Monday, December 5, 2022 I Vol. 119 Iss. 15
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INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER • SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904
What’s inside
Holiday Guide
FROM:
The GW Hatchet
Pages 6-8
CCAS cycled through 23 advisers since 2018, undermining students
BARRY YAO REPORTER
PHILLIP CASTRO REPORTER
JENNIFER IGBONOBA | PHOTOGRAPHER Student leaders with Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace and other student organizations gathered in Kogan Plaza Friday, yelling chants like “GW shame on you” and “From GW to Palestine, occupation is a crime.”
Students protest misconduct charge against SJP president during SRR hearing on postering damage FAITH WARDWELL
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
NIKKI GHAEMI
CONTRIBUTING NEWS EDITOR
Students protested a University hearing on misconduct allegations against Students for Justice in Palestine and its president Friday for damaging benches outside the GW Hillel building as part of a postering campaign in support of Palestinian rights in early October. About 40 students gathered in Kogan Plaza for the protest across from the University Student Center, where the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities organized the hearing to decide on potential disciplinary probation sanctions against the student organization and its President Lance Lokas. SRR charged Lokas and SJP with disciplinary misconduct for the damage caused by wheatpasting, a process of hanging posters with a mixture of starch and water, on the benches outside of the GW Hillel building. SJP led a postering campaign in October with signs reading “Zionists F*** Off” and “Decolonize Palestine”
leading up to a speaker event that GW for Israel and GW Mishelanu hosted with Doron Tenne, a former Israel Defense Forces intelligence officer, at the GW Hillel building. Student leaders with SJP, Jewish Voice for Peace and other student organizations gathered in Kogan, where they denounced the student conduct proceedings and yelled chants like “GW shame on you” and “from GW to Palestine, occupation is a crime.” In a speech after the hearing, Lokas told the crowd of protesters that he denounced alleged racism and antiPalestinian discrimination within GW’s administration in a statement at the hearing. Lokas said Kirstein testified during the hearing and accused SJP of spreading antisemitism and violating the safety of students who view GW Hillel as a home. “An organization that claims to be a home does not invite a war criminal on campus to speak to students,” Lokas said. “An organization that claims to be a home does not sanction the genocide of indigenous Palestinian people.” Lokas said he expects
SRR to release a decision on the case next week. In a statement Wednesday, University spokesperson Julia Metjian said when the University receives reports of student activity that may violate GW policy, officials respond in accordance with the Code of Student Conduct and applicable University policies and procedures. She declined to comment on the disciplinary proceedings of the case. “The University continues to support the right of all members of the University community to engage in debate and discussion, as well as protest, in accordance with University policies,” Metjian said in an email. Adena Kirstein, the executive director of GW Hillel, said in an email to the GW Hillel community Friday that the posters caused between $1,200 and $4,500 in damage to benches outside of the building. The protesters’ lawyer is disputing these claims, alleging the wheatpasting poster technique did not cause any damage. In a statement Kirstein said she read during the hearings alleged that Lokas used a “heavy-duty paste”
that left damage on the cement benches outside the Hillel building requiring them to be polished, with price estimates ranging in the thousands of dollars. The statement admonished Lokas for the “vandalism” of Hillel benches after the posters were “very difficult” to remove. Students postering must “only” use masking or painters tape, pushpins or staples while hanging up posters on University property, according to the Student Organization Handbook. Kirstein said the group “attacked” Jewish students at GW with the posters on Hillel’s property, making them feel unsafe. “Your actions didn’t make any Palestinian lives better,” she said. “But your actions did hurt Jewish students at GW, who felt targeted and attacked.” Danielle Katz, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace GW, said JVP participated in wheatpasting around campus as part of the postering campaign and other political events with SJP, but their organization received “little to no” disciplinary investigation.
Twenty-three advisers have left the Columbian College and Arts and Sciences’ undergraduate advising office during the past four years, which experts said will impede students’ ability to create relationships with their advisers. Of the 11 advisers working in CCAS’ pod system in May 2018, only two still work at GW, according to a Hatchet analysis of earlier and current pages of the office’s website. Experts in academic advising in higher education said a high turnover of advisers prevents students from building a relationship with an adviser throughout their college career and ultimately lose trust in the effectiveness of the advising process, undermining their GW experience. University spokesperson Josh Grossman declined to say how many advisers left and joined the University in the past five years and why there has been a high turnover rate among advisers. “The University continues to value our advisers’ critical commitment to their roles and the important contributions they make to enhancing the student experience,” he said. Since 2018, at least five former advisers have moved on to American University. The number of advisers in CCAS’ advising office fluctuated between about 10 to 14 per academic year, according to earlier versions of the office’s website. Jeff Elliott, the executive director of University Undergraduate Academic Advising at Purdue University, said a high turnover of advisers actively undermines their relationships with students, preventing them from developing trust with advising staff.
“The perfect experience, honestly, is a student who comes in their first year and meets an individual who demonstrates that they care about that student’s identity and care about the student’s welfare and well-being,” Elliott said. Ann Minnick, the director of academic programs and advising at Macalester College, said “The Great Resignation” – an ongoing trend in which employees are voluntarily resigning en masse in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic – is impacting staff retention rates at workplaces across the country as many employees reconsider their career options. More than 600,000 campus workers left universities in 2020 due to resignations and layoffs, according to the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. “For the past several years, post-pandemic or during the pandemic, people are wondering, ‘Is this the right thing for me?’” Minnick said. CCAS undergraduate students said advisers often appear to lack knowledge of less common degrees within CCAS, like arts programs. Jaclyn Nathanson, a freshman majoring in fine arts, said an adviser told her that taking 17 credits during the first semester of her freshman year would be “manageable,” but Nathanson later discovered the workload to be overburdensome. She said CCAS advisers do not give helpful advice to students who are not studying a popular major at GW, like political science, and are not well-informed on the college’s arts majors. “If they could do anything it would just be for each adviser to have a more broad understanding of every major we have,” she said. “Because I think every single adviser I’ve met with, when I tell them I’m an art major, their first words are, ‘Oh I don’t really know much about that.’”
Inaugural Title IX report shows rising reporting rates: director
Students share warm, lasting impacts of holiday season community service
AVRIL SILVA
ANNA FATTIZZO
REPORTER
SOPHIA GOEDERT
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
The Title IX Office released its first annual report late last month, detailing a year of reporting rates that the office’s director said took a “notable increase” last academic year. The Title IX Office registered 380 reports of sexual harassment, sexual assault, stalking, dating violence, pregnancy and parental support and domestic violence in the 2021-22 academic year, the majority of which were filed by designated reporters and impacted undergraduate students, according to the report. Asha Reynolds, the director and coordinator of the Title IX Office, said the report – which also highlights victim resources – reveals a rise in overall reports and an increase in community engagement with the office’s reporting mechanisms during the past academic year. Designated reporters – faculty and staff required to report potential sexual assault or harassment incidents involving students to the Title IX Office – filed 217 of the
academic year’s reports, while students filed 107 reports on their own behalf and 34 reports on the behalf of other students and non-GW affiliates filed eight reports. Reynolds said the office provides academic support, exam rescheduling assistance, deadline extensions, class and work schedule changes, housing assignment switches and mutual nocontact orders. She said the Title IX Office provides prevention and educational programs about sexual harassment that create a safe and inclusive environment on campus by responding fairly to Title IX reports. “We believe greater transparency and a better understanding of the Title IX Office’s processes, resources and services will make community members feel more comfortable accessing and utilizing our services,” Reynolds said in an email. Of the 380 reports that officials recorded during the previous academic year, 246 were cases of sexual harassment, 126 were sexual assault and 77 were stalking, according to the report. An additional 29 reports were for reports of dating vio-
lence, while there were 22 filed requests for pregnancy and parental services, the Title IX Office data reveals. The Title IX Office handled 144 reports with supportive measures, or nondisciplinary services or accommodations, and did not require additional action. Bella Sayegh, the copresident of Students Against Sexual Assault, said the release of the annual number of Title IX reports shows transparency from the Title IX Office, and she hopes the report will spark discussion about decreasing incidents of sexual violence. She said the report increases students’ awareness about the supportive resources the Title IX Office provides that doesn’t require starting a formal investigative process. Sayegh said the report is a “little overdue” but provides a starting point for students who aren’t sure where to turn for help after an incident. “We think it’s really important, obviously, to make sure that everyone has access to the same resources because there are so many options whether it be at GW specifically or in our greater D.C. community,” Sayegh said.
REPORTER
JACKSON LANZER STAFF WRITER
While junior Hayden Moussa visited a senior citizen they regularly assist just before Thanksgiving, she told Moussa the holiday season can feel particularly lonely, but she’s glad to have them “just a phone call away.” Through their volunteer work with GW service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega, Moussa said they serve with Foggy Bottom West End Village, a nonprofit organization which pairs volunteers with a senior Foggy Bottom resident to provide companionship through completing errands together, talking with them over the phone and visiting them in person to discuss current events and life in general. They said senior citizens can experience an especially isolated holiday season if they’re far away from their families, but acts of service like letter writing or shared quality time can bring them meaningful support. “That particularly spoke to me,” Moussa said. “I was like, ‘Wow, this is significant. This means a lot to me.’ That really reminded me that the work I’m doing, it’s really impacting someone.” Students said they’re incorporating the holiday spirit into clothing and toy drives,
LILY SPEREDELOZZI | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Hayden Moussa said the programs they support with APO year-round hone in on the giving season leading up to the holidays through outings like clothing drives.
festive activities with D.C. Public School students and workshops for local families as part of their everyday community service through GW-affiliated service organizations and offices this holiday season. Students said setting aside time to serve others during the giving season forges strong connections between them and members of the D.C. community at a time of year when volunteering demand reaches its highest level. Senior Reed Risinger, the team leader for ArtReach GW – a program that hosts afterschool art workshops and art therapy classes for families living in Ward 7 and 8 – said the organization will host a holiday art workshop that will display students’ work through-
out the semester. She said the workshop, which will take place in an exhibition space in Southeast from Thursday to Jan. 27, allows children to make holiday crafts and gifts for their family with students’ help. Junior Vicky Wang said as a student leader for SMARTDC, a program tutoring kindergarten through eighth grade DCPS students in reading and math, her favorite holiday volunteering memory has been organizing a Christmas scavenger hunt for her students over Zoom earlier during the pandemic. She said volunteers handed students a list of Christmas and winter-themed items to collect from their homes before participating in a show-and-tell to reveal their findings.