Lewis & Clark College

The Pioneer Log: Lewis & Clark College’s Student-Run Newspaper

Volume 93, No. 4

Lewis & Clark College Student Newspaper

Pioneer Log Staff

2019-11-01

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Text; Newspaper

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Lewis & Clark College: Pioneer Log / Mossy Log

Vol. 93 No.4 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2019 www.piolog.com
Oregon Vape Ban
Although the Oregon vape ban has been overturned,
it is still in effect for marijuana manufacturers and
dispensaries who are losing money and product.
See page 6The 16th Annual Ray Warren Symposium on Race
and Ethnic Studies will be held from Nov. 13 to
Nov. 16. Ray Warren Preview
See page 9Two students review their multi-day hiking and
camping adventure in the Hoh Rainforest of
Olympia National Park.Hiking Trail Review
See page 15Professor of History Elliott Young is part of a class-
action lawsuit against cellular provider AT&T for
imposing costs onto customers.Class-Action Lawsuit
See page 2“Once Upon a Weekend” offers a unique experience
and forges collaborative relationships between
performers and audience members.Once Upon a Weekend
See page 11By NICHOLAS NERLI
Editor’s Note: Over one month after an
incident described as racist occurred
in the Associated Students of Lewis &
Clark (ASLC) office, involved parties
and the campus at large continue
learning from and addressing a
situation that affected community
members. In its reporting, The
Pioneer Log has listened to a variety
of perspectives, piecing together this
story and attempting to represent all
sides without bias. This article aims
to answer questions for our readers,
taking into account injury to students,
sensitive legal concerns and the healing
process. For ethical reasons, private
individuals were granted anonymity
and public individuals, who hold
elected or appointed office, are named.
If you have questions or comments
about this story, please contact The
Pioneer Log at piolog@lclark.edu.
PART ONE: THE INCIDENT
On the afternoon of Sept. 23, four
ASLC Cabinet members and
another student, unaffiliated
with ASLC, participated in or witnessed a conversation deemed racist by
numerous campus organizations. The
non-ASLC student and Elsa Spaulding
’22, the former chief of staff, engaged
in the conversation, while Chief
Justice Allison Behrens ’21, Student
Organizations Coordinator Nick
Gothard ’21 and Director of Elections
Mary-Claire Spurgin ’21 were
bystanders.
Community Service & Relations
Coordinator Mikah Bertelmann
’21 was also in the office when the
conversation occurred, but was not
a participant or witness. Bertelmann
was working on the ASLC textbook
subsidy in a separate area of the
office, joined by a member of Gente
Latina Unida (GLU).
The involved non-ASLC student
declined to comment on this story.
Behrens, Gothard, Spaulding and
Spurgin accepted an interview
request. Behrens, Gothard and
Spurgin emphasized that their
responses are personal and do not
represent the opinions of ASLC.
When the conversation took
place, Gothard was holding office
hours and Behrens was preparing
for the first ASLC Senate meeting of the semester. Due to the absence
of an elected vice president, as chief
justice, Behrens was tasked with
chairing the Senate meeting, which
was due to convene on Sept. 26.
Spurgin was in the office eating lunch
while Spaulding was writing an essay.
The non-ASLC student entered the
ASLC office with the intent of asking
Spurgin a question about an exam.
At one point, Behrens asked
those in the room if anyone knew
the identity of the Black Student
Union (BSU) representative on the
ASLC Senate, as she was creating
placards with names, positions and
preferred pronouns for all Senate
members. Behrens had not yet
confirmed representatives from
the BSU or GLU. This question
prompted the non-ASLC student to
express discontent with BSU in her
capacity as a former employee of the
Conferences and Events office.
According to Behrens, Gothard
and Spurgin, the non-ASLC student
made four specific comments about
the BSU. The following depiction of
events is based on retelling of the
incident from these sources.
First, the student said that the BSU does not communicate well,
stating that its members do not
respond to emails and are difficult
to work with. Second, commenting
on its use of event space, the student
said that the BSU is dirty, does not
clean up after itself and does not
respect individuals who host their
events.
Third, the student described a
past incident when she provided
an event space to the Feminist
Student Union (FSU) over the BSU.
Allegedly, this was done because
the FSU submitted its request for
the space approximately one hour
before the BSU sent its request.
According to the student, the BSU
communicated with her in response
to this decision, which included an
accusation of being racist. Conflict
between the student and the BSU
apparently escalated until college
administrators were asked to get
involved to resolve it. This earlier
incident was not confirmed by
the BSU, FSU or Conferences and
Events.
Fourth, the student provided a
hypothetical situation where the
BSU was given an event space over the FSU. The student claimed that,
unlike the BSU, the FSU would have
responded cordially, as opposed to
accusing them of sexism, racism or
classism.
In her part, Spaulding allegedly
said that “ASLC does not contribute
to the BSU’s oppression.” Multiple
sources confirmed this comment,
although the context is unknown.
In an email statement, Spaulding
said that she “(does) not have a clear
recollection of what happened in
the office that day” but that it is her
“understanding that other people
present have said that I briefly
engaged in conversation with (the
non-ASLC) person, and that my tone
felt hurtful or dismissive.”
After the incident, the present
member of GLU who had been
working with Bertelmann contacted
an uninvolved student about the
conversation she overheard. On
Sept. 24, this student relayed this
information to Immanuel Harice
’22, co-president of the BSU and its
representative to the ASLC Senate.
This was when Harice first heard
about the incident.
“After incident” continued on page 3Detailing what occurred during and after the ASLC incidentBy ARIEL MCGEE
WARNING: This article contains
graphic descriptions of sexual abuse.
EARLIER THIS y e a r , L e w i s &
Clark alumna Tania Culver
Humphrey ’99 publicly came
forward with allegations of sexual
abuse against her father. Her father,
Ellsworth Culver, was the co-founder
of the Portland-based humanitarian
organization Mercy Corps. According
to their website, “Mercy Corps is a
global humanitarian organization
empowering people to recover from
crisis, build better lives and transform
their communities for good.”
Mercy Corps was founded 38
years ago by Culver and fellow co-
founder Dan O’Neill. It is currently
one of the leading international non-
governmental organizations focusing
on development, humanitarian aid
and food security, among other
missions. The organization has more
than 5,500 team members operating
in over 40 countries.
In a 10-month-long investigation
published under the title “No Mercy,”
The Oregonian details Humphrey’s
childhood and the timeline of events
following the series of allegations made
against Culver.
“Humphrey said she first told Mercy
Corps about the allegations in 1992 when
she was in college,” the story says. “Over
the following two years, board members
reviewed her claims. Three Mercy
Corps board members interviewed her in the offices of a downtown Portland
law firm where she said she told them
her father had masturbated on her,
touched her inappropriately, kissed her
in a sexualized manner and forced his
penis into her mouth while showering
with her.”
“No Mercy” describes the outcome
of the two year investigation conducted from 1992 to 1994, stating that, “the
organization eventually concluded her
account was troubling but inadequate.
Culver denied the allegations and was
never criminally charged with abuse.”
Culver continued to serve as an
executive and the public face of Mercy
Corps until his death in 2005. After the
death of her father, several inconclusive internal and external investigations
into Humphrey’s allegations and a 2019
update to Mercy Corps’ ethics policy,
Humphrey decided to bring her story to
the media.
In an interview with The Pioneer
Log, Humphrey detailed the decision to
tell her story publicly.
“Humphrey” continued on page 3Alumna speaks on exposing abuse
by father, Mercy Corps co-founder
Tania Culver Humphrey ’99 shares her story of surviving sexual abuse, after a long struggle with Mercy Corps executives.ARIEL MCGEE/PIONEER LOGThis episode of The PioPod covers opportunites for students to prepare for their futures while at LC and beyond.
Trustees
pass rise
in tuition
By HANNA MERZBACH
On Oct. 25, the Lewis & Clark
Board of Trustees approved
a 4.75% increase in tuition
for the upcoming 2020-21 academic
year, along with a 2% increase in
room and 3% increase in board.
This totals to an approximate 4%
increase in total cost of attendance.
This will be the first time in history
that LC’s cost of attendance will
exceed $70,000.
Chair of the Board of Trustees
and LC alumna Stephanie Fowler
’97 spoke on the reasoning for these
increases.
“The goal is to minimize the
increase and keep the school
functioning,” Fowler said.
Comparatively, for the 2019-20
academic year, tuition increased by
3.5%, room by 5% and board by 3%,
totaling to around 4%.
According to Interim Vice
President for Business & Finance/
Treasurer Andrea Dooley, the annual
percent increase for comparable
institutions, such as University of
Puget Sound, Willamette University
or Reed College, sits around this 4%
line. With these tuition increases,
LC aims to maintain its competitive
position in relation to similar
institutions.
“Board” continued on page 2
The Pioneer Log investigates the conversation labeled as racist by many student organizationsFRIDAY , NOVEMBER 1, 2019
NEWS 2
Sunita Narain presents at
annual ENVX Symposium
JO TABACEK/PIONEER LOGBy COPELAND BURCHENAL
ON OCT. 22, Lewis & Clark
commenced its 22nd annual
ENVX Symposium. This year,
the speaker was Sunita Narain, the
leader of the Delhi-based Center for
Science and Environment. For the past
two decades, the ENVX Symposium
has sought to promote discussion of
pressing environmental issues across
borders. These discussions and talks
are open to the LC community and the
greater public, and are meant to create
dialogues to find collaborative solutions
to environmental issues.
Narain is an extremely passionate
environmentalist and was named one of
the “100 most influential people” in 2016
by TIME Magazine. Narain has received
the Padam Shri, the third highest
civilian honor the Indian government
can grant for her groundbreaking
work regarding water and air pollution
Narain has also appeared in Leonardo
Di Caprio’s documentary on climate
change, “Before the Flood.”
Both ENVS staff and students were
involved in the planning of this year’s
symposium. Assistant Professor of
Environmental Studies Jessica Kleiss
spoke on her takeaways from Narain’s
presentation.
“I was deeply moved by Sunita’s
words and her perspective,” Kleiss said via email. “She argued persuasively
that the needs of the poor must be
met in order to solve the problems
of pollution and climate change. For
example: cooking fuel, transportation
systems, and a way to process human
waste. I was also struck with the vast
differences between the perception of
climate change in India and the U.S.”
Overall, Narain’s presentation
focused on climate, environment
and uneven development. Uneven
development is a form of discrimination
which harms the progress of developing
nations, such as the burden of reducing
carbon dioxide emissions for people
who do not even have electricity.
Citing Delhi as a place of both
progress and questionable practices,
she first spoke on the issue of air
pollution, which plagues not only
India but the rest of the world. With
initiatives in the past few years, air
pollution in Delhi has dropped by 25%.
Although, air pollution will need to be
decreased by another 65% in order for
Delhi to have what they consider clean
air.
However, Narain did not want the
audience to focus on air pollution alone,
but rather on how it affects all people.
She referred to air pollution as “a great
equalizer,” as not only does it connect
the rich and poor of India, but the rich
and poor of every place on Earth. “Air must be breathed by all ... there
is no wall or dome which can be built
that will stop this,” Narain said.
Narain also spoke on the topic
of inclusivity as it relates to fighting
climate change. Her work has been
critical of elitist environmentalism
for decades, highlighting the fact that
many climate change policies cater
to large corporations and the world’s
wealthiest occupants. Thus, her work
combats the notion that poor and rural
people are at fault for environmental
degradation.
For Narain, it is critical that we
lift up the developing nations of the
world and lend our help, rather than
constantly blaming them for our
problems and hindering their progress.
Cameron Sylla ’22, who attended the
symposium, also responded positively
to the event.
“I’m inspired by her emphasis on an
‘Environmentalism for the Poor,’” Sylla
said via email. “Overall, the symposium
was an excellent platform to engage
students, faculty, and other attendees.”
Frances Schlageter ’23 also went to
the symposium and found her foreign
perspective to be refreshing.
“I liked how it presented a different
perspective, one that was disruptive
to the kind of environmentalism we’re
exposed to in the west,” Schlageter said
via email.Professor Young files
lawsuit against AT&T
By ERIKA ANDERSEN
CELLULAR provider AT&T is
currently facing a class-action
lawsuit for unfairly taxing
customers as a result of the Portland
Green Energy Fund. Recently, it has
been revealed that AT&T is exempt
from the surcharge because the
ordinance identifies the company
as “an entity operating as a utility
within the City.” Among those filing
the complaint is Professor of History
Elliott Young.
The Willamette Week report
entitled “Portland Lawyer Collecting
Clients for Lawsuit Against AT&T”
expanded on this exemption, stating
“cell phone companies are exempt
under the rules for the Portland
Clean Energy Fund surcharge the city
started collecting Sept. 10.”
AT&T has said that it plans to
refund all those affected by the tax,
but the class-action lawsuit filed
by a number of Portland residents,
represented by attorney Michael
Fuller, seeks to obtain at least $200
more for each individual affected by
the tax.
Young reflected on how he got
involved with the lawsuit, discussing
how the tax affected him.
“When I heard about the charging
for taxes that AT&T hadn’t paid, I felt
that it was my duty to seek justice,”
Young said via email. “I was personally
affected by the tax, but it was less the
amount of the tax, a few cents on each
bill, than the brazen corporate robbery
that irked me.”
In November 2018, Portland resi -dents voted to implement the Portland
Clean Energy Fund. The fund applies a
1% surcharge to large retailers in the
Portland area. The collected revenue
from this new tax goes to raising funds
for clean energy programs throughout
the city, specifically in underserved
areas.
The ordinance outlining the plan
for the Clean Energy Fund explains
this surcharge, as it states that it
“requires large retailers (those with
gross revenues nationally exceeding
$1 billion, and $500,00 in Portland)
to pay a surcharge of 1% on gross
revenues from retail sales in Portland,
excluding basic groceries, medicines,
and health care services.”
While some citizens expected
the additional charge created by the
Green Energy Fund to be paid by
these large retailers, the burden has
fallen on Portland consumers through
increased prices. Cellular provider
AT&T was one of the companies that
decided to pass this tax onto their
customers.
Young further elaborated that the
lawsuit is not so much about the tax
itself, but the exploitation of AT&T
customers.
“The amount of the taxes is
minuscule for each customer, but
the fact that a multi-billion dollar
corporate behemoth would be so bold
to steal money from their customers
made me feel that a class action
lawsuit was the only way to get AT&T’s
attention,” Young said. “Hopefully,
this lawsuit will create a cultural and
systemic shift at AT&T, but I’m not
holding my breath.” Director General of the Centre for Science and Environment India Sunita Narain speaks at the 2019 ENVX Symposium.LEXIE BOREN/PIONEER LOG
MADELEINE NEWTON/PIONEER LOG
Cost to attend LC will rise 4% next year. Board of Trustees increases cost of attendance for 2020-21
Continued from pg. 1
The sticker price will increase from
$68,890 for the 2019-20 academic year
to $71,692 for the 2020-21 academic
year, although the financial impact
varies by student depending on their
demonstrated need. LC’s discount rate,
the price students pay after receiving
financial aid, is about 50%.
“Students who have no demonstrated
financial need will probably end up
paying, sort of, this incremental amount,”
Dooley said. “Students that have a high
level of demonstrated need, their financial
aid would likely increase to cover the full
amount. And then there’s, you know,
a large group in the middle where they
have some financial need, and their
aid would be expected to kind of move
proportionally.”
Along with considering the rates of
other colleges, the Strategic Enrollment
Management (SEM) Steering Committee,
the body tasked with making these
recommendations, welcomed feedback
from students and families.
“The feedback was that, although
our pricing is in line (with comparable
colleges), that maybe our facilities aren’t
quite comparable,” Dooley said. “And so,
kind of what we took away from that piece of feedback was that we wanted to try and
keep the room and board increases as low
as we could.”
In her tenure as Board chair, Fowler
hopes to increase the communication
between the Board and students and
faculty. This was the first year that the
Associated Students of Lewis & Clark
(ASLC) were informed about the then
proposed tuition increases prior to the
Board meetings.
Two ASLC members, President
Helen Hitz ’21 and Community Service &
Relations Coordinator Mikah Bertelmann
’21, were the student representatives at
the Board meetings. According to Hitz,
members of ASLC were able to understand
why these increases are necessary.
“We want to pay faculty and we want
to put money to places that are going to
support student life,” Hitz said. “And so
I think the general consensus was that
we understand and we see where it’s
coming from and are supportive of the
recommendation as well.”
While tuition may be rising by 4.75%,
with financial aid, inflation and rising
costs of operation, this does not translate
to a 4.75% increase in revenue for the
college. With tuition revenue at about $80
million, the extra $200,000 from tuition increases does not make that much of an
impact.
This revenue is, in part, decided by
enrollment numbers. Tuition revenue
was lower this year because of a large
graduating class (the class of 2019) being
replaced by a smaller incoming class (the
class of 2023).
“It’s hard to believe, but we are actually
making very little additional money from
these (tuition) increases,” Fowler said.
With little additional revenue coming
from tuition, the Board has embarked on
a capital campaign in order to finance
future facility renovations and new
developments in the LC Master Plan,
like renovations to Templeton Campus
Center, Olin or the Corbett House.
As a part of this capital campaign,
the Board decided to refinance some of
the school’s loans at lower interest rates.
According to Jouni Korhonen ’82, a
Board trustee and chair of the investment
committee, the college currently has
about $160 million in bond debt.
“There’s an opportunity now
to refinance the existing debt at a
significantly lower rate, which saves
the college a lot of money in the long
run,” Korhonen said. “It also provides
an opportunity to take some extra funds out of that refinancing effectively, and
then use those incremental funds for
capital projects such as renovations of the
buildings and taking care of some of the
deferred maintenance that we have.”
This will give the Board the
ability to put money towards campus
improvements and match donations.
While the school has not yet decided
which projects to prioritize first, donor
preference can come into play. Donors
may decide which capital project to
endow from the Master Plan, without
advisement from administrators or
trustees.
The administration is currently
waiting on the results of a student
engagement study, facilitated by an
outside consulting firm, Brailsford &
Dunlavey. In September, students were
invited to participate in focus groups and
voice their opinions on campus needs. A
follow-up survey will be sent to students
this month.
“I think there’s some strong feelings
in the administration that ... the first
thing should be Templeton,” Fowler said.
“Well, I’m not willing to say that until I
see the results of that student engagement
survey ... I think that will help us as a
Board prioritize.”
Continued from pg. 1
At the ASLC Cabinet meeting on
Sept. 26, the GLU member and the
student who told Harice of the incident
spoke to ASLC attendees. Later
that evening, after the ASLC Senate
convened, Gothard began drafting an
apology letter, which parties affected
by the incident had requested. This
apology was later sent by email to
the LC student body on Oct. 14, after
numerous drafts were produced.
Behrens, Spaulding and Spurgin
assisted Gothard in writing the
apology. The non-ASLC student who
initiated the conversation declined
an opportunity to help compose this
letter.
According to Harice, the BSU began
drafting a statement before knowing
that the ASLC Cabinet intended to
send a mass email apology. At the
BSU’s request, their statement was
published in The Pioneer Log as a
letter to the editor on Oct. 18. That
morning, the statement was also sent
to the student body through Hitz’s
ASLC email address.
In an interview, Harice stated that
the BSU’s statement was purposefully
made public after ASLC’s apology.
“The issue was, honestly, just
waiting for (ASLC) to put out their
statement since we didn’t want to
put out our statement before theirs,”
Harice said. “We didn’t want people
creating (assumptions) of what we
were trying to do by saying we were
trying to out ASLC or undercut them.”
Since the incident, Harice said that
the BSU has primarily been in contact
with Gillingham, in her capacity as
EIJC chair, as opposed to the ASLC
Cabinet as a whole.
The ASLC Senate meeting on Oct.
17 was the first time that Senate and
Cabinet gathered together since the
apology email was sent to the student
body. The second part of this article
examines activities that occurred
during and after this meeting.
PART TWO: THE AFTERMATH
Within ASLC, two primary bodies
serve separate purposes in creating
and enforcing legislation. The Senate,
composed of 12 elected senators and
seven appointed representatives from
student unions and organizations,
writes and adopts legislation. The
Cabinet, which includes 11 members,
is the executive branch of ASLC,
tasked with implementing legislation
and carrying out other governmental
duties. Together, Senate and Cabinet
comprise Lewis & Clark’s student
government.
THE OCT. 14 apology email sent
to the student body was only
signed by the ASLC Cabinet.
Senators were not asked to assist in
writing the apology, nor were they,
as a body, briefed on the incident
that occurred. For most senators and
representatives, the Oct. 14 email was
the first time they became aware that
a conversation described as racist took
place in the ASLC office. This included
Senator Madeleine Newton ’21.
“(On Oct. 14), as soon as I woke
up, I got the email with the rest of the
school, and that’s when I found out,”
Newton said. “I didn’t know anything
about it before that.”
The apology email included a plan
to “(convene) a Special Committee
on Systematic Barriers comprised of
Cabinet, Senate, members of affinity
groups and the greater student body.”
According to Senator Cas Mulford ’23,
the Senate was not informed of this
intention before the email was sent.
“Literally none of the senators had
any idea what was happening with a
plan to create an ad hoc committee,”
Mulford said.
In an email statement, the Equity,
Inclusion & Justice Committee
explained why the Senate was not
consulted when writing the apology.
“The Senators were not part of
the email writing process because the
student(s) who reported the incident to Cabinet specifically requested that
the Cabinet members who were in
the room be solely responsible for
producing the letter to the student
body,” the EIJC said. “When the
email-writing process began, the
Senate had not yet even convened for
its first meeting, nor had they been
trained in their Senate roles.”
In an interview, Hitz, the ASLC
president, acknowledged that the
decision not to brief Senate was an
error, though she explained there
were greater priorities at the time.
“(The decision) was definitely an
oversight on (Cabinet’s) part to not
inform senators, but it also was not
the biggest aspect of the situation,”
Hitz said. “There was greater harm
caused in other places, and we were
trying to address that. So, definitely a
misstep and something we would do
differently.”
On the evening of Oct. 17, the
Senate and Cabinet convened in a
public meeting for the first time since
the apology email was sent across
campus. After Dean of the College of
Arts and Sciences Bruce Suttmeier
delivered an unrelated statement
and took questions, Harice, the BSU
representative, stood at the front
of the room and spoke about the
incident.
“When the statement came out,
I read it, and I went about my day,”
Harice said. “I got a text from a friend
who said that they had overheard
someone say that they didn’t think
that ASLC should make a statement
apologizing to BSU. That showed that
what had happened in the ASLC office
was not an isolated incident. We are
dealing with an institutional matter,
because if it happens in the ASLC
office, it will happen in the lower
levels (inaudible). I need everyone to
understand that.”
For nearly two and a half hours,
individuals in the room had an
emotional and contentious discussion
of the incident. After several attendees
pressed Behrens, Gothard, Spaulding
and Spurgin to publicly detail the
incident, the Senate employed a
little-known constitutional provision
to call all four to the floor for
questioning. In interviews and at
subsequent meetings, many senators
and representatives referred to this
constitutional right as “subpoenaing,”
though Behrens, the chief justice,
disputed this word use.
During the course of the evening,
present individuals disclosed sensitive
personal information. For legal and
ethical reasons, The Pioneer Log has
chosen not to report further on the
Oct. 17 Senate meeting.
On Oct. 19, the ASLC Senate held
an emergency session to continue
deliberating about the incident. Aside
from ASLC Vice President Jacob
Muscarella ’21, a Pioneer Log editor
and the Senate chair, no other Cabinet
members were invited to attend.
Though many items were discussed,
a major topic of conversation was
whether to institute consequences
against Behrens, Gothard, Spaulding
and Spurgin.
The Senate recognized that it
had limited constitutional ability
to sanction the four. By the end of
the meeting, however, senators and
representatives agreed that they would
begin drafting a letter requesting
Spaulding’s resignation for her alleged
participation in the conversation. At
the time of writing, no formal action
has been taken against Behrens,
Gothard or Spurgin, though the
Senate did discuss removing certain
privileges, including access to the
ASLC office.
After a recess, individuals in
the room were asked to recount
the details of the conversation that
occurred on Sept. 23. Harice, the BSU
representative, shared his knowledge
of the incident and stated that the
non-ASLC member who initiated the
offensive conversation has a history of
defaming the BSU.
“The person who began to speak
(ill) of BSU had repeatedly already
attacked the presidents of our union, making false statements, disparaging
(the presidents’) reputation, and then
they come and say more negative
things about BSU,” Harice said. “Not
only were they not stopped, they were
supported in it.”
When a member of the public
said that he did not “understand how
any of the comments were racist,”
Harice explained that people of color
comprise the identity of the BSU.
“When you say that BSU isn’t hard
working, it’s almost like you say black
people aren’t hard working,” Harice
said. “When you say that BSU doesn’t
clean up, it sounds like black people
never clean up. If I know anything
about the people of color ... on this
campus, it’s that they’re the most hard
working people on this campus.”
Before the emergency session
closed, the Senate began to consider
forming an ad hoc committee on
systemic barriers. A committee was
later created on Oct. 24, as detailed
below.
Spaulding resigned from her
position as ASLC chief of staff on
Oct. 20, the day after the emergency
session and without any prompting
from Senate. In her statement,
Spaulding said that her resignation
was unrelated to the conversation
described as racist.
“My resignation as chief of staff
actually has nothing to do with this
incident,” Spaulding said. “I’ve been
considering resigning for awhile now;
I wanted more time to focus on my
own wellness.”
At the Oct. 24 Senate meeting,
after passing legislation, senators and
representatives spent the remainder
of the evening creating an ad hoc
committee in response to the incident.
Generated by a unanimous vote, the
Committee on Systemic Barriers aims
to implement equity training, an
investigation of governing documents
and outreach. During debate over
the goal of outreach, Gillingham, the
EIJC chair, reminded senators of their
responsibility to engage with those
that elected them.
“I’d like to encourage you all to ...
consider going into a community
and be willing to participate in that
community,” Gillingham said. “We’re
talking about your constituents, so you
all should already be going to talk to
them.”
In interviews, Behrens, Gothard,
Spaulding and Spurgin each expressed
a desire to use this incident as an
opportunity to enact change. Gothard
spoke specifically about progress
within ASLC.
“This incident was a clear
indication that it’s more important
now than ever that ASLC makes steps
forward to be as safe, inclusive and
representative as possible,” Gothard
said.
Spurgin, in her capacity as director
of elections, discussed the actions
being taken in ASLC elections.
“I’m leading ongoing conversations
and planning in the Elections
Committee, which I chair, about
how we can better implement equity,
inclusion and justice in the elections
process,” Spurgin said. “Equity
within our committees is something
that all Cabinet members committed
to at the beginning of the year, and
its significance has very much been
underscored by everything that’s
happened in the last month.”
Harice, the BSU representative,
believes that work must be done to
construct a welcoming community.
“I’ve heard the best of reactions
and I’ve heard the worst of reactions,”
Harice said. “This incident has called
for a realization between faculty and
students that we are still making an
effort to create a more inclusive and
equitable campus.”
Due to The Pioneer Log’s print
cycle, reporting on this story ended
on Oct. 29. Therefore, events that
occurred at the Oct. 31 ASLC Senate
meeting were not considered in this
article.
Additional reporting by
Hanna MerzbachFRIDAY , NOVEMBER 1, 2019
NEWS 3
After incident, ASLC works
to address systemic barriersHumphrey discusses
decision to speak out
Continued from pg. 1
“My decision was prompted by
the (Mercy Corps) ethics policy,”
Humphrey said. “I had always wanted to
stop hiding, you know, I always wanted
to but it was prompted by the need to
be safely heard, with accountability and
in the light. And I didn’t feel like I was
safe at all with people not hearing me
and ... (Mercy Corps was) clearly not
interested in being ethical with their
ethics policy ... So, do I think my story
would have been heard have not gone
public with it? No.”
During the 1992 Mercy Corps
internal investigation, Humphrey was
preparing for her last year at LC. She
spoke about her decision to leave LC
and how the investigation impacted
this decision.
“I was (at LC) and I had to
leave — it would have been my last
year,” Humphrey said. “Later on,
especially, I felt really, like so much
was taken from me. You know, like
so much of ... what was important
to me was taken away from me and
chances and opportunities ... were
just stripped from me. On top of
personally feeling so minimized and
so crushed, everything that I worked
for was also taken away. In order to
survive that time period, I really had
to ... do what I could to survive it and
that involved leaving (LC).”
In 1998, Humphrey returned to
LC and completed the last year of her
undergraduate degree in psychology.
She described her experience returning
to college as a non-traditional student.
“I came back and I was determined
to finish, but I didn’t get to graduate
with people I knew,” Humphrey said.
“Everybody was gone. You work so
hard — it’s not easy — and there’s a lot
of camaraderie. It’s a small place, with
teachers and with people in your major
and your classes and then to have it
gone and come back in to finish, kind
of on your own ... I was very proud of
myself that I did it.”
In Humphrey’s last year at LC, she
began to take more art classes than
she had in her previous years.
“Before (returning to LC),
psychology was so important to me but
I probably would have double majored
or something like that. I didn’t really
know how to value that creativity in
myself, and how much art meant to
me,” Humphrey said.
After graduating, Humphrey
pursued her interest in art. She spoke about her transition from college
to working as an art teacher for
children, and how becoming a mother
has shaped her life. Humphrey now
operates the Leaping Heart Studio out
of her home.
“My primary mission and goal is to
support kids, or people, or anybody, in
having confidence in their ability to be
creative ... to just nurture that, literally
nurture, because I think people are
very wounded with art and their
creativity,” Humphrey said.
Throughout 2019, Humphrey has
been telling her story to state and
nationwide news outlets. She spoke
about how her story has been handled
by Mercy Corps, and the actions that
still need to be taken.
“(The Mercy Corps) ethics
committee shows a culture that needs
to be changed if anyone’s going to be
safe, in my opinion,” Humphrey said.
“Do I think they can change it? I think
they can. I think the employees want
them to. And if they’re committed,
they are powerful institution that can
choose to. Everybody has a choice to
do what’s right or wrong. And they
have the means and they have the
power to do what’s right, to ensure
accountability, to ensure that people
are safe, to ensure that this doesn’t
happen again.”
On Oct. 11, Humphrey returned to
the Mercy Corps headquarters to see
messages of support that employees
had written on the sidewalk.
According to The Oregonian, “by
the end, more than 75 people, some
with tears running down their
cheeks, formed a semi-circle around
Humphrey.”
“There were really a lot of people
sharing their pain and sharing that
they were inspired and wanting me to
know that,” Humphrey said. “Mercy
Corps still has an opportunity and a
choice to make themselves into what
they want to be and who they say they
are. And if they do that, then that is
amazing and fantastic. It would be a
great example for other institutions
because everyone should be doing that.
Can I say that I would have concerns
for people who work there today, if
they don’t change? Yes. Because, look
what happened to me. How could I
possibly say otherwise — if they were
willing to do that to me.”
Additional reporting by
Hanna Merzbach
On-Campus Resources for Survivors:
Sexual Assault Response Advocate: (503) 202-3119
Title IX Coordinator: (503) 768-7676
Campus Safety Office: (503) 768-7777
Counseling Service: (503) 768-7160
Off-Campus Resources for Survivors:
National Sexual Assault Hotline: (800) 656-4673
Call to Safety (Multnomah County): (888) 235-5333
ARIEL MCGEE/PIONEER LOG
LC alumna Tania Culver Humphrey pictured near the Reflecting Pool on camp us. By WILL TOPPIN
STRATEGIC Enrollment Manage -
ment (SEM) is a multifaceted
administrative plan to improve
the school. SEM was in its first planning
phase last year, with implementation of
these plans starting over the summer
while SEM rolled into planning Phase II.
“Strategic Enrollment Management
is a long-term effort to better attract
and retain students at the college,”
Suttmeier said in an interview. “It
has a number of different aspects,
but it includes things like new
programming, more retention efforts,
and recognizing why students come
to Lewis and Clark, and why they stay
and how they succeed. So really, it’s an
attempt to create a better educational
experience and a stronger social
experience for students on-campus.”According to the SEM website,
“SEM is overseen by a steering
committee and coordinated by a
Director of Strategic Enrollment
Initiatives. A directors’ group offers
operational expertise. The success of
this effort, however, depends on the
collective intelligence and energy of
the campus as a whole.”
A Lewis & Clark administrative
assembly took place on Oct. 15 in
the Council Chambers. The assembly
began with a comprehensive update
on the SEM effort presented by Rachel
Cole, associate professor of English
and director of strategic enrollment
initiatives.
“SEM is a broad based collective
effort to come up with new strategies
to bring people here and to keep them
here through graduation so that we
can stabilize our enrollment, which is, of course, our main revenue stream,”
Cole said.
Cole began her presentation
explaining what the school
accomplished last year during the
Phase I planning period.
“We’re looking for what students
and employers want,” Cole said. “We
want to look at what we do differently,
so that when we try to explain why you
should come to Lewis & Clark, and not
somewhere else, to get your education
or to have your child educated.”
Phase I emphasized recruitment.
A major initiative under this focus is
the LC’s 4-5-6 Commitment.
The ‘4’ aspect of the 4-5-6
Commitment guarantees that all
undergraduate students will graduate
with a BA in four years, or the school
will pay for a fifth. ‘5’ and ‘6’ refer to
the graduate schools: LC students can
graduate with a BA and a Masters of
Arts in Teaching (MAT) in five years,
or a BA and a law degree (JD) in six.
“Even if students do not end up
going to our grad school or law school,
(the 4-5-6 Commitment) helps their
parents imagine and understand that
we are preparing them for careers,
or professional lives or additional
education,” Cole said.
SEM Phase II, which is the
planning phase that started this
school year, focuses on retaining
students once they’re on-campus. The
effort began with collecting data on
student retention.
“What that revealed, in part, is that
we really need to focus (on students’)
first year,” Cole said. “We lose most of
our students ... between the first and
third semester.”
As a part of SEM’s focus on
student retention, LC is continuing to expand on its characteristic strengths.
This includes capitalizing on the
school’s location in vibrant Portland
and LC’s Environmental Studies and
Sustainability Programming.
“We wanted to do bigger and
better programming around (LC’s
environmental program), because it is
already part of our brand,” Cole said.
SEM Phase II will also focus on
cultivating the fine arts programs.
“We’re looking at getting the
community up here for more of
our fine arts programming, and
we’re looking to make sure that non
majors can not only enjoy the arts,
but participate in them and find
additional forms of community,” Cole
said.
One program that Suttmeier is
excited about came from the music
department.
“It’s a plan to pair every music
major with a working musician,
or working artist,” Suttmeier said.
“It involves getting the mentor
relationship going, having a dinner,
helping them connect with each
other ... those kinds of programs
are so meaningful to students, and
so meaningful to the alums and the
people in the community who will be
doing the mentoring for us.”
Additionally, SEM aims to prepare
students for the digital world.
Suttmeier elaborated on this program.
“Everybody has data science —
but how can we do it differently,
and how can we do it in a way that
looks and feels like Lewis and Clark?”
Suttmeier said. “By the end of the
year, we’ve charged (a team of faculty
and staff) with coming up with a
proposal and a plan that lays out in
a lot of detail what that will look like. And, you know, I’m really excited to
see how that develops over the next
year, what kind of ideas they come up
with.”
Another goal of SEM is offering
men’s soccer and women’s lacrosse
teams, when the funding becomes
available.
Cole finished her presentation by
requesting community feedback.
“Do you have an idea?” Cole said.
“Several of our programs came from
individuals who said, ‘I’ve had a Post-
it next to my desk for the past 10
years,’ right? ‘Maybe we should try
this.’ Not all of those ideas convinced
enough people to go for it, but some
of them did.”
LC community members are
encouraged to submit a SEM feedback
form, which will allow the committee
to hear ideas from the community
about programs to improve the
school. To submit a SEM feedback
form, visit the Dean of the College’s
page on the LC website, or scan the
QR code below. Students can also
email SEM@lclark.edu. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2019
NEWS 4
By MACKENZIE HERRING
MEMBERS OF THE L e w i s &
Clark community gathered to
celebrate Associate Professor
of Political Science Todd Lochner at
his inauguration as the Dr. Robert
B. Pamplin Jr. Associate Professor
of Government on Oct. 21. Lochner
delivered his inaugural lecture, titled
“A Realist’s Critique of Campaign
Finance Regulation and Enforcement”
and subsequently answered questions
from the audience.
LC President Wim Wiewel
kicked off the event, discussing the
importance of faculty to the overall
mission of the college.
“In confirming the professorship
of Todd Lochner, we are also honoring
and celebrating the dedication of
work of all our faculty,” Wiewel said.
“Our strategic plan ... underscores
our commitment to strengthen (the
faculty’s) ability to continue lively
and rigorous teaching and innovative
research. So tonight, we really reaffirm
our institutional commitment to our
faculty, which is just as deep and as
real as their commitment is to our
students.”
Next, Dean of the College and
Associate Professor of Japanese
Bruce Suttmeier introduced Lochner.
Suttmeier mentioned that many of
Lochner’s students spoke highly of his
teaching ability.
“(His students) talked about him
combining the highest of expectations
with a fierce dedication to supporting
their education, and it’s no surprise
that he has combined his pedagogical
work with the scholarship,” Suttmeier
said.
Suttmeier also stressed that
Lochner is an involved faculty member
who helps to improve the college in
many different aspects.
“As a tireless advocate to his
students, as the chair of the political
science department for many years,
as a colleague who serves on standing
committees, ad hoc committees and
search committees, and who, in a
recent self-assessment concluded the
section on service to the college by
writing ‘I am always happy to serve
as the needs of the college dictate,’” Suttmeier said. “And I know he was
tweaking me a little bit but he means
it.”
Following Suttmeier, Lochner
began his lecture describing how
Oregon is unique in its campaign
finance regulation.
“Oregon is an outlier, we do it
a little bit differently,” Lochner
said. “Most states have what we call
contribution limits,
which limits the
amount of money
I as an individual,
you as a labor union
a corporation can
give to a candidate ...
That’s what we have
for most of the time
of the 20th century
actually or until about
1994. A measure was
passed that tightened
campaign finance
regulation, and that
was challenged. Ultimately, in a case
called Vannatta v. Kiesling, the Oregon
State Supreme Court declared those
contribution limits unconstitutional.
Hence, we are left with what’s known
as a disclosure-only regime. I can
give as much money as I want to say
a gubernatorial candidate so long as I
disclose it.”
According to Lochner, this system
comes with mixed and sometimes
unintended results.
“This system has several
consequences,” Lochner said. “First
thing, state campaigns in Oregon tend
to be pretty expensive comparatively.
Reporting by the Oregonian found
a per capita corporate interests give
more money to Oregon lawmakers
over the last decade in any other state
in the union. So, there’s a belief here,
essentially, that ... lack of contributions
limits incentivizes an arms race for
political contributions. The second
consequence, not surprisingly, claims
of undue corporate influence.”
In a case that is currently under
appeal at the Oregon Supreme
Court, Multnomah County recently
tried to institute contribution limits,
which was initially decided to be
unconstitutional. Arguments are
being heard on Nov. 1. There is also a proposed amendment to the Oregon
State Constitution that would allow
for campaign contributions, and
according to Lochner, this will be
on ballots next November. Lochner
further discussed the implications of
this decision.
“I want to suggest we’ll likely
get three unintended consequences
if we adopt contribution limits,”
Lochner said. “First,
money that did flow
to candidates will
start flowing to
Super PACs, 501c4s
and independent
expenditures more
broadly. Second,
the system may
potentially become
less transparent if
money indeed flows
to 501c4s. Third, and
finally, regulatory
enforcement will
become more challenging. To be
clear, this may still be worth doing
... the net positive as we think about
a matter of policy. The important
thing to recognize is to know what
you’re buying, know what the likely
consequences of this constitutional
amendment would entail.”
Lochner believes that while
there are good and bad arguments
against contribution limits, the
money in Oregon politics is unlikely
to disappear and could possibly lead
to less transparency, making it even
more difficult to regulate. In order to
avoid these consequences, Lochner
recommends four points of action.
“First, require disclosure of
dark money to the extent that the
law allows,” Lochner said. “Second,
you want to work to ensure timely
and accurate public dissemination
of contributions expenditures and
campaign finance enforcement
actions, you want to maximize
disclosure as a way of trying to prevent
the skew, that increased regulation is
going to bring.”
According to Lochner, Oregon has
to be careful with how it proceeds to
avoid similar problems that poorly
introduced contribution limits have
had in other cases. “Third, we’re going to need to
significantly increase staff at the
election division in the Secretary
of State’s office to facilitate more
systematic and speedy investigations,”
Lochner said. “The worst-case scenario
is that we adopt the contribution
limit regime that proves incapable of
meaningful enforcement. That’s what
we have at the federal level today and
it is an unmitigated disaster. We don’t
want that in Oregon. Finally, we need
to ensure random audit reform as well
as prosecutorial discretion among the
election division necessary to quickly
dispense with low-level actions.”
After the Q&A portion Lochner
closed the event with an anecdote from his first year teaching at LC
about how a student became more
confident in defending her argument
in class. According to Lochner, when
he called on her towards the end of the
semester, she demonstrated that she
had developed great argumentative
skills.
“She raised her hand and said,
‘Okay Professor Lochner, first I don’t
accept your argument and I think
you misinterpreted Scalia’s point
purposely, you’re overstating it,’”
Lochner said. “Second this, third this.
She just destroyed me. I’ve loved the
banter with students. They’re smart,
they’re talented, and when you punch,
they can punch back.”Political science professor earns distinction
Professor Lochner was inaugurated as the Dr. Robert B. Pamplin Jr. Associate Professor of Government
AIDAN D’ANNA/PIONEER LOG
Todd Lochner discusses campaign finance at the Pamplin inauguration ceremon y.
Administrators discuss plans for strategic enrollment
WILL TOPPIN/PIONEER LOG
President Wim Wiewel sits in the front row during the administrative assembly.“In confirming the
professorship of
Todd Lochner, we
are also honoring
and celebrating the
dedication of work
of all our faculty.”
President Wim Wiewel
Scan the QR code above to fill
out a SEM feedback form.FRIDAY , NOVEMBER 1, 2019
OPINION 5
Turkey’s operation in Syria from a Turkish perspective
Can Altunkaynak ’21 shares his concerns about the conversations students are having about Syria
By CAN ALTUNKAYNAK
ON OCT. 6, Turkey began
military operations in Syria.
On Lewis & Clark’s campus
many students want to discuss it or
have opinions about it, but do not have
the necessary insight. Thus, I wanted
to write an article explaining different
actors in the region as well as their
interests. I would also like to note that
while I try to be objectively critical, I
can only do that to some extent as a
citizen of the Republic of Turkey.
First of all, it is important to
understand what the Western media
means when they say “the Kurds.” I
personally have heard many people
say “Oh my God! Your country is
attacking the Kurds!” and when I ask
“What do you mean by ‘the Kurds?’”
no one seems to have an answer.
The Kurdish people live in four
countries as substantial ethnic groups:
Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Turkey
has the largest population of Kurdish
people with 10 to 15 million people.
Iraqi Kurds have an autonomous
region in Iraq, and the Syrian Kurds
have a de facto autonomous region in
Syria called Rojava. Within the context
of our conflict, Turkey is executing the
military operation against the Islamic
State and the YPG (People’s Protection
Units), which Turkey considers as
terrorist organizations, on the Syrian
border. YPG is not part of an official
army and is mainly Kurdish. There
are humanitarian concerns on a
global level because some of the YPG’s
locations are within Syrian cities
where civilians live.
This is not the first time the Turkish
army has been in Syria. However, this
time, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
aims to create a “safe zone” on the
border of Turkey from the Euphrates
River all the way to the Iraqi border.
But why does Turkey want or need
such a safe zone? Turkey has been
struggling with terrorism since the
1970s. Especially since the beginning
of the Syrian War, the terror attacks
have increased in number in the
southern border of Turkey. Turkish
government has clearly stated that
they considered YPG a terrorist
organization linked to the PKK (The
Kurdistan Workers’ Party), which is
considered a terrorist organization not only by Turkey but also by the U.S.
and the European Union.
The TRT (Turkish Radio Television)
World has made references to
different American officials accepting
ties between the PKK and the YPG. On
April 28, 2016, Sen. Lindsey Graham
said the YPG is “aligned or at least have
substantial ties to the PKK,” which
was accepted by former U.S. Secretary
of Defense Ash
Carter. Earlier
this year, Graham
said, “We owe it to
Turkey that when
we withdraw, if
we withdraw, that
we do not create a
terrorist corridor,
an enclave of
terrorists in the
eyes of Turkey
inside of Syria
armed by the Americans.” The U.S.
defines YPG as a key ally in the region
because it helped Americans fight the
Islamic State. For Turkey, this looks
like a NATO ally provokingly arming
terrorists on its borders.
Securing the southern Turkish
border through the military operation
could have serious consequences
for Syria and the global community.
There have been many casualties
and innocent people being displaced
from the region. I am shocked at how
the deaths of innocent people can
be justified as “collateral damage.”
However, in times of fear, such cases
are more easily justified.
The EU, NATO and the U.S. each
have different interests in the region.
The biggest concern for the U.S.
is how the Turkish operation may
change demographics. Apart from
displaced civilians, the U.S. also
expressed concerns about the prisons
that hold Islamic State militants and
how conflict could free a substantial
amount of extremist prisoners. This
is clearly alarming for the U.S. as they
think it could lead to a resurgence of
the Islamic State or other extremist
groups.
Despite criticism, the EU has
not been very active regarding this
matter. There are between 1,500 and
2,000 EU citizens who have joined the
Islamic State who might potentially
turn back to their countries in the wake of the Turkish military operation
which is clearly concerning for the
EU. President Erdoğan’s comments
about letting 3.6 million refugees into
Europe might have also caused some
fear within European nations that are
struggling with immigration. Such
action is unlikely but nevertheless
a strong leverage for the Turkish
Republic. Turkey instead is planning
to relocate these
refugees in the
safe zone it aims
to create. NATO
is unable to take
a strong stance
against Turkey
as it is a NATO
member and the
ideological unity
between member
states is important
for NATO.
Russia has already filled the gap left
by the U.S. in the region. At a meeting
on Oct. 22 in Sochi, Russian President
Vladimir Putin and President Erdoğan
agreed on a deal on Northern Syria
which will establish joint Russian and
Turkish patrols in the region. This
puts the U.S. in a harder position
because Turkey, as a NATO member,
chose to cooperate with the Russian
Federation.
It is also important to note that
the issues are much more complicated
than what an international audience
sees on TV or in other sources.
Reading news, taking a class or even
having a minor will not allow you to
fully understand the whole picture.
Emotional connection, having family
present in the region and being fluent
in the local language means more than
just studying texts. People that claim
they know what is going on in another
part of the world are like aliens that
think they know what it means to be
human only looking down at Earth
and not interacting with anyone.
I would also expect people to
mind their words in class as they
have psychological consequences on
international students. Genocides,
ethnic conflicts, wars, people dying in
protests and immigrants’ bodies being
washed up at your shores are not easy
to talk about. That is why sometimes
we remain silent, but that does not
mean we do not have an idea or that we accept yours. It becomes irritating,
especially when some feel entitled to
comment on your country and how
things should be. What they need to
know is that our countries are not
your playground.
L a s t b u t n o t l e a s t , d o n o t f o r g e t
that we are learning things from a
certain perspective at this college.
Expecting an objective education is
not possible as education is constantly
influenced by its context. Narratives
would be very different if you took
classes in a different country in
a different language. So, reading
academic sources from one or several
similar perspectives and being able
to articulate those in your native
language in a sophisticated way does
not necessarily mean that you truly
understand what is going on in the
world.
The need for acknowledgment of
different narratives is greater for the U.S. as its media and foreign policy
interactions promote or at least result
in the creation of “existential threats.”
These existential threats define the
world in a very evangelical “good” and
“evil” sense rather than acknowledging
that international actors have
different interests. Villainizing these
actors only causes more problems
and misunderstandings because
you simply cease to understand why
they are doing what they are doing.
In addition to being geographically
isolated from the rest of the world,
most Americans are not able to
understand what is truly going on in
the world because the American media
shows the conflicts around the world
like the next Marvel movie with a clear
good and evil. Lack of knowledge when
it comes to geography and languages
makes American public and private
attitudes towards other countries even
more detrimental. Gray wolf reintroduction is not a simple issue
Rural concerns of livestock loss do not account for the necessity of the gray wolf in the American West
By COPELAND BURCHENAL
WHEN THE WORDS “gray
wolf” are said, what ideas
come to your head? Little Red
Riding Hood? Vicious death machine?
You may not associate these words
with the reintroduction process of
Canis lupus into the American West.
This decision has lead to a massive
fight regarding the safety of livestock
and ecological health. Although we
must pay attention to the fears of rural
populations, the gray wolf’s revival is a
necessity, not a luxury.
Emerging from the past century’s
culling of predators, biologists have
finally begun to understand the
interconnectedness of ecosystems and
the role wolves have in limiting ungulate
populations (primarily elk and deer).
Through the Endangered Species Act,
the federally-backed reintroduction of
the gray wolf began in 1995 when 31
wolves from Canada were relocated to
Idaho and Yellowstone National Park.
Since then, there may be upwards of
2,500 wolves ranging across the west.
Generally, opposition to the
reintroduction process has been
from livestock-rich areas. Since the
reintroduction of gray wolves, rates
of livestock depredation have risen
dramatically. As reported by the
Humane Society of the U.S., in 2015
there were 10,165 cases of cattle
depredation by wolves. This does not
account for other kinds of livestock. But
because there are over 100 million cows
in America, we may want to write these
figures off. Cows can cost upwards of $2,500 and many of these depredation
events happen to small-scale ranches,
where the loss of a few livestock can
mean bankruptcy.In an effort to calm their financial
fears, safety nets have been enacted
in the form of payout programs for
livestock owners. The most famous example was delivered by the Defenders
of Wildlife group, which paid livestock
operations a combined 1.3 million
dollars between 1985 and 2009. However, not all states have safety nets
to reduce the damage on ranchers.
Despite this large sum of evidence,
however, we need to look at the bigger
picture. The gray wolf is commonly
referred to as a keystone species,
meaning its removal would have
enormous consequences. Over the last
century, we have observed ungulate
populations in the Rocky Mountains
exploding without one of their
largest limiters. This is bad because
the increased pressure of grazing
is stripping areas of flora diversity.
An excellent example is the removal
of the quaking aspen tree (Populus
tremuloides). When there is more
grazing in the same areas for longer,
aspen shoots are continually eaten
before they become saplings. This
increased rate of nibbling may be one
of the main reasons why aspens are
experiencing an alarming population
decrease. Without wolves’ limiting
factors on ungulates, we may see an
unprecedented loss of biodiversity,
which has already been spread thin by
invasive species and fragmentation.
Like most problems, we have no
perfect solution. Yes, the reintroduction
of the wolf has led to many problems for
rural communities, but the benefits they
deliver for our natural systems outweigh
the negatives. Perhaps we should focus
on the refinement of payout systems for
ranchers, usage of range riders, creation
of electric enclosures, or the fact that
respiratory problems alone killed over
900,000 cows in 2015. We cannot
afford to have the natural world foot the
bill for our refusal to change.
Syria lies in the heart of the Middle East, sharing a border with the Republic of Turkey.Lack of knowledge when
it comes to geography
and languages makes
American public and
private attidues towards
other countries even
more detrimental.
PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS USER RAS67ADA BARBEE/PIONEER LOGFRIDAY , NOVEMBER 1, 2019
OPINION 6
Overturned vape ban is still hurting citizens
Oregon still restricts marijuana vape products, costing manufacturers and dispensaries money, product
By BELLA MET
ON OCT. 4, Oregon Governor Kate
Brown instituted a temporary
ban on nicotine-based and
marijuana-based vape products as a
response to lung diseases linked to the
death of two Oregonians, adding to the
34 cases seen nationwide. She stated that
her intentions for passing the ban were to
safeguard the health of Oregon citizens,
to protect the youth and to persuade
the federal government to take notice
to create legislation of its own. Shortly
afterwards, the vape ban was overturned
by the Oregon Court of Appeals, but the
portions related to marijuana are still in
effect.
Although the ban was overturned,
I still say shame on you, Kate Brown.
Gun violence kills 40,000 people a year
in our country, but do you ban assault
rifles or bump stocks? No. In the state
of Oregon, alcohol-related automobile
accidents kill over 1,000 people a year,
according to Johnston Law Firm.
Do you ban chardonnays, lagers or
cosmopolitans? Cars? No. According to
you, two people in Oregon dying from an
illness caused by vape products warrants
prohibition. This ban is not simply to
“safeguard the health of all Oregonians” in order for the federal government to
take action, but yet another example of
bureaucracy punishing those who are
legally working within regulations while
empowered black marketers continue
their wrongdoing without repercussions.
In Oregon, the legal age to smoke is
21, however 23% of high school juniors
claim to use e-cigarettes, according
to the Oregon Governor’s Office. This
usage would only increase if the ban was
still in effect, and the age of consumers
would continue to go down. It is even
more dangerous to buy from a dealer
than a vape shop because there can be
additional additives that are toxic or even
deadly. Therefore, Brown’s claim that she
was protecting the youth is false, as they
will find ways to get access to substances,
and when they do, it will come from a
source that cares more about profits than
their health or wellbeing.
The impact on marijuana
manufacturers and dispensaries is still
ongoing as the ban still remains upon
marijuana-based vapor pens. This is
due to the fact that the two registered
deaths in Oregon have been attributed to
cannabis. My father, owner and founder
of a marijuana manufacturing company,
has already seen the ramifications of this
ban on his business When the ban was instituted, he had to throw away at least
$500,000 dollars worth of product and
cartridges. He has had to salvage what
he can, and completely shift his focus to
cannabis-derived terpenes. It is already
a tough business to run with constant
regulation that inhibits the ability to
profit, so the future is unclear. One day
he could be thriving and the next he may
be closing the doors of his processing
facilities. A man trying his hardest to
run a business while upholding the laws
placed upon him is punished while those
who operate illegally will continue to go
unnoticed and unreprimanded.
This article is by no means an
encouragement to use vapor products
of any kind. There are still unknowns
regarding the long-term effects of vape
products, so there still should be caution
with continued usage. Drugs are drugs
and can have negative effects on how
our bodies function. Inhaling potentially
harmful substances into our lungs is
not a healthy decision. However, there
should not be hasty conclusions when
only two deaths have occurred. There
are far more pressing matters such as
preventing further carnage from gun
violence and safeguarding reproductive
rights. Politicians must truly consider the
consequences that will come from a ban.

Editor-in-Chief
Hanna Merzbach
News Editors
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Backdoor Editor
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Aidan D’Anna
Henry GoodierMichaela Edlin
Sydney Hanish
Rosemary Hickman
Lila Khammash
Gabriel Mantione-
Holmes
Grace Mark
Bella MetGavin Patchet
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Amelia MadarangGabriel Mantione-Holmes
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Will Toppin
Hanna WrightPhotographers/IllustratorsSYDNEY HANISH/PIONEER LOG
Social Media & Web
Manager
Amelia EichelBusiness Manager
Stuart Myers
Late night comedy shows allow
candidates to express personality
By LEON SIMO
IN A YEAR, it will be my first time
voting and I have a whole new group of
presidential candidates to look through
and learn about. In the past century, there
has been increased emphasis on “getting
to know” presidential candidates. As was
seen with the first televised presidential
debate between John F. Kennedy and
Richard Nixon in 1960, candidate
personality plays a large role in how
citizens decide who to vote for to become
president of the United States. But, of
course, with time and subject restraints,
there are limitations to how we can learn
about a candidate through debate. While
the 1960s established televised debates
as the primary opportunity to learn
more about candidates’ personalities,
modern TV interviews allow more focus
on personability and have become the
best way for candidates to introduce
themselves to the American public.
Shows like Saturday Night Live
and The Daily Show, amongst many
others, have become a way to showcase
personality. Back in 2007, Barack Obama
went on Saturday Night Live, as did
Hillary Clinton in 2015. Having candidates
on late night shows gives them a sense of
approachability and humor. It opens a
new kind of connectivity and removes the
rigidness of the debate structure.
The downfall of the on-screen
persona is that it only focuses on the
person’s personality, lacking legislative information. TV interviews can only
show the public so much, but many feel
that they can base their understanding
of a candidate by it. If someone is shown
as kind and charming, it seems hard to
not trust them. We want to have faith in
someone by their actions and personality.
But for a president, there is more to know.
Legislation and political plans are the key
to understanding what a candidate truly
wants to do. All these interviews should be
taken with a grain of salt. Likability should
not be the main focus of a president, and
giving the public a deeper sense of what
the candidates’ legislative goals are means
could bring a more educated group of
voters. An interview with a candidate is only one part of getting to understand
them.
The key to getting to understand
a candidate viewing more than just
debates and interviews. We need to have
a more multifaceted way to understand
candidates and work to know their true
intentions. By getting to see them in
multiple forms of media, we can become
more familiar with their personality,
goals, beliefs and legislation plans, getting
a fuller picture of a candidate. Our next
election is coming, and now, more than
ever, is the time to educate. If you want to
learn more about presidential candidates,
find a comedy talk show or a debate and
get started.Looking past politics:
I will not vote in 2020
By JUSTIN SEIDEL
IMAGINE YOU ARE a t a p a r t y
chatting with someone who you
find really attractive. You share
many mutual interests, have the
same music taste and hit it off really
well. You would probably want to
hang out with them again.
Now, imagine you are in
the same exact scenario, except
this time the individual you are
interested in removes their jacket
mid-conversation and reveals an
elephant colored like the U.S. flag,
representing their support for the
Republican Party. Do you still wish
to see them again?
Assistant Professor of Political
Science Benjamin Gaskins posed
this type of question
in my Introduction
to American Politics
class last semester.
To my dismay,
much of the class
immediately stated
they would cease to
interact with this
person. This at its core runs
contrary to the functionality of our
political system. Politics, instead of
unifying us with the common goal
of creating a more perfect union,
now divides. It creates a divide
so deep that many no longer look
beyond people’s political alignment
before judging their character. This
largely is the reason why I choose
to remain politically neutral for the
time being and why I am choosing
not to vote in the 2020 presidential
election.
From my perspective, I see both
the Democrats and Republicans
making it their mission to further distance themselves from each
other. Each party demonizes the
other to gain more backing from
their own members and further
legitimize their beliefs. This results
in more radical leaders being
nominated for the presidency,
further adoption of extremist ideas
and only greater divide. With this
perpetuation of more extremist
beliefs, if you are moderate or on
the fence you are deemed an enemy
within both parties.
I choose to not vote and to
remain neutral not because I do not
support democracy, not because
I do not hold any beliefs and not
because I am lazy. Rather, I wish
not to perpetuate this culture of
division. I will not vote for an
individual who will
continue this vicious
cycle. I feel that today’s
two-party system
inaccurately reflects
my beliefs and what I
stand for. Rather than
focus upon politics, I
focus upon that which
is in my control such as how I live
my life, what I believe in and how
I can better myself. Also, I choose
to see people’s character and who
they are as people over just their
politics.
By no means am I calling out
specific individuals. It is best that
we disagree and have healthy,
honest discussions over these
disagreements rather than staying
within our own echo chambers.
I hope more students at Lewis &
Clark have the courage to burst
the bubble here on campus. Speak
openly, respectfully and freely
about what you believe in.
AMELIA MADARANG/PIONEER LOG
RAYA DEUSSEN/PIONEER LOG
... I wish not
to perpetuate
this culture of
division.FRIDAY , NOVEMBER 1, 2019
OPINION 7
Biden is imperfect in a large Democratic pool
By MILICA STANIŠIĆ
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT J o e
Biden certainly has a list of titles
to prove that he is more than
capable of becoming the next president
of the United States. Most notably,
he was the 47th vice president during
President Obama’s tenure and a senator
from Delaware between 1973 and
2009. These past experiences have put
him at the forefront of the Democratic
primary election. By all means, Joe
Biden would be a good president, and
certainly better than Donald Trump.
Frankly, so would I. Practically anyone
could do a better job than the sitting
president. But the voters should not
hope for a candidate that would simply
outperform the current administration.
This would only set low standards for
the upcoming election.
Indeed, thanks to the current
administration, most voters simply
want a reputable politician who will
return the U.S. back to its pre-Trump
ways. But the thing is, to so many
this country was never a safe haven.
Trump’s values, or lack thereof, were
victorious in 2016 because these kinds
of sentiments have always existed in
the U.S. in one shape or another. There
have always been those who suffer
greatly while a selected few reap the
benefits of the whole system. The fact
is that the system is broken. Racism,
homophobia and xenophobia are
emboldened by various laws pushed for
by the politicians who want to lead this country and are in positions of power.
Biden is one of those politicians.
He is one of those leaders who wants
power and tweaks their views based on
the current political climate. He is not
alone; many other politicians do the
same thing, but this needs to change.
The country needs a commander in
chief who actually holds the interests of
all U.S. citizens in mind.
Many have told me that I have no
right commenting on American politics
since I am not an American citizen
and do not have a right to vote. First,
consider that, as the longstanding
global hegemon, the U.S. has a huge
impact on the state of global affairs, and
whatever kind of foreign policy D.C.
promotes will affect people across the
world. I am not telling you who to vote
for or who I would vote for if I had the
opportunity. I am simply presenting
a case against Biden as a person who
lives in the U.S., has American friends
and has been on the receiving end of my
peers’ naive advice for “easy” political
solutions to problems affecting my own
country.
As the former chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, Biden
has the most foreign policy experience
out of all the presidential candidates,
but having years of experience does
not mean he has always made the best
decisions. Biden voted in support of
the Iraq War resolution in 2004. Its
financial cost was $400 billion, and
the U.S. took the brunt of this financial
expense. This war ended with countless lives of Iraqi civilians and American
soldiers lost. Simply put, the Iraq War
was a disaster for all involved. Biden
supported the war even though the
U.S. Army was sent into Iraq without
a plan for a subsequent strengthening
of the Iraqi civil society. Also, even
though Biden is calling for the end of
the Yemen War, he is still unwilling
to call into question the U.S.’s alliance
with Saudi Arabia, whose regime is
exacerbating the conflict with its carpet
bombing of the country.
Not only are his foreign policy
views questionable, but his record in
supporting the rights of all Americans
is anything but commendable. Biden
has failed to show support for anti-
segregationist policies like desegregated
bussing. He was one of the authors of
the Violent Crime Control and Law
Enforcement Act of 1994 that saw the
rise of mass incarceration, which is
largely a racist product because the
system predominantly targets African
American men. In 1986, he helped
pass a federal law that treated the
use of crack cocaine as a much more
punishable offense than using cocaine.
This law targeted African American
and Latino men in disproportionate
numbers to white men and led to their
mass incarceration.
Biden’s campaign also recently
released a statement that it will accept
donations from super PACs. Their
main argument is that Donald Trump
has not shied away from super PAC
donations. Having a handful of wealthy companies and individuals impacting
decision-making in the White House
is dangerous for democracy. Such
actors will be able to impact executive-
level policymaking in Washington if
the candidate that comes into power
is funded by them. This takes away
from the fundamentals of the election
process — the selection of a candidate
who is the best fit for all citizens
rather than just for those who put
money in their pocket. This shows that candidates, such as Biden, will stop at
nothing to come into power and that
their motives are skewed due to their
abandonment of the democratic ideal
that all votes should weigh equally.
These are but a few flaws that the
Biden campaign will have to account
for in the upcoming election. The
American people deserve someone who
is fit to fight for the rights of its citizens
rather than for the benefits of the select
few on the top.
By MICHAELA EDLIN
DUBBED “gay Christmas ,”
Halloween is the best holiday
for those of us who may be a
little more queer than the rest.
Halloween is the one day a year
that society at large can unleash their
inner monster, be as kitschy as they
wish and experiment with gender
in a non-serious way. Historically,
the holiday has been a safe space for
trans and queer
people because of
our connection to
monsters and camp
aesthetics.
The “Halloween
Haunt” episode in
the third season
of “The Boulet
Brothers’ Dragula,”
a drag competition
that focuses on
the tenants of glam, filth drag and
horror, reminded me of the day’s
importance to the community. In that
episode’s challenge, the remaining
competitors had to reinvent a classic
monster archetype, and the LGBTQ+
community’s affinity for cryptids is no
coincidence.
There is a long history of monsters
and villains being queer-coded or
hinted at being queer without being
explicitly stated. Carolyn Laubendero
published an article in the Lehigh
University Review in 2009 that
touches on this issue in the book
“Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson.
“Mr. Hyde’s ‘undignified’ pleasures
and his erotic, almost Sadeian
indulgences coupled with his repeated
characterizations as ‘ape-like,’
‘troglodytic,’ and ‘savage,’ link him to
a complex characterization of deviant
homosexuality that is still prevalent
today,” Laubendero said in the article.
This negative characterization is
something that LGBTQ+ people have
sought to reclaim during Halloween.
In the ’70s, gay men and lesbians
took over seasonal parties all over the
country, from the Village in New York
to Cliff’s Halloween Party in the Castro
of San Francisco. The holiday began
to be a day of many firsts for LGBTQ+
people, from sex and drugs to drag and
self-expression.During the HIV/AIDS crisis,
Halloween became a time for
the community to celebrate and
experience joy in dark times. The late
artist Lou Reed points this out in his
song “Halloween Parade,” but also
alludes to how the holiday served as a
painful reminder of the ones who had
died from AIDS.
“This celebration somehow got me
down, especially when I see you’re not
around,” Reed sings.
Most importantly though, Hal -
loween is when the
barriers between
cisgender hetero -
sexuals and the
LGBTQ+ communi -
ty are the thinnest,
allowing for explo -
ration of sexuality
and gender. This is
due to the embrace
of camp, a style of
which homosexuals “constitute the
vanguard” and are “the most articulate
audience” according to Susan Sontag’s
1964 essay, “Notes on Camp.”
Camp is the embrace of “it’s
good because it’s awful,” an ironic
appreciation of the ugly and
extravagant, but also a way for the
unnatural to be accepted. Being
gay and trans has long been seen as
“unnatural,” so it makes sense that we
would be attracted to a sensibility that
embraces unnaturalness. Halloween is
the host of all things unnatural, scary and extravagant, allowing people to
be campier than they normally allow
themselves to be.
Because of this, many people
discover that they are LGBTQ+
through Halloween and are able
to “try it out” without facing the
serious consequences of performing
queerness or transness that comes
with every other day of the year.
Sontag comments on how campiness,
and therefore Halloween, reduces
the seriousness of all aspects of life,
including this form of expression.
“Camp sees everything in quotation
marks,” Sontag said in her essay. “It’s
not a lamp, but a ‘lamp:’ not a woman,
but a ‘woman.’” To perceive Camp in
objects and persons is to understand
Being-as-Playing-a-Role.”
This is why my love for Halloween
is so personal; over the years of
celebrating, my costumes have always
been so important to me and so varied.
Costumed as a mummy, vampire
and ’80s zombie, I have connected
my queerness to monstrosity in an
affirming way, even if I was not aware
of it at first. Dressing as Carlos, a
gay man from the podcast “Welcome
to Night Vale,” and a newsboy were
ways for me to express my gender in
a masculine way without the judgment
of family.
Halloween is my haven because
it shows how twisted, beautiful and
confusing all humans are, whether
they are as gay as I am or not.Halloween is my haven
because it shows how
twisted, beautiful and
confusing all humans
are.RAYA DEUSSEN/PIONEER LOG
Halloween is an opportunity to
celebrate queerness without fear
PHOTO COURTESY OF PUBLICDOMAINPICTURES USER PETR KRATOCHVIL AND MICHAELA EDLINBy LILA KHAMMASH
CAPITALISM ,capitalism, capi -
talism! I hear this word so often
that I should have started saying
it in my sleep by now. Every class I have
taken at Lewis & Clark so far, and I am
pretty sure every other one I will soon
be taking, has touched on this topic
and continues to tackle it whenever
an opportunity arises. Capitalism just
seems to be intertwined with every as -
pect of our lives for better or for worse,
and there is no running away from it.
It is almost as if the word has become
an excuse for every other expense life
hits us with. “Why is rent so high?”
“Capitalism.” “Why are cars so expen -
sive?” “Capitalism.” “Why is college so
costly?” “Capitalism.” I have heard this
last question in particular many times
here at LC already. I mean, I get it, LC
is a private liberal arts college; it ought
to be costly. It ought to aim for profit
maximization and cost minimization.
That is just the way business (which,
unfortunately, education has been re -
duced to) works. But there is a limit to
everything, and I do not see how a col -
lege tuition so high cannot include the
cost of books as well.
When we students have to carry the
burden of high tuition during college
and loans during adulthood, we would
expect the simplest compensation on
behalf of the college to be a minimal
financial contribution. For example,
schools should at least be able to
cover book costs. Well, that does not
seem to be the case at LC or at most
colleges across the nation. Instead,
students spend hours trying to look
for the cheapest books to rent or buy. They hustle between book stores and
websites in search for the best deals,
even if that means using books half-
torn, scribbled on or old and stained.
Even when we go through with that,
we still end up spending a big portion
of the money we have one semester
after another. In fact, according to
the College Board, students spend an
average of $1,200 a year on textbooks
and supplies, an increase of 82% over
the past decade.
Surely enough, these high costs
inevitably affect our success as students.
At times, to reduce book costs, many of
us resort to illegally downloading PDF
versions of books, which, as if not bad
enough, could sometimes cause trouble
for students who prefer paper books
or are distracted by screens. Other
times, students avoid buying books
altogether. Indeed, a recent U.S. Public
Interest Research Group survey found
that 65% of students did not purchase a
required textbook due to cost, and 94%
were concerned that it would hurt their
grade in class.
Luckily for us LC students, the
Associated Students of Lewis & Clark
(ASLC) is trying to offer book subsidies
to as many students as possible. Still,
I think this is nowhere near enough.
There is only so much support one
student body can provide. There
are only so many books Watzek can
lend. There are only so many slightly
affordable alternatives to buying
books. Institutional change needs to
be considered and initiated. Tuition
should cover books. Whether through
a letter to the dean, or through a
presentation before the school board,
it is time for us to speak up.
LC ought to include
book costs in tuition
WILL TOPPIN/PIONEER LOGDue to his problematic track record, Biden should be the last person considered for such a position
A stack of textbooks rests on one of the many shelves at the LC bookstore.FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2019
FEATURES 8
By SYDNEY HANISH
ON OCT. 19 , rallies were held
throughout the U.S. in order
to elevate the issues of the
stigma surrounding menstruation,
period poverty, the lack of
accessibility to sanitary products
and the tampon tax. This event was
the first National Period Day in
history.
The local rally occurred at
the Terry
Schrunk Plaza
in downtown
Portland, drawing
approximately
100 participants.
It was sponsored
by PERIOD, a
national organization, that initially
started its first chapter in Portland. In
addition to the traditional elements
of a rally that include speakers,
chants and posters, there was also a
drive to collect menstrual products
for the homeless population.
A repeated mantra of the rally
was “Menstrual equity is a right,
not a privilege.” On campus, the
Feminist Student Union (FSU)
is trying to spread awareness on this message. Caroline Arnis ’22,
a member of the FSU, is helping
make menstrual products free and
easily accessible on campus. Arnis,
along with a team of FSU members,
are purchasing products with their
union’s budget and are in charge of
restocking whenever necessary.
“At the moment we are working
on expanding our period products to
more places on campus, because as of
right now, you can only get them in the
Watzek library,”
Arnis said. “We’re
currently working
on expanding the
products to Olin.”
The FSU wants
to make menstrual
products easily
available for women in STEM, in
addition to those taking classes closer
to the central academic campus.
However, the FSU struggles with
the fact that the money for these
products has to come straight out of
their budget.
“It’s basic healthcare and should
be provided by the administration,”
Arnis said.
Arnis also pointed out that the
Copeland Residence Hall does not have feminine hygiene trash cans in
their restrooms.
The rally speakers shared that
anyone who menstruates inevitably
spends substantial amounts of
money over their lifetimes on
menstrual hygiene products, which
gives to the shame and
stigmatization
around
periods.
This
point is
emphasized
when
condoms are
provided for free
in campus residence
halls and menstrual
products are not.
There are
opportunities on and
off campus for those
interested in breaking
the stigma surrounding
periods and assisting
those in need of hygiene
products. The Portland
branch of PERIOD will
be hosting more rallies,
drives,and political actions
this year, and they are always looking for volunteers. On campus,
FSU holds meetings on Mondays
from 6 to 7 p.m. They are looking
for more members
to help make
feminine hygiene products more
accessible on
campus.By AIDAN D’ANNA
THE LEWIS & CLARK G r a d u a t e
School of Education and
Counseling traces its roots all the
way back to 1929. The sprawling green
on the other side of Palatine Hill that LC
students now recognize as the graduate
school used to belong to the Sisters of
St. Francis convent, who purchased the
land from the Corbett family in 1929
to use as their retreat and conference
center.
Meanwhile, Albany College
administrators were discussing the
possibility of establishing graduate
programs on their campus miles away,
unaware that one day their plans would
intersect with the convent’s newly
acquired property. In 1939, Albany
College became certified by the Oregon
Board of Education as a teacher training
institution for secondary schools. Five
years later, the newly named Lewis &
Clark College offered its first graduate
degree, the Master of Education.
Expanding from Albany College’s
one year teaching credential, the Master
of Education was a one year degree that
certified graduates to teach only high
school. Two years later, LC became
the first college in Oregon to offer
elementary school certifications at the
graduate level. Four students graduated
with the high school certification in
1947, but after the addition of a second
certification, this number expanded to
35 graduates in 1949.
In 1951, LC expanded its graduate offerings to include a Master of Music
Education degree. Taught by symphony
composers and musicians, the Master
of Music Education program was
considered prestigious, but due to
budget cuts in public schools and
subsequent decreased interest the
program was discontinued in 2013.
In the mid-1950s, LC became heavily
invested in its teaching program — in 1957
the degree earned accreditation from
the National Council for Accreditation
of Teacher Education, and in 1964, LC
joined nine other Oregon Colleges in
the Oregon Program, a set of guidelines
for schools with teaching programs that
emphasized more in-class observation
and learning time for future teachers.
To adapt to this new change in focus the
college changed the name of the degree.
The Master of Education degree became
the Master of Arts in Teaching degree.
By the late ’60s the education program
was the largest program at the college;
one third of all LC students graduated
with either a major in education or
a Master of Arts in Teaching degree.
The program had grown so large that
it needed its own space on campus —
offices and education classrooms were
given a permanent home in the Albany
Quadrangle.
Despite the huge success of the
teaching program, in 1972, LC created
its third graduate degree: the Master
of Education in Counseling. This
program was created in response to
huge demand for trained mental health
professionals; by its second year it boasted an enrollment of 150 students,
a huge jump from 32 in its first year. In
1980, a specialization was added to this
degree: the Master of Arts in Counseling
Psychology. This degree also had a
Master of Science option and a track for
school psychology, and its unexpected
popularity led to a comprehensive
review of the program and the eventual
tripling of the amount of courses offered
for counseling degrees.
All of LC’s graduate programs were
organized into the Graduate School of
Professional Studies in 1984, but they
did not have their own campus until
2000, when LC purchased the Corbett
Estate from the Sisters of St. Francis.
The property was renamed the South
Campus, and was completely renovated
from the spring of 2000 to the fall of 2001
with a $4.5 million gift from the Mary
Stuart Rogers Foundation, the largest
gift ever given to a school of education
in Oregon. In 2001, the redesigned and
renamed Graduate School of Education
moved to the South Campus.
In 2003, the graduate school made
its most recent degree addition to
include degree focused on marriage,
couple and family therapy. This
addition led to a conversation among
administration around the goals and
values of the graduate program, and in
2005 its name was changed for the final
time to reflect a mental health oriented
mission. The LC Graduate School of
Education and Counseling now offers
57 programs and graduates close to 500
students every year. By ROSEMARY HICKMAN
LAST FEBRUARY , the Lewis &
Clark community welcomed
former U.S. Ambassador Niels
Marquardt ’75 as the college’s first
diplomat in residence.
Marquardt graduated from LC
with a BA in German and proceeded
to join the Peace Corps, serving in
Rwanda. Following his time in the
Peace Corps, Marquardt graduated
from the American Graduate School
of International Business in 1980 and
the National War College in 1994.
Immediately after his graduation,
Marquardt became a member of the
Foreign Service, launching a thirty
three year-long career in foreign
diplomacy.
“Nowadays (it seems) people don’t
expect to have the same employer for
that length of time, but it almost feels
like you don’t because you’re always
moving around and having different
bosses,” Marquardt said. “It is a
completely different experience (each
time) and you never feel like you’re
in a rut.”
Throughout his career, Marquardt
served as an economic officer in
Thailand, The Republic of the Congo,
France and Germany. He has also
served as the U.S. Ambassador
to Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon,
Madagascar and the Comoros.
Marquardt’s final assignment in
the State Department was as the U.S.
consul general in Sydney, Australia.
“It is one of the nicest jobs in
the Foreign Service,” Marquardt
said. “We didn’t have to worry about
(putting the country back together), it was more like ‘what can we learn
from the way they’re running their
country.’ As a very close ally my
main job there was to ... reassure the
Australians that we appreciate them
and are aware of what they’re doing.”
As he was not ready to leave the
country just yet, Marquardt took
a job as the CEO of the American
Chamber of Commerce in Australia
following his post in Sydney.
After a four-year-long tenure
with the Chamber of Commerce,
Marquardt and his family returned to
the U.S. and settled in Portland.
As the diplomat in residence at LC,
Marquardt works alongside faculty
and students on campus activities,
such as the annual International
Affairs symposium, and advises
students who are interested in
careers with the Foreign Service or
other overseas careers.
“Whatever (people) are doing, I can
probably add something to it ... perhaps I
can help recruit some people to speak (at
the international affairs symposium),”
Marquardt said. “But my real focus
and the thing I like most is talking to
students and trying to find out what
their interests are.”
In addition to serving as a
diplomat in the Foreign Service,
Marquardt has held positions in
human resources for the State
Department and has been a special
coordinator for the Diplomatic
Readiness Initiative that was
implemented by Colin Powell in
2001. Students can schedule an
appointment to meet with Marquardt
on the Career Center page on the LC
website.
Exploring the origins of the
historic LC graduate school
AIDAN D’ANNA/PIONEER LOG
The Corbett House, once the property of the Sisters of St. Francis convent, now houses Lewis & Clark’s graduate school. Niels Marquardt, LC’s
diplomat in residence
HANNA WRIGHT/PIONEER LOG
Niels Marquardt ’75, LC’s first diplomat in residence, was appointed in February 2019.
First National Period Day tackles period poverty and stigma
ADA BARBEE/PIONEER LOG“It’s basic healthcare and
should be provided by the
administration.”
Caroline Arnis ’22FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2019
FEATURES 9
By WILL TOPPIN
THE FALL SEASON i s u p o n u s ,
leaving many Lewis & Clark
students longing to partake in
the classic autumn events. Read on for
recommendations of downtown events,
apple picking, horror movies and more.
Halloween may be behind us, but some
haunted houses in Portland are still going
strong. The Fear PDX describes itself as
“Portland’s Scariest Haunted House.”
Fear PDX is open through Nov. 2, and a
blackout experience (same experience,
no lights, one glowstick) is open through
Nov. 9. Tickets are $28 and up.
Horror movies are in-season, and the Regal Fox Tower and Regal Pioneer Place
movie theaters are within walking distance
of the Portland State University Pioneer
Express stop. “Joker,” “Lighthouse,”
“Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” and
“Zombieland 2” are among the horror and
thriller movie lineup. For students looking
for a less stressful experience, the Fox
Tower will be running Studio Ghibli
films for their Ghibli Fest, with shows
on Nov. 17, 18, 20 and into December.
Sauvie Island is a frequented fall
destination for LC students. The island
hosts multiple farms of varying sizes
and offered a pumpkin patch, a haunted
corn maze, apple picking, hayrides and
apple cider until Oct. 31. Many farms are shutting down now but come highly
recommended by students to visit next
year — plus, the island is beautiful to visit
year-round.
“I worked on a farm there for a few
months,” Maddox Wilson ’20 said. “I’ve
also been to the beaches there ... to go
swimming. There’s lots of U-pick farms,
you can go to pick berries and other
things.”
Ferdinand Sawyer ’20 recommends
the island’s corn mazes.
“I went with some friends and it was
really nice to just ... be outside,” Sawyer
said. “It was rainy, and it was muddy,
but it was still really fun ... (There) was
so much warm fall atmosphere, cider and
pumpkins and everything, so it didn’t feel
cold or gross.”
Wilson advises supporting the
smaller farms on the island.
“The big (farms) obviously have
bigger advertising and are more
attractive to go to, but they also sort of
dominate the island and make a ton of
money and are part of larger farms that
operate all around Oregon,” Wilson said.
Sauvie Island is mainly accessible by
car or bus ride.
While Sauvie Island is no longer
open for apple picking this year,
students can get their apple-picking
fill from the large apple tree on the
graduate campus, which grows edible
fruit. Several other edible fruits are
located on the LC campus (see issue 2’s
article on foraging).
For another activity close to campus,
several cemeteries are within walking
distance towards the Willamette River.
It is important to be respectful, but
cemeteries can offer either a peaceful
daytime walk or a spooky nighttime visit.By MADELINE COX
THE 16TH ANNUAL Ray Warren
Symposium on Race and Ethnic
Studies will be held from Nov.
13 to Nov. 16. The theme of this year’s
symposium is Beyond Resistance:
Race and Revolutionary Struggle. The
theme falls at the intersection of many
topics that the student co-chairs were
interested in highlighting during the
symposium, including decolonization,
environmental justice and art as
revolution.
For student Cochair Arunima
Singh Jamwal ’20, the theme of
revolution represents how people
sustain a movement beyond a single
event.
“When I think about what
revolutionary
struggle really
means for me, I
see it as us trying
to gain a deeper
understanding
of what are the
ways in which
marginalized
communities,
especially
communities
of color ... move beyond this one
flashpoint of resistance,” Singh
Jamwal said. “What we really wanted
to do was get ourselves to think about
how are these people in their chosen
sphere, whether that’s economic,
social, or otherwise, how do they
continue changing people’s beliefs or
changing policies about the issue that
they have chosen to work on? How do
they sustain that work?”
Singh Jamwal and the other
cochairs wanted to ground this broad
theme of revolution in people’s
personal experiences.
“The struggle part of (the theme)
kind of speaks to how personal it is for
people,” Singh Jamwal said. “I think
that’s really important to acknowledge
for us in an academic setting ...
All of the cochairs and I were very
mindful and certain that we wanted
this to be an intersection of (the presenters’) professional and personal
experiences, so this is not divorced
from the everyday realities that they
have to face (and) the injustices that
they have to face.”
The symposium is an interdisciplinary
event, featuring areas of study ranging
from environmentalism to art to
economics. This interdisciplinary
focus is reflected in the variety of
events that make up the symposium,
including a historical installation in
Watzek Library and an art exhibition
in Stamm Dining Hall.
“The Watzek library exhibit is
curated by two student presenters
(Emma Celebrezze ’20 and Ashley
O’Leary ’22) and is more historically
focused,” Singh Jamwal said. “The
art show is submissions from mostly
students but
just community
members in
general, and that
is curated by
two wonderful
amazing seniors
(Cassidy Keyes
’20 and Emma
Ray-Wong ’20).
They are going to
set up that show
in Stamm and it’s going to stay there
for the entirety of the symposium, all
three days.”
The keynote speakers on Nov. 13
are the U.S. Youth Climate Strike’s
National Creative Director Feliquan
Charlemagne, and Co-Founder
and Co-Executive Director Isra
Hirsi. Singh Jamwal is excited for
Charlemagne and Hirsi to talk about
the intersection of environmentalism
and racial issues.
“They speak so eloquently and
with such richness about real issues
that front-line communities are
facing,” Singh Jamwal said. “That is
supplemented by the fact that they
have lived through climate disasters
and seen how racial segregation is
connected to environemntal justice.”
As youth activists, Singh Jamwal
believes that Charlemagne and Hirsi
present a unique perspective that will add to the discussion.
“Even if our policy makers are
falling incredibly and disappointingly
short of taking the legislative action
that we know we need to take at an
international level, we as young people
can start this conversation in our own
communities and in communities all
across the country,” Singh Jamwal
said. “(Charlemagne and Hirsi) have
really harnessed the power of social
media to do that, which is another
thing that I am excited to hear them
speak about ... I think that they
have something really unique that
they can share with us and hopefully
we can learn from them.”
Alongside the keynote
presentations on Nov. 13 and Nov.
14, panels will be held throughout
the symposium that will discuss
a variety of topics. Singh Jamwal
believes that these panels are an
important part of the symposium
since their interdisciplinary nature
means that anyone will be able
to find a panel that they will be
interested in.
“I think that the panels are
really the meat of the symposium,”
Singh Jamwal said. “I think the best
part about this symposium is how
interdisciplinary we have been able
to make it and how many people it
can reach.”
For instance, on Nov. 14 the
Roots and Homelands panel focuses
on the intersection of culture, land
and politics.
“(The Roots and Homelands
panel) is about our cultures of origin,
where we come from, our homelands,
and our roots and how our roots
nourish the revolutionary work that
we do,” Singh Jamwal said. “It’s
very much about creating a space for
personal and familial stories, so we
have a child-mother duo coming in
who are both activists, climate and
education respectively. We also want
to encourage scholarly reflections
on land and politics, so we have
Anand Vaidya, who is a professor of
anthropology at Reed (College), who
is going to talk (about) communal movements in relation to land in
South Asia.”
Singh Jamwal participated in the
symposium’s Race Monologues before
becoming a cochair. Their experience
with the symposium was impactful,
and they wanted to help contribute to
creating the space that the symposium
offers.
“I participated in (the Race
Monologues) as a first year, and
it was incredibly moving for me to experience that and to have the
honor to be witness to these people’s
experiences,” Singh Jamwal said.
“I think it’s my view that the Ray
Warren Symposium is one of the
few spaces on our campus that is
really able to have an in-depth and
sustained conversation over the
course of three days about racial
injustices and power dynamics that
we come into contact with in our
everyday lives.”
Ray Warren Symposium to feature youth activists
JO TABACEK/PIONEER LOG
A flyer on a campus bench advertises the upcoming Ray Warren Symposium.Feliquan Charlemagne and Isra Hirsi will speak on the intersection of environmentalism and racial issues
“They speak so eloquently
and with such richness
about real issues that
front-line communities
are facing.”
Arunima Singh Jamwal ’20
I am falling for you: the coziest
things to do around Portland
JO TABACEK/PIONEER LOG
Apple picking is just one of the fun fall activities available around the Portland area. The best places at LC
for peak productivity
By CAN ALTUNKAYNAK
WE ALL HAVE that one
place we study on campus.
For many, the library
or their dorm rooms are enough.
However, there are many other
alternatives one can take depending
on their preferences. Noise levels
are an important consideration for
students, as some need really quiet
spaces to be able to study and others
feel more motivated around others.
“I generally study in my room
which might be bad sometimes
because I feel sleepy” Fernando
Torres ’21 said. “Sometimes I also
go to the library, but sometimes
I avoid it because it is too packed
and stressful. It is just not the
environment I want to be (in).”
Torres associates the library
with stress. However, for others,
the library is where they can focus,
isolate themselves from the rest of
the world and get work done. Thus,
the library, being a different space
from one’s own room, where they
may socialize or watch movies,
creates opportunities for students
to condition themselves in a certain
way that makes it easier for them to
be academically efficient. There are
also other spatial learning methods
students use on campus.
“I heard that some people go
and study in the class where they
have the subject so that they can
connect the material to the class
better,” Amália Bošelová ’23 said.
For others, silence is far more
important. “The library closes sometimes
on weekends so that meant that
I could not study anywhere
because I need silence,” Gabriel
Rivera ‘19 said. “People usually are
not in Templeton on weekends,
so you can go ... in front of the
ISS (International Students and
Scholars) office and there are tables
so you can study there.”
The need for silence really
pushes students to discover new
ways of studying. Rivera said he
discovered many places on and
around campus merely because he
needed silence.
“There is the Council Chambers,
which is open all the time and
nobody goes there,” Rivera said. “I
have never in my four years seen
someone there apart from very
specific events.”
Templeton has a large variety of
places students can study in.
“For some time I used to study
in the Mac Lab because my laptop
was broken, and (studying there)
was okay,” Torres said. “I also tried
to study in the rooms in Templeton
and it was nice because it was only
me in the room.”
Other places to study include the
tables outside of residence halls,
the Frank Manor House, Maggie’s,
the Dovecote, and other buildings
on campus that students pass by
and never enter. Go discover your
own. You might think you know it
all, but there is probably that one
door that leads to somewhere you
have never been on campus that
would be the perfect study spot.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2019
FEATURES 10
By GRACE MARK
DO NOT BE fooled by Pamela
Zobel-Thropp’s title as visiting
professor. For almost 20 years,
she has been a biology professor and
researcher at Lewis & Clark. Zobel-
Thropp’s background is in molecular
biology and biochemistry, so when
Professor of Biology Greta Binford
needed someone to look at proteins in
the Binford Spider Lab, Zobel-Thropp
fit the bill. Thus, a self-professed
arachnophobic molecular biologist
became a spider venom expert.
The Binford Spider Lab sits at
the intersection of bioinformatics,
molecular biology, biochemistry and
evolutionary biology. Binford is a
nationally-acclaimed arachnologist
due to her work with spider venom.
Binford and Zobel-Thropp were
recently published in the journal
Frontiers in Evolution and Ecology
with their chemical analysis of pholcid
(daddy long-legs) venom.
“It’s a really neat team because
(Binford) asks evolution-based
questions about venom, and me being
very detail-oriented with DNA and
proteins, it’s a great match,” Zobel-
Thropp said. “We can ask a lot of really
big questions and put it all together.”
Research in the spider lab centers
around spider venom. Their current project, funded by the National Science
Foundation, focuses on evolutionary
analysis of brown recluse spiders and
other members of the Loxosceles and
Sicarius genera. Their research aims
to explore the role of venom in these
species, and how it varies between
them. This research could help to
develop treatments for bites from any
of these species.
“Venoms are being tapped for a lot
of resources, in terms of medicine, in
terms of agriculture ... nobody knows
a lot about them but they’re chock-
full of very interesting chemicals,”
Zobel-Thropp said. “We’re sitting on a
mountain of data that can be used for
stuff like that.”
Because her work is on the molecular
level, Zobel-Thropp did not expect her
research to turn into fieldwork.
“I went on a collecting trip in
Texas and that was it — I became an
arachnologist,” Zobel-Thropp said.
Spending time outside camping,
talking to people, and getting on her
hands and knees to collect specimens
allowed her to explore a very different
side of her field.
“Working with DNA at the bench,
that’s stuff you can’t see,” Zobel-
Thropp said. “Being out there and
collecting the specimen that’s gonna
give you this information just opened
new doors for me.”Work in the lab opens new doors
for students too. Students participate
in all levels of research, from field
collecting to venom protein analysis
to studying gene codes. They milk
venom, inject crickets and flies and
investigate venom potency.
Zobel-Thropp learns just as much
from her students as she does from
the research.
“There’s always a waitlist of
students who want to work in our
lab,” Zobel-Thropp said. “We are
super lucky to have students at LC
that are so passionate. We have high
expectations, and they’ve always been
met.”
Ellen Richards ’20 is a biology
major and computer science minor
who started working in the spider lab
summer 2019. Now she is pursuing
her passion for bioinformatics
through her senior thesis in the lab.
“I’ve been using computational
skills and programming ... to look
at the evolutionary history and
genetic structure of this family of
proteins,” Richards said. “What I’m
doing now is ... a deep dive into the
phylogenetic evolutionary history of
this family of proteins that we study
in the lab.”
Richards expressed gratitude for
the guidance of Zobel-Thropp and
Binford.“They’re so good about teaching
me new things, helping me teach
myself,” Richards said. “They’ve
been so willing to help me and other
students through every single step ...
I’m learning so much about myself as a
learner and about being a researcher.”
The research being conducted in
the spider lab has the potential to reach much further than LC’s biology
department.
“It’s hard to get money for
research, but we’re still getting
funded … it says a lot about the
power of our research,” Zobel-Thropp
said. “My path is leading towards
expressing these proteins and figuring
out what they do.”
By ROSEMARY HICKMAN
T HIS YEAR, the Lewis & Clark
Garden Club has experienced a
resurgence in activity and has
been active in bringing garden spaces
around campus to life.
Lucas Martinez ’20 is the president
of the Garden Club this year after
taking it upon himself to rejuvenate
the club. Martinez was exposed to
gardening from a young age, and his
passion for it has persisted.
“I grew up gardening with my
dad ... I started getting more involved
with gardening on my own when I
was studying abroad (in Chile) last
semester,” Martinez said. “I was
volunteering at a garden at a Catholic
university there. That’s where I really
started reflecting on the importance of
(gardening) in my life.”
Martinez wanted to see more
consistency in the Garden Club, as its
level of activity has fluctuated in the
past few years.
Emma Hay ’20 took the position of
vice president of the club this summer
after Martinez reached out to others
interested in revamping the club.
Hay has been gardening since
high school and has been active in
the club this year, helping to organize
work parties for clearing out existing
garden spaces and making them ready
to plant.
“We have two garden spaces, one
by Forest dorms and one on South
Campus (which we) cohabitate and
work with grad students on helping to
clear those spaces,” Hay said. “(During
the) work parties we just have music
and get a bunch of tools and gloves and
we all pull weeds.”
In addition to getting the spaces
ready for future planning, the club has
made a community dinner from the
crops already grown in the gardens..
“(We recently did a) harvest
and dinner,” Hay said. “We made
homemade tomato salsa and baked
some squash and pumpkin seeds.”
Ivy Burt ’23 joined Garden Club
because gardening has been a part of
her life since childhood.
Burt enjoys the inclusive
atmosphere of the club and the
community that quickly formed.
“You’re not singled out for being
a freshman,” Burt said. “It’s not very
hierarchical ... everybody just shows
up and can go be in the earth and play
with plants.” This year, the Garden Club is
embarking on a beekeeping project on
campus in conjunction with Students
Engaged in Eco Defense (SEED).
Mateo Kaiser ’23 has been
involved with getting an Associated
Students of Lewis & Clark (ASLC)
student initiative grant to fund the
beekeeping project. The project will
include planting wildflowers native to
Oregon around campus for the bees
to pollinate. Members of the Garden
Club will maintain these flowers and
members of both Garden Club and SEED will tend to the hives.
“(The goal of this project is) to
establish an ongoing and thriving
apiary on campus,” Kaiser said via
email. “Having a beehive on campus
gives students the opportunity to
learn about beekeeping ... as well
as providing honey. Pollinator
populations have also increasingly
been on the decline ... (so) it is
important to do as much as we can to
help sustain them.”
The Garden Club hopes to start the
hive in spring 2020.
By AMELIA EICHEL
A RECENT partnership between
Lewis & Clark and a non-
governmental organization
(NGO) in downtown Portland called
Green Empowerment has opened up
many exciting opportunities for LC
students interested in sustainability.
Economics major Ary Hashim
’20 sits on the associate board for
Green Empowerment, which enabled
him to foster the partnership with
the help of LC’s Senior Director of
Sustainability & Communications
Amy Dvorak in spring 2019. The
first opportunity for LC students to
take advantage of this partnership
was on Oct. 18 when LC students
were given free tickets to attend
Green Empowerment’s Passport to
Empowerment event in downtown
Portland.
The event allowed LC students
to network with professionals who
have a passion for sustainability. The
students represented a wide range of
majors, minors and organizations,
including international affairs,
environmental studies, Hispanic
studies, psychology, entrepreneurship
and Associated Students of Lewis &
Clark.
“Everyone I talked to was from
a different field, but they were all
focused on sustainability,” Daniel
Marsan ’20, a biochemistry and
molecular biology major who
attended the event, said. It was
really inspiring and made me realize
that sustainability should always
be a concern, no matter what field
you’re in.”
Green Empowerment facilitates
the creation of renewable energy
systems in collaboration with
communities in Bolivia, Colombia,
Ecuador, Nicaragua, Peru, Myanmar,
the Philippines, and Malaysia and
Borneo. The goal of this partnership
is to give LC students hands-on
experience with NGO work.
“The partnership will create
a broader network for students
and expose them to NGOs (in
Portland),” Hashim said. “We’ve got
some internship opportunities that
are looking very promising, but the
biggest impact a student can have
through the partnership is to take
the position I am in now on the
associate board.” When Hashim graduates, his
position on the associate board
will open up. The board is the
youth-centered arm of Green
Empowerment, and its purpose is
to empower young people to get
into strategic positions where they
can begin doing meaningful work
in sustainability. This position has
enabled Hashim to network with
young professionals in sustainability,
organize events and work on strategic
partnerships.
While she was speaking with
students during the event, Executive
Director of Green Empowerment
Andrea Johnson said that another
goal of the partnership is to work with
LC overseas programs to incorporate
certain Green Empowerment projects
into existing programs. This would
be a new type of partnership for LC
overseas programs and both LC
students and Green Empowerment
would stand to benefit.
“That would be exciting for
Green Empowerment because Lewis
& Clark is a sustainability-focused
school,” Johnson said.
Hashim explained why Green
Empowerment is a valuable
resource to students interested in
sustainability work.
“Their staff and volunteers come
from a wide range of industries which
is what makes this organization
powerful and why it resonates
with LC,” Hashim said. “It’s
multidisciplinary, systems thinking,
and it’s a practical vehicle for the
theory that LC teaches its students.”
Specifically, Green Empowerment
specializes in facilitating renewable
energy systems with underprivileged
communities, so they make sure that
all of the resources and power needed
to maintain the energy systems are
sustainable. Green Empowerment
can teach LC students about their
microhydro electricity and hygiene
projects, sourcing materials,
implementing and maintaining
systems through partnerships
with local communities and how
to conduct environmental impact
analyses.
The next joint LC and Green
Empowerment event will be in
November. Any student interested in
taking advantage of this partnership
can get in touch with Dvorak or
Hashim directly. LC biology professors research spider venom
Professors Pamela Zobel-Thropp and Greta Binford work with LC students in the Binford Spider Lab
LC collaborates with
Green EmpowermentGarden Club springs back to life
and begins beekeeping project
MADELEINE NEWTON/PIONEER LOGAIDAN D’ANNA/PIONEER LOG
Members of the Garden Club prepare beds for planting outside of Juniper Hall.Professor Pamela Zobel-Thropp researches spider venom in the Bindford Spider Lab.FRIDAY , NOVEMBER 1, 2019
ARTS 11
With limited time, LC students put together productions that bridge the gap between audience and stage“Once Upon” astounds audience with humor
By MICHAELA EDLIN
THE BOARD OF P a u s e , L e w i s
& Clark’s theater journal, held
their semi-annual “Once Upon a
Weekend” show Oct. 19 in the Black Box of
Fir Acres Theatre.
Students had a week to submit an
original script based on a theme, with this
fall’s being “This Ain’t My First Rodeo,”
and had 24 hours for the director and
cast to rehearse. This fall’s production
was hosted by Evan Howell ’20 and Pause
Board President Robert Rodriguez ’20 and
featured four of the eight submitted plays.
A performance by one of LC’s a
cappella groups, Kith & Kin, started off
the night before the first play, “Camp.”
Written by Mary Alice Perkins ’22 and
directed by Naomi Schroeter ’23 the
play focused on a summer camp conflict
between two children. The first half of it
was performed after Kith & Kin and the
second half concluded the show.
“Camp” introduced the the character
George, played by Ezri Reyes ’22, chasing
after a goose, which was a thread carried
throughout the whole event. This goose
gag was kept a secret. Even the actors of
other plays were unaware of the role it
would play throughout the event.
Grave Wenzel ’23 was in “Couple
Square Dancing Therapy” and
was surprised when Reyes entered
unannounced.
“A (favorite) moment was when
Ezri interrupted our scene because he
was looking for a goose and that was a
continued gag from the previous scene,”
Wenzel said. “I didn’t know that was
happening, none of us knew that was
happening, but we were all staying in
character.”
The second play, “Couple Square
Dance Therapy,” featured bickering
couples trying to dance it out under the
instruction of a whacky ’80s inspired trainer. The audience roared in applause
and laughter after the scene’s closing
lines: “So, have you ever been pegged
before?” “What do you think this is? My
first rodeo?”
Next, the hosts gathered two audience
participants for a lip sync, which received
substantial applause. The two men who
volunteered selected the song “Toxic” by
Britney Spears, while the audience cheered
and commented on the humorous,
homoerotic nature of the performance.
According to House Manager Ellie
Pearson ’20, this was a shining moment.
“The lip sync was particularly fun this
year,” Pearson said. “In previous years it’s
been hard to get audience participation to
that level, and they just got up there and
did a fantastic job.”
Following the lip sync, actors
performed in “4 a.m. Blues,” written by
Ella Spurbeck ’23 and directed by Fabi
Arya Rodriguez ’23. The play showed
a waitress who had worked a 24-hour
shift dealing with the demands of
unreasonable customers, spit takes and
a haphazard chef. An LC jazz band, The
Angry Wombats, followed the play with a
two-song set.
The fourth play was a fan favorite.
Playwright Emmanuel Skora ’23 and
director Negasi Brown ’23 produced the
self-titled “This Ain’t My First Rodeo,” a
zany, “Animal Farm” reminiscent story of
horses who overtake their farmer owners.
Skora said he wrote the play in three
hours and for him, the theme “This Ain’t
My First Rodeo” was an easy transition to
horse revolution. He had one criticism of
the adaptation.
“In the play, they incorporated a lot
of neighs, but there was still not enough
neighs,” Skora said. “In the script that I
wrote, I put in a neigh in every line that a
horse was saying.”
Quite a few lines from the Skora’s play
thrilled the audience, like “I may not be a smart cowboy, but I know what love is,”
and “I have a weapon, but since we go to a
liberal arts school, it’s a pencil.”
While the horses in the stables planned
to overthrow their human owners, a
romantic subplot added further depth to
the play. The farm owner and his wife were
in a less than satisfactory marriage, but
the wife aspired to be loved by everyone,
including a secret lover who plotted to kill
her husband. This and a comedically timed
suicide made the horses’ job even simpler.
Pearson has been the house manager for two and a half years and values
“Once Upon a Weekend” because of
its lighthearted nature and audience
participation.
“Part of the fun of ‘Once Upon’ is a lot
of people who know it and engage with
it, know to be expecting (unusual) things
like that,” Pearson said. “They’re ready to
laugh at everything.”
Though the production schedule for
the play was extremely tight, Wenzel did
not feel that it limited the quality of the
plays. Elements were spontaneous and ad-libbed, but it was applied on a basis of
somewhat memorized lines and rehearsed
chemistry.
“It wasn’t ... chaotic, you could tell it
was very carefully planned and it didn’t
seem thrown together at all, but it all
happened so quickly,” Wenzel said. “I’ve
never experienced anything like that in
acting before.”
The next “Once Upon a Weekend”
theme will be announced Feb. 2 and the
show will be on Feb. 19 at 7 p.m. in Fir
Acres Theatre’s Black Box. WILL TOPPIN/PIONEER LOG
The exhibit is in Watzek Library atrium and hosts many examples of the Bauhaus’ art.
Design Museum Portland hosts interactive Gala 6
BY JUSTIN HOWERTON
I HAVE TROUBLE with elevator lights.
Most cannot stand the music, but for
me, it is the uninviting fluorescence
that floods the space of any elevator I am
unfortunate enough to inhabit. However,
after attending Design Museum Portland’s
sixth annual gala on Oct. 19, I have spent
less time blindlessly hating these lights
and more time considering alternatives.
What if the lights were colored? What if
they alternated between blue and green
depending on if the elevator was moving
up or down? What if every elevator
contained a skylight?
The event itself served as a fundraiser
intended to develop and increase Design
Museum’s operations within the city. The
title ‘museum’ can be a little misleading
if one is unfamiliar with the function of
this organization. Design Museum lacks a
singular location. Instead, it interacts with
the Portland community by going directly
to different venue spaces, including both public and private environments, to
establish exhibits and events. Within these
spaces, Design Museum hosts lectures,
workshops and mixers that emphasize
inspiring creativity, educating members
and the general public on the importance
of design and connecting similarly
interested individuals with one another.
One of the main tenets of the
organization centers around disrupting
the convention that design is a particularly
narrow or exclusive field. Design Museum
would argue instead that design and
creativity affect every aspect of our
experience. As such, they often seek to
include members of the community that
do not have a design background in order
to diversify the conversation. They believe
that anyone, regardless of their artistic or
technical experience, can provide input.
The gala itself took place on one of the
upper floors of a building on the North
Waterfront and offered stunning views
of downtown Portland. The theme of the
event focused on reacquainting oneself with the five senses. Appetizers and drinks
were served to allow attendees to indulge
in the sensation of taste while cocktail
tables offered spherical paper cutouts
that guests could assemble at their leisure
to stimulate the sensation of touch. One
station even asked guests to list some of
their favorite scents when roaming the
streets of Portland. Despite my status as
one of the youngest people in attendance,
Design Museum successfully curated an
inviting atmosphere that dissuaded any
sort of social awkwardness, promoting a
space that instead encouraged discussion
and shameless enjoyment.
After an hour or two of mingling,
I received a text notification that it
was time for everyone to find a seat at
their appropriate table. The highlight
of the night was the dinner, which was
accompanied by speakers from employees
of various corporations. During the host’s
opening remarks, he invited all of the
guests to examine the chocolate that had
been placed under their napkins. He discouraged eating it immediately and
instead asked that each guest first break
the chocolate in half, sniff it vigorously
and admire its texture before consuming
it. In this way, a certain intentionality and
an awareness of one’s bodily sensations
were emphasized throughout the dinner.
Halfway through the meal, Global
Director of Advertising at Nike Desmond
Marzette gave a keynote presentation on
the origins of hip hop music in New York..
He posited that these early music pioneers
were in fact accomplished designers.
The way that these musicians adapted
to financial constraints and logistical
issues among other problems highlighted
the fundamental concepts behind any
good designer: expression, innovation
and experimentation. Supplementing
the insightful commentary provided by
the speakers, each dish was prepared
individually by local Portland chefs.
Towards the end of the meal, Managing
Director of Design Museum Portland
Erica Rife asked for financial donations from the audience to ensure the future
success of the organization. While many
did not opt for the most costly donations,
a surprising amount of people were still
willing to donate something, which is itself
an accomplishment. Desert was served in
the adjacent room where a deaf DJ was
preparing for his upcoming set. A vertical
light display had been installed in the far
corner of the room and was intended to
mimic the sensation of music for deaf
people; certain colored lights would flash
as different sounds played. For those of
us fortunate enough to possess the ability
to hear, the lights that accompanied the
music served as a stimulating supplement,
forcing us to consider the limitations and
capabilities of our senses.
I left the event not long after. I came as
a skeptic, unsure of just how successfully
a nomadic organization could operate
without an established location or an
entirely lucid purpose. I left a believer,
musing on the way that the elevator lights
flickered on the way to the ground level.Guests that contributed to the fundraiser were given confetti shooters, which they released at the end of the meal. Guests mingle and interact while enjoying drinks, appetizers and a spectacular view of the Fremont Bridge.LEXIE BOREN/PIONEER LOGOrganization raises funds to increase productivity, public education and impact within community
LEXIE BOREN/PIONEER LOGMICHAELA EDLIN /PIONEER LOG
Ava Schmidt ’23 cries in agony as she hears a fellow horse has died. Schimdt was one of the horses in “This Ain’t My First Rodeo.”FRIDAY , NOVEMBER 1, 2019
ARTS 12
Hillary and Chelsea Clinton’s “The Book of Gutsy Women” explores the stories of pioneering females
Natural History Club
teaches plant pressingClintons discuss their new book in Portland
By NICHOLAS NERLI
ON OCT. 19, Powell’s Books
hosted a conversation with
Hillary Rodham Clinton and
her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, after
the publication of their new book “The
Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories
of Courage and Resilience.” Moderated
by New York Times best-selling author
Cheryl Strayed, the sold-out event took
place at Revolution Hall, a performance
venue in Portland’s former Washington
High School. Throughout the 90-minute
talk, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton
discussed their new book and the current
political climate and answered questions
from the audience.
Released on Oct. 1 by publishers Simon
& Schuster, the book features stories of
103 inspiring women, including Greta
Thunberg, Harriet Tubman, Geraldine
Ferraro, Ellen DeGeneres and Malala
Yousafzai. The text is carefully organized
by which author wrote a particular section,
marked as “Hillary,” “Chelsea” or “Hillary
and Chelsea.” In 464 pages, the book
informs readers of persistent women
who, despite obstacles, fought for female
equality and changed the course of history.
“A part of what we wanted to do was,
number one, tell the stories, but equally
important to us was to draw some threads
and make the case that these women were
not perfect,” Hillary Clinton said. “These
women had their own challenges, their
own disappointments, their own setbacks,
but they also shared not only resilience
but a sense of purpose.”
Despite their close relationship, the
two had difficulty during the writing
process, as Chelsea Clinton described in a promotional video.
“I knew that my mom still wrote
longhand, but I didn’t quite realize what
that would mean to collaborate,” she
said. “She would say that she would finish
something, and then she would take
pictures of it on her phone.”
In her defense, Hillary Clinton named another well-known Democrat who
shares her writing style.
“You know who else still writes
longhand?” she said. “Barack Obama.”
Early in the conversation, Chelsea
Clinton discussed personal challenges
beginning as a young girl in public life
when her father, President Bill Clinton, campaigned for the White House.
“I was this really awkward seventh
and eighth grader with really frizzy hair,
I had braces, I sometimes wore these
big glasses,” Chelsea Clinton said. “(In
the 1990s) these adults were focused on
my appearance and Rush Limbaugh,
Saturday Night Live and plenty of others would say things like ‘the Clintons have
a cat (named) Socks. If Bill Clinton wins,
they’ll also be bringing their dog Chelsea
to the White House.’”
In a previous interview with Good
Morning America, Hillary Clinton
described some of her boldest decisions.
“I think the gutsiest thing I’ve ever
done, well, personally, (is) make the
decision to stay in my marriage,” Hillary
Clinton said. “Publicly, politically, (it was)
running for president.”
Bill Clinton had a sexual relationship
with Lewis & Clark alumna Monica
Lewinsky ’95, then a White House intern,
during his presidency.
In closing, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton
were asked if they were prepared to
endorse a candidate running for the 2020
Democratic presidential nomination.
While they did not offer an endorsement,
both provided advice for defeating Donald
Trump.
“I just want to see who can get the
Electoral College, because it won’t do us
any good to win the popular vote again,”
Hillary Clinton said. “At the end of the
day, as I know better than anybody, and
as Al Gore knows, that is not the game.
You’ve got to win the Electoral College.”
To the loudest applause of the night,
Chelsea Clinton, in a whisper, offered a
future course of action.
“And then we get rid of the Electoral
College,” she said.
“The Book of Gutsy Women” debuted
at number two on The New York Times
Best Seller list’s Hardcover Nonfiction
Books category. After falling to number
eight and number 13, the book, now in
its third week on the list, currently sits at
number 11.NICHOLAS NERLI/PIONEER LOG
The 90-minute talk by Hillary Rodham Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, hosted by Powell’s Books, included a Q&A.
By AIDAN D’ANNA
ON OCT. 25, students scoured
the Estate Gardens hunting
for the perfect plant specimen.
Were they conducting research for
a biology lab? No, these students
were out collecting flowers, leaves
and roots for the Natural History
Club’s first plant pressing workshop
of the semester. The workshop, held
in the Aubrey R. Watzek Library
classroom, was facilitated by Hanna
Machiorlete ’20 and Alex Olsen ’20
who are the co-leaders of the club and
student curators of the Lewis & Clark
herbarium.
Located in the yellow lab in the
basement of the Biology-Psychology
building, the herbarium boasts a
collection of over 1,200 specimens
from three states and three countries,
donated by more than 50 contributors.
The herbarium is proud to say that it is
almost entirely student-run.
The workshop began with a
brief presentation from Olsen and
Machiorlete describing the history of
the LC herbarium, as well as a quick
explanation of how plants can function
in an artistic context.
“We put on this event because it’s
really just an open expression,” Olsen
said. “It’s always really exciting to see
what people come up with.”
After their brief history lesson, the
co-leaders taught the 25 eager students
the five basic steps of plant pressing.
First, collect from something
common enough that taking the
specimen will not be harmful to
the species as a whole. The plant
is not worth using as a specimen if
the species has a possibility of being
endangered.
Second, get permission to collect
from whomever owns the land the
specimen inhabits. At LC, students have permission to collect whatever
plants, leaves and roots they desire.
Third, place the specimens in the
plant press pallet in between layers of
newspaper and cardboard, alternating
newspaper cardboard plants until the
press seems full, then close and tighten
the press with two leather straps.
These are what hold the specimens in
place.
Fourth, after the plants are fully
dried (about a week), take them out
of the press and mount them on thin
glass with glue and non-acidic paper.
The Natural History Club is hosting a
second workshop on Nov. 1 to teach
students how to mount the plants they
pressed in the first workshop.
Fifth, if you are intending to
use your specimen for scientific
observation, now is the time for
labeling, cataloging and organizing
with respect to other specimens in the
herbarium or in your own collection.
In putting on this event, Olsen and
Machiorlete hoped to emphasize the
interdisciplinary nature of the practice.
“We love to put on this event
because it is science and it is biology,
but it also has a really artistic side,”
Olsen said.
The Natural History Club, whose
members describe themselves as
“general nature enthusiasts,” hosts
club and outreach events twice a
month. They aim to demonstrate that
scientific practices are not limited
to only spending hours in a lab.
Rather they can be conducted out in
nature too, and you can end up with
something beautiful that lasts forever.
After 20 minutes spent on the Estate
Gardens harvesting the specimens
for their future creations, the novice
curators were as excited as Olsen and
Machiorlete, and all will return for the
next workshop to mount their hard
work.By TOBY BAZELEY
LINES ARE LONG when Tommy
Wiseau, filmmaker and actor,
comes to town. At Cinema
21, where Tommy Wiseau made
appearances on Oct. 18 and 19 before
screenings of “The Room,” the line
reached halfway down the block despite
the pouring rain.
“The Room,” Wiseau’s most famous
movie, has gained a cult following
since its release in 2003 and has been
dubbed by many as “the best bad movie
ever made.” It was created as a drama
but unintentionally drifts into comedy.
For this reason, it has even garnered
international attention. A screening of
“The Room” goes beyond just watching
the movie; they can only be described
as a unique experience, due in large
part to the tremendous amount of
audience participation. When Wiseau
makes an appearance (he has been
“touring” most of the year), naturally
that experience is amplified.
The scene inside the theater is, in
an almost bizarre way, very casual.
There was no table for autographs, no
one to control the line of fans inside,
just Wiseau chatting with people as
they had their picture taken. Obtaining
a picture with and an autograph from
Wiseau himself only required that you
purchase an item of merch. For me,
that item was a three-foot tall poster
with Wiseau’s face front and center.
He signed it with four large hearts and
a message to be positive (a recurring
theme of Wiseau’s appearance) before
taking multiple pictures with me and
commenting about my height.
After everybody had gotten their
pictures and filtered into the theater,
the Q&A session began. Through his
thick accent (no one knows where he or
the accent is from), Wiseau answered
questions from fans. His responses
were succinct, often followed with a
statement of “move on.” The questions
covered a wide array of topics. When
asked what he thought about the first
time he saw “Rebel Without a Cause,”
he said, “Who cares, move on,” before
quickly following with, “But I did like
it.”
At various times, Wiseau was asked
about things that he would change if
he could go back in time. Responding
to questions specifically asking about “The Room,” he said, “Don’t use
two cameras.” This is a reference to
his shooting scenes for the movie
on both a digital and film camera
simultaneously.
When one audience member asked
Wiseau what he would do if he had
a time machine and could change
anything in the past, Wiseau said, “No
more taxes for anybody.” He clarified
that he was referring to when Abraham
Lincoln was president, stating that
there were no taxes back then.
In the Q&A, Wiseau also settled
two of the longest-lasting debates
in modern society. When asked if a
hot dog is a sandwich, he said, “Yes.”
Another audience member asked him
if water is wet, and Wiseau said (while
laughing), “No, it’s not.”
Despite the chaotic nature of the
session, the overriding theme of Wiseau’s
statements can be boiled down to two
words he frequently repeated: “Be
positive.” The final question posed
sought advice for aspiring creatives, to
which Wiseau said, “Just do your stuff
man. Be original. Be positive.”
After the Q&A, advertisements for
Wiseau’s line of underwear and his
new movie “Big Shark,” the crowd was
ready for the main event: the screening
of “The Room.” If one is hoping for
a quiet movie-going experience, a
showing of “The Room” is something
they should skip, as the theater started
to riff on the movie as soon as the first
scene began.
Fans exclaimed “Water!” whenever water appeared on screen and narrated
“Meanwhile, in San Francisco” with
each shot of the city. When there was
a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge, with
the camera panning slowly from one
side to the other, people shouted “Go!
Go! Go! Go!” and celebrated when the
other side of the bridge was shown.
People chanted, “Sports! Sports!
Sports!” as characters threw a football
around.
One of the more famous “The
Room” viewing traditions is plastic
spoon throwing. The legend goes
that Wiseau needed extra set
decorations for the movie and bought
an assortment of picture frames to
do so. Instead of replacing the stock
photos, he left in the pictures that
came with the frame, which happened
to be spoons. Thus, anytime one of
the pictures was shown, audience
members threw plastic spoons at the
screen.
Almost everyone in the crowd knew
all the famous lines (such as “Oh hi,
Mark,” or “Anyway, how’s your sex
life?”) and blurted them out alongside
the characters on screen. Audience
members begged the characters to
close doors, as they seemingly never
do so once they enter a scene.
At the end of the night, fans left
the theater behind, the floor covered
in plastic spoons and popcorn,
and stepped out into the pouring
rain laughing and smiling, having
just experienced something truly
unforgettable. Tommy Wiseau visits Portland
for “The Room” screening, Q&A
AIDAN D’ANNA/PIONEER LOG
Students learned the process of plant pressing at a Natural History workshop.
The audience met Tommy Wiseau at the screening of his cult classic “The Room.” ADELAIDE KAISER/PIONEER LOGFRIDAY , NOVEMBER 1, 2019
ARTS 13
Alumna returns to
read her poetry bookNew PAM exhibits aim to
disarm racial stereotypes
By GABRIEL
MANTIONE-HOLMES
OUTSIDE OF the Portland Art
Museum (PAM) passersby will see
two banners on either side of the
entrance. The left reads “I AM MANY”
and the right “I AM. AMEN.” Together
they preview two of the twenty paintings
in Hank Willis Thomas’s “I Am A Man.”
This is one of the many pieces in his
first major exhibition “All Things Being
Equal ...” which opened Oct. 12. This over
90-piece exhibition, including sculptures,
quilts, videos and more, will be on display
until Jan. 12.
Stepping through the entrance,
attendees will be met first by an eight-foot-
tall Black Power afro pick set diagonally
in front of a red backdrop with Thomas’s
name and exhibition title in white. This
sculpture called “All Power to All People”
introduces the gravity and tone of the
other works. Behind the first piece, sixteen
banners resembling the canton of the
American flag, display 14,719 stars rising
30 feet into the air. One star is allocated
for each person shot and killed by another
in 2018 in the United States.
The second floor of PAM hosts the
majority of the pieces. The first room
contains a selection of chromogenic-
prints, which in this case are photographic
prints made from a digital image. They
depict men of color and the systematic
violence they have endured through
the commodification of their bodies
by the sports-industrial complex and
corporations. This is then followed
by a five-minute-long animated film
recounting the murder of Songha Willis
who was Thomas’s cousin, roommate and
closest friend.
Attendees will learn about how
advertisements have enforced negative
racial stereotypes of people of color. This
is then juxtaposed with the portrayal of
white women as the American beauty
standard. This includes a “Community Partners In Residence Space” where a
description reads “a place for people to
break, to gather, to laugh, to discourse,
to dance, to exist both inside and
outside the exhibition.”
Displayed in front of this space
hangs Thomas’s massive 131 by 281 inch
“Guernica.” Modeled off of Pablo Piccaso’s
piece of the same name, Thomas’s piece
is a quilt made from sports jerseys.
His repurposing of one of the most
memorable anti-war pieces with sports
jerseys compares modern day capitalist
power to the evils of Nazi Germany and
Fascist Italy.
Passing the Thomas quote, “The most
revolutionary thing a person can do is be
open to change,” displayed as you walk
downstairs on a red backdrop in white
letters, is the final room of the exhibition.
This gallery focuses on ideas of solidarity,
resistance and resilience throughout
history through sculptures, quilts,
mirrored pieces and a five-minute video.
This accumulation of work demonstrates
Thomas’s innovative approach to visually different but thematically similar pieces.
In conjunction with this exhibition
is a three-hour documentary project by
Chris Johnson, Hank Willis Thomas,
Bayeté Ross Smith and Kamal Sinclair
located in PAM’s Jubitz Center for
Modern & Contemporary Art. The series
is called “Question Bridge: Black Males”
and consists of 160 interviews of black
males across social classes in the U.S. It
features a group of black males asking
and answering each other’s questions
and aims to debunk the myth of the
homogenous black male identity.
Thomas’s work over various mediums
across the museum displays his focus on
the individual. His work challenges and
attacks various stereotypes and their
enablers. Yet, he gives a sense of hope by
demonstrating the progress made from an
incredibly painful past, while not shying
away from the violence still seen across
our country. This exhibition displays some
of his most powerful works and provides a
muti-media experience that should not be
missed. By RILEY HANNA
ON OCT. 24 , Lewis & Clark
alumna Rosalie Moffett ’08 gave
a reading from her newest book
“Nervous System,” published this year,
in the Frank Manor House. Moffett took
poetry classes with Associate Professor
of English Mary Szybist and Associate
Professor with Term of the Humanities
Jerry Harp. Today, she works as an
assistant professor at the University of
Southern Indiana.
“Nervous System” was one of five
selected from 1,500 manuscripts as
winners of the 2018 National Poetry
Series competition. Moffett has won
multiple other awards for her poetry.
Her first book, “June in Eden,” won the
2016 The Journal/Charles B. Wheeler
Poetry Prize. Additionally, she has won
the Discovery/Boston Review Poetry
Contest, the Wallace Stegner Fellowship
from Stanford University and multiple
other scholarships.
Moffett’s newest book largely
centers around her mother, who
has an unknown medical condition
that affects her brain. Her poems
grapple with her own anxieties about
potentially inheriting this condition
and the guilt and pain she feels in
helplessly watching her mother’s
experience.
The concept behind the book was
initially inspired by an experiment she
witnessed in her mother’s lab. In this
experiment, a wolf spider mother’s
egg sac was taken from her, and her
eggs were removed and replaced by
lead shot, which added a great deal of
weight. Then, the spider, “so / intent
on reclaiming / what’s hers,” broke
her legs trying to lift the egg sack once
more.
Initially, it seems that her mother’s
brain condition and the motif of spiders
are unrelated. Yet, as Moffett’s poetry
reveals, spiders, motherhood and the
human brain are incredibly connected.
One way she ties these concepts into
her poetry is through exploring dream
analysis. She writes, “To dream you are
bitten by a spider / reveals a conflict /
with your mother.”
Another way in which Moffett
connects the three themes is through
describing the three meninges, or
protective layers of the brain: the dura
mater, arachnoid mater and pia mater.
These names translate to the hard
mother, spider mother and tender
mother. During the reading, Moffett
spoke to her fascination with this
connection.“The convergence has always been
there, to think of things that protect us
as mothers,” Moffett said.
The structure of the book as a
whole resembles a spider web in its
interconnectedness. Each individual
poem, while they are divided by empty
spaces, lacks a separate title of its own.
This fluid structure differs from most
deliberately fragmented poetry books,
as it initially appears to be one long
poem.
However, during the reading,
Moffett read the poems in a
disconnected order, which appeared
to contradict the idea that her work
should be read in a linear manner as
a singular poem. She expanded on
exactly how she wishes her readers to
interact with her book given its non-
traditional structure.
“The form of the poem is a testament
to our ability to put pieces together; to
come to a line break, to white space,
and cross that white space and put
all of those things together,” Moffett
said. “The fact that there are all of the
sections together is also working in a
similar way, like we can put all of the
sections together to make a narrative.
So, to be conscious of the pieces, but
also be putting them together is how I
would want it to be read.”
Furthermore, in connecting all of
the poems Moffett, much like a spider
herself, weaves particular, distinct
images such as apricots, dogs and
waterways throughout her book. She
explained that, while writing this book,
the images served as a sort of guide for
her to re-enter into the world in which
she crafted.
“Someone said once, when we
enter a poem, we look for a world and
a consciousness,” Moffett said. “The
kind of diorama of the world that I put
together for the book — so I could enter
it and get back into that mode and get
back into that little world and keep
writing in it — had all of these things
in it that were apricots and spiders
and dogs. That was a way for me to
come each day to writing and find that
voice and find that world and inhabit
it again.”
Overall, in her book “Nervous
System,” Moffett flawlessly unites
seemingly disparate images into one
cohesive, intriguing universe. The book
exemplifies interconnectedness and
demonstrates the beauty that can be
found in its recognition. For Moffett,
the smallest things that largely go
unnoticed, such as a spider lurking in
her bathroom, unlock multitudes.By SIMON COHEN
THIS COLUMN highlights music
worth listening to that has been re -
leased during the interim between
issues of The Pioneer Log. All genres and
artists will be considered and generally,
four of five albums will be chosen. For this
issue, albums by MAVI, Lighting Bolt, Big
Thief and Kim Gordon were selected.
“Let the Sun Talk” by MAVI
“Let the Sun Talk” tells a personal story
of a man rationalizing his life choices,
recognizing his own identity and
developing his spirituality. MAVI feels
like a disciple of the Earl Sweatshirt-
fueled New York rap scene that birthed
artists like MIKE and Slauson Malone.
He is also a 19-year-old from Charlotte,
N.C. studying at Howard University.
His lyricism is poetic and cryptic. On the
song “Self Love” he raps, “I’m back at
it glad bags and flat backs a pack rat / A
crass habit crash flashing scratch that im
past rapping imma show off.” Although
MAVI is rapping about his personal
ideologies throughout this album, he
never comes off as preachy. He describes
the rationale behind his choices, not why
anyone should necessarily replicate his
actions. The instrumentals found in these
13 tracks are carried by delicate jazz, soul
and break samples. The beats also carry
a glitchy, abstract sound popularized by
the aforementioned New York scene.
The beats often feel like they are being
composed as you listen. “Let the Sun Talk”
is a compassionate and impressive work,
presenting an artist who will hopefully
continue to impress with time.
“Sonic Citadel”
by Lightning Bolt
This is a loud album. Noise rock duo
Lightning Bolt returns on this new
record with eleven sonically abrasive
yet charming songs on “Sonic Citadel.”
After four years of absence and a record
label change, Lightning Bolt is more
realized than ever. Each song is a brutish
amalgamation of heavy guitar sounds
over crisp unrelenting drums except for
“Don Henly in the Park,” which opens
with a beguiling banjo section. Most of the lyrics are drowned in the storm of
noise. The lyrics, along with hilarious song
titles, allude to Lightning Bolt’s clever
and constant sense of self-awareness
and humor. These qualities are evident
in drummer/vocalist Bob Chippendale’s
tweets, where he defiantly and humorously
denies claims that they are a math rock
band. “Sonic Citadel” proves that the duo
is still a master architect of noise and have
built their sound to fit 2019 just as well as
they did to fit 1999.
“Two Hands” by Big Thief
Big Thief’s songs have always been open
and intimate. They are a band that opts
for brilliance in raw creativity. Their
previous albums have contained delicate
and vulnerable stories, mostly of the lead
singer Adrianne Lenker. “Two Hands”
widens the band’s scope to examine
through problems facing all of us: violence,
loss and climate change. “Two Hands”
echoes the themes and sounds of Neil
Young’s “Harvest.” Big Thief’s members
are watching the world change, maybe for
the worse, just as Young experienced pain with the growth of his world. Both albums
are also backed by bands playing tactful
folk rock. Big Thief does not buckle under
this weight. They push harder against it,
building new songs more applicable and
compelling than ever.
“No Home Record”
by Kim Gordon
During her time with Sonic Youth, Kim
Gordon always had an inclination to
borrow from many other genres of music.
On “No Home Record,” Gordon turns
her past inclinations into complete ideas.
This is an album that adheres to no one
genre yet feels entirely cohesive. The
album includes aspects of noise rock/no
wave that made Gordon and Sonic Youth
famous, as well as of trip-hop, synth rock
and industrial music. Gordon breathes
bizarre, fragmented sentences throughout
the album, painting the life that could only
be lived by the somewhat retired musician
who is famous both for pioneering a
sound that changed indie music forever
and championing women’s place in the
indie scene.Best New Music: autumnal beats
RILEY HANNA/PIONEER LOG
Rosalie Moffett ’08 sits with Yash Bisht ’21 after poetry reading in Frank Manor.
GABRIEL MANTIONE-HOLMES/PIONEER LOG
“Guernica” modeled after Picasso’s original criticizes modern capitalist systems.
RAYA DEUSSEN/PIONEER LOGIt’s not one spindle, one spool of thread,
unreeling into a web —
a spinneret, instead, is a set of microscopic spigots
releasing each its own filament
and the spider has a multiplex of spinnerets
which work in concert or solo
to spin various weights, array of specific skills.
So, a remarkable factory
spends its life by the bathroom mirror
where my face appears.
How easy it is to miss this
world we’ve been allowed into.
~By Rosalie Moffett~
FRIDAY , NOVEMBER 1, 2019
SPORTS 14
By HENRY GOODIER
THE PORTLAND TRAIL B l a z e r s
kicked off their season at the Moda
Center on Oct. 23 with a rematch of
the 2019 Western Conference Semifinals
against the Denver Nuggets. The Trail
Blazers previously defeated the Nuggets
in the seven-game series, pushing them
to the Conference Finals.
Hungry for revenge, the Nuggets took
control of the three-point line throughout
the night and kept the momentum over
Damian Lilliard’s dominant performance.
The Trail Blazers suffered their first home
opener loss since the 2001 opener against
Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal’s Los
Angeles Lakers. The 18-year opening
game win streak was the longest in NBA
history. The Boston Celtics previously
held that record from 1979 to 1992.
Lillard started off his season with quite
a show on the court, scoring 32 points
with eight assists and four rebounds.
Despite obtaining three fouls in the
first four minutes of the game, Nikola
Jokic, superstar of the Nuggets, scored
20 points, 13 rebounds and two assists.
Shooting 60% from the three-point line, and 57.1% overall, Jokic controlled the
game in the paint and behind the three-
point line, debatably putting the Nuggets
over the edge in the end.
With the addition of Hassan
Whiteside from the Miami Heat this
offseason, the Trail Blazers dominated
the paint all night long. The injury of
Jusuf Nurkic did not seem to bother the
Trail Blazers’ offense with Whiteside
filling his position. Whiteside scored 16
points of the team’s 54 in the paint, with
19 rebounds, the most of anyone on the
court.
CJ McCollum started out hot with
seven of the Trail Blazers’ 15 points in the
first quarter. Cooling down in the second
half, McCollum ended the night with 12
points and three assists.
Lillard tied the game in the third
quarter 72-72, splitting the defenders
and finishing the lay-up on the left side.
Immediately following, 20-year-old
Anefree Simons, coming off the bench,
stole the lead with a lay-up, making it the
tenth lead change of the night and a 14-5
run for the Trail Blazers.
CJ McCollum made a clutch 3-pointer,
giving Portland a short lead, but was quickly answered by point-guard Jamal
Murray with a three-pointer and Nikola
Jokic with a jump-shot from the foul line,
regaining the lead for the Nuggets.
Even with Lillard’s 3-pointer with
less than two minutes left on the clock in
the fourth quarter, Jokic’s back-to-back
3-pointers were too much of a deficit to
recover from. In the end, the Trail blazers
could not catch up.
The field goal percentage between the Trail blazers and Nuggets was only a
difference of 0.6. The Nuggets made 18
of their 27 three-pointers compared to
the Trail blazers’ seven of their 28 three-
pointers made, which, in the end, seemed
to be the difference in the game.
The Trail blazers will play the
Philadelphia 76ers on Nov. 2, after going
122-112 versus the Sacramento Kings,
121-119 versus the Dallas Mavericks and
110-113 versus the San Antonio Spurs.
Commentary: the NBA is playing a dangerous gameSports Schedule
Friday November 1
Volleyball @ Pacific Lutheran
7:00 p.m.
Saturday November 2
Football @ Linfield
1:30 p.m.
Soccer @ Puget Sound
12:00 p.m.
Cross Country @ Northwest
Conference Championships
(times n/a)
Friday November 8
Volleyball vs. Whitman
7:00 p.m.
Saturday November 9
Football @ George Fox
12:00 p.m.
Volleyball vs. Whitworth
6:00 p.m.
Soccer vs. Whitman
12:00 p.m.
Sunday November 10
Soccer vs. Whitworth
12:00 p.m.
“Roll Pios!”Trail Blazers fall to Denver Nuggets
in first home opener loss since 2001
By MATTHEW FELDMAN
THE NBA HAS HAD a turbulent
month. It finds itself stuck
between two geopolitical rivals:
China and the United States. It might
be obvious that China’s influence is
growing, but you may be surprised by
the extent to which China’s influence is
already right at our door.
On Oct. 4, Houston Rockets Manager
Daryl Morey tweeted “Fight for freedom,
stand with Hong Kong,” in support of the
ongoing protests in Hong Kong. After a
few hours, he deleted the tweet after the
National Basketball Association (NBA)
and the Houston Rockets immediately
received substantial backlash from
mainland China. The NBA has a
growing presence in China partially due
to them running international games,
calling them NBA Global Games, but
the NBA’s primary presence in China is
merchandising and broadcasting rights.
China reacted swiftly and viscerally.
The Chinese state-run broadcast
network, CCTV, pulled broadcasts of
NBA games, Chinese celebrities began to
boycott NBA games and merchandising
brands began to question or outright
halt their relationship with the NBA.
American audiences also quickly
responded; multiple instances were
reported at NBA games where staff
allegedly confiscated signs that voiced
support for the Hong Kong protesters.
James Harden and Russell Westbrook,
members of the Houston Rockets, were required not to answer questions about
Hong Kong in a press conference and
several reporters were removed for
asking questions on the topic.
An odd group of U.S. lawmakers,
including New York Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz,
signed a letter criticizing the NBA for
its support of China. The letter pointed
to the continued operation of an NBA
training camp in Xinjiang province,
where China is holding millions of
Uighur Muslims in concentration
camps. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver
released a statement claiming the NBA
will not censor its staff, but it was too
little too late.
“The NBA will not put itself in a
position of regulating what players,
employees and team owners say or will
not say on these issues,” the statement
said.
Blizzard Entertainment, a video
game developer and publisher, recently
became involved in a similar situation
when a commentator for its Hearthstone
esports league and a Hong Kong native,
Ng Wai Chung, voiced support for the
protesters during an official broadcast.
Blizzard immediately sanctioned
the commentator, garnering intense
criticism from American audiences,
which included calls to boycott the
company’s games.
A few days later, three American
University Hearthstone esports players
raised a sign that read “Free Hong Kong.
Boycott Blizz.” Blizzard responded by banning the players for six months
for what they describe as “knowingly
breaking the rules.”
U.S. based firms are increasingly
finding themselves in similar
predicaments. The financial interests of
the U.S. and China are increasingly at
odds.
This problem will likely not resolve
itself anytime soon. The Chinese
middle class has grown substantially in the last 10 years and is projected to
easily overtake the American middle
class in both size and market power
in the coming years. This will give
U.S.-based international firms an
increasingly unavoidable decision: self-
censor, or vacate the Chinese market
and potentially lose out on revenue.
Compromise looks increasingly
unrealistic, and as the value and power
of the Chinese market grows, it becomes more and more unlikely that the Chinese
government will back down.
The NBA, if it wishes to continue
to do business in China, must officially
commit to doing so. If the NBA wants
to uphold freedom of speech within
the association, then it must end its
investments in China. By not making
a decision, the NBA is inviting further
controversies, that will do nothing but
weaken the association.
ADVERTISEMENT
PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA USER WAYKURAT / CC BY
The Mall of Asia Arena during the 2013 International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Asia Championship Iran-China game.
PHOTO COURTESY OF JAMES SCHUMACHER
Damian Lillard (left) of the Trail Blazers and Russell Westbro ok (right) of the Thunder.
NBA, Houston Rockets face backlash from both China and the U.S. after pro Hong Kong statementsFRIDAY , NOVEMBER 1, 2019
SPORTS 15
The Hoh Rainforest of Olympic National Park
By MADDIE CAPLES &
TALLIE STEINER
OLYMPIC NATIONAL P a r k
offers a variety of attractions
ranging from the waters of the
Pacific Ocean to the snowy peak of
Mount Olympus. Resting between the
two is the Hoh Rainforest. Located
roughly four and a half hours north
of Portland, the Hoh River Trail is
a 37 mile out-and-back hike. While
you can do day hikes on this trail,
we highly recommend backpacking
into the backcountry in order to see
the vast beauty of Blue Glacier at the
turn-around point. We completed
the hike in three days, though it can
be completed in more or less time
depending on your schedule and
desired level of activity.
If you are looking to do this hike
in three days, we recommend hiking
9.3 miles from the Hoh Rainforest
Trailhead to the Olympus Ranger
Station on the first day. This part of
the trail is relatively flat and full of
lush trees with many views of the Hoh
River. Roughly eight miles into the
hike, there is a small crossing at the
braid of a river, but water only goes
calf-high and there is the option of
crossing the river across a narrow tree
trunk. Soon thereafter you will reach
the ranger station campsites. The
highlight of these campsites is the
well kept and recently built outhouse,
complete with a tequila bottle full of
flowers.
On the second day, we recommend
leaving your backpacks at the
campsite and going on a riveting
day hike. From the Olympus Ranger
Station, the hike is a little more than
18 miles round trip to the glacier,
so it is a good idea to start the hike
early. The first few miles of this hike are steady and flat, but it soon turns
to steep switchbacks. Thankfully, the
views of the snow-capped mountain
are well worth it. About one mile
before Glacier Meadows, there is a
washout at a very steep section of the
trail that can now be traversed with
what some people call “the ladder
of doom.” After climbing down the
ladder, it is a short hike to Glacier
Meadows, the last small campsite
before the glacier itself. After the
meadow, there is an extremely steep
incline to the view of the glacier. With
over 3,000 feet of elevation gain total,
this hike is not for the faint of heart.
However, the breathtaking view of
the Blue Glacier makes the sore legs
and feet completely worth it. At the
glacier, make sure to spend time
taking in the views and sitting in the
absolute still silence.
After taking your time at the glacier,
make sure to give yourself enough
daylight to hike the nine miles back
to the campsite. Since this part of the
hike is almost completely downhill, it
will not take nearly as much time as it
did to get to the glacier. Make sure to
eat a hearty meal that night to refuel,
but if you are planning on cooking up
some zucchini, do not forget to bring
olive oil.
Finally, you have reached the
third day. I hope you packed some
Wheaties because you will need the
breakfast of champions for the final
hike out. Thankfully, the 9.3 miles
back to the trailhead are flat and
can be completed in three hours if
you push the pace. If you are like
us, you will start to lose energy and
motivation around the five mile
mark. Do not give up hope. You will
soon start passing the fresh-faced day
hikers and their energy will give you
a newfound pep in your step. Despite the difficulty of this hike, the feeling
of accomplishment after hiking 37
miles is unsurpassed.
Overall we would rate this hike
a 9.6/10 with a rating of 9.5/10 for
difficulty and a rating of 9.7/10 for
scenery. Do not forget a bear canister for food and other scented items, and
remember to bring rain gear as the
weather in a temperate rainforest is
often quite wet. You will also need
to carry some sort of water filtration
device as there are no sources of
potable water on the trail. Even though we did not run into bears on
this particular trip, the rangers did
tell us that coyotes had been an issue
throughout the summer. Overall,
we highly recommend this hike, but
be ready for some sore legs after the
adventure.
MADDIE CAPLES/PIONEER LOG
The snow-capped peak of Mt. Olympus is seen through the trees of the Hoh Rainforest, with the Hoh River intersecting.
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Students tell of a multi-day fall break trip backpacking and camping over 37 miles within lush rainforestFRIDAY , NOVEMBER 1, 2019
16
The fatal desires of Vim Vievel, Wampire
By AUBREY ROCHÉ
PERSISTENT RAIN is not the
only weather surprise that comes
with Oregon’s fall weather: crisp
mornings accompanied by fog are
increasingly common as the weather
gets colder. These foggy mornings give
the campus eerie Spooky Season vibes,
making it even more difficult than
usual to see through the masses of
trees on the walk to morning classes.
For Trevor Willis ’23, interviewed
on the way to his 9:10 a.m. class,
Introduction to Sociology, the fog is an
exciting addition to the changing fall
weather.
“I couldn’t help but think that if
you killed someone, this would be
the perfect weather to bury the body
in— no one would be able to see you,”
Willis said. “Not that I’m thinking
about that or anything. Of course
not.” After a moment, he added, “No,
definitely not.”
Late in the morning of Oct. 23, the
body of an undergraduate student was
discovered in the woods behind the
Frank Manor House. It had been an
especially foggy morning. The cause of
death is still unknown, but the body,
later identified as Freddie Rainier ’22,
was buried under several layers of
dirt and compost. The time of death
was determined to be earlier in the
morning in Oct. 23. Shoeprints in the
dirt leading away from the body were
of no help in identifying a suspect, as
they were determined to be size 9 Dr.
Martens.
Research into Rainier’s social
circles revealed that he and Willis
were both enrolled in 9:10 a.m.
Introduction to Sociology. Fellow
classmates reported that Willis had
expressed contempt for Rainier earlier
in the week, frustrated with him for By GAVIN PATCHET
THE YOUNG ADULT genre
appeals to both teenage readers
and unmarried readers over
40. Notable young adult authors
are planning to reintroduce the
romanticization of fantasy creatures
with a new twist. Hit young adult novels
like “Midday,” “Werewolf Academy,”
and “Lossed” all feature romanticized
beasts like vampires, werewolves,
centaurs, the devil, and teenage boys.
However, young adult author Joseph
Eguchki explains that werewolves and
vampires are old news.
Eguchki stated that the sexy
vampire genre is oversaturated
and expressed his own opinion on
werewolves.
“They are hairy and gross,” Eguchki
said.
These new novels plan to greatly
expand the range of creatures
romanticized. By GABRIEL
MANTIONE-HOLMES
CLOUDS COVERED Lewis & Clark
campus as daylight left hastily.
Students walked home,
looking quite tasty. A chill, as thick
as a textbook, hung in the air. But
tarry not: there is not a NyQuill
pill to spare.
Yet a more restless menace
plagues our fair grounds.
Come here, gather quick: an
ancient evil hounds.
Stroll quickly, young first
years, and think twice in the dark.
Hark: where light does not reach,
our evil does leech. He uses not
claws, only his fingers, and
never around him a garlic
scent lingers. With an
outstretched arm
and smile to match,
he will cover his
victims in cloaks
of orange and
black.
A house on the
hill, with a circle in front,
is the home of the Wampire, to put
it so blunt. He creeps, he crawls, he
scales red-brick walls. However, at day
he strolls through dropped leaves of fall.
Vim Vievel, as he is lovingly known, has
made Lewis & Clark his ill-fated home. When his body count mounted to
terrible numbers, he knew people, soon,
would discover his plunders. Though
he loved the city-lined streets of
Portland State U, the lack of fresh
meat forced the Wampire to bid it
adieu. But Wampire Vievel made
his next choice with prudence.
He needed a school with
unwary students: a place where
it is difficult for the public eye
to spy, a quiet, small school
where the students are
quite shy.
What would
be better than
a school
packed with
introverts?
Who knew
low event
attendance
could have
filling perks.
Not a soul would
discover his illicit,
immortal evil.
At worst his name
might be compared
to that of a weasel.
With intentions well
hidden and office hours
forbidden, the Wampire’s
hand staked claim to his
home well-hidden. CASPER PIERCE/PIONEER LOGFoggy mornings great
for burying dead body
SETH MORIARTY/PIONEER LOGIt should be noted that The Pioneer
Log Editorial Board politely but firmly
asked me to refrain from including a
personalized list of fantasy creatures
that I want included in these novels
and work out some of my personal
issues.
This December, romantic novels
featuring mummies, the sphinx,
wendigos, peryton and goblins are
going to hit the shelves. The fantasy
creatures featured in these novels have
all been changed to reflect what a forty-
year-old man would expect a teenager
to desire.
Most monsters have been changed
completely from their original form.
Young adult authors thought it
was necessary to give the wendigo
humanlike features and curb its
relentless and overwhelming desire
to consume human flesh, in an effort
to make the monster more appealing.
Unexpectedly, test audiences reacted
positively to this “Wendiglow” up.Young adult genre to use new,
grosser fantasy creatures
constantly sniffling during the hour-
long midterm without getting up to
blow his nose. Crimson McMurphy
’23, a close friend of Willis’, described
the victim further as “that one kid in
your SOAN discussion who never
shuts up about their personal stories.”
During the early afternoon of Oct.
23, while eating lunch at the Trail
Room, friends of Willis’ reported that
he seemed out of breath.
“It was as though he’d just come
from a cardio workout,” McMurphy
said. “He kept complaining about how
hard it was to drag something heavy
across such a hilly campus. I assumed
he’d just picked up a big package or
something.”
Additionally, a student who wished
to remain anonymous reported
that several hours before Rainier
was found, they witnessed Willis
wandering around the secluded trails
on campus, feeling the ground to
test for the softness of the dirt and
inquiring at the College Outdoors
office about borrowing a shovel.
When confronted by the anonymous
source, Willis simply brushed it off
as a gardening project. Willis did not
have an alibi for his whereabouts the
morning that Rainier was discovered:
nobody could back up his claim when
he said that he was “heading to the
Bon for breakfast at, like, 9:45 a.m.”
Notably, the Bon closes for breakfast
at 9:30 a.m. Neither Willis nor Rainier
had shown up for their 9:10 a.m. class
that morning.
Willis has since been taken into
police custody. He could not be
reached for further comment by the
time of print. However, upon being
granted access to his police statement,
all he wrote was, “It looked straight out
of a horror movie. I couldn’t just not
bury a body.”Similarly, the mummy has been
given a Freudian twist to appeal to
teenage boys with abnormal tastes.
Previously a rotting corpse wrapped
in bandages, the mummy has now
been transformed into a forty-year-old
woman wrapped in bandages. The new
monster has been named the Mommy
Mummy.
In addition to fundamentally revising
the monsters, forty-five-year-old
author Dinkle McAlister explained that
giving these creatures traditional social
roles in high school would make them
more tempting for a younger audience.
“The teenagers want structure
and things that their underdeveloped
minds can understand,” McAlister
said. “That’s why the mummy is a
dumb jock and the wendigo is a nerd
investing in their Roth IRA. Every kid
loves that!”
Prominent young adult author
Jeremery Shellman believes that the
trend is going to catch on quickly.
“Do you understand how horny and
desperate teenagers are?” Shellman
said. “When we made pasty, old,
hemoglobin sucking vampires sexy,
teenagers bought into it. We smashed
the sales chart. Then we made hairy
and gross werewolves rugged and
handsome and destroyed the box
office.”
Students like Mike Santos
’23 expressed excitement at the
opportunity to vicariously engage in
deep romantic relationships with new
fantasy creatures through literature.
“I want to attain eudaimonia
through a secondhand gnome
relationship,” Santos said. “I can
already picture walking on the beach
with my gnomish significant other.”
Other students like Sig Boid ’21
expressed an overwhelming desire to
copulate with fantasy creatures.
“Yeah, I just want to f*** the Loch
Ness Monster,” Boid said.
Regardless of motive, students
are expected to turn up in droves
to purchase this new wave of young
adult novels. Motivated solely by
financial gain, young adult authors
are expected to run this trend into
the ground. WILL TOPPIN/PIONEER LOGThis strange being has been seen lurking the grounds at night. What could he be, what could he want?
You might see him outside, under
the sun, but do not fear now, you don’t
need to run. However, if cornered on
campus, it is hard not to groan. For in
daylight his small talk makes six feet
under your home. His ghoulish smile
will tell stories of past-due payments
and death, but worse is the scent that
floats from his mouth: of coffee, of
metal... his blood-smelling breath.
Now with days colder, and light
lasting less, All Hallows Eve’s approach
brings only unrest. The Wampire waits
for lone walkers at night. You won’t
hear him coming you’ll just feel his bite.
Beware, poor student, the invitation
to his study! He wishes not to be your buddy! If delivered at night, you will not
be given praise. If ye enter, he might
end your days.
Worse than a hickey, your neck will
concave. As Vim Vievel the Wampire
silently raves, a puddle of your blood
will form on the floor. There is no
escape! Your screams are not heard
through the door.
So beware Frank Manor House
where this sick monster stays, so that
you might live to rich and better days.
Take caution when walking alone after
six, or you will soon be in a terrible fix.
From off-page distance I give hellish
choir: “Beware Vim Vievel, the thirsty
Wampire!”
The Backdoor is a work of fiction and humor