This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How did you get involved in the production of Waiting for Waves?

Jake Zaoutis, who directed the film, is one of my friends from high school. Over quarantine, I was starting to get into film scoring. I did a film for a competition that I scored, and I posted it on Facebook and he saw it. He’s a film major at BU. He saw it and reached out to me and was like, “Hey, I really liked this film that you scored, I’m going to be working on this documentary for my final project, and I was wondering if you would write music for it.” I was like, “Yeah, that sounds awesome.” He told me about that over the summer, but then it didn’t really get started until the end of last semester.

How would you say the process of scoring your first film was different from scoring your second film? Did you learn anything?

They were really different processes because the first one was completely silent, and it was a three-minute film, so the music was running throughout and it was all sort of flowing together naturally. This one is a documentary, and because of that, it’s mostly dialogue driving the story. So in writing the music, I had to be a lot more aware of the space that it was taking up and of leaving room for the dialogue — which is the most important part.

Because it was a lot longer, there were also different concrete themes and personas. I had to break it down into different sections. And so that’s how I started. I would talk to the director [Zaoutis] before there was any footage, and he would tell me about the different characters and what they were going through, and about the overall vibe of the film. I would write things based on that and send them back and forth with him. 

I basically wrote 20 different songs that were solely based on what he had told me. It wasn’t until really late in the process that I had to line those up to the actual film.

You mentioned matching the vibe of the film, which is a documentary about surfing. Did any of that play into the music you wrote?

Definitely. That was the first thing that I talked about with [Zaoutis] was that it’s about surfing, which I feel has very specific musical stylistic connotations, with surf guitar and all these specific fun, exciting things. He wanted to incorporate some of that, but while the film is about surfing, it’s about surfing in New England with old men. So it’s not quite the fun, happy, exciting, surf rock that you would expect. 

I think that the film is a little sad, or that’s definitely the vibe I get, because it’s these guys who are super passionate about it but also aging and breaking their hips and all this stuff, so it had to be a lot more mellow. I talked with Jake a lot and ended up writing a lot of music that was more mellow and a little bit more toned back and ambient, but also including the slide guitar and the super reverb-y guitar that is part of the surf sound, and finding a way to mix those two things together.

What was it like working on a project that was taking place almost entirely at Boston University, another school?

It was definitely tricky at first because I had no visuals to go off of. There’s only so much you can convey over a Zoom meeting, unfortunately. Toward the end of the process we started having more regular calls, and calls where I could pull up the session that I was working on and be like, “Okay, here’s what I’m thinking, but I can change this.” It was manageable, but it would have been a lot easier if we could be in the same room together. But you know, such is life. 

Is there anything from the experience of working with BU that you feel would be cool to bring back to Oberlin?

I don’t know how much of this Oberlin wants to hear, but one thing that really struck me with the festival and all the awards was just like, it must be nice to go to a school that has a lot of money. I’ve taken some Cinema Studies classes here and I know a lot of Cinema Studies majors, and I know we have access to certain equipment. Obviously, it’s a great opportunity and we’re really lucky that we have those things, but it was also funny to see just the difference in video quality when you’re provided these industry-level cameras and all this other equipment. For the awards ceremony, you got free professional-level cameras for winning things, or certain things like that, which I feel like would never really happen here. It’s not in our control necessarily, but yeah, that was one thing.

I think it’s normal to think about the ways that the resources of a big school like BU are different than those of smaller schools like Oberlin. 

They had so many more resources and because he was going to a film school, they all got time off from class. They got paid to drive out to Connecticut. I think having those opportunities available to them is definitely what made the film how it is. I don’t think they would have been able to make it if they didn’t have all of those resources.

Courtenay Finn, chief curator at moCa Cleveland, first came upon Mohaiemen’s work in 2017, while visiting an exhibition curated by Peter Eleey at MoMA PS1 in New York. She had gone to see another show at the same museum, but ended up missing it because Tripoli Cancelled was so enrapturing. Instead of visiting the rest of the museum, Finn watched the whole 93-minute film, right up until the museum closed for the day. 

One of Finn’s goals in exhibiting the film and accompanying photo exhibition was to bring that engrossing experience to moCa visitors. While COVID-19 presented practical challenges, its context also added a new dimension to the film’s depictions of routine and isolation. 

“It was supposed to be shown in the summertime, and that got rescheduled because of COVID and the way that the museum’s entire schedule got upended,” Finn said. “And actually, my perspective on it also shifted. I felt like I saw the film through different lights and different touchpoints, showing it at this moment in time.” 

Tripoli Cancelled’s air of uncertainty and solitude does feel uncannily prophetic of the socially-distanced age. The film centers around an unnamed man, played by Iranian-Greek actor Vassilis Koukalani, living in an abandoned airport for reasons that remain unknown to viewers. Lingering shots that alternate between wide angles and closeups guide the audience through this lonely man’s daily drawl. Koukalani’s isolated role had to carry the whole film — and he was up to the task.

“When I found the deserted landscape in front of me and was asked to play and dramatically exist there I felt a little uncanny and helpless,” Koukalani wrote in an email to the Review. “Would it be possible to profile a man’s life in this overwhelming and desperate view?”

Koukalani’s performance answers this question with a resounding “yes.” The dual comfortability and tension of his body language as he navigates the airport portrays a haunting,  reluctant familiarity with his surroundings. Overlaid monologues also allow Koukalani to create a voice for his character, at points wistful, nostalgic, and sorrowful. He is the only mobile, energetic element of the otherwise static setting.  This juxtaposition is epitomized by the film’s title screen, in which Koukalani’s character calmly smokes a cigarette in front of the airport terminal in a vast and detritus-ridden airfield as the words Tripoli Cancelled appear above him. 

The story and location made the experience of portraying this character deeply personal to Koukalani. 

“When I saw the abandoned airports in Ellinikon, memories came from all the years since childhood in which I was often forced to fly to or away from Athens or even passing through — Teheran to Heraklion, Heraklion to Germany,” Koukalani wrote. 

His performance also allowed the film to explore a number of critical, relevant themes.

“Vassilis Koukalani (whose identity cannot be clearly placed) not only represented his father’s story but even more, becoming a figure that allowed Naeem, through him, to transgress clear-cut nationalities, topographies, and time distinctions, creating a film that literally cuts through borders to talk about them,” Tripoli Cancelled’s Greek Onsite Producer Maria-Thalia Carras wrote in a message to the Review.

The film was shot in the abandoned Ellinikon International Airport in Athens, Greece, which takes on an identity of its own, almost becoming a second character off of which Koukalani could play. 

“This dumped and emptied area,” wrote Koukalani, “which was public property and is now neglected and sidelined, waiting for the calculations and computations of speculators to be turned into shopping malls or other paved entertainment, is in a state of limbo.” 

Tripoli Cancelled’s cinematographer, Petros Nousias, also found the idiosyncratic setting to be a major inspiration for expanding the film’s purview.

“It soon became evident that this airport wouldn’t be just the location for our script, but also a constant inspiration for new scenes that took what started as a short film and turned it into a feature-length one,” he wrote in an email to the Review. 

The resulting film becomes a conversation between a man and his world, as he interacts with his environment both symbiotically and with great conflict.

“Everything is dusty and dilapidated, but [the protagonist’s] suit is pressed and clean, and he still has food,” Finn said. “From the beginning, that dichotomy was something that really drew me in. I also feel like [Koukalani] as an actor is so expressive, and the camera really centers on him through the whole film.” 

For the two of us, experiencing  the exhibition was also about experiencing  a museum amidst a pandemic. While moCa takes many rigorous safety precautions, an institution cannot account for its patrons at all times. We as viewers were made acutely aware of our own surroundings in the film’s moderately sized screening room when a man behind us took off his mask, forcing us to make a hasty and unceremonious exit. 

But as much as COVID ruins everything, our experiences of the pandemic enrich the film’s subject matter too. The protagonist’s tendencies to create small routines to keep himself sane and entertained may have once been alien to viewers, or a cause of pity. In a post-quarantine reality, the protagonist’s self-soothing game of rolling up paper balls to throw at the permanently frozen departure sign inspired bone-deep empathy. At this moment, Tripoli Cancelled cuts across time and becomes a critical site for people to reflect on loneliness, aimlessness, and liminality. Because of that Tripoli Cancelled isn’t just a film worth watching — it’s a film that is important to watch.

But how do we reconcile that importance with the maskless man in the back? Digital museum-going provides one possible answer. While nothing can replace the embodied experience of visiting a museum, moCa has created opportunities to engage with its exhibitions and their subject matter outside of the physical setting. 

Lauren Leving, curator of public programs at moCa Cleveland, worked with Mohaiemen to organize and facilitate speaker events and panel discussions at both Oberlin and Kent State University that take Monday, Day 3753 beyond the limits of the exhibition. 

“[Mohaiemen] is really involved and interested in working with Oberlin –– he went to Oberlin –– and also Kent State; he’s interested in creating these partnerships,” Leving said. “I proposed a couple of lecture format programs depending on his availability, and he tweaked them, and we created proposals that way. We’re going back and forth. We’re still in the planning stages, but he’s interested in creating a lecture and discussion based on storytelling and when storytelling goes awry with two of his Tripoli Cancelled collaborators.” 

Leving, along with Thoma Education Fellow Melissa Kansky, helped establish an education and engagement committee to design programs that relate to the shows at moCa as well as support the community in the ways that they find most necessary. The committee is composed of 10 locals from Cleveland, with whom Kansky and Leving share some background information and questions about the exhibition. They then design programs out of those conversations, which also allow pieces of the shows to be shared virtually. An upcoming program related to Monday, Day 3753 will focus on dreams and dream psychology, key themes in the film’s contention with freedom — they even plan to bring in a Jungian psychologist and dream analyst. 

That event, “When we fall asleep, where do we go?” will take place on May 5 at 6 p.m. Registration is required. “Best Laid Plans,” a storytelling workshop for Oberlin College students with Nousias, Carras, and Mohaiemen, will be held on April 14; registration information is forthcoming.

It is difficult and unreasonable to ask students to work exclusively in their rooms. For many on-campus students, their bedroom is the only place they can rest, eat, take their remote classes, and so much more. How can they be expected to focus on independent work in that kind of environment? More than hindering students’ ability to work, forcing them to study near their beds can be detrimental; many studies show that working in the same place you sleep contributes to increased anxiety and insomnia.

While Wilder Hall’s booths and rooms offer some respite from this problem, by no means do they present a perfect solution. The building is crowded and loud, already keeping it from being an ideal study spot. More than that, the presence of DeCafé and the Rathskeller combined with the cold weather make Wilder a prime spot for students who want to eat indoors. The private rooms are in incredibly high demand –– you can see the throngs of students shuffling aimlessly through the halls, looking for anywhere to sit. The Student Union building has become synonymous with the seemingly endless rigmarole of knocking on closed doors and praying for no response. If you can’t get a classroom spot, there is no place to sit in the building’s halls without being exposed to students with their masks off and eating. Even if being near unmasked students were not a concern, it can be hard to get a hallway table at all during peak hours. And none of this takes into account students who need a reliably quiet place to concentrate. 

The art library and the science library are both great COVID-safe quiet study options, but their hours are extremely limited. Both the art and science libraries offer indoor study space, but through the hours of 9:30–4:30 p.m. most weekdays. As an employee of the Clarence Ward Art Library, I understand why the hours are business hours rather than more student friendly because of the schedules of the library’s professional staff — but as a student, those hours don’t make sense for me to do independent work. Many college students are booked with classes and jobs during the daytime, and at nighttime are left with no place to work safely and consistently during their peak studying hours. 

I am currently working on an Honors thesis, and I can feel how the lack of on-campus study space has negatively affected my ability to work. So much of my writing process relies on my having a physical space that helps me focus. Even small details, like no longer having an Honors student’s typical access to a private Scholar Study, have wide-reaching ramifications on my productivity, mental health, and physical health. Not having reliable access to a place to keep my books on campus means I have to physically carry whatever I want to use to study from my off-campus house to campus, because while I know I can’t work in my house I also know that I can’t keep my books in my art library study carrel if I want to use them outside of the library’s limited hours. Those books are heavy, and the strain of carrying all of my materials back and forth not only disincentivizes me from working, it can also be physically painful –– my back literally hurts from carrying the weight of my own nomadic study requirements. 

I understand the COVID-19 concerns with opening up more indoor space on campus for students, but the status quo is neither productive nor safe. Study space on this campus does exist — it’s just all in one place, or at inconsistent hours. The concentration of students in Wilder Hall makes for a less safe environment than we’d have if Scholar Studies or study spaces within Mudd Center were also open. Mudd is even already staffed at many of the all-important evening study hours. I do not see why it would be impossible, or even difficult, to make available more spots to quietly study in Mudd. There is the already extant LibCal system that the other libraries use, which students could use to book specific tables within Mudd; this would expand on Mudd’s existing policy on booking study rooms, of which only four are currently available. Mudd could even be set up like Wilder, with elective study spots. Regardless of how, opening up Mudd would present a quieter, safer alternative to Wilder, with less food and more supervision. 

We need more late-night physical options for studying so that the whole campus isn’t packed into one building, and so that students like me have an actual shot at focusing. Wilder is overwhelmed and overwhelming, teeming with hordes of anxious students looking for a safe place to sit or study. As the weather gets warmer, and people can eat and spend time outside again, this problem will lessen but many of us will still need a quiet place to work indoors. Oberlin’s dearth of consistent indoor study spaces with student-friendly hours has made this already difficult year even harder than it needed to be – but we still have time to fix it.

Start at Catrina’s Tacos y Margaritas and split tacos al pastor. Adding pineapple to savory foods has long been a matter of controversy, but trying al pastor definitively settles the debate. The sweetness and acidity of the pineapple balance the spice and richness of the pork. Served together at Catrina’s with a side of rice and beans, you can’t go wrong. Three tacos, $10.25 + 20 percent tip. 

For your next stop, you’ll want to stroll down to the Arb at Tappan for their chickpea salad wrap. Fresh and savory and crunchy and soft and herby and rich, this delicious vegetarian offering from one of Oberlin’s newest restaurants is just really tasty. The potato chips are also good — but you’ve got a lot more eating on this tour, so be careful with your munching. Two halves, $7 + 20 percent tip. 

If you head west on College Street and turn down Main Street, you’ll find Bingo Chinese Restaurant. Here, I recommend ordering crab rangoon. It’s crispy and fried on the outside and soft and cheesy on the inside, and it basically tastes like a savory cream-cheese hug. Four pieces, $4.95 + 20 percent tip. 

After you leave Bingo, you’ll probably be a little tired. Weighed down by the delicious marriage of cream cheese and crab and fried, you deserve a refreshing pick-me-up. Get a coffee from Slow Train Cafe if you’re feeling sluggish, or an Arnold Palmer for something lighter. This author’s beverage of choice is a cold brew with oat milk or a sweet Albino Squirrel. Price is variable, but a drink tends to be around $5 + 20 percent tip. 

Leave through the back door of Slow Train to find yourself at the entrance to Kim’s Grocery & Carry-out. It’s time for pork buns! Rich and sweet, the soft pillowy exterior perfectly complements the decadently meaty filling. The kimchi dumplings are also a fabulous bite-sized offering if you want something lighter at this point in the tour, with their satisfying combination of flavors and textures. Two buns, $5 + 20 percent tip. 

For a sweet treat and even sweeter vibes, visit Blue Rooster Bakehouse. Feel free to choose a delectable baked good or two, because from their expansive and ever-changing options you’re guaranteed to find something you like. Still, with all the fancy new cake and pastry flavors, some classics such as the hummingbird cake or maple donut never fail to satisfy. The bakery varies their offerings, but expect to spend around $8 + 20 percent tip. 

Your journey could end here, and you would have had a perfect Oberlin food experience! But if you’re over 21…

You have the option to finish out the evening with a Rejuvenator cocktail –– Bacardi silver, pineapple juice, and 7Up –– and some tots from the Feve. Add some ranch or garlic aioli for dipping if you’re feeling nasty. At first, you won’t think you want the tots — but after a couple of Rejuvenators, you will. Trust me. Get both for $9 + 20 percent tip. 

The human body can only tolerate so much food — and moreover, the human wallet can only spend so much on a single elaborate outing. But there are many other delicious local restaurants to choose from, including Lupita’s Mexican Restaurant, Mandarin, Steel Magnolia, 1833 at the Hotel at Oberlin, Lorenzo’s Pizzeria, and ThiNi Thai. To check out more local businesses, visit the Oberlin Business Partnership here.

Much of Assistant Professor of Sociology at Bowdoin College Theodore Greene’s research concerns placehood and how queer people create culture by rooting themselves in a physical location. His current book project, titled Not in MY Gayborhood: Gay Neighborhoods and the Rise of the Vicarious Citizen, focuses on the ways citizens protect their neighborhoods and the lives they have built there from the threatening forces of gentrification. Greene initially chose Washington, D.C. — a city with a deep-rooted Black queer community — as a place to start his research. He knew he wanted to examine race dynamics, as methodologies in Gender and Sexuality Studies frequently exclude the subject. 

“I wanted to pick a place where I could not avoid examining African-American LGBTQ people,” Greene said. “And so as part of the study, thinking about some of the ways people keep gay neighborhoods alive, I was doing a lot of ethnographic work. There was just so much great data going on about queer people of color in these white bars and white spaces and how they sort of made these places relevant to them that I took a shot and did it.”

Studying the way these racial dynamics play out in queer nightlife is integral to Greene’s research, and has profoundly affected his life. His position in these spaces also provided him with opportunities to navigate them in different ways. 

“One of the reasons I even pursued this to begin with was thinking about all of the ways in which I’ve encountered rejection and exclusion on the basis of being a gay Black man occupying new spaces that are supposed to be safe for me,” Greene said. “When you’re standing at the bar waiting for someone to serve you and one white guy comes up after another and the [bartender] sees them, you’re kind of invisible in that space. But at the same time, it presented an opportunity too, to be able to observe activities that were happening.”

Much like Greene, Assistant Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University Julian Kevon Glover’s work addresses space-making-and-taking by queer people of color in environments that might otherwise be inhospitable to them. 

“This very fervent creation of space is very much evidence of world-making practice for and amongst Black trans non-binary, lesbian, gay, and bisexual folk who have lived our lives at the intersections of un-belonging, if you will,” Glover said. “So we’ve responded to that by creating our own place to belong, our own way to celebrate ourselves.” 

After being kicked out of her home at 14 years old, Glover was immersed in the ballroom scene while being supported by three Black and Latinx trans women. For Glover, tracking ballroom’s influence on the wider culture is an immense — and immensely valuable — project. 

“There are a lot of moments where the ballroom comes into the mainstream, but it’s really still a rather insular culture formation that is akin to a whale emerging from the ocean to be seen, making a splash, and then going back under the radar for quite a long time,” Glover said. “And of course like with the whale, the ripples of the emergence can be felt for quite a long time. So that analogy is very [much] how I think about ballroom and all that it has to offer.” 

Making and creating space is a main principle of ballroom, one that characterizes the culture. 

“Folks in ballroom have never really been able to rely on having any kind of concretized or permanent physical space — that has never been the case,” Glover said. “This is one of the reasons why when you see clips from ballroom, it appears that the balls are happening everywhere and anywhere — because they are, because of spatial marginalization or really special exclusion when you really think about it, based on being both Black and queer.” 

Nightlife, and all of its spaces, offers both freedoms and limitations, but it has become what Black queer people have made of it. 

“I think we are starting hopefully to think about that notion of place as unstable, that place can change, that space is a holder,” Greene said. “I think that’s what’s so interesting, so powerful about placemaking now, and placemaking being done through this sexualities lens. We’re highlighting how sexuality is such an important area of study on the one hand, and on the other hand, it can reveal so much about the notion of what place is and what the limits and the potential is.” 

Mattson organized the Disco Déjeuner Lunchtime Speaker Series in tandem with a course he is teaching called “Nightlife: Place, Identity, and Feeling Alive.” One of the course’s goals is to platform Black queer scholars and their work. 

“One of the main themes of the class is that nightlife can be a source of joy and thriving, but also of exclusions and inequalities,” Mattson wrote in an email to the Review. “It was important to us to mark Black History Month, honor the national and campus conversations about anti-Blackness, but also to celebrate these really exciting scholars who are doing critical work on the role that nightlife plays in sustaining Black queer communities.” 

The Disco Déjeuner Lunchtime Speaker Series extends from February through April, and will meet every other week at 12:30 p.m. Eastern time to discuss the present and future of nightlife from a variety of perspectives. The panel is also a part of a curation project by Oberlin faculty called Shared Distance led by Assistant Professor of Dance Al Evangelista.

Oberlin resident Ellis Hartman has used the group on a number of occasions. He has given things away, received items, and requested help identifying bird calls — although he notes that this last effort was the least successful, as Oberlin has many different kinds of birds. 

“I probably wouldn’t have discovered it [if not] for the pandemic because now, like a lot of people, I spend more time on Facebook,” Hartman said. “I just liked the fact that they’re helpful things. It’s something interesting to do while I [am] on Facebook.” 

The group also serves as a de facto replacement for the Oberlin Classifieds website, which shut down earlier this year because the platform could no longer support modern internet security software. 

“I used to go on the Oberlin College website to look at [Oberlin Classifieds], and I’ve heard that that doesn’t exist anymore,” Hartman said. “This was a great substitute for that.” 

Amongst the many needs that Oberlin Classifieds used to fill, both for students and community members, the page acted as a universal platform to help people search for housing. Longtime Oberlin resident and local landlord Amy Burgess emphasized how important Classifieds had been when it came to helping people locate housing in Oberlin. 

“Classifieds is where we got about 90 percent of our tenants in the past,” Burgess said. “I wish that something like Classifieds still existed because not everyone’s on social media or not everyone chooses to use Facebook. But I’m glad that the group exists, and it’s been a big help.” 

Part of what makes the Facebook group so exciting is its capacity to create a common space for city residents. Members of the town community, College professors, and Oberlin students can all share with each other, non-hierarchically. It’s almost impossible to distinguish between town and gown without looking at profiles. 

“I know mostly people from the College, but [in the group] there’s no awareness of who’s a professor, who’s a local person,” said the group’s founder, Frieda Fuchs. “I actually liked that it’s anonymous in that respect because those divisions exist and they’re there, but I wanted it to be a place where everyone’s welcome and it’s not one group against another group.” 

Fuchs is a former research affiliate and visiting professor in the Politics department in the College, specializing in child labor laws and labor legislation in Europe. She founded the group at the beginning of the pandemic in March, in response to a perceived need by the community for connection. She was inspired by another Facebook group in Rochester, NY with a similar name. The Oberlin group grew quickly and its structure has shifted, but its goal has stayed the same. Fuchs’ vision for it has always been to provide a platform for people to reach out and help their neighbors. 

“With the Trump administration, basically everything’s been delegated to the states and to the localities,” Fuchs said. “You can feel sort of powerless because you really feel the need for the government to step in… Given that that’s not happening, I think that it’s more important than ever for us to come together at the local level. This is one way, I think, in which it can be done. I’m not really quite sure what other groups have formed in other parts of the [country], but at least here in Oberlin, I think this is sort of a way of empowering us at the local level.” 

Fuchs also made it clear that she wanted anyone, regardless of their political affiliation, to be comfortable being involved in the group and giving or receiving support. While the group has expanded beyond her original intention, she and her co-moderator Jill Mason Blake have been very intentional in making sure that discussion stays civil and as far from politics as possible. 

“I just wanted it to be an apolitical group,” said Fuchs. “I felt that if politics is dividing us so much, then let’s try to transcend that and try to figure out other ways in which we can just get together as citizens.”

While the pandemic has kept many people apart, some things unite us all: caring for our communities, the need for human connection, and the search for an Instant Pot.

Student reactions ran the gamut from relief and joy to anger and fear, and in some cases, numbness. However, the election also left many students motivated to organize — both through pre-existing student groups that focus on electoral activism and through the creation of a new student organization, rooted in radical Black Feminism, that will focus on community work. 

College fourth-year and Chair of the Oberlin College Democrats Julian Mitchell-Israel was surprised by his own muted feelings last Saturday. 

“I honestly was much, much less excited than I thought I was going to be when I found out,” Mitchell-Israel said. “First off, I think we had been kind of expecting it for at least 24 hours at that point. … It wasn’t this big moment of victory. The second thing is that it’s Biden. I’m much further to the left than he is, and so while Trump losing feels like a win, Biden taking the presidency doesn’t. I think my general sentiment, though, is one of tremendous relief.”

For College fourth-year and Chair of Student Senate Henry Hicks, Saturday was a day to celebrate and rest before regrouping to plan for the future. 

“It felt like a weight being lifted off of my shoulders,” Hicks said. “Of course, recognizing that we’re always going to have to continue to push to hold elected officials accountable, Saturday just felt like a day where I could breathe, I could celebrate, I could be happy.”

The historical significance of the barriers broken by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was not lost on Hicks. Harris is the first Black and South Asian woman to hold the office of Vice President. Hicks spent Fall semester 2019 in Waterloo, Iowa, working on Harris’ primary campaign. Learning the results brought back some of his memories from this time last year when he was canvassing door-to-door.

“I remember there was this one man who had two young children, probably about six or seven [years old], and I knocked on the door,” Hicks said. “He was not ready to commit to a candidate, but he asked me if I wouldn’t mind bringing his kids along with me to go knock because he wanted them to know that they could become president one day also. They could ascend to the White House, despite the fact that they were girls, despite the fact that they were Black.” 

Mitchell-Israel was disappointed that more Oberlin students didn’t actively participate in community efforts to get out the vote this year. 

“Voting was not enough to get Lorain County blue,” Mitchell-Israel said. “I’m hoping that’s something that Oberlin students will have recognized, and that they won’t take for granted our ability to really effect change. Outside of the election, I think students need to realize that posting on social media isn’t enough. Get involved in orgs, find an issue, and do research, and figure out what the policies are that are being pushed for it right now. Call people, contact your elected officials, start a student org if you need to.”

College first-years Vera Grace Menafee and WD also saw a need to engage beyond voting and electoral politics. 

“I’ve been learning about Indigenous sovereignty — there are some Indigenous organizations that really don’t agree with voting as a way to liberation or any sort of justice because it’s all land stolen through broken treaties and immoral exploitation,” Menafee said.

When Menafee came to Oberlin, she explored existing student organizations but didn’t find what she was looking for. Ignited by the election, Menafee and WD are forming a group rooted in principles of radical Black Feminism that will focus on community work. 

“I really envisioned collaborating with [student organizations], but I think for me personally, I was really wanting to form a different space that was more grounded in Black radical traditions — especially Black Feminism and the work of the Combahee River Collective,” she said. “I just feel like it could be a little bit more radical — Oberlin campus and Oberlin town. … [These possibilities] get mowed over by this wishful thinking that racism doesn’t live here.”

The team has already hosted one event, which WD envisioned. 

“They had the idea of holding a town hall that can proactively try to address safety concerns after the election,” Menafee said. “We had the idea before the results came out because we both agreed that both Biden and Trump will be violent presidents. Once the results came out, we were realizing that Lorain County itself was red and had voted for Trump. Being in that environment, we wanted to provide any supplies that are needed by the community.”

They plan to provide tangible safety resources to community members, such as masks, sanitary supplies, and self-defense implements, including pepper spray. They are also discussing holding a virtual self-defense training to help community members feel safer. 

“We just wanted to be really proactive about things and fill in places we felt weren’t being addressed,” Menafee said.

Menafee and WD have ambitious aspirations for their organization. After seeking funding through the Bonner Scholars program to pay for increased testing in the Oberlin community, they plan to teach a class to local youth about self-determination and liberation. In the near future, they will begin their own publication highlighting Black Feminist work. 

While they would have continued the work regardless, Biden’s victory has left many students resolved to engage in politics deeply, both on campus and in the larger community. Oberlin students’ commitment to creating an atmosphere of activism primes them to spark progressive change in Oberlin and beyond. 

“I was talking to some of my other friends who are organizers and a lot of them agreed with this: The difference to me now is that for the first time in four years, I’m excited about the work that we have to do rather than feeling like it’s some sad necessity,” Mitchell-Israel said.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

How’s the semester been going for you? 

It’s been really interesting to see how quickly everybody — the College and the students and the staff, on an organizational level and personal level — has adapted and responded. One thing that you always hear about in higher ed is how change can sometimes be slow, but I think this has shown that it can be really fast if it needs to be. 

I remember how much you helped me when I was trying to leave Spain last spring — something you did for many students. Can you talk me through what March was like for you?

I can even go back to January, right? We had a lot of students at that time, for their Winter Term projects, in China. At that point it wasn’t a pandemic — it was just a new virus that was in China. It’s interesting to think back to that time and realize how much we didn’t know compared to now — though obviously there’s still a lot to learn. 

Different staff at the College and I had to start thinking, “where do we have students in China? What is it going to be like for them to potentially come back to the U.S. or maybe not be able to get back to the U.S.?” That’s when we really started thinking through the logistics and the academic implications that might have for the campus community.

We first dealt with students that were in Asia, and then students that were in Italy, and students that were in Europe, and then students that were in other parts of the world. Everything was changing very, very, very rapidly. It was really hard at that time to know where it was going to go. 

I’ve been in study abroad for about 15 years. It was the first time that you had to really take a global approach to your student support work, your risk management work. It was also really emotional for me and for the students and for their parents. So you’re managing emotions, you’re managing finances, you’re managing risk, and you’re having to do that collectively. Luckily, no one person was doing that. It was a team of people here. 

When I talk to other study abroad directors, other people in the field, I think there’s just this collective understanding that we haven’t really processed that experience mentally, psychologically, or emotionally — because we haven’t really taken a break yet.

How has your role changed since the pandemic started?  

I think one of the core changes for me personally, and in my role, there has been a lot more focus on risk management, and a lot more focus on health and safety. That’s probably 75 percent of my work now, and it’s become a lot more complex. It was certainly a part of the job before, but it just didn’t take up as much of my day. 

One of the most challenging things for me that’s changed about my job is that I’m not supporting students going abroad for the time being. It has been very emotional and very challenging over the past eight months, just knowing how impactful that can be, knowing how much it can influence their professional futures or academic futures, how much it can change who they are. Knowing that they don’t have access to that right now is just really personally and professionally challenging. 

That’s why it was so hard in the spring for me to have to bring students home. The core, the ultimate foundation of my work is to get them abroad, and then I had to bring them home. 

What has that transition taught you about your field so far? 

I think there’s still a real uncertainty around study abroad, but I think study abroad is probably more important now than it ever has been. We need to understand how the pandemic played out in different countries. We need to understand what other cultural implications there are, what opportunities for learning there are between countries and cultures, and how this has impacted different people in different ways. There’s a really rich environment for learning right now, but at the same time, we need to be responsible and informed about what those learning experiences can look like.

One of the bigger changes is working on virtual online study abroad. At first, I was very resistant to that, as I was still emotionally processing what was happening. But now I have a better understanding of all of the vibrant and diverse virtual experiences there are, and how those can help students prepare for a future experience of study abroad, also understanding and appreciating how the virtual opportunities create more access to study abroad. There may be students that for any variety of reasons may just not have access to going to a different city in the U.S. or maybe a different country overseas, but now they can still visit a local museum in Florence and understand how a pop-up art exhibition there is influenced by race relations in that location, or understanding how the politics of the U.S. election impacts locals in Brazil or France or South Africa. 

I think that’s really opened up my mind professionally to seeing all of these new innovations in study abroad that can be really nice complements — instead of replacements — to the physical experience of going to another country.

You alluded to some of the programs that you’ve been putting on for students this semester. What are they and how did you make those connections? 

Over the summer, there was a lot of talk among study abroad offices around the country about what we can do to make sure that study abroad and intercultural learning are still at the forefront of what we’re actually doing, as a part of the larger academic and co-curricular experience for students, even if the physical mobility piece is not really there. 

I think as an office, we had to shift our thinking around what we’re capable of doing and what is going to be the most impactful. And so luckily, a lot of our partner organizations that we work with were doing their own virtual stuff — like speaker series, or tools that faculty can integrate into their classes. We have a couple of organizations that we partner with that are offering language tables. I think it was really about connecting with those organizations and figuring out what types of experiences they’re offering.

We’re trying to work a lot with some of the universities that we have relationships with overseas to do a virtual exchange. Our students could take an online course in Singapore or Hong Kong or Cairo, and one of their students could take one of our virtual courses. 

Is there anything else you would like to say? 

If students are reading this article and looking for a takeaway, I would say just to stay informed, look beyond the headlines, and really look into resources like the World Health Organization and the European Center for Disease Control’s COVID information online. There are a lot of really great sources of information out there that can give you an informed perspective on what’s going on in the world. And just to stay hopeful, to stay flexible and resilient. 

Sometimes it’s hard to recognize those intangible skills that you develop during study abroad right away. The students coming out of the spring semester have a lot of resilience and a lot of grit, to have gone through that experience and then to come back into a really challenging situation. I think it’s important for students that are planning to study abroad to think about that too, to just remain flexible, remain resilient.

It will happen again — we just need to be patient and flexible, and we’ll get there.