Student senate candidate lays out platform

To the Editors:

My name is Marshall Duer-Balkind and I am running for Student Senate. I’m a third-year politics major and have been very involved on campus ever since I got here as an RA, a member of OSCA, an activist and a student. In the past year, I have become increasingly upset with the way this college is being run. Oberlin is my home, a place I believe in, and I’m sick of seeing it mistreated. The time for change is now. This is my platform for action:

1) Senate Activism: student Senate has the responsibility to not only listen to students, but more importantly, to take the lead in advocating loudly, quickly and effectively for our interests. Instead, Student Senate in the past has been the very last group to get involved when crises have hit. Student Senate’s responsibility is not neutrality, but representation. As your senator, I will fight for your interests and re-legitimize Senate as a key voice of student opinion and dissent.

2) Reform and Financial Transparency: the administration of the College has repeatedly pushed autocratic and poorly thought out decisions on our community. Reform is needed, and Senate needs to push for a return to the faculty governance and strong student involvement that are critical to our unique set of values. The use of the financial crisis as a tool to push certain agendas is all the more concerning when no one, not even our administrators, seems to know what the full budget is or how we got into this mess in the first place. Responsible stewardship of those values requires financial transparency and Senate must demand it.

3) Taking the Lead in Strategic Planning Implementation: the future of Oberlin in the next 10 years will, like it or not, be shaped by the new strategic plan. I have been involved with this process over the year and believe that students, both through Senate and other avenues, ought to take the lead in its implementation. This is our school, and we must take responsibility for its future.

4) Coordinating with Campus Workers: a disconnection exists between the workers at this college, the administration and the students. The union crisis last fall was only one example of this gap. Student workers also often feel unsupported and unheard (I am one myself). To help change this, I will establish a senate liaison to campus workers to build connections between the student body at large and all labor at Oberlin College.

5) Student Theater Space: for over 30 years, the administration and trustees have claimed that the construction of a new theater space is a top priority. In reality, the issue continues to be forgotten at best and dismissed at worst. This cannot continue. Oberlin students are talented, hardworking and creative. We have the potential to build a world-class theater arts program and the gap between that potential and the reality is an insult to all of us.

I am asking you to join with me to reclaim our home. I am asking for your vote.

Elections for Student Senate begin next week.

–Marshall Duer-Balkind
College junior

To the Editors:

As required by the Oberlin College Honor Code, I am submitting a summary of cases tried and decided by the SHC during the Fall 2004 semester.

14 Nov. 2004: a College student was found responsible of plagiarism. The student was placed on Honor Probation and required to complete a three to five page paper discussing the importance of a central body in regulating the Honor Code violation hearing process, as well as seven hours required service to the Oberlin Community.

17 Nov. 2004: a College student was found responsible of improperly citing sources. The student was placed on Honor Probation and required to rewrite and resubmit to the professor the assignment in question and to meet with a reference librarian regarding proper citation of information found on websites.

21 Nov. 2004: a College student was found responsible of copying from another student during an exam. The student was placed on Honor Probation and required to complete a three to five page paper detailing both formal institutional resources and informal non-institutional resources that could have helped the student, as well as seven hours required service to the Oberlin Community.

21 Nov. 2004: A College student was found responsible of copying homework from a solution set. The student was placed on Honor Probation and required to complete a five to seven page paper addressing what resources are available on-campus for dealing with both personal and academic problems and how one person’s Honor Code violation negatively affects Oberlin College’s academic community.

1 Dec. 2004: a College student was found responsible of plagiarism. The student was placed on Honor Probation and required to attend two half-hour sessions with a research librarian to learn how to properly cite different types of materials (electronic resources, books, journals, etc.), to complete a three to five page critical essay (with properly noted intertext quotations and either footnotes or endnotes) discussing two recent and well-publicized cases of plagiarism using at least two news articles and to complete 10 hours required service to the Oberlin Community.

5 Dec. 2004: a College student was found responsible of plagiarism. The student was placed on Honor Probation and required to complete a four to six page paper detailing the resources and services available on campus that can help students deal with personal and/or academic problems, including at least five citations that refer to Oberlin College websites.

–Erin K. Brazell
Secretary
Student Honor Committee

To the Editors:

We are writing to inform the Oberlin community that the Oberlin Film Co-op is teaming up with OFS to bring you student films. Henceforth, students’ shorts will be screened before OFS film screenings. We are excited to bring you this work and encourage individuals to contribute their own films to be screened.

This week we will be screening "Bedlam," a film by Out of Focus People Productions. The Out of Focus People are Emily Ascolese, Marya Brennan, Daniel Schaeffer and Dan Gessner. 

See you at the movies!

The Oberlin Film Co-op
–Ariana Cohen-Halberstam
College senior
–Jeffrey Cristiani
College junior
–Lee Eskin
College junior
–John Hensel
College junior
–Kevin Lubrano
College junior
–Samuel Patton
College junior
–Miguel Rojas
Collge senior
–Kirkley Silverman
College senior
–Adam Tate
OC ’04

After reading last week’s Review, I’m at a loss when it comes to the College’s administrative and fiscal plans and practices. Where shall I begin? How about the discrepancies between the College’s long-term and short-term plans, its recent change of educational focus and the confusing messages coming from different sections of the College?

The College has been suffering financial troubles since 2000-2001 thanks, in part, to the endowment’s performance in the stock market. Every year since then, the College has pursued several fiscal plans. They first tried firing several College employees, mainly custodial staff, right before Christmas.

That whole affair ended well, if I remember correctly. I mean, it must have, right? The College is currently understaffed and has overworked employees. We can also see the College’s successful record in their good-natured approach toward negotiating with its employees by looking at what happened with OCOPE and UAW last semester — and a few years ago.

The College has plans for increased revenue from student housing. They bought Firelands and converted it into off-campus apartments for juniors and seniors. There’s the recent ResLife decision to permit only seniors to live off-campus and plans to have another first-years-only dorm. Then there are also nebulous plans to construct more on-campus student housing.

Meanwhile the College has to pay off the debts on bonds used for securing the land and for the rights to build the new housing. Speaking of debts, let’s not forget that the Science Center — wonderful in many respects, despite what some critics say — was constructed over budget and behind schedule. Am I hopeful about the new housing plans? You can ask me in person.

Then there’s the recent decision regarding the Oberlin-in-London program. A lot of coincidental timing surrounded this. Cut back on several faculty positions, staff and administrative positions and the size of the student body over the next five years. Present a planning draft for Oberlin’s educational future that includes higher student retention, reduction in the teaching load, greater enrichment of the residential experience and renewed emphasis on study abroad opportunities. Then charge anyone who wants to study abroad for $1000 because it’s too valuable of an experience “to be given away for free.”

The London program decision echoes too many of this administration’s previous patterns of diminishing its budgetary deficits. Make a sudden announcement of getting rid of the program (or interns or custodial staff or whatever people won’t miss). Give it a tone of finality. Wait for any response from students and faculty. If there’s protest, agree (reluctantly) to form a committee composed of students, faculty and administrators to look into the matter. Graciously accept the committee’s report in a year or three. Respond in another year or three. And don’t do anything at that point because the student turnover by then will have rendered the matter low priority, if not moot. Continue as if everything’s all right. Did I miss anything?

From my perspective, it looks like one arm of the College doesn’t know what the other is doing and vice versa. Or maybe it’s all just lip service while the College pursues its own plans.

So my questions for the administration are this: do you have any short-term fiscal plans that involve generating revenue and not decreasing positions? Why are your short-term plans seemingly in conflict with your long-term plans? What’s your true message for the students, faculty and staff? What do you actually want Oberlin College to become? After being here for almost four years, I don’t know anymore. And I don’t think you know, either.

I look forward to any responses and corrections from administrators, faculty, staff and other students in these pages. Or you can ignore me and wait until I graduate.

–Steven Kwan
College senior
 
 

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