The independent newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis since 1878 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2023
VOLUME 145, NO. 6
PASS MASTER
WWW.STUDLIFE.COM
“COLLEGE RANKINGS DO NOTHING FOR STUDENTS”
Record breaking receiver Collin Goldberg sat down with Student Life (Sports, pg 8)
looking at rankings and privilege (Forum, pg 6)
INVESTIGATION INTO IBBY’S Re-opening of Danforth Campus fine dining (Scene, pg 5)
#3 Women’s soccer preserves shut-out streak Student robbed on Pershing Avenue
ALIANA MEDIRATTA JUNIOR NEWS EDITOR
CLARA RICHARDS | STUDENT LIFE
Junior Gaelen Clayton volleys a shot towards the goal in the team’s Tuesday night matchup. Clayton had one goal and one assist in the game.
IAN HEFT RILEY HERRON SPORTS EDITORS There are 1,893 NCAA men’s and women’s soccer teams. All but one of them have conceded a goal over the last two months. Eight games into its season, the Washington University women’s soccer team is the sole exception: college soccer’s only clean sheet. On Sunday, the Bears, who are ranked third in Division III, faced the toughest threat to their undefeated start to the season when #25 Emory University visited St. Louis. In the 74th minute of the battle between UAA heavyweights, the Bears’ shutout streak appeared to come to an end. When a pass was played into the WashU box, senior goalkeeper Sidney Connor came off her line to try to intercept it, but an Emory forward was able to f lick it past her into the goal. As soon as the ball hit the net, however, the linesman’s offside f lag shot into the air, and the goal was quickly waved off, much to the
delight of the sizable WashU crowd. Fifteen minutes later, when the referee blew the final whistle, the Bears were on top of their conference rivals with a 2-0 victory, extending their shutout streak to 720 minutes and their record to 8-0-0. But perhaps more importantly, it gave them a 1-0 start to University Athletic Association (UAA) conference play. WashU has won or tied for eight out of the last 10 conference titles, but lost out on the crown last season for the first time since 2014. Yet again this season, the UAA is the strongest conference in women’s soccer, and has six out of eight teams ranked in the Division III Top 25, including #1 Carnegie Mellon University, which also remains undefeated. Going into the game, the Bears knew that they would need a strong performance to hold off the Eagles. Last season, Emory won the matchup 3-0 and made a run to the NCAA Round of 16. However, despite facing their strongest opponents yet, the squad
entered the match “confident in their preparation,” according to head coach Jim Conlon. “September taught us a lot of lessons, [so] we were able to continue to try and get better as a team and get a really good result against the very talented Emory team,” he said after the match. The Bears started the game off on the front foot. Just five minutes into the contest, firstyear Sophie Viscovich played a pass to sophomore forward Ella Koleno on the top-left corner of the box. With the ball at her feet, Koleno calmly finished the movement, chipping the ball over the goalkeeper’s head and into the net for an early 1-0 lead. After the strike, which was Koleno’s third time on the scoresheet this season, the Bears never looked back. WashU doubled their lead in the 35th minute. Junior midfielder Sara Giannotti slotted a through ball into the left side of the box for firstyear Regan Cannon. Cannon lofted the ball into the air, and just like the first goal, the goaltender could only watch
as the sphere sailed over her outstretched arms. As the ball crossed the line, the scoreboard changed to 2-0, and Cannon tallied her first career collegiate goal. “It started with a really awesome double-team with [midfielder graduate student] Sam [McKibben] and [senior midfielder] Jess [Greven], and they won the ball back,” Cannon said after the game. “Sara [Giannotti] in the midfield found a great opening run…played a perfect ball, found me on the run, and then I just kind of saw an opening over the keeper and went for it.” Though the visiting Eagles went into the halftime break trailing by two goals, they came out of the intermission looking to respond. However, the Bears kept the pressure up, tallying eight shots on-target in the second period, including a 49th-minute header from junior midfielder Gaelen Clayton that forced a sprawling save from the Emory keeper.
SEE SOCCER, PAGE 8
WashU technological integration announced as part of Here and Next initiative QUINN MOORE TIM MELLMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER NEWSLETTER EDITOR Washington University announced its intent to more effectively integrate modern technologies into its research and learning curriculum through the Digital Transformation initiative, Oct. 2. The University is looking to facilitate research and learning for students by implementing tools that are accessible to everyone and providing students with important skills in a job market where technology is becoming increasingly vital. These efforts will be overseen by the Digital Intelligence & Innovation (DI2) Accelerator and its implementation lead, the Associate Dean and Chief Data Scientist for the School of Medicine, Philip R.O. Payne. Digital Transformation is part of the Here and Next program,
WashU’s 10-year strategic plan. “For every one person that we asked [what is digital transformation?], we will get a different answer,” Payne said. In a statement to Student Life, Provost Beverly Wendland wrote about the specific ways that the Digital Transformation effort will benefit students, faculty, and staff, including making it easier to access data, communicate findings from this data, and harness better computing technologies. “[Benefits] include ensuring that students have access to a consistent and best-in-class set of digital learning platforms, complementing experiential and hands-on learning that will occur in the classroom and small group settings,” said Wendland. The Digital Transformation initiative has already begun to take hold in certain corners of the University, such as the School of Medicine. “We’ve done everything from
develop novel ways of using artificial intelligence to improve patient care pathways, to thinking about how we reduce burnout for our trainees, faculty, and staff in the clinical environment,” Payne said. Now, the DI2 Accelerator is looking at cloud computing. Wendland wrote that the University is hoping to “[partner] with major cloud computing companies to ensure our community has full access to effectively unlimited computing infrastructure.” Payne echoed the importance of this aspect of the initiative. “Computing should not be the limit to our ability to teach or engage in research innovation,” Payne said. The DI2 Accelerator is additionally promoting its Digital Solutions Studio, which Payne describes as “an internal think tank that helps faculty and staff and students connect with data and software engineering expertise to accelerate their research projects.” The University also plans
to benefit the greater St. Louis community through Digital Transformation. The St. Louis Data Dashboard, built in collaboration with the Digital Solutions Studio, will allow easy access to data involving local elections, the environment, city and county demographics, and more. The people behind the DI2 Accelerator initiative hope this transformation will take shape within the decade. Payne stated “the next three to five years will be absolutely critical” and that “[DI2 Accelerator’s] initial planning time horizon has been 10 years, but digital transformation is a continuous process.” Payne and the DI2 Accelerator host weekly coffee hours in the Olin Library. “It’s so important for our students to tell us what their goals and objectives are for digital transformation and make sure we are meeting those needs,” Payne said.
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A Washington University student was robbed of his their wallet and phone in an alleyway on Pershing Avenue, Sept. 29. The incident was the first reported robbery involving affecting a Washington University student since 2021, according to the Washington University Police Department (WUPD). In a security memo sent out to the campus community, WUPD reported that at 5:20 a.m., a student was approached by a man who demanded his wallet and phone, and pushed a hard rounded item into his side, which the victim believed to be a firearm. There were no reported injuries from the incident, which is currently under investigation by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD). The suspect was described in the report as a “tall, thin male wearing all black, including a black ski mask.” Chief of WUPD Angela Coonce said that this incident is unusual for her officers, especially given the time of day it occurred. “We don’t have a lot of robberies, so this was out of the ordinary from the get-go,” Coonce said. “You see a lot of evening robberies kind of late night or early morning, like after midnight, but this was kind of a different scenario just because of the timing of it.” Although the robbery took place at 5:20 a.m., WUPD was alerted of the crime by the student who was affected at 2:57 p.m., roughly nine-and-a-half hours later. Coonce said that the delay was due to the personal choice of the student. “I think being a victim of a crime is obviously a difficult thing for anybody,” Coonce said. “We’re thankful that the student did end up calling us even though there was a delay in reporting.” As a result of the crime, WUPD is increasing their security patrols around the Pershing area and keeping an eye on where resources are needed. “We certainly want the visibility of our officers to try to deter this from happening again,” Coonce said. According to the crime statistics publically available on WUPD’s website, there were zero robberies on or off-campus during the 2022 calendar year. During the 2021 calendar year, there were two robberies, both of which occurred on-campus. In the 2020 calendar year, there were four robberies, one on-campus and three off-campus. Coonce explained that a robbery differs from theft because there is a person present who is being stolen from, as opposed to leaving something unattended and it getting taken. “If they come up and just threaten you in some manner whether that be physical threat or a firearm or [the threat of] a firearm then that would be robbery because it’s a person-on-person crime,” Coonce said.
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