Campus News

2014 Winter Term Chronicles Part 3

February 19, 2014
Communications Staff

Those who submitted to this third and final installment of the 2014 Winter Term Chronicles include a group of flutists who learned to dissect and repair their own flutes, a first-year student who conducted research in the lab of a MacArthur Genius, students who traveled to India, Morocco, southern France, and Canada; and a group who created a brand new “impropera.”

Although Oberlin OnCampus is concluding its coverage of 2014 winter-term projects with this installment, we'll continue to accept submissions to be included in the winter-term website, and we'll even accept submissions from previous years’ winter terms. Just fill out this quick and simple form:

[This form is no longer available.]

Photo Gallery

2014 Winter Term Part 3

Two people perform on stage, with one singing and the other playing keyboard
Seven composition and TIMARA majors joined TIMARA faculty members Lyn Goeringer and Peter Swendsen for a residency at the Banff Centre in the Canadian Rockies. While there, the students—Sam Fisher ’14, Keenan DuBois ’16, John Burnett ’16, Mitchell Herrmann ’17, Judith Jackson ’17, Eli Stine ’14, and Noah Chevan ’15—worked intensively on a variety of projects, which they presented to the centre’s community at the end of the residency. In addition to personal projects, the students met and collaborated with other resident artists from around the world. The largest arts and creativity incubator on the planet, the Banff Centre hosts more than 8,000 artists, leaders, and researchers from around the world each year. The centre’s multidisciplinary programming provides them with the support they need to create, develop solutions, and make the impossible possible, says Swendsen.
 Photo credit: Courtesy of Peter Swendsen
A person placing a plank of bread in a large brick oven
Sophomore Rewa Bush (above) spent winter term serving an apprenticeship at a traditional French bakery, Le Fournil des Bergers Bleus (The Bakehouse of the Blue Shepherds), a traditional artisanal bakery in La Bastide d’Engras, a small town in southern France. “I was interested in learning about traditional bread making as a lens to investigate sustainable food,” says Rewa. “I wanted to see how artisanal activities allow ancient knowledge to persist and grow in a rapidly modernizing world. ... I was impressed by the respect that was put into caring for both the bread and the space, and noted that nothing was wasted. Every loaf was monitored throughout the day by using all five senses and intuition, and many variables were regulated accordingly – starting a batch of dough earlier, using warmer water, more water, less salt, placing them at the back of the shelf farther from drafts, covering or uncovering them as they rose, kneading less or more, poking, smelling, looking for cracks and bubbles and moisture, scoring them deeply or with the lightest touch, or simply placing a hand over them to feel their energy. ... I learned countless bread-making techniques, but I also learned about the presence of life in all things and the values of relationality and respect that permeated this baker’s world.”
 Photo credit: Courtesy of Rewa Bush
Five people seated around a table filled with craft supplies, beside a piano
Five students—Amanda Dame, Tasi Hiner, Lauren Good, Hannah Hammel and Oliver Villanueva. left to right above—took part in Associate Professor Alexa Still's group project, Introduction to Flute Repair. They began by researching and writing papers about flute construction. Then came what Still calls “the very interesting and scary part: flute performance majors took their flutes apart and put them back together daily for four days, learning how to do emergency repairs as well as routine maintenance and adjustments.”
 Photo credit: Alexa Still
Three people pose for a photo in a laboratory
First-year student Jennifer Jimenez (center) spent winter term interning for Oberlin alumna Caroline Turner (left), a PhD candidate in the lab of alumnus and MacArthur genius Richard Lenski (http://myxo.css.msu.edu/) (right) at Michigan State University. The lab’s primary focus is in examining the interactions between the evolutionary and ecological processes of E. coli, says Jimenez, and Turner’s research involves testing the effects of evolving bacteria under conditions where their growth is limited by nitrogen and carbon availability. The cultures are then filtered and the bacteria that is collected on the filters is sent off for analysis of their nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon content. Jimenez helped with this experiment by filtering the cultures and collecting the filters, and she was involved in a number of other experiments in the lab testing the growth of E. coli under certain limitations, and competing different strains of E. coli against each other in order to test their fitness.
 Photo credit: Courtesy of Jennifer Jimenez
Five people of varying ages pose for a photo on a couch
Sophomore Georgia Lederman (second from left) spent winter term just outside Rabat, Morocco's capital city, where she and another volunteer from Australia taught English to children aged 8 to 16. “The kids were enthusiastic about learning English and anxious to participate in the games and activities we taught them,” she says. “I stayed with a host family who spoke primarily Darija—Moroccan Arabic—as well as Berber. During the three weeks I was able to communicate with certain Moroccans using French, though French is primarily a language used in higher institutions and in government. I am eager to learn more about Morocco and how language plays a role in maintaining existing power dynamics.”
 Photo credit: Courtesy of Georgia Lederman
Many children site cross-legged with violins in front of them
Three string students—fourth years Josie Davis, violin and sociology, and Jamie Feldman, cello, and second year Sophie Davis, violin and environmental studies—spent winter term in India serving a residency with the Child’s Play (India) Foundation (http://www.childsplayindia.org/). Their experiences— which included teaching music to children at an orphanage, the Hamara School (above), playing with a string quartet, and directing a children’s orchestra—are chronicled and illustrated with many more photos on the Conservatory of Music’s tumblr (http://oberlinconservatory.tumblr.com/search/india). Grown from an idea to travel and use music as a form of cultural exchange, the project developed through consultation with faculty and staff in the conservatory, among others, and was funded in part by a Conservatory Initiative Grant (http://new.oberlin.edu/office/creativity/funding-opportunities/cigsie/). “We are blessed to study at a place that supports creativity and nurtures curiosity,” the three wrote in their last blog entry.
 Photo credit: Courtesy of Josie Davis
A man films four people while four others observe and take photos
Visiting Assistant Professor of German Paul Schick organized and sponsored the interdepartmental on-campus group winter-term project Opera Lab 2014: Ancients and Moderns. The project reimagined a hitherto undramatized story from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, “Iphis and Ianthe,” as a jazz “impropera” (improvised opera), newly composed by Shea Pierre ’14 and performed and sung by conservatory students. Students enrolled in the project developed the piece collaboratively, guided by Schick, classics professors Tom Van Nortwick and Kirk Ormand, and Professor of Advanced Improvisation and Percussion Jamey Haddad. The impropera, titled Iphis/Ianthe, was videotaped—a photo from the shoot, above, captured Regina Larre Campuzano ’14, Schick, Francesca Shipsey ’14, videographer Ted Sikora, Althea Bock-Hughes ’15, Jeremy Harr ’15, Jenna Bergstraesser ’14, Michelle Ellison ’14, and assistant videographer Joe Rebouda. Participants originally planned to post the video online. However, after looking at the rough footage, the cast and crew found it “frankly stunning,” says Schick. “We'd now like to pursue the film festival circuit as an outlet for the video, which would I think postpone the online and blog route we’d envisioned. It's become a little more than we’d even hoped for!”
 Photo credit: John Seyfried
Two people perform on stage, with one singing and the other playing keyboard
A person placing a plank of bread in a large brick oven
Five people seated around a table filled with craft supplies, beside a piano
Three people pose for a photo in a laboratory
Five people of varying ages pose for a photo on a couch
Many children site cross-legged with violins in front of them
A man films four people while four others observe and take photos

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