The Scripps Voice

By Lauren Prince ‘14
Editor-in-Chief

Photo by Lauren Prince

On Friday, Nov. 9, Theresa Iker (SCR ’14) and Rachel Weiner (SCR ’13) held a student-led forum to discuss the Amherst College rape scandal. 15 Scripps students convened in the Dorsey living room to discuss what sexual assault looks like at Scripps and the 5Cs. Iker and Weiner are members of the SAS Sexual Assault Committee, which works with the administration and the Sexual Assault Awareness and Resource Committee (SAARC) to find solutions to the prevalence of sexual assault on the 5Cs.

Many ideas and solutions were discussed and analyzed. First, the creation of a peer advocacy group was discussed. Students could turn to these advocates for advice, help, and information regarding sexual assault reporting and investigative procedures.

Ike and Weiner presented statistics for the number of reported sex offenses in the consortium. The statistics were staggeringly low. For Scripps, the figures are: 2009 – 0, 2010 – 3, 2011 – 0. For the 5Cs combined: 2009 – 2, 2010 – 7, 2011 – 7.

Iker mentioned that she hears of more sexual assaults in one weekend than are reported all year. The fact that sexual assaults go unreported when they happen on a regular basis is troubling. Students report that one of the main reasons they do not report sexual assault is the unwelcoming and uncomfortable vibe surrounding the Dean of Students Office. Because this is one of the first steps in the investigation process, it hinders students from starting that process.

A second topic of discussion were the orientation events focused on sexual assault awareness. Each year, there is a speaker that talks about sexual assault and teaches incoming first years how to look out for themselves. This year’s speaker discussed knowing the rapists personally (as opposed to the “slap-grab-twist-pull” stranger rapist defense workshop of years past). Students concluded this year’s event was more beneficial, especially considering the fact that 90 percent of college rape victims know their perpetrator.

The issue of consent and how it is defined is not well known. Nor is there a universal 5C definition or policy yet, although one is reportedly in the works.

By Rachel Hennessey ‘13
Staff Writer

In an interview last Sunday, Taryn Ohashi (SCR ‘13) opened up about her dissatisfaction with dance funding at the Claremont Colleges. Ohashi, a lifelong dancer, has been on the 5 College Dance Company (5CDC) since her freshman year, and has held the title of Director for the past two. While Taryn acknowledges that the dance company’s funding situation has improved over the past four years, she still sees a lot of room for improvement.
As the name implies, the 5CDC is open to students from all campuses. Because all five schools are represented, you’d think that funding wouldn’t be such a challenge with five, as opposed to just two (PP) or three (CMS) schools giving their support. Unfortunately for Ohashi and her team members, this isn’t the case.

The company consists of fifteen women, all of whom must be able to cover the costs of performance attire. “It’s sad, but I’ve seen girls try out who can’t be on the team because they can’t afford to buy their own shoes or costumes,” Ohashi explained.  Unlike other sports teams, members of the 5CDC receive no funding for their uniforms. “We’d love to make money a non-issue for all candidates, but don’t have the money to subsidize these items.”

Ohashi explained that the real funding issue is not dance outfits, but raising enough money to rent out Scripps’ Garrison Theatre twice annually for the company’s end-of-semester showcases. Garrison charges the company approximately $700 per showcase night. This equals $1,400 per year that the 5CDC needs to put on its two free performances. Each of the five colleges only grants the team an average of $200 per year, (about half of what the cheerleading team gets) according to Ohashi. Thus, in addition to their practices and performances at 5C sporting events, the women are constantly fundraising throughout the year in order to accumulate that extra $400 for Spring Showcase.

The fundraising money that the team does receive comes from the treasurers of student-elected bodies such as SAS (Scripps), ASPC (Pomona), ASCMC (Claremont Mckenna), The Student Senate (Pitzer), and ASHMC (Harvey Mudd). Depending on how the treasurers decide to allocate finances, the 5CDC could have a lucky or unlucky year. Still, Ohashi explains, even in the better years they’ve never received adequate funding to cover showcase costs without fundraising.

The 5CDC raises funds mainly by appealing to the same bodies that granted the initial money (SAS, ASPC, ASCMC, The Student Senate, and ASHMC). They are usually able to raise just about enough money to cover the difference, although some years they’ve still come up short. “This puts a lot of pressure on our team during the spring. We are constantly worried about reaching our goal so we can hold the showcase without charging for admission,” Ohashi said.  “I wish the 5C treasurers would just grant us that extra $100 in the first place, because they know every year we come asking for more in the spring.”

Scripps treasurer Evelyn Wong (‘13) explained why SAS and the other student governments are unable to give more money to the 5CDC and other clubs in need: “As student fees do not rise by much every year, we cannot give each club as much as they are applying for. If we did, the total CLORG budget would be 60% of student fees, which would cut down significantly on the other portions of the SAS budget,” Wong explained. SAS also makes sure to set aside enough money annually so that students can apply for more research or club money through the Funding Advisory Committee, one of the sources Ohashi uses in the spring to make ends meet before Showcase.

Having to allot so much time and energy towards fundraising puts extra stress on all team members and makes joining the 5CDC a pledge to commit to more than just dancing. Since CMC graduate Jaclyn D’Arcy’s creation of the dance company in 2008, all showcases have been free of admission fees, and Ohashi hopes to keep it that way, even if it means constant fundraising or resorting to out-of-pocket-money for her and her teammates.

The 5CDC provides viewers with the only free dance show on campus. Other clubs, such as the Claremont Colleges Ballroom Dance Company and REVERB do charge admission fees to help with costs. Ohashi, on the other hand, feels that her show will achieve better turnout without the fees. “We are trying to get a bigger audience and don’t want price to discourage people from coming to see art,” Ohashi said.

While Ohashi recognizes that money is limited and is thankful for the grants that her team does receive, she expressed frus-
tration with how people regard dance at the Claremont Colleges. “It’s not a debate about whether dance qualifies as a sport or not. Either way, what we do – rally school spirit, while engaging in an athletic activity — is the similar to what the soccer team, baseball team and cheerleading squad do. I don’t understand why we’re treated differently.”

By Sara Cores ‘13
SAS Sustainablility Chair

This week, SAS collected responses of students’ opinions regarding LEED certification in a new residence hall through a brief survey. The results were overwhelmingly in favor of certification. Out of the 230 students that took the survey, 91.2 percent agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: “Achieving LEED Silver, Gold or Platinum certification for the new residence hall should be a priority for Scripps College.” Similarly, 69 percent agreed or strongly agreed that LEED certification should be a priority
for Scripps College even if this leads to a redesign or reallocation of funds. When presented with the data from the other Claremont Colleges in relation to LEED certification, the number of students who strongly agreed that LEED certification should be a priority rose by 7 percent, bringing the total of students who agreed or strongly agreed to 91.5 percent. The numbers do not lie. Scripps students want to see the new residence hall become LEED certified. In fact, the comments written at the end of the survey included very positive feedback. One student wrote, “YES YES YES! The choices colleges and universities make around the country tend to influence the rest of the country.” Another wrote, “I would be very disappointed if sustainability wasn’t a priority of a building project at Scripps” and yet another stated “If it’s not LEED  certified it shouldn’t happen!”

But what is LEED and what would it mean for Scripps College to achieve LEED certification for the new residence hall? Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is an internationally recognized certification that was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) in March of 2000. Its purpose is to promote “sustainable building and development practices through a suite of rating systems that recognize projects that implement strategies for better environmental and health performance” (source: USGBC website). LEED certification is divided into three different levels: Silver, Gold, and  Platinum. Meeting the California building codes is the equivalent of achieving LEED Silver certification.
However, in order to receive the certification, Scripps would have to submit an application documenting compliance with the LEED requirements for Silver, as well as pay application and registration fees. LEED Gold certification would require supplementary sustainable measures such as dual flush toilets, waterless urinals, LED lighting, and a minimum of 75 percent day lighting. LEED Platinum certification additionally requires solar water heaters, photovoltaic panels, lighting, and power controls ,and high performance windows. Although LEED certification would lead to an overall increase in the budget for the project, LEED initiatives have a high investment return rate long-term.

Those who oppose LEED certification argue that it is too expensive for the College and that “we cannot afford it at this time.” There also have been thesis projects produced by 5C students arguing that LEED certification does not encourage “community” or that its environmental impact is much smaller than most claim. So, why go LEED?

Making the new residence hall LEED certified would go beyond the title of the accreditation. It would show, finally, that “Scripps College is committed to conducting all of its activities in a manner that is sensitive to the environment,” as stated in admissions materials. Similarly, it would hold the college accountable to sustainable construction standards throughout the development of the project. By committing to LEED, Scripps would be committing to something larger than LEED itself. It would become a leader and example of sustainable initiatives on campus. It would put sustainability at the forefront of our actions and discussions. Finally, it would demonstrate Scripps’ capability and willingness to keep up with the rest of the consortium.

We are the only one of the 5Cs without a LEED certified building and we will be the first school to engage in a new construction that is not LEED certified. After Pomona and Pitzer, Scripps has the largest number of students registered in the Environmental Analysis program, and student-driven initiatives like the Motley and the Student Garden are a reflection of our students’ commitment to sustainability. Isn’t it about time that the administration showed its commitment too?

So, why are we not going LEED? Well, the decision has yet to be made whether we will end up aiming for LEED or not. However, the administration is currently leaning towards NOT having a LEED certified residence hall due to financial constraints, even though a year ago the New Residence Hall committee suggested that it should be LEED certified.

If the administration ends up going ahead with the project without aiming for at least LEED gold certification, the implications will be greater than simply not having a LEED certified building. It would show that our representative system has failed us as a whole.

The current SAS and Board of Trustees (BOT) bylaws only allow three students to be present at each committee meeting where all the decision-making happens. Out of those three students, only two are allowed to vote on any initiative, project, or proposal. The students who sit on these committees are supposed to be “representing” the student body at large, and not just their personal opinion on a particular topic.

Moreover, they are supposed to report back to the student body what is being discussed in these meetings and what decisions are being made. Yet without access to the student body, how are these students expected to represent us and report back to the student body? And in a room full of men and women with years of experience and powerful positions outside the room, how are three students supposed to voice the opinion of the student body on these matters?

The process of persuading the administration to move to a LEED certified building has shed some light on the current flaws of our “representative” system that the administration is so proud of (we are part of only a handful of colleges that let the students sit in these committees). Moreover, it is demonstrating that the pioneering education Scripps so proudly preaches in the classroom is left exactly there. We may have to modify our mission statement to read something like: “At Scripps, every woman has the chance to pioneer new paths: to engage her imagination, explore her own potential, and encourage her own style of leadership in an environment that supports independent thinking, creativity, and personal expression within the constraints of the academic setting.”

In fact, students will become increasingly complacent, realizing their voice is trivial in these matters. The administration would fare better if they approached the students and engaged them in the decision-making process of all new initiatives. Scripps students are extremely well equipped to deal with financial constraints and challenges and we rarely set ourselves up for failure. After all, it was Ellen Browning Scripps herself who said, “The paramount obligation of a college is to develop in its students the ability to think clearly and independently, and the ability to live confidently, courageously, and hopefully.”
We have developed our critical and independent thinking and we believe that the new residence hall should be LEED certified. We have asked the administration to follow the necessary steps to make sure Scripps obtains its first LEED certification, demonstrating its committed to sustainability in the long term. Now, we confidently and courageously hope they will move ahead with the student perspective in mind. If Ellen Browning Scripps were here today, she would demand it so.

It will be LEED or it will NOT be ours.

Sara Estevez Cores is the SAS Sustainability Chair for the 2012-2013 academic year. She has been a member of the sustainability committee for two and a half years. Her project “Seeds for Change” was presented at the Clinton Global Initiative University 2011 as “as an exemplary approach to addressing a specific global challenge.”  She is also the recipient of the Davis Project for Peace grant and the Strauss Scholarship for the 2011-2012 academic year. Any questions, comments or concerns should be emailed to sas.sustainabilitychair@gmail.com. These will be addressed in next week’s video blog.

By Eliza Silverman ’14 and Zoe Stalnecker ’14
Cody Editor and Business Manager

In case you weren’t one of the many Claremont students running around with green bandanas and nerf artillery, we are here to recount the Live Action Role Play extravaganza that was Humans versus Zombies 2010 on the Claremont Colleges.

The game was ultimately a battle of good versus evil. The objective of the humans, or the “resistance,” was to resist infection at the zombie’s hand for as long as humanly—excuse the pun—possible. The zombie “horde” could infect a human by simply touching them on the arm.

The complexities of the game are as follows: all Claremont students that signed up for the game began as humans, save for a few “administrators” that were Original Zombies, or OZs. Humans wore green bandanas around their arms to signify their status as a human, while zombies wore a green bandana around their heads. You were required to wear the bandana and carry an identification card at all times. Basically everywhere except classrooms, individual dorm rooms and dining halls was a fair fight zone on the 5C’s—except, ironically, for Scripps. The entirety of the Scripps campus was a safe zone because the faculty didn’t agree that Humans versus Zombies was appropriate for an academic environment. The humans were allowed to defend themselves by shooting relatively harmless nerf darts at the zombies to deflect infection, thus “freezing” zombies for fifteen minutes.

But enough of the nitty-gritty details. Inevitably, you’re dying to know what Humans versus Zombies was really like. Was the week characterized by ceaseless adventures? Guerilla warfare? Heart-stopping showdowns? Our stories will not disappoint.

Living on Scripps, we really had to go out of our way to put ourselves in the line of fire. We did just that: we dined at Harvey Mudd’s dining hall meal after meal. The first few days were relatively uneventful because the ratio of humans to zombies remained about 350 to 50. After day 3, however, the resistance declined rapidly. Zombies were beginning to outnumber humans. Eliza alone had three zombies in her CMC Spanish class of 15 students; she had to make a break for it as soon as class ended at 10:50, to get back to the safe home base. “She looked pretty ridiculous,” said Jade Ulrich (’14). “One day she put on these neon protective goggles to block the rain from her eyes as she fled from Bauer Center.”

On the fourth night, all hell broke loose. We went to dinner at HMC and zombies were patrolling the perimeter. The resistance was down to a paltry hundred humans, and zombies were omnipresent. We hastily scurried into the dining hall without too much trouble, but the way out was a whole different ball game. Two specific zombies were targeting us from both exits out of the dining hall. We put our heads together and came up with a different escape route: off the edge of the outdoor patio! Genius! As we carefully and quickly scaled the walls, clamshells in hand, we felt pretty invincible. Until, as Eliza dropped down from the wall, a zombie came up and tagged both of us. Fail.

Humans versus Zombies added an element of suspense and intrigue to what would otherwise have been an ordinary week in Claremont. Our suggestion? Participate in the next round of Humans versus Zombies, coming Spring 2011!

Check out the website here!

At the Claremont Colleges, students are educated on the issues of exploitation that exist all over the world. But, as recent protests have revealed, these issues are closer to home than students may have realized. Over the years, there have been several instances of exploitation of staff members who work at the 5C’s. Afraid to directly approach the administration, staff members turned to those with whom they have daily interactions: the students. At Pomona College, students have reacted in a substantial way with the implementation of the Workers’ Support Committee. The Workers’ Support Committee is an organization that strives to keep the student body informed on issues concerning staff members and construct a positive relationship between staff and administration in order to enable future progress.

Students created the Workers’ Support Committee in response to the actions that Pomona’s administration has taken regarding its employees. The committee works with staff members and meets one-on-one with administration to address key issues such as cutting work hours and laying off staffers. Last year the committee began the “Stand With Staff” campaign to boycott the Pomona dining halls after dining hall staff members’ hours were cut over the summer.

On Oct. 9, a rally was organized in reaction to an e-mail that Pomona President David Oxtoby sent to the student body regarding job cuts for housekeepers. These two demonstrations occurred after staff members approached the committee, asking for help in a shared effort to emphasize the need for change in how workers’ jobs are handled.

The Workers’ Support Committee, which meets weekly, consists of about 30 students. Though the organization is open to students at all 5C’s, almost all of the committee members attend Pomona. The committee addresses Pomona-specific issues, and works toward educating students on the structural problems that exist within the work system at the college. The committee gathers its strength from outside participation; when students get involved in demonstrations, inform their friends on the issues or even just form relationships with staff members, the Workers’ Support Committee is gathering strength.

Members of the Workers’ Support Committee visited individual dorms to discuss the changes that were made in housekeeping staff over the summer. Articles about the committee have already been published in The Student Life and The Claremont Progressive, further bolstering the committee’s presence on campus. “We’re going to do whatever keeps conversations going,” said committee member Sam Gordon (PO ‘11). General student involvement is important to the committee, since it shows the Pomona administration what is a priority on its campus.

Even more important than creating a campus-wide presence is the fostering of a non-politicized environment where staff members feel safe to share their frustration with students. The committee takes action when a staff member approaches it; it is continuously working toward a structural revamping in which staff members are comfortable enough to address the administration on its own. Said Gordon, “We want things to work out so that we don’t have to exist anymore.”

The current relationship between staff members and administration is too unbalanced to allow for issues to pass by without student intervention. This puts the committee in a difficult transitional stage, where its present goal is to diminish the wall of communication between staff members and the administration altogether.

In its work toward a more equal standing with the administration, the Workers’ Support Committee aspires to have as little on its agenda as possible. But, for now, its agenda is filled and its voice—with the help of interested students—is ever-present on campus. The ideologies that go into the committee are enough to inspire any student to take a look around her own community and open her eyes to the issues around her.

The idea that, as students at the 5C’s, we are protected from mental warfare is, in some senses, an incredibly comforting one. Every time someone wants to do something derogatory, he or she must consider the fact that this action could be labeled a “bias-related incident,” and that people will make an effort to seek out the perpetrator and portray him or her as the instigator of such an incident, and of course dole out an appropriate punishment. In addition to this being an honorable notion for the college authorities to pursue, it’s a relatively ambitious one, mostly due to the abstract nature of the phrase “bias-related incident.” If an incident becomes bias-related mostly based upon the feelings of the person toward whom the act was directed, Pandora’s box will explode with the fury of subjectivity.

While the policy undoubtedly provides consolation for the student body, it inhibits freedom of speech—perhaps even thought—and denies students of one lesson of reality: sometimes people are going to say things that make you feel bad. The nice police do not patrol most parts of the world—in fact, based on the experiences I’ve managed to amass, things generally get less tasteful from here on out. Being able to call campus security to report a bias-related incident whenever one feels discriminated against undermines the resilience that is necessary to be an individual that displays and propagates his or her own beliefs.

I agree that if one’s ability to move forward in life is being psychologically impeded, intervention is necessary. But if some random person calls you a mean name, just acknowledge that what he or she has said has zero intrinsic value. Accepting and integrating that idea into how you address the world has the potential to solve many problems, and maybe even save you a phone call that will just cost you half an hour of sleep. My advice is to try to ignore it, and get some sleep.