Dining Services' Fogfast donations fall short of student expectations

Dining   Services’   Fogfast
donations   fall   short  of
student expectations
Malcolm Galpern Levin
galpernl@grinnell.edu

Last semester, 785 Grinnell College students swiped their P-
Cards at scanners placed outside of the Dining Hall in support
of Fogfast, an annual Student Government Association (SGA)

fundraiser   run   in   collaboration   with   Grinnell   Dining
Services.

Fogfast was advertised to students as a way for them to donate
“the value” of a meal to Local Foods Connection (LFC). For
each of the 785 meals donated, the College donated $3.61 to
LFC for a net donation of $2,833.85 — but prices charged to
students for meal plans range from $9 for continental
breakfast to $18 for dinner.

In early November 2021, students nominated recipient
organizations to receive the donation. A later email sent to
all students on Nov. 19 from Sarah Beisner `22, SGA resources
and service coordinator, announced LFC had been chosen to
receive the donation. According to its website, LFC provides
“fresh environmentally sustainable food and          nutrition
education to Grinnell residents in need.”

Students were informed via email that they could donate one
meal, and that in return, “Dining Services will remove one
meal off your meal plan for the week and donate the value of
that meal to Local Foods Connection.”

When asked how the figure of $3.61 was determined, Director of
Dining Services Jeanette Moser wrote in an email to the S&B,
“The amount that Dining promised to donate was (and always has
been) the food cost (cost of food per person). Food is the
only cost that goes down for the donated meals; Dining/the
College must still pay wages and overhead; wages and overhead
do not decrease for that meal.”

Moser said that $3.61 is the average food cost per meal at the
College. When asked whether the College had considered
donating the price that students are charged for meal plans,
Moser wrote, “Not to my knowledge.” Moser declined multiple
requests for interview.

In October 2021, Beisner met with Moser and Kylee Funk, food
service systems administrator, to organize Fogfast for the

Fall 2021 semester.

In this meeting, Beisner said that Moser phrased the donation
amount as “the cost of a meal.” Beisner said she used the same
language when informing students about the fundraiser.

Beisner said she did not directly ask Moser prior to Fogfast
specifically how much each donated meal would equate to.

“I had some sense that in the past it hadn’t been the full
cost of the meal and there had been some conflict over that.
But I did expect it to be higher. I expected it to be closer
to the $12 that breakfast costs, instead of all the way down
at $3.61. I was expecting $7, or $8 or $9 per meal,” said
Beisner.

The S&B reached out to Eric Kasprzyk `20, who was the SGA
Service Coordinator when Fogfast last occurred in fall 2019.
In an email response, Kasprzyk wrote:

“When I was planning Fogfast in Fall 2019, concerns were
raised by other members of SGA regarding the actual amount
donated. Students had in the past questioned why the Dining
Hall was donating a fraction of the actual meal cost.”

“There were a few conversations within the Dining Committee,
and I had a personal discussion with the head of Dining over
the discrepancy. I reported back on their rationale to the SGA
cabinet, and we collectively agreed to table Fogfast for that
year while we searched for a better solution with Dining to
re-launch Fogfast the following semester. Because the pandemic
shut campus down, we were not able to complete that work.”

On Friday, Feb. 11, Beisner met with Moser to discuss
increasing the donation for Fogfast, which is scheduled to
occur again during the Spring 2022 semester.

“I was going to meet with Jeanette [Moser] again and talk to
her about getting a higher amount [donation] just because I

want students to feel like their donation is making a
difference. The more money the donation actually amounts to,
the more I think students will be inclined to donate. Plus,
it’s always nice for the community partner to get more
money.”

Following the Feb. 11 meeting, Beisner told the S&B that Moser
was not receptive to raising the donation amount for Fogfast
going forward.

Writers@Grinnell celebrates
the release of “Did We Make
It?”
By Malcolm Galpern Levin
galpernl@grinnell.edu

Students, faculty and friends gathered in the Grinnell College
Museum of Art this past Thursday, Nov. 11 for the momentous
book release celebration of “Did We Make It?,” a chapbook of
ekphrastic poetry published by Professor Ralph Savarese,
English, and Tilly Woodward, curator of academic and community
outreach at the Grinnell College Museum of Art. The creative
project, which Savarese and Woodward began working on during
the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, was published in
the “Hole In The Head Review” this past June and contains a
beautiful array of poems written in response to 13 evocative,
intriguing and finely-detailed oil paintings.

“Being an artist is lonely,” said Savarese. “Then you add the
pandemic, and how is collaboration, both an engine of
creativity, but also a way of ameliorating, lessening that
sense of being alone?”

The occasion marked the final session of Writers@Grinnell for
the fall 2021 semester. Director of Writers@Grinnell,
Associate Professor Dean Bakopoulos, English, welcomed guests
to the event and proudly introduced Savarase and Woodward.

“To be able to welcome two colleagues who’ve maintained …
nationally acclaimed creative practices in the midst of all
the work we do here is truly inspiring to me.”

Bakopoulos will be on sabbatical next semester, and will be
handing the directorship of Writers@Grinnell during the spring
over to Savarese.

Savarese is the author of three books of poems, two books of
prose and has co-edited three collections of work.

Woodward is a well-known and highly praised painter for her
hyper-realist and meticulously detailed oil paintings that
feature images of nests, fruits, flowers, hands and more.

The two creatives have known each other for years, and both
remarked on the great respect they have for one another’s
work.

“Did We Make It?” is a collaborative work that consists of a
photo collection of paintings by Woodward, and poems written
by Savarese. Savarese emphasized that each poem was a response
to Woodward’s art, rather than a description of it.

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Woodward
reached out to Savarese and asked if he would be interested in
working on an ekphrastic project together. Savarese
immediately agreed.

At the event Savarese credited his son, who had previously
produced his own chapbook of ekphrastic poetry, for supporting
him when the opportunity first presented itself and had told
him, “Dad, I think you can do this.”

By August of 2020, the project was fully underway.

When asked why she reached out to Savarese for collaboration,
Woodward said she recognized parallels between her and
Savarese’s lives, particularly their childhoods. In addition,
she was fond of the connections between their work, “both in
terms of trying to support people and lift them up and to help
them connect with being the best and fullest people that they
can be.”

At the event, Savarese began by reading from the preface of
“Did We Make It?”.

“It’s no coincidence that this volume was produced during the

pandemic. Alienated from one another, stuck in our houses or
apartments, worried about the future, we all, I think, dreamt
of bridges,” read Savarese.

Initially, Savarese says he was intimated by the “level of
craft” and detail that characterized Woodward’s paintings.

“Her paintings are so composed, so still, and yet at the same
time so dynamic and otherworldly. I was attracted to their
drama. Realism is anything but ordinary,” read Savarese from
the preface.

Savarese said he wondered if his poetry, in response, should
also have hyper-realist elements.

“I put that away and said … ‘What did these paintings do to
me, my memory and my own sense of craft?’” said Savarese.

Woodward and Savarese did not discuss the selected paintings
beforehand. Savarese chose which paintings he wanted to
respond to from Woodward’s website rather quickly, not
questioning or overthinking why he was drawn to particular
images. One by one, Savarese workshopped drafts of poems for
each painting and then shared them with Woodward for
collaboration and revision.

“What I loved about our process was that it preserved a
certain element of privacy. Each of us working alone, but then
at key moments really opened it up into something that was
generative,” said Savarese.

 “The great discovery for me,” he explained, “was learning
that by collaborating with someone, there could be less of me.
And when there was less of me, I could relax and discover new
possibilities more quickly.”

Woodward said that before reading the first drafts of
Savarese’s poetry for the project, she wondered if the
metaphors she had in mind when creating each painting had been

powerful enough to get across.

“It was uncanny to me in some ways how closely his words would
connect to things that he didn’t know or couldn’t know about
the motivations for the paintings which I think really speaks
to Ralph’s ability to craft a metaphor, to see keenly, to
process life through words, and also made me feel that what I
was investing in the paintings of myself was speaking out,
which was rewarding,” said Woodward.

“Did We Make It?” also includes a video element in which
Savarese, his son, as well as Woodward and her son, read the
poems included in the chapbook aloud in a voiceover as images
of the oil paintings fade in and out, meshing together and
overlaying one another.

Experimenting with the video aspect of the project was
something new to Woodward and explored another level of
interpretation. While Woodward would have originally been
inclined to overlay the video with a mellow musical track by a
composer like Bach, Savarese encouraged her to have a
different musical interpretation, one that was bolder.

“Here’s somebody who’s seeing, hearing, suggesting something
very, very differently, musically, than my interpretation. And
is this okay? Am I okay with that?” said Woodward.

Eventually, Woodward appreciated Savarese’s unique perspective
and the pair settled on the musical work of composer Joseph
Dangerfield.

“It’s really wonderful to have both a collaborator and also to
have a critic whose ideas and thinking that you value,” said
Woodward.

For both Savarese and Woodward, the collaborative process was
incredibly rewarding and a way to connect creatively during a
year apart.

“During the pandemic, when we were so estranged from one
another, this was also just a kind of godsend on just a basic
human level to be having this kind of connection,” said
Savarese. “Tilly is the most talented human in Iowa. These
paintings are absolutely extraordinary. The level of craft …
it’s realism plus something, and so for me to be offered an
opportunity to collaborate with Tilly Woodward, I mean, you
know, ask me again tomorrow.”

The following section features the poem-painting duos that
were featured at Writers@Grinnell. They are accompanied by the
comments Savarese and Woodward made during the event and in an
interview with the S&B after the reading. These quotations
have been edited for brevity and clarity. The photos and poems
were contributed by Woodward and Savarese. The complete
chapbook and collection can be found here.

On ekphrastic poetry:

Savarese: It’s not a translation of the work. It’s a response
to the work. It has to be faithful to elements in the
painting, but it’s got to be its own thing. There’s got to be
tension and some kind of space between the two. In our
conversations, we more fully elaborated for ourselves what
that relationship was like and it was really pleasing and
stimulating to discover that more fully.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to accurately
print the poem “ABACURSE.” Updated Nov. 22, 2021, 10:05 a.m.

      Poem: ABACURSE // Painting: Mixed
                  Metaphor

Savarese: As friends doing this project, we know something
about one another’s lives. One of the great things about
poetry is that it can refract a narrative. We have some pretty
potent objects constellated in this image and I was eager to
think about relation in a romantic context and in a commercial
one — the cost of things.

Woodward: There’s a reason why I’m a painter. I find words
pretty difficult. I find trying to think in a linear fashion
sometimes intimidating, sometimes confusing, and there’s
something about a painting and the way that meanings can layer
together, the way light works, the way colors work, the
shapes, the composition and the way that objects are
metaphors. There’s this transfer of power in a poem, in a
painting. I see the things, interpret the things, but I don’t
control your experience, and I don’t control Ralph’s

experience. But I hope that there’s enough investment in terms
of the quality of the work, the way that things are arranged,
that your own meaning begins to come forward and connect
somehow with mine.

Poem: HIEROGLYPH // Painting: Hummingbird
  (Presented at event with accompanying
             video element)

Woodward: One of the things that was interesting to me about
working on this project was the transfer of creativity. So

early on, I had the easy job because I’d already done the
paintings. Ralph’s job was to pick, and then to write in
response to the paintings. We decided that we would put
together this video which actually was a really wonderful
opportunity for me. It’s different than painting but also
lovely in that you’re weaving together images, text, there’s
music that we use and to get those to work together was a
really lovely experience because as a painter, it’s a very
still, quiet process. You’re very focused. One stroke follows
another and a whole is completed. But working in video,
there’s this weaving of time that happens that was pretty
lovely for me.

 Poem: FAILURE STRAIN // Painting: Rubber
               Band Balls

Savarese: I remember seeing this painting for the first time

on Tilly’s website and I really love rubber bands. It was a
perfect occasion for researching the history of the rubber
band. This is what people like me do. You may think that I’m
not doing anything useful, but I’m going to tell you something
about the rubber band and its invention as a way of holding
your newspaper together. This strikes me as an essential
function of the rubber band.

Part of the pleasure of responding to these paintings was
first trying to figure out this strange light that Tilly uses.
My only analogy is the afterlife. It feels like her objects
have been lit by a light that is much later, after what we’re
accustomed to. I had to think about that poor little ball of
rubber bands which doesn’t have any color and is sort of less
well-lit. That super-intrigued me. The poem comes out of the
physics of a rubber band and the point of elasticity. We all
know when a rubber band breaks.

Woodward: One of the things that I loved was Ralph’s sense of
humor but also how he hid it at the same time. So there’s a
darkness and then there’s also a lightness which perhaps
carries through in my paintings as well. There is the sense
of, for me, coming out of the darkness with these paintings.
These are projected much larger than they actually are. The
scale is one to one. So the largest of these paintings are
maybe 11 by eight and a half-ish. So you’re seeing them
projected at a larger rate, but think of the intimacy of
something that’s very, very small in that way.

  Poem: INTERIM // Painting: Ambiguous

Savarese: I spent hours just looking at this thing. It really,
really haunted me, this sort of barebones of suggestion here.
I tried to discover for myself what the image was, what it
said and again, that very strange Tilly Woodward light, which
was spooky in this case at least to me.

Nests for a lot of people are kind of happy, cheery thing.
That’s not true. I adopted a child from foster care, who was
brutally abused there. So for me, the nest as home starts as
an ambiguous thing. So I don’t know why it triggered that
memory, of literally fleeing my father. Two things happened.
That memory came back, but also the memory of how as an adult,
I tried to do something radically different. I adopted my son
with a very different sense of what a nest or a home could
be.

Woodward: I love to paint nests. It’s never just one thing for
me. A nest is a place that’s a home, it’s a womb, it’s a place
that you could fledge from. It’s a variety of things. So if
you think about it in terms of the structure of the nest,
there’s this being with no hands, with a beak and some feet
and the way they weave together, small bits, small parts to
construct the structure of this poem. In this particular nest
that I found — and people bring me nests frequently and dead
birds, and insects — I was really struck by the fact that it
wasn’t complete and it was hard to tell whether it was being
constructed, whether it was falling apart, how that fit in my
life, how that represented the passage of time, our passage as
humans, the passage of the world. There’s something very quiet
about it. So making a poem, making a painting, to me, it’s a
really meditative process. It’s a moment where I can really
focus in and the world that I find very confusing can go away
and for the    two hours that I spend painting in the evening
after work I   can see something clearly in a way that it’s very
difficult to   make sense of when the world is happening around
you. In some   ways I think of these paintings as prayer.

Savarese: Tilly begged me to cut those last lines of this
poem. She did not want the overt attention, the directed
address. So we wrestled at times. For me, that poem, I think
about my son’s early life, I think about my own life. I think
about the way as adults, we try to sort of correct for what we
imagine that early life to be. The image was so evocative, as

Tilly said, of something both falling apart and in the process
of being built.

    Poem: THAW // Painting: Bird Blanket
      Gloves (Presented at event with
        accompanying video element)

Woodward: One of the things that was really hard for me about
the derecho was the loss of a freezer full of specimens that
people had given to me over the years, so maybe 30 year’s
worth of people saying, ‘I found a dead bird, it’s run into a
window. I think you’ll want it,’ which is true. One of the
things that I feel like I’ve been charged with over time has
been this creation of some beauty from a sorrow. I think
that’s really evident in the paintings. The way that art can
help us process what’s most difficult in life and what’s most
painful in life, and then also reconnect us with beauty and
help recharge us and refuel us. That’s often the motivation
for the work that I do.

    Poem: APHASIA // Painting: Words Are
                    Hard

This piece is dedicated to Professor Astrid Henry, Gender,
Women’s, and Sexuality Studies. In 2015, Henry suffered a
stroke.

Savarese: All sorts of members of the community work with
Astrid and she’s learned to recover language and do all sorts
of things. One of the things that is so remarkably poignant
for me is Astrid was one of the people in this community who
was particularly sensitive to my son. I adopted my son from
foster care. He’s a non-speaking autistic person. She was the
most natural and affirmative about him and about disability.
So, part of what was driving this was a desire to honor that
aspect of Astrid but also to shine that light back on her
disability.

International                                Student

Organization        connects
students through new and old
traditions
By Malcolm Galpern Levin
galpernl@grinnell.edu

The International Student Organization (ISO) is wasting no
time to host events to connect with new students and welcome
back returning ones now that the entire student body is back
on campus.

“It was just hard to … start a community again, you know,
because you have a lot of people who haven’t been on campus
too and you got to welcome them back and also the first years
[and] second years,” said ISO President Momi Fukushima `22.

The International Pre-Orientation Program (IPOP), which occurs
in the week prior to NSO, allowed many international students
to have the opportunity to connect with one another and be
introduced to ISO.

ISO Vice President Kexin (Sherry) Huang `22 said many second-
year international students managed to make strong connections
in spite of the separation of different class years induced by
the pandemic.

“The second years, amazingly, they did a good job connecting
among themselves because I guess they have similar experiences
and they went through the same thing,” said Huang.

When ISO held a special election to determine who would be
treasurer for the spring semester after the current treasurer
decided they would be studying abroad in the spring, board
members were surprised at the number of people who applied for
the position. ISO Secretary Gyana Singh `23 says ISO received

nine applicants in the first round.

“It felt kind of nice that people want to do this,” said
Singh. “If so, many people want to be a part of it, they saw
something they like.”

To connect with students, ISO reached out to international
students in a number of ways.

ISO’s first event of the year was an outdoor “welcome event”
hosted on Aug. 28 outside the JRC to allow unvaccinated
students to develop a sense of community.

“So many of the international students weren’t vaccinated when
they came here. And they weren’t allowed to get in the D-Hall
and form a community,” said Singh.

At the event, ISO served tea and encouraged students to safely
socialize and get to know one another.

In September, ISO collaborated with the Chinese Student
Association (CSA) to plan CSA’s Mid-Autumn Festival, but due
to funding issues, the event had to be postponed to Oct. 29.

“We’re trying to provide support not only for the students in
our org, but also international student orgs,” said Huang.

ISO’s second event of the year was a “study break” boba tea
event held on Oct. 6 in which they provided free bubble tea
drinks to students in the midst of preparing for midterms.
Similar funding concerns emerged over whether the
organization’s budget would be approved before the event was
planned to occur, but luckily ISO managed to secure funds the
day prior.

Once their budget was approved by SGA, ISO ordered and
retrieved the bubble tea drinks from Iowa City and brought
them back to Grinnell for students to pick up from the ISO
suite in the JRC.

“We got, I think, 200 odd pieces and they were all gone in 30
minutes,” said Singh.

Fukushima says having the boba study break on the second floor
also helped introduce students to the many multicultural
student spaces there.

ISO plans to host further study break events for students in
the coming months, each with a different theme.

Food Bazaar, one of ISO’s most popular and beloved annual
events, will be making its grand return this year.

For Food Bazaar, students from across the globe prepare
different dishes from their own cultures to be shared with and
enjoyed by students. Student chefs typically work in pairs to
prepare meals and each pair is responsible for making roughly
40-50 servings. Domestic students can also be involved in the
event by helping students cook, or preparing meals from their
own unique culture. ISO supplies students with all of the
ingredients and supplies necessary for cooking.

“It’s a way of bringing their own home culture to all of us,”
said Singh. “I feel like that just gives us both a connection
to our roots in some way while also meeting new people through
it.”

So far, ISO has received 43 unique recipes that will be
available for students to taste once the event is hosted.

“It’s one of the biggest events in Grinnell, and it’s a place
where we can really celebrate our diversity that we have in
food,” said Fukushima.

“I feel it’s just something we need here, to be reminded that,
you know, we can have a sense of homeliness and these new
experiences together,” said Singh.

ISO also hopes that Food Bazaar will allow international and
domestic students to connect with one another more.

“There shouldn’t be a divide in a bad way, right? Yes, we are
all different but we should celebrate that,” said Fukushima.
“We want to use Food Bazaar as an event that bridges that
gap.”

Though Fukushima says ISO is still planning the specific
details of the event, she says the organization might have
some students give a presentation or speech that tries to
bring international and domestic students together.

“Food is a really good way to connect people,” said Huang.
“You will be able to connect on a cultural level … while
you’re tasting, trying the food, thinking about the culture
behind it. I think that’s a really good way to connect people
among the two groups.”

Students need tickets to participate in Food Bazaar. Food
Bazaar itself will take place on Sunday, Nov. 14 in the Harris
Center from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

Poweshiek   County   Public

Health rolls out COVID-19
booster doses in Grinnell
By Malcolm Galpern Levin
galpernl@grinnell.edu

Poweshiek County Public Health (PCPH), Hy-Vee and Walmart
supermarkets, and several local clinics in Poweshiek County
are now offering booster doses for three COVID-19 vaccines:
Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson.

On Oct. 20, the Food and Drug Administration announced their
approval of the use of COVID-19 booster doses for all three
vaccines. The Center for Disease Control followed suit,
announcing their approval on Oct. 21.

The Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 booster dose was approved for
individuals ages 18 and older who received their primary
vaccine of Johnson & Johnson at least two months prior.

Both the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 booster doses were
approved for individuals ages 65 and older, as well as for
individuals 18 years and older who have underlying health
conditions, reside in long-term care settings, and/or work or
live in high-risk settings. To be eligible individuals must
have received their second dose of either the Moderna or
Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at least six months prior.

“Research shows us that vaccine immunity wanes over time, so
it is important to get the booster vaccine to best protect
yourself and others from the COVID-19 virus,” wrote Shauna
Callaway, director of PCPH, in an email to the S&B.

The FDA and CDC also approved the mix-and-match use of
different COVID-19 vaccines specifically regarding the booster
dose. Eligible individuals can receive a booster dose of any
one of the three COVID-19 vaccines regardless of the type of

primary vaccination they received.

Upon visiting the PCPH building for a scheduled appointment,
individuals are required to wear a mask that covers their nose
and mouth while indoors. Documentation verifying the identity
of individuals is required to register for in-person
vaccination appointments.

In addition to booster doses, PCPH is still offering all three
COVID-19 vaccines for those who are hoping to get vaccinated.

“Public Health encourages all people with questions about
whether the vaccine is right for them and their families to
contact their primary care provider and seek professional,
individualized medical guidance,” said Callaway.

In order to receive a COVID-19 booster dose from PCPH,
individuals are required to make an appointment. Walk-in
vaccinations will not be accepted. To schedule a vaccine
appointment, community members should call (641) 236-2385 any
time Monday-Friday between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Appointments cannot be made via voicemail message.

Grinnell students who believe they are eligible to receive a
booster dose from PCPH should follow this same procedure to
secure an appointment.

Appointments are also required to receive a booster dose from
Hy-Vee and can be made online.

Appointments for a booster dose from Walmart can be made
online as well. Walmart also reported they are accepting walk-
up vaccination appointments at locations nationwide for
COVID-19 vaccines and booster shots.

“Arcadia”:   a   conversation

with the past and present
By Malcolm Galpern Levin
galpernl@grinnell.edu

Live theatre will make its grand return to Roberts Theatre
this Friday, Oct. 8, with the premiere of “Arcadia” set to
take the stage.

“Arcadia,” a romantic comedy written by Tom Stoppard, is set
in a manor house located in the fictional Sidley Park,
England. The time period of the play shifts throughout,
alternating between characters in the 19th century,
specifically beginning in 1809, and those in the ‘present
day,’ which is never explicitly defined. Through these
temporal shifts, audience members understand the
interconnected story between the separate characters existing
in each period, some of which are descendants of one
another.

“The past is trying to interpret the future and develop
formulas for understanding how the world works,” said actor
Nicholas Lampietti `25. “The present is trying to do the exact
same thing – they’re trying to understand the past.”

“Arcadia” touches on several themes as characters discuss or
allude to topics of thermodynamics, history, math and physics,
romanticism and classicism to name a few. More broadly, the
play focuses on the characters’ understanding of the world
around them and their relationships with one another.

The cast and crew began tech
              rehearsals this past Sunday, Oct.
              3 in preparation for this
              weekend’s premiere. Photo by
              Maddi Shinall.

“The overall message is how we try to interpret what is beyond
us and how we try to make sense of the world we don’t know,”
said Lampietti. On top of that, he said the play has, “a lot
of sex and love, and romance. Everyone is interested in
someone else, and everyone has multiple suitors.”

“It kind of looks at the foibles and inadequacies of human
beings,” said Professor Emeritus Sandy Moffett, theatre and
dance, who is directing the play.

Moffett came into the play’s production halfway through the
rehearsal process after a change in directorship.

“I felt like my major job was to make the play happen,” said
Moffett. “It’s [the actors’] show, you know, I mean they’re
creating the character[s].”

Lampietti shared an adage Moffett has told the cast during
rehearsals: “Doing a play is supposed to be at its core about
playing, and you should be having fun, and you should be
taking risks and you should be doing silly or weird things

that help sort of develop momentum and energy and are able to
sort of create opportunities for further growth and discovery
in your character.”

Moffett directed his first play at Grinnell in 1971, but it’s
been several years since he worked on his last production at
the College.

“It’s just been a lot of fun to come back and see the talent
that Grinnell students have, and the dedication and
creativity,” said Moffett.

Erin Howell-Gritsch, Grinnell’s costume shop supervisor and
costume designer on the production, spearheaded the task of
deciding upon, fitting and acquiring the vast range of
costumes needed for “Arcadia.” Howell-Gritsch was already
familiar with “Arcadia” beforehand since she had designed
costumes for the show once before as a graduate student at the
University of Iowa in 1997. She also taught the play twice to
students in her previous costume design classes.

             Cast members often change outfits
             throughout the course of the play,
             making quick backstage changes by
             crew members essential to the
             production’s success. Photo by Maddi
             Shinall.

The costumes, particularly for the 19th century characters,
are quite elaborate and reflective of the time periods
“Arcadia” takes place in. Audience members can expect to see
performers donned in stand collar shirts, three-piece suits
with ruffled sleeves, cravats, square-tailed coats, wigs,
frilly bibs, grandiose hats and more.

“Every character has a unique touch. There’s something about
them, whether it’s the type of cravat that they’re wearing or
how it’s tied or, you know, how high their boots are, there
are just little differences in there that really sort of pop
out some of the personality,” explained Howell-Gritsch.

Lampietti plays two characters in “Arcadia.” The first is a
15-year-old boy named Augustus that he described as “a
precocious little shit of a younger brother” and the second is
the butler Jellaby, “the gossiper” of the group. Lampietti
said the extensive nature of Jellaby’s costume – consisting of
a three-piece suit, shirt, waistcoat, ascot and cravat among
other pieces – is particularly challenging to wear.

“The combination of the stage lights, which are really hot,
you’re wearing three layers, you’ve got a mic that you’re
wearing … You definitely sort of feel a little mechanical
doing it,” he said.

Cast members often change outfits throughout the course of the
play, making quick backstage changes by crew members essential
to the production’s success.

“It’s been one hell of a ride in terms of rehearsing,”
said Lampietti.

Part of the challenge is due to the fact that not only does
the play include an extensive amount of props and costume
changes, but it also spans for two and a half hours. The cast
and crew began tech rehearsals this past Sunday, Oct. 3 in
preparation for this weekend’s premiere.

The production will take place over the course of the coming
weekend, with showings at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday,
Oct. 8 and 9, as well as 2 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 10. The in-
person performance in Roberts Theatre is free and open to
Grinnell College students, faculty and staff. P-Cards are
required to receive a ticket.

Tickets will be available free of charge from the ticket booth
located in the lobby of Bucksbaum Center for the Arts. Some
tickets may be available at the Will Call counter before the
start of each performance. Masks are required for audience
members.

The show will also be available virtually via a livestream
viewing.

Howell-Gritsch is particularly excited for the Grinnell
College community to have the opportunity to experience
theater in-person once again.

“It’s just so different than watching something online, to be
next to people who are also laughing or going, ‘Wait, what did
they say?'”

Lampietti is also eager for the Grinnell College community to
engage with and reflect on the production.

“The best theater is after you leave the room … you’re asking
questions about yourself, and your community and the world,”
said Lampitetti. “This is definitely a show that will leave
you with a lot of those questions.”

Football is Back
By Malcolm Galpern Levin
galpernl@grinnell.edu

On Saturday, Sep. 4, the Grinnell College football team
stormed the field for the first time in 705 days in their
season opener against Rockford University.

Despite struggles over the first three quarters, running back
Danny Carter `22 and wide receiver Dustin Saia `22 both scored
touchdowns in the fourth quarter – the College’s first
touchdowns since November 2018.

“I joked with my coaches that it was almost poetic because
Dustin and I were a big part of the offense in 2018 as
freshmen, so it’s kind of cool that we were the ones that were
able to score,” said Carter, who is one of the team’s
captains.

Still, despite, Grinnell’s resurgence in the fourth quarter,
by the time the final whistle blew, Rockford had come out on

top with a final score of 48-13.

Grinnell’s football team, which had its 2019 season
canceled due to injuries and a dwindled roster of 28, has now
reached its largest size in program history with a total of 57
players.

“It was pretty special to be able to get out there again and
have an opportunity to play my senior year … I just felt
pretty fortunate,” said Carter.

Quarterback Cole Inselman `25 is one of many first-year
players who had the chance to compete in their first NCAA
football game this past weekend.

“Just to be in a college football game is just, it’s a dream
come true,” he said.

One challenge Head Coach Brent Barnes identified from the game
was beginner mistakes, which he says are natural when players
start competition at the college level for the first time. The
College brought Barnes in as head coach in the fall of 2019
following the team’s season cancellation, so this game marked
Barnes’s first time seeing the Grinnell team play in their
athletic season.

Due to recent recruiting efforts by the coaching staff
following the cancellation of the 2019 season, the team is
largely made up of younger players. Of the 57 players on the
roster, only eight have played in more than three college
football games.

Regardless, Coach Barnes says the team simply needs time to
grow.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he said. “Youth gives you an
excuse for maybe a month. At some point, you need to produce,
and I think our players will.”

At the same time, Coach Barnes noted the team’s reliance on

its younger players as a driving factor that has made them a
more cohesive group. “It’s a very close-knit team, I think
maybe closer than it’s been in the past,” he said. “That is
certainly going to help us as we continue to go through this
season.”

In addition, recruiting efforts have instilled confidence that
the team will continue to compete in years to come. “From a
program [perspective] and a longer-term perspective it’s laid
a foundation for the future of the program,” said Barnes.

Looking towards the rest of the season, Carter is feeling
hopeful, particularly after the team showed its ability to
score on Saturday. “Our goal no longer is just to score or,
you know, participate; we want to start winning football
games,” Carter said. “This is not the outcome we wanted, but
there’s a lot of good here. Whether the score reflects it or
not, if you were there in the stands or on the field you
recognize that we are a different team than we were in 2019.”

The Grinnell College football team will face off against
Monmouth College this Saturday, Sep. 11, and host its home
opener at Rosenbloom Field on Saturday, Sep. 18 against
Lawrence University.

Carlton Segbefia
By Malcolm Galpern-Levin
galpernl@grinnell.edu

“They used to call me Big C. … [My] coworkers, they were like,
‘Everyone needs a DJ name.’”

Since he interned as a sound engineer in 2017, Carlton

Segbefia `21, or “Big C,” has done more than you can possibly
imagine in his four years at Grinnell College.

When I asked Segbefia to sum up his time at Grinnell in a
single word, he responded immediately: “Busy.”

He isn’t lying. In the hour that Segbefia and I spent chatting
over Zoom, we discussed his love for events like Food Bazaar,
Pioneer Weekend and Hack GC, as well as his involvement in
organizations such as Exhale, Film Club and the Grinnell
United Activist Collective (GUAC).

Trust me, the list goes on.

Segbefia was born in Kumasi, Ghana and moved to the more urban
city of Accra when he was five years old. In Accra, Segbefia
had access to more educational opportunities, including the
highly selective high school that he attended.

“Before high school I didn’t even know I could actually leave
the country to study,” Segbefia said. “But the high school was
like, ‘Yeah we have a lot of alumni who’ve done it. We’ll help
you do it if it’s something you’re interested in.’”

Rather than using Ghana’s local curriculum that typically
focused on practical skills such as agriculture and cooking,
his high school was based on the International Baccalaureate
(IB) and O-Level/A-Level curriculum. This meant that in high
school, Segbefia was exposed to graphic design and computer
science classes for the first time—topics he quickly became
interested in pursuing further.

Interested in continuing to study “more formal fields” such as
computer science, geography and literature that he learned
about in high school, Segbefia decided to look for colleges in
the United States that would allow him to explore a vast range
of ideas. Considering himself a generalist with many
interests, the concept of a liberal arts-based education
enticed him the most.

“I don’t see myself as a specialist. I really enjoy looking at
things from different angles. I really enjoy different schools
of thought. So I was like, ‘Alright, I need to do liberal
arts.’”

At Grinnell, Segbefia knew he wanted to major in computer
science, though he didn’t want that to be his singular
passion.

“What I knew before coming to Grinnell was, computer science
is a tool,” he said. “It’s a tool to solve a problem. But I
don’t know what the problem is.”

Upon taking Introduction to Sociology with Professor Snook
during his first year, the problem Segbefia had previously
struggled to identify had become a whole lot clearer.

“That class blew my mind. … It was things I knew about, but it
had never been structured properly.”

Segbefia decided to double major in sociology and computer
science. He particularly enjoyed a sociology course focused on
the influence and role of mass media, as it allowed him to
pursue his passion for film and media production from a new
perspective.

Over his four years at Grinnell, Segbefia worked with friends
to organize a film club that analyzed technical elements used
in movies, hosted a weekly documentary viewing and discussion
group and was working to connect students at Grinnell to the
Mayflower retirement home before the pandemic hit.

During his second and third years, Segbefia was heavily
involved with Code Club, that teaches middle school students
at Drake Library about technology and coding. The program also
focuses more broadly on scientific topics such as
understanding gravity and creating circuits. When the
coordinator position for the program became official following
Segbefia’s second year, he applied for the position and was

accepted to run the program for his third year.

Aside from Drake Library being Code Club’s home base, it’s
also one of Segbefia’s favorite places in town.

“I feel like students don’t use Drake library as much as they
should,” he said. “It’s like one of my favorites study spots.
There’s so much glass and light, and there are like so many
nice people, like you can actually end up having a pretty
interesting conversation with people in town.”

Interested in learning more about woodwork and how to apply
his creativity physically rather than technologically,
Segbefia worked in the College’s Maker Lab (MLab). At the
MLab, Segbefia worked with students to turn ideas into
physical objects and designs. In addition, he designed the
MLab’s new online portal that allows students to request tools
and ensures student safety by verifying user training when it
comes to being approved to use the more dangerous tools
available. Currently, Segbefia is attempting to make the
website open-source so that other MLab programs across the
country can use it.

“It’s just been a fun creative space where I get to learn new
things and help creative people also create stuff.”

Segbefia says his involvement in Black Faith and the African
Caribbean Student Union (ACSU) on campus have also been
important parts of his Grinnell experience and contributed to
his sense of comfort on campus.

“I like to think of it as spaces where you could feel welcome,
always,” he said. “Not to say Grinnellians aren’t welcoming or
nice people. You can’t blame someone for not having the same
shared experiences as you … but it’s just nice to have people
with a shared experience as well.”

Since March 2020 when the College sent students home due to
the pandemic, Segbefia has been living in Grinnell and

currently lives off-campus in an apartment with some friends.

What will he miss the most about Grinnell? The spontaneity of
running into a friend and heading to the Dining Hall for an
impromptu meal.

Through these shared meals, Segbefia says, “You learn, you
meet new people, you have interesting discussions. That’s my
favorite part of Grinnell, the spontaneous interactions.”

For the first time in years, Segbefia doesn’t have anything
lined up for the upcoming summer and is looking forward to
spending his time reading and writing for pleasure. Chuckling,
Segbefia showed me a stack of books he’s kept since his first
year at Grinnell that he hasn’t had the chance to fully dive
into with all the academic readings he’s had to do for his
classes over the years.

“I have read almost none of them. I’ve read parts of them, but
read almost none of them.”

Starting in August, Segbefia will be working as an analyst and
software engineer for BlackRock, an asset management firm that
he previously interned for.

“I keep telling people I sold my soul to a tech company, so I
cannot sell my soul later.”

Segbefia plans to save up the money he makes through his work
to eventually fulfill his long-term goal of starting his own
business in Ghana.

“I don’t know if it’s 10 years, 20 years, but that’s the point
I want to reach.”

Obuchi Adikema’s “Unfinished
Reflections” meditates on
experiences on coming of age,
community,                and
disillusionment at Grinnell
College
By Malcolm Galpern Levin
galpernl@grinnell.edu

“Unfinished Reflections,” a virtual theater performance
directed and curated by Obuchi Adikema `21 for her Mentored
Advanced Project (MAP), will premiere virtually on its
official website on May 13. The production is a pre-recorded
performance that will focus on the stories of four college
students reflecting on their lives, experiences and dreams for
the future. The college students are be played by actors Avery
Barnett `21, Tino Tazvitya `23, Linnet Adams `21 and Kaela
Girod `21.

“Unfinished Reflections” will be presented for viewing as a
single continuous video split into three movements: “I Lost My
Voice,” “You are My Company,” and “We Can Do Anything We
Want.” Each movement consists of poetry, movement, dialogue
and interviews serving as individual monologues for each of
the four characters in the play.

Adikema scripted the content and story of the monologues,
which are based on ethnographic research and interviews she
conducted with students at Grinnell College. The interviews,
which Adikema conducted with 12 Grinnell College students of
color, focused on those students’ experiences with
disillusionment, togetherness and ambition.

Adikema used these focal topics to frame and organize personal
anecdotes collected from the students to reflect on three
central ideas: their own college experience and the process of
coming of age, the importance of community and friends at
college and what students are capable of doing and becoming in
their lives.

“The last section, ‘We Can Do Anything We Want,’ for me, it’s
more, what’s on the other side of the disillusionment? Now
that you’re here, you realize this, you sought comfort in your
community, and now what do you do? Whatever you want, is the
answer,” Adikema said.

Some of the cast members were         also   involved   in   the
introspective interview process.

“During the interviews, the questions I was asked, I never
thought about them before,” Tazvitya said. “So getting to be
asked those questions and then reflecting on my own life and
how I’ve grown up until to where I am right now as a student
at Grinnell, I actually learned a lot about me that I’d never
learned before.”

As an artist, Adikema says she’s interested in creating
performances that reflect underrepresented voices in her local
community. As a director, she set out to produce exactly that.

“The story focuses around four characters who are played by
Black women, which happens sometimes inside of different
stories, but I think what’s interesting about this is that
they all have different paths or journeys or storylines that
they’re going through as the show goes on,” Adikema said. “I’m
really interested in breaking apart the idea that they’re all
the same. And so by having four of them who are doing
different things, then I think that splits it apart.”

In producing “Unfinished Reflections,” it was also important
to Adikema that the play focus specifically on the real-life
experiences of college students.

“I think that sometimes in the media, especially in plays,
sometimes the voices of people who are in their youth are kind
of discounted as not serious or not worth writing about,”
Adikema said. “I think that everything we experience is worth
writing about, so that’s something as well. I know my audience
is mostly college students and college faculty here so I’m
like, ‘Why not write about them?’ Like, we are important, why
not write about us?”

 The last section, ‘We Can Do Anything We Want,’ for me, it’s
 more, what’s on the other side of the disillusionment? Now
 that you’re here, you realize this, you sought comfort in
 your community, and now what do you do? Whatever you want, is
 the answer. – Obuchi Adikema ’21

“Unfinished Reflections” is a continuation of a prior MAP that
Adikema began in the summer of 2020 entitled “ Community
Theater for People of Color and Accessibility.” For that MAP,
Adikema created her own podcast, “Everybody Form a Circle,”
where she documented her thoughts and ideas while researching
different methodologies for creating theater.

“[During that project] I got exposed to this really great book
called ‘Black Acting Methods,’” Adikema said. “It really
pulled back and showed me how there are just different ways
you can do theater.”

Adikema says establishing this understanding of Black and
accessible theater-making methods mentally prepared her for
the creative process and production of “Unfinished
Reflections.”

Carlton Segbefia `21, who has been friends with Adikema since
their first year at Grinnell, is the designer and editor for
the production. Segbefia has experience working on film
production and editing, but theater was a relatively new
endeavor for him at the start of the project.

“For film, your goal is to make it as visually interesting as
possible. … For theater it’s to make the characters as
interesting as possible,” Segbefia said. “What we are hoping
for is a filmed play rather than a film of a play. We are
trying to be more on the theater side. We are trying to
emphasize characters and their emotions more in a way similar
to what you kind of see on the stage.”

Prior to “Unfinished Reflections,” actor Adams had performed
in a theater production in high school. Adams was not cast in
any previous productions at Grinnell, so when Adikema
approached her about performing in “Unfinished Reflections,”
Adams wholeheartedly embraced the opportunity to support her
friend and take on the role of actor once again.

“To just be asked up front by a friend of mine – if I could be
in her theater production on this campus – I felt honored, and
I just, I couldn’t turn her down,” Adams said. “I just thought
it would be really great to help my friend out for her MAP,
and also be in one last production. My first and last Grinnell
production before I leave.”

In creating a play based in the real-life accounts of students
at Grinnell, “Unfinished Reflections” allowed the cast members
to relate and connect to the characters they portray.

 What we are hoping for is a filmed play rather than a film of
 a play. We are trying to be more on the theater side. We are
 trying to emphasize characters and their emotions more in a
 way similar to what you kind of see on the stage. – Carlton
 Segbefia ’21

“Overall, there are certain scenes where characters have
thoughts that I’ve had in the past, and it’s nice to know that
I’m not the only one that has had those thoughts,” Girod said.

For Barnett, the production will allow viewers to gain insight
on experiences and ideas they are less familiar with.

“I feel like too often, especially at Grinnell, people spend a
lot of time holding up their own personal experiences and
neglect to recognize other people’s experiences and how
different and varying they can be. And I feel that this is a
good way for them to, you know, understand in palatable
chunks, per se,” Barnett said.

With the official premiere just days away, Segbefia says he is
worried viewers may get the wrong impression when they watch
“Unfinished Reflections.”

“I feel like when you think of this work and you realize that
all the characters are people of color, the first thing you
think of is race,” Segbefia said. “It’s interesting because
the way I think of it is that this is very much not a show
about race, but a show about people. But I’m also worried that
people won’t realize that. Race is such a big thing right now,
for very good reasons like police brutality. … That’s an issue
that needs to be dealt with in so many ways, but this isn’t a
piece dealing with that. … I can see people coming in with
that preconception that ‘I need to look for racism, I need to
look for Black empowerment,’ rather than looking for people
empowering themselves, people going through struggles and
dealing with that.”

Through her art, Adikema says she continues to strive to
create theater that can be transformational for audience
members.

“You watch the show coming in with a feeling, and then you
also leave with a different feeling that the show’s influenced
you to think differently. So that’s something that I’m not
exactly sure if it was hit with “Unfinished Reflections,” but
I’m interested to keep trying it out and experimenting. … How
can people come out on the other side of the show, feeling
powerful and empowered? How can theater be used as a tool to
build empathy for my characters? How can we continue to
represent unrepresented voices and humanize them in these very

vast expansive ways they’re experienced? So, I’m exploring
them here but I’m going to keep exploring them. I’m going to
keep going.”

The play will be available online for at least the duration of
the weekend following May 13 up until May 16. On May 18,
Adikema and the cast and crew will host a virtual talk-back
session through Zoom where participants can pose questions
about the performance.

How can Grinnell traditions
survive the pandemic?
By Malcolm Galpern Levin
galpernl@grinnell.edu

As the weather warms up and the sun shines over Mac Field,
Grinnell College students in a typical spring semester enjoy a
wide range of exciting events and campus traditions every
weekend. This year, due to COVID-19 restrictions that
discourage large group gatherings, students are getting
creative to figure out which events can and cannot be
salvaged.

“Now that vaccines are being rolled out and people are getting
vaccinated, we should welcome each other, cautiously, but
openly,” said Declan Jones `21, administrative coordinator for
Grinnell College’s Student Government Association (SGA).
“There’s a lot of exciting room to grow and innovate with
these events to make it inclusive and accessible for people.”

During the Spring 2022 semester, current third years will be
the only class at Grinnell to have experienced the College’s
spring traditions in an environment without the pandemic –
traditions often regarded as a keystone in Grinnell campus
culture and social life. The following year will demonstrate
whether Grinnell traditions can outlast the student body’s
pandemic isolation.

The College’s shift to activity level Blue and the rollout of
COVID-19 vaccines present opportunities for on-campus students
to enjoy and preserve several events that students are now
planning to host before the year comes to a close. Jones and
other members of SGA’s All Campus Events committee began
meeting in early April to start planning The Grinnellian,
Waltz, Drag Show and a celebration of Iftar, among others.