The décor in the house coordinates well with the swords; although magic isn’t technically part of Dagorhir, “Magic the Gathering” cards lay scattered throughout. “Half of us play ‘Magic,’ half of us play ‘Settlers of Catan’ [a board game].” said House Coordinator Eric Tjossem ’1d. A few minutes later, Svea Drentlaw ’13, a Dag guest, took a seat at the kitchen table, and immediately asked if anyone would play “Magic” with her while three other Dag House residents attempted to assemble a gigantic board of “Settlers of Catan”.
“It doesn’t need to be in a hexagon shape!” Mariya Shapiro ’11 complained. Traditionally, Settlers of Catan boards are set up hexagonally.

“Crispy Hexagons!” Taylor Smith ’14 burst out. Crispy Hexagons are the cereal staple of Dag House; they’re like a grocery store brand generic version of “Crispix”.
Not to be outdone by Smith’s spontaneity, Drentlaw, a music major, erupted into the George Gershwin song “Summertime” as others continued to assemble the board.
The Dag House living room represents similar loving disorganization. Both front corners are layered with Dag equipment while Soae swords are piled in a small laundry bin.
“Those swords aren’t battle-ready yet.” Tjossem said, as he pointed to the swords in the bin. “They still need to have covers sewn for them.”

For a sword to be eligible for combat in Daghorhir, it has to be deemed soft enough that it would not hurt anyone and a cloth cover must be sewn on. Sword-preparation is a community responsibility. “Usually someone just picks some up and starts working on it,” Tjossee said. “We haven’t done that in a long time. We need to get organized about that.”
The living room coffee table is home to a collection of “Sci-Fi Classics” that included such gems as “The Mesa of Lost Women,” “Piranha Piranha,” and “Evil Brain From Outer Space.” For Smith, the experience of watching these films is one of his favorite parts of living in Dag House. The table also boasts a faded-golden horn sound exits the horn through a dragon’s mouth. Its golden fangs hang down extended beyond the rest of the horn’s body.

“That is the dragon horn,” Smith explained. “It summons dragons. It’s our backup defense against a zombie attack.” Two pieces of paper titled “Zombie Attack Strategy” hang on the wall between the kitchen and the living rool.

“We need to have a meeting about our zombie defense strategy for this year,” Tjossem said.

Dag House is fully equipped, weapon-wise, for a zombie attack.. “The board itself is just full of things the RLC gave us, but the thumbtacks are battle axes,” Tjossee said, before removing a. crowbar from the clutter beneath thedcentrally-located board.

“We also use this to fight zombies,” he said as he proudly displayed it.

When they’re not involved in some sort of battle, Dag House likes to eat. “We have Stir Fridays,” Cory Brooke-deBock ’13 said. Stir Fridays are the meal after Friday 4 p.mM sessions of Dahorhir. “Well, sometimes we don’t make Stir Fry, we make other things,” Tjossem explained.

Like Sword Fry?

Tawil spoke about Iowa’s rich history as a hub for Muslims. The Mother Mosque was established in 1934 and is now denoted a historical site. The mosque hosts interfaith dialogue and has a community of supporters that extends beyond just the Muslims of the area.

Youssef, who moved to the United States twelve years ago for graduate school, did not at first recognize that her experiences here were influenced by the fact that she is a Muslim. Eventually, however, the effects of living in a place with a small Muslim community caused her to realize that religion was an inescapable part of how she was perceived and how her own experiences America were shaped.

“I somehow talked myself into thinking that my experience is defined more by being an Arab woman…but trying to dismiss religion as an identity marker didn’t work,” Youssef said. “I remembered that I do wear my religion on my head.”

Youseff noted the difficulties of living in an area where Muslims account for a small minority.

“I found my experience as a Muslim in Grinnell to be very different. It’s friendly, but it’s lonely,” Youseff said. “I still miss the call for prayer, the night prayers in Ramadan. You can’t find that here. Above all I miss the intellectual exchange among ordinary Muslims who are critically examining issues and social phenomenon from a religious perspective. I miss debates about religion without being expected to defend Islam.”

Hammouda, who’s been settled in Iowa since 1989 and in Grinnell since 1995, feels at home in Iowa and cherishes the diverse community and variety of opinions and beliefs.
“I found Iowa to be a great place to raise a family. Do I miss the larger community? Not really. I feel that I have a community,” he said. “One within which I have a great comfort level and a lot of support.You can talk about religion as openly as politics here and that is something you don’t always find in larger Muslim communities.”
One thing that Tawil, Youssef and Hammouda agreed upon is that despite the fact that they stand out as Muslims, they have never, not even in the aftermath of 9/11, felt threatened by members of the surrounding community.

Youssef recalled an instance when her car broke down on an Iowa highway and a stranger drove her all the way to South Dakota so that she could catch an appointment on time. Tawil mentioned how volunteers from the community helped out when the 2008 floods caused the mosque’s basement substantial damage. Hammouda had a friend and a pastor stop by after 9/11 to show their support for him and his family and make sure that they were not being harassed.

“These were just two examples of the many ways that made us realize we had found home,” Hammouda said.

Tawil echoed Hammouda’s appreciation for Iowa.

“Muslims in Cedar Rapids have never felt that they have a problem being part of the community. We are part of the community and it is a part of us,” Tawil said.

“I oftentimes tell people it’s not hugely uncommon for someone to go on an international teaching or volunteer experience and not have it be what they were hoping for it to be,” explains Doug Cutchins, Director of Social Commitment. “… It’s all about the match. But I don’t think anyone could have been successful in [McVeigh’s] opportunity. It fell apart on him.”

Jake "Stoney" McVeigh '11 and Pat Stuchlik '11 stay "so fly" in Seole, Korea last fall. Contributed.

McVeigh’s story starts where many seniors are beginning right now: vetting programs, weighing the challenges posed by one program against those of another. An ’09 alum and member of the Grinnell football team recommended HandS Korea—an English teacher recruiting agency in South Korea to McVeigh. HandS Korea is a small recruiting agency, but they place 700-900 teachers a year and have been around for just under a decade. They found McVeigh a placement in a new Hagwan, a Korean private boarding school. After researching the school and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, McVeigh applied, interviewed and then signed a yearlong contract and left the United States on Sept. 26 of last year. However, once he arrived and started working, he quickly noticed some strange things about the school in which he had been hired to teach.

“I arrived Sunday, observed class Monday and started teaching on Tuesday with the supervisor,” McVeigh said. “But there were things that were odd to me but I had nothing to compare it to. It was a new school and they told me, ‘Oh we had to move from our building and were trying to find a new spot, so we’re in this hotel temporarily.’ But it kind of made sense, because it’s a boarding school and people have to live on campus. Also, [I only taught] technically one [20 year-old, female] student that was paying tuition and my Boss’s son [who was 18].”

For six weeks, McVeigh lived in a hotel, teaching his two students and passing the time with them, his supervisor, and a Chinese national who was hired to teach Chinese.
“All of my meals were made by my supervisor,” he said. “It became very mundane and redundant; I felt very isolated.”

McVeigh rarely saw his boss, whose English name is James, the man who owned the school and had hired him. As the six weeks went on, James was increasingly absent from the hotel, and McVeigh would later find out that nobody knew James’ exact Korean name, and that the Hagwan he owned was actually in his son’s name. The hotel was nice but in a secluded area, and nothing was in walking distance. McVeigh did meet with other ’11 Grinnell graduates for a 10/10 celebration, and in the early weeks he was able to travel around a little and see a country profoundly different from the frozen fields here in the Midwest.

But in the hotel, McVeigh knuckled under, hoping that the things he heard about his missing boss—that he was looking for more students, finishing up, and finding a new building—were true. They didn’t dissuade his growing realization that the relationship between his supervisor and his boss was increasingly tense; neither did it undo the biggest red flag—he wasn’t getting paid.

“My thinking was, as long as I get paid, I can stick this out,” McVeigh said. “If I get paid I’d be able to go out and travel and do what I want on the weekends. But I was trying to be very conservative with my money until I got paid. And I eventually ran out over the six weeks [waiting to get paid.]”

McVeigh was told that by Nov. 1, he would receive his first paycheck and be reimbursed for the cost of the plane ticket to Korea, which was in McVeigh’s contract. The hotel, too, was concerned about the school’s ability to pay. The date came and McVeigh had not even been asked for account information. McVeigh talked to his supervisor, whose English name is Jennifer, and despite her open feuding with James, she told him not to worry and to wait just a little longer. McVeigh also called the recruiting agency, HandS Korea.

“They called Jennifer because they had worked with Jennifer before at a different school, and one of the employees at HandS Korea trusted that she was being completely honest about the situation,” he said. “They told me to wait it out and give them a chance to get more students. But two days later, that’s kind of when everything happened.”

McVeigh’s story will be concluded in next week’s issue of the Scarlet & Black.

Diane Meisles '12 and Julie Podair '12 explore ISrael via camel during their recent Taglit-Birthright trip. Contributed

“It’s such an important country and it’s kind of crazy that it’s only the size of New Jersey, and yet we still hear about the tiniest of happenings,” said Julia Gerasimenko ’12, a winter break participant in “Israel Outdoors,” an outdoor-oriented Birthright option. “I think that [Taglit-Birthright Israel] really wants to give people of Jewish heritage the chance to see what it’s actually like [in Israel]. To actually see the living, breathing State of Israel really shows how [Judaism] is more than a religion—it’s also a culture. And to actually see that in person was really powerful.”

Applicants to the Birthright programs must be between 18 and 26 years of age with little to no previous experience in Israel. While much of programming is organized by region, Taglit-Birthright Israel also offers “niche trips” that cater to more focused groups, including the option of an “LGBTQ Friends & Family.” The extended scope—beyond purely religious exploration—surprised many of the particpants.

“The craziest thing for me about going to Israel was how different Judaism was there. [I saw] a lot of Israelis that identify as Jewish but were hardly religious,” said Julie Podair ‘12. “They have a Jewish culture that is very apparent and very strong, but it’s not necessarily religious. It made me feel more okay with not being so religious.”

The trip is not without controversy, however. While proponents praise Taglit-Birthright Israel’s ability to invigorate Jewish identity and strengthen a connection to the State of Israel, critics decry the program as Zionist and one-sided regarding its treatment of the ever-contentious Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“I can see why the Israeli government would want to support [Taglit-Birthright Israel] because a lot more people were pro-Israel in the end,” said fellow “Israel Outdoors” participant Zach Butler ’13. “But our tour guide tried to present either a neutral opinion or both sides when talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—not just what the Israeli government wanted us to hear.”

Controversy aside, Taglit-Birthright Israel continues to send approximately 30,000 students per year to Israel from 54 countries around the world, according to the program’s official website. Whether a 10-day trip to Israel for Diaspora Jewish youth can be considered a “birthright” remains to be determined, but it goes without saying that the country’s rich history and natural beauty present a nearly universal draw to all who visit.

“It was like a free sample of a really nice chocolate—you’re going to want more of it,” Podair said. “I don’t think there was anyone on that trip that didn’t want to go back.”

“Given enrollments in Middle East related courses, we’ll be able to make a pretty strong case for adding resources to help make a concentration possible,” said Professor Caleb Elfenbein, History.

According to Elfenbein, Mervat Youssef, Arabic, Kathy Kamp, Anthropology, and Susan Ireland, French, are currently working to develop a program where the College would hire a recent graduate of the Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language program at the American University in Cairo to come here for up to two years at a time.

Typically, at the College, most Arabic classes fall under French, and the History or Religious Studies departments usually offer courses related to Middle Eastern studies. However, much like the rest of the Middle Eastern world, change is coming and new borders are being drawn.

“At present, there are two core faculty members and then there are a number people around the College who teach related courses,” Elfenbein said. “Beginning next year, there is going to be a second Arabic language instructor, so that’s going to allow for an expansion of current offerings.”

Jon Cohen ’14, who created an independent major in Middle Eastern Studies, thinks a concentration would help students get recognition for taking these classes.

“Given that there is emerging demand for this sort of skill, it would be great on your transcript [to say—] I have these skills, the College has recognized these skills and now I can sell them to you, my employer,” Cohen said.

Since few regions are as necessary to the continuation of the United States’ current economic success as the Middle East, much study focuses on energy issues and conflict. With growing immigrant populations, however, Middle Eastern Studies at Grinnell hit closer to home than one might first think.

“The immigrant community in the States from south Asia and the Middle East is quite significant,” Elfenbein said. “Understanding the history from which these communities are drawing and how they understand their new locations is pretty important.”

Elfenbein emphasized that jobs that would make use of a Middle Eastern Studies Concentration do not necessarily fall under the umbrella of the United States energy interests. Areas of work that combine a social justice-oriented yet profit-minded occupation exist in several forms.

“At this point, the halal meat industry is huge for people who are really concerned about questions of sourcing and animal husbandry more generally, [it’s] really thinking about the relationship between conceptions of humane slaughtering and food justice issues,” Elfenbein said.

However, for those less enthused about the prospects of a job in the meat industry, areas such as finance and law will soon be demanding those with skills pertinent to the Middle East.

“Someone who is going into international finance will be very well placed to serve as a link between
people who are advocating a kind of Islamic economics and other folks in the financial sectors,” Elfenbein said. “Having an awareness of particular concerns that people might have can only help someone.”

There are also those on campus who see the concentration as a way to bridge the knowledge gap between two inherently connected groups of people.

“Having the Middle Eastern Studies Concentration would be really helpful for not only Americans, but for international students as well, [especially those] who don’t know much about the Middle East and have prejudices and misinformed ideas and stereotypes,” said Sahar Jalal ’14, an international student from Morocco.

Though the discussion surrounding Middle Eastern studies is coursing around the school, students will have to wait for further developments before they will have the opportunity to declare this concentration.
“We have to get through strategic planning and have to know what post-strategic-planning Grinnell is going to look like before we can think specifically about formalizing a concentration,” Elfenbein said.

Danger Zone. Photograph by Avery Rowlison.

The group met each other early on during their first years at the College, and they moved in together at Gates during their second year, where they started many of their traditions and built a strong bond.

This year, their home’s official name is the Danger Zone, but it’s also affectionately known as Gay Pride Rock. Residents explained that this name means the home is a location for those with gay pride to rock out—it is not to be confused with a gay pride version of “The Lion King’s” Pride Rock.

“Danger Zone refers to the general state of the house,” Davis said. “There are several things about this house that might kill you … mostly wildlife-borne illness.”

“The upstairs was declared unlivable because of the roach infestation,” Leuszler said.

The tenants also discovered a dead bat in their den, hidden underneath a sofa cushion. These disturbing problems were all addressed at the start of the semester. Now, the Danger Zone is a habitable, albeit disheveled, college rental.

There is one room in here that is always rodent and cockroach free, and that is Lexie Leuszler’s Sugar Shack,” Leuszler expressed.

The Danger Zone doesn’t always have parties on the weekends, but when the residents do host guests, they invite an eclectic group, which is especially entertaining for Bothfeld, who spent her junior year away from Grinnell. The tenants are particularly drawn to the company of first years, though.

“This is the first year den,” Leuszler said, while sitting in a large white room, with three sofas, a large TV, and still plenty of room for dancing. “They storm this room, turn off the lights, put Kanye on and don’t leave.”

“It’s a little scary,” Bothfeld added.

However, any partying first years should be sure to come prepared for the cold, as the house’s heater is seldom used. The group is committed to low heating costs, with members attempting to complete No Heat November.

“We made it a week before Thanksgiving before I threw a sh*t-fit,” Leuszler said.

For most of the month, the temperature of the house was a balmy 56 degrees. However, there was an upside to the cooler weather.

“First years will need to cuddle their bodies up on each other to stay warm,” Leuszler said with a sly grin.

A good way to warm up from the chilly indoor temperatures is to drink Davis’ home brews.

“This house is a functioning brewery,” Davis said. “I’ve been home brewing for over a year, and I make anything from Summer Wheat to a Dark Stout.”

Davis plans on going to Africa next year, where he hopes to start a brewery. He won’t be far from the Danger Zone, though—all of the tenants seem to include Africa in their future plans in some way.

They’ll have plenty of souvenirs from Grinnell to take with them, though. Many of the men behind this year’s 10/10 live in the Danger Zone, with Hoag, Davis, and Fribley all having played a vital role in the campus festivity. They have so many 10/10 shirts remaining that they have started using them as rags.

Photograph by Joanna Silverman.

6:45 a.m.—“I know it’s time to get up,” I yell at my alarm. I’ve been awake since 6 a.m., trying to decide if coffee/life are exciting enough to get up…

6:50 a.m.—…as it turns out, they are. I have 25 minutes for coffee and shower. Then it’ll be time to wake up my son, Eli, and take him to school. He is (objectively!) the best kid on earth. He is also the world’s fastest showerer: 5 minutes in and out, and no traces of shampoo, I check.

7:35 a.m.—Here is a dilemma: Do I show up for work early to impress my new boss, or do I stay home and do actual work?

8:00 a.m.—Look at the ’fit I’ve prepared since yesterday. Today is going to be a cold palette day, probably, black and blue. If my socks don’t match my pen, my lighter and my scarf, I just don’t feel right. I justify it by the fact that my work is somewhat design-related. Not that it shows on the website much (yet!)

9:00 a.m.—Meeting with Arts & Science consultants. Their questions seem insightful. I can’t wait to see results of their study.

10:00 a.m.—Communications Staff meeting. I hate meetings. Maybe it’s my background (in Soviet Russia, meeting runs you). I tend to get bored and start talking a lot, until I just can’t stand my own voice anymore. But this meeting is surprisingly productive. My new boss, Jim [reischej] seems nice and smart so far. He also has new ideas, which is refreshing. (As an anarchist, I hate to praise authority. But I must be fair.)

11:05 a.m.—Even so, it takes me some time to regroup after meetings. I spend it desperately trying to annoy Ben Brewer ’11. He is the most even-tempered person I’ve ever met, and it drives me nuts. Also, I try to recruit Mona Ghadiri ’11 to start a “Fashion Police Tehran” TV show. She doesn’t find it as hilarious as I do.

11:20 a.m.—Respond to some support emails, because my partner in webcrime, Donna Dralus ‘89, is out sick today.

11:45 a.m.—A quick chat with Alison from Rogue Element, a Chicago company that helps us with web design and branding. Talking to Alison always puts me in a good mood for some reason.

12:00 p.m.—My cat Norbert meets me at the door with more guilt-tripping on his face than my Jewish mother. He is starving, he says. It’s tragic, he says. I haven’t paid enough attention to him lately, he says. I will, but first I have to change back into my home clothes. During lunch, Norbert and I are watching “Together,” a Swedish movie about a hippie commune. I really like Swedish movies—they tend to show beauty in non-glamorous, simple things. Also, I love the Swedish language. I took it for two years in college, and enjoyed every moment of it (without much reciprocity, since I got a solid C).

1:30 p.m.—Coffee with Mike Thielmann ’70 at Saints Rest. It’s a tradition since 2002. Students and alums drop by to chat about life and the web. People have been known to turn off I-80 on their way somewhere to swing by. Mike is a great guy, one of the smartest people I’ve met. Jeff Phelps ‘71 stops for a chat about #occupy. His revolutionary spirit makes me want to fight something, starting with Apple, who’s dragging its feet to register our iPhone app.

3:00 p.m.—Meeting with Kabenla Armah ’04 and Jim Powers about the mobile app for the College.

3:45 p.m.—Rush into Jim [reischej]’s office to show him the prototype of the IPad version of the mobile app. Everything seems to work, except the map identifies Windsor House as “San Francisco.”

4:00 p.m.—Work with Kabenla Armah ’04 on the app. It’s going to be awesome.

5:45 p.m.—Skype with Doug Dobrzynski ’13. Doug is working for us, even during his semester abroad. I don’t understand how Poland can be more exciting than Grinnell’s website, but I give him some leeway. Doug is the spider of my Web. He cares deeply about the ‘cause,’ and doesn’t require any babysitting. Plus, he is really interesting to talk to, which, to me, is a job requirement.

7:00 p.m.—Dinner, highlighted by Ingmar Bergman and the iceberg lettuce I’ve recently learned to pickle. Norbert demands we eat kibbles and watch “Nazi Collaborators” on the Military Channel instead. It’s about Amin Al Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. After five minutes of fighting for the remote, culture loses to fuzzy history.

8:05 p.m.—A phone call from my research partner in Mayo Clinic. Kabenla Armah ’04, Yaw Nti-Addae ’04 and I have been developing software for them for the last six years, NBD. There’s one procedure left to code, but for the last six months, there was so much exciting work to do for Grinnell, I had absolutely no time for my other projects. I feel guilty, so I switch our conversation to Zen Buddhism. My research partner is Russian—he can be easily distracted.

9:15 p.m.—Negotiate with Andy from PrometSource (our Drupal consultants) the date when we accept the virtual campus tour. Technically, they were done on Dec. 1, but I want to drag it a little, to give us more time to find bugs. Andy wants it to be this Thursday. We agree on Monday. He is nice. He also never sleeps, so I can call him any time.

9:30 p.m.—Work on the specs for “GrinnellWire” which is going to be the coolest thing in the world. We are presenting it on Dec. 20.

11:30 p.m.—My cat Norbert tells me it’s time to watch Stewart, Colbert, and Seinfeld in bed. He is addicted.

12:37 p.m.—I suddenly have an idea for the article I’m supposed to be working on for a Russian anthropological journal. The deadline was Oct. 1. I haven’t started it yet. I have to write this idea down, so I can use it when Grinnell’s life will become less intense. Norbert falls on the floor as I run to my computer. He is not hurt, except his dignity. By the time I’m done apologizing, I completely forget the idea. Norbert is boycotting me, so I decide to read a book, “The Sexual Life of Savages,” by Malinowski. I need it for the anthro article, that I will wri…

6 a.m.—…I don’t need an alarm this morning to tell me that life is exciting enough to wake up.

“Every year, one million people in Africa die from malaria, and most of them are women and children,” said Aarti Kolluri ’15. “In Africa, it’s a normalized illness. It’s like the flu, but they do not realize that it’s preventable.”

“The malaria parasite gets into the blood stream, takes over the blood cells, and then the blood cells burst,” said Jessica Gallegos ’15. “But with the right supplies, it can be very easy to stop that parasite and treat the illness.”

Grinnellians for Global Health, a newly formed group led by Gallegos and Kolluri, is sponsoring the charity to raise funds to fight diseases in the third world. Both first years are students in Professor Eric Carter’s tutorial on malaria, which inspired Gallegos to do research on charities focused on the disease. After some organizational work by Gallegos and Kolluri, their tutorial started to put their knowledge into action beyond the classroom.

“We all care deeply about malaria,” said Emily Mesev ’15. “In tutorial, we looked at malaria’s scientific, social [and] economic aspects, and we learned about how much of a toll it takes on people’s lives in Africa. A lot of people in the developed world don’t think it’s a big deal, because it’s been eradicated from America and Europe.”

Gallegos and Kolluri say that Grinnellians for Global Health raised close to $500, which will be donated to the Lutheran Malaria Initiative.

“Through donations, they get treatment, bed nets, supplies, and education to people in Africa. Through that organization, ten dollars can buy a bed net,” said Gallegos.

“There’s an initiative among all of the programs that are trying to eradicate malaria or lessen its burden, and their goal is to have a major difference by 2015. Our goal, because we graduate in 2015, is to contribute to that effort,” said Kolluri.

Although candy grams are typically associated with Valentine’s Day, their table in the JRC—manned by members of the tutorial—has collected large numbers of donations and usernames for their group email list. The Grinnellians for Global Health hope to make the candy gram fundraiser an annual event.

“It’s more seasonal,” Kolluri said. “It’s in the spirit of giving to your friends during the stress of finals week.”

Next semester, Gallegos and Kolluri hope to expand the group’s focus to tackle other challenging diseases in the third world.

“We want to work with an organization in Boston to hand out more information and do more fundraisers for diseases that affect people globally,” said Kolluri.

“I don’t feel like there’s another club on campus that is going to look at all of these different diseases around the world,” said Hayley Hajic ’15. “With a larger membership, I think it has the potential to make a major impact.”

Terry Anderson, Pastry Chef, prepares a decoration for the Dining Hall's Dessert Extravaganza. Photograph by Eric Mistry.

Each year, the Dining Services staff creates a collection of delectable desserts for the students to enjoy. The event is a great way for the staff to show the students how much they care, according to Dick Williams, Director of Dining Services.

“The staff really gets satisfaction by seeing how happy the students are to see [the huge collection of desserts],” Williams said.

Indeed, the dessert selection will be vast. Staff members were invited to contribute ideas to the extravaganza.

“If there was a particular item the staff member wanted to make, like a family recipe, then they make that,” Williams said.

The list of desserts includes Norwegian lefse, gingerbread people, Oreo truffles, pretzel rods, peanut brittle, orange cranberry cupcakes, baklava, biscotti, diabetic candy, fudge, toffee and more. Williams himself plans to target the chocolate items.

“I’m a chocoholic,” he declared.

So, this Tuesday evening, come into the Dining Hall and devour some desserts. Don’t forget to thank the staff for their gift of great, homemade food. Also, don’t worry about eating too many desserts.

“We hold this event on a Tuesday, and the nutritionist is here Monday and Wednesday, so we’re good!” Williams joked.

Photograph by Roni Finkelstein.

“We are one,” she said, “because we were created from the circumstances of the past.”

The goal of the catered dinner, open to anyone on campus, was to start a dialogue between students of all races about the African-American experience.

“We are one because we’re in the same boat and we’re not going to get anywhere in that boat if we don’t get in helm of that boat and direct it using our interracial conflicts to birth our possibilities,” Scott said.

A diverse group of students and faculty attended and participated in Scott’s presentation. To engage the attendees, Scott used interactive motions to signify the journey that African Americans have taken in America throughout the civil rights movement. Scott also advocated for the creation of a Black studies program at Grinnell.

“Here’s what a Black Studies program would teach you if we had one at Grinnell: We are not culturally homogenous black people, we’re not alike and that’s okay,” she said.

Scott paused several times to allow for open conversations among the students and faculty in attendance about their experiences with race at Grinnell and to talk about their differences. The event culminated with a short speech presented by Cedric Kareem ’15 who thanked attendees and encouraged the continuation of the dialogues birthed at the dinner.

Photograph by Roni Finkelstein.

The idea for this initiative emerged from conversations President Raynard Kington has had with guidance counselors during the numerous high school visits he has made over the course of his time at Grinnell.

“I always ask, what are your suggestions for helping us broaden our base of top students who … seriously consider us?” Kington said. “And the single most common response I get from counselors is: have students who have gone to this high school come back and talk about their experiences.”

After hearing this reply enough times, Kington, in conjunction with the Office of Admissions, decided to develop a plan to make such visits a reality.

What resulted is the new program. Interested students attended a meeting on either this past Tuesday or Wednesday night, led by Admission staff members, Will Cummins ’10 and Tina Iyer Elfenbein. During these meetings, Cummins and Elfenbein described the general process student representatives will go through to prepare for and complete their visit.

While Admissions will initiate contact with a student’s former high school, it then becomes the student’s responsibility to schedule their visit and prepare for it however they see fit. While students were provided with some very general directions in training sessions and will be guided to a certain degree by Admission materials highlighting many of the most important elements of the Grinnell College experience, the Office of Admission has deliberately left the format of the visits largely up to each student’s discretion.

“The way that these particular high school visits play out will be highly dependent on each student and their connection to their high school,” said Doug Badger, Acting Dean of Admission. “I think there’s plenty of room for variation there.”

Kington and the Admission staff decided to grant this level of flexibility because, in their eyes, no one could be better equipped to deliver a presentation catering to the interests and concerns of those enrolled at a particular high school than somebody who went there.

“Students are the closest to the ground,” Kington said. “They’ve been at these high schools, so they know the culture. … They have much greater insight into what students at their high schools are thinking about … in terms of their decision processes.”

After their visit, Grinnell students will complete a questionnaire evaluating their experience during the visit in general. This is to give the College an idea of what areas prospective students are particularly interested in, what questions they typically ask and to which presentation techniques they especially respond.

In general, Admission anticipates this initiative will be an opportunity, not only to provide prospective students with information, but to learn from them as well.

“It should be a two-way exchange of information,” Kington said. “Our students will get insights into how we might do a better job communicating about the College and prospective students [will] get better insights about … the college experience here.”

Photograph by Roni Fineklstein.

About a dozen people total showed up to the meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. While this may not seem like an overwhelming turn-out, those students in attendance seemed excited about the chance to share their Grinnell experiences.

Chelsie Salvatera ’14 decided to get involved when she thought back on her experience applying to colleges.

“A lot of it was from my high school experience,” Salvatera said. “It really helped when I got to talk to students who went to my high school and went to colleges that I was interested in.”

A contributing factor to Salvatera’s decision to come to Grinnell was the endorsement of a former classmate, Sunny Mah ’11, who took the time to return to their high school to talk about her experience at Grinnell.

Above all else, Dean Badger stresses that this initiative is still in an incipient stage. He expects the program to change over time.

“To some extent, this is a bit of a trial run for us,” Badger said. “Depending on the results … here in the near future, we can look at ways to expand or to shape or to target the plan going forward. We’ll see how it goes.”

At last Wednesday’s Joint Board, Senators Sam Mulopulos ’14, Tom Van Heeke ’12, Dylan Gray ’14 and Max Farrell ’12 presented a resolution that would abolish the program. They collectively cited the fact that they feel this is a prime opportunity to send a message to Grinnellians that their privilege could be reneged, should they choose not to act responsibly towards the bikes.

“I commend them for taking some action,” said SGA’s Vice President for Academic Affairs, Wadzi Motsi ’12. “We mentioned this at the beginning of the semester, and no one was doing anything.”

She agreed that the resolution is an opportunity to send a message to the greater campus body that people need to reconsider how they treat the bikes.
“It’s not about the money,” Motsi said. “We take a lot on this campus for granted. This symbolizes self governance and how it’s failing.”

SGA Treasurer Kathy Andersen ’13 said she thought the resolution, as written, was not the right answer to the bikes problem.

“The resolution [at Joint Board] was not the right thing that we needed,” Andersen said. “It was too vague. It said to abolish the program, which doesn’t work to fix it.”

Upon the presentation of the resolution, several different voices around campus have made themselves heard on the issues surrounding the Campus Bikes Program.

“The Campus Bikes Program is a fantastic part of this campus,” said SGA President Gabe Schechter ’12. “[It provides] the ability to have this shared responsibility where we can all benefit by handing off our property to each other.”

Schechter continued that he thinks not only is the bike system an opportunity for students to engage in self-gov, but that the issues surrounding the debate have been blown out of proportion.

“There has been a lot of talk of people throwing a bike off the loggia,” Schechter said. “This probably happened no more than twice. It’s really an exaggerated example to keep using.”

Colin Brooks ’13, one of the program’s two coordinators, sees a tragic aspect to the current state of the program.

“I’m not totally sure that it’s worth keeping around. While I love that it’s out there and people can use [the bikes], they get broken so fast,” Brooks said. “As one of the two mechanics on it, it’s pretty discouraging.”

Abolishing the campus bikes programs has triggered enough debate that the original authors of the resolution reconsidered their position in anticipation of the Joint Board vote Wednesday, Nov. 30.

“I sponsored and wrote a resolution calling for the abolition of the Campus Bikes Program. Now, I don’t know if we should necessarily abolish the program,” said Sam Mulopulos, ’14, one of the Senators sponsoring the resolution.

However, Mulopulos solidly asserted that action must be taken to address the problems surrounding the bikes.

“I think we need to see a greater campus discussion. The system is broken,” Mulopulos said.

The resolution came forth for an official vote in this week’s Joint Board. However, in anticipation of the fact that many people did not agree with the notion of simply abolishing the program, the original sponsors of the bill offered an amendment withdrawing the call to abolish the program and instead proposing to withhold the program’s funding. The amendment was rejected and was instead classified as a separate resolution.

This resolution never came to fruition, due to Schechter presenting an alternative solution at the last minute. Those interested in the issue of Campus Bikes will form a committee to gather a large enough body of information to better advise Joint Board senators about the issue. The committee is scheduled to meet this Sunday, Dec. 4. E-mail [sgamoney] if you want to join the committee.

“The Center started up again in July, we’ve had to bring it up to speed,” Kapila said. “One of the ideas that came up was to have a celebration of the humanities.”
The festival will include many different activities such as speakers, workshops, and student presentations of essays, creative writing and artwork. The Center has already received essay submissions, but Kapila encourages more.

“The paper can be connected to a class, or it could be a product of a MAP [Mentored Advanced Project]. It has to be of excellent quality and we need eight pages,” Kapila said. “… We would like to spread the word so that students will send in their submissions.”

The Center has yet to decide whether or not students’ work will be formally judged, but students will receive positive criticism from professors.
“The idea is that this gives the students an opportunity to give a formal oral presentation. You write a paper and a faculty member that is not your teacher will say, ‘These are the strong points,’” Kapila said.

Professor Lee Emma Running, Associate Professor of Art, is also involved in planning the Festival of Humanities.

“I am really excited that the Center has been so explicit about including creative work in the symposium,” Running said, “because I think that’s an area of inquiry people don’t often think about in tandem with humanities work.”  

Students can have their work up for exhibition, or participate in panels.

“A symposium like this will professionalize and give a bigger voice to student research,” Running said. “… We would love to hear from students in theater and dance and music. There is a lot of amazing student work going on in these disciplines.”

Besides presentations of student work, the festival will also include two speakers. Professor Richard Handler from the University of Virginia will be coming to talk about the idea that Global Development Studies needs to include more studies of the humanities. Visiting Professor and artist Harrell Fletcher from Portland State University is also coming to campus to give a talk and a workshop as well as public art. Kapila is excited that the Center for Humanities is receiving more of a focus at Grinnell.

“Our mission is to create programs for the college community that showcase excellent scholarship, research [and] teaching in the humanities,” she said.

Although the Center for Humanities has existed since 2001, Kapila sees it going in a new and exciting direction.

“We feel this is a good moment—many academic institutions across the country and globally are talking about what humanities is in higher education,” she said. “[The Festival of Humanities] is a good moment to actually showcase this … and include [students] in the symposium.”

Speakers and a concert kick off the weekend before the Festival officially starts, March 3 and 4. The Center for Humanities, in conjunction with the Cultural Films Committee, the Faulconer Gallery, and more, are bringing filmmaker Omar Majeed, author Michael Muhammad Knight and band The Kominas to campus. All are connected to the Islamic Punk scene that has developed in the last few years. The Center is also planning humanities events for the future.

“We are already on to next year’s programs,” Kapila said. “The idea of really taking a week to celebrate the fine arts, languages and other disciplines in the humanities sounds really wonderful to us at this time.”

Photograph by ANdrew Kelley.

6:05 a.m.—Wake up before the alarm goes off to find Ann Coulter on the television. Immediately shut off the TV and hope this is not a bad omen to the day and fall back asleep.
6:45 a.m.—Wake up to the alarm. No Ann Coulter. Today will be a good day!
7:47 a.m.—Go to work.
7:55 a.m.—Greeted by the always-cheerful Connie Coleman as I enter the JRC.
8:01 a.m.—Check e-mail and answer any messages that came over the night.
9:00 a.m.—Senior Leadership Meeting starts. Topics today included performance reviews and job descriptions, strategic plan updates and information about new policy development.
9:50 a.m.—Head back to the JRC for a weekly meeting with Chris Dorman ’12, SGA Vice-President for Student Affairs, and Andrea Conner.
10:00 a.m.—Chris, Andrea and I talk about things ranging from the upcoming student forum on alcohol use to the student initiative for an outdoor ice rink.
10:50 a.m.—I send an e-mail to the student who was involved in the car accident the night before to see how she’s doing and to provide any support. The student writes back to inform me that she is fine (glad to hear from her directly).
11:00 a.m.—Meeting with Andrea Conner and Laura Gogg. The residence halls look to be almost as full (minus 4-5 empty beds) next spring. We also discuss strategies to help educate students on the need to lock the doors to their residence halls room. Sadly—even in our self-governing community—thefts occur.
12:30 p.m.—Go off-campus to grab a quick lunch and eat at my desk.
2:00 p.m.—Convene a weekly care and concern group with staff from various offices to develop strategies and interventions to best support students in crisis or need.
3:15 p.m.—Respond to an email from an alum who had questions about how self-governance could be enhanced. I shared the many ways in which SGA and Student Affairs have partnered over the years to bolster Self-Gov (including student representation on CHB, CAS and making JudCo completely student run).
4:15 p.m.—Help with the SLAC mock interviews in JRC 101. Our students will be well prepared for their interviews!
4:57 p.m.—Run up to the DSA Suite (3rd floor, JRC) to get ready for a JudCo Hearing. As the dean of students, I serve as a non-voting adviser.
5:15 p.m.—JudCo hearing is convened by a student presiding officer. He does a great job! Students appear to be more at ease with having JudCo be a completely student run process.
6:16 p.m.—Send an e-mail to the SLAC mock interviewee letting him know he was quite impressive.
6:17 p.m.—Answer any emails that came throughout the day.
6:52 p.m. —Send an e-vite to the RLCs and other Res Life staff for our annual holiday party at my house. Always a fun time!
7:00 p.m.—On my way to the Grill for “Green Tea with [greenet],” Dan Hirsch stops me and offers to fabricate my entries for this ADITL series. I politely decline his offer.
7:02 p.m.—Katie Moy-Santos ’12 is at the Grill and reminds me that I’m late. I buy her an iced tea nonetheless. While in the Grill, I connect with Hiba [Elnour ’12], Corbin [Eule ’12] and Grace [Hazeltine ’12]. It’s always nice to catch up with students in a more casual atmosphere.
8:02 p.m.—Stop by the Student Staff appreciation event in JRC 101. To my surprise, students are dancing to the Macarena. I opt to play Hungry, Hungry Hippos with some other student staff instead.
8:40 p.m.—Grab dinner and watch a delayed recording of tonight’s “Glee” episode. Oh, Santana!
9:45 p.m.—Head home. Relax. My turn to play “Words with Friends”.
10:00 p.m.—Start my evening ritual of “The Daily Show”, “The Colbert Report”, and “The Rachel Maddow Show”.
Approx.11:45 p.m.—Fall asleep. Let’s hope tomorrow morning is free from Ann Coulter!

The Rocky cast performs the floor show as the movie plays in the background. Photograph by Avery Rowlison.

This Friday night, a group of Grinnell students will screen and perform the Rocky Horror Picture Show, a cult classic best known for the popularity of its “callbacks” or clever lines hurled by the audience at the screen to transform the movie into an interactive performance.

“The point of Rocky is that it’s crazy, it’s ridiculous and it’s supposed to be a release,” said Alenka Figa ’12, co-director. “All the inhibitions you have just get to go out the door, and you can just … be ridiculous.”

Rocky Horror screenings had been a part of life at Grinnell for some time, but had fallen out of fashion until revived by Kelly Musselman ’11 two years ago. Friday’s show will be the only one this year, and the first without Musselman in recent memory, though the cast will certainly hold their own.

“It was important to me that Rocky look different this year,” Figa said. “I was worried that if we keep doing the same thing every year, nobody’s gonna want to come, because like, … we’re sloppy, we do ridiculous things, been there, seen that. But one of the reasons that Rocky Horror itself is great is because it’s lasted for such a long time. I don’t know if there’s cult classic that has the same longevity.”

Though most of this semester’s cast has appeared in Rocky before, several first years and Milton Garcia ’14, who plays Frank, will be starring in the show for the first time. When asked if he was nervous about performing, Garcia, an intended Theatre/Dance major, said he didn’t feel particularly anxious.

“For me, like, Frank in general is just a huge diva,” Garcia said. “… It’s definitely character acting. It’s a few notches above drag show. It’s just a totally different experience from … what you call professional theatre.”

During tech week, the cast gathered outside of its usual rehearsal location for one of the dress rehearsals. Everyone’s attention was on the screen. Cast members who weren’t on stage during a scene yelled callbacks at the screen, regardless of how many times they’d seen the movie.
Within minutes, half of the cast was shirtless, an indication of both the close-knit cast’s comfort level and dedication, and the flamboyant nature of Rocky Horror.

“Sometimes I get frustrated with the show because I want us to be very serious,” Figa said. “And I forget that the point of Rocky is to be fun. It’s one performance where you let loose, you don’t care, and a lot of it is the audience participation because they’re drunk, [and] … it works.”

Both directors agree that audience participation is vital to a good performance.

“The show requires audience participation. If they were silent and watching respectfully it would be a flop,” Challis said. “We need them to be yelling and screaming and throwing shit at us.”

Prop bags will be provided for that very purpose. This year’s bag will include bubbles, toast, newspapers, and other props to enable audience interaction throughout the film. Other props will be utilized by the cast throughout the show.

“This is the Shake Weight year,” Challis said. “The official title of this year’s show is ‘Rocky Horror Episode IV: The One With The Shake Weight.’ It’s both a Star Wars reference and a Friends reference. The point is that the Shake Weight is going to feature prominently in this year’s show. It’s silly and it’s goofy, like this year’s cast.”

The Rocky Horror Picture Show will be screened on Friday in Harris Cinema. Opening festivities will begin with a G-Tones concert at 10 p.m.
“If you should so choose, feel free to come quite drunk; there will be no security at the door,” Challis said. “Come in costume if you can think of what that might mean, if you’ve never seen the movie before you’re probably not going to know how to come in costume, but … come willing to put your inhibitions on hold for the night.”

“If you’re questioning whether you should come or not, you know, be spontaneous,” Garcia said. “‘Cause that’s what the whole show is about.”

Edit: The article previously stated incorrectly that Kelly Musselman graduated in 2010. She graduated in 2011.

Grinnell’s own chapter of STAND was founded last winter by Izzy Leo ’14 and Hannah Fiske ’14, who both participated in STAND in high school. Grinnell’s chapter of STAND is the first and currently the only core chapter in the state of Iowa. Despite this, Leo and other members are already hoping to help start chapters in local high schools if they can generate an interest.

“Mostly what we do is advocacy and lobbying of politicians, and general awareness-raising and education,” Leo said. “We work lobbying politicians either for writing legislation or co-sponsoring existing legislation.”

Leo provided some background on current issues in Sudan and the Congo.

“What has been happening in Darfur is that the government of Sudan is based in Khartoum, which is nowhere near Darfur,” Leo said. “The Darfur region is in Western Sudan, but the government in Khartoum, under their dictator, is trying to create a purely Arab state.”

The Khartoum government became involved in the active eradication of a number of native Sudanese tribes, especially those in Darfur, leading Darfurian groups to lobby in Khartoum for better representation. Instead, the government reacted to the lobbying groups by sending government forces and government endorsed militias to Darfur to take over and burn down villages in the region, resulting in massive deaths and in hundreds of thousands of displaced people and refugees in the farthest western region of Sudan and in eastern Chad.

“Since the split [between Sudan and South Sudan],” Leo added, “there has also been violence along the border with South Sudan, but I don’t think anyone would call that a genocide yet.”

Congo has a similar situation, where some of the groups that were involved in the Rwanda genocide have come to take refuge and are now traveling about, engaged in murder.

Stefanie Kundakjian ’13 is a member of STAND and, along with Leo, just completed a short course—Genocide Denial in the 20th Century—taught by visiting professor Torben Jorgensen.

“One of the points of the course was that genocide not only begins with denial but it continues with denial as well, and is perpetrated by denial,” Kundakjian said. “For example, there is still denial about the Holocaust. Nowadays, luckily, that’s become stigmatized, unlike the Armenian genocide, where there’s actually a state denial.”

“So much of genocide is not only the crimes against humanity, but also the repercussions of that. These events are part of our collective history,” Kundakjian said. “It can therefore be psychologically damaging if they are not officially recognized or remembered.”

Part of what STAND hopes to accomplish at Grinnell is to improve education about genocide and thereby help prevent genocide denial. In order to better educate Grinnellians about genocide, the group is working to arrange a week of events in April, which is Genocide Awareness Month, to discuss past and current conflicts. The talks are tentatively scheduled to begin on Holocaust Remembrance Day—April 19, the start of the Armenian genocide—and end April 24.

Leo and Kundakjian are also hoping to bring a Holocaust survivor to talk to Grinnell, as well as a Congolese activist, spoken word artist and rapper, in addition to a number of refugees from eastern Congo who now live in St. Louis and tell their stories through song and dance.

“We highly encourage people to join,” Kundakjian said. “It’s not only an informative meeting, but there’s also a sense of solidarity over an issue that is still very current and very felt.”

STAND meets weekly on Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. in JRC 203.

“We do not want it to die off.” said Brendy Peralta ’12, an organizer of the event.

Most of the event’s funding comes from SGA All-Campus Events, and the Spanish department is also sponsoring this event. This festival is open to everyone, including Grinnell community members, and SOL hopes to attract people from across campus, and perhaps even gain some new members for the group itself.

“The organization itself,” Peralta said, “is not only for Spanish majors or people who know how to speak Spanish; it is for anyone who is interested in learning about the culture and the community.”

There will be different students groups performing—one is going to be dancing Bachata, and another group will do folklorico and merengue, and there will even be a belly dancer, while other students will recite poetry and sing. Besides these performances, SOL is also bringing a professional dance group to campus for the festival.

“We are having a variety of performances, including professional Aztec dancers, who are coming from Minnesota. They performed two years ago and they were really good. A lot of people enjoyed them, so we are bringing them back this year.” said Debbie Cifuentes Ramirez ’13, another organizer
SOL hopes to have a good turnout for this event. SOL’s mission is about informing people about the different cultures in Latin America and the Latin American Festival is intended to share this diversity.

“Our goal is to get more students to be aware of our organization and our culture, things that make us distinct. We are not going to cover all aspects of Latin American culture in the event, but we do want to get students interested in them, watch their friends perform, be amazed, and have a good time,” Peralta said.

SOL planned this event far in advance and has put a lot of work into advertising for it. While many Grinnellians may be busy on a Friday night, they encourage people to even just stop by for a short while to check it out.

“We’ve tried really hard advertising it—we [contacted] the Spanish department, we announce it in our classes,” Cifuentes Ramirez said.

This Latin American Festival will be the last big event for SOL this semester, although they will also be helping with the Thanksgiving dinner held at Spanish House, also funded by SGA. Next semester, SOL is going to organize the Quinceañera, another tradition of theirs.

The Latin American Festival will take place this Friday, November 18, from 6 p.m. to midnight in the Harris Center.

Zwiebel’s studies through the Institute for Central American Development Studies (ICADS) took her to San Ramon, Nicaragua, in order to work with Centro Promocional Cristiano (CPC). CPC is a small non-profit in a little town outside of the city of Matagalpa which serves the people in San Ramon and more rural communities.

“Ultimately, I ended up helping them get funding to build a medical clinic and have helped facilitate several other projects, especially a women’s sewing cooperative, since there are not any English speakers on staff to translate grants,” Zwiebel said. “I also worked with SEG, the student group at Grinnell, to get them to lend to the CPC in Nicaragua, which they still do.”

Zwiebel, who majored in Spanish at Grinnell with a concentration in Global Development Studies, received the Davis 100 Projects for Peace grant, which funded the sewing cooperative project for the community. Despite being a devoted student, Zwiebel also found time to have fun at Grinnell.

“Some of my fondest memories still come from all of the goofy things that we did, such as sliding down the ARH stairs with mattresses or founding the Literary Hooligans [a creative writing student group],” she said. “It is this joyful, free-spirited enthusiasm that makes Grinnell Grinnell. Try to have fun—it is the one time in your life that is socially sanctioned to act crazy.”

Following graduation, Zwiebel went directly to Harvard to complete a Masters of Science in Public Health, focusing on the intersection of economic development and health. She graduated in May and is now working to help raise money for a regional medical center in New Jersey.

“[Harvard] was a great opportunity, but for most students, I would recommend waiting until you have a clear-cut plan to go to grad school,” Zwiebel said. “Get some work and real-world experience first, and narrow your field.”

Zwiebel feels called toward more direct service in years ahead, preferably involving building relationships and hands-on work. One opportunity that she is considering includes joining a L’Arche community. L’Arche communities strive to “make explicit the dignity of every human being by building inclusive communities of faith and friendship where people with and without intellectual disabilities share life together,” as stated on their website, larcheusa.org.

Zwiebel has some advice for current day Grinnellians, especially the graduating seniors who are just a few years behind her.

“Keep your hearts open and stay in reality. No jobs will magically fall in your lap; don’t ever feel entitled,” she said. “Instead, work your butt off, keep your heart open to others, and you will be okay. Don’t every think you are above anything. Give everything a shot and give every person a chance.”

Photograph by Joanna Silverman.

5:15 a.m.—Alarm goes off, I hit snooze—it is too darn dark.
5:45 a.m.—Alarm goes off again—must go to the gym. Get up and head to the hospital fitness center.
6:30 a.m.—Get home, shower, and wake up Davis (age 8). Explain that yes, he really does have to go to school today.
7:30 a.m.—Davis and Bob out the door and I am actually ready early. Get on Facebook and G-mail to update some campaign stuff.
7:58 a.m.—Hop on the bike and head to work.
9:00 a.m.—Still checking e-mail. Time to prep for the next meeting.
10:00 a.m.—Mother-in-law calls and explains that now she doesn’t want to come for a visit and she doesn’t want her apartment remodeled. I am sure this will change tomorrow. Have to hang up on her so I can get to my meeting.
10:15 a.m.—Only about half the group shows up for the meeting – we move forward anyway.
11:15 a.m.—My Grinnell classmate and friend Jay ’93 shows up from DC. He is in Iowa to give some speeches and raise money for the arts. He had to ask what the JRC was, as he has not been on campus in many years. He cannot believe all the changes. We reminisce about tutorial with Bob Grey and Tuesday tutorial lunch in Cowles.
Noon—On the bike again. Late for lunch with the Magoun ladies!
1:30 p.m.—E-mailed agent for Second City—the Public Events committee wants to bring them to campus next fall. They are available and have a special election show. Booked!
2:00 p.m.—Chatted with Austin [Frerick ’12] about a drag comedy troupe that might be a great fit for ACE programming. Met them once and they’re hysterical.
2:30 p.m.—Staff meeting.
3:30 p.m.—Another committee.
5:20 p.m.—Head home for a quick dinner—Boy Scout Space Derby tonight. Not exactly how I want to spend my evening…
6:09 p.m.—Check my phone. According to an S&B reporter, I have another opponent in the House race. Do I want to comment? Hmmm—will have to write it in the morning. Off to the Space Derby!
7:45 p.m.—Still at the Space Derby. Really, isn’t one Boy Scout Derby enough per year? Love my kid, but this may never end. Good thing I brought some knitting…
8:15 p.m. —Homework time with Davis. We must create 3 models from his book and write a book report by Friday.
8:24 p.m. —Model 1—dinosaur bones made of hangers and a toilet paper tube. Check.
8:48 p.m. —Model 2—a handmade book (like Tilly [Woodward] taught us to make). Check.
8:54 p.m.—Model 3—a clay model of PaleoJoe. Maybe tomorrow night….
9:00 p.m. —Spelling words over ice cream
9:30p.m.—Head to Davis’s room so we can debrief the day and he can fall asleep.
11:00 p.m.—Wake up in Davis’s room—must have fallen asleep myself!

Kate Loftur-Thun. Photograph by Joanna Silverman.

8:15 a.m.—Wake up to the sound of KDIC on the clock radio. Decide that I totally have 10 more minutes to spare, and fall back asleep.
8:25 a.m.—Wake up to the sound of KDIC on the clock radio. Decide that I totally have 10 more minutes to spare, and fall back asleep.
8:45 a.m.—Find out that I do not, in fact, have 10 more minutes to spare.
9:00 a.m.—Breakfast and meeting with acting professor about last performance. Apparently, I need to make more positive choices, or as he put it, “flirt more.”
9:45 a.m.—I haz packages!
9:46 a.m.—Autocorrect decides that I do not haz packages; instead, I haze them.
11:00 a.m.—Class: Spanish 285. Do not understand the concept of “antítesis” in Spanish. Do not understand the concept of “antithesis” in English.
12:00 p.m.—Outtake and tech rehearsal on pageant wagon. Things I never thought I’d say but delight in saying now: “We need a stepladder for Hell.” “Let’s go put our naked clothes on.”
1:15 p.m.—Class: Intro. to Tech Theatre. Performing Genesis in the style of medieval theatre: i.e., farcical, low-tech and historically inaccurate. We succeed on all accounts.
1:30 p.m.—TURN OFF THE SMOKE MACHINE!!!
2:43 p.m.—Strike pageant wagon and spend the rest of class learning the many ways that Bucksbaum just fails when it comes to sound.
4:50 p.m.—Work in the costume studio, spray-painting shoes and sewing on lace because I am too incompetent to build dresses. On the plus side, I see my costume for the musical—gold and green with an enormous bustle, and easily the most beautiful thing I’ve ever worn on stage.
6:14 p.m.—Cast dinner in the whale room.
7:00 p.m.—Rehearsal for “Sunday in the Park with George”, full run.
9:02 p.m.—Intermission break. Give my new BFF, the 10-year-old who plays my daughter, a piggyback ride down the hallway. Wish someone gave me piggyback rides when I was 10.
9:12 p.m.—Second act, most of which is eaten by a seventeen-part song. Want to punch Sondheim, which is nothing new. Sometimes there is only so much genius you can take.
10:30 p.m.—Rehearsal ends. Sitzprobe and costume fitting tomorrow! Do tiny dance of clotheshorse glee.
10:45 p.m.—Skype with my father long enough for us to both agree we’re too tired to Skype and should go to bed.
10:47 p.m.—TUMBLR!
11:40 p.m.—Emerge, shaken, from the rabbit hole.
11:44 p.m.—Menu planning for SRC’s Community Meal. How many beans does it take in a menu before it starts to get redundant?
12:25 a.m.—Realize I still have to do laundry. Will be productive while laundry is in the wash!
12:35 a.m.—Intermittently work on theatre journals and read Bill Bryson’s “The Mother Tongue” while laundry is in the wash.
1:43 a.m.—Bedtime. Wrap myself in fuzzy blankets and dream longingly of heating that works.

“I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time with the co-founders of Educate!, Boris and Eric, and they were really inspiring and really passionate. And just being able to talk about them about how they went about creating and expanding their charity seemed to really apply to what we were doing,” Jennison said. “It’s really neat, because they started off as complete beginners just like Alex [Groth, cofounder] and I did, with pretty much no knowledge of how to run a business or program. I guess we could understand each other.”

Tab for a Cause is a not-for-profit organization that helps one give easily to a cause they are passionate about. After installing the Tab for a Cause extension, every few tabs that open on a web page are redirected to donations for charities. The organization is new and relies on its partnerships with other charities.

Educate! is an organization whose mission statement is to educate and empower the next generation of socially responsible leaders in Africa. Educate! envisions an Africa in which all students are prepared to better their communities and develop solutions to the challenges facing their continent. 

“Educate! is a cause that I think a lot of people can get behind and I think that’s really what we’re looking for is sort of like, universal causes that everyone gets. It’s a universally good idea to educate people. I think that’s a really nice cause to have on our site,” said Alex Groth, cofounder of Tab for a Cause and a fourth year at Pomona College in California.

The curriculum of Educate! is focused on the skills and experience students need to find solutions to poverty, violence, disease and environmental degradation. The teachers are mentors who build powerful relationships that give youth confidence to lead change. And the classroom is the community itself, where the Educate! students start initiatives that solve the greatest challenges facing their communities.

“I think their hands-on approach is incredibly innovative. They deserve the prize that they got. It’s right in line with what Grinnell seeks to do in the world and how we’re hoping to effect the world positively,” Jennison said.

The connection between Jennison and the co-founders of Educate! wasn’t all about the charities themselves. A large part of communication and conversation between the two was on the business end of things.

“First, I started asking about the challenges that they have had to overcome and constantly face in managing people and managing a company. Honestly, the majority of the conversation that I had with them was about how to effectively communicate to not only friends, but your audience,” Jennison said. “I really think that that is the main difficulty that almost every company faces. It’s being able to unite everyone around what we’re trying to accomplish and overcome disagreements.”

Both sides of the connection are passionate about their cause and about this added link between school and prize winners. Not only will Grinnell College continue to work with and support Educate!; now, individual students are making that bond as well.

“We’re really excited about this and I would like to thank Kevin for this connection. It’s awesome and we’re all really enthusiastic. It seemed like a really brilliant idea and it was easy for us to get behind it,” said Boris Bulayev, cofounder of Educate!, over a telephone interview.

You can download the add-on to donate to Tab for a Cause at www.tabforacause.org, where you can choose from several charities to donate to, including Educate!.

“I would like to add, just because I have this opportunity, to thank Boris and Eric for what they’ve taught me so far and for their willingness to continue to support us. We look forward to having a lasting relationship with them,” Jennison said.

Shaq Shack. Photograph by Avery Rowlison.

As it turns out, Carly Riley ’13, Emma Baker ’13, Madeleine Garvey ’12, Alenka Figa ’12 and Gertrude Chong ’12 are neither religious fanatics nor mass murderers, but merely had the luck of finding a comfortable and convenient house that had been previously owned by someone quirky, to say the least.

“When we first visited, the real estate agent told us that the previous owner was sort of a kook,” Chong said. “We have a bunch of shacks in our back yard and the locks around this house. … There are a bunch of locks everywhere.”

While locks normally add a sense of security to a house, this peculiar exorbitance was rather discomforting for both the tenants and the realtor, who had to have several of the locks removed before showing the house. The shacks around the yard serve as an even more compelling source of speculation and conjecture about the house’s previous owner.

“There are a couple of gazebo shack-things in the back yard and one of them still has body-sized lockers in it,” Figa said. “We don’t get access to it, like we don’t have a key to it. … One of them is open and you can see in it, but the other one could totally have a corpse in it.”

Choosing to focus on the less morbid, the house’s name “Shaq Shack” refers both to the various shacks and to the house’s shared passion, Shaquille O’Neal.

“Also Clark Gable,” said Garvey, referring to another house mascot. “He’s in the bathroom across from the toilet.”

Clark Gable’s face is one of several photographs across from the toilet, perfectly at eye level for a seated guest.

“Madeleine’s mom was here and she was in this bathroom and she saw the Clark Gable picture in particular I think,” Figa said.

“She laughed so loudly, we all heard her in the living room,” finished Riley.

Several other laughable quirks line the rooms of the Shaq Shack, including chicken curtains in the kitchen, a Narnia closet in Figa’s bedroom, and several other strange openings and crevices that appear to be architectural misjudgments on the part of the engineer.

“There’s also a border wallpaper in the bathroom that’s like cats on outhouses, … or is it chickens? They really liked chickens,” Garvey said.

“I actually like the chicken curtains,” Chong asserted. “What I really didn’t like about this house was the really creepy angel theme.”

In addition to the statue guarding the front door, the house was also bedecked with angel stickers bearing slogans and blessings. Though the house has an angel theme, not everything that goes on in the Shaq Shack is sanctified.

“Gertie’s favorite thing to do when we drink is to do jumping jacks and then run around the house,” Riley said.

Chong seems to have the most raucous habits of the five house members and is also the house member likely to be wearing fewest clothes at any given time.

“I don’t wear pants often. … I don’t think it’s right to wear pants,” Chong said. “Most everyone’s seen me mostly naked.”
Among other house customs is Carly Appreciation Day, which comes approximately once every month.

“We tell her that we appreciate her repeatedly. We literally just say, ‘Oh, it’s Carly Appreciation Day,’” Figa said.

“We don’t really like try to do anything, we just kind of note the fact that it’s her day today,” Chong said.

Another beloved honorary member of the house is the droopy one-eyed dog that lives next door and receives attention, care and occasional jokes from Shaq Shack members.

“He’s really slobbery, so when you pet him, he slobbers all over your hand,” Figa said fondly.

“I think he’s the closest thing to the [house] mascot. Him and Shaquille O’Neal,” Chong said.

There is, however, a less adored neighbor across the street from the Shaq Shack who heckles Chong as she leaves and enters the house.

“Every time I come home, or like at least maybe once a week, he just says, ‘HEY!’ and then I turn around and he doesn’t say anything else,” Chong said. “And then Dane [Haiken '12], he ran across him as well when he was leaving the house, and the dude said, ‘HEY! You with the face!’ and then didn’t say anything.”

This rather disturbing man does not aggressively greet any of the other members of the Shaq Shack. Perhaps he caught a glimpse of Chong with her pants off at some point through the chicken curtains and now feels compelled to say hey.

“Luckily, though, we have 10 locks on all of our doors,” Riley said.

“This year, the Coop is having Thanksgiving a week early, so it won’t conflict with the School of Americas protest next weekend,” said Sarah Shaughnessy ’13.

Shaughnessy, Carissa Shoemaker ’14 and Emily Stanfield ’12 are just a few of the many student coordinators of the Coop. They allow students to get a taste of Grinnell—all the food they will serve at the dinner is local.

“We are getting all of our turkeys from Ann Brau, a local farmer. The majority of the veggies will be coming from Grinnell Heritage Farm. The apples for apple cider and apple crisp will be coming from a local orchard. All the grains will be coming from Paul’s Grains,” Shoemaker said.

Whether you’re looking for some comfort mashed potatoes or a more daring entrée, this Thanksgiving has you covered. The Coop will be serving a traditional Thanksgiving meal with some unique twists.

“We are cooking a Carrot Ginger soup that should be really good,” Shaughnessy said. “We’re also serving challah, which Chalutzim, the Jewish club, makes for us every year.”

Local Food Thanksgiving is open to college students, faculty and members of the town.

“This is one of the coolest parts of Local Food Thanksgiving, that people from all parts of the community come together to eat,” Stanfield said. “There are few campus events that bring together students and community members.”

Tickets are three dollars if purchased in advance, and four dollars at the door. They are being sold this week in the JRC at lunch and dinner. They are also being sold all week at Saints Rest, Brown’s Shoes and McNally’s. All proceeds from the meal go directly to the Local Food Coop.

“If you paid for an entire local meal in a restaurant, it would be much more than three dollars, so this is a really good deal,” Shaughnessy said.

An even better deal awaits those who have two hours to spare. Anyone who volunteers for two hours can eat for free. Those interested should email localfood@grinnell.edu.

“We are looking for people to cook turkeys or apple crisps,” Stanfield said. “You can even cook one in your dorm, just find an oven!”

Local Food Thanksgiving will be composed of not only food and conversation, but also live music. Those attending will have the pleasure of listening to Ethan Kevarg ’12, Katie In ’13 and Maia Pillot ’12 play. The Too Many Strings Band, a local group featuring several Grinnell professors who play string instruments, will also be performing.

“Everyone should come, you can do cool stuff like process a turkey and make new friends!” Shaughnessy said. “I’m processing a turkey for the first time this year. I’m a little scared, but I’m going to eat it, so I should know where it comes from and how it gets to my plate.”

Hindi Chai Time. Photograph by Joanna Silverman.

“I usually make the Chai,” Jobanputra said. “But Anna-Lisa helps sometimes.”

Hindi Chai Time is a new student group this year. Anna-Lisa Bowans ’12 decided to start the group after studying abroad in India last year. She chose the favorite Indian drink as the group’s namesake.

“Chai is a really culturally appropriate thing to do if we’re going to be speaking Hindi,” Bowans said. “Also, Chai is just fabulous.”

The group meets weekly to talk and enjoy Chai and other Indian food. Bowans says that she wanted a place where Hindi speakers and those interested in Hindi could meet. Grinnell doesn’t have a Hindi department, but the language is offered through the Alternate Language Study Option (ALSO) Program.

“What we want to do is expand the Hindi-speaking community,” Bowans said. “[We also] want to eventually work closely with the ALSO program to get those students involved with another opportunity to practice their Hindi skills.”

For the Chai Time regulars, the group offers an opportunity to relax and share in the mutual love of Hindi culture.

“I feel like it’s a place where I meet other desi who have an interest in Hindi,” Jobanputra said. “It’s an hour of fun.”

Last week, some members of the group went to Iowa City to see the University of Iowa’s Diwali celebration. Diwali is a Hindu celebration that celebrates the victory of good over evil. Members of the group also helped to organize and put on the celebration at Grinnell a few weeks ago.

“Chai Time has been a really nice way to connect people who are interested in these kind of events,” Bowans said. “It’s connected seniors on campus with freshmen—that’s one of the best things.”

As the group grows, they hope to expand their cultural offerings. In the works are a Hindi karaoke night and a Bollywood screening. Bowans also wants to incorporate more Pakistani and Muslim cultural traditions into Chai time.

“There’s a huge diversity within the Hindi speaking community,” Bowans said. “I want Chai Time to reflect that.”

The group invites everyone to share in the Hindi fun, no matter their level of knowledge or speaking ability.

“[Chai Time] isn’t just for people who speak Hindi,” Jobanputra said. “A lot of members are just interested in Bollywood movies, it’s informal.”

Hindi Chai Time meets Wednesdays at 4:15 p.m. in the student kitchen on the second floor of the JRC.

Zelideth Rivas (on right). Photograph contributed.

“[The preparation of tea is] a way of thinking about what we consume and how we are in the room together,” she said. “It’s learning how to read each other and how to converse. It’s about being there in the moment and learning about a different culture.”

Rivas has presented Japanese tea ceremonies in locales such as Brazil, Japan and various American cities, and on Monday, Nov. 14, at 4:15 p.m. in JRC 101, Rivas will bring an Urasenke style tea ceremony to Grinnell College. Rivas will prepare a shohaku thin tea by whisking matcha, a powder derived from ground tea leaves, in hot water.

“I’m going to be talking about creating peace through this one bowl of tea and how it is we do that,” Rivas said.
Rivas will address tea etiquette, which often involves reflection and discussion of certain poems or “tea scrolls.” She described the process of tea preparation as a moving mediation.

“One of my favorite teachings in tea is [a] scroll that says: Just sit, drink tea,” Rivas explained. “[Tea is] a way of moving past our everyday and rooting ourselves in the moment, and that moment is tea. Nothing else matters but the tea.”

After opening with a discussion on tea etiquette, Rivas will select audience members to act as guests in her tea room and will prepare the shohaku tea for them by using the basic beginner’s procedure. Before drinking the tea, Rivas’ guests will be offered sweets to prepare their palates for matcha. High in caffeine, matcha was favored by Japanese monks in the ninth century when Japan first began importing Chinese tea; now, matcha is integral to the tea ceremony. According to Riva, sweets complement the bitter matcha.

“[Sweets allow guests to] taste the sensibilities of tea on [their] tongue. … [Every blend has a] different flavor depending on where the plant was blooming, or when they picked it, or the time, or who put this blend together,” Rivas said. “They’re all a little bit different.”

Following Rivas’ tea ceremony, all attendees will have the opportunity to whisk their own tea with a bamboo whisk. At this time, everyone will have the chance to sample tea.

“Those who whisk their own tea can drink it, or whisk it for someone else and offer it,” Rivas said.

In presenting a Japanese tea ceremony, Rivas hopes to share her love of tea with her fellow Grinnellians.

“If there’s any lesson we can take out of tea,” Rivas said, “it is to just sit and enjoy it.”

Tickets are being sold in front of the Dining Hall, $5 for students and children and $10 for adults. Forty-four different dishes will be featured at the Bazaar, representing a variety of countries. The ISO committee went to Des Moines last Saturday to buy ingredients.

“There is some stuff that we can get in Grinnell, but there are a lot more that we cannot get here, like authentic Asian seasoning, Mexican chili pepper and so on,” said Christa Lee ’12, Social Coordinator of ISO. “So we went to Des Moines and did a big shopping trip.”

Most of the funding for the event comes from ticket sales and SGA. So many ingredients are bought that the event usually ends in debt, but ISO hopes to make a profit this year.

“…If we get a profit, we would like to give part of it to charity, and use another part of it to buy cooking utensils for ISO because one of the biggest impediments for participating is that you have to provide your own cooking supplies,” said ISO President Natalie Richardson Gentil ’14.

Apart from providing exotic food, the Food Bazaar also serves to bring the Grinnell community together. There are even a few faculty member chefs. This year, Houston Dougharty, Vice President for Student Affairs, is cooking with his host daughter. Nnenna Akotaobi, from the Athletics Department, is also cooking with Arrion Dennis, CaNaDa RLC.

“This year, we got quite a few American students attending. Houston [Dougharty], with his host daughter is actually cooking a recipe from Texas,” Richardson Gentil said. “Most of the dishes are international recipes, but a lot of the cooking assistants are Americans.”

This diversity in chefs allows for a simple sweep of the room to involve more than just sampling, but also socializing.

“As international students coming to Grinnell College, we learn the American culture, and this event could be a good opportunity to show our very own culture to American students and also among international students, because a lot of times international students stick to those whom they always hang out with,” Lee said.

Look out for a variety of foods, ranging from appetizers to dessert and everything in between. Traditional foods from many different countries and regions of the world will be present.

“For Korea, there is more than one chef who is making basically the same dish, but one will make the more Americanized, sweeter dish, and the other will try to make hardcore, authentic Korean food,” Lee said.

While the event will stick to its past culinary successes, there are also a few innovations that are new this year.

“This year, we are trying to do ‘Chef’s Awards,’ so we will hopefully have judges. … We’ll have the top 15 dishes compiled into a recipe book, and the best recipe gets passed on to the Dining Services.” Richardson Gentil said. “We are working on those, but right now, the goal for Sunday is for everybody to have a good time [and for] the food to be good.”

Quidditch. Photograph by Andrew Kelley.

“I’ve read all the books many times. I cried when Dobby died during the movie,” said Mary Jane Giesey ’12, the chair of the committee organizing the Extravaganza.

The Harry Potter movies have been playing each night in Bob’s Underground Cafe and will wrap up Friday night with Parts I and II of the seventh movie, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, at 4:30 and 7 p.m. respectively.

“My favorite Harry Potter movie is probably the first one. I just love how cute they were and I love how fun it is to see Hogwarts for the first time,” said Linnea Van Pilsum-Bloom ’14. “I remember how scared I was when I saw Voldemort on the back of Quirrell’s head!”

Even for students who have not been initiated into the fandom based on J.K. Rowling’s novels, the week had many possibilities in store. As if Harry Potter week were a dose of Polyjuice Potion, Grinnell College was transformed into a wonderland of magic, full of fun and surprises.

One of the most noticeable changes took place in the Dining Hall, which was made to replicate The Great Hall for dinner on Wednesday, replete with wizard delicacies and decorations.

“They’re setting up the tables in four long rows, with one table at the end for professors. We asked the staff to prepare traditional British foods that they eat in the books. There’s going to be Harry’s birthday cake that Hagrid made for him in the first book,” Giesey said.

The week’s main events will take place on Friday night, when the campus will be divided into Hogwarts houses, with four separate house parties occurring around campus.

“Ravenclaw is being hosted by NYAW [Not You Average Weekend] in the Pub. It’s going to be a time for people to get drinks, snacks, and hang out in a common room as if they were attending Hogwarts,” Giesey said.

The parties start at 8:30 p.m., with Lazier 3rd being transformed into the Slytherin common room, Hufflepuffs gathering in Loose and Norris hosting the Gryffindor party.

All Grinnell students received acceptance letters in their campus mailboxes, in the tradition of the books, but unlike at Hogwarts, Grinnell students don’t need a Sorting Hat—you can simply choose which of the four house parties to attend.

“I feel like Slytherin might be the most intense one, so I’ll probably go to that one,” said Cornelia Osborne ’15.

At 10 p.m., students will assemble in the Quad for one hour where a costume party and many more enchanting surprises will ensue.

“We’re going to have a witch pushing around a snack cart with themed snacks,” Giesey said. “Everyone will get a small bag of coins, and then we’re going to announce the winner of the house cup.”

After the activities in the Quad, students will take the trek down to Gardner for Grinnell’s first and most fantastic Yule Ball. Grinnellians of all years are gearing up for the weekend events and a Pottermore-esque anticipation is building for the events that will fill the void left by this summer’s conclusion of the seventh Harry Potter movie.

“In four years here, all we’ve really had is Quidditch Club and it shut down after the first year, but that was really fun,” said Charlie Kessner ’12.

Giesey and Austin Frerick ’12, ACE Coordinator, came up with the idea for this weeklong nerdfest last year during their semester abroad, and the school has immediately latched on to the idea.

“It was Austin’s and my idea [when] we were studying abroad in Botswana,” Giesey said. “He knew a lot of people would be interested in an event like this.”

Giesey and Frerick began planning early, putting events on the calendar and reserving spaces before the school year started. They then started a planning committee, open to all students.

“That’s what I think is so beautiful about this, is that it’s so organic. … Literally people can step up and be like, ‘Hey I would like to do this’ or, ‘We can do this’,” Frerick said.

While the week has taken a great deal of planning and effort on the part of many students, there is hope that this will develop into an annual event.

“I guess my hope with this party is that it becomes kind of the hallmark of my time as vice-chair, kind of like there’s something that’ll live on … it’ll become an institutional party where like, ‘Oh yeah, Harry Potter, that’s something that has to happen every November at Grinnell,’” Frerick said.

NAACP. Photograph by Emma Sinai-Yunker.

The week, sponsored by the Grinnell chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), began with Monday night’s discussion “Strange Fruit: Are Race and Class Factors in America’s History of Lynching & Capital Punishment?” facilitated by Smounker RLC and chapter advisor Michael A. Hunt and Associate Professor of American Studies and Sociology Kesho Scott.

Monday’s event began with a brief history of race and lynching in America, followed by statistics on race, socioeconomic status and capital punishment and a short summary of the debate over capital punishment in America. Afterwards, students and faculty members discussed their views on capital punishment and the possibility of a connection between that practice and the historical legacy of lynching.

“I was excited to hear the students’ comments and engagement,” Hunt said. “Also, we had staff who showed up who come from other generations too, and so to hear the inter-generational dialogue happening, to me, is what it was all about.”

Though the impetus for Civil Rights Week was student-led, Monday’s discussion topic was Hunt’s idea.

“I did come to them for the ‘Strange Fruit’ conversation, because I knew the work that Kesho [Scott] and I do, and I’m like, ‘Look, this would be a fantastic way to kick off the Civil Rights Awareness Week,’ ” Hunt said. “Because as RLCs we do programming and we’re educators as well, and so we wanted to make sure that they had great programs that included other people from our Grinnell community.”

“That event was very successful,” said NAACP State Representative Maria Maysonet ’14. “A lot of people came out and there was a nice discussion at the end. You got to see people’s different views on capital punishment and how the connection between capital punishment and lynching is there.”

Other events scheduled for Civil Rights Awareness Week were Tuesday’s “Civil Rights: A Pictorial Show,” documenting Grinnell’s civil rights history with archival photos and documents, and Wednesday’s “March for ________” in which students marched from the Black Cultural Center to Bucksbaum Center for the Performing Arts. Student could march for their own specific social justice cause, and students were scheduled to discuss the causes they marched for upon reaching Bucksbaum.

The NAACP also hosted a video screening for Thursday of “Civil Rights Confessionals,” in which Grinnellians reflected on civil rights and the role of NAACP at the College.

“Grinnell students [were] able to see their peers and faculty members talk about Civil Rights Week and why it’s so important on this campus,” Maysonet said.

“Friday, we end with a discussion in JRC 209 from 12 – 1 [p.m.] that’s, well actually, that’s falsely advertised,” said Chapter President Adam Johnston ’13. “It says that Katya’s [Gibel Mevorach, Professor of Anthropology] is supposed to lead it, but when we met with her on Sunday she preferred that we led it. She’s glad to be there, but she’d like to see us lead it and involve a little bit more student interaction.”

In addition to attending the week’s events, NAACP leaders encourage all students to become involved with the organization by attending meetings on Mondays in JRC 209 at 8 p.m.

“We restarted NAACP last year, in doing those meetings, we thought, ‘We need to have a week dedicated to civil rights awareness,’” Johnston said. “Because that’s the emphasis of NAACP, but how does that apply to our generation?”

With Civil Rights Awareness Week and NAACP in general, members hope to spread consciousness and information among students.

“Emphasis on people of color in general, those issues need to be showcased to a broader audience, [as does] the emphasis on doing things on a national level rather than just within like, the Grinnell bubble, which is the one thing that separates us from all the other organizations,” said Johnston.

Though the first Grinnell chapter of the NAACP dates back to the 1950s, the group soon disbanded from the national organization, eventually regrouping as Concerned Black Students. The current NAACP chapter was formed recently, after Hunt contacted students to examine interest in re-forming a Grinnellian chapter.

“It’s very important to have NAACP on this campus,” Maysonet said. “And it’s very important to have this week on this campus, so that people can know what NAACP did for civil rights and the importance of civil rights in the context of Grinnell. Especially at Grinnell, one of our core values is social justice, and so that’s why it’s so important for people to be aware of what happened during the ’60s and how NAACP helped.”

Emily Guenther ’07, Prison Program Coordinator, was one of the student leaders of the Prison Program when it was founded as a student-driven initiative. Faculty started getting involved in 2008 as the program continued to grow. Now, students can teach classes across a large spectrum of disciplines, according to their interests and skills.

“[The Program is] fantastic because it is uniquely combining social justice work with academic work, and that’s what is prioritized at this college,” Guenther said. “People in prison are really excellent students. They are fantastically engaged, curious and hardworking.”

The First Year of College Program allows prisoners to take classes with faculty and earn Grinnell College credit that is equivalent to a rigorous first year of study. Faculty passed the motion to grant credit for these classes, which are taught to College standards, in 2009, and the program is currently in a trial period.

“The program is so successful because … we are simply doing what we already do on campus; we are just doing it in the prisons,” Guenther said.

For the upcoming symposium, Guenther organized a wide range of diverse and interesting speakers coming to discuss the many benefits of education in prisons, both for the incarcerated individuals and for those instructing them.

Marc Mauer, a leading expert on criminal justice policy, spoke in JRC 101 on Thursday where he presented “America’s Race to Incarcerate.” His presentation was included in the symposium to provide a larger context of the rising incarceration rates and how Grinnell’s prison program is existing in a time when there are more people being incarcerated than ever before.

The other events in this symposium will take place in two weeks, on Nov. 17 -18. That Thursday, two Grinnell alums, Katie Jares ’07 and Noga Ashkenazi ’09 will be returning to explain their careers inspired by the Prison Program. Later that night, Max Kenner, founder and executive director of the Bard Prison Initiative in New York, which helps support Grinnell’s program, will discuss the role of liberal arts colleges in prisons.

The Liberal Arts in Prison Program is a chance for Grinnellians to help the community in a new and intriguing way. The symposium will allow students, faculty and community members alike to learn about the Program’s history and benefits.

“Study after study has proven that this program is more effective in keeping people from committing additional crimes than any other program,” Guenther said.

See the full schedule at http://www.grinnell.edu/news/releases/nov-symposium-celebrates-liberal-arts-prison-program .

“Over the years, both of us have lived [in Berlin] and we have often talked about how different it is and I think that’s part of what brought us to wanting to do the class to begin with,” Anger said.

Another unique characteristic of the class is that it will include a trip to Berlin over Spring Break. Both professors will draw on their different experiences in Berlin and expertise for the class.

“The class looks at Berlin as a cultural phenomenon, as a historical phenomenon, as a capital of arts and literature, as a city of migration and multicultural influences,” Reynolds said. “…We really try to approach all of these aspects of Berlin from a multidisciplinary perspective.”

The class will look at a variety of art forms and themes. Topics will likely include migration communities in Berlin, such as the large Turkish community, the history of the divided city following World War II and Jewish history and community in Berlin.

“We really try to combine cultural and political and economic and social histories in the course,” Anger said.

By going to Berlin and taking the content of the classroom to the real world the class will go beyond just “looking” at Berlin as a center of German and international culture and art.

“When we first proposed the course, the hope was that something like course-embedded travel would be possible and it has become possible,” Reynolds said.

Professor Reynolds and Anger taught this class once before in 2007, but without going to Berlin. The trip’s expenses will be mostly covered by the Center for International Studies, with some out-of pocket expenses, such as transportation, to be paid by the student.

“I believe the College is providing most of the major expenses, but there will be some out-of-pocket expenses for students,” Reynolds said.

While the trip is not completely planned out yet, probable destinations include historical sites in Berlin, for example the House of the Wannsee-konferenz, historically Jewish neighborhoods, museums like the Centrum Judaicum and even a possible trip to Potsdam, a smaller city in the metropolitan area of Berlin, and the Film-studio Babelsberg located in Potsdam. In addition, both professors want to draw on their contacts and provide students with the opportunity to meet some Berlin-based authors and writers.

“We want them to meet people as well as go places,” Anger said.

The trip will be very structured time-wise. Students will be asked to work on their research projects, which include a paper and a presentation and are due at the end of the course.

The class is open to everyone with second-year standing or above, however Art and German majors will be given preference. Because the class is interdisciplinary, no language requirement exists, although some students with proficient German knowledge may be asked to complete some of their reading in German. Students are expected to have some prior experience in the Humanities.

Since a class that includes a trip is pretty unheard of among students, it will probably draw interest from students across majors. Lea Greenberg ’14, a German major, plans to preregister for the course.

“I am a German major, I guess I sort of wanted to expand beyond just taking literature courses,” Greenberg said. “I also hadn’t had any exposure to any Art History courses at Grinnell.”

Despite the anticipation for many interested students, the class is limited to 12-15 spaces. Both professors want to have a transparent system for selecting students for the class.

“I would like to prioritize students who haven’t had the chance to get to know Berlin,” Reynolds said. “And we might have to ask students to write a rationale about why they want to be in the class … if we exhausted all objective measures.”

For now, the class is still half a semester away and few things are set in stone, but students with potential interest in Berlin might want to try to plan their schedule.