UC professors examine multiple perspectives of Ebola in the mediaPATRICK MURPHY | STAFF REPORTER

While concerns of the Ebola virus swirl around media outlets, University of Cincinnati professors examined and debated the portrayal of the illness through the lenses of journalism, political science, communications and African studies.

Craig Flournoy, a UC journalism professor, opened the discussion — which was held on Wednesday in the Senate room of the Tangeman University Center

— by detailing the coverage of Ebola in Dallas, Texas, versus its representation nationally.

“The Dallas media tends to base their Ebola reporting on what elected officials say,” Flournoy said. “Since virtually all Dallas public officials called for a calm approach, the local news coverage reflected this.”

While mainstream media follows the same pattern of reporting through elected officials, the audience hears voices like U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s Deputy Chief of Staff Nick Muzin, who blamed Ebola on President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

Other controversial voices in the Ebola conversation include radio personality Rush Limbaugh, who, according to Flournoy, recently told his 14 million listeners that Obama refused to ban flights from Ebola-infected countries because he wants white Americans infected with the disease as payback for slavery.

Andrew Lewis, an assistant political science professor at UC, stated that comments like these are largely due to a broader political landscape in which the opposite party always dissents from the

RUSSEL HAUSFELD | STAFF REPORTER

A University of Cincinnati molecular and developmental biology graduate stu-dent has become one of the first people able to answer a peculiar, but fascinating, question: What does a homegrown mini stomach look like?

“They look like little hollow spheres, and under a low power microscope the surface is folded all over itself,” Kyle Mc-Cracken said.

McCracken, along with a team of other scientists based in the lab of Dr. James Wells at Cincinnati Children’s Hospi-tal Medical Center, is among the first scientists in history to create 3D stomach tissue from human pluripotent stem cells.

Simply put, a human pluripotent stem cell is a cell that has been tricked into becoming a different cell.

Wells — the principal investigator for the research who is also a professor at UC’s School of Medicine in the pedi-atrics department — explains that he could take a person’s skin cell, revert it into a stem cell, and then turn that stem

cell into a gastric cell — the kind of cell found in the stomach — that is identical to the gastric cells in that same person’s body.

This process of reverting a cell back to its embryonic state is called “reprogram-ming,” and Wells likens it to wiping the hard drive of a computer.

“You essentially just wipe all the previ-ous information and bring it back to its base state,” Wells said.

This process was globally acknowl-edged in 2012 when scientists Shinya Yamanaka and Sir John B. Gurdon were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physi-ology and Medicine for their research into this subject.

These “mini stomachs,” Wells explained, are about the size and shape of a BB gun pellet. Technically, they are called stom-ach organoids.

The process of a human pluripotent stem cell becoming a 3D stomach or-ganoid takes about five weeks, but being able to actually harness the ability to do this took three years worth of research.

One glaring problem facing this re-search was the lack of prior knowledge on turning stem cells into gastric cells.

McCracken says they got lucky early on with their hypotheses and were able to render some promising results.

The longest part of the research con-sisted of figuring out how to grow and sustain these stomach organoids in the long term.

Now that the study is published, the researchers hope it will be a key tool in modeling stomach development, observ-ing stomach disease, and experimenting with different types of treatment for stomach-related illness.

“Now, we can take patients’ cells who have [diseases like cystic fibrosis, diabe-tes, epilepsy], turn them into stem cells and push [the newly formed stem cell] into lung, or stomach, or intestine cells. Then we can study the disease process as it unfolds,” Wells said.

Essentially, you can experiment on a

Cincinnati Mayor explains involvement in student government, gives advice CASSIE MERINO | CHIEF REPORTER

Student Government traveled to new territory Wednesday when it held its weekly meeting at City Hall to discuss plans for a 24-hour library at the University of Cincinnati’s main library.

Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley and Cincinnati City Councilmember Amy Murray attended the meeting to give advice and to reminisce about their days being apart of their undergraduate student governments.

“I started in student government,” Cranley said. “This is what someone who does student government looks like 20 years later. Dealing with the press and forming coalitions, managing budgets, putting on events. Honestly, those are the lessons I deal with today.”

Cranley was involved in student government during his first year at John Carroll University in Cleveland, and went on to become student body president

during his third and fourth years.Murray told UC SG members of how she

first started in politics in college and the challenges students may face.

“Sometimes in politics and in senate — you get this at the college level also — things are beyond your control,” Murray said.

Murray encouraged SG members to attend city council meetings to participate in the public forums and to give students a voice.

During the City Hall meeting, SG also discussed adding much needed amenities to UC’s Langsam Library.

Between Nov. 30 and Dec. 10, Langsam will have a trial period during which the library will remain open 24 hours, according to SG vice president Shivam Shah.

“We are working with the libraries to see what amenities we can include, we are trying to subsidize parking very heavily as well as include a food cart for students who plan on staying late,” Shah said.

SG members also announced at the

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Researchers create first 3D stomach tissue from human stem cells

Student Government convenes inside Cincinnati’s City Hall

MADISON SCHMIDT | PHOTO EDITOR

Student Government president Christina Beer listens to Mayor John Cranley describe his days as president of student government at John Carroll University in Cleveland.

‘INTERSTELLAR’ OUT OF THIS WORLD

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Women’s basketball supports local player with brain cancer

PROVIDED

Dr. James Wells, a professor of pediatrics, is the principal investigator for the research.

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Shaunak Sastry, assistant professor of communication, describes the media’s position of The United State’s representation of African countires

THE POLITICS OF EBOLA

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CRIME BLOTTER11/7 — Robbery in residence hall

In a residence hall room in Stratford Heights, between 12:30 and 1 a.m., a victim reported being assaulted by two suspects, one of whom he knew. The suspects — who were visiting the victim — assaulted him and took his money. University of Cincinnati police are investigating this robbery and have not given further description of the suspects.

11/3 — Aggravated bulglary in broad daylight on Flora

Around 2:30 p.m. on Flora Street, a UC student reported an aggravated burglary during which two suspects entered his home and took his property. The student fought the suspects. One suspect is described as a short, thin, white male and the other as a black male teenager with short hair. The suspects took a PlayStation video game console. Cincinnati police are investigating.

11/1 Assault on RiddleBetween 2 and 2:30 a.m., a UC

student reported being assaulted by an unknown suspect on Riddle Road near Martin Luther King Dr. The student reported a suspect struck her on the head and tried to force her into a car. There is no further description on the suspect. Cincinnati police are currently investigating the assault.

11/1 and 11/2 — Seven on-campus theftsAccording to a crime map on UCPD’s

website, seven thefts occurred between Saturday, Nov. 1 and Sunday, Nov. 2 on West Daniels Street near Daniels Hall. The first two theft occurred on Nov. 1 between the hours of 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. The other five thefts occurred on Nov. 2 between 12:30 a.m. and 2 a.m. The News Record will follow up on the incidents.

If anyone has information about these crimes, call Crime Stoppers at 513-352-3040. Crime Stoppers offers rewards for information leading to the arrest of suspects in crimes, and you can remain anonymous.

Read coverage of UC’s annual Veterans

Day Ceremony, which takes place 9 a.m.

Monday on McMicken Commons, exclusively

online Tuesday at newsrecord.org.

COURTNEY STANLEY | ONLINE EDITOR

About 20 miles northeast of the University of Cincinnati, 60 UC students spent a weekend creating initiatives to make the campus more environmentally, economically and socially sustainable.

UC Sustainability hosted its fourth Sustainability Summit, a weekend retreat at Grailville Farm in Loveland, Ohio, from Oct. 24 to 26.

“It’s a weekend dedicated to putting initiatives into actions,” said S. Makenzie Vail, a co-director of sustainability for Student Government and a fourth-year environmental studies and biology student.

Vail has attended the summit all four years of its existence, but this year she planned the event along with Jake Holden, SG’s other co-director of sustainability and a fifth-year aerospace engineering student.

The summit’s facilitators chose 60 students out of nearly 100 applicants who came from a mix of UC organizations, including: Leaders for Environmental Awareness and Protection, Students for Ecological Design, Racial Awareness Pilot Program, DAAP Cares and Engineers Without Borders, along with students who came independently.

A key goal this year was to bring freshmen and students who had not participated with campus organizations on the Sustainability Summit.

“UC’s a huge campus and there’s a lot of potential, but because there’s so many people, so many people don’t know what’s going on,” Vail said.

In past years, the summit has placed on emphasis on creating projects focused on environmental sustainability, but this year the summit explored economic and social avenues of sustainability.

“We looked into how capitalism affects us. It does affect the environment, and also social sustainability — social justice, racism, sexism, gender roles,” Vail said. “I think in order to have a progressive campus, you need to have these conversations about how the economy and social interactions are linked with the environment.”

Other workshops included how to create a successful fundraiser, navigating bias in the media, how to be a sustainable city dweller and how to recruit and engage members of a student organization.

Kayla McKinney, a fifth-year environmental studies student and president of the UC Mountaineering Club, said she thought the most thought-provoking workshop was one led by students from RAPP about inclusive leadership.

“They divided us into five random groups and then asked some pretty difficult questions about your social awareness, like being racially colorblind and stereotyping people,” McKinney said.

Sascha Dovenbarger, a third-year economics student, said the questions seemed simple and straightforward at first, but as she opened up and talked with her group more, she found them more challenging and interesting to discuss.

By the end of the workshop, Dovenbarger said she felt content calling herself an inclusive leader.

That theme of inclusivity and openness ran throughout the weekend.

Vail thought it was essential to the success of the summit to create a space where everyone in the group felt comfortable and free to speak their minds.

“We had gender-neutral rooms,” Vail said. “The first night we made sure everyone learned each other’s names — 60 people — and also your preferred pronouns.”

The group came up with “norms” as another way to create an inclusive community.

“Any time I’ve gone on some kind of retreat or anything like that we’ve had norms,” Vail said. “When you’re about to spend the weekend with a whole bunch of people you don’t know yet, you just need to make sure you’re being conscientious.”

The norms were a set of rules created by the group for everyone to follow while at the summit.

One norm was “move in, move out,”

which asked each person to pay attention to the way they participate in a conversation.

“If you are dominating a lot of conversation and talking all the time, just take it upon yourself to realize that and ‘move out’ and let someone who’s been more quiet take their step in,” Vail said.

Other norms included hand gestures — snapping instead of clapping, or creating a triangle, or “point of focus,” with your hands to say the conversation is going off topic.

“Norms are just a way to hold people accountable to making sure no one’s using ablest language or being rude without shouting,” Vail said.

Dovenbarger said one of her favorite parts of the weekend was the first night when all of the students meet and bond without any group affiliations. Vail said this was done intentionally to avoid cliques.

On Saturday, the group representatives came forward and introduced themselves and their organizations so that the non-affiliated students could pick a group to join and work with for the rest of the weekend.

Group representatives were also encouraged to mix with different organizations or start entirely new groups.

Dovenbarger came as a representative of Yoga for the Soul, but she left her group to create a Greek life group with a couple of the individual students.

Dovenbarger is not involved in Greek life herself — in fact, she said she has strong negative opinions about Greek life, which is what drove her to join the group.

“They have a lot of say in what goes on in campus,” Dovenbarger said. She targeted Greek life as a good group to focus on getting more active in sustainability groups on campus.

Dovebarger said the last session, in which everyone brought their ideas together after the workshops and presentations to make a list of initiatives to bring back to UC, was one of her favorite parts of the summit.

“It’s beautiful how many people want to make a change at UC,” Dovenbarger said.

Vail said she thought the passion and open-mindedness behind everyone at the summit is what made it so successful this year.

“Everyone was really open to being challenged that weekend, and everyone just came with their mind open,” Vail said. “I think having a big group of people that’s really comfortable with each other makes for an absolutely fantabulous time.”

Approximately 20 women participate in Elect Her; event encourages acquisition of political positionsCASSIE LIPP | STAFF REPORTER

Young women who aspire to be the future leaders of the University of Cincinnati gathered Saturday to develop their skills and network with other women in the political world at the Elect Her Leadership Conference.

Elect Her is a one-of-a-kind national program that encourages and trains women in college to run for student government and future political office, according to the American Association of University Women. The program — now in its fifth year at UC — was brought to campus by the Women’s Center and sponsored by UC Student Government.

About 20 students participated in the conference in the African American Cultural & Resource Center, including Student Body President Christina Beer.

“The number of women in leadership positions is growing,” Beer told event participants. Beer is the first female student body president at UC in 21 years, and she participated in the conference before she ran for the position.

Elect Her facilitator Danielle Hagan encouraged students to effect the change they want to see on campus and beyond. In the U.S., women make up only 19 percent of Congress, and the country is ranked eighty-sixth in the world for political representation of women, Hagan said.

“[Elect Her] is really creating this national network of support for young women who want to run for office,” Hagan said.

Hagan said the program is great because it goes beyond giving young women the skills they need.

“They want to stay connected with you and help find resources for you when you run for office,” Hagan said.

Hagan said Elect Her asks women running for student government to take a picture of their campaign poster and send it to them to stay in touch.

Hagan is a media and communications strategist, and she served as Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann’s deputy communications director in 2011.

Tamaya Dennard, political director for Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld and proud UC alum, taught the students how to effectively communicate in a campaign.

“You can never have enough engagement,” Dennard said. “That’s our key to success.”

Dennard said she and Sittenfeld genuinely care about what goes on in the community — that’s why they try to talk to and get to know as many people as they can.

“You have to always engage a broad range of people,” Dennard said.

Dennard was rewarded with a round of applause when she announced that she will run for City Council in 2017.

Dennard said she is in a unique space to run because of her humble beginnings — her mother had her when she was a teenager and struggled to make ends’ meet for Dennard and her two siblings. Dennard knows the struggle many people must go through, she said.

“Pride yourself for being a voice for those who don’t have a voice,” Dennard told the students.

After lunch, Ohio House of Representatives Member Denise Driehaus and Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Tracy Winkler spoke to the students about making

an impact. Both women agreed that women have an important perspective.

“The women’s voice has to be heard,” Winkler said. “If you guys just sit back and decide that you don’t want to take a chance because you’re afraid to step out and really put yourself out there, I think that’s sad for our community.”

Driehaus warned the students that women’s perspectives will be ignored if women do not step up.

“I also think it’s important to not let other people decide what women’s issues are,” Driehaus said. “If you’re not sitting at the table at the time, other people decide what our issues are for us. It is important that we be sitting there to talk about it as peers to them so that they have to recognize and deal with your perspective.”

Students also learned how to build a campaign team, and a panel of four female Student Government Association members taught them how to get involved in SGA and the basics of running their own campaign.

The final activity was learning how to craft an effective “elevator speech” — a short pitch to describe oneself — and the students simulated a campaign by voting for the student with the best one.

Cierra Carter, a second-year sociology and Spanish student, said there is always something new you can learn with Elect Her. She also attended the conference last year and loved it.

“Last year I didn’t want to be voted on for the elevator speech, and this year I ended up sitting up there,” Carter said. “I’m still shaking. You can still get out of your comfort zone even if you’ve been here.”

Emily Imhoff, Elect Her student chair and fourth-year international affairs student, said Elect Her is a safe place for young women.

“I think sometimes women are afraid to run for elected positions or traditional leadership roles because environments aren’t safe for them to do so,” Imhoff said.

Imhoff said it is a lot easier to believe you can succeed in a community of women encouraging you.

“We are trying hard to make it a safe space for any self-identified woman, so that includes trans women as well,” Imhoff added.

After the conference, Beer reflected on the impact Elect Her has had on her and every other young woman that participates in the conference.

“[Elect Her] really empowers women to take that first step into running for an elected position,” Beer said. “I’m looking in this room and seeing how it’s going to impact some of the women in years to come, so that is really, really exciting.”

2 / COLLEGE LIFE

CASSIE LIPP | STAFF REPORTER

Elect Her, a national event that focuses on helping women obtain political leadership positions, was held at the University of Cincinnati Saturday. About 20 women participated in the conference throughout the day.

Female students attend national leadership conferenceMONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2014 / NEWSRECORD.ORG

CASSIE LIPP | STAFF REPORTER

Members of the Student Government Association discuss how to become a member of the group and the basics of running a campaign during UC’s Elect Her event Saturday afternoon.

Sustainability Summit teaches poignant economic, social values

PROVIDED

Students focus on aspects of sustainability during UC’s Sustainability Summit, a weekend retreat held annually at Grailville Farm.

NEWS / 3 MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2014 / NEWSRECORD.ORG

patient without actually experimenting on them.

After creating a cell that is identi-cal to the cells in a person’s own body, scientists can introduce a disease that the person is suffering from. They can then watch how it spreads and observe the different effects that treatments will have. All of this can be done outside of the patient’s body.

“It really pushes the field of personal-ized medicine forward,” Wells said. “ … Every patient responds differently to a drug, so if you can predict how they will respond to one or a cocktail of drugs using these cells in a dish, obviously it is a much better way to move forward — as opposed to just shoving drugs at people.”

Wells warmly referred to his work as “disease in a dish” research.

With the discovery of how to gener-ate gastric cells and stomach organoids with human pluripotent stem cells, Wells and McCracken hope that the medical research community will now be able to perform studies on human stomach development and human stomach disease that have never been able to be per-formed before.

“We have been working on this for a while and I am glad to see our research finally published,” said McCracken.

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

KLEINMACHNOW, Germany — The graying activist pulls up to the scant and rusted remains of the Berlin Wall’s Checkpoint Bravo on a trendy electric bike, and says that when looking back over the 25 years since the wall fell, it’s important to keep perspective.

Klaus-Jurgen Warnick, 62, was here on Nov. 9, 1989, when East German guards, unsure how to deal with the thousands turning up at heavily controlled checkpoints, decided that letting people pass was a better option than opening fire.

The world changed that day. The German nation, long separated between East and West, started its road to reunification and the transformation began from a bipolar world where nuclear war seemed a real threat to one led by a single superpower.

But Warnick wants to make sure it’s understood that as the communists of the East massed to pass into the capitalist West, they weren’t trying to change the world. Most just wanted to peek at a forbidden land. They had dreams that life could, and should, be a little better. The grandiose narratives came later.

“I have friends from the old East who today can only remember that back then, they lived in a paradise, where everything was perfect inside the wall,” he said. “I also have friends from the old West who are certain that in the old days, those of us in the East walked the streets with bloody knives clenched in our teeth, spoiling for a fight, and the fall of the wall saved us. Neither view is true.”

Warnick is still uncertain how to judge the change that came.

“To be honest, if asked today, 25 years after this moment that was going to transform our lives and fulfill our

dreams, I could not truthfully say whether we’re better off or not,” he said. “It’s a matter of perspective.”

Today, Ossies, as residents in the former East are called, suffer from higher unemployment and are paid less than their countrymen in the former West.

Those who’ve retired find their pensions are significantly lower.

Ossies also have far less in savings and assets.

Those economic realities in turn depress the former East further, leading to flight to the West. That means the East is graying faster and has fewer children.

Even the soccer teams are inferior; not a single professional team from the former East is in Germany’s top league, and this summer’s World Cup-winning team contained just one Ossie player.

The inequalities between East and West, 25 years later, are no place better on display than in this town on the Berlin outskirts. This is the origin of what Germans call Kleinmachnow Syndrome — the term used to describe how Ossies suffered after reunification.

Kleinmachnow Syndrome is the result of a simple ideological difference between capitalism and socialism: property ownership.

In the West, it was sacrosanct. The East didn’t believe in it.

As a result, when the country became one again, many East Germans lost the homes they’d lived in, many for decades, to West Germans, who had fled or abandoned them, depending on your perspective, but were able to reclaim them when Germany was unified. Eight thousand of Kleinmachnow’s 11,000 residents were forced to leave their homes after reunification. Nationwide, about 4 million of East Germany’s 17 million people were displaced.

The effects, and even some legal cases, continue today. Because they had no property, Ossies have had less security, less wealth, less ability to borrow and less ability to invest than their Western compatriots. That made them poorer and likely to remain so.

In the four years between the opening of the wall and reunification, Warnick, a radio engineer turned politician, headed committees to deal with the conflict.

He managed to save his home but, for the most part, his efforts to allow East Germans to keep what had become their homes failed.

The tale of inequality began when communism took more and more control of East Germany in the 1950s.

Many preferred the idea of living under American, British or French authority, or simply preferred capitalism, and they moved out in droves. In some cases, they made plans to care for their homes or gardens. More often, they did not. They simply left. In post-World War II Germany, property values were low enough that starting over was the easier option.

The East German government didn’t have the money to maintain the mass of homes it then had title to, so it started assigning houses to those who stayed in the East. With a housing shortage, it urged people to build homes on garden plots when possible. While it didn’t allow property ownership, the government offered 99-year leases.

In 1969, Warnick got such a lease on a garden patch. The only structure on the land was a Nazi-era prefab cottage that hadn’t been lived in or tended to since it had been left behind in 1948.

“It looked like a scrap heap. I used it for firewood,” he said.

“I remember the first time the former

owner from West Germany showed up,” he said.

It was a sunny afternoon in April 1990. The kids were growing and, needing more room, Warnick had just gotten the permits to add a second story to his house.

“I was shoveling gravel for the cement. He was nice, for a while. Then he noted that I didn’t have to leave right away, I could have six months to find someplace else.”

Warnick won the right to stay, after paying about $180,000 to the previous owner and lawyers.

It was worth it, in the end, to have the home he built. And to be able to dream about his great-grandchildren someday staring up at the trees he’d planted.

“I spent years kicking myself for not changing the land records, but we were naive,” he said. “We’d never heard of a land registry. It was a nation with no concept of land ownership. And who believes that their nation, their way of life, will collapse?”

FROM SCIENCE PG 1

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Elizabeth DePompei

MANAGING EDITOR

Becky Butts

NEWS EDITOR

Natalie Coleman

NEWS EDITOR

Katie Coburn

PHOTO EDITOR

Madison Schmidt

SPORTS EDITOR

Ellen Hadley

COLLEGE LIFE EDITOR

Emily Begley

ARTS EDITOR

Zack Hatfield

DIGITAL EDITOR

Courtney Stanley

CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER

Lauren Kremer

CHIEF REPORTER

Cassie Merino

LEAD DESIGNER

Hannah Sellers

BUSINESS MANAGER

Celie Shaffer

FROM SG PG 1

Twenty-five years after Berlin Wall fell, division remains

meeting that AirRide registration has opened.

AirRide is a program that will give students a ride to the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport after final exam week in winter when students return home for the winter break.

Students can register for a time slot on the shuttle by visiting tribunal.uc.edu/airport_ride/ar.php.

SG also passed a bill that will allocate $250 to UC’s 2014 Veterans Day ceremony and Reception, which takes place Monday at 9 a.m. on McMicken Commons.

The money will cover the cost for coffee, hot chocolate, donuts and cookies during the ceremony.

Over 200 people showed up to last years Veterans Day ceremony.

Student Government not only gave a monetary commitment for the ceremony this year but also an attendance commitment. MADISON SCHMIDT | PHOTO EDITOR

SG hit the road Wednesday afternoon and held their weekly meeting at the Cincinnati City Hall.

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

Rose Mailutha, left, talks with Hunter Brown on the west side of the Berlin Wall, which is on display in front of the Variety Building in Los Angeles.

party in leadership. “Republicans largely think that President

Obama’s handling of politics is poor, but the out party always believes that. It’s simply a partisan effect,” Lewis said.

Shaunak Sastry, a department of communications assistant professor, says that the idea of public health as an institution has always ended up on the issue of controlling what Sastry calls “the native bodies,” or bodies that are stigmatized or considered lesser because of their disease.

“The history of public health has roots in controlling the savage body,” Sastry said. “The very suggestion of Ebola being an airborne disease is reminiscent of the idea of ‘bad air’, especially used in reference to places like Africa or India.”

Sastry also spoke to the larger history of the perception of Africa being a place of poverty and disease in the eyes of U.S. media, and how these portrayals tamper with the native understandings of the native colonies where these diseases are present.

Walter Baker, a first-year UC student, said that while a lot of measures have been taken to prevent Ebola from becoming widespread in the U.S. — from airports scanning travelers for the virus to actions such as sending medical assistance from the U.S. and European countries to West African countries — there is still a sense of alarm in the U.S. media.

“There are certain media spots that have called this an epidemic in America; they have blown the cases that have been brought to America,” Baker said. “They kind of made a bit of a panic in the sense of people worrying that this virus would be the next swine flu.”

Emily Hoff, a first-year nursing student, agreed with this statement, but likewise believes that the issues are not being reported in the areas where the issue hits hardest.

“I think it’s probably being blown out of proportion, with the thought of it being spread throughout the United States or a concern to the United States,” Hoff said. “On the same page I don’t think they are giving enough information to what is actually happening in West Africa where it actually is an epidemic.”

The event concluded with a questionnaire with the speakers.

Throughout the representation of Ebola in the media, Flournoy concluded that only one thing must be remembered in one’s research.

“Never trust The Man.”

FROM EBOLA PG 1

4 / COLLEGE LIFEMONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2014 / NEWSRECORD.ORG

Lauren Hill joins Bearcats to raise cancer awareness

Students foster memories with fashionable prom event

Committee members from DAAP organize creative dance at Music Hall BRITT FILLMORE | STAFF REPORTER

Students at the College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning restored their memories of prom Saturday evening by organizing a creative, fashion-filled dance of their own.

The event, held downtown at Music Hall, incorporated a live band, a disk jockey, catered food, a photo booth and more.

Everyone who attended the artistic soirée dressed in black and white cocktail attire.

Best friends Maya Newlin and Rachel Frydenberg, both first-year interior design students, agreed that the night was an absolute success.

“I think the dance is both very classy and a lot of fun, and to make it even better, the food is great,” Newlin said.

Frydenberg said the dance was an opportunity to meet students outside of her own program.

“It was a great opportunity for everyone to come together and to meet some of

the other students outside of my area of study,” Frydenberg said. “I’m really enjoying meeting new people and watching the live band.”

The Media Cover, a band entirely made up of students enrolled in the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, provided live music throughout the night. Ryan Fine sings lead, James Tillman plays trumpet, Rob Kokochak strums guitar, Noah Simionides is on bass, Curtis Holtgrefe plays saxophone and Jonn Bostwick is on drums.

The jazz-and-pop musical group has been together since its members’ freshman years, and it performs covers of classics and current hits.

The Media Cover performed songs including “That Girl” by Justin Timberlake and “Fly Me to the Moon” by Frank Sinatra, in addition to several original pieces written by band members Kokochak and Fine.

Many of this fall’s fashion trends were sported on the dance floor. Girls wore full tutu skirts, leather jackets mixed with feminine dresses, midi skirts with sexy side slits and lace dresses with nude lining.

For male attendees, the night was all about the bowtie. Watch out skinny ties — the traditional bow tie seems to have a big presence in today’s menswear.

Madison Landon, a second-year urban planning student on the prom’s committee, wore a white, halter-top mini dress that flowed perfectly as she danced the night away. She looked fabulous in an all-white gown with black accents and comfy black flats.

Another fashion standout was Emily MacLeod, a second-year fashion design student who wore a black and white jumper with a plunge neckline and cute pockets to set the whole outfit off.

The prom’s student committee consisted of a total of nine students from programs within DAAP, and organizers, including Anissa Pulcheon, anticipate continuing the event during the next academic year.

“It has been a few years since we’ve been able to put on an event such as this one,” Pulcheon said. “But we hope to have fun like this again next year.”

BRITT FILLMORE | STAFF REPORTER

Student committee members of DAAP’s prom event pose in their black and white cocktail attire. The committee plans to hold another dance in the fall of next year.

CHRISTINA DROBNEY | CONTRIBUTOR

“One team, one fight” — that was the motto of the University of Cincinnati women’s basketball team Friday night at Fifth Third Arena.

The Bearcat community came together to support Mount Saint Joseph University basketball player Lauren Hill in her effort to promote awareness for Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), the incurable brain cancer Hill was diagnosed with in October 2013, shortly after her 18th birthday.

On Nov. 2, Hill accomplished her dream of playing college basketball by playing at the Cintas Center against Hiram College, scoring a basket at the start and end of the game.

“She’s just an inspiration for anyone,” said Jolinda Lewis-Miller, a 2014 UC Athletics Hall of Fame inductee. “Her story transcends age, it transcends gender and race — just how you can bring a community together just by pursuing your dreams.”

Before the game, the Bearcats wore special gray T-shirts with the number 22 on them — Hill’s basketball number — during their warm-up. The cheerleaders’ megaphones were also decorated with the number, made with black electric tape.

Hill made an appearance during halftime, promoting awareness and thanking everyone in attendance for their support. She was introduced and presented with an honorary Bearcats jersey by head coach Jamelle Elliott.

“I just want you to know we’re so proud of you. You’re an inspiration to everyone in this room,” Elliott said. “You really make us appreciate life every single day. Thank you so much for everything you do.”

Once Hill began speaking, the gray-cladded audience fell silent, taking in her words of power, courage and bravery.

She thanked the crowd, humbled by how far the awareness was going toward DIPG.

“It’s really hard that those kids going through this and their families are going through this and there’s not a lot we can do about it,” Hill said during the speech. “Now we can do something about it. It’s amazing. We can find an end to cancer and DIPG.”

Many fans cried and embraced one another. Hill received a standing ovation and was visibly moved by the fans’ support. After her appearance, Hill returned to her friends and family as 22 UC students took the Layup 4 Lauren challenge. She sat with supporters, enjoying the sport she loves the most.

“I think it was a pleasant surprise. It’s good what she’s trying to do with the disease,” said Ryan Salucci, a third-year civil engineering student. “When I looked [up the disease], it’s very resistant to the methods we use right now. It seems like a whole new concept because we don’t really know how to treat it.”

Freshman pre-physical therapy student Alexa Sonnenberg said it was “great to see her even though

it’s such a hard time for her coming out and bringing awareness, even if it’s a personal, private thing.”

Lauren’s story continues to inspire many members of the Cincinnati community and beyond. Her story and efforts to promote awareness for DIPG go beyond the hoops.

“Today, it was much more than a basketball game for us. It’s the opportunity for us to be a platform here at UC,” Elliot said. “I’ve led the department, our staff, women’s basketball to give her a platform to continue to raise the awareness that she’s done so bravely during her bout with cancer.”

MADISON SCHMIDT | PHOTO EDITOR

Jamelle Elliott, UC women’s basketball head coach, presents Lauren Hill with an honorary Bearcats jersey with her number 22 on it. Hill, who was diagnosed with DIPG in October, promoted awareness of the incurable brain cancer during Friday night’s game.

MADISON SCHMIDT | PHOTO EDITOR

Megaphones are adorned with Lauren Hill’s number — 22.

BRITT FILLMORE | STAFF REPORTER

CCM student band The Media Cover performs live during Saturday night’s DAAP prom event.

See Page 5 for full coverage of Friday’s women’s basketball game.

SPORTS / 5 MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2014 / NEWSRECORD.ORG

Women’s basketball warms up, takes control

MADISON SCHMIDT | PHOTO EDITOR

Marley Hill reaches for posession of the ball during the women’s basketball game against Kentucky Wesleyan Friday night. The Bearcats beat the Panthers 60-38.

MADISON SCHMIDT | PHOTO EDITOR

Morman redshirted his previous season, and made his debut against Bellarmine Nov. 3.

MADISON SCHMIDT | PHOTO EDITOR

Jermaine Sanders skirts around Fairmont while eyeing the basket Saturday afternoon in Fifth Third Arena. The Bearcats beat the Falcons 71-54.

Basketball predicted to finish fourth in American Athletic Conference

Bearcats victorious in last exhibition game

Baseball freshman’s ‘true love’

JAELYNNE JOHNSON | STAFF REPORTER

The University of Cincinnati men’s basketball team was picked to finish fourth in the American Athletic Conference preseason coaches’ poll announced Oct. 29 at the league’s media day at the New York Athletic Club.

The Bearcats received 71 points and placed behind defending national champions University of Connecticut who received 96 points, as did Southern Methodist University (94) and University of Memphis (82).

Newcomer to the AAC, University of Tulsa (62) was selected fifth in the 11-team league, followed by University of Temple (59), University of Houston (39), University of Southern Florida (32), University of Central Florida (26), and newcomers East Carolina University (24) and Tulane University (20).

UC was selected fourth in the American’s inaugural preseason poll last season but went on to win a share of the league’s regular-season title with University of Connecticut while posting a 15-3 league record.

The Bearcats finished the 2013-14 season 27-7 overall and made it to the program’s fourth consecutive appearance at the NCAA Tournament, which was shortened by the loss to Harvard University in the second round.

The Bearcats roster sees the return of six lettermen, including two starters to the seven newcomers for the 2014-15 season.

“It’s all politics, the only thing we can do is play our part,” redshirt guard Deshaun Morman said about the prediction. “Win or lose, we will still be a good team. We will play our hardest and the results will come out in the end.”

Morman made his first Bearcat debut against Bellarmine University on Nov. 3 for an exhibition match where they won 86-79. Morman posted 11 points and two steals.

Morman said one thing that the team has to work on is defense, the key to getting the first place title of the AAC.

Former student-athlete and now assistant coach Joaquin Parker agrees with Morman. “I think this team will finish in the top three [of the AAC]. Once they get used to the college game, how physical it is and the speed of the other players, this team will be very good,” Parker said.

The Bearcats open the regular season on Friday at 8 p.m. against Saint Francis University (Pennsylvania) in Fifth Third Arena.

EMILY WITT | STAFF REPORTER

Ryan Noda lives, eats, sleeps and breathes baseball.

He came to Cincinnati from Volo, Illinois, a village about 45 minutes outside of Chicago. A first-year history student, Noda is one of the many freshmen who represents University of Cincinnati head coach Ty Neal’s first recruiting class.

“It’s not that I stand out,” Noda said. “As a freshman group, we all get together really well. We’ve only known each other two months, but it already feels like we’re all family.”

Neal first recruited Noda when Neal was at Indiana University, and continued to seek him out when he moved to Cincinnati.

“Coach Neal made the first move,” Noda said. “He called my high school coach and asked me if I was still playing baseball. He started recruiting me when he was at Indiana, and when he moved [to Cincinnati], he called me again. The facilities got me when I arrived here. I went to a football game and got to see the locker room again, and I just fell in love. I love this place.”

Noda was on the Red Team for the annual Red/Black World Series in October. The five-game series, not including a game against the Great Lake Canadians the day before, brought forth a 5-4 victory for the Red Team.

Noda hit six RBI’s and a grand slam in the eighth inning during the Great Lakes game, and continued to hit well during the series, collecting a total of five RBI’s.

“I was just playing baseball,” Noda said. “The team was hot, and we were all just catching fire and hitting really well. It already feels like we’ve been playing together for a while.”

Noda said that the best moment from the series wasn’t his noteworthy hitting, but rather after the series, when the team began to work again as one.

“We always connect, no matter what,” he said. “After the Red/Black Series, we just came back and connected even after being on two different teams. We were even in different locker rooms. But right after the game, we just came back together and connected.”

Although he has only been here for two months, Noda said he feels that he has not only adjusted to Neal’s program, but also to college life.

“I feel like I’ve done pretty well,” Noda said. “At the beginning, time management was really different, but I’ve gotten used to it, and I actually like it a lot better. I know how to manage my time now, and it definitely helps when I need to balance other things.”

During his time at Grant Community High School, Noda also shined in basketball. He was a three-year letter winner and named team captain all four years in both sports. But when it came to picking and choosing for a college career, there was always only one answer.

“I love baseball more,” Noda said with a grin. “I miss basketball, but I’ve always thought I would go further in baseball than I would in basketball. I just wanted to play baseball more. I’ve been playing since I was two years old. It’s my true love.”

His coach at Grant Community High School, Dave Behm, had a similar coaching style to Neal, which Noda believes made it easier to adjust to his new environment.

“My high school coach was similar to Coach Neal. They’re both coaches that are straight to the point. It’s what I’ve grown up with, and I love it,” Noda said. “My high school teammates and I all gathered around our coach to become a family, and we’re doing the same thing here.”

This year, Noda was named to the All-Conference, All-Area and All-State team, and he was Illinois State’s second runner-up in 2012. But according to Noda, the secret to success isn’t always about who has the most talent or who stands out among the crowd.

“It all starts with confidence, and when everybody on the team starts to help each other out,” Noda said. “It’s about trusting your teammates, and having them trust you to do your job. Hustle is what I’ve grown up with. Just hustle. It’ll get you further than your talent. It’s how I got here.”

CLAUDE THOMPSON | STAFF REPORTER

The University of Cincinnati women’s basketball team won its only exhibition match of the year as the team defeated Kentucky Wesleyan College 60-38 Friday.

It only took 55 seconds for the Cincinnati Bearcats to score the first points of the game as freshman forward Marley Hill scored on a jumper. Cincinnati maintained the lead and was in complete control of the game.

Hill, a Cleveland native, registered 19 points and 11 rebounds for her first college double-double in 30 minutes of play, leading the way for the Bearcats. She led the team in total points as the only starting forward in the exhibition match-up next to four guards for UC.

Hill was also one of three freshmen in the starting five for the Bearcats. She was joined by fellow freshmen guards Ana Owens and Brandey Tarver. Owens went four-for-five from the field and added two free throws to score 10 points on the night to go with her four rebounds, yet was called for four fouls. Tarver struggled to put points on the board for UC, going one-for-eight on field goals and one-for-two on free throws for only three total points.

“You obviously see some new faces out on the floor,” said UC head coach Jamelle Elliott. “They are obviously doing some things that are going to help us win.”

The defensive pressure from the Bearcats helped set the tone and kept the momentum in UC’s favor as the team recorded seven steals and forced 15 turnovers from KWC. The Bearcats held the Panthers to 21 percent shooting from the field and 15.4 percent on three-point shots. Cincinnati also blocked eight shots, preventing any players for Kentucky Wesleyan from having more than six total points in the game.

“I think today we showed that we can score and we can defend one through five depending on who’s out on the court for them,” Elliott said. “In the past, our defense has been the staple of our program and I want that to be. But this year I want us to score the ball more and I think we have multiple [players] who are capable of doing that.”

Cincinnati will open season play at home Saturday against the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff at 2 p.m.

CLAUDE THOMPSON | STAFF REPORTER

The University of Cincinnati men’s basketball team closed exhibition play this season with a victory over Fairmont State University at Fifth-Third Arena on Saturday with a final score of 71-54.

The team looks poised to compete for the American Athletic Conference title this season after going 2-0 in exhibition play. They were led by forward Octavius Ellis, who went 8-for-9 in the field for a total of 16 points with 10 rebounds.

The Bearcats struggled early against the Division II Fairmont State Fighting Falcons, who jumped out to an early lead in the first half and maintained it for all but one minute of the first half where the Fighting Falcons were shooting over

70 percent to open the game, scoring on eight of their first 10 shots. UC went into halftime down 29-30.

But the home crowd of 4,416 fans only had to wait 45 seconds for the Bearcats to take the lead when Kevin Johnson was fouled by Fairmont State’s Wil Martinez and sank both free throw opportunities to put the Bearcats up by one, a lead they would not relinquish for the rest of the game, despite UC only shooting 55.9 percent from the free throw line and 48.1 percent from the field.

“Coaching can be really hard when you have a lot of new guys,” said UC head coach Mick Cronin. “When you have a lot of new guys, you’re going to earn your money. We’re running around out there with seven of them and it shows at times.”

The Cincinnati defense stepped up in the second half, holding Fairmont State to only 24 points and recording 41 total rebounds, led by Ellis with 10. UC also forced 16 turnovers and scored 22 points off of them which really paved the way for the Bearcats to pull away with the lead, which Cincinnati had extended to 20 points at one point in the game.

“We gotta make sure that we start becoming that type of team,” Cronin said. “The team that embraces dirty work and has its mind on all of the things that we drew up on the board like talking, rebounding, scoring, hustle, and togetherness. A-to-Z.”

Cincinnati will open the NCAA Division I regular season at home against Saint Francis University Friday at 8 p.m.

That is what makes “Interstellar,” director Christopher Nolan’s ninth directorial effort, so enthralling.

Just like Nolan’s “Memento,” “The Dark Knight” and “Inception,” you have to see it to believe it, preferably in IMAX.

Matthew McConaughey stars as Cooper, the pilot turned reluctant farmer turned reluctant astronaut who must leave his son and daughter with his father-in-law in order to save the human race from extinction.

Anne Hathaway serves as Brand, one of three of McConaughey’s co-pilots, along with Wes Bentley and David Oyelowo.

Casey Affleck, Jessica Chastain and Michael Cain manage to keep the intergalactic space odyssey grounded on Earth as Cooper’s spaceship, Endurance, hurtles through space as Nolan deals with his normal subject matter — the faith, hope and perseverance of humanity when faced with seemingly impossible odds.

But among all of the big stars, perhaps the finest performance comes from 14-year-old Mackenzie Foy, whose

daughter-father chemistry as Murph with McConaughey’s Cooper is astoundingly heartfelt.

Every smile, embrace and teardrop exchanged between the two is completely believable, which proves much more valuable to the quality of Nolan’s science-fiction love opus than the ever-impressive worlds that Nolan makes look so overwhelmingly real.

But let’s be honest, the visuals really are breathtaking.

Rather than take the easy way out for cheap-looking effects, Nolan opted to shoot on 35mm film and 70mm film IMAX cameras, refusing to bow down to the temptations of using digital.

Nolan had an interior of a futuristic space shuttle built for a set, and there’s absolutely no use of a green screen throughout “Interstellar,” which means nearly every moment was captured on camera rather than being computer generated.

Nolan’s decision to shoot on film and say “no thanks” to computer-generated tricks

pays off huge dividends.The planets we explore feel as real as the

Earth that we leave. The constellations we see from the space shuttles spellbind us. They make us wonder where Cooper will take Endurance and its crew next.

Understandably, given its subject matter, “Interstellar” seems to be drawing unfair comparisons to director Alfonso Cuaron’s “Gravity” from last October.

Both films are incredible. Both are visual gems. Both are set in space. Both ask huge questions about humanity, the meaning of life and survival.

But “Gravity” focuses on the intricacies of the journey home from orbit and features a haunted protagonist unsure of what home may hold for her, while “Interstellar” is an observation on how far we will go, what we will sacrifice, and where we will end up in order to provide for our families and our loved ones – even if that love takes us away from Earth.

“Gravity” is about reclaiming life and the meaning of family and love when it all feels so far away, while “Interstellar” is

about leaving love when we least want to, but have to.

“Gravity” was also heralded as one of the most realistic science-fiction films of all time, but “Interstellar” is not about what is real and not real. It completely puts the fiction in the genre of science fiction, loaded with Nolan’s inspirational level of imagination.

“Interstellar” is about what transcends everything — it is about the eternal bonds between a father and daughter, parent and child.

It is about the most important survival instinct of them all — love.

Nolan’s latest effort is thematically ambitious and occasionally confusing, but “Interstellar” is ultimately another cinematic triumph. It creates emotional connections among characters that add significant weight to bedazzling science-fiction spectacle, keeping our hearts with Cooper and Murph while our eyes look out among the stars, wondering where the love between a father and child may take them next.

ZACK HATFIELD | ARTS EDITOR

From Nov. 2 to Dec. 12, students can take in a diverse and engaging range of print art from a local press most students probably don’t know about.

Clay Street Press is a printmaker located in Over-the-Rhine. Although it may seem obscure, the press has been a staple of the arts community in Cincinnati for 28 years, and was founded a little over 30 years ago. The company’s site might technically sum up what it does best, that it specializes “in printing small edition hand-pulled prints in lithography, etching, woodcut and silkscreen,” but a visit to the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning’s new exhibit, “Printers Proof: Selections

from the archive of Clay Street Press,” will adequately show you the wide and vivid breadth of art the press has helped forge over the years through artist portfolios. The exhibit, curated by press owner Mark Patsfall and located in the Dorothy W. and C. Lawson Reed Jr. Gallery on DAAP’s third floor, displays an ambitious span of artists, who range geographically from South Korea to Germany to the U.S.

The colors pop in the gallery, with works like Werner Kernebeck’s “I’m on the road” mapping out the city with playfulness and vibrancy.

You don’t have to be skilled with the medium of printmaking to enjoy “Printers Press.” Although the words lithograph,

collagraph, silkscreen (think Andy Warhol’s prints of Marilyn Monroe) and more can be confusing if you don’t know much about the processes, that can make the gallery all the more intriguing.

The pieces in “Printers Proof” aren’t lazy, and many require visitors to make connections themselves. An example is Chunwoo Nam’s “We Are Here I-V,” a beautiful collection of lithography and etchings that use colorful figures superimposed onto black and white settings to comment on the disappearing divergence between cultures. A black and white Times Square and Beijing’s Tiananmen Square are both displayed to show a parallel between cultures and histories. This work also highlights the conceptual nature of the art printed by Clay Street Press.

The descriptions on the walls written by Patsfall add much depth to the exhibit as he tells the individual stories of the pieces. In Kernebeck’s work, Patsfall tells that he met the artist in Muenster, Germany, in 1997 and invited him to intern at his shop on Main Street, where he ended up living for six months. The text adds a nice touch and cohesiveness to the prints.

The archive’s sense of cohesiveness stems from universality rather than similar subject matter. Many pieces are stunning abstracts, others unique takes on historic symbols. As the 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s destruction is celebrated across the world, examining these prints through a political lens, which works like “V-Idea a Priori” by Nam June Paik lend themselves to, is incredibly relevant.

Other art within the gallery is remarkable simply because of the process from which it was made. “Erroneous Linkages I” by Tony Luensman is a collagraph made from pouring melted solder onto industrial

plates, which were then wiped with ink. Describing this undertaking does not

create a specific visual, but the result is an ambiguous charcoal-colored image that is both fragile and synaptic, like something you would find under a microscope.

Another standout in the show is Richard Bitting’s “Nine Summer Haiku.” The piece, made in 1984, is a colorful portfolio of nine lithographs that corresponds to music the artist made. The images themselves are musical, striking and fluid in their spare technique, a perfect representation of the Japanese poetic form in their complex simplicity.

Another evocative and minimalist display is Barbara Westermann’s “Camp David I-IV,” a collection of four Bauhaus-style woodcuts that resemble blueprints of small buildings that are aesthetically engrossing in their subjectivity.

Overall “Printers Proof” is a fascinating retrospective that proves the important role Clay Street Press has in the local arts community, but also its position as a skilled printer of international and multicultural artists.

6 / ARTSMONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2014 / NEWSRECORD.ORG

DAAP visits Clay Street Press’ vast archive with small retrospective

Imagination Unbound:‘Interstellar’ stuns

PROVIDED: PARAMOUNT

‘Interstellar’ was shot with 35mm and 75mm film did not utilize a green screen for special effects, a decision that coincides with director Christopher Nolan’s unique and challengin perspective on filmmaking.

BAILEY DOWLIN | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Students view Printers Proof in the Reed Gallery on DAAP’s third floor during the exhibit’s reception.

TONY JOHNSON | STAFF REPORTER

CCM’s small cast invites audience into complicated teenage world with fresh story, riveting acting MACKENZIE BOWER | CONTRIBUTOR

Stephen Karam’s dark and witty comedic stage drama, “Speech and Debate,” follows three high school students in a very conservative community as they struggle to be noticed and listened to by the controlling adults who surround them.

The playwright did not disappoint as he hilariously took jabs at political parties, politicians and society as a whole. Karam left no party or person safe from being the butt of a joke that left the audience roaring in laughter.

Karam addressed the controversial topics of sexuality, abortion and censorship through the eyes of his adolescent characters with the same flawless integration of gravity and comedy that he used to poke fun at politicians from the very first scene.

The play was filled with dialogue in fantastically orchestrated circles about subjects that don’t get addressed, and poked fun at the town’s close-minded society.

“[Karam] really put his finger on the pulse of just how hard it is to be a kid in America today,” said Richard Hess, the director of “Speech and Debate” and the CCM drama department chair for over 20 years.

“Underneath the surface every character is really struggling with individual issues. It is a rough world. This play gives a balance to the department because they don’t do very many contemporary productions.”

While the characters spent the play trying to make their voices heard, one of the loudest voices in the theater was that of Katie Langham, who played Diwata, a quirky and sarcastic outcast with dreams of the theater.

The first time we meet Diwata she sings a sarcastic song

for her web diary about a director who has a problem of “miscasting” the school plays, meaning he doesn’t give the talented Diwata a role, and we realize that this drama queen uses her uniqueness as a tool to stand out rather than as something to hide.

Every other time Diwata spoke, the audience roared with laughter at the sarcastic comments that streamed out from her completely inappropriate lack of filter. This rollercoaster ride of an adolescent character would not have been nearly as delightful without Langhams’s perfectly over-the-top dramatic flair as she nailed her role as a strong female lead.

The self-proclaimed captain of the Speech and Debate team’s performance would not have been quite as endearing were it not for the performances of her reluctant team members Solomon, played by Owen Alderson, and Howie, played by Ryan Garrett.

Solomon started the show as a socially awkward and sheltered journalist trying to catch his big break with a controversial headline, but the audience watched as Solomon’s motivations changed and he transformed into a completely different person by the end of the show.

Alderson’s dynamic performance captured what it is like to be a lost teenager in a world where adults try to decide everything for you; he managed to pull the audience in on his journey of maturity and coming to terms with his own sexuality, adding more depth to his performance through idiosyncrasies that helped develop his character.

Howie, an openly gay transfer student who is obviously not a fan of the conservative community he has moved into, or his fellow leads for that matter, tries to seem apathetic about the issues in the town.

Garrett puts on a very believable performance as the voice of reason alongside the outlandish Diwata and the self-involved Solomon.

All of the actors really committed to their roles as high

school kids, raising their voices, talking over each other, and threatening to expose each other’s secrets. When one of the adult characters walked in, you could see the dynamic between the three main characters change in the same way that it changes in reality when adults intrude.

“This is homegrown, low-budget theatre, but because of the integrity of the cast, nobody would ever know that,” said Hess, the show’s director.

And when the lights came on at the end of the two hour production, it was shocking at how fast time had passed while audience members were absorbed in the little world that the cast so eloquently created despite minimal set and scenery, much of which the cast themselves helped pick out.

Sound designer Jake Jobes chose contemporary music for every transition in the play, resulting in humming college students across the audience.

Part of what made the play so enjoyable is how obvious it was that the cast was having fun.

Cast members danced to the music as they moved props during transitions in the show, and danced off stage at the end.

Despite the fact that this was not a musical, a moment must be taken to acknowledge the few songs that Langham sang beautifully, the talented harmonizing of the cast and the hilarious dance number that had the cast stripped down to nude undergarments.

The current music choices as well as the online chatting scenes and time spent on cell phones by the characters made this a very relatable, contemporary show for college students, and a lovable show for all.

Hess described the play as an “awkward, adolescent and wonderful” story of young people who band together and refuse to let adults snuff out their dreams, and the cast did the inspiring storyline justice.

Theater: ‘Speech and Debate’ features dynamic performances

I t’s difficult to explain the magnificence and grand scale of an astronaut’s journey through the cosmos to save the human race, but it’s impossible to describe the very real emotional crisis of a father’s heartbreaking departure.

BAILEY DOWLIN | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Peter Huttinge’s piece “Torture Garden.”