Monday, August 22, 2022 I Vol. 119 Iss. 3
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INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER • SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904
What’s inside
ORIENTATION GUIDE Pages 6-7
Tracking COVID-19 August 10 - August 17
Weekly COVID-19 cases: 119
Weekly positivity rate: 7.19%
Change in cases since previous week: +100
FRESHMEN RETURN TO THURSTON HALL
RACHEL SCHWARTZ | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
RACHEL SCHWARTZ | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
Events freshmen should attend to get the most out of Orientation Week
Thurston reopens with new courtyard, dining hall after two-year revamp
SHEA CARLBERG
HENRY HUVOS
STAFF WRITER
It’s about that time again, when thousands of freshmen full of luggage piled in blue carts will make their way to campus for a week full of orientation events. This year’s Orientation Week spans from this past Saturday, Aug. 20 through next Sunday, Aug. 28 and is full of academic information sessions alongside recreational activities, like cookouts at the Mount Vernon Campus quad and monument walks, to introduce freshmen to campus life. New Student Orientation occurs annually right before classes start as a way for freshmen to feel more confident as they enter a new chapter of their academic and social lives – this year’s theme is presented as Empowering Community: Reflection & Resilience. Izzy Banks, a student coordinator who helped plan New Student Orientation programming, said the week of events is vital for freshmen to find their own community on campus. “Not only are they part of an amazing incoming class, but they are now members of the GW com-
munity,” Banks said. “And they have the support of their fellow community members throughout the week and throughout their time at GW.” The week of orientation events kicks off Monday morning with a welcome breakfast with GW Hillel. Tuesday is chock-full of events, including an optional campus tour with admissions guides and a movie night on the Mount Vernon Campus quad. Wednesday night, the entire Class of 2026 will file into the Smith Center, where interim University President Mark Wrighton will address students at the spirit-filled Buff and Blue Kickoff. Students will learn GW’s fight song at the assembly before the night turns into live music at the annual House Party, where students can dance with friends and take a stab at winning more prizes. Thursday morning will start with orientation events hosted by each undergraduate academic school. Later that night, kick back to the early 2000s with GW Late Night Committee’s firstever Throwback Thursday Takeover at 9 p.m. in the University Student Center. Students will be able to par-
take in trivia with a team of friends, watch a 2000s film and play video games. Friday ushers in some of the largest recreational events of the week. Soak up the final week of summer at the Mount Vernon Pool Party or embrace the District’s landmarks at the National Mall Kickback with lawn games and food before a late-night monument walk. On Saturday, the Welcome Day of Service – hosted by the Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service – will introduce freshmen to community service opportunities within the D.C. region. Orientation Week will cap off Saturday evening with the University’s biggest event of the year – First Night. This whirlwind of a celebration features carnival games and free food from vendors like Dominos. Banks said she hopes freshmen walk away from orientation with a sense of belonging within the GW community. “We want to introduce students to everything that GW has,” Banks said. “And we hope that they come away with a vision of what their life at GW will look like.”
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
YUTONG JIANG STAFF WRITER
After more than five decades as GW’s black mold hub and two years as a construction project, Thurston Hall is entering its new era as one of the most state-ofthe-art residence halls on campus, welcoming students for the first time since 2019. A green courtyard area that sits directly behind the first-floor lobby greets students in a display of newly designed architecture, one of many renovations which also include additional study spaces, wider elevators and a dining hall set to be completed in September. Upgrades for Thurston had been discussed for decades after the building had become notorious for its disrepair, with upgrades announced in 2018 and formally beginning in May 2020. “Thurston Hall will continue to provide a space for students to thrive, build lifelong connections and have a sense of belonging,” Associate Vice President for Business Services Seth Weinshel said in an email. “The new
usable courtyard, multiple outdoor spaces and dozens of community spaces will allow students to connect with each other and build community.” Thurston – which previously housed about 1,100 students as the largest residence hall on campus – became a target of criticism from both students and administrators in recent years due to outdated facilities, mold and frequent leaks. In November 2019, a small fire and subsequent sprinkler damage displaced some students from the building. The renovated residence hall will hold 16 study lounges, 820 beds and the to-be-completed dining hall. When the renovations were announced in 2018, then-University President Thomas LeBlanc emphasized improving students’ living spaces as a reason for the upgrades. Student Association President Christian Zidouemba said Thurston’s new look was “marvelous” when he first toured the residence hall earlier this month, and freshmen should be “excited” to move in. He said additions like larger elevators and more communal spaces make the
building more accommodating than it had been prior to the renovations. “The way it’s been created is to give a sense of community, a sense of belonging to Thurston,” Zidouemba said. Zidouemba also said Thurston’s dining hall, which is set to be completed in September, will feature an automated system that enables facial recognition as an optional payment method. More than a dozen freshmen living in Thurston said they were impressed with Thurston’s new look and excited about the building’s organization with plenty of communal space to meet new people. Mallory Viotto, a freshman majoring in biomedical engineering, said she appreciated how modern and clean the residence hall felt and how she was welcomed into the building. She said the green space on the first floor will help her connect with her friends and other freshmen. “You can really connect with your peers and I know a lot of the freshmen are going to be living here,” Viotto said. “It’s a really great way to bond with the freshman class.”
SA Senate remains mostly male despite increased diversity in top positions dating back to Howie Brookins who was elected for the 2020-21 academic year. Before Brookins’ presidency, students had not elected a Black student as SA president in a decade. She said her cabinet reached out to individual members of the Multicultural Student Services Center and student organizations, like the Interfaith Council, to encourage them to apply for the SA as part of recruitment efforts.
ERIKA FILTER
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
The Student Association’s leadership has become more diverse during the past decade, but the SA Senate remains a predominately male body that some senators say fails to accurately represent the student population. People of color have increasingly occupied the SA’s top leadership positions, where women have also maintained a consistent presence in the last 10 years. But gender diversity has lagged behind in the senate, where nine of this year’s 37 senators identify as female – a 24 percent composition compared to the entire University population that is 63 percent female, according to University enrollment data. SA senators said they plan to reach out to student organizations to encourage people from marginalized groups, including women and racial minorities, to run and recruit a broader spectrum of student viewpoints.
Looking forward
Women in the SA
Within the last decade, 10 of the last 20 SA presidents and executive vice presidents have identified as female. But in the senate, only two of the six committee chairs identify as female. The senate plans to hold re-elections for chairs to give the 12 senators who filled vacancies this summer – among them, female students, students of color and nontraditional students like part-time students – a chance to run. SA Sen. Linsi Goodin, CCASG and the only female member of
NICHOLAS ANASTACIO I GRAPHICS EDITOR
the SA’s governance and nominations committee, said the committee prioritizes merit, selecting the most qualified candidates instead of filling diversity quotas. “We can talk about a diverse perspective as much as we want, but if people aren’t applying, then people just aren’t applying,” she said. When the senate initially confirmed this year’s committee chairs on May 2, graduating senator Chris Pino, CCAS-U, said this
year’s senate has the lowest percentage of female chairs in the last decade, “if not longer or forever.”
Racial diversity in SA leadership
Ashley Le, the first Asian woman to be SA president and an adjunct professor of media and public affairs, said her election showed that students were open and willing to electing a female president of color. Both she and
her opponent Imani Ross were set to become the first female president of color, if elected during the 2018-19 SA election. “Women are not always elevated into positions of leadership,” she said. Le said the 2017-18 candidate pool provided representation for Black and Asian student communities, a significant achievement even if GW was, and is, predominantly white. The past three SA presidents have been Black men,
In 2018, the SA formed its diversity and inclusion assembly, a group of multicultural student leaders and SA Senators to share and respond to concerns on campus. The assembly has hosted town hall meetings in the wake of antisemitic and racist incidents on campus. SA Sen. Henry Deng, CCAS-U and the chair of the SA’s diversity and inclusion assembly, said the DIA should continue working to solve campus-wide issues, following the lead of the executive cabinet’s initiative last year to put menstrual products in University bathrooms. “I hope we can use the platform of DIA to connect students with different backgrounds together,” he said. SA Sen. Lydia Miller, ESIA-U and the chair of the undergraduate student life committee, said the SA administration is improving upon its diversity in its new administration, which features international students and students of color, but the SA is not yet completely representative of the student body.