Teach-in reveals both sides to Kosovo

Each week, the Review receives a bundle of campus newspapers from other colleges around the country. This week, we noticed a story in the Amherst Student about a teach-in on the Kosovo conflict. The story, and how the Amherst teach-in compared to Oberlin's was fascinating.

The Amherst teach-in consisted of a panel discussion by six professors and one Serbian graduate student from UMass. The professors spoke about how the U.S. needed to send in ground troops immediately to end the conflict "quickly and decisively." The Serbian student gave a 50-minute presentation protesting U.S. actions against Serbia and defending the Serbian people only to be criticized as misrepresenting the facts.

Our teach-in was far more challenging. Where Amherst's professors spoke in echoes of CNN political pundits, never questioning the motivation for U.S. involvement, only demanding more; our speakers - a Montenegran professor Velkjo Vujacic; an Albanian reporter for Voice of America Elez Biberaj; and an Oberlin alum from the American Friends Service Committee Greg Coleridge - questioned U.S. actions far more critically, offering alternative views on the crisis. Anyone following only television reports on the war will find the coverage very homogeneous, but after hearing the Serbian side, one might find the coverage infuriating. How refreshing to be treated to insights beyond the standard talking-head rhetoric. How frightening to hear that this black-and-white CNN war was not so clear-cut after all.

Oberlin is a tough audience. It is an environment where the truth is so highly valued and the portrayals of that truth are so incessantly questioned. After Sunday's teach-in, it was evident that students had the will to go beyond the story more, understanding more clearly the problems inherent in our world. Open mindedness characterized the teach-in Sunday. Hopefully, Oberlin students can cope with two sides of a story, and offer the compassion that both sides - made up of human beings - deserve.

Rumor mills in Res Life

The rumor mill has been at peak production this week chugging out half-truths and innuendoes about tequila, Zeke, Residential Life policies and touchy politics. We're not here to set any of this info. straight, or drive some magic stake through the heart of this hearsay beast. But, there are portions of this story that are public knowledge: Fact: there was a big ol' shindig at Zeke Sat. night; Fact: something bad happened; Fact: there are repercussions.

Allegedly, a student staff member knew what was happening and didn't prevent or report the revelry. An incident occurred, and the aftermath led the administration grasping at straws of responsibility. They decided to pin the bulk of the blame on an RC, and have disciplined the person. Within RC contracts are clauses that address such issues as underage drinking and RC responsibility in situations like the one that occurred. Res Life is well within its official jurisdiction to fire RCs if they break the rules.

That said, this is Oberlin.

That said, what does "Oberlin" mean, in this case? It means a lot of double-talk and implicit understanding of "rules" and "policy." During RC training, two weeks in August when Res Life indoctrinates its new pupils amidst the vestiges of cheerleading camps and onslaught of football players, the rules and regs are scanned over, and ice breakers are more emphasized than rule breakers. That's all well and good, and we're all secure in how things work at Oberlin. Hey - if it ain't broke... right?

Well, something broke.

The RC position has always been vague; the RC hat is often nebulous and sometimes ill-fitting. Even during training, pot policies and booze rules are spoken of with an attitude of enforce only when necessary. The rules and regs do not directly govern what happens at Oberlin. This has worked (more or less) up until now. Now that we see the potential repercussions of vague policies, Res Life is playing "pin the blame on the RC," and the damage control involves sweeping staff out with those understood policies.

What are the implications of this for the campus as a whole? Does this mean that we'll all have to be a little more secretive when the RC is around? Does this mean that RCs will have to be more "bad guys" and less "one of the guys?" The implications of the personnel decisions made by Res Life after this extended tequila party are far-reaching. This incident proves that problems can happen if we stand in limbo between policy and actuality. Hopefully we'll reach a better balance between the rules as written and the rules as understood, a balance that takes into account both the maturity and safety of students. However, it seems like a good RC, who was well-intentioned but short-sighted, will be sacrificed along the way.