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Pres. Obama aims spotlight at college sexual violence

By Spenser Hickey and Bre Reilly
Editor-in-Chief and Transcript Correspondent

One in five women attending college in the US experience some form of sexual violence, and only 12 percent of them report it.

While these statistics have been pointed out by activist groups for years, President Obama made national headlines when he referenced them in a video statement last week.

“I called members of my cabinet to the White House to deal with a challenge that affects so many families and communities: the crime, the outrage, of sexual violence,” Obama said in the video.

The cabinet members involved include Attorney General Eric Holder, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Education Secretary Arnie Duncan and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius.

Vice President Joe Biden, author of the Violence Against Women Act, is also involved in the White House’s task force aimed at protecting students of all genders from sexual violence.

The task force has 90 days to make recommendations for colleges on how to prevent and respond to reports of sexual violence.

It will also work to increase public awareness of how specific universities handle cases and increase federal means of holding universities accountable.

“We’ve got to teach young people – men and women – to be brave enough to stand up and help put an end to these crimes,” Obama said.

“We’ve especially got to teach young men to show women the respect they deserve. I want every young man in America to know that real men don’t hurt women.”

The statement came after the White House Council on Women and Girls released a report titled “Rape and Sexual Assault: A Renewed Call to Action” which found that nearly 22 million women and 1.6 million men in the US have been raped.

“That’s totally unacceptable,” he said.

“…College should be a place where our young people feel secure and confident, so they can go as far as their talents will take them.”

At Ohio Wesleyan, the President’s statement was met with support from administrators and student activists.

Richelle Schrock, director of the Women’s and Gender Studies department, said that the creation of the task force is “a step in the right direction” and that the statistics cited are “a distressing reality.”

“I appreciated President Obama’s remarks in terms of showing support and solidarity with survivors when he stated that, ‘I have your backs,’” Schrock said in an email.

“This idea of ‘having the backs’ of survivors challenges victim-blaming narratives, which often predominate in our discussions of sexual assault.”

She also said she was curious to see if the task force would lead to increased funding for sexual assault prevention and awareness programs.

“Currently, many sexual assault awareness programs and organizations nationwide rely on funding from grants, which means their resources fluctuate on a yearly basis,” Schrock said.

Kimberlie Goldsberry, dean of students, said that any form of assault is “a really tragic thing” to experience.

“The only way we can try to rectify that is to continue to educate people and hold people accountable,” she said.

According to annual security reports provided by Public Safety (PS), at least 26 sexual assaults occurred on campus from 2008 to 2012, and all of them took place in student housing.

While the daily crime logs only list 11 forcible sex offenses – forms of rape or sexual imposition – this is not unusual.

As part of the annual tabulation, PS submits their list of reports to Counseling Services, the Chaplain’s Office and the Student Health Center.

These offices then add additional cases they know of where survivors were not comfortable going to PS, maintaining survivors’ confidentiality.

According to public records requests submitted to the Delaware Police Department, none of the forcible sex offenses reported from 2008 to 2013 as occurring on campus have led to a conviction or even a trial.

Six are listed as investigation pending and seven as exceptionally cleared, meaning no arrest was made even though there was a suspect.

Senior Claire Hackett, one of two campus campaign coordinators for the V-Day 2014 movement, said that sexual assault cases can be hard to prove without evidence collected by a rape kit.

V-Day is an international movement working to end domestic and sexual violence against women and girls.

Recent campaigns have focused around the statistic that one in three women will experience some form of violence in their lifetimes.

Hackett said that while only 26 cases were reported to University officials, sexual violence happens a lot more than people realize.

“You don’t realize how many women that you interact with (on campus) have been sexually assaulted,” she said.

Hackett said this was something that she’s learned through working in The Vagina Monologues at OWU.

While many participants have not survived sexual violence, “a significant number” have and benefit from the series of readings, which focus on women’s experience.

“It’s really important to the women who go through it, because it is empowering for them, especially if they’re survivors of sexual assault,” she said.

Both Hackett and junior Meredith Harrison, moderator of the Women’s House, said they agreed with President Obama’s statement that college sexual violence is a national issue.

“It definitely affects everybody,” Harrison said.

“I really liked that Obama addressed in his speech that it’s not just a women’s issue, it’s a men’s issue too and we need to be talking about how men can stop sexual assault.”

Hackett said that while sexual violence on college campuses is still a step in the right direction, it is one that primarily focuses on the middle and upper classes that have access to college.

Harrison added that women on Native American reservations also face a high risk of sexual violence, but that the statistics regarding college sexual violence are also “very high.”

“Something needs to be done,” she said.

“…Since I’ve been in college, there’ve been so many stories in the news and in the media about women in high school or women in college who have had bad experiences with reporting sexual assault.”

The past few years have seen a number of incidents where colleges faced federal investigation after they misreported crime statistics, in violation of the Clery Act, or pressured survivors into not reporting assaults.

The University of North Carolina, Penn State, the University of Southern California, Amherst, Dartmouth, Yale and Vanderbilt are just some of the colleges who’ve been accused of violating either the Clery Act or Title IX, a federal gender equity law with provisions to help survivors of sexual violence.

Hackett said that Ohio Wesleyan has a lot of things that support those who are survivors of sexual assault, but there’s always room for more.

“I think we could always increase the programming that encourages a safe environment for survivors,” she said.

“I think we raise a lot of awareness, a lot of consciousness-raising and have a lot of speak outs and marches and stuff, but I think we could be doing more for healing,” Harrison said.

She also said universities in general should expel perpetrators of sexual violence if they are convicted, as their continued presence on a campus can have “triggering” effects on the survivor.

“That is something no survivor should have to experience,” said Harrison.

Students honor MLK legacy, look to make racism part of the past

On April 4, 1968, African-American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed outside of his hotel room in Memphis, Tennessee.

In honor of Martin Luther King Day, students and professors organized events throughout the week to continue spreading King’s message of social equality and to bring attention to racial discrimination – an issue that many Ohio Wesleyan University students and faculty members believe is present today.

OWU organizations including Black Men of the Future (BMF) sponsored events in remembrance of MLK.

BMF organized an event in honor of King, which occurred in Hamilton-Williams Campus Center at lunch hour.

“We organize an event every year to commemorate MLK and his contributions to the quest for racial equality,” said senior Lucky Mosola, BMF President.

“…This year we performed an excerpt from MLK’s Letter From Birmingham Jail; ‘I, Too,’ a poem by Langston Hughes, and an original piece by myself about MLK and his Birmingham Campaign.”

Several other events hosted throughout the week were not only for OWU students, but the Delaware community as well.

An annual breakfast was held Monday morning at 8 a.m. in Benes Room B in honor of Dr. King. That evening, a screening of clips from “Freedom Riders” was shown in Beeghly Library’s Bayley Room at 7 p.m.

The “Freedom Riders” screening – about civil rights activists who challenged segregation in interstate busing – was followed by a discussion guided by Dr. Hasan Jeffries, associate professor of history at Ohio State University.

Jeffries showed three clips from the documentary, which was created by PBS as part of its American Experience series.

They involved interviews of those involved, re-enactments of some sequences, and photos and newsreels of the actual events.

Those who went on the 1961 Freedom Rides faced beatings from Ku Klux Klansmen and other white supremacists, sometimes with the approval of local law enforcement officers, while the federal government tried to convince them not to challenge the segregated system.

When they weren’t beaten, many riders were jailed in Parchman Penitentiary, but this backfired on supporters of segregation.

Their time in prison only increased the riders’ commitment to ending segregation, and made them better organized.

During the discussion Jeffries asked how many audience members would have been willing to go on the buses and risk their lives; only one person raised her hand.

On Thursday, a screening of the documentary “White Like Me” was shown in Benes Room B. The documentary is based off anti-racism activist Tim Wise’s book.

The documentary reflected on white privilege, discrimination and how many people think racism was solved decades ago, it is still a prominent issue in today’s society.

After the film, Sociology and Anthropology professor Dr. Paul Dean asked audience members to share their opinions on racism at Ohio Wesleyan and if they believe racial discrimination is still a prominent issue in the U.S.

In a question and answer section following the screening, some students who attended questioned why more did not.

Jim Mendenhall, ‘73, also attended the screening and said he thought it would have been nice to have more faculty and administration staff present.

“I think that racism is still a large issue in the United States,” said freshman McKenna Brewer, secretary of Sisters United.

“The fight for racial equality is not over, it continues every hour of every day.”

Sisters United and Black Men of the Future are both umbrella organizations of the Student Union on Black Awareness, which was founded in 1968 – the year of King’s assassination – to provide a voice for students of color on campus.

Mosola also expressed concerns about racism in modern society, stating that while racism may not be blatant, it does still exist.

“Racism is still a huge problem, but the nature of it has changed,” Mosola said. “(Now it’s) much more has to do with expectations, stereotypes, and institutional advantage (and) discrimination.

“There is still a long way to go, but changing how a culture thinks takes time. I think that with younger generations it will continue to improve in our lifetime.”

Hello, My Name Is

By Margot Reed
Transcript Contributor

A big theme of college is the idea that you get an opportunity to recreate yourself to the image that you would like. However, we’re still at a malleable time in our life where we’re living in an environment where you are interacting with fellow students every day. These interactions can help or hinder your process of finding your own identity and self-worth. This photo series, titled “Hello, My Name Is,” tries to look at the way labels and the way people address us and how it affects our creation and preservation of self-identity. I went around Ohio Wesleyan’s campus and asked students to write down what is applied to them by others. These were some of their answers.

Some images contain profanity.

You're always so happy! — You’re always so happy!

"You're pretty enough that I didn't think you would be smart." — “You’re pretty enough that I didn’t think you would be smart.”

Transgender Day of Remembrance helps us recommit to justice

I’ll be back home in about 50 hours, and the main thing I have to worry about before then is my paper due Friday at 1. After that, I’ll be free to relax and enjoy Thanksgiving with my family and think about everything I have to be grateful for.

But, it’s easy to forget that not everyone has those things.

I got a reminder of that today at noon in Hamilton-Williams Campus Center, when I saw senior Gus Wood taking a silent stand to commemorate Transgender Day of Remembrance, which honors those killed because of their gender identity.

The day began 15 years ago after the murder of trans woman Rita Hester, and is observed to remember those who have been killed each year and remind communities that trans lives are valuable.

I didn’t know that until after I saw Gus’ demonstration and did a Google search for more info. Had I not seen it, I probably wouldn’t have known today was the Day of Remembrance, or that such a day existed, and I’m sure many others on this campus wouldn’t either.

The most basic thing I’ll have to enjoy over break is my parents’ house, something I take for granted, and yet homelessness is one of the biggest problems facing LGBT youth in America.

While only three to five percent of the U.S. population self-identifies with the LGBT community, up to 40 percent of its homeless youth do, as they are often driven from their homes by families that do not accept who they are or who they love.

With the lack of shelter comes increased rates of depression, drug use and prostitution. Violence against members of the LGBT community is also a major issue, one exacerbated by the discrimination many members receive from police, who are supposed to protect them.

For someone who likes to identify as an activist for social justice, I’m often blind to transgender issues until they’re pointed out to me.

I’d never even considered the concept of preferred pronouns until we were asked to introduce ourselves by them, if we were willing, at the first meeting of my spring break mission team (one of its aims is transgender advocacy, so I have a lot to learn by then). I didn’t know about today’s remembrance, and I hadn’t even thought of the reasons behind the push for gender-neutral housing until a meeting on it during Pride Week.

I grew up in a small town, attending Catholic private schools that were steeped in cisgendered, white, middle-to-upper-class privilege. Sure, we talked about the civil rights movement (though mainly by watching dramatized adaptations like “Mississippi Burning” that focus on anachronistic white heroes) and the women’s movement received some attention, but issues of sexual orientation received little discussion, and gender identity even less.

After two and a half years at OWU, though, that’s not much of an excuse for continued unawareness. At the risk of sounding preachy, everyone can do more to learn about the struggles other groups face, and I definitely have a lot more to do.

Today’s certainly a good day for it.

Alexis Krauss: Ready for a fight

Alexis Krauss performs with Sleigh Bells at Flow Festival in Helsinki, Finland. Photo by katosblog on Flickr.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/118859202″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

By Noah Manskar

Editor-in-Chief

Sleigh Bells are certainly a restless band.

In 2012 they put out the strikingly dark “Reign of Terror,” a contrast to their debut “Treats,” and promoted it with a tour supported by Brooklyn-based black metal band Liturgy and acclaimed DJ Diplo. The followed up with another national headlining tour, including a stop in Columbus last November.

In October, just a year and a half after “Reign of Terror,” they released the more upbeat “Bitter Rivals,” proceeded to embark on a cross-country tour and will return Columbus on Saturday. As vocalist Alexis Krauss put it when I spoke with her over the phone last week while she and guitarist/producer Derek Miller were in Atlanta, the album “feels like a fight,” and from how active and motivated they are, it’s certain Sleigh Bells will go down swinging if they go down at all.

Alexis and I talked about the band’s restlessness and how it helps them put out albums so quickly, their fond memories in Columbus and boxing, their newfound love—not surprising, considering the sound “Bitter Rivals” achieves.

Noah Manskar: Where are y’all right now? You’re on tour, right?

Alexis Krauss: Yeah, I am currently in Atlanta, Ga., and—I guess we’re about midway through the tour, so it’s been really incredible so far. The shows have been a lot of fun, and we’re looking forward to keeping it going.

NM: What do you like best about touring, and what do you like least about it?

AK: I like best the fact that you wake up in a different city every day and get to meet new fans and experience new places. I feel incredibly grateful and appreciative that I get to do this for a living and that I get to see so many different parts of the country and of the world. What I like least about touring is probably being on a bus with nine guys and dealing with their lack of hygiene and all that comes with touring with nine boys. But that being said, we all love each other, we’re a really close knit touring family. But stepping on dirty socks and dental floss is never fun.

NM: So y’all are gonna be in Columbus on Nov. 9, and you were there a year ago, almost exact to the date. What do you think of Columbus as a city? Are you excited to come back?

AK:Yeah, no, absolutely. We’ve had a lot of great shows in Columbus, and we play there quite a bit. I remember the show at the BoMA in Columbus was probably one of the craziest shows we’ve ever played. It was a Halloween show, and it got insanely raucous. So yeah, lots of great memories in Columbus, and we’re excited to be playing again. You know, a lot of people kinda give us shit for putting out records so close to one another. It almost seems like they want us to kind of just disappear for a while and take a break. But for us the fact that we’re going back to a lot of the cities that we were in last year is really exciting. We have new music and we wanna share it with our fans, and we never get bored of visiting places like Columbus, because it’s incredibly rewarding to return to these places and see familiar faces and get to re-engage with a fan. So it brings us a lot of pleasure.

NM: You mentioned that you get a lot of shit for putting albums out pretty fast compared to a lot of other artists. What is your process like that makes that happen?

AK: Honestly we finished recording “Reign of Terror” in 2012, and we left the studio on an incredible high note, because the last song we recorded was “Comeback Kid,” and Derek and I both felt really re-energized. He had just come out of a really dark period in which he was dealing with the loss of his father and his mom being very sick, but by the time we recorded “Comeback Kid,” things were really looking up and we were just feeling great about our personal working relationship with one another, and we never really stopped writing. And so every time we would finish a tour, we would get into the studio with our engineer Shane Stoneback and we’d work for maybe two days, sometimes we’d work for a week, and we started having these fully formed songs that we were super proud of. And once we finished touring “Reign of Terror” in March, we went into the studio full time, and we would work for as long as we felt energized and productive, and then we’d go home and take breaks. So the recording schedule for us was always really enjoyable. Nobody was forcing us to do it, we never felt like we were spreading ourselves too thin, we never felt like we were lacking ideas. And so after a few months we had 10 songs that we felt were really strong. We recorded about 15, but in the end we felt that those 10 were the ones that really deserved to make the record. And instead of sitting on it and instead of engaging a really long press lead, we just decided to put it out. ‘Cause if I was a fan of our band, I would just kinda wanna hear the new material and then go to a show. There can be a lot of bureaucracy in the music business and a lot of people telling you what you should do. We tend to ignore all that and do things ourselves and put out music when we wanna put it out, and we control our artwork and we’re very involved in the routing of our tours. And so it comes from a real restlessness and a real desire to keep producing records, and so that’s kinda why we do what we do.

NM: You talked a little bit about “Reign of Terror” and the dark tone it took in your work, with Derek and what he was going through. This record is a lot lighter than “Reign of Terror” and even “Treats.” Where did that come from?

AK: I don’t want to sound cliche, but this record is really a reflection of where we were as people in terms of just feeling really healthy and strong and energized and happy. We had a lot of silly moments in the studio, which i think we captured on this record. We didn’t take ourselves too seriously on this record. WE did things we enjoyed. We took a lot of risks. We looked at each other and questioned if this music was sleigh bells music, but ultimately we decided that we weren’t going to be inhibited by people’s expectations or by what we had sounded like in the past. Ultimately we wanted to make a record that we’d never made before and we wanted it to sound fresh and innovative and new. But ultimately it was just the music that was coming out of us. This was a much more collaborative record, and so I think a lot of it is much more strongly influenced by pop and R&B, because those are really my biggest influences. And from a guitar point of view, it’s much sort of scrappier and leaner and a lot less dense And the production just feels really upbeat. It still has an abrasiveness to it, but it’s definitely a lot less heavy. But at the same time, I still feel like it’s sort of our toughest record to date. We didn’t really have a vision for it; it was just about making the songs that were coming out of us at that time.

NM: What do you mean when you say it was the toughest record?

AK: To me, this record sort of feels like a fight. It feels really kind of tough and deliberate. I don’t know, it just sounds really kind of badass to me. When I say it feels like a fight, it just feels like it goes in full force, but ultimately ends in victory. It doesn’t end in sort of melancholy and despair. It has a lot of go, a lot of pep. It’s abrasive, but victorious.

NM: Speaking of it sounding like a fight—which I totally got, I listened to the record a lot—I also read that you and Derek took up boxing recently while you were producing this record.

AK: We did, yeah.

NM: So how did that happen? How did that come about, and how did it influence this record in sounding like a fight?

AK: I don’t wanna get too literal about it. Boxing has influenced this record in terms of infusing us with a lot of energy and a lot of positivity. It was something we got into. We were doing it together—we’d start our day off at the gym and then go into the studio, which was just a really healthy, productive way to start the day. Obviously we used the boxing glove for the record artwork, but I don’t think it had any more of an influence beyond that. I think it’s more of just a coincidence. I think if we were boxing when we were making “Treats,” it would’ve made just as much sense, you know? Our music always has a bit of a pugnacious quality about it.

NM: So you said this was more of a collaborative record than in the past.

AK: Definitely.

NM: In what sense was it collaborative? Where did you and Derek come together on this one more than you had in the past?

AK: We’re still a relatively new band, and I think because we met as complete strangers and didn’t have any prior working relationship with one another, it took us some time to learn to trust one another creatively, and it took some time for Derek to be able to release some control around the songwriting process and to entrust me with the writing. I think it’s just a matter of time before you start opening up and feeling comfortable sharing ideas in a collaborative way, and so that was what happened for “Bitter Rivals.” He would work on a track and then we would sit down and talk about lyrics, and I would go home and I would demo the song on my laptop using GarageBand and I would fully arrange all the vocals, and 9 out of 10 times I would come into the studio with essentially a completed demo, and he would love it, and we would just record it properly from there. We kinda found a groove and found a formula that worked for us, and I think for this record it proved successful.

NM: You talked a little bit about the artwork and the boxing gloves for “Bitter Rivals,” and with “Reign of Terror” you used a lot of patriotic kind of symbolism with the Purple Heart and the flag and the canteen and stuff like that. Some of that stuff I noticed has carried through in the content of “Bitter Rivals,” too, like on “You Don’t Get Me Twice” there’s the lyric, “It’s a terrifying thing, the American dream.” I’m just wondering, where does that kind of comment on American life, I guess—what are you trying to say with that, and where does that come from for you all?

AK: It’s kind of two different perspectives. For “Reign of Terror,” a lot of that—well, not a lot of it, all of it—was actual personal—the Purple Heart was Derek’s grandfather’s, the canteen was his grandfather’s. And for him that was more of a document of his father’s history and his family history and sort of a reflection of a lot of the artifacts that he had gone back and rediscovered after his father’s death. So that was much more a personal reflection on his family’s history and whatnot. And for Bitter Rivals, that line in “You Don’t Get Me Twice” is more of a commentary on where we are currently as a country, and Derek and I are very interested in how society’s changing and what people are prioritizing, and how it can be a bit disconcerting thinking about what people consider to be measures of success now, and the obsession with materialism and technology, and how that’s kind of causing people to seek out things in life that aren’t the most meaningful and important. We don’t necessarily consider ourselves a political band, but that particular line is definitely a commentary on, honestly, how terrifying it is, what a lot of people want in this life. We’re not judging, we’re just reflecting.

Sleigh Bells are performing at Newport Music Hall on Saturday, Nov. 9. Doors open at 8 p.m. Tickets are $22.00 in advance and $25 on the day of the show.

Listen to full interview with Alexis Krauss at owutranscript.com.

Students out of hospitals after Monday night accident

Ohio Wesleyan zoology professor Jed Burtt fills out part of a Delaware Police Department report about the accident involving him and two OWU freshmen Monday evening. The students, Gabriela Colmenares and Hector Rueda, were released from Grant Medical Center and Grady Memorial Hospital late Monday night.

Updated Nov. 5, 2013, 9:06 p.m.

By Noah Manskar

Editor-in-Chief

Two Ohio Wesleyan students have been released from hospitalization after being struck by a car Monday evening.

Freshmen Gabriela Colmenares and Hector Rueda were hit crossing Liberty Street going east toward Rowland Avenue at 6:07 p.m., according to the Delaware Police Department crash report. The driver was OWU zoology professor Jed Burtt.

The report said Rueda was sent to Grady Memorial Hospital after sustaining non-incapacitating injuries; his witness statement said he was released later that night.

First responders took Colmenares to Grant Medical Center in Columbus to have her “incapacitating” injuries treated. Freshman Andrew Stock, Rueda’s roommate, said she was also released from the hospital late last night.

Burtt said he had turned onto Liberty Street from Park Avenue and “wasn’t going very fast.”

Burtt’s witness statement said the left front bumper of his car struck Colmenares, sending her “diagonally across the hood, hitting her head on the windshield.”

In her witness statement in the police report, senior Lauren Foote said the car hit Rueda’s knee and knocked him to the ground.

Rueda and Colmenares declined comment at the time of publication, as they continue to recover from their injuries.

Burtt said he did not see Rueda or Colmenares when they collided in front of Welch Hall, where he was on his way to conduct a review session for his students.

Because the Delaware Fire Department station was adjacent to the scene, Burtt said medics arrived around the same time he exited his vehicle. It was then he saw Rueda and picked up his glasses so they wouldn’t be stepped on or crushed by an ambulance.

“I had too much adrenaline running through my system to be able to really help very well,” Burtt said. “It was pretty terrifying…pretty awful.”

Rueda’s witness report said Burtt told him he was “so sorry.”

Senior Samantha Rammaha called DPD after she heard about the incident. She said she saw people walking away from the scene when she arrived.

“I called it in because I wanted to make sure that they got help and were okay,” she said.

Director of Public Safety Robert Wood said there have one or two cases of students being struck by cars annually in his eight years at OWU. He said several students were injured near Liberty and Rowland nine or 10 years ago.

Wood said PS and DPD will likely collaborate on potential “safety enhancements” to the intersection, which has no yield signs or speed bumps.

“That’s a city street, so it’s actually up to the city, and they have to go by the traffic code there, but I’m sure we’ll be taking a look at it to see if there’s anything we can add to reduce the risk of it happening again,” he said.

DPD Sgt. Ramon Diaz said he worked with OWU officials on pedestrian safety, an issue in all kinds of schools, as a day shift officer. He said many pedestrians think they have ownership of the entire street once they step into a crosswalk, but the Ohio Revised Code says pedestrians only have the right of way in one lane at a time.

Diaz and Wood said the fact that it’s getting dark earlier since daylight savings time ended may have contributed to the accident. Diaz encouraged students to use caution when crossing streets.

“You can be 100 percent right, but if you still get struck by a car, it’s not a good place to be,” he said.

Volleyball snaps losing streak: Bishops beat Ohio Christian after losing 10 straight

By Zane Kieffer

Transcript Correspondent

The Ohio Wesleyan women’s volleyball team snapped a 10-game losing streak in a victory over Ohio Christian University.

It was the first win in over a month for the Bishops as they overcame a 2-sets-to-1 deficit to come out with the victory.

Ohio Wesleyan won the game by scores of 25-15, 19-25, 24-26, 30-28 and 15-11 on Tuesday, Oct. 22.

“Ending the losing streak was just what we needed going into the final weeks of our season,” said senior middle hitter Tamara Londot. “It felt good to finally finish a game with a win and not a close loss. Ohio Christian was a good team and we had to fight, so not quitting after losing two sets was key.”

Senior outside hitter Katie Fain said the victory gave the team a great sense of relief.

“A lot of the games we have lost should have been ours, but things just didn’t fall our way,” she said. “It gives us a lot of motivation to finish out the rest of the season on a good note and to continue to work hard in practice to hopefully beat Wooster and Kenyon and make it into the NCAA tournament.”

The Bishops have four games left before they begin the NCAC tournament, including two important conference games.

The players are hoping to carry the winning ways from this game into their last stretch of the regular season before the tournament.

“Some things I think we can salvage for the rest of the season is to not give up on each other, and continue to work hard and good things will happen,” Fain said. “For us seniors, I think to continue to give it our all is important because our time is limited so we need to play every day like it’s our last.”

With the senior leadership, the Bishops can beat their overall record from last year if they win the rest of their regular season games.

“Our goals as a team are to win out,” Londot said. “We only have four games left and all the teams are very beatable if we decide to show up and play.”

Swimmers young and old eager to compete

By Hannah Urano

Copy Editor

Coming off an impressive season last year, the Ohio Wesleyan men’s and women’s swim teams are diving in and training for their upcoming season.

Coach Richard Hawes said he is already optimistic for what lies ahead this season after a month of practice. This year’s team is the largest Hawes has coached at OWU.

“It’s exciting because the swimmers are excited coming in,” he said. “It was apparent even before the season started when we had more swimmers coming to practice (on their own).

“For a coach, that’s exciting to see because you don’t always get that.”

The team shares Hawes’ excitement.

“I think that this is going to be one of the most challenging seasons in terms of the amount of yardage and difficulty of our practices, but we should have a very fast team this year,” said senior captain Derek Smith.

Junior Matt Mahoney said this is the strongest team he’s seen during his time at OWU.

“I’m mostly excited about finally having a fast and big enough team to bring some serious competition to our conference this year,” he said.

Sophomore Heather DeHaas said she thinks the team’s biggest advantage is the range of swimmers in every event.

“We have strong distance, mid-distance swimmers and sprinters,” she said.

Smith said he sees the team’s size as an obvious advantage.

“I think our biggest asset this year is the amount of swimmers we have on the men’s team and especially the number of talented underclassmen we have,” he said. “This is the largest the team has been in the four years I have been here, and we only graduated two seniors on the men’s team last year and added five freshmen this year.

“I already know that some of them can go very fast, but I think that swimming for coach Hawes will make all of them faster.”

Hawes said he thinks the team will benefit from a combination of the upperclassmen’s experience and the skilled freshmen’s enthusiasm.

“The upperclassmen are certainly helping the younger kids and the younger kids are certainly pushing the upperclassmen because we do have talented freshmen,” he said. “Seeing them work hard motivates the seniors to continue to work harder.”

Freshman Emma Beale said the training is “fairly different” from her high school program, but she thinks the changes are helping her technique and strength.

For freshman Evan Snapp, the season has so far been a combination of “mental excitement and physical exhaustion.”

Unlike most OWU sports, the men’s and women’s swim teams practice together, making them function as a more cohesive unit.

“One thing I love about swimming is that your team quickly becomes a kind of family,” Beale said. “The OWU team is very supportive. I haven’t been here long, but I know that if I ever need anything in or out of the pool, I have lots of great people I can go to.

“I think this kind of atmosphere helps all of us be better athletes and students.”

In terms of training, Hawes said he is continuing a technique he implemented last season based on the University of California’s swim program.

According to Hawes, three practices a week focus on “muscle confusion.”

He said dry-land exercises are incorporated into these practices, as opposed to doing them after practice. The entire practice takes about two and a half hours.

Smith said getting back into the routine of regular workouts is an adjustment.

“As with every year, the area we need to improve in most will be dealing with the grind of the season,” he said. “Its not easy to go to practice six days a week, sometimes twice a day, and balance all our other responsibilities.

“But making sure we are doing everything that coach (Hawes) asks of us while keeping up with our other responsibilities, like school work for instance, is how we are going to get the most improvement.”

For the men’s team, Smith said one of their goals is to go undefeated in duel meets until they face Kenyon and Denison at the end of the season, the last two meets before the NCAC meet.

Despite their strong competitors, the teams are confident they will be able to improve their rankings at the end of the season conference meet. Mahoney said they also aim to make the Division III top 20.

“While winning is totally out of the question, I think we will be able to improve on last year’s placing,” Smith said.

Hawes said he is optimistic the men will be able to achieve their goals.

“I think on the men’s side we have a chance to move up one or two spots,” he said.

On the women’s side, senior captain Jen Erichsen said her main goal is to make sure the season is productive and enjoyable.

“I want to make sure everyone has fun and accomplishes their personal goals in the pool,” she said.

“Our team (women’s team) is pretty small compared to other teams, but I think that we will continue to grow in the future.”

What’s old is new again: Premier organist to play newly restored Gray Chapel organ

By Julianne Zala

Transcript Correspondent

On Oct. 25 and 26, Alan Morrison performed two recitals on the newly restored Klais organ in Gray Chapel. To commemorate the event, alumni and members of the Keller and Blanchard families appeared to hear the performances.

The Klais organ arrived to OWU in 1980; the organ had not received any restoration since, until a fundraising effort to improve and restore the organ began in September of last year.

The new renovations to the organ included a thorough cleaning of the entire organ, which involved the removal of all the original 4,522 pipes and windchests and the installation of an additional 122 pipes.

In addition, workers repaired any defects with the organ. The slider seals, which function to prevent the organ leaking wind when it exits from the windchests, were also replaced.

Once the cleaning process was finished, the 400-500 pound pipes were placed into the organ stop by stop. The term stop refers to the admittance of pressurized air into a set of organ pipes. Organ voicers made sure each stop spoke correctly at the proper volume, while other stops were made louder or softer, and others were completely revoiced.

Robert Griffith, an organ teacher at OWU, said there were, “five people who upfront gave seed money to get the project underway.”

“Most people were alums and former students,” said Griffith, who studied under Rexford Keller.

Most importantly, the new division of an additional 122 pipes, called the Blanchard Memorial Bombarde division, was added to the organ. The division is named after Dr. and Mrs. Homer D. Blanchard, who were both in the class of 1933.

Dr. Homer Blanchard began studying the pipe organ at the age of 13. Blanchard became a major proponent to acquire the Klais organ in Gray Chapel during his time teaching German at OWU in 1963.

After his death in 1988, his wife Gwen Blanchard established the Homer D. Blanchard Memorial Organ Recital Series Fund, which provides an opportunity for future performances on the organ. The family and friends of Dr. Homer and Gwen added the division, which includes two trumpet stops that will add a new voice to the organ.

University President Rock Jones opened the concert with a speech, detailing the history of the organ. He also recognized the family members of the Keller and the Blanchard families who attended the concert.

He then introduced the performer Alan Morrison, who has played the organ since he was a senior in high school, and is currently known as one of America’s premier concert organists.

Morrison graduated from The Curtis Institute of Music and The Julliard School of Music. He has played internationally in Canada, Europe and South America. He has been chosen to perform at four national conventions of the American Guild of Organists.

Morrison began the program with “Phoenix Processional” by American composer Dan Locklair. He followed with “Concerto in A Minor, BWV 593” by Johann Sebastian Bach, a piece that Bach transcribed after Vivaldi’s piece for the organ.

This was followed by “Ciaconna in B-flat Major” by Johann Bernhard Bach, which Morrison said to the audience was, “something [Bach] would have improvised while inspecting organs.” The piece also featured individual voices of the organ, while the previous two-piece served as ensembles.

Morrison then performed “Andante Sostenuto” by Charles Marie Widor, a French composer who composed the piece specifically for the Christmas season. The composition featured the strings and flutes of the organ. This was followed by “Scherzo, opus 2” by Maurice Durufle. Morrison described the piece as “a game of chase” that features the “lush strings and beautiful flutes of the organ.”

After intermission, Morrison performed “Five Dances” by Calvin Hampton, an American composer. Morrison said to the audience that the piece “works beautifully on this organ.” Morrison finished with “Variations on Sine Nomine” by John Weaver, an American Composer.

Morrison described to the audience that this piece was a “romp” of the tunes “The Saints Come Marching In” and “From all the Saints.”

Morrison closed the concert by recognizing those involved with renovating the organ. He described the process as, “such an overwhelming task” and “very labor intensive, a labor of love.”

Morrison said that the Klais organ, “has a lot of character,” and described it as “one of the best.”

Juniors split the spotlight at joint recital

Flutist Caitlen Sellers performed individually at the joint junior recital she shared with soprano Grace Thompson on Oct. 28. The two concluded their performance with a duet of Irish folk songs. Photo courtesy of Caitlen Sellers — Flutist Caitlen Sellers performed individually at the joint junior recital she shared with soprano Grace Thompson on Oct. 28. The two concluded their performance with a duet of Irish folk songs.
Photo courtesy of Caitlen Sellers

By Adelle Brodbeck

Transcript Reporter

Juniors Caitlen Sellers and Grace Thompson provided a professional performance featuring music from a wide range of renowned artists in their junior recital on Oct. 28.

Thompson, a soprano, sang songs from artists such as Mozart and Franz Shubert. Sellers played pieces on her flute from artists such as Benjamin Godard and Albert Roussel.

The performance began with Thompson’s series of songs, followed by Sellers’ performance on the flute, and concluded with the pair performing Irish folk songs by John Corigliano.

Sellers said she has been playing the flute since she was in fourth grade, about 11 years. Aside from a few small performances, this was her first big recital.

To prepare for the show, Sellers said she spent a lot of time practicing her pieces with her flute instructor, Nancy Gamso.

“On the actual day of the recital, I went running and did some yoga to prepare my mind and body,” she said. “Then I did a long warm up, thought through the entire performance, and went for it!”

Sellers said she had a difficult time deciding which songs to perform.

“There are so many fantastic and fun pieces,” she said. “I had some ideas before the semester started, and Dr. Gamso suggested a lot of pieces too. I honestly loved everything that I played, but I think ‘Kokopeli’ was my favorite.”

Thompson has had many experiences preforming before this recital. She has been singing for most of her life through choir in high school, voice lessons and her involvement with OWU’s female a cappella group, Pitch Black, but she said this was her longest recital to date.

Thompson performed songs in Spanish, French and German; she said she particularly enjoyed performing the Spanish pieces. She said the most difficult part was switching between different accents.

“Singing in different languages isn’t so hard anymore since I’ve been studying classical music for eight years,” she said. “It’s usually transitioning between the languages and getting yourself in the mindset for each given pronunciation in not very much time that’s tricky.”

In preparing for the recital, Thompson said she tried not to push herself too much.

“In the couple days leading up to your recital, don’t overdo your practice,” she said. “You don’t want to wear yourself down or psych yourself out. Just relax and get in the zone, and then give yourself a refresher when you’re preparing that day.”

Thompson said she and Sellers decided to work together partially because of their similar goals for their future music careers and because it is uncommon for instrumentalists and vocalists to have joint recitals.

“We thought it would be a nice change,” Thompson said.

Both performers agreed the overall recital was a success.

“I feel so good about how it went,” Thompson said. “Of course everyone always notices their own little mistakes, but really I couldn’t have asked for much more.”

“I was very nervous going in, but then the music hit me and I got really into it,” I hope the audience had as much fun as I did.”