WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Collegian Week in Review: October 23rd, 2025

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

This week on the Collegian Week in Review, hosts Catherine Maxwell, Alessia Sandala, and Megan Li first talk to Collegian News Editor Ellie Fromm about Hillsdale College's absence from the recently released Wall Street Journal college rankings. Then, they talk to Collegian Editor-in-Chief Thomas McKenna about local restaurant Finish Line's recent change in ownership and the upcoming mayoral election. Next, they talk to Collegian Executive Editor Moira Gleason about the current state and future of Camp Hope, which the city recently tore down. Finally, they talk to Collegian Assistant Editor Christian Papillon about Simpson Dorm culture and Hillsdale alum Scott Miller. 

Welcome to the Collegian Weekend Review on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Here are your hosts, Alessia Sandela, Catherine Maxwell, and Megan Lee. Welcome to the Collegian Weekend Review, where we give you an inside look into Michigan's oldest college newspaper. We're your host, Alessia Sandela, Megan Lee, and Catherine Maxwell. Today, we're talking to Ellie From about the Wall Street Journal leaving Hillsdale College out of its top college. rankings. Morrigleason, about the city of Hillsdale tearing down a homeless shelter. Thomas McKenna, about restaurant finish lines new ownership and some mayoral election updates, and Christian Papillon, about Simpson costumes and a Hillsdale graduate and baseball writer.

I'm Catherine, and today I'm talking to Collegian News Editor Ellie From, about a piece on the Wall Street Journal's college rankings. Ellie, the Wall Street Journal ranks the top colleges in America, but it always leaves Hillsdale out. Did it continue that history this year? It did. Hillsdale's never been included in the Wall Street Journal's rankings. I believe they began the rankings around 2016. Why does it always leave out Hillsdale College? So Hillsdale voluntarily reports some data to a third party, but we don't have, because we don't accept federal money, we don't have

other statistics available and the Wall Street Journal said that that is why they leave us out is because we don't accept financial like federal financial aid and so they don't have certain statistics for us. What data does the journal analyze to determine its school rankings? So they have a few groups and they weigh them differently. The first group is student outcomes. The second is learning environment and the third is diversity. And those are each weighed separately and there are subsections within those. And they compile that to determine. minnesota's final ranking? Yeah, so they partner with two statistic companies and go through those and then they compile those into rankings. So you spoke to a couple people from the college.

What did they say about the journal leaving out Hillsdale and how people should respond to that? The college's director of institutional research said that, quote, being left out of the Wall Street journal rankings is an ongoing thing and it's not because they are out to get us in my opinion or like that, end quote. So he just talked a lot to me about how the college reports different data. And each ranking system, like for instance, review just ranked us. Each ranking system has their own way and own methodology, and they're obviously not going to disclose that. So he just thinks that that's why they didn't include us. So it sounds like Hillsdale isn't salty about the journal leaving us out. Maybe some people are. A professor at Hillsdale, an adjunct

instructor of documentary journalism, Buddy Morehouse said that, quote, if the Wall Street Journal isn't going to include all colleges in its rankings, then the rankings are useless. It's like saying that certain college football teams won't be ranked just because they play on natural grass instead of artificial turf. They're free to use whatever criteria they want, but I doubt that Hillsdale students and families care very much what the Wall Street Journal thinks, end quote. Speaking of those rankings, what are a couple of the schools that made it into the journal's top 10 this year? I don't think the top 10 are a surprise at all. Princeton University, Claremont McKenna College, MIT, University of California, Berkeley, top schools like that. I don't think anyone's surprised by their list of top 10 colleges. And of course, everyone here would say Hillsdale would make the top 10. Absolutely.

But alas, we may never find that name printed in the journal. I wholeheartedly believe that Hillsdale is top 10. Ellie, thanks for joining us. Thank you. You're listening to the Collegian Week in Review. I'm Alessia, and now we have Mora Gleason, executive editor of the Collegian, to talk about Camp Hope. Mora, first of all, what is Camp Hope? So Camp Hope is a temporary shelter for homeless people in Hillsdale, Michigan, run by Melissa Desjardin and her husband.

They had 16 residents until last week, and over the past three years that they've been open, they've had more than 3,000. 300 residents. And their goal is basically to give these people a place to stay and give them all the resources they need to get back on their feet, get over whatever addiction, whatever problems they're struggling with, and get them into housing. So it's a rehabilitation effort, but that's now, well, now Camp Hope has been taken down. There's plans for a new facility. But I can tell you more about that if you want. Yeah, so what happened at Camp Hope on October 16th? Yes.

So on October 16th, Camp Hope was demolished. That's very aggressive. It was taken down in a pre-planned demolition that the city council approved on October 6th. So this has been going on for a while. There have been like a couple of extensions for Camp Hope to remain open. but the city council voted on October 6th and decided that the structure was unsafe for occupancy. So residents were ordered to move out of the tent, October 15th, and the city workers, a team of city workers came on at like 8 a.m. on October 16th, which was a Thursday, and took the structure down, took all of the debris away, and just set everyone's personal belongings off to the side. So, Maura, you were there on the 16th. What did you see?

Yeah, so I got there around 930, so a part of the structure was already completely down, and I stayed until it was almost all taken down. While they were working, some of the residents were still inside the tent, sitting there on beds, on furniture. It's kind of in like a silent protest that they, you know, they're not happy with what's going on. there were a lot of people standing around and it was it was mostly um it was mostly a calm environment there were some there's some shouting um some argument but nothing got out of hand um and the process went pretty smoothly overall kind of a sad environment because all of the people who lived in the

tent were there um and a lot of them didn't know what they were going to do next so going off of What is next for Camp Hope and Missy Desjardin? It's a little bit unclear at the moment. She has a plan for a transitional living facility on the same property, but in one of the old storage buildings for Hillsdale Community Thrift. And the applications for that have been submitted to city council. So they're kind of in the process of review. There's a couple of steps to that,

and it probably won't get started until a couple weeks into November. So there's a little bit of a waiting period until we know what's going to happen. But if the occupancy permits and everything get approved, then Missy plans to open Hope Harbor, which is similar concept to Camp Hope, but it will be permanent. And it's in an actual building. The goal is to have sober transitional housing and to help as many people in Hillsdale as she can. Thanks for coming on, Mora. Great. Thank you so much. This is the Collegian Week in Review.

Now we have Thomas McKenna, the editor-in-chief of the Collegian, to talk about his front-page stories on the finish-line restaurant's new ownership, as well as the mayoral candidate's latest endorsements. How long did the finish-line's former owner work at the restaurant? 48 years. And why did she decide to retire? She said she was just getting tired. She said she turned 65 in February.

She had started at the restaurant as a high school waitress when she was 17 back in 1977. She worked there for a while, working all the way up to manager. And when the previous owner died in 1995 from a car crash, she had the chance to take over the restaurant. She took it over, and she's ran it for the last 30 years. She had been looking to sell it. She said it had been on the market for about a year and a half. And then this guy came along and he bought it from her and now he's the new owner. So who is this new owner and why did he decide to buy it?

The new owner's name is Gavin Carr. He's the brother of one of Lisa's longest serving waitresses. He's the brother of Krista Bonner. She's been working at finish line for the past 32 years. She started when she got hired in 1993. You know, she recounted the story to me while we were sitting in the back. back of finish line. She said that her brother was looking to do something new. He had worked as a business executive most recently at an automotive supply company, an automotive parts supply company

where he had been working for 33 years. So everyone here is working long careers and particular jobs. And she said, you know, finish lines for sale. And he said, okay, I'll think about it. He called up the restaurant. She answered. And she thought something terrible, like he was calling her at work. But really, he just wanted to talk to Lisa, and, you know, a few months later, he bought the restaurant. And will the new owner make any changes to finish line? Yeah, he's got a couple of new changes that he's looking at. The first one that's already taken place is that he expanded the hours. So he said the community had been asking them to be open for more nights of the week.

So now on Mondays and Thursdays, they're open until 8 p.m. instead of 3 p.m. They were closing in the afternoon for the past few years. and then he's also saying that he wants to change the menu up a little bit. So he said maybe offer a higher grade of bacon for certain people who might not come to finish line otherwise or a different type of sandwich or a different type of cheeseburger. He just wants to attract new clientele by shaking up the menu a little bit. But he said for now they're keeping the menu the way it is. He's not making any changes yet.

Thomas, you said in your piece, Carr has owned finish line since July. has he run into any challenges running the restaurant since then? I actually asked him in the restaurant. I said, do you have any horror stories yet? And he just replies, which week? Right. He said, I've had, you know, an air conditioning guy come in three times. I've had to fix the water softener, this, that, and the other thing.

I mean, when you buy a business, you're taking on a huge risk. And that means not only a financial risk, but also a risk that you're just going to be in a project where you have no idea what you're doing, right? He said that, you know, it's been helpful that Lisa Slade has been on call. She'll come, she came into the restaurant to work with him for the first few weeks. He said she's been very helpful with that. But overall, it's still a challenge taking over a restaurant. So he's hoping that things are going to get better. When we talked last week, he said he hadn't had to call a repairman in yet for one of the first times in the 10 weeks. He's been running the restaurant in his own. So hopefully his good,

luck is still rolling this week. Did Slate say what she has planned now that she's no longer running the restaurant? She didn't really say. She told me that her husband had just had a heart surgery recently, and it was actually providential that she had sold the restaurant in July right before that August surgery. So my understanding is, you know, she's taking some well-earned rest and retirement, but she's also taken care of her husband and her family. So right now just retirement, but it sounds like we'll just have to see.

Okay, let's move on to the election coverage now. First, when is the election? And can you give us some background on the major issues? Sure, Hillsdale's electing a new mayor on November 4th. The two candidates are former mayor Scott Sessions and city councilman Matt Bentley. This race right now is really about what each candidate thinks of how city staff is doing. right now Scott Sessions, the former mayor, he was mayor from 2013 to 2017. He thinks that the city staff is doing a good job and he's not nearly as critical of them as his opponent is.

His opponent, Matthew Bentley, the city councilman, he is very critical of the city staff. He joined city council less than a year ago. And once he got on city council, he, you know, as he tells it, he just started asking questions and then he quickly became dissatisfied with the job the city staff is doing. So if you're Bentley, you look at the city staff and you say, things are not going the way they should be, whether it's with the new road diet that's going to add bike lanes downtown, or whether it's with other, you know, water, public utilities, policies, the airport. If you're Bentley, you look at all that and you say, I'm asking questions, I'm holding the city staff accountable. If your sessions, you look at that and you say, this is a negative culture. And that's why five city staff members have resigned since March. So, you know, there are a variety of issues, but the one where the candidates contrast the most is on their criticism or support of city staff.

And then who recently endorsed Scott Sessions for mayor? The sheriff, Hillsdale County Sheriff Scott Hodshire, just endorsed Scott Sessions. He also earned the endorsement of Bruce Sharp, a former city councilman. He also grabbed the endorsement of Kathy Callumann, who was a candidate who, who was a candidate who, who ran the summer in the primary, but didn't get enough votes to get on the main ballot. So he's got a few endorsements from various community figures. You know, we talked about Bentley's endorsements before. He's gotten endorsements from the former mayor, Adam Stockford, who was mayor up until last November when he moved out of the city limits.

And he's also endorsed by the current acting mayor, Josh Paladino. So each candidate's got their share of endorsement from community members and public officials. When they go to the ballot box on Tuesday, November 4th, we can have from now as we're recording this. I guess we'll just have to see how it plays out. And what was the reasoning for the endorsements for Sessions? It wasn't entirely clear. You know, the endorsement, the people who endorse Sessions didn't release public statements or reasons why they did that. But my sense of it is that Sessions represents a part of city politics.

that is of the old guard, we'll say, you know, the kind of folks that were in city government, you know, in the years leading up to, we'll say, 2020, 2020, the pre-Stockford era. You know, Sheriff Hodgshire came in in 2020. Scott Sessions was mayor in 2013 to 2017. Bentley's endorsements have been from Stockford and Palladino, who are both very recent figures in city politics. So if you had to break it down one way or the other, it would be between those two different eras. But the people who endorse sessions didn't actually give reasons for why they did it. And the Collegian couldn't reach them for comment. We should add.

Okay, thanks for coming on, Thomas. Thanks for having me, Alessia. You're listening to the Collegian Week in Review. This is Megan, and today we are here with Assistant Sports. editor Christian Papillon to talk about his article about Simpson men. Christian, welcome back to the show. Thank you. So this piece about Simpson, what is it that makes Simpson men stand out at anything from banner drop to football games? I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is all the crazy costumes that they were to the events.

It's really funny if you've ever been to a basketball game, volleyball game, football. they're all in their costumes and they're shouting at the opposing team, doing their best they can to distract them. And it's a really good time to watch. What are some of the costumes that these guys wear? Do they wear the same things every time? Or what does that look like? It's generally the same stuff. There's a watermelon costume that's pretty popular.

A lot of them will have, you know, cow costumes or one of them dresses up as, you know, Buddy the Elf from the movie. It's just a bunch of crazy random stuff that they'll wear. That's awesome. And where are they getting these costumes? Some of them, the freshmen will buy as freshmen. The RAs send out an email like, hey, buy the craziest costumes you can. And trust me, it'll be great. And then some of them are handed down throughout the years from like seniors or people who move out of Simpson.

they'll hand off the costume to a younger classmate, and then they will wear it and pass it down when they move out of Simpson. How far back does this tradition go? It goes back as least back to 2015, but probably before that. I heard 2012 from somebody, but the farthest back that there's pictures for is from 2015, and there's, you know, Simpson, you know, being Simpson.

What is kind of the reasoning that Simpson guys have behind doing this? They said it's just a way for them to forget about school for a little bit and just have a good time, not worry, not take themselves too seriously and, you know, hang out as friends. You said that Simpson likes to do this, have volleyball games, football games trying to distract the opponent. Have they ever gotten pushback against what they're doing? Maybe sometimes, not from what I've seen really, but it probably annoys the other team

if they're messing up and Simpson is taunting them at the same time. It probably does annoy them. Christian, what are some of the chance that Simpson will yell at the opposing team? I mean, at basketball, they'll sing the Veggie Tales theme song during a free throw. Volleyball, they'll yell, you know, wide right, put it to the net, things like that. It's just crazy stuff. Or they'll just make random sounds before the opposing team kickoff at football. And did they say if they've ever successfully distracted the opposing team,

It's definitely worked sometimes. They've yelled, put it in the net, and the server has put the ball in the net, or people have missed free throws to the Veggie Tales theme song before, for sure. It's definitely worked. Now we are going to move to a feature that Christian also wrote about Scott Miller, a graduate of Hillsdale College. Christian, could you tell us a little bit about who Scott Miller is? So, yeah, Scott Miller, he was a really famous baseball writer from the 1990s until now. He went to Hillsdale of the 1980s. He was editor-in-chief there, I think, in 83. And, yeah, he was just writing a bunch of baseball for the Minnesota Twins, the San Diego Padres. He was on MLB Network, very, very highly respected baseball writer. And he wrote a book that came out in May about baseball managers. And some people say that managers are, you know, they don't matter anymore. And Scott Miller, he's arguing that. they actually do and they make a difference and a good manager can take a team to the next level. After his book came out in May, he did pass away in June of this year. So it is kind of sad that this is his last thing that came out. Yeah, it sounds like he had a very illustrious career in

journalism and a lot of respect from the teams that he reported on. What kind of person was Miller? You quoted a lot of his friends talking about him. Yeah, he was apparently a really cool guy. He just, he loved baseball. He always knew he wanted to be a baseball writer, his friend said. So that's what he was doing. As a senior, while balancing a full course load here, he also was the interim sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News. So very committed. And yeah, just a really fun guy to be around. Tell us a little bit more about his book, Christian. What inspired? him to write it and what was the content? Scott Miller, he was really knew a lot about baseball. So I think this kind of just shows, this book shows that. And he talks about, you know, Dave Roberts, who's the manager of the Dodgers right now and how he's been able to take this team to really great success in the last decade ever since he took over. I mean, tons of playoff appearances,

two World Series wins. It's been good. And one thing that I heard from one of the people I interviewed is at the All-Star game, everybody was holding a sign of people that had cancer or had passed away because of cancer. And Dave Roberts' card had Scott Miller's name on it. And I think that's actually really cool. It kind of shows who Scott Miller was and how he was really good at bringing people together building a relationship with people in baseball. Did Miller have a favorite baseball team? Miller, he was a diehard Tigers fan to the end. He loved the Tigers ever since he was in college.

He got to go to the World Series here when he was a senior in 1984. So, yeah, big Tigers fan. On the topic of baseball, Christian, what are your predictions for the World Series this year? I think the Dodgers are going to beat the Blue Jays this year. I mean, the Dodgers have been just so good for so long. It's hard to pick against them. And they have, you know, just great pitching, great hitting, great manager. So I think it's probably going to be the Dodgers.

Thank you so much for sharing Scott Miller's story with us, Christian. No problem. You've been listening to the Collegian Week in Review on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Catherine Maxwell. I'm Alessia Sandela. And I'm Megan Lee. You can find the Collegian Weekend Review online on CWIR. Dot transistor.fm.

And more news at Hillsdale Collegian.com. Our Instagram is at Hillsdale Collegian. Thank you for listening to Collegian Weekend Review on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.