Vol. CXXXV No. 1

VOL. CXXXV NO. 1

FRIDAY, September 15, 2023

Community activism triumphs

CLAREMONT, CA

Meet your 20232024 student body presidents

Pitzer workers rehired, more protections won in new union contract

ELLIE URFRIG & AMBIKA GUPTA With fall semester in full swing, this year’s student body presidents are committed to building inclusive, safe communities on campus where students can thrive both academically and socially. Zane Yamamoto CM ’24

COURTESY: BRENDA GALVEZ

Pitzer workers organized a celebration at McConnell’s Apron to celebrate their new contract going into effect the next day.

MAYA ZHAN Early last week, workers at Pitzer College entered their first union contract with the school, following months of arbitration and over two years of wins and setbacks while organizing. With their three-year contract in effect Sept. 4, Pitzer staff now have annual salary increases, respected seniority and union safeguards against terminations and other disciplinary actions. The absence of these protections had been a source of tension between the college, union and members of the 7C community. Throughout 2023, Claremont College students and workers organized campaigns to advocate for workers they claimed had been unfairly terminated. Most recently, union leaders and student members of the Claremont Student Worker Alliance (CSWA) organized a campaign to rehire longtime custodial workers Jose “Pepe” Vázquez and Gregorio Reyes, who were fired on Jun. 2 for taking a weathered couch donated to ReRoom, a program in which students donate unwanted items for students to buy at the following academic year. The community-wide outrage following this decision led Pitzer to reinstate Vázquez and Reyes to their former positions with seniority on Jul. 13. They returned to work on Jul. 17. “I’m really happy and glad that Pitzer gave me and my coworkers another chance, and thanks to all the professors and students for fighting for us,” Vázquez, who has worked for Pitzer for 17 years, told TSL following his reinstatement. In a joint statement with UNITE HERE Local 11, the labor union that now represents Pitzer workers, Pitzer’s administration said the initial decision was made after “care-

ful consideration” and “in the best interests of the Pitzer community at the time.” “Pitzer maintains that the decision was fair, appropriate and consistent with Pitzer College’s policies and practices,” Pitzer’s Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Laura Troendle wrote in the statement. “However, after open and heartfelt conversations last week between Gregorio and Pepe, Pitzer College and Local 11, Pitzer College offered Gregorio [Reyes] and Pepe [Vázquez] another chance with reinstatement to their previous positions.” A couch, a firing and a surge of community activism The rain-damaged couch lay untouched for two to three weeks in a pile near a dumpster, according to Vázquez. After judging that it would be soon discarded, Vázquez said he and Reyes took the couch, intending to repurpose it and keep it for personal use. Pitzer stated that this action was theft because the couch was intended for ReRoom and therefore demarcated as Pitzer property. Students and workers supporting Vázquez and Reyes said they felt the termination was unjust, with Morales stressing that their wrongdoing was not driven by malicious intent, but rather by need. “These are two longtime workers and the way that they’re treated does not align with the respect and dignity that they’re warranted just as people and also as folks who have given so much to the school,” CSWA member Mo Gardner PZ ’25 said. Pitzer faculty members also voiced disagreement with the way the situation was handled.

“There could be retraining … but that firing is really just going too far,”said José Calderón, Pitzer professor of sociology. Vázquez and Reyes were suspended for a week starting May 26. They were then informed of their termination during a Jun. 2 meeting with five of their union-represented coworkers. “The people that we work alongside every day, our supervisors, were in there and wouldn’t even make eye contact with us,” Morales, who was present at the meeting, said. To advocate for Vázquez and Reyes, workers delegated multiple times to Pitzer’s Human Resources office, along with a small group of students and alumni. Members of CSWA established a mutual aid fund for the two terminated workers and a community art sale on their Instagram page, with proceeds going toward the fund. In an email sent to all Pitzer staff shortly after Vázquez and Reyes’s termination, Caballero indirectly addressed their policy violation and reiterated practices surrounding ReRoom. “For the past 5+ years it has been regularly discussed in meetings that items left behind are for ReRoom,“ Caballero wrote. “Each member of the facilities team has been notified of this practice for years.”

For ASCMC President Zane Yamamoto CM ’24, serving in student government is not a new endeavor. He has previously served as senator, class cabinet member, sophomore class president and executive vice president. Yamamoto is passionate about uniting communities in the face of controversy, alluding to the passing of a controversial resolution to return social life at CMC to its pre-pandemic form. “There were many points throughout my journey where I considered retiring from student government,” Yamamoto said. “It was in the aftermath of some of the most contentious debates on our campus surrounding the social life and campus culture when I remembered what called me to the job in the first place.” Moving forward, Yamamoto hopes to facilitate a campus community where all students have spaces where they can feel at home. “As a fourth-generation Japanese-American who was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, I understand that coming to college is enough of a culture shock already, even before you mix in issues of identity, inclusion and belonging,” Yamamoto said. Other goals include using student fees to enhance student programming and engagement, and repairing the loss of institutional knowledge and experience caused by COVID-19. “I believe in the unique role that student government has in solving the problems our community faces, the unique role it plays in representing our constituents and fellow classmates to external stakeholders and each other and the unique role it plays in leading

the student body through initiatives and by example,” he said. Lily Dunkin SC ’24 Though this year’s Scripps Associated Students (SAS) President Lily Dunkin SC ’24 started her journey in student government just last year, she has been a prominent community member since she first came to campus. Dunkin was a strong advocate for the removal of the controversial Nazi-oriented “Young Woman” statue from Scripps’ health and wellness center, circulating a petition that highlighted the statue’s reflection of the “toxic white femininity” present on campus. One of Dunkin’s main priorities as president is connecting Scripps College’s administration to its students. She hopes to facilitate conversations in which students, faculty and staff can effectively work together. “We are already beginning to have some really important conversations — starting with our Student Leadership Institute — where we are able to talk to a lot of different administrators about things we’re seeing on campus,” she said. Dunkin cited the topic of student educational initiatives on drugs and alcohol as an example. According to Dunkin, the current punitive measures ultimately do more harm than good. Instead, she strives to create a culture of care. “When college students behave as college students, the most important thing is keeping them safe and not punishing them for behaviors,” Dunkin said. “The reality is that when you make rules that punish students, people continue [their] dangerous behaviors in private.” Sanya Dhama PZ ’24 Pitzer Senate President Sanya Dhama PZ ’24 has been involved with student government since she served as her sixth-grade class president. A strong advocate for sexual assault prevention and education, Dhama testified for Assembly Bill 2683 at the state level last year. As president, Dhama plans to continue

See PRESIDENTS on page 3

A looming contract and more promises for improved working conditions Since Pitzer and the union were still negotiating the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) at the time of Reyes’ and Vázquez’ termination, safe-

See UNION on page 2

WENDY ZHANG • THE STUDENT LIFE

Congresswoman Judy Chu details the fight to re-codify reproductive rights SARA CAWLEY

COURTESY: SCRIPPS LAPSA CENTER

U.S. Congressional Representative Judy Chu D-Ca. visited Scripps College on Monday

This Monday, Scripps College Public Events and the Laspa Center for Leadership hosted U.S. Rep. Judy Chu D-Ca., who serves California’s 28th district in Congress, for a presentation and Q&A about reproductive healthcare and justice. Around 40 students and faculty members gathered to hear Representative Chu’s talk, with some students citing political awareness in Claremont as their reason for attending. “I am very passionate about fighting for reproductive rights and I wanted to become more familiar with the local politics in Claremont regarding this issue,” Abbie Bobeck SC ’26 told TSL via email. Chu started her presentation by giving a brief history of abortion rights in the United States, stating that anti-abortion extremists have

worked to “systematically chip away” reproductive justice since the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973. Chu highlighted her work spearheading the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), which would establish a federal right for healthcare workers to provide abortion services and for patients to receive abortion care, regardless of state-level bans. “We need to ensure that in addition to protecting patients themselves, we make sure states are not criminalizing abortion providers simply for providing needed healthcare,” Chu said. The WHPA is the House Democrats’ second priority for all legislation this year. The bill has passed through the House twice but has not made it through the Senate. If WHPA is approved by both the

ARTS & CULTURE

First-year columnist Andrew Barber reflects on the hype around Hurricane Hillary — and learns a bit about himself along the way.

The student newspaper of the Claremont Colleges since 1889

House and Senate, Chu said President Biden has promised to sign it into law. During the talk, a representative from Chu’s team passed around index cards for audience members to write questions on for a subsequent Q&A session along with Chief Medical Officer at Planned Parenthood Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley, Dr. Noah Nattel. Nattel answered Chu’s questions about the risks of abortion restrictions, citing medical, personal and familial complications. He said that in states where performing abortion is criminalized for healthcare workers, there is an ongoing “mass exodus” of abortion providers. “This is their calling in life, and there is a lot of reward to providing abortion care,” Nattel said. “There is so little in medicine that can be done so simply, so safely, that can

really change the trajectory of somebody’s life. I would be devastated if I lost that ability.” Both Chu and Nattel noted gender, race and class as critical elements in abortion access. “It’s a simple fact of our country that if you are rich, white and well-connected, abortion will always be an option for you,” Chu said. “But there will be severe consequences for those who are not.” After participating in the Q&A, Ella Alpert SC ’26 emphasized the importance of privileged students engaging in difficult reproductive justice discourse. “It is a privilege to be able to talk about this and not have experienced any of that firsthand,” Alpert said. “I think for those of us in that position having those kinds of conversations can be saddening, can be uncomfortable, but we have to use that as fuel.”

OPINIONS

SPORTS

Lizette Gonzalez PO ‘27 is a firstgen, Latine first-year. Safe spaces have been crucial during her transition to the 5Cs, but she has noticed a major issue with actually addressing the major culture shock experienced by students like her.

All nested in, the Sagehens men’s soccer team kicked off the last game of their preseason with a bang, defeating the Linfield Wildcats 3-2 in an eventful back-and-forth showdown on Sunday, Sept. 10.

INDEX: News 1 | Arts & Culture 4 | Opinions 7 | Sports 9

News

PAGE 2

Chodosh leaves CMC for six-month sabbatical

September 15, 2023

Scripps grant funding for undocumented and lowincome students revoked FIONA HERBOLD

COURTESY: CLAREMONT MCKENNA COLLEGE

Apart from Gabrielle Starr, who has served as president of Pomona College since 2017, Hiram Chodosh is the only president at the 5Cs with over one year of experience.

ANNABELLE INK & ZOE SOKATCH This fall, students at Claremont McKenna College (CMC) returned to campus eager to embrace the same intense, high-energy community they left back in May. One thing, however, was different — Hiram Chodosh, who has served as CMC’s president for the last ten years, was gone. On Jul. 1, Chodosh began his six-month sabbatical, which is set to end Jan. 1, 2024. Sharon Basso, former vice president of student affairs, will serve as acting president during his leave. In an email sent to CMC’s student body earlier this semester, Chair of CMC’s Board of Trustees David G. Mgrublian expressed his full support of Chodosh’s leave, thanking him for his “visionary leadership and tireless dedication.” Mgrublian also shared his wishes for Chodosh to make the

most of his sabbatical. “We wish Hiram a rejuvenating and productive sabbatical and look forward to his return in January,” he wrote in the Jun. 1 email. In the email, Mgrublian acknowledged some of CMC’s major accomplishments during Chodosh’s presidency, such as the increase in Pell Grant student enrollment by over 70%, the almost doubling of first-generation enrollment and the more than doubling of the college’s endowment. He did not provide a reason for Chodosh’s sabbatical, and Chodosh — having already started his sabbatical — did not respond to TSL’s inquiries about the subject. Apart from Gabrielle Starr, who has served as president of Pomona College since 2017, Chodosh is the only president at the 5Cs with over one year of experience. In December 2022, Strom Thacker was announced

as Pitzer College’s seventh president and began his tenure on Jul. 1, 2023. At Scripps College, Amy Marcus-Newhall was announced as the college’s 11th president just last April. Meanwhile, Harriet Nembhard became Harvey Mudd College’s 6th president this past July. Chodosh’s leave also follows a year of controversy during which he faced backlash from some students and faculty for postponing a proposed general education (GE) requirement focusing on racial-ethnic understanding. Priya Junnar, Director of the Athenaeum and Chodosh’s wife, will be taking leave at the same time as Chodosh. Brian Davidson will take over for Junnar as acting director of the Athenaeum. Davidson will serve in this role in addition to his current role as director of CMC Fellowships Advising.

On Monday, Aug. 28, Scripps College President Amy Marcus-Newhall announced in an email to the community that the Schuler Initiative will no longer be donating $15 million to the college it had previously promised, due to the state of the financial market. Scripps announced the grant last September, accompanied by a donation-matching campaign within the Scripps community, bringing the cumulative total to $30 million over the next 10 years. The Schuler Initiative, a subsect of the Schuler Education Foundation, aims to increase the enrollment of Pell-eligible and undocumented students who are otherwise unable to receive federal financial aid at top liberal arts colleges. Scripps was one of five colleges set to receive funding from the Schuler Initiative. The Initiative had previously sponsored another cohort of five colleges, including Williams, Middlebury and Wellesley. Marcus-Newhall announced this change in her Fall Welcome email as part of a series of updates and announcements. According to Marcus-Ne-

whall’s statement, the current cohort’s funding will now be put on hold indefinitely. She said that the Schuler Initiative “hope[s] to partner with Scripps in the future.” The Initiative cited “market conditions” as the reason for putting the new cohort on hold. The Schuler Education Foundation did not respond to TSL’s request for comment. Scripps and Pitzer College are the only 5Cs that practice needaware admissions, meaning a student’s economic status is considered in admissions. With the Schuler Initiative withdrawing their donation, Scripps will rely more heavily on their own fundraising efforts through the Scripps Access Initiative. In a statement to TSL, Assistant Director of News and Strategic Communications Rachael Warecki said that the college “continues to strive to meet or exceed its original fundraising target of $15 million over a 10-year period.” To date, the community has raised $2 million, thanks in part to a $1 million donation-matching challenge from former trustee Chalan Colby SC ’61. This money will allow Scripps to increase need-based financial aid for Pell-eligible and undocumented students beginning in 2025, Warecki said.

FLORENCE PUN • THE STUDENT LIFE

The Schuler Education Foundation’s Schuler Initiative has withdrawn a promised $15 million donation from Scripps College that would have gone towards supporting Pell-eligible and undocumented students.

Claremont Colleges see rise in COVID-19 cases following move-in EMMY ANDERSON As students returned to campus for the fall semester, COVID-19 cases rose across the Claremont Colleges — but COVID-19 policies, relaxed at many campuses over the summer, have stayed the same. Several of the 7Cs continue to track COVID-19 cases among students. As of Sept. 8, there were more than 50 active positive cases across the five undergraduate colleges. Claremont McKenna College (CMC) reported a total of 14 positive cases since Aug. 28 according to Gilien Silsby, CMC’s director of news and media relations. Judy Augsburger, director of public relations at Harvey Mudd College (HMC), said the school reported 18 positive cases since Aug. 20. Meanwhile, Pomona College’s total cases amounted to around one percent of its student body, according to Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Traci Arwari. Emma Liang SC ’26 tested positive for COVID-19 over Labor Day weekend, disrupting her first week of classes and putting her behind academically. “I think it was a drawback to not have students participate in mandatory testing during move-in,” Liang said. She added that over three years into the pandemic, “we should be well-equipped enough to act preventatively towards [COVID-19], instead of just reactively.”

Staff have been affected by the rise in cases as well. At Pomona, there was an outbreak of COVID-19 at Frary Dining Hall over Labor Day weekend, prompting the implementation of a mask requirement beginning Sept. 6 for all Frary employees, which is still in effect. In an email addressing Pomona’s student body, Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Avis Hinkson referenced this outbreak and urged recipients to take the necessary steps to remain

healthy. Scripps College and Pitzer College did not respond to TSL’s inquiries on the number of positive cases at each school so far. However, Scripps students did receive an email on Sept. 1 about an uptick in cases on their campus from Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Adriana di Bartolo-Beckman. The email encouraged students to wear masks and wash their hands often in order to stop the spread. Still, administrative officials at

the 7Cs said COVID-19 prevention measures haven’t been axed entirely. Every campus provides designated isolation housing for students who test positive. As well as that, Pomona requires students to test within 24 hours of showing symptoms, and Scripps requires its students to test immediately. HMC students are provided with both antigen and PCR testing options, and close contacts of confirmed cases are carefully monitored. Meanwhile, at CMC,

NICOLE CEPEDA • THE STUDENT LIFE

students are encouraged to mask and test frequently. The 5Cs are not the only sites where COVID-19 is on the rise. In recent weeks, COVID-19 rates have increased across the country. Data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention put COVID-19-related deaths up 10 percent from Aug. 27 to Sept. 2, as compared to the week prior. Omicron variant EG.5, first identified in February 2023 and now the dominant strain worldwide, could be a factor in this uptick, the New York Times reported. Despite rising cases, COVID-19based restrictions are continuing to loosen as society gradually returns to its pre-pandemic state. In particular, COVID-19 policies across Claremont have changed since the spring ’23 semester. CMC dropped its student vaccine requirement last semester. In August, Scripps and HMC stopped mandating staff vaccination, although both schools still require proof of vaccination for students wishing to enroll. Additionally, COVID-19 testing was not compulsory during move-in this year, a first since the beginning of the pandemic. A new COVID-19 booster, specifically formulated for variants related to EG.5 and already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is expected to roll out in the next few days, ABC reported. No 7C school has announced if they plan to require it yet.

UNION: New contract brings more worker protections Continued from page 1 guards against unfair termination, progressive discipline and a grievance process were not in effect, union leaders Jose Ochoa and Tomás Morales said. Pitzer previously maintained atwill employment, in which the employer or employee can terminate employment at any time without the need for just cause. Now, the CBA establishes progressive discipline, an approach consisting of increasingly severe penalties leading up to termination.

It also sets forth a series of wage raises in periodic increments, which will amount to a total of $6.75 by July 2025. Additionally, Pitzer will pay 95 percent of employees’ healthcare costs. Union representative Arun Ramakrishna PZ ’22 alleged that the union and Pitzer had informally agreed on progressive discipline in the months prior to the CBA being finalized, and therefore should not have treated Vázquez and Reyes as at-will employees. “If the College was committed to the idea that progressive dis-

cipline is appropriate, to ensure that people are not terminated without a just cause, then they should honor that even in the couple of weeks prior to the CBA being signed and finalized,” Ramakrishna said. Meanwhile, Troendle said Pitzer provided anticipated pay increases ahead of time and that it made an effort to ensure Vázquez and Reyes were not penalized even though the CBA was not finalized. “The details of the employees’ specific situations is confidential.

However, we continue to work hard at Pitzer to support our employees’ success in their positions, and termination is always undertaken very seriously and as a last resort,” Troendle told TSL. Ramakrishna reflected on these recent union victories, including the rehiring of Pepe and Gregorio and the completed CBA, the latter which took over six months of labor negotiations and arbitration. “The Claremont colleges are prestigious, high revenue institutions and should be thought of as such,” Ramakrishna said.

“Through collective action, we can fight these companies … it doesn’t erase the bad thing that happens, but at the very least creates accountability and gives workers more power in their workplace.” Workers and union representatives said they will forge their path forward by ensuring that Pitzer adheres to the contract’s terms. “They got fired on May 26. At that moment we asked for a second chance, but they said no,” Ochoa said. “If [Pitzer] truly believed they deserved a second chance, they’d have said so on the spot.”

News

September 15, 2023

PAGE 3

PRESIDENTS: 5C student leaders promise collaboration, meaningful action Continued from page 1 empowering survivors and fostering a safe community on campus by addressing the turmoil stemming from issues within Pitzer’s Title IX office. She said Senate is currently “in the process of rebuilding trust with the student body and the Title IX office,” and she expressed her desire to advocate for the community this year. Overall, Dhama said she loves the direct connection between students, faculty and administration at Pitzer, as it allows students to influence change on campus. “The college literally needs students — our passion, our commitment and our dedication to understanding issues — to really gather input,” she said. Henry Hammer HM ’24, Kayleah Tsai HM ’24 ASHMC co-presidents Henry Hammer HM ’24 and Kayleah Tsai HM ’24 both drew immense inspiration from their predecessors, Ruby Foxall HM ’23 and Mavis Stone HM ’23. Now, Hammer and Tsai are eager to follow in their footsteps while instituting new and important changes. Hammer and Tsai are hoping to make the notoriously stress-inducing room draw process “less of a chaotic experience for everyone.” Addition-

ally, they hope to change the nature of post-pandemic career fairs across campus by holding at least two in-person events this year. Hammer noted the importance of the Honor Code. “As always,” he said, “the Honor Code is a big, evolving thing at Harvey Mudd, and we are working with the faculty, with students and with our awesome Honor Board chairs to make sure it’s as strong as ever.” Reflecting on their abbreviated time on campus due to COVID-19, Tsai recalled feeling impressed by people who made friends online. “I think it just goes to show that Mudders have that gung-ho spirit where, if they want something, they’ll try and get it,” Tsai said. Whether it’s making friends online or running as co-presidents, Hammer emphasized collaboration. “We believe that things get done faster, obviously, when there’s more people, but more importantly, things get done better when there are more heads put together,” Tsai said. Timi Adelakun PO ’24 For the last two years, Timi Adelakun PO ’24 served as a commissioner of campus events. Last spring, he decided to run for ASPC

Meet the Ed Board! SARA CAWLEY Maxine Davey PO ’25, Ben Lauren PZ ’25 and Mariana Durán PO ’24 have taken the reins at TSL for the fall 2023 semester. Davey, TSL’s editor-in-chief, is a politics major and English minor from Dana Point, California. She worked as a news writer and editor for TSL during her first two years at Pomona and served as the editor of her high school’s newspaper. This summer, she interned at Foreign Affairs Magazine. “I think journalism has long been one of the best avenues with which to hold power accountable,” Davey said. “I want to take TSL in a direction that ensures it’s doing so in a way that benefits the community to the greatest extent.” Davey succeeds Hannah Weaver SC ’24, who served as editor-in-chief during the spring 2023 semester. Weaver has previously edited the Arts & Culture, News and Sports desks and is currently a multimedia editor at TSL. “[Davey] brings an enthusiastic and can-do energy which is critical for the success of the paper and all of the staffers that make our work possible,” Weaver said. Durán, TSL’s new managing editor of News and Opinions, interned at the Los Angeles Times this summer and at the San Luis Obispo Tribune last summer. She has worked in editing, illustration and writing roles at TSL for the Graphics, Arts & Culture and News desks. She also co-founded the paper’s Spanish translation desk. In her new position, Durán hopes she can share the wisdom she’s gained from her experience in journalism with eager writers. “We want to make this a space where people can grow as writers and feel a sense of community that’s positive and encouraging,” Durán said. Lauren, the new managing editor of Sports and Arts & Culture, previously edited TSL’s Sports desk for two semesters. “One of my favorite things was being a mentor for writers, and now, being in a managing editor position, one of the things I’m looking to do is to foster an environment of fun and learning,” Lauren said. John Paul Ferrantino PO ’24 is serving as TSL’s first ever Public Editor, a role that consists of managing personnel and audience. He’ll supervise the DEI committee, multimedia desk, business affairs and paper distribution. “I’m excited to explore new ways in which TSL can serve its employees and its community,” Ferrantino said. “With great reach comes great

responsibility, and we’re trying to define what it means to be a responsible, representative media organization.” The new editorial board is unified in their goal to expand the paper’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee (DEI). In past semesters, TSL’s DEI desk consisted of two DEI editors, but this summer the team added a DEI committee that provides more opportunities for staffers to get involved. This fall, each desk will send representatives to weekly DEI meetings, where the team will discuss ways to find and write stories that highlight marginalized voices in the 5C community, as well as work on initiatives to make the newsroom a more diverse and inclusive environment. The DEI initiative is meant to be both inward and outward-facing as “an internal project of making sure the people working for TSL actually feel supported in this community,” Lauren said. “Because TSL has such a strong reach to the 7C community, it’s [also] crucial for the content of our paper.” Davey emphasized the importance of a more holistic DEI initiative in steering TSL to serve the 5Cs in the best way it can. “We’re trying to infuse TSL with the values and practices that we know can help our community move forward,” Davey said. “I want to challenge administration, faculty and students to hold each other accountable.” Lauren highlighted that TSL has struggled to produce inclusive and diverse content in the past, which makes the DEI committee important both now and for the paper’s future. Another key element of this trio’s agenda is expanding creative avenues for students through the special projects and multimedia desks. Lauren brings in video production experience after an internship with MAX’IS Creations this summer, and is especially excited about upcoming multimedia content. “We have ideas for new podcasts and hopefully some video content as well,” Lauren said. “It’s a form of journalism that we haven’t tapped into, but there’s a lot of really talented people [at the 5Cs] who are interested in doing multimedia work.” The fall 2023 editorial board took office on May 11, 2023 and just finished working on the first of the paper’s 10 issues, which are published weekly over the course of the semester.

SARA CAWLEY • THE STUDENT LIFE

LEFT TO RIGHT: Mariana Durán PO ’24, Maxine Davey PO ‘25 and Ben Lauren PZ ’25.

WENDY ZHANG • THE STUDENT LIFE

Student body presidents Sanya Dhama PZ ’24, Lily Dunkin SC ’24, Zane Yamamoto CM ’24, Henry Hammer HM ’24, Kayleah Tsai HM ’24 and Timi Adelakun PO ’24 (not pictured) lead the 5Cs this year.

president. In an email to TSL, Adelakun said his prior experience has given him “valuable insights into the needs and aspirations of our student body,” which he hopes to “channel into meaningful action as student body president.”

Adelakun emphasized that he is committed to fostering a more inclusive and supportive campus environment, promoting diversity and equity and strengthening connections between students and administration. Adelakun said that a “nurturing,

inclusive campus culture is the foundation for a vibrant and enriching academic experience.” When asked about one piece of advice he would give his freshman self, Adelakun responded, “I wouldn’t give him any advice. In fact, I would ask him for advice now.”

Political engagement, inclusion, connection: A look into 5C-wide South Asian affinity groups

COURTESY: ANYA SHARMA

5c-wide South Asian affinity groups are fostering spaces of connection for students.

NITYA GUPTA & SARAH PORTERFIELD Where can you eat dosa, party to South Asian music or learn about political activism? At the Claremont Colleges, there are two 5C-wide South Asian affinity groups, where students from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Afghanistan and the Maldives come together to build community. The 5C South Asian Mentoring Program The 5C South Asian Mentoring Program (SAMP) was established as a political organization in 2016 to create an inclusive community for South Asian-identifying students while also working against social issues like caste discrimination. The group is led by Sarrah Zanzi PZ ’25, Nithya Kumar PZ ’24 and Anya Sharma PZ ’25. According to Zanzi, one of SAMP’s main goals this year is to get caste approved into the discrimination bylaws at the 5Cs. Scripps College has approved it, but the group is currently working on approval from Claremont McKenna College (CMC), Pomona College, Harvey Mudd College, and Pitzer College, Zanzi said. Kumar said that SAMP has helped her find a politically-engaged community on campus. “Being a part of SAMP has helped me radicalize my political views,” Kumar said. “I have learned that there are lots of issues happening here that a lot of people just don’t know about.” SAMP holds educational events every semester aimed at informing students about prevalent issues faced by South Asian students. Their most popular is Caste 101, focused on “making people engage with the idea that casteism does exist in the U.S. and that as a community, we can do something to

mobilize against it on campus,” Kumar said. Last year, SAMP collaborated with Pitzer’s Pasifika Asian Student Union (PASU) on an event titled “Culturally Informed Survivor Care.” Sharma said that SAMP plans to collaborate with more affinity groups, including a potential collaboration with the Women of Color Collective. Claremont South Asian Student Association One of the largest South Asian affinity groups across the 5Cs is the Claremont South Asian Student Association (SASA), led by president Sathvika Anand HM ’24. The group aims to celebrate various South Asian cultures through community events, Anand said. SASA prioritizes inclusivity by not holding any religious events. Anand said the club has a strict rule against religious activities because not everyone in the group shares the same religion. Instead, they focus on organizing wide-reaching and well-utilized group functions. One of SASA’s biggest events is a professor mixer, a networking event for members to meet South Asian-identifying professors across the 5Cs. Mehrin Khan CM ’26, an international student from Bangladesh and SASA member, said that the mixer allowed her to connect with her computer science professor outside of the classroom. Another popular event is Desi Beats, a party hosted by SASA featuring South Asian music. Khan said that Desi Beats is the most fun party for her in the fall semester. Having a party with all the Bollywood songs going on, everyone dancing — that’s just a different experience,” Khan said. After the success of their collaborations last year with Black Student Union groups and the Asian Pacific American Student Association, Anand said SASA also hopes to host workshops around mental health and queer

identities as well as collaborate with other affinity groups across the 5Cs. Being a part of SASA has allowed Anand to express her ideas and South Asian identity. After going to a family member’s wedding and seeing a dosa (Indian pancake) stand, she thought it would be something that students on campus would enjoy. So Anand decided to include it in SASA’s welcome event last year. “We had 150-200 people show up and just sit there with us,” Anand said. “It was such a good time.” For Khan, who doesn’t know any other students from Bangladesh at CMC, SASA allowed her to connect with South Asian students at other campuses. Still, she said that it could also be challenging to be one of the few Bangladeshi members of the group. “We speak different languages; even though I can speak Hindi and Urdu, my own native language is not that,” Khan said. “We have different foods, too. We usually ordered Indian food. Even though I like the taste, it is not my own home food.” Despite these differences, Khan said that connecting with other students at SASA made her feel “a little less homesick.” This is the first article in a series profiling affinity groups on campus. Students interested in joining SAMP can learn more @5Csamp on Instagram; those interested in joining SAS can learn more via Instagram @ claremont.sasa.

ESHA CHAMPSI • THE STUDENT LIFE

President of the South Asian Student Association, Sathvika Anand.

PAGE 4

Arts & Culture

September 15, 2023

‘WAB Rush’: ‘Without a Box’ showcases satirical Greek-life improv

KIMBERLY MURILLO • THE STUDENT LIFE

The 5Cs longest-running improv troupe, Without a Box, performed their first show of the semester on Sept. 7.

BECCA CHOE The art of improv has been ingrained in Claremont College culture for decades. As the new school year picks up, 7C improv shows are popping up left and right. On the night of Sept. 7 at Pomona’s Rosehill Theater, improv troupe Without a Box (WAB) performed their show, “WAB Rush,” to a full house. According to Claremont legend, WAB is the longest-running improv group among the 7Cs and this was their first of many shows planned for this upcoming school year. With a Greek-life-inspired set of improv games, the troupe poked fun at the lack of sororities or fraternities at the 7Cs.

In the show, WAB first brings its audience into a make-believe rendition of Pomona College, dubbed “Napoma College,” where rush culture is prevalent and troupe members assume playful caricatures of frat bros and sorority sisters. WAB treasurer Jeffrey Pendo PO ’24 described the troupe’s influences. “Honestly, [the inspiration] was a combination of Bama Rushtok [popular TikTok trend following the University of Alabama’s rush process] and also the song ‘Rush’ by Troye Sivan,” Pendo said. A multitude of improv games were played throughout the show, all involving audience participation.

Just skating by: Collisions and class-to-class transportation at the 5Cs

EMMA JENSEN • THE STUDENT LIFE

With a motorized vehicle ban in effect on Claremont McKenna College campus, students have dividing opinions on the rule.

PETER DIEN On an early Monday morning, the sun illuminates a sign located on Claremont McKenna College’s (CMC) campus that reads “the use of motorized transportation ... is prohibited.” Simultaneously, several students on e-vehicles, from electric scooters to skateboards, zoom past that very same sign in the midst of their everyday rush to class. Many of the students on these motorized vehicles, such as Icey Cheng CM ’26, have adapted a wheel-centric lifestyle amidst their tightly-packed schedules and routines. Cheng, who lives off-campus, uses an electric scooter (e-scooter) to lessen the commute, saving her more than 10 minutes each way. “I [e-]scooter from my home to school every morning and then I [e-]scooter back every night just to save some time,” Cheng said. “I have three classes at Pomona [College], so it really helps.” For students like Cheng who live off campus, using an e-scooter is both an efficient and accessible way to commute. In addition, many students who live on campus use them to get classes at other schools across the 5Cs. Students like Giana Caridad CM ’24 have recently made the transition from walking to riding e-scooters, yet there are other walkers who have maintained their strict allegiance to on-theground class migrations. Clara Desmond SC ’26 did not see an end to her commuting habits anytime soon. “I choose to walk because getting my bike is a whole ordeal,” Clara said. “I have to do the lock which takes a while — I have to take it out and it usually gets my clothes dirty.” Desmond claimed that walking, despite the longer commute times, comes with the social benefits of conversations with

friends, along with avoiding the issue of storage and safety for their vehicles. “My longest commute to class is to CMC from Scripps [College],” Desmond said. “I am going from Toll Hall at Pomona to Adams Hall at CMC … Walking is quicker and I save time from getting the bike — it’s something I prefer not to do.” Riding runs a potential risk of causing injuries and collisions. Caridad remembered a moment where she was almost hit by a scooter, yet insisted that the blame should be put onto her as a pedestrian instead of the operator of the motorized vehicle. “I was looking at my phone and really should have been paying attention,” Caridad said. Jasmine Tan CM ’25, who t r a ve l s t o c l a s s o n r o l l e r skates, had a different take on collisions between pedestrians and riders. “My freshman year, I dove into a bush while I was on rollerskates,” Tan said. “I almost hit a pedestrian and had to swerve out of the way… Honestly, as a commuter on wheels, it is our responsibility to make sure that we are aware of our situation and that no one gets hurt because we are moving faster.” Tan argued that the ban of motorized vehicles should not be implemented, and advocated for every student to be able to make their own decision in commuting. Tan only hopes they take time to enjoy their surroundings in the process. “California is beautiful — especially the campus during this time of the year,” Tan said. “I think it’s super fun, it’s relaxing, and there’s no better feeling than the wind in your hair.”

A game titled “Hazing Investigation” was a crowd-favorite. The audience chose a “hazing crime” that the troupe members were accused of (as they continued playing the role of fraternity members), and the actors tried to guess their crime through context clues. At one point, an audience member was even brought up on stage to give the troupe movie plots and characters to create a skit out of. WAB President Emily Stoutjesdyk PO ’25 described the importance of audience interaction during their show. “We love getting our audience involved,” Stoutjesdyk said. “We want it to feel very personal and like [the audience is] involved and get to laugh with us.”

The show felt its liveliest when audience participation was at its highest. According to Stoutjesdyk and Pendo, audience reactions are key to building a great improv show. They help the troupe members bounce off of each other, create new jokes and find ways to make the content relatable. “Honestly, we want people to heckle us,” Pendo said. “We want people to ‘boo’ during some games.” Stoutjesdyk recalled a memorable moment after the show was over. “We got booed when we were the frat bros and I heckled the people back,” Stoutjesdyk said. “It’s fun.” The show hit its climax when

the troupe played a game called “Sorority Rush.” During the game, the audience gave three chosen members characters to act out, each trying to ‘rush’ into a sorority/fraternity house. The audience decided upon a Bama Rush-inspired sorority candidate, a religious student (or what Pendo calls a ‘quasi-nun’) and a 12-year-old who started college early with their imaginary friend. WAB plans on having their next shows on Oct. 6 and 7 at the California Botanic Gardens with a family-friendly, native-plant-themed set for “Things That Go Bump in the Night,” a Halloween-inspired event involving nocturnal wildlife and interactive activities. This event will take place from 5:30 – 9 p.m. and WAB will be performing at 8 p.m. on both days.

MOMENTS TO SAVOR

A Trader Joe’s run, literally EMILY KIM

I love a good charcuterie board. There’s something about a seedy cracker topped with brie that makes my taste buds tingle and my heart happy. You can imagine my excitement, then, when my friends and I decided to host a charcuterie and painting night the first Thursday of school. Good food, good company — it seemed like the perfect way to welcome the start of a new school year and celebrate being together again. My friends and I knew that at some point before Thursday, we’d have to make a Trader Joe’s run, but the busyness that consistently marks the first week of classes made it difficult to find a time to go. On Wednesday, however, I was sipping some cold brew in Malott (I love Malott’s cold brew) when I got an email saying that my P.E. class that morning was canceled. Bummed, I looked down at the workout clothes I was wearing. “Should I change and get some work done?” I wondered. But then, a random thought came to mind. “What if I … just run to Trader Joe’s instead?” I started exercising more over the summer, going to the gym and running a few miles around my neighborhood a couple times a week. Part of the reason I signed up for a P.E. class this semester — besides the fact that I need it to graduate — is because I wanted to stay active. So when my class that morning got canceled, I didn’t mind looking for an alternative workout. I checked Google

Maps and saw that Trader Joe’s was only about a mile away. “I’ll basically be going on a two-mile run there and back,” I thought to myself. “That’s very doable.” So sure enough, I scurried back to my room to grab my bright yellow Trader Joe’s waffle bag and began running, at a steady pace, to the store. I focused on my breathing and tried to keep my heart rate low, counting and admiring the trees as I passed them by. When I arrived at Trader Joe’s, I was proud of myself for making it through the first half of my run, and excited to grab as many charcuterie goodies as I could carry. I filled my basket with two types of crackers, creamy brie and salty Manchego cheese, a box of plump green grapes and chewy candied orange slices. I grabbed some random snacks and sweets too — some chocolate-covered pretzels, fruity gummies and the Trader Joe’s version of Takis. When I went to check out and saw the cashier filling my bag to the brim, it suddenly dawned on me that I’d have to carry everything back. I laughed at myself and sheepishly checked the temperature outside: it was now in the 90s. “This will be fun,” I thought to myself, shaking my head. And I set off. This second half of my run was most definitely not as glamorous as the first. The bag was heavy, my face felt sticky and I was huffing and puffing the whole way back. But when I finally arrived at my room and laid out every item from my Trader Joe’s haul on the floor, I felt that the journey was entirely

worth it. I got a good workout in and I knew that my friends and I were going to eat well on Thursday night. This story is in many ways a reflection of what I want my junior year to look like. I’m not saying that I want to run in 90 degree weather regularly (in retrospect, perhaps that wasn’t the safest move on my part), but I want to preserve good habits while also forming new ones. I want to continue making time to spend with friends, as I did very intentionally last year. I also want to exercise more, whether it be running or going to the gym. I’m well aware that forming these habits may feel difficult at times. The sun was merciless during my literal Trader Joe’s ‘run,’ and the grapes sitting at the bottom of my bag were heavy! But I also know that the fruit of my labor will be sweet. I had never been happier to have sore legs than I was on Thursday night, when the charcuterie board was assembled and eaten in the company of good friends. So now, I ask you this: What good habits or practices do you want to preserve this school year? What new habits do you want to form? Maybe they’ll feel a bit inconvenient in the beginning, but I assure you that they will pay off in the long run. If you don’t know where to start, take a hot girl walk (or run) to Trader Joe’s — and make sure to drink water if you do! It’ll literally be hot outside … for a little while longer, anyway. Emily Kim PO ’25 is from Irvine, California. She is planning her next Trader Joe’s “run” so that she can stock up on all their fall goodies (pumpkin biscotti!).

NORA WU • THE STUDENT LIFE

September 15, 2023

Arts & Culture

FIRST-YEAR FROLIC

Hilary hijinks

Cape Town professors open Oldenborg Luncheon Colloquium Program MOLLY MURPHEY

MAX RANNEY • THE STUDENT LIFE

ANDREW BARBER Picture this: You are a first-year who has just arrived on campus with the promise of sunny, picturesque, clear blue-skied Southern California. You’ve barely finished unloading your luggage when suddenly, everyone is talking about an incoming HURRICANE, California’s first in 84 years! This was the reality for the class of 2027, a collection of bemused firstyears on their own for the first time, wondering if they should’ve packed a canoe along with their bedspread. I myself was one of these first-years. Move-in day and orientation had an underlying anxiety because soon enough we would be hit with the ultimate hazing ritual: a natural disaster. In the days leading up to Hurricane Hilary’s arrival I kept busy by collecting two of every animal to save them from the storm, which took more money than I would’ve hoped out of my tuition fund — arcs are expensive. These days were filled with uncertainty. An email was sent out by Campus Safety with preparation instructions: sign up for weather updates, be ready for a blackout, avoid flooded areas, etc. The instructions proved to be helpful and provided a sense of security for me. Still, we are a campus of Gen Zers, and when faced with a crisis our primary response strategy is jokes. We embraced the impending chaos by putting a post-ironic spin on it. “Welcome to sunny California!”,

“Nice weather we’re having,” “Oh yeah, I heard there was gonna be a tiny bit of rain.” Embracing the absurd situation helped ease the tension and lead to some early bonding though our fear-induced comradery. We settled down for our first night away from home to await the hurricane rolling into Southern California in the morning. I went to bed that night worried, but woke up completely calm. I expected to be awoken by a thunderclap or a rock flying through my window or worse — the entirety of Mudd-Blaisdell Hall just collapsing on itself, completely leaving nothing but rubble and crushed vending machine snacks. Instead, I was greeted with a silent, cloudy, peaceful morning. Tranquility before a calamitous event. Calm before the storm. Except the calm lasted most of the day, and the storm itself was referred to by many students as simply ‘mid.’ Just very heavy rain, easily negated by an umbrella or a roof or a really really wide cowboy hat. This was the kind of rain you could sing in if you were Gene Kelly. No winds, no lightning, just water trickling. It was almost cozy. Like the kind of weather that taps against your windowpane while enjoying a good book or sitting by a fire. The rain came, soaked everyone on campus and left. No harm was done to the 5Cs that day besides wet clothes and smelly socks. This seemingly cataclysmic, life-altering

event turned out to just be an average rain storm anywhere but California. All of our anxiety leading up to it had been for nothing, like getting a flu shot and realizing it didn’t hurt. Hilary was almost disappointingly normal. As glad as I am that the wellbeing of Claremont was not threatened by Hurricane Hilary, a tornado made out of lightning would’ve been pretty gnarly. Maybe next year … Hurricane Hilary was a lesson in how fear can be so much worse than whatever it’s anticipating. For a person with anxiety such as myself, this is not an uncommon phenomenon. Imagining something can be so much worse than experiencing it. The paranoia we felt before the hurricane was the worst of what Hurricane Hilary had to offer. And believe it or not, I am grateful that the threat of a historic natural disaster decided to manifest itself on my first day of college because despite my fear, everything ended up being okay. Perhaps my prayers to Zeus were answered or sometimes anxiety is not trustworthy. The storm altered my view of the years to come. Moving to a new state, starting at a new school, making a life in a new place and doing it all on your own can be incredibly scary. But maybe it doesn’t have to be. Maybe a hurricane won’t be as bad as you think … and we could definitely use the rain.

PAGE 5

Each year, the Globalization, Environment and Society (GES) study abroad program at the University of Cape Town (UCT) sends four Pomona College students to South Africa for a semester of study. Last week, two of the UCT core faculty visited Pomona to give students and faculty a sample of the program’s curriculum. On Sept. 7, Dr. Shari Daya and Dr. Pippin Anderson, both professors at the UCT, opened this year’s Oldenborg Luncheon Colloquium (OLC) series with their talk, “An Interdisciplinary Conversation on Landscape.” “Oldenborg collaborates with faculty to invite noted writers, activists, professionals, and scholars to speak on topics of cultural and international interest in our dining hall during the lunch hour,” Oldenborg Staff Director Carolina De la Rosa Bustamante said. “This international speaker series features a range of academic disciplines and professional industries and is meant to be accessible to attendees who do not necessarily have significant expertise in the topic at hand.” Dr. Pippin Anderson, an urban ecologist, is the program director for the GES study abroad program, which is sponsored by Swarthmore, Pomona and Macalester colleges. Dr. Shari Daya is a cultural geographer and poet as well as the core course convener for the GES study abroad program. The two scholars are longtime friends and collaborators. Their discussion, modeled after years of conversations on the topic, exemplified the tension between two divergent approaches to landscape while demonstrating the capacity of interdisciplinary collaboration to produce new understandings. Gina Yum PO ’25, a public policy major, plans to participate in the GES program during the spring semester of 2024. Yum said that she attended Anderson and Daya’s talk to learn more about the guiding questions behind her future course of study in Cape Town. “I like translating my interest in environmentalism into my academic work,” Yum said. In her introduction to an ecologist’s approach to landscape, Anderson cited two central threads of

thought in the field. The first was Charles Darwin’s theory on natural selection and the economist Thomas Robert Malthus’s theory on population growth. The second thread was conservation ecology, which Anderson explained in detail. “[Conservation ecology is] the acknowledgement that actually you need to conserve the entire landscape to ensure the future of insects, groups of species or populations,” Anderson said. Meanwhile, Daya depicted landscape through the lens of a cultural geographer. She began with a story of going on family hikes to Table Mountain, one of Cape Town’s iconic landmarks. “What I loved about this walk was looking across from one point of the mountain into what we would call a kloof [a ravine]… I would try to grasp the feeling of being in that space that we couldn’t get to,” Daya said. “There was a sharp contrast between the dusty hiking paths that we were on in high summer when we were doing these hikes and that soft, cool romantic space.” Daya drew the conclusion that humans experience landscape in one of two ways: by stepping back or stepping in. “I want to build an argument that not only are these two equally valid for understanding landscape,” Daya said.“But doing both is the only way to produce a meaningful account or experience of the thing that we call the landscape.” Anderson said that students in the GES Cape Town program will discover parallels between the histories of South Africa and the United States. “It’s quite useful to get the distance from America but chew over some things that are actually very pertinent to an American youth or childhood or educational experience,” Anderson said. Anderson also emphasized the valuable contributions of international students to the GES cohort in the past. Daya echoed Anderson’s sentiment, saying that visiting South Africa for the first time can be uncomfortable, but instructive for students. “We have sort of roiling crises of all sorts,” Daya said. “We are a post-apartheid society. I would say [to students], ‘come if you’re interested and lean into the discomfort that you are probably going to feel.’ It’s not a negative. It’s something to puzzle through, as we are all puzzling through, you know, we choose to live there.”

MOLLY MURPHEY • THE STUDENT LIFE

University of Cape Town professors Dr. Shari Daya and Dr. Pippin Anderson spoke at the first Oldenborg Luncheon Colloquium of the semester.

‘June Harwood: Paintings’ and ‘Tracing the edge’: Artist panel explores the legacy of Southern California hard edge painting DYLAN ZULUETA In the introduction to their new exhibits, “June Harwood: Paintings” and “Tracing the Edge,” the Benton Museum described artist June Harwood as a key figure in the first California Hard-Edge movement, a style “characterized by abstract, flat shapes … precisely painted crip lines, and smooth planes of color.” The exhibits, which opened to the public on Sept. 9, included Southern Californian contemporary abstract artists Jackie Amézquita, Linda Arreola, Aryana Minai and Kristopher Raos. Three of these artists, Amézquita, Arreola and Raos were the panelists for this event. Dennis Reed, a Trustee of the June Harwood Charitable Trust — who has donated paintings to Benton in the past — opened the panel with a warm welcome. Reed described his first impression of Harwood’s work during an art show in 1964. “That was a startling show,” Reed said. “I mean these paintings were deceptively simple like, what’s in these paintings that really left me wondering about the nature of painting.” After Reed finished his remarks, Nicolas Orozco-Valdivia PO ’24, the curatorial assistant for “Tracing the Edge,” posed the question: “How do you think of a legacy of an artist who wasn’t afforded the same opportunities and the same exposure as other artists?” Li Machado, the Benton’s cura-

torial assistant, described contemporary Latinx artists’ take on the Hard-Edge movement. “[The] contemporary artists in Tracing the Edge are mainly Latinx and are using their ideas on the painting process, conceptual inspirations and their experiences living in L.A. to broaden what abstract art can look like,” Machado said. “So you get works paired side-by-side in the show that bear some resemblance, but with far different methods behind them.” These Latinx artists conceptualize the hard-edge method, personifying it into their own immigration or background experiences into their art. Orozco-Valdivia began the panel by asking the panelists to reflect on “the edge” in their own artwork. Arreola described the edges in her paintings as “divisions that create three-dimensional space from a two-dimensional plane.” Raos thought of fragmentation, describing the edge as “where something starts and begins again.” To Amézquita, edges are connected to borders and migration. Amézquita’s artworks in “Tracing the Edge” are copper plates rather than paintings. For these pieces, inspired by the idea of “confinement,” she allowed different produce to rot in plastic containers, developing maggots and flies and capturing the life cycle of the products and bugs in the copper sheets. “I don’t have control over the

maggots turning into flies … I’m making other work at the same time as I’m allowing it to happen, so I get to be part of it, this life transforming.” The panelists also spent time challenging certain perceptions about abstract art with the crowd. Both Raos and Arreola utilize hard lines in their works, but disputed the idea that these lines are structured and static. “They’re very precise,” Raos

said. “As you start to look at them longer you’ll realize I don’t use tape to achieve that edge, so I’m taking that component out and I’m really relying on that hand and getting into that mantra of just moving the material and have it arrive at the color.” Raos discussed the misconceptions around how long it takes to layer paint and create seemingly simple abstract planes of color. The talk ultimately resonated with

students, validating the processes of student-artists such as Anika Yoshida SC ’27. Yoshida described how significant attention to detail can go into something that comes across as deceptively simple. “I feel like I work very slow when I make things for fun, so the reassurance that a lot of other people feel the same way is really nice,” Yoshida said. “It can be really time-consuming for simple-seeming products.”

ANDREW YUAN • THE STUDENT LIFE

Several artists spoke at the opening of The Benton Museum’s new exhibits.

Arts & Culture

PAGE 6

September 15, 2023

ROM-COM IN REVIEW

The comforting absurdity of ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ NADIA HSU

I come in defense of the chick flick, the girl movie and the so-trashy-it’sgood film: the rom-com. Movies often tossed aside, disregarded and disrespected, the genre holds a special place in my heart as fodder for countless girls-nights-in, subject of feminist speculation and the making of Katherine Heigl’s career. Rom-coms have always been written off as trite and irrelevant (read: girlish). For at least the last decade, though, they’ve also been flat-out ignored, relegating the films to objects of collective

1980s-2000s nostalgia. Google “death of the rom-com” and pages upon pages of articles will come up, each successive author banging another nail into the chick flick coffin. What caused this demise? Did rom-coms get worse or did we just lose patience for them? Have audiences simply descended into cynicism and lost their interest in romance? One reason many moviegoers dislike the genre is because romcoms, as a rule, are completely absurd. As Mindy Kaling puts it in her New Yorker article “Flick Chicks,” “I regard romantic com-

edies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world operates according to different rules than my regular human world.” Rom-coms operate on a shared language and mythology foreign from real life. The lovely absurdity of romcoms is exemplified perfectly in Richard Curtis’ 1994 hit, “Four Weddings and a Funeral”, starring Hugh Grant’s expertly floppy hair. Through the course of — you guessed it — four weddings and one funeral, leading-man Charles, played by Grant, clumsily woos Andie McDowell’s Carrie, a beautiful and aloof Ameri-

can woman he meets at wedding number one. Curtis wanted to make a romance that didn’t leave out “all the interesting bits,” that felt real, that felt ordinary. It is this quality combined with the contrived absurdity signature of rom-coms that makes “Four Weddings” so charming. The movie’s climactic scene might also be its strangest. Carrie and Charles are standing in the pouring rain, the latter having just run away from his own wedding to another woman. In the middle of Charles professing his love for her, Carrie says, “Is

BELLA PETTENGILL • THE STUDENT LIFE

it still raining? I hadn’t noticed,” in a bizarre monotone which only highlights the exaggerated romcom-ness of the scene. Moments like these define the bumbling awkwardness of nearly every single character: Charles is ditzy at best, stumbling and stuttering in his attempts to flirt and his cast of friends wander aimlessly through life and love. I must confess that I am absolutely in love with “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and it’s the absurd scenes like these that endear me to the film. “Four Weddings” characters meander through the movie’s plot like bumper cars — a plot which, like all rom-com plots, makes very little sense if you think about it for more than two seconds. Charles decides that Carrie is his dream girl after only one day of knowing her; Carrie marries a man much older and richer than her, then spontaneously leaves him; we cut forward in time to Charles’ wedding with a woman we’ve barely met. These plot points are never really explained to the audience. Why? Don’t worry about it! It’s rom-com world — things don’t have to make sense! While that might sound like just lazy writing, I found this strangeness comforting. For one, it emphasizes the magnetic power of fate: the central couple are brought together against all odds, pulled from their respective relationships and from across the globe. Really, fate’s publicist owes so much to the rom-com. Beyond highlighting the power of fate, though, the absurd movements of “Four Weddings” make us feel good because they embrace the irrationality of reality. By letting its characters get a happy ending, even though so many things in their lives seem unexplained and undeserved, the film is telling its audience that we, too, might yet get a happy ending. Even when our powers of reason and best efforts inevitably fall flat against the unpredictability of life. Those audiences and critics who believe that rom-coms spoon-feed audiences sugar-coated lies about life and love are missing the entire intention of the genre. Yes, rom-coms are absurd, but this ridiculousness is the point! Richard Curtis knows we are not fools. He knows that his films exist in a made-up land of fate and luck and perfect hair. But what makes rom-coms unique is that privilege to enter a world where things don’t have to make sense. Although misconstrued as fairytale nonsense, rom-coms like “Four Weddings and a Funeral” tell us that even though nothing makes sense, everything will be okay.

KIT’S CONTROLLER CORNER

FromSoftware is challenging video game elitism KIT KUMAR

FromSoftware is a Japanese video game developer and publisher that has gained notoriety for their impact on gaming culture. Games such as “Demon’s Souls,” “Dark Souls” trilogy, “Bloodborne” and “Elden Ring” (often referred to as the “Soulsborne” games) had a tremendous influence on gaming culture, particularly surrounding feelings of achievement, the confrontation of challenges and the cultivation of a fervent fanbase that follows the developer’s every new release. Recently, FromSoftware released the newest installment in their long-dormant “Armored Core” series to widespread acclaim. However, rousing the sleeping giant stirred discontent from their fanbase due to the lack of relative difficulty. Despite that, the newest “Armored Core” release tears down the walls erected by elitist culture, making the game more accessible to audiences and strengthening FromSoftware’s narrative effectiveness. FromSoftware’s games are lauded for their rich lore and backstory. “Dark Souls” crafted a beautiful overarching narrative across its three installments that urged the player to become invested in the fading of the primordial flame. “Armored Core” caused one to feel simultaneously downtrodden by the brutal existence of an independent mercenary in a hyper-militarized world while also placing the player squarely in the middle of social change. Meanwhile, fantasy literature titan George R.R. Martin contributed to the narrative of “Elden Ring.” All this to say that FromSoftware’s games are filled with a deep background, endearing characters and unforgettable settings that make the worlds they take place in fleshed out, engaging and — despite the fantastical locales — incredibly real. The “Soulsborne” games were characterized not only for their rich storytelling but for their mechanics — the implementation of Role Playing Game (RPG) genre conventions that were polished to a mirror sheen made gameplay fluid, engaging and intuitive. However, the characteristic that is most strongly associated with the “Soulsborne” games is their unforgiving difficulty. To any

player of a “Soulsborne” game, the stark red “YOU DIED” on a black background haunts their nightmares and evokes feelings of panic or unadulterated rage. But don’t be fooled: “Soulsborne” players love the pain. The achievement that’s felt after overcoming an overwhelming challenge through hard-won skill and patience — and the ability to resist putting your fist through your monitor — is the sweetest victory one could feel after beating a boss. The intense challenge only increases the relief and pride after winning, and this is what makes the “Soulsborne” games cult favorites. The frustration felt at every death and the anger at a cheap shot that the boss takes egg you on, urging you to get better until you’re finally able to surmount the obstacle in your way. It’s not all sunshine, rainbows and eldritch horrors, though —

the “Soulsborne” community that arose from the fanbase has its own challenges you’ll have to brave if you want to be a fan. With a sense of achievement, there comes the urge to compare oneself to others. The “Soulsborne” fanbase is, unfortunately, plagued with a sense of elitism that arises from people wanting to demonstrate how their achievements are more notable than those of their peers. A hierarchy has arisen from self-imposed challenges and how “skilled” players are. The extremely unhelpful but often parroted advice of “Git Gud” (a derivation of the phrase “get good”) plagues every discussion about “Soulsborne” games and their difficulty. The intense competition and sense of elitism pervading the community of fans make it difficult for newcomers to engage with the media due to how off-put-

ting the fan-base can be. Coverage of this issue even extends to widely-read non-gaming publications such as Forbes, where an author was dogpiled by the community for suggesting that “Dark Souls 3” should be more accessible or have an easy mode. But the vitriol is starting to fade. FromSoftware’s two newest releases, “Elden Ring” and “Armored Core 6,” have focused even more heavily on player customizability than ever before — players are able to specialize in a specific playstyle that matches their desired level of challenge and their skills going into the game. In lowering the skill floor, FromSoftware has made their games greatly more accessible, allowing people to enjoy games that would’ve been written off as too demanding. Some players complain that the introduction of such accessibility features cheapens the

sense of achievement that arises from prevailing over a substantial challenge. But the miraculous thing about increasing player choice is that it enables the player to determine their level of difficulty. Not everyone has the time, nor the desire, to spend hours learning inane knowledge about a video game — regardless of how much nerd cred it may earn you — and it’s perfectly fine to exploit “intentional” game design for the purposes of maximizing your enjoyment. If you have ever been intrigued by the promise of the rich storytelling and unique game mechanics of FromSoftware’s games but were put off by the intense difficulty of gameplay, I urge you to try FromSoftware’s newer, more accessible games. And though you may perish while fighting against the punishing bosses, remember that though you may be small, you will die a colossus.

NORA WU • THE STUDENT LIFE

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First-year FOMO feels inescapable, but you’re not alone MICHELLE ZHANG It was 10 p.m. on a Saturday night. I was cozy and curled up in my bed, watching “When Harry Met Sally,” when I absentmindedly picked up my phone and opened Instagram, something I do a few too many times a day. As I swiped through stories posted by fellow classmates, I caught glimpses into other people’s evenings. Many were in cute, sparkly outfits and at exciting parties, snapping pictures around campus. I began to wonder if I’d made a mistake by staying in. “Should I be out doing something with people?” I thought. Suddenly, I wasn’t enjoying myself. From parties and picture-perfect vacations to the newest iPhone and whatever fashion trend is circulating on TikTok, there’s a constant stream of “get this!” and “do this!” that influences how we engage with one another. Often, we develop a fear of missing out, or FOMO, as a result. With technology, it’s easy to feel that you’re losing out on something, whether that be an event, opportunity or product. I like to think of social media overconsumption as fast food and of FOMO as an unfortunate side effect. You use social media because it gives you a blast of dopamine; it’s all good fun until it’s too much. Like an overly greasy hamburger, it weighs you down. FOMO tends to feed into this feeling and linger for a while longer. You’re having fun on social media until you’re not. You’re tapping through stories, seeing what everyone else is doing, while a strange feeling nags at you. A social media user since sixth grade, I’ve felt my fair share of FOMO here and there. Since starting college, however, the feeling has become more persistent. Even before move-in, I stressed about not having met people yet. I couldn’t attend Admitted Students Day and wondered if I had missed out on making connections. I would go on social media, seeing people who already seemed to have made lifelong friends and feel like I was falling behind. The first week on campus particularly exacerbated this perception. Our jam-packed Orientation days

LUCIA MARQUEZ • THE STUDENT LIFE

left me drained, but what I saw on Instagram made me think I was the only one feeling this way. Everyone else seemed to be having the time of their lives. Of course this wasn’t the case, as conversations with friends over Frank lunches and early morning check-ins with my Orientation Adventure group quickly revealed. We were all exhausted from overscheduling, but it was all too easy for me to just equate social media with reality. Often, FOMO simply comes from how an event or experience is being framed. I’ll look at an Instagram post and realize that I was at that exact event, but an aesthetically pleasing photo somehow made it seem much cooler. These snapshots are only moments of someone’s life from

one angle and one photo can’t accurately measure how much fun they’re having. On the other hand, curated media isn’t all bad. It’s a great way to stay engaged with friends living elsewhere. I’ve loved seeing what all my friends from high school are up to, or connecting with people I might have lost contact with but still want to support by tapping the red heart. There’s no one-size-fits-all to curing FOMO, but I’ve come up with my own few tricks to combat it: Get off your phone. This is easier said than done, but it’s the most instantaneous solution. As soon as I unplug and do something else with my time, like reading a book or even just powering through homework, I feel better.

Get active and get outside. When I’m in open spaces or around tall trees, I’m immediately reminded of just how insignificant we, and our thoughts, all are. Go on a run or a walk, or just sit outside. Sort through your thoughts. I journal each night, and it’s one of the best routines I’ve made myself stick to. Whether it be a rant about something specific or a summary of what happened during my day, journaling helps me understand why I’m feeling a certain way. Write down what you’re feeling, and you might start to notice some unlikely patterns. I definitely don’t have it all figured out. I’m still adjusting to college life and newfound freedom, but conversations with new friends and reflecting on my

feelings have allowed me to view FOMO differently. Everyone’s on different schedules and everyone has different priorities. I can only know what makes me feel my best, which might just be staying in on a Saturday night and watching a feel-good rom-com. The next time you feel FOMO, realize that you’re not alone. For fellow first-years and new students who feel like they ought to have it all figured out by now, remember that we’re barely a month in! Spend the night watching a movie or go out, but most importantly, do what you want to do. Don’t let your expectations for fun hinder what you enjoy doing. Michelle Zhang PO ’27 is from the Bay Area. She’s a proud lefty and has a Duolingo streak of almost six years.

Professors, ChatGPT isn’t the enemy JOANNE OH All across syllabi this fall, professors are warning students of the dangers of ChatGPT, a generative language model-based chatbot that has already garnered over 100 million users worldwide. ChatGPT can finish your Linear Algebra problem set in a matter of minutes. It can write an “original” short story for

your Creative Writing class. And it can craft a verbatim Python script for Intro to Computer Science. Yet while notable figures, from Stephen Hawking to Elon Musk to Andrew Ng, have echoed concerns with this technology’s ability to overpower the very humans it was supposed to serve and professors panic over the “existential threat” it poses to scholarly work, I believe

ChatGPT should be used in the classroom. College students have been using ChatGPT to turn in assignments since its inception — reports indicate approximately one-third of college students have used ChatGPT to complete an assignment. While ChatGPT, and language models in general, may seem

JOANNE OH • THE STUDENT LIFE

limited in early stages, they will continue to learn from themselves and perfect their understanding of what humans are looking for. It seems the chatbot is of nearly limitless value in the academic setting. Some 5C professors simply don’t acknowledge the existence of ChatGPT. Others strongly advise against using it on the grounds of inaccuracy. But ChatGPT isn’t going anywhere; in fact, it’s only getting more accurate, already outcompeting first and second year medical students on clinical reasoning exams. Banning it isn’t going to do anything. The increase in online classes and assignments makes it nearly impossible to regulate student use of ChatGPT. Instead, professors should be incorporating ChatGPT into prompts and brainstorming sessions, while encouraging students to rely on their own knowledge for tasks requiring higher-level thinking. For example, my General Physics professor allows the use of ChatGPT but warns students of its faulty reasoning skills. Its ability to explain concepts at a deeper level allows ChatGPT to serve as an effective “tutor,” helping us grasp class material well. However, it is not always accurate when drawing conclusions and explaining its reasoning — type any higher level math problem into ChatGPT and you’ll see what I mean. Since ChatGPT is a language-based model, it excels at conversational prompts, meaning

it can be used for assistance on menial tasks, a purpose distinct from replacing the higher level thinking that is typically required of humans. Instead of using ChatGPT as a second brain, I urge students — and professors — to use it as an assistant. According to Forbes, ChatGPT is great as your personal shopping assistant, helping you write an email or preparing for an interview. In this role, ChatGPT epitomizes the efficiency of modern technology by relieving us of tedious tasks. But what of its existential impact on humanity? My response is: Why try to undermine progress when we can work with it? I use ChatGPT to explain academic concepts and generate fun writing and drawing prompts. In that way, I treat it as a creative friend who has the best ideas. ChatGPT doesn’t have to upend human ideation; it can advance it. Ultimately, as a fairly new application, there is much research that has yet to be done about the ethical implications of artificial intelligence in academia. But as ChatGPT continues to advance, it’s important to adapt and adjust. We’re going to be faced with a lot of problems in the near future – let’s use ChatGPT to help solve them. And no, in case you are wondering, ChatGPT did not write this article (wink wink). Joanne Oh PZ ’25 is a Biochemistry and Sociology major at Pitzer College. In her free time, she likes to have conversations with ChatGPT about the existential threat of AI.

HEIDI ‘N’ SEEK: A COMIC BY HEIDI XU

MANHOLE SANDWICH: A COMIC BY SASHA MATTHEWS

A lot has changed

Types of PDFs your professor assigns you to read

Opinions

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September 15, 2023

A message to first-generation TRADUCCION: Como estudiantes Latine de primera Latine first-years Why we should feel pride in our Latine identity

SASHA MATTHEWS • THE STUDENT LIFE

LIZETTE GONZALEZ “¡Hola Lizette! ¿Como estas?” This past weekend, the simple sentence almost brought me to tears when I was getting on the bus to the Chicano Latino Student Affairs (CLSA) first-year retreat. Hearing Spanish automatically reminded me of my family and my mom. As a first-generation student, coming into higher education has been a dream since I can remember. My family wasn’t able to pursue education and they were always extremely supportive in all my academic endeavors. But now that I’m here, I feel stuck. I feel empowered, yet doubtful. I wake up every morning and feel proud to be here, but I also feel guilty that I left my home and am doing what a lot of my family members weren’t able to do. Why me? My parents are my biggest support system, so being here without them is a beautiful challenge. I have full ownership of my decisions, but that’s also where the guilt comes in. Why do I have the luxury to be here in college? Why am I enjoying life here when I left my little sister at home? A million questions bombard my mind even when, deep down, I know I shouldn’t feel this way. What I’ve found to be healing in more ways than one has been finding a community on campus through groups like the CLSA center. The retreat they hosted for Latine first-years allowed me to connect with other students across Claremont. From hearing Spanglish, dancing to reggaeton and norteñas to simply feeling safe with people who looked like me, I felt more empowered to take pride in my identity. The term “Latinx” has been used recently to promote gender inclusivity to describe communities from Latin America or of Latin-American descent. Spanish is naturally a gendered language, so Latinx has been widely used to respect non-binary or non-gender conforming people. You can’t really pronounce the “X” in Spanish though, so recently, some scholars and activists have begun using Latine instead as a

more inclusive term to describe our thriving and changing community. I personally identify with the term Chicana, since it connects both the Mexican and American cultures I grew up with. However, Latinidad and identity is different for everyone even within our own community. On campus, I’ve found myself actively looking for spaces where I can celebrate being Latine because of a natural desire to feel safe. But if there are support systems in place, why do I, and other first-gen students, feel guilty using them? As first-years, it’s difficult to find these spaces. We’re all new to campus and want to feel like we know what we’re doing, even though we really don’t. If I do find these spaces, it’s scary to ask for help, even more so when I don’t see other people voice their concerns. Oftentimes, I feel scared to ask for help because I feel like I should already be grateful to be on this campus. Why would I ask for more support? Culture shock is very real for Latine students entering higher education. Every first-year is entering a new environment, but it gets more complex when imposter syndrome is added into the equation. Emotions of loneliness and depression are more prominent in Latine students when there is a lack of strong ethnic pride. Almost every first-year Latine student I’ve talked to so far has mentioned feeling out of place in one way or another. What has made us feel better? Having open conversations. This past week, some Latine friends and I sat out on Pitzer’s lawn chairs, watching people go to and from class. We talked about the challenge of not seeing many students who look like us. Were we trauma-dumping? Perhaps. Did it help? Yes. The simple action of talking about it and learning we weren’t alone in our feelings felt like a sigh of relief. As Hispanic Heritage Month

kicks off on Sept. 15, I want to push myself to not be afraid to ask the scary questions. I want to bring up the fact that adapting to a wealthy town and predominantly white institutions is hard. Imagine you’re surrounded by students who, in some magnitude, have family members that know what college is like, so a lot of this experience is first nature to them. Imagine missing the language, music and safeness that a lot of Latine families hold dear. There is an added invisible layer that a lot of Latine first-generation students silently navigate. As new students on campus, safe spaces are essential, especially during our first few weeks. At the Claremont Colleges’ Club fair on Sept. 6, I felt so supported when I approached the Pomona Latinx Alliance table. Smiling students waved me towards them, and I heard my name pronounced the correct way. However, it can’t just be us supporting each other and talking about these issues. Support shouldn’t just come from affinity spaces. We need more open dialogue within our classes and within our institutions. At times, it feels like imposter syndrome is a normalized part of our experience. Latine students should not be expected to feel this way. I shouldn’t be applauded for surviving because it shouldn’t be this hard to feel like I belong. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge that this shift is difficult or to shed those tears that have been stuck in your eyes. To any Latine first-years, if no one else tells you, I will. You’ve got this, and we’re here for a reason. And while we’re at it: vamos a ser nosotros mismos y vamos a apoyarnos entre nosotros mismos. We’re going to be ourselves, and we’re going to support each other. Lizette Gonzalez PO ’27 is a firstyear at Pomona. She grew up in Los Angeles. She is a huge Dodgers baseball fan and you can always find her listening to music.

generación, debemos estar orgullos de nuestra identidad

“¡Hola Lizette! ¿Cómo estás?” El fin de semana pasado, esta simple frase casi me hizo llorar cuando me subí al autobús para ir al retiro de Chicano Latino Student Affairs (CLSA). Escuchar español automáticamente me recordó a mi familia y a mi mamá. Como estudiante de primera generación, ingresar al colegio ha sido un sueño desde que tengo memoria. Aunque mi familia no pudo continuar con sus estudios, siempre me apoyaron en todos mis esfuerzos académicos. Sin embargo, ahora que estoy aquí me siento estancada. Me siento empoderada, pero dudosa. Me levanto cada mañana y me siento orgullosa de estar aquí, pero también me siento culpable por haber dejado mi casa y estar haciendo lo que muchos de mis familiares no pudieron hacer. ¿Por qué yo? Mis padres son mi mayor apoyo y estar aquí sin ellos es un hermoso desafío. Tengo plena independencia en mis decisiones, pero ahí también entra la culpa. ¿Por qué tengo el lujo de estar aquí en la universidad? ¿Por qué disfruto de la vida aquí cuando dejé a mi hermana pequeña en casa? Un millón de preguntas bombardean mi mente incluso cuando, en el fondo, sé que no debería sentirme así. Lo que he descubierto que es sanador en más de un sentido ha sido encontrar una comunidad en el campus a través de grupos como el centro CLSA. El retiro que organizaron para estudiantes Latines de primer año me permitió conectar con otros estudiantes de Claremont. Desde escuchar Spanglish, bailar reggaeton y norteñas hasta simplemente sentirme segura con personas que se parecían a mí, me sentí más empoderada. El término “Latinx” se ha utilizado recientemente para promover la inclusión de género para describir comunidades de Latinoamérica o de ascendencia latinoamericana. El español es naturalmente un idioma con género, por lo que Latinx se ha utilizado ampliamente para respetar a las personas no binarias. Sin embargo, en realidad, no se puede pronunciar la “X” en español, por lo que recientemente algunos académicos y activistas han comenzado a usar “Latine” como un término más inclusivo para describir nuestra comunidad. Personalmente me identifico con el término Chicana, ya que conecta mi cultura mexicana con la estadounidense. Sin embargo, la latinidad y la identidad son diferentes para todos, incluso dentro de nuestra propia comunidad. En el campus, comencé a buscar espacios donde pueda celebrar esta identidad debido a mi necesidad de sentirme segura. Pero si existen sistemas de apoyo, ¿por qué yo y otros estudiantes de primera generación nos sentimos culpables al usarlos? Como estudiantes de primer año, es difícil encontrar estos espacios. Todos somos nuevos y queremos sentir que sabemos lo que estamos haciendo, aunque en realidad no lo sepamos. Si encuentro estos espacios, me da miedo pedir ayuda, más aún cuando no veo a otras personas expresar sus

preocupaciones. A menudo tengo miedo de pedir ayuda porque siento que ya debería estar agradecida de estar aquí. ¿Por qué pediría más apoyo? El choque cultural es muy real para los estudiantes Latines que ingresan al colegio. Cada estudiante de primer año ingresa a un nuevo entorno, pero se vuelve más complejo cuando se agrega el síndrome del impostor. Las emociones de soledad y depresión son más prominentes en los estudiantes Latine cuando falta un fuerte orgullo étnico. Casi todos los estudiantes Latine de primer año con los que he hablado hasta ahora han mencionado que se sienten fuera de lugar de una forma u otra. ¿Qué nos ha hecho sentir mejor? Tener conversaciones abiertas. La semana pasada, algunos amigos y yo nos sentamos en las sillas del jardín de Pitzer, observando a la gente ir y venir de clase. Hablamos sobre el desafío de no ver a muchos estudiantes que se parezcan a nosotros. ¿Estábamos desahogándonos? Tal vez. ¿Ayudó? Sí. El simple hecho de hablar de esto y saber que no estábamos solos con nuestros sentimientos fue muy aliviante. Ahora que el Mes de la Herencia Hispana comienza el 15 de Septiembre, quiero esforzarme para no tener miedo de hacer preguntas difíciles. Quiero mencionar el hecho de que adaptarse a una ciudad rica y a instituciones predominantemente blancas es difícil. Imagina que estás rodeado de estudiantes que, en cierta medida, tienen familiares que saben cómo es la universidad, por lo que gran parte de esta experiencia es algo natural para ellos. Imagínese perderse el idioma, la música y la seguridad que muchas familias Latine aprecian. Hay una capa invisible adicional por la que muchos estudiantes Latine de primera generación navegan en silencio. Como estudiantes nuevos en el campus, los espacios seguros son esenciales, especialmente durante las primeras semanas. En la feria de clubes el 6 de Septiembre, me sentí muy apoyada cuando me acerqué a la mesa de Pomona Latinx Alliance. Los estudiantes sonrientes me hicieron señas y escuché mi nombre pronunciado de la manera correcta. Sin embargo, no podemos limitarnos a apoyarnos unos a otros y hablar sobre estos temas entre nosotros nada más. El apoyo no debería provenir únicamente de los espacios de afinidad. Necesitamos un diálogo más abierto dentro de nuestras clases y dentro de nuestras instituciones. A veces, parece que el síndrome del impostor es una parte normalizada de nuestra experiencia. No se debe esperar que los estudiantes Latine se sientan así. No debería recibir aplausos por sobrevivir porque no debería ser tan difícil sentir que pertenezco. No tengas miedo de reconocer que este cambio es difícil o de derramar esas lágrimas que se te han quedado atrapadas en los ojos. Para cualquier estudiante Latine de primer año, si nadie más te lo dice, yo te lo diré. Puedes con esto y estamos aquí por una razón. Y ya que estamos en esto: vamos a ser nosotros mismos y vamos a apoyarnos entre nosotros mismos. Traducido al español por Lizette Gonzalez PO ‘27

JJ’s Crossword: Getting to know the 5Cs! ACROSS 4. PO dining hall where one can speak different languages 5. Popular Monday night dinner choice at The Hoch 6. ____ Futuri, PZ motto 7. TSL newsroom location 9. Name of new PZ and SC science facility, coming 2024

DOWN 1. Shape of structure surrounded by water at CMC 2. 5C Running Club meeting location 3. Number of weeks until fall break 5. Where you’ll see discussion posts and syllabi 6. Jay’s ____, late-night café at HMC sometmes open until two a.m. 8. Popular Frary station for omelets

JJ HOFFMAN • THE STUDENT LIFE

Sports

September 15, 2023

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Breaking boundaries: Greenshirts inspire inclusivity and intensity MAC KELLY To some athletes, an opposing team inviting you to join them for a line dance during half-time may seem odd — but not to the Greens. Half-time flash mobs are just one of the ways that the Claremont Greenshirts are embodying their selfstated ideals of building a uniquely inclusive and fun community where everyone is welcome. The Claremont Greenshirts (also known as the Greens or Greenies) is the 5Cs’ women and gender expansive club ultimate frisbee team. The club is completely student-run and practices Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Scripps Alumnae Field. The Greens primarily compete in Southern California against other Division III collegiate frisbee teams but have traveled as far as Seattle in years past. What sets the Greens apart from other clubs at the Claremont Colleges is their trailblazing gender policy. They are registered as part of the women’s division but encourage members to compete in the division they feel most comfortable in: mixed gender, women’s or men’s. However, the Greens’ progressive gender guidelines are not isolated policies. They are part of a larger movement within the sport, stemming from the national organization, USA Ultimate (USAU). USAU’s gender inclusion policy states the following: “Within our divisions as they currently exist, USA Ultimate will not discriminate on the basis of gender identity, regardless of sex assigned at birth, or any other form of gender expression for participation in any division.” The Greens have been a gender expansive club for several years. According to member Ella “RAD”

PHILY OEY • THE STUDENT LIFE The Greenshirts participate in a drill during practice on Scripps Alumnae field.

Kim PO ’25, the Greens are committed to broadening their outreach across the 5Cs in hopes of getting as many people involved in the ultimate frisbee community as possible. Maëlle Thomelin PZ ’25 has been a member of the Greens since her first year at Pitzer and now serves on their leadership team. She said that this year, the Greens are focusing on outreach to the genderqueer community. “This year we pushed a little more to really make it clear that it’s gender expansive, but since my first year it’s been on the bio of the

Instagram,” Thomelin said. According to Kim, inclusiveness for the Greens is all-encompassing. The team welcomes not only all genders, but all skill levels and class years. Kim joined the Greens as a first-year and is now a member of the leadership team. According to them, ultimate frisbee is a great sport for people of all skill levels and past experience. “I think [Ultimate is] such a good sport for people to come into college and get to play... it’s easier to be on more equal footing in

terms of experience,” Kim said. According to Kim, encouraging people with no previous experience to join has not hurt its performance. In Kim’s first year, the team traveled to Northern California to compete. They said that despite it being the first competitive match for many members, the tournament was a success. “Going to the tournament in Santa Clara my freshman year was one of the best experiences ever,” Kim said. “We went undefeated for the whole tournament and only

lost to the Santa Clara team [even though] it was the first Ultimate tournament that a lot of us were playing.” Helen Jentoft-Herr PZ ’25 is a new member this year and said she is excited to join a team that is pushing forward a more inclusive version of sports. “I didn’t know anybody who was on the team that didn’t want to be there,” Jentoft-Herr said. “People are always excited for practice.” Part of the Greens’ model for inclusion and maintaining the fun of the club is their horizontal approach to leadership. Instead of a standard hierarchical leadership approach – a president making most decisions with a few other people below them – the Greens are using what they refer to as the “Bowl-O-Greens.” Wherever they have the capacity to take charge, members of the BowlO-Greens share equal responsibility for everything that happens within the club. Kim said this model focuses on making sure everyone in a leadership role is properly supported, thus encouraging new people to join leadership. “The Bowl-O-Greens was a way to spread out responsibilities,” Kim said. “[Leadership] roles have silly little names. The practice captains are the sprouts, and people who help them are the baby sprouts.” Kim said the team’s traditions and devotion to inclusivity truly shows their focus on building a strong community for everyone to come and have fun. “Growing up, I had always been taught that fun and being loose doesn’t go in hand with being competitive,” Kim said. “What I’ve been able to see on this team is that it doesn’t have to be like that — you can be very supportive and still do well.”

Channeling disappointment into motivation: CMS loses to WashU during annual East-West Battle MAGDALENA PAPA Defending not only their home turf but also their national prestige, Athenas volleyball took on the country’s best last weekend at the annual DIII East-West battle. This year, No. 4 ranked ClaremontMudd-Scripps (CMS) volleyball hosted the cross-country tournament at Robert Pavillion. On Sept. 8, CMS participated in their first match of the weekend against the Washington University (WashU) Bears. Despite competitive play from the Athenas — led by Brenna Bell CM ’25 and Jenna Holmes CM ’24, who had 18 and 20 kills respectively — the Bears emerged victorious, winning 3-2. This marked the Athenas’ first loss of the season. While the loss ruined the Athenas’ chance at a second-consecutive undefeated regular season, Dani Beder CM ’24 said she was still excited about the game. “I’m really looking forward to playing more teams like WashU,” Beder said. “They’re a really good team and it’s fun when we play really good teams like that. You can’t have a perfect season every year so it may be a good challenge for us mentally.” Bell echoed Beder’s optimism about the game, despite the result, and even said she saw the benefit in losing early on in the season. “I’m excited we got a loss,” Bell said. “We needed it so that we can be more excited to win instead of being

afraid to lose.” The match was a battle from the very beginning. WashU and CMS traded leads in the first set, which resulted in a 10-10 draw. The Bears then went on a run, making the score 10-16. Holmes got a kill from a set by Georgia McGovern CM ’24, granting CMS a much-needed point to shift the momentum. CMS tied it up 17-17, but WashU took the first set 25-21. CMS started the second set with a strong 5-0 lead. They continued dominating with the help of Bell, whose kill gave them the 14-6 lead halfway through the second set. The Bears weren’t able to recover and the second set went to CMS 25-16. “The serving was good, our offense was our strongest part, our defense picked a lot of balls up that you wouldn’t expect to get up and we were deriving a lot of energy from that,” Deedee Caranza CM ’24 said. WashU came out with backto-back kills to start the third set, and the teams went back and forth until CMS pulled ahead with a commanding 18-10 lead. However, the Bears began to come back, aided by numerous kills from WashU player Jasmine Sells ’24. CMS stuck it out and won the third set 25-23, giving them a 2-1 advantage. Bell’s four kills brought CMS to a 9-5 lead at the beginning of the fourth set. Izzy Sakoda CM ’24 served the next point, and when the

Bears returned with a hit, a diving Caranza dug the ball and CMS extended their lead. Unfortunately for the Athenas, their effort was in vain as WashU bounced back and won the set 25-22, evening the match 2-2. Despite the Bears taking the fourth set, Bell said she could feel the flow of the team improving. “Personally, I think one thing that got a lot better tonight was getting in rhythm with my setter,” Bell said. CMS started the fifth set with a 2-0 lead thanks to a sit-down block by Beder. Bell and Sells exchanged kills and the set was tied at 10-10. CMS and WashU traded points, but the Bears ultimately came out victorious 15-12, winning the game. Caranza said she thinks that the Athenas’ next step is to keep moving forward. “I think that tomorrow we are just going to come back stronger and bounce back,” Caranza said. “We definitely learned a lot from this match and so we will just apply that next game.” The Athenas went on to split the remaining two games of the tournament, defeating Trinity College 3-1 and falling to Johns Hopkins University 1-3. They currently hold a 4-2 record. Beder said CMS is going to use the results from the tournament as motivation for the rest of the season. “We are still in this,” Beder said. “We are not backing down.”

COURTESY: KAYLA ISHIBASHI Brenna Bell CM ’25 prepares to strike the ball in a match against Washington University on Sept. 9 during the annual East West battle tournament hosted by the Athenas at Roberts Pavilion.

Sagehens men’s soccer ends preseason with competitive victory over Linfield ADAM AKINS

ADAM AKINS • THE STUDENT LIFE Aidan MacLennan PZ ‘27 is one of the Sagehens’ 12 first-years.

After suffering two losses and a tie so far this season, the PomonaPitzer (P-P) men’s soccer team rallied to end their preseason with a back-and-forth 3-2 victory over the Linfield Wildcats on the P-P soccer field on Sunday, Sept. 10. The game started with oppressive humidity and heat, resulting in some lethargy from both teams. However, Linfield managed to strike first, breaking through a disconnected high press from the Sagehens in the first five minutes to send a shot into the back of P-P’s net, giving the Wildcats the early lead. Regardless, forward Mori Miller PZ ’27 was confident in the team’s ability to bounce back. “We were disappointed, of course, to concede early like that,” Miller said. “But we really know that we were the better team there. We knew that if we played our game, we would come out with the result we needed.” According to Coach Mike Ditka, the Sagehens kept their heads up and started playing their game, sustaining a high press and delivering consistent crosses into the box. Attacking midfielder Kieran Veloria PO ’27 brought energy to the side, leading aggressive drives into Linfield’s larger defensive back line that culminated with a goal coming

from a well-timed shot to the back post. Veloria, however, took no time to celebrate, and sprinted to grab the ball from the net. “We call them [Veloria and the other strikers] the gremlins,” Miller said. “They’re just such beasts up there.” Veloria started play immediately, working with defender Niclas Ulrich PZ ’26 to keep the pressure on the Wildcats in the final third and exchanging crosses into the box with forward Alex Greenstein PZ ’26. Greenstein drew and scored a penalty kick from the Wildcats in the closing ten minutes of the first half, giving P-P the lead going into the half. The Sagehens kept control for most of the second half, but miscommunication on the backline and an errant back pass to goalkeeper Ethan Bae PO ’25 resulted in an uncontested shot on goal, giving the Wildcats an easy equalizer. “It was a pretty unlucky play,” Ulrich said. “But we knew we were dominating the game for a while before that goal, and we knew we could move the ball around them pretty well. We’re pretty confident that we could just keep going and fighting.” The Sagehens restarted from the half field line with intensity. After saying goodbye to all-SCIAC selections Alex Bonville PZ ’23 and Matthew Carlson PZ ’23 at

the end of the previous season and a sabbatical from long-term coach Bill Swartz, interim head coach Mike Ditka is rebuilding with a young core. According to Ditka, this preseason has allowed him to see who can step up and lead when facing defeat – exactly what Greenstein did as he slotted the game-winning blistering shot with his weak foot through Lindfield’s defense and into the back of the net. His brace deflated the Wildcat side and allowed offensive first-year prospects like Adam Leikin PZ ’27, Miller and Khalab Blagburn PO ’27 to come in and deliver repeated shots on goal in the last 15 minutes of the game. Coach Ditka said he is optimistic about the start of SCIAC league play and saw the young core of his team start to integrate and execute what they have been working on in practice. “I think the strategy wasn’t so much about what they were doing, it was about what we need to do ourselves and move our process forward,” Ditka said. “Just trying to get better at our details, our style, our system, growing in our roles. We have a lot of young players and we’re just trying to get them feeling confident and improve our chemistry.” The Sagehens went on to win their conference opener 3-2 versus Whittier on Sep. 13 and will face off against Caltech at 11 a.m. on Saturday.

Sports

PAGE 10

September 15, 2023

Claremont Foxes, the 5C women’s rugby team, rises to Division I

COURTESY: PAM PERKINS

The Claremont Foxes are looking ahead to tougher competition in the spring.

AMEYA TELI After two consecutive Division II national championships, the Claremont Foxes Women’s Rugby team is stepping up to a greater challenge in Division I. The Claremont Foxes have fielded a team since the mid-nineties, traveling and competing through Southern California and serving as an introduction and continuation of rugby for all 5C students. The Foxes owe their recent streak of dominance to a lucky break. In the spring of 2022, a heartbreaking midseason loss to the Lady Aztecs of San Diego State University (SDSU) left the Foxes just shy of a berth in the DII National Tournament. Just when it seemed as though the season was over, the Foxes snatched a spot as a result of a last-minute drop out. Foxes’ captain Caroline Bullock CM ’24 described how the team would not let the opportunity go to waste.

“It kind of felt like a mistake,” Bullock said. “Not in the sense that we didn’t deserve it, but more so that it was an opportunity that fell into our laps, and we really seized it.” The Foxes claimed their first national championship title in a victory over the very same team that nearly knocked them out of contention in the first place: SDSU. Riding high after their national championship victory, the Foxes embarked upon another stellar season, hoping for a repeat. Bullock said the Foxes had momentum and experience on their side, allowing them to run through the competition this past spring. “In 2023, it felt very deliberate; we had put in the work at every single step and we were able to reap the rewards.” Bullock said. “We ended up having a perfect season. We won our regional [the competition directly preceding the national championship] by

one point, and went and played Howard University and won again.” Few ever find themselves on a national championship stage, and even fewer emerge victorious. Allowing athletes the chance to play in an elite setting, Nationals are held in a professional rugby stadium, where team member Catie Cryan SC ’25 believes allowed them to thrive. “It was such an electric environment to be in,” Cryan said. “[Walking] onto the field is unreal.” With back-to-back national championships under their belt and weaker regional rivals, head coach Wollen explained the Foxes’ decided to make the move to the DI club level for the 2024 season. “There’s two major organizations that oversee college rugby, and most of our national opponents moved to the other organization,” Wollen said. “They

play in the fall and we play in the spring; we could not follow them there, so moving to DI kept us with some national opponents.” Wollen explained the team welcomes this change in competition and the prospect of a harder season. “We’d rather play good rugby and challenge ourselves week in and week out than just win a national championship,” Wollen said. “But I really applaud our players for making that decision.” Beyond a higher challenge level, the Foxes will be able to compete in other states during the season, and challenge new colleges like Arizona State University and Grand Canyon University. Bullock sees the change as not so much of a leap but rather an opportunity to “[see] some new faces and [travel] to new places’’ and simply a chance to “grow as individuals and as a team.”

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps

Athletes of the Week

Luke Weigle took home SCIAC A t h l e t e o f t h e We e k a f t e r a n outstanding weekend at the Inland Empire Classic. The 2022 SCIAC Newcomer of the Year continued his dominance at the Classic, recording nine goals in 13 shots over four games. Weigle led the DIII No. 2 ranked Stags to a victory over Concordia University Irvine and close defeats to No. 8 Long Beach State University (11-6) and No. 12 UC, San Diego (15-11).

Luke (Bear) Weigle

CMS

Friday, September 15

Saturday, September 16

Women’s Volleyball vs. UChicago Cal Lu Fornia Invitational

Men’s Cross Country @UC Riverside

Women’s Volleyball @ Texas-Dallas Cal Lu Fornia Invitational

Friday, September 15 Women’s Volleyball vs. MIT Trinity Fall Classic

P-P

Women’s Tennis PP/CMS Invitational Women’s Volleyball @ Trinity Trinity Fall Classic Saturday, September 16 Women’s Tennis PP/CMS Invitational

Women’s Cross Country @ UC Riverside Women’s Tennis PP/CMS Invitational

ANDREW YUAN, Photo Editor SASHA MATTHEWS, Graphics Editor ANNABELLE INK, News Editor SARA CAWLEY, News Editor

Paige Mountanos

Men’s Soccer @ Chapman Football vs. George Fox Women’s Volleyball vs. Juniata Cal Lu Fornia Invitational Women’s Soccer vs. Chapman

Women’s Soccer vs. Caltech

Men’s Cross Country @ UC Riverside

Women’s Volleyball vs. Franklin and Marshall Trinity Fall Classic

Women’s Volleyball vs. Southwestern (Tex.) Trinity Fall Classic Men’s Golf Williams Invitational Men’s Soccer @ Caltech

Senior Staff MADELEINE SHIMKUS, Sports Designer AARON MATSUOKA, Copy Chief ANNALISE CHANG, Copy Chief EMMA JENSEN, Photo Editor

Paige Mountanos PO ’26 earned SCIAC Athlete of the Week honors for events through Sunday, September 10. The outside hitter earned a spot on the Whittier Invitational All-Tournament team last weekend, after leading the Sagehens to a 2-1 record at the tournament, including an upset victory against No. 19 ranked UC Santa Cruz. Mountanos accumulated 29 kills and 10 block assists while also hitting 0.260. Mountanos and the Hens travel to San Antonio, Texas this weekend to compete in the Trinity Fall Classic, where they will look to continue their success from last weekend.

Women’s Cross Country @ UC Riverside

THE STUDENT LIFE EMMA CONSTABLE, Production Editor ISHA RAHEJA, News Designer JAKE CHANG, A&C Designer AIDAN MA, Opinions Designer

Pomona-Pitzer

PO ’26 San Mateo, CA Women’s Volleyball

CMC ’26 Woodside, CA Men’s Water Polo

Women’s Tennis PP/CMS Invitational

Bullock said this change will not affect much in terms of commitment. The team will continue to keep their normal training schedule while focusing on their community and learning more skills. “Some people have played rugby for 14 years [while others] don’t even know what a rugby ball is” as they enter the team, Bullock said. Inclusivity and support within the team’s community is a large part of the team’s success on the rugby pitch, with support between teammates being crucial in every game. The Foxes’ team culture reinforces this mentality of inclusivity. “I think the center of gravity would be the team culture and being inviting and having a very inclusive environment and having girls want to come out and be a part of the team,” Wollen said. The Foxes start the season the first week of spring semester, hosting weekend games at Parents Field.

REIA LI, News Associate ZOE SOKATCH, News Editoral Assistant TANIA AZHANG, Arts & Culture Editor CARTER SOE, Arts & Culture Editor

Sports Calendar

Football vs. Pacific University Sunday, September 17 Women’s Tennis PP/CMS Invitational Men’s Golf Williams Invitational

Editorial Board MAXINE DAVEY, Editor-in-Chief MARIANA DURAN, Managing Editor BEN LAUREN, Managing Editor MAYA ZHAN, Arts & Culture Associate DANIA ANABTAWI, Opinions Editor KAHANI MALHOTRA, Opinions Editor ANSLEY WASHBURN, Sports Editor

ADAM AKINS, Sports Editor HAROLD FUSON, Sports Editorial Assistant ELENA TOWNSEND-LERDO, Special Projects Editor INDIA CLAUDY, Special Projects Editor

EVANN PENN BROWN, DEI Editor RENEE TIAN, DEI Editor JOHN PAUL FERRANTINO, Public Editor KAI SIVASANKAR, Social Media Manager

GERRIT PUNT, Multimedia Editor HANNAH WEAVER, Multimedia Editor PAUL YAN, Business Manager STELLA FANG, Business Manager

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