Sophomore Sean Terada remembers a sixth grade trip to Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. He hiked through the lush emerald growth in the rain forests on the slopes of the mountain, breathing in the humid air. Without warning, he came upon an abrupt cut away where the rainforest stopped and opened out onto dark, jagged lava rock. It was as though this mountain was home to more worlds than one.

“You can feel how special that place is when you are there. There is nowhere like it in the world,” said Terada about the mountain.

Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain in Hawaii, standing 13,796 feet above sea level. Located on the island of Hawaii — the “Big Island” — its peaks are shrouded in blankets of snow. First-year Casey Poe recounts a legend where the mountain’s snow is said to be the flowing tresses of the Hawaiian goddess Poli’ahu. The mountain is sacred to Native Hawaiian culture, a protector and source of countless legends and rituals.

Mauna Kea is not only a place with cultural significance, but it is also said to be one of the best places for stargazing and astronomy. First-year Tehani Louis-Perkins, who is from Haleiwa, Hawaii, recalls looking up into a sky studded with stars, unpolluted by the glare from urban lights.

“I remember being on the mountain and being amazed. It’s like you are in another world because above you all the stars are in the sky — it’s so clear,” said Louis-Perkins.

The mountain is so great for stargazing that 13 telescopes have already been built on its slopes. Another one, named the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), is currently proposed. It would be massive, spanning five acres at its base and 18 stories in height. Canada, the United States, India, China and Japan have invested in the building of the telescope, which will be completed in 2024. Astronomers claim that a telescope of this scale on Mauna Kea will allow astronomers to see into the origins of the universe.

But opposition to the TMT – and the environmental destruction it could cause – by Hawaiians and people around the world has mounted significantly since March. Social Media is abuzz with #WeAreMaunaKea and other shows of solidarity. Sleep-ins and human barricades on the mountain have blocked access to the construction site.

The protests are occurring for multiple reasons. Mauna Kea is spiritually significant, with its slopes and summit serving as burial ground. The mountain is also considered to be the meeting place of the Earth and sky deities, and it is said to house a spiritual connection between history, ancestors and present-day occupants of the Hawaiian Islands. In addition, Mauna Kea is home to abundant natural resources, aquifers, a freshwater lake and many endemic species found nowhere else in the world.

While the official website for the TMT claims that the construction will not cause disruption to the environment and natural aquifers, some are still worried. The final Environmental Impact Statement for the TMT”s construction says, “The cumulative impact of past and present actions to geologic resources in the astronomy precinct have been substantial, significant, and adverse primarily due to the reshaping of summit cinder cones … These impacts would continue to be substantial, significant, and adverse with the consideration of the Project [TMT construction].”

The report also states that the TMT will result in further changes in the shape of the mountain’s cinder cones. While the report says there are no significant threats to Mauna Kea’s aquifer and fresh-water lake, many are still concerned.

Protectors, not Protesters

Poe can see three white protrusions on Mauna Kea’s slopes from her home in Hilo, Hawaii. These telescopes are nowhere near as large as the TMT is proposed to be. Poe, a Native Hawaiian, says that her family back home, and many of those standing up against the telescope’s construction, think of themselves not as protestors of the telescope, but as protectors of Mauna Kea.

“My family and friends say we aren’t protesters. We are protectors because [we] are trying to protect what we already have,” said Poe.

Louis-Perkins and Terada, also Native Hawaiians, say that choosing to build a giant telescope on its slopes threatens what Mauna Kea stands for. They also believe it threatens the effort for native Hawaiians to reclaim their culture, traditions and identity.

“It is our home and it is something that we need to protect. We have let everything else in Hawaii get desecrated and destroyed. It’s time to protect what is there and is natural,” said Louis-Perkins.

Hawaii in Context

Hawaii was an independent nation, though it had a dominant English and American presence in the late 1800s. In 1893, Queen Lili’uokalani of Hawaii was forcibly deposed from her throne by the Committee of Safety, a committee formed by English and American businessmen with the goal of overthrowing the queen and annexing the island nation.

That same year when concerns were brought to President Cleveland about the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, Cleveland ordered an investigation. At first the investigation found the overthrow unjust, and Cleveland made a statement implying that injustice had been done to the people of Hawaii.

However, further investigations proceeded and the Morgan Report was released in 1894 stating that claims of Hawaii’s illegal overthrow were unfounded. Under President McKinley in 1898, Hawaii became the 50th state of the U.S by annexation. Some believe the annexation to have been illegal.

Following annexation, Hawaiian language and cultural practices were oppressed by the dominant white minority on the islands so much that there was an imminent threat of the culture dying out. In the 1970s, the Hawaiian Renaissance began. The movement was an effort to rejuvenate the Hawaiian language and culture.

We are Mauna Kea

For Louis-Perkins and Terada, the resistance against the TMT is an extension of the renaissance that began in the 1970s. It is yet another step to reclaiming Hawaiian identity after decades of oppression.

“This would be huge things for Hawaiians to show that we are standing up. We won’t tolerate just being trampled over anymore,” said Terada.

According to Louis-Perkins, part of the resistance to the TMT is to show future generations of native Hawaiians, and other cultures around the world, what it means to take a stance in the realm of cultural integrity.

“Standing up for your culture is standing up for what you believe in and for yourself. You need to stand up for your home. That is basically the main message we’re trying to get across,” she said.

A Clash of Knowledge

Alissa Cordner, assistant professor of sociology at Whitman, sees this movement in parallel with many other movements across the U.S where Native American reservations and historically sacred land are used for resource extraction and industrial development.

Rather than outright resource extraction, though, the controversy of the TMT at Mauna Kea is a sort of skirmish between ways of knowing, with a Eurocentric, scientific view of knowledge prevailing over indigenous knowledge.

“In this case you have a very direct prioritization of the Western scientific model [by] choosing to build another telescope when another way of knowing would say we don’t need another telescope in this location to understand the stars around us,” explained Cordner.

Hawaii’s Polynesian ancestors have a legacy of being navigators and scholars of the sky. Terada described the juxtaposition of modern science and indigenous knowledge.

“Hawaiians have been interested in new technology and new things, but I’m not so sure if far out galaxies is what we [Hawaiian ancestors] are going for,” he said. “We were very much focused on what we could actually see and use in the moment.”

Reflecting on Whitman’s dedication to the sciences and its pursuit of knowledge, Cordner says it is vital for students to consider fundamental questions about the ethical use of the knowledge we gain.

“At what point should we choose to take advantage of every technological opportunity just because we can? At what point do we decide that our need to know more about the universe trumps other people’s needs? Those are just important questions to ask in this academic environment,” she said.

What’s it Worth?

Poe, Terada and Louis-Perkins aren’t against scientific discovery. The implications for environmental degradation and the cultural imperialism symbolized by the proposition and construction of the telescope are just not worth the benefits of building such a massive telescope on this particular spot.

“I’m all for science and the exploration of space … just not on Mauna Kea. Once you totally desecrate a mountain like that, then there is no going back, you can’t rebuild a mountain,” said Poe. “We’ve already lost so much as a Hawaiian nation already. Do we have to lose more?”+

Lorry Walot took a whole three minutes to create the masterpiece that now hangs in the Stevens Gallery. The piece is a black cotton sheet. It is creaseless, without a speck of white thread or a puff ball.

Walot had laid the sheet on the ground while cleaning out her closet at the beginning of the semester. She was opening the plastic wrap of the brand new pillows she had purchased. After each pillow was opened, she dropped them onto the sheet before moving on to the next one. Two minutes later she removed the pillows from the sheet. Voila — the first piece for her senior showcase was complete.

“It’s magnificent! It subtlety captures the unseen inspirations that guide us through the world. The fact that the imprint of the pillows is invisible shows the potential for nothingness to actually be the emptiness of a previously existent something. That thought process is just quite marvelous!” remarked Walot’s adviser, Namai Elohtra.

Inspired by her adviser’s positive feedback, Walot expanded her concept to include white sheets and various other plushy objects.

“I actually laid the white sheets down on purpose. But you know I’m the clumsy type, so when I walk around my room, things like my stuffed octopus fall on it. It works out kind of well — they leave their imprints and I have another piece for my portfolio,” said Walot.

Elohtra noted that not all senior art majors dealt with the depth of process and thought that Walot’s work showcased.

“Some students depict natural and man-made objects in their artwork. It’s just not as intangible and abstract. Things like trees and bowls of fruit are so useful — they are far too real to be art, even if they are only two-dimensional,” he said. “Art has to be unreal, it must be so beyond your reach that you have to make a leap into space in order to see the unseen from a distance.”

Senior Isu Ckatart disagrees.

“A representation of something real isn’t the same as the real thing,” she said.

Ckatart’s showcase features canvases textured with colorful images. One three-panel painting features a troupe of dancers, skirts and scarves swirling in hues of red and brown.

“This isn’t art. You can just go to a stage show and see the same thing,” said Elohtra.

Ckatart knows her work isn’t taken well, but she continues with her style despite disapproval.

“I want to challenge people to think superficially. When people see pieces that have, like, one dot on a large wall, their minds go into a deep place. The whole universe becomes like some unsolvable mystery or something. I want to tell people to just look and leave. You don’t have to think so hard that your brain hurts.” said Ckatart.

Crisp but warm sunshine fills the morning as sophomore Maddie Bailey reverses a maroon pickup truck from the Environmental Interest House (also known as Outhouse) garage. Two Outhouse residents and their resident assistant are on a mission early this Saturday morning. It’s just past 8:30 a.m. as they head out to collect recycling from all the residence halls on campus.

The Outhouse continues the recycling effort it initiated in the 1980s. The interest house was responsible for setting up a recycling system for the entire campus at the time, and consequently its members worked as volunteers to gather recycling. Today, other offices pay employees to take care of waste and recycling around campus. But the Outhouse still serves the residence halls (except Tamarac and the Interest House Community) as an act of community service without receiving compensation for their work.

Maddie Bailey ’17 collects cardboard from inside North Hall. Photo by Anna Dawson.

On this and every Saturday, the back of the truck is filled with blue bins, each one designated for a specific material such as metal cans or paper.

On good days residents gather all the recycling in one trip. Other times they have to come back to the Outhouse’s Recycling Center halfway through the round to empty out their load.

Some residence halls are better than others when it comes to how much and how well-sorted the recycling is. Outhouse recyclers cite Marcus House as one of the easiest places, while the larger halls — Anderson, Jewett, etc. — are more difficult because they have far more waste due to sheer number of people.

Today their first stop is the Lyman Hall basement. First they do some basic sorting before picking up the lined green bins and hauling them to the truck three at a time. They sigh in exasperation, eyeing unflattened cardboard boxes.

Bailey picks up a pizza box and points at the greasy cover. It is in the recycling but belongs in the garbage.

They sort through what can be taken back to the Recycling Center and what should be left in the trash can.

“We know what’s going on around campus,” said sophomore Outhouse Resident Assistant Jess Faunt jokingly while rifling through miscellaneous glass bottles before setting them in the pile to be left behind.

Certain things that students may forget to consider when throwing away their stuff can mean significantly extra work for the Outhouse. Breaking down cardboard boxes and dealing with un-emptied containers of beer, milk, soda and yogurt, and the large piles that result when students take out their recycling only once every few weeks, often lengthen the Saturday shift substantially.

In addition to picking up student on-campus recycling, the Outhouse continues efforts to educate students on recycling and the specific items Walla Walla’s recycling plant cannot handle. At the start of every semester, a representative from the Outhouse goes to each residence hall and lays out the ground rules for which materials can and cannot be recycled. This way people are able to put a face to the recycling process.

“I would hope that people could be more intentional with recycling and think about the other side. Somebody is going to sort it and go through all that. [So] rinsing down your containers and breaking down your boxes is huge,” said Faunt.

Though the Outhouse residents do not need to individually sort through the recycling (which they once used to do), they do need to do some basic sorting — between paper and metal cans, for example. Still, there are others at the Recycling Center who meticulously sort through the materials.

As a resident of the Outhouse, Bailey reflected on how the process of collecting recycling makes her more aware of how taking a little extra time is helpful to those involved in the recycling effort.

“If I had known earlier how it worked, I would’ve helped out more,” she said. While she used to break down her own boxes in the past, she realizes that she could have taken the extra step to flatten other people’s cardboard boxes as well.

In a separate interview, former Outhouse resident assistant and junior Sarah Blacher recognizes how students find it hard to make the small but extra effort to dispose of their recycling properly.

“The thing with students is that we are all in school, a lot of us are working and all of us are busy … and even if they want to do something, where is the time to do something?” she said.

Time and logistics

Here is where the tensions come in. Whitman students are busy, but they are also part of a community that wants to be sustainable and environmentally consciousness. At the same time, there is also the question of how much people know about recycling.

Blacher points out that recycling rules and practices are different from locale to locale. Campus Sustainability Coordinator Tristan Sewell says that as an institution of learning, people with varying levels of sustainability education are coming together in one place. That means not everyone has the same understanding of recycling practices.

Alongside the variety of individual knowledge, recycling systems vary around campus as well.

At the moment, the residence halls, the academic buildings and Reid Campus Center each have their own systems for recycling. While Sewell is working on efforts to create a standard, consolidated recycling system, there is the potential for students to feel confused and pressed for time with a different method wherever they go.

It is then a combination of a lack of time and a lack of a coordinated effort on campus that contributes to the unflattened cardboard and the occasional exploding milk cartons.

“It’s just a very disjointed effort to the movement toward sustainability because I think that students mean well and they do want to be sustainable, but they don’t really know how or they don’t have the time,” said Blacher.

She points out that recycling may seem like a small thing in comparison to renewable energy or water conservation, but it is still part of a whole effort to contribute to Whitman’s environmental consciousness.

The Outhouse RA, Jess Faunt ’17, helps load the truck with recycling. Photo by Anna Dawson.

In the grand scheme of things, recycling is a small effort, but Sewell argues that recycling has a powerful, symbolic significance.

“It does breed a strong sense of accountability if it is implemented correctly. It’s kind of a gateway to other things. It gets people thinking ‘What other things can I do to reduce my impact?’” he said.

Faunt also shares a similar sentiment.

“It’s important to be aware of what we are consuming and I guess knowing that our actions … that all of our waste has got to go somewhere, and if we aren’t intentional of how we are using that waste, then it might end up in a place we don’t want it to,” she said.

For example, while picking up recycling at Marcus House, Bailey holds up a set of sturdy plastic containers that could be ideal for food or miscellaneous storage.

“We run into a lot of things that we end up keeping because there is a lot that someone else could use or benefit from,” said Faunt. “It’s kind of sad to see we are going through perfectly new cardboard boxes that I ended up taking to help move. There is a lot that we don’t need to get rid of.”

Remember the slogan “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle?” Recycling happens, but there is more work to be done in order to reduce and reuse our waste.

Sewell keeps track of how much waste the college keeps out of the landfill. Last year 55 percent of our potential waste was saved from dumping grounds. Sewell says that this number isn’t too bad, but we could up our game in increasing the number and the materials we recycle in addition to throwing away less, weight wise.

“As kids, I think a lot of people learned to recycle, but there is more than just that stuff. We have to be conscious too,” said Faunt.

New York City is a playground for the senses. People fill the sidewalks, breathing in air that rings with Broadway tunes. The scents of food from all around the world – dumplings, pasta, gyros – mingled together to serenade seventeen senior Art and Art History majors and professors from Whitman as they explored the city.

Even though their feet ached from walking, the works of great artists such as Matisse, Picasso, Rothko and Takashi Murakami didn’t fail to inspire creativity and excitement.

From Nov. 18 until the morning of Sunday, Nov. 23, students spent about nine and a half hours – from nine-thirty in the morning until about six in the evening – visiting art museums and absorbing new ideas for artistic possibilities. Students and faculty visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, MOMA and the Chelsea art galleries, to name a few.

“There was a lot of energy throughout the trip, regardless of the amount we walked each day,” wrote senior art major Maddy Webster in an email. “This trip opened our minds to the possibilities of how to fill a gallery space as well as the emotions one can render through art.”

Art majors are each given up to three walls to fill with artwork for their senior thesis, and going to New York has given students like Webster ideas for what to create for their thesis showing.

Webster mentioned one exhibit she visited at the New Museum called “Making Music Modern; Design for Ear and Eye.” The exhibit looked at how different types of music, videogames and interactive multimedia pieces, are made. Webster said the exhibit shared many characteristics with a class she is taking on how to use programming to mesh art and technology – what Webster calls “the hand” and “the machine.”

An exhibit called “Zero” at the Guggenheim museum left a big impression on senior art major Jesus Chaparro. Chaparro expected to see paintings, prints and sculpture, but instead he found himself face to face with artwork painted using fire, soot and combustion techniques.

“It really challenged me to accept and think of different approaches to art,” said Chaparro. “Looking back, I realized I came home with an abundance of new ideas and methods I would like to employ in my art practice.”

Webster shared a similar sentiment.

“All of the shows we attended reignited a lot of creativity within us and made us want to go back to our studios to work as soon as possible,” she reflected.

The exhibits and inspiration don’t just reach students, but faculty as well.

“It always influences what I do in my own studio,” Assistant Professor of Art Richard Martinez said. “I always see something in a way that I hadn’t before. It’s important for all artists regardless of how long they’ve been doing this to constantly view and engage with art.”

The trip is also extremely valuable as a teaching tool. Martinez said that viewing art face to face rather than through the glossy pages of text books is an eye-opening opportunity for artists.

“All of a sudden we see scale relative to our body, color, texture and materials used in a work of art. We see the work the way the artist intended it to be seen. How the artist’s hand is evident, or intentionally not. This is a very transformative experience if the viewers are actually looking closely and truly experiencing works of art.”

Martinez also finds that student work greatly improves after traipsing the galleries of New York; the variety of and innovation in art that New York offers is great exposure to new and unique ideas, he said.

As invigorating as it was to intimately view art for a week, Webster said it was also “incredibly overwhelming.”

“I was nervous because I had no idea how to take so many inspirations and put it into one piece,” said Webster. “But saying this … too much amazing and inspiring and unique art is never a bad thing.”

“Can you envision a society where people don’t listen? What would happen?”

-Michelle Janning, Professor of Sociology

From sun-up till lights out on campus, students are talking and exchanging ideas in class, one voice followed by another. In the moments between classes we compare hours of lost sleep, pages of pending papers and readings. Even at the end of the day we log onto Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and a whole host of other social media sites only to lose ourselves in a flurry of statuses, updates and people disclosing information about themselves. Everywhere — whether through speech or writing — we are surrounded by a culture of talking.

“I think that we don’t really learn how to listen, we learn how to give our opinions and I think particularly in the cultural setting of a college, that’s encouraged,” reflected Peer Listeners coordinator Marie Metheny who has led the program for 10 years.

Started in fall 1985, Peer Listeners is an organization run by the Counseling Center and student leaders. Its main goal is to train students in listening skills that can be used in everyday situations, professional environments and care-based positions. In addition, the organization also puts together events on campus that promote well-being and stress-relief.  Students who go through the semester long training also have the opportunity to stay involved through the years, teaching future trainees and putting together campus programing.

Students take the training for different reasons; some are just interested in honing their listening skills, others are psychology majors and others join hoping to gain skills that will be useful as resident assistant or student academic advisor.

“The basic principles are empathy, being genuine in your response and in the dynamic, being respectful of the people who come to you and who they are and what they bring, and providing confidentiality,” explained Metheny.

Students are taught how to support and work with those dealing with anxiety, depression, eating disorders, grief and a host of other issues and life events.

The trainees learn through practice; senior Miriam Moran, one of the leaders of Peer Listeners, compares it to learning a new language.

“Its kind of like learning a new language where you have to practice it and get comfortable with it and it sort of becomes part of how you think,” she said.

But instead of getting familiar with foreign words and sounds, trainees practice by role playing with realistic scenarios. Examples include listening to the loss of a grandparent, a pet or anxiety due to a low grade on a biology test.

Being in the position of a listener can be draining; you are taking on the emotions of another person and sometimes these can trigger unresolved issues within the listener.

“It can be a burden,” said Moran. “I mean, I’ve had people tell me things and I’ve had to seek help afterward because it was a stressful experience for me.”

Both Moran and Metheny emphasized the importance of self-care and understanding in order to handle such situations.

“As a peer listener it’s important that you sort of distance your concern for them from your well-being,” said Moran.

Metheny said the type of care-work that is associated with peer listening really requires this awareness.

“[When] you are doing any work like this, it’s very helpful to know how you are going to react to something so that you can separate out your own reaction but at the same time be genuine in your empathy or in your caring,” she said.

Moran often has to remind herself to stay calm when she is moved or disturbed by what she is hearing.

“The little peer listener voice tells me ‘don’t freak out, you’ve got to remain calm for their sake’” she said.

Moran joined Peer Listeners her first semester at Whitman, and there has been no turning back for her. Even before arriving on campus, she was aware of the program and was keen on joining. An experience with a friend in high school inspired her interest.

“I had had an experience where a friend of mine in high school was going through some difficult stuff, and I sort of unofficially served in a role that I can now see as sort of like being a peer listener,” she said.

The skills Moran has learned have helped her in interpersonal relationships as well as in her professional life. She works at a winery on weekends and has come to see that in sales one has to listen in order to cater to customers.

In general, however, Peer Listeners has given Moran something that is fast becoming part of her subconscious way of thinking and relating to others.

“I think a lot of Peer Listeners is about respect and just having that sort of ingrained into my conversational patterns has been very useful for me,” she said.

An Art to Listening

Peer Listening is far more than just learning a skill set — it also gets at what it means to be.

“There is an art to listening. It seems like we live in a culture that’s about doing, not being, and part of being is being able to listen,” said Metheny. She is quick to point out that listening isn’t equivalent to silence.

“It’s also about the questions you ask and the focus you have on the person who needs to talk or has something to say.”

The listener’s focus on the speaker is of utmost importance since Peer Listeners isn’t so much about providing advice, or finding a solution — though those things may come out on their own.

“You’re really going to want to be focusing on them and how their experience makes them feel rather than turning the conversation back to yourself,” said Moran.

This is really all about empathy, which is the ability to feel with someone rather than for them. For Moran, it is often challenging to internalize what others are going through. Approaching listening through empathy has been a useful way for her to better grasp what someone is going through.

“Its definitely been really helpful for me to be able to listen in a way that is more empathetic,” said Moran.”I’m learning how to see others perspective rather than imposing my own feelings.”

Why Listen?

We listen on a daily basis — it is a natural outcome of the process of communication. But active listening is important for many reasons.

A Chance to Open Up

At Whitman, Moran observes that students are pretty open about many different facets of life, but only up to a certain extent.

“I think that Whitman students are also very open to hearing perspectives from an academic sense about personal issues, but I don’t necessarily see people being that open about their own life,” said Moran.

She explained that in order for people to open up, you need someone to listen on the other end. Peer Listeners gives students tools to help one another open up by being ready and prepared to fully listen.

Professional Finesse

Another advantage to listening skills, according to Moran, is their use in professional environments, where understanding different interests and directions is crucial. Good listening also lends itself well to advocacy;  providing help and support in a social justice framework, for example, would require comprehending a group’s point of view in order to gauge what type of help they might need.

Relationships in a World of Difference  

“They [listening skills] help us build relationships and empathy. They help people feel heard who might otherwise feel invisible in a sense,” said Metheny.

Professor of Sociology Michelle Janning puts listening in a larger social context.

“If people feel isolated in that they don’t know anybody, they are not quite sure who they belong to. Could part of that be nobody is listening to them, maybe?” said Janning. She went on to explain how a lack of listening or being heard can lead to social change.

Janning cited instances at Whitman where students who feel like they aren’t being heard rally for change and spark conversations on campus as one example.

But listening, in the way it is practiced by Peer Listeners, also has a significance in the increasingly globalized and volatile world we live in today.

Listening can help a person or group of people belong.

”If you feel as if the goal you had going into [a] listening experience is met and that goal is constructed differently for people, that articulates a fundamental problem of why conflicts happen. Boom, conflict,” said Janning.

In a world where ideas and meanings are socially constructed, what something means or signifies is going to vary from person to person and culture to culture. When people with differing understandings come together, close, empathetic listening can be the difference between conflict and common ground.

Peer Listeners offers training every semester — if you are interested in signing up for Spring 2015, contact the Peer Listeners leaders or Marie Metheny.

Ten Guiding Principles of Peer Listening

1. Be nonjudgmental
2. Communicate empathy
3. Be genuine
4. Don’t give personal advice
5. Avoid questions that begin with ‘why?’
6. Don’t interpret or make assumptions
7. Let the client find answers and take action in regards to their presenting problem. Your job is to listen, reflect, guide, support.
8. Stick with the here and now
9. Deal with feelings first
10. Know your own values and limitations

Topics Covered by Peer Listeners

Intro to active listening

Feeling, paraphrasing and how to use questions

Problem solving

Triggers and self-care

Anxiety and depression

Suicide

LGBTQ issues

Throngs of people fill Hong Kong’s Central district, packed shoulder to shoulder. The square echoes with a cacophony of voices and slogans. The atmosphere is tense; policemen in neon yellow vests try to contain the crowd as occasional violence erupts. Plumes of pepper spray sometimes fill the air as people hold out umbrellas in defense.

Occupy Central, known as the Umbrella Revolution, is currently taking Hong Kong by storm. Initiated by university students, the protests express anger at the Chinese Central government’s screening requirement of all candidates standing in the 2017 election, which has been promised by law.

Hong Kong has followed a political and economic system distinct from mainland China since July 1997 when it gained independence from Britain and integrated into China. The movement is currently seen by media and supporters as a struggle for independence and for democracy.

A Complicated Context

China is a complicated place. This is the first thing juniors Kangqiao Liao, Suzy Xu and first-year Yujian Wang say when talking about Chinese politics. Though they all hail from different parts of China and they agree there is no black and white way to think about China and its politics, common conceptions of China in the United States consist of people oppressed by government censoring and an authoritarian regime.

Xu says this is not wholly true.

Suzy Xi ’15. Photos by Halley McCormick.

“We have censoring, but people find a way [out] because people are curious,” said Xu. “They even have software packages that provide ways to ‘jump the wall.”

Language is yet another tool, according to Wang. He provided this example: If you were to type in the name of the chairman, China’s version of Google, Baidu, might have certain articles blocked. But when the chairman is given a code name in social media — such as “frog” (Wang says this is because he resembles a frog), previously forbidden information can become accessible.

Just as China’s realities are more nuanced than people assume, the nation’s relations with Hong Kong aren’t as clear-cut as people think.

History Marks the Present

Liao is from Guangzhou, a city in Guangdong province, one hour away from Hong Kong. He said his friends back home have mixed feelings about the movement. Some of them see sense in fighting for freedom even though efforts may not pay off. Others see it a disruption of daily life and economic activity, since protests are in the economic hotspot of the Central district.

Kangqiao Liao ’15.

For many people, the movement is divisive because of the diverging histories of Hong Kong and China. Protests are becoming increasingly violent as anti-demonstration protesters clash with Occupy protesters.

The Chinese government hasn’t always been transparent about this tension around their relationship. Xu offered the image of Hong Kong presented in her censored school textbooks.

“Our textbook only talked about how happy China is and how happy Hong Kong is, and it seems like it just wanted to portray this unity of the two parts [without] going into details,” she said.

The Internet paints a different picture.

“From [social networks] there is a general feeling [of] the Mainland peoples perceiving that Hong Kong people think they are superior,” said Wang.

Some people harbor this sentiment because Mainland China had to endure the hardships of the Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976. Hong Kong, however, doesn’t come from the same history.

“[My parents’] generation [has] appreciation of the Chinese government because my mother witnessed China becoming, from poverty, [a] more economically strengthened country,” said Wang.

Yu Jian Wang ’18.

“They think that if the central government treats Hong Kong well, then Hong Kong should be nice to the central government. In my opinion, giving economic benefits to Hong Kong does not [imply] that they do not deserve to fight for this freedom. It’s not the same thing,” he said.

Xu’s parents have similar sentiments. Xu’s mother recalls going hungry and having to use food stamps during the Cultural Revolution. Meat was available only in small quantities with little frequency.

“When we asked [my parents] how much [they] care about freedom now, the first thing they think about is that we are already glad that our living standards now are so much better than previous [times],” said Xu.

In light of this increase in quality of life, Liao suggested that many Chinese think the central government functions sufficiently.

“You have to eat first, live well first, then talk about ideologically what you want to have,” said Liao.

When asked whether he supports the protesters in Hong Kong, Liao is quick to say it’s not so much about the end result as it is about the means used to get there. He thinks negotiations should be the first step whereas protests and demonstrations are more of a last resort.

Both Liao and Wang think China will not grant Hong Kong sovereign independence — at least not for the time being. However, all three students agree that Hong Kong is a space for trends to begin.

“Hong Kong is an experimental field … a lot of things that cannot happen in mainland China can happen in Hong Kong,” said Liao.

He added that such protests would be immediately squashed were they to happen in mainland China.

Broadening a Narrow View

Before Xu shares an opinion on the situation, she wants to be fully aware of the larger picture.

“I’m not against people having freedom; at the same time, I want to understand what the government is thinking. I don’t believe that all the people in government are evil … that would be ridiculous,” she said. “I want to make an effort to know what is really happening. I want to educate myself first and form my ideas and at least be informed by different sources so I can get that objective view.”

China’s complicated system makes it challenging to get a broad view.

“Without democracy, one major problem is the transparency of the system [the Chinese Government],” said Wang.

He recognizes that China’s strict form of government has its drawbacks, but Wang questions the notion of democracy as the ideal political system.

“American people, they like to use their democracy view to judge other political systems, but the point is that democracy is taken for granted,” said Wang. “Just because it’s a successful system doesn’t mean it’s the only way for political success.”

Liao strongly echoed this sentiment, expressing his displeasure at the way in which American media and foreign policy tout democracy as the only correct political identity. Anything that is not democratic is seen as bad — in the case of China and Hong Kong, mainland China’s hand in Hong Kong is “bad,” and Hong Kong’s protests are “good”. Liao and Wang both emphasize how views of Hong Kong’s current state are so influenced by these narrow — and perhaps imperialistic — ideas.

Liao said this isn’t just a battle of ideologies, but a clash between Western and Chinese interests.

“Chinese central media is very much condemning the UK and the U.S. as trying to advocate their own interest,” Liao said.

But he thinks a nation’s political truth is not absolute — it should not be based on other nation’s interests but tailored to their own circumstances.

“There is no linear progress, there is no singular linear development of a society,” said Liao. “Everyone has to look into their own [society] holistically — history, culture, society and people — and come up with a way to arrange society.”

In light of this, he noted that people at Whitman go beyond this narrow view of political systems. He said that in discussions in his politics courses, he feels people are more open to thinking about how different cultures might view different political systems.

No Perfect Solution

These students point out that sometimes a nation’s self-determination might mean making trade-offs, which outsiders to that specific system and place may not understand or accept.

Many the world over think of China’s government as an authoritarian regime without considering its unique circumstances. It is a vast country with a population of 1.3 billion people. Liao argues that the government is effective when it comes to getting things done for such a large group of people. Though others may not understand or agree with it, China’s political choices have allowed it to grow into the world’s second largest superpower in just 30 years, said all three students.

“There’s too much going on in China. It’s such a huge country and it’s hard to meet everyone’s interests,” said Xu.

Amidst all the hazy complications — between Chinese and Western interest, between an authoritarian system and a democratic one — one thing seems to be clear to Xu.

“There is no perfect way to do things,” she said.

For more information on Occupy Central:

Why is Hong Kong Protesting – BBC

Genesis of The Umbrella Movement – The World Post

A tale of two political systems – TED

Tires scream as a car stops quickly, and Senior Hasan Ali remembers the car in Iraq that made the same sound before its passengers started shooting.

Ali knows his gut reaction in those situations isn’t the same as what he understands is actually happening. Still, it is challenging to separate his memories from the present.

Ali and first-year Evgeniya Sicheva are from Iraq and Uzbekistan, respectively. They’ve both seen conflict and oppression at different levels.

Ali has never known a peaceful Iraq, and Sicheva is used to the corruption of the aristocratic, dictatorial government of Uzbekistan. The situations plaguing their respective homes may be half a world away, but they are, in the hearts and minds of Sicheva and Ali, everyday realities.

Hasan Ali ’15. Photo by Annabelle Marcovici.

Political Instability and an Uncertain Future

Since the fifth grade, Sicheva’s mother has told her that she must get out of her native Uzbekistan someday.

“You have to work hard to leave this place,” Sicheva’s mother told her. “You have to get a good job — good education.”

Uzbekistan is a landlocked country in central Asia. The country has been under the rule of 77-year-old Islam Karimov since Uzbekistan’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The country is growing increasingly politically unstable, especially as general elections approach in the near future.

“Being in that country … it’s not really that bad,” said Sicheva. “But you can feel that … it constrains you to certain boundaries.”

She then explained the extent of government corruption. Drunk drivers can evade prosecution by bribing police officers. A prestigious academic diploma, the “Red diploma,” can be obtained by offering a large sum of money to officials. Speaking about the government is a risk: Talk of politics is dangerous on the streets, and when speaking about the government at home or at school, voices are lowered to a whisper. 

The government also censors media and news, leaving citizens ill-informed about happenings outside the borders of their own localities. 

Evgeniya Sicheva ’18. Photo by Annabelle Marcovici.

For Sicheva, the United States has been somewhat of a contrast to the censure and restrictive atmosphere of Uzbekistan.

“Here people know everything about what is happening around them,” said Sicheva. “I feel kind of a little more free because I can speak out and I can do whatever I want.”

She feels much more comfortable walking the streets in Walla Walla as a woman. In Uzbekistan, women are still subject to a male-dominated society where groping is common place while simply trying to cross the street.

Women have been forcibly sterilized to prevent population growth, and many women drink vinegar to commit suicide, often failing and enduring lifelong injury.

Here Sicheva said she can walk without worry.

Because of the corruption, secrecy and lack of opportunity back home, Sicheva said many people are leaving the country in search of better education and employment. This concerns her.

“My brother is still there and I’m really worried about his future because it makes it seem like there’s no future in Uzbekistan,” she said.

In spite of an uncertain future, corruption and tight government censure, Sicheva’s fondness for Uzbekistan still burns bright.

“I kind of miss it,” she said. “ I’m used to that environment; if you grow [up] in there, it’s not that unusual.”

Forever Wary of War’s Violence

Fireworks pop and sizzle down the sky, and senior Hasan Ali thinks of home. While the Americans at the party celebrate their independence, Ali stands terrified of the memories that the smell of gunpowder conjures.

“All these fireworks made me think a lot home and think about explosives,” he said. “The sound is very similar. Even the light and the smell … that smell of explosive.”

Ali’s brother, sisters and parents are still in Baghdad, a violent hot spot in Iraq. He is constantly keeping a tab on the news to make sure they are safe.

“I read the news. I see bombing where my sister lives. And I try to call them … They don’t reply and I get really scared,” he said.

Mementos remind Ali of home. Photo by Annabelle Marcovici.

Though Ali is grateful that he isn’t in constant threat of violence here, it isn’t easy to be away from home.

“It’s really hard for me to be in this situation and think of [my family] being in that situation,” said Ali.

Growing up in a war-torn Iraq gives Ali a wider view of U.S.-Iraq relations. While keeping up with the news to ensure his family’s safety, he noted how one-sided (and short-sighted) news coverage about Iraq can be. That myopia trickles into everyday interactions, too; Ali said he often disagrees with Americans about, for example, The Islamic State.

He explained that Iraq and its neighbors have largely been pawns of the Western world in recent history. The region was first colonized by the British in the early 1900s. When people clamored for their own free nations, the United States, Britain and France backed oppressive dictators.

“They [the West] put on people who are oppressive just because these dictators actually gave them oil,” said Ali.

Ali connected this oppression to the creation of ISIS. He used the example of Abu Ghraib, a prison where inmates have been brutally abused by the U.S. Army and the CIA during the U.S. war in Iraq in the early 2000s.

“What do you expect them to become after you torture them and essentially make them inhuman?” he asked.

Amidst the relative mellowness of Whitman and the lack of violence here, Ali still feels separated from the college environment. He attributes this feeling partly to being an international student and partly to having been witness to violent conflict.

“As much as I love this place, I always feel detached. Once you’re actually in violence, once you live in war,” he said, “violence and war kind of live in you.”

Ali has not only had to grapple with political and violent conflict at home, but he has to think about and engage with conflict academically.

“It does get to me and I’m a politics major, so I read a lot about conflict,” he said. “I try to think …  this is academic … I’m learning more about this, but it still really hurts. Sometimes I actually stop studying.”

But amidst news reports, worrying about home and analyzing conflicts in class, Ali remembers to count his blessings.

“I remind myself of the good things in my life right now, quite explicitly, by saying them out loud,” he said. “That helps.”

Varying Life experiences shine a questioning light on Whitman course curriculum

After reflecting on their personal experiences with conflict and tension, both Ali and Sicheva illustrated how their experiences question and challenge common dialogues that play out at Whitman.

“A lot of students say something but they don’t understand that what they see here is not the same outside the country,” said Sicheva.

Sicheva keeps familiar items with her. Photo by Annabelle Marcovici.

She described how reading “The Second Sex” in her Encounters class leads to discussions about women and gender, a hot topic that is particularly pertinent to Uzbekistan.

“A lot of students say men and women are almost equal,” said Sicheva. “That’s not true. Women in my country are not equal at all.”

Ali also acknowledges a different reality beyond what we assume to be normal in America and in our classrooms.

Though he doesn’t identify as religious, Ali argues that the interpretation of the Quran presented in Encounters isn’t fully accurate, sometimes subtly perpetuating misconceptions of the Islamic religion that underlie rationale for war in the Middle East.

“How the Quran in Encounters is set up actually shows you a lot of violence,” he said. “So it’s kind of like a conception of the Quran is given to the student concerning violence rather than [saying], ‘Let’s read this whole text and understand that there’s a lot of compassion in it.’”

Sicheva and Ali hint at thinking beyond the confines of familiarity and what we deem comfortable and commonplace in order to comprehend a world much larger than the one we take for granted.

From the third-story window of Prentiss Hall on Sept. 21, I can hear a rush of energy as women move out the main door into the grassy courtyard. Their voices carry loud and clear, gushing with excitement. They are heading out for their final day of formal recruitment.

Formal recruitment is the process all prospective members must go through in order to get to know the men’s and women’s fraternities on campus before joining one. Both prospective and active members preference one another based on a mutual sense of gelling well and sharing common interests. For two weeks in mid-September, men and women around campus gathered to explore Whitman’s Greek scene. It is a different experience for everyone, yet there seems to be a unanimous feeling that the recruitment process and Greek life foster community and connection.

The common stereotype of Greek life — attributed to large, state schools — is a lifestyle that supports binge drinking, excessive partying, class bunking, a short-sighted view of relationships and exclusivity. But first-year Michael Brock says Whitman defies those stereotypes.

“Fraternities aren’t very exclusive here. People don’t really base their identities off what fraternity they’re part of,” said Brock.

First-year Emily Bowen agrees that Greek life isn’t a mutually exclusive identity. However, she does see elements of exclusivity in the formal recruitment process. She explained that during recruitment, some prospective members are not invited back to women’s fraternities that they preference. Such a situation can lead to hurt feelings and a sense of being left out.

“I wish there was a way to make it a little bit less exclusive,” said Bowen.

She said that the brevity of the recruitment process is a reason for this, and she does understand that limitations can create an atmosphere of exclusivity. Bowen argues that women’s fraternity recruitment process is very structured in comparison to the relaxed manner of men’s fraternity recruitment.

Women’s fraternity recruitment consists of specific events spanning four days over two weekends. The days include section tours, Activity Day, Philanthropy Day and, finally, Tea Day, to which potential new members are invited by two of the women’s fraternities they preference.

Men’s fraternity recruitment, however, mostly consists of upperclassmen taking first years to lunch over a period of two weeks and doing activities such as whitewater rafting and cliff jumping.

Both Alpha Phi Recruitment Chair senior Kate Coll and Phi Delta Theta President junior James Lavery said the reason for this discrepancy is in the national guidelines set by Panhellenic (the national women’s fraternity organization) and the Interfraternity Council (IFC).

Coll explained events for women’s recruitment are specifically prescribed by Panhellenic at the national level; Tea Day, Activity Day and Philanthropy Day are all required by the overarching organization.

In contrast, Lavery said the only essential rule set nationally by the IFC is that recruitment events and fraternity-related programming cannot include alcohol consumption. Beyond that, each institution’s IFC can choose how to design their recruitment process.

“The only pressure would be trying to present yourself. You are going to want to put your best foot forward,” said Lavery.

The weight of making first impressions is, for many, a trying experience to navigate during recruitment. Yet the different structures of men’s and women’s fraternity recruitment programs subtly affect how that pressure is felt.

“There is just a lot of pressure to put on your best face and impress people. And the way they chose people to come back, it was based on surface impression,” said Bowen.

She said that since women’s fraternities spend a total of four days worth of activities for formal recruitment and men’s fraternities don’t follow the same timeline, the women’s recruitment process brings a pressure to make a lasting impression in a very short period of time.

Coll said the pressure to make a good impression isn’t limited to potential new members.

“Often being on the other side is uncomfortable, too. You want them to like you personally because that connects them to the sorority,” said Coll.

The discomfort new members feel doesn’t go unnoticed by current women’s fraternity members.

“I didn’t know people knew I was uncomfortable [when I rushed]. But we know,” said Coll.

It’s a lot to deal with, especially during the first month of a new school year. For the same reason, Bowen and Brock said its challenge and excitement can be avenues for personal growth.

“I’ve never really thought of myself as someone who is really good at meeting people right off the bat,” said Brock. “I’ve learned that I could get better with practice.”

Bowen found that she became more certain of her future goals.

“I understand more what I want to do in college,” she said. “Talking about and reiterating my interests helped me come up with a better plan for what I want to do while being here at Whitman.”

Brock and Bowen also saw recruitment as a helpful way to soften the transition from high school to college. Brock said he had mostly been in contact with other first-years who are also struggling through the transitional phase. Formal recruitment provided an alternative point of view.

“Meeting all these upperclassmen and sophomores and just seeing how happy they are here and how close they are is really cool to think that ‘Wow, I may be in a really similar place next year,’” said Brock.

Ultimately, according to both upperclassmen and first-year members, a men’s or women’s fraternity is all about making close connections.

Bowen and Brock both expressed how much they looked forward to being a part of a close-knit group of people ready to provide support and advice when needed.

Lavery and Coll also named these as benefits of Greek life. There are many ways to be part of a group at Whitman through clubs, Interest Houses and other groups. Greek life is yet another avenue.

“I think it really does go back to having a support system … to find your niche, your smaller community, and I think that is a huge advantage,” said Coll.