The independent newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis since 1878 THURSDAY, SEPT 1, 2022
VOLUME 144, NO. 1
SPORTS SPECIAL
WWW.STUDLIFE.COM
UNDERPASS REPAINTED
Stud Life’s first sports special issue with previews and features. (Sports, pg 9)
South 40 underpass space back to serving as advertising grounds for student groups after two years. (News, pg 2)
DINING WORKER PROFILES
(Scene, pg 6)
University announces space equity planning process Crisis Fund
for students impacted by floods EMMA ROMANOWSKY JUNIOR NEWS EDITOR
Spaces including the houses on Fraternity Row will be under review in a process to more fairly allocate space on campus.
JULIA ROBBINS EDITOR–IN–CHIEF A committee of Washington University administrators and community members has been created to work on allocating space in a more student-driven process to better meet the needs of its ever-changing student body. This group will develop a “shared vision for the future of student space” on campus “to more fairly allocate student facing resources,” the University wrote in a statement sent out to leaders of Student Union (SU), the Interfraternity Council (IFC), the Women’s Panhellenic Association (WPA), and the United Greek Council (UGC) titled “The Future of Student Space at Washington University: Access, Equity, and Transparency.” The planning process will assess how to provide access to university-owned student controlled spaces on campus,
including fraternity houses. By fall 2025, the University will be implementing its new space allocation procedures. “This process is designed to create a more equitable campus for all of our students,” Rob Wild, Dean of Students, said. “What I’m hoping is that what we come up with is more reflective of the overall student body here in 2022 and what they want from their campus.” “We’ll also provide lots of opportunities in the planning process for community input,” Wild said. Historically, Wild said that the allocation of space on campus has largely been driven by the administration which “created a real challenge for us as a University because I think we view ourselves as a place that’s very student driven.” “As we have been in some intense conversations over the last two years about the future of
Greek life at WashU, we realized we needed to create a more equitable student-driven process for deciding who should be in what spaces on campus.” There is no set plan yet for how access to spaces, including houses on Fraternity Row, will be determined in years to come, but Wild said he suspects that part of the discussion will be considering multi-year agreements with student groups that want to access certain spaces. Fraternities and sororities, like any other campus organizations, will have access to these agreements. “I do think at the end of this process there will be a path forward for fraternities that want to have houses on campus, but they’ll be on equitable footing as other student groups wanting to have space on campus,” Wild said. Sophomore Asher Schwartz, the President of Beta Theta Pi, said that the fraternity members he
has spoken with have not seemed concerned about the space equity plan because many of them will no longer be students by the time the plan rolls out. “I feel like more people will be inclined to work with it than fight against it,” Schwartz added. “In terms of equity of space on campus, I think it’s a good move [to reassess space allocation].” The University will also be speaking with alumni who were involved with Greek life to hear their perspectives on the planning process. “Many of our fraternity and sorority chapters have very active alumni who are involved and we want to make sure we have adequate time to be talking to those alumni and getting their feedback on this process,” Wild said. In a written statement to Student Life, SU President Miriam
Washington University announced a one-time Flood Crisis Fund (FCF) to support Danforth and Medical Campus students on Aug. 26. St. Louis experienced recordbreaking rainfall this summer, setting a new high for daily precipitation since records began, resulting in floods that impacted members of the University and wider St. Louis community. The FCF was created to “assist students universitywide who were impacted and incurred financial costs directly related to the regional flooding July 25-29 and Aug. 3-5,” according to the email sent by Dr. Anna Gonzalez, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs. “Expenses that have already been submitted for reimbursement or have already been reimbursed or covered by external organizations, such as insurance companies or the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), will not be eligible for funding requests,” Gonzalez wrote. Gonzalez’s email also noted that limited funding pool will be allocated based on need. “WashU students can submit an application for a one-time payment (up to $1,000) to help cover eligible essential expenses, which include housing assistance, transportation allowance, child care costs, food and grocery, and remediation services.” Student Life spoke with several students and alumni who experienced the floods while living in St. Louis this summer. Rachel Wolff, a junior who lived on Waterman Boulevard
SEE HOUSING, PAGE 2
SEE FUND, PAGE 2
HOLDEN HINDES | STUDENT LIFE
Booster still not required, new COVID housing policies for fall ALIANA MEDIRATTA CONTRIBUTING WRITER The Habif Health and Wellness Center at Washington University continues to strongly recommend the booster. At the same time, Washington University is loosening COVID-19 quarantine and isolation policies. Since last fall, the University students, staff, and faculty have been required to have received a primary series of the COVID-19 vaccine in order to be enrolled or employed by the institution. In Nov. 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expanded their recommendations for all adults to receive their booster shot five months after receiving their primary vaccine series, with altered advice for the severely immunocompromised. Current Habif guidelines reflect the CDC’s guidelines only through a strong recommendation that community members receive their booster shot, contrary to many universities across the country, which have added the booster to their mandatory immunization list. Because students do not have to disclose whether they received the booster shot, the exact number of students who have already
received their booster shot is not certain. With the estimated number of students who have yet to receive an additional shot being low, the benefit of mandating the booster could be marginal, said Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Kirk Dougher. He questioned how much value could be obtained by a mandate, considering time contingencies. “At the end of the day, they may have weighed that and said that [it was a] marginal benefit for a short duration with these big upside costs. [It] may not provide the additional protection that we wish that it did,” Dougher said. 22 of the University’s peer institutions currently have a booster requirement implemented for students on campus, with exceptions to this group being Northwestern, Vanderbilt, and Princeton, the last of which instituted a booster requirement before dropping it in July. Some institutions, such as Harvard and Brandeis, state in their requirements that applicable individuals must be fully vaccinated against COVID19 per CDC definition, which has been updated to include a booster shot. Alongside their requirement, Johns Hopkins cited evidence that shows immunity to
COVID-19 wanes over time, but that receiving a booster shot can provide significant additional protection. On Aug. 31, the Food and Drug Administration provided emergency authorization to a new pair of boosters that specifically target the BA.4 and BA.5 variants, which are behind recent spikes in infection. “When the bivalent one comes out,” Dougher said, “we'll have to see what the status on the ground is, its efficacy rate, and what it changes. Because I can imagine then, if it makes a big difference, that I'm sure that they'll probably require that booster.” Additionally, testing requirements and practices for isolation have loosened significantly since spring 2022. For example, testing is no longer required in any capacity, including regular tests and contact tracing. Students who test positive will no longer be moved to isolation housing but will isolate in place, including those in doubles or suites. Those individuals will receive best-practice guidelines on how to share space without unnecessary close contact that could cause transmission. “In the past, it was an automatic move over to quarantine housing,”
said Rob Wild, Dean of Students. “The new CDC and St. Louis County Public Health guidelines don’t require that anymore. We do have some quarantine housing set aside, but not the volume that we’ve had in the past.” The only exception applies to students who are immunocompromised and
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could be at medical risk by remaining in the shared space. In those circumstances, the immunocompromised roommate will move into designated housing, including units in Millbrook, leaving the roommate who tested positive to isolate. Students who do not have a medical justification and are simply uncomfortable with proximity to a COVIDpositive individual will be able to voice their justification to an expert in a medical appeals process that will be implemented sometime soon, according to Dougher. “It’s a very fluid environment,” Dougher said, “people are trying to be responsive towards what might happen, be prepared for untoward circumstances, and also try and weigh the needs of the entire campus community.”
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