The independent newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis since 1878 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2024
VOLUME 146, NO. 11
WONDER WOMAN
WWW.STUDLIFE.COM
SISTER, SISTER
A new exhibition questions feminism in the superhero’s story (Scene, pg 3)
Lizzy and Maggie Crist have one more year together as teammates ANTIGONE IN FERGUSON (Sports, pg 5) (Cadenza, pg 4)
After unbeaten regular season, No. 1 women’s soccer prepares for home playoff match RILEY HERRON LEWIS RAND MANAGING SPORTS EDITOR JUNIOR SPORTS EDITOR
On Saturday, Nov. 9, the No. 1 WashU women’s soccer team traveled to Chicago to take on the University of Chicago in the Bears’ final regular-season match. The Bears left Chicago with a 1-1 draw, but more importantly, an unbeaten record — a feat that the team last achieved in 2018. “It’s something we’re proud of,” senior Meryl McKenna said about the team’s regular-season record. “It’s not necessarily something we … always expected, thinking back to preseason. But we always take it one game at a time, and I think that mentality helped us get there.” The Bears — who are backto-back University Athletic Association (UAA) champions and who outscored opponents 63-6 in the regular season — will host a regional in the first two rounds of the 2024 NCAA Tournament. In the first round, WashU will face a familiar foe — DePauw University — in a new environment. WashU defeated DePauw 4-0 in mid-September as part of the Bears’ pre-conference campaign, and WashU will face DePauw again at Francis Field on Saturday, Nov. 16 at 5:30 p.m. The winner of
that match will play against either the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse or Simpson College on Nov. 17 at 7:00 p.m. Here’s everything you need to know ahead of this weekend’s matchups: How did WashU get here? After one of WashU’s most dominant regular seasons in recent history in 2023 — where the Bears shut out opponents through their first 15 games — expectations were high for the team, who entered the season ranked second in D-III. Just five minutes into the 2024 season, the Bears did something that they didn’t do for nearly 1,400 minutes in 2023. They gave up a goal in their season opener against Trine University. However, WashU responded with eight straight goals for their largest season-opening victory in 11 years. The Bears dominated their non-conference season, not giving up a single goal after their third match — a 3-0 victory against Westminster College (MO). They outscored nonconference opponents 53-3, and recorded just one draw with Calvin University on Sept. 23. The Bears’ biggest test came in late October, when they faced
BRI NITSBERG | MANAGING PHOTO EDITOR The Bears celebrate a goal during a win over UAA rival Carnegie Mellon. then-No. 3 Carnegie Mellon University and Case Western Reserve University, two of the best teams in the University
Athletic Association (UAA). WashU passed the test with flying colors, defeating Carnegie 3-0 and Case 3-1.
SEE WSOC, PAGE 7
Second annual Night at the Pageant sees lower turnout NINA LASER NEWS EDITOR
The second annual Night at the Pageant (NAP) — starring rap duo EARTHGANG and pop singer Bryce Vine — had a lower student turnout than last year’s concert, despite a $25,000 increase in the talent budget, with a total budget of $100,000. The concert happened last Friday, Nov 8. Senior Abby Sode, Vice President of Programming at Student Union (SU), said that the Social Programming Board (SPB) was happy with the attendance, though it was lower than projected. The SPB did not provide Student Life with an exact number or estimate of attendees. “For this being the second time we have held NAP, we are pretty pleased with the turnout, especially on a busy Friday night,” Sode wrote in an email to Student Life. Sophomore Isaac Trommer has
attended NAP for the past two years. “I still had fun, but I know other people that said they felt it was almost uncomfortable how few people there were,” Trommer said. “I felt bad for the artist, because why would you want to pull up to a concert and [perform] to 200, maybe not even 200, people?” Last year, NAP was piloted as a reimagined version of fall Walk in Lay Down (WILD), a concert that WashU used to hold once per semester, but that is now only offered in the spring. Senior Juan Sanchez, SPB Concert Chair, explained that the budget increase allowed them to bring co-headlining acts in an effort to increase student engagement, whereas last year there was just one main performer. “We believed that instead of doing one headliner and a smaller opener, two headliners could appeal to a wider audience from different genres,” he wrote.
He added that, unlike past WILDs and last year’s NAP, students were not surveyed about who they would want to see perform, instead opting to use a middle agent to find artists within budget. According to Sode, SPB is considering going back to using a survey to pick next year’s NAP headliner, but no decision has been made yet. The SPB did not turn down any undergraduate students who waited in line for tickets. Sode said the ticketing process was smoother this year— tickets were distributed in-person at the Danforth University Center (DUC) on a first-come, first-serve basis, rather than through an online lottery system like the year before. “The only students we turned down were graduate students, as they do not pay the undergraduate student activities fee,” Sode wrote. In their email prior to the concert, SPB had suggested that standby tickets at the door may be
limited depending on the capacity of the venue. However, due to low attendance and leftover tickets, they were able to accommodate students who showed up to the Pageant the day of the concert. Trommer said that he liked this year’s headliners, even though he knew only a couple of the songs. He noted that this was the same experience he had last year, with indie-pop band Saint Motel. Senior Vivien Marmerstein attended a WashU-sponsored concert for the first time at NAP. She echoed Trommer’s sentiments about low attendance, but agreed that it was an enjoyable experience. “I find events like this typically pretty overwhelming, so it’s not something that I generally enjoy,” Marmerstein said. “So in some ways it really worked out, because there weren’t that many people there so it was a lot less overwhelming than I think NAP would have been otherwise.” Both Trommer and
Marmerstein said that they hope that the SPB publicizes NAP more in advance to increase attendance. Trommer said that he didn’t know ticketing was happening until he walked into the DUC on Wednesday, Nov. 6 and saw the line. He said that while the process of getting a ticket was easier this year, last year, he felt that more people knew ticketing was happening. Marmerstein said that the timing of ticketing made it difficult for some people she knew to get tickets because they were in class during all of the times SPB was distributing them. “I didn’t mind that there weren’t that many people there, but obviously, our student funds are going into this event,” she said. “So it would be great if there was actually a full crowd of students there. So I feel like [SPB should publicize] it better and [give] more times for people to pick up tickets.”
LYDIA NICHOLSON, ISABELLA DIAZ-MIRA | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER, JUNIOR PHOTO EDITOR
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