Earlier this year, Syracuse University made national news for offering families late-cycle financial aid packages. The university has different plans this year, said Ryan Williams, SU’s vice president for enrollment services.
“We’re planning to go out with a much stronger discount rate off the bat,” he said at Wednesday’s University Senate meeting. “We’re making sure that the families know that we’re putting forth an effort to understand where they are economically.”
Ahead of the previous admissions cycle, SU initially budgeted 38.6% of tuition dollars for financial aid, though it ended up at 45%, Williams said. Just about every school in the United States also “scrambled late in the cycle,” he added.
This year, the university’s discount rate will remain lower than peer institutions but “increase over historical percentages.” SU’s shift
has moved the overall undergraduate discount rate to 40%, Williams said.
“We have been extremely fortunate to have a much lower discount rate than many of our peers for several years,” Williams said. “This past cycle gave us clear indication that the price sensitivity is pushing up our discount rate, and this is not likely to change anytime soon.”
Williams told the senate his team is working with university administrators to establish admissions “headcount targets” and a discount rate based on the headcounts. Consultation with deans, teaching capacity and infrastructure constraints will factor into those decisions.
SU is tentatively planning for an entering class of 3,750 students, Williams said. Last school year, the university received 47,178 applications to fill the same target — about 12.5 applications per open seat.
“These goals and targets are established now based on historical trends, and will be adjusted as needed in January when the application deadline passes and the pool is 95% formed,” Williams said.
FRAN'S FOUNDATION
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While Syracuse freshman Demetres Samuel Jr. hasn’t gotten much run offensively, he’s become an anchor of the Orange’s defense.
is in late December, and regular decisions will be sent in early March.
Senators also received updates on SU’s accreditation process from Julie Hasenwinkel, SU’s associate provost for
Williams said the application landscape has “changed significantly” over the last six years and that the change is likely to continue. He cited factors including declining international enrollment, the questioning of the value of higher education and broader demographic trends affecting higher education as the cause.
Looking to the incoming SU class, nearly 13,000 prospective students have visited campus this semester, and admission staff have met with around 36,000 prospective students off-campus, he said.
Williams said SU’s early decisions will be released before Orange Appreciation Day, which
For the 2024-25 application cycle, there were 12.5 applications per open seat given target class size.
Upstate statues honor
By Grace McCloskey staff writer
Over a century after Elizabeth Blackwell and Sarah Lougen Fraser attended SUNY Upstate Medical University, their legacy lives on at the school, using their stories as motivation to keep pushing for representation in the medical field.
On Oct. 23, SUNY Upstate unveiled statues of influential women in the medical field at the newly titled “Founding Mothers” courtyard. Bronze statues of Blackwell and Lougen Fraser now greet students and staff as they walk into the university.
Students, faculty and staff gathered to honor the legacy of these two alumnae in a “very permanent way,” fourth-year medical student Amelia Gabor said.
Blackwell was the first woman in the United States to receive a medical degree and the first woman to graduate from SUNY Upstate in 1849, named Geneva Medical College at the time. She was originally admitted as a joke, as the men at the university doubted she would accept the admission, Gabor said.
“They didn’t believe she belonged there; they thought it would be the funniest joke to have a woman in their class, and you know, she was able to tune all of that noise out and get her job done, get her degree and excel at it,” Gabor said.
Graduating at the top of her class, Blackwell was dedicated to broadening the effectiveness of medical care in the U.S. and had a great impact on the role of women in public health, Dr. Lynn Cleary, a professor at SUNY Upstate, said.
Lougen Fraser was the fourth Black woman in the U.S. to receive a medical degree and the first to graduate from SUNY Upstate in 1876, then called Syracuse University College of Medicine. Later in life,
Story and photos by Henry Daley
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Alum, Nvidia employee encourages students to take ‘first step’
By Owen Smith staff writer
Before graduating from Syracuse University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science in May 2024, Thomas Montfort convinced his professors to let him finish his coursework remotely. He moved to a “hacker house” in the San Francisco area, working on his own startup that would eventually get acquired by Nvidia.
“I felt like I grew so much in such a condensed period,” Montfort said.
On Tuesday, Montfort virtually spoke to United AI, formerly known as Cuse AI. He talked to organization members about how he obtained a role in Silicon Valley at Nvidia, the world’s first $5 trillion dollar company.
“I wouldn't be a senior engineer at Nvidia without my whole journey,” Montfort said.
With a history of coding since high school, Montfort came to SU with a passion for tech. His passion led him to join CuseHacks — formerly SU’s Innovate Orange club — his freshman year.
Through his time there, Montfort said he met upperclassmen who showed him the path toward internships and real-world projects. That early exposure pushed him to roles at tech companies like JPMorgan Chase and Amazon Web Services.
During his sophomore year, Montfort joined the Cuse Blockchain club. Although most of the leaders of the club focused on the trading side of crypto, Montfort favored a different avenue.
“I was just really interested in the technological side and some of the ideas going on there, which I think there was less of an appetite at Syracuse for,” Montfort said.
As a rising senior, his interest in the tech side of crypto led Montfort to start Agora Labs, a startup he built with two co-founders he met online. While the company initially focused on blockchain tech, Montfort and his team realized big companies such as AWS don’t offer a good solution to renting out Graphical Processing Units, a tool for processing large AI tasks.
“We found that the GPU shortage was really a problem,” Montfort said. “Think like Airbnb. If you have a GPU sitting around, you could rent it out.”
Realizing that, Montfort pivoted Agora Labs toward AI infrastructure. During his last semester, Montfort joined Brev.dev, another startup building similar GPU tools. He said Brev.dev leadership reached out directly to Montfort, asking to acquire Agora.
Eventually, Nvidia acquired Brev.dev, bringing Montfort to the artificial intelligence company. Montfort said he even got to meet Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, one of the richest men in the world.
I always thought everyone at Nvidia was some unattainable genius, but he was really human.
Tyler
Katz su senior
He said now his days are spent supporting what he describes as a company innovating at rapid speed. Montfort emphasized Nvidia’s push to make its technology more accessible, as the company is looking for “anyone” to build AI apps and agents.
He also discussed Nvidia Launchables, a tool that gives artificial intelligence developers oneclick templates when renting GPU power. Montfort said this is part of a broader effort to simplify the onboarding process.
Montfort now works on the Dynamo team, Nvidia’s framework used to run AI models at data-center scales. He described it as the core software enabling bigger organizations with larger GPU centers to deploy models faster.
Nvidia provides GPU rental services to smaller tech developers and startups that require expensive GPU power to launch its products.
GPUs have been in high demand due to their ability to handle the massive workloads of AI. With AI innovations exploding after the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, demand massively outpaced supply.
Despite the massive shift from a startup of single-digits to a corporation of tens of thousands, he said the core of his start-up experience stuck with him.
Students who attended the United AI event said hearing his story firsthand made Silicon Valley feel a lot closer.
Tyler Katz, a senior applied data analytics major, said Montfort’s virtual talk made a career at Nvidia feel more grounded and realistic, especially after hearing how openly Montfort uses AI tools.
“I always thought everyone at Nvidia was some unattainable genius, but he was really human,” Katz said. “Seeing someone who started where we are at SU showed me anyone here could get there.”
Ben Altenburg, a junior economics student, said the presentation left him feeling motivated to pursue entrepreneurship. After hearing Montfort’s background, an on-campus student who moved to San Francisco, Altenburg believes he may want to follow a similar path.
He said a similar work ethic to Montfort is something he “really strives for” as he hopes to create his own startup as a student, taking inspiration from Agora.
“One day, I’d like to be my own boss like him and start a company of my own,” Altenburg said. “He made it seem like the sky’s the limit.”
For Montfort, returning to SU wasn’t about highlighting his achievements, but rather showing students that they can reach their potential. He said there’s never been a better time to write software and that there's “literally no excuse” as technical experience isn’t needed anymore. He said it's “easier than ever” to invent and recommends students continue working on their ideas.
“If you're a Syracuse student right now, the biggest thing is to start something. Join a club, build a project, find people who are better than you and learn from them,” Montfort said. “All the crazy career stuff only happens once you take that first step.”
osmith18@syr.edu
Syracuse airport arranges round-trip flights for Notre Dame game
By Jamie Quinn staff writer
Syracuse Regional Airport Authority, along with major airlines, arranged nonstop roundtrip flights to South Bend from Syracuse Hancock International Airport ahead of Syracuse University's upcoming football matchup at No. 9 Notre Dame this Saturday.
Both Delta and American Airlines added special nonstop flights to South Bend to allow fans to travel to the game and support their team. Both flights will hold approximately 76 people and will leave Friday afternoon and return Sunday morning.
Delta Airlines added over 40 flights on May 2, totaling more than 8,000 seats to destinations for college football games all across the country so fans could travel and support their team in person, according to its website.
“While we are always providing information to our airline partners regarding potential one-off higher-travel opportunities, Delta Airlines simply let us know they intended to run this flight in this case,” SRAA’s Public
Information Officer Matthew Szwejbka said.
Earlier in the season, Delta had provided a larger aircraft that could fly 193 fans out to Atlanta to attend SU’s season opener against the then No. 24 Tennessee Volunteers.
Szwejbka said the effort was successful and inspired the airport to present another flight for fans.
“Upon learning of the very quick sellout of the Delta flight, our partner American Air -
lines saw an opportunity to also provide oneoff service directly from Syracuse to South Bend,” he said.
SRAA Executive Director Jason Terreri expressed gratitude toward partner airlines for their contribution to the community and for helping the Orange faithful travel and support their team in the home stretch of a turbulent season.
“This additional service into South Bend will help Orange fans show out in force,” Terreri said.
Despite a bumpy season for Syracuse, fans can be expected to make the trek to Indiana for a matchup against a high-profile opponent.
Szwejbka believes that the energy is still there for Orange fans to support their team on the road.
“There's something to be said for the camaraderie of a flight you know is loaded with SU Football fans,” he said.
He said the SRAA hopes its airline partners will continue to do special nonstop flights for future Syracuse football games in upcoming seasons.
jquinn13@syr.edu
OCIDA clears way for Micron with findings statement approval
By Brenne Sheehan asst. news editor
The Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency approved its findings statement for Micron Technology’s proposed semiconductor plant in Clay on Tuesday. The statement completes a two-year environmental review that has delayed the project. OCIDA unanimously voted to pass the 325page findings statement, which allows Micron to start clearing the site for construction after obtaining permits from other agencies. The statement is the last step needed for the project to comply with the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act.
The statement comes a day after its scheduled deadline, which OCIDA Deputy County Executive Robert Petrovich declared on Nov. 7 after the agency passed the project’s final Environmental Impact Statement.
OCIDA also voted to grant $5.6 million in sales, property and construction tax breaks to Micron, on top of $22 billion in federal subsidies already granted to the project. Taxpayers will subsidize about 40% of Micron’s first phase of the project, the company confirmed in June 2024.
In the findings statement, OCIDA said the project will have "irreversible” impacts on the environment but will limit its environmental
effects to the “maximum extent practicable.”
Micron, however, still needs permission from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the United States Army Corps of Engineers to build over the site’s 200 acres of wetlands. The project also needs approval from the U.S. Department of Commerce, which Petrovich told syracuse.com would come around mid-December.
The company plans to construct the site’s first of four fabrication plants by 2030, two to three years later than originally planned. The project was announced in 2022 and promised to provide 50,000 jobs, 9,000 of which are considered high-paying jobs.
The four fabrication plants are expected to be completed by 2041.
Micron still plans to start clearing the site in Clay — which includes 500 acres of forest — in December, claiming it will take four months to complete. The company needs to clear all trees by March 31, syracuse.com reported, because of two species of endangered bats that live on the premises and nest during the spring.
Continuing with the project, OCIDA will hold a public hearing Thursday in Clay on Micron’s eviction of a 91-year-old woman and its seizure of the right of way on two other parcels of land.
bsheeh03@syr.edu
United AI hosted recent SU alum Thomas Montfort at a Tuesday event, where he shared his journey to becoming a senior software engineer. courtesy of sami carnahan
Syracuse Regional Airport arranged nonstop round-trip flights for Syracuse University’s football matchup against Notre Dame Saturday. leonardo eriman photo editor
Some LGBTQ+ students struggle to find off-campus community
By Remi Turner contributing writer
Bargoers flow into Trexx nightclub on North Clinton Street after paying a $5 cover. Colorful neon spotlights illuminate the nearly vacant dance floor as small clusters of adults mingle with plastic cups in hand.
The only thing missing at the 18+ LGBTQ+ night club – young LGBTQ+ adults.
Some LGBTQ+ students at Syracuse University said they struggle to locate and use local resources beyond campus.
“Most of the connections I've made within the queer community at Syracuse have been solely on campus,” Jack Williams, an SU junior, said. “For someone like me who doesn't know the city as well and has been in the same boat of trying to find their place, where do I start?”
The United States Supreme Court recently declined to reopen a case and challenge its 2015 landmark decision to legalize gay marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges. In a November talk at SU, Jim Obergefell encouraged students to practice advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community amid today’s political climate. Yet some students said they still struggle to find allyship in Syracuse.
The city’s LGBTQ+ community also feels this disconnect. Kevin Bailey, founder of Come Out Central New York, said he struggles to raise awareness about his organization’s inclusive events with college students.
“The Syracuse University community is a community that's been really difficult for me to crack,” Bailey said.
Bailey organizes an LGBTQ+ networking event series called “Guerilla Gay Events,” where local members of the LGBTQ+ community infiltrate a traditionally straight space, he said. In October, Bailey hosted the event at Crazy Daisies, where attendees socialized over cups of coffee on the front porch of the garden cafe.
Out of the handful of people who attended, there was only one student. They attended SUNY Oswego.
Bailey also hosts a “Queer Happy Hour” series once a month at Salty City Market, offering a networking space and both alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages. Still, Bailey said he notices a lack of student turnout at these events.
As the former assistant dean of marketing and communications and chief information officer of SU’s Whitman School of Management, Bailey said he has more success directly connecting with student organizations rather than SU administrators to promote his community events.
“It was really hard for me to find anybody who would help me get the word out,” Bailey said.
Students also said college time constraints and not knowing where to go make it difficult to explore LGBTQ+ organizations in the city.
“I didn't give myself an opportunity to connect with Syracuse outside the bubble in general." Some LGBTQ+ Syracuse University students said they struggle to locate local resources and community off-campus. remi turner contributing writer
Leonardo Diehl, an SU sophomore, said when a friend from SUNY Cortland asked about queerfriendly businesses in Syracuse, he had a hard time answering.
“I literally can only name Strong Hearts Cafe,” Diehl said.
Diehl is involved at Syracuse’s Q Center, a branch of ACR Health that provides support for LGBTQ+ youth. He wants to network with more local queer organizations, but his stacked schedule as a biomedical engineering major prevents him from visiting other parts of the city.
“The university is kind of its own bubble,” Diehl said. “If you're not from this area, it's harder to get off campus and reach those resources.”
The LGBTQ+ Resource Center at SU did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Diehl said he plans to explore more LGBTQ+ events on campus after attending Pride Union’s, a student-run LGBTQ+ organization, drag bingo event with celebrity drag queen Kori King.
Remi Geraigery, an SU sophomore, said she found community thanks to SU’s Pride Union programming. However, they haven’t connected with LGBTQ+ adults or organizations outside of SU, they said.
“Every queer person I've met has been within the (SU) community and more so within Pride
Union,” Geraigery said. “I didn't give myself an opportunity to connect with Syracuse outside the bubble in general.”
Though Pride Union is campus-focused, President Ainsley Puc said they hope to one day bridge the gap between the hill and the larger local queer community.
“I think in the future, it would be a good thing for Pride Union to expand,” Puc said.
“That is something that I have thought about doing, but I think that's just not like within our reach right now.”
Puc said she hasn’t noticed many students with a desire to connect with other LGBTQ+ members of the Syracuse community, although Pride Union has been asked to collaborate with other local queer organizations.
“That can be something that happens once we really establish ourselves on campus more, then I think it would be good to move out and connect with the community,” Puc said.
But for some, Syracuse is one of the more inclusive cities they’ve experienced.
Harley Moran, who visited Trexx, recently moved from Tennessee to Syracuse, looking for an affordable cosmetology school and an LGBTQ+-friendly environment. Part of his preparation for the move involved researching
LGBTQ+ resources in upstate New York, and while scrolling through TikTok, Moran stumbled upon Trexx nightclub.
“I’ve noticed that more here than anywhere includes a lot more age groups in resources than I’ve ever seen,” Moran said.
However, Moran said he’s noticed an apparent divide between the older community and younger members of the LGBTQ+ community. While living here, he said he sees a larger blend of age groups in LGBTQ+spaces.
“We're all a community,” Moran said. “We all deserve to be in the same spot and enjoy ourselves, no matter what age we are.”
Coming from a rural town where he was one of the only queer people out in his high school, Diehl said the LGBTQ+ community is more apparent in Syracuse. After attending drag bingo, Diehl said he’s interested in attending more Pride Union events in collaboration with other local LGBTQ+ organizations.
“I think especially in times where we see such a rise of conservatism, like right now, it's so important to show up to events like these,” Diehl said. “It's so important to support events like these because without meeting community and being here, what are we?”
rturne03@syr.edu
City’s Catholic bishop joins others in U.S. to condemn deportations
By Brenne Sheehan asst. news editor
Syracuse Bishop Douglas Lucia is one of 216 bishops nationwide to condemn President Donald Trump’s administration’s recent mass deportations in a Nov. 12 message.
Lucia, the bishop of the Diocese of Syracuse, voted “yes” on the joint statement from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which opposed the “contemporary debate” and “vilification” of immigrants, detention center conditions and targeting places of worship.
While the message recognizes the importance of establishing immigration laws for the sake of protecting borders and preventing human trafficking, it says the Catholic Church rests on “foundational concern for the human person.”
“Catholic teaching exhorts nations to recognize the fundamental dignity of all persons, including immigrants,” the statement reads. “We bishops advocate for a meaningful reform of our nation’s immigration laws and procedures. Human dignity and national security are not in conflict. Both are possible if people of good will work together.”
The Trump administration has taken several measures in a crackdown on immigration since Trump took office in January, including increasing the budget for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to over $100 million by 2029 and enforcing expedited removal. Over 527,000 people have been deported during Trump’s second term so far, the Department of Homeland Security reported last month.
There have been several instances of ICE activity in Syracuse, with the detention of two Chinese restaurant owners in September, another four people in Westcott in March, and, most recently, two Upstate Medical University workers.
The message also highlighted the Catholic Church’s role in providing assistance to immigrants and “basic human needs,” and encouraged others to continue providing such efforts.
“Despite obstacles and prejudices, generations of immigrants have made enormous contributions to the well-being of our nation,” the statement reads. “We as Catholic bishops love our country and pray for its peace and prosperity. For this very reason, we feel compelled now in this environment to raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity.”
On Thursday, Lucia issued his own message affiliated with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse titled “For You Too Were Once Aliens …” where he referred to “both the documented and undocumented members of our communities” who are “made in the image and likeness of God.”
In the Thursday statement, he also refuted that the church’s comments were political.
“I know some will accuse the Catholic Church of meddling in politics and violating the rule of separation of Church and State,” the Thursday statement reads. “This could not be further from the truth!”
The same day, he cosigned a similar message by the Catholic Bishops of New York State. It encouraged Catholics to sign the “Cabrini
Pledge,” which promises to join Pope Leo XIV in praying for migrants and refugees. The pledge is named after Mother Cabrini, the patron saint of immigrants.
“Most important to recall is the law of Christ set down in the Great Commandments: To love
God with all our hearts and to love our neighbor as ourselves,” the statement reads. “All other imperatives are subject to this law of charity, and it is concerned neither with legal status nor country of origin.”
bsheeh03@syr.edu
City's Bishop Douglas Lucia is one of 216 Catholic bishops nationwide to condemn the Trump administration’s national mass deportation efforts. leonardo eriman photo editor
academic programs. The Middle States Commission on Higher Education, an institutional accreditor, gives SU students financial aid access and acts as a validator of degrees and credits.
The Middle States process spans three years and requires universities to submit evidence of compliance with seven standards. The university is currently within its self-study period, the second year of the overall process, which is scheduled to be submitted to Middle States next December, Hasenwinkel said.
A set of working groups, one for each Middle States standard and an additional one for general university compliance, will relay draft reports at the end of the semester.
“The self-study process gives us a structured opportunity to reflect on our institutional effectiveness and to demonstrate our commitment to continuous improvement,” Hasenwinkel said.
The self-study draft, built off the working group reports, will be finalized over the summer and made available to the SU community next fall, Hasenwinkel said. SU will host a Middle States university visit in spring 2027 and will receive the accreditation decision that summer.
The new IKEA will also include a central planning area where customers can design home spaces, as well as a gently used furniture section, part of IKEA’s sustainability initiatives. In addition to its meatballs, the food court features hot dogs, cinnamon buns and vegetarian alternatives.
John Spence, IKEA Syracuse’s unit manager, said there’s an “ask” and a “want” to be in markets like Syracuse. Spence said that while the location is a smaller branch, Destiny USA still hopes to bring the “full IKEA experience” to the city. With the brand looking to expand globally, Spence said Syracuse is an ideal location for the Swedish furniture brand.
“I’ve been with IKEA for 17 years, and I feel you’re getting the full IKEA experience here,” Spence said. “The new format’s super exciting for IKEA U.S. We’re expanding all over the country, and this new format enables us to get into the market quicker.”
Wanda Fisher, the IKEA United States expansion marketing director, said that opening IKEA Syracuse was something the company was looking at for “quite a while.” She also said the company researched the area to offer “locally relevant” products in an effort to provide its customers with the best showrooms and furniture options.
she moved to the Dominican Republic and became the first female doctor to serve there.
Coming from an underrepresented background, third-year medical student Schlyer Turner said Lougen Fraser’s ability to run a free clinic in the Dominican Republic for those without adequate health care really resonated with her.
She said the women faced prejudice and discrimination during their time at the university, but pushed forward and made a lasting impact.
“I hope people can take away from their stories that anyone can be anything they want to be, as long as you have the drive, the commitment, and the passion for it,” Turner said. “There are people like Dr. Lougen Fraser who have already done it. So why can’t you?”
At the unveiling ceremony, Gabor said she expected faculty and administration to be present, as they know more about the women and their history at the school.
However, she said she was especially touched by the number of students who joined. Many told her they were proud to be a part of such an event and have such influential women part of their school’s history.
“Medical students are so busy, but to see that so many take time out of their day to watch this happen says a lot about the values of a lot of our students,” she said.
Cleary said the idea to recognize these women first began on Feb. 3, 2021, to honor Blackwell’s 200th birthday. She said SUNY Upstate wanted to do something special to honor her bicentennial, and the idea of a statue stuck.
SUNY Upstate President Mantosh Dewan thought they should also use this opportunity to honor Lougen Fraser.
The artist of these statues, Carolyn Palmer, wanted the women’s statues to be very welcoming, human and real, Cleary said. Lougen Fraser’s right hand and Blackwell’s left hand
Hasenwinkel said the Middle States process is mostly unchanged from previous years, besides increased evidence requirements.
Also at the meeting, Vice Chancellor and Provost Lois Agnew said she expects to receive portfolio review recommendations from each dean “by the end of the calendar year.” At the start of the semester, Agnew instructed each dean to begin an academic portfolio review of their school or college.
After Jan. 1, she plans to look over the recommendations and share them with the Academic Affairs Committee and then the broader campus community.
Chancellor Kent Syverud, who typically speaks for a few minutes at each senate meeting, missed Wednesday’s due to travel related to “university business.”
Other business
• Rick DiRubbo, a professor in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, said subcommittees within the Committee on Curriculum and Instruction focused on Idea courses, shared competencies and the current curriculum process have begun meeting. He said they have a “busy” next few months.
• Senators Margaret Susan Thompson and Lori Brown said the Academic
Affairs Committee will continue to hold discussions on topics, including academic freedom, artificial intelligence, responses to federal executive orders and the dissolution of Graduate Student
“It’s one of our most requested cities to come in here,” Fisher said. “Destiny USA was just a great location and a great spot to be able to come in and work with the mall.”
The Syracuse location is similar in size to downtown Toronto’s IKEA, which opened three years ago. With the success of the Toronto location, Fisher said the brand envisions the
gesture toward the entrance of the university.
Gabor said she appreciates how personable the statues are and thinks they connect well with people who see them.
“Today I actually saw a physician walk to one of the statues and just shake her hand, and then he kept going with his day,” Gabor said.
Since the time of these women, the commitment to gender and racial equity has
same success for IKEA Syracuse and will precede other smaller locations opening in Washington D.C., Phoenix, Alabama and Texas.
Before turning to national expansion, IKEA hopes to develop a strong relationship within the Syracuse community and become a main attraction at Destiny USA. Aaron Talbot, the marketing campaign leader for IKEA U.S. East, said a
evolved, not only at SUNY Upstate but throughout the world, Cleary said. More women and people of color have been admitted to medical school over time.
Cleary said the university has taken that legacy seriously, attempting to recruit and matriculate a diverse class.
Both Blackwell and Lougen Fraser serve as role models and inspirations for not
Organization. Thompson said the committee will present its annual faculty census spring 2026.
gbrown19@syr.edu @griffinuribrown
“priority” for the company is to connect with Syracuse University and other local colleges.
“It's something that's been a priority for us for a lot of years,” Talbot said. “Trying to find different ways to connect with that audience and a new audience altogether, finding a younger audience has been really important to us.”
Talbot, who said he’s worked on multiple campaigns with other colleges, said IKEA Syracuse hopes to host events and activities in collaboration with the university and Destiny USA. Connecting with college students is a top priority for the Swedish furniture store, but Talbot hopes that IKEA Syracuse can become integral to the local community.
Along with hosting events and forming partnerships with nearby universities, IKEA Syracuse also hopes to give back to the community and be a “good neighbor.” Spence said IKEA will donate $10,000 to the Food Bank of Central New York on Friday as part of its plans to give back.
Spence also said that while he hopes Syracuse and the surrounding communities enjoy IKEA’s Swedish meatballs and other benefits when the store opens, he views IKEA Syracuse as a longterm investment in the city and hopes to supply affordable products.
“The meatballs are the reward at the end of the journey, and once we get there, that's great,” Spence said. “But IKEA is about affordability, so it's making the many products affordable for our customers.”
hdaley@syr.edu
only women in the medical field but for all, reminding people of the importance of bravery and perseverance, Cleary said.
“We are so happy to have them arrive on campus and join us, and be part of the inspiration for anybody who comes here, learning their stories and learning the history of women in medicine,” Cleary said.
gmmcclos@syr.edu
After making national news for offering families late-cycle financial aid packages, Syracuse University has different plans for this year. solange jain senior staff photographer
Destiny USA’s new IKEA location opens Friday and attempts to bring Syracuse the “full IKEA experience." henry daley asst. digital editor
A century after Elizabeth Blackwell and Sarah Lougen Fraser attended SUNY Upstate Medical University, their legacies live on in the new “Founding Mothers” courtyard. joe zhao senior staff photographer
campus life
Selfless signs
Sign Guy has held positive signs on campus for the last four years, hoping to spread joy and love
By Charlotte Price asst. culture editor
Every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday — rain, shine or snow — a Syracuse University senior sits in a folding lawn chair in the same spot on the Shaw Quadrangle. For an hour or two, he holds up a whiteboard with a brief positive message. He rarely misses a day.
Passersby usually don’t spare him more than a brief glance, smile or sometimes a wave. But he doesn’t mind if people don’t react, he said. He knows he’s doing the right thing, and has been doing it since freshman year.
Sign Guy, who studies neuroscience and data analytics, asked to be anonymous in this story. He believes the message is bigger than himself.
“Smile, giggle, laugh, repeat”
The idea to sit outside with a sign, and one of Sign Guy’s favorite messages, “Smile, giggle, laugh, repeat,” came from his grandfather.
For about two decades, Sign Guy’s grandfather sat at a roundabout in their small town in Vermont with his own sign, Sign Guy said. It began as a political protest to the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003.
As the conflict waned, his grandfather began to shift toward signs with more general messages of “peace, love and joy.” His grandfather moved to Oregon, and Sign Guy started college at SU.
Sign Guy said he knew he wanted to continue his grandfather’s tradition starting on his first day of college. He said telling his grandfather he planned to hold signs at SU was an emotional moment that strengthened their close childhood connection.
“Someone had to hold it down for the East Coast,” Sign Guy said.
Since then, Sign Guy has had a few chances to sit with his grandfather — who he described as a second parent — at that roundabout, displaying a sign together.
When Sign Guy started getting attention from SU students who wanted to feature him in class projects, he consulted his grandfather for advice.
“It’s about the message and the sign and the spreading of that message,” Sign Guy said. “In conversation with see sign page 8
it when they do. Still, he doesn’t mind; it’s enough that he knows he’s doing the right
Some students form new Thanksgiving traditions on campus
By Lily Zuckerman asst. digital editor
From the kitchen of his off-campus apartment, finance graduate student Peter Tamaska will be preparing his first-ever Thanksgiving dinner this year. The meal for two will be complete with carbonara (his speciality) and an old friend, reminders of his home in Budapest, Hungary and undergraduate time in the Netherlands.
“My whole idea of Thanksgiving comes from the series, ‘Friends,’” Tamaska said. “It seems like a cool holiday people spend with their family and close friends. There’s a big meal and gratitude, a good feeling.” For most Syracuse University students, Thanksgiving break is a time to return home, spend time with family and friends and catch up on sleep. But that’s not the reality for all SU students, given airport
delays, expensive flights and other factors keeping them on campus for the week.
Sophomore Ilya Melamed said last Thanksgiving break was a very difficult 10 days, but this year he’ll have other friends who are staying on campus for the break.
“It comforts my mind that none of my family members really celebrate Thanksgiving,” Melamad said. “It gives me peace of mind to
know that I’m not actually missing out on much.” With flights costing over $2,000 to go home to London for the holidays, Melamed said that it wasn’t “financially suitable” to leave for break.
Though he was disappointed to spend another break in his dorm room, he said this time will be different. This year, his mindset for enduring the break is that he’ll use the time off to study for exams and
will be home in early December.
“I’m thinking of going to a market and buying a big ass turkey,” Melamed said. “A couple of friends and I who are staying will be having dinner with a big bird on the table.” Melamed will be attending the International Thanksgiving Celebration at the JMA Wireless Dome on Thursday and sharing a meal on Thanksgiving in Milton Hall, where see staying page 9
Passersby don’t always smile, wave or even acknowledge Sign Guy, though he loves
thing to hopefully motivate students. leonardo eriman photo editor
After rebrand, Citrus Racing’s CR5 car builds a ‘spark’ for Formula club
By Claire Zhang asst. copy editor
In May 2024, Citrus Racing competed in Michigan with its CR4 car. Now, with a larger team and a rebrand, they’re working on a CR5 car to go back to competing next year.
“Getting that car (CR5) to competition, that’s really the spark for this new team,” Ryan Brennan, a Syracuse University senior, said.
Citrus Racing is SU’s Formula SAE — Society of Automotive Engineers — team. Their cars are named CR, followed by the model version number. Since the 1980s, the team has undergone many changes, with fluctuations in team numbers, branding and more.
Today, they stand at around 120 members, with over 50 actively involved. It’s a huge increase from previous years, President and SU senior Dorian Baker-Santoro said.
The team is divided into sub-teams, all in charge of a different aspect of the car. They’ve also expanded with a media team and business operations team. They race under FSAE, an international convention that supports student engineers and hosts competitions throughout the year.
While Citrus Racing mainly attracts engineering and computer science students, the team maintains that anybody can get involved.
“It doesn’t matter your major, doesn’t matter where you come from,” Baker-Santoro said.
“You could know nothing and come in here, learn and be useful to us.”
Media Lead Katelyn Longo and Treasurer Rachel Ward are proof of that. Longo is a public relations major and Ward studies finance and business, but the two joined due to their personal interests. Ward has been a Formula One fan her whole life, and being part of the team gave her relevant experience while being something she enjoys.
The team’s ideology of supporting new members is something they’ve tried to emphasize in recent years. Senior Joseph Lodato, one of the two chief engineers, recalls joining the team his freshman year and feeling that it wasn’t focused on educating new members.
“It was very much, ‘We have a car to build. If you want to be involved, you’ll figure it out on the fly,’” Lodato said.
Brennan, the electrical and embedded systems team lead, shared similar sentiments. He joined in 2022 and wasn’t invested at first due to the lack of structure he saw on the team. After gaining more technical experience from his SU classes, he rejoined to give new members the experience he originally wanted, he said.
A flawed structure led to a smaller team, and it showed when they went to competition in 2024, Baker-Santoro said. With fewer resources and manpower, it was challenging to balance other responsibilities and also be successful in the team, he said.
Now, he and the team are focused on instilling the knowledge they have. Rather than
only having team leads do hands-on work, it’s important to retain interested members by passing down information and making them feel included, Lodato said.
“As a lead, I’d probably say 70% of my time is for other people,” Brennan said. “That’s what it’s about, setting up the blocks so they can just run.”
The team has implemented an onboarding program to do just that. New members can come in and do projects that prepare them to work on the car, learning everything from microcontroller basics to signal analysis, Brennan said. It gives engineering freshmen a chance to get real experience they wouldn’t usually get until their junior year, he said.
All the learning and hard work throughout the year pays off in competition, Baker-Santoro said. For members who haven’t previously gone to FSAE Michigan, it’s hard to visualize the end goal, Lodato said. But the opportunities that come from participating put everything in perspective, Baker-Santoro said.
Not only is it rewarding to see the car they’ve worked on in action, the competition is also a way to connect with and learn from other teams across the country.
“It’s a very good community to be a part of, because while we are competing against each other, everyone wants the same thing,” Baker-Santoro said. “We all want to see each other succeed.”
For many engineering students, competing is a milestone in their future careers. The competition
Passion project Pure Ginger hones visuals in close collective
By Mia Jones culture editor
Megan Carr used to sit on her childhood bedroom floor, flipping through fashion magazines and creating collages. Carr cut out the pictures from her Vogue Magazine subscription she’s had since she was 13 and stuck them on her bedroom walls.
While she doesn’t collage as much anymore, the hobby led to her passion project: Pure Ginger.
“I realized that the reason I was doing it was because I like the visuals so much, I like how it’s laid out and laying it out in my own way,” Carr, a Syracuse University junior, said.
Pure Ginger is Carr’s magazine, which she created this year. The magazine highlights art and poetry, focusing on visual appeal. She’s now working on the second edition at SU, which is expected to come out in print and digitally in the first week of December.
Carr loves the photography and visual aspects of magazines, which are the main components
of Pure Ginger. Instead of using written articles, Pure Ginger contains poems, quotes and headlines that complement photos.
Carr came up with the name Pure Ginger at 15. It’s inspired by her grandmother, Ginger, who taught her how to sew, draw, paint and more. Carr called her grandmother “the heart of her creativity.”
After sitting on the name for a few years, Carr realized how much she liked it.
As a creative advertising major, Carr decided to take the Pure Ginger name she came up with in high school and make it into a magazine. It’s where her ideas for photo shoots, graphic design and spreads live, she said.
“I had so much free time that I was like, ‘If I don’t start now, I feel like I never will,’ and it’s been great,” Carr said.
In high school, Carr was co-president of a fashion club, where she created small magazines using the design programs available to her, like Canva. Since then, she’d been wanting to start
Pure Ginger, but originally thought of it as a fashion brand when she wanted to pursue design in high school.
Once arriving at SU, Carr took on leadership titles like vice president and creative director in organizations like Women in Communications. Despite these roles, she said she didn’t feel like she was fully showcasing her artistic abilities.
Carr officially started the publication over the summer with close friends from her hometown of Milwaukee. She reached out to friends asking them to model for her, and then borrowed a friend’s camera and took photos and designed the publication. Carr finished the first edition over the last two weeks of summer, and it came out in late September.
Just like when they were younger and dressed up to go take pictures after dinner, Carr knew her friends would say yes to her photo shoots — they’d already been doing them their whole lives.
Overstuffed ending taints ‘The Running Man’ despite great debut
By Joel Pelachik staff writer
Watching 2025’s “The Running Man” is like eating a big bucket of popcorn with extra butter; it fills you with joy and leaves you craving for more, but when you’re finished, something doesn’t quite sit right.
Adapted from Stephen King’s 1982 novel of the same name, “The Running Man” is a delightful, action-packed ride that even earned approval from Tom Cruise. Starring a charismatic Glen Powell and directed by Edgar Wright, the film delivers an exceptional theater experience but falls short of greatness due to its overstuffed ending.
Still, it’s an improvement from the standalone decades-old original starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Wright’s version received high praise from Schwarzenegger, who told People that the 1987 film was his only project that he wished would be revisited.
“The Running Man” is set in a modern dystopia controlled by a media monopoly called The Network. Ben Richards (Powell), a blue-collar worker in desperate need of money for his infant daughter’s medication, tries out for The Network’s savage game shows and lands a spot on the most dangerous one, “The Running Man.”
Three participants are given $1,000 and a 12-hour headstart before The Network assassins hunt them down. Throughout the game, competitors can hide anywhere, even among civilians.
Everyday people can play a role by reporting the runners’ locations or killing them before the assassins do. The participants must send daily 10-minute videos to The
Network, and they’re awarded $1 billion for surviving the 30 days.
For Ben, it’s simple: survive, become rich and return to his family — or die and lose everything.
Unlike “The Long Walk,” this King adaptation had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. While the premise is straightforward, it lets Powell shine.
Powell is the backbone of “The Running Man,” delivering a memorable performance for a role that could’ve felt cookie cutter if cast differently. He ditches the standard action lead through incredible emotion, capturing moments of pure rage, wit and heartbreak.
In preparation for the role, Powell, who mostly does his own stunts in the movie, talked with Cruise for hours. The legendary stunt master gave him advice for sprinting properly on camera and explained “how not to die” while filming, which paid off with impressive tricks.
Cruise has been by Powell’s side since he didn’t land the role of Rooster (Miles Teller) in 2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick.” Cruise convinced Powell to accept a smaller part, Hangman, which ended up being career defining. With “The Running Man,” Powell proved he has the chops to be the next major action star.
The rest of the cast carried their weight too, especially Michael Cera as Elton Parrakis, a revolutionary who helps Ben along the way. Cera was fantastic in his limited screentime. This felt like a more serious role for him (at least character motivation-wise), but Elton still boasts the obligatory quirkiness of a Cera character.
My favorite scene shows Elton rigging an electric floor in his house and spraying it with a water gun, which electrocutes intruding soldiers from
The Network. It’s an epic sequence that features a needle drop of “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)” by The Rolling Stones — a song that immediately made me lean forward in my seat.
Josh Brolin plays Dan Killian, The Network’s chief executive. While it’s great to watch Brolin’s acting prowess, I was disappointed by the portrayal. Brolin did what he could, but the script made Dan a stereotypical head-honcho villain; he’s just a cutout of someone corrupted by power.
The only glaring issue with “The Running Man” is its convoluted ending, which overshadowed the otherwise mature worldbuilding throughout the film.
After breaking into wealthy civilian Amelia Williams’ (Emilia Jones) car and taking her hostage, The Network cooperates with Ben — who pretends to have an explosive — allowing him and Amelia to board a plane.
The plane sequence tries to do too much. Dan calls in, says he knows the explosive is fake and offers Ben his own show. A deepfake from The Network makes Ben believe his family was murdered. And it’s revealed that Evan McCone (Lee Pace), the main hunter, was in Ben’s position when he participated in the game and accepted Dan’s offer.
The multitude of twists and turns feel painfully forced, and the audience doesn’t have proper time to digest all the information. The entire final act felt like Wright tried to mimic the tension of classic 1990s revelations, like in “Se7en” or “Primal Fear,” but it didn’t work with the film’s campier tone.
However, I applaud “The Running Man” for poignantly critiquing society, especially as an action flick. It’s unclear when the movie
takes place, but the novel is coincidentally set in 2025.
The Network consistently uses deepfakes to paint participants in a negative light, which parallels current fears of artificial intelligence. The film also highlights the dangers of media bias with The Network’s authoritative influence, reflecting how partisan news can lead to political division.
Also, “The Running Man” comments on wealth inequality, with rich people, like Amelia, being oblivious to The Network’s corruption, and more impoverished people rooting for Ben with the slogan “Richards Lives.” The subtle themes aren’t the centerpiece of the movie, but they’re effective nonetheless.
“The Running Man” is facing backlash for not being as stylish as other Wright films, and while true, it’s an unfair critique of the project itself. Just because it doesn’t feel overtly like a Wright movie doesn’t take away from its execution.
This is the second script that Wright has co-written with Michael Bacall — both being adapted screenplays — and apart from Bacall’s first collaboration (“Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”), Wright’s creativity thrives off original screenplays.
With “The Running Man” being a King adaptation, I can see it ranking low among Wright’s filmography, which contains stylistic masterpieces like “Shaun of the Dead” and “Baby Driver,” but don’t let that detract you from watching a well-made film.
While the ending falls flat, Wright directing an action movie starring an energetic Powell is the perfect recipe for a fun time.
For Citrus Racing, competing means more than just showing off their hand-built car. Competitions also bring career opportunities. cassie roshu senior staff photographer
Megan Carr has been passionate about magazines since she was young. cassie roshu senior staff photographer
him, he’s like, ‘Just make sure you’re focusing on spreading the message. That’s what it’s about. It’s not about you.’”
“You matter”
Sign Guy emphasizes that anyone can do what he’s doing — that’s the point, he said. All he does is sit with a sign with a sentence like, “You matter.” It’s not about him, and he doesn’t want his own imperfections to take away from the meaning of the sign, he said.
It’s the message of “peace, love and joy” that has the real impact, he said.
“What I hope people get from it is that a person can spend the time to do this and can be dedicated to doing this, not a specific person, just that anyone can do it,” Sign Guy said. “All you need is a whiteboard and a chair and markers and you can go out.”
As the weather gets colder, Sign Guy sits for an hour or more in freezing temperatures. He said he sees enough good in the world to make the commitment to go out every day, and hopes that inspires others.
But he’s prepared for the weather. Sign Guy wears tights under fleece-lined cargo pants with heavy-duty boots. He hopes people don’t notice that he wears the same pants almost every time. Sometimes he wears a ski mask, which he said feels silly.
“You’re stronger than you know” Sign Guy said his positive messages are a response to fear mongering and anxiety he sees in his generation, and especially on social media. He said he’s noticed an existential sense of dread and uncertainty, especially on college campuses.
“In the past couple generations, it’s always felt like they are looking forward to the future because it’s going to be better,” Sign Guy said. “And now we are kind of at this point where that sense of security isn’t really there. And I think that really takes a toll.”
The goal is to create one positive thing a day for people to see, Sign Guy said. He hopes it can put a smile on people’s faces, or just be a reminder that there’s good in the world. It’s always good to have the words “love” and “smile” in big letters, he said.
Sign Guy said his friends often come by and chat with him while he holds his sign. His close friend, senior Omi Wolfe, said even if she doesn’t have time to stop by, just knowing he’s out on the Quad makes her feel good.
“This one time I saw him from across the Quad and I started waving my hands so he would see me,” Wolfe said. “I didn’t really go up to him, but just knowing that he was there, and that he had something positive on his sign, uplifted my spirit.”
“Bring a smile to class today”
The first time Sign Guy decided to sit outside with his sign, his very first day of college classes, he said he “freaked out.” As a freshman, he said he was worried about what people would think and if he could actually make a difference.
His grandfather had experienced intense negative reactions to his anti-war signs, and Sign Guy said he was scared by that too. He called his brother for support.
“He kind of calmed me down and set me straight,” Sign Guy said. “It was like, ‘You got this, this is something you want to do. Who cares what anyone else thinks? You know this is the right thing to do. Go do it.’ And that got me in the right mindset.”
The first few people who walked past gave confused glances, he said. Then, someone broke into a beaming smile. After that, he said he was fully confident in what he was doing.
On the first day of every semester since then, Sign Guy has used the sign “Bring a smile to class today.” He said he tries to decide on signs based on the knowledge that other people are probably going through the same things he is.
If he’s stressed about a test, he knows other people probably are too. For midterms and finals season, he uses signs with messages like “Keep going.” He gathers ideas from classes, social media, friends and his grandfather.
He said the biggest challenge is often getting phrases down to his five-to-seven word limit. Sign Guy said the concise messages are important, especially for someone like a cyclist who rode past and waved on Tuesday. People won’t stop to read a paragraph, he said.
“Your smile is beautiful”
Sign Guy has an almost scientific knowledge of his spot on the Quad, built from his hours and hours of observation. At the beginning of his Tuesday shift, the sidewalks are usually empty, he said. As classes get out, he watches the Quad fill up. Signs with more substance like, “You’re stronger than you know,” tend not to get as many reactions as lighthearted signs like, “Your smile is beautiful,” he said. But, the reactions they do get are more meaningful.
The signs are a smile-driven operation. Sign Guy said his favorite passerbys are those who
don’t react at first. As they walk away, he sees them fighting a smile. “Gotcha,” he thinks. Those interactions are some of the best because they’re really changing how people think, he said.
In the early years of his sign-holding career, Sign Guy said he used to fixate on the amount of smiles he got in a day. If he didn’t get enough, he didn’t feel successful.
Now, he said he doesn’t need to get a certain number to feel like he’s doing the right thing.
“I feel like I see him a lot more pensive now,” Wolfe said. “He doesn’t feel the need to talk to people going by. He fully makes it about the sign and how it’s able to impact others, not about him and his sign.”
Sign Guy always tries to look inviting and keep a smile on his face, he said. Despite that, he still notices that people hold back from interacting with him or walk past looking at their phones. Even when he’s visited different cities and sat with a sign there, the same unwritten rules of not reaching out to strangers apply, he said.
The first 15 people who walk by him on the Quad might not wave or react, he said. But as one person does, the likelihood that more will do the same jumps, he said. Sign Guy said he’s learned how big of an impact the first person to challenge the status quo has.
“Don’t let yesterday’s rain wash away today’s smile”
The day after it rains at SU, Sign Guy likes to hold the sign: “Don’t let yesterday’s rain wash away today’s smile.” It’s a way to remind people not to let their past take them out of the present moment, he said.
Sign Guy said the most important time for him to go out with his sign was when he was going through a breakup. Sign Guy said he sat on the Quad crying while holding a sign that says, “Your smile is beautiful.” That kind of day reminds him of why he does this.
“When you get tested is when it’s more important to prove to yourself that you can go do these things,” Sign Guy said. “If you know it’s the right thing to do, you should do it, regardless of how you’re feeling.”
Toward the end of Sign Guy’s Tuesday hour, SU graduate student Joel Barnes stopped to offer him a slice of pizza. Barnes sees Sign Guy
EVENTS OVER BREAK
If you’re staying in Syracuse for Thanksgiving break, here’s a list of events to keep you occupied.
ART. FOR. EVERY. BODY.
Need a break from all the holiday commotion? Stop by Blue Moon Apothecary & Wellness Center for relaxing painting and tea drinking. No experience is necessary, and attendees get to take home their own 8x10 canvas painting.
WHEN : Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m.
PRICE: Free
WHERE: Blue Moon Apothecary & Wellness Center
Shakedown Sunday
Shakedown Sunday is a monthly series hosted by Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers and members of Dead to the Core, celebrating the music of the Grateful Dead. This month, singer-songwriter Jessica Brown and her reggae/soul-inspired band Root Shock performs.
WHEN : Sunday, doors at 12 p.m., show at 1 p.m.
PRICE: $17.79
WHERE: The 443 Social Club & Lounge
Friendsgiving at Meier’s Creek
Celebrate Friendsgiving at Meier’s Creek with good food and brews at Inner Harbor Taproom and Caz Farm Brewery. There will be live music by Colin Aberdeen from 6 to 9 p.m. The event is free for everyone.
WHEN : Nov. 26, 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.
PRICE: Free
WHERE: Meier’s Creek Brewing Company Inner Harbor
at least once a week, and said the signs are a “small encouragement.”
Sign Guy loves those spontaneous moments, like watching people play frisbee on the Quad or overhearing conversations about the new Taylor Swift album.
Twice, someone has approached him and shared that they were having a bad day and needed to see his message. Sign Guy calls that a genuine moment of humanity.
“The interactions that I have with people reminded me, especially going through that breakup, that life goes on, and I still have value to give the world, and I’m still out here doing this good thing that I know is good,” Sign Guy said. “I still can exist. The whole world isn’t ending, just one aspect of my life.”
“World peace is possible, one person at a time”
Sign Guy said that though the peace, love and joy message is important, he sometimes feels like a “coward” for not displaying political messages like his grandfather. If he were to include political messaging, he said he would focus on human rights issues, which he said have become unnecessarily political.
Sign Guy said he’s thought about expanding his message through a social media page or a new form of social media that promotes positivity through its algorithm, an idea inspired by his data analytics and neuroscience studies.
Though Sign Guy is a senior, he’s staying at SU for another two years to finish his masters degree. Recently, someone approached him and asked him if he had to rent the space to sit there. That was a meaningful moment, he said. He gave someone an idea to replicate his positivity. He said every smile or “nice to see you” means a lot.
Sign Guy said the signs are where he gets his sense of purpose from. He said he hopes to grow his signs into something that impacts people worldwide, though he’s not completely sure what that will look like yet.
“Obviously the end goal is to save the world, right?” he said. “But this is not going to save the world. But this is all I know how to do now. So that’s what I’m doing.” cprice04@syr.edu
If you want to balance out all the Thanksgiving food, get moving early with the Liverpool Turkey Trot. Running for 12 years, the experience welcomes kids, adults and even pets. WHEN: Nov. 27, 5K starts at 9:15 a.m.
PRICE: $10-50
WHERE: Onondaga Lake Park Liverpool Turkey Trot
Hamell on Trial is the musical alias of New York-based performer Ed Hamell. He uses a battered 1937 Gibson guitar to create a folk-punk sound. Swing by The 443 Social Club & Lounge over the holiday weekend to watch the show.
WHEN : Nov. 28 and 29, doors 5:30 p.m., show at 7 p.m.
PRICE: $39.11
WHERE: The 443 Social Club & Lounge
Hamell for the Holidaze
Sign Guy sits outside with his sign for hours, in rain, snow and shine. He doesn’t even mind freezing winter temperatures. leonardo eriman photo editor | lola jeanne carpio staff photographer
he and other international students will use the oven to cook a turkey. Last year, he didn’t do those kinds of activities.
This year, Melamad plans to start his own Thanksgiving traditions: watching American and European football.
Other SU students who spent last year’s Thanksgiving break on campus also learned from experience and are making some changes to their itinerary this year.
Gauri Sachan, a graduate student studying engineering management, hasn’t seen her family back home in India since beginning her degree at SU in August 2024.
Last year, she experienced her first Thanksgiving celebration in Goldstein Auditorium.
For Sachan, the dinner at Goldstein Auditorium was a subtle reminder of Diwali, which she said is one of her favorite holidays at home. To make this year’s Thanksgiving dinner feel more like Diwali, Sachan said that she’ll be making ras malai, her favorite Indian dessert.
“I was actually drawing parallels between the Thanksgiving dinner and Diwali,” Sachan said. “I was looking at families being together, how they are enjoying their kids and I was just missing my home and family.”
After her visit to the International Thanksgiving Celebration last year, Sachan learned what Thanksgiving is all about: turkey carving and bringing people together, she said.
is sponsored by almost every major car company in the country, so there are endless opportunities for internships and jobs, Baker-Santoro said.
That’s why competing isn’t the only end goal. The lessons that come with it shape the next generation of engineers, Lodato said.
Currently, the team meets multiple times a week to achieve their end goal of finishing CR5 and bringing it to Michigan. Since FSAE’s focus is on innovation and engineering, the team looks for ways to present its ingenuity through the design. CR5 will be made up of completely new parts — nothing they constructed for CR4 can be reused.
This makes the process quite a challenge, and it involves a lot of collaboration, Brennan said. Making sure every step of their progress is documented through notes and drawings is
One of Carr’s hometown friends, Emily Braunstein, was used to doing these fashion photography shoots with Carr. She helped Carr take photos for the first edition of Pure Ginger and also wrote a poem about Midwest summers included in the magazine. Braunstein said she’s loved watching Carr bring her creative visions to life and grow creatively.
“It started as fun photo shoots in high school and even middle school, and now it’s evolved into something very real, and a complete magazine,” Braunstein said. “It definitely shows her ability to take charge and test her creativity and see the full potential of what she can do.”
She now has a whole team of people working with her, which she said has made the process much easier. Carr said she enjoys having creative control over Pure Ginger, and that she and her friends can highlight their talents and creative work.
With the magazine consisting of Carr’s friends and people she knows, the team understands Carr’s passion for Pure Ginger, and Carr understands their strengths. Carr said working on the magazine feels like hanging out with her friends.
Junior Anna Jack has been the lead photographer working on the second edition. She said the
Sachan spent most of the days off for Thanksgiving break last year in her apartment while her friends and roommates were away, but this year she’ll be spending the holiday in New York City with a friend and will “actually leave her house,” she said.
Other than the dinner on Thursday, Sachan spent last Thanksgiving break ordering food to her apartment, visiting Letchworth State Park and missing home.
“I was still trying to adjust to that whole cultural shift that I was experiencing,” Sachan said. “I’ll be much more comfortable with the break now, especially now that my friend is also coming, so we’ll get to see a lot of new places together.”
For the first half of the break, a friend who lives in NYC is going to visit Sachan in Syracuse. On Wednesday, Sachan and her friend are heading downstate to Brooklyn, where her friend will act as her personal tour guide of NYC for Sachan’s first visit to the Big Apple.
Sachan’s NYC bucket list includes watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, visiting the Empire State Building and seeing Vincent van Gogh paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This year, Sachan plans to take advantage of discounted items during Black Friday sales; something she regrets not spending more money on last year.
Similar to Sachan, Tamaska’s also going to visit NYC to see a friend for the first half of the break, and then will create his own Thanksgiving back in Syracuse. He plans on showing his friend from undergraduate school in the Netherlands around Syracuse after visiting the city.
essential to their success, he said. The problems that arise are unavoidable hurdles, and they’re ways for his members to learn.
“For most people, until they’ve come into this room, every problem they’ve solved has been solved by thousands of students before them,” Brennan said. “Whereas here you run into a new problem, and there’s no answer key for you.”
Since Citrus Racing is a registered student organization, it receives funding from the school through the Student Government Association. Their allocation is $25,000 a semester, but due to the expensive nature of the work, this often doesn’t cover everything, Ward said.
Ward focuses on sourcing materials and balancing prices with the business operations team. To receive extra funding, she reaches out to potential sponsors and hosts fundraising events, like a Formula One watch party with a racing simulator people could pay to try. These events
familiar faces have made her more comfortable and helped her express herself more creatively as a photographer, especially knowing they’re all motivated to do the same thing.
“It’s extremely rewarding to actually have this idea,” Jack said. “We were just messaging about stuff in a GroupMe and now it’s a magazine.”
Jack and Carr tag team photo shoots and take pictures of the same scenes at the same time to catch different angles. Carr said as long as she has a good mood board for Jack, she can execute the vision.
Most of the poems in Pure Ginger revolve around art — Carr and her friends look to their surroundings or online to find pieces of art and artists they’re interested in featuring. Pure Ginger often features artists who people aren’t as familiar with, Carr said, like Claudia Andujar in its first edition.
Carr was inspired by her current social media marketing internship with Musée Magazine, a digital publication focused on aspiring artists. She looks to the magazine to find artists that people might not know about, and is planning on featuring the artist Ted’s Right Mind in the upcoming magazine.
Carr gives her writers free rein over how and what they choose to write regarding the art. She said she wants there to be no constraints with Pure Ginger; just people’s own twists on art.
“I don’t have that many expectations, to be honest,” Tamaska said. “I know that I’m just going to hang out with my friend and eat good food.”
In addition to making his own meal for the holiday, Tamaska plans to attend the International Thanksgiving Celebration on Thursday, like other students.
“I don’t really know what to expect,” Tamaska said. “ I hope that I’ll eat good food and meet some new people in my program or other international students.”
Some students, like freshman Aurora Mansilla, feel better about staying on campus over Thanksgiving break since she knows other international students will be doing the same. Originally from Madrid, Spain, Mansilla lived in both Houston, Texas and New York where she experienced Thanksgiving from 7 to 11 years old.
She’s going to take advantage of empty buildings and no classes by spending time with other students.
not only help the team financially, but also garner support from the SU community, Ward said.
As part of their team’s rebrand mission, Longo has been focused on improving their digital presence. By posting on social media, revising their website and advertising the team’s work, she hopes the team will get more attention.
“It gets us so much more recognition, so that maybe one day I email a company and they can Google ‘Citrus Racing’ and see that the Instagram is so good, that they’ll think ‘Oh, maybe we’ll help them out,’” Ward said.
Citrus Racing’s recent rebrand is both a visual change as well as a mental change in leadership, Lodato said. The ultimate goal is to make the team more accessible and continue growing in membership.
Baker-Santoro said he realizes how stressful making a car from scratch can be. Being in the president position now, it’s easy to see why
“Every page can look different,” Carr said. “The cohesiveness of it is just that it’s all random put together.”
The point of the magazine is that there’s no theme; it’s centered around whatever her peers believe to be interesting and meaningful, Carr said. When her graphic design team asked what kinds of colors or fonts they should be using, Carr told them it could be whatever they thought was the most visually appealing.
“When people are wanting to design something or want to write something, it’s more so what they really feel looks cool,” Carr said. “It’s unique for the magazine, rather than what they think it should be.”
When Carr texted her sorority’s group chat over the summer, asking if anyone wanted to work on Pure Ginger, Lydia Phillips, a junior studying communications design, knew she wanted to help.
Now, as head of graphic design, Phillips works closely with Carr to comb through the photos from shoots and carry out her vision. Phillips said she’s looking forward to including more artists’ work in Pure Ginger, and she enjoys pairing the art with type and graphics.
Right now, Pure Ginger isn’t a registered student organization, because Carr likes the magazine’s fluidity. Phillips said the fact that Pure Ginger isn’t an RSO lets people have more fun with it. For the first edition, she printed five
“I’m also hoping to get closer to and meet other international students that are staying and to unify with them because we’re the only ones on campus,” Mansilla said. “I’m grateful for all the new and different people I’ve been able to meet. I wasn’t expecting to become a part of so many communities so quickly.”
Mansilla said staying on campus for Thanksgiving break is something she’s grateful for. Like Tamaska, Mansilla hopes the International Thanksgiving Celebration introduces her to other international students and has the foods that she remembers eating, like pumpkin pie and turkey.
“One of the things that I would do when I lived in Texas was hang out with my family and friends for Thanksgiving,” Mansilla said. “But since I can’t do that here, I’m hoping to use this as an opportunity to get closer to other students and for a little community that way.”
lvzucker@syr.edu
previous teams were so closed off, he said. But it’s important to balance the stress and ensure the process is exciting.
“This should be fun,” Baker-Santoro said. “There’s not a lot of places that you can take what you’re learning in your engineering classes and apply it to something like this.”
As May 2026 grows closer, the team is hyperfocused on completing CR5, Brennan said. Lodato recalled the months leading up to competition as being the most fun and is excited to see members have a final “all hands on deck” moment. While being on the team is a valuable learning experience itself, nothing compares to actual competition, Baker-Santoro said.
“It’s been great that we’ve been able to adopt this new ideology and implement it, but it means nothing if we can’t actually take people there,” Baker-Santoro said.
cmzhang@syr.edu
copies at the Nancy Cantor Warehouse with her own money, but is hoping to expand that for the upcoming magazine.
The magazine has also taught the team more about themselves. Jack is used to taking formal senior portraits for students, which she said is more rigid and less artistic, so working on Pure Ginger has been something new for her. Carr’s perspective on art is special, she said, and she’s been able to learn more about herself as an artist.
“Meg has really opened up a creative space for everyone,” Jack said. “I love the way that Meg’s brain works.”
When they first talked about the magazine, Jack said she saw a light in Carr’s eyes she’d never seen before, revealing a more artistic side of her.
Carr doesn’t expect Pure Ginger to become a widely-published magazine — that’s not the main point of it. It’s still a work in progress; she said she just wants it to be a space for her and her peers to highlight what each person can do.
Carr hopes to continue making Pure Ginger better and broadening its horizons, maybe even after she graduates. She wants the visuallydriven magazine to catch people’s eye and make them stop for a second.
“That’s what art is all about in general,” Carr said. “Just making you think, even if it’s for just a split second.”
mjones58@syr.edu
rené vetter cartoonist
"I know I asked you to carve the turkey but Dale, this is insane!"
julia english cartoonist
Many international students plan to attend the International Thanksgiving Celebration at the Dome. taite paradise staff photographer | courtesy of aurora mansilla | ilya melamed
OPINION
Recognize modern genocide, colonialism this Thanksgiving
By Mateo Lopez-Castro columnist
Thanksgiving celebration has always been synonymous with gratitude in this country. It’s a time dedicated to sustaining family and nurturing bonds with those important to us. The holiday is seen as a pillar in the expression of American culture, and, by extension, American values. But this definition comes at a great cost to the collective consciousness of the American people.
OurcuriositywithThanksgiving’shistory usually stops at the Pilgrim’s Thanksgiving Feast of 1621. This singular event has overwhelmingly informed and reduced the holiday to its presentday narrative. If contextualized properly, though, Thanksgiving becomes innate to the inhumane crimes against Indigenous peoples.
Thanksgivingis,inessence,acelebration of genocide. The mass rationalization of this fact sustains the contemporary structures that inform American culture itself. Without genocide, the foundation of our traditional American identity falls apart.
In 1775, at the gates of the Revolutionary War, George Washington ordered Maj. Gen. John Sullivan and his men on a murderous campaign in present-day upstate New York against the Indigenous people of the land, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. His response to the alliances created between five of these Iroquois Nations and the British didn’t seek peace or diplomacy, but mass erasure.
BytheendoftheSullivanCampaign,over 40 Indigenous villages were destroyed. The survivors became refugees or victims of a later death at the hands of European settlers.
Thiseventactedasoneoftheprecursorsto the creation of Syracuse and its surrounding areas. It functioned as the preparation of land, creating adequate conditions for the continued expansion of settler colonialism and U.S. development as an independent entity.
In1781,nowwellintothewar,NewYorkstate lacked funds to both incentivize military service and pay its soldiers, turning to land bounties as the solution. By 1783, New York’s payments to its enlisted soldiers were decided to come from land in the Haudenosaunee territory. The amount of land promised was based on military rank: major generals received 5,500 acres, brigadier generals received 4,250 acres and so on.
The genocide of the Indigenous people was used to enforce these new designations,
not just in New York state, but all over the country. European settlements replaced Indigenous communities. Railroads and interstates erased already-advanced Indigenous infrastructure.
Foodsources,liketheAmericanbuffalo, were exterminated in an effort to create mass dependency, death and compliance. When European settlers arrived, there were over 10 million Indigenous peoples living in the Americas. By 1900, that number was reduced to 300,000.
Ourentiresocietywasbuiltongenocideand continues to be. We have internalized, accepted and standardized it throughout our efforts of cancerous growth. Recent American media, like the 2018 show “Yellowstone” and the 2018 film “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” have hesitated from or ignored the accuracy necessary to properly contextualize the role of Indigenous people in their stories.
White supremacy and the oppressive racial hierarchy created by slavery were encouraged and celebrated through
literature like 1854 “The Planter’s Northern Bride” by Caroline Lee Hentz, films such as 1939 “Gone With the Wind” and music like Daniel Decatur Emmett’s 1859 song, “Dixie.”
The U.S. used the enslavement of African people as the primary tool in their respective genocide. The genocidal ideology that fueled this structure rooted its reproduction in American culture as well.
These crimes are enforced by consistent societal celebration of them. Manipulating the very narratives that contextualize American culture privileges us with the ability to decode them as necessary requirements for achieving national success. Societal rationalization of genocide survives because of our collective denial of its effects.
This not only applies domestically, but globally, too. America’s historical encouragement of genocide extends far across the world. Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon’s National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, personally ordered a carpet-bombing campaign in Cambodia, killing around 150,000 civilians.
Thisactionisoftencreditedasaninciting incident to the rise of the Khmer Rouge regime, which led to the 1975 Cambodian genocide roughly two years later. Two million people were killed over four years.
KissingerandtheNixonadministration also violated a congressional arms embargo on Pakistan in 1971, shipping weapons to East Pakistan and subsequently enabling the Bengali genocide occurring there.
As of Wednesday, the death count of Palestinians at the hands of a genocidal Israeli state has climbed to 69,513. Since 1950, as the occupation of Palestine developed, the U.S. has provided $63 billion worth of arms to the state of Israel. Last year alone, the U.S. provided around $12.5 billion in military reinforcements.
DonaldTrump’sadministrationhastaken great efforts to silence the truths about the genocide against the Palestinians. It seeks to weaponize our struggles so that we may turn on one another, mold false narratives in the media and whitewash our true history and current reality. It pedestals genocidal campaigns and looks to hand out awards for its accomplices.
American society has been forever intertwined with genocide, and many of us struggle to see it clearly. We attempt to abstain from our complicity by inviting an exhaustive silence that does nothing less than insulate us from each other. We pick and choose what to believe, often fed a historical education that convinces us that our country’s hands are not stained with blood.
We must stop sinking into the compartmentalization of our society. This isn’t a simple question that lingers in the world of politics or economy: It remains a pillar of our American identity. It informs and guides the many expressions of our existence as Americans. It’s our choice to decide whether or not we care to sleepwalk through this reality. To transform our culture, we must first transform ourselves and challenge our pre-established understandings of American society through education. It is only then that we can begin to awaken a consciousness that will help formulate the path forward.
Mateo Lopez-Castro is a senior studying television, radio and film and sociology. He can be reached at malopezc@syr.edu.
Even with SNAP restoration, I won’t forget the weeks of struggle
By Saimun Uddin essayist
As someone who relies on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits to feed myself, and whose parents depend on them too, the damage of President Donald Trump’s recent attacks on food assistance hits disgustingly close to home.
While the government has since reopened and postponed SNAP benefits are finally set to resume, the fact that we lost them will forever linger. Millions weren’t forced to just brace the impact of losing SNAP, but to worry about the long-term effect of food insecurity, financial strain and access barriers integrated in the community. Americans should never be treated as a disposable entity that can be put on the back burner again.
Every month, my family and I find ourselves thinking about how to get the next meal on the table, calculating what we can stretch and what we’ll have to go without. These cuts weren’t abstract policy changes: They’re the reason millions struggled every day, forced to make impossible choices between food, rent and dignity.
But it’s hard to fathom the cruelty, considering Trump hosted a “Great Gatsby” themed Halloween party just hours before millions of Americans lost their SNAP benefits.
His celebration of excess while those struggling to eat are told to tighten their belts is a deliberate reminder of how power isolates itself from consequence. For a leader to parade under chandeliers while people wonder how they’ll afford groceries is more than hypocrisy – it’s an insult to the very idea of public service.
On a national scale, SNAP supports more than 42 million Americans each month. They shouldn’t be seen as a number or a statistic, but proof of the millions of families doing their best to get by.
Although I find myself at a loss of what to do today to get food, let alone the rest of this month,
my struggle is nothing compared to single mothers, immigrants and low-income families who depend on these benefits to feed their kids.
I’ve had food stamps my entire life, but it should be emphasized that they’re aid, not an answer to this problem’s growing prevalence in America. SNAP is meant as a supplement, but with rising food prices, that supplement feels less effective every month.
In Syracuse, half of all children live in poverty, and nearly one-third of households don’t have access to a car to reach grocery stores. More than half of the city’s neighborhoods are classified as food deserts, meaning access to fresh, healthy food is severely limited.
But to call Syracuse a “food desert” doesn’t even begin to describe the problem. The city faces food apartheid, a man-made system of racial and economic inequality that decides who has access to affordable, nutritious food and who doesn’t.
In areas where fresh produce is scarce, residents rely heavily on processed foods, which leads to poorer health outcomes and what experts call a lack of “nutrition security,” or consistent access to meals that actually promote health. These systematic failures ensure that those already struggling are also the ones most punished by rising costs and shrinking benefits.
I live with this inequality every day. Millions similar to me are helping their own families financially, while juggling their own expenses, because that’s what survival looks like. Different social classes have different ways of measuring help – some call it inheritance while I call it making it through the month.
Growing up in poverty, my family relied on every form of assistance we could – SNAP, Women, Infants and Children and Medicaid are a few – and each one remains a fragile thread holding our lives together.
America isn’t suffering from a lack of food, it’s suffering from a lack of justice. Until we recognize that hunger is a product of policy, not
chance, we’ll keep watching families choose between groceries and rent while pretending it’s just the way things go.
There comes a point where hunger isn’t considered a statistic, but a measure of conscience.
The “leader” of this country continues to feed a fire it was meant to extinguish.
As someone who has been deeply affected and is now forced to worry about how to get by without essential food assistance, I’ve found myself turning to local food pantries just to make ends meet.
While these resources are a lifeline for people like me, we should look at the bigger picture and focus on the families who don’t have that option. The leader of this country is treating the abuse of millions as though it were merely a technicality, an acceptable side effect, disregarding the harm to real people.
Uddin is a graduate student majoring in engineering management. She can be reached at sauddin@syr.edu.
zabdyl koffa staff photographer
Saimun
Weaker Marshall Street bar scene undermines SU social rebrand
By Dennis DiSantis columnist
It’s a common occurrence for Marshall Street to become a massive traffic jam of people. Lines often wrap around the street, and students sometimes wait up to 30 minutes just to enter a single bar.
When nearly 17,000 undergraduate students from Syracuse University and SUNY ESF share the same standard bar district, overcrowding is inevitable. What should function as a standard college bar district now operates past its capacity.
The issue isn’t rising student interest but a shrinking number of venues, leaving a handful of bars to absorb the social needs of an entire college town.
Syracuse appears to have far fewer studentoriented bars per undergraduate than comparable universities. Peer institutions typically have a much less strained ratio. Even allowing for the fact that most undergraduates aren’t 21 years old, the gap between students and bars remains substantial.
SU is attempting to increase enrollment and rebrand its public image, but the decline of the surrounding bar scene neglects the basic social infrastructure a campus of this size requires. The result is an overcrowded nightlife district, limited social spaces for students not affiliated with organizations and an environment that runs counter to the student experience SU should be building.
In the 1990s, SU enrolled roughly 11,00012,000 undergraduates and supported about 10 bars on and around Marshall Street. The ratio of roughly one bar per 1,300-1,500 students matched the campus size and kept the Hill’s nightlife functional.
That balance began to break in the 2000s, though. Enrollment rose to around 14,000. Conversely, bars began closing as redevelopment, rising rents and enforcement pressure made it increasingly difficult for small, independent operators to stay. By 2010, the number of active bars had dropped to five or six, and the student-to-bar ratio had already tightened to roughly one bar per 2,5003,000 students.
The most significant contraction came in the 2010s. Enrollment increased, yet more landmark bars disappeared. The demolition of the original Hungry Chuck’s in 2017 and the closure of DJ’s shortly afterward removed two of the only large-capacity venues left.
By the mid-to-late 2010s, only about five student bars remained, resulting in roughly one bar for every 3,500-4,500 students, more than double the ratio of the 1990s.
Over the past two decades, SU has steadily expanded its financial control over the Hill.
The university and its real-estate partners have acquired increasing portions of Marshall Street and the surrounding commercial corridors, positioning themselves as the
dominant landlords in an area once defined by independent operators.
The clearest example was the original Hungry Chuck’s, which was unable to remain in its space once the building was slated for demolition to make way for the now-Milton Hall student apartment complex. With the property being torn down, Chuck’s had no viable path to renew its lease and was effectively forced out by the redevelopment.
As property values rose and redevelopment projects accelerated, student bars and small businesses were among the first businesses displaced. Taken together, these closures suggest a deliberate strategy by the university to reconfigure the Hill in line with its administrative objectives, with these businesses being increasingly viewed as incompatible with that vision.
As SU’s nightlife infrastructure shrank, the university increasingly distanced itself from the “party school” label. After being ranked No. 1 by The Princeton Review in 2014, SU insisted it doesn’t “aspire to be a party school,” making its discomfort with the reputation clear. But the schools SU should look up to academically show that robust nightlife and strong academics can coexist without conflict.
The University of Virginia, for example, enrolls nearly 18,000 undergraduates and supports at least 11 student-oriented bars within its corner district with roughly one bar for every 1,600 students. None of which has harmed
UVA’s academic reputation, as proven by its U.S. News & World Report ranking in the top five public schools. The contrast makes SU’s posture toward nightlife appear less like a principled academic stance and more like an effort to control the commercial landscape around campus. And, as usual, the students are the ones who absorb the consequences.
But the disconnect runs deeper than reputation management. If SU truly wants to grow as an institution, it can’t continue to ignore the basic infrastructure contributions to a college experience. A university of nearly 17,000 students can’t operate with a nightlife district built for half that number. The current system is structurally mismatched with the scale of the student body that SU claims to want to attract.
This is where the university’s approach becomes self-defeating. The constriction of the very spaces where students gather and socialize undermines the overall experience that SU should be improving. The university can market new residence halls, new student centers and new branding campaigns, but if the surrounding environment can’t support the daily lived experience of its students, those investments are unlikely to deliver what SU hopes for.
Dennis DiSantis is a senior majoring in political science. He can be reached at dadisant@syr.edu.
The general manager declined to say which players Autry had those conversations with. He added that they tried to end all the relationships on positive terms, because they all contributed to the program and could still influence recruiting.
Requests for The D.O. to speak with Bell (California), Moore (Utah), Cuffe (Mercer), Majstorovic (Long Beach State) and Westry (University of Alabama at Birmingham) were all denied or received no response.
Though with Starling and Freeman — SU’s leading scorers from last year, who only played seven games together due to injuries — back and its incoming freshmen class, the program had a base. Starling said he felt like a “recruiting coach,” as the Orange’s staff consulted him and Freeman on transfer portal options. They spoke directly with portal targets and studied how possible additions would fit with their playing styles.
“I saw from afar (in 2024), but this year, I feel like we were process-oriented,” Tulyagijja told The D.O. in October. “We knew what we wanted, and we went out and got what we wanted.”
The algorithm was built around Kline’s NBA scouting experience and Tulyagijja’s prior work with the Cleveland Cavaliers’ analytics department. It helped the Orange identify freshmen Luke Fennell and Aaron Womack on the high school circuit, but their first full run was over the offseason.
One key component of the algorithm that mirrored the NBA was how Syracuse valued players. Instead of relying on the algorithm to spit out a number that a player should cost, Tulyagijja said they instead viewed it as what portion of their budget they’d be willing to spend on that player.
Autry and Kline both declined to say how much the Orange spent. However, Kline said they spent every dollar they were given.
Beyond the monetary aspect, a major part of the algorithm, Tulyagijja said, was fit percentage. Though Tulyagijja didn’t describe its calculation, he explained that the Orange looked to add players who’d best fit alongside Starling and Freeman. He referenced Win Shares as another metric that SU looked at.
Before the portal opened, Tulyagijja said the Orange knew they wanted a big-time point guard, an athletic center and a shooter to pair with Starling and Freeman. Three days after the portal officially opened, William Kyle III committed, checking the second box.
A similar approach helped SU land Nate Kingz, who fit the bill of the shooter after making 44.6% of his 3-pointers at Oregon State last season. Once Kingz entered the portal, he said it was a quick process because the Orange instantly reached out for a potential visit.
start, they’ve all become an instrumental part of its “juicing station.”
Long before Starling and Freeman’s involvement, Syracuse’s portal evaluation began in 2024, when Kline was hired and former student manager Eugene Tulyagijja was retained as a data analyst. Though SU added Kline before the 2024-25 season, that came after its roster was already built.
In his first season with the program, Kline did behind-the-scenes research, made scouting trips and sat in the second row of SU’s bench during games. Throughout the season, he said he watched a lot of basketball and made lists of who would be great, good and okay fits in the portal.
Beginning when Kline was hired, though, he and Tulyagijja — who recently left SU to join the New York Knicks’ coaching staff — built an algorithm to help identify and quantify talent. Tulyagijja acknowledged that they used the algorithm last season to track potential portal targets and said it was heavily utilized.
Hut said he also worked on his footwork at AP2T. Flynn mentioned that McIntyre likes to press heavily on defense, leaving more space in front of his goalie. That puts responsibility on Hut to cut off scoring threats when SU’s backline makes a mistake.
AP2T challenged Hut in “small-sided” scrimmages with fewer players. Nigro said the games ran at a quicker pace, forcing Hut to play with more urgency. Hut also learned from professional goalies at AP2T like NYCFC’s Tomás Romero and Matt Freese.
The UCLA transfer told The D.O. in March that it was a quick process because he fell in love with Syracuse, adding he trusted SU’s vision and what the coaches were doing. Thus far, the athletic center has been a match made in heaven.
During his recruiting process, Kyle said the coaching staff told him that Naithan George — who led the ACC in assists as a sophomore at Georgia Tech — was on its radar. When George entered the portal, Syracuse assistant Brenden Straughn said he was surprised, while Kline said the Orange quickly pounced with a “full court press.” Autry added they were “all in.”
Syracuse’s coaching staff — along with Starling and Freeman — called, FaceTimed and talked over Zoom with George. The point guard said SU calling him every day and the coaches checking in with his parents “meant the world” to him. Backed by financial resources to the point where Kline said they never considered dropping out, George committed on April 4.
When he returned to normal game flow at Syracuse, his footwork had drastically improved.
“In a small-sided game with a bunch of pros and college guys, you’ve got to think a lot quicker, react a lot faster, so it forces you to think quick on your feet,” Hut said.
Hut entered the 2025 campaign as SU’s clear No. 1 option. He said both his summer preparation and having a full ACC season under his belt made the return to college easy.
His relationships with the Orange’s other goalies — Kyle Jansen and Juan Martinez-Bastidas — have also helped. Hut said the three typically bounce ideas off each other, while Jansen specifically has challenged him each day in practice.
We knew what we wanted, and we went out and got what we wanted.
Eugene Tulyagijja former su data analyst
Kingz said “everybody” with the program hit him up, acknowledging it was also a full-court press. Two days before Syracuse landed George, Kingz committed.
With Kyle, George and Kingz’s commitments, SU accomplished its three main portal goals.
Meanwhile, Akir Souare (Georgia Tech), Tyler Betsey (Cincinnati) and Bryce Zephir (Montana State) rounded out the Orange’s sixplayer class. As Syracuse has surged to a 4-0
“There’s great chemistry between all of us, and we all work off each other,” Hut said. “It makes it easier having three guys that really get along.”
Instead of pairing Starling and Freeman with primarily mid-major players transferring up to the power level, like they did last year, the Orange instead found legitimate talent. By also adding highlytouted freshmen Sadiq White Jr. and Kiyan Anthony, SU built a team capable of restoring the “Orange Standard.”
The early results have been strong. Syracuse has seen its KenPom ranking rise to No. 53, while EvanMiya has it at No. 40.
Unlike last year, when they failed to win a game against a Quad 1 opponent, the Orange now have the talent to compete with the likes of Houston and Kansas in college basketball’s upper echelon. The real vindication — for Autry, Kline, the algorithm and the program — would start with a win in Las Vegas.
Unlike eight months ago, when Autry spoke to reporters following one of the worst seasons in program history, he’s not taking a gamble on unknowns and how they’d fit together. Backed by uncomfortable conversations, analytics and a detailed process, he has a roster built to compete with anyone.
justingirshon@gmail.com
@JustinGirshon
With much of the unit being young and new — such as first-year starter Garrett Holman and Xavier transfer Ernest Mensah Jr. — Flynn said it’s Hut’s job to organize it. Still, Hut started the 2025 campaign slowly. On one hand, he only allowed three goals in the first six games. On the other, he produced just eight saves on 36 shots, half of which came versus Penn State on Aug. 28.
Hut has built chemistry with his backline, which helps him deliver midgame instructions.
Flynn said Hut plays best when he’s challenged to make saves, though. In four of SU’s six opening contests, he faced fewer than six shots. Shot-stopping, especially in close range, has always been his forte, Flynn added.
As the pressure on Hut has mounted — facing 10-plus shots in his last 10 games — he’s only improved. Since posting zero saves in Syracuse’s draw with New Haven on Sept. 8, Hut has snagged at least three stops in all but two games. He’s set a new single-game career-high three times this season, with seven saves against Cal, eight against then-No. 22 North Carolina and nine against then-No. 5 NC State in the ACC Tournament Quarterfinals.
It is very reassuring to have a player like him behind your backline.
When he’s been called on he’s been fantastic this year.
Ian McIntyre syracuse head coach
Then, he had his worst outing of the campaign against SMU in the semifinals. Hut faced a whopping 17 shots and only stopped two of the Mustangs’ seven on target.
However, Hut has consistently bounced back from poor performances this year. With SU’s NCAA Tournament matchup with Hofstra looming, a Hut rebound will be key to the Orange’s chances at advancing to the next round. njnussba@syr.edu @Noahnuss99
By attacking the transfer portal and recruiting a loaded freshmen class, Syracuse men’s basketball rebuilt its roster this offseason. joe zhao senior staff photographer
The amount of scholarship players Syracuse returned from 2025-26
Tomas Hut’s saves in 2025
SU’s path to College Cup after NCAA Tournament berth
By Harris Pemberton asst. sports editor
Syracuse’s 2025 campaign has been far from boring, and even further from predictable.
It began with one of SU’s worst starts under head coach Ian McIntyre, winning two of its first eight games. It’s been a roller-coaster turnaround ever since. Syracuse then won four straight, lost two in a row and ended the year by beating then-No. 22 North Carolina and drawing then-No. 4 NC State.
The Orange were playing their best soccer entering the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament and showed it with wins over Virginia Tech and then-No. 5 NC State. Then a crushing 5-1 loss to then-No. 25 SMU in the semifinal derailed an otherwise promising run. But McIntyre and his squad know it’s another bump on SU’s wild ride.
“Through that adversity, that has just helped us grow and evolve. It’s refined us, and it’s allowed us to be tough and resilient,” McIntyre said after the SMU loss. “If we’re afforded the opportunity to compete (in the NCAA Tournament) on Thursday, we’ll be ready to go.”
After securing an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament on Monday, the Orange will face a gauntlet to reach their first College Cup in three years.
Here’s Syracuse’s (9-7-4, 4-3-1 ACC) path through its first NCAA Tournament since 2023:
First Round: Hofstra
Syracuse hosts Hofstra at SU Soccer Stadium Thursday in its NCAA Tournament opener. The Pride enter the match on the heels of a 12-5-0 campaign, which included a 7-1-0 Colonial Athletic Association record.
Hofstra finished 5-4-0 in nonconference play, capped by a narrow 2-1 loss to No. 1 seed Vermont. Its only conference defeat came against Monmouth on Sept. 20. From there, the Pride won eight consecutive matches before they fell in the CAA Tournament Semifinals to Stony Brook.
Besides Vermont, the Pride haven’t faced much competition akin to what Syracuse saw weekly in the ACC. Nonetheless, Hofstra ranks
from page 16 walker
Walker accepted the job in October over a similar role at Auburn.
“Having wanted to be in the WNBA and make my way up to the GM track in some capacity at the pro level, I just thought this was a no-brainer,” Walker said.
Walker was most intrigued by SU’s intentions to form a “pro model.” She contacted Tori Miller — a Hawks executive who knew Syracuse men’s basketball GM Alex Kline — to better understand the role’s responsibilities.
Miller told Walker different schools had different ideas of what their GM would look like. Some saw it as a second director of basketball operations, while others focused more on name, image and likeness opportunities.
Syracuse was focused on roster retention, player acquisition and returning to college basketball’s elite status. Walker was, too.
“Everybody in the world knows about Syracuse basketball,” Walker said. “So continuing to build on what Syracuse has built is gonna be key.” Walker’s relationship with Legette-Jack dates back 13 years. Ahead of her senior year at Wake Forest, Walker’s head coach, Mike Petersen, accepted a position at North Texas, leaving the Demon Deacons’ spot vacant. Indiana fired Legette-Jack just a month earlier, so she interviewed for WF’s open position.
Before one of Wake Forest’s practices, all players met Legette-Jack, a customary step for potential hires. While their interaction was brief, Walker
27th nationally in the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI), a metric that combines a team’s winning percentage and strength of schedule.
The Pride boast two prolific attackers in Laurie Goddard and Daniel Burko, who transferred from Syracuse this offseason. Both have 11 goals, while no other Hofstra player has more than one. Meanwhile, Stefano Campisi leads the team with 10 assists.
Syracuse has a leg up with home-field advantage, but to capitalize on it, the Orange must find some early offense. The Pride are 1-3 when allowing more than one goal, and SU is still winless when conceding first.
If Syracuse finds the net early, the Orange can lean on their backline and goalkeeper Tomas Hut, play on the counterattack and control the flow of the match. If it does so successfully, SU will book its ticket to the second round, where a taller task awaits.
Second Round: No. 1 Seed Vermont
If the Orange get past a team that narrowly lost to the nation’s top seed, they’ll get a crack at Vermont themselves. The Catamounts, who won the national championship last year, were invincible this season at 14-0-5. They won the America East Tournament by defeating Bryant, the No. 11 seed in the NCAA Tournament, 2-0.
Vermont ranks second in RPI and boasts one of the most potent offenses in the country. The Catamounts score over two goals per game while conceding just 0.63.
Senior forward David Ismail leads the way with 10 goals and three assists, but Vermont’s scoring has been spread out. Seven players have recorded multiple goals, while five have 10 points or more.
The Catamounts are undoubtedly one of the strongest teams in the tournament. But, for the most part, Syracuse has played up to its opponents’ level this year. The key to doing so against Vermont will again be striking first.
One of the only realistic ways the Orange can hang around the tournament’s top squad is by scoring early, parking the bus and attacking in transition. If Hut and SU’s defense provide
recognized Legette-Jack’s passionate demeanor, which made coming to SU an easy decision.
“It’s not for Coach Jack and for Coach A. It’s not for four years. It’s for life. That’s really the only type of situation I could be around if I’m being my authentic self,” Walker said. “It’s really just come full circle for me to be able to work for her now.”
As Wake Forest’s associate head coach, Adair spent hours refining Walker’s game. They worked on pushing through contact, driving downhill and kicking passes to the corners, similar drills Adair does with SU’s current bigs.
David White, who coached Walker at WF and later coached with her at Georgetown and Delaware, said Walker was “a fierce, physical player with a good shot.” She was one of few players aiming to build connections with coaches, something her mother stressed throughout her childhood.
But Walker didn’t want to follow in their footsteps. When her Wake Forest roommates asked her to join them at a coaching program in New Orleans, Walker declined.
Instead, after completing her playing career with the Demon Deacons, Walker began an internship with Turner Sports, a broadcasting company based in Atlanta. She was convinced she’d be a broadcaster. She’d work from home, again making $10 an hour, but it was the first step toward her future.
At Turner Sports, Walker worked closely with analysts and former professional athletes Steve Smith, Dennis Scott and Isiah Thomas, occasionally running into Chris Webber and Charles Barkley. She also reached out to Robinson, who was working a full-time gig with ESPN and Fox Sports South.
some familiar heroics, Syracuse has a chance of moving on.
Third Round: Likely No. 16 Seed Furman
Furman was the last team to earn a first-round bye, securing the No. 16 seed after winning the SoCon Tournament and posting a 14-1-4 record. It’ll play the winner of Clemson and Western Michigan in the second round, which would set up a matchup with Syracuse if it’s still alive.
The Paladins finished the season on an eightgame winning streak, boosting their RPI to 14th. Their only loss was a stunning upset to College of Charleston in September.
Furman boasts the seventh-best scoring offense in the nation, averaging 2.37 goals per match. Diego Hernandez paced the unit with nine goals and eight assists.
Getting to this point will be hard enough for Syracuse, but the keys to the game will be similar. Limiting one of the nation’s best attacks
won’t be easy, so turning in multiple goals will be crucial for the Orange.
Fourth Round: Likely No. 8 Seed Portland or No. 9 Seed San Diego
This point in the tournament is all speculation. But if Syracuse makes the quarterfinals, it’ll likely be against a top squad from the West Coast.
Portland spent a week as the No. 1 team in the nation, finishing the season 13-1-3 with a West Coast Conference Tournament title. WCC foe San Diego finished the year 13-2-3, with one of its losses against Portland.
Both squads would provide a significant challenge for Syracuse. But if the Orange make it this far, there may be nothing stopping them from making their first College Cup in three seasons.
harrispemberton@gmail.com @HarrisPemb6
Robinson, who’s based in Atlanta, just 30 minutes from Walker’s hometown of Duluth, offered Walker advice on breaking into the sports industry — guidance Walker said sparked her deeper love for the field.
“She never stops trying to get better, trying to make connections,” Robinson said. “It’s clear Mykala understands the value of mentoring.”
The coming months were filled with shortterm positions. Walker joined the Hawks after three months with Turner Sports. She spent four months there before Adair called her with another life-altering opportunity.
Adair encouraged Walker to join her at Georgetown, where she could pursue a master’s degree in Sports Industry Management while serving as a graduate assistant for the Hoyas’ women’s basketball team. Walker couldn’t turn it down.
When Walker started at Georgetown, her days were filled with classes taught by adjunct professors — many of whom were professionals in the sports industry — and meetings about recruiting visits and travel schedules.
Walker said walking into Tommy Sheppard’s class made the busy schedule worth it. Sheppard was the Washington Wizards’ senior vice president of basketball operations at the time. He once took his class to a Wizards game, where Walker realized she needed to be a GM.
“(We talked) about chasing my dreams,” Walker said. “If that’s what I’m gonna do, I’ve gotta do it with everything in me.”
Though she no longer played, Walker said serving as a graduate assistant felt similar. Her youth helped her connect with players and teach them what Adair was looking for.
While Walker eventually jumped to a full-time position as an assistant of basketball operations, her role barely changed. Handling recruiting came easily, having been just three years out of the landscape. Meanwhile, White — the director of operations — oversaw video and film responsibilities.
“Mykala was willing to step right in and do whatever work needed to be done for the betterment of the program,” White said. “It was a continuation of what she did as a player.”
Three years after starting at Georgetown, Walker relocated to Delaware with Adair, who’d become its fourth-ever head coach.
The Blue Hens were coming off a 16-14 season that featured a Coastal Athletic Association Tournament Quarterfinals exit. They’d finished above .500 in three of the previous four seasons, but relished the days of future WNBA Hall of Famer Elena Delle Donne, who led Delaware to the NCAA Tournament in 2012 and 2013.
Walker began as an assistant coach and took recruiting responsibilities four years in. Carter
Caplan, then Delaware’s assistant director of operations, said Walker planned football tailgates and built itineraries for visits, “doing anything” to attract top players.
“We wanted to recruit the best talent we could but also not compromise a bad culture,” Caplan said.
Walker said everyone at UD wanted to win a championship and be the best versions of themselves. Athletic Director Chrissi Rawak even exemplified those goals with phrases like “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” and “All boats rise together.”
It showed on the court. Under Adair, Delaware went 71-50. With a post unit led by Walker, the Blue Hens ranked No. 1 nationally in offensive rebounds per game in 2020-21 and No. 2 during her tenure.
In the 2021-22 season, Delaware advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since Delle Donne’s squad in 2013. By the time Walker and Adair departed five years later, the Blue Hens added three more national postseason appearances to their name.
“They went to get it, and they fought and they didn’t let anything get in the way,” Walker said of those Delaware teams.
Walker then headed to Arizona State alongside Adair, Delaware assistant coach Darrell Mosley, associate head coach Bob Clark and Caplan. Caplan said the staff had embraced a “family” atmosphere, making each move easier than the last.
But Walker sometimes questioned her career path at ASU. NIL and collectives opened, and the Sun Devils were transitioning to a new athletic director, leaving unfamiliar responsibilities on the coaches. Arizona State also went 29-62 across Walker’s three seasons.
It fueled Walker to return to winning. And Syracuse’s opening came at a perfect time, giving her the chance to make the Orange a national contender.
“We had a couple people come through here that just weren’t ready to take us to the level we can go,” Legette-Jack said at Media Day. “We got very lucky with Mykala Walker.”
When things have gotten hard for Walker, she’s leaned on her “tagline.”
Growing up, her grandmother would tell her, “Put it in the air, Kayla (Walker), it’ll go.” She meant not to be afraid to shoot in basketball. Let it fly. It’ll fall eventually.
Walker carried that mantra into her life. It taught her to take the scary leaps, to trust herself and what awaits her.
Now, Walker’s put it in the air at Syracuse. She’s ready to watch it go.
Out of college, Mykala Walker made $10 an hour as an Atlanta Hawks intern. Eleven years later, she emerged as SU women’s basketball’s first GM. courtesy of carter caplan
In its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2023, Syracuse men’s soccer’s path to the College Cup begins Thursday against Hofstra. joe zhao senior staff photographer
Tomas Hut’s heroics key to Syracuse’s NCAA Tournament run
By Noah Nussbaum sports editor
Tomas Hut shifted his feet to the left. He watched as a perfectly-timed cross from SMU winger Jaylinn Mitchell snuck through Syracuse’s backline and found Ryan Clanton-Pimentel on the edge of the six-yard box.
SU’s goalie barely had a chance to react. As Clanton-Pimentel charged right at him, Hut was forced into a split-second decision. His momentum carried him left, and ClantonPimentel smashed the ball to his right to make it 2-0 right before halftime.
Hut spun around, threw his hands down and let out a yell of frustration. Clanton-Pimentel’s goal was just the second of five SMU scores he allowed in his worst performance of the season, as SU lost 5-1 in its Atlantic Coast Conference Semifinal matchup on Nov. 13.
head coach Ian McIntyre said on Nov. 12. “It is very reassuring to have a player like him behind your backline. When he’s been called on he’s been fantastic this year.”
We think he’s quietly gone about establishing himself as the best goalkeeper in our league.
Ian McIntyre syracuse head coach
Despite commanding SU’s starting role the last two seasons, McIntyre initially didn’t recruit Hut with that intention. After the 2022 season, Hut entered the transfer portal and shortly visited Syracuse. But the Orange offered their final scholarship to fellow goalie Jason Smith, a decision former SU goalkeeping coach Michael Flynn said was because of his defense in front of the net.
where we’re not gonna play him, but he’s so massively important to the team that he’s got to be there,” Flynn said.
Hut’s dedication helped him slide into Syracuse’s starting role last year, beating out Smith and Jahiem Wickham. He started every game, racking up a then-career-high 52 saves while allowing 1.48 goals per game. Still, he surrendered multiple goals six times and only produced four clean sheets.
Over the summer, he went back to work. Hut said he devoted most of his time to playing with the Hudson Valley Hammers of the USL League Two. He also attended a few Major League Soccer trials and spent a week in Utah with Real Salt Lake, where he learned from U.S. Men’s Soccer National Team alum Nick Rimando.
But he grew the most through his training at Advanced Physical and Technical Training, his second straight summer with the New Jersey facility.
AP2T coach Matt Nigro said Hut came in two to three times per week, often spending time in the weight room. He repeatedly did sled runs, deadlifts, squats and bench presses to become more explosive at his size.
“It would be easy for a goalkeeper like that to just be like, ‘I’ve got the 6-foot3 frame. I’m just gonna ride it out,’” Nigro said. “But he hits the weights hard. And that’s the mindset that you have to have, especially when you’re trying to achieve the things he’s trying to achieve.”
But that performance wasn’t representative of his season. Hut had been phenomenal prior to his aberration against the Mustangs, earning All-ACC Third Team honors. After working past some rough patches earlier in the season, the graduate student has produced a conferenceleading 75 saves through 19 games in his second year as Syracuse’s starter. As the Orange await their NCAA Tournament first-round clash with Hofstra Thursday, a bounce back from Hut is critical to extend their season.
“We think he’s quietly gone about establishing himself as the best goalkeeper in our league,” SU
Hut just wanted to be at Syracuse, though. He didn’t care if he was on scholarship. Flynn said it was a “no-brainer” that SU brought him on.
In his first season with the Orange, Hut didn’t play at all. Nor did he travel to away games. But Flynn said everyone on the team gravitated toward the third-year goalie as the season progressed. So, midway through the 2023 campaign, the coaching staff decided to bring him on road trips, even though it took a spot away from an outfield player.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been a part of a team that’s been in that situation with a goalkeeper
volleyball Position switch revitalizes Marie Laurio’s Syracuse career
By Jason Glick asst. copy editor
During Syracuse’s trip to Virginia in September, Marie Laurio roomed with SU graduate student Oreva Evivie. While hanging out, Evivie came across a TEDx Talk on YouTube. It featured a fifth-grade version of Laurio, who was instantly embarrassed.
The video, titled “Small Groups can make a Big Impact,” showed Laurio delivering a speech. She hoped nobody would find it. But now that Evivie had, Laurio hesitantly gave her permission to press play.
“I hadn’t watched it in a while,” Laurio said. “I watched it with her, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. I did do that.’”
Laurio’s been plunged into uncomfortable situations her whole life. Speaking in front of a TEDx Talk audience took guts. So did enduring a position switch in the 19th game of her freshman season with Syracuse. A natural outside hitter from the left side, she’s been asked to play on the right with SU. So far, she’s excelled outside of her comfort zone, totaling 51 kills and 80 digs in 40 sets this season.
“She’s capable of playing six rotations on the right side. It gives us an additional backward attacker,” SU head coach Bakeer Ganesharatnam said after a loss to Boston College on Oct. 24.
Laurio always played on the left. That’s where she built her storied high school and club careers in her home state of Michigan. That’s the position she was recruited to SU to play.
“You train as a pin (hitter) on both sides,” Laurio said. “It wasn’t my primary position, but I’m really happy that I’m able to step into this role for my team.”
At Syracuse, Laurio’s role wasn’t as clear-cut as it was in high school. She made the second squad for Legacy Volleyball Club — now the No. 1 volleyball club in the United States — as an eighth grader, making the first team the following year.
Laurio briefly served as a defensive specialist in her freshman year at Saline High School (Michigan) in her initial exposure to high school volleyball. But soon enough, despite being slightly undersized, she transitioned to the outside and thrived.
“She’s a very smooth, athletic kid that really jumps out of the gym,” Legacy director Bryan Lindstrom said. “She gets up, hangs and is very smart with what she does with the ball.”
Laurio’s volleyball prowess was clear. But she had another predicament. Laurio was also playing travel soccer, softball and basketball — sports she picked up well before she started volleyball in seventh grade. Yet, her mind was set.
“Without hesitation,” her mother, Beth Laurio, said. “Volleyball was taking precedence,
as far as the national team that she was on through Legacy.”
The decision unlocked an opportunity to play in Orlando, Florida, for her 15s AAU national championship, which Legacy won.
“That was the defining moment,” Beth said.
From there, Laurio took off as an outside hitter. At Saline, she racked up 1,426 kills, 1,171 digs, 451 blocks, 145 aces and 82 assists. She helped the Hornets to four straight top-3 finishes in the Southeastern-Red division.
Her biggest test came when she was 17. Lindstrom called upon her to serve as an injury replacement for the 2023 18s USA qualifier tournament in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
However, she couldn’t get out of bed before the first match. Laurio had food poisoning and had to skip the 8 a.m. contest. But for the second game, Lindstrom stuck her in the lineup.
“She dragged herself out there, played defensive specialist, and then went right back to bed,” Lindstrom said.
Once her recruitment opened that June, Laurio was launched into her most precarious position. She went to sleep on June 14, 2023, without checking her phone, wanting to deal with it in the morning.
When she awoke, she had received 35 emails from volleyball coaches around the nation. But Laurio was relaxed. After taking it call by call, it was clear SU was the place for her. With a Legacy pipeline that sent alum Ashlee Gnau to Syracuse, combined with a Newhouse School of Public Communications education, Laurio’s decision was a no-brainer.
“She was nonchalant about it,” her father, Paul Laurio, said. “She embraced it.”
Ganesharatnam and Co. admired Laurio’s qualities when recruiting her. They look for versatility and use players in unfamiliar positions.
“They really talked about how they see me as an all-around player,” Laurio said. “They like to see me in the front and back row, and they talked about how that fits into their program.”
Take Veronica Sierzant, for example — a setter who can now play right-side hitter. Or Laurio’s counterpart, Sydnie Waller, who was recruited to SU as an outside hitter and is now on the right.
Laurio started on the left in the Orange’s opening contests against Niagara and Rider in August. She couldn’t get much going at the net, posting hitting rates of -.067 and .167. Skylar George, one of Syracuse’s starters from 2024, closed both matches in Laurio’s place and reclaimed her starting spot.
As a result, Laurio never played in more than two sets in any of Syracuse’s next 16 games. She
was used sparingly, earning her best attack rate of the season — 66.7% — at the end of a blowout victory over Siena on Sept. 19. Though her playing time fluctuated, she remained unfazed. “Something I talk about a lot is just doing your job, whether you are on the court or on the bench,” Laurio said after a loss to Colgate on Sept. 13.
The Orange’s outside hitter group is deep. With Gabriella McLaughlin and George occupying the two starting spots, there wasn’t room for Laurio.
But against Boston College on Oct. 22, that changed. Waller misplaced all six of her attacks from the right side in the first set. Laurio hadn’t played the position, but after dropping the first frame, the Orange needed a spark.
In Syracuse’s most competitive match of the season, Laurio entered and delivered her first double-double — 10 kills and 13 digs — en route to victory.
“We felt like we needed a little bit more production on the right side from an offensive standpoint, but also a defensive standpoint,” Ganesharatnam said postgame.
Still, the Orange opted for Waller against then-No. 15 Miami on Nov. 2. Ganesharatnam cited Waller’s more physical block presence as the reason why, especially against the Hurricanes’ top pin hitters.
The following week, though, Laurio returned and posted a career-high 16 digs in Syracuse’s defeat to Clemson on Nov. 7. She played at least two sets in each of SU’s next three contests.
It’s expected that Laurio will continue rotating with Waller on the right side. And they’re both fine with that.
“She’s just Marie. She’s our little freshman. She’s grown a lot in IQ and learning from the vets,” Waller said. “She’s grown a lot in skill, but mentality, too.”
“Wherever the team needs me, that’s where I need to go,” Laurio said.
Waller, Sierzant, McLaughlin and five others have confirmed their departures after the season, leaving 858 kills — 68.9% of Syracuse’s attack production — and multiple pin-hitter spots to be claimed in 2026. No matter what side she’s asked to attack from, Laurio’s mindset will be constant — she’ll be relaxed.
“I wasn’t as comfortable on the right side as I’ve been on the outside most of the time,” Laurio said. “It took me a little bit to adjust to it, but now that I’m able to do it, I have been able to produce for my team.”
jaglick@syr.edu @jason_glick
Syracuse goalie Tomas Hut leads the ACC with 75 saves. His defense will be crucial to the Orange producing a deep NCAA Tournament run. leonardo eriman photo editor
Former outside hitter Marie Laurio initially struggled to break into Syracuse’s rotation. Since switching to right-side hitter, she has. lindsay baloun contributing photographer
Tomas Hut’s goals allowed per game
‘A PERFECT FIT’
Mykala Walker climbed sports industry to become 1st SU women’s basketball GM
By Jordan Kimball asst. sports editor
Fresh out of college, 22-year-old Mykala
Walker found a job that seemingly checked all the boxes: a pipeline into AT&T ranks, a $70,000 salary and a career that mirrored her mother, Marvy Moore, a company executive. Walker applied. She interviewed. But when her mother’s name repeatedly came up, she realized she wanted to forge her own path.
So, she instead took a $10-an-hour internship with the Atlanta Hawks. She worked 40 hours a week and made 100 calls a day asking Atlanta residents — most of whom didn’t care — to be Hawks fans. It was thankless work, but it’s where Walker wanted to be.
“It built a foundation for me to be able to build a career in the sports industry,” Walker said. “Any role
I’m in where I’m just talking about basketball, that’s not a job, that’s a lifestyle.”
With the Hawks, Walker learned “how to appeal to people.” She’s used that lesson throughout her professional career at Georgetown, Delaware and Arizona State. Now at Syracuse, she’ll use it again.
As SU women’s basketball’s first-ever general manager, Walker’s tasked with turning a roster that finished 14th of 18 teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference last season into a championship-caliber squad. She’ll manage recruiting and budgeting, all aimed at capturing the program’s first national title. It’s her greatest challenge yet, but Walker’s ready.
“She’s gonna keep moving, and she’s gonna get things done, and eventually, we’ll see that in her position with Syracuse,” Walker’s mentor and ESPN Analyst LaChina Robinson said. “It sounds like a perfect fit.”
In August, after spending three years as ASU’s recruiting coordinator and assistant coach, Walker’s next move was unknown. She considered staying on the West Coast, potentially pursuing a player personnel position with the Phoenix Mercury.
Then Walker received a call from Natasha Adair.
Over the past 16 years, she’d received hundreds from Adair — her former coach and colleague — but this one was different.
On May 29, Adair was hired as Syracuse’s associate head coach after being fired from Arizona State in March. Walker followed Adair to three schools since Adair coached her at Wake Forest and was hesitant to leave her side.
So when Adair told Walker SU was hiring a general manager, Walker jumped at the opportunity.
After talking to Orange head coach Felisha LegetteJack and Director of Athletics John Wildhack, see walker page 13
programs
men’s basketball
SU’s rebuild blueprint, quest to rejoin college basketball elite
By Justin Girshon senior staff writer
After sitting at the podium dejected, Adrian Autry let out a brief chuckle. Throughout his press conference, the head coach somberly answered questions after Syracuse’s worst campaign since 1968-69 officially concluded with an Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament loss to SMU.
Then he was asked about the growth of the players who would be returning the following year. Autry
laughed before taking six seconds to find an answer.
“The way that everything is right now, you don’t know who is coming back. That’s an honest answer,” he said.
Among the seven scholarship players who had eligibility, J.J. Starling and Donnie Freeman were the only two who returned for the 2025-26 season. The Orange then overhauled their roster by netting a program-high six transfers and a premier freshmen class, setting the stage for them to compete with college
basketball’s upper echelon in the Players Era Festival next week.
Led by Autry and general manager Alex Kline, Syracuse’s offseason rebuild has led to early success during a pivotal year for a program stuck in its longest NCAA Tournament drought in over five decades. Off to a 4-0 start, a win over Houston or Kansas in Las Vegas would put SU back on college basketball’s map for the first time since the 2021 NCAA Tournament. So how did the Orange get here? It started with honest conversations.
Among Starling and Freeman’s 15 teammates on last season’s roster, eight were in their final year of eligibility. Five of the seven remaining players — Chris Bell, Elijah Moore, Kyle Cuffe Jr., Petar Majstorovic and Chance Westry — entered the transfer portal. Meanwhile, the other two were walkons: Noah Lobdell is back with the program, but Chris Gatty is now just a student at SU.
Following the season, Gatty said every player had an exit meeting. Autry explained there was “kind of an
understanding” in his conversations with the players who transferred.
“You just have to have honest manto-man conversations,” Autry told The Daily Orange during SU’s Media Day. Kline noted that Autry led those conversations, keeping it “very black and white.”
“I think ‘cut’ may be a little harsh,” Kline told The D.O. during Media Day, “It was more of, ‘Hey, in a way, your contract is up for the year, like in any other business, we appreciate what you did. We’re gonna move forward.’” see roster page 12
In October, Mykala Walker became Syracuse women’s basketball’s first-ever general manager. Walker rose through the ranks at other Division I
before coming to SU. sophia burke digital design director | courtesy of georgetown athletics | carter caplan | eli schwartz staff photographer | wake forest athletics
