrition as valid and crucial aspects to health and wellness.

Zachary Freiman PO ‘20 is a Music and Public Policy Analysis double major from Sleepy Hollow, NY. He dreams of one day meeting Oprah Winfrey.

Katie Erickson • The Student Life

who need deciphering and treating traditional conservatives as inherently good people because Trump is vastly surpassed the mainstream media’s initial thoughts of how bad of a president he would be.

Williamson’s articles continue to perpetuate problematic stereotypes. Reading them to generate productive discourse around issues of social justice is counterproductive because these articles only

reinforce racism and misogyny instead of seeking to change them.

They should not get any more exposure than they already do through mainstream media.

Women in media are exhausted from trying to prove their worth to a world that constantly questions the validity of their identity, and this list demonstrates “that it is still explosive, radical, and productively dangerous for women to say what

we mean.” Hate speech disguised as diversity of opinion should not trump the experience of being a woman, and women should not have to lose everything to prove that to the magazine-reading public.

Jo Nordhoff-Beard SC ’19 is an English major from Seattle. She enjoys Sam Hunt, flavored seltzer water, and reading memoirs written by women.

Sophie Reingold • The Student Life

The 2020 Census Will Be A Nightmare Christopher Eskilson Guest Columnist The recent reporting on the preparations for the 2020 Census has revealed — like almost every aspect of the Trump administration — a terrifying though unsurprising devotion to upholding structural racism. The reinstatement of the question about citizenship included in the U.S. Census Bureau’s released final questions does not even attempt to hide antiimmigrant intentions.

Providing extensive identifying information and an indication of citizenship status to a blatantly xenophobic federal government is dangerous for some members of immigrant communities. Out of a justified fear of deportation or detention, many will not fill out the census, and the national immigrant population will be underreported by the survey, depriving people of resources and aid.

The defense offered by Department of Commerce officials is that the question will protect minority voters. This is a baseless claim, given that this question was last included in the census 15 years before the Voting Rights Act existed.

This intimidation tactic is meant to reduce immigrant responses and erase the existence of millions of people in this country.

However, the citizenship question is only one of many red flags in the lead up to a disastrous census. Institutional incompetence and a drive to perpetuate white supremacy plagued the preparations for the national count before this particularly nefarious incident.

When the quality of life, political power, and quantifiable existence of communities is on the line, the U.S. Census Bureau’s continuous malpractice is something to be aware of and incredibly concerned about.

Problems begin with the fact that the Bureau remains underfunded, which jeopardizes an exhaustive count being possible.

If the hundreds of thousands of census workers who need to get household responses cannot be hired, accuracy is in peril off the bat. Though Congress recently increased the Bureau’s funding last month, it is hardly enough to fix the understaffing problems, which can only be solved through massive, continuous budget increases.

An accurate count is also made less likely by Census Bureau’s stalling on the rollout of the first digitized census. Though meant to increase responses, online counting will severely limit accurate statistics on rural and impoverished communities. If communities cannot easily access an online questionnaire, and if the Bureau already cannot employ enough workers to manually count rural communities, the areas will be misrepresented and remain un-

derserved.

The federal government’s monumental cybersecurity failures will also turn many away from responding. Fearing both external hacks and the misuse of data by the federal government itself, the public has had little assurance when it comes to the Trump administration handling personal information, and little is being done to rebuild this trust before the census.

The nightmare of conducting the census has been previewed in the documented mismanagement of the Bureau’s only trial run in Providence County, Rhode Island. With a nearly nonexistent advertising budget, county residents experienced mass confusion and didn’t know the test was coming. Even before the citizenship question was added, residents of cities with large immigrant populations such as Central Falls had already expressed reservations about completing a government questionnaire.

The racial classifications on the 2020 Census have also been designed to provide incomplete and misleading U.S. demographics.

For years, there had been mounting public and internal pressure to reform the survey’s racial categories to include Middle Eastern or North African (MENA), mixed race, and Hispanic (which is currently an ethnicity within racial categories) options. Adding these designations would more accurately account for present and rapidly growing U.S. demographics, better capturing the nation’s true diversity, and embolden advocacy efforts for these targeted groups.

The Department of Commerce announced in January that there will not be a MENA category on the 2020 Census. The administration’s travel bans targeting Middle Eastern and North African countries make the malicious intent obvious: the erasure of millions of MENA Americans, a growing segment of the U.S. population whose specific interests must be addressed. It denies those targeted and surveilled by the national security apparatus the basic right to selfidentify, perpetuating their status as foreigners who don’t belong. To have no MENA category is to signal that these Americans do not matter, that they should only be counted in monitoring security threats.

Omitting a MENA category from the census is also a method of reinforcing white supremacy. The Bureau’s research showed that including additional racial categories drastically decreased the number of “white”-identifying respondents on the census, which has been artificially inflated for decades. Refusing to add the category helps keep America statistically more white and minimizes the presence and perceived political importance of people of color.

The census has incredible implications for the entire population that make these issues terrifying. Census

results are most notably used to draw local, state, and congressional legislative districts, as well as determine the number of seats each state gets in the House of Representatives.

Equally important, though, is that census results are used to allocate federal spending for education, healthcare, and transportation. At least $675 billion are allocated annually based on census data, and this includes money for Medicaid, Medicare, Section 8 housing, Title I Educational Grants, and other crucial programs.

State power is reinforced and repositioned through the census results. Resources are distributed, and representation is given based on these statistics. The results additionally signal to the nation’s lawmakers who matters (and who does not) when it comes to major policy decisions.

Those counted by the census are recognized as present in this country.

Attempts can be made to mitigate the damage of the 2020 Census.

Encouraging representatives to support continued federal budget increases is a start to improving turnout, though this doesn’t address the anti-immigrant question of the racial categorizations themselves.

Removing the citizenship question is currently being fought for in a recent lawsuit filed by 17 states, seven cities, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, along the grounds that it violates the Constitution and the Bureau’s mandate to count the entire U.S. population.

Although launched by a strong bipartisan coalition, there is still the possibility that the suit will fail in court, though, given that the Census Bureau isn’t technically blocking people from being counted, but rather disincentivizing and intimidating them so that they decide not to. The standing of the suit will come down to the interpretation of malicious intent by a federal court.

Under the Trump administration, the census will attempt to ensure the existing power structure. The data will undercount poor, urban, immigrant, and minority populations, perpetuating the institutional disenfranchisement of already underserved communities.

Instead, the 2020 Census will overrepresent affluent, suburban areas with smaller immigrant populations. It will subsequently concentrate economic and political resources into majority white Republican districts, which will be capable of winning elections for years to come in spite of the country’s rapidly changing demographics.

Christopher Eskilson PZ ’18 is an English & World Literature major and Media Studies minor from Los Angeles, California. They are a former managing editor for TSL, and currently an editor at CGU’s Foothill poetry journal. They enjoy reenacting David Lynch movies, reading maps, and finding the best vegan nutella.

SPORTS PAGE 8

Sports Calendar

April 6 - April 12

Pomona-Pitzer Friday, April 6

Softball At Cal Lutheran 12 & 2 p.m.

Baseball At CMS 3 p.m.

Struggling Athena Offense Goes Silent In Pair Of Losses To Last-Place Regals

Women’s Tennis At Cal State LA 3 p.m.

Saturday, April 7 Women’s Golf SCIAC 2 At Brookside 8 a.m.

Sunday, April 8 Women’s Golf SCIAC 2 At Brookside 8 a.m.

Track and Field P-P Invite 10 a.m.

Men’s Golf SCIAC 2 At Brookside 11 a.m.

Women’s Tennis Caltech At P-P 10 a.m.

Softball Redlands At P-P 12 & 2 p.m.

Men’s Tennis Lewis and Clark At P-P 10 a.m.

Wednesday, April 11

Men’s Golf SCIAC 2 At Brookside 11 a.m.

Women’s Lacrosse At CMS EDIT O 7:30 p.m. PICKR’S

Women’s Water Polo Occidental At P-P 11 a.m.

Baseball CMS At P-P 11 a.m. & 2:30 p.m.

Thursday, April 12th Women’s Tennis At CMS 6 p.m.

Men’s Tennis At CMS 6 p.m.

Women’s Lacrosse Colorado College At P-P 11 a.m.

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Friday, April 6

Softball At Whittier 12 & 2 p.m.

EDIT

PICOKR’S

Men’s Tennis At Redlands 3 p.m.

Women’s Lacrosse Occidental At CMS 1 p.m.

Men’s Tennis Whittier At CMS 3 p.m.

Women’s Tennis Redlands At CMS 3 p.m.

Sunday, April 8

Saturday, April 7

Women’s Golf SCIAC 2 At Brookside 8 a.m.

Women’s Golf SCIAC 2 At Brookside 8 a.m.

Men’s Golf SCIAC 2 At Brookside 11 a.m.

Track and Field P-P Invite 10 a.m.

Men’s Tennis Gustavus Adolphus At CMS 10 a.m.

Women’s Tennis At Whittier 10 a.m.

Wednesday, April 11 Women’s Water Polo At Occidental 4 p.m.

Women’s Lacrosse P-P At CMS 7:30 p.m.

Men’s Golf SCIAC 2 At Brookside 11 a.m.

Thursday, April 12

Women’s Water Polo At La Verne 11 a.m.

Baseball At P-P 11 a.m. & 2:30 p.m.

Men’s Tennis P-P At CMS 6 p.m.

Women’s Tennis P-P At CMS 6 p.m.

Scores Pomona-Pitzer Women’s Tennis Williams 8 P-P 1 Middlebury 7 P-P 2 Men’s Tennis P-P 6 Redlands 3 Gust Adolphus 8 P-P 1 Baseball P-P 13,2 Caltech 3,3 Women’s Water Polo P-P 14 Whittier 4 P-P 11 CMS 5 Softball P-P 6,1 Chapman 4,0 Women’s Lacrosse P-P 21 Whittier 3

CMS SOFTBALL

Women’s Water Polo Redlands At P-P 3 p.m.

Women’s Tennis At Occidental 3 p.m.

Baseball P-P At CMS 3 p.m.

APRIL 6, 2018

THE STUDENT LIFE

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Women’s Tennis CMS 7 Middlebury 2 Men’s Tennis CMS 6 UC Santa Cruz 3 CMS 9 Chapman 0 CMS 8 Middlebury 1 Baseball CMS 3,3,5 Redlands 7,7,3 Women’s Water Polo CMS 17 Caltech 3 P-P 11 CMS 5 Softball CMS 2,4 Redlands 0,8 Cal Lu 2,2 CMS 1,1

Audrey Simmons • The Student Life

Reeve Grobecker CM ‘19 heads for home to score the Athenas’ only run of their second 2-1 loss to Cal Lutheran March 31.

Hank Snowdon With two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning in the final game of a Saturday doubleheader and the game-tying run on first base, Molly Spaniac CM ’21 had a chance to salvage what had been a disappointing afternoon for the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps softball team (19-9, 8-8 SCIAC) with one swing of the bat.

But with a ground-ball fielder’s choice to second base, Spaniac went down as quietly as as the Athenas’ bats had been all day, and CMS dropped both games to the last-place California Lutheran University Regals (11-15, 4-10 SCIAC).

For CMS, the story all afternoon was the lack of offense; they couldn’t get anything started off of Cal Lutheran pitchers Brittany Workman and Olivia Serrano, scraping across just two runs over 14 innings.

The poor offensive performance wasted strong showings from Athena pitchers Anna Gurr CM ’18 and Chloe Amarilla CM ’19, who held the Regals to just two runs in each game on only eight hits.

“Our pitching held us in the ball games,” CMS head coach Gina Oaks Garcia said. “We just couldn’t come up with the timely hits when we needed it.”

In the first contest of the twinbill, the Athenas appeared in control early on. Clear favorites coming into the doubleheader, CMS played the part well through the first five innings, as Gurr was dominant enough on the mound to overshadow the the Athenas’ offensive struggles.

Gurr had eight strikeouts through five scoreless innings, scattering three hits. CMS got out to a one-run lead in the third, as leadoff hitter Reeve Grobecker CM ’19 singled in right fielder Jessica Fox CM ’21 with two outs.

However, everything came crashing down for CMS in the sixth. The top of the Regals’ order scorched Gurr as they faced her for the third time in the game, and they were able to push two runs across, giving Cal Lutheran the 2-1 lead. A leadoff single by Olivia Leyva was followed by a single from Antonia Rapisardi and a double by Kendall Marinesi, and all of a sudden, CMS was down a run with two innings to play.

Although the Athenas got the tying and go-ahead runs on base in the seventh, Grobecker was unable to pick up her second RBI of the game, grounding out for the final out, and after CMS controlled much of the game, the Regals walked away with a 2-1 win.

The second game was much of the same story. Amarilla took the mound for the Athenas, and she was dominant for the first three innings. However, Cal Lutheran capitalized when Serrano helped her own cause with a game-tying RBI single in the fourth. The away team then took the lead an inning later with a sacrifice fly by Leyva, and CMS once again went into the seventh down 2-1. This led to Spaniac’s final at bat, as she bounced into the fielder’s choice to end the game.

The pair of losses were gutpunches to the Athenas, who have struggled recently. After going 1810 in the SCIAC last season, they currently sit at 8-8 in the conference, with a painful doubleheader sweep by rival Pomona-Pitzer (19-6-1,10-3-1 SCIAC) March 24 still fresh in their minds.

However, catcher Savannah Green CM ’20 doesn’t see any

reason to panic over the Athenas’ recent troubles.

“Honestly [Saturday] was an off day,” Green said. “It’s bound to happen when you play from January to May.” After all, prior to the pair of losses at the hands of the Sagehens, the Athenas had won 10 games in a row, and 13 of their previous 14 matchups.

Green believes CMS will get back to that winning style of play as the season continues.

“I think it we have been pressing a little bit to try to get the results we want,” she said. “We just need to get back to playing loose and trusting our abilities.”

Oaks Garcia is also confident in her team’s ability to turn things around.

“The team is practicing strong and their energy is great,” she said.

“We have a great vibe going on and I am very proud of this team. They have recommitted to their goals we set earlier in the year, and are ready to fight the remainder of the season.”

The Athenas will be back in action April 7, and hope to right the ship with a pair of victories at Whittier College (14-9-1, 7-5 SCIAC).

COMMENTARY

March Madness Wrap-Up: Villanova Solidifies Dynasty Status Danny Klain

After almost a solid month of buzzer-beaters, blowouts, memes, and a nun who probably overstayed her welcome in the national spotlight, March Madness is finally over.

We can roll out the “One Shining Moment” video and hit all the memorable highlights from the tournament. Remember how those valiant UMBC Retrievers and their Twitter account conquered the Goliath Virginia? Or how the Martin twins and their entertaining coach led Nevada to two amazing comebacks?

Ultimately, it seems like this season and tournament might be written into history as the season of chaos. Between an FBI investigation and inconsistent performances that caused upsets and drastically changed the top 25 poll weekly, it was difficult to keep track of everything going on this year.

Even if you were an avid college basketball fan and kept your head on a swivel, it would’ve been impossible to see upsets like Duke and Villanova losing to St. John’s in the same week coming.

But when I think back on this season, I’ll mostly remember Villanova placing itself in the upper echelon of college basketball history.

While some might refute that idea, arguing that Villanova didn’t even win its regular season conference, I would kindly suggest watching both of Villanova’s blowouts over Xavier, and tell me who is the better team.

Courtesy of Youtube.com

The Villanova Wildcats won the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament this past weekend, making this their second title in the past three years and placing them amongst the best in college basketball history.

Simply put, Villanova was in control through most of the Big East tournament, and then hit its stride, putting in one of the best NCAA tournament runs ever: six games, an average margin of victory of 18 points, 84 points a game, shooting 42 percent from behind the arc, and their second national championship in three years.

The Wildcats were the fourth team in NCAA history — first since UNC in 2009 — to win each of their NCAA tournament games by double digits, and the first team since the 1968 UCLA squad coached by the legendary John Wooden and led by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to win both of their Final Four games by 16 points or more. While that number is somewhat arbitrary, it is a margin of victory that certainly

reflects dominance.

While our eyes were focused on Virginia’s suffocating defense, as the Cavaliers rose to the No. 1 overall seed, Villanova was cruising through a weak conference, riding a modern pro-style offense with dominant guard play, athletic big men, and an ability to play defense across all five positions.

People may say the tournament was chaotic, but some of the basketball was downright ugly to watch. Yet whenever Villanova was on the screen, that was not the case. The Wildcats dominated, and they did it in style.

What really matters for Villanova now that the tournament is over is the discussion around its legacy as a program. With this win, does this three-year run designate the

Wildcats as a “dynasty?” Where does Jay Wright rank among active college coaches? Or coaches all time?

Quite frankly, I’m happy for Wright. Three years ago, he was considered one of the biggest choke artists in all of college basketball, known for wasting No. 1 seeds and spending the second weekend of the tournament in the studio. For him to go from this to an esteemed basketball genius is quite a transformation.

And as for the Villanova program, as long as it continues to dominate the remnants of the Big East and stay nationally competitive, I believe it belongs in the highest tier of programs, up with teams like Kentucky, Kansas and Duke.

SPORTS APRIL 6, 2018

PAGE 9

THE STUDENT LIFE

P-P WOMEN’S TENNIS

P-P Women Fall To Williams, Middlebury Noah Shapiro

The Pomona-Pitzer women’s tennis team (7-5, 1-0 SCIAC) struggled against two of the nation’s top teams over the weekend, losing 8-1 to No. 2 Williams College (9-0) and 7-2 to No. 5 Middlebury College (7-1).

Williams has opened the season on a tear, enjoying a 9-0 start and out-scoring its opponents by a combined score of 67-14. The match marked a tough challenge for the Sagehens, who were coming off a 9-0 victory over conference foe California Lutheran University (3-8, 0-1 SCIAC). However, coach Mike Morgan felt his team was prepared.

“Because this team has such a great growth mindset, it actually was not [difficult to prepare].

They did a great job continuing to improve in our match at Cal Lutheran,” Morgan said.

P-P picked up a point early on with a win at No. 1 doubles, thanks to Mary Zhao PO ’18 and Arianna Chen’s PO ’19 hard-fought 8-6 victory. However, they lost the other two doubles matches 8-4 and 8-5.

“It was our first match together as a new doubles team so it was incredibly rewarding to get the win against Williams,” Zhao said. “We played aggressively, took chances when it counted, and it paid off in the big moments.”

The Ephs’ momentum carried over to singles, where they swept the Sagehens 6-0. However, P-P did not go down without a fight, taking three of the matches to a decisive third set.

At No. 3, Summer Garrison PZ ’19 overcame a 6-0 defeat in the first set with a 6-2 victory in the second, before falling 6-3 in the final frame.

At No. 4, Shivani Doraiswami PO ’18 split her first two sets, each decided by a score of 6-3, before losing 6-4.

The most dramatic match of the day came at No. 2 singles, where Zhao took her opponent to a thirdset tiebreaker. Facing a member of the doubles team she’d defeated earlier in the day, Zhao lost the first set 6-4 before winning the second

PZ ‘21 Seattle, Washington

While the Sagehen women’s lacrosse team (9-3, 4-2 SCIAC) only played one game over the past week, Sarah Woo PZ ’21 got her money’s worth in the team’s 21-3 victory over Whittier College. The first-year ran up the scoreboard, tallying six goals on the evening.

While Woo has only played in eight games this season after missing four contests in the middle of the campaign, she has already scored an incredible 26 goals. She will look to add to that total next week, as Pomona-Pitzer takes on Colorado College (9-3) and rival Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (11-1, 5-0 SCIAC).

CMS Athlete of the Week Jojo Sanders • The Student Life

Maryann Zhou PO ‘18 slams home a volley in the Sagehens’ match vs. Middlebury.

7-5 to set up the thrilling finish.

However, she couldn’t hold on, falling 10-6 in the third set.

“Third set tie-breakers are always tough because they go so fast and anything can happen,” Zhao said. “I don’t let myself be bothered if the other girl hits an amazing winner, but I also adopt the mindset that I refuse to miss in this moment.”

Saturday, the Sagehens faced another challenge in Middlebury.

Like Williams, the Panthers began the season in dominant fashion, winning their first six matches by a combined score of 49-5. However, the day before their meeting with P-P, they lost 7-2 to ClaremontMudd-Scripps (17-2, 3-0 SCIAC), so the Sagehens were looking to add to the Panthers’ streak of west coast losses.

The Sagehens gained another early doubles win, this time at No. 2, as Doraiswami and Emily Chen

Courtesy of Brian Sibanda

Pictured above, (from left) Claremont-MuddScripps and Pomona-Pitzer athletes Nick Beatty PO ’18, Evan Hassman HM ’21 and Ethan Ashby PO ’21 race in the 3000-meter steeplechase event March 31 at a SCIAC meet at Whittier College. Hassman finished first, while Ashby finished second and Beatty followed in third.

For the CMS and P-P track and field teams, the meet was very successful overall. Both teams took on Whittier and Cal Lutheran University, and had many strong finishes.

The Sagehen men defeated Cal Lutheran 111 to 37 and Whittier 100 to 62 behind solid performances from jumpers Cal Neikirk PO ’19 and Ethan Hardacre PO ’20. Neikirk took first in the high jump, while Hardacre won the triple jump and long jump.

The P-P women fell to both the Regals and Poets, 89 to 70 and 95 to 63, respectively, but the team posted several impressive in-

Women’s Lacrosse Sarah Woo

CMS, P-P Track And Field Teams Post Impressive Finishes At Whittier College

Hank Snowdon

P-P Athlete of the Week

dividual finishes. Helen Guo PO ’20 took two wins in distance races, dominating the 1500-meters and 5000-meters, while Vicky-Marie AddoAshong PO ’20 came in first in the 100-meter hurdles and the high jump. Guo’s 1500 time of 4:37.73 moves her to fourth in P-P history.

The CMS Stags and Athenas both swept Whittier and Cal Lu. The men won 96.5 to 65.5 and 113 to 36, respectively, while the women won 116.5 to 45.5 and 99 to 62.

The Stags were led by Ben Iten HM ’19, who won the the 800-meter race, and Reese Peterson HM ’20, who was victorious in the shot put and hammer throw.

The Athenas were aided by a record-setting performance from Emily Basset CM ’18, who won the shot put, discus, and hammer throw. Her performance in the hammer throw, 58.90 meters, set a new CMS program record, and is currently the second-furthest distance posted in Division III this year.

CMS and P-P will return to action Saturday at the Pomona-Pitzer Invitational.

PO ’18 won their match 8-5. However, the Ephs recovered, winning at No. 1 and No. 3 by scores of 8-5 and 8-4, respectively.

In singles, Middlebury won five of the matches, all of them coming in straight sets. Zhao was able to snag P-P’s sole singles victory, winning both sets 6-4 to cap off a successful weekend for her individually.

“A lot of my success has come from just being able to track balls well and make the matches really physical. Another thing is that I’m always ready to adjust my strategy on the fly during the match, which is really helpful,” Zhao said.

Despite the lopsided defeats, Morgan said there’s value in facing such talented teams.

“It is such an incredible opportunity to play the best of the best in Division III,” Morgan said.

“It is a perfect barometer to let us see exactly where our strengths

are and what projects we need to improve heading towards the late and post-season.”

Looking ahead to the month of April, six of the Sagehens’ eight matches are against SCIAC teams. These include Chapman (18-6, 2-1 SCIAC), currently on a seven match win-streak, and CMS, ranked No. 3 in the nation.

Entering this critical stretch, the Sagehens hope to learn from their past mistakes.

“We have a few adjustments tactically to add to our games for singles and doubles for the late season to give us the chance to thrive in league and post-season play,” Morgan said. “This team is so dedicated to working hard that I really don’t see it being a huge challenge.”

The Sagehens next take the court in Scholl Canyon April 6 against Occidental (5-6, 1-3 SCIAC).

Women’s Track and Field Emily Bassett

CM ‘18 Mercer Island, Washington In what has been an incredible senior season, Emily Bassett CM ’18 one-upped herself March 31, breaking her own program record in the hammer throw. She threw it 58.90 meters at the SCIAC meet at Whittier College, topping the previous record of 58.53 meters, which she threw last season. The finish is the second-best in NCAA Division III this season, putting Bassett in position to contend for a national championship after finishing as runner-up last season. She also won the shot put and discus at the meet, throwing 11.37 meters and 37.41 meters, respectively.

CMS & P-P WOMEN’S WATER POLO

Sagehens Pull Away From Athenas With Strong Second Half, Remain Undefeated in SCIAC Bryan Williams

The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Athenas (14-9, 7-3 SCIAC) hustled Wednesday evening to keep up with the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens at Axelrood Pool, finishing the first half of the women’s water polo matchup 2-2. However, CMS eventually ran out of gas and sputtered out in the second half, allowing the Sagehens (17-9, 8-0 SCIAC) to take a 11-5 victory, and extend their undefeated record in the SCIAC. CMS coach Greg Lonzo said the Sixth Street rivalry loss was tough for his team, especially given their solid start.

“We played really well for the first half of the game,” Lonzo said.

“In that third quarter though, we missed a couple opportunities that could have really changed the game for us.”

Both teams squandered scor-

ing opportunities and made phenomenal saves to keep the score low in the first half.

P-P coach Alex La was frustrated by the numerous poor shots forced by the CMS defense.

“We had options early that we missed,” La said. “We have to put away those opportunities early and so we won’t have a close game. Ultimately, if you shoot the ball and it misses the cage, it doesn’t even have the chance to get in. I think if we adjusted for this sooner, we could have put them away early.”

Lonzo credited this frustration to formidable defense from the Athenas, highlighting some particular individual performances.

“Jessica Gaffney [CM ’18] played fantastically,” Coach Lonzo said.

“She was all over the pool, hustling, playing really solid defense. I think [Chandlyr Denaro CM ’21] in our goal played also really well ... in the first half she was phenomenal,

making a bunch of saves that really kept us in the game.”

However, as the third quarter quarter began, the game began to slip through the fingers of the Athenas.

“I think missing shots was the difference in the second half,” Lonzo said. “You miss three or four shots, eventually, you get a little frustrated and you make mistakes on defense.”

By the end of the third, P-P had scored four goals to CMS’ one, ending the quarter 6-3. Some notable Sagehen goals included Janelle Lewis PO ’19 ricocheted shot off a defender into the bottom right at 6:27 and a stunner from an impossible angle at 3:32 from Morgan McCracken PO ’18.

In the fourth quarter, the Sagehens’ relentless scoring continued as they piled on five more goals, with CMS only adding two more.

The more margin widened, the

more the audience grew numb to the ball hitting the back of the net.

As the night came to a close, the forlorn Athenas and the ecstatic Sagehens walked to the locker room beneath a scoreboard displaying a bright red 11-5 victory for P-P. Despite the convincing win, P-P remains focused heading into the future.

“Our season is coming down to the wire,” La said. “Continuing to clean up our play each game will keep sharpening our knife.”

CMS, meanwhile, is itching for a rematch. “[P-P] is the number one team in our conference right now so if we do get an opportunity against them again, it’s gonna be in a championship game scenario,” Coach Lonzo said. “We need to ... make sure we’re prepared to finish the season in the top four to give ourselves the chance to win that next game against [P-P].”

Jojo Sanders • The Student Life

Anna Yu PO ’19 (No.2) scores a goal in the Sagehens’ victory over CMS Wednesday night, as her shot sails past goalkeeper Chandlyr Denaro CM ’21.

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