Washington Square News | November 4, 2019

4 CULTURE

9 OPINION

Bread Club Plans to Unite Students Through Common Grain

Stand With LS Professors, Even if NYU Won’t

6 ARTS

10 SPORTS

Somehow, Tisch New Theatre Reinvents Elle Woods in ‘Legally Blonde’

Battling Rain and Wind, NYU Quidditch Crowned Regional Champs

VOLUME LIII | ISSUE 11

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

Safe Ride Drives Students Away With Two-Hour Waits, Failures to Arrive

By LISA COCHRAN Deputy News Editor

Students report long wait times — some as long as two hours — and poor communication when using Safe Ride, NYU’s ridesharing service meant to provide safe transportation for students out late at night.

CAS sophomore Liz Marquis and two of her friends were leaving a party near Broome Street Residence Hall at 1 a.m. last month.

They were bound for University Residence Hall — a 23-minute walk that should translate to a nine-minute drive. Factoring in the distance and late hour, the trio decided to call a Safe Ride — NYU’s late-night rideshare service — with hopes of arriving at their destination shortly.

But by the time the vehicle dropped them off at U-Hall, more than three hours had passed.

After Marquis called the Safe Ride that night, she was told by the dispatcher that the vehicle would arrive in 45 minutes. When she and her friends boarded the Safe Ride — which came in double the promised time — the vehicle drove around for two hours, taking what Marquis said was an unusual route.

“They stopped at Brittany, and I thought, ‘Okay, U-Hall should be next,’ but then it went back to Weinstein and to Bobst,” Marquis said.

She added that even though her dorm is far from most NYU facilities, she no longer sees Safe Ride as a viable option after this occurrence.

VERONICA LIOW | WSN

NYU Safe Ride cars outside Third Avenue North Residence Hall.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

NYU Students Conquer New York City Marathon

By BELA KIRPALANI Sports Editor Franklin Reitzas was supposed to run the New York City marathon in his first year at NYU, but he forgot to sign up for the race before the deadline.

This time, the SPS junior planned everything out far in advance and started training over the summer. He ran almost every single day for 16 weeks, only taking days off on Fridays.

“I was running probably around 30

miles a week [earlier on] and the highest mileage was on Sunday when 14 weeks into the training program, I’d run 20 miles in one sitting,” Reitzas said.

Reitzas ran cross country competitively in high school and even contemplated walking on to NYU’s cross country team before deciding against it in order to enjoy a more robust college experience that wasn’t tied to running. However, he continued running in his free time and, when it came to preparing for the marathon, he was all-in.

“Everything that you do, you need to remember that you do your run,” Reitzas said. “So some days, when I would have a full day of school and work and I wouldn’t finish my day until 10 p.m. and I’m exhausted. I get home, I take off my backpack, I sit on my couch and I think, ‘OK, I just want to go to bed.’ But then you think, ‘No, I have to run.’”

“All I do is think about food and sleep,” he later added. “When’s my run? If I eat now, can I run later?”

He would run the same route each day

along the East River, extending it further and further until he reached the 20-mile marker. Each time, he would bring $5 with him on his run to buy two bottles of Powerade from the halal cart he always passed — ⁠ one for the run to his target and one for the journey home.

“And then when I go home, all I have is a carton of eggs,” Reitzas said, detailing his somewhat unusual eating habits. “I’ll crack it open, crack six eggs, boil it up a little bit, put some vinegar and then eat it.

It’s some good protein.”

Reitzas’ dad flew in from California to watch him run on Sunday — ⁠ something that means a lot to the SPS junior.

“For him to spend over $500 on a ticket just to come watch me run for three hours or just to support me at the finish line and say, ‘You did a good job,’ It just makes me really happy to think that he’s proud of me and that he really wants to see me accomplish my goals,” Reitzas said.

On Sunday, Reitzas finished with a time of 3:34:31.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

Washington Square News

2

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

NEWS

NEWS@NYUNEWS.COM

Edited by VICTOR PORCELLI

Safe Ride Drives Students Away With Two-Hour Waits, Failures to Arrive CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

“I almost started crying on the Safe Ride out of frustration,” Marquis said.

“I would rather pay for an Uber than take [another] Safe Ride.”

Safe Ride is a free overnight transportation service available during academic terms through which NYU community members can request rides to and from NYU facilities from midnight to 7 a.m.

The service is intended to provide a safe mode of transportation for students who are out late at night and may be intoxicated. Its vehicles are operated by the Academy Bus line. The only mechanism for reporting complaints is an online Google form.

Rides can be requested via the Safe NYU Mobile App, the Safe Ride web portal or the Department of Public Safety’s hotline and are processed through an algorithm which considers the vehicles on the road, passengers’ destinations and the number of requests being processed.

“The software algorithm then assigns the request based on the most efficient use of resources,” reads a document outlining the Safe Ride service sent to WSN by Assistant Director of Trans-

portation Services Greg Rivas.

The document also indicated that the Safe Ride service includes a dispatcher who closely monitors routes. “[The] live dispatcher is able to quickly see trips that are experiencing sub-optimal experiences, such as longer than usual wait times, and move these trips to the top of the priority list,” the document reads.

Rivas did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication.

Twenty-two students interviewed by WSN found fault in these statements, citing wait times of 45 minutes or longer, illogical routes and inconsistent communication between constituents and the Safe Ride system.

“It always takes so long,” Marquis said. “Sometimes the Safe Ride people will hang up on you, it takes so long to get to the destination to pick you up and then it’ll go in order of who called it and not what’s closest.”

Like Marquis, CAS first-year Amina Chace said that she does not plan to use Safe Ride anymore after four unsuccessful experiences.

“One time we called and they said it would be 30 minutes so we said, ‘Okay,

we can do that’ but then we waited for two hours and it still wasn’t there,” Chace said. “We literally would’ve walked if we’d known it would have taken two hours.”

CAS sophomore Daniel Cienava recounted waiting for nearly an hour the first time he used Safe Ride as a first-year.

“It was a Saturday night going into Sunday morning, I called the Safe Ride at 4 a.m. because I didn’t want to walk back from Rubin to U-Hall, because that’s not fun,” he said.

Cienava attributed the long wait time to high usage during late hours on weekends.

“I even called them up because I was very confused about when it was getting there and they said, ‘Yeah, be patient, there are a lot of kids like you requesting us,’” Cienava said. “One of the times [it wasn’t late] was a Sunday night, the other was a weeknight.”

CAS senior Paggie Tan has used Safe Ride over 50 times on both weekends and weekdays. She said it was late picking her up in nearly half of those instances.

“One time I waited for 45 minutes and then they said the other kids [ahead on the list] were still waiting to go, so me

and my friend just ordered a cab back home,” Tan said.

Tan said that once, after a late-night study session at Bobst Library, the Safe Ride she requested went all the way to Tandon School of Engineering’s campus in Brooklyn before it dropped her off near her home in Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Town neighborhood.

The NYU Department of Public Safety piloted a Brooklyn overnight shuttle last Spring — operating on a fixed route, transporting students from NYU buildings in Manhattan to Brooklyn every half-hour starting at 12:30 a.m. — which runs concurrently with Safe Ride, currently only operating on a point-to-point system in Manhattan.

Stern first-year Grace Zhu said that during one of her Safe Ride experiences going from Third North Residence Hall to Lipton Residence Hall, the driver’s GPS stopped working and a student passenger was forced to navigate the route.

“The driver didn’t know where he was going so it wasn’t a very safe experience,” Zhu said.

Some students say their requested rides never even came.

Rory Meyers first-year Taylor Robben said her Safe Ride, despite multiple phone calls and multiple requests online and on the app, never arrived. Like Marquis and Chace, she was dissuaded from using the service again.

Similarly, CAS sophomore Ivan Benitez attempted to request Safe Ride six different times in the past without it ever arriving. When a Safe Ride he called this Halloween did arrive, it was nearly two hours late.

“Halloween was the first time I’d ever gotten one that actually arrived,” Benitez said. “It fluctuated between two stops and five stops and one stop and then six stops, you kinda never knew when it was gonna get there.”

Safe Rides not arriving at all is part of a larger issue students said was due to a general lack of communication between Safe Ride’s operations and Safe Ride users.

“My biggest issue with Safe Ride is that it’s supposed to operate as a reliable, quick and safe way to get home,” Marquis said. “That’s never the case.”

Email Lisa Cochran at lcochran@nyunews.com.

Often A Barrier, Incarceration Led These Six Students to NYU Degrees

By VICTOR PORCELLI News Editor Omar Padilla never received a high school diploma. He dropped out after his junior year and joined a gang. But on Monday, he received an associates’ degree in Liberal Studies from NYU after taking two years of classes while incarcerated at Wallkill Correctional Facility.

“It’s something I’ve been wanting to achieve my whole life,” Padilla said. “With the price of my freedom, I was able to enjoy graduating.”

Padilla, who contributes to WSN’s The Wallkill Journal, graduated from NYU’s Prison Education program alongside five others, all of whom were handed their degrees by NYU President Andrew Hamilton. During his speech to a crowd of around 100 PEP students, professors and family or friends, Hamilton noted how the ceremony — which took place at the prison — was different from the typical spring commencement at Yankee Stadium.

“I can congratulate each student by name,” Hamilton said. “With over 10,000 students, it would take us all day to do that.”

The class size is one difference of many.

Hamilton pointed out in his speech that, while NYU first-years may take for granted their opportunity to receive a college education, PEP graduates certainly do not.

“Most people cannot afford or gain access to such a prestigious university,” now-graduate Jeffrey Grimes said in his speech. “PEP makes that possible.”

PEP students’ experiences bring more than an appreciation for their education.

NYU Professor of Sociology Jeff Manza, who taught a semester in the PEP in 2015 and another this summer, said students at Wallkill have a perspective those at NYU’s Washington Square campus lack.

“In Washington Square, a lot of my class is spent trying to teach students how inequality works,” Manza said. “Here, at Wallkill, students already have a deep understanding of inequality and so we have richer conversations.”

VICTOR PORCELLI | WSN

After more than a decade in prison, Omar Padilla has been released since graduating from PEP. Padilla is a published poet and writer and an advocate for marginalized communities.

For Padilla, his experiences and education while incarcerated have encouraged him to fight against the oppression, injustice and discrimination of marginalized communities. Having been released, Padilla plans to enroll in NYU in the fall to pursue his B.S. in Political Science and work as a grassroots organizer or politician.

“The social structure in this country is designed the way it is for a reason, to keep people from being successful while struggling to survive,” Padilla said in his speech. “Continue to move forward with education. Do not allow for an error in your life to dictate who you are to become.

Education will open doors you never knew possible.”

Education is more than a path to greater opportunities for PEP graduates. Grimes said it was a way for him to escape from dark times while incarcerated. One week, he said he had six papers due in the days following a period in solitary confinement.

Rather than a cause of stress, the papers were a welcome distraction for Grimes.

“It kept me grounded, it kept me positive,” Grimes said. “It kept me out of a negative environment.”

Another of the graduates, Rayvon Gordon — who has also written for The Wallkill Journal and other publications — spoke to the impact of professors in the program, who make the two-hour trip to upstate New York twice a week.

“The professors, staff, everybody,” Gordon said. “Their support, love, it was genuine looking forward to helping me get a better education.”

Gordon graduated high school in 2003 and received 48 credits from the City University of New York, Queensborough College, before dropping out to raise his children. Like Padilla, Gordon and Grimes have been released since graduating. So

VICTOR PORCELLI | WSN

NYU’s Prison Education Program’s class of 2019 graduated on Monday. From left: Rayvon Gordon, Omar Padilla, James Keno and Jeffrey Grimes.

were Darion Alls and Jonathan Salgado, two graduates who did not attend the ceremony on Monday.

Graduate James Keno is the only one yet to be released — but he was still in good spirits at the ceremony. Keno joked in his speech that, while attending a previous graduation, he “made the fatal mistake” of telling his wife, Sheila, that he wanted to be on the stage. Sheila encouraged him to enroll and has backed his educational efforts ever since.

While enrolled in PEP, Keno said he had times when he was ready to give up, but his wife’s support helped him keep going.

“He wanted to do it but got discouraged sometimes,” Sheila said. “My mom used to say ‘I go to work, you go to school,’ so that’s what I told him.”

Keno hopes to use his degree to find employment and support his family upon graduating, saying being older than the

other graduates means he’s less likely to continue schooling. No matter what graduates do after reentry, Hamilton hopes PEP will prepare them for it.

“Hearing the words of these four, you could hear from them how tough it was to study in an environment like this. The program helps them in focusing their minds, their ambitions while here and focusing them on their pathway once they are released,” Hamilton told WSN. “It’s absolutely what NYU should be doing.”

For Gordon, above all, Monday’s ceremony was about enjoying what came from his hard work.

“I’m ecstatic, this was an amazing experience for me to come back and share this,” Gordon said. “I love it all, I’m just living in the moment.”

Email Victor Porcelli at vporcelli@nyunews.com.

Washington Square News | News

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

Palladium Makes Behind-theScenes Changes to Meet Health Standards

3 CRIME LOG

Missing Pillowcases in Othmer Hall

By CRIME BOT Robot Reporter From Oct. 25 to Nov. 1, the NYU Department of Public Safety received two reports of drug law violation, one report of drug law violation / liquor law violation, one report of fondling, three reports of harassment, two reports of larceny, 10 reports of liquor law Violation, one report of sexual assault, one report of simple assault, one report of stalking and one report of trespassing.

Drug Law Violation

MAX LERNER | WSN

Students order at Palladium Food Court, which is addressing the problems that caused it to fail a September health inspection.

By MILIANA BOCHER Staff Writer Palladium Food Court filth flies beware: the facility has upped its game, hiring not one, but two outside extermination teams, one of many measures taken to improve upon the narrow B grade received by the dining hall in September after an initial failing C grade.

Palladium failed a health inspection — mainly due to the presence of filth flies in the facility — in early September and received a 46, 19 points above what qualifies for a C, the worst grade possible. The grade has since improved to a B as the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s policy requires a follow-up inspection for restaurants that fail as an opportunity to improve their grade. The B grade will stand until there is another inspection.

“At some point in the future, there will be another inspection, and we will have an A,” NYU Eats Vice President Dennis Lestrange told WSN. “I’m committed to it.”

Palladium’s low grade was partly due to food kept at improper temperatures. Lestrange said rice at the Mr. Bing station and tomatoes in the facility were two food items that resulted in Palladium’s high score. He said some of the issues occurred due to “poor

timing,” but that procedural methods have since been changed to avoid future problems.

Palladium hired two outside extermination teams to sanitize and fumigate the kitchens to get rid of the filth flies, according to Lestrange. Additionally, it has increased the frequency of visits from a third-party company that critiques the dining hall according to a rubric similar to a health inspection, to help it prepare for future DOHMH visits. Employees will also be retrained on temperature-logging methods.

“We increased the visits [from the third-party company] and asked for spontaneity, so now they just pop up and do an inspection,” NYU Eats Quality Assurance Director Clifford Mondesir told WSN. A former inspector for the DOHMH, Mondesir said he is on campus to ensure that future health inspections will show the progress Palladium has made within the past month.

A tour inside the facility showed long temperature logs located at all preparation and serving stations that document the food to be served to students. According to Chartwells District Chef Sarah Bodner, if a cooler is at the wrong temperature it will immediately be evaluated; each individual item within it will be checked for its

specific temperature and then moved to a properly-functioning fridge. If the food is not at an acceptable temperature past the time limitation set by the DOHMH, it will be thrown away.

“All of our associates are serious about [food and safety],” Bodner said. “[Food and safety] is a part of putting on my chef coat. It’s really important.”

By the manager’s office in the kitchen, a log on the wall tracks the amount of waste generated by the facility. Although some of the policies implemented after the health inspection sacrifice waste limitations for food safety, Palladium managers still expect to meet the goal of less than 10% waste in the future.

“There’s a new policy that all the rice is being tossed at the end of the night,” Lestrange said. “We’re tracking the waste logs, but that’s something that is not being saved for safety reasons.”

The Palladium staff awaits the next health inspection, which will also come unannounced, to potentially replace the B that is currently hanging on the wall.

“I’m confident with all the changes we have here that we’re going to have an A next time,” Lestrange said.

Email Miliana Bocher at news@nyunews.com.

Washington Square News @nyunews @nyunews

On Oct. 28 at 2:23 p.m., a member of Public Safety witnessed illegal drug possession and recovered a small amount of marijuana in Third Avenue North Residence Hall. The case is closed and referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Oct. 31 at 1:09 a.m., Public Safety reported to an alleged drug law violation incident and confiscated a small amount of marijuana in University Residence Hall. The case is closed and referred to the Office of Community Standards.

Drug Law Violation / Liquor Law Violation On Nov. 1 at 5:20 a.m., an RA reported underage alcohol possession and illegal drug possession in Third North. Public Safety reported to the location and confiscated a small amount of marijuana. The case is closed and referred to the Office of Community Standards.

Fondling On Oct. 26 at 3:40 p.m., a student reported being fondled in Third North. The case is closed and referred to the Title IX office.

Harassment

Hall. The case is closed and referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Oct. 31 at 9:33 p.m., an RA reported witnessing underage alcohol possession in Rubin Residence Hall. The case is closed and referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Oct. 31 at 9:40 p.m., an RA reported witnessing underage alcohol possession in Rubin Hall.

The case is closed and referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Oct. 31 at 11:01 p.m., an RA reported underage alcohol possession in Third North. The case is closed and referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Nov. 1 at 12:35 a.m., an RA reported witnessing underage alcohol possession in Lipton Residence Hall. The case is closed and referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Nov. 1 at 12:49 a.m., an RA reported witnessing underage alcohol possession in Weinstein Residence Hall. The case is closed and referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Nov. 1 at 1:04 a.m., an RA reported underage alcohol possession in Lipton Hall. The case is closed and referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Nov. 1 at 2:43 a.m., an RA reported underage alcohol possession in Third North. The case is closed and referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Nov. 1 at 4:47 a.m., an RA reported underage alcohol possession in Third North. The case is closed and referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Nov. 1 at 9:30 a.m., an RA reported underage alcohol possession in Second Street Residence Hall. The case is closed and referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Oct. 25 at 12:50 p.m., two students reported being harassed in Palladium Residence Hall. The case is open and under investigation.

On Oct. 27 at 3:48 a.m., several students report being harassed in Palladium Hall. The case is open and under investigation.

On Oct. 28 at 7:22 p.m., a student reported being harassed in Bobst Library. Police notification was declined and the case is open and under investigation.

Sexual Assault

Larceny

Stalking

On Oct. 29 at 4:59 p.m., a student reported missing pillowcases from Othmer Residence Hall. The case is open and under investigation.

On Oct. 29 at 12:30 p.m., an NYU affiliate reported a missing clothing bag from 370 Jay Street. Police notification was declined and the case is open and under investigation.

On Oct. 29 at 4:36 p.m., a sexual assault was reported in Broome Street Residence Hall.

Police notification was declined and the case is open and under investigation.

Simple Assault On Nov. 1 at 2:46 a.m., a student reported being assaulted at Lafayette Avenue and Franklin Avenue. Police notification was declined and the case is open and under investigation.

On Oct. 30 at 4:09 p.m., a student reported being stalked in Washington Square Park. The case is open and under investigation.

Trespassing

Liquor Law Violation

On Oct. 29 at 11:48 a.m., a staff member reported a trespass at 383 Lafayette Ave. NYPD was notified. The person left without further incident and the case is open and under investigation.

On Oct. 25 at 11:08 p.m., an RA reported underage alcohol possession in Palladium Residence

Email Crime Bot at news@nyunews.com.

Washington Square News

4

CULTURE@NYUNEWS.COM

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

CULTURE

Edited by CAROL LEE

Bread Club Plans to Unite Students Through Common Grain

By SABRINA CHOUDHARY Staff Writer CAS sophomore Grant Lee knew he wanted to start a club this year — all he needed was an idea.

In the nick of time, inspiration struck him and fellow CAS sophomore Andrew Huang.

“We were sitting at another club’s event and my friend realized clubs get free food, right?” Lee said. “So we could really capitalize on that and bring people together and enjoy different kinds of food.”

And just like that, NYU Bread Club was born.

Lee and Huang have submitted the proposal for Bread Club, and if everything is approved, it should become a full-fledged all-university club in the spring with Lee as its president.

“My vision would just be, you know, people come together and share bread and talk about whatever life they live, whatever culture they share,” Lee said. “I feel like although NYU is diverse, a lot of times [students get] stuck with their own race, culture or region they came from.”

Huang added, “I don’t think NYU’s a very connected school; we don’t have a lot of school spirit. No one really comes together for anything. So I think Bread Club could be, possibly, that place where everyone comes together and they actually share everything.”

While most cultural clubs at NYU unite students of the same background, Bread Club strives to be a cross-cultural club whose members’

common ground is bread.

“Bread is just like a mediator, you know,” Lee said. “It’s an excuse to bring on more discussion with people and get more exposure to different people and cultures.”

Bread has the added benef it of being the base of many dishes, allowing the club to bring in other foods to go with their bread. It’s also affordable enough on a tight budget.

“We all want to save money, so if we’re going home we’re eating peanut butter and jelly on bread every day,” Huang said. “That’s kind of boring.”

Huang hopes that by exposing students to different types of bread, the club can give students a foundation for more exciting meals.

At a typical Bread Club meeting, students would share a loaf from a grocery store or bakery and use it as a starting point for discussion, Huang said. However, he and Lee have lots of ideas for special events, ranging from bread-baking lessons and talks from local bakery owners to bread-eating contests and debates.

“I think there can be some kinds of events or small shenanigans that make you happy or excited,” Lee said.

Students are already enthusiastic about the prospective club.

“I think I would probably go to the events to try to make bread,” CAS sophomore Tatiana Robb said.

“You know the ones where you braid them? Those are really cute, and everyone likes bread.”

CAS senior Jebb Baguioro was also eager to check out the events, even proposing his own idea for

a fundraiser.

“I’m a huge fan of the Great British Bake Off,” he said. “If they did like a competition, I mean I don’t know how many serious bakers there are on campus, but I would pay big money for tickets. I would pay to be, like, a judge sampling [breads].”

CAS f irst-year Madeleine Munn spoke to the idea of bread as a unif ier.

“It’s a little less controversial than a lot of other things,” Munn said.

“Like you don’t have to talk about who’s right and who’s wrong, it’s just interesting to see other people’s breads. I’d be like, ‘Oh, a new bread I’ve never heard of that goes with your culture. Love it! Support you!’”

These positive responses are great news for Bread Club. However, they also illuminate its primary shortcoming so far — advertising.

Without an understanding of the club’s goal of student body unif ication, the name “Bread Club” might only be understood to mean free snacks for students.

“If you just say “Bread Club” then I think most people might not see the point to it,” said CAS sophomore Marilyn Ramos. “The Cheese Club, for example — I have no idea what the Cheese Club does, all I know is that there’s a Cheese Club. So I think it’s important that it doesn’t become just “the Bread Club,” but the club that does this and that through bread.”

The Bread Club’s Facebook group is already at 144 members and counting. Though the club application process can be a pain, according to Lee, it’s worth the effort for any mo-

VIA FACEBOOK

NYU Bread Club, started by CAS sophomores Grant Lee and Andrew Huang, is a group of passionate students who share the bread, and build meaningful connections.

tivated student.

“If you’re passionate about something, I think anything can come true,” he said.

And with the rapid accumulation of support for Bread Club, this is proving to be true. As Lee put

it, “You can’t say no to free food and fun times.”

So stay tuned this spring — it’s the yeast you can do.

Email Sabrina Choudhary at dining@nyunews.com.

A Tale of Two Cities, but One Without Dollar Pizza

By ANNA CUCIUREAN-ZAPAN Contributing Writer Three roller bags crashing onto the cobblestone ground, my arms flailing and me, drenched in sweat:

A garden on the NYU Florence campus.

this was my arrival at NYU Florence at the start of this semester, the fall of my sophomore year. After a full day of flying, my mind was quite fuzzy, made worse by the fact I didn’t eat anything except the airline’s ques-

tionable chicken. I hardly remember anything from that f irst day. I sat in Villa Sassetti on the NYU Florence campus for about a million hours f illing out immigration forms and suddenly I was turning the keys in

ZIXUAN GAO | WSN

the door of my new apartment.

Orientation week was a whirlwind that saw me trying to f igure out where I f it in Florence. Between the well-dressed Italians in their flowy dresses and blue suits and the hordes of U.S. tourists whacking me in the face with their self ie sticks, I had no clue who I should identify with or act like. But it wasn’t the f irst time I’d felt this way.

As a f irst-year, I found myself missing home more and more with each passing week. I struggled to put myself out there and connect with new college friends, as I wondered what my high school friends were doing, how college was going for them and who their friends were. In a way, traveling thousands of miles from my home has brought me closer to the people I grew up with. Finding ways to call your friends and family across a six-hour time difference is a new kind of challenge, but an obstacle easily hurdled when you realize the importance of reporting your fourth slice of pizza of the day. You realize that the people you want to tell your crazy stories to and send your horribly touristy self ies to are the ones you should keep around.

Having the courage to leave the comfort of a Starbucks at every corner is happily rewarded with the feeling of f inally being a part of a bigger world; central Florence isn’t your

Washington Square campus bubble anymore. The sudden change in scenery made me realize that I don’t have to be cooped up in my bedroom and feel homesick every day and call my parents any time something slightly upsetting happens to me. There’s no time to be homesick when you’re suddenly traveling every weekend.

Living abroad for a semester also helps you realize what’s important in your life, though in different ways than New York City: it encourages you to reflect on the little things, the seemingly unimportant moments that are shaping you as a person.

These moments, though they seem insignif icant, have shaped my experiences in Florence. I can run to catch the train to Rome, I can order brunch in broken Italian, I can cook chicken that tastes only vaguely burnt and I can scream the lyrics to “Party in the U.S.A.” in the middle of Piazza Duomo at 1 a.m. and hopefully not get arrested for noise disturbance. I can make mistakes and relish them because they’re not just a part of studying abroad — they’re a part of becoming conf ident in your vulnerabilities. And all it took for me to realize this was to pack my bags and cross the ocean, entering a new country and an unfamiliar, exciting future.

Email Anna Cuciurean-Zapan at culture@nyunews.com.

Washington Square News | Culture

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

5

Hot Takes From the Beauty & Style Desk label has been credited with everything from bringing utilitarian irony back into fashion to establishing Helvetica Neue as the dominant typeface in design circles.

His designs haven’t come without some missteps, however. His signature products are his graphic tees, many of them logo-adorned and less than spectacular.

It is not a fashion statement to put on an ill-fitting t-shirt plastered with some gaudy arrows or diagonal lines. This is literally the same thing we endured during the Abercrombie & Fitch graphic tee era, only at a luxury price point. Save yourself the money.

A student wears black Comme des Garçons Converse.

By CHAD EVANS Staff Writer Few colleges or universities can claim the fashion culture that NYU can.

Whether I want to admit it or not, it was a small but contributing factor in my decision to attend. I genuinely enjoy eyeing the street style of students while walking to class and spotting some real gems.

Special shoutout to the guy in the Stern building at 11 a.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays that wears structured blazers with his Balenciagas.

With such fierce competition, it can be difficult to maintain an individual style. Too often, trying to stay on trend can lead to copying others to the point of exhaustion and sometimes, these trends don’t even make sense. Below is a list of

Yoga and Meditation on Campus

By DIVYA NELAKONDA Staff Writer With midterm season finally coming to an end, many NYU students cannot wait to turn in their last exam or paper. It’s no secret that college can be incredibly stressful. Luckily, if you’re looking for a way to ground yourself and practice mindfulness in the latter half of the semester, you can do so right on campus with free or low-cost yoga and meditation classes.

Yoga at GCASL Cost: Free The Global Center for Academic and Spiritual Life offers yoga classes Monday through Saturday every week, with plenty of courses to choose from based on your schedule and yoga experience. There is a 9:30 a.m. class daily from Monday to Friday if you like to start your day with some movement, and an evening class every weekday as well if you prefer to unwind on the mat after a long day.

Most classes welcome participants of all skill levels, and some are even specific to communities of color and LGBTQ students. Classes are dropin, but can fill up quickly, so it’s best to show up early to secure a spot.

GCASL provides mats, yoga blocks and blankets, though students are welcome to bring their own as well.

The beautiful view of Washington Square Park through the floor-to-ceiling windows as you work through the exercises doesn’t hurt either.

Meditation at GCASL Cost: Free GCASL also offers meditation classes Monday through Thursday, mostly in the evening. Like the yoga classes, meditation classes are open to all levels, with some catering to stu-

ANGEL WANG | WSN

trends that, according to one guy’s irrelevant opinion, have seen their share of overuse or inexplicable popularity.

Off-White Graphic Tees I’m not going to trash Off-White in the way that many self-proclaimed fashion critics seem to, since it’s not a hot take nor one I agree with. Virgil Abloh has had his share of innovations. His

Comme des Garçons Converse Four years ago, this trend was great.

I even considered buying a pair myself.

They were an affordable way to buy into the CDG play brand, regardless of their simplistic design. A Saturday night, Brooklyn-bound L train has at least one pair in every car. It’s statistics. It is a trend that needs to pass not only for its overuse, but its uninteresting design. The shoes really aren’t anything more than an allwhite ’70s Chuck Taylor shoe with the CDG heart logo screen printed on the side. And no, I don’t think the rubber-

If you find yourself stressed or overwhelmed by the school or city, make some time in your schedule for your body and mind. Put down your pen, roll out your yoga mat and breathe: the semester is halfway over.

Email Divya Nelakonda at culture@nyunews.com.

Alexander McQueen Oversized Sneaker These are the official footwear of every Tribeca mom, most often paired with a smoothie and an Equinox membership.

I guess these fall into the bulky sneaker trend, which I don’t have a problem with per se. I respect your average Balenciaga Triple S and love my own Raf Simons Ozweego, the shoes at the origin of the entire trend. One problem with these is that they are not even that chunky. Their only defining feature and the one that loosely places them into the category are their bloated rubber soles. Beyond this, they are an unremarkable leather sneaker that is just stamped with the McQueen logo. The late McQueen himself would definitely not be pleased. They lack the macabre avant-garde spirit of his designs and come off as a cash grab. If it were not for the branding, these shoes would fit in perfectly at Zara with their generic silhouette. For something identical, shop at an actual Zara instead.

Email Chad Evans at bstyle@nyunews.com.

Save Yourself Roommate Horror Stories With Bed-for-Bed

dents of color and LGBTQ students.

Relatively small turnouts give the class an intimate vibe, although it can vary depending on the day and time.

GCASL provides cushions and chairs for students to use during the class.

Some sessions focus simply on sitting meditation with a focus on breath; others involve more movement, such as stretching, walking or discussion and community building. If the classes don’t fit with your schedule, fret not — GCASL has a meditation space in room 486 that students are welcome to use during GCASL’s office hours.

Yoga at 404 Fitness Cost: $40 for a quarter-year of weekly classes 404 offers a variety of recreational classes, including several different yoga classes: Gentle Yoga and Meditation, Hatha Yoga, Kundalini Yoga and Mindful Movement through Yoga. Class sizes tend not to exceed 10 students, which allows for more individual attention from the teacher — helpful if your focus is on improving form. The classes at 404 generally have a more varied attendance, with NYU undergraduate and graduate students learning alongside adults and seniors.

404 also provides mats and blocks, though some students opt to bring their own. Classes generally begin with breathing exercises, but lead into more vigorous stretching and movement, depending on the style of yoga.

ized toe cap counts as design.

ISHAAN PARMAR | WSN

A turnstile through which students swipe into NYU residence halls. NYU’s Bedfor-Bed Exchange Forum helps students move into a different room or hall, even during the middle of the semester.

By ALEX TRAN Contributing Writer Roommate horror stories can make you laugh in hindsight, but reliving them every day isn’t as funny. Luckily, NYU offers a solution: the Bed-forBed Exchange Forum. This program gives students the chance to swap beds with others who are unhappy with their living situation. Those who have used it say it has its ups and downs.

Once you opt into it on your housing portal, your name, room and email will go up on the listings. If two students are in agreement about a room exchange, the confirmation process typically takes only a couple of days, a significant improvement from the three-week wait required two years ago. However, the forum is not without its downsides.

“It was easy to use, but it was tough to find a room,” said CAS first-year Connor Kelly. “Everyone tries to look

for something else so if your room isn’t what they are looking for they’ll just stop talking to you.”

Kelly was attempting to switch dorms within his building, Lipton Residence Hall, so he endured a long wait before finding his new room. Nevertheless, he is now happily living in the same building with two new roommates.

“Just be patient,” Kelly said. “Most days you’re not gonna get an email or anything but you just have to look for it every week and try to stay in contact with people [whose room] you’re interested in.”

Kelly’s decision to switch stemmed from his cultural differences with his original roomie, but Steinhardt firstyear Megan Abbanat used the forum to maintain her physical health. In her first month at NYU, her roommate left a cake in their fridge for three weeks.

Finally, after a heated argument about hygiene with the whole suite,

Abbanat had enough. Fortunately, in contrast to Kelly’s lengthy wait time, Abbanat’s request to move out was approved 24 hours after she found a new roommate on the same floor of Brittany Residence Hall. Abbanat found that her new roomies were a much better match and felt thoroughly satisfied with the Bed-For-Bed system. “[The forum] even lists the room rate difference,” Abbanat said. “It definitely lists more information than I thought it would. I guess they wanted me to be fully informed.”

Steinhardt junior Christopher Hung, however, felt that the forum could do a better job informing users about the rooms they’re getting. It also does not allow users to share photos of their rooms on the site, making it hard for students to get an accurate idea of their potential new digs.

“You don’t get to know the full details of the room you are switching into,” Hung said. “One thing I didn’t know was how small the [new] room is, which is a big concern. I figured it out but it is something that I wish I would have known.”

In addition to the lack of information, Hung experienced communication problems as the student he was trying to switch rooms with was not email-savvy.

“If the forum had an easy messaging system, we wouldn’t have to disclose our emails either,” Hung said. “It would just be easier.”

Students say the Bed-For-Bed forum could benefit from some improvements, but it still serves its purpose for those desperate to find new roommates. If you fall into that group, happy hunting!

Email Alex Tran at culture@nyunews.com.

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

ARTS

ARTS@NYUNEWS.COM

Edited by CLAIRE FISHMAN

Somehow, Tisch New Theatre Reinvents Elle Woods in ‘Legally Blonde’

By LIV ROCKLIN Contributing Writer When people wondered how Tisch New Theatre could possibly “Rethink Pink” and rebrand “Legally Blonde,” TNT responded, in the words of Elle Woods: “What? Like it’s hard?” This weekend, the student-run theater club housed in Tisch School of the Arts, opened their production of “Legally

Blonde” in the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.

“Legally Blonde,” based on the novel and movie, follows Elle Woods, a UCLA sorority president, as she follows her ex-boyfriend to Harvard Law in hopes of making herself into someone he wants.

As the show progresses, Elle realizes that she is not the dumb blonde people have made her out to be. Elle realizes her own self-worth and intelligence through her

COURTESY OF CHRISTABELLE TAN

In Tisch New Theatre’s remake of “Legally Blonde,” Elle Woods has none of the ditziness she is known for.

work in law and comes into her own as a strong and independent lawyer.

When TNT announced in August that “Legally Blonde” would be their fall production, their tagline was “Rethink Pink.” As a “Legally Blonde” superfan, I could not imagine how the show could waver from the original’s intentions. The script is incredibly tight and the characters are defined in a seemingly limited way.

Beyond the fact that TNT’s Instagram was showcasing a baby pink theme instead of the hot pink conventionally associated with Elle Woods, I expected the show to be a well-executed production of the same musical I have loved watching many times before. Within the first two numbers of the show, however, I realized that this was an Elle Woods I had not met before, and I knew I was about to experience something revolutionary in the world of “Legally Blonde.”

I know every second of “Legally Blonde.” I’ve seen it a dozen times, and I’ve listened to the soundtrack hundreds. I am accustomed to Elle’s arc, turning from a ditzy, Malibu-born, boy-crazy college student into a strong, insightful, independent boss woman. In TNT’s production, however, Elle was the latter from the moment the house lights went down.

Not for one second did Elle, played

by Tisch sophomore Giulia Marolda, come off as the “dumb blonde” she is

usually made out to be. Elle came out strong and fierce and stayed that way for two hours. The difference really hit me during “Serious,” the song where Elle gets dumped. In this song, her boyfriend, Warner, breaks up with her for being too blonde, and everything that comes with it. He says he needs “less of a Marilyn, more of a Jackie.”

In the original cast recording and in every production I have seen since, this song prompts a blubbering and hysterical Elle to scream “shut up! Just shut up!” The song portrays Elle as someone entirely dependent on a man and lost without him. When this moment came in TNT’s production, Elle instead slammed her fist on the table and firmly said, “shut up.” Her departure was not filled with hysteria and helplessness; it was the walk of a woman who had realized she deserved better.

Later, Vivienne, Warner’s new girlfriend who sees Elle much the same way that Warner does, gets Elle kicked out of class. Again, Elle’s reaction in this scene is usually flustered and ends in her running off stage crying.

But again, Marolda held her head high, did not let her confidence waver and strutted coolly off stage. When Elle later confronts Vivienne and says “us girls need to stick together,” the line holds so much more weight than usual because it is not coming from a lost girl who needs help, but from a strong wom-

an who demands respect.

Ironically, the show’s only fault also comes as a result of Elle being so revolutionized. Elle was so strong that I did not understand why she still cared for Warner at all. The integrity of the plot was weakened as the character was strengthened.

“Legally Blonde” has always been one of my favorite shows because of who Elle truly is. It is a story of overcoming internalized misogyny, demanding what is deserved and empowering women.

What struck me about TNT’s production was director Micaela Brinsley’s crystal-clear vision to make the protagonist as strong as a real woman, not the caricature of one. Brinsley and Marolda brought to life the Elle Woods I have always been inspired by.

I left TNT’s production so grateful.

“Legally Blonde” never fails to impart the message that women can achieve much more than people think they can.

However, usually, this message is delivered by portraying Elle as a negative stereotype in order to ground the audience in a narrative paradigm that they are familiar with. Tisch New Theatre and Brinsley challenge their audience to leave that world behind and engage instead with a true plight in the modern world: women who have always known they are enough still being forced to prove it.

Email Liv Rocklin at theater@nyunews.com.

‘Searching for Mr. Rugoff’ Immortalizes a Titan of the Film Industry

By NICHOLAS WEID Contributing Writer Before watching “Searching for Mr. Rugoff,” I did what most viewers would probably do — I googled Donald Rugoff.

I hadn’t known the name before hearing the title and as such, I thought that some background knowledge might come in handy. But Rugoff doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page.

Director Ira Deutchman, who credits his career to Rugoff, thus begins his search. Rugoff was the largest art film distributor in the ’70s, converting his father’s theater chain into an array of massively popular art house theaters in New York City, one of which is now NYU’s Cantor Film Center. The film is constituted almost exclusively of interviews with people who have known and worked for Rugoff. Almost everyone recounted two common details — Rugoff was a genius, but he could also be extremely volatile and damaging to those around him. Rugoff’s harmful qualities are not mentioned in force throughout the rest of the film, but they certainly add an unspoken weight in certain interviews, particularly those with his two sons and close friends.

Rugoff’s genius shone through in his creation of modern art theaters, his eye for buying art films otherwise seen as unbuyable and his extremely successful marketing campaigns. Rugoff was the distributor who decided to buy the now-cult classic “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” bringing it to U.S. viewers when other dis-

tributors saw it as a risky investment. His marketing campaign was to send countless young staff out into the streets dressed as the characters in full mail, recreating the famous coconut horse gag that runs throughout the film. Between this and his offering of free coconuts to the first 1,000 viewers, the film became one of his largest successes, solidifying its place in film outside of its native U.K. Former staff move “Mr. Rugoff” forward. Many, like Deutchman himself, were almost randomly hired by Rugoff while in their early twenties and just as randomly laid off as his grip on the company began to slip. The now older staff all share a connection to Rugoff. Many of their long careers were kickstarted by him, and many of them were emotionally affected by Rugoff’s volatile personality.

The film’s title, “Searching for Mr. Rugoff,” at first seems to be a reference to the literal format of the film. Deutchman goes amateur sleuthing to uncover the secrets surrounding Rugoff’s quiet death in Martha’s Vineyard, but these final years and the search to uncover them do not take up many scenes. The real search seems to be Deutchman trying to find the remaining pieces of a forgotten man who has unquestionably shaped him and the film industry at large. Deutchman is reaching out, trying to find others who have been affected by Rugoff in the same way he was in a series of progressively more emotional interviews while simultaneously filling in the gap in public knowledge about undoubtedly one of the most

important figures in film.

“Searching for Mr. Rugoff” succeeds in its mission. It finds the remnants of Rugoff in the once-young employees and directors who collided with him in his lifetime and presents them in a way that left me wondering how exactly this

man’s name has been absent from mainstream discussion for so long. While the film may skew the perception of Rugoff toward his more favorable aspects by not focusing on the negative impact of his volatile personality, his contribution to film and the people now at the fore-

front of the industry is undeniable, and presented in a well-polished form that stays entertaining, emotional and informative throughout.

Email Nicholas Weid at film@nyunews.com.

VIA TWITTER

“Searching for Mr. Rugoff” is a documentary exploring the life of Donald Rugoff, a successful art film distributor who once owned NYU’s Cantor Film Center.

Washington Square News | Arts

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

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‘In the Dream House’ Haunts and Enchants

By JULIE GOLDBERG Books & Theater Editor With “Her Body and Other Parties,” Carmen Maria Machado established herself as a writer of inimitable talents. In her memoir, she brings all the same cards to the same table, but this time, it’s personal.

“In the Dream House” recounts a past relationship which was both verbally and physically abusive. The abuser is referred to as “the woman in the dream house.”

Machado is hyper-conscious of the implications of telling such a story. “If your family found out,” she writes, “they’d probably think it proved every idea they’ve ever had about lesbians, and you wish she was a man because then at least it could reinforce ideas about men.”

She draws from queer studies, weaving criticism and theory into the narrative, and meditates on popular depictions of domestic abuse in film and literature. She cites legal cases in which women were presumed to be incapable of abusing a partner, or in which a queer jury member was hesitant to convict another queer woman, despite evidence that this woman had been abusing her partner.

She references Saidiya Hartman’s idea of “archival silence” in reference to queer stories of domestic abuse. She also cites Louis Bourgeois who writes,“You

pile up associations the way you pile up bricks. Memory itself is a form of architecture.”

Architectural metaphors abound.

While we typically think of a dream house as a symbol of domestic bliss, Machado refigures it as a place of confinement, and in doing so, destabilizes our understanding of the word dream.

While it might commonly be understood to mean ideal or fantasy, in Machado’s memoir, it comes to mean something more like phantasmic.

In “Dream House as Inner Sanctum,” she discusses the preciousness of interior spaces that are all our own, such as the four-walled refuge of a childhood bedroom. She recalls when, as a child, her father removed her doorknob as a punishment.

“When the door was opened, nothing happened,” she writes. “It was just a reminder: nothing, not even the four walls around my body, was mine.”

A sense of Machado’s isolation from herself persists throughout the book.

All of the narrations of her experiences with her abuser — which take up the majority of the book — are written in the second person, a subversive choice of point of view for a memoir. But of course Machado’s memoir is anything but traditional. In her use of the second person, Machado both draws us into the story and displays a chilling disavowal of her experience. It is something that happened to some other person, some past

version of herself that she cannot own.

If the story titled “Inventory” in “Her Body and Other Parties” was an inventory of sexual partners, “Dream House as Inventory” is an inventory of Machado’s vices and shortcomings. If her short story was a study in pleasure and in communion, her memoir is often a study in self-loathing, and how one person can teach another how to selfloathe with gusto.

Her sensual nature, here, becomes a source of shame. “You’d rather have an orgasm than do most things,” she writes in this litany of everything wrong with her. “The only way you can focus during prolonged meditation is to think about an orgy.”

Machado is often funny, such as when she describes her adolescent religious fanaticism, writing, “When other teenagers were figuring out what good and bad relationships looked like, I was busy being extremely weird: praying a lot, getting obsessed with sexual purity.” And yet the grain of truth beneath such admissions — she didn’t learn what distinguishes a good relationship from a bad one, a healthy one from a non-healthy one — is devastating.

Many of the fragments filter the dream house through various genres. To name a few: stoner comedy, cautionary tale, american gothic, bildungsroman, soap opera and lesbian pulp novel. She explores, with a scholarly tone, the limitations of some genres; the American

Gothic is, for example, heteronormative by nature. Other times, she uses the genre label to characterize the story being told. In “Dream House as Sci-Fi Thriller,” for example, she describes falling asleep on a friend’s couch and waking up to an inbox full of infuriated voicemails from her girlfriend.

And then there is the project of the book, which is dream house as memoir.

The memoir itself is a house, each fragment a building block, that we experience piece-by-piece but whose power we cannot fully register until stepping away, admiring the gestalt.

In “Dream House as Choose Your Own Adventure,” Machado asks the reader to pick a response to her abuser chiding her for moving around all night and keeping her awake. Options include, “If you apologize profusely, go to page 163,” and “If you tell her to calm down, go to page 166.” The book becomes a puzzle, one which always leads us to the same conclusion.

Through all the playful manipulations of form and essayistic digressions, Machado manages to tell a story: one of a loss of one’s self, as she falls into the traps of her abuser.

And we are along for the descent.

Her early descriptions of her abuser are imbued with all of the infatuation of a new relationship. We see how she was blinded; we are blinded ourselves.

“You’re not allowed to write about this,” her girlfriend says to her after one

VIA GRAYWOLF PRESS

“In the Dream House” is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing memoir about domestic abuse.

fight. “Don’t you ever write about this.”

In writing about it, Machado brings it into being, fills an archival silence. She builds the dream house so we can step into it and explore all of its dark corners and haunted corridors.

“In the Dream House” will be released Tuesday.

Email Julie Goldberg at jgoldberg@nyunews.com.

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

OPINION

OPINION@NYUNEWS.COM

Edited by COLE STALLONE and ABBY HOFSTETTER

INTERNATIONAL

US Politicians Don’t Know How to Deal With Hong Kong

By ALEXANDRA CHAN Staff Writer Images of a rally outside the U.S. embassy in Hong Kong peppered local news outlets and social media in September. Protesters clad in black waved U.S. flags, asking the supposed nation of freedom to lend an ear to those overseas fighting for their human rights and pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. Unfortunately, U.S. politicians have since capitalized on this as an opportunity to advance their own agendas.

Hong Kong is currently embroiled

in the 22nd week of protests, which began over an extradition bill, which would allow China to legally bring anyone arrested in Hong Kong back to the mainland to be tried and sentenced.

Since then, five demands from protestors have emerged, one of which is universal suffrage in elections for the Chief Executive and Legislative Council positions, comparable to presidential and congressional positions. When control of Hong Kong was transferred from the United Kingdom to China, negotiators formulated a constitutional document known as the Basic Law. It stipulated eventual democratic elections and for China to provide Hong Kong with limited political autonomy until 2047.

The extradition bill is seen as a violation of that promise. Despite pleas for freedom, self-serving politicians in the U.S. see the fight for democracy in Hong Kong as nothing more than a tool to gain a personal advantage back home.

Vice President Mike Pence recently

tweeted in support of the Hong Kong protests — but he only did so to criticize Nike. The Trump administration has long been at odds with Nike’s positions on social issues. The company recently removed Houston Rockets merchandise from stores in China after the Rockets’ manager Daryl Morey publicly expressed support for the Hong Kong protests. Pence’s tweet mocked Nike for claiming to be a “social-justice champion” but “checking its social conscience at the door” regarding Hong Kong. He also said that “Hong Kong is a living example of what can happen when China embraces liberty,” which both oversimplifies the situation and ignores China’s problematic track record with its massacre of pro-democracy student protesters at Tiananmen Square, religious persecution of East Turkestan Muslim Uighurs in concentration camps and the fights for independence in Tibet and Taiwan.

The House unanimously passed the

Hong Kong Rights and Democracy Act on Oct. 15, which says the U.S. will support democratic efforts in Hong Kong. Hong Kong activists testified in front of Congress to urge the bill’s passing. But perhaps the U.S. is just that — a symbol. As with many other bills passed through the House, the Senate has not brought it to the floor, despite almost one-third of its members co-sponsoring the bill. However, that didn’t stop Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), who would be responsible for taking the bill onto the floor, from capitalizing on the opportunity to criticize the NBA for attempting to appease China over Morey’s statement. Using Hong Kong as a bargaining chip to advance other political agendas shows that many U.S. politicians do not fully support the movement — they only seek to use it as leverage.

In June, during a phone call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jin-

ping, Trump promised to stay silent on the issue of Hong Kong to ensure the continuation of trade talks. This led to the cancelation of a scheduled speech in Washington by the U.S. Consul General to Hong Kong. Trump’s administration also refused to stop U.S. sales of anti-riot gear — including batons, pepper spray and tear gas — to the Hong Kong police.

Hong Kong is more than a bargaining chip in the political machinations of U.S. politicians who think they don’t have a stake in the outcome of the protests. There are real consequences for Hong Kong if the protestors’ demands are not met and autonomy is not restored; it will not just be a lost playing card in a game between two major countries. U.S. politicians need to stop taking advantage of the protests to further their own agendas.

Email Alexandra Chan at opinion@nyunews.com.

ENVIRONMENT

Food Injustice, or Food Ignorance?

By GABBY LOZANO Staff Writer Former First Lady Michelle Obama cultivated a movement to increase access to the high-quality, nutrient-dense food necessary to maintain a healthy lifestyle. One of her more innovative ideas was the White House Vegetable Garden, an educational re-

source to help kids learn about outdoor activities and sustainable living.

The project resonated with millions of parents across the country who knew that their child would enjoy spending time in the sun, pulling roots up and collecting misshapen vegetables.

But this notion of promoting healthy eating through gardening and cooking can ignore the needs of a large segment of the population. Food inequality is a systemic issue with much deeper roots than this movement acknowledges. The solution isn’t as simple as just knowing where your carrot comes from; it’s the understanding of how U.S. history has shaped political, social and economic conditions for many people.

Practices like gardening and cooking are usually seen as hobbies, generally only realistic for middle- and upper-class individuals. These people generally work 9-to-5 jobs that allow them to have time off and enjoy whatever it is they want to do, such as gardening and cooking. This leisure time may not be as accessible to those who work multiple jobs trying to make ends meet; even if someone wanted to take the time out of their day to grow a carrot, would they have enough time left after tending to their other, more urgent needs? Even if they bought the carrot, would they have the time to cook it perfectly so as to extract the maximum amount of nutrition and flavor from it, as the movement for

healthy cooking expects them to do?

This is partly why processed foods that do not require an excessive cooking time are popular. This isn’t to say that there aren’t any quick and healthy recipes out there, but the process of making food is more time-consuming than buying prepackaged foods.

Shopping for the ingredients to make homemade meals is exhausting, not to mention a financial burden. Working a second or third job can take a mental and physical toll on an individual — their goal is to put food on the table, not to spend extra time perfecting the task. This is often what causes families to buy processed foods that have higher amounts of salt, fat and sugar.

These are the real nuances of food

injustice, and understanding them is crucial to solving the food inequality crisis. U.S. policymakers must start by raising awareness at the grassroots level and work from there to reconstruct the unjust systemic barriers that contribute to food injustice. While gardening and cooking can be supplements to encourage healthy eating habits, they are not enough to fight food insecurity, especially if policy makers don’t make food more accessible to those most in need. Even still, a more comprehensive solution than homegrown food is necessary to truly combat this injustice.

Email Gabby Lozano at opinion@nyunews.com.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Letter to the Editor: ‘NYU’s Artificial Affordability Issue’

By JOHN BECKMAN In last Monday’s editorial, “NYU’s Artif icial Affordability Issue,” the WSN once again provides selective facts to make its case. So, it falls to me to provide the full picture: • Under the current administration, NYU’s position on the list of most expensive colleges has dropped 35 places — from 4th to 39th.

• NYU spends nearly $340 million of university funds

•

•

• •

annually for undergraduate scholarship aid in New York — grants that don’t have to be repaid. Since 2017, the average grant has climbed 27% — it’s currently $34,700, a record high, and far higher than the f igure the WSN chose to cite.

Unlike the national trend, average debt at graduation has been falling at NYU. In fewer than 10 years, it has fallen 18% and is below the national average for private, non-profit universities.

Through efforts initiated by the current administration, average per-student textbook costs have declined some 40%.

NYU was the f irst top-ranked med school to go tuition-free.

Under the current admin-

istration, we increased lower-cost housing in the student housing system and nearly one-third of the student housing system is now lower cost.

• The Courtesy Meal Program was begun under the current administration, as was the provision in the dining contract to provide lower-cost meal options.

None of this is “artif icial” — all of it is real. And all this, by the way, occurs against a backdrop of enrolling the most diverse, most selective and most academically qualif ied freshman class in NYU’s history; a rise from 57th to 18th in a decade in the NSF’s Higher Education Research & Development ranking; and a general rise in university rankings, including our highest spot ever

in the U.S. News and World Report ranking, among other notable accomplishments.

It is worth pointing out that although NYU is the largest, private, non-prof it research university in the country and is located in arguably the most expensive city in the U.S., Andy Hamilton’s salary barely makes the list of the top 20 private university president’s salaries, and, thus, is very much in line with the compensation of presidents of major urban research universities with medical centers, not an outlier.

And while the WSN went out of its way to laud the donations of other university presidents to their universities, it chose to ignore the $250,000 in donations that its own president has made (here, here, and here).

As has been explained to the WSN previously, John Sexton did not

receive $11 million — that was an IRS-required estimate of his total retirement benef its over many years; his actual retirement package has been public for more than a decade.

And while David McLaughlin retired from the Provost’s position, he did not retire from the faculty — he still teaches a full course load and conducts research; the compensation on the 990 reflects in large measure his salary as a working faculty member.

It’s not inappropriate for a student newspaper to hold a university’s feet to the f ire. But it does a public disservice to use only a fraction of the facts mixed with assertion in an effort to support their position.

That’s what I consider artif icial.

John Beckman is NYU’s Senior Vice President for Public Affairs and Strategic Communications.

Washington Square News | Opinion

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

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CITY

New York City Must Help Its Homeless Children

By COLE STALLONE Opinion Editor Since last year, over 114,000 New York City public school students have continued to struggle with homelessness, and nearly 38,000 live in shelters. Recent reports by the Advocates for Children of New York show that this number has gone down by not even 600 students. For the remaining students that continue to struggle with homelessness, one thing remains certain: the city continues to fail them. After recent failures to deal with this issue in both the public and the private sector, we must begin to truly address the crisis and give these students the resources and support they deserve.

The number of students experiencing homelessness has increased every year since the 2009-2010 school year, with the exception of this year’s numbers. This crisis occurs as the city tries — and fails — to deal with the growing issue of homelessness. Under the leadership of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, 90 new shelters have been built — a plan that has been described by advocates as “embarrassingly unambitious” in terms of meeting the needs of the city’s homeless. The mayor received an F from the Coalition for the Homeless in their recent evaluation of the mayor’s policies, specif ically citing the lack of available housing. Despite prioritizing affordable housing, de Blasio’s plan has failed to be enough, especially for those most in need. In addition to falling short in volume, some of de Blasio’s policies towards the homeless have been blatantly problematic: New York City has sent over 12,000 people experiencing homelessness on one-way bus rides to live in other cities. By doing this, de Blasio is literally trying to eliminate the problem without actually doing anything to help. In light of the recent quadruple-homicide in Chinatown, the mayor’s actions — or lack thereof — are even more troubling.

Instead of helping them, de Blasio has decided to remove people struggling in the city altogether.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Not only has de Blasio failed to provide the necessary amount of

Submitting to

homes for those in need, he has also failed to provide schools with the necessary resources to help their young children. As reported by the New York Times in 2018, there is only one social worker for every 1,660 students experiencing homelessness — at just under 70 social workers in total. Since this report, the mayor has increased the number to 100, which means that there are still over 1,140 homeless students per social worker in New York City public schools.

The mayor’s actions continue to fall short of what the situation demands, which is one of the central issues behind the crisis.

With that said, the mayor’s actions haven’t been all bad. Advocates for Children of New York recognizes that de Blasio has had some success in f ighting the problem and he hasn’t completely ignored the issue, especially with the appointment of Deputy Chancellor of School Climate and Wellness LaShawn Robinson and the minimal increase in social workers.

Nevertheless, activists are clear: de Blasio is not doing enough.

The blame is not entirely on the mayor. While his power can’t be understated, the New York Times notes that the issue “has not received much help from local philanthropists” despite the city being “arguably the philanthropic center of the world.” The mayor has addressed this issue directly, saying that despite a lack of previous support, there is now a greater focus on the issue, which he hopes will translate to more aid. Homeless advocates and students experiencing homelessness hope he’s right.

Beyond the mayor or the city’s richest, the crisis will not end until New Yorkers change the way we treat the homeless. In Queens, there was a protest by local residents against the development of a 200-bed homeless shelter. Instead of being hostile toward those struggling, New Yorkers must act with a greater degree of kindness and respect.

The most recent data on students experiencing homelessness show that the crisis persists and what is currently being done simply isn’t enough. Beyond providing the necessary support through available housing and social workers, instead of failing to provide them or simply sending the homeless away, the city government must right the wrongs of their past failures. The city’s most vulnerable children are depending on it.

STAFF EDITORIAL

Stand With LS Professors, Even if NYU Won’t Last week, professors within the Liberal Studies program confirmed that they’re looking to unionize due to dissatisfaction with their treatment by the university. The LS faculty has been subject to unequal pay, a lack of sufficient resources and low job security. All of these factors have caused professors to feel exploited, unfairly compensated and disillusioned with LS as a whole. However, the terms of their employment make it nearly impossible for LS professors to organize, as they are subject to frequent contract renewals. This leaves the faculty at an impasse: do professors unionize at the risk of losing their jobs, or do they continue to accept the subpar conditions of their employment? Furthermore, students are left wondering: how can we help our professors when the university has been known to aggressively retaliate against student protestors?

Since Liberal Studies’ inception in 1972, it’s grown from a two-year interdisciplinary program to NYU’s second-largest undergraduate school.

Because of its emphasis on discussion-based learning, LS caps its class sizes at 25 students. It’s a global program — most LS students spend their first year at one of four studyaway sites, and if they choose to major in GLS, they spend their junior year abroad as well. This necessitates hiring a large number of LS professors spread across the globe, a significant portion of whom are adjunct faculty. Unlike all other schools within the Faculty of Arts and Science, LS does not list adjunct faculty on its website, making it difficult to discern exactly how many professors it employs. However, all LS faculty, both full-time and adjunct, are subject to unfair treatment by NYU. Liberal Studies professors are unable to receive tenure, sabbatical and faculty housing due to the nature of their employment status. All LS full-time faculty are employed as either clinical professors, clinical as-

sociate professors or clinical assistant professors. According to FAS rules, “clinical appointments are without tenure” and “clinical faculty are ineligible for sabbaticals and generally ineligible for NYU faculty housing.”

University spokesperson John Beckman told WSN that LS professors are not prohibited from applying for tenure-track positions, but, by definition, clinical positions cannot be tenure-track positions, and LS positions are only clinical. Encouraging LS professors to apply to positions outside of the program is not sustainable for its maintenance.

Clinical faculty are recruited on one-to-three-year contracts and then retained on five-year rolling contracts — they’re only eligible for five-year reappointment contracts if they’ve already been working at NYU for six years. Adjunct faculty, on the other hand, are employed semester-by-semester. For LS faculty, job security simply does not exist.

LS professors are also severely underpaid. An LS-conducted report obtained by WSN, which anonymously interviewed full faculty members, indicated that LS professors receive significantly lower salaries than those who are tenure-eligible. The report says that the “average salary of a male, full tenure-eligible professor is $202,221, while the average salary for a male, full LS professor is $83,212.”

This discrepancy is not only wildly unfair, but has severe consequences.

43% of the report’s responders said that the lower salaries had forced them to take up a second job, which in turn led to a decline in the quality of their teaching. “Teaching 3-3 every year [three courses in both the fall and spring semesters] — I’ve never had a semester release — is a burnout risk as it is, and additional work doesn’t help,” one professor said in the report. “I’m living extremely conservatively.”

NYU’s reluctance to legitimize Liberal Studies doesn’t only manifest

in the unfair treatment of its faculty.

Until last semester, LS only had two seats in the University Senate: one for a School Senator and one for a faculty senator. In March, the Senate finally approved a motion to give LS Dean Julie Mostov a seat on the Dean’s Council, expanding LS representation in the University Senate to three seats. “There is something fundamentally wrong when the Dean of a unit so large is denied a seat at the table,” said LS faculty senator Heidi White, who had not only proposed the resolution but had networked internally within the Senate for over a year in hopes of passing it. It is worth noting that as a Clinical Professor, White — who is a Faculty Fellow in Residence at Rubin Hall, served as a department chair within GLS for six years and was a recipient of the NYU Distinguished Teaching Award in 2017 — is ineligible for tenure.

In response to their treatment by the university, some LS professors think it might be necessary to unionize, but NYU’s history with unionization is mixed at best. Despite having several collective bargaining agreements with various unions in the city — including one for adjunct faculty — the university is notorious for its issues with unionization efforts by graduate students. While LS faculty face similar problems as adjuncts generally in higher education, many issues are unique to NYU’s failure to meet the needs of the professors in light of the growth of the program.

NYU has forced Liberal Studies professors to unionize, but has also made it incredibly difficult for them to do so. The future of both their employment and their working conditions hangs in the balance, and it’s unclear how to move forward when any movement can trigger university retaliation. As our professors begin to navigate the murky waters of collective organization, we can’t do anything but stand with them — we know that NYU won’t.

Email the Editorial Board at editboard@nyunews.com.

COLE STALLONE Chair ABBY HOFSTETTER Chair JUN SUNG Co-Chair

Email Cole Stallone at cstallone@nyunews.com.

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Edited by BELA KIRPALANI

NYU Students Conquer New York City Marathon CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

— “I was like, ‘No, they’re my lucky shoes. I got to wear them!’”

Avery Looser has been training in the same pair of beat-up Brooks running shoes since January, when she ran her f irst full marathon with her mom at Disney’s annual Dopey Challenge, a total of 48.6 miles over four consecutive days.

Soon after, they decided to challenge themselves again ⁠ — this time, with the world’s largest marathon. Looser and her mom began training together for the New York City Marathon in May back home in Houston.

Since the Tisch f irst-year moved to New York City in the fall, she has had to f ind the time and motivation to train alone.

“My mom and I used to do all of the runs together so it was a little sad because I had to do all of those runs by myself,” Looser said. “Finding the motivation to do them was a little tough and i would have to plan all of my schoolwork around Saturday, because that’s when I would do my long runs. It’s just been a little tricky to f ind time to do what I’m

actually here to do as well as like, adjusting to freshman year and New York City and all that stuff.”

In addition to f inding the will to wake up early each morning and run, Looser also struggled to f ind a space big enough — and safe enough — to accommodate her training program.

“The biggest challenge for me was f inding a 20-mile radius in New York City for me to run in by myself starting at f ive in the morning where I would be safe,” she said.

Despite the distance, Looser and mom would keep track of each other’s progress through daily text messages and phone calls, which Looser said motivated her to keep going even on days when she would have preferred to stay in bed.

“I think I knew how much my mom was working and for her, f inding motivation to run those long distances by herself now with an empty nest,” she said. “I was just thinking about all of the effort and willpower she was having to put into it and that kind of made me be like, ‘I need to do this, too. Not just for me, but for both of us.’”

On Sunday — in that same pair of Brooks — Looser f in-

ished in 6:07:22.

— Jordana Lusk first ran the New York City marathon back in 2015. But this year was different.

“I started transitioning with hormone therapy in December,” the Steinhardt junior said. “So that’s been a stressful thing, but I felt like training for the marathon and having a goal would also help me just keep it together.”

Lusk started training in May and tried to run an average of 45 to 60 miles a week, saving her long runs for Sundays. This year, she decided to run with the Human Rights Campaign team, which is made up of a group of LGBTQ runners and allies. The group trained mostly on their own, but they kept track of each other’s progress through an app.

“For me at least, it’s more for my well-being and it’s not as much about my time and being competitive,” Lusk said. “Doing it for a good cause and just being able to stay mentally well.”

Lusk’s introduction to running came when she was eight years old.

She then went on to run long distance in middle school.

“My neighbor would always run past my house when I was little and I was

Battling Rain and Wind, NYU Quidditch Crowned Regional Champs for First Time

By BELA KIRPALANI Sports Editor Last weekend in Warwick, Rhode Island, NYU’s varsity quidditch team battled 50-degree weather and torrential rain to win its first-ever Northeast Regional Championship, defeating the Tufts University Tufflepuffs in the final match.

After beating Brandeis University, Middlebury College and Macaulay Honors College in group play on Saturday, the NYU Thunder edged out the Tufflepuffs in the quarterfinals on Sunday. NYU then went on to defeat Middlebury again in the semifinals 90*-50 before facing off against Tufts again in the final. NYU won by a score of 180*-100.

“For me personally, it felt like a weight off our chest, because we’ve done well in nationals but we’ve never hit our expectations in regionals,” Stern senior and chaser Frank Minson, said. “It’s like ‘Finally!’ We can go out knowing that we finally did it.”

The win also sealed NYU’s berth in the U.S. Quidditch Cup 13, college quidditch’s annual national tournament. Last year, the team went on to finish in fourth place in U.S. Quidditch Cup 12 — the team’s best-ever nationals performance.

The team has struggled to hit those same heights in regionals in recent years.

Last year, NYU lost in the semifinals of the Northeast Regional Championship to the University of Rochester. This year, however, the team was able to explode offensively and maintain its focus despite the lousy weather.

“It was our third time late in the tournament so there was a lot of pressure to

win obviously, because we had finally broken that threshold of being stuck in the semis or quarters,” Steinhardt senior and chaser Sidney Montague said. “So that was a huge deal in and of itself. I think even if we lost that game, we would have [been] pretty hype about it because it was still the best that NYU had ever done at the time [in regionals].”

The match started off fairly evenly, with both Tufts and NYU trading goals.

The Tufflepuffs took the lead early on, but then NYU went on a scoring run and never looked back.

“We started to press them over to the corner and we started to get a lot of fast break opportunities,” Minson said. “It really opened up our offense and we started scoring in bunches which really opened up the game for us.”

In the 36th minute, CAS sophomore and seeker Kellan Cupid finally caught the snitch to give NYU its first regional championship in team history.

“I just needed to get one for the team, they were working so hard all weekend,” Cupid said after the game. “I told the guys, ‘All you gotta do is keep it close, and I’ll do everything in my power to win this game.’”

Despite his team’s loss, Tufts captain and keeper Finn McGarghan was proud of his team’s grit and performance despite the poor playing conditions.

“I was really, really proud of the way that my team just focused, made their hits, worked on their passing,” McGarghan said. “It was just a moment of pride to see the hustle that we had after an incredibly wet day of quidditch, to come out and play with such tenacity in a finals game.”

U.S. Quidditch Cup 13 will take place during the weekend of April 18, 2020 at the Shawnee Sports Complex in Charleston, West Virginia. NYU was the first team from the Northeast region to secure its spot at nationals, but the Thunder may meet Tufts again in Charleston as the Tufflepuffs also qualified for the tournament. Despite their competitive spirits, the two teams have great respect and admiration for each other.

“I love the NYU team because they’re not a team that we get to face that often, but also they’ve got some really great people on the team,” McGarghan said.

“They have the ability to really put their nose on the grindstone and play really hard, tough, good quidditch and then still be able to make jokes and have silly chants on the sideline. That’s something that I think we, as a Tufts team, really appreciate.”

Following the regionals win, NYU is currently the No.1 ranked college team in the country. The Thunder has only been around for nine years, but the team has enjoyed immense success in its short history, giving the players confidence — no matter their opponent.

“Because quidditch is so young, you’re able to have this confidence of we’re all kind of on the same page in terms of where we’ve come from with quidditch,” Tisch senior and beater Jimmy Banta said. “And so you’re able to have — whether it’s false or not — the confidence of ‘We can pretty much take on any team in the country.’”

Email Bela Kirpalani at bkirpalani@nyunews.com.

so inspired that I wanted to start running, too,” Lusk said. “It helped me get over so much anxiety and gender dysphoria and stuff like that. So I just always love running.”

Lusk is currently prioritizing graduating and finding a job, forcing her to put future marathons to the side for now. She does, however, appreciate the focus that preparing for the marathon gave her.

“Having a goal, especially with running, motivates me more to get out there even when it’s raining or really cold or on days when I don’t want to because I know that if I don’t do the training, it’s going to suck on the day of the race,” Lusk said. “Once you sign up, you can’t really go back.”

Lusk finished with a time of 4:26:20.

— Coco Wander has one big piece of advice for first-time marathon runners: “You put chicken noodle soup in a thermos and then you drink or eat that right after. You just have that salty broth and it brings you right back to life,” she said.

And she would know. The Rory Meyers senior ran her fourth marathon on Sunday and she has treasured every single one.

“It’s just that gratitude that you have to stand at the starting line and to be able to run every race,” Wander said. “It’s not an opportunity that many people get. It’s a really special day and the whole city comes out and celebrates you and I swear it’s better than Christmas.”

This year, Wander served as a mentor for Team for Kids, guiding firsttime runners and getting them from “couch to marathon.”

While Wander enjoys running in the marathon every year, her favorite part actually comes after the race is over. The official end time of the race is 7:25 p.m., but race officials don’t shut down the finish line until every single person finishes.

“It’s so much fun because they don’t really have the crowds anymore and they’ve been pushing through a crowd that’s basically like, ‘Oh the marathon’s done! Goodbye!’” Wander said. “And they still finish and it’s one of the most inspiring things you can do all day so you cheer them on as they finish.”

On Sunday, Wander finished with a time of 4:13:03.

Email Bela Kirpalani at bkirpalani@nyunews.com.

Taekwondo at NYU Welcomes All

By REBECCA CHOI Staff Writer It’s 9:30 p.m. on a Thursday in late October at Palladium Athletic Facility and the NYU taekwondo team is hard at work. The team begins with group stretches in their dobok, or uniform, wearing an array of colored belts. Everyone is together regardless of belt color or expertise.

They take this time to stretch, but they are also able to catch up on their day and connect with teammates.

Soon afterward, they fall into their respective groups to begin practice.

Last year, NYU finished in third place in Division II, behind Boston University and Northeastern University. Despite taekwondo’s reputation as an intense physical contact sport that promotes aggression and competition, the club dynamic at NYU is warm and supportive.

The taekwondo team welcomes athletes of any level, providing many opportunities for improvement.

Grandmaster and Head Coach Mark Lesly founded the taekwondo team in 1987, four years after he started teaching a taekwondo class at NYU. He believes that the team should be a space where students feel comfortable and are able to truly learn the art of the sport.

“The overall culture in taekwondo is one of respect, courtesy and self-discipline,” Lesly said. “I admit to running a little bit of a more relaxed atmosphere at NYU than I would at a Taekwondo School, to accommodate what I see as fitting in with the NYU culture.”

The team practices every Tuesday and Thursday from 9:30 to 11:30

p.m. in Palladium, focusing on patterns, which are offensive and defensive techniques that are learned without a partner, before teaming up to spar with each other.

While fighters come to college with different levels of fighting experience and knowledge, the setup of collegiate taekwondo allows everyone to compete at their preferred levels.

In sparring, there are three levels of competition: A, B and C teams. The black belt fighters are on the A teams and fight using full-contact rules.

The B teams fight with only kicks to the face allowed while the C teams are not allowed to kick.

“This kind of format makes the sport fun and playable for students of any level of experience, even with a few weeks of practice,” Lesly said.

“Don’t be intimidated if you’re a beginner.” Steinhardt junior Tomoka Masuda said. “There are lots of beginners on the team. The black belts are super helpful and we’re all really welcoming.”

While Lesly hopes for his athletes to develop their skills on the fighting mat, he also emphasizes the importance of fun.

“We want to strive for excellence, and compete with and beat the best, but we want to have joy in the process,” Lesly said. “As always, I look forward to seeing my athletes compete and improve, and I still get immense gratification from the looks on their faces when they achieve something that perhaps once, they never would have expected they were capable of.”

Email Rebecca Choi at sports@nyunews.com.

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

11

Men’s Golf Receives Highest National Ranking in NYU History

By GRIFFIN VRABECK Staff Writer Coming off a record-breaking fall season in which it won four tournaments and broke five school records, the men’s golf team is currently ranked eighth in the country — ⁠ the highest national ranking in program history.

Stern sophomore Joseph Burlison credits the team’s success to an influx of young talent.

“I think it all came down to [Head Coach] Brad [Johnson] as a coach,” Burlison said. “He’s really brought in around three classes in a row of players who could immediately impact the team.”

Team captain and Tisch junior Robbie Keyes echoed praise of Johnson’s recruiting ability.

“Brad’s been awesome,” Keyes said.

“He’s recruited very well, he’s gotten great players to come here and, on top of that, he kind of just lets us do our thing, he doesn’t

stress out too much about anything.”

Beyond recruiting, both Keyes and Burlison shared nearly identical anecdotes regarding the supportive atmosphere Johnson has established in the program.

“I especially like when we’re playing and Brad will come up and talk to us and it’s hardly ever about golf or how we’re scoring, it’s kind of like, ‘Sup, dude?’” Keyes said.

“And that feels good. Even if you play bad, you know you’re still going to be able to have a good time after the round with your buddies and the coach.”

Creating a culture conducive to winning was one of Johnson’s main focuses when he became the head coach ahead of the 2016-17 season.

“I think the team culture has really changed,” Johnson said. “When I first took over, the culture was maybe one, that they didn’t care as much and now, the men on the team, their passion is golf. They’re really striving to get better and be successful.”

Evidence of this competitive culture lies

in the players using the news of their highest-ever national ranking as motivation to always improve.

“We see the high ranking and we think we can get it even better,” Burlison said.

“We’re not really sitting on our past laurels.”

Keyes maintained that the team’s successful fall season is merely an added reason to strive for even more greatness in the upcoming spring season.

Cross Country Junior Overcomes Injury and Family Illness

By BENJAMIN MICHAEL DAVIS Deputy Sports Editor In this year’s Rowan Inter-Regional Border Battle, CAS junior Dillan Spector recorded his best 8K race time.

The 25 minute and 9 second time was the second best of NYU’s runners and was his best 8K by over half a minute.

But for Spector, it meant more than the average personal record. His career seems to be taking off this year, but this success has come on the heels of an especially challenging stretch in his life.

Dealing with his mom’s cancer, a lower back injury and his grandma’s death, Spector experienced a series of life-altering events in a one-year period.

But he bounced back, returning to full health this year and putting in some of his best-ever performances.

This perseverance has roots in Spector’s childhood. While at a camp for overweight children, his very first experience in the sport came in the form of running laps for Silly Bandz.

In middle school, he realized he wanted to start running competitively after he managed to survive a 4K race at summer camp.

“I was able to complete the whole thing so I thought, ‘Oh, maybe I should do distance running because I can get through that,’” Spector said. “I was a really big kid when I was little, so I do like running in the sense that it keeps me in shape, and it also feels good to feel fast and run fast.”

Spector then joined his middle school’s cross country team and continued running into high school. From there, he progressed in the way most cross country runners do: trying to break the five-minute-per-mile barrier in various distances, starting from the mile, all the way up to the 5K. His family played a big role in his athletic development. His mom and dad, a runner and former college rower, respectively, would often attend his meets along with his brother, a current NYU senior.

“My mom would tell me that he was almost certainly going to come in last, but that I had to cheer for him as if he just won the whole race,” Tisch senior Brennan Spector said. “Maybe

it’s because he knows what it’s like to start from the very bottom and go to the top, but he never ever settles, and he always puts everyone else before himself.”

Their mom’s running career and unwavering support has always inspired Dillan, both on and off the track. The summer after his freshman year, she was diagnosed with a neuroendocrine tumor — a rare form of cancer affecting the cells that release hormones into the blood in response to nervous system signals and that can occur anywhere in the body. But she kept on running.

“When she got cancer, she couldn’t do all the things she used to do, and then right afterwards she got back into running,” Dillan said. “While she’s still going through the treatment she’s running, and she’s telling me that if she’s able to do it then I’m able to do it, so that was helpful.”

His mom’s words of encouragement helped him through last season and he was able to return the favor. Last year’s Atlantic Regional meet fell on Neuroendocrine Tumor Awareness Day, so the entire NYU cross country team wore wristbands in support of her.

The team’s solidarity helped drive both Dillan in his winter training and his mom in her treatment. However, what seemed like a harmless fall on a normal training run that winter led to more problems for Dillan. Though this didn’t seem like much at the time, it led to the day when he experienced his latest two setbacks.

“It was a really funny fall. I just slipped on some ice and fell on my butt,” Dillan said. “At first I thought I strained my leg, so I was still running on it for a few weeks, and that only made it worse.”

Spector was diagnosed with a stress fracture in his sacrum, a part of the lower back, which shut down his spring season and made coming back in the fall even more challenging.

“Facing an injury and working your way back is tough to do, especially when guys that you should be running with are far ahead,” men’s cross country Head Coach Erison Hurtault said.

“He went about it the smart way, and

VIA NYU ATHLETICS

NYU’s Men’s Golf enjoyed victory at the Skidmore College Invitational.

he’s coming around and improving at the perfect time in the season. He’s one of the toughest competitors out there.

He’s always giving great effort no matter what he’s doing, so that’s kind of where we rely upon him.”

The day that Dillan was diagnosed with a stress fracture, he received a phone call from his mom relaying the news of the death of his grandma.

In the spring — while his teammates earned All-America honors and competed at the NCAA Championships — Spector worked on his recovery, cross training and working his way through the hardships of injury and loss at the same time.

A summer study abroad session in Berlin helped him reset fully and come into this year ready to perform.

“Running in Germany was awesome,” Dillan said. “Every day, I would bike this same loop while I was doing cross training and I was like ‘Damn, I really want to run here.’ Being able to be in a new place was good. That was a nice fresh start for getting back into the running career.”

Even after the months-long recovery process, it took Dillan a few meets to get back to the form that he once had.

He completed his first race back in 27:57.5 — his worst 8K time in college.

But the season turned around for him as he continued competing and grew in confidence. All of his times after that first race back from injury have topped the numbers he put up last year before his injury.

Dillan’s improvement and strong performances from the team’s underclassmen have put the team in a good spot for its remaining races and beyond. Dillan is looking to continue this success with a strong performance at regionals and a goal of finishing a 5K in under 15 minutes next year.

“Once I stopped running, I realized how much I like running and how much I miss running,” Dillan said. “It was a pretty rough past year, but it does really feel great being back in it now and being able to run fast, and then hopefully I run fast at regionals.”

Email Benjamin Michael Davis at bdavis@nyunews.com.

“It’s awesome that we’re ranked eighth, but if we don’t show up for the spring and we don’t win [the] Liberty [League], we’re not going to go to the national championship, and that’s just how it is,” Keyes said.

“I don’t want to get ahead of myself, obviously, but there’s no reason we shouldn’t win Liberty and there’s no reason we shouldn’t be a contender for the national championship,” Keyes added when asked

about NYU’s goals for the spring.

On a steady ascent to success, everything suggests that the men’s golf team has a strong chance to win its third consecutive Liberty League title. With focused players and a winning team culture, the sky’s the limit for the Violets.

Email Griffin Vrabeck at sports@nyunews.com.

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Anna de la Rosa, Arin Garland, Mansee Khurana SENIOR REPORTER

Anna Muratova MULTIMEDIA Ellie Ballou Sara Miranda CREATIVE WRITING

Maxine Flasher-Duzgunes, Andrew Ankersen EXPOSURES Celia Tewey EXECUTIVE VIDEO PRODUCER

Lu Limanowski ADVERTISING Business Manager

Lukas Villarin Director of Sales

Mel Bautista Director of Marketing and Logistics

Yejin Chang Account Associates

Mira Silveira Catherine Chen ADVISING

Director of Operations

Nanci Healy

Editorial Adviser

Rachel Holliday Smith Editors-at-Large

Sayer Devlin, Hanna Khosravi, Melanie Pineda, Pamela Jew, Natalie Chinn, Alex Cullina, Nicole Rosenthal ABOUT WSN: Washington Square News (ISSN 15499389) is the student newspaper of New York University. WSN is published in print on Mondays and throughout the week online during NYU’s academic year, except for university holidays, vacations and exam periods.