Monday, November 18, 2019 I Vol. 116 Iss. 16
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AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER • SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904
What’s inside Opinions
The editorial board calls on officials to cut early decision admissions Page 6
Culture
Check out new courses you can sign up for this week for next semester Page 7
Sports
Volleyball looks to gain its third win over La Salle this season in the A-10 quarterfinals Page 8
At least 13 development office positions vacant, job postings show ZACH SCHONFELD ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
ARI GOLUB | PHOTOGRAPHER Forty Thurston residents are staying in University-owned buildings like 1959 E St. while officials work to repair water damage in Thurston Hall rooms.
About 40 students temporarily relocated to other residence halls after Thurston fire JARED GANS
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
About 40 Thurston Hall residents are indefinitely living in at least three other residence halls after a fire broke out on the third floor Friday evening. The students who could not return to their rooms have been given rooms in residence halls and University-owned buildings like 1959 E St. and One Washington Circle Hotel, University spokeswoman Crystal Nosal and students said. Nosal said officials are working “around-the-clock” to address the water damage on the first three floors of the building caused when the sprinkler system activated to put out the fire. Nosal said no students were injured in the fire, and students could return to all but 13 Thurston rooms. “We found accommodations for all displaced students,” Nosal said in an email. “Saturday morning, we evaluated the damage to the affected rooms and worked with those residents throughout the day on alternative living arrangements and an assessment of their belongings.” Nosal said “resident assistants,” area coordinators and staff members from the Division for Student Affairs were in the hall Saturday to answer any Thurston
residents’ questions about the incident. She said officials offered breakfast to all Thurston residents in the building’s lobby that day. “We will continue to communicate with the group of students whose rooms were directly affected and will work with them in the days to come,” she said. Nosal declined to say what kinds of damage the 13 rooms suffered. She also declined to say how long the students will need to stay in their reassigned residence hall rooms. Nosal declined to say how officials are working to clean the water damage. She declined to say how much the repairs will cost the University. Officials placed two free laundry cycles, one for the washing machine and one for the dryer, on first-, second- and third-floor residents’ GWorlds to compensate for any articles of clothing damaged by water from the sprinkler system, according to an email from Thurston area coordinator Marcella Wong sent to students on the three floors. Area coordinator Julian Batts sent an email Saturday to students who could not return to their rooms to ask that they remain in their new room assignments “until further notification” from housing officials.
ARI GOLUB | PHOTOGRAPHER Students were escorted to Marvin after a fire broke out in Thurston Hall.
“Your safety is our top priority, and we want to ensure your room is in safe condition before allowing you to return,” he said in the email. Students who cannot return to their rooms can file reimbursement requests with the Office of Risk Management, according to the email. Fourteen students said officials have not told them how long they will need to stay in their room assignments before returning to Thurston, leaving them uncertain about how many clothes and supplies to bring to their new room. Freshman Jake Spivak, a third-floor resident who was relocated to 1959 E St., said a friend called him Friday night to say water was flowing into his room and was “about an inch high.” Spivak said he went
upstairs to his room and saw “dark, muddy water” flowing in from two rooms away, where the fire occurred. “It was disgusting black water,” he said. “And it was flowing from her room down the hallway, down the stairs.” Spivak said his belongings were not damaged because the water only rose to a few inches in his room. He said he and his roommates are not allowed to move back to their room until cleaning machines are finished reversing the water damage to the floors. He added that moving his bedding and other belongings to a different room is “annoying” because the water only rose about an inch and his room was not badly damaged. See STUDENTS Page 2
The Division of Development and Alumni Relations has at least 13 positions to fill, according to open job postings. The vacancies include 10 positions at the associate and assistant director level or above – like staff who help manage annual giving, planned giving and family philanthropy – and three administrative roles, according to the postings. Fundraising experts said a fully staffed office can help donors facilitate “complex” gifts, which are becoming increasingly common in higher education philanthropy. Matt Lindsay, the division’s assistant vice president of marketing and communications, confirmed that the open positions listed on GW’s jobs portal and auxiliary job websites are “current, active” searches. “The Division of Development and Alumni Relations regularly evaluates staffing to ensure we have the resources necessary to meet the University’s engagement and fundraising goals and to respond to emerging needs,” he said in an email. The vacancies include the associate director of development for family philanthropy, according to the job postings. Family donations hit the highest level in recent memory last fiscal year – reaching $15.7 million – following a threeyear decline. Officials removed a job posting for the director of development for family philanthropy about a week ago. Lindsay said the positions, once filled, will provide additional capacity that will support officials’ “strategic priorities” and “initiatives.” University President Thomas LeBlanc named philanthropy and constituent engagement as one of his top five priorities as University president. “Current GW development and alumni staff are focused on engaging constituents to strengthen the GW community and to generate philanthropic funding that benefits students, faculty and research,” Lindsay said. Lindsay declined to provide the number of staff currently employed in the alumni office. He declined to say how officials are attracting candidates for the open positions. Administrators are also
searching for senior fundraising officials in the Elliott School of International Affairs, the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of Business, according to job postings. The vacancies include a top annual giving position, according to LinkedIn. That position’s portfolio includes “comprehensive annual philanthropic and stewardship strategy,” the posting states. “This position focuses on enhancing philanthropic engagement across the constituencies by increasing giving participation and fostering the growth of donor pipelines,” the posting states. Officials also list an opening for a director of planned giving, a position tasked with securing major gifts – including those made through trusts and wills – to the University according to the job postings. Officials revived a planned giving campaign earlier this year and are offering a total matching pool of $1 million for donors who pledge late-inlife gifts to GW. The vacancies also include the associate director of development for athletics and a senior associate director for constituent giving, according to GW’s job portal and LinkedIn. During the past several weeks, officials have removed postings for an assistant director for digital direct response annual giving, an associate director of donor relations, an assistant vice president of development for law school leadership and annual giving, a director of development for family philanthropy and a senior communications associate. Administrators have not announced if the search for those positions has been discontinued or if they have found people to fill those positions. Richard Allen Ammons, a senior consultant and principal at Marts & Lundy – a philanthropic consulting firm – said donors are increasingly making more “complex gifts” to their alma mater by transferring assets through planned giving, so a fully staffed planned giving team can help donors navigate the transfer of funds.
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Gentrification pushes out longtime Foggy Bottom stores, owners say LIA DEGROOT ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Students cycle in and out of Foggy Bottom every academic year. But for businesses, the neighborhood’s price tag keeps them moving. Foggy Bottom residents said rent and operating costs in the neighborhood have increased over the past several decades, making it a home for larger businesses while pushing out smaller businesses. Longtime Foggy Bottom business owners said they have hiked menu prices to meet the increased cost of rent, and some businesses have left the neighborhood because they could not afford to maintain their establishments in Foggy Bottom. Patrick Kennedy, a Foggy Bottom and West End Advisory Neighborhood commissioner, said developers – like Boston Properties, which is reconstructing 2100 Pennsylvania Ave. – raise rent rates when they add new projects to the neighborhood. Small businesses that can’t afford the extra cost are therefore displaced, he said. “I don’t know that necessarily these developers are causing it, but they are reacting to it and they’re supplying a market for it,” Kennedy said. Kennedy said displacement is not as prevalent in
Foggy Bottom as it is in other neighborhoods – like Shaw, U Street and areas of Southeast D.C. – as housing costs rise across D.C. About 40 percent of the District’s lower-income neighborhoods underwent gentrification between 2000 and 2013, The Washington Post reported in March. “I would not compare Foggy Bottom necessarily to neighborhoods like Shaw or any of the neighborhoods more on the eastern part of the city where there is a huge gap between the people coming in and the people being displaced in terms of income,” Kennedy said. Three percent of people living in Ward 2, where GW is located, experience residential instability – the lowest rate District-wide, according to a housing report the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development released this summer. An individual is considered residentially unstable if they move homes several times throughout a year, according to the report. Twelve percent of Ward 8’s residents are considered residentially unstable, the highest rate in the District, the report states. Kennedy said that adding restaurants and bars to the the Foggy Bottom neighborhood, like Flower Child and
ARIELLE BADER | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Foggy Bottom rent and operating costs have risen over the past several decades, posing difficulties for small businesses that want to stay in the neighborhood.
Duke’s Grocery, has attracted residents to the neighborhood – but doesn’t cater to residents who can’t afford the prices. “The single-use aspect of the neighborhood has been an evolution over the past several decades that has zapped some of the vitality from the community,” he said. “And you’ll have retail establishments like some of the recent places that have opened that are very good and might be very unique,
but they’re not necessarily people that cater to a lower price point.” Justin Glass, an owner of Stoney’s on L, said he’s seen an uptick in the number of students and young professionals coming to the bar since its opening in 2013, a trend he said correlates with demographic changes in the neighborhood residency. “Being in a semi-business district right here, our business coincides with the demographic change within
the companies and these offices too,” he said. Glass said he signed a 10year lease with the company Vornado, which JBG Smith later bought, that owns the complex where Stoney’s on L is located. He said rent increases every year by about 1.5 percent, which he’s adjusted to by slightly raising menu prices. “It’s minimal, but as I mentioned, being in a restaurant, margins are as thin as it gets in an industry, so every
little thing counts,” he said. Kirk Francis, the co-owner of Captain Cookie, said he’s been able to maintain steady business despite the high turnover in The Shops at 2000 Penn, where his business has been located for five years. “We have had a strong brand going into the space, and I guess keeping that brand strong over the years, we’ve been able to maintain foot traffic without having to be affected too much,” he said. But Francis said D.C.’s minimum wage hike has been a challenge for his business – he and his wife didn’t generate a profit one year, which they accounted for by slashing their personal salaries. “The wages in D.C. have really skyrocketed in the past five, 10 years and so the economics that were behind our original price has totally changed,” he said. “So we’ve had to raise prices a couple times just to keep up.” Gentrification experts said spikes in the neighborhood’s property values correlate with surrounding development projects, like the University’s redevelopment of The Shops at 2000 Penn and the International Monetary Fund’s reconstruction project. See BUILDINGS Page 2
NEWS
November 18, 2019 • Page 2
News November 18, 2019 • Page 2
CRIME LOG
DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY/VANDALISM
Dakota Garage Unknown – Unknown Closed Case GW Police Department officers responded to a report that the door to a small room inside the garage was off its hinges and some LED lights were shattered. No suspects or witnesses
THEFT II/FROM BUILDING
Shenkman Hall (Gallery Market) 11/4/2019 – 11:05 p.m. Open Case A contractor reported that he saw a male Potbelly employee steal property from Gallery Market. Case open
THEFT II/FROM BUILDING
Academic Center Unknown – Unknown Open Case A male staff member reported to GWPD that someone stole a book from an art exhibit in the building. Case open
UNLAWFUL ENTRY
University Mall 11/8/2019 – 12:58 a.m. Closed Case GWPD officers observed a previously barred male individual looking at bikes on the bike rack located on the side of Ross Hall. Officers stopped the subject and issued him a barring notice. Subject barred
UNLAWFUL ENTRY
Marvin Center 11/11/2019 – 12:00 p.m. Closed Case GWPD responded to a previously barred male subject asleep on the first floor of the Marvin Center. GWPD officers arrested him and updated his bar notice. Metropolitan Police Department responded to the scene, placed the subject under arrest and transported him to the Second District police station. Subject arrested – Compiled by Kateryna Stepanenko
THE GW HATCHET
SA Senate to decide whether senator failed to fulfill duties, created ‘hostile’ environment LIZZIE MINTZ
CONTRIBUTING NEWS EDITOR The Student Association Senate will hold a hearing Monday to determine whether a senator failed to fulfill his duties and contributed to a “hostile” environment, according to a document obtained by The Hatchet. The senate will decide whether SA Sen. Jake Corsi, CCAS-G, did not fulfill his responsibilities in leading a special SA committee for campus improvement projects and whether Corsi’s actions, words and comments violated the SA’s governing documents. The document follows a previous one written by SA Sen. Brandon Hill, CCAS-U, outlining charges against Corsi and containing 10 pieces of evidence to support the charges sent to SA members by the Student Court Thursday. “The court will allow the senators attempting to censure Senator Jake Corsi to put on evidence of individual violations and this charging document will only directly allege conduct already charged by the previous two charging documents,” the newest document states. The senate initiated censure proceedings Sept. 23 against Corsi for acts during his tenure in the senate, but inconsistencies in the SA’s governing documents delayed the hearing by almost two months. The newest document states that the charges, broadly placed under the two categories “Dereliction of Duty” and “Creation or Continuation of a Hostile Environment,” are meant to “reflect the informal nature” of censure hearings compared to impeachment hearings that could lead to the removal of an SA member from their post. The Student Court and SA Executive Vice President Amy Martin have agreed that the updated phrasing of charges and evidence will result in “the fairest and most efficient center hearing,” the document states. “This charging document does not include the di-
rect evidence, statutory and constitutional provisions located in the original charging documents by Sen. Hill and tasked by the rules,” the document states. “Having already motioned to initiate censure hearings against Senator Corsi, the need to supply initial probable cause is saved for the hearing.” Hill’s original documents state that Corsi failed to attend a constitutionally mandated diversity training this semester. Corsi sent an email to senators Sept. 5 that he left the SA retreat at which the training took place because “it was too damn hot,” according to a screenshot of an email included in the documents. “This shows a pattern of behavior of not learning about and interacting with the issues that are being faced by the people who he represents as well as a lack of respect for the mandatory trainings in place,” the original documents state. “It is believed that the comments of Sen. Corsi are an advert reaction to his lack of interaction with diversity and inclusion education.” After a racist Snapchat posted to a then-sorority president’s account surfaced in September, SA President SJ Matthews and Martin issued a statement condemning the post. Corsi commented on the post that targeting a student and student organization “without all the facts over a crude joke is abhorrent,” according to a screenshot of Corsi’s comments included in Hill’s documents. SA Sen. Raina Hackett, CCAS-U and the chair of the diversity and inclusion assembly, emailed senators four days after the Facebook post that diversity and inclusion assembly members planned to hold a community forum that night for black students in response to the Snapchat. Corsi called the event “segregated” and said the town hall should be held off campus, according to a screenshot in the documents. “You’re either DIA for all students or not,” the email from Corsi reads. The documents state that
Corsi’s response to the community forum pushed former SA Sen. Caroline Beason, ESIA-U, to step down from her role in September. “I had hoped to make a positive impact on my community, but I would be unable to achieve this, given the persistent toxicity and disrespect that have become normalized within this organization’s culture,” Beason’s resignation letter reads. Beason’s letter did not name Corsi, but SA leaders charge him with creating what the student code of conduct outlines as a “hostile environment” because he deprived Beason of participation in the SA, a “cocurricular activity.” “I respect everyone in the SA, but I can’t condone the comments made by Sen. Corsi,” she said in an email. Corsi allegedly “derailed” an SA meeting Oct. 28 when he criticized SA Sen. Haining Bao, ESIA-U, for displaying a Chinese flag in front of his seat at the meeting, according to the document. Corsi asked Bao to remove the flag because he believed it resembled the Soviet flag, but Bao told him the flag represented China. Corsi allegedly failed to hold required meetings for a special committee he introduced in September to distribute SA funds for campus improvement projects, according to Hill’s document. The Infrastructure Special Committee Act, which created the committee, mandates that the group meet at least twice month and update the full senate monthly on its work. But committee members have not met or updated the senators since the committee was created, according to Hill’s document. The SA’s constitution dictates that a member of the body can be censured by a two-thirds vote for not fulfilling job requirements. Hackett, the diversity and inclusion assembly chair and senator who initiated the motion to begin censure proceedings, said Hill compiled most of the information included in the documents, but both senators worked on the charges laid out.
She called Corsi’s response to her message about the community forum saddening because his response demonstrated that the SA has “much growing to do as a student body in terms of ignorance.” Hackett said she does not know how the senate will vote Monday on the censure. “Corsi has displayed behavior that is hurtful to the structure of our student governance,” she said in an email. “He also uses his political ideology as a scapegoat or an excuse for his ignorant comments.” Hill, the senator who sent Corsi the original document Wednesday, said he worked with Hackett, SA Sen. Sparkle Mark, CCAS-U, and SA Sen. Howard Brookins, U-atLarge, on collecting evidence for the charges he laid out. He added that Brookins helped him assemble additional evidence outlined in the documents sent to Corsi Wednesday that gained the support of more senators for censure but said whether the senate will decide that Corsi created a “hostile environment” is “still pretty up in the air.” “It was originally thought that we have a better chance of censuring Sen. Corsi based on dereliction of duty,” he said. “Most people seem to be on board with that. Originally, we didn’t have a lot of senate support for the creation of a hostile environment.” Hill said that after he emailed the document with the original charges to Corsi Wednesday, Corsi responded, “You got more? You are a clown.” He said he added a screenshot of the email exchange into the documents before the deadline for submitting the documents closed Wednesday. “I think it’s just exacerbated the fact that Sen. Corsi doesn’t take ownership over his actions and his words,” Hill said. “At this point, I wasn’t even surprised based on the rhetoric and behavior that he’s displayed in the senate, but it adds fuel to the fire that is his censure hearing.” Corsi did not return multiple requests for comment.
Students unsure when they can return to their Thurston Hall rooms, they say From Page 1 “We weren’t affected that much except we can’t live in our dorm,” Spivak said. Freshman Michael Abrahams, who relocated from the second floor of Thurston to 1959 E St., said he was out at dinner when the fire started and the students in the building were evacuated. He said officials told him when
he got back from dinner to go to the Marvin Center, and he decided at about midnight to book a room at the Courtyard Marriott hotel on New Jersey Avenue with friends because they did not receive information about when they could return to their Thurston room. “It was very little information, which is understandable, just very little information,” he said. “They sent us a lot of emails about
which floors could go back. Eventually, they said floors four to nine could go back to their rooms, and floors one through three got no information, so by that point we knew it would be a while.” Abrahams said officials have agreed to reimburse him and his friends for the night they spent in the hotel. He said officials have been “very organized” about assigning displaced students
to other rooms on campus but have not provided much information about when he can move back into his room in Thurston. “They told us Monday at the earliest,” he said. “Again, they really haven’t told us much at all.” Freshman Jin Haugland, a third-floor resident who relocated to Francis Scott Key Hall, said she saw an inch and a half of “foul-smelling” water in
her room when GW Police Department officers escorted her to get her medicine. “It was so gross,” she said. “Fortunately, there was no damage to the property in my room, but the halls were just trashed.” Haugland said officials have not given her any information about how long she will need to stay in FSK or how many clothes she should take from her Thur-
ston room. She said she hopes officials decide to allow students to remain in their newly assigned residence halls for the remainder of the semester to provide enough time to thoroughly clean the damaged area. “I don’t trust school officials to be honest with us about when it’s safe to move back,” Haugland said. “I think we deserve something better.”
New University buildings, residence halls limit Foggy Bottom housing: experts From Page 1 David Hyra – the director of the Metropolitan Policy Center at American University, which researches urban development – said the majority of Foggy Bottom’s displacement occurred when the State Department was constructed in the neighborhood in 1947, which pushed industrial workers out and
brought in government workers. Hyra said the neighborhood is now experiencing a second wave of gentrification, known as “super-gentrification,” which occurs when property values increase as people make more money. He said the presence of the World Bank and the IMF, which opened in the 1940s, and the GW Hospital – which opened its facility
in 2002 – have prompted an uptick in the neighborhood’s property value. “I think if you’re looking at the last 20 years of Foggy Bottom it’s really hard to say that it’s gentrified because it wasn’t low income, but you could say that it has reached the point where super-gentricaiton is occurring because it’s gone from middle-upper to much more higher income,” he said.
The University has opened or renovated several buildings and residence halls in the past few years, including District House and 2100 Pennsylvania Ave. Officials halted plans to construct a new freshman residence hall near the IMF building last academic year to focus on renovating Thurston Hall beginning in June. Hyra said any residence hall the University uses for
student housing is building space that could be used for D.C. residents, which caps the number of community members who could live in the neighborhood. He said investing in affordable housing is not common for universities, but GW could use its endowment to invest in affordable housing in the East End to mitigate the gentrification that the hospital’s construction could
bring. The GW Hospital announced plans last year to open a facility in Southeast D.C. by 2023. Officials constructed four affordable housing units in 2016 as part of a negotiation for the 2100 Pennsylvania Ave. complex. “People often don’t think that affordable housing is the face for an investment that will have a rate of return, but it typically does,” he said.
IN BRIEF SA president files executive order calling for task force against anti-Semitism The Student Association’s head signed an executive order Sunday calling on the SA Senate to approve a committee charged with addressing antiSemitism on campus. SA President SJ Matthews filed an executive order Sunday in the wake of an anti-Semitic Snapchat video that emerged two weeks ago that creates a “Task Force On Combating Anti-Semitism,” a 10-student committee charged with proposing “institutional changes” to eradicate anti-Semitism at GW. Matthews said she intends for the task force to spark a dialogue on campus about anti-Semitism and solutions to the issue. “It’s a really important topic,” she said. “AntiSemitism is an issue on our campus – it’s an issue that I don’t think is being talked about enough – and so this executive order is going to mandate we have this task force and this conversation and talk about how anti-Semitism is happening across our campus and the best ways to combat that.”
The task force is also responsible for encouraging dialogue about anti-Semitic acts on campus and working with officials to incorporate anti-Semitism awareness into diversity trainings for new students, according to the order. “Currently, it’s not something that’s talked about when we’re doing those diversity trainings, and I think interfaith dialogue is a huge thing on our campus, so I think we need to do a better job of creating spaces where people can have conversations and learn about other faiths and beliefs,” Matthews said. The task force is the second committee Matthews has called for in an executive order this semester. She filed an order in September to create the Colonial Moniker Task Force, which the senate codified last month to research possible sobriquets to replace the University’s Colonials nickname. Julia Kerrigan, the director of interfaith engagement, will chair the committee, which includes Hannah Edwards, the vice president for diversity and
inclusion, and Zachary Nosanchuk, the vice president for undergraduate student policy and a former Hatchet opinions writer, the order states. The SA Senate can also nominate up to three senators and Matthews can appoint four members of the public, including one representative from the residential engagement team, to serve on the committee, according to the order. The committee is intended to be proactive and to eliminate future instances of anti-Semitism on campus, which are more ubiquitous than the few instances that go viral, Matthews said. “I think it was interesting because after the Snapchat broke, I had a lot of students saying to me, ‘Oh, I hear this stuff all the time, and that was really hard to hear,’” she said. “We have Jews on our campus who are facing discrimination every day, and again, they don’t talk about it unless there’s a Snapchat or unless it’s a huge thing.” —Lizzie Mintz & Parth Kotak
NEWS
THE GW HATCHET
November 18, 2019 • Page 3
Twenty organizations partner to host GW’s first Trans Awareness Week ILENA PENG CONTRIBUTING NEWS EDITOR
Twenty student and University organizations are gathering together to host GW’s inaugural Trans Awareness Week. The week, which began last Monday and ends on Trans Day of Remembrance Wednesday, features more than 15 events about transgender identity and community. Students involved in planning the series said the week is intended to empower transgender and nonbinary students and educate students about the transgender community and the issues it faces. Junior Aedy Miller said they conceived of the idea for Trans Awareness Week after attending a workshop on transgender identity at last year’s diversity summit. Miller said they initially hoped to host their own workshop but later approached Multicultural Student Services Center Director Michael Tapscott to propose a series of programming that became Trans Awareness Week. “It’s remarkable that we’ve actually been able to pull this off, and I know that several people have expressed to me the importance of even seeing that GW is doing something particularly for and by the trans community,” Miller said. “Just that in
ILENA PENG | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Twenty student organizations and University groups are hosting more than 15 events to celebrate the transgender community during Trans Awareness Week.
and of itself means so much.” Tapscott greenlighted the idea at the beginning of the semester, and Miller began planning Trans Awareness Week in September, they said. The week’s events included a spoken word mic night celebrating trans artists, a “Transgiving” dinner and a tea party where participants could learn about hormone replacement therapy. The series ends with a vigil in Kogan Plaza Wednesday for those who have lost their lives in transphobic acts of violence.
“It’s a whole week where folks are celebrating, advocating for, remembering, lifting, empowering trans and nonbinary people,” Miller said. They said they reached out to communities representing almost every race, gender and sexuality on campus to make the week’s events as inclusive as possible, because LGBTQ spaces are often white-washed. They added that the week received an “immense” response from student organizations. The newly launched
Transgender and Non-Binary Students of GW, Students Against Sexual Assault and the Black Women’s Forum are among the several student organizations hosting events during the week. The Honey W. Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service and the American studies department are also sponsoring the event. “I hope what people take away is that trans people – we’ve been here, we are here and we will always be here – and that’s not just on campus, that’s everywhere,”
Miller said. Miller said the week aims to educate students on issues their transgender peers face on campus, like ensuring University records use their preferred names. They said students representing Transgender and Non-Binary Students of GW, the Student Association and other groups are also working to change the University’s housing policy so roommates are chosen based on gender identity instead of sex. Miller said the current housing policy poses a security issue for transgender students. “That is the most important thing because it’s not even just a gender-affirming thing,” they said. “It’s also a literal safety concern.” Miller said they hope to plan an event for Transgender Day of Visibility in March and add a “much more expansive series of programming” encompassing the entire LGBTQ community next fall around the same time as this week. Sophomore Chava Kornblatt, the co-director of social media for Allied in Pride and a member of Trans Awareness Week’s organizing committee, hosted two “Trans 101” events on the Foggy Bottom and Mount Vernon campuses last week. Kornblatt said the events allowed students to ask the “harder questions”
about transgender identity that would be inappropriate to ask in another setting. “One more person educated, one more person aware, one more person who’s been talked to is a benefit,” they said. “I think it’s been really – in as literal a sense of a word as possible – amazing to see the week come together.” Senior Xavier Adomatis, a member of LGBTQ fraternity Delta Lambda Phi, said his group is co-hosting a discussion Monday with GW College Democrats on this year’s Supreme Court cases concerning LGBTQ rights, like Harris Funeral Homes v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in which an employee was fired after telling her employer she would transition from male to female. Adomatis said it is “critical” for students to understand the issues underlying these cases because they affect people’s “basic human rights.” “When those decisions get handed down in the next several months, it’s going to change a lot of peoples’ lives, especially if they go in the right direction for the better,” he said. “If they go in the wrong direction, we can see states open up and people discriminate more freely, which is not something we want.”
The Board of Trustees task forces behind GW’s top priorities, explained ZACH SCHONFELD ASSSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Behind several recent University initiatives are task forces commissioned by the Board of Trustees to provide the body with information ahead of major decisions. Board of Trustees Chair Grace Speights said the board’s task forces and strategic committees, which are composed of trustees and “community constituents,” evaluate specific issues for a period of time based on the University’s needs. The groups, which have been commissioned to examine areas like enrollment and volunteer engagement, are created and maintained separately from the board’s five standing committees. “These issues are narrowly focused and allow the board to engage deeply for a finite period,” Speights said in an email. Here’s how the board’s task forces and strategic committees have shaped some of the University’s top initiatives over the past few years:
Student experience
Trustees created a student experience task force in September 2017 to address student concerns about campus life and affordability. Members of the task force presented guidelines, like improvements to health and safety resources, greater affordability and additional community space to trustees in May 2018. Trustees have since approved $10 million in funding for campus safety improvements, and administrators have expanded the Colonial Health Center’s hours and locations. Officials also reduced laundry and printing costs, eliminated fees for students renting on-campus spaces and recently launched a new partnership to offer discounted meals at some food trucks.
“The Student Experience Task Force was developed to review the program and service offerings at GW and to develop recommendations for improvement,” Speights said. Risa Lieberwitz, a professor of labor and employment law at Cornell University, said the main principle guiding any board task force should be shared governance, or including student leaders and faculty in improving the student experience because they are “central” to the initiative. Former Student Association President Peak Sen Chua and former SA Executive Vice President Sydney Nelson served on the board’s task force. “I think it’s incumbent on the Board of Trustees to be sensitive that the Board of Trustees should not interfere in the shared governance process in a way that undermines the institutional role of the Faculty Senate and other governance bodies that exist,” Lieberwitz said.
Volunteer engagement
The board created a volunteer engagement task force in September 2017 following the completion of the University’s $1 billion fundraising campaign. “The Volunteer Engagement Task Force was established to evaluate the volunteer engagement pipeline at GW for alumni and others interested in serving the University,” Speights said. The task force split into five subcommittees to further break down and examine the issue’s parts, like the studentalumni volunteer pipeline and the volunteer experience. GW’s alumni volunteer base hit the second-lowest level in a decade in fiscal year 2019, and the University experienced the lowest alumni giving rate compared to its peer institutions during the 2017 and 2018 academic years.
University President Thomas LeBlanc has met with alumni in cities across the country and in London since he arrived at GW, and he plans to make stops in 11 more cities this academic year. Officials introduced a new alumni association in May to connect alumni with the University after the former association split from GW following a failed merger. Speights said both the volunteer engagement and student experience task forces “successfully” completed their tasks after they submitted recommendations to the board. “As both task forces represent areas of focus for the University’s strategic initiatives, the board continues to monitor progress closely,” Speights said.
Strategic enrollment
Trustees created a strategic committee on enrollment during summer 2018 to examine nationwide enrollment trends. “The Committee on Strategic Enrollment is responsible for establishing overarching strategic enrollment priorities that support the educational and research mission of the University,” according to the group’s mission statement, which was approved in October. Officials announced in July that they plan to reduce the undergraduate enrollment population by nearly 20 percent over five years, which experts said could boost GW’s rankings but decrease revenue. Undergraduate enrollment fell this academic year for the first time in six years, which administrators said was the first step in the planned enrollment drop.
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For more on how trustees are guiding the strategic plan
HATCHET FILE PHOTO BY ALEXANDER WELLING | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Board of Trustees leaders have used several task forces throughout the years to examine the top issues facing the University.
HATCHET FILE PHOTO Fossil Free GW dropped its original name to join the Sunrise Movement, which will help members expand advocacy to issues outside divestment.
Fossil Free GW ditches name, expands advocacy efforts UZMA RENTIA REPORTER
Fossil Free GW is rebranding its organization to include advocacy for the Green New Deal and other climate-related issues, according to a post on the group’s Facebook page Monday. Fossil Free GW is now a chapter of the Sunrise Movement, an organization that works to combat climate change and reduce fossil fuel dependence. Sunrise GW members said the group will continue to focus on fossil fuel divestment but grow its advocacy efforts to encompass other climaterelated issues, which will increase the organization’s membership and widen the scope of the group’s activism. “We felt that, given the state of the climate justice movement right now and given how it’s orienting around strikes and around the Green New Deal, the most effective way to organize ourselves on campus and effective manner would be to adopt a two-pronged approach and incorporate Sunrise’s theory of change,” Sunrise GW member Joe Markus said. Fossil Free GW previously urged officials to pull investments out of companies like ExxonMobil, Shell and British Petroleum. The Student Association Senate passed a resolution in 2015 calling on the Board of Trustees to disclose and divest GW’s stakes in fossil fuel companies. Markus, a sophomore, said Sunrise GW will still push officials to divest from fossil fuels but will advocate for the Green New Deal – proposed legislation that aims to reorient the country toward net-zero carbon
emission within 10 years. He said the group will fight for climate-related issues, like minimizing the influence fossil fuel companies have on politicians and private corporations. Markus said Fossil Free GW was a relatively small student organization before transitioning to Sunrise GW last week. He said previous partnerships between Fossil Free GW and the local D.C. Chapter of the Sunrise Movement, including the September 2019 Climate Strikes, led both groups to decide that a reorientation would help integrate the student body into more environmental activism. “They suggested to us that if we wanted to make Fossil Free into a Sunrise group that was duly committed to both divestment and the Green New Deal, they were completely on board with that,” Markus said. “We will be on board with transforming ourselves into a Sunrise club, especially since that would offer us support from the D.C. hub.” He said group members hope to better reach students who passively engage with the climate crisis with the organizational backing of Sunrise. “We don’t have to reinvent the wheel every single time we do it,” Markus said. “But what our goal is is to have a nature of consistency and organization that allows people not only to have a place to go and a community to be a part of, but also shows the University population that the climate crisis is happening.” Freshman and Sunrise GW member Gabriella Bann said Sunrise provides the group with
legal assistance it has lacked in the past. She said legal support would have been helpful when some of the group’s members were arrested at climate protests. Senior and Sunrise GW member Matt Zimmer said changing the organization’s name to Sunrise GW will increase the group’s membership, because students with a wide variety of climaterelated interests – like pushing the U.S. military to reduce carbon emissions – will feel like they have a place in the organization. The U.S. military emits more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than most industrialized nations, according to a recent report from Brown University. “We realized that if we wanted to be able to take action, both in the political realm and university realm, we would need to grow our organization significantly, and we think that transferring the name will do that,” he said. “We’re really happy about this transition and think that the organization is going to take a new integrated approach to both divestment and the broader political scene.” Sophomore and Sunrise GW member Jeremy Liskar said the national Sunrise Movement provides the group with training on concrete measures it can take to combat the climate crisis. Liskar hopes that Sunrise’s strategic action plans and social media presence will help the GW chapter better establish an organized base on campus. “Sunrise has been really helpful in that they are always willing to provide training for students and outline direct action,” Liskar said.
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November 18, 2019 • Page 4
THE GW HATCHET
LeBlanc to meet with alumni, admitted students in 10 U.S. cities this year AMY LIU STAFF WRITER
University President Thomas LeBlanc will visit more than 10 cities over this academic year to connect with alumni, families and recently admitted students. Matt Lindsay, the assistant vice president of marketing and communications in the Division of Development and Alumni Relations, said LeBlanc will host “alumni and community events” in 10 metropolitan regions in the United States and in one other country prior to the end of the academic year. The trips follow LeBlanc’s stops in six U.S. cities last year to outline his priorities and connect with alumni, donors and parents of current students. “This travel allows President LeBlanc to communicate firsthand with community members outside of Washington, D.C., and to generate additional philanthropic support for important GW initiatives,” Lindsay said in an email. Lindsay said the locations were selected primarily on the “size” and “scope” of the GW community in each region, and officials plan to invite alumni, parents, family members and newly admitted students to the events. The trips include a visit to Philadelphia on Jan. 14, Los Angeles on Jan. 28, San Francisco on Jan. 30 and
Northern Virginia on March 3, according to emails sent to parents living near the event locations. “GW President Thomas J. LeBlanc is traveling the globe to listen, learn and engage the GW community toward a collective vision,” officials said in the emails. Lindsay said LeBlanc will fundraise for “critical” GW programs during his trips, which come as officials plan to launch the University’s next major fundraising campaign in 2021 in conjunction with GW’s bicentennial anniversary. LeBlanc established philanthropy and constituent engagement as one of his five top priorities as president. “This is an important and exciting time for members of the GW community to deepen their engagement and share their input on how we continue to improve GW,” Lindsay said. Lindsay declined to provide the specific locations of LeBlanc’s trips. He also declined to say how much the trips will cost. Higher education experts said presidential trips can reconnect alumni with the University and increase fundraising levels by engaging donors and alumni in person. Mark Stater, an associate professor of economics at Trinity College, said travel allows the president to meet
“face-to-face” with donors around the globe to attract more donations, which is critical because the president’s main job is fundraising. “Hopefully, at the very least, connections made that are likely to lead to donations later,” he said in an email. “But at a certain point, these trips need to produce fundraising results.” Fundraising staff conducted almost 5,000 visits to donors in an effort to retain existing donors and attract new ones last fiscal year. GW experienced the lowest alumni giving rate among its peer institutions for the second year in a row but notched its third-highest fundraising amount last fiscal year. Stater said presidential travel can increase the University’s visibility and inform alumni and parents about events at the school. But travel can also detract from the president’s ability to govern and deal with business on campus, he said. Robert Shand, an assistant professor of education at American University, said presidential travel can raise the University’s profile and build new potential partnerships to share the University’s work with other communities and bring in revenue, research grants and contract work. Shand added that university presidents are often
HATCHET FILE PHOTO Officials said University President Thomas LeBlanc will visit 10 U.S. cities and one place outside the country to chat with alumni and admitted students at community events.
criticized for their “generous compensation” and “perks,” like global travel, but presidents typically bring in more than the cost of their job through fundraising dollars, publicity for the school and new programs. “Ultimately, I think the responsibility lies with the board to ensure that the trips are indeed bringing value to the University that could not have been done otherwise, and the trips are done at a reasonable cost,” he said in an email. Karna Lozoya, the ex-
ecutive director of strategic communications at Catholic University of America, said presidential travel is essential for “expanding the University community” and maintaining good relations with its constituencies. “When a president visits a city, it normally generates events that bring together alumni, parents and donors,” she said in an email. “These events are important community builders.” Lozoya said “smart use” of presidential travel can improve the University’s re-
lationship with parents and student recruitment through continued engagement with communities around the globe. Family donations hit the highest level the University has seen in seven years last fiscal year, clocking in at $15.7 million after a threeyear decline. “There might not be time to meet with everyone suggested, but it’s key to be intentional and proactive about maximizing travel time, for the good of the university,” Lozoya said.
Officials to offer new degrees amid nursing enrollment decline RACHEL ANNEX REPORTER
SOPHIA YOUNG | PHOTOGRAPHER Officials said some mailboxes were mislabeled earlier in the year, causing some pieces of mail to be misplaced.
Students call for ‘more organized’ mail system after lost, delayed letters SAMANTHA SERAFIN REPORTER
The University needs a “more organized” mailing service to cut down on weeks-late package deliveries and lost mail, students said. More than a dozen students said documents like medical bills and scholarship checks have been lost or arrived in their mailbox several days after the postmark date. University spokeswoman Crystal Nosal said GW Mail and Packaging Services typically does not receive many complaints, but several mailboxes were labeled incorrectly earlier this semester. “After an audit and corrections by Key Depot, the issue was resolved,” Nosal said in an email. She said mail and package services employees shelve daily express mail immediately, and the “vast majority” of packages shipped are processed and made available the same day. Nosal said students sometimes receive an email from an outside mailing service that their package has arrived, but students cannot pick up their item until package services has processed the package. “While MPS has not been informed of students receiving mail for students who lived in their rooms previously we encourage students to email gwmailsv@gwu. edu so this can be corrected,” she said. Nosal said package services employees recommend that students send valuable packages containing items like gift cards or money with a tracking number to ensure their item is not lost. “For the majority of
mail, the received stamp date and the mail delivery date are no more than 24 hours apart,” she said. “If not, it is likely the addressee information was incomplete and required additional research and/ or the person was not listed in the University data system.” Freshman Laya Reddy, a Somers Hall resident, said the scholarship check her parents mailed her in mid-October didn’t arrive for three weeks, giving her only five days to submit the check to add the money to her tuition bill. “It’s obviously a lot of money and I think some other people have scholarships that are even larger than that, which I think they would not have been able to attend this school without that type of money,” she said. Freshman Anna Weber, a Fulbright Hall resident, said she’s worried she won’t receive her absentee ballot for the presidential primary election next year because her packages have arrived late in the past. She said holiday cards and concert tickets have landed in her mailbox later than expected. “I know for presidential primaries, a lot of us will be voting absentee, and I’ve been worried something is going to get messed up with my ballot coming in the mail and then my vote won’t get counted because it didn’t end up in my P.O. Box in time,” Weber said. Sophomore Sally Kim said she received a blood test at the Colonial Health Center in early May but never received the bill in her Lafayette Hall mailbox. Kim said the bill was forwarded to her home address, and she didn’t receive it until after the
payment’s July due date. Kim said the University should implement a “more organized” mail system, and officials should consider installing the digital lockers available to students living on the Mount Vernon Campus and in Shenkman Hall in all residence halls on campus. “I honestly just want mail on time,” she said. “I think we need a better system of getting mail.” Freshman Bentley Adkins, who lives in Potomac House, said she received a letter earlier this semester in her mailbox 10 days after it was postmarked. She said she once had to wait three days before receiving an email that a package was ready for pickup. “It’s frustrating because you know your packages are just sitting in the room and it’s just not scanned,” Adkins said. Freshman Anna Bella D’Amico, a Fulbright resident, said she has experienced weeklong delays in receiving mail and packages since the beginning of the semester. D’Amico said she recently placed an online order to prepare for an upcoming trip and shipped the items to a local Amazon lockbox to speed up the delivery process. D’Amico said her cousins sent her a postcard in late September that she received last week because package services delivered the postcard to the wrong residence hall room, even though her cousins correctly addressed the postcard. “I would definitely say if you need mail sent or received in any type of rapid way, package services is not the way you would do it,” D’Amico said.
Institutional data shows that enrollment in a School of Nursing graduate program has been cut in half since its first year, but nursing school officials said the decrease is attributed to a growing focus on advanced nursing practices. Seventy-six students were enrolled in the Doctors’ of Nursing Practice program – which offers courses on leadership in nursing – when the nursing school first opened in 2010, but only 38 students registered this year, the data shows. Officials said the decline is a result of an effort to phase out some DNP program specialty concentrations and increase the school’s focus on advanced nursing practice education in fields like nursing administration. Mercedes Echevarria, the program’s assistant dean, said nursing school officials decided in 2015 to increase focus on advanced nursing practice roles, like nursing administration and population health, to align with “national workforce” trends. She said officials eliminated several DNP program specialty concentrations, which affected overall DNP program enrollment. “As GW Nursing sunsets programs in response to these variables, we offset enrollment strategically through growth in other programs and/or launch of new programs that fit with current and future healthcare community needs,” Echevarria said. Nursing practice program enrollment reached a high of 114 students in 2012 and hit an all-time
low of 33 students in 2018, according to institutional data. Echevarria said the nursing school uses “targeted messaging” to appeal to prospective student populations – like alumni from the school’s master’s of science in nursing programs – who might be interested in pursuing a DNP. She said nursing school officials examine market trends, national nursing school enrollment trends and the needs of the “nursing profession and community” to plan for enrollment shifts over a five-year period. Echevarria said the nursing school has grown the accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program and instituted a doctoral program in response to national health care trends. She said the school has launched two advanced nursing practice tracks – the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and Adult Gerontological Acute Care Nurse Practitioner programs. Nursing experts said enrollment and the number of nursing practice programs have increased nationwide because applicants for higher-salaried nursing positions must hold advanced nursing degrees. Pam Cipriano, the University of Virginia’s nursing school dean, said participation in master’s and Doctor of Nursing practice programs provide students with leadership and administrative skills necessary to attain higher-paying nursing jobs. Tuition for the Doctors’ of Nursing Practice program currently costs more than $50,000 per se-
mester, according to the Student Accounts Office website. Cipriano added that the number of nursing practice programs in the United States has increased in response to an uptick in student interest in pursuing advanced nursing education. Several of GW’s peer schools – like the universities of Pittsburgh, Miami and Rochester, and New York, Northeastern and Wake Forest universities – all offer Doctor of Nursing Practice programs. “It’s attractive externally because of the benefits of increasing deliverers of health care,” Cipriano said. “It’s attractive internally because it’s viewed as an opportunity to really, truly use your education and expertise and have more decision-making power.” Mark Covin, the director of admissions and recruitment at the University of California Los Angeles School of Nursing, said graduate nursing students seek out advanced nursing degrees to move up into nursing leadership positions during their careers, a practice that has led to recent enrollment increases. Registered nurses earned an average yearly salary of nearly $72,000 in 2018, but advanced practice registered nurses and nurses with master’s degrees reaped a median pay of about $114,000 in the same period, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Maybe they feel stagnant in their floor that they’re at, they want more of a challenge or they want to get more into a supervisory or administration role,” Covin said.
HATCHET FILE PHOTO Nursing school officials said they plan to phase out some specialities in the Doctors' of Nursing program, which has led to the decline in enrollment.
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THE GW HATCHET
November 18, 2019 • Page 5
Translational health sciences program enrollment triples RACHEL ANNEX REPORTER
Enrollment in a health sciences doctoral program has more than tripled since its debut in 2016. School of Medicine and Health Sciences officials designed the translational health sciences doctorate program to teach working health care professionals how to conduct research across medical disciplines. Health sciences experts said increasing enrollment in translational programs will accelerate medical research because health care professionals can administer the best available medical treatments to their patients more quickly. University spokeswoman Lisa Anderson said the enrollment increase was “expected and projected.” “We are proud of the work we’ve done these last few years to help students in the program create, translate, disseminate and integrate new knowledge across disciplines,” Anderson said in an email. Anderson declined to say how officials have encouraged students to enroll in the translational health sciences program and how officials will continue to grow the program. She declined to say the benefits of increased enrollment. Health sciences experts said increasing enrollment in translational health sciences programs will expedite medical research and help health professionals treat their patients with the highest possible standard of care. Ronald Gimbel, the chair
of the Department of Public Health Sciences at Clemson University, said education in translational health sciences increases competitiveness among applicants for grants from agencies like the National Institutes of Health, which could explain enrollment increases. “This is a very hot topic area – one that can help prepare you for a long career in clinical research and clinical discoveries and how you translate those products into something – things that are really useful to improve health,” Gimbel said. Chris Frei, a professor in the division of pharmacotherapy and Pharmacotherapy Division Head at the University of Texas at Austin, said enrollment in translational health sciences programs is increasing because students who research new medications and treatments as part of the program “feel like what they’re doing matters.” He said the interdisciplinary nature of translational health sciences quickens the pace of research projects because researchers consider medical methodologies involved in several medical specialities instead of limiting their focus to one discipline. Frei added that the translational health sciences program at his university includes education on business, intellectual property law and the patent process, which he said helps researchers effectively market new medication and medical therapies. “That’s very attractive for people who want to make a
SOPHIA YOUNG | PHOTOGRAPHER
Experts said higher enrollment in the translational health sciences doctorate program could contribute to a health care field that more efficiently treats patients.
difference,” Frei said. “Like most people in health care and in science, if you ask them what they care about, they want to make a difference to people.” Tim Carey, a professor in the Departments of Medicine and Social Medicine at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, said the process of turning a research finding into a viable medical treatment usually takes several years. He said the influx of
new medical research professionals studying multiple disciplines could help bring new medications and therapies to the public more quickly than before. “This is a matter of emphasis and working across disciplines so that people who are in, just as an example, genetics or cell biology are now talking to clinicians who see patients in settings,” Carey said. Doris Rubio, a professor
of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, said she has seen a similar increase in translational health sciences program enrollment at her own university. Rubio added that medical researchers and scientists were “siloed” and did not cooperate with one another or bring in insight from other medical disciplines to achieve new medical breakthroughs. She said increased emphasis on translational health
sciences will encourage more interdisciplinary collaboration on research now that translational health sciences programs are commonplace. “Being a translational scientist really facilitates that conversation across these multidisciplinary teams because you as a translational scientist are able to see problems from a variety of perspectives as opposed to one specific narrow discipline,” Rubio said.
History department launches seminar series on inequality YANKUN ZHAO REPORTER
JACK FONSECA | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
ANC Commissioner James Harnett is now certified to stop illegal construction in the Foggy Bottom area.
Student, local leader obtains permit to stop illegal construction MAKENA ROBERTS REPORTER
A student is the first neighborhood leader who can halt illegal construction in the District. The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs piloted its Resident Inspector program this fall, which certifies residents to stop construction that occurs without proper city permits. Senior and Foggy Bottom and West End Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner James Harnett, who obtained the stop work permit Nov. 9, said he is currently the only Foggy Bottom commissioner who can distribute stop work orders anywhere in the District. Harnett said he attended a training, which is required for anyone to obtain a stop work permit, that taught commissioners about proper construction permitting processes. He said he can now consult with DCRA officials over video chat and get the green light to issue a stop work order if he sees construction underway without the proper permit. “It was set up to enable commissioners that have a deep understanding of what’s going on in the neighborhood,” Harnett said. “To recognize when something’s off, when something’s not being done legally and be empowered to do something about it.” Harnett said he can issue stop work permits anywhere in the District but plans to use the permit to stop illegal construction in Foggy Bottom and on campus. He plans to issue stop work orders to end any further construction at the 2100 Pennsylvania Ave.
site that workers perform without a proper permit, he said. The University signed a 75-year contract in July with Boston Properties, outlining construction plans for an office development building on Pennsylvania Avenue. Students complained last month that late-night construction on water pipes associated with the construction projects kept them awake until as late as 2 a.m. Harnett said the District Department of Transportation did not obtain the correct overnight work permit to conduct road construction outside of the complex. “We can check it out and verify permits and make sure that everything’s in order because students should not be woken up in the middle of the night, let alone during exam season,” Harnett said. “That impacts people’s quality of life.” He said he plans to introduce a resolution at next week’s ANC meeting urging the D.C. Council to require communication between DDOT and DCRA when issuing work permits for construction completed outside approved hours. “We need to be empowered with the tools to actually do something about legal construction,” Harnett said. “Being able to issue stop work orders enables me to protect the community and to protect students in that effort.” Ernest Chrappah, the director of DCRA, said illegal construction – like construction that occurs overnight without proper permitting – is a frequent complaint from ANC commissioners, and the
department cannot ensure that every instance of illegal construction is stopped. “While DCRA is committed to responding to reports of illegal construction as quickly as possible, we also recognize that we can’t be everywhere at once,” he said in an email. DCRA’s website states construction is never permitted on 11 holidays, including D.C. Emancipation Day and President’s Day. Construction is permitted Monday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and construction workers are required to apply for permits for any work completed outside the designated hours. “As the eyes and ears of their neighborhoods, elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners are ideal partners for DCRA as we work to quickly identify and take swift enforcement action against illegal construction,” Chrappah said in an emailed statement. Jared Levy, the Residence Hall Association hall council president for Lafayette Hall, said the late-night construction has negatively impacted his and other Lafayette residents’ sleep schedules. Levy said the stop work permit is a step in the right direction for Lafayette residents, but the hall’s residents still experience loud noise while working in their rooms during the day. “Even if they had the permit, I would call it in and request if they could change it so obviously, that’s helpful,” he said. “But I think that the bigger picture is that they can just drill and hammer and make these loud noises for 12 hours a day right outside our hall.”
History department faculty launched a seminar series earlier this month to increase the visibility and discussion surrounding varying types of inequality in society. The Interdisciplinary Inequality Seminar consists of three presentations given throughout the academic year to provide a platform for faculty from other universities to present their research on inequality from several different academic disciplines. Faculty said the seminars will lead to new ways of understanding the issue as more historians begin to investigate inequality after former President Barack Obama called it “the defining problem of our time.” Trevor Jackson, an assistant professor of history who proposed and oversees the seminar series, said University Seminar Funding Program staff approved the program this summer that funds the speakers and their travel accommodations up to $4,000 in total. “We thought this would be a great fit for a research series to bring in scholars from outside GW to bring together scholars from within and talk about inequality in the broadest way possible,” he said. Jackson said his background is in interdisciplinary work as an economic historian who studies the history of inequality and financial crises. He said that after teaching a history class on inequality last semester and speaking with professors from different departments and schools, he decided a seminar series
was a good way to explore the topic of inequality – including racial and economic inequality – given its prevalence worldwide. Jackson said the first seminar – held Nov. 1 – featured Christy Thornton, a sociology professor from Johns Hopkins University, who presented on a chapter of her forthcoming book about the Mexican government’s attempt to address international inequality in the 1970s. The remainder of the talks, open to faculty, students and non-GW scholars, will feature two professors from Columbia University and the University of Maryland and are scheduled for the spring semester. “Nobody has a monopoly on this, and we all will benefit from learning what each other is doing,” he said. He said the audience of the first seminar included more than 15 faculty from GW and other schools, graduate students and International Monetary Fund employees in Phillips Hall. Jackson said he hopes the interdisciplinary focus of the series will encourage students and scholars to share their ideas about inequality through the lens of several academic fields, because the issue is “a pressing and hot topic at the moment.” “I want everybody to realize that everybody can and everybody in some ways does work on inequality,” he said. “It’s actually something that can potentially unite us, and in that way, produce new interesting work, new interesting consumers, new ways of thinking about ourselves and the world.” Jackson said he sees the
seminar series as the beginning of building a research community on inequality at the University if the effort continues to receive funding in subsequent years, adding that the interdisciplinary study of inequality is a relatively new area of study in development. “I hope this is an indication that GW is going to start taking both a D.C.-wide leadership and – I hope, potentially – a national leadership role in defining how we study inequality,” he said. Bryan Stuart, an assistant professor of economics who helped Jackson develop the series and attended the first presentation, said the new approach to learning about inequality is useful for both scholars and students because it “broadens their horizons” with respect to researching inequality. “It allows you one, to just learn, which is valuable, but also to think about the different ways you might answer questions within your own discipline,” he said. Katrin Schultheiss, the chair of the history department who was also present at the first seminar, said said the history department has not hosted a Universityfunded seminar series in the past five years, adding that she was impressed with Jackson for creating the series despite arriving at GW just a couple years ago. “This is his second year here at GW, so he’s brand new, and he’s already taken the initiative to do this – to undertake a rather significant project to bring further scholarship – so I think that’s wholly admirable,” she said.
ALEXANDER WELLING | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR The history department is hosting two more seminars on inequality in society over the next few months.
Opinions
WHAT THE UNIVERSITY WON'T TALK ABOUT THIS WEEK How long some Thurston Hall residents will be displaced from their rooms. p. 1 FROM GWHATCHET.COM/OPINIONS
“GWPD should not be allowed to enter our rooms without probable cause or notice.”
November 18, 2019 • Page 6
— LAYA REDDY ON 11/14/19
IS COUNTER-PROTESTING AN EFFECTIVE FORM OF SPEECH?
Counter-protesting helps silence hateful rhetoric
Counter-protesting gives protesters the attention they want
A
nti-abortion protestors took their march into Kogan Plaza late last month, and I was proud of the way students responded. Minutes after the protestors arrived, students surrounded them with makeshift signs and chants to show their opposition to a pro-life position that is clearly not welcome for many students on campus.
If I disagree with a brick wall, I will find a way to move past it instead of hoping that it will bend to me. This is not cowardice, this is self preservation. I know what is and is not worthy of my time to discuss. Counterprotesting is not an effective tool to change minds – it only gives the original protesters the attention they want.
Nicole Caracappa Opinions Writer
Kiran Hoeffner-Shah Opinions Editor Students have counter-protested against white nationalists marching through campus, multiple pro-life activists, anti-transgender protesters and the Westboro Baptist Church, an anti-gay organization. Critics of counter-protesting may say it gives a platform to the initial protestors, who often unite in small groups. But counter-protesting is not about the platform, it is about drowning out hateful speech. Students did not protest these groups to gain attention or give platforms to hate groups – they protested to silence them. Being politically active is part of the campus culture, and that should not be limited to fighting for movements students support like gun control and stopping climate change. It should also encompass the fight to overwhelm movements that students do not support. Students should continue counter-protesting because it is a powerful tool to stand up to hate speech. Counter-protesting is not just about an individual student’s beliefs, it is also about standing up for the students who are affected by the initial protests. While the act is likely not going to change minds, it is not supposed to change minds. Instead, counter-protesting offers allies an opportunity to stand up for the people who are hurt by the opposing movement and gives people who are hurt the ability to stand up without feeling like they have to take up the fight alone. When Unite the Right 2 protestors marched through campus last year,
G
Cartoon by Hannah Thacker W’s D.C. location inspires activism students were rightfully fearful – the and change. It is easy to get caught first protest resulted in the death of up in movements to fight for your beone person. When anti-abortion protesliefs, but students should choose their battles tors came to campus last month, stuwisely. dents did not feel safe because of the Late last month, three evangelists entered protestors’ message. Anti-transgender campus grounds armed with megaphones protests in 2017 also made people feel and sky-high posters demanding that peounsafe. It is the responsibility of stuple repent for their sins and worship God. dents to show support for those who I texted my friends about it, and then it left feel unsafe in the face of protestors. my mind. I did not even remember that the Yelling back at a protestor sends protesters were on campus until they were a message to them that they are not met with a blockade of angry GW students welcome on campus and tells students in between Kogan Plaza and District House. who are hurt by hateful protests that Some stood in the face of the man speaking they are supported. Protesters should and argued with him while he spoke to the have their hate refuted at every stop, crowd around him instead of the individubecause ignoring it is as good as tolerals calling his attention. ating it. Standing up to controversial A couple of weeks later, I walked out of protests gives students the opportuclass to Christian protesters in Kogan Plaza. nity to affirm what is appropriate beTheir demonstration seemed unremarkhavior on campus. Even if it will never able to me, if not for the crowd of students change the minds of the protestors, it who formed around them and yelled back shows other students what is OK on at them. Instead of taking an alternate route campus and what is not. to my residence hall, I stopped and watched Students made the right decision the show. Again, the counter-protesters when they stood up to groups that shouted at men who did not seem to listen are unwelcome on campus. Students to the outraged students yelling in their ears. should not feel that they gave protesThese students devalued their own opintors a platform but should be proud ions by lending themselves to deaf ears. that they defended our campus from They should have turned away the moment hate, and they should keep doing it. they realized the preacher was not willing to –Kiran Hoeffner-Shah, a junior majorentertain a dialogue about religion, but they ing in political science and psychology, is stayed. the opinions editor.
The University should switch to an early action plan STAFF EDITORIAL
Students who applied early decision to GW earlier this month will soon hear back from the admissions office knowing they will likely afford the college they want. But not all students can say the same. Early decision is an opportunity for students to make a commitment to the University ahead of schedule. The policy has perks too, with relatively higher admission rates and a chance for officials to get a head start on building the next class. The early decision acceptance rate has been as high as 69 percent, while GW’s overall acceptance rate stands at about 41 percent. But early decision is not perfect for everyone – low-income students may be disadvantaged by the policy because they do not have the financial security to commit to an expensive school before knowing how much aid they will receive. Early decision makes sense for wealthy students. If GW is a student’s No. 1 choice, there is no reason not to apply. They will gain an edge in the admissions pool because the admission rate is higher, and they can send in a check as soon as they receive an acceptance letter. But if officials want a more diverse student body, an early decision policy does not help. GW should switch from early decision to early action so students of all financial backgrounds can apply ahead of schedule and still gain an advantage in the admissions pool. An early action program allows students to apply early in their senior year of high school without committing to the school.
Hatchet
Students do not need to submit grades from their senior year of high school, and prospective students still have a higher likelihood of being accepted than they would as regular decision candidates. The admissions process is meant to be a fair barometer of future college performance, not of a student’s ability to pay. It is unfair that the University allows students to apply early only if they can make a financial commitment to GW once they apply. GW aims to fill about one-third of the class through early decision applicants, which means students who are forced to apply regular decision face a more difficult admissions process. The University currently sends admissions officers to urban school districts to boost diversity in applications, and administrators should continue these trips. But GW cannot encourage prospective students who are worried about affording college to apply if administrators cannot offer them just as fair of a process as they offer to wealthier students. Students from low-income families might not have access to reliable high school guidance counselors who can suggest different admissions options, leaving some students in the dark about when and how to apply. Visiting low-income schools makes the process easier but does not solve the inequality caused by early decision. All of officials’ efforts to recruit students from historically disadvantaged backgrounds boil down to increasing diversity efforts, which cannot be
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The Daily should not have apologized for reporting STAFF EDITORIAL
fully accomplished until the University grants all students an equal shot at attending GW. The University has increasingly recruited more diverse classes for the past 10 years, but the trend can only continue if officials make the admissions process easier for poorer students. Ditching the early decision policy would ensure officials can consider students from all economic backgrounds knowing that they applied and have the freedom to choose GW based on their financial aid package. Early action programs are not new. Four of the University’s peer schools – Georgetown, Northeastern and Tulane universities and the University of Miami – offer early action programs. The universities of Southern California and Pittsburgh offer rolling admissions, meaning that there is no deadline to apply. Still, five of GW’s peers – Boston, New York, Tufts and Syracuse universities and the University of Rochester – only offer early decision or regular decision admissions. Switching from early decision to early action might hurt the University’s bottom line. Early decision is an indicator that students are committed to the University, and early action shows the same commitment without preventing low-income students from also taking advantage. Wealth should not decide college admissions, but GW’s early decision program gives richer students an unfair advantage. The University should eliminate early decision in favor of a more inclusive early action program.
The Daily Northwestern apologized for doing its job last week, sparking a nationwide conversation about the role of journalism on college campuses. Earlier this month, former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke at Northwestern University. Students protested the visit and caused damage to university buildings. Like countless campus newspapers do across the country, The Daily covered the event with reporters and photographers. The photographers at the protest had published their photos of the event, sparking outrage within the community as students feared disciplinary action from the university. But instead of standing by its coverage, The Daily said sorry for it. The newspaper’s editorial board explained that it betrayed the trust of the community and caused unintended upset from student protestors who did not want to be in the spotlight. But The Daily should not have backed down from its journalistic duties because of public pressure. The role of journalists is to tell the stories that happen within their community, to their community. The Daily is more than a college newspaper – it serves as a local paper for Evanston, Ill. Instead of apologizing, The Daily should have released a statement talking about its community relations and how it chose to talk to sources. Essentially, The Daily needed to explain how journalism works. Journalism ethics apply at all times in covering a story, especially when it comes to sensitive topics or events. It is at the discretion of journalists to assess situations and decide whether publishing something could put someone in danger or unfairly smear their reputation. The Daily was careful and courteous in
Sarah Roach, editor in chief
The GW
Leah Potter, managing director* Parth Kotak, senior news editor Dani Grace, senior news editor Shannon Mallard, assistant news editor Zach Schonfeld, assistant news editor Lia DeGroot, assistant news editor Jared Gans, assistant news editor Lizzie Mintz, contributing news editor Ilena Peng, blog editor Kiran Hoeffner-Shah, opinions editor* Hannah Thacker, contributing opinions editor* Sidney Lee, culture editor* Molly Kaiser, contributing culture editor Emily Maise, sports editor*
I was raised in a Catholic household, but like many others was pushed away from the church because of beliefs that I felt were alienating or conflicted with my own. These priests were not a shock to me. I have made peace with my relationship with the Catholic Church, which, unfortunately for these preachers, means their actions do not matter to me in the slightest. The recently popularized phrase “OK boomer” explains this attitude perfectly. Many older generations are so set in their ways that it is taxing to explain your own perspective to them. Every political discussion seems like you are put on trial to justify your opinions – unless you let it all go and realize that you do not have to prove yourself to anyone. If someone really wants to understand your opinion, they can put in the effort to look it up themselves. A street altercation is not meant to understand the other side, it is a call for attention and an invitation to fight. One demonstrator even admitted that they enjoyed protesting at GW because students pay attention to them and engage with them more than at other schools. But students should not waste their limited time and energy inciting disagreements and discussions that go nowhere – it is not activism, it is a waste of their time and emotion. These missionaries are not, nor will they be, the last to attempt to spark controversy on campus grounds. But the difference between the evangelists and an organized protest that directly threatens students is that they had no clear mission statement. These men were seeking attention, and what students gave them was attention. Students should think more carefully the next time they empower another desperate voice on the street. –Nicole Caracappa, a freshman with an undecided major, is an opinions writer.
Belle Long, contributing sports editor Alexander Welling, assistant photo editor Sarah Urtz, assistant photo editor Arielle Bader, assistant photo editor Jack Fonseca, assistant photo editor Lillian Bautista, contributing photo editor Danny Schapiro, video editor Heidi Estrada, assistant video editor Dante Schulz, contributing video editor Olivia Dupree, design editor Olivia Columbus, contributing design editor* Alyssa Ilaria, graphics editor Jack Liu, web developer Aaron Kovacs, contributing web developer
Kelly Hooper, copy editor Natalie Prieb, assistant copy editor* Ciara Regan, research assistant Alec Rich, research assistant Amy Liu, research assistant Ed Prestera, research assistant Katherine Abughazaleh, research assistant Meredith Roaten, digital manager Annie Dobler, social media director Kate McCarthy, contributing social media director * denotes member of editorial board Business Office
Andrew Shlosh, business manager Tyler Loveless, accounting manager
its reporting and did not deserve the backlash. But it should not have let its guard up when people got mad. Still, it is understandable why editors felt sorry for their actions. There is ongoing mistrust in news organizations and the topics they cover, and the paper must have felt mounting pressure from people who were offended or thought the editors were in the wrong for doing something right. While The Daily should not have given into the pressure of sources, it likely tried to mend already fragile relationships with the student body. The incident is not the first time we have seen student newspapers come under fire for doing their jobs. The Harvard Crimson received backlash because of its reporting on a protest to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and The Hatchet editorial board stood by the newspaper. Much like the case with The Daily, the community felt that The Crimson had betrayed them and gave names of undocumented individuals to ICE. In reality, The Crimson was telling the story with sensitivity and care. This growing divide between communities and the newspapers that serve those communities is troubling and can be fixed by explaining what journalism is, how it is done and why we report what we do. Free press outside of college has faced backlash countless times, and other college newspapers have experienced continuous criticism for covering the events they are allowed to cover. Journalism cannot exist without community trust and support. Students should better understand the role of the newspaper, and the newspaper should always stand by its coverage so long as it is reported with care.
Submissions — Deadlines for submissions are Friday 5 p.m. for Monday issues. They must include the author’s name, title, year in school and phone number. The GW Hatchet does not guarantee publication and reserves the right to edit all submissions for space, grammar and clarity. Submit to opinions@gwhatchet.com Policy Statement — The GW Hatchet is produced by Hatchet Publications Inc., an independent, non-profit corporation. All comments should be addressed to the Board of Directors, which has sole authority for the content of this publication. Opinions expressed in signed columns are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of The GW Hatchet. All content of The GW Hatchet is copyrighted and may not be reproduced without written authorization from the editor in chief.
THE GW HATCHET
Culture
CULTURE
November 18, 2019 • Page 7
THE
SCENE
HOZIER
The Anthem Nov. 18 • $90 “Take Me to Church” singer will bring soulful hits to The Anthem.
RELEASED
November 18, 2019 • Page 7
MATT AND KIM
9:30 Club Nov. 20 • $49 Indie pop duo Matt and Kim will perform Wednesday.
Students rack up extra cash with dog walking app REPORTERS
GRACE HROMIN | PHOTOGRAPHER Planet Word at the Franklin School will offer free admission to anyone who wants to learn about the history and impact of language.
Museum dedicated to words, language to open this spring REPORTER
A nonprofit museum dedicated to the history and influence of language and global communication will soon occupy a historic D.C. school. Planet Word at the Franklin School will become a free, interactive museum featuring galleries covering the history and development of words when it opens to the public May 31. Planet Word Executive Director Patty Isacson Sabee said visitors can expect to experience language in history through 10 different galleries highlighting forms of communication like jokes, word puzzles, karaoke and songwriting. “You’ll talk to the museum, the museum will talk back to you,” Sabee said. “First exhibit you might encounter is a 22-foot-high wall of three-dimensional words that respond to what you say to tell you origins of the English language.” Sabee said Planet Word founder and CEO Ann Friedman began creating the museum in 2013 while they worked as copy editors and taught reading at Montgomery County Public Schools. Sabee said Friedman was inspired to pursue the project while living in the Middle East and grew interested in connecting communities across the world through words and language. “To think about ways to connect community and unite community … and how to engage young people with read-
ing, it sort of blossomed into a larger vision around connecting people around word and language across all generations,” Sabee said. “All generations in this big idea that words and ideas matter.” Sabee said Friedman wanted to explore a topic that is not widely incorporated in museum exhibits. She said communication, language and words are universal mediums that connect people of all ages, and she wanted to combine words with a platform that is both fun and intellectually engaging. “We are all born curating our own words from the day we’re born,” Sabee said. “We’re curators. So why not be able to explore from the lens of a museum that looks at value to a community, that thinks in reflective ways about what matters and why it matters?” To carry out the project, Sabee said Friedman assembled a national and international advisory board with scholars, linguists and creative practitioners like Will Shortz, who creates the New York Times crossword puzzles, and Jason Reynolds, who writes young adult novels. Sabee said the advisory board members help generate ideas and decide how people will experience the museum through different displays of language and communication. “There are people with Ann and study with Ann the creative power of words and language, guiding on the narrative framework,” Sabee said.
Echostage Nov. 24 • $32.50 This sibling duo will perform songs from their recently released albums Sunday.
‘MIND THE MOON,’ AN ALBUM BY MILKY CHANCE
THIS WEEK:
CARLY NEILSON, RACHEL ANNEX & RHYMA ASIM
SHREYA SATAGOPAN
JADEN AND WILLOW SMITH
Friedman and Sabee, along with the advisory board, are working with Local Projects – a design company in New York, known for conceptualizing the designs in the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao – to create the exhibits for the museum. Sabee said the curators chose to open the museum in D.C. because the District intersects people who speak different languages and includes historical elements of the country. Sabee said Friedman wanted to house the museum in the historical Franklin School in particular because people often visit the District and reflect on the words behind U.S. governance, and the school has existed for more than 100 years of U.S. democracy. The Franklin School was developed 150 years ago to be the first building of comprehensive pre-public education in D.C., and it was the first flagship school to be able to carry forward a vision of free education. Sabee said the Franklin School would fit the museum’s mission to serve as an educational resource. “People can come to the museum and understand why it’s so powerful and important and fun and beautiful to engage with,” Sabee said. “They can understand those words and what that can do for you in terms of being a member of a democracy in a literate population.”
Students are always looking for ways to pocket quick cash, and some students’ side gigs involve furry friends. Wag!, a mobile app that allows workers to sign up for scheduled and on-the-spot walks, has given students opportunities to pick up extra money alongside classes and extracurriculars. Students who walk dogs through the app said Wag! is a convenient way to work around busy school schedules and still make money. “I was like, ‘I like dogs, I like walking and I like earning money,’” junior Sam Horowitz said. “It consolidates my three favorite things, so I might as well apply to it.” On the app, walkers can choose a dog that is available for a walk. Employees can sign up for the walk on an ondemand, scheduled or recurring basis, meaning you are required to walk the same dog on a certain day and time every week. Potential walkers apply online, answering quizzes about dog care and their experience with dogs and submitting five references for the position. Once a walker is approved, they are given access
to a list of dogs in the area that need walks for varying amounts of time. A Wag! customer is charged $20 for a 30-minute walk, but Wag! takes 40 percent of the amount to leave the walker with $12. Customers are given the option to tip walkers. Sophomore Lydia Burnett said she picked up three to four walks over the summer per week and walks about twice per week during the academic year. Burnett said she worked a full-time job in a lab but had “very little structure” on weekends, so she used the time to work with animals and pocket some extra money through Wag!. She added that she racked up about $100 per week over the summer and now earns between $12 to $24, which she uses to get her nails done or go kayaking. Junior Victoria Gogick said she prefers using Wag! over traditional jobs in offices, restaurants or retail because she can determine her own time commitment. Gogick said she used dog walking as a way to familiarize herself with D.C. as a freshman. “Wag! is more convenient than more traditional jobs because you can do it on your own time and it’s an easy and quick way to make
money,” Gogick said. “It’s like Uber for dogs.” She said she has walked all breeds of dogs, like dogs that weighed less than 10 pounds and slipped out of their harnesses, elderly hounds that are deaf and blind and larger dogs like a Great Dane. Gogick recalled walking a dog named Ralphie, who is 12 years old and has a heart murmur. The owner tipped her $20 after the walk and sent her an Amazon gift card because she handled the walk with care, she said. Freshman Drew Morris said he heard about the app from another student and applied to become a walker to stay active and spend time with animals. Morris said the app offers him a combination of “dog therapy” and exercise, referring to a labrador named Dexter he recently walked who did not want to stop walking toward the end. “Whenever Dexter knew we were heading home or the direction of home, he would just flat out lay on the ground and would not get up,” Morris said. “People who were passing by would laugh, and then I didn’t really know what to do, so I sat with Dexter for a little bit on the ground and finally he got his spirits up and we made it home.”
CAMILLE DRURY | PHOTOGRAPHER Students said the dog walking app Wag! is an easy way to pocket money on a tight schedule.
New courses to consider for your class schedule CARLY NEILSON & SARAH SACHS REPORTERS
As you roll out of bed for class registration this week, stay on the lookout for new courses to round out your schedule. Several professors are introducing new classes – like The Postwar Jewish Experience and Buddhism and Cognitive Science – next semester and bringing
back the class The Ghetto: History of a Concept, which has not been offered in more than two years. Professors said they are introducing or re-introducing these classes after conducting research on specific topics like the Holocaust and aging.
Buddhism and Cognitive Science
The Postwar Jewish Experience
Adult Development & Aging
The Ghetto: History of a Concept
Associate professor of honors and religion and international affairs Eyal Aviv said he is teaching Buddhism and Cognitive Science for the first time in the spring. Aviv said the class will explore the intersection between cognitive science and Buddhist philosophy, both of which he is trained in. “I think that conversation between them is a wonderful way to take an interdisciplinary approach that seems to be more and more important for young scholars in the face of the kind of academia that we have evolved to be,” Aviv said in an email. He said he wanted to offer the course after students approached him expressing interest in Buddhism and cognitive science. The class will look into the two paradigms separately, then dive into topics involving both fields – like attention, meditation and emotions, Aviv said. “I know that students are interested in Buddhism, and I know that there is also growing interest in cognitive sciences at GW,” Aviv said. “I thought it to be a potentially good match.” The course is offered to undergraduates and is capped at 10 students in the honors, philosophy or religious studies programs. Aviv said there is no prerequisite for the course.
Jenna Weissman Joselit, a professor of Judiac studies and history, will teach The Postwar Jewish Experience, which will cover the different ways the Jewish populations in Europe, the United States and Israel came to terms with the destruction caused by the Holocaust and learned to rebuild. The class is open to students in the history and honors programs. Joselit said she wants the course to be used as a way to compare the tragedy with modern issues of antiSemitism. “Many of the phenomena the course confronts – masses of people on the move with nowhere to go, the presence of vast refugee camps administered by the American government and reconstruction on a grand scale – have their counterparts in the pressing problems we currently face,” Joselit said. Joselit added that she does not want the course to be a lesson on the horrors of the past but a recognition on how society can move forward and progress. “For all of its disheartening moments, the course is also a testament to the resilience of the human spirit,” she said.
Adult Development and Aging will be taught for the first time next semester by psychology department chair and associate professor of social psychology Carol Sigelman. The course focuses on psychological development and aging in adult years in an attempt to break the misconceptions people hold about aging, Sigelman said. “I think it benefits everyone to have a richer understanding of issues facing people of different ages because we live and work with them every day,” she said in an email. Sigelman taught a variation of the class back in 2014 but hopes to continue teaching it at least once a year after next semester. She said the only prerequisite for the course is Psychology 1001, and the course is an elective that counts toward a psychology major. Sigelman said the class is a good fit for any student interested in sociology and human services, anthropology, speech and hearing, exercise science or public health. “I think knowing about human development and aging helps us understand ourselves and other people and helps equip us for careers working with people,” Sigelman said. “I’m now old enough myself to have special expertise on aging.”
Director of the Judiac studies program and associate professor of history Daniel Schwartz is bringing back the course The Ghetto: History of a Concept after he published his book of the same title in September. He last taught the Judaic studies course in spring 2017. Schwartz said his course explores the word “ghetto” through its origin and evolution throughout history. The course looks at four case studies: the origin of the word through the original ghettos of late medieval and early modern Europe; the immigrant enclaves of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in major Western cities; the ghettos of the Holocaust; and the modern context of the word “ghetto” associated with African Americans. Schwartz said students interested in the history of segregation, immigration history, holocaust studies and African American studies may be interested in taking the course. “I think one of the upshots of the course is that language is really a battlefield, and that so many of the pressing arguments that we have now happen to be arguments over words: what they mean, how they’re used, who gets to define them, and that’s a very much contemporary issue,” Schwartz said in an email.
Sports
November 18, 2019 • Page 8
GAMES OF THE WEEK
WOMEN’S SQUASH vs. Virginia Tuesday | 6:30 p.m. The Colonials look to hand the Cavaliers their first loss of the season.
NUMBER CRUNCH
28.25
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL vs.
Maryland Wednesday | 7 p.m. Women’s basketball hosts No. 8 Maryland in its first match against a ranked opponent this season.
The number of three-point attempts men’s basketball makes per game, compared to its opponents’ average of 13.5 attempts
Slow starts, three-point shooting bog down men’s basketball EMILY MAISE
SPORTS EDITOR Four games into the season, men’s basketball has struggled to hit shots from deep and adjusted slowly to teams in high-pressure games. The Colonials’ (1–3) last two games have been decided by two and four points, respectively. In the four games the team has played this season, the lead has changed 52 times, and the squad has remained cold from behind the arc, connecting on 31 of 113 three-point shots. “We need to make outside shots, right now I mean we’re seven-in-31 from the three today,” head coach Jamion Christian said after the team played Morgan State Saturday. “A lot of guys are wide open, taking these shots.” The Colonials have only shot at a .274 clip from behind the arc this season, down from last season’s average through four games and ranking them last in the Atlantic 10. The squad shot 36.3 percent last season through four games, more than its 31.1 season shooting percentage that ranked the team No. 11 of 14 A-10 teams last season. The team’s three-point shot attempts have increased from 72 last season to 113 this
year, and the team ranks second in the A-10 in three-point shot attempts. Junior forward Javier Langarica has gone 0-for-9 from behind the arc, and senior guard Justin Williams is 3-of-10 from deep. After the game against Howard, Christian said Langarica and Williams need to keep shooting to gain more experience, which will give them an edge over the course of the season. “They kept taking them because they make them in practice,” Christian said. “They’re going to make a lot of them in games, but you’ve got to have the ability to miss a few and really benefit.” Freshman forward Jamison Battle leads all players with more than 10 three-point attempts, sinking 12-of-35 attempts at a .343 clip. His 35 attempts also lead the team, and junior guard Maceo Jack and freshman guard Jameer Nelson Jr. follow behind, attempting 25 and 16 shots from deep, respectively. Christian said the team needs to remain confident in itself and continue taking shots from deep, a range the team has continuously worked on during practice. “Maybe our shots will start to fall next game,” Christian said. “When they do, that’s going to be really
ARIELLE BADER | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Freshman guard Jameer Nelson Jr. leads the men’s team in three-point shooting.
tough. And looking at the shot distribution, we’ve got guys taking shots from a range they can make and they make every single day, and they’ll step in there and they’ll make them as they get more comfortable.” The Colonials were unable to overcome their halftime deficits against Towson and American, dropping both games by 14 and two points, respectively. In the first half, the Colonials are averaging
29.5 points per game, an increase from last season’s 27.25 points per game. But last season, the Colonials saw two ranked programs in eventual NCAA champions Virginia and Sweet Sixteen-bound Michigan. This season, the squad hasn’t played a team that finished with a recent winning record. The Colonials have improved from the first to second half, scoring nearly sev-
en more points per game and averaging 36.25 points in the final frame. The team has turned the ball over 53 times this season, which Christian said contributed to the team’s slow starts. “At the end of the day, it just comes down to individual accountability and taking care of the ball and handling it in the ways we do in practice every day and carrying over on the floor,” Christian said after the squad played
Howard earlier this month. Rebounding has been a strong spot for the Colonials this season. The team averages 36.5 rebounds per game, ranking them eighth in the A-10 this season. The squad has nabbed 2.375 more rebounds this season. Senior forward Arnaldo Toro has proved to make a difference for the team this season on the boards. He averages 12.5 rebounds per game and leads the team with 50 boards, 30 more than Nelson Jr., who ranks second on the team. Toro’s 24-rebound effort against American tied Yinka Dare for the all-time A-10 record for rebounds in a single game. Last season, Toro averaged a team-leading 9.25 rebounds through four games. Toro’s absence was felt in GW’s game against Morgan State Saturday, when the squad grabbed just 29 rebounds. Christian said the team would have performed better on the boards if Toro was in the lineup. “No. 1 I think is not having AT, because AT’s getting about a fourth of our rebounds,” Christian said. The Colonials are back in action Friday in the Island of the Bahamas Showcase. Tip off is slated for 5 p.m. against UMKC.
Men’s and women’s squash drop matches to Virginia, Princeton TARA JENNINGS REPORTER
Senior Jaimeson Lee tips the ball during a game against Rhode Island Saturday.
ARIELLE BADER | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
Volleyball relies on blocking, serving in postseason return ROMAN BOBEK STAFF WRITER
Volleyball is headed to the Atlantic 10 Championship for the second time under head coach Sarah Bernson after missing postseason play last year. The Colonials (15–13, 8–6 A-10) closed out their last week of the season losing to Fordham (12–14, 9–5 A-10) and defeating Rhode Island (8–18, 3–11) to finish with a winning conference and overall record. Last season, the team’s 11–15 overall and 5–9 conference record prevented it from seeing the postseason. Bernson said in her three years as head coach, the program changes she pushed for came to fruition with the help of the team’s three true seniors – outside hitter Jordan Young, outside hitter Skylar Iott and setter Jaimeson Lee. “When you’re coming as a new coach, you’re changing culture, changing game plan, philosophies – it’s a lot,” Bernson said. “For that to be successful, you need their buy-in, their belief and their ability to lead.” Iott leads the team with 383 kills and is followed by graduate student opposite hitter Paty Valle with 186 kills of her own. Iott inks her name in program history as the seventh all-time in career kills with 1,121 to her name. Young ranks fourth among all players with more than 100 attacking attempts, swinging at a .205 clip on the offensive end. She is attacking at the highest percentage of her college career. Lee, who played all four years for GW, has garnered 873 assists this season and is on track to notch the most assists in her college career. She is currently ranked fourth in the A-10, averaging nine assists per set. Her 2,717 assists slide her into seventh
in all-time career assists. Bernson said she encourages players to ask themselves, “Are we who we say we are?” to help them focus on solidifying their team identity throughout the season. “If we’re a team that’s going to hustle for balls, then we need to do that,” Bernson said. “If we’re a team that’s going to block well, we’re going to need to do that. Serving and blocking have been really keys for us.” On the defensive side, graduate student middle blocker Caroline Sklaver has amassed 99 blocks and averages 1.02 blocks per set. The Colonials are ranked third in the A-10 in blocks per set, averaging 2.54. Freshman middle blocker Addie Feek and junior middle blocker Callie Fauntleroy are ranked No. 3 and No. 10, respectively, among all A-10 players in blocks per set. Sophomore libero Bella Bowman has also gathered 405 digs. She averages 4.18 digs per set, making her good for fifth in the A-10 in digs per set. In the game against Rhode Island, Bernson said she switched up the team’s attacking formation. She added that the game would help the team prepare against La Salle, which ran an offensive system similar to Rhode Island. As a team, GW has excelled from behind the service line, earning 158 aces over the course of the season. Valle has nabbed 37 aces, leading the squad and coming in at No. 3 in the A-10. The Colonials have played a cleaner game this season too, accumulating 157 errors to their opponents’ 215. Iott said the team has not made many changes throughout the season and instead wants to focus on what the team does well. She added that the squad’s strong serve-and-receive has set
it apart from other A-10 teams. “We’ve definitely solidified our serve pass,” she said. “We are a different serving team than a lot of teams, especially in this league. And so I think it wasn’t a change. It was just strengthening that throughout the season, because that does make us unique.” Iott said the team has become more productive in communicating, and every player can speak up and help one another learn and grow from mistakes. “If we’re comfortable enough on the court and off the court to correct each other, we have 14 other people helping us as players plus our coaches,” Iott said. “So it makes for a really good training environment and obviously it translates to the games.” The Colonials are slated to play La Salle in their first postseason matchup. The conference foe has already faced and lost to GW during the season in 3–0 and 3–2 victories Oct. 6 and Oct. 18, respectively. “It’s one and done at this point,” Lee said. “So if we don’t beat them, that’s it for us. And so we need to treat it like any other team that we’d be playing, rescout them.” Bernson said the team will prioritize slowing down La Salle’s offense and emphasize its own serving and blocking game. She added that the responsibility is on the team to expand its postseason run. “It’s hard to beat a team a third time,” Bernson said. “For us to continue in the postseason, we need to score on our own kills. We can’t just count on a point of error.” The Colonials return to action Friday at 3:30 p.m. against La Salle to kick off the A-10 tournament. – Emily Maise contributed reporting.
Virginia and Princeton downed men’s squash while women’s squash suffered the same fate against Princeton this weekend. The No. 8 men’s squad (1–1) fell to the No. 9 Cavaliers (5–0) Friday and the No. 4 Tigers (2–0) Sunday in 7–2 decisions. Princeton’s women’s squad (1–0), ranked No. 3 in the nation, defeated the No. 15 women’s team (1–1) Sunday 8–1. “It’s a great bar,” head coach Anderson Good said. “These are two hard teams, and that this is the level where we want to be, and I don’t think we’re all that far away from it.”
Friday
Men’s squash fell to Virginia 7–2 Friday in its first loss of the season. The matchup marked the first leg of the Washington-Jefferson Cup, an annual competition between Virginia and the men’s and women’s squads. Good said the team’s ladder shifted from its match against Georgetown, which caused players to compete at different levels on the ladder. “With that being the lens this is being looked through, I think this is terrific,” Good said. “There was still some adjusting to this higher level of play, but all in all, very strong from the two matches from the men.” Senior Jamie Oakley, who plays in the No. 3 spot, and junior Inaki De Larrauri, who plays in the No. 5 rung, earned the two GW victories Friday. Oakley won his first two games and lost in the third before coming back to win the fourth 11–6, while De Larrauri won in three tough games, two of which went into extra points. Five games extended past 11 points, and GW clinched three hard-fought games. Freshman Ian Blatchford, junior Luke Stauffer and freshman Karim Thabet pushed their matches to five games but fell short of the wins at the No. 9, No. 8 and No. 4 spots, respectively. Blatchford said the team’s preseason training allowed the squad to compete in the long games. “Well, the beep test we had to do definitely helps there,” Blatchford said. “But personally, I find myself in five-set matches a lot, and you just find it deep down somewhere, just the drive to keep going and win.”
Sunday
The Colonials fell to the Tigers
on both the men’s and women’s sides Sunday. Princeton’s men’s squad defeated the Colonials 7–2 with wins from Oakley and Blatchford. Both games went to five sets, and Oakley earned his second win of the weekend. “We knew that Princeton was going to be tough, but all in all, it was great,” Good said. “And a lot of the things that we’ve been trying to work on in practice, I directly saw improved in both the men and the women.” The men’s squad’s matches were hard fought with victories only coming from five-game matches. Four other matches went to four games and Thabet, playing in the No. 4 spot on the ladder, pushed his match to five games before falling to sophomore Daelum Mawji. Oakley said the men’s team lacked toughness this week, which proved to be the difference-maker against Virginia and Princeton. “Mental toughness comes into it a lot,” Oakley said. “I think we’re all physically there, we’ve been training a lot for this, but you know, when it comes to game day, it’s who’s mentally tougher on the court.” On the women’s side, the Tigers defeated the Colonials 8–1, with junior captain Zoe Foo Yuk Han earning the only victory in the No. 1 spot on the ladder. Foo Yuk Han earned her victory in only three games, with senior Engy Elmandouh taking a game against junior Emme Leonard before falling 3–1 in the No. 2 spot on the ladder. The remaining Colonials were cleanly swept in three games. “We were coming up against one of the top teams in the country, so obviously we weren’t really expected to win the game,” Foo Yuk Han said. “Coming in we felt really confident, especially with our first win over Georgetown. So I think that boosted the energy and our motivation to do really well.” Elmandouh said that while the team lost Sunday, it gained confidence to take on higherranked competition and will use that momentum against Virginia. “It’s always very exciting for the team, because we have this rivalry that fuels us every time, so no matter what match we just came off of, it just keeps the fire burning and it keeps us pushing even harder because we just want it so bad,” Elmandouh said. The women’s squad will host Virginia Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. The men’s team is back in action against Pennsylvania Saturday at 11 a.m.