WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Collegian Week in Review: February 13, 2025

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

Thomas, Caroline, and Coleman are joined by Megan Li to discuss Rough Draft Friday night jazz sessions and Grace Novak to highlight a recent accomplishment for a Hillsdale College basketball player.

Welcome to The Collegian Week in Review on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Here are your hosts, Moore Gleason, Thomas McKenna, and Caroline Kurt. Welcome to Collegian Week in Review, where we give you an inside look into Michigan's oldest college newspaper. We're your host, Thomas McKenna. Caroline Kurt. And Coleman Rowan. Today we'll be talking with Megan Lee about her article she wrote about Rough Draft and their Friday Night Jazz Sessions they be hosting, that they have host and will be hosting.

Then we'll be talking with Grace Novak about a women's basketball player hitting a milestone of 1,000 points. But first, we're going to start with some top stories. So Thomas is going to tell us about what's going on on the front page. Sure. On the front page this week, we have Victor Davis Hansen, a fellow at the college and also a well-known historian. He'll be our commencement speaker this spring for the graduating senior class. And then we also have Dr. Arne, the president of the college, winning an award from the Heritage Foundation. And then we also have a Q&A with the Homecoming King and Queen and a little piece by Assistant Editor Anna Broussard on a house that the college is closing down and demolishing to put up some administrative offices.

So a lot of stuff going on on the front page. Caroline, tell us about what's going on on opinions. Yeah, it was a fun week. We had some Valentine's Day themed stuff with Valentine's Day just around the corner. Rachel Schroeder, a senior made the case for Hills dating, which is Hill still slang. for spending a lot of time with someone that you are interested in but not committing to a dating relationship, which, you know, we like to joke around here at Hill Sill and it kind of gets a bad rap, but she was saying that this has its time in place when it allows people to get to know each other before committing to a relationship. So that was a lovely piece. Frederick Woodward, a sophomore argued that this is the time for us.

the federal government to defund NPR because it has served as purpose and is no longer relevant and Jillian Parks, our editor-in-chief, argued that

college students, even though we don't have large incomes yet, still have a Christian obligation to be tithing to our churches and houses worship. So it was a great page. Coleman, tell us about culture and features.

Yeah, so over in the culture section, other than the coverage by Megan Lee, who we're going to be talking to later, we have some coverage of the Art Colloquium, the colloquium that was held this weekend. So that was covered by Anna Bressard, the assistant editor. Then we had some reviews,

one of the Super Bowl halftime show by our editor-in-chief, Jillian Parks, talking about why we ought to, you know, look a little bit more into it instead of just looking at the dis that was very obviously given about Drake from Kendrick Lamar. And then we have a review of the weekend's new album by Austin Gurgens and a preview of a string quartet that's coming to play this weekend.

Then coverage of an art critic, coverage of a talk given by an art critic, William Newton, who works for Spectator World part-time. He gave a pretty strong case for the problem with art. criticism today. I'll read you one of his quotes, which is, you know, pretty, pretty heavy. He said, I believe this is what is currently going on with art criticism today, referring to a painting of the blind leading the blind. Most of it is garbage. And the reason that it is garbage is because most of it has become sycophantic, repetitive types of conversations. It is not real writing. So he has a bone to pick with modern critics. And he said that, you know, he stood alone among

the art critics and actually taking a look at the work that's being done. And he seemed, well, very concerned about it, according to our reporter Grace Brandon, who reported on that. And you were also at that talk by the art critic from Spectator World. Tell us more about your impression and why that quote stood out to you. Yeah. So that, I mean, that quote stood out to me because, you know, art is, it's not like a car. You know, if a car doesn't drive, you can say this is a bad car, doesn't do his job. Art's not so easy. to pick apart and, you know, say it's just bad. But, you know, William Newton, he seemed to really know what he was talking about.

He seemed very well versed in art history and art methods and really everything to do with art. And so he seemed to know what he was talking about, but he still had strong words saying. And even for somebody who knows what they're talking about, I think his words were very, very strong. You were there too, Thomas. You want to share your impression? I'm not very experienced with art criticism, so I don't know if I have a good opinion to share, but I am experienced with City News as the City News editor.

So let me tell you a little bit about what's on our City News page. The big news this week is that Chick-fil-A gave us a closer opening date for their location in Jackson. Right now, the closest Chick-fil-A to Hillsdale is in Battle Creek, Michigan, which is about an hour and 15 minutes away. This one would be closer to 45 or 15 minutes away. So students don't have to drive more than an hour to taste the number one with the lemonade. And that scoop comes courtesy of our fast food correspondent Joshua Mystery.

Then down the page, I have an article and update on Michigan's minimum wage, which is set to go up on February 21st. The big news with this one would be that not only would the minimum wage go up, but also the minimum wage for tipped workers, which would be restaurant servers primarily. And when I spoke with some of those servers over the past few years, they haven't wanted their tipped wage to go up because what they say is if my wage goes up, my employer has to pay me more, which means they need to raise their prices. They think if their employer, the restaurant, has to raise their prices, then people will tip less. And so servers I talked with, a waitress at finish line, Gillenta Dangerfield, for example, she said that she thinks her tips would go down more than her wages would go up.

And so in the long run, she would be making less and would probably have to leave for a different job. And so part of this article was kind of reminding readers of what servers and restaurant owners are saying about what these changes would do to their business and their earnings, but also updating them on what's going on in Lansing right now. They've got eight days, seven days actually today, until the minimum wage is scheduled to go up. and if that happens, then a lot of restaurants say they might have to close down or hike prices or shrink hours. And so just today, Senate Democrats passed a bill out of their committee and it's going to the Michigan Senate today to try to stop those increases or at least slow them down and try to soften the blow on businesses. So that's what's going on in City News this week. Wonderful. Coleman Thomas, thank you. And we will be back in a moment to interview Megan Lee.

You are listening to Collegian Weekend Review on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Radio Free Hillsdale's The Collegian Weekend Review continues. Welcome back to Collegian Weekend Review. I'm Coleman, and we are here interviewing Assistant Editor Megan Lee about Roughdraft, who is hosting jazz once again, as they once have. Can you tell us a little bit about that, Megan? Yeah, for sure. I didn't know that Rough Draft had these jazz nights until I was there one day,

and I saw like a QR code that you could scan and get on the mailing list for Jazz. And I scanned that and I got an email and then I showed up. I mean, that sounds great. So you went to the Jazz Night at Rough Draft last week. Tell us about what you saw there. Yeah. So me and my roommate, Ava Jolly, got there a little bit early. We were thinking it would be pretty crowded.

But it was actually, it was, there wasn't a lot of people, which was, nice. It was a very chill environment. And the two guys were set up there and they started playing music. And I'd brought homework because I thought, you know, sometimes I listen to jazz through my headphones when I'm working. But the music was just so good and the surround, the acoustics were amazing. So I just kept looking up from my reading to be like, just soak it all in because it was just so good. Do they have the same people play every week or does it switch up? Tell us about that. I think the it's called community jazz and it's headed by this guy called David Youngman. And every week he kind of messages like a group chat of musicians and ask them who is available on this particular day at this time.

And this particular week, it was Dave Turner that was available and he came to play the drums while Youngman was on the guitar. And I think it switches up every week. So it looks like community jazz is usually on Friday night. over at Rough Draft. And you mentioned some of the people who will play there. It's not just musicians or music students. It's also people who are known for other things. Representative Andrew Fink, you mentioned him.

He was our former representative in the Michigan House. And then you also mentioned a professor of biology and a professor of art. How do these community musicians all get in contact with each other? I think that I assume a lot of them would know each other, I guess, outside of music and then they're like, well, I can play this instrument. Would you just want to get together and jam sometime at Rough Draft? And I think this is how young men kind of brought everyone together. And then the owner, Marty Hubbard, she knows a lot of people in the community. And she, I think she gets people together like this and it's really cool. One of the things that Marty mentioned in your

article was that she wanted it to be a bridge between the college and the community. She wanted conversations between those two groups of folks to happen at Rough Draft. Can you tell me more about what her intentions were and what she's hoping these Friday nights that Rough Draft can bring for the community? Yeah, I think that she talked about how one of the first people she reached out to was Dan Palmer, the guitar instructor in the music department. And so that's someone from the college. And then David Youngman is someone from the community. And just being able to bring these together into a place that is already full of so much community rough draft as a coffee shop that's very popular among both students and community members. I think having the addition of really good music as well and drawing together both college students that will come for bands like the schismatics that are playing this weekend.

And just members of the community is able to bring them on to the same place to enjoy coffee and music. So I have a quote here from Youngman. was talking about what it's like to play improvised music. He says, to me, improvised music is the most honest music you can make because if you play a pre-rehearsed song, it's a pre-rehearsed emotion and interaction with people. That's saying, here's what I'm going to talk about. But when you take an improvised piece, it's like, I don't know what I'm going to say, but we're going to have a conversation. So you talked about, I mean, speaking of conversations between, you know, the college and people in town, got conversations going on between musicians, between the audience

and the musicians. What is that like? What's the experience? Why does being there make a difference, I guess? Could you expand on that question a little? Bad. I'm sorry. What's it like to be there?

To like be in person. Yeah. Oh, yes. Like, why does it, it's pre-rehearsed, you know? Like, why is it, why do you want to go if it's not pre-rehearsed? How are you conversing with the jazz musician? I think, I think, I think, the most interesting part was kind of watching the musicians as they were improvising and they're like,

I don't know what I'm going to do next. I don't know what you're going to do next. But somehow they do it and it sounds really, really good. And it's just seeing the smiles on their faces. And they would start laughing after like a song that they just completely improvised. Like, wow, I can't believe it worked together so well like that when neither of us had any idea really what we were doing. Megan, you mentioned that you went to this with your roommate, Ava. Were there any other Hillsdale students there that time? Do you get the sense that this is something that a lot of Hillsdale students know about or not? I did see a couple Hillsdale students there working.

Not anyone. I saw one of the girls that I knew. And I think a lot of them were there to do homework. And I don't know if they knew that there was jazz going on, but I think they all really appreciated it. And there was some people in the picture you can see this mom and her child. And before the performance started, she told the guys she had specifically come to see them. And it was really cute to see. And the little kid was, like, dancing to the music.

In that picture, you can see if you go look at the picture online or in the paper, the child looks very engaged in the jazz. She looks on the same levels as everyone else. So the jazz is really reaching all demographics here. We've got college students. we've got college professors, we've got politicians, and we've got babies. That covers all the demographics possible. Megan, if anyone were interested in playing in these improv jazz sessions,

how would they be able to do that at Rough Draft? Yeah, so they should definitely reach out to David Youngman at David dash youngman at hotmail.com. And honestly, the entire schedule is there, and whoever wants to play doesn't really have to say anything in advance they could just show up and just jam. That's incredible. I mean, there are so many people who play jazz at the school. Do you play anything, Megan? I play the piano and the guitar. Would you ever join a rough draft jazz session?

Ooh, I cannot improvise, I'm afraid, unless you want it to sound really bad. I think that should be a first person feature for the Collegian. What do you think? I think that could be a good idea. I mean, Megan... You should talk to someone else, though. Like, Isaac. Isaac does music, right?

That's true. Oh, Isaac would do. Or managing editor, Isaac Green. Yes, he would do really good. Kleegeen makes a field trip to rough, draft, for jazz. Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us, Megan. Thank you.

We're going to go to break real quick here, and we'll see you back later. This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. This is the Collegian Weekend Review. Welcome back to Collegion Weekend Review. view. We're here with Grace Novak. She's a collegian reporter and she recently wrote about senior Caitlin Splain, one of our women's basketball players who just hit a thousand points a few weeks ago. Grace, tell us about Caitlin and the record she just broke. Yeah. So Caitlin is, she's a senior this year at Hillsdale and she became the 21st Hillsdale women's basketball player to reach her one thousandth point.

It's a pretty exciting milestone. She hit it on a three and it was like two minutes left in the game. so it was just super exciting all around, a pretty great accomplishment. You wrote about the moment that it happened. Let me read from your article. You said, according to Splaine, as soon as the ball left her hands, she heard the shouts of her teammates who could already see that it was going to go in. All at once, the fans in the Don Tibbitts Potter Arena lifted up signs with the number 1,000 on them that Hillsdale staff had handed out an anticipation of the moment.

What did Splane say about this moment? What did she tell you she was feeling? Yeah, so it was actually, I was there to watch this game, So it was super fun to watch and seeing her energy and then hearing her talk about it afterwards. She said like the buildup, she just, she knew she was probably going to get it in this game. And it was like nearing the end. And she had been sitting at 10 points. She needed 13.

So she had been taking quite a few threes and like nothing was really connecting. And then in that moment, she said like the circumstances were just right. It was something they'd practiced a hundred times. It was her strength, like just the right angle. And she just, it just went perfect. It was very natural. And like it said in the article, her teammates were so excited because they were like so invested in this goal for her. So it was just a really, really energizing, like exciting moment for both her and the fans and the teammates all around.

So you were there in front of the home crowd. That's pretty exciting for her to join the 1,000 point club in front of a home crowd. Did the crowd seem to be aware that this was going down or was it mostly the teammates who were aware that this was something she could do in this game? When they started handing out the 1,000 signs for us, I think that's when a lot of people realized, like, oh, this is happening. And definitely, like, her parents and the team and some of the other parents, like, knew about it from the beginning. But once we got those signs and they told us she's, like, eight points away, then I think most of the audience and most of the fans were kind of, like, keeping track of how many points she had scored. We were all, people were pretty excited when she got that three, because most of us knew at that point with that, what that signified. You spoke to her head coach, Brianna Brennan, as well as some of her teammates. What do they say about Splane and about the milestone she just hit. Yeah, they were all just talking about how hardworking she was and how much she's she's earned this. Absolutely. Shooting is her strength on the team, but also it's one of her many strengths. But it definitely, they were just so excited talking about how well deserved it was and

well earned. And Grace, you also spoke to Spley's parents who apparently travel from Columbus, Ohio to see her every game. Like, what did they have to say? Yeah, I did not actually speak to them directly, I heard about them from Splane, which is just so exciting that they come to every single game with her. And it seems like from her description and from just like her observation of them during the game, that they were super duper invested, maybe even more nervous than she was in the moment, just watching their daughter go through something that she's worked so hard for. And then Splane, her head coach, Brianna Brennan, complimented her as a great student athlete. And so it's not as if this is going to be the end of her accomplishments.

She's supposed to take a gap year and then go to medical school. what was the sense that you got from her when you were talking to her about what it's like going to Hillsdale and what her plans are for the future off the court? Yeah, well, definitely, she made it clear that basketball was just something she absolutely loved. She had considered going to Ohio State, but knew she maybe wouldn't be able to play quite as much as if she came here. So basketball has just been so great for her. So she was definitely sad to think about that not being as big of a factor in her life in the future. but she talked pretty seriously about how important, like, picking the school versus, like,

picking the school being more important than picking the sport. So she was so happy with her time at Hillsdale academically as well and seemed very excited to dive into med school and her professional future outside of basketball as well. So I would say it was pretty balanced between the two. And Grace, you mentioned that during Splane's gap year, she was hoping to play basketball internationally. I'm not familiar with the International Women's basketball scene. Did she

have a specific country in mind, a specific kind of competition? Yeah, she was talking about she mentioned Italy and France and Spain as like some of her top choices. And as for the league, she was talking about just some connections she has like just through Hillsdale that she's pretty hopeful to get a chance

to continue playing there in one of those countries specifically. And we've had other chargers recently hit a thousand points. There was another one. You mentioned Lauren McDonald. Yes. Just a few games later, she also hit her 1,000 points, which is so exciting, because that's the 21st and 22nd Hillsdale Women's Chargers player to accomplish that and just within the span of a few weeks. It's pretty exciting accomplishment.

So, Grace, how did Splain and her teammates, you know, going into this game, anticipating that this could very well happen that she hit a thousand points, how did they celebrate afterwards? Yeah, it was actually, it was so cute. Well, they've all jumped up on the bench and we're just like so excited in the moment. But then Sleyn was talking about how afterwards they all, they brought in a cookie cake to celebrate and they all had posters and everyone was just like so excited for her. And she was even just interviewing her, she was definitely like more quiet. So seeing like all the energy that everyone was bringing to like just share in this special moment with her was pretty sweet. Yeah. Well, thanks so much for talking with us, Grace. We appreciate

you coming on. Yeah, thanks for having me. You're listening to Collegian Week and Review on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.1.1.7 FM. We'll be back in a minute. You've been listening to The Collegian Weekend Review on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. And I'm Coleman Rowan. I'm Thomas McKenna. And I'm Caroline Kurt. You can find the Collegian Weekend Review online at cwir.org. com.

You can find more news at Hillsdale Collegian.com. And follow us on Instagram at Hillsdale Collegian. See you next week.