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Friday, december 4, 2015

A2

Activism leads to arrest in Chicago

A4

Spotlight on senior dance majors

A6

A2
Kents sportsmanship makes racket

Volume 129, Number 9

www.manitoumessenger.com

NO
ROOM
FOR
DEBATE

Students and alumni call on the college

to release a statement on racial justice

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CARINA LOFGREN

By Nick Bowlin and

Emma Whitford

Executive Editor and News Editor

n Tuesday, Nov. 24, St.

Olaf student activists
gathered in the quad
to demonstrate their
support for the Minneapolis Black
Lives Matter movement. Amid
the popular chants of Black Lives
Matter and No justice, no peace,
prosecute the police, students
voiced one chant specific to St.
Olaf College. Wielding bullhorns
and signs, the gathering of over
100 students expressed its anger
at the school administration with
the repeated refrain of No room
for debate.
In the Fall 2015 issue of the St.
Olaf Magazine, the college ran a
16 page spread titled Room for

Debate. The article summarized

last years lecture series on race
and policing and featured criminologist George Kelling 56, social
science analyst Sarah Estill 06 and
sociology professor Victor Rios.
Director of Marketing and Communications Steve Blodgett saw
the article as a chance to showcase the colleges new Institute for
Freedom and Community.
Based on the speaker series,
we put together an article on race
and community, involving most
of the speakers who had been
engaged in the institutes deliberations on [the issue of race and
policing], added in an alum who
was doing significant research in
that area and used the subject to
introduce the institute, he said.
But for many current students

and alumni, the article was evidence of structural racism and

systematic exclusion of minority
voices by St. Olaf s administration.
When I first saw the article in
the St. Olaf magazine, I was downright horrified, Tasha Viets-VanLear 15 said. In its advertisement
for the new Institute for Freedom
and Community. The article very
clearly discourages civil disobedience and public disruption on
St. Olaf s campus, civil disobedience in the support of movements
and causes that are very real and
affect students lives in extremely
vicious ways. [The article] silences
the voices of students of color and
any other violent opinion seen as
deviant.
Last year saw multiple Black

Lives Matter protests on campus.

These demonstrations included
die-ins during Christmas Festival in remembrance of Michael
Brown whose body lay in the
street in Ferguson, Mo. for four
and a half hours signs hung
from the Christmas trees in Buntrock Commons, a protest against
Kellings lecture and a demonstration in April denouncing Freddie
Grays death in Baltimore. This
semester, students have joined
the Black Lives Matter protests in
Minneapolis and Chicago, and a
group of recent alumni, frustrated
with the magazine articles omission of last years activism, began
a campaign calling for greater
administrative attention to racial
issues.
The alumni drafted a letter to

the administration and created a

petition calling for the college to
publish a statement outlining the
colleges stance on racial justice
in the U.S. and acknowledging
racism on its campus, as well as
implement practices and policies that promote racial justice on
campus and in the colleges wider
community. The petition has garnered hundreds of signatures.
Like anyone who signed the
petition, I am mostly hoping to
see St. Olaf take a firm stance
on issues of racial injustice, Ola
Faleti 15 said. I do not think
the school as it is lives up to its
mission statement of cultivating
knowledgeable world citizens.

Campus protests...
Continued on A7

Lutheran center proposed

By Emma Whitford
News Editor

ALSO program cancelled

EMMA JOHNSON/MANITOU MESSENGER

By Cassidy Neuner
Staff Writer

St. Olaf s Curriculum Committee recently decided to discontinue the Alternative Language
Study Option (ALSO) program
at the end of this academic year.
ALSO is currently in the fifth and
final year of its pilot period and
offers students the opportunity to
learn Arabic, Korean and Italian,
languages not currently available
in the regular curriculum.
I think there was a a lot of regret in the faculty about this program being terminated, Head
of the Curriculum Committee
Professor Mary Trull said. But
it also seemed clear that it wasnt
accomplishing the goals that it
had set out to accomplish as well
as we had hoped.
The main reason for the programs cancellation was the lack
of student interest combined with

the amount of resources it took to

run. The program required hiring
new Fulbright Foreign Language
Teaching Assistants (FLTAs) every year, whereas the languages
offered in the regular curriculum
have consistent faculty.
Its just not as good a use of
our resources as committing to
faculty members who are trained
in their field and are going to develop courses that are going to
be offered for more than a year,
Trull said.
Interest from students varied
widely, from a high of 29 students
one semester to a low of seven in
another.
Participation in the ALSO program was contingent on having
already fulfilled the foreign language general education (FOL
GE) requirement, and due to the
programs less traditional method
it also required the students to

commit to attending language

tables and other informal conversation spaces.
It also wasnt an official part
of the FOL GE program. You
couldnt fulfill that GE credit because it wasnt being taught in the
same way as our other foreign
languages, Trull said. It didnt
have the same role in the curriculum and that meant it was less attractive to students.
This is not to say that students
will have no options for learning
an alternative language in the future. While the ALSO program
didnt work out as planned, new
ideas are already on the table.
Some of the possibilities to be
explored are collaborating with
Carleton and using online resources and off-campus immer-

ALSO...

Continued on A7

In early November, all faculty and

staff received an email that proposed
establishing an infrastructure to
enhance both internal and external
engagement with the distinctive mission and vision of the college. The
new body, whether it becomes an institute, a center or a forum, hopes to
produce programming centering on
the mission and values of the college
with respect to its Lutheran tradition.
I really see this as a [chance] to
enhance opportunities for conversation and learning from each other
between students and faculty and
staff, Vice President for Mission Jo
Beld said. For example, we started
imagining programming where students, faculty and staff talk about
how they understand vocation and
how they try to pursue it, not just in
their professional lives but in their
personal lives as well. Weve started
talking about programming where
people talk about how their faith or
their ethics informs their decision
making and their commitments...
more indirectly, we imagine opportunities for faculty and staff to learn
more about how to mentor students.
The new center is still very much
in development. President David
Anderson 74 appointed 15 people
from the staff, faculty and student
body to form the New Center Working Group. In the November email
the working group outlined a couple
of its immediate goals. By April 15, it
will present to Anderson a proposal
for the new center that outlines the
centers mission, costs, structure and
staffing, internal and external constituencies, potential programming
and name. While creating this pro-

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posal, the group will also develop and

implement a plan to solicit feedback
from the St. Olaf community on the
details of the new center. As of now,
the center hasnt recieved any funding. Beld said that all funding for the
center will come from outside the
college through private donations or
an endowment.
The new centers proposal has
been met with some skepticism after the creation of the Institute for
Freedom and Community last year,
which raised concerns about faculty
oversight on co-curricular bodies
and transparency issues during and
after their creation. Recently there
has been a push for new faculty bylaws that outline specifically how to
review, oversee and implement new
co-curricular bodies. A small committee of faculty is working on ideas
for the bylaws and drafting some suggestions which will then be brought
to and decided upon by the Faculty
Governance Committee.
Some faculty worry that now isnt
the right time for a new center on
campus. With some departments
struggling to meet student demand,
there is conversation about making a
shift back to the basics.
Can we bear another thing?
Professor of English and Womens
and Gender studies Rebecca Richards said. Even if it comes through
the right channels and is financially
supported, can we bear the labor of
it? President Anderson made a call to
us [in his Opening Address] to really
think consciously about what is essential to the work of our institution
and what isnt essential. What could
we maybe let go?
whitfo1@stolaf.edu

NEWS

page A7

December 4, 2015

Manitou Messenger

Revenge porn survivor speaks out

By Katie Jeddeloh
Staff Writer

On Wednesday, Nov. 18, Gay, Lesbian, or Whatever (GLOW) brought YouTube stars Bria Kam and Chrissy Chambers to campus to speak about cyber
exploitation, more popularly known as
revenge porn. GLOW collaborated with
St. Olaf Leaders Abolishing Slavery (SOLAS), the Womens and Gender Studies
Department and the Political Science
department to host the event.
Kam and Chambers have a popular
YouTube channel, called BriaAndChrissy, on which they post comedy videos,
songs, self-help videos and vlogs about
their experiences as a lesbian couple as
well as videos about Chambers experience as a victim of revenge porn.
The event took place in the Sun Ballroom and began with an introduction
from Kam.
Revenge porn is defined as a form of
sexual assault which involves the distribution of sexually explicit videos without the victims consent, she said.
Following the introduction, they
played a short documentary from The
Guardian sharing Chambers story.
The documentary explained that before
Chambers had discovered her sexuality
and begun identifying as a lesbian, she
was dating a man in the United Kingdom. After she attempted to break up
with him, he proposed a night of drinking and then raped her while she was
unconscious, filmed it and put the video
online.
Its like every single moment is etched
into my memory for the rest of my life,
Chambers said.
The documentary went on to describe
Chambers legal battle to get justice and
develop legislation in the UK to hold

accountable those that post and view

revenge porn. After the documentary,
Chambers gave an emotional firsthand
account of her story as well as her and
Kams current campaign to end revenge
porn. Chambers said that although it
is still difficult to talk about her experience, staying silent would be even worse
for her and speaking out is a crucial part

You didnt do anything

to deserve this crime
happening to you.
Dont let anyone silence
your fight for justice.
Chrissy Chambers
of her recovery process.
Kam and Chambers are currently
working with a womens rights lawyer to
seek retribution for the wrongs done to
Chambers as well as push policies that
will protect women from the trauma of
revenge porn and ensure that perpetrators are properly punished. Currently,
only 26 states in the United States have
laws forbidding revenge porn.
Kam and Chambers also spoke about
ways to get involved with this particular
issue on campus. They suggested including revenge porn in discussions of sexual
assault, advocating for policies at St. Olaf
or in local or state governments that
seek to prevent revenge porn, spreading
awareness and generally discouraging
a culture of victim blaming. In the presentation, Chambers stated that a shocking six percent of the population will
become victims of revenge porn, and of
these people 90 percent will be women.

This is a form of sexual assault. And

the perpetrators need to be held to the
highest degree, Chambers said. Its a
young crime that the world is just starting to learn about.
Chambers gave a message of support
to the survivors of revenge porn.
I know you feel like youre completely alone, but its not true, and there are
many people who know exactly what
youre feeling right now, she said. You
didnt do anything to deserve this crime
happening to you. Dont let anyone silence your fight for justice.
In response to the presentation, CoCoordinator of GLOW Caitlin Whitely
18 said I think that [revenge porn] is a
part of sexual assault that doesnt really
get mentioned a lot. Even if the picture
or video is consensual at the moment, its
not consensual to be put everywhere.
Whitely was excited to see the duo on
campus, as they are some of her favorite YouTubers in addition to speaking
out against revenge porn. Whitely sees
their message as one close to the heart
of GLOW.
When I was coming out to myself,
it was good to see a healthy queer relationship, she said. I think having them
here, showing their healthy lesbian relationship, is important because a lot of
people that come to GLOW dont have a
strong support system or role models to
look up to.
More information and resources on
revenge porn and Chamberss story are
available at endrevengeporn.org, and on
their YouTube channel, BriaAndChrissy.
Additionally, GLOW holds meetings every Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. in the Sun
Ballroom.
jeddel1@stolaf.ed

LEIGH ANNE HAHN/MANITOU MESSENGER

YouTube stars Chrissy Chambers and Bria Kam speak about their efforts to change legislation concerncing revenge
porn. The talk was hosted by GLOW, SOLAS and the women and gender studies department.

ALSO lack of student interest

Continued from A1
sion programs, Associate Dean for
Interdisciplinary and General Studies
Dana Gross said.
Additionally, the World Languages
Center will continue to offer materials, native speaker tutors and online
resources for any student to use.
I will add that [Director of World
Language Center] Renata DebskaMcWilliams, [IOS Director] Jodi
Malmgren and I are getting ready to
announce a non-credit pilot language
program, tentatively entitled Guided
Independent Language Enrichment.
This program is primarily intended to
support students studying off-campus

for a semester, Gross said.

The Guided Independent Language
Enrichment program would offer
weekly one-hour enrichment sessions
for students participating in the Danish Institute for Study Abroad, the
Budapest semester, programs in Florence and Milan and Biology in South
India.
I think the ALSO program needs a
little bit of refinement, Arabic FLTA
Mohsine Jebbour said. To be honest, Id really like to make the Arabic
language not alternative unless necessary because it is spoken in more than
ten countries. With this language you
can have access to a rich culture. You

can communicate with many different people coming from different cultures.
Arabic language study is important for the Middle East Studies program. Faculty in that program will
be part of a study group that I plan
to convene next semester, Gross said.
While the ALSO program had the
advantage of providing a small class
size and attracting a dedicated group
of students, it wasnt a sustainable solution for providing alternative language options.

CHRISTIAN CONWAY/MANITOU MESSENGER

By Christian Conway
Contributing Writer

Assistant Professor of Theater Jeanne Willcoxon has established herself as one of the most enthusiastic, entertaining and
engaging professors on campus with an incredibly wide breadth
of knowledge. For her undergraduate education, Willcoxon attended Sarah Lawrence College in New York where she studied
generalized liberal arts, which was the only major the college
offered at the time. After completing her BA, Willcoxon attended the American Repertory Theaters Advanced Theater Training Institute in Cambridge, Mass. Later, she earned her Masters
and PhD in theater theory and history at the University of Minnesota.
Currently, Willcoxons studies focus on post-dramatic theater she is particularly interested in how the audience and
non-actors can affect how a production is viewed by others. She
has also done extensive research on feminist performance and
Jacobean masques, though she jokingly laments that no one
knows what that is today.
Before she began to teach, Willcoxon spent time acting and
collaborating in Chicago, New York City and Boston.
I had no health insurance. I had no steady income. I was
fine, she said.
Most of her time was spent doing off-off-Broadway shows
and pieces that were weird, wonderful stuff. Some of her favorite roles included Nina in The Seagull, Jordan in The Great
Gatsby, and both Viola and Sebastian in Twelfth Night.
I would not recommend ever doing both roles at the same
time, Willcoxon said.
In addition, Willcoxon spent time in Germany teaching English.
Willcoxon teaches a variety of courses in multiple departments at St. Olaf. She has taught theater and also taught for the
American Conversation and Great Conversation programs, as
well as teaching a First Year Writing course titled The Monstrous that studied what monsters really are and what that
reveals about us.
Within the theater department, Willcoxon currently teaches
Text and Performance and the senior capstone course that all
senior theater majors take in the spring. For Willcoxon, the goal
of the capstone is to educate [the seniors] on whats happening
in theater now. We are trying to see who is doing what now.
Willcoxons favorite part about teaching is her students.
I think anyone you ask will say the best moment is the students . . . I feel enlightened by the students. And I hope my
students sometimes feel enlightened by me, she said.
Besides teaching theater, Willcoxon also directs a show every
year, and this spring she will direct the musical Cabaret. For this
production she is particularly interested in bringing the culture
of Weimar Germany into the show. While Willcoxon does not
have a favorite show she has directed, she noted that directing
Spring Awakening helped her as a director.
I kind of found my voice in that production. That production opened me up to what works and what doesnt.
When she isnt doing something related to theater, Willcoxon
enjoys gardening, going for walks and reading mystery novels.
When asked what character from Scooby Doo she would be, she
said, Velma. It just seems to fit.

neuner1@stolaf.edu

conway1@stolaf.edu

Campus protests frustration with administration

Continued from A1
Assistant to the President for Institutional
Diversity Bruce King feels that the article was
a missed opportunity to discuss student activism, but he believes that a petition is not
the way to tackle these issues constructively.
I think that while its unfortunate that
people feel the way they do about the article,
that they wish the article had said more, done
more, been different, its an article in a college magazine, King said. I would like my
[efforts] to stay more focused on the kinds of
things that we are trying to do with the Institute or with our students, addressing some of
the real issues on campus, as opposed to how
magazine articles are written. Id be happy to
talk with those young alums in constructive
conversation, but attacking, trying to get at
the college through a magazine article is just

not the way I want to engage.

King seems willing to engage with the
alumni, but they say they have yet to hear
from any administrative figure at St. Olaf.
Viets-VanLear would like to hear from one
person in particular.
Those individuals who hold great power in institutions like St. Olaf Im talking
about President David Anderson here are
all too eager to ignore the problem, in our
case, our demands for real action and attention standing against racial oppression and
police brutality against people of color in the
United States, she said. In all of our efforts,
we have not yet been contacted by a single
member of administration, whether it be out
of fear, denial, belligerence or a combination
of all three.
Blodgett believes that the magazine article
was simply misunderstood.

[Those angry at the article] need to

look at the totality of the magazine, its various features over the years and the style of
the publication and what it tries to achieve,
not just particularly zero in on whether the
right voices were in this particular article,
Blodgett said.
But thats precisely the problem for many
students, who say the right voices are never heard. For many, the article shows entrenched problems within the St. Olaf community. Students of color describe a culture
of apathy and ignorance on the part of the
administration and from their peers.
Theres a lot of ignorance out there, for
sure. St. Olaf as I know it is not a environment where people get uncomfortable, Faleti said. But thats necessary, thats so, so
necessary if you ever want to learn anything.
And then students of color have to educate

everyone else, because our curriculum isnt

doing it. And thats not fair. I went to school
to learn, not to become everyones black educator.
Faleti notes that St. Olaf is proud of its civil
rights legacy the school just built a memorial to activist alumni James Reeb 50, who
was killed while participating in the Selma
Voting Rights Movement in 1965 and that
the institution needs to rededicate itself to
the cause of justice.
In general, this is a revolutionary time
were living in. Now is not the time to be neutral or use objective language in the face of
justice, Faleti said. Policing tactics are not
some hypothetical debate people, black
people, are dying every day because of them.
bowlin@stolaf.edu
whitfo1@stolaf.edu