Mount Hood

Game night: table-top games with huge replay value

By NATHANIEL DUNAWAY
 Entertainment Editor

My friends and I have taken up to playing games.

Right now, you might be imagining kickball or “Grand Theft Auto”; however — while those are both awesome — the games we’ve been playing aren’t at home outside or on the TV, but instead on the tabletop (or the carpet).

Game night has become a weekly tradition at my house, and in case you’re considering making it a tradition at yours, here’s a quick rundown of some of the best board and card games my roommates, friends, and I keep returning to every weekend. All of these games are best played with 2-6 players.

“Once Upon a Time”

My only disclaimer for this card game is this: it’s not for everyone. Or maybe a better way to put it is that not everyone is for this game. The entire focus of “Once Upon a Time” is on storytelling.

Players have a hand of cards with fairy tale elements such as “Princess,” “Dragon” and “Dungeon.” These are called Story Cards. The game begins as one player, the Storyteller, who begins telling a story, utilizing their cards to
further the plot, guiding it to their specific Ending Card.

The other players can use Interrupt Cards to become the new Storyteller. The first player to play all their Story Cards and reach their ending wins. It may sound complicated, but you get the hang of it quickly. The more creative and inventive the players are, the better. The stories created during this game can be hilarious and exciting, and you’ll find yourself wanting to write some of them down.

“Clue Mysteries” *

If I have any complaints about the game “Clue,” it’s that games don’t last nearly
long enough. If you agree with that sentiment, and also worry that “Clue” isn’t complicated or convoluted enough, then “Clue Mysteries” is the board game for you.

Taking the mystery-solving theme of “Clue” and expanding it from a single crime in a single house to 50 individual crimes in a whole town full
of suspects, “Clue Mysteries” has a terrific amount of replay value. The gathering of clues involves getting statements from characters (many of them new, although the usual suspects are still present), cracking codes, and traveling all across town to catch a criminal.

While the classic murder weapons are unfortunately absent, the game makes up for it with cool detective tools such as a magnifying glass, mirror, and key.

“Fluxx” *

Another card game and one of the wildest, most wonderfully unpredictable games
I’ve ever played. In “Fluxx,” the rules are determined by the cards in your hand, and they’re always changing.

Complete aspects of the game can be changed with a single card, such as how many cards can be drawn, how many or what cards can be played, and what it takes to win. Games can last five minutes or they can last an hour.

There are dozens of versions, ranging from “Cartoon Network Fluxx” to “Cthulhu
Fluxx” and “Monty Python Fluxx.” Every play-through is different, making “Fluxx” endlessly enjoyable.

Board and card games are fun; that’s kind of the whole point. And while some are
more fun than others (I’m not a huge fan of “Settlers of Catan,” but it’s a popular one you should also check out), try to be open to whatever games come your way. You’ll find the ones that stick.

Tabletop games may not be as popular as sports or video games, but they can be just as much — if not more — fun.

*Shout out to Sarah Cotter for recommending these games.

Faculty senate passes divestment resolution

By LAURA KNUDSON
 Editor-in-Chief

The faculty senate is encouraging Western’s Development Foundation to investigate and provide information on fossil fuel divestment.

In an (18-4-0) vote, the senate passed a resolution Tuesday calling for the collaboration of the foundation, environmental club, Associated Students of
Western Oregon University, and the administration.

Divesting refers to getting rid of stocks, bonds or investment funds that are part of the fossil fuel industry.

The foundation is a private, nonprofit organization that financially assists the college through investment returns and gifts from donors. Last school year, the foundation’s total revenue was $4,302,690 according to their audit report.

Earlier this year, the environmental club, comprised of about 15 to 20 members launched a divestment campaign, collecting signatures in favor of divestment, representing more than 10 percent of the student body. They also protested outside at a Dec. 6 foundation meeting after being denied a spot on the agenda.

Foundation meetings are closed for confidentiality, so groups or individuals must be invited to speak.

Karl Amspacher, environmental club member, recently submitted a resolution to ASWOU, calling for the foundation to divest over the next five years or explain their reasoning if they chose not to.

In a 0-5-0 vote Jan. 28, the ASWOU senate did not approve the resolution. At the same meeting, Amspacher asked the Senate to withdraw the resolution because, “It felt like it wasn’t going to pass, and it’d be better to have something pass then have it voted down,” he said.

Since Senator Braden Shribbs had written the legislation and is, therefore, the only one who can withdraw it, the vote took place because Shribbs was absent from the meeting.

Corbin Garner, ASWOU president, said the resolution was not approved because “the students [senators] conversed with were not well informed, and we felt that divestment at this point was not the right option.”

Amspacher was disappointed in the decision to move forward with the vote. “They could have tabled it indefinitely,” Amspacher said. “Instead they chose to vote on it, and they voted unanimously.” He added there is clear student support in favor of divestment and ASWOU is “disregarding their mission” as a voice for students. “Whatever their motives are, it’s not in support of students,” he said.

ASWOU has not taken a stance on divestment, Garner said, because, “We don’t feel it’s our place to take a side.” The environmental club plans to introduce legislation to ASWOU modeled after the faculty senate legislation that was passed.

Dr. Emily Plec, co-adviser of the environmental club, has taken over for Mark VanSteeter, who is on sabbatical. Plec said the club is shifting their strategy to a “longer approach focused on multiple goals.”

By working to increase campus awareness and educate on divestment, they will “pull back from the force with which they had approached foundation partners in finding out more information,” she said.

“There’s been this perception on campus that the foundation has avoided any conversation and that’s not true,” Tommy Love, executive director in the Office of University Advancement and Western Development Foundation said in a Tuesday interview.

While the foundation does not disclose where they invest, Love did contact the foundation fund managers, Ferguson Wellman Capital Management in Portland, requesting information on the foundation’s investments in energy.

He was provided with a graphic demonstrating 5 percent of the foundation’s endowments are in energy. Of that 5 percent, not all is necessarily in fossil fuels, Love said.

Fund managers who weighed in also disagree with divestment, Love said. “They don’t think it will have any impact.” “We’re not giving these companies an influx of cash; we’re buying an ownership stake,” Love said. “That’s essentially what stock is.”

Love is not alone in this regard. “I don’t think divestment deals with it in the slightest,” President Mark Weiss said in a phone interview Wednesday.

While Weiss acknowledges climate change is a serious issue, he said, “There’s no incentive to not burn fossil fuels. It doesn’t do anything to solve the problem.”

“I absolutely agree with Mark when he says that the WOU foundation divesting will not impact the industry in any quantifiable way,” Plec said in an email Wednesday.

For Amspacher, divestment is about doing the ethical thing. “Western’s foundation by itself is not going to have a big impact,” Amspacher said. “While it’s just symbolic, if other schools follow what we do, then it loses its purely symbolic action and it becomes something with a tangible impact.”

Though both sides may be in agreement that divesting will have little-to no impact on fossil fuel companies, the question has been raised whether or not
it could hurt student scholarship money brought in by the foundation.

With the first American college, Hampshire College, Mass. having divested in 2011 according to gofossilfree.org, quantitative data of divestment’s impact is hard to come by. This leaves Love unsure of the consequences when it comes to student scholarship money.

“To say that by having our school divest, our financial returns won’t be hurt is untrue and unpredictable,” Love said in a presentation to ASWOU Jan. 14 according to senate minutes.

In the 2013-2014 fiscal year, the foundation awarded $663,669 in scholarship support.

Love said the risk of losing financial returns and hurting scholarships for students is prevalent.

“We have the moral obligation to provide as many scholarships as we can,” he said. “At this time the foundation is not looking to divest.”

“Some universities have received new donations specifically because they divested, and it is possible that some donors do not support divestment,” said a Jan. 22 memo from Plec and VanSteeter addressed to faulty senate.

However, “Some of our most significant contributions for the benefit of students and our campus have come from individuals in the business chain of big oil,”
Weiss said in a Wednesday email.

In a follow-up phone interview, Weiss said, “Just in the past two years, we’ve gotten approximately $3 million from donors that have ties to energy.” Some significant donors have ties to road construction companies or major trucking
companies, he added.

Weiss said he wants to see the conversation shift toward solving global warming and what can be done on campus.

Love said just because the foundation doesn’t support divestment doesn’t mean they’re not interested in a discussion on climate change.

Plec said the environmental club will focus the rest of this term on educating the campus. Beginning this term, they will also work to give the foundation incentive to divest. This will be done through divestment initiative donation
request forms given out to organizations, institutions, donors and individuals.

Money raised from pledges would work to offset any possible short-term negative financial divestment consequences. The form can be found on the environmental
club’s Facebook page.

“Whether or not we succeed with divestment, we’re going to measure our success by how informed and thoughtful people are about the issue,” Plec said. “I think when you make real social changes, there’s a lot of leg work involved.”

Finding a way to make divestment profitable for Western is the environmental club’s new goal. Plec said it’s time to “put our money where our ethics and values are.”

Adapting to the Age of Connectivity

By TREVOR JACKSON
 Guest Columnist

Last week, I made a trip to Chicago. I’m studying theater, and I planned to go and audition for graduate schools. On Sunday, I woke up at the absolute crack of
dawn so I could drive with my father from Monmouth to PDX.

After the hour drive, 10 minutes to park, 10 minutes to walk to the terminal, and an additional hour of waiting in line (it happened to be Super Bowl Sunday), we approached the Alaska Airlines counter only to find that our flight had been canceled.

Fortunately, there was another flight in the next two days, and it wouldn’t conflict with my audition. But the situation was nonetheless extremely frustrating.

See, I still live in the 20th century, and I don’t own a smartphone. On the drive over, if I only owned some sort of smart device, I could have received the cancellation notice ahead of time and saved the trip. But alas, I had no such
device. And the ironic thing is, my father works for Verizon.

I decided to purchase for myself a Samsung Galaxy, a tablet computer with a 7-inch screen. Some people, like my father, believe they can be just as productive while “living-off-the-grid.” But let me tell you: as someone who has made a lifestyle switch in the very midst of the Age of Connectivity, there is no other way to live if you want to count yourself as a part of the American workforce.

Now, I know the audience I am writing for, and that, quite frankly, I’m preaching to the choir. I would wager that 99 percent of you, the readers, know the immediate benefits of being consistently connected to the internet. How fortunate it is the campus is covered in Wi-Fi signals.

To those that are wary about how predominant technology has become in our lives, I say “get over it.” Imagine working as a chef in a competitive kitchen, except you’re the only one that has to go cook everything in the fire pit out back. Meanwhile, I’ll stay inside with my industrial stovetop.

Flashback Friday: Dean of Women and namesake of Todd Hall

Jessica Todd, standing in front of the dormitories. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE WESTERN OREGON UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
Jessica Todd, standing in front of the dormitories. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE WESTERN OREGON UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
By KATRINA PENAFLOR
 Campus Life Editor

Today, Todd Hall houses psychology offices, the modern language department, the Child Development Center and Teaching Research Institute. But what some students might not know is the hall itself was actually once a dormitory that housed female students who attended the Oregon Normal School, a former title of Western.

And the woman in charge of the students was Jessica Todd.

Todd originally came to the Oregon Normal School to work as a critic teacher, a supervisor of student teachers. She later became the dean of women, which was her highest title at the institution.

She also played a major role in the funding of what we now call Todd Hall, which was built in 1912, and the Cottage, built in 1917.

Additionally, Todd watched over the students living in the dormitory. She was known for her no-nonsense attitude, and for graciously taking girls of the school and turning them into respectable women.

In the October 1923 edition of The Oregonian, Louise Shields wrote: “Miss Jessica S. Todd, dean of women and head of the dormitory, has been a potent factor in working the miracle in the young women who are to be teachers” and “leaders in communities throughout the state.”

She had a “my way or the highway” type of attitude, said Jerrie Lee Parpart, exhibits coordinator and archives assistant at Hamersly Library.

Although she had a stern attitude, even rumored to have closed the door to the dormitory on girls who arrived after curfew, Todd cared deeply for the students. They were of the upmost of importance to her. The girls of the dorms showed their equal respect and gratitude towards Todd by dedicating a tulip tree to her.

According to an April 2, 1929 article in the student newspaper, The Lamron, “The Senior Cottage girls pleasantly surprised Dean Todd by dedicating to her, her home state tree as a token of lasting appreciation and friendship.”

Todd was frugal. She worked hard to save the university money and eventually saved the institution enough to add an extension to Todd Hall, giving it a music room and west wing.

Part of Todd’s work in forming girls into women was organizing formal Sunday dinners and Wednesday dress dinners, where students were allowed to invite family members or boyfriends. The girls at the dinner would alternate being heads of the table, handling etiquette and table rules.

“Even such a matter as table manners leaves its mark upon a girl’s general self-control,” Shields said.

One of Jessica Todd’s additions to the dormitory was the “Painted Alley” which was designed after a Parisian Café. It has also been known to be the spot where girls would sneak boys into the dorm.

Todd later retired in 1931; her hard work and dedication did not go unnoticed. As said in a tribute written to Todd in The Lamron, in 1931, “For nineteen years she has capably directed the dormitories, making them truly beautiful and inspiring places in which to live. She has worked patiently through stress and storm, guiding and helping.”

In October 1944, The OCE Lamron also wrote: “The dormitory was named for her in the recognition of her many years of service to the school,”

Todd died in 1944 in Pennsylvania, but it is rumored that her ghost or presence lingers around the university, continuing to watch over students and her former dormitories.

The time is now to rise for revolution

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By KATRINA PENAFLOR
 Campus Life Editor

Abby’s House brought the campaign, One Billion Rising Revolution, to Western’s campus Feb. 12, for its third year. One Billion Rising is a national event that started in 2012, with its focus to end violence against women.

According to www.onebillionrising.org,“One in three women across the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. That’s one billion women and girls.”

One Billion Rising has taken place in over 200 countries, and people can show their support by rising against these injustices.

The One Billion Rising Revolution campaign continues the previous year’s One Billion Rising for Justice campaign.

Promoting the campaign brings awareness to the issues and Andrea Hugmeyer, assistant director of Abby’s House, said she hopes students will, “recognize the incredible amount of violence women experience in their lives.”

Abby’s House played music and provided free hot chocolate to students. They also set up tables and posters with statistic about racism, ableism, classism, sexism, and heterosexism for students to recognize the different systems of oppression.

One of the posters included a quote from Lilla Watson, a woman’s activist from Australia: “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us walk together.”

There was also a large sign for students to paint their handprints to support the campaign.

Jessica Galbraith, who is doing her practicum with Abby’s House, said she likes “the idea of getting the youth involved.” The many handprints on the sign was evidence of Western’s students support for One Billion Rising.

The event was set up on the front plaza of the Werner University Center. Being in such a high traffic area gave more students the opportunity to notice what was happening. The campaign “forces people to think about it,” Hugmeyer said.

“We want them to think about social injustice,” said Abby’s House advocate Jessica Fontaine.

One Billion Rising was the kick off for the upcoming Valentine’s Day events Abby’s House will present in February, such as the Vagina Monologues.

“Together we can rise for revolution,” Hugmeyer said.

Love spreads throughout Western

PHOTO BY SHANNEN BROUNER | PHOTO EDITOR
PHOTO BY SHANNEN BROUNER | PHOTO EDITOR
By AMANDA CLARKE
 Staff Writer

Project LOVE, an event dedicated to loving yourself and created by Western student Karlie Holmgren and sponsored by Student Leadership and Activities, was in the Werner University Center Feb. 9 to Feb. 11. There was a booth in the WUC for the three days, manned by volunteers and Holmgren herself.

Project LOVE showed variety each day with a different event at the booth. On the first day, students were able to write sticky notes with words of encouragement for their homes. The following day, there was an opportunity to take photos in a photo booth. The final day, students could take slips to write compliments for their friends and loved ones.

“Each day we promoted simple ideas — whether it was writing positive notes about yourself around your house, taking a picture to capture your own beauty, or passing out compliments to family, friends or random people,” Holmgren said.

Holmgren said she hoped to reach out to different groups of people walking through the WUC. She said February had always been a time to celebrate love for another person.

The purpose of the event was to help remind people to love themselves. Because media typically defines beauty and love for people, it can sometimes be difficult for someone to see their own beauty and to love themselves.

“It is an empowering message,” said Janessa Rook, a junior public health major.

Jordyn Ducotey, a junior communication studies major also attended the event.

“When those impractical expectations are not met, many people fail to see their beauty,” Ducotey said. “This event reminded people that they are beautiful and that loving yourself is important.”

Holmgren also said that Project LOVE was working toward trying to show that beauty should be defined in your own terms.

“Your own individual beauty is why you should love yourself,” Holmgren said.

Holmgren said she hopes that Project LOVE “affected people on campus by simply reminding people they are worthy of their own love.”

“Sometimes, all we need is a reminder,” said Holmgren. “that’s what Project LOVE was there for.”

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