op-ed: grinnell flips the bird

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Eva Hill, Editor in Chief I really don’t know why or how I ended up at the first S&B meeting of my first year at Grinnell; probably, there’s something to be said there for my eighteen-year-old self’s enthusiasm for joining any and every club and organization I could, despite a promise I’d made to myself to do less in college than I had in high school. I can tell you that I didn’t have any grand designs for a journalistic career, although the idea of being paid for my writing certainly

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Page 1: Op-Ed: Grinnell Flips the Bird

Eva Hill, Editor in ChiefI really don’t know why or how I ended up at the first S&Bmeeting of my first year at Grinnell; probably, there’ssomething to be said there for my eighteen-year-old self’senthusiasm for joining any and every club and organization Icould, despite a promise I’d made to myself to do less incollege than I had in high school. I can tell you that Ididn’t have any grand designs for a journalistic career,although the idea of being paid for my writing certainly

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appealed.

Still, since then, I’ve been consistently grateful for andsurprised by the unique opportunities I’ve had working for theS&B. It’s rare to be in a position of managing 30-plus fellowstudents in a professional capacity in an undergraduate job;even rarer is finding a place that respects my creative workenough to develop and edit it seriously for public viewing.This has been a hard job, a strange job, and above all, aweird and wonderful experience that has shaped my Grinnellexperience over the course of four ever-changing years.

It’s been an alien experience for me to look back on my timeat the S&B and write it down, almost as if I’m recordingmyself for an article. It was as if an occult hand had pulledme to the other side of the curtain that had so strictlyseparated me, in this one way, from the rest of the studentbody. On this end of the microphone, as it were, I’m not surewhat to say; nothing that can fit in a half or full tabloidpage could summarize what it’s been like to work here during atumultuous national election, a College presidential turnover,a pandemic, and the dozens of smaller upheavals that have beenmy day-to-day work-drivers for years now.

So, as my final sign-off for the time being, I think I’ll justsay this:

Your media is made by people, in good faith or bad, in honestreproduction of facts or not. It’s up to you to approach whatyou’re told with a critical eye, a skeptical ear, and aboveall, a sense of curiosity.

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College launches free townshuttle programBy Eva [email protected]

Students looking for a way to get around town after class nowhave a new option: the Grinnell College downtown shuttle. TheCollege- operated shuttle bus makes an hourly round trip eachhour from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday fromthe Noyce science center to downtown, then stopping at grocerystores and dollar stores on the way to and from Walmart,ending with one more downtown stop before returning to 8thAve. Students, faculty and staff can all travel on the shuttlefree of charge by showing their Pioneer One- Card to thedriver.

The shuttle bus began operating on Wednesday, March 2, and

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will continue on its current schedule until further notice,including on the upcoming spring break.

Riders who take the shuttle to a given location do notnecessarily need to take the return route as well, andlikewise the bus is available to pick people up for a ridehome after they’ve walked or taken other transportation to astop.

Because many of the shuttle stops are on Highway 146, the mainroad in and out of Grinnell, it’s easy to use the bus to getto urgent care services, auto centers, banks, salons and otheramenities, not to mention walking trails and restaurants.

The shuttle offers greater flexibility in its hours than theCollege-subsidized PeopleRides shuttle that makes a one-hourround trip to Walmart around noon each weekday. However, sincethe College shuttle currently only operates after class hoursand from Wednesday to Saturday, for midday trips or earlier inthe week, the PeopleRides bus, which costs $5 roundtrip(tickets available in the Student Affairs office on the thirdfloor of the JRC) may still be the best option.

Facilities Management is seeking feedback on the shuttle andhow it can best serve students. For more information on theshuttle, visit here.

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Graphic by Shabana Gupta.

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Grinnell’s debate unionunpacks human/AI marriageBy Eva [email protected]

From “Blade Runner” to “Her,” “Black Mirror” to “Made forLove,” artists and scientists alike have long been fascinatedby the potential for human beings to form romantic bonds withartificial intelligence (AI). But how would the social andlegal complexities of a human/AI relationship play out in thereal world?

That’s the question the Grinnell College Debate Union soughtto answer in an open debate last Tuesday evening, Feb. 16:should human beings be allowed to marry AI? The Valentine’sDay-inspired event involved two teams of two debaters each,David Dai `23 and Filip Matic `24 for the proposition (infavor of the idea) and Meredith Benjamin `24 and EleanorCorbin `24 for the opposition (against). (Editor’s note:Eleanor Corbin is a news editor for the S&B)

And while the question may initially seem simple — orunnecessary — the debaters’ questions depicted a much deeperand more complex world of philosophical, moral and legalarguments surrounding human/AI relationships that prod atprescient issues of gender, class, consent, power dynamics andfamily structures. The debaters noted afterwards that for theaudience-oriented debate, the club thought it would beinteresting to have gender-separated teams arguing on asubject that plays on many gender dynamics. It’s typical forthe group to assign roles in each argument, meaning thatdebaters’ points are focused more on making the best and mostlogical argument rather than reflecting their personal views.

“Especially with controversial topics, we make sure it

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[assignment of roles] is completely random,” Dai said.

Dai opened the debate with a timed seven-minute statement thattouched on marriage as a human right for AI that aresufficiently advanced to be able to form human relations, thenmoved on to the therapeutic and practical potential ofhuman/AI marriages and protection for humanoid AIs undernondiscrimination laws. Corbin countered with a statement ofthe same length arguing that marriage to an AI would befraught with consent issues, not least that someone who wantsto marry an AI could program it to be unable to reject them.Further, Corbin asked, can AI beings be considered able towillingly consent to anything at all — or can only theprogrammers who created them do that?

“It gets us right up against both things that we feel reallypassionate about, things that remain kind of unanswerable evenabout us, let alone about them,” said Professor KarlaErickson, sociology, on the questions of human rights and freewill for AI. Erickson is a feminist ethnographer of labor whois currently working on an upcoming book, “Messy Humans: ASociology of Human/Machine Relations,” which will explorehuman interactions with technology and the social effects ofAI in human life.

“We don’t really understand where our own sentience comesfrom, and it makes it very hard for us to assess the value ofanother kind of sentience,” Erickson said. “Especially when wedon’t know where ours comes from.”

Legal issues of considering AI as human beings are extremelycomplicated when considering marriage as a human ritual,Benjamin argued in a later portion of the debate. Somequalities of AI could make any human/AI marriage vulnerable toannulment: If multiple people marry AI based on the sameprogram, is that bigamy? If a person marries an AI based ontechnology that is only a few years old, even if the AItechnically has the intelligence of an adult, is that child

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marriage?

Meanwhile, Matic argued that with the assumption of an AI soadvanced a human could fall in love with it, the program wouldneed to allow it to withdraw consent, ask for a divorce, andpractice other abilities to reject requests similar to humans.It’s a point that illustrates an issue that Erickson describesas “almost tautological”: if AI are equivalent to humans, theyshould have human rights, and if they have human rights, theymust be able to reject other humans — so if a person whowanted to marry an AI was doing so because they didn’t want tomarry a human, what would happen if and when the AI rejectedthem too?

The debating union will continue to hold open debates oncampus in the coming weeks, as well as attend an off-campustournament (possibly traveling to New York this semester forone such competition).

“We’re going to try to make them [the open debates] asrelevant as possible,” Benjamin about picking topics todebate. “It’s actually easier to pick ideas when we have somesort of parameter.”

The Grinnell College Debate Union meets at 7 p.m. on Tuesdaysand Thursdays each week. Students interested in joining theclub can email [email protected] or talk to Professor MarkBaechtel, anthropology, who advises the student debaters.

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Leah Reuber to leave Grinnellfor Kenyon CollegeEva [email protected]

Leah Reuber, current associate director of residence life atGrinnell College, will depart for a position at Kenyon Collegein Gambier, Ohio next month. Reuber’s exit is the latest in aseries of staff departures from Residence Life, followingresidence life coordinators (RLCs) Jacob Ferguson and TylerHoenig leaving the College in the fall 2021 and spring 2022semesters, respectively.

RLCs fulfill a critical role on campus as the sole non-studentworkers to live in College dorms and provide direct support tostudents. Grinnell’s dorm system is designed to work with five

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RLCs. Currently there are two. Reuber and Ben Newhouse, deanof students and associate vice president of student affairs,have been taking over some RLC duties on top of their regularjob responsibilities in an attempt to make up for the unfilledposition.

“It had gotten to the point where it was untenable,” saidReuber on her decision to leave the job. “I’ve worked here formore years than most RLCs work here. And there was no time toreally recover from burnout. And it was getting to the pointwhere it’s not healthy for my physical or mental health. … Ineeded to make a decision that was more appropriate formyself.”

Reuber has worked at the College since 2015, first as an RLC,then assistant director of residence life (while still workingas an RLC) and finally in her current position of associatedirector. However, as mentioned above, the Residence Lifestaffing shortages mean that she’s continued to carry out RLCduties even after officially being given another title.

Director of Residence Life Dennis Perkins said in a previousinterview with the S&B that the shortage of RLCs on campus washaving a direct impact on the department’s ability to carryout its responsibilities to students.

Reuber holds a similar view. “When you’re in staffingshortages, you focus on what are the central, key health andsafety things, and the other stuff falls to the wayside,” shesaid. “You only have so many hours in a week to be able to doyour position and do it well. … It’s not necessarily the faultof anybody. It’s just the position you’re in and what you doand what you can do within that framework and environment.”

It had gotten to the point where it was untenable… I’veworked here for more years than most RLCs work here. Andthere was no time to really recover from burnout. And it wasgetting to the point where it’s not healthy for my physical

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or mental health. … I needed to make a decision that was moreappropriate for myself. – Leah Reuber, assosiate director ofresidence life

Reuber cited a desire for a working environment with adifferent approach to student life as one reason for moving toKenyon.

“My personal and professional values are really aroundsupporting students in a way that challenges them, and alsoencourages them to be their best selves. … The institutionthat I’m going to has a different emphasis on that, that Ifind more appropriate for my approach to supporting studentsand being in Student Affairs,” she said.

Asked if Grinnell has the ability to create a similarstructure for its students, Reuber said that she thinks it’s“completely achievable” — with the right work in the rightplaces.

“I think there needs to be a hard pause with a lot of peoplein the room,” she said. “I don’t think a lot of people are onthe same page about practice and application and theory. … Thepractice and the theory don’t always line up. The way it hasto happen and the way it should happen, or you want it tohappen, aren’t necessarily always the same thing.”

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Grinnell College initiatesmore restrictive COVID-19prevention protocols asspring semester beginsBy Eva [email protected]

Grinnell College President Anne Harris announced in an all-campus email on Jan. 12 that additional COVID-19 safetyrestrictions will come into effect at the start of the spring2022 semester.

The College had previously informed students, faculty, andstaff that N95, KN95, or equally effective masks would become

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mandatory on campus starting in January (a divergence fromprevious rules that permitted surgical and cloth masks) andthat booster shots for the COVID-19 vaccine would be mandatoryfor everyone eligible for them. The Jan. 12 email notesadditional safety measures: D-Hall meal service will berestricted to “Grab-and-Go” only, with students being able toselect “preferred meal options”, and students will be expectedto form informal social “pods” of five or so people, outsideof which they should plan to avoid unmasked social gatherings.

“In short,” Harris wrote in the all-campus email, “find a podthat meets your needs for social connection, as well as healthand safety. Additionally, your pod can evolve as needed toserve the goals of this effort most effectively.”

Students arriving back on campus for the spring semester willbe required to be tested for COVID-19 at a Harris Center testclinic that will offer tests on Jan. 21 and 22, then at asecond round of testing at the center on Jan. 25 and 26.

For any students who are eligible for a booster vaccine doseand have not yet received one, the College will host a Pfizerbooster clinic in partnership with Hy-Vee on Jan. 28.Registration details will be sent out in an upcoming email,Harris wrote. The College is requiring all eligible studentsto have received the booster dose by or on Jan. 28; Harriswrote that faculty and staff were required to do the same byJan. 7.

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per a College press release and separate all-campus email onJan. 11. The position was vacated by current College PresidentAnne Harris in spring of 2020, and has been held since then byDean Elaine Marzluff in an interim capacity. Montgomery willtake over duties of the role beginning in July of 2022, theCollege press release said.

Dr. Beronda L. Montgomery currentlyworks at Michigan State University’sCollege of Natural Science.

Montgomery is a professor at Michigan State University’sCollege of Natural Science MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory,and does research in the biochemistry and molecular biologyand microbiology and molecular genetics departments. She isthe author of the 2021 book “Lessons from Plants,” a study of

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plant behavior and what humans can learn from it with regardsto adaptation and social development. Montgomery has receivednumerous awards for her work, including a National ScienceFoundation CAREER award and an American Association for theAdvancement of Science fellowship.

Comic: Snek[bws_pdfprintby Eva [email protected]

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Op-Ed: Grinnell Flips theBirdby Eva [email protected]

It’s now been over two months since Bird electric app-sharescooters arrived in Grinnell. In a city with little to nooptions for public transit, the presence of the scooters wasnoticeable for many and exciting for some. But how much canthe company, which is trialing the scooters in Grinnell for ayear, actually help with what is overall a major issue ofinfrastructure and accessibility within the city? Personally,I’m not convinced the scooters will do much for the communityin the long run — if they even stay around.

I was skeptical at first about the scooters’ usefulness andthe effect they could have on public accessibility inGrinnell. Several years ago, I was living in the Boston areaduring the rise of Lime bikes, a fleet of bright-greenconventional and electric “dockless” bikes that promised aneasier bikeshare experience than that of traditional dock-linked bikes from Bluebikes (creative company names areclearly a key facet of the industry).

And it’s true that dockless bikes and scooters have a hugeadvantage over their docked compatriots. Being able to pick upand park a bike anywhere in the city is certainly moreconvenient than having to seek out a designated bike station —and more than one Bostonian took full advantage of thatconvenience and chose to deposit their bike post-ride in theCharles River.

(Ah, Boston. I do miss you).

But dockless vehicles also pose a much greater risk toaccessibility in public spaces, as they rely on their users’

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willingness to take the few extra seconds to park alongside asidewalk or ramp instead of across it. Bird seems to beattempting to mitigate this problem by making users photographtheir parked bike in order to end their rides, as well asadding a small (and, honestly, easy-to-miss) “NO RIDING ONSIDEWALKS” instruction printed on the side of the scooterbody.

But I wanted to know: does the Bird experience outpace thepotential problems? Scooters have a special place in my heart,bringing back fond memories of the beat-up Razor scooter thatwas my favorite form of transportation in elementary school,as well as its tendency to partially disassemble itselfspontaneously and grind a shower of sparks from the sidewalknotwithstanding. So could Grinnell’s public transit issue besolved with one fleet of elegant monochrome space-agerechargeable scooters?

(The short answer is no. The long answer is also no, but withmore citations.)

My first attempt at a Bird scooter ride was in late August,shortly after the start of classes. I needed to drop a fewthings off at the JRC and head back home; surely, I thought,this would be an ideal short ride to try out a scooter and seehow it worked — right?

Wrong.

Like many other students, I quickly discovered that connectionand battery issues were rampant among the scooters during thatweek. Curious as to how these problems could have come about,I discovered that Bird generally relies on gig workers tomaintain, collect, and charge the scooters. But in Grinnell,the city with up to one Uber, that model is less than ideal,so Bird has to send a regional employee into the area once ina while to reorganize and charge the scooters. It’s just oneway in which putting a big-city transportation concept into a

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much smaller community has run into roadblocks so far.

A few weeks later, I started to see fellow students taking theBirds around town, so I decided to make another attempt.Leaving D-Hall one day, I was elated to discover that I couldnow unlock any one of the several scooters parked outside. NowI too could take a motorized trip around Grinnell and/orcosplay as a tech bro for the low price of $1 to start plus 39cents per minute (more on that in a second). I scanned in thecode of one scooter leaning jauntily against the wall of theJRC, read the app’s disclaimer about helmets and not parkingon sidewalks, and set off to McNally’s in search of a packetof frozen spinach.

My first impression of the scooter? Wiggly. They’re harder tocontrol than I expected, and there’s a definite learning curveto using the accelerator on the right handlebar. Also, they’rereally not ideal for carrying anything other than a backpackworn with both straps on; my attempt at putting my shoppingbag on the handlebars, though technically successful, wasnerve wracking and didn’t help my efforts to have a morestable ride.

Grinnell has yet to see a major scooter accident, but I worrythat it may not be long before one happens. The app remindsusers to wear a helmet, but the whole scan-and-go modelof dockless scooter-shares means that most people won’t have ahelmet on them when they come across a scooter. E-scooterinjuries are already being reported in Cedar Rapids, someminor and some life-threatening, and though the Bird app alsosays to ride in bike lanes, Grinnell really doesn’t have asafe way to ride on most roads — most don’t even have asufficient shoulder to bike or scooter next to cars. Thescooters also have no shock absorption other than the tiresthemselves, at least that I could see, so riding on sidewalksis often bumpy and jittery, making it easier for riders tolose control. They go fast enough that I worry a major jostlecould cause an accident for an unprepared rider (I managed to

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get one scooter to go 19.7 miles per hour the other day;others topped out at 16 or 18 depending on the terrain).

And then there’s the cost. A 13-minute round trip last weekendcame to $7.55 for me, for less than one mile each way. The $1startup cost means that short trips add up quickly, and longertrips, as previously noted, run into the issues with sidewalkand roadside riding.

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the scooter rides I’ve takenso far, because I did; they’re fun, fast, and easy, much lessof a hassle than unlocking my bike and then finding a place topark and lock up again. I’ll probably use them again, too,perpetually two minutes late for things as I tend to be. Butas a long-term solution to Grinnell’s car-centric transportmodel? I just don’t see it. There’s also the question ofwhether the scooters will even stick around. Bird is inGrinnell right now on a one-year trial conducted separate fromthe oversight of the city administration, so it’ll be up tothe company whether or not they continue offering service inGrinnell.

But e-scooters do show signs of being the future of app-sharevehicles as long as the model is viable. Even Lime, operatorof the unintentionally amphibious bikes, announced in2020 that it was shuttering its bikeshare model in Boston infavor of focusing on scooters instead. So who knows? Maybe oneday we’ll all be taking scooters to and from work. But forthat to happen, at least a few kinks need ironing out first.

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Grinnell College looks aheadto the Downtown StudentResidence projectBy Eva [email protected]

In spite of a locally and globally tumultuous year, GrinnellCollege continues to focus on visions for the future. One ofthem, the Downtown Student Residence project, or DSR, willhave a significant impact on how students and communitymembers experience Grinnell in a few years’ time.

The College began investigating the need for additionalstudent housing in 2014 as enrollment rose, straining space inexisting dorms in North, South and East Campus. But thesolution the school came to was not to build another

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traditional dorm complex on campus; in fact, it wasn’t even oncampus.

Instead, the project currently under design is a newresidential building in Grinnell’s downtown.

“In a residential hall on campus, you know the shared networkof programs you can have on campus,” said Russell Crader,associate principal architect at Adjaye Associates, the firmpartnering with the College on the DSR project. But, hecontinued, “If you have a downtown student residence, can youhave programs shared with small businesses or other communitymoments?”

Crader emphasized the importance of these “symbioticrelationships” between College and community in the designconcept for the project. Residents of the building will haveeasier access to downtown Grinnell than students who live indorms, while still being in an institutional living spaceowned and operated by the College. The living spacesthemselves won’t be traditional dorm rooms, either; Craderdescribed them as more designed for independent student livingin the downtown setting. Further supporting the cross-trafficof school and local business will be the building’s firstfloor, intended to house community-oriented multi-use spacesas well as including a Residence Life Coordinator living suiteand two suites for faculty members as well.

And despite the off-campus location, Crader says the buildingwill include nods to elements of the currently existing dorms.One example is the loggias, the covered walkways that connectthe individual dorm entrances on campus. “The loggias serve asthis … threshold between very private dwelling to the quad,the green space,” he said. “Likewise [with the DSR project]we’re looking at that threshold again.”

Adjaye Associates is known for its innovative, thematicbuildings, the most famous being the National Museum of

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African-American History & Culture in Washington, D.C.,finished in 2016 and designed in partnership with the FreelonGroup and Davis Brody Bond, two other major firms. The Collegeannounced that administrators were meeting with Adjaye in thefall of 2019, and shortly afterward the project’s “listeningphase” opened to students. Adjaye representatives, includingCrader, met with students to discuss their individual ideas ofhome and residence in and outside the College during thisperiod, which lasted into 2020.

Usually, Crader said, an architectural design project hasthree major phases. First is schematic design, where thearchitects and clients determine the fundamentals of thebuilding project and the goals of the final physicalstructure. Then comes design development, where architectsfine-tune the design of the building and determine physicalqualities of the space, like building materials, access tonatural light and airflow between rooms. The third and finalphase is the creation of construction documents for theproject, where exact measurements of the building itself arefinalized.

However, for the College project, Adjaye Associates added ontwo more phases to the beginning of the project: the listeningphase discussed above, and an additional “programming” phase,where Crader and others from the firm investigated an existingdorm to consider the potential for events and studentinteraction in the new space.

The project is currently in the schematic design phase, Cradersaid, with the expectation of moving to design development atthe start of the summer.

“We put the concept out, and we’re now testing it to see ifwhat we heard and what’s being put to paper is meetingexpectations,” he said.

There are no exact dates in place for the actual construction

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of the project, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made anyexisting timelines more uncertain, but Adjaye Associatesindicated in an open meeting on the building design thatground may be broken within the next few years.

Vidush GoswamiBy Eva [email protected]

When asked about the formative experiences of his time atGrinnell, Vidush Goswami ’21 first named an activity he hadn’tplanned on being such a large part of his college life:planning and putting on major cultural events for the Collegecommunity.

“That’s not something I’d done before coming to Grinnell,” hesaid. But when he and some friends organized a Diwalicelebration in his second year with help and funding from SGAand the Office of International Student Affairs, it drove himto get more involved with cultural student organizations. Now,Goswami will leave the College having held various cabinet

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positions in those groups during his time at Grinnell,including being the secretary for the South Asian StudentOrganization (SASO) and treasurer for the InternationalStudent Organization (ISO) in his third year and the secretaryfor ISO in his fourth year.

So what’s the appeal he finds in putting together large-scaleevents?

“I do enjoy putting all the moving parts together, there is acertain joy that comes to that, but I think at the end of theday what matters is seeing how happy it makes other people,”he said. “Because if it’s centered around food or culture orperformances, or just a ritual kind of celebration, it sort ofreminds people of home and creates a sense of community andbelonging, which I think is really special. Just seeing thatdevelop in the people that show up, that’s a pretty rewardingfeeling.”

Looking back, Goswami says he wishes he’d engaged with theorganizations he worked for even earlier in his time atGrinnell. “[Getting involved with SASO and ISO] really helpedme a lot personally, just in terms of personal growth andexpanding my social circle and developing into a better-equipped person for the world.”

He sees the College’s student cultural organizations as afocal point for community-building, particularly amonginternational students. “There’s a common sense of belonging,there’s a sense of community, and I think that’s prettyimportant,” he said. “I’m from India, and in Iowa there’s nota lot of places you can go to experience Indian culture, soit’s one of the only places you can have that sense of feelingat home.”

He also noted the importance of ISO as a place forinternational students to share common experiences and adjustto arrival at Grinnell: “International students have a bunch

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of different experiences, but there are also a lot ofcommonalities between international students. I feel likebeing part of these organizations helps you recognize thoseand feel more comfortable, especially when you’re first comingto Grinnell.”

Goswami is double-majoring in computer science and politicalscience at Grinnell – another previously unexpected experiencefor him. He entered the school intending only to major incomputer science, but began taking political science classeshis first year out of interest.

“I was four classes in and I realized I could pretty muchcomplete the major, and I had only been taking classes thatwere interesting to me,” he said. Goswami appreciated havingthe variety of

coursework and teaching between STEM and social scienceclasses, particularly the exposure to different ideas and waysof thinking within the disciplines.

It’s an academic path of discovery that was made possible bythe liberal-arts model he says, and looking back he’s glad tohave had that opportunity. “I think it’s really important toget a sense of how the world works outside of your area ofinterest,”.

After graduation, Goswami will be heading to Des Moines for asoftware engineering job at an insurance company where hepreviously interned. In the long term, he hopes to use bothhis technical and social science knowledge by becoming atechnology policy advisor.

In the end, Goswami sees his time at Grinnell as marked byexperiences of community and exploration. “I couldn’t havedone it without my friends…everyone should have their core setof friends who are with them through thick and thin, and therewhen you need them.”

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Jackson BreshearsBy Eva [email protected]

For Jackson Breshears ’21, the core of the Grinnell experiencecomes down to one thing: community.

“I think it’s a super special thing here in Grinnell, havingso many different, eclectic, fun, cool people coming in to thesame small town … being able to get to know one another andinteract,” he said.

A basketball player who’s been on the College team since hisfirst year at Grinnell, Breshears said he made an effort tobranch out into other activities as well. He joined otherextracurricular and athletic groups throughout his time atGrinnell, saying that his favorite part of the experience was“meeting people from a greater community” in each new activityhe tried.

And the ability to find new communities wasn’t limited to non-academic activities for Breshears: when he decided before thestart of his third year that he wanted to go to medical schoolafter graduation, the resulting new classes he began to takebecame a strong new source of community.

“I completely flipped my schedule around a few days beforeclasses started in the fall,” he said, of the year he decidedto prepare to go to medical school. “My first class was thisgen chem class with a bunch of first years, and from therethey’ve pretty much become some of my best friends. … It’sfostered a really cool community that I’m super thankful to bea part of.”

Breshears continued to work on his pre-med requirements forthe following semesters, and eventually completed all but tworequired courses. Although he’d taken full advantage of the

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open curriculum in his first two years at the College andtried out courses in many different subjects (he initiallythought he might be a political science major), he said thathis decision to go into medicine was one he’d been consideringfor a long time.

The medical field has many draws for Breshears; to list a few,he said, “I love spending time with people, I love being therefor people, because I appreciate it when people are there forme and I’d want to do the same for them and I just think thescientific aspect is super interesting.”

This summer, Breshears will be living in Grinnell and trainingas an EMT in Des Moines, with the intention of working as anEMT later on while he finishes his pre-med requirements. It’sa little extra time he’ll get to spend in the College and towncommunity – although, as Breshears learned this year, you canmake a community anywhere

Breshears’s brother also attends Grinnell, and he says thatalthough they’d previously lived more independently of eachother, things changed once the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

“We decided that we wanted to stick together for the year, andso we ended up going to a small, really rural town in Virginiaand staying at one of our friends’ farmhouses there,” he said.

Breshears says the group of friends they were staying withwere second years at Grinnell, so he previously didn’t knowall of them especially well. But through the unexpectedcircumstances that resulted in the group living together, hesaid, “I got to know a lot of these other guys that I wouldn’thave necessarily been as close to before. … It really turnedinto an amazing situation.”

Back in Grinnell now, Breshears reflected that he and the restof the class of 2021 never really got a normal end to theirthird or fourth year, and as a result, he said, he’s glad tohave the summer ahead in the local area instead of immediately

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moving somewhere else. “I’ll be more ready to say goodbye atthe end of the summer,” he said.

I Just Like Rocks, Okay?By Eva [email protected]

I’ve loved semiprecious stones – or “rocks and minerals,” asmy favorite Scholastic Book Fair hardback referred to them –since I can remember. The East Coast of the United States,where I grew up, had plenty to offer: thick chunks ofglittering mica, rough mottled pink granite, pale quartz ovalsand dark-grey slate slabs were an endless fascination for me

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on hikes and camping trips. A family friend also owned a rocktumbler, a rotating cylindrical box filled with stones andgrit that, when spun for a day or longer, gave the stonepieces a near-mirror polish. I found those tumbled stones evenmore interesting. Their polished surfaces allowed a closerinspection of hairline fractures and fissures within the stoneand even views into the interior of the piece for clearminerals like quartz, whose surface is cloudy when the stoneis rough.

During the pandemic, though, there’s been little opportunityfor me to go find rocks on beaches or mountains in my hometownin suburban Massachusetts. So, in a development unexpected tomyself and mystifying to everyone else in my family, I foundmy way into the online semiprecious stone world this pastwinter. But that’s not how most people know it: when thesubjects in question are carved or polished rocks, most peoplecall them crystals.

Amethyst andamazonite spheres.This amethyst isconsidered “gemmy”because its highclarity would makeit possible to cutthe stone into

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transparent jewels.In sphere form, it’sfull of refractiveplanes that makerainbows form insidethe stone. Theamazonite, a type offeldspar, hascharacteristic ringsof white shimmerinside the sea-greenstone. Photo by EvaHill.

Spiritual and “wellness”-related use of crystals is a massiveindustry among both mainstream and fringe groups with new-agespiritual leanings; I think most people remember GwynethPaltrow’s infamous yoni eggs, and it’s hard to find a beautyretailer that doesn’t sell some kind of facial massager madefrom stone, or some more dubiously useful gemstone products.My hesitancy to engage in a wider collector’s community camefrom the severe human rights violations involved in themining, processing and sale of gemstones. Many stones comeonly from certain parts of the world, and the crystal boom hasmeant that large distributors and suppliers have been tryingto source as much as they can as cheaply as they can – and, asit often does, this approach means that child slavery, forcedlabor, dangerous work conditions and environmental damage arerampant. All of the products linked in the first half of thisparagraph are almost certainly linked to these issues, giventhe scale of the companies selling them and the lack of anyethical statement on the sale page.

It is possible, with enough research, to find ethical small-scale sellers of semiprecious stones. Generally, if a sellerworks closely with a small number of independent mine ownersand artisans, and they know where and how their stones are

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being mined, polished and carved, and their prices don’t seemtoo good to be true, that’s as close as it’s possible to getto being sure the stones are ethically produced without miningthem yourself. But my concerns with the “crystal wellness”world extend beyond the stones themselves.

The central idea of crystal healing and spirituality is thatthe crystals vibrate at frequencies that “balance” or“cleanse” spiritual centers within the body. I have noparticular problem with this belief on its own, although Idon’t personally subscribe to it. However, my own history withmental illness leads me to be highly skeptical of any practicethat suggests there’s a simple fix for depression, anxiety,insomnia, or any other mental condition. Some of the limitedresearch on crystal healing indicates that any positive effectof crystal use comes from the placebo effect, which to meholds the risk of a real danger.

I’m not a stranger to nontraditional treatment methods,either; mindfulness meditation, which I wrote about in my now-defunct S&B wellness column over two years ago, forms afoundational part of my own mental self-care. But thedifference is that mindfulness is supported by replicablescientific studies – all available reputable research oncrystals, on the other hand, points to belief as the solecause of effectiveness.

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A slab ofLabrodorite, apopular crystalknown for itsiridescentproperties. On thishalf-polished slab,the polished sideallows a view intothe layerediridescence inside.Photo by Eva Hill.

At this point, you’re probably wondering why I even botherlurking in the online gemstone world the way I’ve done thisyear – and to be honest, so am I, sometimes. I’ll say thatit’s been interesting and educational to be able to observeother people’s participation in this culture or community, andalso oddly freeing to have a place where it’s perfectly normalto talk about a particular area of blue iridescence on a pieceof labradorite. My relationship to gemstones and stones ingeneral has stayed much the same; I’m still primarilyfascinated by the intricate structural individuality of eachrock, the way none of them are exactly the same. For me, assomeone who likes to focus my meditation practice on a real-world visual, they’re effective aids in the same way that a

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white noise track and a well-organized space are.

Despite my initial ignorance and subsequent lack of belief inthe healing properties of individual stones, I do think that Iuse gemstones as a component of how I take care of myself,even if it’s not in the “traditional” way. But that doesn’t domuch to quell my worries that some believers may try to usecrystals as their first or only solution to mental – orphysical – health problems, much less the certainty that manybuyers won’t do their research before starting a collection,resulting in a human cost much higher than anything a chunk ofpolished tourmaline could fix.

Any opinions expressed through columns and other S&B opinionspublications belong to the writer and do not reflect the viewsof any or all members of The S&B staff, nor by any Grinnellassociated organization.