Vol. CXXX, No. 2

THE STUDENT

LIFE

The Student Newspaper of the Claremont Colleges Since 1889 CLAREMONT, CA

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2018

NEWS

VOL. CXXX NO. 2

CMS Men’s Track Remains Suspended After Alleged Naked Assault, Hazing Activity; Women Reinstated Marc Rod & Hank Snowdon

The last few weeks of proposals and defeats for immigration reform billsinCongresshavebeenstressfulfor undocumented students at the 5Cs, who weigh in on page 2.

NEWS

A Pomona College professor is incorporating social justice in her statistics class this semester, igniting controversy over objectivity in mathematics. Read more on page 3.

Lauryn Cravens • The Student Life

The CMS men’s track and field team is still suspended after naked athletes allegedly assaulted a Pomona student and stole a photo from the Rains Center.

Nationwide Flu Outbreak Leads To 5C Vaccine Shortage

LIFE AND STYLE

Laney Pope

“I started this club mainly to empower women-identified individuals,” said Jesse Edwards SC ’19, founder of the 3C Healthy Lifestyles Club. Read more about her fitness club on page 5.

OPINIONS

Opinions columnist Zachary Freiman PO ’20 argues that the struggle for gay rights is not over after legalizing samesex marriage. Read more on page 7.

SPORTS

Michael Scarlett CM ’18 scored a season-high 32 points and the Stags basketball team topped Pomona-Pitzer 73-60.

Read about their victory on page 9.

Hospitals and health centers around the nation are struggling to combat this year’s most common flu strain, H3N2 — which has been particularly infectious and damaging — and Claremont is no exception.

Student Health Services announced on its website Jan. 24 that “flu vaccinations are no longer available at SHS and availability at local pharmacies is low.”

“The recent flu outbreak [depleted] supplies of the flu vaccine nationally,” which contributed to the vaccine shortage at SHS, wrote Denise Hayes, The Claremont Colleges Services vice president of student affairs, in an email to TSL. To compensate for the shortage, SHS identified local pharmacies, Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, and the Los Angeles County Public Health Department as potential suppliers of the vaccine.

Since students returned to campus from winter break, there have been 15 cases of students with flu-like symptoms at SHS, Hayes said. In 2017, during the same time period, SHS saw five students; in 2016 there was only one student.

Yurie Heard PO ’20 said she struggled to get a SHS appointment because it was fully booked.

Her symptoms began with a fever Jan. 25, and eventually she became “really lethargic and couldn’t get out of bed.”

“I wanted to be seen [by SHS] while my symptoms were peaking so I could get the antibiotics that I needed,” she said.

However, by the time she got the appointment Feb. 2, she had missed a full week of classes and the worst of her symptoms had passed.

Two weeks later, Heard said she still feels congested.

Pomona College biology professor Sharon Stranford, who specializes in immunology, credited the severity of this flu outbreak to a “particularly nasty strain that mutates rapidly,” making vaccines less effective.

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Stranford said the creation of next season’s flu vaccine is somewhat of a guessing game.

During the flu season, the virus mutates into a different strain, she said. Based on worldwide flu trends, scientists can anticipate the strain of influenza that will be most prevalent in the coming winter.

The H3N2 vaccine in particular “[is] never quite as effective as the other vaccines,” Stranford said, because “the virus mutates in people as it moves from person to person, but it also mutates in culture” when researchers are generating the vaccine.

These mutations lead to a less effective vaccine, because “the version that came out after culturing wasn’t 100 percent identical to the version that we put into the culture, so we may not be vaccinating against exactly the same proteins that we were hoping,” she said.

The flu has spread around the world, but it has hit California especially hard, Stranford said.

According to a press release from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, there have already been 158 influenza-associated deaths in Los Angeles County as of Feb. 2, compared to a total of 80 during the entire flu season last year.

Flu hospitalizations are also up statewide. The number of hospitalizations “reached peak levels higher than any measured since at least the 2009 [swine flu] pandemic,” a spokesperson from the California Department of Public Health wrote in an email to TSL. According to the CDPH, the flu seems to be past its peak, but the virus’ severity is still abnormally high.

At the Pomona Valley Medical Center, a local hospital that serves the 5Cs, “we were seeing almost double the volume that we would normally see,” said Urgent Care Medical Director Stefan Reynoso. “At the peak, 25 percent of our patients had the flu.”

Stranford cautioned students to wash their hands regularly

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See FLU page 3

The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men’s track and field team remains suspended during an ongoing investigation into transgressions committed by team members Saturday night, while the women’s team’s suspension — which was levied along with the men’s Monday — was lifted Thursday evening.

CMS Athletics, Claremont McKenna College, and Harvey Mudd College are continuing to investigate “unsanctioned team activities alleged to be in violation of the CMS Student-Athlete Code of Conduct, the CMS Hazing Policy, and the respective codes of conduct at [CMC] and [HMC]” by the men’s team, CMS athletic director Terrance Tumey wrote in a statement Thursday.

The women’s team was suspended from Monday to Thursday after members of the team participated in “unsanctioned team activities alleged to be in violation of the CMS Student-Athlete Code of Conduct and the CMS Hazing Policy” Saturday as well, Tumey wrote.

According to an email sent to the HMC student body by Dean of Students Jon Jacobsen Wednesday, the investigations into the men’s and women’s teams revolve around multiple alleged conduct violations across the 5Cs. “This involved groups of students engaging in actions across the campuses such as entering locked buildings and pools after hours, public indecency, theft, and an alleged physical altercation, involving both Campus Safety and the Claremont Police Department,” Jacobsen wrote.

See CMS page 3

CMC Appoints Dianna Graves As New Dean Of Students Miranda Sheridan Longtime Claremont McKenna College employee Dianna Graves CM ’98 has become the school’s new assistant vice president and dean of students, CMC President Hiram Chodosh announced in January.

Graves, who began her new job Jan. 18, became the head coach of the Claremont-MuddScripps women’s volleyball team in 1999. Since then, she has risen through the ranks of the administration, from director of academic planning, to CMC’s liaison for the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, to assistant vice president for strategic initiatives.

Graves said one of her main priorities is aligning all spheres of life at CMC: academic, residential, and extracurricular.

“We try to understand the core objectives of all the offices across campus and try to reinforce those,” she said. “We

try to make it so that students can take full ownership of their experience and design things so they’re advancing their goals.”

Graves said she will also focus on advancing financial and academic resources for students who might be struggling. She wants to improve communication so that CMC students know how to access resources and find help on campus.

Vice President of Student Affairs Sharon Basso was unable to comment on Graves’ appointment before press time.

According to The CMC Forum, Basso told students at a Jan. 23 ASCMC meeting that CMC was looking for someone who was “passionate about the role and deeply invested in the success of the students” to fill the dean of students role.

Graves has received significant support from students and faculty, many of whom have known her since her undergraduate years.

Kathryn Ridenour CM ’18, who worked with Graves as president of CMC’s Model UN team, wrote in an email to TSL that she believes Graves has great potential to advance the dean of students office’s ability to reach out to students.

“At times it seems that [office] is constrained in what it is able to do for students because of greater forces at the college, such as the interests of the trustees,” Ridenour said. “I hope that [Graves] will be able to leverage her experience serving as the assistant vice president for strategic initiatives and the relationships she cultivated in that role to lessen any constraints the … office may be subject to.”

Ridenour hopes Graves will be able to cut through bureaucratic obstacles.

“In my experience, if you want to do something big, [Graves] is the person to go to

See DEAN page 3

Talk By #MeToo Advocate, PO Alumna Accused Of Sexual Misconduct Postponed Angela Tran CW: sexual harassment, sexual assault #MeToo advocate and California assemblywoman Cristina Garcia PO ’99 was scheduled to speak at Pomona College Friday, but her talk has been postponed following allegations that she harassed and groped a staffer and a lobbyist published by Politico Thursday evening.

Garcia, who was featured as one of Time Magazine’s “Silence Breakers” in the Person of the Year edition, is currently under investigation by the state legislature, Politico reports.

Pomona politics associate professor Amanda Hollis-Brusky announced the rescheduling on the department’s Facebook page shortly after the allegations surfaced.

“The news was deeply upsetting to hear, because Cristina Garcia was definitely put up on a pedestal by the politics department as a shining example of a politics major using

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her knowledge and education for activism and good,” Michelle Fowler PO ’19 said.

The flyer for the scheduled talk described Garcia as “a leading voice for women’s issues, government transparency, and environmental justice.”

Garcia has been accused of groping by two separate individuals, one of whom is Daniel Fierro, a former staffer for assemblyperson Ian Calderon. Fierro claims Garcia assaulted him in 2014.

Fierro did not report the incident at the time, but told his former boss in January after being inspired by the #MeToo movement, Politico reported. The matter was referred to the Assembly Rules Committee, which is investigating the allegations.

Garcia said she would comply with the investigation.

“Every complaint about sexual harassment should be taken seriously,” she said in a statement Thursday. “I have zero recollection of engaging in inappropriate behavior and such behavior is

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inconsistent with my values.”

Fierro said he fears that his accusation will harm the #MeToo movement since Garcia is so closely associated with it, but decided to speak out since her actions are contrary to the movement’s cause.

“I have female colleagues who have been through way worse than me,” Fierro told Time Magazine. “That conversation [about sexual assault] needs to be had. …

If their stories are being taken less seriously by people in the district because the messenger is not credible, that’s a problem.”

A Sacramento lobbyist who spoke to Politico on condition of anonymity also said that Garcia verbally harassed him and attempted to grope him at a fundraiser in 2017.

“What is even more upsetting is the ramifications ... for the entire #MeToo movement,” Fowler said. “[Garcia’s actions] could easily ... be used by right-wing media to support their argument that #MeToo leaders and supporters are just a bunch of misandrists.”

NEWS................................1 LIFE & STYLE.....................4 OPINIONS........................7 SPORTS.............................9

NEWS PAGE 2

FEBRUARY 9, 2018

THE STUDENT LIFE

DACA Students Push For Activism, Immigration Reform Glen Williams In recent weeks, politicians have repeatedly tried and failed to advance a bipartisan immigration deal protecting immigrants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — often referred to as Dreamers — leaving 5C DACA recipients worried about what their futures may hold.

Uncertainty about their future legal status has thrown the lives of Dreamers at the 5Cs into question. Several spoke to TSL for this article, but requested to be identified by their first names only to protect their identities.

For Joey, President Donald Trump’s offer to provide a path to citizenship for Dreamers in exchange for funding for a border wall was not comforting.

“A wall means vulnerable communities on the border, in danger of being deported, living in fear,” he said.

Joey also worries about his parents’ fates under an immigration deal.

“If Congress were to choose to give me citizenship while my parents live in domestic terror, I would not accept it,” he said.

Joey also worries that the measures Congress and Trump have been considering are just stopgap fixes.

“

There’s a fear and uncertainty about going to the hospital, with horror stories of people being deported from there. My mother would rather risk her health than her ability to stay in the nation.

- Bryan Carlen CM ‘20

”

The proposed and passed solutions have been “lots of ‘let’s do this for now,’ but tighten up on immigration for later. It’s a bunch of shortsighted attempts to address immigration, which puts a lot of communities at risk,” he said.

In the short run, with a Republican-controlled Congress and Trump in the White House, the outlook seems grim to many in the undocumented community, but undocumented students are not confident that things will change even with a political shift.

“Even if we reached a Demo-

Sarah Sundermeyer • The Student Life

Alex Vazquez PO ‘21 stands alongside student protesters and community members at the Rally for Immigrant Justice last September

crat majority in Congress, I still don’t have faith in it alone,” Luis said. “The whole reason DACA was implemented was because of grassroots efforts. Obama didn’t pass DACA out of the kindness of his heart,” he said.

According to Luis, strong activism and support for undocumented immigrants is the only thing that will have an impact on politicians.

“We need support on the ground from undocumented people and their allies,” Luis said.

Some 5C students are attempting to follow this advice; several organized an event at Pomona College Wednesday to call state representatives and advocate for a DACA bill.

Likewise, Pomona President G. Gabrielle Starr has joined the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration — a national group of college and university presidents and chancellors — to provide support to the undocumented community.

“For years, Pomona College has welcomed and supported undocumented and DACA students,” Starr said in a press release on Pomona’s website. “We are proud to join the Presidents’ Alliance, with the goal of working together to bring positive and lasting legislative solutions for immigrant and DACA students as well as for international students and scholars.”

Former Pomona President

Mudd Students Accidentally Make Groundbreaking Physics Discovery Alexandra Branscom Harvey Mudd College professor Sharon Gerbode and her summer research students made an accidental physics discovery over the last two summers that changed their understanding of materials science.

The students developed a new technique called optical blasting that manipulates gain boundaries — irregularities in the structure of crystals that give materials their physical properties. Their findings could be used to find new means of modifying material properties.

Materials science typically changes the physical properties of material externally, by manipulating the material to give it desired properties.

This new research, however, allows properties to be manipulated from the inside of the material at the microscopic level.

Gerbode was trying to recreate her graduate school research, which involved using a laser on crystals.

The students accidentally added different proportions of the required chemicals than intended, causing the laser to repel particles instead of attract them.

Kemper Ludlow HM ’18, one of the student researchers, recalled the moment she and her fellow researchers, including Caitlin Cash HM ‘18, realized how fascinated they were with their research. One morning when they went into the lab, they saw that their teammate Jeremy Wang HM ’17 had stayed up until 3 a.m. making a smiley face-shaped hole in the crystal.

“I love research because you get to discover science that nobody has seen before,” Ludlow said.

The research took place over the course of a year and a half. Gerbode said the significance of their discovery did not resonate until they were writing and editing a paper about their research.

“It was not until the last six months until I finally realized, wait

a second, this might actually be huge,” Gerbode said.

The research team have since had their paper published in the top physics journal, “Physical Review Letters,” instead of the one they originally intended on submitting it to.

Even after the submission process, “[the discovery] is even bigger than I could imagine it could be,” Cash said.

“This research was really impressive work that my students did,” Gerbode said. “Graduate students would be proud to have done such good work, but this work was done by a bunch of of undergrads.

They really deserve a lot of credit.”

Gerbode still has a team of students working on continuing this research and bringing their own ideas to the table. Cash and Ludlow are currently working on their theses relating to this research, and plan to attend graduate school next year.

Corrections In the bar chart for “GOP Tax Law Hits PO, CMC With Endowment Tax”, the data for Median U.S. Colleges was from FY 2015, not FY 2017.

In the article about Pomona’s Puerto Rican students, the university the two Puerto Rican students attended was mispelled as “The University of Puerto Rico, Maragüez.” The correct spelling is “The University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez.”

TSL regrets these errors.

David Oxtoby also authored a letter in support of DACA in November 2016, which has now been co-signed by 703 other university presidents. Additionally, Pomona Dean of Students Miriam Feldblum is currently on sabbatical in Washington, D.C., advocating for immigration reform.

DACA students emphasized the importance of legislation to protect them and other undocumented immigrants by recounting the hardships and difficulties that they and their families face.

“It’s difficult for immigrants to receive health care access.

There’s a fear and uncertainty about going to the hospital, with horror stories of people being deported from there. My mother

would rather risk her health than her ability to stay in the nation,” María said.

Joey added that undocumented immigrants also face legal and financial challenges.

“We pay taxes yet we don’t see the representation,” he said. He said not being able to contribute to the economy like documented immigrants “was like a kick in the face; it was like I wasn’t here.”

For many undocumented immigrants, fear of deportation is constant.

“Even if I feel safe [at] Pomona, I still have to worry about my parents in Arizona. I can exist a little better here, but it’s still not a very good thing because they’re not safe,” Felipe said.

The generally supportive attitude toward undocumented immigrants in Claremont and California in general influenced some DACA students’ decisions to come to Pomona.

“One of the reasons I decided to come to Pomona was that so my parents could come to my graduation,” María said. “My parents had never wanted to leave the state because of fear.”

Constant stressors have had a profound effect on undocumented immigrants throughout the nation, she said.

“My parents have internalized the sense that, ‘we’re not worthy to be here.’ Yet, they are ones who made me who I am,” María said.

Fox TV Show ‘Lucifer’ Films At Pomona

Meghan Joyce • The Student Life

Angela Tran A filming crew from Warner Bros. Studios working on the Fox television show “Lucifer” shot at Pomona College’s Bridges Auditorium and Oldenborg Hall this week.

The crew set up on the east side of Marston Quad Monday afternoon and blocked off some parts of Pomona’s south campus with signs that read: “By entering and by your presence in this area, you consent to be photographed.”

As part of the shoot, about 10 police cars with flashing lights and wailing sirens filled Fourth Street between Bridges and Oldenborg Tuesday morning, along with a coroner’s van.

Pomona administrators notified students ahead of time that the events were staged for the filming; students said the scene appeared highly realistic.

The filming crew brought in fake vines, hung a large poster for a fictional performance on Bridges, placed other set decorations outside Oldenborg, and parked several

truckloads of other equipment nearby. A makeup trailer was also parked in the Oldenborg lot.

Some students are excited to see a familiar location on a show they watch.

“I love Lucifer,” Iishe Davis SC ’21 said. “I’m honestly excited for whatever they’re filming. I’ve been trying to guess ... what the episode could be,” Filming moved inside Bridges Wednesday, with dozens of extras dressed in formal wear and several in ballet outfits joining the shoot.

NEWS FEBRUARY 9, 2018

THE STUDENT LIFE

PAGE 3

CMS: Possible Initiation Events Reported Across 5Cs Continued from Page 1 HMC is looking into “a number of reports and self reports from HMC students,” Jacobsen added.

The incidents under investigation were part of separate men’s and women’s teams “scavenger hunt” initiation events, sources familiar with the CMS track teams said.

The purported theft and physical altercation mentioned by Jacobsen is believed to be an incident in which six male athletes — some of them naked — allegedly assaulted a student employee at Pomona College’s Rains Center while stealing a photo off the wall around 9 p.m.

Saturday, according to CPD logs and sources told about the episode.

During the incident, the six students entered Rains and removed a photo of a runner from the rival Pomona-Pitzer men’s track team from the wall, CPD logs said. At least one student “held down [the employee] when he [attempted] to stop them,” according to CPD logs.

Campus Safety called the CPD for assistance at 9:15 p.m., according to CPD logs, and CPD is investigating the incident. No arrests have been made so far.

The student who was allegedly assaulted at Rains declined to comment on the incident due to ongoing CPD and Pomona investigations.

“We are supporting our student and we are cooperating with the investigation,” Pomona spokesperson Patricia Vest wrote in an email to TSL. The CPD log also said the students were running naked throughout the 5C campuses, with Campus Safety in pursuit. A separate indecent exposure incident was reported by Campus Safety at 8:32 p.m. near the Kravis Center at CMC, but it is unclear whether the same people were involved.

It is unknown whether the students were apprehended Saturday night. Director of Campus Safety Stan Skipworth wrote in an email to TSL Tuesday that “the information in [a previous version of this story published Monday] contains the information we have at this

FLU: Not Too Late To Vaccinate

Liam Brooks • The Student Life

The photo allegedly stolen by members of the CMS track team is still missing from the Rains Center wall.

point. The colleges are continuing their investigation of the incident.”

Another stunt occurred at the International Championship of Collegiate A Capella at Bridges Auditorium during intermission Saturday night, when multiple shirtless students ran onto the stage and were captured on a video obtained by TSL. The incident is believed to be part of the men’s initiation scavenger hunt, according to reports from multiple sources.

Another source familiar with the women’s team told TSL that the women’s scavenger hunt tasks included running a naked lap in a dorm at each of the 5Cs and taking a body shot off a random person.

Tumey initially announced the men’s and women’s suspensions Monday during a meeting with the teams, according to multiple sources present at the meeting.

Both teams were barred from practicing, competing, or meeting with coaches until further notice. The men’s team remains barred from all team activities, Tumey wrote Thursday.

Although the women’s teamwide suspension was lifted, specific members of the team may still be punished by the athletic department or their schools.

“CMS Athletics may impose sanctions on individual team members found responsible for violations of policy,” Tumey wrote.

“Any sanctions imposed by CMS are independent of potential disciplinary and/or educational consequences that could result from the colleges’ respective conduct processes. These conduct reviews remain in progress.”

CMS distance runner coach John Goldhammer declined to comment

Monday, but addressed his athletes in an email earlier that day: “You’re free to make choices, BUT you’re not free from the consequences.”

Scripps College spokesperson Karen Bergh could not be reached for comment before press time.

The suspensions came just as the CMS track season had begun.

Members of the team competed at the 2018 Tufts Invite Jan. 13, the University of Washington Preview Meet Jan. 13, the Westmont Wake-Up Meet Jan. 27, and an alumni meet Feb. 3.

Both the Stags and Athenas won the SCIAC championship in 2017. The Stags have won the title for the past five seasons, and the Athenas have done so for the past three.

Samuel Breslow contributed reporting.

Dominic Frempong • The Student Life

Continued from Page 1 and be wary of sharing “things that could harbor the virus.”

This even includes pens and pencils, she said.

It is also “definitely not too

late to get a flu shot,” Stranford said. When getting a flu shot, “[you are] protecting more than just yourself. Especially on a campus setting, where we’re all in close contact, one or two fewer cases can make a big difference.”

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DEAN: Graves Hopes To Reinforce Pomona Brings Social Justice To Student Objectives,Voices Stats Course, Sparking Controversy Continued from Page 1

Sam Norrito Pomona College math professor Omayra Ortega introduced a social justice component to the Introduction to Statistics class (MATH058 PO) offered this semester, prompting backlash from some students — several of whom were featured in a Claremont Independent article critical of the changes.

Ortega incorporates a different social justice issue into her class each week to illuminate topics in statistics and make the class more engaging. She said she made this change in response to student input.

“I took the direction from my students,” Ortega said. “I saw that they were very active and engaged in these topics of social justice, and so as every teacher does, you want to make your class as interesting as possible.”

Ortega said her class is an innovative way to fill the Analyzing Differences overlay requirement at Pomona.

It also allows for an approach to statistics that is different than just analyzing coin tosses, Ortega said.

The class, which is the only Introduction to Statistics class offered at Pomona this semester, covers the same topics as the introductory statistics classes offered at Claremont McKenna College and Harvey Mudd College, Ortega said.

“I would even make the analogy that the class is sort of like [a] cake,” Ortega said. “The statistics are the cake and the icing is social justice.”

The math department has long been looking to make mathematics a more inclusive space, said Adam Starr PO ’18, a department liaison.

He said the discussion of the role of social justice in statistics is one way to increase inclusivity.

“People often think of math as [a] very white male space,” he said.

“Part of that is a discussion of the role of math in social justice and the role of social justice in math, and [Ortega] seems to have found a great way to connect the dots.”

Will Gu PO ’20, the author of the article and an editor-in-chief of the Independent, wrote in a message to TSL that the article itself did not object to Ortega’s curriculum.

“The article we wrote was a news article,” Gu wrote in a Facebook message to TSL. “It stated the facts of the change.”

The article quoted students who were critical of the course

to make it happen,” she said. “[Graves] knows all the ins and outs of CMC, listens to students in a way that shows she genuinely values their input, and is excellent at identifying which strings to pull to bring everything together in exactly the way it needs to.”

G r a v e s s a i d s h e h a s re mained at CMC for so long because she loves the environment and the students.

“The faculty, the staff, the other students invest in the school and one another,” she said. “I think it’s a really special place and I stay because people invested in me and I feel this obligation to pay that forward.”

Ethan Ong • The Student Life

Pomona College math Professor Omayra Ortega is taking a different approach to her Introduction to Statistics class this semester, incorporating social justice issues into key stats concepts.

and raised concerns about the course’s perceived liberal agenda.

One math student, who spoke to the Independent on the condition of anonymity, said “The beauty of math is that it is objective — it holds true regardless of culture, politics, and so on. If you’re teaching social justice in a math class, you’re not teaching math.”

The students quoted are the only ones who agreed to be interviewed by the Independent, editor-in-chief Alec Sweet PO ’20 wrote in a message to TSL. Ortega said she doesn’t think it’s possible to be objective in mathematics in the first place.

“Science is being conducted by humans regardless, so there will always be that perspective,” she said.

Chris Donnay PO ’18, a math major, concurred.

“It’s important to bring social justice into math because math is not objective and the idea that math is immune from society, culture, and your own perception is completely false,” he said. “Who you are permeates everything you do and math isn’t immune from those things.”

Starr and Donnay dismissed

some of the objections cited by students in the Independent’s article. Understanding the societal impact of statistics will create more engaged citizens, they said.

“It’s super important to put statistics in the context of social justice because we are seeing that happen more and more in the real world,” Donnay said.

“You should be able to critique the societal impact of statistics.”

Ortega also contested the idea that examining statistics related to social justice pushes a liberal agenda. She said that her class discusses the same standard topics as a statistics course.

“No one is pushing an opinion at all,” she said. “We are just analyzing data.”

Ortega claimed that although the class description has changed to explain that a social justice component has been added, the syllabus is no different than before, contrary to what the Independent said.

Starr and Donnay said they were perplexed that the class had created controversy at all.

“I think it’s partially an imagined controversy,” Donnay said.

“It just seems kind of petty.”

Courtesy of Claremont McKenna College

Diana Graves CM ’98 became the new assistant vice president and dean of students Jan. 18.

Word Search: Boba Edition

LIFE & STYLE PAGE 4

FEBRUARY 9, 2018

THE STUDENT LIFE

Pitzer Student’s Bruce Lee Lightsabers Video Gets Two Million Hits Leah Kelly Patrick Nan’s PZ ’20 video about martial artist and film star Bruce Lee fighting with lightsabers has reached over 2.1 million views on YouTube in the less than a month since its Jan. 12 release.

The video, titled “Bruce Lee Lightsabers Scene Recreation,” uses a scene from the 1972 film “The Chinese Connection” in which Lee faces off against an evil samurai warrior.

Nan edited the scene using Adobe After Effects to turn Lee’s nunchucks and his adversary’s samurai sword into Star Wars-esque lightsabers.

“A lot of the Jedi lightsaber fights in ‘Star Wars’ reminded me of martial arts,” Nan said. “I also came to like Bruce Lee as he was one of the practitioners who first brought Chinese martial arts from the East to the West.”

Nan started making videos in 10th grade when he enrolled in an International Baccalaureate film course. He chose Media Studies as his major at Pitzer College to focus on film production.

“That’s when I took my filmmaking to the next level and started working on more advanced programs that resulted in higher quality videos,” Nan said.

Nan started working on Bruce Lee Lightsabers video shortly after “Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens” came out in 2015 but took a break to focus on school.

“One of the special effects editors from [‘The Force Awakens’] created this effects pack ... called Saber,” Nan said. “I thought, ‘How can I make this new plugin into an actual scene, and how can I use it as a learning experience?’”

Nan returned to the project in the summer of 2017 and completed the video at the beginning of 2018.

“I was a slow worker because I wanted it to be meticulous [and] as perfect as it can be,” Nan said. “It took so long because the plugin Saber effect I was using required me to manually track the blade, going one frame at a time, 24 frames per second, for a one-minute, 45-second video.”

Nan also had to work out other details to make the scene look real and professional.

“In one of the shots where Bruce Lee had a wooden pole, I had the

lightsaber start burning the pole as if it were actually there,” Nan said.

“I had to cut out some characters to layer them on top of the lightsaber plugin, and I had to adjust some settings to make the lightsabers’ glow shine on them.”

Nan published the video on YouTube and Reddit. He said he didn’t expect to get so many views and likes. Since the video’s release, his YouTube following has increased from 40 to 4,500 followers.

“My phone was filled with YouTube notifications, Reddit notifications, and even messages from people I didn’t know,” he told TSL. “I was so surprised. I was like, ‘Whoa, whoa, it actually caught on.’”

The viral video attracted many comments, including over 4,000 on YouTube. Nan noticed one pattern of responses that kept recurring.

“Many users were saying, ‘This two-minute video is better than the three-hour “The Last Jedi” movie,’” Nan said, adding that these comments were probably due to the polarizing effect the latest Star Wars film had on many viewers.

Pitzer’s Assistant Director of Media Studies Eduardo Gonzalez also praised Nan’s work.

“The Bruce Lee Lightsaber video that Patrick created is an amazing example of mixing two classic movie genres and giving it some contemporary pop culture appeal,” Gonzalez wrote in an email to TSL. “The visual effects he created were so well done, both creatively and technically, that it’s no surprise it went viral.”

Nan even received a message from the official Bruce Lee Instagram account, which is run by Lee’s daughter, Shannon Lee. It read “We love the Bruce Lee Lightsabers video! Are you cool with us posting on Bruce Lee FB page and IG ... and giving you credit?”

Nan readily agreed. He said he had a fangirling moment when saying, “Yes Shannon, you can.”

But even with all the positive feedback, Nan has received negative comments on the video — which he ignores.

“People have the right to voice their opinions, and I don’t really have the right to silence them,” Nan said. “The (negative commenters] more than often get bashed on by other people.”

It’s a Small World For Certain Pomona Majors Will Howard

Leah Kelly • The Student Life

Patrick Nan’s PZ ’20 video combining Bruce Lee’s and Star Wars has became a YouTube sensation.

Nan has received messages on his YouTube and Instagram accounts from viewers asking him to recreate more scenes with lightsabers. Despite the video’s success, Nan didn’t make any money from it and doesn’t plan to, as he wants to make videos for himself.

“I’d like to make more Bruce Lee videos, but I don’t want to make them for the sake of pleasing my small following … I just want to make fun videos,” Nan said. “There also comes the danger that I would become dubbed the Bruce Lee lightsabers guy.”

Nan hopes to one day become a film director and make action movies in Hollywood.

“Right now I’m editing several side projects,” Nan said. “I see myself starting out as an editor and working my way up.”

Nan’s other main goal is to increase Asian American representation in films, which he said he has

Get Your ‘Selfieccino’ At Claremont’s Newest Cafe, Paradis

been thinking about since before college.

“Right now a lot of Hollywood movies don’t feature many Asian American main characters,” Nan said. “I want to see more Asian American lead roles in the future, and I want to be one of the people to help (do that).”

Nan is a staff member at Pomona College’s Studio 47, a 5C film and production group, and will be teaching a filmmaking crash course there. Once the dates and times for the course are finalized, they will be posted on the group’s Facebook page. “We’re so happy to have Patrick as one of our staff members this semester, and we’re crazy impressed with the video!”

Studio 47 General Manager Brian Luna CM ’20 said. “It’s an amazing accomplishment — and it shows that he has great special effects skills and a talent for intuiting the kinds of things people love!”

I f Po m o n a C o l l e g e s t u dents were evenly distributed throughout the departments, there would be about 35 students per major. In reality, the distribution is far from equal, leaving some of the college’s 48 majors with few students.

The consensus among Pomona students who are one of few — or the only one — pursuing their major seems to be that belonging to small departments can mostly enrich, but at times diminish, their life.

When Amy Oden PO ’18 arrived in Claremont after graduating from Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, where she studied dance, she suspected her passion was going to take a backseat to other areas of study.

However, the summer after her first year, she interned at the American Dance Festival, where a teacher’s praise spurred her to pursue a career in dance.

“I needed someone to tell me I had what it took,” Oden said.

“I definitely couldn’t decide that for myself.”

Encouragement from instructors and classmates in both the Pomona and Scripps College dance departments have helped sustain her motivation.

However, being the only dance major at Pomona narrows her frame of reference.

“I’ve felt so supported by the faculty and other students,” Oden said. “But it feels like I’m in a little bit of a bubble here because there are no other dance majors — no one to compare myself to. I’m not going to auditions because I don’t see other people going.”

Olivia Kier PO ’20 articulated her experience as a soonto-declare romance languages and literatures major in a similar way, though she sees the scarcity of reference points as a potential advantage.

“I really don’t have a good

understanding of how my major compares to, say, a French major and a Spanish minor. In that respect, I’ve been doing a lot of guesswork,” Kier said. “At the same time, it feels nice to be on your own because it seems like you’re at the frontier of whatever this major is going to produce.”

Kier decided on the RLL major at the advice of Pomona’s Associate Professor Paul H. Cahill, with whom she now conducts research on Spanish poetry.

“The minute I got to campus, [Cahill] was already planting the seed,” Kier said. “I turned in an essay and he said, ‘And this would be a great idea for a thesis if you were to do the RLL major!’”

Art history major Soleil Ball Van Zee PO ’19 chose her discipline after taking a class with Professor and Department Chair George Gorse, whose enthusiasm for visual studies inspired her.

“He tells the stories of art history like they’re his own stories,” Ball Van Zee said. “He knows the artists inside and out.”

She ventured to say that professors from less popular departments tend to recruit students more actively than do professors in larger departments.

“Gorse is so excited to have so many art history majors,” Ball Van Zee said. “He’ll do anything to make sure we graduate as art history majors. I know people who had to make the decision to major or minor in computer science and their professors told them, ‘Well if you don’t really want to do it, I would say don’t.’”

Babs Peisch PO ’19, another of Pomona’s four art history majors, considers the major’s small numbers as a selling point.

“It’s never hard to schedule office hours,” Peisch said. “I’ve never felt like it’s been hard for me to connect with a professor.

They’ve always been attentive and available.”

In fact, every interviewed student said they would encourage classmates thinking of majoring in their respective fields to do so.

Pitzer First-Year’s Podcast Reorients Male Vulnerability Within Fitness Conversation Maddie Wilson

Mabel Liu • The Student Life

The Ethiopian inspired “Shareomony” (left) and the Paradis love box consisting of six ice cream flavors (right) are two items available at the Paradis cafe in Claremont.

Mabel Lui Paradis (pronounced peh-rahdees), a new cafe in Claremont, offers more than just coffee and ice cream. They’ll print a picture of your face onto the foam of your drink. That’s right — “Selfieccinos” are now a thing.

Customers can upload any picture, from cute dog pictures to selfies, and have it printed onto their latte through a special combination of coffee extract imprint and inkjet technology. Stanley Soebianto, one of the partners of the Paradis franchise, explained that this innovative printer is called the “Ripple” — also known as the store’s key to attracting avid social media users.

These “Selfieccinos,” as Soebianto called them, are just as popular as they are fun. For any order of a latte, a “Ripple” is complimentary.

Those who don’t want to upload their own photo can still get a surprise seasonal print.

Putting aesthetics aside, I could taste the coffee’s high quality in just one sip. The milk was full and creamy, which paired well with the drink’s full flavor. For bitter coffee lovers, I recommend a pour-over coffee — it’s your best bet to truly let the coffee’s aroma and acidity shine.

The addition of the coffee program has allowed Paradis to become creative with their menu.

Cold brew frappe, sorbet smoothies, and affogato (one scoop of ice cream plus one shot of espresso) all stand out as unusual and exciting options.

According to Soebianto, product quality remains the utmost concern for all menu items.

“You have to have good product,” Soebianto said. “That’s number one.”

Delivered fresh every morning, the cafe’s ice cream is made with quality farmers’ market fruits among other fancy imported ingredients like Madagascar vanilla and Saigon cinnamon. Paradis also boasts a state-of-the-art range of coffee machinery in addition to “The Ripple,” allowing them to make distinct pour-overs and lattes.

There are seven core ice cream flavors, others rotating both daily and seasonally. Many flavors are also vegan-friendly. In fact, the strawberry sorbet is one of Paradis’ most popular flavors, according to Soebianto and Store Manager Keren Blount. I recommend the wonderfully nutty and sweet almond Nociella, along with the refreshing apple sorbet (a wild card, but worth trying if you like the flavor of green apple).

Even beyond their tasty offerings, Paradis as a company values community engagement.

The coffee is from a local roaster called Klatch Coffee, and the newly offered “Shareomony” is a take on the traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony, where pour-over coffee is served in small cups for groups to share.

“Claremont is a very engaging community, and I think that’s where this kind of store thrives,” Soebianto said. “You’ve got a premium product, we have a fun environment, [and] with a community like Claremont, it’s all a recipe for a good business.”

Part of Paradis’s fun environment includes games like giant Jenga, which are laid out in the store for students and families alike.

“I feel like in college, at least from personal experience, there’s always a struggle with finding something cool and fun to do that’s open late,” Blount said.

“We’re open late, and we have games.”

Paradis is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. from Sunday to Wednesday, and 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. from Thursday to Saturday.

With an impressive 4,100 followers on Instagram, a highly informative podcast, and a unique story, Caleb Spiro PZ ’21 has certainly been making an impact on campus since his arrival last fall. In his podcast, “Stronger Self Radio,” Spiro discusses fitness, self-growth, mental health, and everything in between.

Throughout much of high school in Portland, Oregon, Spiro was incessantly bullied, which led to intense bouts of sadness and low-self esteem. Out of fear of being judged by others, especially by his loved ones, Spiro found it difficult to open up to others about his personal struggles.

What changed for the then fifteenyear-old was a newfound passion — for fitness.

“The gym was my zone for ‘me time’ and no matter what day I was having, I think the consistency of going to the gym forced me to embrace my discomfort with pain, and since then, I continuously seek to be uncomfortable,” Spiro said. “People don’t understand that the gym is actually something that can impact your life.”

Not only has the act of going to the gym given Spiro a more profound sense of purpose, it’s allowed him to discover his “strongest self.”

“It’s changed my life in such a significant way that I can’t imagine my life without it. ...

It’s not something that I do, it’s something that I am,” Spiro said.

Spiro’s podcast only began two months ago, but he’s already covered a variety of topics from fitness and well-being to business and personal development.

With five episodes out and a new episode released every week, the podcast has hosted bodybuilding influencers such as Valentina Esteban, Hansika Silva, and Brian Decosta.

At the end of every podcast, Spiro asks listeners the question he’s been asking himself throughout his journey: What does it mean to pursue a stronger self?

For Spiro, his podcast is much more than his following or the emails he constantly sends out to invite guests onto his show. In fact, it’s about highlighting the value of strength as a means of overcoming every challenge.

Courtesy of Caleb Spiro

Caleb Spiro PZ ’21 has both a unique story and highly informative podcast.

“Struggle doesn’t make you weak; struggle makes you strong,” Spiro said. “And what’s beautiful about this [process] is that so many people want to make this movement happen.”

In the process of educating himself about fitness and the self-help industry, Spiro has also discovered some serious flaws within the fitness arena. He cited a lack of integration of mental health into the system and not enough emphasis on the importance of embracing vulnerability as a means of promoting self-growth.

As an avid user of platforms like Instagram, Spiro views social media as the main culprit of these pitfalls. Although Spiro says it is often easy to categorize social media as “a net negative,” he firmly believes there is always room for positive growth.

“I would stand behind the strong judgment that social media is generally a negative thing,” Spiro said. “But that doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on it. Because I think it has incredible potential.”

In his pursuit of constructing a more authentic conversation surrounding fitness and mental health, Spiro also seeks to foster an environment in which vulnerability can be used as a way to redefine masculinity.

In his second episode from

“Stronger Self Radio,” Decosta discusses the value of voicing his personal struggles and how this process has made him more comfortable with being vulnerable. Like Decosta, Spiro has found solace in being open about his uphill battles but believes masculinity to be the root cause of most men’s complicated relationship with vulnerability.

“There is so much power that men hold in society, and I don’t think we always realize it, and we abuse it,” Spiro said. “We’re given portrayals such as Batman for example who embody qualities, such as stoicism, and I don’t think that’s a bad quality, but what makes it bad is the emphasis on the lack of vulnerability.”

By attempting to redefine masculinity, Spiro brings to life a more charged conversation about fitness and well-being.

“I don’t want to be a mannequin that’s preaching the same thing [if] I’m not adding value,” Spiro said. “In the world of social media, people want to trust you and buy into your product, especially when they know it’s something different and authentic.”

To tune into Spiro’s podcast, check out https://soundcloud.com/strongerselfradio. To read more about his story and join the #strongerself movement, visit https://www.thestrongerselfmovement.com/.

LIFE & STYLE FEBRUARY 9, 2018

PAGE 5

THE STUDENT LIFE

INTERNET CULTURE

It Was The Best Of Tide, It Was The Worst Of Tide

Liam Brooks Were it not for the industrialization of animal slaughter, the Civil War, and the Pennsylvania oil rush of 1859, the Tide Pod Challenge may never have existed.

This year, Tide found a new home on the internet as the latest gone-viral eating challenge. The winding route that the soap took to get there — from technological marvel to teenage meme — hides a larger story about how technology and branding has infiltrated, manipulated, and defined American culture.

Tide’s parent company, Procter & Gamble, started in two major industries: candles and soap. It was founded in 1837 in Cincinnati, a city butchering so many animals that it had earned the name “Porkopolis.” P&G turned the fatty byproducts of the meatpacking industry into candles and soap before shipping them out on the Ohio River.

P&G’s big break came when the country itself was breaking.

Huge contracts with the Union army boosted company profits and spread the brand — with soldiers — nationwide.

But in 1859, P&G lost half its market practically overnight. The Seneca Oil Company struck oil in Pennsylvania, literally fueling the kerosene lamp’s increase in popularity and dramatically cutting the market for candles.

At this point, P&G was forced to transform from a brand established by reputation to a brand known for innovation. And innovate it did. First with Ivory soap, which buoyed the brand toward the end of the 19th century; then, in the 20th, with Tide.

As one of Tide’s researcher said, the synthetic detergent marked the point when P&G “would no longer be a soap

company ... it would become an industrial corporation with its future based on technology.”

And also a future based on culture. Tide funded some of the first radio plays, which would come to be known as soap operas.

The bottles would spearhead major shifts in graphic design — they were the first major product to use Day-Glo packaging. And that bright orange would find itself as a flagship Amazon Dash button.

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, had just been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II when Tide began research and development for a major new product. Eight years later, in 2012, Tide Pods hit the shelves.

By 2013, people were talking online about eating them.

The first known reference most commonly linked to is a post on the forums for The Straight Dope, a “Chicago Reader ” questionand-answer column.

In fact, the dangerous phenomenon had started the year before, with dozens of child cases reported to the Consumer Product Safety Commission within months after release, according to the “New York Daily News.”

Even Senator Chuck Schumer was prompted to speak out about the problem: “I saw one on my staffer’s desk, and I wanted to eat it,” Schumer said at a September 2012 press conference. The idea of the Tide Pod as a “forbidden snack” started to bounce around social media, but over a few years, the joke had separated from the real-world danger. The internet jokesters weren’t actually eating the lil’ things.

Then came 2018.

It only took within 15 days of 2018 alone for the first 39 reports of teenagers eating detergent pods to pop up, according to the American Association of Poison

Control Centers. That’s equal to the number of reports in all of 2016, and almost three-quarters of 2017.

The Tide Pod Challenge was born, and the new year also brought the new meme to Claremont. On Jan. 1, Cade Niles PO ’20 posted a photograph of a plate of Tide Pods garnished with mint in the 5C’s largest meme Facebook group, “Meme Queens of the 5Cs,” with the caption: “When you’re all outta meal swipes and flex is at $0.”

Niles’s post got exceptionally high engagement — 375 reactions and 19 comments in a group of about 4,000 people — indicating that a fair number of students were aware enough of the concept of eating Tide Pods to find Niles’s post funny and not just as a non-sequitur.

A few days later, a two-week streak of Tide-Pod content besieged the group. At least one T i d e - Po d s - r e l a t e d p o s t wa s shared in the group nearly every day until Jan. 19, breaking only twice, on Jan. 12 and Jan. 16. At the peak on Jan. 17, five posts earned 389 reactions total.

This trend isn’t necessarily surprising. It roughly correlates to the global Google Trends search data for that same time period.

However, it’s worth considering why the concept of eating them was itself so attractive to a small population of highly educated, young adults who in many other cases pride themselves on knowing things — like the fact that detergent isn’t food.

The power of a brand lies in expectation, and Tide is no exception. Alongside Kraft and Coca-Cola, Tide is one of the few brands people across the socioeconomic spectrum will continue to purchase regardless of the state of the economy, according

ASK JASPER

On Making Friends And Making Love Hey Jasper! When do you think are appropriate times to approach someone to talk to them? Everyone always seems so busy and there never seems to be a good time to do so.

More broadly, how does one go about initiating a conversation amidst our crazy academic lives?

Go get ‘em, Jasper

*** Hi Jasper. My partner and I have become more like best friends than lovers. I think there’s nothing wrong with being best friends with my part-

to a 2009 study.

However, at the Claremont Colleges, we, good liberal arts students, are taught to never take expectations for granted.

Brands, power, institutions — going along with their marketing or propaganda — is at best ignorant and at worst complicit in systems of oppression and violence.

The Tide Pod Challenge, then, is a slippery middle ground. Tide says they’re inedible detergent packets. Theory says not to trust what Tide says. And everything

animal inside us says they look delicious.

Really, the Tide Pod Challenge isn’t like any of the food challenges that came before it.

Tide Pods aren’t food, so nothing has to be done to them to make them more “challenging.” The challenge isn’t about overcoming fear. It’s about giving in to a soapy, soapy desire.

To override the other knowledge we have about Pods that they are, in fact, highly concentrated laundry detergent that

can easily burn a human throat is to embrace primal, childlike instinct. It is to have faith that the world is exactly as it seems, regardless of what Tide or our professors may tell us.

P&G is as much a part of modernity as any other military contractor. It’s no wonder that Tide worked its way into our homes, our identities, and eventually our bodies, at least temporarily.

It’s scary to think this is how we are trying to make sense of the world — mouth-first.

Healthy Lifestyles Club Combines Fitness And Female Empowerment Maya Zhou

Sincerely, Shy Sheep Dear Shy, I know it can feel hard to take a moment in our busy schedules to reach out to one another. But I think it is definitely doable, and it’s important to take time to foster friendships.

There are better and worse times to reach out, though. I would avoid stopping someone when they are in a conversation with someone else or are clearly busy doing work.

I recommend waiting until you see them in a dining hall or in passing between classes. Ask them if they would like to make plans to get coffee or a meal, to study together, or to just hang out sometime in the future. Making plans for a later date allows you both to set aside some time for each other.

Of course, this initial approaching is tough. If you don’t know this person well, it will probably be even tougher. You will have to work up the courage to approach them and say something like “Hey! I was wondering if you wanted to grab coffee or a meal sometime?”

You can also add something more specific. For example, if you have a class with them, you can use that as a jumping-off point (“Are you free after class?”). They may not be free and/or seemingly interested, so you’ll have to consider that outcome. It’s a high-risk, high-reward kind of situation.

And if you do know them personally, you will still have to approach them, but I think this might feel less intimidating. You can always resort to messaging them online or via text. But faceto-face interaction usually allows for more effective communication.

I think most people, whether they show it or not, are flattered and feel happy when someone reaches out to them in a respectful way.

Sean Ogami • The Student Life

Elodie Arbogast • The Student Life

ner, and in fact, we’ve always been like best friends, but I really miss the sexual and romantic intimacy in our relationship. We used to go out all the time, and now we often stay in with some beers and crack jokes, and we end the night with snacks rather than sexual acts. Don’t get me wrong, I love the time we spend together, but since we’re a monogamous couple, my partner is really the only person I have the opportunity to act like a lover with. I can drink beer and laugh with any of my other friends, so I want to bring back some of the passionate love that we expressed before we became settled in our ways. How do we get our relationship “out of the friend zone” and bring it back into a passionate romance?

Sincerely, Friends Forever?

Hi Friends, The space between a platonic and romantic relationship is a tricky and often awkward one.

The best way to find clarity in this limbo is to communicate. Perhaps your partner has something else going on in their life that you don’t know about, or maybe they

feel the same as you do. You might not know until the two of you talk about it openly. I recommend bringing it up at a moment when you both have time to focus on the matter and can hear each other out.

I would preface the conversation with an acknowledgement of how much you appreciate the non-sexual or non-romantic intimacy in your relationship. You can transition with this point and say that you value this type of intimacy, but you don’t want it to be the only type of intimacy in your relationship.

I also recommend going into this talk — to the best of your ability — with the attitude that you are at the least opening up a conversation. Relationships are often about figuring out a balance between giving and taking.

It’s important to hear your partner and understand their side, while also listening to your own desires and needs in the situation. Talking the issue out, while perhaps difficult, should hopefully help achieve a better balance.

Wishing you luck, Jasper

For many women, the weight room at Roberts Pavilion can be a source of intimidation and insecurity. Many shy away from the gym for fear of being judged by athletes and bodybuilders who seem to reign there. However, Jesse Edwards SC ’19, who founded the Healthy Lifestyles Club — a Claremont-MuddScripps fitness club for femaleidentifying and non-binary students — wants to change that.

On Feb. 2, I attended one of her sessions at Roberts, feeling the trepidation that I’m sure many others do when they step foot into a giant gym surrounded by muscular athletes in their sleeveless shirts.

Edwards greeted me exuberantly and led me to the basketball court on the second floor.

We then warmed up with light jogging, kickbacks, and side lunges. She told me her own history with fitness, and how it brought her out of a bad place during her sophomore year. She said she hopes to pass on this knowledge to others.

Since last semester, Edwards has been holding group workout sessions in Roberts on Wednesdays and Fridays at 7 p.m. She also offers consulting and limited private sessions for those who need help with individually tailored lifting programs, nutrition advice, and training tips.

“I started this club mainly to empower women-identified individuals,” Edwards said. “I think there’s a lot of pressure with society, like you have to look a certain way, so X, Y, and Z will happen for you. But it’s important for women to feel good about themselves before they can ever feel good about anything else.”

As an advanced athlete, Edwards started working out at a high-performance gym at age 11, surrounded by Olympic athletes and even military personnel.

Needless to say, she understands how intimidating the realm of fitness can be for newcomers, especially for women who feel that they do not belong. She hopes to alleviate some of that anxiety by making her club as inviting and supportive as possible.

“Yes, the aesthetic part is nice, but I personally promote mind, body, and soul,” Edwards said. “Notice that ‘body’ is the second thing I say. For me it’s about strength from the inside out, not from the outside in.”

Our session lasted about half an hour. She led me through two high-intensity interval train-

Talia Bernstein • The Student Life

Writer Maya Zhou SC ’19 demonstrates an exercise at the Healthy Lifestyles Club meeting Feb. 2.

ing circuits, consisting of squat jumps, mountain climbers, TRX rows, and more. Edwards provided a steady flow of positive feedback and suggestions for my form throughout the workout. Upbeat pop music from her speaker filled the room. By the end, I was sweaty and in dire need of a shower but already feeling much more comfortable in my body and at the gym.

After our session together, Edwards whipped out her notebook, showing me the pages of meticulous notes she had dedicated to each of the seven private clients she currently helps out.

She started off working with her female friends at first and soon expanded to other people who sought her advice.

“I realized [my sessions] started to really push [other people] not only in their physical life, but it gave them a sense of drive to keep pushing socially or on homework assignments,” she said.

“That was rewarding for me.”

Her private sessions are free of charge because her main motivation is to help others, empower women, and contribute to the community in the way she knows best.

Patricia Rivera CM ’19 is one of Edwards’ private clients. She

said signed up because she was interested in gaining discipline, getting into lifting, and learning proper form and technique.

“I would recommend this to my friends, especially those who are new to the gym,” Rivera said.

“Jesse creates a very welcoming environment for anybody of all gym and fitness levels, and really works hard to make sure everyone feels comfortable in the space.”

Sabrina Chung SC ’20 echoed these sentiments.

“I’ve only done the one-on-one sessions, but I think it’s great to have a women-focused exercise club,” Chung said. “Creating a comfortable space to learn how to exercise well is important.”

Chung also appreciates the accountability aspect of the sessions and sees Edwards as an “amazing role model and person to learn from.”

Although Edwards was initially nervous to tackle all the logistics of being the only person running the club, she has found a sense of purpose in what she does, as she believes that women can learn to be healthy for themselves.

“I want my club to be all about women, because it’s about time (that) it’s all about women,” Edwards said.

LIFE & STYLE PAGE 6

FEBRUARY 9, 2018

THE STUDENT LIFE

Peek Behind The Scenes Of Pomona College’s Studio 47 Karen Song If you were at Pomona College’s New Student Orientation this year, chances are you sat in an auditorium and watched a hilarious video about a wilderness explorer discovering all the quirky characteristics of the campus and its people. Although the video provided top-notch entertainment, it didn’t even scratch the surface of the immense work done behind the scenes by the 5C group, Studio 47.

With the launch of the annual Short Film Festival last week and the subsequent gathering at Pitzer College’s Grove House, Studio 47 is back on the radar for students interested in film and production.

Located in the basement of Clark V Residence Hall on Pomona’s campus, Studio 47 is the central film and TV production group at the 5Cs. Although Studio 47 and its two branches — Claremont College Television and the Screenwriter’s Guild — have many participating students, the general staff of the office space consists of only six hardworking students.

5C students usually visit the Studio 47 office space for rental purposes. Its abundance of gear and easy accessibility to the public are beneficial to those who want to make films but don’t want to invest in expensive equipment.

“The space and the gear is open to anyone at the 5Cs,” Studio 47 general manager Brian Luna CM ’20 said. “You don’t need to be in a production course; you don’t need experience with cameras. We can help you figure out what you need or what you’re looking for based on what you want to create.”

According to Luna, all you have to do is fill out a form and you can check out equipment for a week at a

time. The cameras, especially DSLRs, are always in high demand. Studio 47 tries to buy new equipment to supply that demand every semester, even with its limited budget.

“More people use our rental system than engage with Studio 47 itself and its events,” Studio 47 staff members Isabelle Rogers PO ’20 said.

During every new school year, the two biggest events hosted by Studio 47 are the 47-hour Filmmaking Festival in the first semester and the Short Film Festival held in the second semester. The 47-hour Filmmaking Festival is exactly what it sounds like — a weekend-long film production challenge followed by a screening of the films made.

The Short Film Festival is a platform for student creators, including members of Studio 47, to showcase the short films they’ve created that year. The screening of these films goes alongside an award ceremony of sorts. The films are viewed and judged by 5C faculty from various departments. Along with these big events, Studio 47 also holds creative workshop meetings and panels with alumni and students in the media production industry, Luna said.

A lesser known part of Studio 47 are the subgroups, which Luna referred to as “sister organizations of Studio 47.”

The Screenwriters’ Guild, co-led

by Luna, is a group dedicated to screenwriting and students interested in the creative process behind writing scripts for film and television. Luna said that during meetings, the group selects an excerpt from a screenplay or a theme and analyzes the techniques that go in the writing process; they then screen the selected scenes and assess the differences in production.

“Though the group is more discussion based, we do hold writing

Ian Poveda • The Student Life

Studio 47 is a film and production group at the Claremont Colleges that rents filmmaking equipment and offers guidance for students in the production process of television and film.

meetings throughout the semester so people can work on or present their scripts,” Luna said. “We also lead some workshops to help kickstart the creative process.”

CCTV is a branch of Studio 47 that was revived in 2014 and is still growing. The group is focused on

helping students who want to create series, especially web series, through creative direction and equipment rentals.

The main goal of Studio 47 is to be all-inclusive and accessible for students across the Claremont Colleges, Luna said. They want as many

people who are interested in film and TV production to be able to showcase their creative energy and learn more about the field.

Luna said that although the space is great to explore and learn more about the production process, the people are the best part about work-

ing at Studio 47.

“The thing that has kept me coming back is the community,” Luna said. “There’s such great people that I would have never met otherwise.

It’s so easy to make friends here from all five campuses and all sorts of majors.”

FILM COLUMN

Ye Olde Student Life

‘Call Me By Your Name’: The Fantastic, Flawed Movie Of The Year

Capitalism has been a constant throughout TSL’s history, but marketing has come quite a long way over the years, and consumer tastes have changed more than a little. This semester, we’ll be looking back at TSL ads through the ages.

To start us off, here’s an ad from our Sept. 3, 1940 issue. The message is clear, but the prudish norms of the era prohibited even spelling out the words “sexual appeal.” Needless to say, the world was not yet ready for TSL’s sex column, which wouldn’t first appear until the early 2000’s. And, of course, the gender politics are ... less than progressive.

— Compiled by Samuel Breslow

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

“Call Me By Your Name,” a tale of queer love and lust, looks to win big at the Oscars this year.

Sam Betanzos When I think of cinematic realism, Luca Guadagnino’s film “Call Me By Your Name” doesn’t immediately come to mind. The plot is simple enough: in Northern Italy, Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer) fall in love during the summer of 1983.

The film is dreamlike, fantastical, and aesthetically beautiful — not the most obvious characteristics of the radical realism seen in the films of Richard Linklater (“Boyhood”) or those of Joe Swanberg, a favorite director of mine who tries to recreate reality by forcing his actors to improvise without a screenplay.

The general premise underlying this new wave of realist cinema is that an accumulation of moments and details (often incidental or unremarkable) do more for realism than the exciting plots and cartoonish characters that make Hollywood blockbusters successful.

Guadagnino’s vein of radical realism is not so conspicuous as the other two directors I mentioned.

But I believe this subtlety is the very reason Guadagnino’s film is so unprecedentedly realistic and such a joy to watch.

The movie is infectious because of its evocation of fantasy, a kind of romantic dream world that, despite its surrealist elements, reveals the way humans interact with each other in a realistic way. The viewer walks away feeling enriched by the charisma of the romantic world and enlightened by the film’s keen insight into human behavior, especially the unremarkable day-to-day behavior we often forget about.

This is thanks to the actor Chalamet, who carries the movie: a remarkable feat in a film with such minimal dialogue and an abstract structure. He simultaneously conjures the most tortured of romantic

emotions and portrays an everyday teenager full of the playfulness that defines the realism of this film.

Chalamet introduces to cinema the act of “play” as a device, such as by using cartoon voices and mock wrestling when interacting with Oliver and by telling jokes and calling names with his character’s parents.

These moments of play are essential to defining the realism of the film, for they capture the most private and the least cinematically probed moments of human interaction. With a lesser actor, it would be easy for them to come off as contrived or overproduced. However, in Chalamet’s hands, these moments are natural and more than charming.

The movie’s relentlessly cool style contributes further to this sense of realism. Guadagnino’s fundamental premise is tasteful emptiness, a pervasive minimalism that centers around nature and landscape. He is more interested in portraits of humans than he is in the mere actions of humans.

His style is also characterized by utter randomness. Guadagnino sometimes includes excessive cuts in a single scene, allows the soundtrack to swell to a fortissimo before abruptly moving to complete silence, and rarely explains how his characters think.

The effect of this ostensible randomness is precisely the dreamlike quality to this film that I had mentioned. Portraiture is substituted for plot: After all, we already know what is going to happen with Elio and Oliver.

It is this randomness that gives the movie its sense of realism. The unrelated moments coalesce into an abstract but profound story of two people. I admire Guadagnino for trusting his audience to find their way through a new cinematic landscape. We are challenged but thankful for it.

That being said, this is not a perfect movie.

Guadagnino’s obsessive insistence on a minimalist aesthetic can, at times, do the film a disservice.

While the unrelated portraits of characters are a joy to behold, they cannot carry the narrative. In some moments, conflicts between characters arise abruptly only to end as quickly as they began — unexplained rather than explored. Randomness is fresh, but it is not faultless.

The principal fault, though, is that the central romance is not quite believable. Hammer, charming as he may be, simply doesn’t have the acting chops to go head to head with Chalamet.

Elio falls in love with Oliver for his confidence and intellectuality, but Hammer cannot convince us that Oliver is anything other than the image of himself that Elio lusts after.

He cannot rise to become a multidimensional moral lover worthy of Elio’s passion.

This is not entirely Hammer’s fault — the lack of dialogue just doesn’t allow for the kind of character development required by this specific story. And what a shame that this is the case, for if the principal story had succeeded, this would really have been some film.

Despite its flaws, this is still one hell of an evocative movie. There is a delightful fascination with sculpture, music, and literature, which provides the simple pleasure of creating an atmosphere of taste.

The setting is choice, the cinematography a wonder, and the soundtrack an elegant combination of Bach, Ravel, and Stevens (Sufjan, that is). And the last 20 minutes are some of the best cinema I’ve seen in a few years.

You should still see it, even if only for the wonder of the North Italian setting. But my bet is that you’ll come away thinking more about your everyday interactions with friends and family. This movie finds the magic in them, and it thinks you ought to as well.

OPINIONS FEBRUARY 9, 2018

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

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THE STUDENT LIFE

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

OLIVIA TRUESDALE, Copy Chief EMILY JIANG, Copy Editor LORELEI BIVINS, Copy Editor JAMIE REID, Copy Editor AKSHAYA AMARNATH, Copy Editor SARAH WONG, Graphics Editor LUKE MEARES, Photo Manager LAURYN CRAVENS, Photo Editor CHRISTOPHER HU, Distribution Manager PETER YAN, Business Manager FAITH MCDERMOTT, Social Media Manager

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SpaceX Launch My favorite part was when the rocket went this way ↑

TCC, Inc. KGI and CGU AREN’T colleges

Space Colonization First the car, then what, ELON

Eagles Thanks for not ruining the entire state tho

Nancy Pelosi A lot better than reading “Green Eggs and Ham” for six hours

Justin Timberlake Stop using black artists to push your failing career

Another Government Shutdown “I do not like the funding plan. I will not pass it, Uncle Sam.”

TSL SAYS

CUC We don’t like change

Being Gay In Trump’s America Zachary Freiman Columnist CW: Anti-LGBTQIA+ violence In 2003, I was five years old.

In 14 states across the United States, it was illegal to engage in consensual homosexual relations. Until I was age 13, it was standard practice to discharge servicemembers who revealed that they were not heterosexual.

When I was age 15, the Supreme Court struck down legislation prohibiting the federal recognition of same-sex marriages. It took another two years for the Court to declare marriage a right for same-sex couples. All this occurred in the span of 12 years.

The pace of inclusion and acceptance of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals in American society has been staggering. (I purposefully exclude the nature of transgender inclusion as a matter of its own right deserving of ample evaluation.)

Thrilling as it may be for members of the community, the rapid development of legal equality for gay and bisexual Americans has been met with vehement resistance and backlash.

Intolerance has skyrocketed in the United States and — in particular — against LGB people. Shockingly, GLAAD’s annual report on LGBT inclusion released this past week marks the first time in the report’s history that acceptance of gay people among American heterosexuals decreased over the course of the past year: 51 percent of heterosexual Americans are uncomfortable with gay people. The same study found that one in five heterosexual Americans do not believe that I, a gay American, deserve equal rights under the law. Additionally, 2017 saw a 400 percent increase in anti-gay motivated murder against gay and bisexual men.

While backlash against the

rapid advancement of gay rights in the United States is one explanation for the continuing rise of anti-gay sentiment, the campaign for president run by the 2016 Republican candidate undoubtedly bolstered the legitimacy of antigay hostility nationwide.

Some LGBT individuals and allies claim to have been bamboozled by the 45th President. After all, this is a man who tweeted: “Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs.”

Just add this to his ever-growing list of lies — one of the young administration’s first priorities was to file an amicus brief arguing that current federal civil rights laws do not protect gay employees from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, reversing that Obama-era policy.

Of course, this unprecedented hostility toward LGB communities from the individuals currently holding office at the highest levels of federal government translates into consequential anti-gay policy extending far beyond the reaches of U.S. borders. In October, the United States voted against a resolution at the United Nations condemning the death penalty as punishment for same-sex relations. On the international stage, the American government turned its back on gay, lesbian, and bisexual people lawfully murdered for being who they are.

Troublingly, many are so eager to see the man at the top removed from power that they don’t give a second thought to the detrimental impacts it would have on LGB Americans. When Democrats take to the House floor and demand our president’s impeachment, do they contemplate the resulting installation of an impassioned, fanatical, anti-gay zealot in his stead? The president has joked that the Vice President’s opinion

on how to best deal with issues of gay inequality is to “hang them all.”

Gay, lesbian, and bisexual rights are not inevitable. The steady march of progress of the past decade and a half has devolved into a term of acute regression for our nation. Legalizing same-sex marriage, while a crucial aspect to complete social and political equality for LGB Americans, did not eradicate stigma or prejudice around non-heterosexuality; in fact, it may have contributed to its demonization. Moreover, what’s the point of gay Americans filing joint tax returns with their spouses on non-existent incomes?

According to the laws on the books — gay, lesbian, and bisexual people can be fired in 28 states for being gay.

Despite the turmoil plaguing the nation, it is so easy to be myself at the 5Cs. I am enormously privileged to attend an institution that values me and embraces who I am. Yet, one need not travel to the Deep South to come faceto-face with virulent anti-gay hatred propagating throughout the country. I use the term “antigay” purposefully. It is not a fear of LGB people, a “phobia,” that is responsible for violence against us. It is unadulterated hate.

In reality, the highest portion of hate crimes in Los Angeles are committed against LGBT targets.

In our own backyard, a son can be murdered by his father for being gay.

The rights that LGB Americans have gained in the past decade are not set in stone. Fifteen years ago, it was illegal in swaths of the country to be gay, something that is still illegal in much of the world.

As quickly as things have progressed, they can regress. We must continue to press for full equality; it is essential that LGB Americans and our allies be laser-focused on demanding equal rights under the law.

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Molly Antell • The Student Life

At A Dungeon, Acceptance Of An ‘Other’ tobie Guest Columnist I entered the so-called “front porch” of the dungeon and was immediately inundated with the smell of cigarette smoke and the sound of chatter. People stood around in various states of undress, engrossed in conversation.

I looked down at my long skirt and high heels and felt overdressed, but not frightened like I was on campus.

It was the first time in years I had been in public in a skirt.

Before I started transitioning medically, the only things I had to convince people that I was male(ish) were my clothes. I bundled myself up everyday in a chest

binder, two shirts, and jacket. I wore only pants. I still loved skirts, but I couldn’t wear them.

I started medically transitioning at 18, and my first year of college was easier. I still wore thick jackets to cover up my chest binder, but my voice wasn’t so high.

Post top surgery, I can wear tank tops with absurdly large armholes. My chest is another thing I don’t have to consciously control.

On a campus full of people who know me as male, who use “he/ him” pronouns toward me because I can’t convince them to use “they/ them,” who know I am trans and would question why I would wear a dress, I am terrified to wear one.

When I learned that my friends were going to a kink dungeon

in Los Angeles for a play party, I celebrated the chance to wear a skirt and heels and not be bothered about it. It’s already a place full of people who eschew gender and sexuality norms, I figured.

The dungeon itself has one large public playroom as well as several smaller themed semi-private playrooms. Having nobody to play with and not feeling brave enough to approach somebody new, I headed for the kitchen, filled up a cup with lemonade, and listened in on the absolutely mundane conversations.

Here’s the thing about dungeons, play parties, and other kink meetups: The people are just people. We have atypical hobbies and/or sexual practices, but we’re

still people who, given the chance, will tell a listener all about an awesome tabletop gaming campaign we were a part of or how we somehow were enlisted in a fancy roller skating group.

Yes, it’s a little disconcerting to walk into a dungeon and see someone tied up in ropes and hanging from the ceiling. There were times when I looked at a scene and thought, “How can anyone like that?”

People like what they like, and I’m not going to tell anyone what to do or not to do with their Friday nights. Be aware of the risks, get consent from everyone, and don’t start a scene with anyone you don’t trust immensely.

That atmosphere of trust was

why I felt comfortable wearing heels and a skirt. Notice that I’m not naming names or being too specific — I don’t want to violate anybody’s trust. It’s a two-way street.

A man complimented me on my shoes and asked if I had any tips for buying heels. I have really big feet for women’s sizes, he said, and I haven’t been able to find a good selection online.

He felt comfortable coming to me, someone wearing heels but not overtly feminine. It was comforting to me, too, that there was another guy here who wanted to buy heels, who apparently sometimes wore dresses here. I wasn’t the only one.

For the rest of the night and

early into the morning, I sat on couches and watched other people play. I ventured back to the kitchen several times to listen to others’ stories — someone kept giving me tips on how to start a BDSM club at school — but I eventually ended up on a couch next to a guy I had been talking to.

We watched someone’s flogging scene until the rest of my group was ready to go. I said goodbye to my newfound acquaintance and headed out to the parking lot.

I got home around two in the morning, stripped off my clothes, and fell into bed. At 9 a.m., I woke up because I had an orientation meeting at 10 a.m.

I looked at my skirt on the floor, sighed, and put on pants.

OPINIONS PAGE 8

FEBRUARY 9, 2018

THE STUDENT LIFE

Lack Of Access To Reproductive Services Hinders Students’ Quality Of Life Jo Nordhoff-Beard Columnist Despite four out of the five undergraduate Claremont Colleges being ranked in the top 16 liberal arts colleges of 2017, access to emergency contraception and medical abortion pills — an essential service for many 5C students — is extremely limited.

Pomona College is the only member of the 5Cs to have emergency contraceptive services constantly accessible on its campus.

According to an email from Ellie Ash-Balà, Pomona’s Associate Dean of Campus Life and Director of the Smith Campus Center, the wellness vending machine in Walker Hall was implemented in 2014.

The machine stocks the Plan B — an emergency contraceptive pill used after unintentional unprotected sex or a birth control malfunction — tampons, condoms, toiletries, cough drops, pregnancy tests, and other items that aid in sexual health and disease prevention. The Smith Campus Center is in charge of making sure that the machine is fully stocked, but Pomona does not pay for product costs. The machine’s funding comes from people buying products.

The machine is closer than the pharmacy, where Plan B costs more than twice as much. Plan B costs $20 from the machine, but up to $50 from the pharmacy, which saves students money and the awkward, traumatic experience of having to publicly tell a

stranger that you need emergency contraception.

This wellness machine is accessible to 5C students 24 hours a day, but its location in a Pomona dorm is less than ideal for Harvey Mudd College, Pitzer College, and Scripps College students. This machine is also not always fully stocked and is sometimes broken, which could have a huge impact on students when they need the machine the most. Having more wellness machines on campus would be an asset to 5C students’ quality of life.

At the beginning of the 2017-18 school year, Scripps Associated Students sent out a survey about whether or not to implement a wellness machine of their own in the Student Union, a place that has 24-hour swipe access for Scripps students. Kelly Peng SC ’18, current SAS president, wrote in an email to TSL explaining that out of the 438 students who responded to the survey, 98.6 percent of responses supported implementing a machine. However, this machine has yet to be implemented because of factors including cost and administrative approval.

5C students deserve increased access to Plan B, but we also deserve increased availability of medical abortion pills on campus, instead of needing to drive to the Planned Parenthood clinic in Upland.

Medical abortions are a combination of two medicines called mifepristone and misoprostol.

Mifepristone is the first pill, taken

at the clinic or health center, that blocks the progesterone hormone needed to help pregnancies grow.

The second pill, misoprostol, is taken 6-48 hours after mifepristone, and can cause severe cramping and heavy vaginal bleeding due to the emptying of the uterus.

The pill can be administered up to 70 days after a person’s last menstrual period prior to becoming pregnant.

Medical abortion pills should be available through Student Health Services to 5C students because there is no reason that college students should have to secure a ride and potentially endure trauma when making one of the biggest decisions of their lives.

It is unclear whether or not there are medical abortion pills available to purchase at any public or private college or university in California, but that could change with the passage of a new law.

Senate Bill 320 would mandate that medical abortion pills be provided at all health centers in University of California and California State University starting in 2022 if passed. The bill, authored

by Senator Connie Leyva, would impact more than 400,000 students who otherwise would have to go to their doctor or to a Planned Parenthood clinic to acquire this medication.

SB320 passed the California State Senate on Jan. 29 by a vote of 25-13-2 and is now waiting to be voted on in the Assembly. Anthony Portantino, the Senator who represents Claremont, voted yes.

If this bill was passed, it would

Weekly Comic

Nina Potischman • The Student Life

set an enormous precedent for future legislation as well as how the government values access to reproductive care.

At UC Berkeley, an activist group called Students United for Reproductive Justice was among the first to speak out in support of this bill. The 5Cs are an incredibly politically active consortium, and if we had a chapter of SURJ here, we might have a better means to get more emergency contraception and/or medical abortion pills on our campuses.

Many anti-abortion groups have criticized this bill for using government funds to subsidize abortions. However, none of the money used to provide this medicine would come out of university budgets. Private organizations, such as the Women’s Foundation of California, the Tara Health Foundation, and an anonymous donor, have come together to finance the $14 million that would cover implementing the bill.

Reproductive rights are increasingly essential in a world

that consistently restricts access to reproductive care, particularly with a Congress that continuously includes defunding Planned Parenthood as a part of its annual budget deal. Lawmakers and students should recognize the immense power they have to shape women’s lives and work to provide medical abortion pills in health centers to students — something people do not think they will need until they are faced with the reality and have no access to it.

Wasted Meal Swipes Shouldn’t Go To Multinational Corporations Carmin Sherlock Columnist

Sophie Reingold • The Student Life

Good food ain’t cheap. For one semester, Scripps College students pay $3,711 for 16 meals per week, and prices are similar to that at the other Claremont Colleges. If you are on the 16 meal plan, this translates to $13.87 per meal (excluding the included Flex dollars), and if you get 12 meals per week, you’re paying $17.14 for every meal.

This is what we signed up for.

Liberal arts colleges are an investment, and for the most part, we get what we pay for: high-quality education, comfortable dorms, and an endless variety of food.

But some weeks, we don’t get what we pay for: When students miss meals, their irretrievable meal swipes go unused, and their money goes elsewhere. If 5C students who pay for their meals do not consume their food, dining halls should ensure that such meals will be consumed by people who need them.

We live to the east of Los Angeles: No one can pretend there isn’t a staggering need for food in the surrounding area. As of 2017, 1.4 million people live with food insecurity in L.A. County, making it the largest food insecure population in America, according to the L.A. County Department of Public Health.

Efforts have been made in the past to donate unused meal swipes.

For example, Pitzer College’s Community Engagement Center (CEC) hosts a meal swipe donation drive every Thanksgiving. They send food from McConnell Dining Hall to the nearby Pomona Day Labor Center, which provides food for local day laborers during the annual Misa Jornalera, or Day Laborer Mass.

However, for this event, Pitzer stu-

dents cannot give past unused meal swipes; rather, they must donate future meals. Students must tell the CEC that they would like to donate their upcoming Saturday dinner meal, which defeats the purpose of utilizing already wasted meals.

While meal donations such as that of Pitzer’s are valuable to the community, they are difficult to execute. According to CEC staff member and Pitzer Community Fellow Daniela Alvarenga, the CEC staff must manually enter each student’s ID number to receive the student’s portion of food. The food must then be transported from the dining hall, get cooked, and become packaged for day laborers and their families. Staff must give entire days to organize and spread the word about these events.

Though it would be ideal if the colleges could regularly hold these donations, it is a lot to ask of a consortium already trying to serve over 7,000 students daily.

I propose a more streamlined solution. First, a monetary value is assigned to each meal swipe. If you do the math, this monetary value already exists: For example, when averaging the price per meal of a 12versus 16-meal plan at Scripps, this value comes out to $15.50 per meal.

At Pitzer, the average price students pay for one meal is $14.30.

The total number of unused meal swipes is tallied by each college at the end of each week (a process that already occurs automatically on the dining halls’ computers). Then, this total is multiplied by the average price-per-meal; if there were 100 unused meal swipes in one week at Scripps, this would result in $1,550 worth of unconsumed food.

In lieu of the complications and difficulties of organizing physical meal donations, I propose that the

colleges donate this sum of money every week to organizations dedicated to ending food insecurity and homelessness, like L.A. Kitchen, Volunteers of East Los Angeles, or the Downtown Women’s Center, all of which are nonprofits working to reduce food waste and provide jobs for those in need.

If the money from our unused swipes at Scripps is not being donated, it is going to one of the largest multinational corporations in the world, Sodexo, which has faced countless grievances regarding the company’s low wages, unfair labor practices, anti-union behavior, and low-quality food. (In 2013, their beef products tested positive for horse DNA.) Sodexo is one of the companies on the Fortune Global 500 list and saw a nearly $20 billion revenue in 2011.

This company does not need the money from our overpriced meals. The $15 from our unused meal swipes could easily buy 2-3 days worth of food for a person, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

It’s our money, and it’s being wasted every week going to a billion-dollar multinational corporation, while it could be put towards ending Los Angeles’s enormous food insecurity crisis.

Let’s demand what we want from our schools.

I urge students to begin by emailing their dining halls’ general managers, whose emails can be found on each dining hall’s website, for if no one expresses demand, Sodexo will have no reason to change their practices. Tell them you think this system is unfair. Tell them you don’t want your money wasted. If we each sent one email, a body of 7,000 students could have more impact than we might think.

Larry Nassar Was Not The Only Perpetrator Sophie Samiee Columnist CW: Descriptions and discussions of sexual assault Larry Nassar, 54, was a sports doctor who worked for Michigan State University and served as the USA Gymnastics Medical Coordinator from 1994-2014. During this time, numerous accounts of sexual assault surfaced but were only recently taken seriously.

Nassar ’s conviction has earned him a sentence of 40-175 years in prison.

Nassar ’s actions caused not only physical pain to the young women, but also emotional burden that they will carry for the rest of their lives. Though Nassar was the only abuser, these women’s emotional trauma is not solely Nassar’s responsibility.

Rather, it was the responsibility of the system that failed to listen to them.

During his trial, 156 women testified against Nassar. In each of their testimonies, they reported lasting emotional suffering following their abuse.

Kyle Stephens was the first survivor to testify. She frequently came into contact with Nassar because her parents were personal friends with Nassar and his wife.

When she was six, Nassar began to sexually abuse Stephens. At the age of 12, she told her parents that Nassar had been taking her feet and rubbing them on his bare penis. When Stephens’ parents confronted Nassar about these allegations, he convinced them that her account was not true.

Years later, her parents realized the truth in her claims, but by this time, Stephens had already suffered irreversible trauma. Because her parents did not believe her, Stephens had nobody to turn to, leaving her isolated, which compounded the initial suffering she had experienced.

The rest of the 155 testimonies follow the same pattern of extensive and irreversible emotional trauma. Nassar ’s actions would haunt these young women throughout their lives to unimaginable extents.

On the last day of testimonies, Rachael Denhollander shared ad-

ditional details of the survivors’ accounts: At least 14 coaches, trainers, psychologists, or colleagues were warned of Nassar’s abuse, but ignored that patients were being sexually abused under the guise of medical practice.

“And the effort it took to move this case forward — especially as some called me an ‘ambulance chaser’ just ‘looking for a payday’ — often felt crushing,” wrote Denhollander in the New York Times. Her story, like the stories of all of the survivors, is one of disbelief and silence.

Denhollander and the rest of Nassar ’s survivors suffered because of the culture of silence and complicity around sexual assault in American society. In this culture, survivors are denied the resources to seek help and justice after their assault. When they do manage to access these resources, they are often disbelieved and shamed for coming forward.

This culture is especially pervasive when the abuser is in a position of power or considered a pillar of the community, as Nassar was. Nassar was untouchable

in the eyes of the community because he was a doctor, was involved with the national gymnastics team, and had held his position for so many years.

Although the combined testimony of all of Nassar’s survivors brought him to justice, these women and girls were all but invisible. They suffered alone, isolated from their communities, because those around them would not even entertain the thought that Nassar might not have been what he seemed.

When sexual assault allegations are denied, perpetrators are granted access to repeat crimes without the threat of repercussions.

To effect any changes within the culture of silence, shame, and complicity around sexual assault, we must listen to and take survivors of sexual assault seriously.

The physical and emotional trauma of a sexual assault is more than one should be burdened with but to endure the additional suffering of being invalidated only exacerbates the initial consequences of sexual assault.

Sophie Reingold • The Student Life

SPORTS FEBRUARY 9, 2018 CMS WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

CMS MEN’S BASKETBALL

Love’s Heroics Lead CMS Over Regals Bryan Williams With 1:18 remaining in the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women’s basketball team’s matchup against Cal Lutheran (12-10, 7-6 SCIAC) Feb. 5, the Athenas (19-3, 12-1) held a narrow 50-49 lead. All they had to do was play tight defense and stop one last play.

But with just 17 seconds remaining, Cal Lutheran’s Kayla Watterson made a layup from an impossible angle, giving the Regals a 50-51 lead.

The Athenas hadn’t given up yet. They failed to score on the following possession, but quickly snatched the ball back and called a timeout. CMS had just under 10 seconds to determine whether they would leave Roberts Pavilion forlorn or ecstatic.

Out of the timeout, Corrine Bogle CM ’18 passed the ball down the left side of the court to Ellery Koelker-Wolfe CM ’19, who charged to the left edge of the key.

Koelker-Wolfe swung the ball to

PAGE 9

THE STUDENT LIFE

Maya Love CM ’20, who scored the winning layup with a second left on the clock, and Roberts Pavilion erupted in a deafening celebration.

From the first jump ball, the game was incredibly close — if one team pulled ahead, the other would put together a spectacular run. Every quarter ended in either a tie or a difference of just one point.

Cal Lutheran led 24-23 at the half, but the third quarter saw an increase in scoring and even more lead switches — CMS held a 41-40 lead going into the final quarter.

This type of play set the stage for the Athenas’ dramatic win, as the matchup came down to the final moment.

As the clock dwindled to zero, relief was evident on the faces of the Athenas, who emerged victorious from an excruciatingly tense matchup.

The win over Cal Lutheran continued an impressive SCIAC season for CMS, whose only

conference loss came at SCIACleading Chapman Jan. 13.

“This win means that we’ve clearly established ourselves as second in SCIAC,” Love said.

“We’re coming after Chapman pretty hard. Each game is gonna be scrappy like that one because there are a lot teams close to that fourth-place spot so we’ve just gotta keep on playing hard and playing together.”

The Athenas will likely have a chance to pull into first place if they can defeat the Panthers at home Feb. 17.

However, as coach Kristen Dowling pointed out, the Athenas’ main focus is the SCIAC tournament, where they will compete for an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

“We’re playing each game a day at a time,” Dowling said.

“This win is great because we got better today. Every game is an opportunity to get better in preparation for the conference tournament.”

Red-Hot Scarlett Scores 32 As CMS Men’s Basketball Outduels Sagehens

Talia Bernstein • The Student Life

Miles President HM ’20 drives to the basket while Micah Elan PO ’20 attempts to block his shot in the Feb. 7 CMS-P-P rivalry game.

Kellen Browning

Jojo Sanders • The Student Life

Maya Love CM ‘20 jumps for the tip-off at the start of the Feb. 7 CMS women’s basketball game vs. Cal Lutheran as Corinne Bogle CM ‘18 stands ready.

Led by sharpshooting point guard Michael Scarlett CM ’18, the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men’s basketball team (13-7, 11-1 SCIAC) scorched Sixth Street rival Pomona-Pitzer (10-11, 8-4) with a barrage of three-pointers Wednesday night, earning a 73-60 victory.

Though the Sagehens were hot on the Stags’ heels for most of the first half, Scarlett exploded after the break and finished with a season-high 32 points on 13-of-22 shooting, including 5-of-8 from behind the three-point line. The bearded senior was unguardable, shaking off defenders, draining tough shots, and driving through multiple Sagehens to the basket for layups.

“Michael’s a tremendous player,” CMS head coach Ken Scalmanini said after the game. “He’s probably one of the best shooters I’ve ever had. Free throws, open

Sagehen Track And Field Teams Anticipate Race To SCIAC Titles In 2018 While track and field is a sport that is dictated at its core by individual performances, for the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens, 2018 is all about the team.

“You use others to build yourself, but they also use you to build themselves, and in that way it’s a team dynamic,” distance runner Helen Guo PO ’20 said. “You’re using your teammates to become better. It actually is a team effort even though you’re running your individual race.”

After finishing third and fourth in the conference last year, respectively, the women’s and men’s teams have their sights set on the ultimate team effort: winning a SCIAC title.

“We have a lot of talent to be developed on the team, and we have a full four months to do that,” Guo said. “Definitely by the end we hope to be in tip-top shape and show the other schools in the SCIAC what we can do.”

The two teams will pursue their titles behind coaches with very different levels of experience at the helm. The women are led

by Kirk Reynolds, who is nearing his 30th year with the program, while Jordan Carpenter heads the men’s program in just his second year with Pomona-Pitzer and his first in charge of both the men’s cross-country and track and field programs.

Despite his relative lack of experience, Carpenter has been quick to make his mark on the PomonaPitzer program. In his first season as head cross-country coach, he led the team to its first SCIAC title in more than a decade, and tied a program-best sixth place finish at the NCAA national championship, earning him SCIAC Coach of the Year honors.

Armed with one of the largest

and most talented teams in the program’s history, including three returning All-Americans in Calvin Aylward PO ’18, Andy Reischling PO ’19, and Danny Rosen PO ’20, Carpenter is confident that the team is trending upward.

“This year our guys believe that we can compete at the top of our conference,” he said. “I think with more of a full team there’s just a belief that we can score points in every event and compete with the bigger track and field programs.”

Reynolds decades with the

season, continued his recent slump and finished with just three points on 1-of-4 shooting. Instead, guards Daniel Rosenbaum PO ’19 and Micah Elan PZ ’20 led the Sagehens with 19 points apiece.

P-P played with intensity until the end, competing admirably on defense, and the team’s head coach Charles Katsiaficas took note.

“I thought we played a good ball game, and tonight was their night,” Katsiaficas said. “[Scarlett] had a heck of a game tonight. I thought we were working hard on [defense], and he created a lot of shots for himself. He got it going there in the second half.”

The loss dropped the Sagehens to fourth in the SCIAC standings, one game behind Chapman, while the Stags maintained their onegame lead over Occidental. CMS will take on the Tigers Monday in a battle for the No. 1 spot in the conference. P-P next plays Saturday at Cal Lutheran.

CMS MEN’S BASEBALL

P-P MEN’S AND WOMEN’S TRACK AND FIELD

Torrey Hart

shots, late-clock situations — he was fantastic.”

Guard Scott Lynds CM ’18 scored 16 points and center Kendrick Morris CM ’18 chipped in 14 points and 11 rebounds for the Stags, who held off a tenacious P-P squad in the second half. CMS never trailed, but at one point the Sagehens got as close as 51-45.

Every time P-P made a run, though, the Stags just handed the ball off to Scarlett, who scored without fail and electrified the boisterous CMS crowd.

Down by nine with six minutes left, the Sagehens had a chance, but Scarlett and Morris traded off baskets as CMS went on an 8-0 run — including an impressive moment when Scarlett rebounded his own missed shot and made a layup — over the next four minutes, effectively putting the game out of reach.

It didn’t help that Sagehen guard Corbin Koch PO ’19, enduring a rough year after a stellar sophomore

women’s program speak for themselves. Among his many accolades lie nine SCIAC Coach of the Year honors with both the cross-country and track teams, though the women haven’t won a track title since 1991.

“We want to start competing well in these low-key February meets before opening up the conference season in March,” Reynolds said. “If we lay a foundation of excellence now in the early part of the season – committing to our team and committing to your teammates – we will achieve the level of success

that we’re aiming for.”

Echoing both coaches’ sentiments, Cal Neikirk PO ’19, who hurdles, sprints, and jumps for the Sagehens, said: “We have a lot of momentum from successes in last year’s track and last semester’s cross-country seasons and I think that both teams are going to have great seasons. We’ve hit the ground running since coming back and we’re ready to compete.”

Both teams kick off their seasons at Occidental College Saturday.

Meghan Joyce • The Student Life

Pomona-Pitzer runners Eric Gofen PO ‘19, Danny Rosen PO ‘20, and Gabe Elliott PZ ‘18 start a race during the SCIAC 5-way track meet at Pomona College’s Strehle Track April 15, 2017.

Stags Baseball Opens Season With Weekend Split Danny Klain Claremont-Mudd-Scripps baseball emerged from a long, action-packed weekend optimistic but aware of the team’s flaws.

Over a three-day period, the team played four games against three different colleges, all at home on Arce Field, and ended up with a 2-2 record.

On Friday, the Stags took on the Willamette Bearcats from Salem, Oregon. Cameron Cash CM ’20 delivered a solid performance, pitching six innings and giving up four hits, three walks, and just two runs.

However, the team struggled to take advantage of its opportunities. Despite racking up eight hits, the Stags left nine runners on base. In the end, a rough third inning doomed the team to a 4-3 loss.

The men rallied for their Saturday doubleheader against Lewis & Clark. In the first game, the Stags were firing on all cylinders. Justin Hull CM ’20 took the mound and dominated for six innings, giving up three earned runs and striking out nine of the 24 batters he faced.

On the offensive side, the Stags’ bats came out hot. They scored 14 runs, featuring right fielder Henri Levenson CM ’20 and first baseman Chase Eller CM ’18. Eller knocked in four runs in the first game and was a triple away from hitting for the cycle.

The Stags also took advantage of Lewis & Clark’s defensive mishaps, scoring three runs off six errors and winning by a final margin of 14-8.

The second game of the day was a tight one. Heading into

the sixth of seven innings played, the Stags were only up 3-2. With two men on, shortstop Brandon Mitchell CM ’21 hit a double to deep left center and knocked in a run. Third baseman Ryan Motter CM ’19 put the game out of reach with a two-run single later in the inning.

Brandon Louie CM ’20 carried the load for the rotation in the afternoon. Louie pitched six of seven innings for the Stags, and gave up only two earned runs while striking out four Lewis & Clark batters. With a clean defensive performance, the Stags swept Lewis & Clark after winning 6-4.

To cap off the weekend, the team faced Whitman College early Sunday. Struggling to settle in early in the field, the Stags infield made two errors in the second inning. Whitman kept plugging away each inning and had a 13-0 lead after the top of the sixth.

While the Stags were able to cut the lead to 13-4 in the bottom of the sixth thanks to big hits from pinch hitters Deji Andrew HM ‘19 and Spencer Abraham CM ‘19, in the end, Whitman was too far ahead for CMS. The Stags ended the weekend on a low note and a tough 19-6 loss.

“I think overall the games went well; we showed some good signs and also showed some things we need to work on,” Hull said after the game Sunday.

All in all, the team had plenty of promising performances — a talented sophomore pitching class was nicely complemented by fantastic hitting at the top of the order.

“One goal we have as a team is always to make the conference tournament ‘cause we feel like if we can get there anything can happen in the tournament,” Hull said.

SPORTS PAGE 10 COMMENTARY

Super Bowl Run Cements Foles As Hero Hank Snowdon On Sunday night, at approximately 7:15 p.m. PST, an Earthshattering event occurred. Tom Brady’s last-second Hail Mary pass hit the turf at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, and for the first time in history, the Philadelphia Eagles became Super Bowl Champions.

Their immaculate season ended in the most improbable way imaginable: The Eagles pulled off a massive upset as their defense stopped Brady, a robot who just won his third NFL MVP award at age 40.

The newfound hero of Philadelphia, backup quarterback Nick Foles, threw for 373 yards and three touchdowns, caught a pass for a touchdown on fourth and goal, and threw the game-winner to tight end Zach Ertz with less than five minutes remaining, on his way to becoming Super Bowl MVP. The story is a true fairy tale ending, and Foles emerged as a classic archetypal hero. Let’s take a look at all the ways he fills the role, and examine the path he took to winning it all in 2018.

The first similarity between nearly all classic heroes are the long, arduous journeys they must endure. Often, heroes undergo these journeys as a strenuous and painful rite of passage, and it leads to a more mature role in life.

Foles’ journey began six years ago during his first stint with the Eagles. After being drafted out of Arizona and playing his way into a starting role in 2012, he had a Pro Bowl season with Philly in 2013.

But it quickly went downhill for the quarterback, who experienced serious regression in 2014 and was traded to the St. Louis Rams the following season. For Foles, St. Louis represents the dark, terrible, underground place that many heroes must often visit on their journeys.

He played poorly from the start, and his struggles with the Rams only worsened with each game.

Eventually, he was benched in favor of Case Keenum. The Rams drafted a new, younger quarterback, Jared Goff, in 2016, and Foles

FEBRUARY 9, 2018

THE STUDENT LIFE

demanded his release, upset with the Rams decision to move on at quarterback with their move to Los Angeles.

It didn’t get any better that season, as Foles served as the backup quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs and rarely saw the field. The Chiefs declined his option after the season, and Foles was once again without a team.

At this point, Foles had hit an all-time low. It appeared unlikely that he would ever start for an NFL team again, and it wasn’t even guaranteed he would ever step onto the field another time.

However, Foles did what many archetypal heroes do, and returned home in his time of trouble. The Eagles signed him to a small contract at the beginning of the season, so that Foles could serve as the backup to wunderkind Carson Wentz.

Showing great maturity — undoubtedly learned during his journey — Foles fully embraced the role behind Wentz, and watched excitedly as the Eagles began to play incredible football in 2017.

They started 10-1, and Wentz emerged as the clear MVP candidate in the NFL. It appeared Foles was set to watch from the sidelines as Wentz made a run at history, but destiny intervened. In Week 14, as the Eagles took on Foles’ former team, the Rams, Wentz tore his ACL, knocking him out for the rest of the season.

All of a sudden, Foles was thrown into his final quest, and had the chance to lead Philadelphia to a Super Bowl.

Immediately, Foles faced intense scrutiny. Even though the Eagles were 11-2 when Wentz went down, they became the instant underdogs in the NFL with Foles under center. Experts and fans alike rightfully doubted him, and it was obvious the Eagles’ dream season was suddenly in great peril.

But the Philadelphia faithful embraced the new underdog mindset with passion never seen before. People around the city began to wear dog masks in hom-

age to the hometown heroes and specifically to Foles, the new leader of their Eagles.

All of a sudden, the Eagles became the “Dogs.”

Foles represented this underdog mentality better than anyone.

Left for dead, he came back to his original NFL home seeking redemption, and was improbably granted an incredible second chance.

He led the Eagles well throughout the rest of the regular season, and the team captured the No. 1 seed in the NFC. And after a scrappy 15-10 win in the divisional round over Atlanta, Foles took center stage in the NFC Championship game. Coach Doug Pederson dialed up some deep shots, and Foles delivered, leading the Eagles to a 38-7 drubbing of the Minnesota Vikings. He threw for over 350 yards, and gave Philly their first Super Bowl berth since the days of Donovan McNabb.

Yet, our hero still faced one massive challenge. The evil empire, the New England Patriots, loomed on the horizon. And Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, arguably the greatest coach-quarterback duo of all time, were waiting to take down Foles on the biggest stage.

However, as the game progressed Sunday night, it became clear that Foles was going to have his chance to make history.

The rejuvenated gunslinger spent the game throwing deep bombs, making tough throws on the run, and executing the run-pass option to perfection.

Foles called the “Philly Special” play that led to his touchdown catch from tight end Trey Burton, which was arguably the most important play of the game — and of the season.

Aided by some seemingly supernatural help — Brady uncharacteristically fumbled on what could have been a game-winning drive — Nick Foles became a Super Bowl champion. Against all odds, he brought the city of Philadelphia a championship after a 52-year wait.

This improbable defeat of an evil force was the final accomplishment that cemented Foles’ status as a hero forever.

The future is unknown for Foles, as he likely will be playing for a new team next season when Wentz returns. Yet, for now, this hero can sit back, relax, enjoy this journey of a lifetime, and admire the legacy he has created.

P-P Athlete of the Week Women’s Water Polo Jocelyn Castro PZ ‘18 Pico Rivera, CA In the two Pomona-Pitzer women’s water polo games Sat. Feb. 3, a 14-12 victory over the Chinese National Team, and an 18-10 defeat of Cal St. Monterey Bay, Jocelyn Castro PZ ‘18 emerged as a key player for the Sagehens. She tallied 4 goals against China, and added five in the victory later in the afternoon.

Her nine goals were integral in the two wins, and she will look to continue to score at a high rate as the Sagehens’ season continues to get underway.

CMS Athlete of the Week Men’s Basketball Michael Scarlett CM ‘18 Irvine, CA

Courtesy of Zennie Abraham via Creative Commons.

Senior guard Michael Scarlett CM ‘18 continued his stellar season this past week, as he turned in two dominant performances for the Stags. On Sat. Feb. 3 he dropped 20 points in a victory over Occidental, which pulled CMS into a tie with the Tigers for first place in the SCIAC standings. He followed up this performance by tying his career high for points with 32 in a home defeat of archrival Pomona-Pitzer Wed. Feb. 7.

The senior hopes to continue his prolific play through the rest of the season, as the Stags look to continue their 10-game winning streak.

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Nick Foles led his team to a 41-33 win over the New England Patriots in the 2018 Super Bowl Feb. 2.

P-P MEN’S AND WOMEN’S SWIM AND DIVE

P-P Swim And Dive Teams Make Waves On Senior Day, Dominate CalTech And Cal Lutheran Noah Shapiro Saturday was Senior Day for the Pomona-Pitzer men’s and women’s swim and dive teams, who faced off against Cal Lutheran and the California Institute of Technology.

P-P’s men (7-1) and women (8-0) both enjoyed large victories over their opponents, as the men won 12 of 17 events and the women won 13 of 16. With the SCIAC championship approaching, the women’s team sits atop of the conference and the men’s team is second.

The women’s team was par-

ticularly dominant on their way to capping an undefeated regular season, beating CLU 205-89 and CalTech 228-47.

Emma van der Veen PO ’21 and Anna Newman PO ’21 made a big difference over the weekend, winning two individual events each.

Van der Veen started the scoring early for the Sagehens by winning the 3-meter diving event handily, and then the 1-meter event later in the day.

Newman’s versatility was on display as she first edged out fellow Sagehen Katherine Lauerman

PO ’20 in the 1,650-yard freestyle event and then won the 200-yard backstroke.

On the men’s side, the Sagehens beat CLU 184-97 and CalTech 216-64. On the diving board, Billy Altantulkhuur PO ’21 continued a successful season, winning both the 1-meter and 3-meter events.

Lukas Menkhoff PO ’21 dominated in the water, setting pool records in the 50-yard freestyle and his opening leg of the 400-meter freestyle relay.

Mark Hallman PO ’18 and Samuel To PO ’18 had strong showings

for the Sagehens as well. Hallman won both the 100- and 200-yard freestyle, while To took home first in the 100-yard backstroke and the 200-yard individual medley.

Despite his successful day, Hallman described the meet as bittersweet.

“I always like swimming well in our home pool, but there’s a definite sense of finality to it all,” Hallman said. “I’m sad I’ll never get to swim that well at Haldeman again.”

Before the meet, the team took time to honor its 12 graduating

seniors: Manon Audebert PO ’18, Alex Seidel PO ’18, Victoria Vanderpoel PO ’18, Molly Weinstock PO ’18, Spencer Satz PO ’18, Kyle Allison PO ’18, Robert Buxton PO ’18, Peter Hansen PZ ’18, and Alexander Landau PZ ’18, as well as Hallman and To. The seniors on the team were emotional about completing their last home meet, but appreciative of what they’ve gained from swimming for P-P. “I am so unbelievably lucky to have been apart of PPSD. I have met my best friends on this swim

team, and we have gotten through some very tough times together,” Vanderpoel said. “I will probably swim for the rest of my life thanks to my time here. This team is extremely close and special to me.”

The sentiment was echoed by other members of the team.

“Over the past four years, the people on PPSD have been more than just teammates — they are mentors, class advisors, meal companions, and most importantly some of my closest friends. I can’t imagine my time at Pomona without PPSD,” Seidel said.

Thummim Mekuria • The Student Life

The Pomona-Pitzer Swim and Dive class of 2018 poses for a photo Feb. 3.