Vol. CXXIX, No. 8

Page 1

Presenting the 2017 joke issue insert.

Pages 7-10

Four pages of comedy in a dark, humorless world. Only in print.

THE

STUDENT

LIFE

The Student Newspaper of the Claremont Colleges Since 1889

CLAREMONT, CA

FRIDAY, MARCH 31, 2017

VOL. CXXIX NO. 8

In Wake of Wabash Report, Mudd Students Demand Immediate Action Kellen Browning

Liam Brooks • The Student Life

A demonstration led by Black Lives and Allies at Harvey Mudd College takes place outside Shanahan Center on Thursday, March 30.

Q&A: NPR’s Guy Raz to Speak at PZ Commencement Amanda Larson Pitzer College announced Thursday that acclaimed National Public Radio journalist Guy Raz will be the commencement speaker for the class of 2017. Raz is currently the host and editorial director for TED Radio Hour, a co-production of TED and NPR, and has worked at NPR for 20 years. Pitzer Senior Class President Chance Kawar PZ ’17 said of Raz, “he has embraced values such as intercultural understanding and interdisciplinary learning throughout his career by creating the kind of thought-provoking content for which [NPR] is well-known and beloved.” Raz will donate the financial compensation recieved from Pitzer to TheDream.US Foundation, which helps undocumented students obtain scholarships to college. Raz talked about his life and why TheDream.US is significant to him in a Q&A with TSL. TSL: How has your journalistic experience informed your perspective of the world that Pitzer students are graduating into, and how do you see that impacting the advice that you have for them? Guy Raz: As a war reporter and a foreign and domestic correspondent for NPR and CNN, I have been fortunate enough to see the worst of humanity and the best. I have seen genuine kindness and generosity in hostile war zones and cruelty and selfishness in the most comfortable and prosperous places... Humans have behaved — more or less — in the same way since we began to spread out across the globe 50,000 years ago. The only difference today is we have created laws and norms that are designed to moderate our behavior. The path we choose as a species always depends on the stakeholders in charge... The question for Pitzer graduates is what kind of

stakeholders do they want to be? TSL: Why have you chosen to donate your keynote speaker award to the Dream.US foundation? What significance does this foundation hold for you? GR: I’m the child of immigrants. Though my parents’ arrival here as students was not fraught nor did it involve fleeing from war or violence, it wasn’t easy. Still, I’m inspired by their story. Immigrants are good for America. Diversity is good for America... TheDream.US provides crucial resources for firstgeneration Americans to attend college. It allows Dreamers and others who do not have the same privileges and opportunities as native-born Americans to attend college and make an impact on their community and country. TSL: What, in your eyes, is the purpose of a commencement address? GR: I’m not here to lay out a template on what a meaningful and fulfilled life is all about. I’m not here to say, ‘hey, follow what I do and you’ll be great!’ but rather to say, ‘you are the source of your own happiness, wisdom and values. You will not find the answers in a guru or wise man/ woman or a public radio host! You will find those answers inside of you as you start to embark on your journey.’ TSL: Why did you want to speak at Pitzer? Why are you excited about it? GR: I’m super excited about coming to Pitzer because Pitzer is a community that values social justice, diversity, an exchange of ideas, and kindness. To me, the most powerful form of resistance and disruption an individual can assert is by being kind. Kindness is resistance in an unkind world.

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More than 300 Harvey Mudd College students, faculty, and staff convened in the Platt Center Wednesday evening for a twohour meeting about an external report — recently obtained and released by TSL — that advocates changes to HMC’s demanding curriculum and includes critical comments from anonymous students and faculty members. In a conversation that ranged from serious to emotional to combative, students, mostly speaking anonymously, aired their grievances and called on the administration to address perceived problems at HMC: a crushing workload, faculty members’ inappropriate comments, a lack of support for women and minorities, and a lack of funding for mental health programs. Many students shared personal anecdotes about times they had been forced to give up hobbies, extracurriculars, and even essential activities like eating and sleeping to concentrate on a mounting pile of work. “I think our objective in the long term really needs to be the balance of being able to do a problem set and also have time to play an instrument or (read) a

book,” one student said. Students condemned sexist, racist, and otherwise inappropriate comments made by faculty; many students demanded that problematic faculty members be dealt with more strictly by the administration, and even called for public denunciation of those professors. One student summed it up: Inappropriate faculty members should “get with it or get lost.” President Maria Klawe, while being peppered with questions from the audience, defended HMC’s track record of dealing with misconduct reports. Klawe said that although students are not privy to private conversations regarding these types of incidents, they do occur. “Humiliating someone (publicly) … is not a positive move forward,” she said, citing research studies. “It might make you feel better, but it’s not actually the best way to change (behavior). “Particularly in personnel issues, there are privacy issues,” Klawe elaborated to TSL after the meeting. “And so there are genuine limitations on how much transparency there can be, and for good reasons. But insofar as transparency as something we

See MUDD page 2

PZ’s Oliver Inaugurated First Black President at 5Cs Julie Tran Pitzer College President Melvin Oliver was officially inaugurated on March 25, making him Pitzer College’s sixth president and the first African American president of the Claremont Colleges. The inauguration began with Interim Dean of Faculty Nigel Boyle welcoming 5C staff, faculty, and students, along with guests such as university professors and presidents from across the country and across the globe, and Oliver’s former students and colleagues. Shahan Soghikian, chair of the Pitzer Board of Trustees and presidential transition committee, was the first to speak about Oliver. He had worked with the president to develop and organize meetings and events, familiarized him with Pitzer College’s mission, priorities, and community, and helped organize the inauguration. “As [the Board of Trustees]

See OLIVER page 3

Pitzer College President Melvin Oliver speaks at his inauguration on March 24, 2017.

MSNBC’S Chris Hayes Tackles Criminal Justice in Scripps Talk Marc Rod Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC’s “All in with Chris Hayes” primetime political talk show, spoke with Scripps College politics professor Vanessa Tyson about his newlypublished book, “A Colony in a Nation,” on Monday at an event at Garrison Theatre. “A Colony in a Nation” details the ways in which policing differs across the United States. Hayes characterizes poorer neighborhoods, frequently occupied by people of color who experience particularly harsh policing, as colonies within the country, with the police acting as an occupying army. “[In] part of this country, law

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enforcement and the law and criminal justice function the way an operating system does on your laptop. It hums in the background,” Hayes said during the event. “In the colony, which [consists of] precincts, largely people of color, but not exclusively, law enforcement functions like a computer virus. ... It intrudes constantly, it disrupts constantly.” Scripps brought Hayes to campus to share his unique perspective on race relations in the United States. “As a long-time journalist, who spent time on the ground reporting from Ferguson, [Hayes’] per-

See HAYES page 3

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Courtesy of Anna Chang

Mentorship Program Connects Indigenous PZ, VIU Students Bethany Humphrey In a recent trip to Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Pitzer college students and staff participated in a mentorship program that emphasizes cultural exchange between Indigenous and First Nations students. The mentorship exchange program, which is part of a budding relationship between Pitzer and Vancouver Island University, aims to share cultural knowledge and foster community connection between native students at both institutions. Participants from Pitzer came from a variety of backgrounds, but several had previous experience connecting

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with native cultures in Vancouver Island and Southern California. The program was made possible by collaboration between Vancouver Island University’s Office of Aboriginal Education and Engagement, staff of Pitzer’s Native Youth to College program, and students from both schools. Pitzer’s group, which consisted of seven students and four staff, had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the inner workings of Vancouver Island University’s Elders-in-Residence program, as well as the ‘Su’luqw’a’ Community Cousins program. Both programs aim to connect First Nations youth to their heritage

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