TheTranscript – Page 36 – The Transcript

Headdresses in the wrong places

By Karen Poremski

Halloween is a special time. I celebrate it through some of the older practices of the holiday—for me, it’s less about candy, and more about remembering my beloved dead, those relatives and friends who have passed. It’s a chance for me to thank them and tell stories about them and laugh and cry a little because I miss them. It’s a time to remember that love crosses the boundary between life and death.

But, of course, most people associate the holiday with trick-or-treating, parties, costumes. I love this aspect, too, and have fond memories of celebrating in the Castro district in San Francisco, and of taking my son out for trick-or-treating when he was younger.

I also become anxious, this time of year, about people dressing up as American Indians. This year it seems especially problematic as more people realize that sports teams should not be using Native mascots.

I feel less and less tolerant, these days, of seeing people wearing fake headdresses. A couple years ago in November, I caught something in the news that rendered me speechless. Actually, truthfully speaking, it made me sick to my stomach. The incident? A Victoria’s Secret fashion show (which apparently was also a television special). At the end of the show, a model dressed in bra and panties meant to simulate turquoise-studded animal skins walked down the runway in fringed buckskin high heels, behind her a slide proclaiming something along the lines of “Happy Thanksgiving.” She was also wearing an enormous headdress, so long it dragged on the ground.

There were many things wrong with this picture—the mixed-up use of visual signifiers of tribes from different regions who are very different from each other; the fact that the model looked like she was starving; the fact that the image sexualized Native women when Native women are the victims of sexual violence, usually perpetrated by non-Native men; the fact that Thanksgiving was being used to market faux Indian underwear costumes. But the thing that upset me the most was that headdress. Because I know what it’s supposed to mean when someone wears a headdress.

Thanks to OWU’s support, I have done research on the Rosebud Reservation, home of the Sicangu Lakota nation, and I’ve accompanied many spring break mission week teams to the reservation. In those experiences, I have met men who earned the right to wear a headdress.

Every feather in a war bonnet is there for a reason; it has nothing to do with decoration. A man has to have a history, a lifetime, of doing important and brave things for his people in order to put on that piece of regalia. And it’s not just about battle, about taking up arms against an enemy. It’s also about standing up for what’s right, about sacrificing for the good of the community, about being generous. When a man wears a headdress, it signals that he is a great leader, but also serves as a reminder to the wearer that he is responsible for taking care of his community.

I associate the Lakota headdress in particular with Albert White Hat, Sr., who was a great chief of the Sicangu Lakota, and who met many times with OWU students serving on service trips to South Dakota. He was one of a handful of people who established Sinte Gleska University, a tribal college, back in the 1970s. He worked very hard to bring back his Lakota language, which he had been beaten and ridiculed for speaking at school. He and a handful of others were responsible for bringing back Lakota ceremonies after they were no longer illegal, starting in 1978. (That’s not a typo; American Indian ceremonies were illegal until 1978.)

Chief White Hat did all of this at great personal risk, and with great personal sacrifice. He worked, his entire lifetime, to bring his people back to pursuing a way of life informed by Lakota philosophy and values, among them: personal responsibility, service to the community, and respect for self and others. He made life better for people on the Rosebud Reservation, and he shared his work with my students and me when we came to South Dakota.

This year at Halloween I will be remembering Albert. He died in June of 2013; it seems more recent than that. I still have trouble believing he’s gone. When I speak to my beloved dead, I will thank him, and maybe share a joke with him. (He loved telling jokes.)

If, as the mascot proponents claim, we wish to honor Native Americans, I propose some alternative ideas to dressing up in costumes. It comes down to thinking about our relationships, to asking questions like these: What is my relationship to Native people—or, better yet, to a particular Native person or group? How do I see them and think about them? What are my responsibilities to Native communities?

A better way to honor Native people, especially at an institution of higher learning, would be to read works written by Native people about their lives and concerns, their joys and gifts. (I have a list of favorite authors as long as my arm, but some of them include Susan Power, Winona LaDuke, LeAnne Howe, Scott Momaday, Sherman Alexie, Taiaiake Alfred, Louise Erdrich, Heid Erdrich, Linda Hogan, Phil Deloria, Joy Harjo, James Welch, Gordon Henry, Eric Gansworth, Jodi Byrd, Penelope Kelsey…) Great work is being done on the Native Appropriations blog, and the American Indians in Children’s Literature blog. Look for videos by the 1491s, if you’re in the mood for comedy. And if you like hip-hop, look for Frank Waln’s work on SoundCloud or YouTube.

There’s a whole world of enlightening and enjoyable work being done by Native people. There’s honor in engaging with that work and learning from it, opening up to what it’s teaching. There’s no honor in donning a fake headdress.

Karen Poremski is an associate professor of English at Ohio Wesleyan teaching Native American literature, women’s literature, early American literature and composition.

Quo vadis, OWU?

Professor proposes solutions to low enrollment, financial high water

By Professor Tom Wolber
Guest Columnist

On Census Day 2014, Ohio Wesleyan had 484 new students. The total enrollment for the fall semester was thus 1,734 students. That is a decline of 6.1 percent from the 1,829 who were enrolled at OWU on Census Day in the fall of 2013. Where do we go from here? Quo vadis, OWU?

Thesis

The discussion has barely started, but it is already clear that different people are drawing different conclusions from the unfortunate situation. In the first camp are primarily those to whom the financial health and well-being of the institution is entrusted. They are looking at the numbers and seem to have already concluded that it is belt-tightening time. To correct the imbalance of a 6.1 percent reduction in student size this year there should be a corresponding reduction of the faculty size next year.

A hiring freeze is already in place. If the current contraction trend continues beyond 2014-15, we could see courses, majors, faculty, and perhaps even entire programs, departments, and services either consolidated or dropped from the curriculum altogether. There are exigency policies in place that permit such contingencies, including the termination of tenured faculty members.

The ultimate authority for program and position reductions and terminations rests with the Board of Trustees. They have used the nuclear option in the past when OWU’s Department of Nursing or when tenure-track positions were eliminated in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively. In the eyes of some, the need of a balanced budget trumps all other concerns. In their minds, the question of cost-effectiveness and the resulting downsizing at a time when the demand for the company’s product is low is a sound and wise business decision.

There are, however, many problems with the implementation of draconian austerity measures. For one thing, to mindlessly subtract staff and faculty in a time of crisis can compromise the mission and quality of the institution. Also, austerity does not necessarily lead to growth and recovery. “You cannot cut your way to prosperity,” Ohio’s governor John Kasich stated in 2012. In addition, the decimation of personnel not only has devastating effects on employee morale but also on the reputation of an institution. A reduction in choices does not make OWU more attractive to prospective students and their parents.

Antithesis

In the other camp are those who advocate for revenue enhancement and a pro-growth agenda. At the first faculty meeting of the year, OWU’s new Vice President for Enrollment, Susan Dileno, spelled out several specific measures she launched to improve the admission situation. It seems premature to downsize the institution before she had a chance to test and implement all her ideas.

There are things OWU could and should be doing to turn the ship around: Let’s involve the faculty and the alumni, let’s make the curriculum more relevant and attractive, let’s consider three-year degree options, let’s create new majors and programs, let’s look at graduate-level degrees, let’s increase fundraising, let’s double the endowment, let’s explore on-line education and new markets, let’s create partnerships with community colleges, and let’s network and share resources with our GLCA sister institutions.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these suggestions. A good offense is the best defense, they say. The problem is that OWU has tried many of these ideas in the past, with mixed success. The truth is that institutions of higher learning, and especially liberal arts colleges, are facing a real crisis for which no silver bullet exists. Declining numbers of high-school graduates in the Midwest have something to do with it. At the same time, the economic recovery has yet to reach middle-class families; they continue to struggle economically.

Then there is the conservative push toward more practical, utilitarian, and vocational skills at the expense of a liberal-arts education. Suffice it to say that OWU is not the only college in Ohio and the Midwest that is facing challenges such as a declining student body and thus a budget shortage. Given these economic, demographic, and political realities, it will be tough to improve the situation. The future cannot be based on “hopium” alone. A sober assessment may eventually come to the conclusion that “rightsizing” the institution is indeed the best way to go. But at this specific point in time it is too early to make the definitive determination that a financially contingent situation exists.

Synthesis

Both “shrinkers” and “growers” have a point, but neither camp has all the answers. What is needed instead is a balanced approach combining expenditure reductions and revenue enhancements. This is what Ohio Wesleyan did in 1995 when it faced a similar situation under President Tom Courtice. There is no doubt that the budget imbalance that OWU is currently facing must be corrected, but there are several constructive ways to do so.

The president and the Board of Trustees indeed have a fiduciary obligation to keep OWU financially afloat. If they ignored budget considerations, they would be derelict in their duties. But the budget is only part of their mission.

There are also the conflicting goals of protecting the institution’s academic quality and heritage. Ignoring these equally important considerations would likewise constitute a serious breach of their responsibility. The trick is to find the right combination of mission, cost-effectiveness, and quality. Therefore, all options should be pursued aggressively, including the path of retrenchment and the path of growth. It is too early to commit to one particular strategy without having explored the full range of all available options first.

Should the institution eventually conclude that “rightsizing” the institution is indeed the way to go, it should follow the rules and regulations outlined in the “Faculty Handbook.”

It is imperative that the consultations are as wide as possible and the decision-making shared.

Standing faculty committees must be involved; hearings should take place as part of the deliberations; affected program and department chairs should be permitted to play an active role; and students should have a strong voice.

There are ways to handle exigency situations in a fair and transparent, rational and humane way. Perhaps natural attrition, early retirements, and buyouts can ease the pain. Laying off faculty and staff should be a measure of last resort and used only when all other efforts have failed.

How to Dress Well offers inspirational, intimate music – and genuine allyship

By Emma Nuiry
Guest Writer

I recently had the privilege of attending a concert by “How To Dress Well” at the A & R music bar in Columbus.

The lofi electronic band is the product of the singer/songwriter Tom Krell, whose raw falsetto vocals give his music a distinct R&B sound.

Krell released his third album entitled “What Is This Heart?” last June and received critical acclaim from the popular Internet music publication, Pitchfork.

The concert itself was incredibly personal as Krell shared stories of his pet cow Doug, his hopes of having a child someday and serenaded the small crowd with a lullaby sung a cappella.

It was evident all of the songs were deeply special to Krell as he beat his chest with the music and screamed into the microphone.

The crowd consisted of mostly twenty-year-old men, which is perhaps why the greatest moment of night came when Krell immediately called out an audience member after a transphobic comment was made. This exquisite display of social activism coming from a relatively popular musician was a moment I will never forget.

Although I sadly didn’t learn any fashion tips, the concert was one of the most intimate experiences I have ever witnessed.

Sophomore Emma Nuiry is a member of the House of Peace and Justice and PRIDE.

Affirmative consent is an important step in anti-rape policy

By Spenser Hickey and Noah Manskar
Managing Editor and Online Editor

As colleges around the nation and the federal government work to address the epidemic of sexual violence on campuses, the California state legislature recently took a revolutionary step with the passage of affirmative consent legislation, currently awaiting the governor’s signature.

The bill would require colleges that receive state funds to strengthen their policies, pushing students to seek and receive active consent in sexual activity, rather than the current system where not receiving “no” is the general threshold.

While this action has received some criticism, it is one we support. At the start of the year, we both participated in the university’s main orientation program on sexual violence, organized through the theatre and dance department. In discussions after the dramatic performance, we emphasized that affirmative consent is the baseline standard. Those talks were a good step in addressing sexual violence for the incoming freshmen, but more concentrated efforts are needed to promote it here on campus to all students.

Putting the emphasis on seeking a yes, rather than whether “no” was said, returns the culpability regarding sexual violence where it belongs — with the perpetrator, not the person who experienced it. It also creates communication on sexual activity between those involved, which is beneficial for everyone.

There’s not much of an argument against it. The challenge comes from how dramatic a shift it is how we view sexual activity, especially in the traditionally heteronormative context of male-female dynamics, with men doing whatever they want until or after women say no.

This view isn’t very healthy, and it’s certainly not equal. It strengthens the position of perpetrators, as sexual violence cases often come down to who said what — did she (statistically far more likely) say no? That’s not what the question should be, and affirmative consent can change that.

As we’ve seen recently — Cee Lo Green and now Rush Limbaugh being the most recent celebrity offender — there’s a lot of confusion about what constitutes sexual assault, and affirmative consent education and requirements can change that as well.

In addition to mandating this practice, the California law also requires on-campus advocacy for services; amnesty for survivors and witnesses who come forward and acknowledge they’d drank while under 21; and training for campus disciplinary committees in how to handle sexual assault cases specifically.

These steps are critical in the fight against college sexual assault, and they are ones we think the University and student government should work to implement here on campus. A policy defining consent affirmatively codifies the ethical standard that human beings seeking to treat each other with dignity and respect should follow.

Affirmative consent policy began at Antioch University here in Ohio, While state and federal figures can order colleges to take steps, university administrators should take the initiative on programs like this — especially given how crucial it is for college students to understand the importance of affirmative consent.

Students gather to Stuy up

Photos by Spenser Hickey and Jane Suttmeier

A group of freshmen enjoy an exciting game of Jenga during the third annual Stuyin’ Up All Night event hosted by Residential Life.

Bill Boaz, Campus Programming Board president, puts on a magic performance for a crowd of eager onlookers.

Taking the good with the bad on Yik Yak

Does OWU’s new social media infatuation bring students together or rip them apart?

By Ellin Youse and Miranda Anthony
Editor-in-Chief and Transcript Reporter

If it’s happening at Ohio Wesleyan, chances are it’s being talked about on Yik Yak.

The app is the newest craze in social media as well as the latest trend in anonymous OWU forums, following the likes of OWU Confessions Facebook Page and the OWU Crushes and OWU Creeper Twitter pages.

“Share your thoughts, keep your privacy,” Yik Yak boasts on its homepage. The app allows users to “yak” a post up to 200 characters long anonymously. Users can “upvote” or “downvote” other yaks, and because of the constant posting and downvoting of other yaks, the posts usually don’t stay up for long. If a yak gets -5 downvotes, Yik Yak automatically removes it.

Launched in January 2014, the app has gained national recognition as one of the fastest growing social me- dia companies in the United States and is now being used by over 25,000 people on over 250 U.S. college campuses.

The anonymity of Yik Yak makes the app stand out in a world where any post on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram can haunt the author even after a post is taken off its respected site. Users of social media are conditioned to believe that anything they post can follow them forever with a single screenshot, but Yik Yak solves that problem. By allowing authors complete privacy, people can say what- ever they want about what- ever or whomever they want, without repercussion.

The app’s anonymity feature comes with some controversy. The app blocks users from posting if they are near middle and high schools in an effort to avoid cyber bullying. One of Yik Yak’s co-founders, who refuses to reveal his or her identity to the public, said in a press release this March that the app is designed with college campuses in mind.

“We created Yik Yak to give college students a private platform for communicating with their entire campus,” said the unnamed Yik Yak cofounder. “Yakkers have used the app to find a place to crash, report lost and found items and alert other students about deals at nearby bars.”

Campus controversy

While it may be a great resource for lost freshmen and bored seniors, the app has caused serious issues for many schools, college campuses included.

At Emory & Henry college in Virginia, for example, school administrators responded seriously to a death threat against freshmen posted on Yik Yak. In Mobile, Ala. a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old were arrested for threatening posts on the site, and according to the Los Angeles Times, at least four Chicago-area high schools warned parents about Yik Yak, urging them to delete the app from their children’s phones.

OWU Yaks

OWU has been climbing the ranks of the Yik Yak universe in the past weeks, making it to the site’s “peek” page, which allows users from all over the nation to read the yaks happening on OWU’s campus.

“My opinion of Yik Yak, initially, was that it was funny and that I kind of learned about the campus, but then I started seeing all of these negative comments: mean things about fraternities and about things freshmen do,” freshman Mac Willard said. “People were saying some pretty rude stuff, so I deleted it.”

OWU Greek life has been implicated as well, with posts frequently mentioning the Phi Delta Theta and Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternities and the Delta Gamma and Delta Delta Delta sororities.

Students have spoken out about the app via yaks, posting about the positives the app brings to the student community. In one yak, a student contemplating suicide was encouraged by classmates to seek counseling. Many posts are also about where students can go to find parties, and even more are jokes.

“Most of Yik Yak is really stupid, like 75 percent,” said sophomore Aletta Doran. “Most of what you read just doesn’t make a lot of sense, but there are some good things about it. There have been several instances where people have said ‘I want to commit suicide, I need help,’ and everybody dropped all the bullshit and supported each other.”

For senior Ibrahim Saeed, the app provides campus with a “collective consciousness.” While Saeed said he thinks there have been dark moments for OWU’s Yik Yak, he said the app will improve with time.

“I feel that the more people adopt Yik Yak, the better it will represent Ohio Wesleyan,” he said. “…(T)he OWU based Yik Yak users have been pretty good about down-voting things that shouldn’t be there, which removes it forever. I think the goal of the app is to let people feel a part of the greater community and it does accomplish that to an extent.”

But it’s not all warm and fuzzy. Jokes at the expense of minority racial communities on campus have been frequenting the app, with yaks saying things like, “Black people are poor,” “HBC (the House of Black Culture) looking like a crack house,” and “All Asians flock together.”

Senior Khristina Gardner, moderator of the House of Black Culture, said she would “much rather sit back and keep an eye on the things that are being said from afar” than address the problem directly on the app.

“When I read the comments on Yik Yak that were geared towards the House of Black Culture as well as to black people in general, it really had me thinking – especially when I woke up the next morning,” she said. “I became uneasy all of a sudden because of the fact that Yik Yak is anonymous and that it could have been anyone at OWU. I could walk past them everyday on campus and not even know that it was them that posted such hateful things.”

Gardner added that the comments on Yik Yak about her home and comments on race in general say “a lot more about them (the posts’ authors) than they do about me.”

“There is way too much ignorance being practiced on OWU’s campus and it is not my job to necessarily correct it, especially when there are more than enough opportunities on and off campus to get educated about the things that make us different from one another,” she said.

Departments use drones for dollars

By Ellin Youse and Jamell Brown-Smith
Editor-in-Chief and Transcript Reporter

Departments at Ohio Wesleyan University are using small, pilotless aircrafts, or drones, to cheaply produce content that would otherwise cost thousands of extra dollars.

Drone is a term that is often applied to robotic devices in general, but in OWU’s case, the drone is a small flying device and is controlled by a pilot on ground and used to record video and collect data or footage for athletics.

The OWU drones are DJI Phantoms, the most popular “quadcopter” model available. A quadcopter is a small, multirotator helicopter with four blades and can attach a small camera to record information from a bird’s eye view. At a starting price of $479.99 for the older model of the Phantom One, the unit is a more stable and sophisticated version of a remote-controlled helicopter.

While The Phantom does not possess many of the features that make drones the platform of choice for overhead imaging, like the ability to plot a course remotely and send the craft on its way without a need for pilot input, its durability, in-flight stability and relatively cheap price tag made it a solid choice for campus drones.

Aircraft on Campus

OWU’s geography-geology and athletics departments have each adopted a drone, and for very different reasons. At a starting price of $479.99 for the older model of the Phantom One, the unit is essentially a more stable and sophisticated version of the remote-controlled helicopters most are familiar with.

For artistic or scientific purposes, drones are doing work that would have been reserved for planes and helicopters before modern technology became so widely available.

Geography/ Geology professor and Geographic Information Systems expert for the university, John Krygier, has been working with senior Christian Gehrke as a part of the Student Assistantship Program (StAP) to use this technology to produce extensive, up-to-date remote sensing data on local vegetation. A modified GoPro camera is helping the pair monitor the health of vegetation in the Delaware area.

“We had an issue in that everyone straps a GoPro to it (drone), but we wanted to work with more than visual light reactions,” Krygier said. “Infrared (IR) is useful for many things, in particular for getting information about vegetation. Healthy vegetation will appear red on our camera. Farmers will use this to see what parts of their fields are stressed or for detecting pest infestations.”

The IR sensor Krygier and Gehrke took some ingenuity to adapt to the GoPro, but the pair are making progress.

After a year of trial and error efforts, they are able to use the drone to take overhead images of an area and stitch them together into usable, geotagged maps of those regions.

Once the process has been streamlined, Krygier said he would like open up the platform and data produced for use by students and teachers.

While Krygier and Gehrke have made a lot of progress, their current work presents only a proof of concept. The pair hopes to upgrade to a more sophisticated drone capable of maintaining constant altitude or flying a predetermined path without the guesswork of their current system.

In the athletics department, the football team has been working with video producer Bill Reynolds to gather new perspectives for their videos.

“I used it to get overhead shots of the team and the scoreboard when they came out to start the game, just a different angle to shoot from,” Reynolds said. “I use a pole to get similar footage, the drone is just one more tool to that end.”

The Phantom that Reynolds uses is equipped with a gimbal that keeps the camera steadier while in flight, enabling smooth, continuous shots even while the drone is in motion. Reynolds and the athletic department are still formulating new ways to use images captured by the drone.

In another instance of drones making an appearance on Selby Field, the Ohio Machine men’s lacrosse team also used drones to record footage of games. President and general manager of the Machine, John Algie, said the team worked with the local company, Infinite Impact, to provide in-game drone services.

“This was a great partnership for us because it created really unique perspectives for our fans,” Algie said. “One of our most popular uses of the drone was for our ‘Infinite Impact Drone Fan Cam’ which panned over the crowd while simultaneously broadcasting the footage onto the Selby Stadium video board. Our fans really got excited for it. We were also able to incorporate some of the drone photography into promotional videos, which serves as a real attention-grabber.”

After his use with drones, Algie said he could understand why universities would be interested in using drones more frequently.

“Drone cams can be great for showcasing a product or service,” he said.

“I can see a university such as Ohio Wesleyan, which has such a beautiful campus, using drone photography to create really special admissions recruiting videos that showcase what it looks like to attend OWU.”

‘Moby-Duck’ author opens 30th Sagan National Colloquim

By Miranda Anthony
Transcript Reporter

Thursday at 7 p.m., national bestselling author Donovan Hohn presented “The Blind Oceanographer: Lessons from the Hunt for Moby Duck” to students and faculty members in the Hamilton-Williams Campus Center, launching Ohio Wesleyan University’s 2014 Sagan National Colloquium series.

Founded in 1984 by university President David Warren, this year marks the 30th anniversary of the series, which aims to weld liberal arts learning with community involvement by actively engaging students in issues of national and international concern. Ellen Arnold, Ph.D., assistant professor of history, has chosen this year’s colloquium theme of H2OWU: Water in Our World, in which students will explore water from various perspectives and disciplines.

“It promises to be an exciting and engaging semester,” Arnold said.

“(And) a clear reminder of the values and virtues of the kind of broad, interdisciplinary, and engaged educational experience that Ohio Wesleyan prides itself in.”

Hohn’s presentation focused on the recurring theme of “the limitations of the human eyeball as an instrument of revelation” within his non-fiction, national bestseller “Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them.”

In his book, Hohn said, “It wasn’t that I wanted, like Cook and Amundsen and Vancouver and Bering and all those other dead explorers, to turn terra incognita into terra cognita, the world into a map.

“Quite the opposite. I wanted to turn a map into a world.”In a region known as the Graveyard of the Pacific, on Jan. 10, 1992, an entire shipment of 28,800 bathtub toys—including 7,200 rubber ducks—was released into the ocean as a result of tempestuous weather conditions; and, overtime, the toys drifted in many directions, washing onto shorelines all over the world.

Hohn, who was an English teacher at the time, first learned about this occurrence from a student’s paper. Contacting Curtis Ebbesmeyer, who published the story in The Beachcomber Alert!, Hohn soon found himself embarking on a journey, where he, alongside oceanographers and environmentalists, would retrace paths of the lost bath toys, tour the Chinese factory in which they were made, and search for those that had yet to be found.

“The challenge that I set for myself and what I look for,” Hohn said, “is a way to tell a story that avoids simplistic debunking or simplistic sensationalism.”

Claiming that much of what we see is through the lens of another’s camera, Hohn explains the biases often found in photographs of nature, and, more generally speaking, in environmental journalism.

“It is the norm,” Hohn said, “that seeing is synonymous with knowing, but photographs can be deceiving. Our eyes aren’t enough. We need to read the natural world as well as see it.”

Hohn’s assessment of photography particularly sparked the interest of sophomore Cindy Hastings, who, following the lecture, was one of many students and faculty members waiting in line to speak with Hohn.

“It’s really interesting how photographs often separate the truth from the context surrounding them,” Hastings said, “and then separates the portrayed reality from the actual reality.”

In a later interview, Hohn credits American writer Annie Dillard for inspiring him to explore the relationship between sight and knowledge and its complexities through her essay Seeing, which begins with an anecdote: Dillard recounts hiding pennies—as a small child—for strangers, evolving into a metaphor for the act of “seeing.”

“There lots of things to see,” Dillard wrote, “unwrapped gifts and free surprises, if only we care to find them.”

Student’s murals color new J. Gumbo’s location

Junior Abi Care Horvat adds to "Sunset on the Bayou," one of three murals she'll paint at the new J. Gumbo's location, on Aug. 30. Photo: Abi Care Horvat on Facebook — Junior Abi Care Horvat adds to “Sunset on the Bayou,” one of three murals she’ll paint at the new J. Gumbo’s location, on Aug. 30. Photo: Abi Care Horvat on Facebook

By Nicole Barhorst
Transcript Reporter

After Richard Upton’s J. Gumbo’s completes its move to 9 N. Sandusky St., a trio of murals by junior Abi Care Horvat will be the “centerpiece of the conversation,” he said.

Horvat, a fine arts major, put in 25 to 30 hours during her first week and a half working on the first mural in the front dining area titled “Sunset on the Bayou.” She said she has done canvas murals before, but never on such a large scale or on a wall.

Horvat got connected with Upton, the restaurant’s owner, after painting a fraternity paddle for a friend whose fraternity brother knew Upton. They worked together to determine the murals’ subject, and Horvat said it was important to both of them that visitors be able to find something new in the works with each visit.

The other two murals, both expected to be larger than “Sunset on the Bayou,” are titled “Parade on Bourbon Street” and “Under the Sea.” Horvat said she expects to be working on them for a few more weeks in addition to her classes.

Upton said he thinks Horvat’s work so far is “awesome.” He said the move from 12 S. Sandusky Street to the new location, previously 3^rd Degree Tanning Salon, was to provide more opportunities for expansion.

“Ninety-five percent of special events that happen in downtown Delaware happen north of William Street,” he said. “This location is better-suited for growth.”

Field Sleeper records intimate set at Chi Phi house

Alex Paquet talks with a fellow student at an intimate show in the Chi Phi fraternity house's formal room. The OWU junior, who released an EP titled "Stay Quiet, Stay Ahead" last year, recorded his set onto a cassette tape. Photo by Nicole Barhorst — Alex Paquet talks with freshman Gwyn Andrews after his intimate show in the Chi Phi fraternity house’s formal room. The OWU junior, who released an EP titled “Stay Quiet, Stay Ahead” last year, recorded his set onto a cassette tape. Photo by Nicole Barhorst

By Nicole Barhorst
Transcript Reporter

Nearly two dozen students were snapping their fingers after each song junior Alex Paquet, known on stage as Field Sleeper, played in Chi Phi’s formal room last Wednesday at 8 p.m.

The show’s original location was Paquet’s Chi Phi bedroom, but due to the amount of people who expressed their interest in the event on Facebook, the performance was moved to the formal room on the first floor of the fraternity.

According to the event’s Facebook page, the show was taped to a cassette, which will be converted into a digital file and shared with anyone.

Paquet sang and played guitar for forty-five minutes with a colored light illuminating his face in an otherwise dark room.

“I’ve been to concerts, but nothing like this,” said freshman Annie Spink, adding that she liked the “chill” atmosphere.

Freshman Gwyn Andrews said she enjoyed how interactive the show was and that her favorite song performed a Paquet original titled “Skeletons.”

Paquet said the song is one of his own favorites because it is fun to play and “more stripped down.” It was the only song Paquet played acoustically.

Many of the other songs in his set were covers, including a song by The Antlers.

Paquet said he liked how there is less separation between himself and the audience when he performs at smaller, more intimate places, and that playing for friends is “the ultimate experience.”