Vol. CXXX, No. 8

THE STUDENT LIFE FRIDAY, NovembeR 15, 2019 | CLAREMONT, CA | VOL. CXXX NO. 8

‘THIS IS MY HOME’ Claremont joins national protest to save DACA LAUReN WeST They came from classrooms, dining halls and libraries. From jobs in the Village, administrative offices and faculty spaces, 500 people flocked to the steps outside Pomona College’s Frary Dining Hall midday Tuesday, facing a podium flanked by signs reading “Home is here” and “Protect the DREAM.” On the same day the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that will decide the fate of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, 5C students, professors and Claremont community members gathered to support undocumented and DACAmented students, just one display of the nationwide “Home is Here” series of walkouts to protest the Trump administration’s assault on the DACA porgram.

A group of Chicanx Latinx Studies professors and student activists from across the 5Cs stood atop the steps, leading chants and speaking to the

See PRoTeST on page 2

TALIA BERNSTEIN • THE STUDENT LIFE

Left: Organizer Esteban Mogollon PZ ’22 led chants during the rally, including “que vivan los estudiantes,” “abajo Trump” and “sin papeles y sin miedo.”

Top: Rita Cano Alcala, Scripps College associate professor of Chicanx-Latinx Studies, holds a sign that reads “Abolish Gestapo ICE.” bottom: Pomona College President G. Gabrielle Starr attended the protest Tuesday.

Pomona alumna sues Trump Honduras prevents ICE from deporting Pomona alongside other DACA defenders alumnus’ mother, who’s a cancer survivor JASPeR DAvIDoFF & JAImIe DING On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments on the legality of President Donald Trump’s repeal of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Among those challenging the potential repeal was Viridiana Chabolla PO ’13.

Chabolla was in her junior year at Pomona College in 2012 when then-President Barack Obama announced that he would implement DACA through executive action. She applied for and received the designation shortly after, according to a University of California press release.

“I think Pomona was the first place where I felt like I could be open about my status,” Chabolla said. “… It’s

where I first met other individuals who were undocumented and felt very supported by my administration … it’s played a vital role, I think, in where I am now.”

Pomona has joined 164 other higher education institutions, including Claremont McKenna College and Claremont Graduate University, in filing a brief with the Supreme Court defending DACA. During Chabolla’s first month of law school at the University of California, Irvine, Trump announced his plans to scrap the program. Mark Rosenbaum, a civil liberties lawyer and faculty member at Irvine, asked her if she would join a lawsuit challenging

See SCoTUS on page 3

CHLoe mANDeL Two and a half weeks have passed since Cristian Padilla Romero PO ’18 started a petition and GoFundMe to help his mother, a stage 4 cancer survivor currently being held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, escape deportation to Honduras.

ICE allegedly attempted to deport Tania Romero, Cristian’s mother, earlier this week, her son said, but wasn’t able to because Honduras wouldn’t provide the appropriate travel documents, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Originally from Honduras, Tania came to the U.S. as an undoc-

Sagehen women’s soccer dispatches Cal Lu to earn first SCIAC title since 2015 ALLIe GoULD The Pomona-Pitzer women’s soccer team put its postseason woes squarely in the rear-view mirror Saturday afternoon, turning in a sterling performance against Cal Lutheran that earned the Sagehens their first SCIAC title since 2015.

With its 3-0 domination of Cal Lutheran, the nation’s No. 8 team (17-1-1, 12-1 SCIAC) also snagged a bid to the NCAA Division III tournament, giving the program a chance to replicate or improve on its 2016 appearance in the Elite Eight.

It was clear early on that the Sagehens would control the game, as SCIAC Athlete of the Year Bria VarnBuhler PO ’20 scored a statement goal in the fourth minute with an assist from Chloe Hamer PZ ’21.

“We just came out so fast and aggressive and really trying to grab control of the game quickly,” head coach Jennifer Scanlon said. “Scoring an early goal makes a world of difference.”

Hamer added a goal in the 17th minute, putting the Sagehens up 2-0 at the half.

“We just say, ‘come out and win the second 45 minutes,’” Scanlon said. “The goal in those situations is to win the second half over again, and you’re in [a] good position to

close it out.”

P-P did just that. VarnBuhler tallied another goal assisted by Ciannah Correa PO ’22 and goalkeeper Isa Berardo PZ ’20 maintained the shutout with four saves in the second half.

Berardo’s impressive performance throughout the tournament left both opponents goalless and earned them tournament MVP honors.

“My success — it rides on their backs,” Berardo said of their team-

mates. “We do it together, so I’m just excited to keep going with them.”

Cal Lu was the only team to defeat P-P all season, and Hamer acknowledged that Saturday’s victory was “definitely revenge.”

“We wanted to really just play a better game,” Scanlon said of the team’s preparation for the Regals this time around. “We knew in [the loss to Cal Lu] we made a

See NCAA on page 12

COURTESY OF PITZER OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

Brianna Lau PZ ‘20 lifts up the SCIAC Champions placard in celebration while her teammates cheer around her. Pomona-Pitzer won the 2019 SCIAC soccer championship Nov. 9.

LIFE & STYLE With strong vocals, dances by Groove Nation and a surprise performance of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up,” this year’s SCAMFest was a hit. Read more on page 4.

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umented immigrant two decades ago, according to The New York Times. In mid-August of this year, she was pulled over for speeding in Gwinnett County, Georgia, and arrested for not having a driver’s license, Cristian told TSL. ICE allegedly relocated Tania from the Irwin County Detention Center where Tania has been held to an unknown airport but could not deport her because she lacked the necessary travel documents, which the Honduran consulate refused to issue when ICE requested them three weeks ago, Cristian said.

The consulate said it would not provide the papers because it’s investigating whether Tania could receive the medical care she needs should she return to Honduras, the

Journal-Constitution reported.

Records obtained by the Journal-Constitution from Grady Memorial Hospital, where Tania received cancer treatment, indicate that she requires health monitoring and follow-up care over the next four years.

In Honduras, Tania would not only lack the treatment she needs, but also insurance for that treatment, the Atlanta Honduran consul general Angelina Williams told the Journal-Constitution.

“This contradicts one of ICE’s main justifications for not granting her a stay of deportation, as they claim she would have access to the necessary care,” Cristian wrote in the statement.

See ICe on page 3

Students to protest, demand Scripps sign climate commitment JULIA FRANKeL A student demonstration calling for Scripps College to sign onto a national “carbon commitment” — a climate pledge signed by the other four Claremont Colleges and 329 other colleges and universities nationwide — will take place on the Scripps Bowling Green Lawn on Friday from 2 to 4 p.m.

Signing the Second Nature Climate commitment would signify Scripps’ pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve carbon neutrality as soon as possible, according to the commitment document. The document says that signed colleges must develop a comprehensive climate action plan, identify a target date for achieving carbon neutrality and submit an annual evaluation of progress to the Climate Leadership Network.

“We demand that Scripps listen to its community! … It’s

OPINIONS

time to finally take action — commit to accountability and transparency with our carbon emissions, and acknowledge our contributions to global climate destruction and environmental justice,” flyers handed out by student organizers Nov. 8 said.

A petition for the college to sign the commitment created by student activists has been signed by 1,016 people as of Thursday.

The petition has also been signed by several Scripps professors, according to the website, including German professor Marc Katz, politics professor Thomas Kim and Humanities Institute director Myriam Chancy.

Pitzer College, Pomona College and Claremont McKenna College signed the commitment in 2007; Harvey Mudd College signed it in 2008.

In May, CMC students supported advancing its reduction goal from 2050 to 2030 in the first ASCMC resolution passed in over four years.

SPORTS

The rise of celebrities with no political experience running for the presidency, like Marianne Williamson and Donald Trump, poses a worrying trend, says Megan Chourreau-Lyon. Read more on page 7.

The CMS volleyball team won its third straight SCIAC championship and punched its ticket to the NCAA tournament. Read more on page 10.

INDEX: News 1 | Life & Style 4 | Opinions 7 | Sports 10

News

PAGE 2

PROTEST: Students call for schools to adopt sanctuary status Continued from page 1 large crowd below.

Carla Condori Bazan PZ ’20 opened the event, leading a call-andresponse.

“Home is here!” she yelled.

“Protect the dream!” hundreds responded, waving signs in the air enthusiastically.

“I feel like organizing events like this and just bringing people together, seeing numbers and seeing the support that undocumented students are having on campus is super important,” Condori Bazan said in an interview with TSL before the rally. “Nationally and historically … [administrations] abuse [and] subjugate migrants and put them on a level such that they’re less than any American.”

Under the Obama-era DACA policy, nearly 800,000 people who came to the U.S. illegally as children were given protection from deportation, according to data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Two years ago, President Donald Trump moved to end the program.

Three appeals courts have sided against the administration in challenges to Trump’s decision so far, according to The Hill.

The Supreme Court will release its decision on the program’s fate before its term ends in June 2020, but it’s plausible its conservative majority could side with Trump, according to The New York Times.

Pomona, Claremont McKenna College, Claremont Graduate University and 162 other educational institutions filed a brief to the Supreme Court defending DACA on Oct. 4.

One of Condori Bazan’s primary goals, she said, is for all 5Cs to become sanctuary schools.

Though only Scripps College and Pitzer College have declared themselves to be sanctuary schools — all 5Cs have said they will refuse to comply with federal requests for information about students’ immigration status or to permit immigration enforcement activities on campus unless legally required to by court order, according to previous TSL coverage.

“We need to rise up and make our voices heard,” said Scripps professor and chair of the intercollegiate department of Chicanx-Latinx studies Rita Cano Alcala, who attended the event. “We can’t give in and be overwhelmed. It’s very hard not to be.

But I think that coming together and feeling the energy and the solidarity helps us to hope that together, we can

bring about change.”

Jojo Sanders SC ’20, another attendee, emphasized the significance of these types of events.

“It’s really important to see other people gathering for something like this, to internalize it. …

To show up for the community, for people here at the colleges and in the greater area,” she said.

Gilda Ochoa, a Pomona professor of Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies and speaker at the rally, condemned what she called a long history of immigrant exploitation in America.

“We know this as the revolving door policy of the state … it has served the economic interests of the power elite. They have adamantly recruited workers from Mexico in the 1920s and 1940s and the 1970s,” she said to the protesters. “And yet when there have been economic downturns, we know there’s a massive, blatant scapegoating of immigrants and further deportation.”

Call-and-response chants of “No DACA,” with the crowds calling out “No peace” were ringing in the ears of advocates, along with shouts of “undocumented and unafraid,” led by student organizer Esteban Mogollon PZ ’22.

“You remember those words when you leave today,” Mogollon said.

Pomona President G. Gabrielle Starr attended the rally, sitting on the steps with a cohort of students and administrators, quietly watching speakers as they addressed the crowd.

“For everyone in our community affected by the ongoing uncertainty over DACA: We support you and we stand with you,” she said in a statement to the Pomona community last week. “In the quest for true social justice, the Dreamers’ struggle epitomizes the highest aspirations and ideals of our nation. We must keep pressing for action on this urgent issue affecting hundreds of thousands of young people.”

The Immigrants Rights Coalition, a group of Claremont students supporting refugees and asylum seekers, started a GoFundMe on Sunday to help undocumented students and DACAmented students — who are ineligible for federal student aid — pay for tuition, textbooks and other living expenses. The fund had raised more than $1,700 as of Wednesday night.

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Senior Staff JAmeS KARSTeN, Production Editor HeLeNA oNG, Senior Design Editor SAm bovARD, News Designer GRACe SAUeRS, Life & Style Designer mARGoT mAFRA SPeNCeR, Opinions Designer CAmeRoN TIPToN, Sports Designer TALIA beRNSTeIN, Photo Editor JUSTIN SLePPY, Photo Editor ANAGA SRINIvAS, Graphics Editor

KeLLeN bRoWNING, Editor-at-Large JAImIe DING, News Editor JULIA FRANKeL, News Editor JASPeR DAvIDoFF, News Associate AmbeR CHoNG, Life & Style Editor YASmIN eLQUTAmI, Life & Style Editor DoNNIe DeNome, Opinions Editor eAmoN moRRIS, Opinions Editor LANeY PoPe, Sports Editor mADY CoLANTeS, Copy Chief

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NOVEMBER 15, 2019

Student activists push Pomona to divest from funds tied to fossil fuels

ALYSSA LEONG • THE STUDENT LIFE

Claremont community members participate in a climate change strike on the corner of Indian Hill Boulevard and Foothill Avenue on Sept. 20.

HAIDee CLAUeR & mARIA HeeTeR Student activists have rekindled the Claremont Colleges’ fossil fuel divestment movement this semester and are focusing their attention on pressuring Pomona College to divest its endowment from fossil fuel interests.

Students in Pitzer College’s “Energy and Humanity: Past Present Future” class started Divest Claremont Colleges in September to push for Pomona’s institutional divestment from fossil fuels, or withdrawal of school investments from fossil fuel corporations, according to Julianna Diebel PZ ’23.

Student activism helped persuade Pitzer College to divest its endowment from fossil fuels in 2014.

The student movement calls for the board of trustees at each of the 5Cs to “announce their intention to institutionally divest from all companies involved in the extraction of fossil fuels,” according to the group’s petition.

So far, Divest Claremont Colleges has focused on Pomona, “but we hope that as more students at CMC, Harvey Mudd and Scripps join ... we can begin working on the other colleges,” says Divest Claremont Colleges’ “Nuts and Bolts of Divestment” document, written by Malcolm McCann PZ ’21 and other student leaders.

“Right now, we’re just focusing on Pomona,” co-leader McCann said. “If we get one of the most influential colleges to divest, it will help facilitate the conversation better than if we disperse.”

In 2014, divestment campaigns were brought to Pomona’s Board of Trustees, but were ultimately unsuccessful.

The petition, published Oct. 17, has been signed by over 450 students, faculty, trustees, alumni and community members as of Nov. 1, and has support from director of UCLA’s Center for Climate Science Alex Hall PO ’93, the keynote speaker at a 5C United Nations Day celebration Oct. 24.

“I think it’s time to divest,” Hall said. “Pomona should be a leader, not a follower.”

McCann said the group aims to secure Pomona’s divestment

by April 2020.

“By owning part of a fossil fuel company, Pomona is com-

plicit in their actions,” McCann said.

Representatives from the group met with the Pomona President’s Advisory Committee on Sustainability on Nov. 12, according to Pomona sustainability assistant director Alexis Reyes.

Reyes declined to comment on divestment at Pomona.

Cambridge Associates, a private investment firm that manages Pomona’s $2.3 billion endowment, previously predicted a loss of $485 million over 10 years to Pomona’s operating budget if Pomona were to divest at the time, prompting then-president David Oxtoby to oppose divestment, TSL reported in 2013.

Pomona’s current Chief Investment Officer Dave Wallace said divestment is still impractical because 90 percent of Pomona’s endowment is in “commingled funds,” which include shares of various different corporations — including, but not limited to, fossil fuel companies — and in which Pomona’s money is pooled with other entities’ and managed externally by hired private asset managers.

Returns on Pomona’s investments provide 45 percent of Pomona’s operating budget, according to treasurer Karen Sisson. These returns are the largest source of Pomona’s revenue, unlike the other Claremont Colleges, which are primarily funded by student tuition and private contributions, according to their 2018 audited financial statements.

McCann said the group is pushing for Pomona investors to seek fossil fuel-free options within their commingled funds.

“We’re asking them to go to the fund managers and actually ask,” McCann said.

Cambridge Associates has various “mission-driven” fund plans, according to its website, but it’s unclear if they’re fossil fuel-free.

Cambridge Associates declined to respond to TSL questions about whether Pomona has shown interest in these funds.

Pomona President G. Gabrielle Starr told the coalition in public office hours Oct. 8 that the college could not divest from these commingled funds, according to McCann.

Starr’s office did not respond to TSL questions regarding divestment.

Divest Claremont Colleges is also targeting Pomona’s investments that aren’t in commingled funds — which include bonds,

donor-restricted funds and funds directed by the board of trustees, according to Wallace.

Sisson said using Pomona’s endowment as a “policy tool” — instead of focusing on getting the highest-returning investments — could put need-blind admissions and need-based financial aid at stake. She said Pomona should focus on other sustainability goals instead, such as minimizing jet travel and buying more environmentally conscious academic materials.

“We see not divesting as an even worse political statement,” McCann said. “We should be stigmatizing the fossil fuel industry … climate change should totally reorient how we look at the world and the power structures in our world.”

Sisson said the investment office considers investing in funds that factor in the environmental, social and governmental impacts of their investments — which are often called “ESGs” and are generally fossil fuel-free — especially when they are more profitable for the endowment.

Wallace said the investment office partially invests in ESGs, but “our primary consideration with any new investment is its ability to generate the best possible risk-adjusted return to help fund the college’s budget and enable Pomona to fund its institutional goals, including carbon neutrality.”

According to previous TSL coverage, Pitzer invested $58 million of their $135 million endowment in 2017 into an ESGs index fund launched through private asset management firm BlackRock.

“We do not feel the divestiture has had a negative impact on performance due to the variety of investment choices available today,” Pitzer vice president for finance and administration and treasurer Laura Troendle said in an email to TSL. Within the externally managed commingled funds, Sisson said some investments span as many as 14 years and include fines for withdrawing early, making immediate divestment difficult.

Sisson added that “we don’t represent a large enough share in some of those funds to make a difference” on the funds’ investment practices.

Claremont McKenna College’s and Harvey Mudd College’s spokespeople did not specifically respond to TSL’s questions about investment in fossil fuels and ESGs. Scripps College assistant treasurer Diane Holmes did not specify whether fossil fuels are taken into consideration in managing its investments in commingled funds.

HMC requires mentors to report sexual assaults to Title IX office STeFFI LARSoN CW: sexual assault Harvey Mudd College mentors — older students who live in dorms with first years to support them and plan events — are now required to report to administrators any incidents of sexual assault and suicidal ideation about which they’re told, officials said.

The move, which re-classifies the mentors as “responsible employees,” was made because they started leading first-year orientation trips this year, according to Leslie Hughes, HMC assistant vice president for student affairs and interim title IX coordinator.

Previously, the mentors weren’t responsible employees and could choose whether to report the aforementioned situations, Hughes said.

“Because our mentors now go on overnight trips with our firstyear students in lieu of orientation leaders, and because they serve in year-long roles that students may reasonably assume hold the authority to address prohibited conduct, it was important for us to follow the law related to who is

classified as responsible employees on our campus,” she said.

Title IX defines a “responsible employee” as those who have “the authority to take action to redress sexual violence ... or whom a student could reasonably believe has this authority or duty,” according to a Department of Education information packet.

Mentors are student leaders within dorms who put on events, create community and serve as peer advisors to freshmen and sophomores, according to Mudd’s residential life webpage.

Unlike proctors — Mudd’s equivalent of other schools’ residential advisors — mentors do not have disciplinary obligations, and the position is voluntary, according to mentor Marzieh Barnes HM ’22.

Proctors have always been responsible employees, she said.

Barnes was initially concerned that being a responsible employee would discourage her first-years from reaching out to her.

“It’s something that definitely worried me a lot initially ... [my freshmen] might not think I’m approachable, they won’t want

to come to me with things, this might be really bad,” she said.

But being a responsible employee hasn’t affected her role much so far, according to Barnes.

“I still get a good amount of my freshmen coming to me with things that are more personal,” she said.

Part of mentors’ training this year concerned their new role as responsible employees, according to Hughes. This included acting out what to say to freshmen who seemed like they might be on the verge of disclosing information that mentors would have to report, Barnes said.

Mentors can also point students toward other confidential resources, like the HMC Advocates for Survivors of Sexual Assault, who Barnes said might be better equipped to handle disclosures of sexual assault.

“If it’s something related to sexual assault, in my opinion, it’s probably better to point them to the Advocates anyway,” she said.

Lily Friedberg HM ’20, an HMC Advocate, said this places an unexpected burden on Advocates in the beginning of the

DOMENICO OTTOLIA • THE STUDENT LIFE

Harvey Mudd College mentor Marzieh Barnes HM ’22 walks into the Division of Student Affairs office. Mentors are now required to report sexual misconduct and suicidal ideation to administrators.

semester.

“There are three Advocates this year and [over] 30 mentors who used to share the work with us,” she said.

Orientation trip leaders at Pitzer College and Pomona College, which also have overnight trips, are also required to report sexual assault, as are RAs at Claremont McKenna College,

Pitzer and Pomona and Resident Coordinators, according to students in each of these positions and previous TSL reporting.

Claremont McKenna College’s First Year Guides “are not designated as responsible employees, but they do send reports to the Title IX or Dean of Students offices,” CMC vice president of student affairs Sharon Basso said via email.

News

NOVEMBER 15, 2019

PAGE 3

ICE: Son asks politicians to help Continued from page 1 Tania’s case — and Cristian’s advocacy — have garnered national attention, and politicians like former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams have tweeted support for Tania.

The online petition urging Tania’s release has attracted more than 37,900 signatures, and the GoFundMe campaign has raised $39,295 for her legal and medical bills.

Cristian told TSL that Tania sought medical attention Tuesday and was told to make a request for care, which would have taken two to three days.

“Instead, we told our attorney to make a formal request to the warden because of the urgency of the matter,” he said.

Tania was taken to an offsite facility Wednesday for a brief checkup before being transported back to

the detention center, according to Cristian.

“We see it as more them covering their bases as opposed to doing what we’re asking,” Cristian said.

His girlfriend, Anayansi Alatorre Romo PO ’20, said Tania received a similar “check-up” last week.

“What we need is for her to be released to go see her oncologist, granted that she missed an appointment in September,” she said.

Cristian said the family posted bail. But instead of being released, Tania was transferred to the detention center.

While in the detention center, Tania filed for a motion to reopen her case, her son said. But a judge rejected the motion last month, and the family found out about a week later.

She’s currently trying to get her case reconsidered.

Cristian, who’s currently a doctorate student at Yale University, talked to Connecticut Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Representative Rosa Delauro and Georgia Representative Lucy McBath about the situation.

“They were positive; they seemed willing to support and do whatever they can do in regards to her case and getting her released,” he told TSL. “We’re still in communication, but overall it was very positive.”

Pomona President G. Gabrielle Starr also reached out to the offices of two local members of Congress two weeks ago regarding the situation, according to Pomona spokesperson Mark Kendall.

Nevertheless, Cristian said he’s increasingly concerned about his mother’s safety and medical con-

dition.

“My mom’s not doing well. ...

Monday was a very traumatic experience, physical and emotional,” he said. “We’re really urging them to release her now.”

Cristian said he came to the U.S. when he was 7 years old after his mother arrived beforehand.

He’s an undocumented immigrant but protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which the Supreme Court is currently considering overturning.

On Tuesday, the Court heard oral arguments in the case while around 500 Claremonters gathered on the steps outside Pomona College’s Frary Dining Hall in solidarity with DACAmented students, many of them carrying signs with “Free Tania now” in capital letters.

5Cs form ‘RegEn’ sustainability coalition HAIDee CLAUeR & mARIA HeeTeR For the first time in history, the 5Cs have formed a unified sustainability coalition with representatives from all the Claremont Colleges called RegEn. The coalition’s goal is to create a lasting partnership among the 5Cs to foster collaboration and create a more centralized and powerful movement to withstand the high turnover of student activists who leave after graduation, Eric Warmoth CM ’22 said.

RegEn, which stands for “regenerative environmentalism,” includes sustainability representatives from each of the five student governments (ASHMC Senate, Scripps Associated Students, ASCMC Senate, ASPC and Pitzer Student Senate) and different clubs on campus, according to Emily Kuhn PZ ’22, a Pitzer sustainability representative.

The group also includes Pomona College’s EcoReps, Engineers for a Sustainable World, Scripps College’s Environmental Education and Development, Claremont McKenna College’s EcoReps and members of Sunrise Claremont Colleges, a local chapter of a nationwide environ-

mental movement, according to Kuhn and Maggie Thompson SC ’20, Scripps’ sustainability chair.

It hasn’t been officially registered as a club yet, according to Kuhn, but eventually wants to institutionalize so that “every year no matter what” the environmental representatives continue to meet, according to Kuhn.

“The whole point of [RegEn] is for us to come together and share what each of our schools is working on, what our struggles are and how we can all help fill in the gaps for each other and work collectively to make our work more powerful,” Kuhn said.

RegEn started as a group chat between campus sustainability leaders at the beginning of the past fall semester as a way to get to know each other, RegEn member Julia McCartan SC ’21 said.

“It was totally time for these groups to unite and understand each other more,” McCartan said.

“It doesn’t make sense for sustainability to be divided among the campuses.”

Andrew Bradjan CM ’22 and Warmoth, along with other environmental justice student activists at CMC and across the 5Cs, are

part of this sustainability coalition.

“The best thing for sustainability that can happen is working with the other colleges to boost each other up,” Bradjan said.

Thompson said she hopes the coalition will create a “cultural shift” to ingrain environmentalism into the 5Cs. “The institutions have a responsibility to acknowledge their roles as educators and entities that produce a lived experience for students,” she said. “... They are complicit in maintaining a framework in which the natural world stands marginal. It should be fundamental.”

ASHMC sustainability directors Skylar Gering HM ’22 and Ingrid Tsang HM ’22, are both members of the coalition and hope to integrate initiatives as early as first-year orientation to “make it as easy as possible to make sustainable choices” at Harvey Mudd College, Gering said.

These initiatives, Tsang said, would include setting guidelines for running events sustainably, expanding support for the Hixon Center for Sustainable Environmental Design — which provides courses, research and data gather-

ing on sustainability, according to HMC spokesperson Judy Augsburger — and creating a full-time sustainability office.

Warmoth and Bradjan also hoped RegEn could push for sustainability coordinators and offices to be hired at Mudd, Pitzer College and CMC. McCartan also hopes to push Scripps to hire a full-time sustainability coordinator. Institutionalizing long-term sustainability offices and policies can aid and encourage students to make better environmental choices, Tsang said.

Tsang said “the student body really does care” and that she hopes to utilize RegEn in “integrating sustainability into every aspect of our lives instead of a separate thing, or something that seems inconvenient.”

Thompson agreed.

“Students are demanding that our lives on these campuses reflect the truth that the climate is changing, the truth that we are complicit and the truth that we have the agency here to act on that change,” she said. “We have agency to create the place that we want to live in.”

TALIA BERNSTEIN • THE STUDENT LIFE

RegEn, a group formed this year to bring sustainability leaders together from across the 5Cs, contains members from student governments, EcoReps and sustainability clubs.

SCOTUS: Conservative majority may side with Trump Continued from page 1 the repeal.

Chabolla said she was “very scared” about the initial request.

However, she eventually decided she was in a good position to join the lawsuit after consulting with friends and other people.

“I’m in law school, I have a very supportive network of not only friends and family and allies but lawyers,” she said. “I knew I had a network of people backing me up.”

Chabolla became one of six DACA recipients to file suit against the Trump administration in September 2017. Their case, Garcia v.

United States of America, along with four other lawsuits filed in California, scored a victory in January 2018 when a U.S. federal judge issued a court order blocking the repeal.

“It felt like … we’re affirming that as a DACA recipient, as an immigrant, this is my home, this is where I deserve to be, where I’ve built my life,” Chabolla said. “It felt really great.”

The combined DACA cases made their way to the Supreme Court this week, where the court’s conservative majority may side with the Trump administration and allow it to shut the program down, according to The New York Times.

“It’s been a rollercoaster, I mean being at the Supreme Court was surreal,” Chabolla said. “It just really goes to show, being in D.C., being in the place where all the decisions are being made really solidified the idea that really, what we need is congressional movement for immgration reform, not only for DACA but for our families.”

Chabolla has long been interested in law as a way to fix systemic issues with immigration, she said in an article on UCI Law School’s website in 2017. She was brought from Mexico to the United States at the age of two, according to a filing for the Supreme Court case.

Her experience growing up around community challenges in East Los Angeles led her to study sociology and Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies at Pomona, where she volunteered to help students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds attain college access, the filing said.

After graduating from Pomona, Chabolla worked as a community organizer with Public Counsel, a large pro bono law firm, before receiving a fellowship to attend UCI Law. “The termination of DACA … will frustrate Ms. Chabolla’s ability to fulfill her dream of working as a lawyer and helping individuals from disadvantaged and underrepresented communities obtain justice through the legal system,” lawyers for the people suing the administration wrote in the filing.

In addition to her DACA status, Chabolla now has legal residency through marriage, according to the University of California press release. But she hopes her case can help change the lives of the hundreds of thousands of undocumented people in the United States.

“The Supreme Court is certainly not the end,” Chabolla said. “… For those without [DACA] status and families without [DACA] status, everybody should remember that we’re also fighting for them, and that we should be fighting for them, not just those who have DACA.”

Pomona to review student-faculty relationship policy JAImIe DING Relationships between students and faculty/staff at Pomona College are currently permitted under certain conditions. But they may not be come 2020, as the school plans to review and possibly change the policy.

At a Nov. 6 meeting, Pomona faculty voted for the Faculty Executive Committee, a governing body with seven faculty members, to review the policy, which was implemented in 2012.

The policy currently states that Pomona faculty and staff are “prohibited from pursuing or engaging in any romantic and/or sexual relationships with students of the Claremont Colleges” unless the faculty or staff member discloses the relationship or potential relationship to the dean of the college and dean of students — in the case of faculty — or to the chief financial officer and dean of students — in the case of staff.

The individual in question must also prove that they’re not presently teaching, advising, supervising, coaching or evaluating the student in any way and have never or will likely never have any sort of “professional responsibility” for the student, according to the faculty handbook.

They must also demonstrate that the potential relationship presents no “reasonable likelihood, presently or in the future, of ad-

versely affecting the educational environment for this or for any other student, or of creating an appearance of bias, conflict of interest, favoritism, unfair academic advantage or disadvantage or undue access to or restriction from opportunities at the College,” the handbook states.

Consensual relationships between students and faculty or staff members which have been disclosed to the college and fit these characteristics are permitted.

“It’s very hard to imagine circumstances outside of a pre-existing relationship … It’s very hard for me to imagine a circumstance in which there would be no possibility of there being, having some sort of professional responsibility,” Pomona President G. Gabrielle Starr said at the meeting. “... It just seems almost impossible there could be no conflict of interest, either actual or apparent.”

Interim Dean of the College Robert Gaines, who took on the position in July, said he suggested the school review the policy. He’s been going over the faculty handbook since taking on his new role.

“President Starr and I agree that our current policy discourages consensual relationships, but does not prohibit them in every case,” Gaines said via email.

“We believe our policy should go further in prohibiting romantic relationships between faculty or staff and students, considering

the dynamics of power inherent in such relationships.”

Staff Council, a governing body for Pomona staff, also supported reviewing this policy, faculty executive committee chair Daniel O’Leary said. He’s also notified ASPC of this review process, and student input will be taken into account.

We believe our policy should go further in prohibiting romantic relationships between faculty or staff and students.

Robert Gaines

“I’m confident that the Faculty Executive Committee will work diligently to ensure that faculty, staff and students are included in the revision process,” ASPC President Miguel Delgado-Garcia PO ’20 said in an email.

Selena Lopez PO ’22 said she wasn’t previously aware of this policy, but was “a bit disturbed” by the fact that any relationships were allowed between faculty/ staff and students.

“Even though there are some restrictions, I think it’d be best to change the policy and I’m glad

faculty has motioned to change the policy,” Lopez said via message. “There should [be] a clear divide between students and staff, mostly because it is inappropriate, in my opinion, for these relationships to exist. I know there are a lot of different opinions, because, after all, we’re all adults, but something about it being allowed puts me in unease.”

Professors present at the faculty meeting also voiced support for a change in policy, or at least a review process.

“I think most of us are aware that it is very difficult for a faculty/ student relationship to be truly consensual,” professor Eric Lindholm, who was on the executive committee in 2012, said via email.

The policy on consensual relationships prior to 2012 was established in 1994 and states: “As a matter of professional ethics, faculty members should avoid potential conflict between their professional responsibilities and personal interests in their relationships with students. Faculty members will refrain from having a sexual relationship with or making sexual overtures to students whom they teach, advise, evaluate or supervise in any way,” according to Janise Roselle, Pomona associate dean for academic affairs.

O’Leary said the written rationale for changing the policy in 2012 cited “upticks in problematic relationships.”

However, the reason for the potential change this time isn’t in response to any cases of inappropriate relationships or harassment, Gaines said.

The review process will end by May 2020, and any change to the policy would have to be approved by the Board of Trustees, O’Leary said.

Scripps College, Claremont McKenna College, Pitzer College and Harvey Mudd College have similar policies, allowing for consensual student-faculty relationships only if the faculty member has no academic, employment, administrative or other form of responsibility for the student.

HMC’s policy also explicitly bans relationships between students and staff currently supervising them.

Scripps’ policy extends this prohibition in cases where the faculty has “exercised authority in the past, currently exercise authority or are likely to do so in the future.”

CMC’s policy likewise bans relationships in cases where individuals “should reasonably expect to have” a supervisory role over students and instructs faculty to disclose past or current relationships with students to the dean of faculty.

The other schools’ policies do not provide guidelines for faculty to report current relationships with students they do not supervise — only Pomona includes this provision.

Life & StyLe

PAGE 4

NovEmbEr 15, 2019

Student theater group puts on all-female production of ‘The Wolves’ KEATON SCHILLER Chanting, warm-ups, peptalks, stretching and lots of soccer balls. No, this isn’t the Pomona-Pitzer or Claremont-Mudd-Scripps soccer squads — it’s “The Wolves,” the high school girls’ soccer team featured in the Claremont Colleges’ most recent play.

Put on by the 5C student-run theater company The Green Room, “The Wolves” premiered Nov. 7 and was performed for four nights.

Like most productions from The Green Room, “The Wolves” was shown in the Seaver Theatre Large Studio at Pomona College.

But unlike many previous productions, the play transformed the stage into a truly green room — the stage mimicked a grassy turf field, and each scene took place during the practices of the high school girls’ soccer team, also known as The Wolves.

Furthermore, unlike most theater shows, both the cast and crew of “The Wolves” were all women.

Stage manager Claire Van Note PO ’22 explained that although they’re only seen interacting on the soccer field, the characters’ dialogue still provides the audience with a clear glimpse into the lives of high school girls. With topics ranging from politics and gossip to body image and abortion, “The Wolves” displays all facets of these players’ lives, however big or small.

“I think [the play] is very reminiscent of those days growing up, [where] conversations go from genocides in the Middle East to what party is happening that weekend,” Van Note said. “It’s really amazing to see a window into young girls’ minds that …

we don’t see in popular culture [very often].”

Actor Hava Sprung PZ ’23, who played the character #7, explained that although the play is about high schoolers, “The Wolves” can still feel relevant to 5C students.

“We’re not that far away from 16,” she said. “Even in college, you have to figure out who you are socially, figure out who you are with your friends and figure out how to craft your own independent identity.”

When writing “The Wolves,” playwright Sarah DeLappe had the distinct goal to display females as multi-dimensional, complex characters. While pop culture can depict women as only being a certain pre-destined archetype — the brain, the beauty, the funny friend — DeLappe sought to make her characters well-rounded, calling them “an amalgamation of all of the teenage girls I’ve known, loved, hated and admired” in an interview with theater website ONSTAGE+.

Cast member Ella de Castro SC ’23, who played the role of #2, particularly enjoyed this realistic aspect of “The Wolves,” believing it made the play relatable to members of the audience.

“I think of ‘The Wolves’ as one person with many different parts of their personality,” she said. “[In this way], I think that all of the characters are relatable to everyone, because [they represent] different parts of the self and how those parts work together and also how other parts do not.”

Many of the play’s cast members appreciated that the play was led by a student, Isabella Waldron SC ’20. There can of-

mADDIE rUbIN-CHArLESWorTH • THE STUDENT LIFE

“The Wolves,” a play put on by the 5C student-run theater company The Green room, premiered Nov. 7 and tells the story of a high school girls’ soccer team.

ten be a gap of experience and communication between director and cast in faculty-led productions, so having someone like Waldron in charge created a more open and collaborative environment throughout the production process, cast members said.

Sienna Ross PZ ’22, who played the role of “Soccer Mom,” said Waldron helped foster actors’ creativity and eliminated a fear of failure that was present in other shows in which she had participated.

‘Live your best life’: More than just a saying for 5C student-run record label

“In faculty shows … there [is] a lot more pressure to get it right on the first try,” Ross said.

“What I really liked about Isabella is that she’d often say, ‘just play with that,’ or ‘try something else today.’ There’s a lot more freedom to experiment.”

Along with moments of laughter and lightness, “The Wolves” also deals with intense and sensitive issues like grief, isolation, body image, bullying and the struggle to find one’s identity. Because of this, “The Wolves” requires a space where

SCAMFest 2019 wows audience with strong performances JAIMIE DING

LUbA mASLIY • THE STUDENT LIFE

Kevin Woods PZ ’22 is a hip hop artist working with Live Your best Life records (LYbL), a student-run record label based at Pitzer College that represents 5C student musicians.

KIRA MATTHEWS Live Your Best Life Records wants people to do exactly that — live their best life. Here at the 5Cs, the student-based record label is working toward that goal by supporting student artists through an inclusive and encouraging environment.

LYBL, which was formed in fall 2018 and is based at Pitzer College, aims to “support student artists by funding artist platforms, promoting releases and hosting events,” according to its Facebook page.

LYBL hosted its launch concert at the Pitzer Apron in October 2018 and has since continued to organize concerts at the 5Cs to support student artists.

LYBL currently represents 12 artists on multiple platforms, which include SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Music, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, and a wide array of genres.

Kaylyn Wright PZ ’21, who cofounded LYBL with Ralph Gustavo Zamora PZ ’21 and Cam Cocking PZ ’21, said he got the idea for the label during summer 2018 after becoming aware of the large community of student musicians and getting immediate positive feedback after asking friends if they were interested in a student-run label.

“Everybody seemed really excited immediately, so we … started a club,” he said.

Wright explained that LYBL’s significance goes deeper than just a college club — it’s also about being able to reflect the identities and experiences of its represented musicians.

“On a deeper level, [LYBL] is a movement,” he said. “For me, [wanting to start LYBL] came from a place of struggling with being a queer black male, being … mixed — all my conflicting identities.”

As a result, Wright said he wants to use music to help people see how they can be their authentic selves and live their best lives, “regardless of what boxes that they’re put in.”

Kevin Woods PZ ’22 is one of

LYBL’s hip hop artists. He said he joined the label as a first-year and is now going to LYBL leader meetings as well as helping with sound design and technology.

“The meaning behind [LYBL] is ... to foster greater support towards art and [do] what you love to do to the best of your ability [while] having … people to support you through that,” he said.

Sharrieff Muhammad PZ ’21 is another hip hop artist working with LYBL. He said the label runs on a delicate balance between school and work schedules.

I feel like [LYBL] is going to be a really big movement, and I’m really excited for what’s going to happen.

Kevin Woods PZ ‘22

“It’s … trying to find the perfect [balance] of the work,” he said. “From Monday through Wednesday, [I’m] doing all [my] schoolwork, and then Wednesday to Sunday morning [I’m] doing everything for [our] art and making sure that … we’re not falling behind.”

Muhammad also emphasized the community and collective aspirations of LYBL. By aiming to create a positive and inclusive space, he hopes LYBL embodies the meaning of “life your best life.”

“We … move together as one,” he said. “There’s no ‘I’ in team here. We’re [making] sure that everybody feels like they have a place here and that everybody’s involved if they want to be.”

LYBL also puts on concerts that strive to emulate professional events, Wright said.

The label’s most recent event

was the 5C Halloween Party at the Pitzer Clock Tower. Wright said the concert had “the most people that have ever been out to Pitzer, which was wild to hear from [Campus Security].”

Woods said LYBL is thoughtful in ensuring that events run smoothly and represent a variety of voices and perspectives.

Last semester, it did a workshop about gender inequality in the music industry and regularly hosts recording and production workshops that are open to the public.

“We’re trying to teach people how to work with music, [whether they] are interested in DJing or interested in producing [and] songwriting,” Wright said.

In regards to the future of LYBL, Wright hopes to solidify their label at the 5Cs before venturing into the music scene in Los Angeles.

“We’re just focusing on being the best that we can [be] at Pitzer and the 5Cs and developing ourselves as leaders [and] as artists in whatever positions we are in,” Wright said. “Then [we] plan on really [helping] develop people who are interested in [entering] the music industry. We’re going to start doing shows in L.A., making contacts and doing networking events.”

Muhammad also expressed wanting to take LYBL off-campus eventually. He said spreading the message of living your best life “globally” is one of the big goals for LYBL. Woods echoed this sentiment and placed an emphasis on staying inclusive.

“I feel like [LYBL] is going to be a really big movement, and I’m really excited for what’s going to happen,” Woods said. “I just hope that after we [graduate] we make sure that we put the movement in hands that will make sure to be inclusive and foster the idea of bettering yourself and bettering your own art.”

cast members can feel comfortable being vulnerable.

De Castro believes the student-run nature of this production particularly lent itself to a play like “The Wolves.” Because the director, crew and cast members worked so intimately with one another, they were able to develop a supportive and open rehearsal space.

From the many hours rehearsing together to the walks home, bonding among cast members “just kind of happened naturally,” she said.

Audience members who didn’t expect to get Rickrolled were in for a pleasant surprise at this year’s Southern California A Capella Music Festival.

The Claremont Colleges’ a cappella group Ninth Street Hooligans closed out this year’s SCAMFest at Pomona College’s Bridges Auditorium with a performance of what started off as the unassuming “Riptide” by Vance Joy and quickly morphed into Rick Astley’s infamous song, “Never Gonna Give You Up.” The Nov. 9 lineup included Claremont’s very own The Claremont Shades, One Night Stanza, The After School Specials, Womxn’s Blue and White, Midnight Echo and Mood Swing, as well as off-campus a cappella groups, like The Spokes from UC Davis, Bruin Harmony and the ScatterTones from UCLA and five-time International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella champions SoCal VoCals from the University of Southern California. “[Our group] is the funny one, I’d like to say,” Ninth Street Hooligans member Devon Overbey HM ’23 said. “We have a lot of different colors of personalities in our group, and I think that’s a lot of fun to have.”

The hosting group, The Claremont Shades, started off the night with Billie Eilish’s “When the Party’s Over,” a popular song for a cappella that has seen millions of hits on YouTube cover videos.

The Spokes followed, singing in their signature bright pink attire and surprising the crowd with Chinese verses of “Cinderella” by The Cheetah Girls.

Midnight Echo’s brother-sister duo Zayn Singh SC ’20 and Isha Singh SC ’23 pulled off songs “Stupid Deep” by Jon Bellion and “Breathin” by Ariana Grande, respectively.

As a ballroom dancer, attendee Ignacio Lista HM ’22 said he

appreciated the performance value of SCAMFest and felt “[the groups] were kind of something to look up to … for that performance level.”

At the intermission, Groove Nation entertained with a succession of dance performances that had people staying put in their seats.

The dance crew has performed at past ICCA events, as the ICCA West Quarterfinals have been held at Pomona in the last few years, but this was its first time performing at SCAMFest.

Rose Gelfand SC ’21, one of four Groove Nation captains, said the group only had one week to prepare their set.

“I think we managed to pull it off well,” Gelfand said. “ … It was the first real show with our new members this year, so it was fun to get to do that with them.”

Bruin Harmony opened the second half of the show with the suave “I Got You” by Seramic and followed with a heartfelt rendition of “Fix You” by Coldplay. They ditched their usual blue-themed suit look for a more casual style, wearing jackets and hoodies with pants from shades of mustard yellow to gray.

The After School Specials only performed one song due to missing members, but their rendition of “Bad Religion” by Frank Ocean was powerful and full of rich chords that resonated throughout the auditorium.

In the second-to-last act of the night, Tabon Ward of SoCal Vocals had the audience swooning from the very first note of John Legend’s “Ordinary People.”

This year’s performances showed stronger vocal performances than years past from almost all of the groups.

“The best songs were ‘Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing’ and ‘Fix You,’” Vanessa Lincoln SC ’21 said via message, “and the Ninth Street Hooligans’ performance was a highlight and a great ending because it was so clever and funny.”

Simran Sachdeva contributed reporting.

TALIA bErNSTEIN • THE STUDENT LIFE

The Claremont Colleges’ a cappella group midnight Echo wows audience with their rendition of “breathin” by Ariana Grande at SCAmFest on Nov. 9, which was held at Pomona College’s bridges Auditorium.

Life & StyLe

NovEmbEr 15, 2019 THE bASSLINE

Garage bands versus bedroom pop stars

ELoISE mAGoNCELLI • THE STUDENT LIFE

KYLA WALKER A spike in solo artists has taken over the music industry, replacing bands and group projects that used to reign over the market.

From 2003 to 2013, there was a 510 percent increase in independent full-time musicians, according to Techdirt, a technology website. The most logical explanation for this would be in the growth of digital software programs available to nascent musicians.

Artists can download these programs, like GarageBand and FL Studio, on their home computers, needing only a strong WiFi connection and and aspiration to record a beat. Digital artists are often teenagers in their bedroom, channeling a different type of rebellion in their music than the old days of starting a garage rock band with high school friends.

Through writing songs together and covering beloved ensembles like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the garage band was most commonly seen as loud and collaborative, a way to release all the inner turmoil of growing up.

Bedroom pop is a much more introspective, private process of development. It’s released in the digital sphere, hidden from the world of adults and written from one voice — allowing the internet to connect personally to the vulnerability of an individual’s story or sound.

Clairo has become a totem of the bedroom pop sphere. Claire “Clairo” Cottrill began releasing home recordings from her Boston bedroom on free sites like

YouTube and gained popularity with her soft vocals, witty words and catchy choruses. In the bridge of her song “Bags,” she sings: “Tell you how I felt / Sugar coated melting in your mouth / Pardon my emotions / I should probably keep it all to myself.”

Both methods of music creation — with or without digital software — are valid and should be valued equally.

Kyla Walker PO ’22

The bedroom is a place of isolation, but also often denoted as a sphere of intimacy. The bedroom pop artist unites these two notions, combining the introspection of a suburban high school experience with the intimate details of romance through storytelling lyrics and dreamy vocals.

The garage band, on the other hand, may be thought of as more extroverted and better suited to channel the sense of community that music was founded upon. Think back to the origins of music, to the rituals and dances and chants that spanned many centuries and cultures. Garage band music requires a soulful presence that can only be heard in our ears

and felt in the syncing of our collective human pulse.

Elton John, an award-winning artist, said in a recent interview with Rolling Stone that “I think what Pro Tools and everything else did, they took the musicianship away from people, and people made records in their bedrooms instead of with each other in a bar.”

John claims we are deprived of that feeling of togetherness and community with the surfacing of today’s digital projects. But perhaps solo artists just begin the process of development alone and use technology to spread their sounds, attracting connection at a later stage of the music’s life.

After all, social platforms such as SoundCloud or Spotify allow users to develop relationships with and support artists from around the world.

Both methods of music creation — with or without digital software — are valid and should be valued equally. The best music is usually personal to the artist expressing an inner desire that can be universally felt. It comes to us all in different forms and processes, but in the end, music has the same purpose: It’s meant to be shared and provides us with the gift of connection.

Kyla Walker PO ’22 is one of TSL’s music columnists. She loves playing guitar, reading any and all fiction and probably belongs in the 1960s.

PAGE 5

Pomona student creates untraditional home out of renovated bus SIMRAN SACHDEVA After a late night of studying, most 5C students trudge back to their dorm rooms to get a few hours of sleep. But when Libby George PO ’20 is ready to go to bed, she heads back to her home on four wheels instead.

Following what she described as a “bad subletting experience,” George moved into and renovated an old school bus she bought on Craigslist during the past spring semester. A bed lies at the back of it, a piano is stationed off to the side and clothes lay folded on the shelves hanging from the walls.

Cozy, mobile and a sufficient space to practice music — an important feature for the student musician — George’s home is going with her after graduation. She hopes to make the 2000-mile trek to New York.

“I’m trying to go to New York and [now] won’t have to deal with rent ever again,” she said, referring back to the lessthan-perfect sublet. “And, I am so indecisive. The fact [that] I don’t have to [pick] one spot to settle down [and] can avoid all that … was very appealing.”

Since moving into her bus, George still finds herself going out of her way for some things, but is willing to make the tradeoff for more freedom in her bus.

“It’s kind of annoying not having a bathroom,” she said, explaining that she has to constantly carry her ID with her to use the restroom in Pomona’s

Information Technology Services.

“But it’s not a big deal, and obviously I have to get used to that.”

George said the financial benefits and freedom make the bus life all worth it, noting that even the process of making the bus a living space — a great undertaking — wasn’t something she would change.

“The process of converting it was really rewarding,” she said. “ … Working with my hands is, at least for me, a lot more fulfilling than being in the classroom.”

George said her family wasn’t fully on board with her idea to revamp the bus, skeptical that she could make the space functional and welcoming.

“They were going to pay for [ ... me to have a] place to live, and I was like, ‘No, the whole point was that I am not going to pay for another place to live,’” she said.

Upon seeing the bus, George said her family was surprised and impressed that she “actually put in the work” to revamp the space, now accepting her living situation.

Now fully situated into her new life in her bus, George has the time, space and independence to delve into her passion for music, having “spontaneous little jams” in the comfort of her own home.

“My time [prior to moving into the bus] was taken up by the bands I was in, playing drums,” George said. “So I’ve put a piano [in the bus] … because I want to get back into it, and [the bus] has allowed me to do that — I’m two feet from the piano now.”

Follow George’s bus on Instagram at @christinethebus.

STELLA FAvAro • THE STUDENT LIFE

Libby George Po ’20 relaxes in the back of her bus, which she has converted into a home for herself at Pomona College.

Student art exhibit shines spotlight on Asian, Pacific Islander and Desi American perspectives SOFIA SFYZER Traditional illustration pieces, student-coded games and painted skateboard decks were among the art pieces showcased at the Hive’s recent exhibit last Saturday.

Named “Untold Stories,” the second annual student-run art exhibit and performance event gave the Asian Pacific Islander Desi American community a platform for their vulnerabilities and talents to shine through.

“Untold Stories” was hosted by Pomona College’s Asian American Mentor Program with assistance from the International Student Mentor Program and South Asian Mentor Program and featured an open-mic, a calligraphy corner, a Tea Circle meeting and a traditional gallery.

Kristine Chang PO ’21, AAMP co-head mentor and member of the “Untold Stories” planning committee, said that as an artist, an event like “Untold Stories” has always been in the back of her mind.

“When I first applied to be [an AAMP] mentor, I wrote about this exact event in my proposal,” Chang said. “One thing that I wish I had as a [first-year] was a way to express myself as an Asian American person. Art has always been a way for me to express myself.”

AAMP mentor and planning committee member Kylie Wong PO ’22 hoped the event would create a warm and safe space for Asian American students.

“I’m hoping that at this event, people see many different perspectives,” she said. “The majority of us in the room do identify as Asian American, and I want them to know that they are not alone in their journey at the 5Cs. I want to create this warm bubble that envelops Asian American students into feeling pride and solidarity.”

Tramy Nguyen PO ’22, also on the planning committee, acknowledged the overall success of the event.

“Because ‘Untold Stories’ was such a hit last year — its first year — [the planning committee] felt

TALIA bErNSTEIN • THE STUDENT LIFE

Left: Kylie Wong Po ’22 reads “K A Y L A,” a poem written by her and her sister Kayla. right: Students gather to enjoy art, live performances, snacks and tea during the second annual student-run art exhibit and performance event “Untold Stories.”

the need to uphold the legacy,” she said via message. “Most people were impressed with the scale, with the high number of submissions and the variety of the works.”

The art gallery showed over 50 art submissions from 5C students as well as from college students outside of Claremont.

The collection was an eclectic one — there were essays, poems, photographs, sculpture and video. Subject matter ranged from the personal to the political, discussing families, language, cities, pop culture, current events and history.

Student artist Kano Cheng PO ’22 created an interactive sculpture in which attendees could learn how to make origami paper cranes out of pages from “The History of Pomona College 1887-

1969,” a book that can be found in nearly every Pomona College dorm and academic building.

After a crane was folded, Cheng would pin them up to the wall and splatter them with paint.

“This piece picked up a life of its own,” they said. “I wanted to show the exploration of visibility and legibility, specifically with this book. ‘The History of Pomona College’ is by an old, white man. You can’t glean any [accurate, diverse history] from this book. I started thinking about rendering the book illegible by destroying it.”

Cheng appreciated that “Untold Stories” accepted a wide array of art, asserting no limitations on what could be submitted.

“Even though I’m sitting in a gallery [that has] a museum atmosphere where you just look

and you don’t touch, [my piece is still collaborative],” they said.

“I like exploring that, and I think that even though you can interact with my piece, it is still art.”

The gallery also housed an interactive bulletin board that encouraged attendees to draw and write about their thoughts and feelings concerning the current political turmoil in Hong Kong.

Janelle Li PO ’23 was intrigued by the breadth of form and subject that artists tackled in their pieces, indirectly referencing the collaborative Hong Kong piece.

“Events like these discourage the monolithic stereotype of Asian Americans,” she said. “For example, I think it’s a stereotype for Asian people to be apolitical, so I am also really interested in seeing the political artwork at the

show.”

As most guests had made their way through the gallery, “Untold Stories” hosted an open-mic with spoken word and musical performances about topics like body image, fitting in and growing up.

Nguyen said she was happy with the impact the exhibit had on the community.

“I loved the art and performances, but my favorite part was seeing the occasional parent and child exploring the gallery together,” Nguyen said. “The common narrative for APIDA families describes a tradition of … emotional reservation [and working] for the sake of the family. When I see children and their parents experience these stories side-by-side, [it’s] like we’re sprouting the seeds for a cultural transformation, and that’s such a good feeling to have.”

Life & StyLe

PAGE 6 FooD FILES

PoPPED UP

Compe-taters take their mark for the battle of the breakfast spuds ERIN SLICHTER One of the things I like best about a liberal arts education is the wide array of options to choose from: options for majors, options for classes and, perhaps most importantly, options for breakfast potatoes.

Here at the 5Cs, you can have potatoes for breakfast nearly every day, which is something I regularly take advantage of. But with so many choices available, it can be hard to settle on just one. To help, I’ve compared some standout spuds from each dining hall for your starchy speculation.

Frary Dining Hall: Triangle potatoes A classic. A mainstay. A familiar, fried friend in the breakfast lineup. Like a tater tot, the triangle potato consists of grated potatoes bound together by flour in deep fried harmony. But where tater tots lose their inner creaminess in favor of outer crunch, the shape and greater size of triangle potatoes allows them to maintain both. This occasionally yields an internal texture that verges on slimy, but the only pressing question I have for this compe-tater is: One or two? Rating: 4/5.

Collins Dining Hall: Country potatoes This hearty option goes beyond potato parameters to include other vegetables — bell peppers, onions and large, cubed potatoes greet each other like old friends, recalling the home-fried diner staple of years gone by. They’re finished with a smoky spice mixture, though I think a touch more salt and time in the pan could have taken them from bland and soft throughout to savory and crispy on the outside. Rating: 3.5/5.

Malott Dining Commons: Home-fried potatoes When it’s home-fried potato day at Malott, it’s guaranteed to be a good day. Unlike traditional home fries that are cooked in a pan, these small, cubed tubers are deep-fried, giving them an all-around crispy outside. Their small size makes them perfect for stacking with other things on a fork, forming delightful egg-potato, bacon-potato, you-nameit-potato bites. Their centers are

NovEmbEr 15, 2019

Glossier sets unattainable standard with ‘no-makeup makeup’

occasionally a touch dry, but on the whole they make for a highly enjoyable breakfast experience. Rating: 4.5/5.

McConnell Dining Hall: Sweet potato tater tots Would a classic Pitzer brunch be complete without sweet potato tots? I hesitate to think so. This sweet take on the time-honored cafeteria favorite brings a welcome twist to the flavor profile of the breakfast potato lineup. As sweet potatoes are softer than their pale compatriots, the texture of the tot is less complex and the exterior doesn’t crisp up as much. Nonetheless, the sweet flavor pairs well with all your favorite savory breakfast items. Rating: 3/5.

Hoch-Shanahan Dining Commons: Hash browns Hash browns are a contentious potato iteration. Despite their ubiquity, they often fail to merit their reputation; the shredded potatoes sweat themselves into mush in the pan, their only saving grace being the few crunchy layers that have managed to come in contact with the pan itself.

And yet, despite all odds, Hoch-Shanahan hash browns avoid these blunders and even pack an extra punch; the potato shreds remain distinct and chewy, the pan-crisped layers are abundant rather than rare and a savory spice lifts the dish firmly out of mushy mistake territory. Rating: 3.5/5.

Frank Dining Hall: Home fries I’ll just come out and say it: Frank home fries are the best breakfast potatoes on campus. They’re simple, cut into thin round slices and fried, embodying the pure joy of eating potatoes on a weekday morning. Each slice develops a golden, crispy skin and the interior turns delectably tender.

Despite their uncomplicated preparation, they somehow take on a savory aroma guaranteed to be the highlight of any breakfast plate. Rating: 5/5.

ANNIE WU • THE STUDENT LIFE

GrETA LoNG • THE STUDENT LIFE

HANNAH AVALOS Blemishes, pimples, blackheads, whiteheads and zits. Internet personality Bunny Meyer, better known as grav3yardgirl, famously described these beings as face demons — a term that I find especially apt.

All these words name the unwelcome guests that visit our dermis from time to time.

We benevolently refer to these guests as acne. Though stressful for those who have fallen prey to this condition, acne is normal.

Throughout high school, I experienced relatively blemish-free skin, something that I now wish I never took for granted. However, as I started college, the breakouts began. Having fought the uphill battle with dry-flakey skin for most of my life, I was now faced with what’s known as “combination skin.” My dry and flakey face was in good company with an oily t-zone and skin so prone to breaking out that it felt like being looked at funny would prompt a painful outbreak.

To put foundation and concealer on, or not to put foundation and concealer on? That is the question. Not only did I now have a brand new slew of steps to my skin-care routine, but as a makeup-wearing person, I had to find a new way in which I could both enjoy the play of makeup, but also keep from provoking new breakouts. Though not a requirement, I also wanted to use makeup as a means of covering up some of my acne.

Previously, foundation and concealer were not really on my radar. Now though, I was concerned with finding makeup that can achieve some coverage, not clog my pores and provoke new face demons, while also avoiding clinging to and high-

lighting my historical dry patches.

This was all going on at the time when Glossier brought the “no-makeup makeup” look to the forefront of the internet’s cosmetic society. “No-makeup makeup” is when one’s makeup is super lightweight and barely noticeable, designed to “enhance” one’s natural features. Instagram’s algorithms began dangling this brand’s posts and the “no-makeup makeup” trend in front of my face every dozen or so posts. Though I agreed with the fun, confident and fresh tone of their advertising, I did not see myself in the dozens of clear-skinned models smearing sheer skin tint over arbitrary parts of their clear-skinned faces.

On Oct. 10, Glossier made an Instagram post where spokespeople described what “Glossier Skin” is like. Among the adjectives articulated were words like “clean,” “healthy,” “natural,” “loved,” but, most importantly — “dewey.” I found this post quite striking. What do these words mean exactly in the context of how my skin looks? Moreover, does my skin, or anyone else’s skin with active breakouts and acne scarring, fit the Glossier incrowd?

Touting a slogan that says, “Skin first, makeup second,” you’d think that Glossier’s posts would be more centered around conversations of skincare and taming some of the symptoms of problematic skin.

But their website’s homepage features almost entirely makeup (aside from two serums) at the very top under a category named “The new beauty essentials” followed by more beauty products spotlighted under “Beauty inspired by real life.” One would have to scroll past countless makeup products, makeup routines from Glossier representatives and an “about” section before viewing

the skincare section, “Skin first.”

Furthermore, their Instagram page is dominated by posts advertising their makeup products. So, are they really “Skin first?”

Glossier has become increasingly more inclusive with widening shade ranges and casting models of different genders and ages for their promotional content. But what is it that they are promoting?

The coverage of their stretch concealer and skin-tint are notoriously light, and the happy glowy faces of the blemish-free models elicit a sense of guilt in me for wanting more coverage. As a regular user of their cloud paint, solid perfume, boy brow and lip gloss, it would be wrong of me to say that Glossier is bad or fatally flawed. However, their advertisements frequently feature models with near-flawless skin, a population that does not reflect their consumers.

I looked at the “Glossier in real life” page, which describes itself as “Real people show you how they wear Glossier.” These beautiful people are probably some form of paying customers, but they all feature smooth, glowing and near flawless skin. I myself, a paying customer, can attest to the fact that I do not necessarily look like that when I wear their products, and I must not be the only one.

This all leads me to wonder what constitutes “natural beauty” according to Glossier and brands like it who almost unabashedly gatekeep the concept through their advertising. Are their marketing and advertising exclusionary in a way that’s not widely discussed? In the words of Glossier, what does it mean to “look good?”

Hannah Avalos PO ’21 is one of TSL’s pop culture columnists. She’s an English major and recent transfer student who loves creative writing, picking out which earrings to wear and finishing the books she starts reading.

rEGULArLY SCHEDULED ProGrAmmING

Slow down, Netflix. Do we actually need to stream faster?

CLAIRE DUMONT Popular streaming service Netflix announced in late October the possibility of adding a new feature that would allow users to watch content at 1.5 times the normal speed.

The idea of watching or listening to something sped up is nothing new. It’s a normalized feature already used for podcasts and YouTube videos. But when Netflix rolled out a test version with playback speeds for TV shows and movies, controversy ensued. As of now, the feature is only an experimental suggestion, and Netflix may not go forward with it permanently.

I am technically “currently watching” (meaning I have started more than one episode and not finished) eight shows on Netflix, 10 on Hulu and even more on other streaming platforms. These numbers aren’t even counting the shows I have yet to start despite wanting to — I’ve heard so much hype about shows like “Succession” and “Fleabag” from my friends and family (shoutout to Gabriella Del Greco’s column).

The large amount of shows I have to watch might not seem surprising, given that I’m a TV columnist and TV lover. But my habit reveals a larger epidemic — one that promotes watching as many shows as possible to keep up with pop culture. Theoretically, if everyone could speed up the time it takes to watch a show, this problem would almost be eliminated.

But when the Netflix playback speed feature was announced, many filmmakers and members of “showbiz” agreed that the artistry integral to TV and film will be lost.

ELAINE YANG • THE STUDENT LIFE

Director Judd Apatow was particularly angry, tweeting, “We give you nice things. Leave them as they were intended to be seen.”

Actor Aaron Paul, who starred in Netflix’s “El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie,” was similarly mad, saying that the feature “would mean they are completely taking control of everyone else’s art and destroying it.”

As I previously mentioned, many entertainment mediums have long had the feature of speeding up or slowing down content.

Audible even allows 3.5x narration speed. I assume this is the case because these platforms generally just involve recorded audio or video of someone talking. Speeding up or slowing down the content does not change much, if anything, in terms of visuals.

But for TV, speeding up content will greatly change the experience.

Everyone behind the creation of a piece of television — writers, directors and actors — have thought out the pacing and length of an episode.

Camera angles and delivery of lines by actors will become nearly obsolete if users can just speed it up. The slow and suspenseful scenes that I love from HBO’s “Barry” would never work in 1.5 speed.

The ability to change the speed of a TV show will only add to the culture of instant gratification produced by streaming.

I understand the appeal of being able to get through as many shows as possible in a shorter amount of time. I have, on occasion, skipped parts of an episode to get to parts that I really wanted

to see.

There is an appeal, but does anyone really need to speed watch “Gilmore Girls”? What is so bad about taking in a show the way that it was meant to be seen in the time it was supposed to take to get through it? It’s a better experience when one takes longer to watch a show, even if it’s seven seasons and a revival, like “Gilmore Girls.”

Now that Disney and Apple have started streaming, and NBC and WarnerMedia plan to do the same, the number of shows to stream keeps going up. In the near future, audiences are going to be even more overwhelmed over what they have seen and, more importantly, what they haven’t seen.

Following backlash, Netflix posted a statement on their blog addressing the possibility of the

new feature. The statement mentioned that the feature was “frequently requested” as it could be helpful for viewers to watch a scene they love, a foreign film or TV show in slower time.

Many want to vehemently raise their pitchforks at Netflix, but isn’t it more the fault of the audience that Netflix would even have to entertain this new feature? The introduction of streaming TV has created a culture of “binge-watching.” It promotes watching each show just to finish it and move on, without taking the time to relish in the thoughtful production or masterful acting.

I’m verging on a “back in my day…” argument, so I’ll backtrack.

I love watching shows on streaming platforms, and I love even more that I no longer have to wait a week to find out what happens. I just think it was less stressful and that there was less instant gratification when waiting a week was the only option.

The podcast “Lovett or Leave It”’s recent episode, “Catch Marry Kill,” summed the new feature up in its “rant wheel” segment, and I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Jon Lovett, the host of the podcast, said: “If you need to watch your TV shows faster to get through more of them, turn off the television, put the phone down, go outside, take 10 deep breaths …”

I can understand why Netflix came up with the idea for this feature. But I also think we all need to slow down.

Claire DuMont SC ’23 is one of TSL’s TV columnists and is from Manhattan Beach, California. She loves her dogs, cats and talking about TV (obviously); her current favorite show is “Daybreak.”

OpiniOns

November 15, 2019

PAGe 7

The presidency is not an entry-level job MEGAN CHOURREAU-LYON Presidential candidate Marianne Williamson visited Pomona College on Nov. 6 to talk about her campaign.

An acclaimed lecturer, activist and author of four No. 1 New York Times bestselling books, Williamson is running for the Democratic nomination and promoting an ambitious vision for the nation. Her website indicates that her purpose is to create “a new political possibility in America — where … our democracy once more becomes a thing about which we can all feel proud” and “to end an aberrational chapter in American history and begin a new one.”

When Williamson was questioned by student moderators during the event about her lack of political experience prior to her presidential run, she doubled-down on why she believes she’s qualified for the job.

Referring back to the framers of the Constitution, she contended that they hadn’t specified any form of government experience as a necessary condition to run for president precisely because they intended to leave it up to every generation to define what the skillset is needed for president.

She quoted former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s statement that the primary job of the president is moral leadership and that the administrative part is second.

I thoroughly disagree with this contention and think such arguments that seek to discredit the value of training and experience in politics are dangerous.

The democratic ideal that everyone should be able to be president is something we should aspire to make true in any country. However, the notion that anyone can be president as their first public office job is not.

Any profession values experience as an individual works their way up the career ladder. We educate ourselves, go to university, train through internships and work different jobs within the same field to develop a robust skillset and be

eLAINe YANG • THe STUDeNT LIFe

able to aim for the position we aspire to. We don’t just start off at the top.

Most jobs require a certain amount of relevant experience to get an offer, or even apply for them. We should apply the same standard to the presidency.

There’s a place in public life for the Williamsons, and their visions and ideas can bring a lot. But they should start by selling their ideas and enacting their visions at the local level before making grand claims for the Oval Office.

It seems like Williamson shared this view in the past, since her first try at politics was an unsuccessful run for Congress in 2014.

Williamson is not alone — currently we are seeing more and more candidates running for office in spite of a glaring lack of political experience and even running because of it.

In a 2017 NPR article about President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office and his “en-

try-level” presidency, political historian Richard Norton Smith made the case that Trump and others of his kind are proof that that view of “politics” among the public has gotten worse and that this poses a serious threat to the nation’s democracy.

“Drain-the-swamp” feelings and the contention that many current politicians are inefficient are only one part of this decline in public trust; the connotation of the word politics itself now refers to something nefarious and evil.

Today, a growing number of candidates consider it to be a selling point to campaign against politics. As Smith points out, we’ve reached a point where “people get elected to office by denouncing politics.”

However, it isn’t just candidates coming up with the idea that political experience is irrelevant to proper execution of public office: It’s American people themselves.

Just think back to the aftermath

The media needs to get over its obsession with Trump SARTHAK SHARMA Open any newspaper or news website, and over half the stories will inevitably be about President Donald Trump. Recent tidbits from MSNBC: the impeachment inquiry, Ukraine, what Anthony Scaramucci thinks about Trump, a newly released book written by an anonymous Trump administration official, bribery and more things related to impeachment and Trump.

Focusing on the scandals and crimes of the most powerful person in the world is important and sensible, of course, especially so when a hugely significant impeachment inquiry process is currently underway.

But mainstream media outlets seem to have an almost pathological obsession with Trump and the multiple dramas involving him. Their coverage of Trump is in many ways a distraction from stories that are more significant and that directly impact ordinary Americans’ lives.

Even before the impeachment inquiry, mainstream media incessantly covered Trump.

Throughout last year and much of this year, popular MSNBC host Rachel Maddow mused endlessly about the apparent (but ultimately unproven) collusion between the Russian government and Trump.

Maddow even peddled bizarre conspiracy theories, issuing a dramatic warning that the Russian authorities could shut down power supply in the U.S. and implying that Trump’s press briefings were directly dictated by the Kremlin, as Ross Barkan notes in The Guardian.

“I’m happy to admit that I’m obsessed with Russia,” she told The New York Times. “I realize it’s controversial, and people give me a lot of grief for focusing on it. But I make no apologies. I think it’s absolutely compelling.”

Imagine what our current political discourse would look like if Maddow and other journalists with influential platforms spent even a tenth of their Trump-focused energy on stories and events that actually impact people’s lives.

I am not saying that Trump’s impeachment isn’t of importance to ordinary Americans’ lives. Of course it is.

I am saying, though, that media outlets focus on the impeachment and scandals surrounding Trump like a breathless TV thriller while ignoring the real costs of

his presidency.

While huge swatches of California burned, mainstream media didn’t cover Trump’s devastating move last week to formally pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement enough.

They barely said a word about a recent U.S. drone strike that killed more than 30 civilians in Afghanistan who were resting after a day’s labor in the fields.

They rarely write in-depth stories about the fact that families separated under Trump’s immigration policies have still not been reunited.

Instead, we have been fed with an endless supply of stories about Stormy Daniels and Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr because those apparently are the people who matter; those are the only stories that matter.

I am not saying that Trump’s impeachment isn’t of importance to ordinary Americans’ lives.

Of course it is.

Sarthak Sharma PO ’20

Part of the reason for the corporate media’s intense focus on Trump and his scandals is that it’s good for their ratings.

Maddow’s show averaged 1.1 million viewers a night in her first eight years on air but shot to 2.7 million after Trump’s inauguration, according to The New York Times. After speaker Nancy Pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry, Maddow’s ratings rose to 3.3 million.

These figures stand in stark contrast to the performance of state and local newspapers, which, thanks to declining ad revenue, media consolidation and increasing interest in social and digital media, have largely been decimated over recent years.

About 20 percent of all metro and community newspapers in the U.S. have gone out of business, and about 1,300 coun-

ties have completely lost news coverage, according to Poynter. National newspapers and cable TV outlets often don’t have reporters who are rooted in local communities and have the expertise to write indepth stories on the important political events happening at the state and local levels.

As a result, we hear over and over about Washington, D.C.’s sexy politics and little about the fact that every day, over 130 people die in this country because they overdose on opioids. Or that teenage suicide rates increased nearly 56 percent from 2007 to 2017.

Or the pretty outrageous fact that California Governor Gavin Newsom campaigned on a fracking ban, only to forget about it after coming into office. We don’t hear much about the fact that millions of people have died in the U.S. because they could not pay their medical bills. All of these would be page-one stories in a sane world.

The upshot of ignoring every other news story in the U.S. and focusing exclusively on impeachment or the latest Trump drama is also that we have come to think all our problems began, and will end, with Trump. We act as though once Trump is booted out of office, we can dust off our hands and go to bed.

Never mind that deportations, illegal wars and reckless political and economic policies flourished under previous administrations and that Trump’s presidency is only part of a larger system of injustice, greed and corruption that has defined American politics for decades.

Media outlets have actively contributed to this dangerous amnesia and treated politics as distant dramas rather than harsh realities that bear down on people’s everyday lives. It’s time they ended their obsession with Trump and undertook their professed task of speaking truth to power and covering stories that actually affect ordinary people in this country.

It’s not too late.

Sarthak Sharma PO ’20 is from Kathmandu, Nepal. He’s an economics major and spends most of his time sending messages to Claremont Crushes.

of the 2018 Golden Globes, when Oprah Winfrey, after making an inspiring speech about female empowerment when she was honored by the Cecil B. DeMille Award, led Twitter to explode with messages calling for her to run for president and hashtags like #Oprah2020.

Being frustrated at the way politics is currently being handled, or mishandled, can be understood.

But, the current response to such frustration is dangerous.

The solution to the perceived problem of career politicians not living up to their promises isn’t to reject politicians and political experience altogether.

Experience is valuable. Democracy will fail if we get to a point in our society where we don’t recognize that specific people who’ve been trained in public policy and have expertise in this department are better-equipped to respond to large-scale problems spanning an entire federation than political

newcomers.

It’s also worth mentioning that beyond the argument that a profession in politics is one that requires training, the presidency in itself is an extremely complex position to hold, even with prior experience.

In May 2018, The Atlantic ran an article entitled “The Hardest Job in the World,” describing the countless prerogatives that fall upon the president’s shoulders and exposing how the position has expanded over the decades to become something that’s arguably almost unworkable by a single person.

Considering the overwhelming amount of challenges and responsibilities that come with the office and the high expectations placed upon its holder, the nation should expect a considerable amount of political experience before electing anyone to the position of president.

Williamson made the claim during her campus event that the country wasn’t in need of a political mechanist but of a political visionist and that Trump’s main problem was not his lack of experience but his lack of vision.

Actually, Trump himself — the only U.S. President ever with no government or military experience prior to being elected — has (unexpectedly) acknowledged during major setbacks faced by his administration that he lacked the appropriate experience to craft policy.

In February 2017, during and after the GOP’s short-lived bill attempting to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Trump voiced his own surprise at the difficulty of his job, saying that “nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.”

We’ve already seen an example of what happens when a political novice is put in charge of the hardest job in the country — we don’t need a second confirmation.

Megan Chourreau-Lyon is a Franco-British Pitzer College exchange student who’s in the final year of her political science bachelor’s degree and would like to believe that the degree she is working towards will be valued in the future.

Jasper’s Crossword: Proposing a toast

JASPer DAvIDoFF • THe STUDeNT LIFe

ACROSS 1. Windows precursor 6. Group of sagehens 11. ___ Vegas 14. An audience _____ 15. Place to kick a habit 16. Frequently, in verse 17. Bird that’s big on curd? * 19. By way of 20. Cord for a display 21. _____ the mill 22. Feel the ____ (campaign slogan) 23. Contents 25. Like a flamingo’s neck 27. Swimmer in Smuckers?

31. Gold, in Guadalajara 32. Lemon or lime suffix 33. Comics guru Lee 34. Annoyed 37. Sweetheart 39. Bag, as game 42. “Sweet!”

43. Mountains or mints 45. Manage (for oneself) 47. Hello, in Rio 48. Grp. to organize a bake sale 49. One obsessed with dairy? * 51. Constant 54. ____ all in this together 55. City near Tahoe 56. Bret of Fox News 58. Pad ____ 62. Mandela’s party, for short 63. Times to make preserves? * 65. Love sickness?

66. Red as _____ 67. Tehran native 68. Fluency-building class (abbr.)

69. First, second, and third 70. Beto’s state DOWN 1. ____ pit (at a concert, maybe) 2. Enforcement org. in the Mission 3. East or West at Pitzer or Mudd 4. “The Iceman Cometh” playwright 5. Baltic ___ 6. Subconscious kind of slip 7. Be biased (one way) 8. “Wow!”

9. Leg muscles 10. British honour (abbr.)

11. Drink to ensnare a sweetheart 12. In flames 13. Remain valid 18. Paper stages students might skip 22. Aristocrat 24. Kvetching sounds 26. Use all for oneself 27. Pinkett Smith of Red Table Talk 28. Elysium 29. Utensil that allows one to 51down 30. Chaotic state 35. Org. fighting for abortion access 36. Milk source 38. Throwback genre 40. Signal boosts 41. Walks in 44. ___ Diego 46. ___ Spiegel 49. Denounces 50. Quit for good 51. Remove (a mistake, like mislabeling a Harry Potter mascot) 52. Camping abode 53. Addis _____ 57. “Makes sense” 59. Jussie Smolett incident 60. Chlumsky of Veep 61. Terrorist grp. whose leader was killed recently 63. Thrust 64. Plop down

LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS

OpiniOns

PAGe 8

November 15, 2019

‘Mona Lisa’ VR exhibit highlights need to truly respect art

Ottilia Nummelin is a Pitzer College exchange student and a Finn from Luxembourg. This is the third TSL article in which she’s mentioned BTS.

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Most artists in the K-pop category sound nothing alike. Take BTS and IU: The former orients more towards hip-hop and power-pop, and the latter has a softer indie-pop sound (for both, it’s an understatement to define them merely by these genres). The only thing common between the band and the singer is the language of the music — Korean.

If Cowell’s UK-pop were to follow the footsteps of K-pop, it would just be a mashup of different already existing genres, and the group would be singing in English.

That’s just pop.

Even with British accents, the genre of the group would be pop, and Brits have been making pop for decades (take the Spice Girls, Take That, One Direction). Frankly, Cowell isn’t doing anything ground-breaking.

The exact problem with UK-pop is the language and nationality of the group. UK-pop is going to be British; they’re (hopefully) going to be singing in English entering the UK market. Yet their concept is probably going to be a blatant copy of K-pop — catchy pop with high-energy choreographies.

But because it’ll be British and

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Ottilia Nummelin

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Nobody gives a second thought when Englishspeaking artists chart in non-English speaking countries.

Michelle Lum HM ’23 is from San Jose, California. Though she has a horrible accent, she still sometimes misses the French language. One day, she would like to go back to the Louvre and see “Mona Lisa” in person, in peace.

UD

Everyone knows Simon Cowell, the man behind the super boyband One Direction and the popular girlband Little Mix, which are both successful in their own terms.

Now, Cowell has new plans to dominate the world charts. Last week, the producer announced a new spin-off of the popular British TV show “The X Factor,” according to The Sun. The aim of “X Factor: The Band” is to find a rival to K-pop — a UK-pop group.

The internet has not been happy about it, and frankly, I’m not either.

There is nothing wrong with creating another group to compete in the ever-changing music industry. The whole industry is built on competition, and aspiring singers and dancers should have a chance to fulfill their dreams.

Yet there are already plenty of opportunities for these aspiring artists to succeed, especially in Europe. The problem with Cowell’s wish to specifically challenge the industry of K-pop, something that has been created by Koreans for Koreans, is his attempt to whitewash a cultural phenomenon.

At this point, everyone has probably heard about K-pop; it’s everywhere. K-pop is the most popular music to emerge from South Korea, and while it has specific characteristics, its musical styles and influences — ranging from pop to rap to R&B — are nothing new.

not “foreign,” it’ll be more widely accepted, praised and hyped for doing something that’s already been done, discrediting the Asian origins of the phenomenon. This is also nothing new in the film industry, such cases being manga-based film Ghost in the Shell and Tilda Swinton’s role in Doctor Strange.

It seems natural for English-speaking acts to go global.

Nobody gives a second thought when English-speaking artists chart in non-English speaking countries. The American music industry is the most powerful one, and usually American music dominates the charts everywhere.

But when a non-English speaking song charts, it’s shocking and surprising. BTS, for example, are on par with other global artists. They’re Grammy-nominated, are part of the Recording Academy and have won over 100 awards — and that’s not even including ones from 2019.

Yet almost six years since their debut, they’re still seen as a passing oddity.

Even if these foreign artists successfully break into the mainstream market, it takes them significantly longer and more hard work to prove themselves, and even then, foreign artists seem to be more likely to remain onehit wonders, according to BBC. European and American validation is a whole other issue, but America will continue to dominate the music industry, and its impact cannot be overlooked.

The Grammy Awards is the most respected award show in the music industry, and not even some of the most popular artists from America have taken home a Grammy. Charting on Billboard is also seen as a reputable milestone in an artist’s career, and it isn’t easy to get a number one album on the Hot 100.

But when a foreign artist “makes it,” the industry goes into an unnecessary chaos, and everything the foreign artist does is met with an army of angry Americans trying to discredit their achievements.

When people like Cowell try to jump on the bandwagon of a movement like K-pop and make it into something of his own, it disqualifies the achievements of the already existing artists in that movement. It becomes especially problematic when it’s an old white man trying to change something non-white into white — it’s blatant whitewashing.

And that’s exactly what UKpop is. “K-pop is ruling the world. This is a show to find a band to launch UK-pop,” is coming straight from Cowell’s own mouth, according to The Straits Times, a daily newspaper in Singapore. Cowell’s attempt to launch UK-pop to replace K-pop takes away the chance to succeed from Korean people, and that’s exactly why UK-pop is a no from me.

their cameras, and to patiently and respectfully wait their turn to see the artwork, while allowing others the permission to do the same.

I want to tell them to be content to be in front of such a masterpiece, and be able to see it with their own two eyes, hundreds of years after its creation.

When it comes to seeing pieces of art, we shouldn’t have to settle for being squeezed in massive crowds or viewing a digital version. In our technology-infiltrated world, we could all use a lesson in living more in the moment. Art should be respectfully appreciated, without the distractions of phones and cameras and the impatient crowds.

And art depicts life, so there’s my conclusion about how we should be living life.

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OTTILIA NUMMELIN

to its fullest, instead of trying to document it for a future version of myself who may not even care to look back. In any case, with the way technology like VR is going, it may soon be able to provide me with those digital records of the moments of my life that I want to capture forever.

I want to tell the tourists crowding around the “Mona Lisa” at this moment to put down their phones and

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UK-pop? It’s a no from me

Lisa,” we are unable to enjoy it as we should — sans glass barrier and sans chaotic crowds.

If anything, the Louvre’s new “Mona Lisa” VR exhibit shows us that we need large-scale societal change. There must be thousands and thousands of images of the “Mona Lisa” online.

We don’t need to each add one more to the collection.

We’ve become people who need to snap photos of every moment, or share every little thing that we do. And that’s taken away from the quality of our lives.

I’ll be honest — I love taking photos of the most random things, and I can be that annoying person who has to snap a photo of everything. I’ve often wondered if I should just put down my phone instead — maybe then, I would actually be able to better absorb the sights and sounds and feelings of the moment.

From my experience at the Louvre, and hearing about the new “Mona Lisa” VR exhibit, it would probably be better if I just lived every second of my life

TH

The “Mona Lisa.”

The woman with the enigmatic smile. Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece. One of the most wellknown artworks in the world.

And, undoubtedly, the Louvre’s most popular piece of art.

When I visited the Louvre this past summer, I, of course, had to stop by the “Mona Lisa.” During my visit, I was shocked to find myself shooed around the “Mona Lisa”’s room, surrounded by too many bodies invading my personal space.

My five seconds with the “Mona Lisa” were filled with watching fellow tourists snap photos and selfies with the painting, and me squinting to see it. We were kept a few feet away from the painting, which was encased in glass.

And before I knew it, I was quickly ushered away from the painting. All I really ended up seeing was the reflection of 30 phones and cameras on a glass case.

In commemoration of the 500th anniversary of da Vinci’s death, the Louvre recently opened a virtual reality exhibit entitled “Mona Lisa: Beyond the Glass,” which enables viewers to see the “Mona Lisa” in 3D and learn more about da Vinci and this particular artwork.

The Louvre also hopes this new exhibit, created in collaboration with VR company HTC Vive, will help alleviate some of the problems originating from

the crowds that gather around the famed painting. Visitors will now be able to have more time with the artwork, which would be difficult without the new VR technology.

The Louvre’s efforts are respectable. The VR exhibit is an interesting piece at the intersection of art and technology, and the technology itself is a nice nod to da Vinci’s innovative style.

But viewing a piece of art through VR is not the same as seeing it with one’s own eyes, in real life. There’s something about that interaction between someone and a physical artwork that cannot be replaced with a digital version.

The name of the VR exhibit itself highlights the absurdity of the situation at the Louvre.

The phrase “Beyond the Glass” refers to the fact that the “Mona Lisa” is encased in protective glass, which was placed around the “Mona Lisa” to shield da Vinci’s masterpiece from acts of vandalism, such as an acid pouring incident in the 1950s. Though certainly not every visitor to the “Mona Lisa” throws acid on it, most do contribute to the hectic crowds that congregate around the painting.

In 2018, the Louvre hosted 10.2 million visitors, most of whom ended up visiting the “Mona Lisa” during their time in the museum. Due to the combination of these numbers and our society’s general lack of respect for valuable art like the “Mona

Beyond objectivity, journalists must seek truth EBENEZER MENSAH Guest Writer “There are two sides to every story,” says an old and popular adage that has, for many years, guided the practice of journalism in the world.

On every issue, journalists have always been expected to find and present differing views and opinions, present them to the general public on a balanced scale without bias or prejudice and trust the public to make its choices based on the different arguments of both sides.

While the idea of listening to every view and allowing every voice to be heard may sound appealing, the obsession with finding a balance in reportage and being objective is perhaps making journalists forgetful of their core mandate: the pursuit of basic truth. And it is time that journalism be structured around truth.

The balance model is an unfortunate result of the practice of extreme objectivity in journalism and a loose understanding of what objectivity really is. The term objectivity can be traced back to Walter Lippmann, an influential American journalist of his time, who, fed up with the abundance of biased news reportage, called for the “scientific” approach of impartiality in the gathering and reporting of news, according to the American Press Institute.

Journalists try to offer equal opportunities for groups with different views to explain their reasoning.

However, some groups of people begin to abuse the opportunity to share their views by providing misinformation on several issues.

Most journalists, in a show of their misunderstanding of what objectivity entails and perhaps in fear of being characterized as impartial, recuse themselves from such conversations, failing to draw the line on what are considered acceptable arguments. Take, for example, the birther conspiracy theories claiming that former President Barack Obama was not a naturally born citizen.

The fact that such a claim dominated news cycles for days speaks volumes about the flaws with the objectivity mantra that

OFF THE RECORD

MICHELLE LUM

journalists have heralded for years.

Obama released his birth certificate before the 2008 elections, and the only reason why journalists still reported these birther claims was to provide balance on the subject at hand and to be seen as objective and impartial.

This was not the objectivity Lippmann had in mind when he said, “good reporting requires the exercise of the highest scientific virtues.”

By comparing journalism to the scientific method, Lippmann envisioned a journalistic process where the gathering and reporting of the news was not only impartial but also characterized by systematic observation and rigorous verification of what was reported.

In the age of increasing partisanship, it has become a matter of great necessity that journalists move beyond attempting objective reporting to a more reliable reporting process that tells the truth when it is known.

When reporting on this issue, journalists should have no problem with telling the truth that the world’s climate is changing.

Ebenezer Mensah PO ’23

Take, for example, the debate over anthropogenic climate change — the idea that human activities are influencing changes in our climate. There are still people who believe that climate change is not happening, or at least that it’s not caused by human activities, even though there is compelling scientific evidence to suggest otherwise.

When reporting on this issue, journalists should have no problem with telling the truth that the world’s climate is changing. The truth must be told, however unpleasant it may appear to a certain group of people.

The American Press Association provides the gold standard definition for what principles journalists must hold dear: The obliga-

tion of journalists is the pursuit of truth. The obligation of a journalist is not to their employers or a religious or social group, but it is to an unflinching desire to pursue and tell the truth in whichever form it may be and whatever consequences it may bring.

Truth in journalism matters because it helps provide a coherent and standard society. Imagine living in a society where there is no standard of acceptable behavior or consensus on what is considered true and untrue.

However, there are legitimate concerns raised when we request that journalists go beyond objectivity and tell the truth when it is knowable. People argue that placing such responsibility on journalists will allow them further opportunity to be inherently biased in their pursuit of truth because it will allow journalists to define what they see as true and untrue.

On most issues, it’s almost impossible to define truth. However, most people will agree to Aristotle’s famous definition of truth: “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true.” Simply put: Truth is measured by the conformance of an event to reality.

By this definition, every issue can be classified as true or untrue based on its relation to reality. A statement should be accepted as true only based on its conformance to reality. This would create a standard for what is considered acceptable and unacceptable.

It remains true that we cannot forcibly change an opinion held by an individual or a group, and there will always be people who refuse to accept the truth no matter the evidence in favor of it. There will perhaps continue to be people who believe that Obama was not the first African-American president of the United States and that he was not born in America.

While these opinions cannot be changed forcibly, journalists owe a responsibility to continue telling the truth in favor of being objective and appealing to people with such ideas, because the more we pursue truth, the closer we come to a just, truthful society.

Ebenezer Mensah PO ’23 is a guest writer from Ghana, a small country in West Africa. He loves to speak about science and religion.

Good excuses *flies to Canada to avoid going on a date*

Beetle infestation Thoughts and prayers won’t help you this time

TSL’s animal crackers are delicious Can’t ... stop ... eating

You can hear them screaming It’s absolutely horrifying

They redesigned Sonic!

No more dead, lifeless eyes

Now my nightmares are lonely!

Who will keep me company now?

OpiniOns

November 15, 2019

Lowering the drinking age would make us more responsible

PAGe 9

Why do you really hate country music?

MARGOT ROSENBLATT

NATALIe bAUer • THe STUDeNT LIFe

ELLIE WOODWARD-WEBSTER Last week, Scripps College hosted Eurobash, a party that was meant to recreate a European club for American students.

For myself, an exchange student from the U.K., and other European students I went with, it was a somewhat confusing experience.

None of us quite understood why everyone was dressed in neon and sequins (is that really what Americans think Europeans wear to clubs?). In other ways — namely the bouncers at the door and the basement-like feel — it did nearly resemble a European club.

I might have been able to pretend I was back in Britain, except that instead of serving alcohol, this club was serving bottled water and pizza.

At the age of 18 in the U.S., you can vote, get married, create a will, adopt a child (and/or a puppy), buy a house, apply for a credit card, drive a car and fight in Afghanistan. What you can’t do is buy alcohol.

The U.S. is one of only 12 countries in the world to have a drinking age as high as 21, according to ProCon. Nearly 140 of 190 countries (almost 72 percent) have a legal drinking age between 16 and 19 years old.

Coming to Pitzer College on exchange from the U.K. as a 20-year-old who has been legally drinking for two years was something of a shock. I can no longer order shots at a club or pop into a supermarket to buy a bottle of wine. I can’t order a cocktail at a restaurant or enjoy a pint at the pub with my friends.

In short, I can’t drink alcohol like an adult.

At 18, you reach the “age of majority” in both California and the U.K., meaning that you cease to be a minor under the control of a parent or guardian. You become a legal adult, responsible for your own finances and decisions. But in the U.S., when it comes to decisions about drinking, this concept doesn’t seem to apply.

There’s a lot of debate around how much the legal drinking age affects the amount of underage drinking. Rates of teenage

drinking, for example, vary between countries in a way that doesn’t necessarily align with legal drinking age. In 2007, 18 percent of American 15- and 16-year-olds reported being drunk in the past month, according to Vox. In my home country of the U.K., where drinking is legal at 18, more than 30 percent of 15- and 16-year-olds had been drunk in the previous month.

But in France, which also has a drinking age of 18, the figure was 18 percent — the same as in the U.S. In Belgium, where wine and beer (but not spirits) can be purchased at age 16, the figure was only 10 percent.

Statistics aside, a walk around the 5C campuses on any Saturday night will make it obvious that American college students are drinking, and

When it’s legal, alcohol doesn’t feel so special that binging it is necessary every time.

Ellie Woodward-Webster

drinking a lot.

A drinking culture is by no means unique to American colleges. When I started university in Britain, I felt enormous pressure to drink, and enjoy doing so, in a strange city with people who were virtual strangers.

But by this time, I had already been able to legally drink for six months. I had already worked out my tolerance levels and exactly how many tequila shots I could handle (the answer is not very many).

I worked this out living at home, with friends I had known for years and where my parents made sure I came back after a night out. I worked it out in pubs and clubs that were (to an extent) monitored by

landladies and bouncers, instead of in dorm parties filled with other students.

Kendall Lowery SC ’22, a domestic student, said in the U.S., students “get to college and then have easy access to alcohol [that they] haven’t been exposed to before, [so they] probably don’t know [their] tolerance and then that leads to dangerous situations.”

In Europe, if you’re 18 (or younger in some places) you know that once you enter the club, you can buy a drink inside. Under that system, there’s far less incentive to binge beforehand for events like Eurobash.

Sam Kahn, a fellow Pitzer exchange from the U.K., said American students drink less often than British students, but that “when Americans do drink, they have loads really quickly.” This sentiment is echoed by research: In 2003, Institutes of Medicine found that 90 percent of alcohol drunk by American 18 to 20 year olds was consumed during heavy drinking, according to Choose Responsibility.

When it’s legal, alcohol doesn’t feel so special that binging it is necessary every time. When you can’t drink alcohol in a sophisticated way — when you can’t order a glass of wine with dinner but instead have to drink it out of mugs in your dorm room — it’s natural to drink more immaturely.

In the words of The New York Times’ John McCardell Jr.: “If you infantilize someone, do not be surprised when infantile behavior — like binge drinking — results.”

College students are trusted with great amounts of responsibility in other areas of life. We are legal adults, and maybe if the drinking age reflected that, we would drink more like adults.

Ellie Woodward-Webster is a Pitzer College exchange student from the U.K. She’s really enjoying life at the 5Cs but is definitely looking forward to turning 21.

As a native New Yorker, I don’t think I’ve met another soul from my area who likes country music. This recent realization got me thinking about possible reasons for this trend. There’s no way that that many people have the same anti-country tastes ingrained in them just by nature.

When I Googled the question, I found myself sadly informed that it’s not just in New York that country music is hated. A 2012 study by the University of Notre Dame uncovered that college-educated young adults are, more than ever, especially likely to dislike country music. They’re also especially unlikely to listen to classical music and a variety of other genres.

But how do we differentiate between genres, anyway?

Here’s a mental case study I did: What makes classical different from pop? Is it that classical music is entirely acoustic and pop uses technology to achieve its sound? Ed Sheeran’s music rarely uses non-acoustic instruments, but is still popular.

Meanwhile, electric violins were an extremely popular instrument in my high school.

Genres could also be separated by the types of instruments that they employ, but “Skyfall”

by Adele features the French horn, an instrument so aggressively classical that I, a nerd, chose to play it.

There are some pieces that really walk the line; even classical music non-listeners love John Williams, an unambiguously classical film-score composer (putting aside his modern nonfilm work). He wrote the “Jurassic Park” theme (a meme a few years ago, I might add), “The Imperial March” from “Star Wars” and “Hedwig’s Theme” from “Harry Potter,” just to name a few of his works.

Since they’re so hard to define, I argue that the difference between genres is all in intended demographic.

“Highly-educated young people associate classical music essentially with the high-status music of their parents and grandparents,” said Omar Lizardo, the Notre Dame study’s co-author, in an article in WQXR. This is in line with New Yorkers not listening to country music. It seems that we don’t listen to genres like country because we feel that they’re not “for us.”

And that needs to change. Not only does this practice limit our musical exploration, keeping us from finding something we could love, it inhibits cross-cultural understanding.

One notable example of a crack in a demographic wall is “Hamilton.” “Hamilton”’s soundtrack is in large part rap, a genre extremely disliked by young college-educated Americans just 20 years ago. “Hamilton” was packaged as a Broadway show, allowing Broadway’s demographic to believe for the first time that rap was “for them.”

As we all know, the musi-

cal was an absolute sensation. As comedian Hasan Minhaj jokes, “It even reached the Upper East Side … That’s what it took for old, white people to embrace rap.” Even Upper East Side Manhattanites discovered that they really do like rap, a revelation that likely never would have happened without the crack in the wall.

When I ask people why they don’t like country music, the most common argument I hear is that it reinforces gender stereotypes. This argument is a thin excuse. Every genre of music with lyrics has sexist pieces.

Here are some examples: “Under My Thumb” by The Rolling Stones in rock, “Don Giovanni”

by Mozart in opera, “Bitches Ain’t Shit” by Dr. Dre in rap, “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke in R&B, “22-20 Blues” by Skip James in blues, “Borró Cassette” by Maluma in reggaeton/Latin, “Dear Future Husband” by Meghan Trainor in pop, and yes, “God Made Girls” by RaeLynn in country (though I really love the song itself).

Not all country is sexist, just like not all rock, opera, rap, R&B, blues, Latin and pop music is sexist. So no, sexism isn’t the reason you hate country music. Whatever reason you can find you justify your avoidance of a genre can probably be applied to almost every other genre, if genres exist at all.

So keep an open mind, and listen to everything!

Probably the most obvious exception to the “staying in your musical lane” rule is white suburban kids listening to urban styles of rap and hip hop. According to Todd Boyd, a professor at the University of Southern California known colloquially as the “Notorious Ph.D.” for his pioneering work in hip hop scholarship, says “Hip hop is inherently political, the language is political. It uses language as a weapon — not a weapon to violate or not a weapon to offend, but a weapon that pushes the envelope that provokes people, makes people think.”

Hip hop, like most music, has a message. It’s important that the people outside of hip hop’s demographic hear that message.

Hip hop’s wider demographic is what is allowing it to be today’s civil rights movement. In short, listening outside your demographic spurs understanding. We should all do it more.

So break out the Spotify playlists of genres you never thought you’d love. Pick a part of the world you’ve always wanted to visit and listen to the music from that place. Push the envelope, step outside your comfort zone and there’s no telling what could happen.

One day you might be a reggae connoisseur, seek out Sibelius and know every word to every Garth Brooks song. Just know that when you play that different, funky music, you’re expanding your mind and making the world a better place.

Margot Rosenblatt SC ’23 is from the Upper WEST (upper BEST) Side of Manhattan, New York. She knows almost every word of Hamilton and has the same birthday as Chance the Rapper. This, clearly, makes her a rap expert.

Inequality isn’t just about subway fares ANAIS RIVERO “We are subjugated by the rich. It’s time for that to end,” a Chilean protester told The Guardian. Tens of thousands of Chileans have been protesting after a 3 percent hike in subway fares, but this isn’t the only reason protests are happening in the streets of Chile and across the globe.

Protests have exploded across Chile, Haiti and Iraq in response to decades of neoliberal policies that have benefited the upper classes but abandoned the majority of civilians. Neoliberalism is a modified form of liberalism with an emphasis on free-market capitalism, according to The Guardian.

These policies have resulted in

greater inequality and predominantly benefit the upper classes. Wealth in these countries is concentrated in a small percentage of the ruling class and many fundamental social services are not properly funded.

These protests aren’t a onetime event or a response to an isolated incident. They’re a response to injustice and inequality.

In Chile, the market-driven economic model developed under the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship has contributed to the country’s extreme wealth disparity — 33 percent of the nation’s wealth is

ANAGA SrINIvAS • THe STUDeNT L IFe

concentrated in the top 1 percent of the population, according to The Guardian.

Pensions, health and education in Chile are all privatized. Not to mention, pensions are measly, and the quality of education and healthcare varies greatly based on your economic status.

The tax system doesn’t properly tax the wealthy, leaving less money for vital social services.

The doctrine of neoliberalism in Chile has undermined democracy and damaged millions of lives.

In Haiti, alleged corruption and massive misappropriation of government funds have contributed to the high rates of poverty and food and water scarcity in Haiti, according to The Guardian. Protesters have been demanding the resignation of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse on charges of corruption. The island received millions of dollars in aid since the 2010 earthquake, yet infrastructure is still weak, and there’s a lack of public services, according to The Wash-

ington Post.

“There’s not just a political fight going on today … Haiti is facing a broad rejection of a political and economic system that in 30 years has failed to deliver results for the majority of the population,” said Jake Johnston, an international research associate on Haiti from the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

The protests in Haiti have brought people together across gender, age and profession.

Thousands of people are participating in the protests, and the government is reacting violently, leaving more than 18 people killed and 189 injured, according to the National Human Rights Defense Network.

In Iraq, high unemployment, poor basic services and state corruption have led to an explosion of protests across the country, according to CNN. The government refuses to listen to its people and has tried to repress these protests with military violence. The Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights estimates that the clashes have left 15,000 protestors injured and 301 dead, according to The Independent.

The prevalence of capitalist policies and corruption across these countries has left millions scrambling to make ends meet and without basic needs such as food, healthcare, education and housing met. This is not an issue

just affecting individual countries — it’s happening worldwide. The working class of these countries has been abandoned by their governments.

Systematic change needs to occur to provide social services and lessen the massive inequality in these countries. A country’s economic growth doesn’t mean anything if there aren’t tangible effects for its people.

Chile has experienced constant economic growth, according to the World Bank, yet money isn’t being allocated to fund public health services, education or pensions. This is absurd given that the upper classes hold large amounts of wealth and have low taxation rates.

These protests have resulted in the unification of people across religion and ethnicity against the systems that have failed them and need to be taken seriously.

In addition to systematic change, we need to show support to the protestors through advocacy, donations and more to see change become a reality.

This is not a moment; it’s a movement occurring across the globe.

Anais Rivero PZ ’22 is from Miami, Florida and interested in politics and Latin American studies. She would love to talk to you about how Latin America has suffered due to the International Monetary Fund and neoliberalism.

SportS

PAGE 10 TA’S TImEoUT

Bizarre Soccer Stories DANNY TA Soccer has produced some of the greatest moments in sporting history, like when underdog Leicester City won the English Premier League in 2016 against all odds.

But many of soccer’s best stories have been left largely untold.

Here are four of the sport’s most bizarre tales.

149 goals to none In the final match of the 2002 Malagasy (Madagascar) football league season, Association Sportive Adema defeated Stade Olympique de l’Emyrne 149 to zero, breaking the world record for most goals scored in a soccer match, according to ESPN. Even more astonishing — they were all own goals.

In the previous game — the penultimate of the season — SO l’Emyrne was well on its way to victory, but then a controversial penalty cost the team the game: SO l’Emyrne tied the match, knocking them out of the running for the championship title, even with one game remaining in the series.

In the final match — which didn’t affect the outcome of the championship, because AS Adema had already won mathematically — SO l’Emyrne decided to protest the season-ending penalty that they felt was undeserved, according to ESPN. In this unprecedented game, disgruntled SO l’Emyrne players continuously scored on their own net, while the AS Adema team stood around, confused.

At the end of the match, the SO l’Emyrne players involved in the protest and their coach — who spearheaded the self-sabotage — were temporarily suspended from the league, according to The Guardian.

One strange rule In 1994, Barbados faced Grenada in the qualification round for the Caribbean Cup, according to The Guardian.

Barbados needed to win the match by two goals to progress to the tournament. But toward the end of the match, they were only winning by one goal.

So organizers implemented an unusual rule for the tournament: In extra time, the first goal won the match and counted as two goals.

With the score at 2-1 for Barbados, the clock running out and Barbados unsure of its chances of

scoring another goal on Grenada, the team decided on a bizarre gamble.

In an effort to force the game into extra time and give the team another opportunity to pull ahead by the requisite two goals, Barbados scored on its own goal, tying the game 2-2.

In extra time, Barbados scored the game-winning goal they needed, winning the match 4-2 and advancing Barbados to the tournament.

NovEmbEr 15, 2019

‘This is our house’: CMS volleyball sweeps Chapman for 3rd straight title

A die-hard fan Soccer fans take their loyalties seriously, sometimes too seriously. In 2003, a Manchester United fan named Martin Warburton agreed to save his brother’s life by being a stem cell donor for his fight against chronic lymphatic leukaemia, according to The Telegraph. But he had some conditions.

His brother, Paul Warburton, was a fan of Manchester City, Man. U’s biggest rival.

To force his dying brother to start supporting Man U., Martin Warburton forced him to sign a contract requiring him to renounce his support for Man. City, join the Man. U fan club, sign up for the club’s T.V. channel, paint his house red — Man U.’s signature color — and modify his wardrobe to include mostly red clothes.

Paul Warburton signed the contract.

Whatever it takes In the early 1990s, Cambridge United manager John Beck led the club to its most successful years, in which they shot up in league rankings. But he became notorious for the tricks he used to throw opponents off their game.

Beck would put excessive amounts of sugar in their tea and flood their dressing room so it was damp and depressing when they arrived, according to the Daily Mail.

He even altered the field to benefit his team, such as cutting the grass at different lengths in certain areas to help his team hold possession of the ball.

Danny Ta PO ’22 is a math major from Ontario, California. In his free time, he enjoys being frustrated by the inconsistency of his favorite soccer team, Manchester United.

JUSTIN SLEPPY • THE STUDENT LIFE

Members of the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women’s volleyball team embrace after beating Chapman 3-0 to win its third straight SCIAC championship Nov. 9.

KELLEN BROWNING Trailing 14-7 on its home floor in the third set of the SCIAC championship game Saturday afternoon, the Athena volleyball team quickly showed why it’s a national championship-caliber squad, unleashing a furious comeback that saw Claremont-Mudd-Scripps outscore Chapman 18-3 the rest of the set and earn its third straight conference title.

The 3-0 sweep (25-13, 25-23, 25-17) was capped by Melanie Moore’s CM ’21 dramatic rejection of a Chapman player at the net, which brought the Athenas (26-3, 15-1 SCIAC) within one point of clinching the title and sent the crowd in Roberts Pavilion surging to its feet in celebration.

Moore also had three of the Athenas’ final four kills to help complete the comeback — including the match point — and was named the SCIAC Tournament Most Valuable Player soon after CMS players stormed the court and embraced following their victory.

“Melanie is our spark plug and, you can see, our emotional leader,” head coach Kurt Vlasich

said after the win. “But the way she keeps herself composed — it really flows through the team. …

[She] can celebrate and not make the lows too low.”

The Athenas put on a clinic against the hapless Panthers to start the game, but got sloppy at the beginning of the third set, culminating in Vlasich calling a timeout shortly after two of his players collided trying to stop a Chapman point down five.

From there, though, CMS rallied.

Errors by the Panthers stemmed the tide, and then Lina Aluzri CM ’20 had a spectacular dive to save a play, leading to an emphatic kill by Amanda Walker SC ’20 that produced a roar from the crowd.

Walker, who led the team with 12 kills in the game, followed up quickly after with two more scoring plays, and Chapman never threatened again.

“We just decided that, ‘You know what, this is our house and we’re going to dominate in our house, and that this is our title to be had, not theirs,’” said Moore, who had 10 kills and five blocks total.

The seven-point deficit, Vlasich added, was not too much of an obstacle for his team.

“This team has never looked at a scoreboard and been terribly concerned,” he said. “They know they can score points when they want to score points.”

Moore said winning the conference title was exciting, but “not the end of the road for us. It’s just the beginning in terms of opportunity.”

By dint of its tournament victory, the nation’s No. 5 team — and 2017 national champion — locked up an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

On Monday, the team learned it would be traveling to Chicago to play Washington (Mo.) University — a team CMS has beaten already this season — in the first round of the tournament Friday.

CMS didn’t overlook the Panthers, who dealt the Athenas their only conference loss of the season earlier in the year. Now, though, the team can focus on larger goals, and another national title seems within reach.

“We did it two years ago, and we have players on this roster that were on the floor for that, so we have the experience, we have the knowledge of what it takes to win,” Vlasich said. “At this point, you can’t lose any more matches. It’s win-or-gohome, and I think they’re ready for that.”

Athena soccer gets shot at redemption with at-large bid

mAX WEIrAUCH • THE STUDENT LIFE

Rhiann Holman CM ’20 chases after the ball as it flies down the field in an Oct. 9 game. The Athenas’ season will continue Saturday with an NCAA game.

LANEY POPE After its disappointing fifthplace SCIAC finish, the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women’s soccer team (10-4-3, 6-4-2 SCIAC) had stopped practicing for the season, and some Athenas had even cleaned out their lockers.

A week later, however, the team was given a shot a redemption, securing a spot in the NCAA tournament through an unexpected atlarge bid.

The Athenas were one game away from making the SCIAC tournament for the second year in a row and were devastated by a 1-0 loss to Chapman on Nov. 2 that they thought had ended their season for good.

“As a senior, to have that be what I thought was my last college game ... was really, really heartbreaking,” midfielder Gabby Clouse CM ’20 said.

Even though there was still a slim shot that they could make it to the tournament, after the Chapman game the Athenas effectively ended their season, she said.

“Those practices can be really, really hard — if you’re really not expecting to get in — it’s kind of painful to be out there with some expectations,” head coach Jennifer Clark said.

However, after nine days into their out-of-season lives, the Athenas were given a second chance at their postseason dreams when their name was announced in the NCAA selection show to receive an at-large bid to the tournament.

“As a senior, I didn’t get my hopes up after already experiencing those emotions, not making the tournament,” forward Kira Favakeh HM ’20 said.

Clark told her players to watch the selection show — just in case.

When the first Athena heard CMS

was selected for a bid — because her live stream was the most upto-date — “everybody thought she was joking,” Clouse said.

When the rest of the team caught up, “we were all cheering and hugging ... it was huge and we were all so, so happy,” she added.

When Favakeh found out about her team’s second chance, the rush of emotions brought her to tears.

The week after their Chapman loss was “some of the lowest that I’ve been this semester, when I thought my season was over,” she said. “To completely flip the switch, it was really just a rush of emotions.”

The Athenas are especially excited to be going to the tournament because they thought their days of playing together were over.

“It’s time we didn’t think we were going to get,” Clouse said.

To qualify for the NCAA tour-

nament, teams must either win their conference championship or have a strong record in out-of-conference games to warrant an atlarge bid.

“We beat a lot of teams in preseason who traditionally do qualify,” like Illinois Wesleyan, Pacific Lutheran and Cal Lutheran, Clouse said, but “we hit some bad luck towards the end of season.”

CMS is one of three SCIAC teams moving on to the tournament — a departure from the norm.

In recent years, SCIAC soccer teams have only gotten one or two bids to the national competition.

The Pomona-Pitzer women’s soccer team was not allocated an atlarge bid in 2018, despite finishing second in the SCIAC. “It was also really nice to see the NCAAs start to recognize the level of difficulty here in SCIAC,” Clouse said.

This will be the Athenas’ first NCAA appearance since 2016.

Clark — who rejoined CMS Athletics again in 2017 after coaching the Athenas from 2000 to 2003 — also led her 2003 team to the NCAA tournament.

The Athenas are feeling confident because “a lot of the teams that are in first round we’ve actually beaten before,” Clouse said.

Players view the selection as a testament to its players’ talent and a product of their hard work this season.

“This isn’t just something out of luck,” Clouse said.

Even though they hadn’t practiced in a week, Clark thinks her team’s time off might work to its advantage.

“We’re the most well-rested team ... because our legs did nothing for a whole week,” Clark said. “We have work to do to catch up, but we’re happy to fight that battle.”

SportS

NovEmbEr 15, 2019

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WEEKLY ROUNDUP Pomona - Pitzer Sagehen swim and dive roll through SCIAC and DII competition It was a winning weekend for the P-P men’s and women’s swim and dive teams, with back-to-back victories against Fresno Pacific at home, then La Verne and Cal Lutheran in a tri-dual meet. The Sagehens dispatched the DII competitors from Fresno with a score of 162-75 for the women and 165-69 for the men. On the men’s side, P-P swimmers topped the leaderboards in nine of 13 events, with Will Abele PO ’20 winning both the 200-yard freestyle and the 200-yard butterfly with times of 1:42.93 and 1:54.10, respectively.

On Saturday, the Hens soundly defeated SCIAC opponents La Verne and Cal Lu, with newcomer Abby Smith PO ’23 winning both the 200-yard freestyle and 500yard freestyle for the women.

Sagehen water polo falls to Whittier again, but beats CMS in OT The Pomona-Pitzer men’s water polo team (20-10, 10-3 SCIAC)

went 1-1 on Nov. 9, soundly beating La Verne but coming up two goals short to Whittier. The Sagehens now sit second in the SCIAC, behind the Poets. On Wednesday, the Sagehens pulled out the win in a 10-9 overtime match again their Sixth Street rivals. Both teams were neck-andneck throughout both overtime periods, forcing the game into two sudden-death periods, with the Hens and Stags deadlocked at 9-9. Twenty seconds into the second sudden-death round, Dylan Elliott PO ’21 found the back of the net off an assist from Zach Senator PO ’20, winning the game for the Sagehens.

Sagehen women’s soccer continues to dominate, wins SCIAC championship The No. 8 P-P women’s soccer team (17-1-1, 12-1 SCIAC) avenged its only loss of the season in the finals of the SCIAC tournament against Cal Lu with a dominant 3-0 win that secured the conference title. Chloe Ham-

er PZ ’21 contributed one goal, and SCIAC Athlete of the Year Bria VarnBuhler PO ’20 tallied two more during the match, her 17th and 18th of the season. By finishing atop the SCIAC, the Sagehens also secured a bid to the NCAA tournament, in which they’ll take on St. Scholastica this weekend in the first round in Iowa.

Sagehen football wins Battle for the Drum against Oxy The P-P football team (6-3, 4-2 SCIAC) crushed Occidental 6314 in the Battle for the Drum on Nov. 9, an annual rivalry game against the Tigers. The Sagehens, sitting in third in the SCIAC standings, were led by Karter Odermann PO ’20, who threw for 306 yards with two touchdowns and two picks and ran for two more scores. Win Hunter PZ ’21 charted 162 yards and two touchdowns in the blowout win. Up next, the Sagehens will face the Stags in the Sixth Street Rivalry game Saturday.

Athlete of the Week Dylan Elliott po ’21 Men’s Water Polo Santa Barbara, CA

Elliott brought the Sagehens to a thrilling 10-9 victory over rival CMS in a second sudden-death period Wednesday. Neither team managed to score any goals in the first session of overtime, but after the second session began with a goal by each team to prolong the stalemate, stakes were high and a second sudden-death period commenced. Off an assist by Zach Senator PO ’20, Elliott netted the game-winner just 20 seconds into the second sudden-death round, and led the team with a total of four goals on the day. Last week, the Sagehens’ 7-5 loss to Whittier on Nov. 9 featured a hat trick by Elliott.

Calendar Friday, Nov. 15 Women’s basketball @ Willamette Saturday, Nov. 16 Football @ Claremont-MuddScripps

Sunday, Nov. 17 Women’s Soccer NCAA Tournament (if P-P advances) Thursday, Nov. 21 men’s basketball @ biola

Women’s Cross-Country NCAA West Regionals Men’s Cross-Country NCAA West Regionals men’s Water Polo vs. Cal Lutheran Women’s Soccer @ St. Scholastica Women’s basketball @ George Fox men’s basketball @ Westmont

ALYSSA LEoNG • THE STUDENT LIFE

Karter Odermann PO ‘20 prepares to pass the football Nov. 9.

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Athlete of the Week Melanie Moore CM ’21 Volleyball San Mateo, CA The CMS volleyball team ended its match against Chapman in the SCIAC championship game Nov. 9 with a 3-0 sweep and its third straight SCIAC title. Set scores were 25-13, 25-23 and 25-17, with Moore contributing 10 kills in 16 attempts, including the 10th kill on match point to hit 0.625.

She also added a team-high of five blocks to lead the Athenas defensively. Moore was named the tournament MVP following the match and joined three senior teammates on the American Volleyball Coaches Association West Region first-team.

Calendar Friday, Nov. 15 Volleyball @ Wash U

Volleyball NCAA Regionals (if CMS advances)

Saturday, Nov. 16 Football vs. Pomona-Pitzer

Women’s basketball vs. University of Puget Sound

Women’s Cross-Country NCAA West Regionals

Sunday, Nov. 17 Women’s Soccer NCAA Second Round (if CMS advances)

Men’s Cross-Country NCAA West Regionals Women’s Swim & Dive vs. Cal Lutheran/ Chapman Men’s Swim & Dive vs. Cal Lutheran/ Chapman Women’s Soccer vs. Emory men’s Soccer vs. Texas Lutheran

Stag football decimated by conference-leading Chapman The CMS football team (4-5, 2-4 SCIAC) continued its disheartening season with a 41-17 loss on Nov. 9 to the SCIAC’s top team, Chapman. Quarterback Zach Fogel CM ’22 turned in a dismal performance, tossing three interceptions on just nine throws, and the defense allowed the Panthers to run for 237 yards against CMS. The only offense the Stags mustered aside from a field goal came on touchdown runs by Garrett Cheadle HM ’20 and John Willard CM ’23, who scored in the fourth quarter when the game was already well out of reach.

yard freestyle relay and 200-yard medley relay to wins as well.

Anderson Breazeale CM ’23 had a similarly impressive start, winning the 200-yard freestyle and 200-yard backstroke, as well as the 200-yard medley relay.

CMS swim teams dominate Caltech for first dual meet wins The CMS men’s and women’s swim teams swept Caltech to post their first victories of the winter season Nov. 9. The Stags won all but one event against the Beavers, while the Athenas won 14 of 16. Emily Warner CM ’23 had a sterling SCIAC debut, winning the 100- and 200-yard freestyle and helping the 200-

Stag basketball opens season in Washington, splits pair of games The CMS men’s basketball team (1-1, 0-0 SCIAC) opened its season at the Tip-Off Classic at Whitworth Field House in Washington last weekend, losing to Whitworth 93-83 on Nov. 9 before topping George Fox 80-72 the following day. Veteran guard Miles President HM ’20 led the Stags in both games, posting 14

CMS men’s soccer wins first SCIAC title since 2012 The Stag soccer team’s strong season continued Nov. 9 with an accolade that had eluded them for seven years: a conference championship. William Barton CM ’22 and Ethan Tyng CM ’22 both scored for CMS in its 2-0 win over Redlands, securing the title and a spot in the NCAA tournament, which begins Saturday.

points against Whitworth and 24 in the win over George Fox. CMS men’s water polo tops Oxy, falls to P-P in sudden-death overtime The Stag water polo team (1510, 10-3) trounced Occidental 19-7 on Nov. 9 before falling in heartbreaking fashion 10-9 to its Sixth Street rivals Wednesday in sudden-death overtime. Sam Harrison CM ’22 led the Stags against the Tigers with four goals, while Zack Rossman CM ’20 scored a clutch goal at the end of regulation to send Wednesday’s game to overtime.

Athena volleyball sweeps Chapman 3-0 for third straight SCIAC title Amanda Walker SC ’20 had 12 kills and Melanie Moore CM ’21 added 10 — as well as several clutch blocks — to help the Athena volleyball roll past Chapman on Nov. 9 for its third straight conference championship. CMS beat the Panthers in three sets (25-13, 25-23, 25-17) to earn a spot in the NCAA tournament and a shot at a second national title.

Volleyball NCAA Regionals (if CMS advances) men’s Soccer NCAA Second Round (if CMS advances) Thursday, Nov. 21 Volleyball NCAA Quarterfinals (if CMS advances)

men’s Water Polo @ Caltech HUXLEYANN HUEFNEr • THE STUDENT LIFE

Koss Klobucher CM ‘21 throws the ball during the CMS men’s water polo match against Occidental on Nov. 9.

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NovEmbEr 15, 2019

Stags strike early, roll redlands NCAA: P-P preps for for first SCIAC title since 2012 national tournament MATHEW KIM Hungry for their first conference title in seven years, the Stags weren’t taking any chances.

On the Claremont-MuddScripps men’s soccer team’s first shot in the SCIAC championship game against Redlands on Saturday, forward William Barton CM ’22 made sure he made the most of his opportunity, tucking the ball into the bottom corner of the net to give CMS a lead it wouldn’t relinquish.

Before the evening was over, the Stags (14-3-2, 9-1-2 SCIAC) added another goal, giving them a 2-0 victory in front of a crowd of over 800, a SCIAC title and a spot in the NCAA tournament.

The prospect of securing a bid in the NCAA tournament was one of the key motivators for the Stags during the game, especially since they fell just short of the national tournament last year.

“After being snubbed last year, we’re really excited to make an impact this year. Part of winning today was to prove that we actually belong in the tournament,” Adam Singer CM ’20 said. “We didn’t want to leave anything up to the committee’s hands.”

Last year, the Stags lost in the SCIAC semifinal match to Chap-

man in double overtime, after beating them in regular season play.

“We didn’t work this hard to blow it in the last game,” Singer added after this year’s victory.

In earlier contests this year, the Stags tied Redlands 0-0 and 2-2.

“This time, we came out with a different mentality,” midfielder Samay Rahim CM ’22 said. “We wanted to win. We knew we tied them both times, so this time we weren’t going to let them beat us on our field.”

In the ninth minute, CMS got its chance when forward Cole Smith CM ’20 stole the ball from a Redlands defender and connected with Barton, who scored the goal that put the Stags ahead.

In the 74th minute — only four minutes after getting subbed in — forward Ethan Tyng CM ’22 put another goal away right above the hands of the Redlands keeper off a chip through ball from midfielder Justin Blachman CM ’23.

Tyng’s goal all but sealed the Stags’ SCIAC title, as the Bulldogs only got off one more shot during the remaining 26 minutes.

“The shots just fell for us,” Tyng said. “We had a bunch of shots in the first two games that just didn’t go in; we had a lot of opportunities

that couldn’t come. Today, they just fell and went in the back of the net, and that was huge.”

Tyng, who also scored the Stags’ second goal against Occidental in the semifinal match, was named the tournament’s MVP. Players noted that the two regular season matchups between the teams helped CMS strategize for the championship game.

“We knew what their tactics were,” Singer said. “They wanted to get their guys high, so our game plan was to step really quickly to those guys and force them long because we knew we could dominate them in the air.”

Depth has played a key role in the team’s success this season; in the championship game, 20 different Stags saw playing time.

“Everyone who got in was able to step up,” Rahim said.

“We don’t have one weak link.

Every time someone comes in off the bench, they bring the same energy as the guys before. Just relying on every guy is the biggest part of our team.”

CMS will take on Texas Lutheran in the first round of the NCAA tournament Saturday in San Antonio.

JUSTIN SLEPPY • THE STUDENT LIFE

The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men’s soccer team runs toward the crowd in celebration after winning the SCIAC championship Nov. 9.

CoUrTESY oF PITZEr oFFICE oF CommUNICATIoNS

Chloe Hamer PZ ‘21 catches a ball midair with her foot. Pomona-Pitzer beat Cal Lutheran 3-0 on Nov. 9.

Continued from page 1 few critical mistakes and [Cal Lu was] really opportunistic and penalized us for those couple mistakes, so our goal wasn’t necessarily to just win — it was to fix the mistakes.”

Hamer said the team’s performance far exceeded just fixing mistakes.

“I thought my team played with so much heart,” she said.

“We played like we were one mind, honestly, and every single person played the best game I’ve seen them play all season.”

Despite its regular season success in recent years, P-P has failed to capitalize in the playoffs, losing in the tournament final the last two years.

“The last two years we have watched other teams celebrate on our field … and that has been burning in their stomachs,” Scanlon said, adding that the win was especially meaningful for the team’s seniors, who had never experienced a SCIAC tournament win.

“For our seniors it’s been four years coming now, which is an absolutely overwhelming feeling,” Berardo added.

“I am just so proud of this team and so proud of everything that we’ve all accomplished together, and we’re just gonna keep it going.”

After the game, many of the Sagehens were overcome with emotion.

“Everyone’s been crying like the whole time,” Hamer said.

“It’s pretty cool.”

The Sagehens will travel to Iowa to face St. Scholastica in the first round of the NCAA tournament Saturday.

Hamer said the Hens know to not get complacent with their success.

“I think our team is really good at hitting milestones but then restarting and knowing that each game is like a restart and we’re not just like riding off of what we had before,” Hamer said.

Still, the team feels well poised to make a solid run in the NCAA tournament.

“We’re a good team,” Berardo said. “We have a lot to work for, and we have a lot of pride and a lot of honor, and we’re just gonna go out there and keep playing our best game — because we know when we play our best game, that’s when we get results and that’s when we get it done.”