February 10, 2012
What made you decide to join the army, and did “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” give you reservations about joining the service?
I joined because I saw Saving Private Ryan and Forrest Gump and a couple of other movies. That was really all it took. … My brother actually wanted to go to West Point and had a brochure for it that he left on the coffee table. He got a nomination but didn’t finish the application because there were so many white people at the school. He told me that WP stands for wh...
Allegra Kirkland, News Editor
November 11, 2011
Filed under NEWS, Off the Cuff
Did you do any farming-related activities when you were younger or did you not get into it until college?
I worked at George Jones in high school. It was going abroad and seeing a rainforest [in Costa Rica] that made me know I wanted to do agriculture. It’s a way to balance the universe with the human world that we need to get back to.
What was the inspiration for the sheep lawn mowing service in general and why did you decide to start it here?
Well I basically chose sheep because my ex-girlfriend thought that they were cute. We had this plan to go in on it together. Last year after county-fair time it was like, “Well, the onions are harvested, the peppers are going down, the tomatoes are going down — w...
Rosemary Boeglin, News Editor
November 4, 2011
Filed under NEWS, Off the Cuff
Can you tell me a little bit about the work that you do and how you were inspired to do it?
Now I’m making documentary films. I also do presentations, write and do photography, so I try to combine all of those to create a cohesive message about homeless children and family. That’s kind of my overall focus. I was inspired by just working with school districts and trying to get them to implement theMcKinney-Ventol Homeless Assistance Act. It’s a homeless education act. I became aware that there is a serious lack of understanding about homelessness in schools and began to wonder if there was anything I could do about it. This film, which is my first, was my solution. I wanted to create a film where the kids...
Liv Combe, Editor-in-Chief
October 14, 2011
Filed under NEWS, Off the Cuff
What was it like working [as managing editor] at the Review back in the 70s?
I only worked there the last year and a half while I was at Oberlin, and I fell into it sort of by accident. It changed my life. The editor at the time was a woman named Jenny Siebens [OC ’72]. Jenny went to Columbia Journalism School afterwards and she ended up ultimately working at CBS news and spent many years as a bureau chief in Los Angeles… Jenny and I were friends, she was a year or two years ahead of me.
What happened, and it really did change my life, was I wrote one story — it was about insurance or something, I don’t remember — but the second story I ever wrote for the Review said that the CIA was coming to campus ...
October 7, 2011
How did you guys start working here? Were you students at the College?
Josh: I grew up around here, in this town outside Vermilion, but I started hanging out in Oberlin when I was in high school because there isn’t a lot going on around here.
Tyler: I grew up around here too. I actually went to Firelands High School. I knew a lot of people who worked here.
Josh: Yeah and you skated with Kyle, who used to be a bartender here. You pretty much have to be related to someone to get a job her...
Erica Reyes, Staff Writer
October 7, 2011
Filed under Features, NEWS, Off the Cuff
Mudd Circulation Desk: An interview with College junior Piper Stull-Lane
How do you stay awake?
Well, usually when I work a shift in the evening, I schedule it so that it’s directly after a late night class, so I’m already kind of wired. Otherwise, coffee always helps. It’s kind of worth it, because people usually don’t like the late night shifts, so that’s a way to get extra hours. [You get paid more] during special times, like during finals [or] when the library is open all night. You get paid for working the [horrible hours].
Do you have classes the morning after late night shifts? How do you balance your homework and everything else?
Yeah, I have class at nine in the morning. Usually, fortunat...
Liv Combe, Editor-in-Chief
September 23, 2011
Filed under NEWS, Off the Cuff
In 1978, you were 19 years old and you needed a summer job. Somehow you wound up at NPR?
Yeah, I talked my way into an internship. I lived in Baltimore and NPR was in D.C. I had never heard them on the air. Nobody had ever heard them on the air, really. They were tiny, they had one national news show at that time, and it was All Things Considered. NPR only really came to exist in 1970, so it was very new and very small, and I was able to talk myself into working there for free for a summer after my freshman year of college.
Was it love at first sight with broadcast journalism?
It’s funny; I wasn’t even doing journalism at the beginning. I was in the promos department, and it wasn’t a love at first sight thin...
September 16, 2011
What are your responsibilities as the director of the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life?
[My job is] supporting campus spiritual communities, religious leaders and individuals on campus. It’s educating the campus in a broad way about religion in the world, religion and society, religious and philosophical difference in the country and the world and fostering multi-faith engagement, such as interaction between religious groups and other religious groups, or religious groups and non-religiou...
Caroline Hui, Staff Writer
May 13, 2011
Filed under Music, NEWS, Off the Cuff
How did you get your start in music and composition?
I started as a rock drummer when I was growing up in the suburbs of New York City. When I was in junior high, I wrote songs for my band, so I had started writing music before I really thought about it as a profession. In high school, when I started playing music in a classical context (in orchestras and percussion ensemble and so forth), just as I had been writing for my rock band, I wanted to write for these ensembles. I started to become aware that one could study composition and one could have a career as a composer, so I went to the Manhattan School of Music and I started studying composition.
How did you make the transition from rock music to classical ...
Staff
May 6, 2011
Filed under NEWS, Off the Cuff
Friday, April 22
12:39 p.m. Officers responded to a report of graffiti on a bench between the Kohl Building and Robertson Hall. The bench was vandalized with black marker. Facilities staff responded for cleanup.
7:02 p.m. A student reported the theft of a red hat, gray pea coat, 4G iPhone and white wallet from a bench in the men’s locker room at Philips Gym.
11:42 p.m. Officers responded to Barrows Hall upon receiving a report of an unauthorized party taking place on the first floor. Several cans of beer and one bottle of alcohol were confiscated and discarded.
Saturday, April 23
12:20 a.m. A student, ill from alcohol consumption, was transported by ambulance from Langston Hall to Mercy Allen Hospital...
Rosemary Boeglin, News Editor
May 6, 2011
Filed under NEWS, Off the Cuff
Mr. Farah, you described globalization as the “proverbial gasoline to the mix” of organized crime. Can you discuss how globalization acts to fuel the industry?
Farah: Globalization changes everything. It is the proverbial gasoline in the fire. Only this time, the fire is the information and communications revolutions. It means that organized crime on the other side of the world can get into your computer, into your bank account and into illicit flows of all kinds of contraband, from the sushi you eat, the tobacco you smoke, to the drugs that kids are using. It’s changed everything. Borders have come down; people can communicate to filtered cell phones in rural areas of east Africa. They can arrange things l...
John Light, Editor-in-Chief
April 29, 2011
Filed under NEWS, Off the Cuff
I hear from our College president that your brother went to Oberlin, and attending his Commencement weekend helped influence your decision to go into public health. What’s the story there?
D.A. Henderson was the Commencement speaker, and I heard him and I was in medical school at the time. I had been thinking about public health as an option, and Henderson was one of the co-founders of the smallpox eradication program. And I’ll talk about this at Commencement, but he kind of verified what I thought I wanted to do, which was — Wow. You can eradicate diseases off the face of the earth. You can work with people. You can do something that makes — not just as a physician, you know, in medical school you th...
