Campus News

2014 Winter Term Chronicles Part 2

February 12, 2014

Communications Staff

Included in this second installment of the 2014 Winter Term Chronicles are descriptions of projects that took place as far away as Indonesia and as near as Hales Gym.

Oberlin OnCampus will conclude its coverage of 2014 winter-term projects next week. If you'd like to share your winter-term experience with the Oberlin community, fill out this quick and simple form by the end of the day Friday, February 14:

[This form is no longer available.]

Photo Gallery

2014 Winter Term Part 2

An ice cream scoop and a few potato chips coated in chocolate sauce — First-year student Ryan Murphy conducted an individual project from home, The Eat Your Greens Project. By blogging about the parallels between the rhetoric of environmentalism and the rhetoric of dieting, Ryan examined “why Americans have such a strange relationship with the health of both their personal bodies and the world around them.” Read more at eatyourgreensproject.tumblr.com.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Oberlin College

A group of people hold a banner — Conservatory professors Jennifer Fraser and Jan Miyake led a group of 10 students to Indonesia for the winter-term project Music, Islam, and Disasters in Indonesia. Before the group began its trip, Fraser wrote in the project blog (http://oberlininindonesia.blogspot.com/), “We will spend 18 days in the country, exploring music, Islam, and disasters in three provinces spanning from the western most tip of the archipelago in the province of Aceh, down to West Sumatra located midway on Sumatra's southern coast where I conduct my ethnomusicological research, to one of the cultural centers of the country, Yogyakarta.” Members of the group posted to the blog throughout the trip. The group was hosted by Syiah Kuala University, faculty and students of which were at the airport in Aceh to greet the Oberlinians.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Jennifer Fraser

Photo of paper and a lanyard on a table — Juniors Emma Kimmel and Taylor Rankin and sophomores Sarah Cox and Georgia McLeland designed a winter-term project that took them to the Sundance Film Festival. They spent the first part of winter term preparing to go to the festival. They chose two directors to follow from among those premiering films at this year’s festival—Alex Gibney and Taika Waititi—and watched some of their previous films. They discussed those previous films on their blog, The Sundance Kids (http://thesundancekids14.tumblr.com/), before traveling to Utah for the festival, which took place January 16 to 26. Once at the festival, they continued chronicling their experiences and their responses to the films they saw.
Photo credit: Taylor Rankin

Four people seated at a table work with various materials while two others in the background work over a basin — Sophomore Dana Fang took part in the on-campus group project Papermaking and Book Arts Across Cultures (https://www.oberlin.edu/winter-term/projects/group-projects). After an intro to the history of papermaking, the class learned Eastern papermaking: scraping a paper-mulberry tree (called Kozo in Japanese), cooking and washing the pale, fleshy fibers, and the beating the fibers into a fine ball of pulp. “It was manual labor,” says Dana. Class members learned how to use screens to make thin, spiderweb-like sheets of kozo paper and how to shake and press the screen down to make stacks of paper to press and dry. Western papermaking involved different fibers (cotton and abaca) and less shaking. “We made paper endlessly, getting better as we went along,” says Dana. “By the time the two weeks of papermaking were over, I had a few hefty stacks of kozo, cotton, and abaca papers.” The class ended with book binding techniques. Dana says she started the project ”simply wanting to learn more about the craft and art of making paper, but I ended up being introduced to a whole different set of skills.”
Photo credit: Ed Vermue

A person holds up a sketch on a piece of paper, while others carve on wood panels — Sophomore Ally Fulton took part in Special Collections Librarian Ed Vermue’s Letterpress Printing Project with fellow students Tom Rathe, Abe Post-Hyatt, Rebecca Rand, Alexandra Kahn, Maya Martin, and Kalila Holt. Oberlin alumnus Robert Colby commissioned the group to create a new edition of the 19th-century children's book The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast by William Roscoe. Bob Keleman, a graphic designer and instructor at Kent State, led them through the basics of letterpress printing and aided in the layout of the book. The group also worked with Claudio Orso, an Italian woodcutter whose overflowing, print-filled studio sits in downtown Oberlin. “Representing a wide variety of majors and class years, each of us brought different reasons, perspectives, and skills to the commission, culminating in a five and a half inch by five and a half inch square book, with more than 20 hand drawn, carved, and water colored illustrations,” says Ally. “Tom, Rebecca, Abe and I also create two poetry broadsides for the poem “Campfire” by Bern Mulvey. I am astounded by the what we achieved in three weeks. The children's book looks more professional than I ever thought it would and the graphic layout aspect has really struck a chord with my interests. If I am in Oberlin this coming summer, I plan on applying for an internship with Zygote Press in Cleveland to continue learning and mastering the art of letterpress printing.
Photo credit: Ed Vermue

A person lies on the rim of a pool, beside an upside-down dolphin — “If you thought your internship was wild, you should meet the animals I spent my winter term with,” says sophomore Madison Szathmary. “As a marine mammal intern at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, I cared for, fed, and played with eight charismatic bottlenose dolphins. The dolphins are incredibly creative and are always inventing their own games. Some of their favorite things to do include watching the trainers play with giant tablecloths, seeing how far they can throw footballs, and swallowing lots of unsweetened Jello! During my internship, I helped train husbandry behaviors, which are behaviors that allow trainers to take care of the dolphins, including brushing their teeth and taking voluntary blood samples. The only thing I would have changed about my winter term would be the weather—it was a balmy -11 degrees in Baltimore during my first week.”
Photo credit: Courtesy of Madison Szathmary

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