WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Collegian Week In Review: September 12th, 2024

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

This week on the Collegian Week in Review, hosts Moira Gleason, Thomas McKenna and Caroline Kurt discuss this issue's top headlines. Then, they talk to Ty Ruddy about siblings at Hillsdale and Anna Leman about the benefits of Hillsdale's Swing club. Finally, they will be talking to Catherine Maxwell about the overcrowded county jail.

Welcome to The Collegian Week in Review on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Here are your hosts, Moorgleason, Thomas McKenna, and Caroline Kurt. Hello and welcome to Collegian Week in Review, where we give you an inside look into Michigan's oldest college newspaper. Where are your hosts, Morrigleason. Thomas McKenna. And Caroline Kurt. And today we'll be talking to Junior Ty Ruddy about his feature on faculty siblings here at Hillsdale. Then we'll interview senior Anna Lehman about why everyone should learn swing dancing.

And then we'll wrap up with news from Catherine Maxwell on how the county jail is so overcrowded it has been forced to release inmates early. But first, we're starting with some headlines. Maura, tell us what's on the front page. Yeah, so on A1 today we have a story about how the Grotto is raising a million dollars for their new construction expansion project. The Grotto is the Catholic Society slash St. Anthony's Catholic Church outreach on campus. And right now there's a very small off-campus house, and they have a goal to raise $1 million

up to $1.2 million for this new expansion of that house. So a pretty ambitious project. They're going to start construction once the parish has $800,000 in hand, and they have raised 500,000 already in only three weeks. Thomas, what's going on in City News? Well, over on City News, but one story I want to mention is Olivia Perro's story on Ambassador Joseph Sella. Joseph Sella graduated from Hillsdale in 1991, and he served as an ambassador to Fiji and other Pacific Islands during the Trump administration. He's in the news recently because he's been helping some grassroots efforts up in Northern Michigan to stop the construction of a electric vehicle battery factory.

And the reason that he's opposed to it and why he's trying to support grassroots efforts there is because that battery factory would be built by a company called Goshen Incorporated, which is a U.S. subsidiary of a China-based Goshen high-tech company that has alleged links to the Chinese Communist Party. So up there, that's a Hillsdale grad who's very active in the political scene right now in trying to prevent what he viewed. as the spread of foreign influence in the American mainland. Caroline, tell us about a piece on the opinions page. It turned out, I want to give a shout out to Beth Crawford, who gave us a great sales pitch on why Hillsdale should be celebrating Constitution Day, which is coming up in a week or two. Hillsdale is not really known to take many days off.

We have school on Labor Day. Beth is telling us why Hillsdale should really consider giving us just one day for Constitution. day to make it real. Understood. And next we'll be interviewing Ty Ruddy when we come back about his piece on siblings at Hillsdale. You're listening to The Collegian Week in Review. And we're back with Ty Reddy to talk about his recent feature story on siblings who work at

Hillsdale. So Ty, you wrote about faculty who have siblings here at Hillsdale. Tell me about the pairs of siblings that you spoke with. They were the Smiths, one of them is a chemistry professor, one of them is now a She's the assistant director of the Dow Journalism program. One of them, one of the parents was the Waylands. One of them is an English professor. The other works contracts education through Hillsdale College, but previously worked in

the president's office. And then the third was the Hutchinson's. Ryan Hutchinson, Dr. Ryan Hutchinson is a professor in the math department. And Dr. Eric Hutchinson is a professor in the Classics Department. Yeah, and across the board, what was kind of the experience that you heard from these siblings? Like, do they enjoy working with their brother or with their sister? Like, how is that, how's that experience here? Yeah, they all seem to like it.

One thing that I was pretty interested in was the fact that none of them really planned on ending up. Even the Waylands, who are from Hillsdale, didn't really plan on ending up in Hillsdale. It just sort of happened. So, for example, the Servolds were both from Colorado. and Maria went back there after she graduated from Hillsdale and then was offered a job here at Hillsdale. And then her brother Paul ended up in the Midwest. And so then they began to think about sort of Hillsdale as a final, you know, resting place.

They began to think of Hillsdale as the place where they would settle down. But yeah, for all three of them, even the Waylands, like I said, it was never, never the plan. So with that in mind, what's one of the more interesting or craziest story that you heard about sibling dynamics? Yeah, well, so back to the Serval, well, the Schmitz, they were here at the same time. I think Patrick and Ben didn't go here. But Ben told me a funny story about when they had gone to charter school together. They went to charter school together in Pennsylvania.

but since the Schmitz went here, I'll mention them. Maria and Paul both went here at the same time. And Maria said that when she was a senior, I think Paul was a sophomore. And it took basically the whole year for the campus to realize that they were siblings because they were involved in such different things. Paul was a chemistry guy. Maria was in English. So they didn't really do a whole lot together.

and Maria said that she would oftentimes kick him out of situations and say, go find your own friends. I have my friends. Go find your own friends, which is a pretty typical sibling dynamic. I have two here, and I've definitely done that before. You mentioned that you have two siblings here. How has that influence your experience at Hillsdale? Yeah. During the fall semester, I see them less than I would like because they both play football.

But it is fun to kind of just have a little, Dr. Whalen called it, a slice of home. a sibling is a slice of home. So it's nice to have a little slice of home here on here on campus. I don't live that far away, but we've always been very close. I'm only a year older than Shea and then two years older than Ryan's. We grew up together very in very close quarters. So it's it's kind of like things never changed. Things changed for a couple years there when I was at college and then neither of them were here. But we're just right back to where we pick picking up where we left off. So it's been good to kind of have that bit of home on campus.

Thanks so much for coming on, Ty. You got it. The Collegian Weekend Review continues. Now we have Anna Lehman, who wrote a piece for the Opinions page on why we should take a chance on Swing. So Anna, tell me, first of all, where this piece originated, because I know, but not everybody knows. Yeah, so this piece was written for Professor.

Miller's advanced writing class is just an opinion piece open-ended prompt and last one of the semester and I love swing and thought everyone should know why they should try it yeah um give me yeah make your make your case for swing to me pretend I've never swung before yeah absolutely so it's a first of all it's a very easy dance to learn uh very very quick. You could learn the basics about 10 minutes. Obviously it takes more time to bastard them, but you can be triple stepping out there in no time flat. It's a very easy dance to learn. It's a very forgiving dance. If you make a mistake, that's okay. You just go with it. You just flow. Miles Davis has a wonderful quote about jazz music that is

once a mistake twice is jazz. And that's the same principle that applies to swing. We normally, traditionally, dance to jazz music, so it flows right in. If you make a mistake, oh, well, you keep going. You make it part of the dance, and it's wonderful and beautiful. And then you and your partner laugh about it and have funny stories about it later. So very good there. It's creative dance, super flexible. You could take all of these fun, turns, tricks, dips, the pretzel,

and you just mingle them up and put them on the stage however you want. And it's different every time. And it's just fun, creative. Improv is key, and that's awesome. It's also very versatile, surprisingly, although traditionally dance to jazz music, you could dance to basically anything. Now, some songs are a little more forced as we have found out, but I mean, Taylor Swift, Morgan Wallin, Ella King, endless songs that you could dance to.

The versatility also goes with when you can swing dance. There's so many opportunities. the biggest one that comes to mind is weddings and dance floors because whatever songs they play, you could probably swing dance to. And it's fun to show off and show everybody what you can do and what you've been learning at swing. So good. But the real reason I think that all of these things, the creativity, the easiness, the forgivability, all of it's wonderful.

But the real reason I think people should learn swing is it teaches valuable, communication skills between the lead and the follow. Yeah. So typically the man is a lead, and he leads a female follow through the dance. To do this, he has to be very communicative with her. Sometimes this is verbally. Sometimes this is just how he moves his hands, how he moves her. And he has to be very clear and concise, as well as decisive.

Nothing's worse than a lead that doesn't know what he's doing. But so he has to learn that skill, and that's very good skill that translates to a lot. of leadership. You have to be decisive. You have to communicate your goals. Be very open with your people that you're leading. And also teaches adaptability. He has to learn how to move his follow. I, as a follow, dance very differently than you would as a follow. And different leads have to figure that out. And what might communicate something to me doesn't necessarily communicate something to you. And he has to figure it out. As follows the follow, because there's benefit for us, too. we have to learn how to be really sensitive and attentive to the lead.

Right. And it's not backly. This is a huge lesson I've gotten from swing personally with my dance partner is I cannot back lead at all. I have to give him the full reins and let him lead me. And sometimes that means I'm as limp as a noodle, just trying to feel and figure it out. And other times, he signals the move and I know exactly what's happening. And we go from there.

And again, great follow skills in life. You will be asked to follow people, whether it's at work, in marriage, in school. You will be asked to follow someone. And you have to be able to respond to them and know what they want and learn their communication styles and give them what they want. Great. Where do you learn to swing dance? So my swing dancing story started in high school. Senior year drama.

We did a 1940s play, and there was a little bit of swing dancing with some Charleston at the end. So that was the beginning. And then the rest of it I learned here at Hillsdale. Awesome. And where would one swing dance at Hillsdale College? So we actually have a club called the Hepcat Hillsdale Swing Club. Fun fact, is one of the biggest clubs on campus. And we meet on Friday nights from about 8 to 11.

If it's nice outside, we like to meet on the chapel steps, despite all of the construction currently going on. And when it's cold out, we go to OSB and dance there. It starts with a lesson where we teach people for about 30 minutes. We start with the basic, but then through the semester, we progress to turns, dips. Eventually, we get to aerials where the follow is up in the air, but we save that for more advanced people. And after that, we just open the floor and play music and let people ask each other to dance.

And yeah, that's how it happens. You write in your piece about how students can sometimes mistake swing for a dating program. How did you meet your boyfriend? Was it at swing? It was not at swing. Oh, exciting. It was not a swing. Okay.

I actually knew me and my boyfriend go back to high school. No way. Yes, way. So we met in high school. We did learn swing together in the drama that I learned. We didn't dance together at all. We weren't paired. But then when we both came to Hillsdale, we both wanted to do the swing club.

And I cannot lie, swing was pivotal in our relationship. That is very true. But I did not meet him per se as soon. Okay. Fair. Speaking of leads, Anna, I want to ask you about your lead for this piece. You say, call me a fundy, but everybody should learn how to swing dance. Now, Anna, I feel like it's my duty as a truth-seeking journalist to ask you.

Are you a fundy? Do you consider yourself a fundy? That's a very good question. And I'll answer it kind of cryptically. I'm less fundy than I was. Understood. Yeah. So we started out pretty fundy.

That's for sure. But we're getting past the point. You're wearing pants right now? I am wearing pants. That is very true. That's a lot. It was a big move for me. Big move.

Thanks so much for coming on, Anna. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. This is the Collegian Week in Review. Welcome back to Collegian Week in Review. We're interviewing Catherine Maxwell. She's an assistant editor for City News. And this week, she wrote about how the overcrowded county jail is happening to release inmates either before their trial or before their sentencing. is up. Catherine, tell us about what you wrote this week. The Hillsdale County Jail is overcrowded and has been

for the last two years. Essentially, their capacity is 67 inmates and they've had an average of 75 for the past two years. When I spoke to the jail administrator, they had 85 inmates in the jail. And there's a lot of potential reasons for this. There's been a rise in drug crimes and other felonies which keep people in jail longer than misdemeanor charges. There's also this bill passed in 2020 that was trying to lower the number of people housed in jail by putting more on probation. But it also increased the number of crimes that could go to a jail sentence instead of a state. state prison sentence. Lots of, lots more felonies and stuff can now go to jail instead of prison. And that actually increased the number of people going to jail. So now Hillsdale County is in this

awkward position where they have too many people on probation and too many people in the county jail. And there's really no easy fix for it other than additional funding, which just isn't there right now. You spoke with district court judge Megan Stiverson, and she told you this. She said, Every week, I have to decide who poses the least threat to the public safety in Hillsdale County. There is no set of rules. Can you tell us more about the interview you had with her? Yeah. So I spoke with her after talking to the jail administrator.

And she knew I was coming in to talk about the overcrowding problem. And what she told me was there's no set of guidelines for who to release early or how you're supposed to evaluate. inmates to know who to let out. There's just no state guidelines. There's no federal guidelines or anything. So it's up to the individual judge. And in this case, it's her. And she said that the kind of rule system that she uses is similar to evaluating people to go on probation or things like that. She'll look at whether they have a history of violent crime or whether they've been to jail before or what the crime is, if they're a repeat offender, things like that. And she said she does her best to release, if she has to release someone early, she does her best to release financial

criminals or someone who's committed a property crime, like stealing over, say, a domestic violence offender. But it just comes down to who's in the jail at the time. So she said in the interview that She had one case that was a domestic violence offender, and they were evaluating that person as a potential early release. And she was trying to track down the victim of that crime to see how they would feel about that person being released early, and to just make them aware that this guy might be out there again or this person might be out there again. So that person, the victim, could be on alert and could take steps to keep themselves safe. but yeah, she says she's doing her best with what she's got. One thing that stood out to me is the problem with having too many former inmates on probation

and too few probation officers. Can you tell us a bit more about that problem? Yeah, so the ratio of probation officers to probationers is four to three hundred and twenty-five. and that's actually down from 450. They did have up to 450 people on probation and they had to get some of those people off. She's got a part-time probation officer who's only allowed to take 25 cases, so then the other three full-time

are handling about 100 cases each. And yeah, that's part of the problem. She says every year she goes to the county board of commissioners and she asks for more probation officers. She asks for more clerks. And they just don't have the money for it. And it's the same deal with the jail. They go and they ask for money for an expansion.

And again, they just don't have the funds. Catherine, what was one of the most surprising things that you learned in your reporting for this piece? I mean, there's a lot going on, but is there anything that kind of was like, wow, a wow moment to you? Yeah, definitely the fact that there are no official guidelines for releasing these people was a wow moment. That seems like an oversight,

not on the judges part, but you would think that the state would have said, hey, here's what you should do if this becomes a problem for you. And I think the other surprising thing is just, I had no idea there were this many people on probation in Hillsdale County. I had no idea there were this many people

coming in and out of the county jail. So it's definitely eye-opening, and yeah, I'm trying not to walk by myself if I'm out after dark, that's for sure. And did you find that they had a plan going forward to address this issue, or what are their priorities right now? There's some long-term and some short-term ideas. In the short-term, the jail administrator said he's setting up a meeting with the sheriff's office, and the different, the court levels, and there's one other group that I can't remember right now. But essentially that plan would say if they're over capacity, there's certain types of criminals that the sheriff's office can just go ahead and release without contacting the courts first. So that might be property criminals, for example.

They could just go ahead and release those people. But that's just an example. they haven't set a date for that meeting. They want to talk about what would work best for the county jail and just for Hillsdale County more broadly. And then in the long term, the Board of Commissioners does know this is a problem. They do know they need to address it. But their priority right now is moving the district court. They sold the courthouse annex building.

And they've got approximately three years to vacate. So they're looking at a location to purchase and renovate and rebuild. but that has to happen first. So the earliest they could move on to the county jail would be three years. Thanks for coming on, Catherine. Yes, thank you all. You've been listening to Collegian Weekend Review

on 101.1.1.7 FM. I'm Thomas McKenna. I'm Mauree Gleason. And I'm Caroline Kurt. You can find the Collegian Weekend Review online at cwir.tr transistor.fm. You can find more news at Hillsdale Collegian.com. You can see us on Instagram at Hillsdale Collegian. Thanks, and we'll see you next

week.