The independent newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis since 1878 THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 2023
VOLUME 144, NO. 19
DORM COOKING
WWW.STUDLIFE.COM
WASHU VOTES
3 recipes you can try making in your dorm! (Scene, pg 4)
A STORY BOOK ENDING
How to get involved in this year’s upcoming local elections. (Forum, pg 6)
Women’s track finished 2nd place at Indoors Nationals, winning the DMR. (Sports, pg 8)
University changes dining providers, looks to increase partnerships with minority owned businesses
Treasury denies College Republicans appeal for economist speaker ALIANA MEDIRATTA JUNIOR NEWS EDITOR
ELLE SU | STUDENT LIFE
The University is starting a contract with Sodexo Food and Facilities Management on May 19th after 25 years with their previous provider.
JULIA ROBBINS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Washington University is switching its dining provider from Bon Appetit Management Co. to Sodexo Food and Facilities Management, May 19. The University also plans to increase partnerships with minority-owned businesses in the satellite dining locations on campus. Bon Appetit terminated its contract with the University after over 25 years of business, three years earlier than its contract was set to last. In the transition to Sodexo, all current employees of Bon Appetit will be able to retain their jobs if they reapply. Bon Appetit did not answer questions from Student Life regarding why the company terminated its contract with the University, when the company let the University know it would be terminating its contract, or whether the company will face consequences from the University for terminating its contract early. Jason McClellan, Associate Vice Chancellor for University Services, said that Sodexo will offer all workers currently contracted with Bon Appetit jobs at the same or higher rate of pay as they have
currently. “As a University, we are requiring that all Bon Appetit employees who wish to remain at WashU will have an opportunity to remain with the new provider,” McClellan said. Additionally, Sodexo will be honoring the time of service that each Bon Appetit worker has already served when deciding their benefits. Shanay Robinson, a dining employee who works with Bon Appetit, said she attended a Q & A session for BA members to ask questions to Sodexo leadership. “It was brought to our attention that everything will be the same,” she said. “We’ll still have our jobs, our seniority will be the same, everything will be the same; it’ll just be a new name. So it’s great news.” McClellan said he does not know whether Sodexo will bring service workers already working for Sodexo to the University, but that it is a possibility. Student Life also asked McClellan whether dining workers will have the same time off as they had under Bon Appetit. “Sodexo offers comparable benefits and will meet with Dining team members to review benefit offerings,” McClellan said.
According to an article in The Source, “the University expects all people currently employed with Bon Appetit to have comparable opportunities with Sodexo under the new partnership, with no loss in pay or gap in benefits.” Employees will have to complete an employment packet to be offered a job under Sodexo, but will not have to interview for their positions. McClellan said that one of his main priorities in the transition of dining services is ensuring that “our team members who are a part of our community are taken care of. My hope is …we can start working with them on the transition and making sure that they feel comfortable.” Jenny Slafkosky, Director of Communications for Bon Appétit Management Company said that Bon Appétit will assist current employees “interested in applying for other open positions within our company.” During this transition, the University is looking to increase its partnerships with local minorityowned businesses in its satellite locations, which are all food locations on the Danforth campus except for Subway, Bear’s Den, the Village, and the DUC. “We're hoping to leverage the change to make a stronger
commitment to the local economy and to our local region, as well as to minority businesses in the area,” McClellan said. These partnerships could range from a local business creating another brick-and-mortar location on campus, similar to the owners of Coffeestamp Roasters opening a second café location in Hillman Hall, to having businesses sell food items at cafés on campus. The University also asked Sodexo to at least maintain the current number of locally sourced food resources and ideally buy 25% of goods from local food groups. Additionally, the University is looking into providing an “all you care to eat” option in the coming years, McClellan said. Administration has hired Bakergroup Consultants to look into how the University could make this option possible. There are no current plans to alter meal plans, outside of changing with inflation, he said. “I'm happy to say that we've been able to maintain a lower level of increase compared to the overall inflation rate in the United States and in the St. Louis area,” McClellan said.
Student Union (SU) Treasury Representatives chose not to fund an appeal from the Washington University College Republicans (WUCR), who were requesting $6,977.85 to bring conservative economist Dr. Arthur (Art) Laffer to speak on campus, March 21. Art Laffer is best known for his position on former President Ronald Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board and his creation of the Laffer Curve, which demonstrates the relationship between tax rates and government tax revenue. In recent years, Laffer served as an advisor to former President Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Trump in 2019. Junior Nathaniel Hope, President of WUCR, and sophomore David Tabarez-Cisneros, Social Chair of WUCR, directly appealed to Treasury representatives for the funds, explaining how a talk from Laffer would align with the club’s goals. “He is really one of the most prominent economists in the Republican movement and in the country,” Hope said. “Being able to hear from someone who might have new perspectives would give students the opportunity to think more critically.” Throughout the discussion over the appeal, Treasury representatives focused heavily on the request for $1,586 in order to have the Washington University Police Department (WUPD) officers stationed at the talk for security purposes. Hope explained that the request was based on a previous incident where Laffer had been unable to speak at a talk due to protests. “When the speaker spoke at a peer institution, he was basically shut down,” Hope said. “We can't have any speaker funded by Treasury be shut down because then that's just money that could have gone into any number of different causes. Imagine if he had to leave the venue just because he was shouted down.” The event Hope referenced occurred in 2019 at Binghamton University, when Laffer was scheduled to give a talk for the University’s College Republicans club that was canceled due to protests that began as soon as Laffer got up to the podium. After Hope brought up the issue,
SEE REPUBLICANS, PAGE 2
David Kertzer, Vatican Historian, speaks about the Pope’s role during World War II AVI HOLZMAN SENIOR NEWS EDITOR David Kertzer, a prominent professor of Italian and Vatican history, delivered remarks about his new book, “The Pope at War,” which details the behavior of Pope Pius XII during World War II, at an event held by the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics and various community partners, March 27. “The Pope at War,” the second Pulitzer Prize winning book by Kertzer, is based on documents released by the Vatican Archives in March of 2020 as part of an effort made by the Catholic Church to be more
transparent regarding their history. The newly public archives detail the behavior of Pius and provide context for his decision to not speak out against Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini during World War II. Pius’ lack of action throughout World War II has led some to refer to him as “Hitler’s Pope,” while others want to elevate Pius to sainthood. Kertzer’s book and remarks aim to provide context rooted in Church documents to this conversation. While speaking with Marie Griffith, the Director of the Center on Religion and Politics, Kertzer explained that his research showed that Pius’
primary goal during the war was maintaining the unity of the Roman Catholic Church. During his research, Kertzer made the “shocking” discovery that Hitler and Pius communicated with each other before the war and up until the Nazi’s defeat in 1945. When the Germans initially invaded Poland in 1939, Pius did not speak out. Kertzer posited that Pius remained neutral during and after the invasion for a variety of reasons, including the fact that Pius was the leader of all Catholics and according to Kertzer, “worried about producing a fracture in the Roman Catholic
JAMIE NICHOLSON | STUDENT LIFE
David Kertzer spoke at Graham Chapel about his book, “The Pope at War.”
Church in Germany.” Halfway through the discussion, Griffith asked Kertzer
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about the Holocaust, given that
SEE POPE, PAGE 3