Vol. CXXXIII No. 4

VOL. CXXXIII NO. 4

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021

CLAREMONT, CA

Students demonstrate against CMC trustees’ fossil fuel investments

NANAKO NODA • THE STUDENT LIFE

Students gathered at Claremont McKenna College on Tuesday to call for the removal of Henry Kravis and George Roberts’s names from school buildings.

JENNA MCMURTRY & JOHN PAUL FERRANTINO Chants of “Remove their names” rang out Tuesday evening outside Claremont McKenna College’s Roberts Pavilion as more than 100 students from across the 5Cs protested Kohlberg Kravis Roberts’s Oct. 1 acquisition of a stake in Sempra Energy, denouncing natural gas lines that plow through Indigenous lands.

KKR is a global investment group founded by CMC trustees and cousins George Roberts CM ’66 and Henry Kravis CM ’67. Together, they have donated more than $100 million to CMC, and are recognized across campus with namesake buildings like Roberts Pavilion and the Kravis Center.

The protesters claim KKR’s fossil fuel energy holdings infringe on Indigenous land rights and contribute to the current climate crisis.

KKR’s business interests are “genocidal investments … [that] illegally cross Indigenous territory without consent,” Ethan Vitaz PZ ‘22 said in a speech Tuesday evening. “That’s why we’re organizing here today.”

The 5C student protest was organized as a joint effort between student activist groups KKR Kills and Divest 5Cs, who are calling for the removal of Kravis’ and Roberts’ names on campus buildings and the revocation of their positions as trustees of the college.

“Henry Kravis and George Roberts are valued members of the CMC Board of Trustees,” CMC spokesperson Gilien Silsby said via email. “We will not remove the Kravis or Roberts names from any CMC buildings or programs.”

Divest 5Cs aims to see each of the 5Cs divest from fossil fuel investments, following Pitzer College’s lead in 2014. KKR Kills was founded in response to KKR’s December 2019 acquisition of a 65 percent stake in Coastal GasLink, whose pipelines run through traditional Wet’suwet’en land.

Supporters in Canada have stood in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en as disputes continue over the CGL pipeline’s construction on their traditional land without full Wet’suwet’en consent.

“CGL has signed community

and project agreements with all 20 of the elected First Nations governments along the approved route – including the elected representatives of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation,” KKR spokesperson Cara Major said via email.

Major conceded that although some Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs have “signaled their opposition to the project,” CGL has continued to consult with them.

In April, KKR began the process to acquire a 20 percent stake in Sempra Energy for roughly $3.4 billion, a deal that was finalized this month.

IE Nova, a subsidiary of Sempra Energy, has been developing the Aguaprieta pipeline as part of a larger project that transports natural gas from Arizona to the northern Mexican states of Sonora and Sinaloa.

A proposed section of the Aguaprieta pipeline would cut 11 miles through Loma de Bácum, a Yaqui town in Sonora that opposes its construction. The construction of the pipeline has divided Yaqui communities over whether to support

or reject the pipeline.

“While KKR does have a relationship with Sempra Infrastructure Partners, the portion of the Aguaprieta pipeline system in dispute by members of the Yaqui community is excluded from KKR ownership,” Major said, adding that “portion of the Aguaprieta pipeline is not operational while consultations between the Mexican government and the affected communities is ongoing.”

Isabella Garcia PZ ’24 has Yaqui blood in her family. Upon learning of KKR’s investments in the Aguaprieta pipeline, she said, the KKR Kills movement hit close to home.

“I’ve definitely been trying to come to terms with the fact that I go to the institutions that are contributing to these terrible things,” Garcia said. “I’m just trying to grapple with that.”

KKR Kills organizer Malcolm McCann PZ ’22 hopes to see KKR pull its investments from fossil fuels and other “companies that infringe on Indigenous rights” and “commit these types of evil colonial violence,” in response to activists’

demands, McCann said.

Since helping organize the protest, McCann has been in touch with the Yaqui community in Loma de Bácum, which has been resisting the pipeline for over a decade, he said.

“We want to see CMC take action and hold Kravis and Roberts accountable if they fail to do the right thing,” McCann added.

Major noted that KKR is “committed to investing in a sustainable energy transition,” and that it is the seventh largest investor in solar securities in the U.S. But Peter Dien CM ’25, who ran his first-year presidential campaign largely on bringing awareness to KKR’s investments, said KKR’s solar investments don’t offset his objections to the company’s actions.

“If you’re still oppressing Indigenous people … you can’t balance it out with doing something good,” Dien said.

Dien urged students to keep the fight against fossil fuel development alive.

“The question is, do we want to be on the right side of history?” he asked.

Campus events canceled after six Pomona students test positive for COVID-19 SIENA SWIFT Pomona College went a month without reporting a single positive COVID-19 test among students — but that achievement ended this week when six students tested positive.

Three of the cases may be connected to a social gathering which took place last weekend, Dean of Students Avis Hinkson and Treasurer Robert Goldberg said in a Thursday email.

Students who are fully vaccinated and asymptomatic but have been in close contact with a student who tested positive have been placed in modified quarantine, which restricts them to “attending class and academic activities” until testing is completed five days after exposure.

The Pomona-Pitzer football home game this Saturday vs. Cal Lutheran has been canceled, the email said, “due to the requirements of modified quarantine.” P-P Athletics didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

Due to the positive cases, a 2000s themed party planned by the Pomona Events Committee for Saturday has been postponed to Oct. 22, according to an email from Timi Adelakun PO ’24, ASPC’s commissioner of campus events.

“Six positive results would amount to a roughly 0.3 percent positivity rate at our typical number of weekly tests,” Hinkson and Goldberg said. “However, the test results at this point in the week underscore the ur-

gent need to remain vigilant with our ongoing safety measures.”

In light of the uptick, Pomona is carrying out additional targeted testing while positive individuals are in isolation following county guidelines.

The announcement emphasized the importance of continued masking, testing and symptom monitoring.

“We urge students to remember to wear masks when gathering in residence halls and over meals while not actively eating,” Hinkson and Goldberg said. “Going into the weekend, we ask that everyone stay committed to community safety.”

While more than 99 percent of Pomona students are fully vaccinated, breakthrough cases still occur, especially from the delta variant, the email said.

“Our medical experts note that cases at colleges often are connected to indoor social gatherings, not the controlled setting of the classroom,” Hinkson and Goldberg said.

Los Angeles County has “some of the nation’s most extensive COVID-19 safety protocols and the college is adhering to them closely,” the email added. The county requires colleges to report clusters of “three or more confirmed cases” so public health officials can determine if they constitute an outbreak, according to its most recent guidelines.

READ ON PAGE 5

ANNA CHOI• THE STUDENT LIFE

Consortium-wide parties are back — but Mudders are mixed about being left out AVA FRANCIS-HALL Several weeks of low COVID-19 case counts are allowing the 5Cs to roll back restrictions on cross-campus gatherings — but the consortium’s new regulations will leave one campus out of the loop.

In emails to students on Sept. 24, campus deans said “5C club-sponsored activities” are now permitted, in addition to pro-

grams offered through consortial organizations. Consortium-wide parties, a staple of the pre-pandemic social scene, will also return, hosted by each school except for Harvey Mudd College.

HMC will neither host nor allow its students to participate in these ‘4C’ parties, a decision made “in consultation with [Mudd] students,” the emails read.

“This decision will be re-eval-

uated the week after the first 4C party (expected to be held at CMC in mid-October), as we continue to monitor the cases in the consortium, as well as the comfort levels of our students,” Interim Dean of Students Marco Antonio Valenzuela said in an Oct. 1 follow-up.

Soon after Valenzuela’s email was sent out, an email thread voicing

See PARTY on page 3

SAMSON ZHANG • THE STUDENT LIFE

ARTS & CULTURE

With a reputation for being stressful and competitive, has recruiting for CMC’s consulting groups turned a new leaf? Read more on page 6.

The student newspaper of the Claremont Colleges since 1889

OPINIONS

SPORTS

CMC trustees Henry Kravis and George Roberts should end their connections to the CGL pipeline, which contributes to climate change and violates the sovereignty of the Wet’suwet’en people, Luciénne Reyes PZ ’24 writes. Read more on page 7.

Twin Sixth Street rivalry matches Wednesday for Claremont’s men’s and women’s soccer teams brought tight games — but one ended in a tie, and the other a slim victory. Read more on page 10.

INDEX: News 1 | Arts & Culture 4 | Opinions 7 | Sports 10

News

PAGE 2

OCTObER 8, 2021

Hatching a plan: Pomona’s ‘Bird Strike’ team calls attention to bird-window collisions ELINA LINGAPPA & WALLY BARGERON Pomona College Professor of Biology Nina Karnovsky is crying fowl about an overlooked issue in the avian world: Up to a billion birds in North America die from flying into windows each year.

Students in Karnovsky’s Advanced Animal Ecology class have been scouring Pomona’s campus in the early hours of the morning to tally how many birds are dying after hitting windows on campus.

This week, the class found 14 birds, “which is actually a huge underestimate because [when] birds hit windows, they don’t always die instantly,” Karnovsky said.

The study started as an independent project for some students in her class a few years ago, and now 5C students annually come together under professor Karnovsky’s leadership to collect data during the birds’ fall migration season.

Zachar y Wakefield PO ’22, one of Karnosky’s students and a biology major, told TSL that after going out Monday afternoon, he found three or four birds that had crashed into windows at Estella Laboratory. He found at least one bird on Wednesday and Thursday each.

Karnovsky added that there have been multiple reports of birds hitting the Dialynas residence hall glass walkway.

In addition to the data that Karnovsky’s students collect, the study relies on student participation. Wakefield sent out a call to the CHIRPS student newsletter asking Pomona students to email him with any reports of bird crashes.

It’s important that every bird who appears to have crashed is documented, even if they survive, according to Wakefield.

“Often, unfortunately, even if a bird flies away, it still dies or is eaten soon afterwards because it’s a little bit disoriented, or has even permanent brain damage,” he said.

The issue of birds dying from building interference is much more prevalent than people would think, according to Wakefield and Karnovsky.

Claremont and the surrounding area have a particularly high level of bird strikes, according to Karnovsky. Claremont lies on one of three heavy migration patterns for birds flying south for the winter, called the “Pacific Flyway,” which sees birds fly from Alaska, through Canada, and down through Southern California and beyond, she said.

According to Wakefield, past studies have revealed that around 40 percent of all window strikes occur on north-facing windows

COURTESY: FAbIAN JAMMES

Pomona’s ‘bird Strike’ team surveys the number of dead birds around campus for a study on bird-window collisions.

precisely because of these migrations, although the danger shifts to south-facing windows in the spring.

The problem is nationwide — window strikes are the second major leading cause of death for birds in North America, according to Karnovsky, exceeded only by predation by cats. While ecologists are aware of the issue, it’s difficult to pinpoint its magnitude. As Wakefield points out, there is no reliable central reporting system for window strikes across the country, posing a major barrier to data collection.

Last week, Pomona participated in an annual nationwide survey on bird strikes hosted by the Global Bird Rescue, which utilizes the Global Bird Collision Mapper to document data.

“Team Bird St rike 47,” as Karnovsky’s group named themselves, sent in all their collected data along with dozens of other organizations. The study will hopefully give both ecologists and the general public a better idea of the magnitude of the problem.

“We encourage you to search for birds in order to increase the chances of a successful rescue, but preventing these collisions is GBR’s ultimate goal,” the website said.

Although the larger study is over for now, Team Bird Strike

Scripps and Pomona firm up COVID-19 testing rules

47 is far from done, and they are looking to propose innovative solut ions to t he problem on campus.

But Wakefield emphasized that he and others involved in the study are not advocating to remove buildings’ glass windows — there are “relatively simple modifications you can make to windows to reduce the frequency of window strikes,” he said.

Most cases of birds striking windows happen because birds see the reflection of plants or other external environments in a window and they don’t realize that the window is in front of them at all.

Ecologists who are trying t o ra i s e awa r e n e s s a r o u nd bird-building collisions recommend putting things in, on or around windows to disturb the reflection. UV decals, window pens, tape strips, screens and hanging objects are some of the common methods used to modify existing buildings, according to Wakefield and Karnovsky.

However, Karnovsky specified that ideal methods will break up the outside window reflection every three inches.

She’s noticed singular decals on some windows around campus, which aren’t very effective, she said, but noted that there hasn’t yet been a coordinated effort to improve bird safety at Pomona.

JASPER DAVIDOFF • THE STUDENT LIFE

JENNA MCMURTRY Scripps College and Pomona College announced significant changes to student COVID-19 testing regimens this week, adjusting logistics and adding disciplinary incentives to keep students from missing tests.

In a Monday email, Scripps Interim President Amy Marcus-Newhall announced that all testing will take place through Student Health Services starting Oct. 11.

Until now, students who got tested at SHS also needed to participate in a Scripps-only program at 240 House to fulfill their weekly requirement.

“Relocating student testing to SHS will streamline students’ access to testing and align Scripps’ student testing protocols with those of most of the other Claremont Colleges,” Marcus-Newhall said.

TSL reported last week that Scripps students were frustrated with the difficulty of scheduling tests at 240 House and widespread misconceptions about the system, capped off by emails on Sept. 30 in which students were warned they could face disciplinary action even though some of them had already scheduled or taken tests at Scripps.

“I appreciate all the students who reached out to me and their Primary Contact Deans, sharing their experiences and also seeking clarification on the testing policy,” Interim Dean of Students Adriana di Bartolo-Beck-

man said in a Tuesday follow-up.

Scripps students will now face a five-step conduct process for missing tests, di Bartolo-Beckman announced, including written warnings and a probation period before they are ultimately suspended for missing their fifth test.

Pomona is implementing a stricter policy, Dean of Students Avis Hinkson said in a Tuesday email. The third weekly test missed by a student will result in suspension for the semester.

“A student who misses three tests is a health risk to themselves and to the community and should not be on campus,” Hinkson said. “Suspension is a serious consequence, but there are public health implications that impact the entire community that must be considered.”

On Friday, ASPC President Nirali Devgan PO ’22 told students in an email that four student representatives will now be a part of the decision-making process by joining the college’s COVID-19 Discipline Board on a rotating basis. The board will not handle missed test violations, she added.

“We are appreciative of this shared governance decision which went through mindful deliberation and discussion from a community of students, faculty and staff,” Devgan said.

awareness [while] in the process of gathering that data,” Wakefield said. “You get more people to know about what’s happening and [it] can still be useful data to see, for example, what species of birds are most vulnerable.”

Karnovsky is confident that bird strikes can be reduced with some effort, pointing to the success of the Los Angeles Convention Center being built with bird-safe materials.

“This is something we can fix,” Karnovsky said. “It’s depressing, but it’s something we absolutely can fix.”

If students have any information on bird strikes or further questions, the bird window strike team can be reached at BirdStrike@pomona.edu.

LAURA JARAMILLO • THE STUDENT LIFE

From distanced to dorm rooms: Sophomores experience campus for the first time KHIMMOY HUDSON & MICHELE TANG

Community members queue up for COVID-19 testing through Student Health Services at Walker Hall.

“We’re going to try some experimentation to see what people like aesthetically but also what will keep the birds safe. And the migration is really not very long so this is like the time right now to protect the birds. And then when they come back up in the spring, then it’s the south facing windows we need to start worrying about,” she said.

Karnovsky added that turning off lights and drawing the blinds can have a huge impact on creating a bird-safe environment as birds navigate by the night sky, making them easily disoriented by light sources near windows.

GBR recommends bird-safe window products from Fatal Light Awareness Program Canada, which the biology department highlighted, along with Bird Safe Canada which provides information for making homes and commercial buildings birdsafe.

In August, Sustainable Claremont hosted a panel titled “Birds i n our m idst: Global impacts and local stewardship” which featured Karnovsky and Tina Stoner, the president of the Pomona Valley Audubon Society.

Wakefield emphasized his gratitude for the entire project as well as Karnovsky’s support.

“I think Professor Karnovsky definitely is very in favor of projects like this where you raise

Af ter a yea r of on l i ne sc hool, t he 5Cs’ c lasses of 2024 finally experienced their long-awaited arrival this August. Now, more than a month i nto t heir f irst semester i n Claremont, sophomores are reflecting on their experience transitioning to in-person living and learning.

“After a year-long delay, it’s like I’m finally getting to go to college because it just didn’t feel like college when I was at home — it’s like I turn on the magic box, and I do a little thing, and then I go to sleep,” Clay Adams HM ’24 said.

Many students across the 5Cs expressed their excitement during the move-in process and even weeks after. The extreme change in environment was abrupt for some students but nonetheless gratifying.

“It felt kind of surreal, to be here in person and see all these people that I had seen on Zoom over the past year. But it felt really good and quickly felt normal, like we had been here a lot longer than we have,” Helen Landau SC ’24 said.

Though the transition from the online classroom to on campus was exciting, not all students felt that their schools fully prepared them for their return. Rather, it was the community that made them feel welcome. Landau lamented a lack of support from Scripps College when it came to first days on campus.

“I ho n e st ly do n’t t h i n k Scripps did the best job,” Landau said. “I think it worked for a lot of people, but especially from [the students] I’ve talked to, their orientation was pretty brief and not necessarily extensive enough for what they

were coming into.”

But faculty and community members did provide a source of support, she said.

“I think a lot of the positive things have come more from the people in my class and my professors being understanding of us in this transition as opposed to the administration. But the people in res life have been really helpful,” Landau said.

Gisele Umutoni PO ’24, an i nt e r n at io n a l s t ude nt f r om Rwanda, felt that international students were well supported in their transition to on-campus life.

“I think Pomona did a really good job helping [international students] transition because we had orientation before we left our countries, and when we got here, we had an international student orientation and then [we] had the whole general orientation,” Umutoni said. “The faculty are so understanding and so welcoming, I feel like I had a smooth transition because of that.”

Six weeks into the school year, sophomores are still expressing excitement about being on campus, especially as the initial challenges have passed.

“I think everyone always feels the anticipation, just the excitement of meeting new people,” Emily Lee CM ’24 said. “I was a little bit out of my comfort zone because it was just so many new people, but everybody has been super nice [and] super kind. I genuinely think that we have such a supportive environment throughout the 5Cs.” Despite t he ma ny c ha nges at the 5Cs this year — notably including the implementation of COVID-19 safety policies — finally being on campus is providing a sense of normalcy for the sophomore community.

“I’m happy to see my friends every day, you know,” Adams said. “I’m learning to skateboard or I’m cooking fried rice with my friend … that’s an experience that I would never have [had] over Zoom school, so it’s quite exciting to be here.”

MARIANA DURAN • THE STUDENT LIFE

News

OCTObER 8, 2021

PAGE 3

A career preserved in time: Fossil species named for Pomona Dean Robert Gaines

COURTESY: RObERT GAINES

Pomona College Dean and Professor of Geology Robert Gaines now has a fossil named after him, one that he helped discover in 2018.

SAMSON ZHANG Pomona College geology professor and Dean of the College Robert Gaines knew that he had found something special as soon as he unearthed a particular fossil in summer 2018. Among other 500-million-year-old animals preserved in the quarry, this fossilized predator was much larger and was shaped unlike any other known species in its group.

This September, Gaines’ collaborators published a paper officially naming the species Titanokorys gainesi, setting Gaines’ contributions to fossil research in stone.

The first seeds of Gaines’ career came when his mom gave him a fossil of a trilobite as a vacation souvenir. The fossil blew 5-yearold Gaines away: “It’s a whole animal that you can hold in the palm of your hand, it had eyes, but it was twice as old as the dinosaurs. It’s half a billion years old,” he remembered.

After completing a master ’s and PhD in geology, studying fossil records in Utah for his thesis, Gaines joined Pomona as a geology professor in 2003.

The story of Titanokorys gainesi picks up five years later, when Gaines joined the expedition of Canadian paleontologist Jean-Bernard Caron to a site known as the Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia.

First discovered in 1909, the Burgess Shale is one of the most important for paleontologists for two reasons. For one, it preserves the soft tissue of animals, like eyes, muscles, and gills, while most sites only have fossils preserving shells and bones. For another, Burgess Shale fossils are from the Cambrian period about 540 million years ago, when multicellular life exploded and the divisions of the animal kingdom today first happened. Studying the animals that lived in the Cambrian period is a way of tracing the evolutionary

history of animals at one of their earliest defining moments.

In one hundred years after its discovery, over 200,000 fossils were extracted from the original Burgess Shale quarry, which was about the size of Gaines’ office room. But over time, it became harder and harder to find new fossils and species there.

Gaines and Caron’s 2008 expedition sought out new discoveries by looking for unexplored sites near the original quarry.

They found some new fossils, but no major breakthroughs. A 2010 expedition had similar outcomes.

The team returned in 2012 with modest expectations. They came to an 18-by-5-kilometer area called Marble Canyon, which previous maps made by the Geological Survey of Canada indicated wouldn’t be particularly special.

But the maps were missing a system of faults that Gaines and his colleagues ran into, which lifted a package of rocks — and fossils — up towards the surface.

“We started finding fossils hand over fist,” he said.

The discovery was even more significant than it seemed at first.

“Once we started to get into it, we were finding so much stuff that was brand new to science,” Gaines said. 25-30 percent of the fossils found in Marble Canyon have been identified as new species, according to Gaines.

Gaines’ geological analysis also helped point to new potential excavation sites, based on insights about the depth and shape of the original sea terrain. In successive expeditions throughout the decade, five more quarries were opened up around the original Marble Canyon quarry, thanks in part to Gaines’ insights.

Sifting through the deposit is hard work. Jackhammers are needed to get through rough terrain, so they — along with generators to power them — are flown

in in nets carried by helicopters.

Electric fences have to be set up to protect researchers from bears.

Expeditions last between four and ten weeks, depending on when it stops and starts snowing; team members take breaks every 16 days or so, going into town to do laundry, take showers and resupply, before resuming work.

Because the Burgess Shale is on the land of the Yoho and Kootenay national parks, researchers have to meticulously document their work for the Canadian Park Service.

“We have to account for every chip of rock that we take off the mountain. We send them photos, we send them reports about what we’re doing,” Gaines said.

In 2018, though, the hard work paid off big for Gaines.

In two quarry sites a hundred yards apart, specimens of a new, remarkable fossil were found.

While most fossils were only “the size of your little finger,” and even “really big ones” only 6-8 inches, just the head of this new fossil was almost a foot long, “and it was clear that that was just a part of the animal,” Gaines said.

The fossil was a member of a group of arthropods called radiodonts, typically predatory animals with two claw-like appendages and circular mouths.

The group was already known to contain some of the largest Cambrian period animals, like the apex predator Anomalocaris, but the new fossil was even larger, measuring in at half a meter long.

Furthermore, the fossilized animal wasn’t simply a larger predator: Complicating previous understandings of the Cambrian sea ecosystem, the new animal’s net-like claws suggested that it fed on smaller organisms filtered from the mud of the sea floor, similar to how whales feed on small fish and krill strained from the water.

It was a finding that was sure to attract attention. Details about the new species would be published and formalized in a paper published by Gaines’ biology-focused colleagues, Dr. Jean-Bernard Caron and his doctoral student Joe Moysiuk.

To honor Gaines’ contributions to the fossil’s discovery, the paper ’s authors asked for Gaines’ permission to name the new species after him. In August, as the paper was being prepared, he agreed.

In September, the paper was published, and the fossil was officially named Titanokorys gainesi.

In the time from the fossil’s discovery to the publication of the paper that assigned it his name, Gaines had his hands full as dean of the college The position reflects his attachment to Pomona as a school and community.

“By far, the best parts of my job here are the students,” Gaines said.

As a geology professor, Gaines taught classes on the evolution of the earth’s biosphere, sedimentary rocks, climate change and other elective topics. Three 5C students were among the members of Gaines’ 2018 expedition.

“A lot of my colleagues at state schools look at me and think that I’ve made a lot of sacrifices in terms of research in order to be in a place like this,” Gaines said.

But he said Pomona prescribes a healthy balance of teaching and research in ways that larger schools often can’t — through small grants and access to equipment.

As dean of the college, Gaines made his priorities increasing sustainability on campus, improving student equity by providing resources to support students of all backgrounds and streamlining faculty hiring processes, among other things.

After guiding Pomona’s faculty through a tumultuous two years impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Gaines said, he appreciates the community even more.

“I was so moved by all the things that faculty did to support students online. The way they threw themselves into it and developed creative solutions and shared them with one another,” he said.

“It’s a really powerful reminder of how connected we feel to this place, that we want to continue to make it better and better.”

About the paper set to officially name a fossil after him, “I didn’t think about it too much before it came out,” Gaines said. A year passed as the paper was peer-reviewed and funneled through the publication process.

When the paper was finally published, it received significant attention from the scientific community and general public, including coverage in a cover story in the magazine Science and a New York Times article. Only then did the feeling of recognition hit Gaines.

“It was super humbling … understanding that, no matter what I do for the rest of my career, that name is always going to be there.

It’s forever that. That feels pretty cool,” Gaines said.

Gaines’ time as dean of the college ends in 2022, after which he plans to take a sabbatical to visit his colleagues abroad and return to the Burgess Shale site, since his plans for the past two summers were disrupted by COVID-19.

But he’s most looking forward to getting back to his favorite job: teaching students.

“Consistently, even after nearly 20 years, when I step into a classroom, I know that I’m going to get a question that I’ve never heard before, that will actually cause me to pull back and think about aspects of my whole field quite differently,” he said. “That’s the balance in my life that feels like it’s really missing.”

PARTY: survey reveals divide on policy preferences Continued from page 1 student responses ballooned with opinions. Some students expressed dismay about Mudd’s exclusion from campus-wide gatherings, while others specifically questioned the necessity of 4C parties as a whole.

The Student COVID-19 Advisory Board (SCAB) was created to assist in the creation and modification of pandemic-related regulations. In conjunction with ASHMC, these two student bodies have been voicing the student perspective in the decision-making process.

Valenzuela told TSL in an email that guidelines for fall residential life were developed over the summer by SCAB, the Division of Student Affairs (DSA) and members of the President’s Cabinet. SCAB developed a tiered system in which conditions could be evaluated, and regulations were adjusted accordingly by those same groups. HMC was in the most restrictive Tier 1 of residential guidelines at the beginning of the semester, but moved into Tier 2 on Oct. 1.

“Our Student COVID-19 Advisory Board created the tiered system to address the comfort level of students who want more socialization as well as those who remain uncomfortable with that level of activity,” Valenzuela said. “We have not excluded students from the decision-making process; quite the opposite, we have taken into consideration both groups’ comfort

levels around social activities.”

Catherine Phillips HM ’23 said she’s skeptical of 4C parties’ approval, since she was under the impression that large COVID-19 related decisions would be applied universally to each of the 5Cs. “I think that the student leadership is trying their best … I really think it’s a thing where the admin needs to step up a lot. I would also like more information from the other colleges’ admin since we’re supposed to be making these decisions together,” Phillips said.

ASHMC President and SCAB member Mariesa Teo HM ’22 said she thought DSA was fairly open in communicating to student leadership, but agreed that there could have been more transparency with the general student body in the process of rolling out regulations.

“I think there were steps that we could have done as a COVID-19 advisory board to make that process more open to students, like publishing minutes, which now we do, and making the list of COVID advisory board members more open in general to the entire student body,” Teo said.

In a post-announcement survey to which 716 students responded, 47 percent of respondents said they would be comfortable or very comfortable attending 5C parties, while 38 percent said they would be somewhat or very uncomfortable.

Corrections An article about students living off campus incorrectly stated 18 percent of Pitzer College sophomores are living at Claremont Collegiate Apartments. In fact, 18 percent of those living at CCA are sophomores.

NANAKO NODA • THE STUDENT LIFE

Students at Harvey Mudd College feel concerned by a lack of transparency regarding the new party guidelines.

But 55 percent said they’d be comfortable with other Mudders attending 5C parties, and 59 percent expressed support for allowing Mudders to participate in the parties.

SCAB has made efforts to increase transparency, such as publishing minutes, sending out surveys and polls and making SCAB members more accessible to the public, Teo said.

And DSA is holding virtual town halls for each class as it continues to re-evaluate policy, according to Valenzuela.

Savanah Diaz HM ’22 echoed Phillips’ concerns about the safety of holding large consortium-wide parties, but said she valued students’ participation in the dialogue and hoped future changes would reflect student voice.

“Being here at Mudd, we very much take self governance pretty seriously, we like having to have input in the policies and rules here,” Diaz said. “We’re not going to adhere to rules or follow rules that don’t make sense to us. We need to have those in place that we agree on.”

An article about testing at Scripps College misspelled a Scripps student’s first name.

She is Maddie Callan, not Maddy.

An article about the CrossBorder Photography exhibition misstated Madeleine Mount-Cors’s PO ’23 class year. It is 2023, not 2022.

TSL regrets these errors.

PAGE 4

Arts & Culture

OctObEr 8, 2021

LItErArY WANDErINGS

On fiction as environmental activism

cLArE MArtIN • tHE StUDENt LIFE

RYAN LILLESTRAND Sometimes writing works. The words spill onto the page and line up into sentences, and, for a moment, we’ve held that rare thing in our hands: the potential to deeply affect the perspective of readers.

More commonly we find ourselves in a familiar place: sitting, staring at the wall or out the window, waiting to be inspired. We are stuck feeling something like what Joan Didion may have felt in the months leading up to writing her classic piece “Slouching Towards Bethlehem.”

“I had not been able to work in some months, had been paralyzed by the conviction that writing was an irrelevant act, that the world as I had understood it no longer existed,” she writes.

In a world rife with suffering and injustice, the simple act of writing, especially fiction, can feel like an entirely useless — even frivolous — act. Then a book comes along that reminds us of the sneaking potency of the written word: its ability to seep into our thoughts and alter the way we see the world around us.

Richard Powers’ long, ambitious

FILM PHILOSOPHY

The problem with unity in ‘Rick and Morty’ SIMONE BOGEDAL Created by Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland of Adult Swim, “Rick and Morty” is an animated, science fiction and cosmically nihilistic TV show that covers many existential questions. The episode “Auto Erotic Assimilation” grapples with the difficult balance of unity and respecting individual rights.

“Auto Erotic Assimilation” begins with a satiric homage to the counterculture of the 1960s, with Rick and his grandchildren, Summer and Morty, tone-deafly singing along to a song about love and connection. While comedic in presentation, the scene importantly denotes the first major theme: a seeming naivety with respect to peace.

Rick, Summer and Morty soon encounter the hivemind named Unity, which presents the first challenge of the episode: Is unity bad? Simply put, the concept of unity can be generally agreed upon as something good. Having amiable relationships with others allows for beneficial, productive work to be done which progresses society as a whole.

However, the creators personify the concept as a hivemind. While its method of infecting individuals via vomiting into their mouths is visually comical, taking control of an entire planet’s population is morally questionable at best. The situation raises an uncomfortable question regarding like-mindedness: To what extent does it become more harmful than helpful?

Summer’s initial answer is obvious. After arriving on Unity’s entirely assimilated planet, Summer shouts to the people, “You have to have some individuality left in there!” She not only points out the obvious imposition on free will, but also reveals the value she places on individualism.

In response to Summer’s protests, Unity responds by revealing how taking control of each person either helped them individually or benefited society as a whole. One woman had been a heroin addict with a horrible quality of life until Unity cured her, while another man had been a registered sex offender.

Unity and Summer’s exchange presents the difficulties of a society built on individualism. To what extent should the expression and pursuit of someone’s desires be allowed? Is it morally correct to impose moral rights on an individual in order to benefit society as a whole?

To many, the answer would lie somewhere in between. While a discussion of inherent moral rights and

cOUrtESY: SAWUINHAFF VIA DEVIANtArt

the episode “Auto Erotic Assimilation” of “rick and Morty” explores themes of individualism and conformity.

moral status is beyond the scope of this column, the cases presented in “Auto Erotic Assimilation” are worthy of consideration.

In the case of the sex offender, it may be generally agreed that he harms society and infringes upon others’ rights. However, these harmful actions are technically part of his individualism.

Summer’s initial stance as a proponent of individualism would then morally allow for his actions to continue. However, his actions are immoral. To remedy this, it may be agreed that he relinquishes some of his own moral rights when acting harmfully, and therefore it may be justified for Unity to take control.

The episode continues to manipulate this idea, enlarging the scale to include a larger portion of the population as Unity loses increasingly more control. Moments after a larger fraction of the population is released from Unity’s control, a race war begins. Does the involvement of a greater number of people influence the answers regarding individual freedoms and rights?

After witnessing the unnecessary bloodshed, Summer eventually admits that she “didn’t realize freedom meant people doing things that suck!” While this may be an oversimplification, the statement clearly signifies her change in perspective.

Summer’s concerns echo that of the general American value of rugged individualism. As the show is produced in an American-based studio, it makes sense to relate her concerns to the United States.

An unfortunately obvious example would be the debate over masks. Mask-wearing has been proven to significantly reduce the transmission of COVID-19, yet many Americans have protested wearing them. In this case, the individualist mindset prevalent in American culture manifests in a harmful manner to society.

While the total mind control of hivemind is clearly also not morally correct, this case presents the interesting gray area in between. As members of society, it can be argued that people do have moral obligations to one another to keep each other safe, especially at the generally low burden of wearing a mask.

However, placing Adult Swim’s challenging personification aside, the concept of unity would also support the wearing of masks to benefit society.

While it is possible to be both a proponent of peace and individualism, difficulties with the coexistence of the two are prominent and to be considered. The moral issues raised by “Auto Erotic Assimilation” are pervasive and do not have immediately clear solutions. While such conclusions may be unfulfilling, the open-endedness allows for continuous reevaluation and engagement in everyday life.

Simone Bogedal PO ’24 is from Chester, New Jersey. She regularly consumes excessive amounts of coffee and is interested in applicable philosophy found in TV shows.

and roaming novel “The Overstory” was an unexpected, imperfect but ultimately powerful example of such a book.

When I first picked it up, I was intrigued by the unconventional story structure and its environmentally-focused theme, but not convinced. It seemed promising, but perhaps too ambitious. With a week-long break on the horizon, however, I decided to take the plunge, equipped with a reading plan: 50 pages a day for 10 days. While the story stalls and sags at times over the course of its roughly 500 pages,

my self-imposed reading plan kept the story clipping along.

The novel sets out on a project that would daunt any writer: to tell the story of nine main characters, from nine unique worlds, with nine casts of people to go along with them. While reading, I couldn’t help but imagine what the storyboard of “The Overstory” must have looked like — a sprawling chart of characters and places and events that must have woven like ivy across every wall in Powers’ house.

Early on, this complex structure feels a bit overdone and far too transient. As soon as you’ve gotten your footing in one place, you are whisked off to a new one — from the rural Midwest to China to the redwood forests of the Pacific Northwest. Some characters bloom into vivid, real people, while others feel stuck, more like sketches on the page. However, what starts as nine different storylines are gradually braided together by Powers, drawn by the novel’s shared theme: trees.

This common thread, and the way in which its presence in each character’s life draws them all together, leads to several satisfying “aha!” moments for the reader as the true arc of the story begins to take shape.

It is a story that stretches wide and takes risks; while not all of them are pulled off successfully, the most important one is. “The Overstory” is a flawed and at times uneven book, but it accomplishes what its author set out to do: fundamentally reshape the

way we see trees and our relationship with them. Powers asks us to care for our natural environment and see it differently — more personally — as sharers of a common space, and we do.

Powers accomplishes something which we often look to non-fiction for: telling us about the world, teaching us something, giving us a new perspective on things that are happening now.

“The Overstory” manages to do all of this; it is a book that wounds us and wakes us up in the way Kafka argued that every truly good book should.

And it seems that it did the same for Powers; the writing process shaped his perspective at least as much as the reading process shaped mine. After completing “The Overstory,” Powers, an English professor at Stanford University, chose to move from the Bay Area to the depths of the Great Smoky Mountains.

It was only after finishing “The Overstory” that I realized how much its story had crept in and remolded my mindset on the natural world around me. I looked out the window and saw trees I had seen a thousand times but rarely considered. I noticed them swaying in the wind or embracing the air over a small house as I walked down the street. They breathed and grew and felt. They came alive.

Ryan Lillestrand PZ ’23 is TSL’s book columnist. He is currently scouring the days for reading time, and considering starting an informal book club.

Community favorite clubs are back in business

XIAO JIANG • tHE StUDENt LIFE

beloved clubs such as claremont challah are reopening their businesses for the 5c community.

LUISA FERNANDA ECHEVERRIA BEDOYA With Turf Dinner done, 5C clubs are finally making their comeback. Here are three community favorites to keep an eye out for.

Claremont Challah Claremont Challah bakes and sells fresh loaves of fun-flavored bread every week at Pomona College to raise funds for local food banks.

With over 10 years of experience, Claremont Challah was originally part of the nation-wide organization Challah for Hunger but has since split from Challah for Hunger in order to have more agency over their donations.

However, COVID-19 put a hiatus to the operations of the club.

“We met a couple of times and tried to think if there were ways we could keep it going,” Helen Paulini PO ’22 said. “In the end, we just kind of had to put a pause on it.”

Reopening has brought its own set of complications. In the past, the club had access to the Frary Dining Hall kitchen, which has the industrial equipment necessary for the volume of challah baked weekly.

However, emails sent to dining services in May came back with news that this would no longer be possible. The club considered scaling back operations but were eventually able to secure a spot at Frank Dining Hall’s kitchen.

“We got the green light about a week ago, just a couple days before Turf Dinner,” Paulini said. “That was quite a whirlwind — to go from [not having access to a kitchen] to having our first sale in a week.”

What’s left to do is plan for the future. Vegan options are already offered, and a gluten-free option is in the works. They are also looking to sell at other spots in the 5Cs. Updates will be posted on their Instagram @challahgram and their Facebook @ClaremontChallah.

For now, they’ll be selling every Thursday at 9:45 p.m. and Friday at 9:45 a.m. by the fountain at the Smith Campus Center at Pomona. They accept

payment in Flex dollars, Claremont Cash and cash.

Milk and Honey If you’re more of a drinks person, you may want to check out Milk and Honey, a 5C-run boba store that focuses on creating a fun, collaborative and inclusive space for people to enjoy a nice drink.

Milk and Honey was born in 2016 at Lyon Court residence hall’s lounge, where Samuel Lin PO ’20 made boba drinks for friends. Realizing there was a demand for boba on campus, he started Milk and Honey.

Jasmine Zhou PO ’24 joined Milk and Honey in Spring 2020 and is now a head manager.

“It was so fun,” Zhou said.

“You get to work with a great group of people. It was also really amazing to work in a store and meet lots of different people from across the 5Cs.” Like Claremont Challah, they weren’t able to keep their operations running through the online year.

“Over the online semester, we would just send pictures of boba that we were drinking to each other.” Zhou said.

Back and ready to open, they’re looking to expand their menu by adding Thai tea drinks and maybe food. Most of their drinks are lactose-free, and they offer caffeine-free and milk-free options.

Due to restrictions on cross-campus dining, they can only serve Pomona students for the time being.

“This used to be a space where you would see friends from all across the 5Cs,” Zhou said. “We hope that it will come back in the spring semester.”

They will open after fall break on Oct. 21 at the Smith Campus Center’s Café 47 on Pomona’s campus. While hours are not yet finalized, they have served from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. in the past. Updates will be posted to their Instagram @milkandhoney5cs and their Facebook @milkandhoney5Cs. Groove Nation Historically the largest hip hop and street style dance crew at the 5Cs, Groove recruits dancers from all 5Cs and dance backgrounds. Groove holds a big

end-of-the-semester showcase and several small events, either from invitations or organized internally.

Over the online year, they took the opportunity to divert from performing and look inward.

“We’ve had a lot of discussions about how [to] commit to education and have a respectful relationship with hip hop culture,” Sophie Kim SC ’24 said, “given that a lot of us do not have a background in hip hop dance.”

They split into groups to learn and teach each other about different styles of hip hop and its history.

“We put in a lot of effort to change the structure of the club.

Maybe that was possible because [last semester] was online,” dancer Hina Tanabe PO ’23 said. “If we [went] back in person in fall 2020, I wonder whether we would have taken the same approach. But now we’re making that shift.”

Groove held auditions for incoming dancers on the last weekend of September. They changed their auditions to reflect their shift: emphasizing freestyle dance instead of only choreography, and conversing about learning through dance and engaging in anti-racist politics.

“Through our audition process, we definitely set the tone that we are committed to education,” Tanabe said. “We have been able to confirm to ourselves that this is something that we want to do and have incorporated in our decision making.”

They are looking forward to incorporating what they’ve learned into their performances as well.

“One concrete thing we’ve talked about doing is adding freestyle cyphers into our shows,” Kim said. In the past, “We’ve [thought] of group performances as just doing choreography. This year, we’re hoping to have a freestyle cypher that the community can join into and dance.”

One concern is managing the unusual volume of incoming dancers, nicknamed Groovies, and organizing their training and performances while continuing to make Groove a welcoming space for them.

“We want to make sure that everyone feels like they are part of the family,” Tanabe said.

Groove will be posting updates on their Instagram @groovenationdc and their Facebook @groovenationdancecrew.

OctOber 8, 2021

Arts & Culture

PAGe 5

First in-person play since leaving campus puts intimacy, growth on center stage Eliza Powers

Five close friends acting as strangers gather in a room and form a circle. They pause. And then: a collective breath.

“One of the tenets of our theater classroom here at Pomona College is taking the collective breath together,” said Mark Diaz PO ’22, who stars as a divorced carpenter in the upcoming production of “Circle Mirror Transformation.” “We’re all breathing the same air, and we’re all in the same space — it’s a really incredible feeling.”

During the past two years, we’ve watched as the collective breath grows dangerous. Instead of community and release, the collective breath is now defined by exposure and sickness.

Yet the upcoming production of “Circle Mirror Transformation,” which will be performed at Seaver Theatre Oct. 7-10, marks a powerful transition back to shared space and community.

“Circle Mirror Transformation” is an intimate play about five strangers learning how to act. Set in Vermont, the play tells the story of four New Englanders who enroll in a community center drama course. The cast of characters consists of a drama teacher, a divorced carpenter, a retired actress, a shy high-schooler and the acting teacher’s husband.

The acting classes, taught by Marty, are bizarre. Marty instructs her students to act as baseball gloves in one class and beds in another. They’re instructed to count as a collective group without interrupting each other. A husband gives a monologue as his wife.

The students swap stories of meeting strangers on subways and teach each other to hula hoop.

Someone falls in love.

“Circle Mirror Transformation” is an exercise in quietude: painfully long pauses, nervous breathing, deepest secrets written down on scraps of paper.

The play is awkward, and often uncomfortable, but that’s the point.

“I knew I wanted there to be excruciating silences,” playwright Annie Baker said in an interview. “I knew I wanted a doomed class romance

that left one character embarrassed and the other heartbroken. I knew I wanted the characters to deliver monologues as each other. … Eventually, I realized that the fun of the play is the fact that it’s confined to this dull, windowless little space.”

While the characters start as strangers, the Pomona students playing them are dear friends. Four of the five actors began in the same Basic Acting class during their first year at Pomona. This poses a challenge: How do the actors reset as strangers before every rehearsal?

“It’s kind of amazing to see how much we’ve all grown and changed, but I think we can all remember that first day when we all met each other in freshman year,” Mark said. “So every day when we walk in, we can kind of create this freshness.”

The characters are able to offer each other

mirrors, reflections of themselves. In “Circle Mirror Transformation,” eye contact is a painful but necessary two-way reflection, and artificial ice-breaker games mirror true bonding.

“There’s this really beautiful moment at the beginning and end of the show,” GiGi Buddie PO ’23, who plays Marty, said via Zoom about the same movement sequence used to open and close the show. “We did the last movement sequence, and there was just this beautiful moment, at the end, where we’re all standing in a circle, and we all get to make eye contact with each other and share this moment with each other.”

While recovering from the emotional and physical distance separating us during the pandemic, there is something special about the opportunity to witness small moments of connection in “Circle Mirror Transformation”: the way new friends orient their bodies to each other, the unrelenting glare of quarrelers, the silence between husband and wife betraying what their voices aren’t ready to say.

“It’s weird to draw connections to quarantine, because I’m sure that’s not what was intended when it was written in 2009,” Tray Hammond PO ’22, who plays Marty’s husband, James, said. “But it’s cool to see the way a show can transform, and the ways that we’ve transformed it.”

To watch these connections form, break and reform in a space as small as a black box theater only heightens the intimacy.

When asked to describe her character, Buddie offered a paradox. “ C o n nection and disconnection,” Buddie said via Zoom.

“Circle Mirror Transformation” bursts with paradoxes: actors learning how to act, strangers who love each other, lovers who are strangers.

Strip away elaborate sets, lights, costumes and a large cast, and we’re confronted with the daily pains and joys that we’ve been missing for so long: connection and disconnection, communication and miscommunication. “Circle Mirror Transformation” is the right play at the right time.

“Circle Mirror Transformation” bursts with paradoxes: actors learning how to act, strangers who love each other, lovers who are strangers.

The play will run Oct. 7-10 at the Seaver Theatre. Tickets are on sale online and at the box office.

ANNA cHOI • tHe StUDeNt LIFe

top center: Marty and James, played by GiGi buddie ‘23 and tray Hammond ‘22, respectively, share an intimate moment as James fears his son’s judgement.

Bottom eft: After finding solace in a moment alone to embrace theatre and dance, Lauren, Aydin Mallery PZ ‘24, is comforted by Marty, GiGi Buddie PO ‘23.

Bottom right: Mark Diaz PO ‘22, Tray Hammond PO ‘22, Jessica Wang PZ ‘22, GiGi Buddie PO ‘23 and Aydin Mallery PO ‘24, in character, recall some of the first moments of the play.

Arts & Culture

PAGE 6

OctObEr 8, 2021

Business casual season: A look into recruiting at CMC consulting groups MARIANA DURAN These past few weeks, Claremont McKenna College has been overrun by blazer-clad first-years and sophomores rushing to interviews for the many pre-professional groups on campus. Recruitment season, a CMC staple, has been in full swing since the third week of the semester, and the three consulting groups based at the college have been busy finding their next generation of consultants.

The Claremont Consulting Group (CCG) mostly works with for-profit businesses and is an independent organization solely composed of CMC students. SOURCE Nonprofit Consulting, like the name suggests, works closely with nonprofit groups. Graphite Group is more centered around consulting for small businesses and start-ups and is the only CMC-based group that hires students from across the 5Cs. According to CCG managing director Arielle Lui CM ’22, some consulting groups’ communities are very “tight-knit.”

“Two of my three roommates are in [CCG] as well,” Lui said.

“And I think that that’s pretty common year over year, where most of your friends will be from [CCG].”

Jasmine Tan CM ’25, who applied to both CCG and Graphite, also noted this sense of community in Graphite, where she recently accepted a position as an associate consultant.

“It’s not just, ‘Oh, we’re gonna work on a consulting project together,’” Tan said. “There are events, meetups — people just hang out.”

The process to get into these close-knit clubs can be difficult, taking weeks and several interview rounds. Some groups are also highly selective; CCG, for example, has a 10 percent acceptance rate.

This semester, all three clubs

had a written application as their first round. For qualifying applicants, CCG and Graphite then had an in-person practical group interview with a business-casual dress code, in which prospective members worked on a case with other applicants. Finally, the two groups had behavioral interviews for qualifying applicants.

At SOURCE, after the written application, applicants had an individual assessment and interview through Zoom.

Yahya Yousef CM ’25 noted a dichotomy between collaboration and competition throughout his application process for CCG. “It’s definitely incredibly competitive,” Yousef said. “But at the same time, a lot of people were very collaborative as well. Like, helping each other out, advising each other ... and explaining different business terminology.”

Yousef thinks that this sense of community makes the process enjoyable.

“Honestly, I think it was just fun to see people dressed up and go into interviews for all these clubs and things,” Yousef said.

“We’d always gas each other up whenever people were walking by, just ‘Alright buddy, looking fresh. Looking fresh.’ It was a good time.”

Tan also said that these applications could get competitive, especially in the group round of the application process, when applicants were expected to collaborate with each other.

“I think I got pretty lucky, and everyone in my group was pretty chill, ” Tan said. “I think we were all really desperate to prove ourselves, which is to be expected. I did hear stories about a couple other interview groups.

There was one where apparently two guys were really trying to struggle over who got to lead the group, and it was kind of detri-

mental to the group dynamic because instead of working together, it was the two of them trying to fight for power.”

To Henry Long CM ’25, the application process at the beginning of the semester can be overwhelming, but he also finds it rewarding.

“I’ve definitely talked with my friends about this,” Long said. “We always joke that it’s like we’re applying to college again … It’s kind of intimidating. You get on campus, you’re trying to acclimate to your classes and all of a sudden, you have to apply to these new organizations, research institutes, pre-professional clubs,” Long said. “... At the same time, it can be really rewarding to see your application to one of these places come to fruition.”

Despite the application process’ intimidating nature, current members from the three consulting groups noted that the recruitment season was less overwhelming this year. This was partly due to CMC’s policy change, as well as modifications of some consulting groups’ application structures.

“I think all of the clubs on campus now are required to recruit later,” Lui said. “[Before] applications were due the first week. And now they’re due the third week, so it’s a lot less overwhelming than it used to be. But obviously, it’s still a lot, especially if you don’t know what you want to do as a freshman.”

SOURCE junior manager Kira Hirsch CM ’23 said that the group is actively taking steps to become more accessible and less intimidating to students, efforts which can be found in their spring hiring report. These efforts include moving SOURCE’s first application deadline to Sept. 24, conducting interviews through Zoom, making applications anonymous to reduce biases, removing the

LEt’S SPILL tHE POP cULtUrE tEA

‘The Chair’ gets academia right more often than not

business casual dress code and being more flexible with their requirements.

“We are really cognizant of the fact that people are coming in with very different experiences and very different privileges,” Hirsch said. “In our application process, we want to make sure that we’re minimizing the impact that having those experiences, privileges and previous opportunities will give you.”

This year, Graphite Group accepted record numbers of applications and second-round interviews in an effort to provide more people with the experience of a group interview. However, Matthew San Luis CM ’23, Graphite’s director of talent acquisition, still believes steps need to be taken to reduce these groups’ high selectivity.

“The thing with some of these organizations is they get like 67, maybe even 100 applicants and only 10 get in,” San Luis said. “...

And the kids who do get into one of the organizations have that on their resume. And they have that validation, which helps them get

JULIAN cHAPIN • tHE StUDENt LIFE

With cMc consulting groups having acceptance rates as low as 10 percent, the application process can be stressful according to some students.

AI incubator makes understanding practical applications as easy as P-ai

ANNA TOLKIEN

DHANI SRINIVASAN

This article contains spoilers for “The Chair.”

You can call them a club, organization or community, but P-ai — pronounced “pie” — is best described as an incubator for artificial intelligence (AI) projects and ideas. P-ai takes students’ open-ended research questions, startup ideas, hobbies that warrant collaboration and everything in between, then turns them into projects lasting a semester or longer. Started in May 2019, P-ai has quickly grown as the only AI club at the 5Cs. While computer science is a growing field at the Claremont Colleges, some students have felt a gap in knowledge in practical applications, especially regarding AI, according to chairman and former president Alex Ker PO ’23. Ker described how the limited number of AI courses offered cannot cover the niches of the field.

“I think [P-ai] does a better job … addressing some of those specific interests that students have,” Ker said. “[Students] really like learning from their peers, with their peers or teaching their peers … Ultimately, it’s a lot of curiosity-driven learning versus that prescribed learning.”

Current president Varun Bopardikar PZ ’22 added that P-ai gives students a chance to work with real-world applications to data science, as opposed to the often theoretical work done in classes. By “democratizing the interdisciplinary applications of artificial intelligence,” P-ai aims to increase awareness of AI among all curious students, according to its website.

“Not everyone’s going to be interested in how it’s technically implemented, all the nitty-gritty behind all the algorithms and the statistics,” Ker said. “But we hope to at least allow students to be able to talk about it and be able to … understand its impact on our world.”

Working with AI might seem daunting, but students don’t need to have experience with it to join P-ai — the only requirement for project team applicants is a computer science course at the 5Cs or some coding experience. Even those that haven’t met this requirement can still apply as general members to access speakers, workshops, alumni panels and other events.

This past Saturday, P-ai held the first of a series of four workshops to introduce new project members to AI, with senior team members teaching some basics of Python and machine learning along with their connections to and importance in AI. This semester, the project team is working on six projects, each led by a project manager, ranging from

How can a newly-minted department chair make progress when faced with a permanently unsatisfied angry mob of students and old professors who won’t budge? This is the struggle of Ji-Yoon Kim (Sandra Oh) while serving as chair of the literature department at the fictional Pembroke University.

“The Chair,” written by Amanda Peet and Annie Julia Wyman, a former Claremont McKenna College professor, follows Ji-Yoon’s time as chair and the different fires she’s constantly putting out to keep the department alive.

Ji-Yoon says she feels like she was handed a failing department like a “ticking time bomb” because they wanted to ensure “a woman was holding it when it explodes.” “The Chair” attempts to be a romantic comedy set in academia, a drama unpacking the painful and loving relationship between an adopted child and mother and a political narrative about progressivism, cancel culture and university politics all in one.

This makes the show multifaceted and interesting but also muddles and misrepresents certain issues.

Pembroke is a dated institution with a predominantly white staff and scandals rolling out by the second. They can’t keep bodies in seats, and they are losing money by the day. Ji-Yoon is the first woman of color to be chair, and she knows she is the dean’s way of giving some sort of peace offering to the furious student body who are demanding more diverse staff.

The show portrays the very real struggle between older, tenured professors and younger, more progressive faculty. It dramatises university bureaucratic politics in a way that feels intense, high stakes and enthralling.

I was interested by the tension between the older, whiter faculty who resent the younger, more diverse faculty’s ways of teaching and engaging with the material. As a literature major, my peers often question how my field is relevant. In the show, Yaz McKay (Nana Mensah) responds to this question by asking students to tweet their favorite line from Moby Dick and create raps to unpack the reading material. Her older professor supervising her tenure is horrified by this and sees it as disrespectful and improper.

I found Yaz’s method to be fresh and exciting — the more ways professors can get students to value literature the better. Whether that be through music or social media, I respected her commitment to making the material feel relevant and accessible. The older professor’s disgust toward her teaching methods represents the barriers to making literature more accessible. This struggle

cOUrtESY: ELIZA MOrSE/NEtFLIX

Anna tolkien cM ‘24 explains what “the chair” gets right and gets wrong in its portrayal of academia.

between them is one of the most well-done aspects of the show.

On the more emotional side of “The Chair,” the romantic ‘willthey-won’t-they’ tension between Ji-Yoon and Bill Dobson (Jay Duplass) — Ji-Yoon’s co-worker and long-time friend — is great. I found the portrayal of Bill struggling after losing his wife but wanting to be in love again to be honest and real. I related to Ji-Yoon’s character who fell in love with teaching to the point she never let herself find a partner. They are two characters dancing between a relationship, with the lines blurry and confusing. I found it impressive that the show was able to build such a believable and multifaceted relationship between the two in just six 30-minute episodes.

My favorite character on the show was Ji-Yoon’s daughter Ju Ju (Everly Carganilla). The show portrays her as lonely and angry because her mother is always at work, which perpetuates the misogynistic criticism of women working while having children.

This is harmful as women already deal with not being taken seriously in the academic world, and vilifying Ji-Yoon as a bad mother because she’s working is perpetuating negative stereotypes.

Ju Ju is feisty and emotional, asking absurd questions to her babysitters and to Bill about his dead wife. Ju Ju’s relationship with her mother and frustration about being Mexican while her mother is Asian reflects the confusing journey of understanding cultural identity and differences when you are adopted. I thought this was emotional and could start an important dialogue about the adoption process for children.

Unfortunately, the show bites off more than it can chew when it comes to tackling student activism.

It ends up portraying students as an angry, uninformed mass who blindly cancel professors. Bill is cancelled for making a Nazi salute in class as a joke when trying to describe the difference between

fascism and absurdism, and the student body drags him across social media for it.

Instead of focusing on the real issue — that the professors have no budget and the staff lacks people of color — the students are fixated on destroying the reputation of these teachers. While this message was valuable, I found myself offended by the critique on student activism.

The students’ concerns about his antisemitic gesture are used to make Bill look weak and garner viewers’ sympathy, which propels the false narrative that students at universities are on a witch hunt to shame faculty.

I found Ji-Yoon’s monologue during Bill’s termination hearing insightful. She criticizes the tenured faculty and asks, “Why are we in here when our students are out there?” She realizes that firing one professor doesn’t solve the issue; what actually makes progress is personally connecting with the students and hearing their concerns. The show makes a statement that cancel culture is unproductive as it focuses pressure and hatred on a single individual compared to focusing on the larger, more impactful issues.

This is the type of thinking we need from faculty. Universities worry about calming scandals to ensure they keep their position on news outlets’ ranking lists.

Instead, they need to commit to hearing students’ concerns and genuinely connecting with them to ensure a safe and inclusive campus.

Despite the show’s misstep with how they portray students, I really enjoyed “The Chair.” If you are looking for a well-written show with complicated characters and relevant themes, “The Chair” is the show for you.

Anna Tolkien CM ’24 is one of TSL’s pop culture columnists. She’s a media studies and literature dual major and loves her pugs, iced coffee and Timothée Chalamet movies.

into the other organization, which helps them to get the job. ... I want to find a way to make the process more equitable, or maybe incorporate another part of our organization that doesn’t reject individuals to give everyone that shot to learn as much as they can and give them an opportunity.”

San Luis thinks that some aspects of the current recruitment season are worth keeping, though.

“We want to keep up that culture of being an organization that expects a lot out of their applicants and their members,” San Luis said.

Meanwhile, Lui doubts the overall culture surrounding application season at CMC will change much, as it has become expected for students.

“There’s a lot of criticism at least at CMC around freshman year being very stressful because you’re trying to get into a lot of clubs and institutes,” Lui said. “And I don’t see that ever changing ... just because I think people come to CMC for that pressure. People know it’s a very pre-professional college, and I think that they’re getting what they expect.”

one on extracting deep-fake images to one on neuron signaling in seizures.

Many of the fields students are exploring are interdisciplinary and require consultation from professors and students of various majors. Director of projects Andy Liu HM ’23 is also the manager for a project called “Applying GPT-3 to Interactive Fiction,” in which team members are generating code through language modeling to create interactive fiction stories.

“Students in our club have really diverse sort of interests and majors — not everybody likes just doing [computer science],” Liu said. “We have neuroscience majors and philosophy majors and environmental analysis majors. The beauty of AI is that it’s applicable to so many different fields. And, for example, if you look at our project list for this semester, we have a bunch of diverse products.”

At the end of each semester, project teams participate in a demo day to showcase what they have learned in a way that people with no AI experience can understand. While project timelines are flexible, P-ai expects all teams to have a deliverable by the end of the semester.

“They can present maybe a finding or maybe a result or maybe some places where they failed,” Bopardikar said.

Online due to the pandemic, their last demo day allowed for projects to be shared more widely. When campuses shut down, P-ai was able to adapt more easily than most due to the nature of the organization.

They moved all project meetings to Zoom and had co-working sessions to facilitate community. However, they still faced community challenges.

“I definitely felt looking at the project teams that there was a little bit less motivation to do projects,” Bopardikar said. “But I think we really tried our best to have as much club camaraderie as possible, like we hosted events where members could get to know one another …

We persevered well, and all of our projects still turned out very, very well … We did grow a ton as a club, even during the pandemic.”

Furthermore, as many summer internships around the country were canceled, P-ai matched around a dozen students to various opportunities to advance their work in data science and machine learning at places like Samba TV and various research labs at Keck Graduate Institute, Harvey Mudd College and Pomona College.

They have now continued to partner with startups and professors interested in hiring students to do research or work.

“We like to help one another when we’re struggling,” Bopardikar said. “We want to be there for one another and want to help each other learn as much as possible.”

OpiniOns

OctOber 8, 2021

PAGe 7

CMC trustees must divest from the Coastal GasLink pipeline LUCIÉNNE REYES My organic chemistry class takes place at the Kravis Center, one of the numerous resources at Claremont McKenna College named after trustee Henry Kravis CM ’67.

His name also graces a leadership institute and an opportunity fund for CMC first-years on financial aid, among other things. His cousin’s name, George Roberts CM ’66, similarly appears often at CMC, such as on the Roberts Pavilion and two other academic buildings. Donating millions of dollars to CMC’s endowment, the cousins are arguably CMC’s most influential trustees.

They also co-founded KKR & Co., a private equity firm that in June 2020 acquired 65 percent equity interest in the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline, which crosses unceded Wet’suwet’en Nation land in British Columbia, Canada. The pipeline gained mainstream notoriety in 2020, when Wet’suwet’en activists began protesting its construction, citing concerns about its potential to destroy natural resources and culturally significant sites.

As environmental damage from fossil fuel use progresses worldwide, CMC’s prevailing silence on the pipeline is unacceptable. CMC must fight climate change and support Indigenous peoples by pushing Kravis and Roberts to divest from the CGL pipeline.

Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, who maintain authority over the lands, said they never consented to pipeline construction. “We need [CGL] to understand that what they are doing is destroying our land, our ecological sites, our burial sites,” hereditary chief Na’Moks said to Canadian media.

On Sept. 22, CGL workers cleared Ts’elkay Kwe, a culturally significant site to the Wet’suwet’en, destroying its archaeological heritage without consulting them.

Workers are now trying to drill under the Wedzin Kwa River, an

important source of sustenance central to Wet’suwet’en identity.

CGL claimed they are using the most environmentally responsible drilling method, but Wet’suwet’en activists maintain that building the pipeline will threaten their water and food supply. If the pipeline leaks, it will contaminate the water and salmon, making them unsafe for consumption.

I recognize that Wet’suwet’en people are divided on the matter; all elected Wet’suwet’en councils along the pipeline route approved the CGL pipeline. Former elected chief Karen Ogen-Toews argued that it would help Wet’suwet’en people overcome poverty by providing opportunities for employment and education. In an affidavit filed in the BC Supreme Court, pipeline supporter Theresa TaitDay said, “A few house chiefs cannot make decisions for our nation.

Everyone in our nation … has a voice that deserves to be heard.”

It is not my place to tell Wet’suwet’en individuals how to react to issues affecting them. However, hereditary chiefs have responsibility over the Wet’suwet’en who don’t inhabit the areas governed by elected councils. Elected councils don’t represent these Wet’suwet’en people. Furthermore, non-Indigenous people should know that the Canadian government established and enforced elected councils, in an attempt to assimilate Indigenous people into Western styles of governance and eliminate hereditary chiefs, who represent a governance system that predates colonization.

A project proceeding with consent from people holding offices established by colonial forces — and not people in traditional governance — upholds colonialism.

Intentionally or not, it suggests that input only matters if it comes from positions satisfying colonial values. It does not always suffice to simply seek majority approval for an initiative from people in

LAUrA JArAMILLO • tHe StUDeNt LIFe

authority. Practicing cultural sensitivity entails examining whose voices are and aren’t being acknowledged and why.

The pipeline also doesn’t just affect the Wet’suwet’en. It will transport natural gas to a facility owned by industrial energy project LNG Canada, which will be among Canada’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters once completed. During its first phase of operation, it will emit four megatons of carbon emissions annually, rising to 9.6 megatons in its second phase in 2050.

Supporting the pipeline means upholding LNG Canada, whose emissions will contribute to climate change. This impacts everyone globally. Living in Southern California, I’ve noticed increasing wildfires, fearing that the smoke would trigger my severe asthma.

Currently, I favor the divestment solution proposed by former CMC first-year class presidential candidate Peter Dien CM ’25.

“Before we automatically ask [Kravis and Roberts] to leave [the Board of Trustees], which will drain the endowment and is idealistic, we should advocate [through] our position at the school to make sure they don’t invest in these practices anymore,” Dien said in an interview with TSL. He asserted that the CMC administration should make a statement against fossil fuels. If KKR refuses to engage in dialogue regarding divestment, Dien believes that Kravis and Roberts should be removed as trustees.

Acknowledging that Kravis’ and Roberts’ donations have helped CMC provide support to first-generation low-income students like himself, Dien stressed that removal should be the very last resort. 7C community members must first focus on spreading awareness and publicly pressuring CMC to take a stance against fossil fuel investment.

Although he didn’t win, Dien said his advocacy for divestment — an integral component of his campaign — increased voter turnout to 81 percent, the highest in 5C election history. With student groups Divest Claremont Colleges and KKR Kills, Dien continues to amplify awareness of issues involving KKR. Indeed, outside the Roberts Pavilion, a protest organized by the two groups against KKR’s pipeline investments garnered monumental attendance on Oct. 5.

A famous quote from Kravis reads, “You can have all the money in the world, but if you are not a moral and ethical person, you really have nothing.” Kravis and Roberts should follow these words and divest from the CGL pipeline.

Luciénne Reyes PZ ’24 is from Los Angeles, California, where starting in high school, she and her classmates had school-sanctioned days off from school due to the unsafe air quality caused by wildfires.

Save lives by keeping AB 988 alive PORTER REYES CW: This article contains mentions of suicide and police brutality In 2019, when Miles Hall, a 23-year-old Black man living in California, experienced a schizophrenic mental health crisis, his family called 911 for help. Tragically, within a minute of their arrival, police killed him by resorting to lethal force.

Last year, California’s State Assembly passed AB 988, or the Miles Hall Lifeline Act. AB 988 creates a sustainable funding mechanism for 988 — the new phone number for the National Suicide Hotline. The act outlines an improved vision of California’s mental health system that would put mental health professionals at the center of crisis response and minimize law enforcement’s role, which could prevent atrocities like this from reoccurring.

To cultivate a better future for mental health and significantly reduce deaths by suicide and at the hands of police, we must advocate for California to pass AB 988.

Everyone loved the idea of 988 until it was time to make it a reality. Congress voted unanimously to pass the National Suicide Hotline Designation Act of 2020. The bill established 9-8-8 as the universal phone number “for the purpose of the national suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline system.”

Even former President Donald Trump liked it — he signed it into law. But when it came time to pass legislation at the state level to fund the framework laid out in the national bill, difficulties arose.

AB 988 would largely fund 988 with a fee — capped at eighty cents and “based on the Office of Emergency Services’ estimate of 988 costs”— on customers’ monthly phone bills. This funding mechanism is the same way that 911 is paid for and provides reliable funding independent of the state of California’s finances. However, AB 988 has been stalled in the Senate and cannot pass until the Legislature is back in session in January. If the

Senate does not move quickly to pass AB 988, California’s mental health response system will be left with a funding deficit. In short, people will die.

When 988 goes live in July 2022, in the first year of implementation alone, California call centers will need to respond to an anticipated 300 percent increase in call volume. Without adequate funding, this would cripple California’s mental health crisis response system. The amount necessary to adequately fund the system’s upstart costs, call center operations for the first year and technical enhancements is around $50 million — so far, only a $20 million investment from the state Department of Health Care Services has been made.

Convincing conservative legislators to vote for funding increases is difficult in itself. Further compounding the challenge is the telecommunications industry which supported 988 at the national level

but has worked around the clock to kill state-specific legislation.

Even though the telecommunications industry enjoyed positive publicity for their support of 988, they are unwilling to pay the price to save lives: a small fee on their customer’s bills.

It is not clear to Lauren Finke, a mental health advocate who works on AB 988 with the Kennedy Forum, whether the telecommunications industry successfully sabotaged the bill this year. However, she said in an interview that industry lobbyists could still pose a threat next year, when legislators will be vying for reelection and tax increases are at the top of voters’ minds.

Although the bill was delivered to the State Senate on June 3, the last action it took on AB 988 was on June 24. Moreover, the Legislature’s interim recess began on Sept. 10, which effectively rules out the possibility of establishing a long-term funding stream for 988

this year. One can only speculate on why leadership decided to stall the legislation. However, Finke and Tara Gamboa-Eastman from the Steinberg Institute (another critical stakeholder of AB 988) believe it may have been a combination of poor timing and procedural and policy considerations.

The Steinberg Institute and Kennedy Forum will most likely pursue AB 988 in January, but are open to other options to establish a funding stream, such as working through the budget process.

Nevertheless, Gamboa-Eastman and Finke feel that AB 988 ended in a strong position from a policy standpoint. Additionally, the bill has an urgency clause that assures it will be considered in a timely fashion next year.

Suicide is an epidemic that affects everyone, but not equally. In 2019, suicide was the 10th leading cause of death in America.

Suicide is most frequent among American Indian, Alaska Native

LAUrA JArAMILLO • tHe StUDeNt LIFe

THE STUDENT LIFE

and non-Hispanic white people. In 2020, 42 percent of LGBTQ people ages 13-24 had considered attempting suicide and 48 percent reported a desire, and an inability, to receive professional mental health counseling.

Even more painful than these statistics is the fact that these deaths are preventable. If legislators choose to fund 988 infrastructure at the state level, we can cultivate a better mental health crisis system. California is a better-equipped state than most to make this a reality, but only if sustainable funding is established.

There are many ways that students at the 5Cs can help pass AB 988. In terms of digital advocacy, you can sign the Miles Hall Foundation’s petition (Take Action to Decriminalize California’s Emergency Response to Mental Health Crises) or tweet about your support for AB 988. Another convenient method of advocacy is to call or write your legislators and county to explain why AB 988 (or 988 more broadly) is important to you; legislators respond strongly to personal stories about your relation to this issue. You can also advocate for 988 at the local level by contributing your opinion to city council meetings. Moreover, we can mobilize our community through rallies and by hosting vigils to honor those who have died because of the mental health crisis system; both actions draw media attention which compels legislators to act.

Everyone is affected by this intersectional issue. If we fail to act, AB 988 could fail, in which case Californians like Miles Hall struggling with mental illness will continue to die at the hands of police and by suicide.

But if we take the time to advocate for the people who have died and those who will if we do nothing, I am optimistic that we can move our legislators to decriminalize mental health crises in California.

Porter Reyes PO ’25 is from Manhattan, New York. He is a political junkie interested in the inner workings of public policy and writing about issues that provoke him.

OFF THE RECORD

Editorial Board KAYLA ALCORCHA, Editor-in-Chief JASPER DAVIDOFF, Managing Editor CLAIRE DUMONT, Managing Editor

Senior Staff JAMES KARSTEN, Production Editor SELENA LOPEZ, Production Editor GRACE SAUERS, News Designer STELLA CHENG, Opinions Designer CHARIS KIM, Sports Designer ANNA HARTMAN, Copy Chief SIMONE NIKITINA, Copy Chief ANNA CHOI, Photo Editor NANAKO NODA, Photo Editor MARIANA DURAN, Graphics Editor

ANURADHA KRISHNAN, News Editor JENNA MCMURTRY, News Editor SIENA SWIFT, News Associate LARKIN BARNARD-BAHN, Arts & Culture Editor MENA BOVA, Arts & Culture Editor HANNAH WEAVER, Arts & Culture Associate AVIKA JINDEL, Opinions Editor BEN REICHER, Opinions Editor ALEX CHUN, Sports Editor

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

Singles copies of TSL are free and may be obtained at news stands around campus. Multiple copies may be purchased for $0.47 per copy with prior approval by contacting editor@tsl.news. Newspaper theft is a crime; perpetrators may be subject to disciplinary action as well as civil and/or criminal prosecution.

Scripps is testing at SHS! It’s about time...

It’s sweater weather* *It’s below 70° and cloudy

Now I have to spit in a tube.

No Hydroflask for 60 minutes :/

That means it’s midterm season.

At least we have Fall Break this year?

OpiniOns

PAGe 8

OctOber 8, 2021

It’s time to reconsider cross-campus dining MADISON LEWIS We’ve swam, we’ve lifted and now we’re waving goodbye. Once again, half the team starts walking north towards McConnell Center and the rest head to Frary Dining Hall. Dinner is where we unwind, develop elaborate inside jokes and get to know each other as people rather than athletes. But now this is happening on two separate tracks within the team: the Pomona College students are building one

sense of team, and Pitzer College students another.

Athletic teams are far from the only ones impacted by closed cross-campus dining. Shared meals have always been a staple of 5C community building in every kind of organization and discipline. While it has been stated that cross-campus dining will not be restarted this semester, administrators should be thinking creatively and pragmatically about dining rather than exhibit-

OLIVIA SHrAGer • tHe StUDeNt LIFe the 5cs should consider how to responsibly reopen cross-campus dining, argues Madison Lewis PO ‘24.

ing the unwavering rigidity that has become synonymous with COVID-19 policies.

Cross-campus dining is an essential element of 5C-wide community building and there are safe ways to go about it. A month into the fall semester, it is high time we considered implementing them — at the very least by next semester.

So far, the 5Cs have been relatively successful in controlling the spread of COVID-19, as cases have remained low, and the test positivity rate across all five colleges is 0.03 percent as of Oct. 3. While six student cases at Pomona were reported Thursday, this does not mean that a return to cross-campus dining no longer merits consideration.

Students have already been taking classes together across all five campuses, with masking requirements or outdoor classrooms. Everyone has already been exposed to those from other campuses with COVID-19 guidelines in place — we should approach dining the same way.

Utilizing existing masking protocols and outdoor spaces is an obvious solution. Students from other campuses could swipe into dining halls and get food while masked, but be required to sit and eat outside. Dining halls have already implemented the infrastructure for outdoor dining and students are already required to wear masks inside when not eating. This solution would min-

Harvey Mudd should solicit student input on COVID-19 policies SERENA MAO Scrawled in pink chalk on Harvey Mudd College’s West Hall last weekend, the words “DEAN MARCO BAD” stood jarringly clear.

Clearly, someone wasn’t happy.

That’s because, on Friday, Sept.

24, HMC’s Interim Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Marco Valenzuela sent out an email to students detailing updates to 5C COVID-19 restrictions, including those regarding club, organization and social gatherings. Most of the information was standard, but one bullet point invited a barrage of replies: “CMC, Pitzer, Pomona, and Scripps will each host one 4C party this fall. In consultation with their students, Harvey Mudd will not host or permit its students to attend these events at this time.”

Mudd students weren’t too pleased, and for good reason. The new restrictions gave every other college the opportunity to host and attend consortium-wide parties except for HMC, a highly unusual exception. Especially when taking HMC’s low infection rate into account, it’s understandable that many are outraged over the policy.

Obviously, the decision was made with Mudd students’ health and best interests in mind. However, regardless of the tangible benefits of the policy, transparency and

student input were sorely lacking in the decision-making process.

Specifically, Valenzuela explained that students were consulted in the email — a claim that many in the email chain disputed.

Although the administration clarified that they did consult the Student COVID Advisory Board (SCAB) — a board of Mudd students intended to represent the student body — a policy as impactful and counterintuitive as this one should undergo review by the entire student population. Of course, not every decision should and can be made this way: Representatives are elected to make policy-making easier and more streamlined, since a collective vote isn’t feasible every time an organization needs to make changes.

However, certain situations call for exceptions, and this is one of them. If students feel as if their opinions or interests aren’t being represented in policy, this may incentivize them to break the rules, violating the Honor Code, the pledge that forms the basis of much of HMC’s culture. Because of the trust in the Honor Code, students are often given take-home tests and can leave their valuables around without worry. These benefits generate widespread compliance with the code — but if seemingly unreasonable policies are added within it, students may

SeLeNA LOPeZ • tHe StUDeNt LIFe

begin to lose trust in it.

A lengthy email chain and more than a few angry students later, the administration and the Associated Students of Harvey Mudd College (ASHMC) took action. They published the members of SCAB on the ASHMC website, made meeting minutes publicly available and most notably sent out a Google form allowing Mudd students to rank their comfort with various social situations in the context of COVID-19.

Supposedly, the responses to the form will be factored into the leadership’s future decisions regarding pandemic restrictions, in an attempt to gather more student input and respond to transparency concerns.

These efforts are laudable; in a society where it’s often difficult and futile to demand change from a governing body, such a quick response time shows that leadership is open to criticism and suggestions. Mudd students should take full advantage of this quality, and not be afraid to speak up when things aren’t right. If a few emails back to an admin can generate momentum and change, go for it.

At the same time, speaking up shouldn’t warrant the use of unnecessary hostility. For example, I wouldn’t condone the chalk on the West wall. First, it likely wasn’t Valenzuela’s personal decision, and even if it was, he was just looking to protect student health. Rather, instead of imagining it as a conflict between two sides, Mudd students and leadership should see it as a collaborative effort, with either side offering constructive criticism to improve. It’s a different story if compromise never happens, but until then, let’s better HMC together.

Serena Mao HM ’25 is from Fremont, California. She finds listening to school drama entertaining, but if it’s about something important, she might also write about it.

PLAYLIST

Existential Dread on a Foggy Day Hannah Weaver • 10 songs, 35 min 15 sec Sunday (feat. Frank Ocean) Earl Sweatshirt While fog definitely isn’t the “west coast weather” Frank is referring to, this song’s steady beat and smooth vocals give the feeling of trudging through dewy grass on the way to class.

Short and Sweet - Bon Iver Remix

by Brittany Howard If you’re a fan of Labrinth’s soundtrack for “Euphoria,” you’re sure to ascend to a new dimension as Howard’s echoing voice swirls around your ears. Listen to it while you question your life choices — if you dare.

Soup Issy Wood After questioning your life choices, sit down with a nice bowl of warm soup, (I prefer Mallot’s butternut squash) letting the soup and song warm your soul.

Do You Realize??

The Flaming Lips After listening to a sad-sounding existential song perhaps you would like to be picked up by a happy-sounding existential song? Then this is the song for you.

California Dreamin’ The Mamas & The Papas For when you’re dreaming of the warmer California days or maybe just wishing you had packed more than just a sweatshirt.

the lakes - original version Taylor Swift Not really sure what “I bathe in cliffside pools / with my calamitous love and insurmountable grief” means but it sounds deep and existential. Also I need to include at least one Taylor Swift song in this playlist or the Swifties will come for me.

Oom Sha La La Haley Heynderickx “I’ve barely been to college” is perhaps the most relatable lyric from any song on this playlist, especially for all you first and second-years (or even juniors).

Sweater Weather The Neighbourhood Self-explanatory.

Colors and Shapes Mac Miller On this song recently re-released for streaming services, Mac contemplates his existence and our capitalist society, ultimately deciding to let go of trying to control everything.

A Couple Things Kate Bollinger The perfect pick-me-up after all of these downers, reminding you that just like the fog, all your problems are temporary.

imize exposure and maximize the ability for 5C students to interact safely. It is not the same as opening dining as a free-for-all without keeping COVID-19 in mind, but it is also a break from the rigid policies currently in place.

Flexibility is required on both ends, but solutions are possible.

Of course, there will be some logistical hurdles to implementing a more complex open cross-campus dining policy than the current closed one. However, the need to clear these hurdles is imminent if we hope to foster cross-campus relationships.

Shared meals are a critical way for 5C-wide organizations, sports teams, classes and simply friends to come together, get to know each other and build community. With dining together limited to students of the same campus, students at each school are isolated and feel insulated from the rest of the 5Cs. This is especially a problem for first- and second-years who may not have had a chance to form cross-campus connections yet, as well as for cross-campus clubs or athletic teams who previously relied on shared meals as meeting places or means of building camaraderie.

Closed cross-campus dining has rendered the kind of community building that shared meals facilitate nearly impossible.

Greenboxing and meeting up is not a viable alternative to getting food from the same dining hall and meeting outside. With geo-

graphic separation and different hours it is a logistical nightmare to do so in most situations. In the case of Pomona-Pitzer sports teams, it would be incredibly unfair to ask Pitzer students to walk up to their dining hall after practice, greenbox, walk back down to eat with the team and then walk back up to their dorm rooms, or vice versa for Pomona students. It would be infinitely easier if everyone could get food from a single dining hall and eat outside together.

Isolation is a feeling that characterized a year of remote learning, and being on campus allows us to reignite that sense of community that is unique to in-person liberal arts education. The college administrations understand how important dining is to facilitate community building, as that reasoning was cited as the primary motivation for Pomona requiring students living on campus to have the unlimited meal plan.

This principle ought to apply to inter- as well as intra-school connection building. COVID-19 safety and community connection don’t have to be mutually exclusive priorities in 5C dining. If administrators from all schools collaborate to implement creative solutions, we can all have our Frary Texas sheet cake and eat it too.

Madison Lewis PO ’24 is from Palo Alto, California. She is a varsity athlete on the Pomona-Pitzer women’s water polo team, and a wistful 5C menu app user.

Jasper’s Crossword: illuminating leadership

JASPer DAVIDOFF • tHe StUDeNt LIFe

ACROSS 1. Brokeback Mountain director Lee 4. Lie back, in the sun 8. Early “What’s that song?” app 14. Adam Driver, before his acting career 16. Fizzy waters 17. What’s on the floor when you floor it 18. Shot for an allergic reaction 19. Budding celebrities 21. Bounding stride 24. Color for UNC or the sky 29. Vulgarities 32. Oozing the most, as a marshmallow 33. Kick the bucket 34. Crocs, Docs or ‘Stocks 37. Obama-era immigration prog.

38. Uninvited party guest 42. Word before Rocky or Ferg 44. Host 45. SNL channel 48. Upgrade, as a dorm 51. Kool-Aid Man’s catchphrase 53. Stay on top of team goals?

56. Therefore, formally 57. Spot for drinks in a lobby 60. Runway 64. One who practices the first words of 17, 24, 38 and 53-across 68. Turkish capital 69. Stays away from others 70. Publicist’s goal 71. Makes some stitches 72. ___ Diego DOWN 1. It follows Jul. 2. Snowden’s former org.

3. MLB bosses 4. Stephens who has been called a “bedbug” 5. Verdi opera 6. Grimace 7. Actress O’Hara in The King and I 8. Scope prefix 9. Gets moving on 10. Singer DiFranco 11. Close, as a jacket 12. Pet detective Ventura 13. Website with a Bing search bar

15. Certain church sections 20. Spider’s reproductive product 21. TV type 22. French ‘yes’ 23. Meet up before a party, say 25. Be patient with (one’s time) 26. Student 27. Sch. whose rowing athletes have DEFINITELY rowed before 28. Waze stat 30. Winter hrs. in Boston 31. “I guess that therapist I found for you, ___ really helped” –Olivia Rodrigo 35. Central American feline 36. “Uh...”

39. Each, as a product 40. Web advertising abbr.

41. [Little chuckle] 42. Noah’s vessel 43. Observe 46. New Yorker tote, e.g.

47. Stand-up Margaret 49. E flat, enharmonically 50. Nissan Leaf, for example 52. _____ mate (tea drink) 54. Philbin of TV 55. Renée ____ Goldsberry 58. Face part to furrow 59. ____ well that ends well 60. Preceder of “You’re it!”

61. Doce meses 62. Studio that made King Kong 63. Irate 65. Results of an NFL tie 66. Caribbean or Caspian 67. Digits you shouldn’t give scammers, for short

LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS

OpiniOns

OctOber 8, 2021

It’s okay to not be happy back on campus

PAGe 9

You don’t need to buy a new iPhone every year MISHAAL IJAZ

ANNA cHOI • tHe StUDeNt LIFe A return to campus has brought new challenges coupled with romanticised expectations, says Abby Loiselle PO ’23

ABBY LOISELLE Over the past year and a half, I thought a lot about life at school.

The more I reflected on my time in Claremont and the longer I was away from my friends, the harder it got to concentrate on Zoom classes, and the stronger my desire to return became. However, being back, it still feels as though I’m searching for the satisfaction I spent so long craving.

As much as I, or any of my peers, would like to believe, life on campus is not suddenly perfect after 18 months away. The highly anticipated student return to Claremont brought with it a romanticized image of college.

We are constantly looking towards what’s happening next, filling our schedules with plans, but we’re repeating the same days over and over again. It’s boring.

It’s exhausting. It’s also life, but it’s the lifestyle that we were separated from throughout the last 18 months.

Life on campus has changed significantly since March 2020.

Students are now desperately seeking to create normalcy in a foreign environment, but the disconnect between expectations and this new reality has resulted in general unhappiness. Academically, socially and mentally, the transition back to college has been difficult, and it’s okay to struggle.

Adjusting to college academics is never easy, but the transition back to in-person classes presents several challenges. Even sitting still has become more difficult as students face struggles concentrating after an entire year of Zoom classes. Even for those who took time off, that transition back to school isn’t quick. With a drastic shift in the instructional environment, readjusting will require a learning curve for everyone.

The social scene across all five campuses have also been witness to major change. Without the abil-

ity to eat cross-campus and with restrictions on parties, there is still a large degree of physical separation. Additionally, half of the student population is new to campus. Friends have graduated. Understandably, students are starved for social connection.

While the constant engagement with other students can be exciting, this amount of social interaction is also incredibly exhausting. After a year of social distancing and brief Zoom calls, students are likely to face fatigue from nervousness, anxiety and fear because COVID-19 wired the brain to hesitate before getting close to others. With those walls suddenly broken down, readjusting to what was once normal doesn’t come easily.

Socially, students will adjust to this strange stage of life “post”-pandemic, but it will take time and, like many are experiencing now, there will be periods of discomfort. There is currently a sense of urgency in building close relationships at school. It’s important to remember that those people aren’t going anywhere. Take time to recharge your social battery by finding spaces and activities that bring relaxation.

Beyond struggles with social engagement, the return to campus has been accompanied by major internal conflict. The past year and a half brought significant personal change for many.

For these students, returning to a familiar campus as a person that they did not previously identify with has impacted the transition back. Spaces that once felt comfortable may no longer hold a sense of belonging. It has been difficult finding our place back on campus, but it’s important to acknowledge that this process is not glamorous and others are experiencing the

same sentiments.

5C students must understand that the pandemic generated overwhelming emotional fatigue. The past 18 months trained the brain to anticipate the worst-case scenario regarding the health of oneself and loved ones. Being back on campus, intrusive thoughts can turn a single cough into fear of having COVID-19. Unfortunately, these struggles go beyond fears for physical health. Constantly anticipating the worst can negatively impact academic performance and generally heighten anxiety.

The typical level of stress from college life has been amplified due to current circumstances. Ignoring these concerns without finding solutions to control the anxieties will only result in greater unhappiness. Students shouldn’t pretend that they are always overjoyed simply by being back on campus. Allowing oneself to get comfortable with being uncomfortable is essential to find a rhythm and relax those thoughts.

Ultimately, the college experience will never be as idealistic as society expects us to believe. Current students are living through a strange time in the world, and despite the return to campus, life is not normal. Maybe it will never be the “normal” of pre-COVID. It’s important to find reasons to be grateful to physically return to school, but it’s more important to embrace the challenges that will accompany the transition back to Claremont.

It’s okay to not always be happy to be here.

Every year, the world awaits the release of Apple’s newest iPhone — only to see the same phone they already have, but with an extra camera or, maybe, a new button. Nevertheless, people run to the Apple store, ready to ditch their one-yearold phone for a shiny new one just because they have to have it.

While it is understandable to want the most up-to-date iPhone, constantly replacing your phone when it functions perfectly well is a wasteful habit. Consumerism and the company Apple itself have led us to believe that if we don’t have the newest technologies, we are behind. Do not feel pressured to give up your older iPhone just because the world we live in expects you to always have the newest things.

It’s widely known that Apple exploits natural resources and laborers in order to produce new iPhones. The tin necessary to make iPhones comes from Bolivian tunnels where child miners suffocate in silica dust. While Apple claims that they don’t procure raw materials from the sites themselves, they are still tied to supply chains that do.

Some may argue that Apple’s trade-in program completely solves the ethical problem, but that is far from the truth. If the iPhone is damaged in the slightest way, it would not be eligible for trade-in or would be worth so little that the consumer feels no incentive to exchange it. Even more, Apple’s trade-in program is facilitated through a third-party company that often lowers people’s trade-in value after they have agreed on a price with Apple. If the trade-in system is deceptive and misleading, people won’t feel comfortable giving up their iPhones.

Consumerist ideals conveyed through advertising can make us want things we don’t actually need. If we see images of happy people prancing around with their new iPhones in an ad, we too would want to

Abby Loiselle PO ’23 is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is very much looking forward to fall break.

buy that phone because we think it will make us happy. Remember that iPhones are just phones: having the newest one doesn’t guarantee that you will be permanently happy and optimistic.

While I cannot ask people to boycott Apple and never buy an iPhone again, a simple way to stand against Apple is to not buy their products until you actually need to. Since so much exploitation goes into making one iPhone, the least we could do is use our phones until they cannot be used anymore and only then replace them.

Also, if we buy iPhones with the intention to keep them for a long time, we would be more inclined to keep our phones in better condition. People who know that they will get a new iPhone annually don’t value their phone while they have it. Getting an iPhone with the goal of keeping it for as long as possible teaches people to be more grateful and more responsible with it.

I understand that I can’t tell others what to do with their money, but if you feel pressured to spend money on a new iPhone every year, step back and question why you feel the need to do so. Yes, new technology is exciting, but once that excitement dies down, question if there is any real purpose to having a new device annually.

For younger generations who feel social pressure to get a new iPhone, or even the people who feel ashamed of their old iPhone, remember that your phone is the least interesting thing about you.

People care much more about who you are as a person than whether you have the latest technology. If you do stumble upon people who make you feel bad about your older phone, they are not worth your time.

At the end of the day, the purpose of a phone is to keep us connected to the people and world around us and to help us with everyday tasks. If your iPhone allows you to do all of these things, then you are really not in need of a new one.

Mishaal Ijaz SC ’24 is from San Diego, California. She has a personal connection to her iPhone 7.

SeLeNA LOPeZ • tHe StUDeNt LIFe

Blame corporations rather than entry-level workers for unethical practices KENNY LE My first-generation immigrant parents from Vietnam have played a pivotal role in my life’s direction. The moment they made me test into my local school district’s gifted program, I knew that their main goal for me was straightforward: Success through any means. So, when I told them I wanted to pursue a career in political science at a small liberal arts college, they were aghast.

When my parents talk to me about success, they’ve never given a thought about the ethics of finding a job. In my eyes, I will never have the privilege to entirely stop seeking work from unethical companies. My story is not unique, but it is one many have never experienced.

Students at the 5Cs should have more empathy for job applicants who might have to go against their personal moral values to fit into an unjust economic system, where actions can’t fully align with stringent views of collective responsibility.

Last February, an opinion article for TSL by Devon Baker PO ’22 painted a picture of this ethical dilemma, arguing their view that “students are willing … to be pipelined into these companies without enough consideration as to whether they as students are doing harm by choosing to work for particularly unethical companies.” I believe they, and many students at the 5Cs, assume too strongly an entry-level worker’s potential degree of harm and fail to understand that idealistic “ethical” jobs scarcely exist.

The question of consequence is an important one. The framing of consequences shifts as a person has a greater stake in their company, as they assume more responsibility, and their actions, therefore, have more impact. No student or freshly graduated worker can have a similar impact.

Furthermore, if a Pomona College student refuses to take a job as an intern for Goldman Sachs, that position would simply be filled by, let’s say, a Claremont McKenna College student, thereby negating any societal

“net positive” that refusing to take a job at a destructive institution would create. Theoretically, real reform might happen if unethical jobs were completely boycotted, but given that high demand exists for big business, banking and all other corporate jobs cannot be ignored.

Of course, aside from consequential effects, people do have the agency to choose where to work. However, we shouldn’t frame the dilemmas people face when choosing employers as ones purely of morality.

Economics doesn’t allow indi-

vidual moral agency to fully exist, because practically every large organization in the United States either employs unethical practices or otherwise has some harmful effect in society.

Baker, for example, describes how students should “think of things in the context of what jobs for what companies align with your values.” Many students have goals to avoid exploitative for-profit companies by working for nonprofits. But even working in nonprofits could contribute to a nonprofit industrial complex that siphons power to the

JADYN Lee • tHe StUDeNt LIFe

wealthy through tax-deductible donations that let the rich decide for themselves which causes deserve support.

Working in public sector jobs would also, in line with arguments about pure moral obligation, be supporting Indigenous genocide and the murder of children, since our government has never been perfectly ethical. In our world, no purely ethical jobs exist.

Obviously, there are limitations to an argument shifting the blame from individuals. Every job-searching student has a moral compass. Going into jobs completely antithetical to one’s values is not socially responsible, but that’s a situation that doesn’t apply to most students looking for entry-level jobs, including 5C students. There’s a difference between working for a company that is completely against one’s values versus working for a place that doesn’t entirely comport with one’s values.

When it comes to more realistic entry-level job choices, we can’t shame those trying to earn a living. A college degree on its own doesn’t guarantee prosperity, especially for lower-income students. If students find themselves in less than savory jobs, hopefully they will use the power and capital gained from those jobs to fight for just causes. Always blame institutions and legal systems for unjust harm, not young workers with limited options.

Kenny Le PZ ’25 is from Anaheim, California. He is a stressed freshman looking to work in public policy.

SportS

PAGE 10

OctObEr 8, 2021

Hard-fought CMS, P-P men’s soccer In Playground Games, game ends in double OT draw having fun is no joke GABE FISHER Despite pushing and pulling for 110 minutes, the grueling tugof-war that made up Wednesday’s Sixth Street men’s soccer rivalry ended in a 1-1 draw.

Hosted at Pomona College, the hard-fought match included multiple injury timeouts and yellow cards, with the first two bookings coming less than 15 seconds after the opening whistle. Chase Keir CM ’24 received the first one for fouling a Sagehen, prompting vulgarities and angry comments from the home bench.

A half-hour later, Jeffrey Tiglon PZ ’25 scored the game’s first goal in the 30th minute. After a cross from Graeme Logan PZ ‘23 deflected off of a CMS defender, Tiglon was in perfect position to low-volley the ball into the opposite side of the net.

“It felt pretty wonderful,” Tiglon said after the game. “I know they’re a very good team, undefeated in the league, so to score against that type of opponent is very good for me.”

Justin Blachman CM ’23 scored the second and final goal 12 minutes later, when Rafael Otero CM ’23 sent in a cross that he lightly volleyed over the goalkeeper’s head.

The goal was Blachman’s fourth in the past three games, but he felt especially excited about this one.

“Whenever you’re in an environment where it’s competitive,

those goals mean just a little extra,” he said.

More P-P fans arrived for the second half, but they weren’t greeted with goals. Neither team could capitalize on late opportunities to take the lead.

Two minutes before the end of regulation, the Stags’ Otero headed a cross a foot wide of the post that likely would have gone in had it been on net. “[Otero’s shot was] such a great attempt to win the game,” CMS vice-captain Nate Huntington CM ’21 said.

Some 15 minutes later, as the sun continued to set and as wispy clouds and shades of blue, purple, orange and pink filled the sky, the Sagehens had a prime scoring opportunity of their own late in the first overtime.

Matthew Carlson PZ ’23 took a free kick from just outside the left corner of the penalty box but never gave the attempt a chance, sailing it well over the crossbar.

The second overtime saw few, if any, true scoring opportunities. When the final whistle blew, the Hens had officially snapped the Stags’ eight game winning streak dating back to Sept. 10.

Statistically, the Sagehens outplayed the Stags, recording 14 shots to the Stags’ seven. Although only one shot from the Sagehens found the back of the net, P-P head coach Bill Swartz was not concerned about his

team’s relative inability to score.

“I thought we had chances today that maybe as we mature those will go in, but I thought we did everything we wanted to do as a team,” he said.

CMS head coach Ryan Fahey CM ’08 was also satisfied with his team’s performance, even though P-P snapped its win streak.

“It would’ve been a little naive in soccer to be really, really confident that we were going to go in and win every single game,” he said. “I think we’re still rolling. I feel really good about us.”

Fahey also praised his team’s effort, its circulation of the ball, and its ability to dictate the flow of the game.

The Stags and the Sagehens will face off again at CMS’ Pritzlaff Field later this month for what could be another intense battle. Fahey mentioned that rivalry games are “going to be tight,” and the Hens’ Tiglon expects the matchup to “also be a good game.”

On Oct. 20, the teams will attempt to settle unfinished business and compete for recognition as the superior soccer team. But not everyone is concerned with settling the score.

“They were trying to make it a rivalry game,” CMS’ Blachman said. “To us, we’re just better than them.”

P-P women’s soccer pushes through for a close Sixth Street victory

AbbEY LIAO • tHE StUDENt LIFE

Pomona-Pitzer and claremont-Mudd-Scripps met up at cMS’ Pritzlaff Field Wednesday night. ciannah correa PO ’22 sealed the Sagehens’ 1-0 victory. top left: taylor Venenciano PO ‘23 and Jenna rempel cM ‘24 scramble for the ball. bottom left: the Sagehens celebrate their victory. right: Lizzie Iwicki cM ‘23 goes in for a kick.

Athletes of the Week Pomona-Pitzer Ciannah Correa PO ’22 San Gabriel, CA Women’s Soccer Correa scored the decisive goal in the Sagehens’ 1-0 win over Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in Wednesday’s Sixth Street rivalry matchup.

After an evenly matched opening half, the senior gave Pomona-Pitzer the lead when she followed up on a shot by Emily Tomz PO ’22 and, assisted by Hannah Mandell PO ’23, found the back of the net seven minutes into the bottom of the match. The SCIAC All-Academic Team member scored her sixth point this season and helped P-P maintain its undefeated record this season, boosting to 8-0-2 with four wins and two ties in the conference. The Hens are looking to continue their momentum against Chapman tomorrow.

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Robert Liu CM ’22 San Diego, CA Men’s Tennis The Stag captain has boasted a standout record this season, edging out teammate Ethan Carroll HM ’22 at last weekend’s ITA West Regionals to claim his first-ever All-America honors. CMS men’s tennis made a decisive entrance at the tourney, winning seven out of eight quarterfinalist spots, but it was Liu who took the top spot with 6-4 and 7-6 wins after a series of victories over Mukund Madabhushi PO ’22, Philip Martin CM ’24 and doubles partner Jack Katzman CM ’22. Liu will head with Carroll to next week’s ITA Cup in Rome, Georgia, joining doubles team Martin and Nathan Arimilli CM ’25.

NANAKO NODA • tHE StUDENt LIFE

Students play a match at the Pitzer volleyball court.

JUSTIN GUO 5C students spend most of their time studying for college courses — but that doesn’t mean they’ve completely graduated from elementary school. That’s where the Pomona College physical education department’s Playground Games class comes in.

Led this semester by Pomona-Pitzer cross-country coach Kyle David Flores, Playground Games meets every Friday on Marston Quad. The class starts with a light warmup and stretching before delving into whatever childhood game they want to play, including tag, capture the flag, dodgeball, softball, wiffleball, ultimate frisbee, Kan Jam, cornhole or shark and minnows.

“I usually give them options going into the day and I let them vote, just to see what they’re feeling for the given day.” Flores said.

The course, which has been running for upwards of nine years, is a favorite among students. Though it’s intended to be casual, Flores was pleasantly surprised to find how excited the students were to engage with the activities.

“Believe it or not, they’re really motivated to play backyard games,” he said. “They get really into it and they take it kind of seriously, which threw me off the first day.”

Sarah Sundermeyer PO ’22 said the environment lets students commit to the activities and try their best without verging on the cutthroat.

“It’s a very fun atmosphere,” she said. “People get competitive in a really silly way that is very inclusive.”

Flores’ leadership helps ensure every participant feels welcome, Sundermeyer added.

“He goes with the flow,”

she said. “He’s really entertaining and kind of dives into whatever we want to do in a way that encourages us all to join in.”

As with any Pomona class, there’s still learning involved.

In addition to the wellness benefits of exercise, students have been introduced to new games like amoeba tag and hacky sack dodgeball. One week, Sundermeyer said, a student suggested turtle tag, “where it’s just tag but if you don’t want to be tagged, you just drop onto your back like a turtle.”

The collaborative nature helps students get to know each other better, too.

“It’s one of the few classes where I’ve actually been able to get to know people and make friends,” Peter Hodge PO ’23 said.

Rachael Murdock PO ’22, who is taking Playground Games for the second time, values her friendships with her classmates.

“We get to hang out and do silly things together,” she said.

Although the vibe may be casual, participants still come in with high expectations, and they’re looking forward to seeing how the semester progresses.

“Coach Kyle has promised us a parachute, like the ones that we used to play with in elementary school,” Sundermeyer said. “I’d like it on the public record that we have been promised a parachute and that we’re very excited to play cat and mouse.”

Aside from fulfilling physical education credits and innovating the field sport genre, the inspiration behind the class is to give students a fun, active stress-relieving outlet.

“I like how we can do stuff as college kids that we used to do in elementary school,” Flores said.

“It’s kind of fun to relive your childhood and goof around because you know it’s still not entirely serious. There’s no winning or real winning or losing — it’s just about having fun.”

Weekend Calendar P-P

CMS

Friday, Oct. 8

Friday, Oct. 8

Women’s Volleyball @ Occidental

Women’s Volleyball vs. chapman

Saturday, Oct. 9

Saturday, Oct. 9

Men’s cross country P-P Invite

Men’s cross country P-P Invite

Women’s cross country P-P Invite

Women’s cross country P-P Invite

Women’s Soccer vs. chapman

Men’s Water Polo @ redlands

Men’s Soccer @ chapman

Women’s Volleyball @ P-P

Women’s Volleyball vs. cMS @ roberts

Women’s Soccer vs. cal Lutheran Men’s Soccer @ cal Lutheran