The independent newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis since 1878 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2021
VOLUME 143, NO. 2
NEW PROFESSOR
Meet the creative nonfiction professor who is one of WU’s first race and ethnicity cluster hires (Scene, pg 4)
WWW.STUDLIFE.COM
SOCCER WINS
THEATER AGAIN
Both the men’s and women’s teams have yet to lose a game (Sports, pg 6)
A preview of the Performing Arts Department’s upcoming year (Cadenza, pg 8)
ACTIVITIES FAIR RETURNS
Transfer students move into Beta house as some members relocate to Alpha Delt WILLIAM LABRADOR STAFF REPORTER
HOLDEN HINDES | STUDENT LIFE
Members of the Pokemon Go club and Quill & Scalpel try to attract new members at this year’s activities fair.
SEE MORE, page 4
Testing access, student vaccination rate, exposure policy: Your campus COVID-19 questions answered GRACE KENNARD SENIOR NEWS EDITOR With 18 active COVID-19 cases on campus according to the Danforth Campus COVID19 Dashboard’s Sept. 3 update, Student Life sat down on Tuesday with two Washington University administrators, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Anna Gonzalez and Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Support and Wellness Kirk Dougher, to ask questions raised by the University community. Here are three of the big takeaways. Can students access COVID-19 testing from the University? Yes, free asymptomatic testing
is available for all students in room 239 at the Danforth University Center, though the University has not advertised it. “It is free for undergrad[uate] and grad[uate students],” Gonzalez said. “We just want to make sure that the testing is to find out if you have it, but not preventative of bad behavior.” Gonzalez and Dougher both stressed that they did not want the access to testing to affect student behavior. They emphasized the importance of preventative measures like masking and distancing over asymptomatic testing as a reactionary measure. Dougher also noted that some administrators are concerned that the testing site could get overloaded with students arriving for asymptomatic testing.
Many students have been under the impression that asymptomatic testing is only available at a cost. The misconception
stemmed from the only previously advertised resource for asymptomatic testing being the
SEE COVID, page 3
HN HOFFMANN | STUDENT LIFE
Students fill out paperwork as they wait in line to get vaccinated at the vaccine clinic on the WUSM campus last April.
International students overcome hurdles in accessing vaccines for WU mandate OLIVIA DANNER STAFF REPORTER Some international students have faced challenges accessing vaccines that comply with Washington University’s vaccine mandate as they return to campus for the 2021-2022 academic year. The University approved all vaccines with World Health Organization (WHO) Emergency Use Authorization to satisfy its vaccination requirement, but some international students had trouble accessing WHO-approved vaccines, others were worried the vaccine they received would not be approved by the WHO and a few even went ahead and got two doses of an WHO approved vaccine after receiving a different vaccine. “There are many international students who have gotten all kinds of vaccines and there are some that we have been able to approve and others we haven’t,” Executive Director of Habif Health and
Wellness Center Cheri LeBlanc said in an Aug. 23 COVID town hall. “I feel like we’ve talked to almost every international student that’s out there through the summer, making sure that we have made the right plan for them and to be sure that we are capturing the information accurately for everyone. And I will say it’s gone down to the wire.” Tim Wu, a sophomore from China, had received two doses of the Sinopharm vaccine by midJune. When he had received his first dose, Sinovac, the more widely available vaccine in China, was not yet approved by WHO, although it was approved soon after. Wu had worried that he would be unable to receive a WHO-approved vaccine. “I was worried at some point, because, especially when Sinovac was not included into the WHO list, at that time, most of the vaccination stations gave Sinovac,” Wu said. “Only a few stations gave Beijing Sinopharm, so I actually went
to three different places before getting vaccinated with Beijing Sinopharm.” Though Wu was able to receive a WHO approved vaccine before his arrival to campus, other international students have been unable to be vaccinated until coming to campus, something LeBlanc said the University expected. “We anticipated that some students would not be able to obtain a vaccine and had multiple communications from Habif and OISS (Office for International Students and Scholars) letting students know we would make vaccinations available upon their arrival and would work with them until they were fully vaccinated,” LeBlanc wrote in a statement to Student Life. To aid international students facing these difficulties, the University provided on-campus vaccine clinics and recommendations for off-campus clinics for students arriving on campus from abroad. “We had several COVID-19
vaccination clinics on campus corresponding to the dates most international students were arriving. Habif also provided students with multiple sites where vaccines were available for those international students who were arriving on other days,” LeBlanc wrote. LeBlanc added that the University extended the deadline for international students to get fully vaccinated and will provide these students with bi-weekly testing until they are able to receive a vaccine. Despite the challenges Wu faced accessing a WHO approved vaccine, he found University communication about the vaccine mandate very clear. “I think WashU’s policy was quite transparent, so it just released all the policies about vaccination in March or April so that we can have a clear view about which vaccines that are approved and which vaccines that are not approved, and
SEE VACCINES, page 2
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Without enough members to fill their fraternity house, some Beta Theta Pi brothers have moved into the Alpha Delta Phi house, while Beta’s house, House 22, has been converted into transfer student housing for the 2021-2022 academic year. The changes to on-campus fraternity housing come amid the continued activism of the Abolish Greek Live movement, which points to systemic problems in Greek Life such as racism, sexism, classism, heteronormativity and interpersonal violence. While Beta Theta Pi had 84 members in Spring 2020, that number dropped to 18 by the fall semester. In Spring 2021, the chapter recruited only five new members, bringing their total membership to 23 according to Campus Life’s Spring 2021 Fraternity and Sorority Life Report. In addition to declining Greek Life membership, the University has also seen an increase in transfer students due to the pandemic, according to Associate Director of Residential Life Will Andrews. With a high number of sophomore and junior transfers looking for housing, the University developed a goal of turning House 22 into a house for transfer students. “By converting the house to a transfer community, it allowed Residential Life to house more sophomore transfers in on-campus housing,” Andrews wrote in a statement to Student Life. Pandemic safety was another factor in the decision to make the housing changes, as the University restructured the housing provided for students and offered fraternities different options for compliance with COVID-19 rules. “Given the circumstances of COVID, fraternity chapters were provided three options for 20212022 academic year: remain in the chapter facility, merge with another fraternity or open their space to nonaffiliated members. Beta Theta Pi opted to merge with Alpha Delta Phi,” Executive Director of Campus Life Leslie Heusted wrote in a statement to Student Life. Social events at chapter facilities are also not allowed under current health and safety guidelines, Heusted wrote. Nearly 50 transfer students of all years moved into House 22 at the start of the academic year. Many students were happy with the community the house enabled them to form. “It’s been really good,” junior Yasmin McLamb, who transferred from George Washington University said. “Our house is surprisingly really tight-knit.” “It’s better than I expected because everyone here is so friendly and outgoing,” said sophomore Ashley Yap, who transferred from Malaysia. “I feel really welcome here.” Even transfer students who do
SEE TRANSFERS, page 2
2 STUDENT LIFE
GRACE KENNARD & ORLI SHEFFEY | SENIOR NEWS EDITORS | NEWS@STUDLIFE.COM
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SCATTERED SHOWERS 77/64
EVENT CALENDAR THURSDAY 9 Leadership Perspectives: Reality Bytes Virtual Event, 2:30 p.m. There are two truisms about the tech field. One is constant change; the other is it’s a man’s world. Women make up about 25% of all IT employees, a seemingly low number except for the fact that it’s been steadily growing over the past decade. So what’s the secret for women to break into tech-related business? How can they be successful? And what leadership skills will keep them at the top? WashU Olin welcomes Lisa Nichols, CEO and cofounder of Technology Partners, a provider of premier IT staffing, solutions and software. She also hosts the interview podcast Something Extra, which shines a light on each guest’s distinct leadership qualities. Nichols will sit down with communications professor Staci Thomas for a conversation that touches on many aspects of business in the technology space, including female representation (or, more appropriate, the lack thereof), innovation, entrepreneurship and values-driven leadership.
FRIDAY 10 Opening Weekend: The Outwin Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, 11 a.m Join us for the opening weekend of The Outwin: American Portraiture Today. Be among the first to see this major exhibition from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, featuring the finalists of the Portrait Gallery’s fifth triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. Free and open to the public; no registration necessary.
SATURDAY 11 We Belong! CS@WashU Urbauer Hall 304, 1 p.m. Our goal is to bring together women in computing from WashU and the St. Louis area to promote computing to female first-year students. Returning participants are very welcome – the event will have a different panel and different hands-on sessions.
SUNDAY 12 Public Tour: ‘The Outwin: American Portraiture Today’ Virtual Event, 2 p.m. Join student educator Jay Buchanan, graduate student in the Department of Art History & Archaeology in Arts & Sciences, for an online tour of The Outwin: American Portraiture Today. This exhibition features the finalists of the National Portrait Gallery’s fifth triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. The selected portraits in a variety of media respond to the current political and social context, offering perspectives on a range of themes of sociopolitical relevance, including immigration, the status of American workers, mass incarceration, gun violence, and LGBTQ+ rights.
MONDAY 13 Not Just Pretty: Clothing Innovation for Health Virtual Event, 12 p.m. This seminar is part of the monthly Issues in Aging series that highlights current research and perspectives on aging-relevant issues from experts in medicine, social work, psychology, law and more. Join us for our September installment of Issues in Aging, Not Just Pretty: Clothing Innovation for Health, featuring Mary S. Ruppert-Stroescu, associate professor of fashion design at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.
TUESDAY 14 Improving the Quality of Life for Residents of Neighborhoods of Concentrated Poverty Virtual Event, 12:30 p.m. Neighborhoods with high rates of poverty present challenges that negatively affect residents’ health and impede individuals in their choices and achievements. Even the most committed leaders often struggle to identify the interventions that will most meaningfully improve the lives of local residents. Join Washington University’s Executive Vice Chancellor Hank Webber for an examination of these complex issues and a discussion of what fifty years of efforts have taught us about reducing multi-generational poverty. Register online to receive Zoom information on the morning of the event. You can also join us during the live stream. of Georgetown University.
VACCINES, from page 1 clearly WashU is very inclusive. It accepts all WHO certified vaccines,” Wu said. Other international students have chosen to get re-vaccinated upon arrival in the United States, due to the significantly higher efficacy rates of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. Freshman Leonard Zhao received two doses of Sinovac in China in March and then received two doses of Pfizer in the U.S. in August. “I tested my antibody value, and the value is very low, so, I thought I could get Pfizer in the U.S.,” Zhao said. “I mean I [would have] to get Pfizer in the U.S. in the future, so I think, why not just get it in New York, so I got [a dose of] Pfizer in a CVS pharmacy, and then also the CVS Pharmacy here on Delmar.” When getting his first dose of Pfizer, Zhao did not reveal to the employees at CVS that he had already received two doses of Sinovac in China. “I heard someone say that if you’re going to get vaccinated from the University on campus, you should
not tell them you got vaccinated in China, because they might not give you a vaccination because you have already vaccinated,” Zhao said. “When I got the vaccine in CVS, I was saying, ‘I’m getting the first dose of Pfizer,’ so I didn’t even mention I got vaccines in China.” LeBlanc clarified the University’s policy towards students receiving four doses of COVID-19 vaccines. “There were a number of students from China who received one dose of Sinopharm and one dose of Sinovac vaccines,” LeBlanc wrote. “Which vaccine they received was not negotiable to the student. Since this combination was not WHO-authorized, we are in the process of re-vaccinating them with an FDA-approved vaccine.” However, the University does not encourage international students to receive four doses of COVID-19 vaccines if they were fully vaccinated in China with two doses of either Sinovac or Sinopharm. “For those who received two doses of either
Sinopharm or Sinovac, which is WHO-authorized, we did not require further vaccination,” LeBlanc wrote. Freshman Mona Li has also considered getting two doses of an FDA-approved vaccine after getting fully vaccinated in China, but she would first want more information from Habif about the safety of receiving four doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. Like Wu, Li received the Sinovac vaccine and worried at first that it would not be approved by the WHO before school began. However, Li trusted the University to instate mandates with which international students could reasonably comply. “I believed that they [were] going to approve us eventually, because all of my friends are coming to the U.S. to study,” Li said. “The government or the school is going to eventually figure out a way for us to come here, so we’ve got to approve Chinese vaccines.”
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2021
New WUSM research shows how early implementation of social distancing measures in St. Louis saved lives MEHEER COMMURI CONTRIBUTING REPORTER The Washington University School of Medicine published a study concluding that early health orders issued by St. Louis public officials likely prevented thousands of hospitalizations and deaths, saving the city from a disaster, Sept. 1. The study, led by Washington University Professor of Medicine Dr. Elvin H. Geng, found that a delay of just two weeks in implementing social distancing measures would have led to a “nearly six-fold total increase in deaths,” using a model of the COVID-19 pandemic in accordance with St. Louis’ demographics and policies. Such a short delay could have created a situation resembling that of a more heavily affected area, such as New York City. The study also concluded that, among multiple behavioral theories, immediacy is the most crucial component to creating a successful public health procedure. David Ansari, a medical anthropologist and professor at Washington University, said that this study is not just another piece of academic groupthink but is instead highly relevant. “I think we can generalize from these findings and see that had certain measures been put into place even earlier on, it could have had a much different effect, which would have translated to the saving of lives and protecting people from this really dangerous pandemic,” Ansari said. If the response was delayed by one week, the study predicts that the number of deaths by April 15 would have reached a median projection of 219 instead of the actual observed number, 115. As a result, larger cities like New York and Boston can learn from St. Louis, where county and city public officials acted swiftly in issuing health orders before the severity of the pandemic was apparent. “When an epidemic is taking off, at that moment, it’s important for leaders to have the courage to make a decision that could be unpopular and to do so before it’s obvious,” Geng said. “There are instances in America where we did it [issuing health orders] too late. New York City did it too late. There were tons of people saying we need to close things down and New York
waited and waited until the hospitals filled up, by which time it was too late. By the time it’s obvious, it’s too late.” Others have pointed to the state of Missouri, its more rural counties in particular, as needing to learn from St. Louis, highlighting the disparity between health orders in the different areas. “I think there was [a disconnect],” Geng said. “The severity of the epidemic is worse in rural places than in urban places. That is in part because people living in urban places had more in the way of sustained behavior change.” Ansari said that Missouri would have been in a better situation had it followed the direction of St. Louis. “I think that Missouri would be much better off in terms of its numbers, both in terms of infections but also in terms of deaths, if similar approaches were followed as were implemented in St. Louis and in the surrounding communities,” Ansari said. Ansari also argued that disparities in vaccination rates between St. Louis and Missouri overall have had an even worse impact than disparities in public health orders. At the time of publication, there are 27 counties in Missouri where the vaccination rate is below 30%. Ansari explained that the unvaccinated population of Missouri affects the vaccinated population in two ways, in terms of the virus itself and psychologically. “In places [in Missouri] where there’s a low uptake of vaccines, it can potentially lead to more resistant strains which can not only affect people who are unvaccinated but can potentially be worse for people who have the vaccine.” He continued, “I think it’s kind of demoralizing really, to know that we need to have a certain threshold in the general population that’s vaccinated in order to reach a certain level of safety. To know that there’s a significant portion of the state that isn’t even getting close to that threshold, I think it does take a kind of psychological toll, more broadly.” An emerging area of scholarship is focused on why people do or do not follow public health orders, get vaccinated or care about the pandemic. Psychologists, neuroscientists and sociologists are all trying to find answers. “The emotional brain circuits that you carry with you
TRANSFERS, from page 1 not live in House 22 have been walking over from the South 40 to hang out with other transfers, Yap said. “I just think it’s nice that WashU gave us a house for all the transfer students,” she said. Those positive experiences come despite students’ initial apprehensions about living in a former fraternity house. Before moving in, many worried about the living arrangement, especially since House 22 and the Alpha Epsilon Pi house are located in the same building unit. “The frat house was my last choice and I think a lot of other people’s last choice,” McLamb said. “I think it’s a thing now, that they put the transfers in frat houses [in the same building] with other frat house members, so I was a little scared coming in.” Since moving in, though, McLamb and others have been pleased with the condition of the house. “In the basement there’s a trophy room with relics dedicated to the old frat, so as a collective we went through it and read the history, but other
than that it’s just a really nice house,” McLamb said. “It’s wonderful.” This is not the first time multiple Greek Life groups have lived together in the same house. Fraternity houses have been used to house a combination of fraternities, sororities and non-Greek students several times over the last 30 years, Heusted wrote. The housing changes come as the University continues conversations about space equity on campus. The Abolish Greek Life movement has maintained that institutional, on-campus housing for fraternities creates an unequal power dynamic. In the spring, Rob Wild, then interim vice chancellor for student affairs, agreed that “fraternities do have unequal access to housing space on campus compared to other organized groups.” The University will convene a space allocation advisory committee this fall, Heusted wrote, adding that the group would work “to create a more equitable approach to distributing, assigning and
do influence your cognitive decisions and often in ways that you don’t understand,” professor of behavioral neuroscience at the University at Albany, Dr. James Stellar said. “Here, I think what’s happened is that people have gotten tribal, ‘it’s my tribe telling me not to do this.’ It [this logic] often happens unconsciously.” One of the other conclusions of the study is that local decisions matter just as much as, if not more than, those made at the national level. “Local decisions do matter in universal epidemics,” Geng said. “Local decisions were the crux of how we responded to the pandemic.” Ansari agreed on the importance of local and state public health decisions but admitted that it is hard to say whether these things are better issued at the national level. “I think it is important to attend to the needs and resources in a local context, but at the same time, if we did have a coherent approach that was nationally dictated in this country, we would have been much better off in terms of where we are with the pandemic, now,” Ansari said. Stellar, though, argued that these decisions are best issued at the local level. He said that people are more likely to listen to someone they feel like they know and trust. “If these orders come out from the top, they might have an opposite effect. People will think, ‘Oh, that’s just the government pushing me,’” Stellar said. Geng said that the fight against anti-science and the disregard for public health is “a lasting struggle.” However, he maintained the importance of scientific research centers, such as the School of Medicine, in producing knowledge. He also said that it is the burden of academia and the research university to create a society that values such knowledge. “People generally believe what they believe, and if you look on the internet, you can find supporting evidence for whatever you want to believe,” Geng said. “I’m not totally hopeful that some study based on an epidemiologic model is going to change a lot of opinions. On the other hand, I still think there is a role for science in society and we will hopefully get to a point in the future where we can have these conversations.”
allocating storage, suite and residential facilities.” However, Assistant Director for Sorority and Fraternity Life James McLendon maintained that despite a difficult year for Greek Life, further housing changes are not a given. “With the combination of COVID and Abolish Greek Life, it is difficult to actually identify a trend in membership.” McLendon wrote. McLendon also spoke to positive aspects of Greek Life in a statement to Student Life. “Sorority and fraternity life can provide a great deal to the community,” McLendon wrote. “Most specifically a comprehensive student experience that promotes bonding, leadership/personal development, scholarship and service to the community it is a part of.” Members of Alpha Delta Phi declined to comment on their living experience with the Beta Theta Pi members. Beta Theta Pi president Noah Proft did not respond to email requests for comment. Matthew Friedman contributed reporting.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2021
NEWS
GRACE KENNARD & ORLI SHEFFEY | SENIOR NEWS EDITORS | NEWS@STUDLIFE.COM
STUDENT LIFE 3
WU students start second undergraduateled philosophy review in the country SYDNEY CRUMP STAFF REPORTER The Washington University Review of Philosophy (WUROP), an undergraduate-led journal, published its first issue with the theme of aesthetics Aug. 18. The annually-produced journal is the second of its kind after The Harvard Review of Philosophy. Juniors Nathan Hirscher and Rohan Srivastava, Co-Editors in Chief of WUROP, began thinking about starting the journal in spring 2020 after finding inspiration in The Harvard Review of Philosophy. WUROP eventually became the third branch of the Washington University’s Philosophy Club. The editors created an action plan of four steps for producing the first issue of the journal, consisting of researching the theme, soliciting unpublished pieces of work from expert philosophers, editing submitted pieces and publishing the issue. “The hardest part about the solicitation process is rejection,” Hirscher said. “People are very busy, so it hurts when you do a deep-dive on a particular philosopher, you learn as much as you can about their work and then [they are] busy.” The editorial team worked to make academic work on philosophy written by expert philosophers more understandable for undergraduate students and those who are not familiar with the subject.
“Another goal of the journal as a project or an institution is to support the idea of Wash. U. students interacting with professional philosophers,” Srivastava said. “And one of the ways we do that is through creating opportunities for students to interview philosophers that they are interested in and then publish those interviews.” The interviews with philosophers contribute to the journal’s goal of accessibility. It is also fairly uncommon in journals to see undergraduates interviewing experts in philosophy, according to Philosophy Professor Nicholas Koziolek. “I think having undergraduate students interviewing professional philosophers about their views in this way is something that doesn’t normally happen,” Koziolek said. “And so I’m sort of hopeful that that could be a thing that can give this journal a unique place in the profession.” Koziolek served as a guide for the editorial team of WUROP, offering them encouragement and support in LaTeX, a program the staff used to create the journal. “All of the students who were editing this are unbelievably self-motivated and it’s a really impressive group of students that we have in the Philosophy Department right now involved in the Philosophy Club and getting the journal going,” Koziolek said. WUROP is free to download, unlike many other philosophy journals and
publications. The editorial staff continuously advocated with the Philosophy Documentation Center to ensure that the journal would be published as open access. “We were surprised and very fortunate to get a lot of support from the Philosophy Documentation Center,” Srivastava said. The creation of WUROP near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic came with challenges. Many of the meetings and workshops were conducted over Zoom. In addition, creating a journal was a completely new experience for most of the editorial staff. “I think it was really difficult to start a journal during COVID, while we were all on Zoom,” Managing Editor of WUROP Hannah Grimes said. “When you’re collaborating on something like that, you need weekly editing workshops, weekly writing workshops and reading workshops — you need to see each other in person.” The WUROP staff recently began working on the next issue of the journal by determining a theme and will begin the solicitation process soon. Both Hirscher and Srivastava hope to build a solid foundation for WUROP’s future. “My hope is to sit down and read the fiftieth issue 50 years from now,” Hirscher said. “My hope is that this project is sustainable, it’s exciting for undergraduate students and it also is a meaningful experience for both editors and the people submitting to our journal.”
HOLDEN HINDES | STUDENT LIFE
Juniors Nathan Hirscher and Rohan Srivastava began working on WUROP in spring 2020.
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COVID, from page 1 Kingshighway site, where tests cost $50. The University COVID-19 response information page does not communicate that asymptomatic testing is available for students free of charge on the Danforth Campus. It mentions that free symptomatic testing will be provided for the University community.
pushed back and a number of students are still waiting on their second doses. “We have… 100% compliance for students living on campus,” Gonzalez said. “They are in compliance: either having some exemptions and other testing or they’re fully vaccinated.”
What is the vaccination rate for the student population?
What should asymptomatic students do if they are exposed to COVID-19?
It is at least 96% currently, with the expectation that it will eventually be above 99%, Dougher said. He clarified that the vaccination rate is currently a “rolling number” as the deadline to submit documentation was
Students can either take the screening at screening.wustl.edu or just call Habif directly, the administrators said. “Call Habif and they will [talk] you through those conversations and then even the contact tracing,” Gonzalez said,
encouraging students to not try to navigate contact tracing and potential exposure on their own. “As per CDC guidelines, [asymptomatic] vaccinated contacts do not need to quarantine,” Dougher said, adding that Habif will communicate higher levels of guidance regarding masking, distancing and testing to exposed students. The CDC currently defines close contacts as someone who is within six feet for a total of 15 minutes or more within two days prior to illness onset regardless of mask wearing. Orli Sheffey contributed reporting.
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4 STUDENT LIFE
SCENE OLIVIA POOLOS & JULIA ROBBINS | SCENE@STUDLIFE.COM
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2021
Punk and literature collide for new professor G’Ra Asim OLIVIA POOLOS SENIOR SCENE EDITOR G’Ra Asim, a new assistant professor of English at Washington University teaching Creative Nonfiction, can often be found either in front of an undergraduate classroom or at center stage of a punk rock concert — both places he feels comfortable. Asim is one of four faculty members who have either been hired or promoted as part of the University’s first race and ethnicity cluster hire. The initiative was proposed by Chancellor Andrew Martin during the refocused attention on racial inequality that occurred in the wake of George Floyd’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. When Asim first saw the proposed English professor position in the Chronicle of Higher Education, he didn’t seriously consider applying until two important people in his life — his mother and a close friend — encouraged him to look into the job further. “Having two prominent people in my life tell me [to apply], see, that kind of woke me up,” Asim said. Asim believes that the University’s attempt to
build a program focused on antiracism education is a step in the right direction toward creating tangible change. “I think a lot of people paid lip service to this notion that the summer of 2020 exposed fissures in the social fabric that we need to repair, but at WashU, they’ve really put their money where their mouths are,” he said. However, Asim knows that the process of engaging in antiracist work isn’t easily accomplished by a single new course or program. “Whatever [these things] the reckoning purported to solve…are messy and uncomfortable. And they have accumulated over a long time,” he said. “We’re not going to get past them in one conversation, one class period, one semester, but we can sort of peel back that surface layer and get into the muck of these things.” Prior to his role at WashU, Asim worked as an assistant professor of nonfiction writing at Ithaca College and as the writing director at the African American Policy Forum, a gender and race justice think tank at Columbia Law School.
He also has a book under his belt, a nonfiction work entitled Boyz n the Void: a mixtape to my brother. Asim credits the process of writing the book, which came out in April 2021, to shaping his most current version of himself. The book is written to and for his brother, who is 14 years younger than Asim. It is a combination of memoir, music critique, cultural critique and personal essay. “I think the process of writing and researching Boyz n the Void and revising it a number of times helped me to learn a lot of things about myself as a thinker, as an artist and as an educator,” he said. Asim also comes from a background of punk, a genre of rock music that grabbed his interest early in life. Since 2017, Asim has been a vocalist and bass player for the punk band Baby Got Back Talk, which is based in New York City. Once they’re confident that COVID19 no longer poses a significant threat, Asim plans to travel back and forth between NYC and St. Louis to practice and perform. Despite the very different environment of the
COURTESY OF G'RA ASIM
Asim was recently hired by the WashU English Department as part of the University’s first race and ethnicity hire wave.
classroom and the stage, Asim finds that both of his passions share some similarities. “Teaching is very much a performance, literature is very much performance on the page, and I feel like I take things from both of those spheres,” he said. Often, however, Asim has an affinity for the side of him that comes out in a punk rock performance. “I always feel like a punk in disguise, like a person whose core self is perhaps best expressed on stage or in a mosh pit but who was
kind of traveling incognito into other zones,” he said. In the end, Asim prizes the chaotic and political affiliations of both punk — which is often a criticism of authority — and his work in writing and teaching. “[I am] somebody who really prizes energy, irreverence and imagination,” he said. “And I feel like those are things that are really central to my artistic practice, and I hope are legible in my teaching practice.” So far Asim has experienced just over a week
of WashU classes. While still exercising caution due to COVID, he’s thrilled to teach in-person and is encouraged by the energy that he’s felt from the community. “Everyone that I’ve come across within this intellectual community is professing a commitment to elevating their own literacy about these issues and fostering a campus environment that is more hospitable to anti-racist knowledge production, and to students of diverse backgrounds,” he said.
Face-to-face at last: Fall activities fair indicates a promising start for student groups KEONA DORDOR CONTRIBUTING WRITER Last Friday, with an earthy post-rain smell hanging in the air, hundreds of student organizations and thousands of students flocked to Mudd Field for the biannual activities fair. White shoes were muddied as students crouched to add their names to mailing lists and accumulated handfuls of flyers. After a year of virtual or almost non-existent programming for many organizations created unique barriers to involvement for the class of 2024, this semester’s club leaders aimed to recruit sophomores in addition to freshmen. Senior Alicia Yang, director of outreach for student-run health publication Frontiers Magazine, noted the current deficit of sophomores in her organization. “I think it was really difficult [to maintain first-year student participation], especially because we already had infrequent meetings,” she said. Frontiers is a publication that draws upon students
interested in medicine, art and writing, so the organization has historically thrived on collaboration between students with majors that don’t often intersect. “The editor and illustrator and writer work together, but doing that over Zoom and setting up those meetings, especially initially for new students, is very difficult,” she said. “So I don't think we had a lot of first year involvement [last year].” Many other organizations also struggled to shift to the virtual format necessitated by the pandemic, making it harder for new members to participate in activities and bond with group members. Senior Eric Song, vice president of the service group MedEd, noted similar difficulties in developing active members of the club during the previous year. “[There were] people that would be technically in the club on the Slack channel, but probably wouldn't be engaged as much in the club because we didn't have much in-person programming or because of the time zone difference,” he
CURRAN NEENAN | STUDENT LIFE
Junior Marc Ridgell, Black Anthology’s 2021-2022 producer, holds up a sign for the annual production at this year’s activities fair on Mudd Field. This was the first in-person activities fair since spring 2020, following the University’s COVID-19 shutdown.
said. Even though MedEd had a long member list, Song noted low participation. “I would say we were pretty successful with recruitment, but in terms of retention and engaging throughout the entire
duration of the semester, that was probably the more difficult challenge,” he said. When the activities fair took place virtually in 2020 — before freshmen even stepped foot on campus — many students eagerly signed up for more
CURRAN NEENAN | STUDENT LIFE
A student considers their next move; members of the Chess Club played blitz games against prospective members to garner interest.
clubs than they ended up engaging with. The lack of physical meetings made it challenging for students to feel the energy of community in different clubs, and so while several of this year’s sophomores are technically part of organizations, they have often been less involved in their activities than they would be in a normal year. Sophomore Gabi Grasso attended the fair to search for new communities on campus. Although she is already involved in a few clubs, Grasso said that she wants more from her extracurricular life after having a hard time connecting with other club members in a virtual space. “I did feel quite lonely throughout last year just because I wasn't seeing a lot of people in person,” she said. Throughout the fair, Grasso made it a point to limit the number of flyers she took and mailing lists she joined. “I definitely
didn't go at it with the same approach that I did last year where I just kind of signed up for anything,” she said. In the coming year, Grasso hopes that increased in-person programming will allow her to bond with more people. “Although I did get to know [other club members] a little bit, I wouldn't say that I made too many really close friends,” she said. Senior Emma Rich, co-president of the WashU Hip-Hop Union (WUHHU), encouraged students who weren’t able to join clubs last year to take advantage of this semester’s opportunities. “I definitely do expect a greater number of sophomores auditioning than we've experienced in the past,” Rich said. “I would hope that sophomores who were either remote or didn't audition last year just for personal or extracurricular reasons would do so if they wanted to.”
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2021
SPORTS
GRADY NANCE & CLARA RICHARDS | SENIOR SPORTS EDITORS | SPORTS@STUDLIFE.COM
STUDENT LIFE 5
Lessons from football’s season-opening loss to Chicago CLARA RICHARDS SENIOR SPORTS EDITOR On paper, there is little major riding on the results of the Founders Cup, an annual beginning-of-theyear football matchup between Washington University and the University of Chicago. The two teams do not play in the same conference, so when they meet, they are not battling for a seat in the playoffs or a conference championship. Yet on Saturday morning, as the two programs faced off in front of the Chicago skyline, the game felt anything but low-pressure in the 34th, but final, matchup between the traditional rivals. For the Bears, the game represented head coach Aaron Keen’s first shot at defining a new era for a team in a transitional spot. UChicago, on the other hand, was aiming for permanent bragging rights, as they have dropped WashU as a future football opponent after five consecutive losses in the matchup. WashU’s 31-21 loss to its nemesis leaves the Founders Cup officially in Chicago, a disheartening conclusion to a decadeslong rivalry. Chicago surged ahead in the first minutes of the game, mounting a 14-point lead in just over seven minutes of possession. After
winning the coin toss, the Maroons steadily gained ground, and the WashU defense was unable to respond, giving UChicago the chance to score their first touchdown. Less than two minutes after WashU gained possession, junior quarterback Matt Rush’s pass in Chicago territory was intercepted, allowing the Maroons to further jump ahead. From there, it was a battle back and forth; WashU responded with three touchdowns but was unable to match Chicago’s offensive strength. While the Bears notched 328 net yards passing to the Maroon’s 219, WashU struggled in rushing, gaining only 1.9 yards per rush. While the total offensive yardage of both teams seems similar at first glance, a stymied run game left the Bears unable to gain the ground they needed. They had the chances — and the majority of the possession time of the game — yet they were unable to execute. One highlight for the team was the plays made by special teams. The kickoff return unit gave the offense tremendous starting field position and varied Chicago’s offense with WashU’s placement of the ball. It was a day of judgement for quarterback Matt Rush, who had not played a full game since 2018 and had big shoes to fill from
GRACE BRUTON | STUDENT LIFE
WashU running back John Fisher runs for short yardage in a 2018 game against the University of Chicago. The Bears fell to UChicago 31-21 in their season opener on Saturday.
former starting quarterback Johnny Davidson. It was a mixed day, as the junior threw for three touchdowns but also yielded two interceptions that gave vital points to the Maroons. Keen acknowledged that the Bears need to rely on Rush to make better decisions in some high-pressure plays. Still, Keen thinks that his quarterback is “a really intelligent, smart, ultra-competitive football player,” he said. “I have no doubt that he will work hard to improve where he made some mistakes. And that’s all you can ask for.” To a certain extent, Keen is still taking stock of many of his players, with two
classes who have never played football at WashU’s varsity level. Many of them rose to the occasion. Keen pointed to Collin Hoyhtya, a sophomore who led the receivers with 127 yards and two touchdowns, as a player who had not played a significant number of snaps yet had an impressive game. “We’ll be continuing to rely on some of that youth on our roster as the year goes on, and hopefully these guys continue to progress and get better and better,” he said. “We’ll certainly need to get better as we get going through our season.” The Bears will play two junior varsity games before
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their next varsity contest, a home game against North Park on Saturday, Sept. 18. The bye week, Keen said, could not have come at a better time for them, since the Bears will rely on the JV games to test younger players on the roster while for the varsity players, the next two weeks will be devoted to improving schemes and becoming more cohesive offensively and defensively. “I do believe that we just have not played enough football,” Keen said. “We get a chance to see maybe how far away we are, what adjustments we need to make and where we need to kick it up a notch in certain phases to be successful and
to win football games.” Ultimately, the loss stings, especially as the last matchup in a legendary rivalry. Still, for the freshmen and sophomores, this game will always hold a special place in their memories of their WashU careers. It was their first bus ride filled with nervous anticipation of the game ahead, the first time hearing the national anthem while in the white and red uniform. “It was just really special, and I was really thankful to be back out there,” Hoyhtya said. “We lost, but at the end of the day, I was out there playing football — best game in the world.”
6 STUDENT LIFE
SPORTS
GRADY NANCE & CLARA RICHARDS | SENIOR SPORTS EDITORS | SPORTS@STUDLIFE.COM
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2021
Soccer teams start off season with strong wins HUSSEIN AMURI AND GRADY NANCE CONTRIBUTING REPORTER AND SENIOR SPORTS EDITOR The Washington University men’s and women’s soccer teams each won their first official competitions since the fall of 2019 this week, with the men capturing two shutout victories while the women beat Fontbonne University for their first victory under interim head coach Stephanie Gabbert.
Men’s soccer stays undefeated on the young year Men’s soccer team beat Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology on Saturday night through the rain at Francis Field to improve to 2-0 on the year. Senior forward Nolan Wolf ’s late goal off an assist from junior Sergio Rivas put the Bears over the edge with a 1-0 shutout victory, their second clean sheet in a week after a 3-0 win over Illinois Wesleyan University in the season opener last Wednesday. The narrow margin of victory, however, did not capture how the team controlled the game, registering 15 shots (including seven on goal) compared to only five shots by Rose-Hulman. WashU had several dominant performances throughout the game. Freshman midfielder Landon Green stood out among a slew of young players, tallying four shots, the most by any player on the pitch. Senior goalkeeper Matt Martin cemented the team’s defensive success, making four saves, while Wolf finished the night with the goal and two shots. Head coach Joe Clarke had nothing but praise for the performance his players put up, but he also had “all the respect in the world” for
Rose-Hulman and how they battled. “They [were] super organized,” he said. “They made it very difficult for you to play. And the way that their team was set up, they had numbers in the middle of the park.” Yet as disciplined and organized as Rose-Hulman was, Clarke was pleased in how his team approached the game, and in turn, got the win. He was particularly impressed with Martin’s performance, noting that his punt “should have gotten [him] an assist” for the Bears’ goal, as it set up the assist that netted Wolf the victorious shot. Clarke said the team’s depth was a major strength. Indeed, WashU benefitted from a deep lineup and bench, which allowed players to stay fresh as the game wore on. “We played 18 guys and rotated them,” Clarke said. “And that’s unusual for soccer. It’s not my style, but we have so many players.” WashU kept their momentum rolling on Tuesday with a 3-1 victory over Webster University, improving their record to 3-0. UAA Athlete of the Week Sergio Rivas netted two goals (44’, 74’) to lead the Bears attack, with Owen Culver adding another goal (48’) in between. Senior goalie Matt Martin allowed his first goal of the year, but the lone shot on goal throughout the 90 minutes is indicative of the Bears’ improved defense this year. The team hopes that improved depth and a year away from competition will vault them to a breakout season, as recent years have seen them hover around the .500 mark and their last playoff appearance came back in 2016 (a first round loss to University of Redlands). The Bears look to improve their record to 4-0 on Saturday with a matchup against North Park University.
Women’s soccer notches first win of the post-Conlon era The women’s soccer team, meanwhile, had to wait just a bit longer to get their return to the field. After their scheduled matchup with Greenville University last Wednesday was canceled, the Bears finally ended their 21-month hiatus from official competition Saturday night with a 3-1 victory over Fontbonne. With the victory, Gabbert picked up her first win at WashU after replacing former head coach Jim Conlon, who left the Bears in July to lead the program at Division II Grand Valley State University. Despite the clear excitement to compete, the first half was remarkably quiet. Whether it was rust or the onslaught of heavy rain, the game remained scoreless through the first half with only one shot on goal between both teams. The long-dominant Bears
defense returns only one starter, 2019 University Athletic Association Defensive Player of the Year senior Gabbie Cesarone, while untested players such as sophomore Sarah Neltner and freshman Gaelyn Clayton fill out the back line. Still, following WashU tradition, the unit put together a strong performance, allowing just two shots the entire game (Fontbonne’s only goal came on a perfectly-placed free kick in the 76th minute). Time in goal, a point of heavy competition in the preseason, was split between junior Katie Stender-Moore and sophomore Sidney Conner. Gabbert said this format will continue and that she has not settled on a single goalie. On the other side of the ball, sophomore midfielder Jessica Greven led a surging second-half offensive performance for the Bears. After senior midfielder Jess Shapiro dropped a rainbow shot over
the head of Fontbonne’s goalie to tally WashU’s first goal of the season, Greven rocketed two shots from outside the box the second from an eye-popping 35 yards out into the goal to extend the lead to 3-0. “One of the things we tell our players a lot of times is if you don’t take your shots, it’s not going to go in,” Gabbert said. “She took those opportunities and just put them in great places. Those are goals you don’t see every day.” Greven credited her second goal to the work of fellow sophomore midfielder Anna Viscovich. “She played me the most perfect ball,” she said. “I was like, ‘this is the moment, I might as well.’ It worked out exactly as it did the last time, it went right where I wanted it to, a perfect ball.” Coming within four minutes of one another, her two goals sealed the victory for the Bears and highlighted a stellar team performance, one reminiscent of the output in years past under
Conlon. Along with the inexperience that nearly all teams are facing due to the lack of competition in 2020, this WashU team had to grapple with a head coaching change less than two weeks before their first scheduled game. Gabbert credits the seniors with holding the fabric of the team together during that time. “I just want to give a shout out to that senior class because they’ve done so much in this transition to help,” she said. “Without them going the extra mile, we would not be where we are right now.” The team had been scheduled to play Webster University on Monday evening, but that game was canceled, so the Bears will next take the field again against Loras College on Saturday at 1 p.m. in their first Francis Field appearance since they fell in the Elite Eight in 2019.
CURRAN NEENAN | STUDENT LIFE
Sophomore midfielder Owen Culver dribbles around a Rose-Hulman defender Saturday night. The Bears’ 1-0 victory was their second straight shutout.
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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2021
FORUM
REILLY BRADY & JAMILA DAWKINS | SENIOR FORUM EDITORS | FORUM@STUDLIFE.COM
STUDENT LIFE 7
STAFF EDITORIAL
Innovations from virtual semesters we’d be sad to see go
I
f we could all build our ideal semester, COVID-19 probably wouldn’t come anywhere near it. However, if over the last week or so you’ve found yourself missing the convenience of a fully-operating campus GrubHub, or accessing a recorded lecture, then you know that despite our best efforts to forget, there are some COVID-inspired changes that are worth remembering — and bringing into our non-virtual semesters. To professors Professors have been among the leading innovators since we went virtual, devising all manner of methods to teach a fulfilling, health-considerate class while remote. Why abandon these now that we’re back in-person? Recorded lectures, for example, made it possible for sick or otherwise absent students to keep up with classwork. With one
relatively simple step, students were able to mitigate the overwhelming pressure to come to class even when it’s not in our best health interests to do so. It also gives the opportunity to return to a past discussion and refresh ourselves on details we may have missed — something that’s helpful to everyone, but especially those who have difficulty focusing on both good notetaking and class engagement. We applaud the professors who continue to keep their lectures accessible by recording them and hope to see that trend continue into future semesters. Virtual office hours similarly created more opportunity for students to contact professors, particularly those with jobs, research and internship positions and otherwise busy schedules who may otherwise not put aside the time to travel to and from a building on campus. Even just maintaining the option of virtual
office hours would go a long way in keeping this resource accessible to as many students as possible. To students Students: Tthe past year was a constant practice in giving grace. Maybe COVID-19 made us more aware of this fact, but it’s been true all along: everyone is going through something. As we ease into a much more interpersonal semester, we hope this sentiment of giving grace stays, particularly within the WashU student body. Our privilege in being able to attend an institution like WashU does not give any of us license to feel entitled to superior treatment, nor does it justify inconsiderate behavior. The Editorial Board has been disappointed to hear about and even witness many instances of disrespect toward these members of our community who we would be nothing without. Professors, faculty and especially staff are
not servants. No amount of frustration justifies treating them like they don’t matter — respect their time, boundaries and work. To administration Wellness days, while an inadequate response to the students and professors experiencing burnout over the last few semesters, did have the right idea in one respect: encouraging, and eventually requiring, a lightened course load around breaks. Even with the return to extended fall and spring breaks, this policy has value. How restful can a break be if it’s bookended by higher concentrations of major assignments and exams? Our virtual/hybrid semesters came with an unprecedented prioritization of mental health, which manifested in a lot of positive ways within the classroom that should not be abandoned now that we are in-person.
To our community at large COVID-19 inspired a culture of awareness and consideration about illness that we hope doesn’t become a distant memory. Before spring 2020, it was common for students and faculty alike to work and attend class through illness. That habit, while fueled by an understandable fear of missing coursework or setting ourselves back, is dangerous to the most vulnerable in our population. No amount of missed work is worth spreading illness to those around you, and we should continue to push for university policy that gives members of our community the structure and option to stay home when sick. Further, the general practice of wearing masks when sick shouldn’t be left in the dust either. We get it: we’re all tired of masks. But that one piece of cloth can be a way to show a lot of courtesy to those around you — to show that you care
enough to not spread any illness to them. That courtesy also extends to fostering honest, proactive communication about our boundaries. Many of us stumbled through these conversations over the past year, unsure how to ask if someone felt comfortable receiving a hug or eating at a restaurant. This work, while uncomfortable, should not be abandoned. Don’t be afraid to continue open dialogue with those in your circle about where your comfort zone begins and ends. We are all better for it. Having pulled ourselves through a difficult pandemic, we commiserate with the urge to abandon every trace of the past year. However, many of the adaptations made in the interest of preserving accessibility and faculty, staff and student well-being don’t deserve to be thrown out with the bathwater.
Dear freshmen: College is overwhelming. It’s okay to take time to adjust. REILLY BRADY SENIOR FORUM EDITOR
B
efore my first year at Washington University in the summer of 2020, I was devastated to learn that, due to COVID-19, we would no longer be able to have roommates. I felt like I was missing out on a classic college experience, and I was also afraid of living alone in an unfamiliar place. But after a semester of learning how to adjust to being away from home in a new city and new school, I realized something important about myself –– I love living in my own room. I needed that space to have alone time, study for
my classes and unwind from stressful days. Turns out, I’m more introverted than I thought. Especially with COVID-19, much of my anxiety was lessened by being able to feel safer in my own living space. This year, with a mostly vaccinated campus, circumstances have changed. Freshmen once again have roommates; large lecture halls are back in full capacity; students can travel outdoors without masks. While these developments are cause for celebration, for many students, these changes may feel overwhelming. Something as simple as getting food at the DUC –– which, last year, was
always practically empty –– made my anxiety skyrocket as I made my way through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd during the lunchtime rush. Sitting in a lecture hall with people in the seats directly to the left and right of me was a stark shift from my distanced, hybrid classes last semester. For freshmen transitioning from a fully online senior year of high school to a much more in-person first year of college, sitting in a college lecture hall –– an already unfamiliar, overwhelming experience –– is even more of a shift, considering the fact that many have not been in a classroom setting since March 2020. Even current freshmen that were able
to return to some in-person school before college may still be affected by the change from half-capacity high school classrooms to packed 200-person lecture halls. So, to the freshmen class: Are you feeling overwhelmed? Good news –– that’s normal! What’s important is that you allow yourself time to adjust to this new lifestyle, especially due to COVID-19, and embrace the change while also understanding your limits. Yes, college is about branching out, messaging a new friend, trying a niche class or joining an unexpected club. At the same time, college shouldn’t be about stretching yourself thin in your social
and academic life to the point where you feel constantly overwhelmed. Be open to learning more about yourself –– how much alone time you need to unwind, how much social activity you enjoy, what gets on your nerves or what time of the day you study best. Freshman year is meant for figuring out those details about yourself, and that doesn’t end after two semesters. As a sophomore coming off of a partially virtual first year of college, I’m still adjusting, too. This year, it’s okay to not finish everything on that “classic college experience” checklist. For me, living alone last year and other COVID-19
adjustments that strayed from that first-year checklist didn’t ruin my experience as I thought they would; instead, I learned more about myself and improved my ability to adjust to change. For current freshmen, choosing to have a night in doesn’t mean you are missing out on that college experience. COVID-19 is still here, and anxiety surrounding the pandemic is valid. Give yourself time to adjust to in person classes. Embrace your social life while also understanding your own limits. And remember that as alone as you may feel during all of this change, all students –– not just freshmen –– are constantly making new adjustments.
OPINION SUBMISSION
Sam Fox’s mental health crisis JAREA FANG CLASS OF 2022
“
So you just can’t get out of bed, or something?” This is what my professor in Sam Fox told me on the first day of class, when I informed him that, due to my mental health issues, I may need leniency with attendance and project deadlines throughout the semester. “Well, yes, among other things.” I told him, feeling lit on fire. There was a group of students barely a few feet behind me, listening in carefully to the conversation. “I can’t control it, it just happens, and in case it does I need to make sure that I won’t fail your class.” This is too much to ask, apparently, because after a few humiliating seconds of
silence, he told me to drop his class. As I packed up my bags to leave the classroom, I couldn’t even find it in myself to cry. Silently, I sent a good luck wish to all the students in class who watched me leave. They were going to need it. Clearly, their professor (and by extension, their institution) thinks very little of them, and by dropping this class I saved myself. Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts is one of the most grueling places to be a Washington University student. My earliest memories as a first-year art major are of walking home alone past midnight while the lights of every studio stayed on, packed with different students pulling all-nighters every single day of the week. Critique day is full of artists chugging their
OUR VOICE: EDITORIAL BOARD Staff editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of our editorial board members. The editorial board operates independently of our newsroom and includes members of the senior staff.
coffee and falling asleep in their seats, having forgotten that they need sleep to live and food to survive. It’s a well-known joke at WashU that Sam Fox students have little regard for their basic needs, but it’s important to note that this is only because we can’t afford the luxury to take care of ourselves. Due to the practice-driven nature of studio classes, Sam Fox students are graded on their punctuality, making absences and late work unacceptable. Therefore, every mental health day results in a deduction, every late project is a failure and every absence past the allotted two bumps down your overall letter grade. We have no choice but to pull through every depressive episode, panic attack and bad day. As a result, many people have sacrificed the best parts
of themselves in order to succeed here, selling their organs for good grades. I, for one, used to be a revolving door to my fouryear and major advisor’s offices. Like everyone else, I often failed to address my many health needs and therefore would be written up by all kinds of different Sam Fox professors. That being said, each time I was in trouble, I was told to give my professors the benefit of the doubt. Something like, “They’re just concerned for you because you didn’t show up to class,” or, “They just want you to turn in your projects on time.” Why don’t they actually help me, then? Why don’t they give me extensions when I ask them to? I didn’t find leniency for my mental health issues until later in my college career when I
Senior Forum Editors: Jamila Dawkins, Reilly Brady
Senior Scene Editors: Via Poolos, Julia Robbins Senior Sports Editor: Grady Nance Senior Cadenza Editor: Gracie Hime, Jordan Coley
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started taking classes through other WashU schools where accommodations and extensions are often an email or a discussion away. In particular, I remember a professor who used to send me emails whenever I missed class just to check if I was okay. She even let me make up missed quizzes during office hours, and simply because of her diligent help during a tough semester, I made an A- in the class. Thus, even though my primary major is art, it is in my non-art classes that I learn the most and feel the most welcomed simply because, under these professors, I am given a chance to thrive. In these classes, I am genuinely cared for and supported, which only makes it even more despicable that Sam Fox doesn’t attempt to measure up. It has been a semester since
the Sam Fox professor told me to drop his class for something I can’t control, and I have taken official measures to protect myself against teachers like him. With the help of my therapist, I have applied for accommodations through disability resources. Hopefully, with an official documentation in hand, no professor would ever say something like that to me again. However, more than anything, I want Sam Fox to be a safe space where no student would have to go through disability resources to get accomodations for something that, with many professors at WashU, a simple email and discussion can fix. I may have saved myself last time, but my hope is that no one will have to save themselves ever again. Sam Fox, do better.
YOUR VOICE: SUBMISSIONS We welcome letters to the editor and opinion submissions from our readers. Submissions may be sent to forum@studlife.com and must include the writer’s name, class and email or phone number for verification. We reserve the
right to print any submission as a letter or opinion submission. Any submission chosen for publication does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Student Life, nor does publication mean Student Life supports said submission.
8 STUDENT LIFE
CADENZA JORDAN COLEY & GRACIE HIME | SENIOR CADENZA EDITORS | CADENZA@STUDLIFE.COM
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2021
The PAD is full steam ahead for an in-person theater season ISABELLA NEUBAUER MANAGING EDITOR In-person classes are back at Washington University, and so too is indoor theater back at the Performing Arts Department. That decision has been a long time coming. After the last year of Zoom theater, recorded performances and outdoor theater in April, the department has finally been cleared to resume mostly normal operations. “We only found out the other day that we can do this,” William Whitaker, professor of Drama in the PAD and chair of the production committee, said. “So there was a great sigh of relief and excitement.” Of course, the coronavirus pandemic is not over. Theater isn’t back to what it was in previous years — while actors can remain maskless when more than 6 feet from each other onstage, everyone in the audience and backstage must be masked, as must actors
when they cross that 6-foot boundary. This isn’t the PAD’s first rodeo with masking rules. Last year’s two outdoor shows, “COVID Mysteries” and “Tough!,” played with masks as well. “I got to experiment with this a little bit with ‘Tough!’ in the spring,” Whitaker said. “When [the actors] got closer their masks were up, and I thought the audience was accepting of that.” In “Tough!,” actors dramatically pulled their masks up when they stepped forward to confront other characters, something that Whitaker foresees continuing, especially in the season’s first play, “She Kills Monsters.” “She Kills Monsters’’ is a fun, playful piece of theater with both elaborate sword fights and moments of closeness. The show, inspired by Dungeons and Dragons, would allow for masking during fights, but also for other forms of distanced closeness, Whitaker said.
“I think we can get away with some sort of staging that is affectionate, but removed. I’m calling it socially distanced intimacy.” Of course, there is the ever-present worry that classes may return to an online format, thus rendering in-person theater impracticable. “She Kills Monsters” can adapt to that, too — the play was rewritten for an online format during quarantine last summer, and though this isn’t ideal, Whitaker says the PAD can adjust and perform it as an online piece. Right now, though, he said that “everybody is trying to focus on reclaiming the world of real theater.” By real theater, Whitaker meant “to really bring things that you have planned in sketch and on your computer and actually see them made manifest in a theater.” That’s not to say improv and outdoor theater aren’t real theater, he added, but that after so long making Zoom plays and outdoor
MORAD SULIMAN | STUDENT LIFE
Performers take a bow after “Masquerade,” the 2020 Black Anthology show and one of the last to be performed in the Edison Theatre.
plays, theater practitioners are eager to perform indoors again. “The work of the theater is communal,” Whitaker explained. “It’s an ensemble. It’s people in a room together making a thing, a beautiful thing, a funny thing, a terrible thing, whatever.” That quality, of people
in a room, is what he hopes people who haven’t gotten to experience WashU theater recently will take away from the experience of this season. The goal, he said, is to share “the exquisite delight of sharing an event with other human beings and that collective spirit of the live actor in front of you,
and the audience and that sort of electricity, and real people in a real room doing real things.” It’s the emphasis on realness that defines live theater. We live in an age of TV and movies, but sitting in a room with a crowd, watching a show in real time, is, after a long hiatus, finally back.
‘Shang-Chi’: Marvel proves they can still make a good movie ISABELLA NEUBAUER MANAGING EDITOR In July, nearly everywhere I went, ads for Marvel’s “Black Widow” jumped out at me. The internet, TV, billboards –– you name it. Barely two months later, I have yet to see an advertisement for Marvel’s latest blockbuster, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.” This is nothing short of a crime, because if “Black Widow” was good, “Shang-Chi” is a masterpiece. That’s not to say that “Shang-Chi” is redefining the superhero genre; it is a Marvel movie, and it feels like one. But the film is far from “Just Another Marvel Movie.” It’s funny, it’s moving and it has characters that are easy to care about paired with an antagonist perhaps more compelling than the protagonists. If you’ve seen any Marvel movies recently, you know that’s far from a given. From here on out, things will get pretty spoiler-y, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet, beware. If you’ve heard of “Shang-Chi” before this week, it’s probably due to its status as the first Marvel movie starring Asian superheroes. That’s true, but it’s a pretty reductive way of describing the film. Far from the weird performative wokeness of movies like “Captain Marvel” (I have strong feelings about this), someone clearly put a lot of time and effort into making “Shang-Chi” as genuine as possible. The first ten minutes, and many subsequent scenes, are spoken entirely in Mandarin, leaving the English-speaking audience to read the subtitles — a rare move from a blockbuster, especially only two years after “Parasite” director Bong Joon Ho called Hollywood out on their reluctance to use (or watch) non-English languages in movies. Family dynamics, from those of our main characters to Katy’s, feel genuine, and all the animals of Ta Lo originate in Chinese legend. That’s not all the movie has going for it, though. Yes, it follows typical Marvel
Movie structure; no, it isn’t as overwhelming as it often has been in the past. The obligatory car chase scene is pretty cool, and the overwhelming number of fight scenes were so wellchoreographed that most of them being largely irrelevant doesn’t matter. The cameos are funny in a gratuitous way, though the movie’s darkness otherwise made me glad whenever Trevor or Wong were onscreen. The mandatory third-act CGI battle –– between two gorgeously-rendered dragons –– genuinely had me on the edge of my seat. But the movie truly shines in its characters. Their relationships are deeply fleshed out, whether it’s the one between Shang-Chi and Katy, as she learns all he’s hidden from her while they remain goofy best friends, or the estranged sibling dynamic of Shang-Chi and Xialing. Individually, too, they shine. Shang-Chi, reluctantly pulled back into the family business of being an assassin after 10 years as a valet driver. Katy, constantly told she should do something with her life but unsure where to go. Xialing, who built an empire from scratch at age 16. Trevor, who is absolutely hilarious. And arguably most compelling of all, Wenwu. I could sing the praises of how much I loved Wenwu’s characterization for an entire article, but I’ll keep it short. A 1000-year-old power-hungry madman is redeemed through the power of love, only to lose it when his wife is killed. (Note: I hate the dead wife trope, and this movie doesn’t change that.) Driven by revenge and a desire to get her back and rebuild their family, he both punishes Shang-Chi for her death and believes her to be alive in her village, Ta Lo. And he’ll burn it to the ground to see her again, even if that means destroying what’s left of their family in the process. He’s clearly wrong, but he believes in his cause so genuinely it made me want to root for him regardless. Everything in Shang-Chi revolves around family. It’s neither good nor bad, but it’s inescapable in its
influence if nothing else. Identity, another central theme, is formed through family, but it’s also deeply personal. There are many
scenes I can’t stop thinking about, but I want to conclude with the scene in which Shang-Chi trains with his aunt and she shows
him he can be more than his father’s legacy. It, like the movie, is full of care –– care for loved ones, care for the plot and care for Chinese
culture. Even if you’re indifferent toward Marvel, “Shang-Chi” is a movie you need to see. I can’t recommend it enough.