The Maroon March 17, 2023 Issue

THE MAROON

For a greater LoyoLa

Biever Hall residents charged for vandalism

By Macie Batson mmbatsont@my.loyno.edu

It sounds like the set up for a bad party joke: how many fines does it take to cover up some Sharpie on a wall? Still, that is the question being asked throughout Biever Hall following a mass fine handed out following a profane anti-Res Life graffiti incident this semester.

Students like Loyola criminology freshman Sawyer Castle are struggling to understand why Residential Life needed to collect an estimated $3,000 to cover up what Castle said was “Sharpie on a nonbrick wall.”

The charge was split between more

than 300 students living in the dorm to cover the costs of cleaning and painting, according to an email sent by Loyola Community Director Aron Johnson.

“None of my hallmates or friends are surprised by this inconsiderate use of our money and treatment of the residents,”

Castle said. “Where is the rest of the money going?”

Castle said she and her hallmates were enraged and also confused as to why everyone was being charged when there was a record of who stayed on campus during the break.

Abby Robbins, a Loyola freshman and film major, said she felt confused as well because she wasn’t at Loyola for most of

the holiday, and knew many other people who were also gone.

“I’d like a report of how much they spent exactly to fix the stairwell because that feels like some extra money Loyola is pocketing,” she said.

She added that $10 per resident felt like too much and she felt frustrated the vandalism took precedence over other issues Biever Hall has.

“There is mold on our bathroom ceilings, and my room has more paint chips than actual paint,” she said. “I love going to school here, but honestly, we are better than this.”

Castle also said she believes Residential Life has not been considerate of

students’ finances and well-being, citing a security fee for residents she believes should go toward things like fixing the security cameras and staffing the front desk.

While Castle didn’t see it in person, she later saw a Snapchat picture of the graffiti that read, ‘Fuck Reslife.’ She said her resident assistant told her the phrase was something “really bad,” and after reading the email sent out to residents, she expected it to be something abominable like a hate symbol.

“Come to learn that ‘Fuck ResLife’ was written. Perhaps they ought to consider this feedback, a poor form of it but truly a reflection of how the residents are feeling after only six months here,” Castle said.

Tulane hosts annual New Orleans Book Festival

By Kloe Witt kgwitt@loyno.edu @kloewitt22

The annual New Orleans Book Festival, held by Tulane University, brought thousands together to witness celebrity authors such as author and New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, Microsoft pioneer Bill Gates, and even first lady and “Tulane mom” Jill Biden, who paid a surprise visit this year.

The three-day event last weekend hosted over 130 different authors and had 78 different sessions for them to speak about their work. With nearly 10,000 people in attendance, Cheryl Landrieu, co-chair and executive director of the festival, said this year was another success.

“Two back-to-back years of success shows us that New Orleans is engaged and interested in literary events,” she said.

Landrieu said her favorite event this year was family day, which took place

on Saturday, because it had more events that were geared toward children.

“We had hundreds of kids receive free books and interact with New Orleans literacy organizations who did activities with the kids,” Landrieu said.

Landrieu mentioned a surprise visit that occurred over the weekend with United States First Lady, Jill Biden. According to Landrieu, she made a visit and sat to listen to a panel of fiction writers.

“I knew I was coming to New Orleans for a cancer event, and then I heard there was the book festival. I am an English teacher, so I said I had to go,” Biden said at the festival, according to nola.com. “I hear so many political speeches. This was just so refreshing.” Another special guest that Landrieu said was a highlight of the festival was Bill Gates, who was at the opening ceremony.

See BOOK, page 5

In his email to students, Johnson wrote that he was “truly saddened” by the phrase in the stairwell.

“I thought that the culture and community that was established early on this academic year were rooted in togetherness and sense of purpose,” he wrote. “I hope that we can return to that sense of purpose that was originally established and strive to be a community for all.”

He said his North Star will always be directed toward student growth and development. As a result of the incident, he said he aims to be more intentional with his interactions with Biever Hall residents.

Residential Life declined to comment before the publication of this article.

Loyola hosts Inaugural Women’s Day Event

By Anna Hummel amhummel@my.loyno.edu

Loyola University hosted the inaugural International Women’s Day event in coordination with the Women’s Leadership Academy and Women’s Resource Center, and focused on a call to action for accelerating gender parity in all spaces.

The event on March 8 featured three keynote speakers: councilmember Lesli Harris, former Afghani prosecutor and visiting professor Negina Khalili, and Dean of the College of Law Madeleine Landrieu.

Harris was the second Black woman to become partner at her law firm in New Orleans and later served as Chief of Staff to Loyola University’s first woman president. She discussed her work as a Black female attorney in a predominantly white male space, her fight for equal justice, and most recently her achievements for women as a member of the New Orleans City Council.

See WOMEN, page 2

Honors graduates reflect on the program

By Kloe Witt kgwitt@my.loyno.edu

Alumni from the honors program are speaking out about how the program affected their experience at the university, after last semester when upperclassmen in the program said they were upset over the program providing an additional scholarship for freshmen that was not offered to them.

Paul Chu graduated from Loyola in the spring of 2021 with a triple major in accounting, finance, and business. Chu said he didn’t have a choice in joining the honors program since he was awarded the Ignatian scholarship, a full ride scholarship that ended in fall of 2022 to introduce the Honors scholarship, which was awarded to every honors student who joined Loyola in fall of 2022.

See HONORS, page 2

Festival goers wait outside to hear author Nikole Hannah-Jones’ session to speak on her book “1619” on March 10. Hannah-Jones wrote the book in relation to her project with the New York Times. Kloe Witt/The Maroon

Author and journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones signs copies of her book “1619” for fans after her session. Hannah-Jones said she enjoyed meeting fans and hearing their stories during the signing. Kloe Witt/The Maroon

WOMEN: Loyola celebrates Int. Women's Day

Continued from page 1

Harris said millions of people have fallen victim to poor services and she’s been on a mission to make meaningful reforms for New Orleanians. Since she’s been in office, Harris has spearheaded a number of campaigns: fighting for affordable housing, early childhood education, greater mental health services, and getting licensed nurses to do home visits after childbirth. Last year, Harris sponsored a city ordinance that forced NOPD to process its own rape kits.

Harris said she’s not done yet. Harris told the audience at the event that she will be partnering with Loyola to create a young women’s leadership academy.

Landrieu, a Loyola alum and former trial and appellate court judge, served as a moderator for Khalili. Landrieu is only the third woman to serve as the Dean of Loyola’s law school and has spent most of her career fighting for justice and on behalf of those who don’t have a voice.

Khalili, an expert in gender and the rights of women and girls, and a former prosecutor in Afghanistan, recently moved to the United States from her native Afghanistan after the Taliban took control of the government in August of 2021. She told the audience that Loyola’s law school was the first to take her in after the fall of Kabul.

Out of an abundance of caution, Loyola was unable to stay in contact with Khalili while she made her escape out of Afghanistan. Once she arrived in the U.S., she stayed with Landrieu who had been by her side to shepherd her when she could.

Khalili said it was hard to grow up in a country that valued boys more than girls, struggling to get university education and fearing she may end up like many other women who get locked down in their houses.

During the twenty years the United States government occupied Afghanistan, they brought peace of mind and education to millions of girls, she said. While Khalili said the United States didn’t solve every problem as she still lived with a lot of fear, things did get better.

After receiving her law degree and spending some time in the United States, Khalili said she wanted to fight for justice and equality.

“I decided to be the voice for the people and for women,” she told the audience.

Khalili went on to prosecute cases of violence against women, something she said was unusual for prosecutors in her office.

She received threats from people all across her country saying a woman shouldn’t be a lawyer, and angered people because she stood up for women rights in a court of law.

It wasn’t easy. Khalili said the men she prosecuted are powerful and evil and most of them were let go from prison under the recent Taliban control – leaving her vulnerable and unable to stay in Afghanistan.

Children and adults from all over the city came to Loyola to listen to the speakers and attend the event. Even girl scouts participated, serving cookies and handing out flowers to each woman.

The university indicated it will continue to host International Women’s Day events to commemorate the achievements of women across the world and raise awareness about issues facing women at their second event day next year.

Loyola Law makes new home for Afghani female rights activist

By Brendan Heffernan bmheffer@my.loyno.edu @heffthereporter

Negina Khalili has made standing up for Afghanistan’s women and girls her life’s work.

As the first female prosecutor from her home province in Afghanistan, she used her position in the country’s Attorney General’s office to fight for women who’d long been marginalized by male-only legal systems that refused to take gendered violence seriously.

On Aug. 15, 2021, Khalili watched from her office as years of her hard work were crushed under the Taliban’s tires when the extremist group took control of Kabul following the United States’ total withdrawal from the country.

“That day, I saw a government that’d been built for 20 years lose everything in one second,” Khalili said. “It wasn’t just a collapsing of government; it was my generation that collapsed. Women in Afghanistan collapsed. They are the main victims of this war.”

The Taliban has long opposed education for girls and work opportunities for women, along with perpetrating countless acts of gendered violence, Khalili said. Khalili prosecuted many cases against members of the Taliban, which put her in grave danger once the group took power.

When Kabul fell, Khalili fled to the United States. Her family was not lucky enough to escape.

“What happened to Afghanistan is a nightmare for me,” Khalili said. “I worried my family wouldn’t be alive because my work went against the Taliban.”

While shouldering the weight of the trauma and uncertainty that defined her first day as a refugee, Khalili found a path

to continue her fight when she received an offer to lecture on international human rights law at Loyola University New Orleans.

“It is my privilege and my honor to be at Loyola University,” she said. “I’m so grateful to be here.”

Since arriving in America, Khalili has relentlessly spoken out about what the Taliban is doing to her country. Last week, she led a discussion alongside Loyola’s College of Law Dean Madeleine Landrieu about courageous leadership as part of Loyola’s International Women’s Day celebration.

“I think it’s really important people hear Professor Khalili’s story,“ said Patri-

Salary increase

cia Boyett, the director of Loyola’s Women’s Resource Center and one of the event’s organizers. “The light has really gone out on Afghanistan.”

In addition to providing the Loyola community with role models for courageous leadership, Boyett said she hoped the event would bring attention to Khalili’s family’s situation and all the ongoing suffering in Afghanistan.

As a prosecutor, Khalili said her job was to enforce the American-supported Afghan government’s recently passed laws meant to eliminate violence and harassment towards women.

See KHALILI, page 8

Sitting down with the only SGA presidential ticket

By Kloe Witt kgwitt@my.loyno.edu

Loyola’s Student Government Association opened their ballots for their 2023-24 elections this year with only one ticket with Makayla Hawkins as the presidential candidate, and Sydney Randall as vice president.

Hawkins, a psychology junior, has been a member of SGA since her freshman year, and has held various leadership positions on campus, including president of Loyno Pre-Law and a supervisor for campus recreation.

She said she feels her experience in many departments on campus will help her presidency.

“That gives me a lot of different perspectives on how different students view their experience at Loyola, so I plan to use that throughout my work as student body president,” she said.

Hawkins said she believes her experience in being a resource on campus is one thing that helps motivate her in her position.

See ELECTION, page 8

HONORS : Grads reflect on their experience

Continued from page 1

With no choice in joining the program if he wanted to accept his full ride, Chu said he was nervous about what it would be like.

“At first I was very apprehensive about it,” he said. “But upon entering, I would say it was pretty life changing.”

Chu said he was able to engage with the typical college experience, finding himself and his thoughts, thanks to being in the honors program.

Gabriella Killett graduated from Loyola last December and said the honors program also helped improve her experience at Loyola.

“It created really intimate and beautiful learning relationships that will honestly follow me through life,” Killett said.

Students in the honors program are required to take the same amount of core classes, except honors students are limited to a small number of honors classes offered per semester.

Professors uncertain about new contracts

By Aron Boehle atboehle@my.loyno.edu

Loyola is releasing contracts to faculty in a few months, and some professors are skeptical that promises of increased wages will be kept by the university.

Last summer, Loyola interim president Rev. Justin Daffron S.J. gave a speech where he provided what he hoped to be a short-term solution to Loyola’s low faculty salary rate. He also said he hoped to have a more permanent solution to increase the low salaries in 2023.

The Maroon reported in September of last year that Loyola faculty wages were 25% lower than the national average, around the same time Daffron said Loyola issued $1.4 million in one-time payments to 212 employees identified as receiving compensation below the target range for their position. These one-time payments were kept confiden-

tial, and Mark Yakich, an English professor at Loyola, said there has been no recent communication between administration and faculty over wages.

The current lack of growth in wages is concurrent with higher student enrollment and an increased number of faculty members, according to English professor and Director of the Center for Editing and Publishing Christopher Schaberg.

Schaberg said pay is lower than it was made out to be. He said that the 25% figure is a percentile, meaning that 75% of Loyola’s professor’s peers make more than them.

Yakich said instead of a consistent salary, faculty received a one-time compensation package last fall to increase Loyola’s percentage behind other universities' faculty pay. Compared to similarly-sized universities, Yakich believes that Loyola is further behind than the

statistics lead on.

Yakich and other faculty members are now waiting to see if the upcoming contract will again include a one-time payment or not.

Schaberg expressed gratitude for his one-time payment, but he said it showed him and his colleagues just how little they feel they are regularly paid. When the new contracts roll out, there will be 30 days to sign, and faculty will see whether or not the salary is fixed. When he began working at Loyola, Schaberg’s pay was $53,500 and has gone up $10,000 over his fourteen years – even after promotions to associate and later full professorship. This is particularly worrying considering that the cost of living has also crept up, Schaberg said.

Chu said these special honors classes were one thing he particularly enjoyed. He said having these special classes taught by professors who specialized in the material made his experience better.

However, Killett critiqued these requirements and said it made scheduling her classes harder than it should have been.

“I think there could just be a way to improve the university system of mangling honors with general university education just because it always felt very separate,” she said.

Chu said if he could change anything about the program, it would be the inconsistent leadership he felt during his time. Three different people took over as director of the honors program from 2018 to 2021.

Still, Chu said constant change of directors didn’t negatively impact his experience.

“Each and every director puts students first and that translates extremely well to the student experience especially in the honors program,” he said.

Negina Khalili talks to students and faculty at the International Women's Day event on March 8. Khalili is serving as a visitng professor at Loyola. Anna Hummel/The Maroon

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Future of Harmony Circle center still uncertain

By Jackie Galli jegalli@my.loyno.edu @Jackie_Galli

As we come up on the six year anniversary of the removal of enslaver and Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s statue from the center of Harmony Circle, all that currently remains in it, aside from some shrubbery, is the pedestal which once housed his metal form.

Loyola art and design professor Manol Gueorguiev, said even the pedestal itself is something we must think carefully about when removing or replacing.

“The pedestal still overpowers the intersection and there is an immediate knee jerk reaction to wipe that space clean,” Gueorguiev said. “However, removing it would, to some degree, remove the memory of the negative history as well.”

In 1884, 19 years after the Civil War ended, the pedestal was built to house the Lee statue. That same year, the circle, which stands at St. Charles Avenue between Uptown and downtown New Orleans, came to be known as Lee Circle.

The statue was removed in 2017, despite four lawsuits in federal court that helped to stall the process after the City Council voted for its removal in 2015.

Five years after the statue's removal, it was renamed Harmony Circle, and a temporary statue by renowned Black artist Simone Leigh stood beside the looming pedestal for about seven months that same year. “The Sentinel” was of a woman wrapped in a snake, and was showcased as part of Prospect.5, an exhibition in New Orleans that sought to “search for alternative models for New Orleans monuments, which were historically devoted to mostly militaristic, often racist, white males,” according to Nola.com.

“Simone Leigh, who created the Sentinel sculpture and the opening performance ceremony which contained a talk, a poetry reading, and performance, offered a new interpretation of the space,” Gueorguiev said. “Simone Leigh is a very important artist, but how do you account for the desire of each generation to account for that space and history? Why choose an object to replace the Lee statue and pedestal? Why not a cultural center that produces knowledge and discusses that moment in history?”

Karl Connor, who served as the chairman of the Street Renaming Commission which recommended the circle for

a new name, said the hope of the commission following the name change was that the site be used as “a unifying point so that in the future we could recognize other members of our community who had done really wonderful things, not just for New Orleans, but the country and the world at large.”

The temporary statue did not involve the commission, but was arranged by the city. As it currently stands, the Downtown Development District agency has no plans in the future for the space. Davon N. Barbour, the president and CEO of the agency, said they hope to raise funds to improve the site.

“Long term, what I would like to see happen, is that they do use the circle as a space that brings together the community as a whole so that it can reflect on the multitudes of people that have come through here,” Connor said. “In a perfect world, every year, in coordination with some other event that could help bring together some of the other historic assets in the city like the New Orleans African American Museum, the Midlo

Center, the Louisiana Civil Rights Museum which is set to open this summer, you know all those historic assets could come together so that once a year we could use what is now Harmony Circle as the impetus to have conversations, more broader and robust conversations, about exactly how we got to where we are today, and how we can move forward and learn to live better together, not just tolerate each other.”

And there is a wealth of people to choose from.

“We’ve lost, as a city, a number of people who were born and raised here, who went on to other cities, and their greatness was really recognized there. A good example of that is Andrew Young, born and raised here. Everybody gives him to Atlanta, right? We need to reclaim our folks,” Connor said.

Andrew Young was a civil rights leader who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and later as mayor of Atlanta.

“We need to reclaim those folks, because when we have conversations about how we fix New Orleans, you

know, quote-unquote fix New Orleans, we always talk about examples for the people who live here, particularly the youth who live here, to be able to follow to see that success is possible,” Connor said. “There is no concerted effort by New Orleans to tell those stories.”

When looking for good examples of statues or art a space like Harmony Circle can feature, Gueorguiev pointed to the Mardi Gras Indian suit that appeared at the site of the former Jefferson Davis statue at the cross-section of First and Camp Streets. The nine-foot-tall suit’s surprise appearance was done by Demond Melancon, Big Chief of the Young Seminole Hunter tribe, along with the help of some “fairy angels” without city permission, Nola.com said. Melancon told Nola.com the act was a way to bring people together safely amidst the COVID-19 pandemic that canceled Mardi Gras that year.

Despite efforts to remove statues and street names that honor former slave owners, white supremacist figures, and Confederacy leaders like Lee, many re-

main. Some are especially close to home for Loyola’s campus.

37 streets were brought up for name changes by the Street Renaming Commission, and seven have happened so far. Four of the street names that have yet to be changed have name change suggestions in direct relationship to Loyola.

“None of those have been moved on, and I don’t think anybody will move them from the council’s perspective without some push,” Connor said. “Every school in this city has people on that list who they should be pushing to have these things moved and done.”

The future for many of these streets and spaces remains uncertain, just as the future of the city, country, and world at large does.

“Harmony suggests resolving an issue when in fact the issues have not been resolved,” Gueorguiev said. “Racism is ongoing and public spaces are still charged and fraught.”

BOOK: Community gathers to celebrate literature at annual book festival

Gates, who has written four books, spoke about his company, Microsoft, and the advancement of artificial intelligence.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, author of the book and New York Times project “1619”, reflected on her positive experience with the bookfest.

“It’s always a great feeling to be surrounded by brilliant writers and thinkers and just be in conversation with other people who are doing this type of work. There’s great energy here,” Hannah-Jones said.

Hannah-Jones added that she would definitely return if invited, not only for

the festival but for her love for the city as well.

“New Orleans should be very proud of this festival because of the type of talent that has been drawn to Tulane for this festival,” she said.

With the end of this year's event, Landrieu said they’ve already begun planning for next year’s festival and are hoping for a third successful year.

“It was just very positive. It was all free and open to the public,” she said. “This is just an event for the entire New Orleans community and we hope people will come and attend (in the future).”

Mary Moses and Steve Futrell attend a meeting during the annual New Orleans Book Fest. The fest hosted multiple speakers, including Darren Walker. Kloe Witt/The Maroon

The pedestal at Harmony Circle still stands on March 14. The pedestal once housed a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Jackie Galli/The Maroon

“New Orleans should be very proud of this festival because of the type of talent that has been drawn to Tulane for this festival.”

— Nikole Hannah-Jones Author of "1619"

Changing "I want to be" to "I am," collective plans to connect all artists

By Abigail Schmidt acschmid@my.loyno.edu

When music industry major Aidan O’Connor transferred to Loyola his sophomore year, he said he felt like every artist was “waiting for something.”

O’Connor said he noticed that a lot of creatives seemed nervous about what lay beyond Loyola and how they were going to get the experience they needed after graduation. This inspired him to form the EX3 collective to help musicians, visual artists, filmmakers, managers, advertisers, and writers break into respective careers.

“It’s a collective in which students of all different majors and career paths are able to get career experience by working together to promote artists of all mediums,” O’Connor said.

O’Connor said he hopes to connect and help build a symbiotic relationship among all aspects of the music industry and help them make connections inside and outside of Loyola. This would include helping artists find managers, a legal team, and a marketing team, while also connecting them with designers, videographers, and social media coordinators.

“The whole point of it is changing ‘I want to be’ to ‘I am,’” he said.

He said he hopes to give people experience in the entertainment industry by participating in projects that promote artists and forming early connections that might be difficult to form after graduation. For example, he is currently planning a photoshoot for musicians to network with photographers and social media coordinators.

“People need something tangible to accomplish, especially when you’re just starting out,” he said.

O'Connor had the idea and began to work on it last fall during music industry

studies professor Billy O’Connell’s introduction to music industry course.

The idea was based on a similar project O’Connor did in his hometown of Brooklyn, New York, which he said led him to put a music festival together with major headliners that led to some members of the organization getting record deals.

When the spring semester started, O’Connor said he began spreading the word that the project was officially underway. He started by creating a Discord server with subcategories for different fields where anyone is free to join and network with other people. He started gaining traction with the idea, and had over 60 people join the server. He said that when he felt that word had spread enough, he held the first meeting.

“I could tell that there was a sense of community,” he said. “I could feel in that room for the first time since coming to this school that feeling of nervousness, the waiting, was there when everybody entered the room. And by the time everybody left, it was gone. And it was like the biggest weight off of my shoulders, because people showed up. People cared. There was a great discussion between everyone. Everybody’s really excited because everybody’s doing what they love, because now there’s an opportunity to do it and there’s nothing left to wait for.”

He said it felt good to see people talking to each other and networking within their creative fields.

“When Aidan told me about his idea, I immediately jumped on board and started communicating with others to form a foundation for the organization,” said freshman popular and commercial music major and EX3’s legal director Edmund Parry.

Parry and O’Connor are currently

working toward an LLC for the nonprofit organization, and Parry is in charge of things such as financial work, acquiring permits for future shows, and writing contracts with people doing business with EX3.

O’Connor said he hopes for the different groups to grow and develop their own networks, starting within Loyola and branching out. His long term goal is for EX3 to be an accessible way for young people to try their hand at the industry

Irish musician holds benefit concert at Loyola

By Brendan Heffernan bmheffer@my.loyno.edu @Heffthereporter

Musician Danny O’Flaherty built a shrine to Irish music and culture with O’Flaherty’s Irish Channel Pub, a French Quarter bar he operated for 16 years alongside his brother, Patrick.

While the pub never reopened after Hurricane Katrina, O’Flaherty revived its spirit last week with a benefit concert held on Loyola’s campus.

“We’re in the ballad room, folks,” O’Flaherty said at the start of his March 11 performance in Loyola’s Nunemaker Auditorium.

The concert was a major hit with students like music education junior Amy Donald. Donald said she’s passionate about her Irish heritage and Irish music.

Donald even said she aspires to learn to sing in Irish, as O’Flaherty often does.

“Music like this makes me feel like I have a culture,” Donald said.

The concert, like O’Flaherty’s previous on-campus performances, raised money to fund scholarships for graduate students enrolled in Loyola’s Institute for Ministry.

“Part of the proceeds are going toward scholarships for students who are in ministry, working in churches, making very little money and trying to advance their education,” said Tracey Lamont, the concert’s organizer and the Institute

for Ministry’s interim director. “It’s a huge gift that he would do this for us.”

The musician's friendship with Loyola’s Institute for Ministry began in the glow of one of O'Flaherty’s shining brass taps, as longtime Institute for Ministry professors Barbara Fleischer and the late Rev. Gerald Fagin accompanied many of their students on visits to the bar during its years of operation, Lamont said.

“I asked (Fleischer) how we knew him and they said ‘oh, we know him from the pub,’” Lamont said. “That’s the best answer I could’ve heard.”

O'Flaherty, who grew up in the Connemara region of Ireland located on the island’s west coast, said he was first booked to perform in the French Quarter in 1985 while New Orleans was hosting the World’s Fair.

In the midst of the crowds, O’Flaherty and his brother managed to find an audience willing to stay quiet enough to listen to their ballads.

“We were on Bourbon Street singing folk songs, straight forward folk songs, and we were packing the house,” O’Flaherty said. “When it came to the ballads we would close the doors. Bourbon street was full of barkers yelling, ‘two beers for a dollar’ trying to get people into their establishments. But we were doing the opposite. It was mystifying.”

From then on the O’Flaherty’s knew that New Orleans was a special town. By 1989, the brothers had stopped touring

in order to open up their own French Quarter pub. They also helped found Louisiana’s Celtic Nations Heritage Festival.

O’Flaherty’s Irish Channel Pub hosted celebrations of Celtic languages, song, dance, and literary traditions while providing a space for community members to enjoy creamy pints of Guinness and hearty conversation. The pub even held concerts featuring legendary Celtic folk musicians like Tommy Makem of The Clancy Brothers, but all of that was in service of a greater mission, O’Flaherty said.

“We gave honor to the people who came before us because so many of us sacrificed their lives for our identity. So many were sent to the gallows just for speaking the Irish language, for singing our songs,” O’Flaherty said. “We wanted to show people that they didn’t have to water down their own cultures either.”

O’Flaherty still regularly performs in Louisiana, and his original music has taken a special interest in connecting the histories and traditions of his home country with those of Louisiana. The musical connections between Louisiana and Ireland that O’Flaherty has spent the last three decades exploring run deep, according to Adrian Scahill, an Irish music historian and lecturer at Maynooth University of Ireland.

Combinations of Irish traditional music and New Orleans jazz became popular among Irish Americans around the turn of the 20th century. These new styles made their way to Ireland and changed how Irish musicians performed traditional music, Scahill said.

“Jazz impacted on the tradition in a number of ways, and in a number of

they want to go into, he said.

Professor Billy O’Connell said he believes this is a positive initiative. Seeing O’Connor develop the idea in his class, he said he could see the need for something like this collective at Loyola, and feels hopeful that artists could become more united.

“It’s a very positive thing to break down silos between various groups within the music industry, whether it’s genre or specialty,” O’Connell said.

He added that while most artists tend to be competitive, “a rising tide can raise all boats.”

O’Connell said especially somewhere as close knit as Loyola, there can be a “fraternal approach.”

“We are all brothers and sisters. We are here to protect each other and look out for one another, and that’s the true value of a collective,” he said.

places,” Scahill said. “As in the USA, there was some use of saxophone, drums, and bass which began to creep into the ceili bands, but it was gradual and not used by every band. The drums got incorporated relatively quickly – this was something which definitely came from early jazz bands.”

O’Flaherty’s work honoring these connections included him writing a song about Irish migrant workers who died enduring brutal working conditions while building railroads and canals in the Mississippi River corridor during Louisiana’s antebellum period. While the legacy of these early Irish Louisianians is complicated by how some in the community worked to uphold white supremacist systems during slavery and reconstruction, O’Flaherty believes educating people about the

exploitation the period’s Irish migrants faced both in Louisiana and overseas under British colonial rule is valuable to the mission of intercommunity solidarity today.

“There’s good and there’s bad and there’s ugly. You teach the bad so that people know not to do something like that again,” O’Flaherty said. “If we knew more about who we are, where we came from, how we migrated, we wouldn’t be so quick to make comments about migration and immigration, because all of us are travelers.”

Sophomore music industry major Aidan O'Connor leads a meeting for EX3. This organization aims to brings different aspects of creative industries together to help promote artists and network in and outside of Loyola. Abigail Schmidt/The Maroon

Danny O’Flaherty chats with the crowd during his March 11 performance on Loyola’s campus. A portion of proceeds from O’Flaherty’s show went to benefit Loyola’s Institute for Ministry’s scholarship fund. Brendan Heffernan/The Maroon

“We wanted to show people that they didn't have to water down their cultures.”

— Danny O'Flaherty Irish musician and former owner of O'Flaherty's Irish Channel Pub

COLUMN: The honors program isn't worth it

By Maleigh Crespo macrespo@loyno.edu English sophomore

As a promising high school senior, I applied to dozens of colleges and universities across the country.

From Ivy Leagues to local community colleges, I didn’t limit myself when applying to schools, but I did have to take other factors into consideration: available academic programs, travel, scholarships, and the overall cost of attendance.

When I finally narrowed down my decision to two schools, Loyola was my preferred choice. Even though it was my dream school, I still worried about the cost of tuition.

So I made my way to the scholarships page on the university’s website where I stumbled upon the honors scholarship, which awards $5,000 to all students admitted into the honors program and can be renewed every year.

For the next week after that, I worked with my high school guidance counselor to carefully craft an application and essay by the priority deadline that would ensure my acceptance into this program. A $5,000 scholarship would help my financial need greatly and be the deciding factor to attend my dream school.

Long story short, I was accepted into the honors program, and my fate was sealed.

At this point, my entire college decision was riding on this honors scholarship, so you can imagine my dismay when I received my financial aid package and it did not include my honors scholarship.

Honors students later found out that only Ignatian scholarship winners received a scholarship from the honors program, which was a full-ride, despite what the university’s website said.

Suddenly, the plan I once had was completely shattered, and I was left picking up the pieces.

Not wanting to burden my parents

with this newfound hardship, I began applying for jobs everywhere I could, because going home was not an option.

I started my job at Loyola-Sodexo at the beginning of my freshman year, working nearly 30 hours a week to make ends meet.

I had no time to make friends, explore the city, or study. I was falling asleep in my classes and struggling to keep up with the workload of a first-year college student.

It was overwhelming, and it felt as if I never got to fully acclimate to my new environment. Most of the memories of my freshman year are few and far between. I was always running between class and work with hardly any free time.

Now, in my second year of college, I’ve come to regret many of the decisions I made in my first year, particularly choosing to stay in the honors program after not receiving the scholarship.

With no financial assistance, the benefits of the honors program are hollow.

Each semester, honors students are only given roughly three to five classes to choose from that fulfill the mandatory honors requirements. All while our non-honors peers get to take classes that actually interest them.

Professors have even complained about teaching honors classes to students who have no interest in the subject matter, only taking courses to fulfill the honors core requirement.

To combat this, some professors have experimented by creating fixed rosters for their classes, consisting of a 50/50 ratio of honors students to non-honors students. The idea is to ensure there is a greater ratio of students actually interested in the class.

But it shouldn’t be this way. Students in the honors program worked hard to get into the program, and they should be able to take classes that they can actually enjoy and excel in.

Sure, students in the honors program are able to have priority in choosing their classes (undeniably, a nice perk), but with limited honors classes, there is, again, no real utility in the program.

According to Loyola's website, the honors program works to create an “enriching academic environment” for

ELECTION : Future SGA Leadership discuss their ambitions

admitted students. But how is this any different from the goal of all Loyola students who are required to fulfill the Loyola core curriculum rather than the honors core curriculum?

The honors program has the potential to be great. So many outstanding students, who I’ve grown to call friends, are part of the community, but there are countless students unwilling to join because of the lack of benefits.

Furthermore, the honors program is meant to foster a community, but many of the friends that I made through the honors program have left due to a lack of reward and satisfaction with the program. And those bonds have since diminished.

Despite many alumni saying that the honors program enhanced their college experience and allowed them to build a community, since I’ve been in the program, this hasn't been the case. Perhaps, this is due to the lasting effects of the pandemic. Regardless, the honors program could be doing better for its students, especially after many of us had failed expectations after not receiving scholarships for being in the program.

Now, the Ignatian scholarship has been discontinued, and the $5,000 scholarship is now actually being awarded to honors students admitted in subsequent classes.

But what about those of us in graduating classes prior to 2026? What about those of us who were sold a false narrative? Where is our restitution?

Without the financial assistance, the honors program isn’t worth it.

There are few employers who will consider my membership in the honors program as a factor in my hireability. The only potential benefits may be applying to grad schools. However, there are many honors students who aren’t even considering grad school.

So, as far as I’m concerned, there needs to be something more substantial than receiving a medal for being in the honors program.

KHALILI : Visiting professor fights for equity

Continued from page 2

She tackled cases involving honor killings, forced child marriages, and domestic violence. Some of the cases she prosecuted garnered international attention, Khalili said, including a case where a family arranged a marriage between their 5-year-old daughter and a 60-year-old man.

Khalili said the issue of forced early marriages for Afghan girls has only gotten worse as mass hunger has gripped the nation.

“I’m sure it’s increased and is increasing day-by-day,” she said. “Because of poverty in Afghanistan, no work, no financial resources, some families are forced to sell their daughters to feed other members of the family.”

While Khalili said her heart and mind haven’t left her home, she’s stayed true to her mission since arriving in New Orleans. In addition to teaching her classes on international human rights law, Khalili has joined Boyett on staff at Loyola’s Women’s Resource Center where Victoria Bolden, the center’s student director of women’s leadership, said she’s made an instant impact.

“Professor Khalili has been wonderful to work with at the Women’s Resource Center,” said Bolden, a psychology senior. “In a few short months working

with her, I have learned so much and broadened my own understanding of the needs of women worldwide. I hope students can learn from her story and are inspired to take action in their own lives to better the future of girls and women everywhere.”

Khalili said she hopes to help her American students and those who hear

Continued from page 2

“I’ve always loved being a resource for others,” she said. “I felt there was no better position to help students than being the SGA president.”

Unlike Hawkins, this was political science junior Randall’s first year in student government. Still, she said she felt like running was necessary.

Randall has also held several leadership positions that she said will help with her vice presidential duty to preside over all senate meetings.

“Knowing that we’re all a team and we have one common goal, and that’s to better the student body, that definitely helps, I’ve noticed, with teamwork and leadership,” she said.

According to Hawkins and Randall, their main focus is on improving communication between Loyola and the student body, including receiving and listening to student feedback, more funding for events students have proven to enjoy, and increasing safety for the community.

The SGA vice president serves as the head of the senate. Randall said that the best way to ensure an effective senate that can hold beneficial meetings is to build strong relationships with each member because they serve as a bridge between the president and the student body.

“They’re the ones who are on the ground. They’re the ones who are walking around school seeing all the problems. They’re the ones talking to their peers and seeing what students just can’t stand about school, and what makes them uncomfortable,” she said.

The pair said they want to host town hall meetings at the beginning and end of each semester where the students can come and express their concerns.

Randall said reopening a virtual suggestion box for students to voice their needs or opinions on the new SGA website is also a priority.

“Having something that’s more accessible to students will definitely help us get their feedback and their opinion

because this is why we’re doing this. It’s for the students,” Randall said.

As for plans with the budget, Hawkins said she plans to help increase events on campus that students have shown more interest in.

“I would love to do more events centered on the arts. So I know one of the initiatives that was passed was initiating an arts and cultures committee in the senate because we saw that so many students loved the Loyno Flea Market and events like that,” Hawkins said.

Both Hawkins and Randall mentioned the creation of an app that will have several safety measures, including Title IX information, Student Health information, and a mobile blue light service, which is the blue pole that can be pressed to alert Loyola University Police Department if a student feels unsafe or in need of help.

“We just thought that would be great, because sometimes you need help and you’re not close enough to a blue light,” Hawkins said. “Being able to just hit a button on your phone and get you in contact with LUPD or whoever's closest to help you, I feel like is a really, really good resource for students.”

The app, titled Code Havoc, is already in the works, according to Hawkins.

Other safety measures that the candidates are planning to implement are for safety items, such as the night life scrunchies, which are scrunchies that expand to create caps for drinks, and key chain alarms, that will be available at all times at Havoc’s help desk.

Hawkins said she still plans to spend plenty of time listening to any student concerns that could arise.

“I feel like whenever you’re running a campaign, you have the initiatives, of course, that you want to do, but you also want to be focused on any pressing issues that come up with the student body so you can also address those,” she said.

CONTRACT: Professors still skeptical about wages

Continued from page 2

Schaberg said he has seen the impact of the lower wages, noting that the English department has lost ten tenured professors over the last ten years. These tenured positions and vacancies are disproportionately replaced with adjunct professors and other instructors on one-year contracts, putting pressure on their job security. Schaberg said that this issue has made his colleagues feel either defeated or angry.

“A lot of faculty are so beaten down, and they’re just resigned,” he said.

Yakich and Schaberg both said that, in its current state, Daffron’s plan is more of an abstract and uncertain mission. Schaberg hopes it will come to fruition with a higher and fixed salary in the new contracts, but he doesn’t believe it will.

going to only pay you this much.’”

Schaberg said that if this happens it may ultimately lead professors to look elsewhere for work.

“It’s made me look seriously for other jobs,” Schaberg said. “Which is hard because I actually love it here. I’ve been here for fourteen years. I love my students.”

However, Schaberg said he’s at a point in his career where he needs to be recognized for his efforts.

Schaberg said he believes Loyola has the money to spend on faculty, and more money should be allocated to professors as it directly impacts students as well.

Because Daffron is in a precarious position as interim president, Schaberg said that he doesn’t have the usual authority for situations like this.

“We need leadership to say ‘we need to do the right thing,’” Schaberg said.

her speak better understand the fragile nature of human rights everywhere while inspiring them to take action.

“I want my students to know what’s going on in the world,” she said. “If something happened in one country, it can occur in the United States.”

Schaberg believes this one-time payment may happen next year but not this year, and that the salary on this contract will return to the old low salaries.

“I think that’s what’s going to be so disappointing,” Schaberg said. “Because they’ve told us how much they know we're worth, and we're worried we're going to get contracts saying ‘we’re still

University spokeswoman Patricia Murret did not return multiple emails and voicemails requesting comment for this story.

Dean Landrieu (LEFT), Negina Khalili (CENTER), and Lesli Harris (RIGHT) speak on stage at the International Women's Day event. International Women's Day is recognized globally. Anna Hummel/The Maroon

Dance competes at NAIA National Championships Leaño leads Smash Cancer into 4th year

By Arianna D'Antonio asdanton@my.loyno.edu @AriDAntonio

Loyola’s dance team accomplished their first preseason goal with a homefield win at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics regional competition. The win gave the team the chance to compete at the National Championships in Ypsilanti, Mich., where they finished 12th.

Dylon Hoffpauir, head coach of Loyola’s dance and cheer teams, said he knew that hosting the regional qualifier in the Den would be a huge task, but that it felt great to win at the team’s home.

“After not qualifying in 2022, it meant a lot for us to be back at nationals,” Hoffpauir said. “The team’s been through so much, and they really came together to put their best foot forward.”

Hoffpauir highlighted the dancers' hard work, and said they focused in and made the necessary changes to the routine so it was difficult enough to win regionals and qualify for nationals.

Criminal justice junior Gabriella D’Angelo said she felt at home competing in the qualifiers and enjoyed seeing their hard work pay off.

“Competing at nationals was nerve-racking, but was such a great experience,” she said. “We got to meet the other teams and watch all of the performances. It felt great representing Loyola.”

D'Angelo said the team practiced three hours a day, three times a week, with additional workouts twice a week.

Hoffpauir ensured the team achieved their goal of delivering a solid, clean performance.

“We showed two great performances, both with zero deductions, and we increased our score from prelims to finals,” he said.

Business marketing senior Kele Johnson said performing in the Den gave the team a home field advantage, and winning was rewarding.

“Competing at nationals my senior year as my last performance felt so exciting, knowing I finished off my college career doing something I love,” she said.

By Alana Thompson anthomps@my.loyno.edu

After junior tennis player Isabella “Isa” Leaño’s paternal grandfather died due to acute myeloid leukemia, it motivated her to found an event for cancer while playing a game she loves.

Leaño, a biology major from Miami, established a twelve hour tennis-a-thon called Smash Cancer in her home state of Florida in 2019.

On Sunday, March 26, Smash Cancer will be held at City Park Tennis Center.

“I began Smash Cancer with my high school doubles partner,” Leaño said. “I had the idea, and she had the connections, or liaison rather, to Stand Up to Cancer, which is our benefactor … that’s where all our funds go toward.”

In the four years since its inception, the location and atmosphere of Smash

Women's golf swings into their spring season strong

By Matthew Richards mlricha2@my.loyno.edu

The women’s golf team is looking forward to improving on their program-best finish of fifth place at last year’s National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics National Championships in Oklahoma City with an even stronger run this semester.

They started the season with a second-place finish at the Ram Spring Invite in Mobile, Ala. before getting to host their first meet of the season on March 6 and 7 at the Wolf Pack Invitational, where they also finished in second.

The team was projected to finish third in the Southern States Athletic Conference preseason polls, and opened the season ranked No. 15 in the NAIA preseason coaches polls.

They moved up into the No. 10 spot in the NAIA polls in October and held that position after a strong fall season that included four second-place finishes in their competitions.

“It's only a matter of time before we come out with a win,” said junior biology and pre-dental major Kaitlyn Montoya. “That’s a goal the team set for ourselves

along with qualifying for the national championship.”

Freshman Catherine Singletary said the team has all worked hard this season.

“I think that it shows based on our performance in our tournaments so far,” Singletary said. “I'm very confident that we will finish out this season strong.”

Singletary has been a standout performer for the Wolf Pack this season. The finance major and native of League City, Texas was named the SSAC Golfer of the Week in September after her debut performance at the Carey Collegiate Classic in Hattiesburg, Miss.

“I feel like I’ve performed well this season,” Singletary said. “I think by maintaining a positive attitude and working hard, I’ve allowed myself to improve over this season.”

The team will be in action on March 27 at the Music City Invitational in Old Hickory, Tenn. before both the men’s and women’s teams attend the Mississippi University for Women Spring Invitational on April 3 and 4 to wrap up the regular season.

Cancer has changed which, in turn, has helped the event “blossom,” according to Leaño.

“I actually transferred to Loyola in my sophomore year,” Leaño said. “I was in Philadelphia in my freshman year at La Salle University, and I found out that they had cut my program [because I played tennis there] and defunded it due to Covid. So, I decided to transfer.”

Deciding to establish her roots at Loyola, she held her first Smash Cancer event in New Orleans, and with the help from her teammates and head coach Matthew Llewellyn, the Florida-native

gained connections in the Crescent City.

“Not that I had low expectations, but I wasn’t expecting what I had gotten in Miami because I didn’t have any connections in New Orleans,” Leaño said. “I had like 150 people from the athletic department show up and 200 people, caterers and all, in total for the event. It was a really good turn out. Much better than I expected.”

From the connections that Leaño cultivated, she realized that she needed to dedicate more time and networking to the event. As a result of her hard work and determination, there were more people in attendance last year, accord-

ing to Leaño.

“It has been my vision throughout the whole thing, but my coach has always been there to help me out,” Leaño said. “Even if my coach isn’t there, my teammates are very supportive throughout the whole time. ”

Due to her work with Smash Cancer, she was nominated for the LeRoy Walker Champions of Character Award last year. This recognition led her to be appointed to the Association of Student Athletes which made her feel “really nice,” Leaño said.

“It felt good obviously to have somebody to commend me for what I’ve been doing,” Leaño said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get it, but the whole process was very empowering.”

More information about the event and GoFundMe campaign can be found on its Instagram @smashcancer_loyno.

WHAT'S UP NEXT

MARCH 18

Baseball doubleheader vs. Stillman College at Segnette Field at 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.

Track & field at South Alabama Invitational

MARCH 20

Tennis vs. Millsaps College at City Park Tennis Center

Esports vs. Blinn College in "Overwatch 2"

Junior biology major Isabella "Isa" Leaño (center, smiling) sits at a table in the Danna Center to promote the Smash Cancer Tennis-athon on March 13, 2023. Leaño first established the program in her hometown of Miami, Fla in 2019 after her grandfather died from leukemia. Maleigh Crespo/The Maroon

Freshman Catherine Singletary tracks the ball after her shot at the Wolf Pack Invitational on March 6, 2023. Singletary claimed her third top-5 finish of her career at the event. Courtesy of Wolf Pack Athletics.

“It has been my vision throughout the whole thing, but my coach has always been there to help me out.”

— Isabella Leaño Co-founder of Smash Cancer

It is TIME TO MAKE some MONUMENTAL CHANGES

Monuments are perfect examples of something that can exhibit culture and history, but don’t necessarily have to define it. So it’s no surprise to people who learn about the establishment of hundreds of Confederate statues in America by neo-Confederates after the Civil War, mostly during the height of the Ku Klux Klan. Choosing harmful figures to monumentalize is a projection of closed-mindedness and compromise.

Statues in a city should reflect both national and local leaders, and those leaders need to reflect the values that we respect. We shouldn’t let our enemies spew hatred in our communities. Now that there have been concerted efforts to remove and replace these statues, we are left to question what we should replace them with.

When the Robert E. Lee statue was taken down from the former Lee Circle (now Harmony Circle) there was speculation about what would replace it. Now, six years later, we still do not have a replacement statue. New Orleans mayor, LaToya Cantrell, has hoped a decision will be reached by the end of her term, but it shouldn’t take this long to put a replacement statue up.

The time to get it done is now.

One possible creative solution is to have a rotation of statues, as well as the support of education centers about the monuments and their history. A rotation of statues could elevate Harmony Circle from a dissatisfactory image to a new cultural center incorporating New Orleans’ authenticity.

Beyond Harmony Circle, there are a plethora of streets that have harmful or racist names, with the majority of them named after Confederate figures. Ogden Street is one, named after a Confederate general Frederick Ogden who helped lead an attempted coup d’etat against the Reconstruction Era state government. This shouldn’t come as any shock from a state that has produced and given political power to a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, self-identified, racist and anti-semite, David Duke. Not to mention the notorious racially motivated gerrymandering meant to diminish the Black vote.

We already have some examples of positive recognition. The Holocaust memorial downtown blends creativity with a proper recognition. Cultural icon Louis Armstrong has received much appreciation through statues and his namesake in the airport. The statue unveiled in Crescent Park honoring the heroic Latino workers who helped rebuild New Orleans following Katrina should guide us in this replacement effort as well.

Much like the statue replacements, the process of renaming streets has gone unfinished too. One instance is the potential renaming of Calhoun Street, named after South Carolina politician John Calhoun, an ardent supporter of southern sectionalism and slavery. It was recommended by the Street Renaming Commission to rename the street after Father Louis J. Twomey, a

Loyola graduate that pursued racial and worker justice. Replacing a racist who had no connection to New Orleans with a local justice advocate is perhaps the perfect guide for replacing statues. As members of the Loyola community, we should push for this.

These efforts touch us not just because we are an institution in New Orleans, but because they have permeated our interior. Many of the rooms in the Danna Center are named after enslavers and harmful figures - including the rooms “Audubon,” “Claiborne,” and “Napoleon.” This bubbled over into student opinion, leading the Student Government Association to pass a bill to have these rooms renamed.

One of the reasons it has taken so long is because people with Confederate sympathies have tried hard to resist this change. This is something we see all across the country as well. Their most frequent argument is that it represents “southern heritage.” It represents the preservation of slavery and Jim Crow laws. Additionally, the Confederate battle flag was adopted as the party flag by Dixiecrats in the 1940s, a party that was formed in response to President Truman’s executive order 9981, which integrated the armed forces.

Confederate imagery has always stood to represent slavery, the fight against civil rights, and specifically, white-nationalist heritage. Full southern heritage, not just white southern heritage, includes the fight against racial oppression, through sit-ins, the Little Rock Nine, and beyond. Preservation of Confederate imagery is not a matter of an extremely short lived Confederate legacy, but more so of everlasting racist nostalgia.

We need to take down racist statues and honor our real heroes. We don’t need to be honoring old traitors. France doesn’t give thanks to their World War II traitor Philippe Petain. Why should we honor ours?

Erecting monuments is a chance to celebrate both each other and our values as a community. We need to celebrate the people who truly represent who we are, not what we used to be. If our statues and monuments are inclusive and represent all of New Orleans, the city will be all the more welcoming, which is crucial during a period of declining population and relevancy.

HOWLS & GROWLS

HOWL to new student government

GROWL to transphobia

HOWL to Taylor Swift's Eras Tour

GROWL to Ticketmaster

HOWL to teachers

GROWL to flat tires

HOWL to the Oscars

GROWL to slow walkers

EDITORIAL BOARD

Macie Batson & Jackie Galli

Editors-in-Chief

Cristo Dulom Managing Editor for Print

Ava Acharya Managing Editor for Digital

Devin Cruice News Director

Maleigh Crespo Design Chief

Gabrielle Korein Photo Editor

Patrick Hamilton News Editor

Abigail Schmidt Life & Times Editor

Aron Boehle Worldview Editor

Matthew Richards Sports Editor

Mark Michel Opinion & Editorial Editor

Kloe Witt Breaking News Editor

Mia Oliva Reviews Editor Equity & Inclusion Officers

Victoria Hardy & Melody Newsome

Arianna D'Antonio Senior Staff Writer

Torrie Shuff Senior Staff Photographer Copy Editors

Heather Rabassa & Violet Bucaro

Bella Kelley Social Media Coordinator

Alexis Horton Assignment Editor

EDITORIAL POLICY

The editorial on this page represents the majority opinions of The Maroon’s editorial board and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Loyola University.

Letters and columns reflect the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of The Maroon’s editorial board.

The Maroon does not represent the opinion of administration, staff and/or faculty members of Loyola.

Letters are subject to editing for length, grammar and style. Please limit submissions to 400 words. Submissions are due no later than 4 p.m. the Sunday before publication.

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Email us your letters — letter@ loyno.edu.

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COVID-19 redefined the way we maintain friendships

LIZZY HADLEY English sophomore

edhadley@my.loyno.edu

The COVID-19 pandemic affected my social skills in maintaining friendships. I came to college fresh out of friends and full of hope to find more. The pandemic hit my junior year of high school. This left me graduating feeling dreadful about my college years. I was desperate for any connection and wanted to find that in college. The friend group I joined freshman year was built on the hope of never leaving each other alone. The catch was we all forgot what can be consid-

ered a toxic friendship.

We became attached, frightened that anything could take one of us from the other. We would stay up till dawn because we craved the attention. This attention was left unattended for months during the pandemic. We were latching onto this fairytale of friendship. We hoped we would never be left alone again.

Most people would argue this isn’t toxic. They might say that we are living freely and without much thought. But, it is toxic. We were depending on each other on an emotional level, so much so that if we didn’t hang out we’d be infuriated with each other and feeling betrayed that we are, yet again, left alone. The pandemic shot down our notion of space because we were terrified we were always going to be alone. Now, we need to relearn how to socialize without the fear of losing

connections.

We don’t have these barriers that prevent us from interacting. We can live our lives. This redirection that some of my friends and I have taken has been a step toward making healthy relationships.

Dependency is not a reasonable foundation for friendships. Friendships should be built on similar values and interests to share quality time with each other. We’ve grown to learn that. But, we are still learning how to function as adults. It’s not realistic to constantly hang out. This dependency becomes toxic because we require it. You can’t expect to give up all your time for a few individuals. I realized that we need to separate to create spaces for quality time with others and ourselves.

Friendship has been redefined in my life after self-reflection on this friend group. Friendship was lost

Transphobia runs rampant on Loyola's campus

sex and gender at Catholic Studies Night, just days after the Club Q shooting.

during the pandemic and gained after some normalcy. This 'normalcy' was defined as our desperate need for attention, which now needs to be redefined to our current situation since we can live as we did before the pandemic. It’s what we look for in someone to have this meaningful bond that can fill gaps you can be missing or you admire. This isn’t meant to be lasting in an all-day sense. This is for spending some of your time with your friends, different acquaintances, and yourself. I forgot there is a needed space for myself. Without self-focus, you cannot grow or have the time to be at peace with yourself. Learning to accept yourself is important, and you’d think the pandemic would’ve taught me that. Except it left me fantasizing about what life could be. The good parts are documented with friends and family. Forgetting that having these good parts

lives simultaneously with alone time. We cannot be full of life all the time and constantly socializing. We need breaks to breathe, and do that alone. Being left alone with my thoughts used to leave me shaking in my boots. Alone time left me questioning myself. Who am I? I’m still finding that out, and I can’t rely on others to answer my questions. If I did, I wouldn’t be myself. I would be some version of myself that is made by others. This time apart brought focus to what is important. We learn who we want to be around. We learn who we are. We learn how to be okay with being alone and how it increases the value of quality time with others.

COVID created too much space for us which reverted to this grasping of our friends. We need to relearn the idea that absence does make the heart grow fonder.

Loyola has a pervasive transphobia problem – a problem that only seems to be escalating. I’ve had my pronouns and preferred name repeatedly ignored by faculty, despite signing every email with “Slater, (they/he).” Professors who knew me before I came out make fun of my chosen name or fail to use it at all. Peers have found and used my deadname instead of my preferred name. And these are just my personal experiences.

The lack of discretion afforded to transgender and gender-nonconforming students on an administrative level is appalling. Nationwide, transgender students are not allowed to change their names on their student IDs. Last semester, the Women’s Resource Center made a social media post inferring that the term “TERF,” or trans-exclusionary radical feminist, is a slur. Abigail Favale- a known TERF- was invited to speak on

This problem is not exclusive to Loyola. Transgender students report they have been verbally, physically, and sexually harassed in large numbers- as much as 24% of 27,000 transgender students. Trans rights have been under attack for years, and things only seem to worsen, with new legislation targeting transgender healthcare for people twenty-six and under. So much of the transphobic legislature running through states is based around transgender people’s rights in educational institutions, making the problem of transphobia at Loyola that much more frustrating. To see Loyola fail to live up to its core tenets of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and “social justice” is more than just disappointing. It is devastating.

What is most upsetting about all of this is that there is little I can do about it. I have written to faculty about Abigail Favale, I have tried to get my ID changed, I have corrected professors and peers on my name, and every time I have been

brushed off. If I get angry, I am being unprofessional and hostile, but if I say nothing I am complicit in my own dehumanization. Why should it fall on the transgender students of Loyola to protest every transphobic act that occurs? Where are the so-called allies?

“I offer you this warning: the Nature you bedevil me with is a lie. Do not trust it to protect you from what I represent, for it is a fabrication that cloaks the groundlessness of the privilege you seek to maintain for yourself at my expense,” Susan Stryker wrote as part of her performance piece-turnedessay “My Words to Victor Frankenstein

Above the Village of Chamounix.” I use these words to remind you that your prejudice stems from a place of privilege, and only serves to shield you from progress. Loyola has aided and abetted transphobia for far too long, and it is high time we see a change.

Maleigh Crespo/The Maroon

SLATER ARLT

History senior mgarlt@my.loyno.edu

“Loyola has aided and abetted transphobia for far too long, and it is high time we see a change.”