Earlham considers split with Indiana Yearly Meeting

By Jonas Shellhammer

The influence and presence of Indiana Yearly Meeting (IYM), one of the largest organizations of Quaker Meetings and founder of Earlham College, may be changing at Earlham in the future.

This coming June, the Earlham Board will be considering the approval of a series of changes in Earlham’s relationship with the Meeting,

One of the proposed changes would be that IYM would no longer appoint six of the 24 members of the Earlham Board, and would instead be entering what is termed a “Covenant relationship” with Earlham. This would entail making several mutual promises, one of which would be that Earlham continues to pledge that the Earlham Board remain half Quaker.

In a March 2008 letter to a task force set up by IYM to analyze the relationship it has with Earlham College, President Doug Bennett clarified some of the reasoning behind the pursuit of change.

“As we gather our students and our faculty from across the U.S. and around the world, why not our Board of Trustees as well? A national and global search for Friends would bring added diversity and richness to our work as trustees,” Bennett said in the letter.

Bennett also emphasized that Earlham is “committed to Earlham’s being, now and in the future, an institution of higher education firmly grounded in the understandings of the Religious Society of Friends.”

In addition, Bennett signaled the need for a broad and globally representative Board of Trustees, commenting that “we have grown beyond being an institution confined to Indiana ‘Quakerdom’ to be something that has global reach.”

However, the process through which these tentative decisions has been arrived at was not started recently, and is described by Bennett as a “complex and historically layered story, and one still very much in play.”

A letter from Bennett to the Earlham Board of Trustees, published in May 2009, outlined the developments of each organization. Bennett stated that these developments led to differences between IYM and Earlham.

Bennett said in the letter, “We need a Board whose organizational arrangements are justified by Earlham’s current needs rather than merely by inheritance from the past.”

A report published by the IYM task force provides insight into the differences between IYM and Earlham. The report lists several realities which it feels IYM must come to grips with, which include “policies, activities/events in the life of the college for which IYM cannot give support; e.g., residence halls that are co-ed; birth control supplies dispensed through the school nurse; Dungeons and Dragons books sold by the college bookstore, pro-homosexuality messages given at graduation; seminars given that seem new age; student groups on campus that promote non-Christian religions, and presentations such as Vagina Monologues.”

Bennett added that these concerns are held by a selection of members of Indiana Yearly Meeting, rather than by the organization as a whole.

Bennett reflected on these differences by saying that “not all colleges see themselves as being in the business of helping students grow to goodness as they become adults” and that Earlham and IYM approach this goal in different ways. According to Bennett, IYM has a tendency to actively tell students how to be good, whereas Earlham seeks to create an atmosphere in which students can independently discover what it means to be good.

A good example of how the new relationship will affect this issue is that IYM, which has given little financial support to Earlham in the past, will now be able to provide funds of its own to certain aspects of campus life. Bennett stated that one area of focus will be a stronger presence of Christian ministry at Earlham.

Practicing Quaker Jay Zevin, senior sociology and anthropology major, hopes that the new system will bring positive change.

“Over my time at and awareness with Earlham, our relationship with Indiana Yearly Meeting hasn’t been overwhelmingly positive,” said Zevin. “I feel that I want our relationship with Indiana Yearly Meeting to be built out of a deep mutual respect, and I hope that this change will provide that deep respect.”

Pollan talks food to packed auditorium

By Anna McCormally

Students in Earlham’s Environmental Colloquium were treated to the presence of award-winning writer Michael Pollan last Saturday, before he gave a sold-out appearance that had Goddard flooded with Earlham students and Richmond community members.

Pollan talked with the Environmental Colloquium, a one-credit class that looks at a different topic every semester. This semester the colloquium is doing an inventory of Earlham’s energy usage. On Saturday, Pollan spent 90 minutes with Assistant Professor of Education and Director of Wilderness Programs Jay Roberts and the colloquium’s students to answer any questions that they had for him.

“I thought the colloquium experience was pretty neat, to have time to ask him questions,” said junior environmental studies major Sarah Waddle, who is a member of the Environmental Colloquium and convener of Earlham’s Environmental Responsibility Committee (ERC). “It was cool to have him be right there and respond to what you asked.”

In the Environmental Colloquium, Pollan addressed many students’ questions about the green movement and sustainable agriculture.

Waddle, who has been working through ERC with Earlham’s food producer, Sodexo, to make progress in sustainability, asked Pollan at the Environmental Colloquium what changes he suggested Earlham work towards. Pollan recommended campaigns like “Meatless Mondays” and lobbying Sodexo to buy locally.

Waddle explained that ERC has been working with Sodexo and that progress is being made.

“My perception is that they’re very willing and open to other food options,” she said.

Waddle noted that Earlham is in the process of creating the position of “student sustainability manager” to work with Sodexo and Earlham to help enact sustainability initiatives in the cafeteria.

Pollan also answered a question about the green movement, which gave him a chance to expand on one of the foundations of his philosophy.

“To simply replace one kind of consumerism with another kind of consumerism is not going to solve the problem,” Pollan explained. “We need to learn to think of ourselves more as producers than consumers.”

He also called for society to “liberate itself from the sense of dependency on consumer culture.”

To Waddle, however, some of the lifestyle changes that Pollan called for in his speech later that evening seemed to be inaccessible to the less wealthy members of society.

“He himself seemed to be extremely affluent,” Waddle said, citing Pollan’s opportunity to attend a private liberal arts college and graduate school at Columbia as examples of privileges that the writer was lucky to have had. “It must be hard for him to reach out to people with different lifestyles.”

Much of what Pollan advocates involves nutritional choices and the connection between sustainable, healthy agriculture and nutritious food.

“Are people happy with fast-food culture?” Pollan asked rhetorically at the colloquium. He went on to answer his own question by painting a picture of people in the inner city lining up for hours to get government vouchers for fresh produce.

Still, Waddle wasn’t entirely satisfied with what Pollan had to say.

“He was quick to put down the food options available to our community,” Waddle said. “In his speech I felt that there was a lack of positivity about food options in Richmond.”

Waddle admitted that the conclusions Pollan drew about the quality of food available at local Richmond grocery stores was accurate, but felt that he did not elaborate enough on specific alternatives for Richmond consumers.

Sophomore Norah Doss, a resident of Environmental House disagreed with Waddle.

“I think he didn’t have the knowledge basis,” Doss said, defending Pollan, who has been an influence on her in the context of research about sustainable agriculture. “A lot of his speech wasn’t Richmond- or Earlhamspecific.”

Doss also felt that Pollan addressed the class divide that was noticed by Waddle. “He specifically addressed that in inner cities, the food he suggests is not available,” she said.

Doss compared Pollan favorably to Carol Adams, the feminist vegetarian who spoke at Earlham this past November, and whom Doss and Waddle both felt was more defensive and less willing to listen to criticism than Pollan.

“I think it’s really important that we bring speakers like Michael Pollan to Earlham, especially at a time like this, when I feel as though we’re on the cusp of big changes towards sustainability as a college,” Waddle said. “By choosing people like Michael Pollan, that’s one more statement by the college that that’s the kind of dialogue we support as an institution.”

Earlham faculty addresses lack of basic math skills

By John Jacobson and Marisa Keller

The Earlham faculty is trying to decide how to fix the problem of students failing courses because of a lack of basic math skills.

Faculty members in the science, math and economics departments are taking the initiative to promote math literacy at Earlham. They are seeking to create a way for students to become more mathematically literate, either through curriculum or a math center that will parallel the writing center as a place where students can go to get help with math homework and even take classes to help improve fluency in different mathematical fields.

In faculty meeting on Wednesday, March 3, the faculty discussed a proposal that the ad hoc math committee has submitted to Earlham College President Doug Bennett. The proposal suggests using the President’s Discretionary Fund to pay for the position of an additional math professor for three years.

In an e-mail to the faculty on Tuesday, March 2, Bennett wrote, “Three years of a new full-time mathematics faculty member would cost around $200,000. That would be an unusually large grant from the discretionary fund.”

Bennett has, however, set aside funds to cover one year of a visiting professor in the math department. He wrote that he would be willing to extend the funds for a second and third year only if the Curricular Policy Committee (CPC) “saw it as an important and valued undertaking.”

During Wednesday’s meeting, faculty members raised concerns about a long-term solution to the problem after the three years suggested by the proposal are up. Others, however, pointed to the urgency of the problem, which leads to many students failing or avoiding classes they would otherwise like to take.

Associate Professor of Economics Rajaram Krishnan sees many of his students do poorly because of their lack of math skills.

“For some programs at Earlham, certain math is needed at the introductory level and some of us don’t have that and could do with a refresher because we’ve done math some time ago,” Krishnan said. “Another aspect of this is that in the context of a liberal arts education, being mathematically literate … is part of what is good to understand the world and we’re going to see if we can help.”

According to Krishnan, this initiative will be collaboration on the part of faculty from the math, geosciences, and chemistry departments.

“We feel that quantitative literacy is a useful thing to be shared by many people on campus,” he said.

Another supporter of the idea of promoting mathematical literacy is Earlham Associate Professor of Geosciences Meg Streepy-Smith. She expanded on the general idea of how this project will help students in both math and non-math courses alike.

“I feel like we need more support for math across the curriculum,” Streepy-Smith said.

“And if you felt like you wanted to be an econ major, but yet you don’t feel like you’re prepared for Raja’s [Intro to Microeconomics] class, you could take an intro math class that would basically prepare you for his micro econ class.”

There are also other people outside of the immediate mathheavy departments who show some support for the promotion of mathematical literacy. One of them is Assistant Professor of Politics Thor Hogan.

“I’m supportive of the overall idea that we need to increase mathematical literacy, certainly for politics students,” Hogan said. “I think that increasing your understanding on things as important as the budget process and being able to access that with the proper math skills is fundamental to really understanding how the government works.”

Last semester, Earlham announced that professors from Indiana University East would teach basic math courses at Earlham starting in the fall of 2010, but the arrangement fell through because of a misunderstanding about whether IU East would receive financial compensation.

The math ad hoc committee was organized to work with IU East, but has since moved on to address the broader issue of numeracy at Earlham. The committee is not directly afiliated with the math department, although Assistant Professor of Mathematics Anand Pardhanani is a member of the committee.

Mexican journalist decries political corruption

By Simon Levine

Adela Navarro Bello, journalist from Tijuana, Mexico, spoke Tuesday on the corruption impeding the Mexican war against drug trafficking.

Bello painted a grim picture of President Felipe Calderon’s drug war, which has left over 22,000 dead and has consumed an enormous amount of resources. She decried the massive corruption within the ranks of Mexico’s police and military, poor cooperation between the Mexican and U.S. governments and the glorification of drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Loera by Forbes and Time magazines.

As the editor of Tijuana’s Zeta magazine, Bello has continued to publish exposés of drug dealers and government corruptors, in spite of three of her colleagues having been assassinated.

Junior Alvaro Puente, physics and geosciences double major, admired Bello’s bravery.

“She said some things that very few people are willing to tackle,” Puente said.

Yet while all acknowledged the courage of her actions and the great work she is doing in Mexico, some students and faculty members had reservations about the format and message of Bello’s speech.

Freshman Lilly Cutler felt that the translation was awkwardly handled.

Cutler said, “They should have had a translator.”

Junior Ashley Girvin, psychobiology major, felt that the speech was too short.

“I wanted more, badly,” she said.

Associate Professor of Spanish Rodolfo Guzmán expressed concerns about the manner in which Bello’s speech portrayed the Mexican drug war.

“As soon as we bring it to the school it becomes an academic issue,” Guzmán said, “and if it’s an academic issue, I want to ask that it is studied from a perspective of critical thinking.”

For Guzman, the main issue is that a U.S. audience won’t have the same perspective as one in Mexico.

When we take [her] work and we bring it to the United States, the meaning of her work will change,” he said.

However, Guzmán added that he thinks Bello is a “hero” and “doing great work in Mexico.”

Zeta has a long history of covering drug violence and corruption in Baja California. Its founder and Bello’s predecessor, Jesus Blancornelas, founded the newspaper ABC in 1977, but the Mexican government quickly shut down the publication.

In 1980, Blancornelas and cofounder Hector Felix Miranda named their new magazine after the last letter in the alphabet, in defiance of the government that had shut down ABC.

Eight years later, Miranda was fatally on a rainy morning as he was sitting in the front seat of his car. The killer eventually convicted was an employee of former Tijuana politician and businessman Jorge Hank Rhon, who had been a subject of Zeta’s exposés.

However, as a cruel example of the corruption, Bello said, “the guns they used were found in the board room of a business owned by Rhon,” but no conviction was made.

“There is no more investigation,” said Bello, with audible emotion in her voice, “He is free, he lives in Tijuana, he is my neighbor!”

Contributing editor Francisco Ortiz Franco was also killed in a 2004 drive-by shooting, and Blancornelas was badly injured in a 1997 attack that left his bodyguard dead.

Bello also spoke to journalism students during her afternoon visit. She was scheduled to speak at a dinner on Monday in the Womyn’s Center, but her speech was cancelled due to scheduling issues that kept Bello in Mexico for longer than expected.

An organizer of the event, steering committee member Ivonne Florez, senior women’s studies major, said that the purpose of the dinner was just to hear Bello’s own story about her life’s work.

“She has a cool story,” said Florez. “Let’s hear her out.”

Michael Pollan to speak on food, public policy

By Sasha Benderly-Kraft

Environmental and nutritional activist Michael Pollan will give a talk specially designed for Earlham tomorrow evening. Though Pollan is currently on a speaking circuit to discuss his latest book, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, tomorrow he will present a talk entitled “Connecting the Dots: Nutritionism, Health and Agricultural Policy.”

Pollan, who teaches journalism at University of California, Berkeley, is best known for his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, published in 2006. In that book, Pollan analyzed the sources from which we get our food.

Tomorrow’s talk will be deeply linked to this premise: Pollan’s main conceptual framework is that the way modern American society produces food is directly linked with public health, and thus that changing the way we look at food production is crucial to improving how we live our lives.

Pollan stands opposed to the practice of choosing food for scientifically calculated nutritional values. In his second most recent book, In Defense of Food (2008), Pollan argued that nutritionism-the valuation of food by specific nutrient contents complicates and detracts from eating habits, coming to a simple, catchy conclusion: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Due to his influence on the food-oriented side of the environmental movement, Pollan has been a highly demanded speaker in recent years. Lynn Knight, Earlham’s Events Coordinator, says that Pollan was booked for this talk last year, and that it correlates with the college’s current interest in sustainability and environmental policy, such as the recent creation of an Environmental Studies major.

In addition to his talk, Pollan will lead a session of Assistant Professor of Education Jay Roberts’ Environmental Colloquium, which, for this semester, is focused on generating an assessment of Earlham’s sustainability.

Knight says this classroom element is crucial to Pollan being more than a speaker-having him available to students is seen as a crucial way of examining the ideas he puts forward.

Roberts is likewise highly enthusiastic about Pollan’s presence in his classroom.

“We are working from Paul Hawken’s book Blessed Unrest,” Roberts said, “which is about the environmental movement as one of the key social movements of this moment. Hopefully Michael Pollan can provide some perspective as to what’s really going on in that movement.”

When asked about Pollan’s specific appeal, Roberts pointed to the universality of the question
of food.

“Food touches everybody, across boundaries, so it’s a strong point on which to build coalitions,” he said.

Roberts characterizes the food movement championed by Pollan as an “unlikely alliance” of many social groups that defies traditional stereotypes of environmentalists.

“These days, it’s not just the stereotypical ‘elitist hippies’ that care about food-it’s coming to the forefront of our collective consciousness,” he said. “The big idea is that since everyone eats, food can transcend self-interest.”

This increased consciousness is showing its face in many aspects of our day-to-day life-not least of which is the fact that every one of the tickets to Pollan’s talk has been sold out for a week.

For instance, Sodexho is in the process of creating a sustainability inquiry to improve their food policy. Roberts sees this as evidence of the thought currently put into questions of food, but wonders how deep it truly runs.

“Is this really a paradigm shift, or just a trend?” Roberts asked. Pollan’s talk might shed some light on this question, or at least provide an idea of how to look at the food movement for the future.

“Connecting the Dots: Nutritionism, Health and Agricultural Policy” is tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. in Goddard Auditorium. Tickets are sold out.

Earlham faculty approve neuroscience major

By Micah Sommer

Earlham students interested in the inner workings of the brain will soon be able to major in neuroscience. On Wednesday, Feb. 10, the faculty approved the update, which is a revision of the current psychobiology major.

In addition to a different name, the major will include three new classes and a larger credit requirement.

Professor of Biology Bob Rosenberg was a driving force behind the change. A neuroscientist by training, Rosenberg arrived at Earlham in fall of 2009 and soon began discussing with other science faculty the possibility of updating the psychobiology major.

“The word ‘psychobiology’ describes where neuroscience is at the interface between psychology and biology,” Rosenberg explained. “[However,] it’s a word that is out of date, it’s used at very few places, and out in the world, ‘neuroscience’ is the word that is used to describe this field now.”

In December, Rosenberg, Professor of Biology Amy Mulnix and Professor of Psychology Kathy Milar proposed the change to Earlham’s Curricular Policy Committee (CPC). On Feb. 8, CPC recommended to the faculty
that the neuroscience major be approved.

Professor of English and CPC Member Nate Eastman said that CPC realized when reviewing the proposal that the faculty never formally approved the original psychobiology major.

“There were lots of other things going on at that time … and the major never went before the faculty,” Eastman said, explaining that at that time the college was also transitioning from quarters to semesters.

Eastman said that the process for approving the neuroscience major was very quick, compared
to a brand new major such as environmental studies, which “was in the works for years.”

Rosenberg echoed this statement, saying that the faculty approved the change with “very little discussion.”

The neuroscience major includes one new required class and two new electives. The required class, Topics in Neuroscience, will be a onecredit, discussion-based seminar for declared and prospective majors. Rosenberg, who will teach the course beginning next fall, explained that students in the class will be exposed to the latest advances in neuroscience by examining recent publications in the popular and scientific press.

“The field is incredibly diverse, and we wanted to just expose neuroscience majors to the breadth of the field in a way that introduces them to the stuff that’s going on right now in research,” Rosenberg said. “And the other motivation for that class is to build a community of neuroscientists.”

The two new elective courses are Research in Developmental Psychology: Cradle and Grave,
to be taught by Professor of Psychology Vincent Punzo beginning next fall, and Sensation and
Perception, to be taught by Milar beginning in spring 2011.

“[Sensation and Perception] is a classic neuroscience course that most colleges have, and Kathy has been wanting to teach it for years,” said Rosenberg. “Now is an opportunity for her to put that class together.”

The major’s credit requirement will be increased from 38-41 to 44-46. Additionally, some formerly optional classes will be required and vice versa.

Psychobiology major Max Shannon, junior, said that the change is “definitely a good thing.”

However, he noted that the updated requirements place less of an emphasis on behavioral study,
which might limit possibilities for some students.

The changes to the major requirements will not affect juniors and seniors who have already declared a major in psychobiology, Rosenberg said. Shannon, however, intends to make the switch to neuroscience.

Noting that the name neuroscience is much more widely used, Shannon said, “I’d rather have that on my diploma.”

Rosenberg hopes that the revision of the major will bring in more students interested in the field.

“I can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to be a neuroscience major,” Rosenberg said. “Understanding the brain and how it works and why we do what we do at a sort of mechanistic level, I just think is so amazing and it’s such a growing field.”

Lt. Governor hosts College Media Day

By Adam Tobin

This past Tuesday marked the first-ever College Media Day hosted by Lieutenant Governor Becky Skillman’s (Republican) office, where students were able to interact with Skillman and explore a part of Indiana’s government.

Although 20 reporters were supposed to attend the event, the severe winter weather had its way and only seven were in attendance. Student reporters represented Indiana University (IU) Bloomington, Butler University, and Franklin College.

Rachel Sorvig, Skillman’s communications specialist and a recent graduate of IU, said, “We had never done an event like this before and so we said to ourselves ‘hey, let’s make a date of this.’” Sorvig was responsible for coordinating the event, setting up an interview with Skillman and allowing the reporters to tour the Capitol building.

From the outset Skillman emphasized the amount of duties for which she is responsible, which cover nearly fifty different sectors of government.

“I have the most constitutional and statutory responsibilities out of any Lt. Governor in the United States,” Skillman said.

These duties cover a plethora of tasks, including overseeing the state Department of Agriculture, community and rural affairs, defense and energy development, tourism office, state housing authority, counterterrorism unit and responsibilities as the president of the Indiana Senate.
Skillman has served in the Indiana government for nearly 30 years. She stresses that what she loves the most about her job is “driving on the road, visiting with Hoosiers and understanding economic needs.”

Skillman is from Bedford, in the south-central part of the state, and wants to energize local communities to bolster their economies. This led to the first question regarding the recently presided-upon Township Bill, which allows local governments to keep or do away with trustees, or refer these emergency issues to county level government.

Later the group of reporters delved into a question-and-answer session regarding the economy and what Indiana has done with its stimulus money since it was allotted back in early 2009. Skillman implied that the state was already on track to have a balanced budget and was ahead of the curve by already implementing infrastructure projects.

“We already had invested in projects around our infrastructure; we were creative in that sense. We didn’t criticize the stimulus or the president, we merely said we’ll do what’s best for Indiana,” she said.

In addition to highway projects, Skillman mentioned that the legislature approved to increase a cigarette tax to help pay for better health care coverage. The Indiana legislature also used some Medicaid funds to enact the Healthy Indiana Plan.

The focal point of the interview came with the mention of education.
“K-12 education and higher education comprise 55 percent of the state budget,” said Skillman. She continued, “The stimulus definitely helped pay for our education, which was an area we needed to plug holes in.”

Skillman ensures that many programs are helping to improve statewide education initiatives on par with United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s plan.

“We have our Fast Forward program and Race to the Top grants that are federal funds we have used,” Skillman said. “We’re really measuring teacher quality and we even changed a law last summer to look at student achievement to measure teachers.”

When asked about the recent “tea party” movement in American politics, she said, “With the tea parties, you can’t get more grassroots than that! How can it be a bad thing? It’s democracy at its finest when like-minded individuals come together, although it might detract from Republican candidates if it breaks off into a third party movement.”

An IU reporter then asked whether she still considered the movement to be grassroots despite the corporate sponsors and celebrity endorsements, to which she said that “the people are moving on their own.”

Finally, she was asked by a Butler reporter if she would consider running for governor, to which she responded, “I never said I’m not going to run,” yet she immediately stated she is leaning towards running. If elected she would succeed current governor Mitch Daniels.

College Media Day allowed students the opportunity to stroll through the antiquated hallways, passing previous politicians’ plaques and the acclaimed library, and casually glance in at committee hearings. With this experience, the students were able to get a small sense of how Indiana’s government functions.

Theme houses vie for reinstatement next semester

By Simon Levine

Fine Arts House and Vegetarian House will be reinstated next semester, but Culinary Arts House will no longer be a theme house.

Sophomore Joel Hogel, a resident of Culinary Arts House said, “It is not going to be reinstated because we have not had any events.”

When asked why there were not any events, Hogel said, “I think all four of us [residents] are pretty busy people.” He also added that the house’s low number of inhabitants made it difficult to put on events regularly.

In contrast, Fine Arts House received a full vote of confidence to be reinstated as a theme house next semester.

Fine Arts house, which occupies Woodman House, supports the fine arts by hosting events and providing logistical support to the community, according to its founders.
Convenor August Chiarella, sophomore, explained that Fine Art House’s goal is to be a space where people can come to do art.

“We have bands practicing here,” Chiarella said. “The Funkaholics are practicing in our attic.”
Chiarella also hoped that the space would become a gathering point for artists within the community.

However, Chiarella also tempered this call to artists in the community, adding, “We want it to be a social place, but it is also a place where we live and cook meals.” Fine Arts House has hosted several potlucks, open mics, faculty dinners and a general art exhibition, as well as an “art battle” last semester.

For theme houses like Culinary Arts House or Fine Arts House, there is a long petition process that requires a faculty advisor and a statement of purpose, among other things. The theme must go through a provisional year before it is considered for reinstatement, the first step to long-term existence.

As Assistant Director of Residence Life Jerrod Hodge defined it, a provisional year is for homes to “find their direction and fit in.” Houses that do not put on events or do not find support within the community will not be reinstated and will cease to be a theme.
“When we make theme houses,” Hodge said, “We put it out to the community to decide if this is a theme that they want or not.”

The other house to be reinstated was Vegetarian House, which occupies Marmon House. After some confusion over the size of the house, there is still doubt over what space it will occupy next year.
Co-convenor of Vegetarian House Grace Huang, sophomore, said, “A house of this size can be difficult to organize.”

However, Huang is optimistic for the future of the house. “We’re looking to do a lot more events this semester,” she said.

Huang and co-convenor Shannon Egan, junior, took the helm after a first semester that saw several community potlucks, as well as events done in conduit with Earlham Animal Advocates. Huang, who edited the proposal for Vegetarian House, also co-convened first semester with junior Donnie Smith. Smith was the writer of the first proposal and was co-convenor last semester before going abroad to London this semester.

“The person who was really instrumental was Donnie Smith,” said senior Vegetarian House resident Benjamin Davidow about the founding of Vegetarian House. Davidow is the co-founder of Earlham Animal Advocates and helped Huang and Smith to write the proposal for the theme house.

Davidow decided not to convene because, he said, “the skill set involved in getting a house approved is much different than the skill set in day to day running of the house.”

In Davidow’s opinion Vegetarian House deserved to be reinstated because it ran a large number of dinners and potlucks.

Friendship and Theme House applications for the 2010-2011 academic year are due on Monday, Feb. 15 at noon.

Hidden rock ‘n’ roll stars come to light

By Mamus Ngeseyan

The Student Activities Board (SAB) organized its 16th Air Guitar in Goddard Auditorium on Saturday, Feb. 6. This year the event had seven groups and four individuals participate for cash prizes ranging from $60 to $200.

Uncle Sam and The Good Time Sunshine Band came out on top this year. They featured a surprise appearance by Earlham’s very own president Doug Bennett performing Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me).”

Most students took out their cell phones and other media recording devices once a flamboyantly-dressed Bennett was dramatically revealed from behind a white sheet. By the end of the performance, almost everyone was on their feet hoping that there would be an encore.

In second place were the Kings of Africa and Afghanistan, a group made up of four Africans and two Afghanis dressed in mismatched women’s clothes dancing to Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” and Beyonce’s “Single Ladies.” The crowd went hysterical for these young men as they gyrated their way to winning a $150 gift certificate.

House of Quaker came in third place, performing Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” as members of their group emerged from the audience dressed in zombie-like fashion.

Among the four individuals who performed, sophomore McKayla Heller won first place, clearly wooing the judges with her performance of Dreamgirls’ “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.”
Heller also performed a duet with freshman Ginny McNulty to The Lonely Island and Justin Timberlake’s rendition of “Dick in a Box.” The two wore boxes attached to their pelvises, and at the end of the song Heller opened hers and pulled out a banana, which she proceeded to eat before walking off the stage.

Freshman Alishba Zarmeen took second place in the individual category. She performed to Shakira’s “Whenever, Wherever” Taking third was Ginny McNulty singing “Out Tonight” from musical Rent.
This year’s judges were freshman Logan Schuerman, Associate Professor of Chemistry Corinne Deibel, Area Director Michael Grasso and Associate Professor of Religion and Director of African and African American Studies James Logan.

All the individuals who participated in the Intermission Improv should send an email to Melissa Barnes, mabarnes07@earlham.edu to receive their $10 gift certificate for Chipotle.

Earlham hosts Model United Nations

 

By Sasha Benderly-Kraft

 

Earlham College Model UN (ECMUN) held its annual conference for high school students last weekend.

The conference, now in its 16th year, was the largest it has ever been, with 210 students attending from nine high schools in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. A 10th school was registered to attend but canceled due to weather problems.

The conference was centered around committee debate sessions. There were six committees, each of which had three or four topics to discuss. The committees included the African Union Peace and Security Council, the Committee on the Status of Women, the Human Rights Council, the Security Council, the United Nations Environment Program and the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD). 

William Overhauser, a 10th grader from the International School of Indiana (ISI) who represented Belarus on the CSD, said that the topics of that specific committee were sustainable tourism, climate change and the rights of indigenous peoples.

According to senior Nadira Khudayberdieva, ECMUN’s convenor and Secretary-General for the conference, the faculty advisors at the attending high schools were given the main say in their schools’ choices of countries and committees. “They e-mailed me preferences, and we tried to give everyone their first or second choices,” she said.

To the students attending, ECMUN represented a learning experience of several different dimensions. Overhauser mentioned that he learned quite a bit about Belarus, the country he was representing, which he described as “the last dictatorship in Europe.” 

Overhauser’s fellow ISI 10th grader, Noah Flaniken, said that “arguing a position from a country’s viewpoint and not your own beliefs gives you much more perspective.”

There was also a strong social component to the experience for the students. The conference gave students a chance to get to know one another, as well as experiencing Earlham campus for themselves. Greg Kelly, a junior from St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati, was very enthusiastic about Earlham’s campus and admired the architecture and size of the campus while appreciating the fact that Earlham is “tucked away in a quiet area.” Kelly also praised the organization of Earlham’s conference, comparing it favorably to the conference he attended last year at the University of Dayton. In particular, he described ECMUN as “welcoming and relaxed.”

According to junior Amrit Moore, who served as undersecretariat-general, that relaxation was a result of good logistics and thorough preparation. 

“Most of the work was done beforehand, actually,” said Moore, who served in the same position last year and recognized many students and advisors this year. “What really helped was our use of the ECMUN website – we posted answers to questions, as well as the working papers, online, so that the schools could access them during their preparation process.” According to Moore, that preparation was a major asset for the smooth functioning of the conference.

Yusra Saleh, a sophomore who chaired the Human Rights Commission, cited the high school students themselves as another reason for the conference’s success. “The high schoolers think highly of ECMUN, but we couldn’t do it without them,” said Saleh. “Everyone is actively engaged, and there’s no awkward silence. Plus, the working papers are short and basic – it’s up to the delegates to make something of them, and I’ve been very impressed.” 

Saleh also said she was enjoying being a chair, having attended several college-level conferences as a delegate. “Chairing is different; it really helps you understand the structure and framework of the committees,” she said.

Joe Maloney and Jen Wiegle, faculty advisers from St. Xavier, expressed a particular appreciation for this year’s conference, with the added perspective of seven years of experience chaperoning students. 

“Our kids are really enjoying the conference,” said Maloney, “the choices of topics and committees are exciting for them.”

Maloney mentioned that the students running the conference always put their mark on the dynamic, and said he was very impressed by this year’s organization. 

Wiegle also gave credit to Assistant Professor of Politics Jennifer Seely, who is serving as ECMUN’s adviser while Welling Hall is on sabbatical, saying that Seely has done a great job stepping in during Hall’s absence.

Seely, for her part, elevated the students’ contributions. “I asked them as many questions as they asked me,” said Seely. “Welling had been running this for so long that it had become a part of the institution, but she didn’t write things down.” She cited Khudayberdieva’s experience and energy as essential parts of the conference’s preparation. Seely says that while Hall will likely return to her supervisory role when she comes back from sabbatical, she intends to support ECMUN as much as possible in the future.

 

 

 

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