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Monday, September 19, 2022 I Vol. 119 Iss. 6 INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER • SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904
Opinions
The editorial board argues GW should better support students during renovations at the Lerner Health and Wellness Center. Page 4
Tracking COVID-19
September 8 - September 14
Weekly COVID-19 cases: 103 Weekly positivity rate: 8.81%
Culture
Get the rundown of our staff’s top picks for local bookstores this fall. Page 5
What’s inside
Sports
Meet the two GW AllAmericans who are stepping up as graduate assistant coaches on their former teams. Page 6
Change in cases since previous week: -103
CONTRIBUTING NEWS EDITOR
Academic priorities fall short for humanities: faculty senators
TARA SUTER
CAITLIN KITSON
GW systems deadname transgender, nonbinary students in ‘difficult and demeaning’ process IANNE SALVOSA
CONTRIBUTING NEWS EDITOR
When senior Naomi Jones read she made the dean’s list in an email from the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences this spring, she couldn’t make it past the greeting without feeling “a punch in the gut.” Jones still gets deadnamed, or referred to as a former name before transitioning gender or coming out, in some University emails, including the one she received from CCAS in June. Jones posted a tweet expressing her frustration with the University’s inability to update her name in its systems before she received an apology from CCAS Associate Dean Rachel Riedner via email about a day later. Months later, Jones still receives emails deadnaming her – at least three since June, including two from the Division for Student Affairs and one from the Student Health Center. “I would rather GW not have to apologize,” she said in an interview. “It’s not as much even about me as much as it seems like this is a trend for other trans students across campus.” Jones is one of four transgender and nonbinary students and alumni who said despite changing personal information to reflect their gender identity within some of GW’s record-keeping systems, they were still deadnamed in official University communications. Experiencing deadnaming can cause anxiety and stress for a transgender or nonbinary person, taking them back to a period of time before they could fully express themselves as they truly are. Students said the process of updating personal information within GW’s systems like G Suite – which includes GWMail and Google Drive – to reflect their gender identity is disorganized and confus-
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
RACHEL SCHWARTZ | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Students said GW lacks clear guidance or support for students who attempt to change their names to reflect their gender identity, only listing a few steps of the many processes on University websites.
ing because they need to update information in multiple systems instead of just one. They said GW lacks clear guidance or support for students who attempt to do so, only listing a few steps for the different processes on official websites like that of the Multicultural Student Services Center. Students have the option to update their name, pronouns and other gender identity-related personal information through platforms like Banner, Blackboard and Microsoft 365, according to the Office of Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement website. They cannot change their legal name and sex on these platforms without proof of a legal name and sex change on their governmentissued photo ID, the website states. Changing your legal name varies state-to-state and requires individuals to potentially submit dozens of documents and fees before government officials approve the change. After an individual’s name is legally updated, they
must notify dozens of agencies like health care providers, banks, utility companies and schools. Students are required to submit a “chosen name change form” to change their personal information within platforms like Zoom, Handshake and G Suite, according to the ODECE website. But the Multicultural Student Services Center website states students looking to update their name in GWMail must email GW Information Technology. Jones, who is majoring in archaeology, said even though the GW community was supportive and “respectful” of her transition that started in 2021, she faced challenges updating her personal University records. “I had to go in and change my name individually with each service, and that didn’t guarantee that I would get it right,” Jones said. Jordan West, the associate vice provost for diversity, equity and community engagement, said updates to platforms like Blackboard can occur within a day, and if
students have any questions about the process, they can email ODECE at cngip@gwu. edu. “Several members of the GW community, including people who are trans, gender nonconforming and gender nonbinary, utilize the chosen name option to ensure their name and identity are accurately reflected through the University,” West said in an email. “Any student who experiences bias based on any aspect of their identity, including gender identity and gender expression, is encouraged to submit a bias incident report on ODECE’s website.” Phoebe Shatzer, a graduate student studying security policy, said the disorganization of GW’s name change process has revealed the administration’s ignorance of transgender students’ identities. “The additional requirements put upon trans students kind of gets frustrating, and it’s one thing on top of so many other things that trans students have to deal with,” Shatzer said.
GW’s data privacy principles are too broad to protect students from potential tracking: experts DANIEL PATRICK GALGANO ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Experts in data and internet privacy said GW community members remain unprotected from potential data privacy breaches under a newly released set of “core principles” that officials rolled out earlier this month. The principles include commitments from GW to clarify new privacy policy changes, abide by federal and local law, guide how GW will make data privacy decisions and determine how they will gather community members’ personal data. Experts in data privacy policy said the new principles lack details on what type of information GW might collect and how it can be used after officials gathered community members’ location data from Wi-Fi access points last school year. Bracey said the University is implementing three data privacy principles to abide by “applicable” personal privacy laws, make data decisions in a transparent environment and clearly communicate officials’ new policies going forward. He said the University is still considering implementing new data privacy policies, like bolstering the review and approval process for data collection programs and receiving input from student and faculty leaders on future decision making.
FILE PHOTO BY AUDEN YURMAN | SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR Interim University President Mark Wrighton said in February that the University stopped last fall’s data tracking project and would destroy any remaining stored data.
“Through the careful implementation of these measures, we expect to create a more collaborative and more transparent environment that allows the University to realize the benefits of data analytics
while protecting the privacy interest of our community members,” Bracey said at the Faculty Senate meeting earlier this month. See GW Page 3
Faculty senators in the humanities said GW’s newly announced academic priorities and fi nancial investments are evidence of an ongoing lack of support for professors, departments and research in their studies. Officials announced at a Faculty Senate meeting earlier this month that they would adopt new academic priorities, including academic medicine, data science, equity and social justice and sustainability and climate change and invest $50 million in 14 new, endowed professorships to bolster GW’s medical enterprise. Three faculty senators said the new priorities are not unique to GW and officials should focus on improving academics across all schools and departments, not just the STEM-related academics. Provost Chris Bracey said the planning process for the new priorities included consultation from the Board of Trustees deans, program directors and faculty in all GW’s schools and colleges. He said the academic priorities are a starting point for “comprehensive” planning. The University has remained without a strategic plan since officials announced in 2020 that the COVID-19 pandemic rendered former University President Thomas Leblanc’s strategic plan “obsolete.” Part of Leblanc’s plan included an initiative to cut undergraduate enrollment by 20 percent and increase the share of STEM majors by 30 percent, which drew backlash from humanities professors who said the plan could lead to “major” funding cuts to humanities departments. “The academic priorities are a starting point for comprehensive planning and are not intended to represent all the areas in which we will focus,” Bracey said in an email. “These priorities and many other historic strengths across all disciplines demonstrate our continued commitment to enhancing GW’s global reputation” Faculty senators said officials should bolster the humanities’ funding and faculty in the wake of rising enrollment numbers across departments. Alexa Alice Joubin, a faculty senator and a professor of English, said she met with the three other faculty senators who represent the humanities, after the senate meeting earlier this month to discuss how to raise awareness about their concerns regarding the inequitable support given to the humanities. “It’s not really about the current initiative,” she said. “It’s because there has been a long-term problem, there’s a pattern of not giving enough support to the humanities, even though we constitute the core of GW, the core of Columbian College.” Joubin said it is “problematic” for the University to not distribute resources to its departments equitably because humanities play a key role in advancing GW’s academic priority of equity and social justice and faculty’s curriculum. “I believe GW historically has strength in the humanities and a reputation and our unique position in the city,” she said. “All of these are areas that the administration can continue to invest in while also supporting other disciplines, so the one-sidedness I think is the trigger.” Katrin Schultheiss, a faculty senator and an associate professor of history, said while she sees the value of bolstering STEM education, the University often leaves the humanities out of the conversation when it discusses its mission to be a “comprehensive” institution that builds strength in a variety of disciplines. “I do think that I would like to see more highlighting or direct allusions to the value of the humanities in all of these discussions about a comprehensive University,” she said. Schultheiss said the academic priorities are largely in line with the priorities of other higher education institutions and do not reflect a desire to be “outside of the norm” of other higher education institutions. Heather Bamford, a faculty senator and a professor of Spanish, said the University should prioritize hiring “humanists” in tenure-line positions and provide more opportunities for promotion to current faculty in the humanities. “These priorities do not include the humanities in any specific and immediately visible way, though there are countless GW humanities faculty who work in these areas and are impacted by them,” she said in an email. Bamford said the University should consider adding an academic priority of “critical thinking,” which can apply to all disciplines and work to prioritize the connections between the humanities and the new academic priorities. “Each semester I witness students make brilliant connections between historical documents and past events, literary works, philosophy, current events and their personal experiences,” she said. “This is what I’m here for. None of this is clear in the priorities, but it is happening in and among them.”