Students are currently being urged to participate in a referendum which addresses several concerns, one of which it the reinstatement of the Student Senate pay structure. Since senators are expected to work fifteen hours per week according to senate by-laws, participation in Student Senate is a significant time commitment. We are immensely concerned about this issue, since, as students who depend on work-study, we are certain that the absence of senator compensation would deter many students from participating. The senate pay structure allows for a diversity of economic backgrounds to be represented in a major decision-making body on this campus. Senate wages prevent the emergence of an economically homogenous student government which would not adequately represent the economically varied student body. We encourage students to take the actuality into consideration when voting in the referendum and reinstate senator compensation.

--Erika Hansen College first-year

--Adriana Lopez-Young Double-degree junior

Groups join to celebrate Earth Day

The twenty-eighth Earth Day was Wednesday, April 22. To celebrate, a broad coalition of organizations, including OSCA, LCEA (Local Community Environmental Action), OhioPIRG, the Sierra Student Coalition, Environmental Studies Energy Conservation Program, and Oberlin Sustainable Agriculture Project held a community Earth Day festival in Tappan Square last Saturday, April 18.

Several hundred people came to the event and participated in different activities to celebrate Earth Day and to promote awareness of environmental issues. Children, college students and the Oberlin marching band paraded around Tappan Square and down College Street, dressed as endangered species in costumes made out of recycled materials. Speakers included Brian Ulm from the Sierra Club, John Katko from the Friends of the Wetlands, a group based out of Elyria, and Brad Masi from the Oberlin environmental studies program. Student bands and a capella groups performed, and OSCA supplied food for everyone. It was a great time to find out about other organizations, with the many informational tables. The weather even cooperated.

It is infrequent that so many students and community members can come together to produce such an exciting and successful event. We only regret that the Oberlin Review did not choose to attend.

-Margaux Shields College sophomore

--Toby Reiter College sophomore

--Leah Whitesel College first-year

Is this Oberlin tradition?

This week Oberlin faculty, staff, and students received a notice reiterating our smoking policy and clarifying issues of enforcement. I wish to call attention to one sentence which reads "... it is the responsibility of members of the community who observe a violation of the smoking policy, or are affected by such a violation, either directly to ask the offender to stop, or to file a complaint ..."

Combined with the cited policy that "It is a College expectation that all community members will support efforts to enforce College policies on ... smoking", this statement could be understood to compel anyone observing a violation of the smoking policy to confront the smoker or else file charges. This is not the Oberlin tradition; to adopt a law enforcement paradigm or to require community members to report on each other would be radically detrimental to the Oberlin community.

It is a good thing, then, that this interpretation of the statement does not appear to have been intended by the writers. Rather, it is my impression that the reverse was meant: that it is the responsibility of those offended or inconvenienced to directly confront violators of the policy or, failing all attempts at discussion and mediation, to file charges through the established process.

It is very important to the integrity of the Oberlin ethos that we never seek to turn students and community members against each other. In all areas of campus life student and individual autonomy must be protected and cherished, and law-enforcement attitudes are to be abhorred. Nor are administrators to take the roles of police and prosecutors.

-Joshua Kaye College senior

Challenge sent to Review readers: make a difference by contributing

I don't wish to offend the gentle readers of the Oberlin Review, but maybe it's about time someone started knocking the readers instead of the writers and editors. Sure, the Review is far from perfect. As the 36 conservatory and double-degree students mentioned in a letter to the editor last week, the Review sometimes misses covering events of considerable importance. But the relatively few writers who are dedicated enough to write every week don't have enough hours in the day to cover every event that takes place on this whole campus. So here's where I start offending you, the reader. Instead of reading this paper every week and writing letters on occasion telling the staff how much it sucks, come down to the office and see what you can do to make things better! Any one of those 36 angry students could have written to the arts editors to offer to write a review of the concert instead of waiting for the Review to miss it and then get mad about it. I agree that, "to overlook a display of artistry so profound and exhilarating is a shameful embarrassment, and is most insulting to the performers," as those students said. But what did any one of them do to prevent this embarrassment?

It's not too late. I invite - I CHALLENGE - any one of those 36 angry students to submit a review of that excellent Oberlin Chamber Orchestra concert to the Review.

Make a difference! Change the world! Please! That's why we're all here, and if I have to offend a few people to make it happen, then that's what I'll do.

-Lauren Goodman College first-year

Cheese, glorious ... cheese

To the Editor:

(This is an open letter to all people who ask for cheese at the snack bar.)

I would like to extend my sincere thanks and gratitude to all of you who eat lunch at the Snack Bar on Tuesdays and Thursdays and ask for a piece of cheese. When you ask for a piece of cheese, you may not realize that your warm smile and/or "Thanks!" really does brighten our day.

This sounds silly, but we honestly appreciate it.

--Alita Pierson College first-year