Vol. CXXX No. 14

FRIDAY, FebRuARY 28, 2020 | CLAREMONT, CA | VOL. CXXX NO. 14

More 5Cers abroad affected by coronavirus MARC ROD & eRIKA SCHWeRDFeGeR As COVID-19 — otherwise known as the Wuhan coronavirus — continues to spread globally, more 5C students studying abroad are seeing their programs suddenly canceled.

Pitzer College has temporarily shut down its program in Parma, Italy, affecting two students, college spokesperson Anna Chang said via email. Two Scripps College students set to study in Seoul, South Korea and one in Florence, Italy were also impacted, Scripps study abroad director Neva Barker said via email.

Claremont McKenna College students abroad have been unaffected by the virus so far, but their programs are encouraging them to stay in their host cities, CMC study abroad director Kristen Mallory said. Some students in Italy are also currently being taught online because the Italian government closed some universities for two weeks.

“We continue to closely monitor the situation and will make changes as needed,” Mallory said.

No Pomona College students have been impacted yet by the

See AbROAD on page 2

HUXLEYANN HUEFNER • THE STUDENT LIFE

Black artists ‘feel heard’ at festival Read more on page 5

EmPOWER position to be Shakedown eliminated as grant expires shake-up 7Cs cover some, but not all, funding for survivors’ support center MARIA HeeTeR

COURTESY: JAIMIE DING

Jaimie Ding SC ’21 was already in Seoul, South Korea, when her study abroad program was canceled.

Faced with the upcoming expiration of a federal grant that funds some of the EmPOWER Center’s services and staff, the 7C presidents have decided to cover part of the financial shortfall, but not all — resulting in the elimination of one of the center’s three staff positions.

EmPOWER — a 7C student

resource for sexual violence prevention and advocacy — received a $749,998 grant from the Department of Justice in 2016.

The grant, which expires May 31, fully funded a project coordinator position and partly funded a full-time counselor position, EmPOWER Center Director Rima Shah said via email.

The 7C presidents have decided to increase the amount of funding they’re providing to EmPOWER to ensure that the counselor position will remain at the center full-time for the 2020-2021 school year, Shah said. However, she said the project coordinator position will be eliminated with the grant’s expiration.

The center appealed to the presidents to step in to also

fund the coordinator position, but they decided against it, according to EmPOWER Center intern Lilly Sterenberg PZ ’20, ASPC President Miguel Delgado-Garcia PO ’20 and SAS President Niyati Narang SC ’20, all of whom had knowledge of the center’s situation.

When asked repeatedly to comment about the presidents’ f u nd i ng de c i sion, S c r ipps spokesperson Rachael Warecki said “The Claremont Colleges do not comment on personnel matters.”

Harvey Mudd College has also agreed to take on the lead role in applying for new grant funding, according to Shah.

See CeNTeR on page 2

CMS swim teams reclaim SCIAC titles from P-P MATTHeW KIM & MARISA MeSTICHeLLA With the opportunity to qualify for nationals, claim SCIAC supremacy and defeat their Sixth Street rivals, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Pomona-Pitzer swimmers both brought their A-games to Commerce, California this past weekend.

But when all was said and done,

it was the Stags and Athenas who returned to Claremont with conference titles in hand.

Mirroring the results of regular-season competition, the CMS squads finished first, with the P-P teams both close behind in second.

The men’s competition was decided by just 14 points — the Stags earned 1,078 points compared to the Sagehens’ 1,064. On the wom-

en’s side, CMS scored 1,196 against P-P’s 1,104.

Both teams’ final scores also benefited from strong showings at the diving championship the weekend prior, where Kendall Hollimon CM ’20 won both the one- and three-meter dives for the Stags, while Ruby Epstein PO ’22 took the three-meter title for the P-P women.

CMS successfully avenged its

losses to P-P in the 2018 and 2019 SCIAC finals, as neither P-P squad could complete a threepeat.

“I know the scoreboard says that we lost, which was tough,” P-P swimmer Katherine Lauerman PO ’20 said. “I think this is my perspective as a senior

See SWIM on page 9

COURTESY: CMS ATHLETICS

The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps swim and dive teams won the 2020 SCIAC championship meet, which took place in Commerce, California from Feb. 20-23.

LIFE & STYLE Writer Jia Tolentino visited Scripps College on Monday, conversing with writer R.O. Kwon about the writing process, internet trolls and her new book “Trick Mirror.” Read more on page 5.

The student newspaper of the Claremont Colleges since 1889

OPINIONS

Some students concerned about handing over cafe LIAM CHALK & AARON GONZALeZ Some Pitzer College students are speaking out against the college’s proposal to transfer control of the student-run Shakedown Cafe to Pitzer’s dining services provider Bon Appétit, leading Pitzer Student Senate to reconsider its previous the proposal.

Dean of Campus Life Dan Hirsch initially presented the plan at a senate meeting in January. Transferring ownership would bring in full-time staff and increase the Shakedown’s operating hours to evenings and weekends, and could also add a meal replacement option for students, he said in a statement to TSL. In his initial presentation, Hirsch said students would continue to work at the restaurant, and that student wages would be paid for by Bon Appétit instead of Pitzer Student Senate.

“There would be student employment opportunities. Certainly those who make up the employee level, but also the manager levels. They want to continue with that,” Hirsch said during his proposal to the student senate.

The plan will be developed in conjunction with various campus constituencies, Hirsch told TSL via email.

“Most of the specifics of the [plan] are not yet known because the plan should (and will) be developed collaboratively between Bon Appétit, Pitzer administrators, the Pitzer student body and most importantly, the Pitzer students who have worked hard over the years to create the culture the Shakedown has today,” Hirsch said.

Hirsch added that Bon Appétit will invite student input, asking students “everything from if they still want to do Shakedown Sounds, how would they do that, to what literally is on the menu.”

Senate unanimously passed a resolution of support for the student enhancement plan — a larger plan to revitalize and improve student life on campus,

See CAFe on page 3 SPORTS

The Claremont Independent’s criticism of an event for black queer students underscores why closed and exclusive spaces and events are necessary, argue Margo Rosenblatt SC ‘23 and Gloria Bates CM ’20. Read more on page 8.

This season, the Sagehen men’s tennis team hopes to defeat Stag tennis for the first time in 31 years.

They will do so by ‘focusing on the fundamentals,’ such as working on doubles play and technique. Read more on page 10.

INDEX: News 1 | Life & Style 4 | Opinions 7 | Sports 9

News

PAGE 2

ABROAD: 5Cs monitoring outbreak worldwide Continued from page 1 virus, according to study abroad director Nicole Gowdy. Pomona is continuing to monitor the situation both abroad and in the U.S., and is staying in touch with study abroad programs, Vice Presidents Bob Gaines, Robert Goldberg and Avis Hinkson said in an email to students.

Harvey Mudd College spokesperson Judy Augsburger told TSL via email Thursday that the college is “monitoring the current situation” and “our study abroad partners … have been in contact with both the students and their parents.” She did not specify how many, if any, Mudd students have been affected.

Three students, two from CMC and one from Mudd, who were planning to study in China — where the virus originated — had their programs canceled earlier in the year, before the programs began.

Chang said the two Pitzer students in Parma are returning to the U.S. on Friday. She did not respond to a request for more information about what the students will do once they return to the U.S. by press time.

Syracuse University, which runs the canceled Florence program, is working to reassign the students in Florence — who were already over a month into their semester — to other programs, but it’s still unclear where they’ll be going, according to Barker.

The Seoul program was initially scheduled to start Feb. 25, but the start date was pushed back to March 4 when Yonsei University, where students attend classes, delayed the start of its semester by two weeks, according to Barker.

The Council on International Educational Exchange, which runs

the Seoul program, announced the cancellation yesterday in an email to program participants.

The decision came in response to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raising its travel advisory level for South Korea to level three, “Avoid Nonessential Travel,” according to the CIEE email.

CIEE said they’d provide participants with other options within 48 hours.

I was shocked.

I honestly did not see this coming.

Jaimie Ding SC ’21

Jaimie Ding SC ’21, one of the two Scripps students set to study in Seoul, has been in the city for several weeks waiting for her program to start. She said she was surprised CIEE decided to cancel her program.

“I was shocked. I honestly did not see this coming,” Ding said. “I’m currently living in Korea, and … people are still going out, people are still going to restaurants, they’re going to malls, they’re still walking around the streets. For me it feels like everyone’s still living their lives normally.”

“For me … [the virus] hasn’t really affected my day-to-day in Korea, living in Seoul, which is why this came as a pretty big surprise when it got canceled,” Ding added.

Another Scripps student is studying in Italy on a program that has not yet been suspended, but the college is monitoring the situation, Barker added.

FEbRUARY 28, 2020

CENTER: Decision feels ‘painful to survivors,’ students say Continued from page 1 Lauren Lockwood, the current project coordinator whose position is being eliminated, has a broad portfolio of responsibilities — she trains 5C student advocates for survivors of sexual assault, facilitates Teal Dot bystander engagement trainings and does various administrative work, according to Sterenberg.

Lockwood didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“Tra n sit ion pla n n i ng i s underway to ensure that the impact of the change is minimized,” Shah said.

Sterenberg said she’ll be sad to see Lockwood go.

“Not only do we love her as a person, but her job is really important,” Sterenberg said.

O ver 30 0 st udent s have signed an open letter to the 7C presidents requesting that the colleges permanently fund the project coordinator and counselor position, and also meet with student organizers to discuss the presidents’ funding decisions.

The letter says the signees

are “deeply disappointed” by the presidents’ decision, which “feels invalidating and painful to survivors at the 7Cs, staff members and students who work tirelessly to address sexual violence on our campus, and others who care about these issues.”

Sterenberg, who wrote the letter with input from advocates at the 5Cs, said Pitzer advocate Abigail Biddle PZ ’20 sent it to the presidents, who have not yet replied.

Moving forward with one fewer staff member, EmPOWER will be employing various technologies, including video presentations according to Shah.

She characterized the changes as an “enhancement.”

The new technologies will allow EmPOWER to “reach more students, clubs and classes on topics such as consent, healthy relationships, how to support a survivor, bystander intervention, EmPOWER’s services and more,” she said.

However, some students find the new video technology concerning.

Biddle, who has been an advocate for four years, urged against

video training, calling it less effective than in-person training and “not an adequate substitute.”

“You need to be with someone who can answer questions, and just be a human being,” Biddle said.

The EmPOWER center declined to respond directly to claims concerning video training.

Students expressed support of the colleges maintaining the fulltime counselor position, which provides professional counseling to survivors of sexual assault and child abuse, according to the Project Sister website.

Biddle said that EmPOWER counseling is a crucial resource because appointments are free and unlimited, unlike at Monsour Counseling and Psychological Services.

Narang said she remains hopeful that the colleges will find a way to preserve all of EmPOWER’s current services.

“I am very hopeful that the grant process is going to work out,” she said. “And if it doesn’t, [I’m hopeful] that at that point, the 7Cs Presidents’ Council will step in and ensure that the resources themselves are not impacted.”

Correction The article about the new science centers in issue 12 incorrectly stated that the Scripps Pitzer Science Center would be complete in spring 2023. It will be completed by fall 2021.

TSL regrets this error.

MEGHAN JOYCE • THE STUDENT LIFE

One of the Empower Center’s three staff positions will be eliminated following the upcoming end of a federal grant.

Pomona RAs create sexual health delivery program DYLAN MCCuSKeY Pomona College resident advisors launched a “Sexual Health Mailbox Program” this month, allowing students to have items like condoms, personal lubricant and dental dams delivered directly to their mailboxes.

Pomona’s RAs, led by Allie

Pitchon PO ’20, created an anonymous online survey for students to sign up for the service at the beginning of February. Students who filled out the survey by Feb. 21 will receive their first bags in their mailboxes on Feb. 28, Pitchon said.

“I think for me at least a lot of the time there’s this kind of dis-

connect between resources available on campus and students. ...

They’re not always super easily accessible to students or students aren’t always reminded of them,” Pitchon said. “The sexual health program [is] a way to facilitate a better connection between students and the resources.”

The deliveries will take place

AMY bEST • THE STUDENT LIFE

Photo illustration: Pomona resident advisors launched a sexual health mailbox program this month, allowing students to have items like condoms delivered directly to their mailboxes.

on a monthly basis, and will be “more customizable” in the future, including options for latex-free and different-sized condoms or dental dams, Pitchon said.

“And if this works, we’re hoping to see if we can do a similar thing with menstrual products,” she added.

The Health Education Outreach office currently offers sexual health supplies to RAs, which they can distribute to students in their halls, and students can also collect them for free from HEO. SHS also offers some sexual health supplies. But Pitchon said that students do not always make use of these resources.

“A lot of times either these bags that are hung up in residence halls disappear, or students are too embarrassed, especially the first-years, to go to the halls and grab them,” she said. “So, we were thinking, having students be able to request that they be placed directly into their mailbox kind of helps eliminate those difficulties between the students and the resources available.”

Students, like Oliver Eagan PO ’23, attested to feeling uncomfortable going to HEO or SHS to pick up supplies.

“I go to Student Health Ser-

vices, and I can tell you ... that it is always awkward to walk in there and grab whatever I’m grabbing and have like four people look at me,” Eagan said.

Ethan Collins PO ’23 agreed, saying he thinks the new program “could be useful” because there’s “maybe some embarrassment that people have about [HEO].”

The RAs also hope to help dispel stigmas around sexual health.

“A lot of people come from high school where, you know, they never talked about sex or sexual health, and then suddenly they come here, and kind of, there’s this culture shock,” Pitchon said. “So I think it’s just important to have this conversation and to normalize it.”

Eagan agreed that the transition between high school and college doesn’t always facilitate discussions of safe sex.

“A good portion of us are teenagers fresh out of high school, there will still be the kind of giggling in the locker room moment, you know, when you think of the idea that another person is sexually active,” he said.

For future installments, the RAs are hoping to coordinate with Planned Parenthood at the Claremont Colleges in order to increase publicity efforts, and may also coordinate with HEO, Pitchon said.

CMC changes format of wedding party — dinner no longer at event

ASPC senior class president resigns, class to vote on replacement

Student sexually assaulted on Pomona track, Camp Sec says ‘ongoing threat’

Following ASCMC’s decision in the fall to eliminate ticket charges for all events in the 2019-2020 academic year, ASCMC announced changes to the format of Saturday’s annual Wedding Party.

Rather than buying a dinner table at the party as in the past, all CMC students will be able to use a meal swipe or Flex to attend a special dinner at Collins Dining Hall from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. for no extra cost, Chandler Koon CM ’20, ASCMC’s vice president of student affairs announced in an email to students Tuesday. In the past, 10-person dinner tables at the event cost students $300.

There are also spots for up to 100 non-CMC students at the dinner, Koon added. Non-CMC students could sign up for a spot beginning at 12:45 p.m. Wednesday.

Wedding Party will then occur on Parents Field from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. CMC students can each register one offcampus guest online and collect their guest’s wristband between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m., according to Koon.

Wedding Party last occured in 2018 — the event was canceled last year in the wake of two student deaths.

ASPC’s senior class president Love Chery PO ’20 announced her resignation in a Feb. 23 email to the senior class.

“I have enjoyed connecting and sustaining relationships with so many of you, especially those of you who I hadn’t gotten a chance to meet before senior year. It has truly been a pleasure to represent our Class as well as the diversity in our collective values in administrative spaces,” she said in the email.

Chery explained that she needed to step down to focus on her physical and mental well-being.

“This past year has been trying on both my mental and physical health,” she said. “After much thought and contemplation, I realized that although I am still passionate about making sure our voices are heard in matters that pertain to and/or affect us, but I am at a point where I need to prioritize my wellness and invest time and energy into improving my overall well-being.”

ASPC solicited candidates to fill the position for the remainder of the school year in an email to students from ASPC President Miguel Delgado-Garcia PO ’20. Signups closed Feb. 26, and voting will take place from March 1 to 3.

CW: descriptions of sexual assault A student was allegedly sexually assaulted by an unknown individual at around noon Thursday on Pomona College’s Strehle Track. Campus Safety said the incident “is believed to pose an ongoing threat to the Claremont Colleges” in a message to students Thursday.

The assailant allegedly approached a student on the track, told them they had a spider on their backside and began brushing the student’s clothing, before pulling the student’s pants down and groping the student, according to the Campus Safety message. The assailant then fled on foot heading west.

Campus Safety described the assailant as a male in his 20s who is 5’9”, weighs 160 pounds, wearing tan pants, a red plaid shirt and black and white tennis shoes, carrying a large dark backpack and a small white drone.

The message encouraged anyone with information to contact Campus Safety at 909-607-2000.

— Marc Rod

News

FEbRUARY 28, 2020

PAGE 3

Pomona announces commencement speakers Historian, human rights lawyer will both speak at graduation JASPeR DAVIDOFF Historian and filmmaker Henry Louis Gates Jr. and human rights lawyer Martina Vandenberg PO ’90 will deliver commencement speeches to Pomona College’s class of 2020, the school announced Wednesday.

Gates, a Harvard professor and director of the university’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, is best known for his PBS series “Finding Your Roots,” which explores U.S. history by uncovering celebrities’ genealogies and ancestral lineages.

“I am trying to deconstruct notions of racial purity,” he said of “Finding Your Roots” in a Feb. 3 interview with The New York Times Magazine. “There is no racial purity.

We are all diverse. Showing diversity is important to me politically, and insofar as we can achieve that, our series has an educational value for the larger country.”

Gates has produced numerous books and documentaries on African American history, including the sixpart documentary series “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross,” which won an Emmy Award in 2013 for Outstanding Historical Program — Long Form.

He has worked to bring African American studies into the mainstream in a career that took him to Yale University, Cornell University and Duke University before he arrived at Harvard, according to the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Pomona will add to Gates’ list of 55 honorary degrees, according to his PBS biography. He’s also a 1981 MacArthur “genius grant” recipient, a 1998 recipient of the National Humanities Medal and has a portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, unveiled in 2011, the biography said.

Vandenberg is the founder and

president of the Human Trafficking Legal Center, which supports trafficking victims with pro bono legal representation, according to its website.

Her two decades of human rights advocacy have led her to testify before U.S. House and Senate subcommittees numerous times.

Her tenure as a Human Rights Watch researcher took her to Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Uzbekistan, Kosovo, Israel and Ukraine, according to her HT Legal biography.

“Synthesizing and analyzing the stories told by women and girls, Vandenburg sought to take vic-

tims’ voices directly into the policy arena,” Theresa Loar and Laura Ardito wrote of Vandenburg’s time at Human Rights Watch in the book “Gender and Women’s Leadership: A Reference Handbook.”

Vandenberg received an award from the Freedom Network USA in 2012, the year she founded HT Legal, for her “outstanding leadership and dedication in working to combat human trafficking and slavery in the United States,” according to the biography.

Vandenberg told TSL she was “overjoyed, and a bit overwhelmed,” when Pomona College President G. Gabrielle Starr sent her

COURTESY: WIKIMEDIA USER STEMOC

Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University, will speak at Pomona’s 2020 commencement.

CAFE: Senate believed students were on board Continued from page 1 which included the Shakedown proposal — a week after Hirsch’s presentation..

Not all students are on board, though.

Hannah Zuckerberg PZ ’20 and Arielle Ben-Hur PZ ’20, two previous Shakedown staff members, spoke about their concerns during the public comment period at Sunday’s Senate meeting. In response, Senate decided to revisit the proposal at its March 1 meeting.

“I think it was one of the biggest learning experiences for me here, managing that space,” BenHur said at the meeting. “I think the fact that other people are going to be deprived of that, and it’s going to become another corporate space, is quite sad.”

Pitzer Student Senate President Clint Isom PZ ’20 said senators were not previously aware that some students objected to the plan.

“We were all fully under the impression that everyone was on board,” Isom said in response to Zuckerberg and Ben-Hur at the Senate meeting.

He said he wants to invite Hirsch to the next Senate meeting and ask him to “give us a playby-play to fully understand what happened and how we can maybe adjust our proposal.”

Hirsch told TSL that the plan he presented at Senate in January is preliminary.

“The plan is a concept at this point and students/other involved parties will be actively participating in the development and implementation of the plan,” Hirsch said via email.

Current Shakedown staffers are

an invitation to speak.

“In fact, I cried,” she said via email. “This is a tremendous — and completely unexpected — honor.”

After earning a Truman Scholarship in 1988, the international relations major became in 1989 the 11th graduate in Pomona’s history to earn a Rhodes Scholarship, according to Pomona’s Flickr page.

“Pomona taught me the power of rigor; the power of research; the power of empathy; and the power of the written word,” she said.

“When I investigated rape as a war crime in Kosovo for Human Rights Watch, I drew on my Pomona education to document, write and

also concerned.

Two Shakedown managers, Izzy DeTroy PZ ’21 and Thomas Martinez PZ ’22, said they would appreciate more support from administrators in their efforts to improve the Shakedown, but said they felt left out of the decision-making process.

“There’s a student body that wants this to remain the way it is, who like the fact that this is student run, who like seeing their friends create food for them,” DeTroy said.

Both DeTroy and Martinez expressed doubts about how a new Shakedown in the model of Claremont McKenna College’s Hub or Harvey Mudd College’s Jay’s Place — both of which are managed by college dining services — would change the Shakedown’s atmosphere and reduce opportunities for students.

“Some of our freshmen were saying it’s a disappointment to see the likelihood of [the Shakedown] being turned over because they came [to Pitzer] specifically because there’s this amazing space that they could teach themselves how to cook and learn how to manage a restaurant,” Martinez said.

Pomona College’s Coop Fountain — which is also currently student-managed — is also facing a potential takeover by Pomona’s Dining Services. The Coop’s student employees are likewise pushing back against the proposal.

Zenia Gutierrez, Pitzer ’s Grove House kitchen manager, whose job includes supporting student Shakedown staff, was briefed on Hirsch’s plan.

Gutierrez attributed much of

the current confusion over the plan to a lack of information provided to students, but also understand the reasons why students would want changes in the Shakedown’s operations.

“Students were always asking, ‘Why can’t [the Shakedown] be open [late]?’ It’s not that they can’t. It’s we can’t get students who want to work it,” Gutierrez told TSL in an interview.

As far as the improvements, Gutierrez echoed Hirsch about the uncertainty of the current plans.

“So, right now, it is kind of in the dark because no one knows.

That’s why there are so [many] questions and that’s something that we all are going to get together, hopefully soon, to have that conversation,” they said.

Gutierrez said that changes in the Shakedown could be positive for student workers, allowing them to put less work into managing the space and providing them additional professional support in the kitchen.

They added that Hirsch is currently putting together student committees to involve the student body in the planning process, and that concerned students should get involved in the planning process.

“I encourage all students, regardless of your role within that space — or just as a student in the community — if you have any concern for it [and] you want to be a voice heard then ask to be a part of that committee, or try to be alongside it as this transition happens,” they said.

CHRIS NARDI • THE STUDENT LIFE

Some students disagree with Pitzer College’s proposal to transfer control of the student-run Shakedown Cafe to Pitzer’s dining services provider bon Appétit.

advocate. That reporting led, in part, to the indictment of [former Serbian President Slobodan] Milosevic for rape as a war crime.”

Oliver Dubon PO ’20 expressed excitement about the prospect of hearing from Gates and Vandenberg. “[I] was impressed that Pomona chose people doing such amazing work to be the speakers,” he said via message. “Having these speakers is a pretty sick flex.”

Although Vandenberg said she is “still noodling” her message to the class of 2020, one theme seemed immediately clear.

“Pomona taught me an important lesson,” she said. “Never give up.”

COURTESY: FLICKR USER T’RUAH

Founder and president of the Human Trafficking Legal Center Martina Vandenberg PO ’90 will speak at Pomona’s 2020 commencement.

‘Hello world’ More Harvey Mudd students studying abroad than ever before: 22 percent this year

NATALIE bAUER • THE STUDENT LIFE

LAuReN WeST In spring 2020, 43 Harvey Mudd College students said “goodbye Claremont” and “hello world” — more students are studying abroad this semester than ever before in the college’s history.

In the early 2000s, only 5 percent of Mudd juniors studied abroad, according to a press release. Now, 15 to 18 percent of the junior class regularly studies abroad. This year, it’s up to a record 22 percent.

“Mudd culture is shifting,” Laura Fleming HM ’20, who studied abroad in Cape Town, South Africa, said via email.

“Every new class that comes in seems to value cultural and experiential learning more than the ones before.”

“Mudders are becoming more well-rounded, placing more value on experiences outside of the Claremont bubble and wanting to find personal growth in areas outside of the STEM fields,” she added.

Mudd study abroad director Rhonda Chiles expressed excitement about the development in the release.

“We’re really excited about how our numbers have increased, that so many students have chosen to and are able to study abroad this semester,” Chiles said. “We’ve been working hard to make this possible — partnering with our program providers to increase the portfolio of STEM programs, working with our academic departments to ensure that courses abroad meet the necessary requirements and encouraging students who have returned from study abroad to share their amazing experiences.”

Aitzin Cornejo-Reynoso HM ’21 is currently enrolled in a mathematics-focused program in Budapest, Hungary, and is “really enjoying” the academic experience so far, calling it “very different” from Mudd.

“Just seeing how other colleges teach math — how it’s taught in another country —

has been super interesting to learn,” Cornejo-Reynoso told TSL. However, Cornejo-Reynoso added that for students used to an abundance of top-quality STEM courses, going abroad might feel like a downgrade.

“You’re not going to find a lot of colleges with as many options that are as rigorous as they are at Mudd,” she said.

Fleming attributed Mudd’s traditionally low study abroad rates to the college’s demanding curriculum.

“Going abroad as a STEM major is challenging because we place so much value on Mudd courses,” Fleming said.

“Many Mudders I’ve talked to, who made the decision not to study abroad, did so because they value Mudd courses too much to take a semester off, or didn’t want to get behind on graduation requirements, which is likely to happen if you go abroad,” Fleming added.

Fleming said studying abroad allowed her to see new ways of understanding the world.

“I was able to put Mudd in a global perspective and experience personal growth that I could never experience inside the Claremont bubble,” Fleming said.

“For the first time, when I was abroad, I felt like I was able to live a full, well-rounded life instead of feeling the constant, dominating stress of Mudd coursework,” Fleming said.

Mudd President Maria Klawe said study abroad experiences are “vital for STEM students, who will be creating technologies that may impact the entire world” in a Forbes article last year.

Chiles expressed a similar sentiment.

“One of the mottos in my office is ‘STEM majors are global majors,’” Chiles said. “I want students to look at their major from a wider global perspective, not from just a U.S. perspective.

Everything they do is going to impact the world, and they need to be a part of that world, be part of others’ cultures and see how classes are taught from a different perspective.”

PAGE 4

Life & StyLe

Taskforce for Immigration & Refugee Rights hosts event at The Motley NISHA SINGH This past Friday, the Taskforce for Immigration and Refugee Rights hosted its first event, an open mic night at The Motley Coffeehouse. Cozy and intimate, the coffeehouse was filled with 5C students eager to learn about the new organization while enjoying tea and baked goods from Some Crust Bakery.

Miriam Farah CM ’23 read TIRR’s mission statement aloud as students grabbed refreshments provided by The Motley and settled into the space.

“Our mission is to educate and empower our community at the 5Cs,” she said. “We hope to use the space and institutional resources to enact action and change that can better the immigrant and refugee communities at large.”

Although the task force is sponsored by the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College, TIRR is open to anyone within the 5C community.

TIRR hopes to extend its audience to beyond CMC students by hosting 5C-wide events and encouraging students from all schools to join the organization.

“Not only do we want to work with students, but we also want to eventually collaborate with faculty and staff at the 5Cs,” Farah said.

The open mic night featured a wide array of performances, including short stories, acoustic covers of songs and stand-up comedy.

Camille Hermosillo CM ’23, performed an acoustic cover of “Amor Eterno,” a Mexican ballad typically performed at memorials.

“In preparation, I was thinking of my grandpa, my family and their struggles. [My grandpa] passed away three years ago,” she said.

“The song reminded me of him: the laughs, the stories he would tell us,

him coming from Mexico to visit us and bring us toys and candy.”

She also explained how her personal experiences tied to TIRR’s mission, which informed her decision to perform at this particular open mic night.

“It’s specifically for undocumented people and immigrants, and giving them the space to talk about issues that are not always a common topic in conversation,” she said. “I felt that this was definitely an opportunity to not only share my musical ability, but also express it in a way that ties strongly to my family.”

However, performances were not required to be topical to immigration and refugee rights.

Jocelyn Chen PZ ’20, for example, performed an acoustic version of Jorja Smith’s “On Your Own.” “I liked that it was an intimate space where it was also open mic, so really anybody could perform anything they wanted,” Chen said. “I also liked that it was in a space dedicated to something as well, which felt more welcoming since it was introduced with a purpose.”

Attendees appreciated the diversity of people, perspectives and performances at the event.

Sofia Rojas CM ’23 commented on how open mic nights give 5C students the opportunity to discover new people and ideas.

“I wish more people would come to these, me included. You come to meet people of different backgrounds and have an outlet to understand them better,” she said, describing how the vulnerability of performing allows students to understand each other on a deeper level. “You have people singing up there, which is definitely super personal.”

One of the event organizers,

Sophia Ramirez-Brown CM ’22, explained how she and the other event organizers wanted to organize an event that would generate curiosity and increase awareness of TIRR, since it is a relatively new organization at the 5Cs. “We wanted to do something that would attract people who are not solely interested in immigrant and refugee rights,” she said. “We wanted to attract people from any type of background and welcome them to perform or to come and just enjoy the space.”

She commented further on how the open mic night was not intended to be specifically about immigration, but rather to create a space for students to enjoy and learn more about the organization as the night went on.

“Some open mic nights can be very centered on one topic, but we are very open to anything and just want to create a space for the community to gather and to create interest in our organization.”

Ramirez-Brown talked about the future of the organization and what they hope to accomplish after their first event. “[Our] ultimate goals are to foster a sense of welcoming and encouragement on our campus.

We want to try and host trainings, Know Your Rights events and invite conferences to campus,” she said. “We need to become a little more established, so the way we want people to interact as of now is to join and share ideas and be open to learning.”

5C students who are interested in joining TIRR can email Miriam Farah CM ’23 at mfarah23@cmc. edu with their name, school, year and email address.

NISHA SINGH • THE STuDENT LIFE

Jocelyn Chen PZ ’20 performed at the Taskforce for Immigration and refugee rights Open Mic Night Feb. 21.

FEbruAry 28, 2020 SWIPE rIGHT

Mother knows best MEGHAN CONDAS “Whatever you do, do not make the first move with a boy.

Under any circumstance. Ever.”

This is one piece of (questionable) relationship advice given to me by my mother. She told me this after telling her that I downloaded Tinder and had messaged a match first.

“What’s wrong with messaging a guy first? Don’t guys like assertive women?” I innocently asked.

She answered, “I know this isn’t a ‘feminist’ thing for me to say, but I think men should pursue women, not the other way around.”

Whether we like to admit it or not, we inherit a lot of our beliefs surrounding romantic relationships from our parents. It’s often the first model of a partnership we see as children, so it’s easy to see how their perspectives can easily shape our understanding of love and sex.

However, as I have grown older, I’ve realized how outdated my mom’s understanding of gendered power dynamics is. A lot has changed since the time my mom was dating, so I can’t blame her for having a more traditional perspective compared to me. From hearing stories about my mom being catcalled while driving on the freeway, or random suitors showing up to her workplace with flowers, it makes sense to me why my mom is so uncomfortable seeing women as the initiators in relationships — it wasn’t socially acceptable for her to assert her own agency as a young woman.

However, it seems that cultural dating norms are shifting, empowering women to attain what they want in relationships. With apps such as Bumble, which is designed for women to make the first move, more and more power is being given to women.

After coming to college and experiencing new relationship dynamics (cough cough hookup culture), my perspective on dating has changed dramatically and not in the ways you might think.

After coming out of a longterm (and very toxic) relationship, my mom warned me against hooking up with someone too soon. She worried about me “giving myself away to strangers.” I scoffed at her outdated perspective, rolling my eyes.

So what did I do?

As most daughters do, I ignored my mom’s advice. I thought she was giving me archaic and misogynistic advice.

So, I fully embraced hookup culture. I wanted to prove my

CASSIE WANG • THE STuDENT LIFE

independence and empower myself through sex. I flirted with guys at parties, downloaded Tinder, tried casual things and for a while, I was fine. I only felt (moderately) empty and used. But I was fine. This is how everyone feels, right?

Cut to winter break at my house.

I’ll paint the scene for you.

It’s midnight. Tea in hand, I’m eating spoonfuls of vegan Nutella.

Listening to “Cellophane” by FKA Twigs. Safe to say I was “in the feels” and feeling vulnerable.

My mom walks downstairs, somehow sensing that I am repressing my emotions (as if the sad music didn’t give it away immediately). After some prodding, I explode, opening up about how casual hookups often leave me feeling empty and sad. She comforts me and shares that she had similar experiences as a young woman too.

“I can’t even begin to tell you the number of guys who never called me after we went out. It’s just the way it is,” she tells me.

After forcing myself to try non-committal things, I realize that I should have just listened to my mom’s advice after all. I wasn’t ready to jump into the field yet. She knew that I needed to protect myself before I even realized what I needed. Moms have little advantage over us as daughters; they don’t know what it’s like to date in college, and they don’t quite understand hookup culture. But they do have one thing over us, and that is the wisdom of experience.

As much as it pains me to write this, I will suck up my pride and admit: I should have listened to my mom.

Meghan Condas SC ’22 is one of TSL’s relationship columnists. She’s an English major who can be found making Spotify playlists, consulting Co-Star for dating advice and searching for the best vegan cookie in Claremont in her free time.

FrAMED

‘Prometheus’ — the hunk without the junk at Frary FRANCES SUTTON If you walk into Frary Dining Hall any given night and overhear students talking about “Prometheus,” you’re probably listening to some puzzled jokes about having to eat dinner below a painting of a giant, naked, penis-less man.

What you’re unlikely to hear is any sort of recognition of what is a true masterpiece. This is a mural painted in 1930 by José Clemente Orozco, one of Los Tres Grandes, the three most important artists of the Mexican muralist movement along with Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros. He is an indispensable figure in 2oth century North American art history, and “Prometheus” is one of his most notable works and his first major mural in the United States.

Fun facts about “Prometheus”: 1. Orozco purposefully kept a penis off of “Prometheus” due to well-reported community disapproval at the time of the nude subject matter.

2. Jackson Pollock, the famous abstract expressionist (the splatter guy) once described “Prometheus” as “the greatest painting in North America.”

3. Prometheus is the Greek Titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it to the humans, a crime for which Zeus chained him to a rock while an eagle ate out his liver every day for eternity.

4. Orozco lived in a dorm at Pomona College for two months while he worked on the mural, after being commissioned by Pomona students and José Pijoán, a professor of Hispanic civilization and art history.

5. “Prometheus” is a fresco, a type of traditional (and very difficult) mural technique in which pigments are applied to wet plaster.

Orozco’s work, along with that of the other Mexican muralists, was coming out of the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution and was radically different than American art at the time. During and after the Great

Depression in the 1930s, much of the contemporary art in America was sponsored by government programs like the Works Progress Administration — a part of the New Deal — and was generally idealistic and reassuring, often depicting scenes of idyllic American life. (The post office in Claremont actually has a mural of this genre: “California Landscape” by Milford Zornes in 1937.)

In contrast, “Prometheus” is bold and violently colorful, painted with loose, visible brushwork in deep reds and oranges, shadowy blacks and a few spots of cool bright blue. Orozco chose to represent the first part of the Prometheus story, depicting the hero grasping powerfully towards the heavens to bring fire — an allegory for knowledge — to the humans below.

The eponymous figure’s huge body fills the foreground from floor to ceiling, and many smaller humans reach diagonally upwards behind him. There is undeniable energy in all the muscular, corporal movement, and the tension is heightened by the additional scenes on the walls to the left and right of mythological horror and destruction at the titan’s act.

Other important Mexican murals in America in the years following “Prometheus” include Orozco’s mural at Dartmouth College, “The Epic of American Civilization” (1932-34), which is shockingly radical for the East Coast school — its images of death and skeletons are overtly critical of academia.

Another is “Tropical America: Oppressed and Destroyed by Imperialism,” painted by Siqueiros in 1932 on Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles. It depicts an indigenous person crucified, and was almost completely destroyed by neglect and abuse at the hands of scandalized residents, until it was restored in 2012.

Orozco and other Mexican artists are getting a spotlight in the art world at the moment: The Whitney Museum of American Art’s current exhibition “Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists

ANNA CHOI • THE STuDENT LIFE

José Clemente Orozco’s 1930 mural, “Prometheus,” graces the walls of Frary Dining Hall at Pomona College.

Remake American Art, 19251945” features “Prometheus” as a half-scale reproduction, as well as many works by Siqueiros, Rivera, other Mexican artists and the American artists they influenced.

And this upcoming fall, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is presenting “Diego Rivera’s America,” an exhibition which celebrates the arrival of “Pan American Unity” to the museum, the remarkable mural painted

by Rivera in 1940 and recently moved from its prior location at the City College of San Francisco.

For many students, Frary’s “Prometheus” is more likely to creep them out than impress. But my intention with this article is not at all to be judgmental of my fellow students. I myself didn’t fully understand the importance of “Prometheus” until I took a course on American art during my sophomore year — I was one of the many students who often look past the mural.

“Prometheus” can easily blend into the landscape at Pomona

College. Perhaps because it’s so integrated into our daily lives — on the wall in the place where we go to eat meals — it fades into the background almost immediately.

Maybe Pomona can do better.

Outside of the Pomona College Museum of Art or the art history department, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a professor or administrator even mention our school’s most influential work of art.

In 2017, the Pomona museum’s exhibition was “Prometheus 2017: Four Artists from Mexico Revisit Orozco.” It was great, but hundreds of new students have come to the college since then. The fix could be simple: The college or the museum could sponsor casual annual talks in Frary inviting students to look at, observe and analyze the mural.

There are so many facets to the issues “Prometheus” brings up. Beyond the artistic value and powerful symbolism of the work itself, the mural is also a visual representation of the deep historical, cultural and political sig-

nificance of our location in Southern California, so close to Mexico.

Orozco’s work has given Pomona a rich opportunity for interdisciplinary study, perfectly in line with the ideals of the liberal arts.

Orozco once said that “The highest, the most logical, the purest and strongest form of painting is the mural. It is also the most disinterested form, for it cannot be made a matter of private gain; it cannot be hidden away for the benefit of a certain privileged few. It is for the people. It is for ALL.” It is a shame (and somewhat ironic) that Pomona fails to live up to Orozco’s words, especially considering what “Prometheus” embodies: our quest for knowledge.

No one should pass through Pomona, or Claremont, without learning at least a little bit about this stunning, monumental work.

Frances Sutton PO ’21 is TSL’s art columnist. She is an art history major who enjoys sewing and attempting to convince people that her hometown of San Francisco is the best city in the world.

FEbruAry 28, 2020

Life & StyLe

PAGE 5

Jia tolentino talks writing, social media, internet age KIRA MATTHEWS Jia Tolentino took the stage of Scripps College’s Balch Auditorium on Feb. 24 to join bestselling author R.O. Kwon, Scripps’ 2020 Mary Routt Chair of Writing. The pair engaged in a conversation about writing, dealing with criticism, life in the age of the internet, social media and Tolentino’s recent acclaimed essay collection “Trick Mirror.”

Tolentino is currently a staff writer for The New Yorker, and previously worked at The Hairpin as a contributing editor and Jezebel as deputy editor. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Pitchfork, Time and more.

The Q&A kicked off with Kwon inquiring about Tolentino’s path to become a writer, noting that many students aspiring to become writers were in attendance.

Tolentino described having a love of reading and writing from a young age, but didn’t think she’d be able to write professionally.

“Being a writer was not a path that seemed available,” she said. “It seemed out of the realm of possibility.”

She graduated from the University of Virginia in 2009 with an English degree and joined the Peace Corps, writing a lengthy manuscript in her spare time while working in Kyrgyzstan — until her laptop was stolen.

“When you’re 21 [and just starting out] … [it was] devastating,” she said, invoking self-deprecating humor. “I was like, ‘God doesn’t want me to write! The universe has forbidden me from ever trying this again!’”

However, Tolentino kept writing, taking odd writing jobs before being accepted into an MFA pro-

gram at the University of Michigan. It was in Michigan where she began editing at The Hairpin, after which she followed editor Emma Carmichael to Jezebel. But when Jezebel’s parent company Gawker went bankrupt, she seemingly hit a dead end — until she got an offer from The New Yorker.

Tolentino said the offer was unexpected. Having built her career in a time of financial unease, she didn’t have any lofty goals until The New Yorker picked her up.

“Graduating into the recession was really useful for me, because my expectations were set below the ground,” she said. “How can any of us make any goals [during a recession]? The last ten years, my entire semblance of adulthood has been bound by institu-

tional collapse.”

Kwon moved the conversation quickly from financial peril to another type of doom — internet trolls. Tolentino, when asked how to deal with abuse online, admitted that the dynamics of the internet and social media are deeply unnatural.

“I care really deeply about what my friends think about me and what my colleagues and peers who I respect think about me, but a stranger? If they’re up in my shit, it’s actually none of my business,” she said. “Does a writer need to be on social media? …

No, you have to write well.”

Tolentino then joked that the first step to writing included blocking social media apps.

“A good writing day is one in which, I mean, I just actual-

ly write,” she joked. “I’ll go into the bathroom and realize: I haven’t looked at myself all day. …

There’s nothing better than the feeling of complete and utter absorption.”

Another path to good writing, according to Tolentino? Reading.

Lots of it.

“Read so much,” she said.

“Read so so so so so much. Read a lot. Read ten times as much as you’re writing.”

Ultimately, though, Tolentino assured student writers in the audience that becoming “great” isn’t what college is meant for, theorizing instead that it’s a space to test your strengths and develop them.

“You can’t expect the writing that you do in college will be great. … I compare it to cooking or playing a sport … you do it for

ALySSA LEONG • THE STuDENT LIFE

The New yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino visited Scripps College Feb. 24 to discuss writing and her new essay collection “Trick Mirror.”

long enough and all of the basics become unconscious,” Tolentino said.

After the event, the auditorium buzzed with excitement, with attendees talking, buying “Trick Mirror” in the lobby and waiting in line to get their book signed.

5C students spoke about Tolentino’s strong presence and personality.

“I liked her wit and her humor,” Claire Galla SC ’22 said. “Whether it was talking about … her struggles as a writer, or when she was praising the [review] that tore her book apart, she [owned up to them], like, ‘Yeah, I am all those things, this is accurate.’ Her humility was really cool.”

Emily Bisaga CM ’22 said Tolentino’s bold and self-reliant persona was something missing from her life as a New York resident.

“I enjoyed her character and way of being,” she said. “I’m from New York, so I miss that characterization of people, the strength and confidence and rawness that she has.”

Others enjoyed how Tolentino spoke about modern themes.

“What I love about Jia is she has this almost predicative intuitive sense of ... cultural touchstones,” Juliette Jeffers PZ ’22 said. “She writes about things [like] Twitter and [the internet]. … She has this incredible … intuition.”

Olivia Landgraff PZ ’22 agreed, calling Tolentino’s work relevant and relatable to the average 5C student.

“I love her media reviews — she did a piece about ‘Cats’ and a piece about ‘Cheer’ and I loved both of those so much,” Landgraff said.

“Just listening to her speak and how her brain works — I feel like that’s how we talk.”

Black Arts Festival creates ’tis the season(ing) for space for black creativity Mudd’s dining hall CHEW ON THIS

ALEJANDRO MALDONADO As students nestled into worn, cozy sofas, warming themselves with hot coffee and tea inside The Motley Coffeehouse’s familiar red brick walls, the aura Saturday afternoon was a pleasant one. Many smiles, laughs and cheers graced the inside of the café as black 5C students packed the place in a show of support and pride.

Watu Weusi, a black student support collective at Scripps College, hosted its eighth annual Black Arts Festival Feb. 22. The event drew a sizable crowd of students and spotlighted black and African art and culture.

The festival kicked off with gallery-style presentations. Fastened to the back wall was abstract digital artwork from Rose Gil SC ’22, who addressed themes of love and black artistry. Alongside Gil’s work were faceless digital recreations of well-known movie posters and cartoon characters designed by Tsion Mamo SC ’23.

“There’s something [interesting] about being able to [immediately] recognize something that your mind sees without it being explicit, without it having great detail to it,” Mamo said of her work.

Along The Motley’s north wall were paintings from Mouminatou Thiaw SC ’22 and Marcus Jackson PZ ’22.

Jackson, an abstract artist, found it valuable to share his passion for art with the 5C community, noting the lack of visibility for black artists at home.

“It’s been beneficial to come out here and have this close community and then be able to showcase my work with them,” he said.

Thiaw, also an organizer of the festival, presented an oil painting of a black man behind a white peony, speaking to a balance between gentleness and strength shared by the two.

“[I] wanted the media and art that I produce to reflect the kinds of black men that I’ve had in my life which have been really strong, kind and beautiful men,” she said.

Xavier Williams PO ’22 performed a poem titled “This Drip,” a juxtaposition of the systemic oppression of black Americans and the appropriated representations of black culture in the mediums of art and fashion.

Booming over the mic, Williams delivered his final lines, emphatically stating, “This drip don’t come easy, it’s all they let me buy. Don’t ask me why I wasted money on this drip, you know damn well why.”

Artists like Williams, who don’t have extensive experience showcasing their talents, found themselves artistically putting themselves out there anyway — and this was no accident. Thiaw, Watu Weusi’s outreach head, wanted artists to build one another up in a tangible space and event, allowing perhaps less experienced or less confident artists to be motivated and affected by other presenters.

“As an artist, you’re pretty collaborative, and you [can] give and take from other artists around you,” she said. “[I wanted artists] to feel inspired and excited by their fellow artists.”

Audience members treasured the opportunity to hear their voices represented on stage.

Aleecia Sharpe SC ’23 said the festival presented art she could relate to, something atypical in her life at the 5Cs. “These events are so valuable to me because, being [in Claremont] … I feel like I’m not represented [and] I can’t relate to a lot of people,” she said. “But being in a space where there’s people who are like me, where I can feel comfortable being myself, where I hear … that I can relate to [this community] as

well — it’s just honestly really special to me.”

Thiaw saw the event as an opportunity to inspire students to create across different disciplines and mediums.

“There’s always value in showcasing what the black students are doing, because they do amazing things across all disciplines,” she said.

“In [academic] spaces we’re taught to think [in a] pretty disciplined [way], and art in all these different forms challenges those barriers.”

Student artist and Watu Weusi secretary Nyarai Khepra SC ’22 presented her poem “Kiwi,” along with an untitled poem. For her, being able to present her poetry in a black-centered space was a special experience, emphasizing that the event served as a space for black artistry that can be hard to find.

“It feels good because you feel seen. You feel heard,” she said. “A lot of times when I present my art, [there’s] a weird feeling of expressing yourself … and not really being understood in a way that I feel like the Black Arts Festival allows.”

Other highlights of the event were musical performances from Thiaw and Gil and poetry from poet Eliamani Ismail SC ’20, who presented “Anthill” and “Inheritances.”

To close out the event, Savannah Chatman SC ’22 brought down the house, comedically recounting the time she broke her high school’s bathroom sink and was called into the principal’s office.

Her story concluded an event that, above all, was overwhelmingly positive. The Black Arts Festival explored themes that equally expressed the joys and challenges of the black experience both on and off campus.

HuXLEyANN HuEFNEr • THE STuDENT LIFE

Eliamani Ismail SC ’20 was one of many performers at the black Arts Festival hosted at The Motley Feb. 22.

STEPHANIE Du • THE STuDENT LIFE

Students can season their meals using the spice and toppings bar in Harvey Mudd College’s Hoch-Shanahan Dining Commons.

STEPHANIE DU I fell in love with cooking when I was about 10 years old.

Growing up, I have always dreamed of having a whole shelf of different spices. My mom never really let me buy anything aside from cinnamon because she thinks spices not used in Chinese cooking are unnecessary.

So whenever I get the opportunity to cook with new spices, I get really excited — I love getting creative with food. That’s why I was over the moon when I saw the 35 different spices lined up at Harvey Mudd College’s Hoch-Shanahan Dining Commons.

As an indecisive foodie who wants to try everything, I spend up to 15 minutes trying to choose what to add to my food everytime I go to the spice bar.

There are just so many different spices to choose from, some that I have never even heard of or only dreamed of using.

For example, I always wanted to make a roast with chipotle morita powder or harissa because of the heat and smokiness it adds. The variety of salts — French sea salt, applewood smoked sea salt and pink Hawaiian sea salt — is also alluring.

Aside from the 35 little ceramic jars of dry spice blends, there are also crushed potato chips and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos for garnish.

Andrew Choi CM ’21 felt a little intimidated by the wide variety, but he definitely enjoys a bowl of vegetables and rice with chile lime seasoning.

“I love foods with an extra kick, which, sometimes, the dining halls may not offer,” he said.

Miguel Ruvalcaba, the Hoch’s general manager, explained that the idea of the spice bar was for it to be an innovative way to introduce spices from around the world to students.

“College is a great place to try new foods and learn about new culinary traditions,” he said via email.

When considering which spices to display, Hoch staff consulted with the student food committee, faculty and staff.

The Hoch is also in the process of installing a screen that displays the names of the spices as well as spice recommendations from students, chefs and experts. Currently, the most popular spices are black truffle sea salt, za’atar and ground sumac.

Black truffle sea salt goes well with most, if not all, foods at the dining hall. From salmon to vegetables to french fries, the truffle just adds a deeper dimension of flavor.

Ground sumac and Cuban mojo are Ruvalcaba’s favorites, both of which provide a bold and zesty flavor.

According to Ruvalcaba, the addition of the spice bar has been very well received by the Claremont community.

“Anything that can help provide a better dining experience in our dining hall is what all of our staff always strives for,” he said.

As a vegetarian, Clara Zervigon SC ’20 is a big fan of the spice bar.

Ever since the spice bar was implemented, Zervigon has had the same routine. She first gets rice and chickpeas and then mixes it with hummus, pesto and dijon for texture.

Then she spices it up with za’atar and one of the paprika blends. For her, the final product is delicious.

“Before, I hated going to the Hoch, because I would just eat unseasoned rice and beans,” Zervigon said. “Now, I have options depending on my tastes that day.”

One of my favorite combinations is getting the mac and cheese and elevating it with the black truffle sea salt and Old Bay seasoning.

It adds in luxurious notes of truffle as well as a kick from the herbs and spices. I also enjoy the chile lime seasoning with roast chicken and corn. You simply can’t go wrong with spice and zest.

In the future, I am excited to try the mesquite BBQ seasoning or ground fenugreek on roasts for a smoky and sweet flavor.

The spice bar is such a wonderful and exciting opportunity to be adventurous and bold with new flavors. I hope it inspires the 5C community to expand their palates and get creative with dining hall food.

Stephanie Du SC ’21 is TSL’s science and food columnist. She is a biology major and she aspires to work in healthcare. Her hobbies include cooking, traveling and eating all kinds of foods.

PAGE 6

Life & StyLe

FEbruAry 28, 2020

PET OF THE WEEK

Meet Garnett, the chubby bachelor ruling Scripps College LUCIA STEIN Garnett is a cat of many names, including Gary, Barbara, Baguette, Garbage and more. His owner and main parent, Sarah Meadows SC ’22, says essentially anything goes when referring to the big tabby, as long as one doesn’t call him Garnet, with a singular t and emphasis on the first syllable.

Garnett has lived with Meadows since the summer of 2019. He originally came from a shelter, to which he was returned by three different families due to his aggression issues. Meadows’ brother finally adopted Garnett, and trained him into toning the aggression down.

After some time, Meadows’ brother decided to move, and since Meadows wanted to live with the cat, Garnett moved in with her shortly after. Since his arrival at Scripps, the cat has quickly become an irreplaceable member of the college community.

Garnett’s primary duty as an honorary Scrippsie is to serve as an emotional support animal, and despite having serious anxiety and depression himself, he makes a great ESA. “Honestly, he helps me with a lot of my physical disabilities,” Meadows said, “[And] when I get big sad and cry, he’ll sit on my chest and purr.”

Garnett additionally ensures that Meadows gets out of bed in a timely manner. If not, he bites Meadows until Meadows gets up and feeds him.

As for the cat’s other responsibilities, it depends on who you ask. According to Grace Corrigan

SC ’22, Meadows’ roommate and Garnett’s co-parent at Scripps, it’s to bankrupt Meadows, mostly through food and vet bills. Meadows, however, said that it is to be “a fat bastard.” Corrigan argued that these are one and the same.

Garnett is not only a “fat bastard,” Meadows said, but also a mercurial one, whose attitude shifts from minute to minute.

“He really [is] on his bullshit lately,” Meadows laughed, referencing Garnett’s extreme moodiness.

Corrigan explained that the cat gets overstimulated very easily, much like a human can. Despite being very affectionate and loving cuddles, he will suddenly have had too much, and give a warning bite to say stop.

Meadows and Corrigan firmly believe that Garnett belongs on “The Bachelor.” Their reasoning comes from the women all over the Scripps campus trying to win Garnett’s love and affection, and his disinterest, leaving them all hanging.

Garnett does like to play, especially with laser pointers. He’s intelligent enough to grasp that the point of light isn’t tangible but loves chasing it anyways. He also likes balls and playing fetch, especially with stress balls from the Sallie Tiernan Field House.

Another of his favorite games is to try and escape the dorm.

Meadows and Corrigan had to get a special spray to keep him inside, which emits hormones and makes a terrible noise. Garnett’s escape attempts have become more desperate lately, since he’s

had to go to the vet fairly frequently, draining both his emotional tolerance and Meadows’ bank account.

One escape in particular came to Meadows’ mind, as Meadows eventually had to call Campus Security on the cat. Meadows had taken Garnett on a walk, but he ran away, and Meadows was unable to find him for hours. Eventually Meadows found him in a bush, stuck since he was too fat to get out. Meadows called Campus Security, who in turn called the maintenance department, and after five hours total, the cat was cut out of the bushes.

If Garnett was to be placed in a Hogwarts house, Meadows firmly believes that the cat is a Slytherin.

“He’s so loyal, but he’s also a conniving little asshole ... [He’s] so self-serving, but also is loyal to a fault.”

Despite his recent grumpiness due to his vet visits and his subsequent increased attempts to run away, the love Meadows and Corrigan have for Garnett is obvious. His antics amuse them constantly, and they feel lucky to have him on campus. He clearly brings them entertainment and affection, enhancing and improving their lives at Scripps.

As Corrigan said, “What a horrible cat. Love him.”

Lucia Stein SC ’23 is TSL’s pet columnist. When she’s not following pets around campus, she’s performing with Under the Lights, listening to NPR and making people laugh — usually intentionally.

STELLA FAVArO • THE STuDENT LIFE

Garnett is a big tabby cat that lives at Scripps College.

Name: Garnett Likes: “Tempo” by Lizzo Dislikes: The sound of running water Favorite not-a-toy: Hair Hogwarts house: Slytherin Wants to tell readers: “Chomp chomp”

‘In Thy Tent I Dwell’: 500-year history under one glowing roof RUBY WANG Under dim, yellow light, a tent is stamped with stories, ages, memory and history. It is covered with a huge collage of personal portraits, documents and letters, and filled with the unique sounds and smells of a Brazilian upbringing.

Brought to the McAlister Center by the Chaplains, Chicano Latino Student Affairs and Claremont Hillel at the Claremont Colleges, “In Thy Tent I Dwell” is a multi-sensory installation piece.

Created by Brazilian-American Jewish artist Jônatas Chimen Dias DaSilva-Benayon, known simply by the title “Jônatas,” the artwork pays homage to a 500-year history of migration, adaptation, forced conversions and hybridization.

Jônatas grew up in a strict family with traditional Brazilian practices — language, culture, tradition, different values — but never was brought up in any particular religion. It was only when he moved to Miami at age 16, where friends would question if he were Jewish, that he started his quest to discover his origins.

He found out that his ancestors were crypto-Jews who fled to Brazil during the Spanish Inquisition and practiced Judaism secretly.

You may be wondering — why a tent and not a painting or a collage? Unlike a more traditional artistic form of expression like painting, the tent has its uniqueness and special underlying meaning.

“I realized that the essence of my artwork is my ancestors’ past,” Jônatas said. “I [made the decision] to take their past and literally build artwork with their past, physically. I want to remove my [artistic influence] and actually feature whatever [once was].”

Rabbi Danny Shapiro, the Jewish chaplain at McAlister, in-

CHrIS NArDI • THE STuDENT LIFE

“In Thy Tent I Dwell” by Jônatas is a multi-sensory installation piece that premiered Feb. 20.

troduced Jônatas and the work, marveling at Jônatas’ expansive family history.

“It is miraculous that [Jônatas] can stand before us today,” Shapiro said. “It required such dedication for his family to maintain their traditions for 500 years through persecution and secrecy. His personal story has inspired students to appreciate and be proud of identities that [were taken] for granted before.”

In addition to the warm rays literally illuminating the art space, the tent’s multi-dimensionality created a space that directly conveys a history and memory.

“My first impression of art-

work is that it is sort of warm and sweet, fragmented and also authentic,” Vicky Hsing SC ’23 said. “The soft yellow lighting inside and family photography outside all illustrate a harmonious atmosphere even though [they had a complex] historical background. I have a sense of calmness while looking through those archives of family history.”

Each piece posted outside the tent was archival material — bullet points in Jônatas’ storied family timeline, each constructing something, Jônatas said as he pointed to some of the art pieces on the tent.

“This is the cover of an [inquisition] book, this is the [re-

sult of a] DNA test [and] this is the marriage certificate of my great-grandparents from Spain,” he said. “I realized each piece and document I was building always constructed something — I was building a shelter [and] I found safety.”

The whole interactive exhibit is a “live archive,” Jônatas said.

Features like folk music, Jewish song and cultural smells are meant to evoke specific memories and resonate with people through creating a multi-sensory experience of nostalgia.

“The family was merchants, and a lot of them dealt with spices,” Jônatas said, lifting a sachet full of a spice blend affixed to the tent. “This is the

smell they have. I want viewers to touch more and to be more palpable when you come to my heritage.”

Regardless of background, Jônatas’ artwork has the ability to resonate with a wide audience.

“I think the process of learning about one’s identity and thinking about [an identity’s] influences can relate to anyone,” Shapiro said.

Jônatas’ work brings some new voices and ideas to Claremont and also lets people think about both the Jewish and Latin American communities from a new angle.

“His work helps us see the diversity within the Jewish and Latinx community and gives us a deeper appreciation of communities that may be different from our own,” Shapiro said.

Speaking more specifically, Claremont Hillel President Rebecca Reisman SC ’21 hoped the exhibit showcased a lesser-represented Jewish voice. “[Jônatas] helps people understand [that] Jewish identity is not monolithic,” Reisman said.

“There are Jewish [people] from a lot of different backgrounds. …

Even the Jewish community can have a better understanding of what we actually look like.”

Jônatas acknowledged the complexities of picking apart one’s history and reflecting on the culture of one’s family, admitting it can change one’s entire self-identity. Ultimately, though, you can come out the other side of it more understanding of your place in the world, Jônatas explained.

“We think we know who we are,” Jônatas said. “The more information you found about who you are, the more you change … The more you research, the more you realize the [many facets] of your identity. It [requires] a lot of courage to dig until I can no longer dig deeper — but I do not regret it.”

OpiniOns

February 28, 2020

Drop Sodexo has always thought about the workers VIVI KRAUS Guest Writer If you go to one of the 5Cs and haven’t been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you’ve probably heard something about Drop Sodexo — I know I’ve heard plenty. I’ve also heard plenty of concerns about how dropping Sodexo will affect the workers of Malott Dining Commons.

In fact, a whole article of concerns ran in TSL on Feb. 14 in an op-ed by Avika Jindel PO ’23 titled “Leaving Sodexo: What about the workers?” In response to Jindel’s article and campus-wide Sodexo confusion, I’m here to tell you that these concerns, while they come from a good place, are unfounded.

For those who may not be informed: Sodexo — the dining service provider currently in contract with Scripps College — owns, operates and makes buckets of money off of around eighty for-profit prisons in Europe and Australia.

You won’t easily find that information online, by the way. I got the number of prisons Sodexo owns directly from the mouth of their senior vice president of brand and communications, Jennifer Williamson, who mentioned it in response to a student question at Sodexo’s presentation Feb. 4.

The problems with Sodexo don’t end there, as if profiting off of prison labor wasn’t bad enough.

Sodexo, the world’s 19th largest employer, has a long history of anti-labor and anti-union practices, from paying their workers poverty wages in countries from the U.S. to the Dominican Republic, to spying on, threatening and firing workers for pro-union activity.

This short list of gross injustices doesn’t even scratch the surface, so if you need more reasons to hate them, just Google any phrase along the lines of “Sodexo controversy” and keep on scrolling.

Drop Sodexo is a campaign to end Scripps’ contract with Sodexo and, in so doing, stop supporting a company that exploits the labor of human beings — both in and out of cages — for their own monetary gain.

Now that we’re all on the same page, here’s a lesser-known fact about Drop Sodexo: It’s old. Generations of student organizers have fought behind the scenes for years in the Drop Sodexo campaign. Don’t get me wrong, the action at Sodexo’s presentation was awesome, but fifty students taping “Drop Sodexo” signs to our shirts is nowhere close to all it takes to pressure an institution like Scripps into terminating a massive contract.

The vast majority of the work that Drop Sodexo has done has happened behind closed doors, which is likely the reason so many people on these campuses, including Jindel, assume that Drop Sodexo is a newer movement that has not yet considered workers’ voices. On the contrary, Drop Sodexo has taken communicating with workers very seriously from the beginning, and would not have chosen to proceed years ago had any workers been at risk of losing their jobs.

Generations of student organizers have fought behind the scenes for years in the Drop Sodexo campaign.

As Jindel mentions herself, the vast majority of Malott employees work for Scripps, not Sodexo. You can count the number of Sodexo employees at Scripps on one hand. These employees are managers, not workers, so as a student of the 5Cs, it’s likely that you’ve never met any of them — with the possible exception of administrative assistant Beth Garvin and Garrick Hisamoto, the Malott manager to whom Jindel refers as the “nervous man” who spoke at the Sodexo presentation.

If and when Scripps drops Sodexo, Hisamoto and his few fellow Sodexo employees will be transferred to one of Sodexo’s other institutions, while the Malott workers who make our smoothies (I love you, Marisol!) and assemble our fish tacos will all keep their jobs.

All this is to say, the Drop Sodexo movement is both bigger and deeper than it appears on the surface. There’s certainly much more to it — many years more, in fact — than the final-push action at Sodexo’s presentation.

If you want to learn more about the campaign, please check out Drop Sodexo on Facebook, read the Scripps Voice article on Drop Sodexo or reach out to the campaign’s current leaders, Niyati Narang SC ’20 and Sophie Peters SC ’20.

Personally, I am glad that conversations about labor on these campuses are opening up.

THE STUDENT LIFE Editorial Board HANK SNOWDON, Editor-in-Chief MABEL LUI, Managing Editor MARC ROD, Managing Editor

Vivi Kraus SC ’22 is a guest writer who hates Sodexo and is gay.

Jasper’s crossword: Mixing up the candidates

JaSPer DaVIDOFF • THe STuDeNT LIFe

ACROSS 1. Adorable participant in a SoCal “beach day” tradition 6. Loon or cuckoo 10. Zion National Park’s state 14. Smartphone sound 15. How MAYOR PETE would describe a sign that says ‘Mayo Pete’?

17. Channing of 21 Jump Street 18. Napoleon’s house 19. Delightful 21. “Marching music’s major league” 22. Pitzer, in the “5Cs as Scooby Doo” meme 25. It comes after a time 30. Staple alternative 34. Up to the job 35. Egyptian snake 36. Sad thing to be on 2/14 37. Grey Poupon, e.g.

38. BERNIE SANDERS’ big policy proposals?

41. Deserve 42. Some stars 43. Cow’s chew 45. Lurch 46. The title of a picture book about TOM STEYER’s campaign?

48. Bays 51. Comes up 52. Like Tylenol (abbr.)

54. Burnt bits at a barbeque 55. Using the Internet 60. Messed everything (up) 64. What JOE R. BIDEN would like to be re. President Trump?

65. Minimalist composer Terry 66. Figure (out) 67. One pill a day, maybe 68. Fashion sense

6. Honey 7. “I think,” on WhatsApp 8. Tear apart 9. Malfoy from Harry Potter 10. ‘Longhorns’ state sch.

11. Norse war god 12. Appropriate 13. Weeding tool 16. “Incredible, bro” 20. Bike 22. Place for a mani-pedi 23. No longer a star 24. Clothes 26. The Batcave, e.g.

27. Says “Your Honor!”

28. Finality 29. Jeopardy GOAT Jennings 31. Nobles 32. Billie Eilish genre 33. Annoy 37. Psychological issues 39. Cairo’s river 40. Pitchfork wielder 41. Radiological exam, for short 44. Prefix of function or phoria 47. Black sheep 49. Many a New Yorker bag 50. Get ready to leave 53. Muse of history 54. Brontë’s Jane 55. Party mixers 56. Payment promise 57. Flashdrive units 58. Swiped objects 59. ___ Mis 61. Take Southwest or Jetblue 62. Electric ___ 63. Henna, e.g.

LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS

DOWN 1. Dorm animal, often 2. Hello, in Rio 3. Dorm animal, unfortunately 4. 90’s rock genre 5. Natalie Portman or Mila Kunis

Living as a third culture kid means not knowing where you belong AVIKA JINDEL

Senior Staff JAMES KARSTEN, Production Editor HELENA ONG, Production Editor SAM BOVARD, News Designer ANNIKA RAGNARTZ, Life & Style Designer GRACE SAUERS, Opinions Designer MARCELLA CANNATTI, Sports Designer AMY BEST, Photo Editor HUXLEYANN HUEFNER, Photo Editor ANNIE WU, Graphics Editor KELLEN BROWNING, Editor-at-Large

However, while Drop Sodexo has always been concerned with worker’s rights, they are not explicitly a labor movement.

So for anyone who cares about the workers on these campuses — as everyone should — the simplest thing you can do is get to know them. Learn their names, talk to them about their days and thank them for all the hard work they do.

And for those who really want to get involved in supporting labor on campus, try joining the Claremont Student Worker Alliance (shameless plug, I just joined and it’s awesome).

At the end of Jindel’s article, she writes, “To turn a blind eye to the possible implications of [the decision to Drop Sodexo] is unnecessarily hurting the people who we set out to help.”

Sure, it may seem that way on the surface, but to anyone who knows, it is clear that Drop Sodexo has kept their eyes and ears wide open when considering the futures of Malott’s workers.

Well-meaning but uninformed concerns like Jindel’s distract from the successes of the student-organized Drop Sodexo movement.

My message to 5C community members — including Jindel — who value the lives of others is this: Let’s not turn a blind eye to what Drop Sodexo is really fighting for. All this time, the students involved in the Drop Sodexo campaign have fought tirelessly for one goal: to end Scripps’ contract with the exploitative corporate beast that is Sodexo Quality of Life Services.

Personally, the more I’ve learned about both Sodexo itself and the movement against it, the more strongly I support Drop Sodexo and the more deeply I admire the fearless student-organizers who have always been in this fight to win.

Let’s support our peers and predecessors by acknowledging the monumental work Drop Sodexo has done for what it is: a profound victory for student-organizing on these campuses.

Because when the final decision comes out in the next few weeks, you know my money’s on them.

PaGe 7

JASPER DAVIDOFF, News Editor MARIA HEETER, News Editor ERIKA SCHWERDFEGER, News Associate AMBER CHONG, Life & Style Editor YASMIN ELQUTAMI, Life & Style Editor DONNIE DENOME, Opinions Editor EAMON MORRIS, Opinions Editor MARISA MESTICHELLA, Sports Editor MATTHEW KIM, Sports Associate MADY COLANTES, Copy Chief

TSL’s Editorial Board consists of the editor-in-chief and two managing editors. Aside from the editorial, the views expressed in the opinions section do not necessarily reflect the views of The Student Life.

Singles copies of TSL are free and may be obtained at news stands around campus. Multiple copies may be purchased for $0.47 per copy with prior approval by contacting editor@tsl.news.

Newspaper theft is a crime; perpetrators may be subject to disciplinary action as well as civil and/ or criminal prosecution.

OFF THE RECORD New thumbs!

We love realism.

The baby thumbs fell out. according to resident thumb expert Sam.

Former EIC Kellen Browning got a job at the New York Times.

How do you like them bIG apples?

Apparently he can’t work here at the same time.

I’m going with him in his suitcase.

“Love is Blind” is now streaming on Netflix.

Can’t wait to binge it.

Every couple is straight.

Oh my god we get it, heterosexuals kiss weird.

“Third culture kid” is a term I first learned at my international school in Singapore. We were taught that it meant growing up in a culture different from your parents’. During my school days, I just nodded along in class, not really grasping the gravity of its meaning in my life.

Trips to my city in India were often reluctant. I wasn’t fond of the unfortunately familiar scent of manure and fried food that constantly hung heavy in the air.

Since I was a toddler, I would grudgingly leave my city life to retire to rural living. I had to go from my clean Singaporean rain shower to those iconic bucket baths taken in full view of toilet rats. The adjustment was difficult and only seemed to get harder as I grew older and realized how to complain.

The inevitable diarrhea would hit hard, perhaps from drinking milk straight from a cow that I was forced to watch being milked — you know, in case there is an apocalypse and I needed to know how to milk a cow at the ripe age of three.

I got to visit beautiful traditional temples to learn about my heritage. There, I stepped in actual warm cow poo barefooted, had my slippers stolen and almost left with another Indian family I thought was my own.

I got to play with cute and friendly animals, but then I got bitten by a dog. (Never pet the “family dog” that apparently hates you and was picked up from the road last week; many injections will follow.)

Despite my clumsiness and constant food poisoning, it was only in Cuttack, India where I could feel the love of a big family.

I was surrounded by an abundant amount of cousins and relatives. There were cultural differences, but when the Amul cheese and Hide & Seek biscuits came out, I knew it was home.

Back in Singapore, I had my nuclear family and other TCK friends from all over the world.

Despite my passport saying I am Singaporean, I felt confused

WaVerLy WaNG • THe STuDeNT LIFe

inside.

Coming to Claremont, I initially felt the same disjointed routine but weird sense of belonging. I couldn’t quite fit in with all the incredible-sounding mentor programs because I wasn’t sure where I identified myself.

I guess my school teacher was right; it’s difficult to know what is home when home doesn’t really exist for you. The BBC describes TCKs as “citizens of everywhere and nowhere.”

Talking about my experiences occasionally makes me feel like I’m talking too much. It’s difficult for me to try to insert my experiences into conversations that often focus around America, where I have chosen to submerge myself into yet another new cultural environment.

It was only after leaving my actual home country that I started to feel truly Singaporean. In Singapore, most people originate from other Asian countries, so we get an interesting melting pot of cultures.

I have felt my identity becoming more salient while I am amongst people who mostly identify as Americans, who have comfort in where they belong. However, I still don’t feel true to myself; it feels like I am camouflaging based on only one of my cultural identities.

Although it can be isolating to not have a sense of unity with your peers or a singular home coun-

try you feel attached to, it has been found that most TCKs have useful skills, such as speaking at least two languages, being more interculturally sensitive and entering adulthood armed to handle change.

Due to globalization, third culture children are becoming increasingly common. For example, Barack Obama was a TCK. His father was Kenyan and his mother American, but he moved to Jakarta after his mother married an Indonesian man.

Therefore, it is a phenomenon that we must familiarize ourselves with so that we can better support the community around us. We should try to better facilitate a discussion of our cultural experiences and also recognize that where someone appears to come from is not necessarily the place they call home.

In our diverse community at the 5Cs, this is our chance to expose ourselves to new experiences and learn from those around us.

Part of my nuclear family has now been relocated to Turkey, which means new adventures, experiences and another place I get to call home. I may never truly fit in, but to me that’s part of growing up and becoming an adult. You have to find confidence and comfort in yourself and the people you love.

Avika Jindel PO ’23 is from Singapore.

She has a self-deprecating sense of humor which extends to the hometown that she actually loves.

OpiniOns

PaGe 8

February 28, 2020

Stop seeking work from unethical companies DEVON BAKER Guest Writer This year, I attended Harvard University’s Public Policy Leadership Conference. The hotel lobby after hours was abuzz with conversations over goals various students had for enacting change in the world.

One of the most common threads of conversation had to do with the notion of success, and how to balance personal success with our desires to help our communities.

Lively debates among first-generation and/or low-income (FLI) students over whether one can combine “securing the bag” at a high-paying firm with being a force of good in the world often left people at a loss as to how to manage these competing interests.

These conversations are not foreign to students at the 5Cs, and they’re important conversations to have in the aftermath of recruitment efforts from places like Goldman Sachs and various prestigious consulting firms.

Personally, I think many students are willing, if not eager, to be pipelined into these companies without enough consideration as to whether they as students are doing harm by choosing to work for particularly unethical companies.

After being in classes dedicated to examining the various systems of oppression that exist in our world, it’s frustrating to see people internalize these findings, only to take the first or most prestigious opportunity that may be contributing to those very systems.

When I say “unethical company,” I realize that that’s a pretty nebulous term. Certainly, one could argue that there’s little to no choices for an ethical company, or that by nature of

working in a capitalist system you can’t truly escape causing some degree of harm.

It’s important then, to think of things in the context of what jobs for what companies align with your values.

For example, I would never work for McKinsey & Company because I deem their involvement with entities like ICE as personally unacceptable. Facebook is another company I wouldn’t work for, because data privacy and discrimination in housing are important issues to me.

I can’t speak to anybody else’s threshold for contributing to different injustices — for some, their most treasured values are related to sustainability, and therefore they may not want to work for a company prone to producing significant excess waste. Our personal values are nuanced and complicated, but whatever they may be for each of us, it’s important that we center those values in our decision-making process, instead of considering them as afterthoughts.

While this does indicate that my argument is more about avoiding betraying our own values than simply avoiding “unethical jobs,” I want to make it clear that I would hope the values of everyone at the 5Cs have shifted as a result of the experiences they’ve had here.

While “unethical jobs” are difficult to define within a spectrum of ethics, I sincerely hope that most

of us can agree that contributing to U.S. imperialism at Raytheon or being complicit in the mass extraction of drinking water at Nestlé are bad things to do. Our employment choices should be a reflection of the development of our values over our four years here.

There are, of course, outside considerations people make when it comes to where they decide to work.

As someone with citizenship, I don’t have to

worry about my immigration status being impacted by employment. At this moment, my immediate family and I don’t have egregious medical debts to worry about paying off.

It’s not my place to police the post-grad outcomes of those with these various lived experiences, but I do want to stress that I think it’s important that we, whenever possible within our own privilege, consider how the institutions we work for impact the world and the communities we came from.

While many of us at the 5Cs deal with intersecting marginalizations that limit a completely unrestricted job search, we simultaneously attend prestigious colleges that grant us the privilege to be competitive candidates for all sorts of jobs.

It should be a moral responsibility to use that educational privilege to at least give pause when we consider how the companies we work for contribute to or work to dismantle systems of oppression.

I’ve heard people explain working for what we would mutually consider “unethical companies” by professing their goals of “changing it from the inside.” While this is a noble goal, more often than not this can be wishful thinking at best.

Particularly when dealing with

GabI SeIFerT • THe STuDeNT LIFe

private corporate entities, you are employed in the interest of capital accumulation over all else. Even the Board of Trustees of Pomona College are limited in influence of making decisions that are morally good instead of financially beneficial, due to their fiduciary duty to the college leaving them open for lawsuits by not abiding by the creed to create more wealth over all else.

Perhaps it’s still worth the effort in some cases, but it’s worth giving some deep consideration as to whether you can dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools and challenge power structures in a meaningful way from within.

It is understandable and human to want to treat yourself to a well-paying corporate job, especially for us FLI students who may feel some level of entitlement to financial comfort. But remember that these personal goals can be antithetical to bringing social justice and liberation to the communities we leave behind by climbing these professional ladders.

Ultimately, these are our own decisions to make, and I will never fault a person who goes through this mental calculus and determines they need to take a short-term job at a company that doesn’t fully align with their values. But we can all benefit from adjusting that calculus, and taking the time to really search for opportunities that make positive impacts.

Devon Baker PO ’22 is a guest writer from Jonesboro, Indiana. They love doing ballroom dance, a capella and looking at their PC game library for several minutes before deciding to play nothing at all. Right now, they think “Delete Forever” by Grimes is the space country song the world needs.

Disability ‘access’ is not enough Exclusive spaces are necessary MARGOT ROSENBLATT & GLORIA BATES

aNNIKa LarSON • THe STuDeNT LIFe

DONNIE TC DENOME I’ll be real here: Claremont isn’t physically accessible in the least. It’s foolhardy to pretend that these campuses are easy to navigate for those who are physically unable to deal with flights of stairs and broken paths. Even if the 7Cs were easy to navigate, though, mere physical access is not enough.

Access to a classroom is useless to me if I’m not guaranteed the accommodations I’m legally entitled to in order to participate fully in class, or if my disabilities are consistently downplayed.

When a professor tells me that notes aren’t required in their class so I “probably won’t need my laptop,” I debate saying, “It doesn’t matter what your class requires, the law requires that I be allowed the accommodations listed in the letter I provided you.”

When a professor refuses to fill out a testing accommodations form correctly so that the Student Disability Resource Center can’t contact them when I have a question halfway through my final, I feel like I’ve been told, “You’re not wanted here.”

When my stories on disability are met with disbelieving looks because I “look normal,” I think about all the Friday nights where I’ve wanted to go out and have fun like a “normal” college student but can’t because a week of “looking normal” in classes left me so tired I can barely move.

And I have it easy compared to a lot of people. I haven’t dealt with anaphylaxis from allergens in the dining hall, forced institutionalization or threats of not graduating from faculty who think they’re entitled to my medical history.

None of those things are what non-disabled people typically talk about when they talk about “access.” Yet all of them pose serious impediments to disabled students being included, supported and welcomed in Claremont.

I constantly feel, after nearly

four years here, that the only reason I receive half the accommodations and responses I do is that faculty and staff know I’ll raise hell if I don’t. I don’t want to be in the business of intimidation, but I’ll admit, it works to force compliance.

And while I’m certainly not angling for anyone’s pity, I am doing this all while mourning.

I am mourning my friend Arielle Davis PZ ’18, who died in December from complications of multiple chronic illnesses. Arielle was a firebrand, a fierce advocate for disabled and chronically ill students and a wonderful mentor. I miss her sarcastic humor and wry advice more than words can say.

I am mourning the more than 600 disabled people whose lives are celebrated and deaths are mourned on Disability Day of Mourning — disabled people who were murdered by their family members or caregivers within the past five years. I stumble through the seemingly endless list of names and wonder at the evil that exists in this world.

So when I read the famous Mother Jones quote used in Disability Day of Mourning advertising — “Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living” — I wish that those in power could understand that disabled students are doing both these things at once. We are constantly trying to reconcile our grief at the deaths of our friends and community members with our need to fight to keep our communities afloat.

I want so badly to hold out hope that Pitzer College, and all of the Claremont Colleges, can and will do more. There are some amazing faculty and staff allies here and, despite my entrenched cynicism, I have seen people grow and change.

Claremont needs more training on disability culture and accommodations for all faculty and staff across the campuses.

We as a community need more

transparency in the process of applying for and receiving accommodations and what rights and responsibilities students, faculty and staff have in each step of the process.

The college administrations need to commit to a procedure where community members who repeatedly or flagrantly break laws surrounding accommodations are actually sanctioned. Our governance systems need to ensure that disability policy decisions actively include voices from all stakeholders on campus.

Finally, and most fundamentally, we all need to view disability for what it is: a social identity just as much as any sort of impairment. We need to demonstrate that we value all disabled community members, not just the ones who can speak the “right language” during a presentation.

We could — we must — do these things. They are attainable and reasonable requests.

But these actions need to start with a commitment to change from the very top. Change cannot and will not come about from just the tireless efforts of disabled students, faculty and staff and our abled allies.

I refuse to believe that a better world is impossible. I refuse to believe that my actions and the actions of my peers are ultimately futile. I mourn the dead and fight like hell for every single disabled person living, learning and working at these colleges because we all deserve a more just and accessible world.

Donnie TC Denome PZ ’20 is a public health major from Sunnyvale, California. All members of the Claremont community are invited to the Disability Day of Mourning vigil in the Gold Student Center Multi-Purpose Room at Pitzer College on Sunday, March 1 at 1 p.m.

On Feb. 6, the Queer Resource Center hosted the “BlaQ Mixer” to kick off Black History Month.

The event was advertised as one centering around “black queer, trans and intersex students, staff and faculty at the 7Cs.” At first, the Facebook page and posters for the gathering said it was a “closed event,” meaning that non-black and/or straight people would not be allowed in the space.

Then, the Claremont Independent wrote a blistering editorial calling the practice “segregation,” claiming that the QRC was against embracing differences. In response, the Facebook page for the event was changed to read “all allies are welcome,” deleting the phrase “closed event.”

The QRC should not have opened their BlaQ Mixer to the public; they should have kept it closed as a space for queer black students. The QRC and every other space maintained by culturally marginalized students should be preserved because the 7Cs are still not a sufficiently equitable space. Until prejudice is dislodged from the reigning culture of the 7Cs, students should be allowed to regulate their own exposure to prejudice by maintaining spaces free of it.

Claremont provides many reasons for students to want their own spaces. Letting minority students have these spaces isn’t “segregation.” Nor does it prevent the exchange of ideas, “draw lines” between groups or support the attitude that one should remain within one’s particular identity group.

There are students in Claremont who think it’s okay to say the n-word. There are plenty of students who still call things “ghetto,” touch black people’s hair or bodies without permission and engage in digital blackface, among many other unacceptable actions.

In 2017, an alt-right Facebook meme page surfaced at Pomona College. The Claremont Independent reported on it, calling it an “anti-PC meme group,” with a member of the now-defunct Facebook group describing it as “aimed at free speech primarily and contains a range of political views and backgrounds of students.”

But, the meme group contained images and comments “so vile that they would be right at home in the comments section

of The Daily Stormer,” wrote Ross Steinberg PO ’18, then-managing editor of the Claremont Independent. Following the publication of the story, Steinberg was subsequently fired from his position.

The Independent’s editorial on the BlaQ Mixer claims that Claremont students are “mature enough to not hijack group-centered events, making exclusion … senseless.”

Given the above evidence, it seems pretty clear that this is not so. Prejudice definitely still exists at the 7Cs. The BlaQ Mixer did initially explicitly say that people outside the stated affinity groups would not be welcome in that space. However, in all kinds of mainstream spaces in Claremont — academic and social — Claremont students have had no qualms in maintaining anti-black and/or heteronormative attitudes.

Anywhere non-black students say the n-word in any context implicitly tells black students that they are not welcome in that space.

In this way, not allowing nonqueer black 7Cers in the BlaQ Mixer is not exclusion. It’s providing a place where students can escape anti-black and heteronormative spaces.

And if you’re worried about constricting the “previously unchecked flow of ideas and experiences” by taking away safe spaces, fear not, for all other spaces are open for exchanging.

These safe spaces’ purpose is not to educate outsiders. Minority students are forced to get out of their “comfort zones” every day, all the time.

Providing a space where the students don’t have to face these pressures and can exchange ideas within their groups doesn’t impede any exposure or growth. Students who go to safe spaces still go outside. They still go to class. They aren’t locking themselves out of the outside world forever.

As long as minority students feel the need to have spaces to themselves, we can rest assured that Claremont is not nearly sufficiently equitable for those students. Students would not create those spaces out of anything other than necessity.

Margot Rosenblatt SC ’23 is from New York, New York. She loves talking with members of the Claremont Independent.

Communication and mutual understanding across the aisle is very important to her.

Gloria Bates CM ’20 is a guest writer from Anaheim, California. She takes time outside of her role on the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps basketball team and her work as a biochemistry major to learn how to help create equitable social spaces organized around food and music.

MeLINa KOFOKOTSIOu • THe STuDeNT LIFe

The Queer resource Center at the Claremont Colleges hosts many speakers, including Sonya renee Taylor, pictured above. The QrC hosted the “blaQ Mixer” Feb. 6.

SportS

February 28, 2020

PaGe 9

Sagehen softball aims to finally get Veteran Athena softball looks over the hump, win first SCIAC title to build on 2019’s success GABBY HERZIG The Sagehens are hoping to leverage new coaching strategies and technology to propel them to a first-place finish in the SCIAC, after they took second last season.

According to seasoned Pomona-Pitzer head softball coach JoAnne Ferguson, the Hens are off to a great start.

“We set a very strong tone offensively, scoring a ton of runs in the first weekend of play,” she said. “I anticipate our offense to be explosive, our defense to be rock solid and our pitching staff to be very strong this season.”

P-P opened the season well with an 8-4 win over Puget Sound in their season opener on Feb. 7.

The following day, they split a double-header against Whitworth.

Karina Falkstrom PZ ’21, who is hitting .375 in the young season, agreed that the team began the season on the right track.

“I was really happy to see everyone getting super hyped throughout the four games,” she said. “You can tell everyone has a

lot of passion for playing and enjoys the competition.”

This year, the Sagehens are incorporating some new programs and technology into their practice regimen, including sports life coaching and a Rapsodo batting analysis device.

“We’ll usually do workshops about once a week to reflect on how things are going and sort of have a reality check,” Falkstrom said on the life coaching.

“It’s easy to get caught up in the mindset that athletics is everything.”

Ferguson believes sports life coaching will “[help] the student-athletes develop life skills and tools to balance their lives and be their best selves throughout the ups and downs of a season.”

The Hens anticipate a very competitive season, particularly within the SCIAC. Last year, Whittier caught fire and won the conference tournament, despite finishing fourth in the regular season — an illustration of the volatile and unpredictable na-

ture of SCIAC softball.

“There’s never one clear standout from our league, which makes it an interesting season,” Falkstrom said.

P-P will count on its three seniors, Isabella Deatherage PO ’20, Olivia Campion PZ ’20 and Alondra Reynoso PZ ’20 as reliable players and dedicated leaders for the Hens, according to Ferguson and Falkstrom.

“They’ve reshaped the entire program and left a solid foundation for us,” Falkstrom said.

However, according to Makensey Druckman PZ ’21, leadership on the team does not stem exclusively from the captains.

“Everyone on the team plays a significant role in achieving success, and different people show leadership in their own ways,” she said.

If the Sagehens do win a conference title this year, it would be an unprecedented victory — P-P has never won the championship in the 33-year history of SCIAC softball.

aMy beST • THe STuDeNT LIFe

Michelle Calcany Blair PZ ’21 makes an over-the-shoulder catch in deep center field against CMS March 2, 2019.

aMy beST • THe STuDeNT LIFe

Maddie Valdez CM ’21 swings for a base hit in the Athenas’ 6-1 win over Pacific Lutheran Feb. 16.

GABBY HERZIG Claremont-Mudd-Scripps softball is looking to follow up last season’s success with a firstplace finish at the SCIAC tournament. A preseason coaches poll from the conference favored the Athenas to finish first again in 2020.

“We are honored; however, we know that it is not a given,” head coach Gina Oaks Garcia said, regarding the coaches poll.

“We will trust the process, work hard and take it one pitch at a time.”

Eight of CMS’s 10 starters are returning, including star pitcher Lauren Richards CM ’22 — who led the SCIAC in wins last season and recorded a 2.86 earned run average — and Megan Perron CM ’21, who finished last season with a team-best .442 batting average and was named a second-team NFCA All-American last season.

In addition, the Athenas are welcoming five new first-years to the lineup.

“Our freshman class has a tremendous amount of talent,” Oaks Garcia said. “I am looking forward to seeing each of them have their time to shine.”

The Athenas began their season with three conference games against Chapman, winning the first and third 6-0 and 5-1, respectively, and losing the second 11-3 in six innings.

“I think our first games against Chapman went well for the most part,” Jessica Fox CM ’21 said. “It was nice to be back out there, and although one of the games didn’t go as planned, I think how we fought back for game three shows the determination of the team.”

Since the Chapman games, the Athenas have yet to face any other SCIAC opponents, but came out on top once against Pacific Lutheran and twice against St. Katherine. For the Athenas, every pitch is important, no matter the opponent.

“We work hard each and every practice, and our motto this year is to ‘take it up a notch,’” Oaks Garcia said.

CMS is confident they can continue to prove why they were the fifth-ranked team in the country at a point last year.

“Obviously, the end goal is to win a national championship, and I think we can do it,” Fox said. “We want to win the SCIAC conference as well as the tournament and just continue to grow throughout the season.”

SWIM: Divers played key role in CMS’ win Continued from page 1 because I’ve had the experience of losing and winning at this point, and now losing again, but I was so proud of how everybody showed up and gave everything they had.”

The championship meet, which took place over four days, was physically draining for the team, even for team members who weren’t competing, according to Lauerman.

“No matter how much or how little you’re swimming, you’re cheering all the time, and by Sunday, when the meet started on Thursday, you’re just destroyed,” she said.

Augusta Lewis CM ’22, who was named SCIAC Swimmer of the Year for the second straight season, said the CMS teams’ wins were due to their supportive team culture at the meet.

“One of our goals going in, and all season, was to be the loudest team on the deck,” she said. “At every single person’s swim, you had a lot of people at the end of the lane which actually really helps when you have a lot of nerves and you can look at the end of the pool and see a bunch of people cheering for you.”

Lewis, who won the women’s 400-yard IM with a time of 4:20.98, the women’s 200-yard IM in 2:02.41 and the women’s 200yard breaststroke in 2:16.8 — all of which were personal and meet records — said CMS’s team spirit helped make the conference meet one of her favorite parts of the season.

“I’ve never had a meet like SCIAC,” she said. “The energy and

just the excitement of everyone being there.”

The CMS coaching staff was also integral to the team’s success.

“Before every meet we have team meetings and [Coach Charlie Griffiths] talks about how we are going to be the loudest team on deck and the most supportive team there,” Lewis said. “That’s all him getting us in the right mindset for how we want to present our-

selves and what we want to be like on deck.”

For P-P, Lauerman also said a supportive culture allowed them to achieve the success they did, despite falling short to CMS. “I think it really helps us because we’re so able to support each other, after good swims or bad swims, or good dives or bad dives,” Lauerman said. “There’s kind of this idea of unconditional

COurTeSy: CMS aTHLeTICS

The 2020 champion athenas registered a top team score of 1,196, while the Stags collected a four-day score of 1,078, edging Pomona-Pitzer by 14 points.

Athletes of the Week Pomona-Pitzer Sarah Casey PO ’22 Boulder, CO Women’s Lacrosse The Sagehens (4-0, 4-0 SCIAC) are off to a scorching start, and Casey has been a big reason why. The sophomore midfielder and defender has already matched her goal total from last season with eight in only four games of play. She had a dominant performance in the season opener Feb. 15 against Redlands, tallying five goals in six shots on goal and adding an assist en route to a decisive 21-7 victory. Against Chapman Feb. 19, she chipped in two goals and an assist.

The undefeated Sagehens have outscored opponents 73-28 and haven’t conceded more than nine goals in a game this season. They will next host Kenyon March 3.

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Augusta Lewis CM ’22 San Anselmo, CA Women’s Swim and Dive During the SCIAC tournament over the weekend, Lewis made a splash, helping the women’s swim and dive team take home the conference trophy. She was named SCIAC Swimmer of the Year for the second year in a row after setting her third SCIAC meet record in three individual events in the championships on Feb. 23. She also won the 200-yard breaststroke race.

A handful of swimmers, including Lewis, will continue on to the NCAA Championships in Greensboro, N.C. next month.

Lewis will be striving for All-American honors.

support. I think it takes some of the pressure off in performing, because we’re all here for each other no matter what.”

Both teams also emphasized the importance of their winter break training camps to developing team culture. Swim training camps start during winter break and lasts from Jan. 2 to Jan. 22, meaning the swimmers are on campus for the majority of winter break.

“All we do is swim like five hours a day,” Lewis said. “We have a long time where it’s just the swim team there. Everyone bonds over the really hard training.”

Swimmers and divers from both teams will continue their seasons at the upcoming NCAAs. Divers Ruby Epstein PO ’22, Emma van der Veen PO ’21, Jem Stern PO ’22 and Ben Willett PZ ’22 will represent the Sagehens at regionals this weekend at Trinity University in hopes of advancing to nationals. Kendall Hollimon CM ’20 will compete for the Stags.

The Hens will also send 16 swimmers — seven on the men’s side and nine on the women’s — to nationals March 18-21, while CMS will send 17 — six men and 11 women.

Weekend Calendar P-P

CMS

Friday, Feb. 28 Men’s & Women’s Swim & Dive NCaa Diving regionals @ Trinity

Friday, Feb. 28 Men’s Swim & Dive NCAA Diving Qualifiers @ Trinity

Women’s Tennis ITa Indoor Championships

Women’s Tennis ITa Indoor Championships

Softball @ Cal Lutheran

Softball @ Whittier

baseball @ La Verne

baseball @ redlands

Men’s basketball vs. Occidental SCIAC Semifinals

Men’s Tennis @ Cal Lutheran

Saturday, Feb. 29 Men’s & Women’s Swim & Dive NCaa Diving regionals @ Trinity Men’s Golf SCIaC 1 @ Tukwet Canyon Men’s basketball SCIaC Tournament Men’s Tennis vs. Washington & Lee and Cal Lutheran Women’s Water Polo @ redlands baseball vs. La Verne Softball vs. Cal Lutheran Sunday, March 1 Men’s Golf SCIaC 1 @ Tukwet Canyon

Men’s basketball SCIAC Semifinal @ Redlands Saturday, Feb. 29 Men’s Swim & Dive NCAA Diving Qualifiers @ Trinity Men’s Golf SCIaC 1 @ Tukwet Canyon Women’s & Men’s Track & Field Seattle Pacific Final @ UW Women’s basketball SCIAC finals @ Redlands Men’s Tennis @ Whittier baseball vs. redlands Softball vs. Whittier Women’s Lacrosse vs. Occidental

SportS

PaGe 10

February 28, 2020

Sagehen men’s tennis P-P women’s tennis takes aim at high NCAA seed focused on fundamentals KELLEN BROWNING In the past 31 years, one constant has remained the same for the Sagehen men’s tennis team — it’s never beaten its Sixth Street rivals in a single match.

Much has changed since 1989, though, and Jed Kronenberg PO ’21 is hoping this will be the year for Pomona-Pitzer (3-3, 2-0 SCIAC).

“Obviously, the goal is to beat [Claremont-Mudd-Scripps]. I think it would be the first time in 20 or 30 years, but hopefully we can give them a run for their money,” he said.

“They’re definitely good again, but we think we are too.”

Kronenberg, who’s made multiple runs in the NCAA individual tournament and was First-Team All-SCIAC last year, is leading a P-P team that has performed well in the past, but is hungry for more.

The Hens last reached the postseason NCAA tournament as a team in 2015, in head coach Steve Bickham’s second year at the helm. They consistently send individual standouts to postseason competition as well.

But the program has won just a single SCIAC title, back in that 1989 season.

The Hens can hope, but for now, Kronenberg said they’re focused on fundamentals — improving their doubles play and their technique.

“We’ve been talking about trying to work on first serves and first returns, trying to make our first shot of each point better,” he said. “A lot of teams play indoors, which is really

fast, so they’re really aggressive off the first ball. We play outdoors, and it’s a little bit slower, so we play a little bit more defense.”

P-P graduated two star seniors in Josh Gearou PO ’19 and Octave Bellet De Giacomoni PZ ’19, but added several key first-years whom Kronenberg hopes can jumpstart a win over the Stags.

“They haven’t really played our freshmen before, so hopefully our freshmen can be new faces that can win some matches,” he said. “I think I’ve done decently against CMS in the past too. We just gotta keep working hard. It’ll come as the season goes on.”

Another standout has been Jack Weiler PZ ’22, who impressed against Division I Southern Methodist University last weekend.

“He wasn’t really starting that much last year, but he’s really put himself into the lineup and improved a lot,” Kronenberg said.

“He was the one win in singles against SMU.” P-P will spend the next month hosting a slew of non-conference teams from around the country, but Kronenberg always has the bigger picture in mind.

“The ultimate goal is always to beat CMS,” he said. “The way the NCAAs work, if we were to make it, we would play them in the first round. ... No matter what, we’re gonna have to beat them if we have any ultimate goal of winning the NCAAs.”

CaMILa MeJIa • THe STuDeNT LIFe

Left: Nils Skattum PO ’22 celebrates a point against the Stags april 24, 2019. right: Jed Kronenberg PO ’21 leaps after serving the ball april 24, 2019.

aMy beST • THe STuDeNT LIFe

Maria Lyven PO ’22 returns a serve in the Sagehens’ close 5-4 loss to Middlebury March 27, 2019.

KELLEN BROWNING In her three-plus years as a Sagehen, Jay Kim’s PZ ’20 tennis team has enjoyed a level of success that most Division III schools can only dream of.

The Hens have reached the NCAA tournament all three years and were ranked No. 5 in the country last postseason.

But there’s one huge roadblock — one looming hurdle that stops Kim and her teammates year after year from advancing past the second round. And it resides just across the street.

“It’s been the same thing for three years, where we’re top-five in the country. We do really well, but then we always lose to them in the round of 16,” she said.

She’s referring, of course, to the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Athenas, who have dominated the SCIAC for nearly a decade and won a national title two years ago.

Pomona-Pitzer (3-0, 2-0 SCIAC) is a powerhouse in its own right, but always comes up short against CMS.

It’s a fact that irks Kim. “It’s so annoying,” she said.

“It’s really discouraging.”

P-P is routinely one of the top teams in the country, but due to NCAA rules that seed the postseason tournament by region, it always finds itself in a bracket with its Sixth Street rivals, and continually gets bounced early as a result.

“Half the teams that end up going to the Elite Eight, we’ve beaten in the regular season,” Kim said.

And as for winning the SCIAC tournament?

“My friend was saying winning SCIACs would almost be the same in terms of skill level as winning nationals,” Kim said, “because the level we would have to be at to win SCIACs is the same.”

One way to advance further in the NCAA tournament is simply to beat CMS. The other, which P-P is pinning its hopes on, is to attain such a high seed during the regular season that those who decide the postseason bracket have no choice but to allow the Sagehens to play in a different region — something that Kim said the NCAA has

done for elite East Coast teams in previous years.

With that in mind, Kim said P-P isn’t setting its sights solely on toppling the Athenas this season; wins over top programs like Emory and Middlebury will be just as important for securing a high seed.

“The mistake we’ve made in the past is beating [CMS has been] our main goal,” she said.

Another difference this year is the size of the P-P team; just nine members, down from 16 during Kim’s first year and about a dozen last season. Kim sees this as a positive.

“With the nine, we’re a lot closer,” she said. “It’s just easier to plan things so I think naturally everyone comes closer. It’s just really drama-free.”

Three newcomers — Patria Aziz PZ ’23, Janie Marcus PO ’23 and Georgia Ryan PO ’23 — will play key roles as the Sagehens embark on the 2019 campaign.

Kim said she looks to the energy of the first-years when she needs belief that her team can overcome the Athenas.

“I see how optimistic they are,” she said. “They’re really hopeful, and they work hard.”

5C track teams gear up for conference action ADITYA BHALLA The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Pomona-Pitzer track and field teams are beginning to prepare for conference competition as they jump into the heart of their seasons.

Going into the new decade, the CMS men’s and women’s teams will attempt to repeat as SCIAC champions, while the P-P teams return a number of All-Americans from last season, looking to dethrone the Stags and Athenas.

CMS men look to win seventh SCIAC championship in past eight years The Stags entered 2020 as the reigning SCIAC champions, and were picked to win the conference again this season in the preseason coaches’ poll.

Last season, the team was picked to finish fourth in the preseason, but rolled to a 40-point win at the SCIAC Championship. Understandably, the preseason expectations are higher, as the squad returns several of last year’s top performers for their quest to repeat as conference champs.

The Stags bring back all four of their individual national qualifiers from last season, including steeplechase All-American Evan Hassman HM ’21. Hassman ranks third in CMS history in the steeplechase and placed eighth in the event at the NCAA Championship last season.

Among many other strong returners is Maxwell Knowles CM ’20, the reigning SCIAC champion

in javelin. Knowles, who was originally a walk-on for the Stags, has his eyes set on an even greater accomplishment this season.

“I certainly want to win the SCIAC title again, to defend that title,” Knowles said. “I would love to break the CMS school record this year, if possible, and make a run at being an All-American.”

Knowles also cited the track and field program’s recruiting process and acceptance of walk-ons as major contributors to the team’s success over the years.

The men’s team will compete in their first SCIAC Multi-Dual meet at Whittier March 7.

Athenas aiming to win sixth straight SCIAC Championship The Athenas have been an unstoppable force over the last five years, and 2020 appears to be no different — CMS returns two of last year’s three individual national qualifiers, and is the odds-on favorite to win the SCIAC in this season’s preseason poll.

Last season, the Athenas squeaked out their fifth straight conference title, topping Redlands in the conference championships by only three points. The team also lost All-American Jacque Desmond SC ’19 to graduation, who placed fourth nationally in the pole vault last season.

“Not only was [Desmond] a great athlete but she was also a great leader. Her presence is definitely missed on the team,” said Sobechukwu Uwajeh CM ’22, who

finished top-10 in the SCIAC last year in hammer throw. “But we have amazing freshmen … I think the vaulters are ready and doing well.”

Returning for the Athenas are national qualifiers Amanda Mell CM ’20 and Sabrine Griffith HM ’20, who will lead the team in the triple jump and long jump, respectively.

The distance squad’s young age will also be important to the Athenas’ success this year, with Riley Harmon SC ’22 leading the group as she comes off of an All-American performance in cross-country in the fall.

The Athenas will also compete in a multi-dual meet at Whittier March 7.

P-P men look to build off of cross-country national title The Sagehens are hoping to improve upon their second-place finish in the SCIAC last season as they begin conference meets. The team placed 16th nationally last season after sending six individual qualifiers to the national meet.

They’ll be boosted by their distance runners, who took home their first NCAA championship in the fall. Steeplechase All-American Danny Rosen PO ’20, also a member of the title-winning cross-country team, has high hopes for the upcoming track season.

“I’d like to win the championship in the steeplechase this year.

I’m coming back with the top re-

turning time, so that’s a goal that’s been on my mind for a while,” Rosen said. “I hope to keep encouraging our young guys to develop and run faster.”

Head coach Jordan Carpenter also hopes that some of the new runners can help the team exceed past seasons’ performances, including Jack Rosencrans PO ’23 and sprinter Angel Daniel-Morales PO ’23.

“The 1500[-meter run] will be [Rosencrans’] main event. He was really talented in high school. …

We expect some big contributions there,” Carpenter said. “[Daniel-Morales is] another first-year who has been running well early, so we’re excited to see where he ends up.”

While the Sagehens lost 10,000-meter All-American Andy Reischling PO ’19 to graduation, Carpenter and Rosen said standout distance runners from the cross-country season have helped fill that void.

The Sagehens host their first conference meet against Redlands, La Verne and Cal Lutheran at Strehle Track on March 7.

P-P women look to improve in SCIAC with three returning All-Americans The Sagehen women return four individual national qualifiers and three All-Americans as they hope to improve on a fourth-place finish in the SCIAC last season.

The P-P women were selected to come third in the coaches’ pre-

season poll this season behind CMS and Redlands.

Leading the team are seniors Vicky-Marie Addo-Ashong PO ’20 and Helen Guo PO ’20, who earned 2019 All-American honors in the triple jump and 5,000-meter run, respectively. The Hens also return Lila Cardillo PO ’22, who received All-American honors as a first-year in the 10,000-meter run.

“Our three [All-Americans] are certainly vital components to the team this year, and they’re going to provide good leadership and mentorship for newcomers,” head coach Kirk Reynolds said. “We also have a number of veterans in all event groups that are also going to provide that similar leadership.”

Cardillo said the team has introduced new bonding activities that will help members become closer.

“We spent a lot of time during preseason coming up with our team values and figuring out how we can best support our teammates in different event groups,” Cardillo said. “We also do a weekly whole women’s team dinner in Frary … we make an effort to talk to someone [we] don’t practice with typically.”

Another strong returner for P-P is Quin Fraley PO ’22, who earned All-Region honors last season in the 400-meter dash.

Reynolds added that he’s excited to see the Hens come together and compete as an entire team at the upcoming conference meets.

The Sagehens will also compete at the Multi-Dual meet at Strehle Track on March 7.

JaMeS KarSTeN • THe STuDeNT LIFe

Left: Nathaniel Getachew PO ’23 rounds the turn in the 3,000-meter race at the Rossi Relays hosted by CMS Feb. 22. Getachew finished in 8:55. Right: Brooke Simon CM ’23 falls toward the mat after clearing the bar in the pole vault. Simon reached 3.50 meters at the meet, good for third place.