May 2, 2023 | The Columbia Chronicle

DEI, page 3

Adderall shortage affects college students

THE DEI ISSUE

La Crónica, página 6

Los profesores Latinos solo representan 7% de la facultad

Campus, page 7

Hungarian jazz singer comes to college on Fulbright program

Metro, page 12

Music lovers feel financial woe of concert ticket inflation

Opinions, page 14

Workplaces need better outreach for autistic workers

» OLIVIA COHEN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

WHEN LEARNING THE basics of journalism in the classroom at Columbia, aspiring student journalists are taught about “Fault Lines” and how to cross them in order to have a more inclusive and diverse story.

The concept of Fault Lines, pioneered by legendary journalist Robert C. Maynard, says that reporters should cross their own race, gender, generation, geography, class or sexual orientation when reporting out a story in order to get a different look at issues, not just through the lens of their own experience. As simple as it sounds, Fault Lines guide white reporters to seek out Black sources, for example, or have cisgender journalists interview a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

Essentially, Fault Lines, at the end of the day, work to better portray differences in the community and not just reflect the viewpoints of those in a newsroom. The reality is, journalism as an industry has been, and still is, dominated by whiteness — both in the newsroom and outside of it. But we demand more; we demand better.

With the pillars of Fault Lines, reporters are better able to minimize the abstract idea of diversity in the media and put the concept into achievable action.

As a newsroom, we have been individually and collectively analyzing what it means to be an inclusive workspace and how to better serve our diverse community. But how large a role does a newspaper play in the college community as a whole? If you ask us, it’s a big one.

That’s why for this issue — our final print issue of the 2022-23 academic year — we are honing in on what it means to be diverse, equitable and inclusive. What does DEI mean when it is in action? What do the pillars of the mission mean when they are broken up, and how are they stronger when they are together?

The Chronicle has made mistakes. Our newsroom is more diverse than it has ever been, but it took too long, and we still have more work to do

to be inclusive. Our coverage also has not always reflected the diverse experiences of Columbia’s community members. However, these 20 pages represent a conscious push to be more diverse, equitable and inclusive within our workspace and in the reporting we produce.

Within this issue, you will find stories about students and Chicagoans serving their communities, while not letting their disabilities define them in the meantime. You will read stories about the college’s low retention rates for fulltime faculty of color and what it means for students. We asked students what DEI means to them.

This issue also marks the first time our new Spanish section of the Chronicle, La Crónica, will find a place in print, after originally launching online in early April. Moving forward, the Chronicle is committed to having a home for La Crónica in our print editions, as well as having reporters who report solely in Spanish starting the Fall 2023 semester.

As a paper, we have come a long way, but we still have a ways to go.

As we work to better ourselves and our craft, we ask for you to join us.

OCOHEN@COLUMBIACHRONICLE.COM

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We have come a long way, but we still have far to go

ADHD medication shortage continues to affect college student’s lives

»RUTH JOHNSON, MANAGING EDITOR

FOR TRENT SPRAGUE, a senior photojournalism student, navigating daily life amidst the stimulant medication shortage has been “brutal.”

“I do not function well without my meds,” said Sprauge, who has been on medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder since 2nd grade. “When I’m not on them, nothing gets done. I don’t have the ability to actually focus that much cause my ADHD is pretty bad.”

The national shortage of the ADHD medication Adderall — which the Food and Drug Administration announced last October — has since spread to other stimulant brands, including Ritalin and Concerta.

Because of the shortage, Sprague had to switch from Adderall to a different medication, which is not always easy because they do not all work exactly the same.

Fiona Noonan, a senior public relations and advertising major at DePaul University, said getting her two Adderall prescriptions has gotten harder in the past three months.

Noonan said she has been told by her pharmacy to simply “call around” to other pharmacies and inquire about in-stock extended release Adderall, and when she did that, “pharmacists have said ‘Yea no... it’s really horrible, we don’t have it right now.’”

A survey by the National College Health Association from 2020 reported 11.6% of college students as having ADHD/ADD, or nearly one in nine students. This has risen 8% in the last 20 years; in 2000, only 3.3% of students reported having ADD.

Junior design management major Sonja Larsen said she got diagnosed with ADHD and began taking Adderall almost two years ago but has been struggling to maintain her prescribed doses since last fall.

After getting sent back and forth between her pharmacist and doctor when trying to get her already-delayed medication, Larsen now tries to minimize dealing with them altogether.

“I have had to ration it so that I don’t need to go back to the pharmacy,” she

said about her medication. “It makes me a lot less flexible; I have homework on certain days, I have class on certain days, and I take the Adderall accordingly — last semester it didn’t line up perfectly, and I ended up running out right before finals.”

Jeanne Kelley, director of Columbia’s Services for Students with Disabilities, said in an email to the Chronicle that when a student lets SSD know of their medication issues and the impact it is having on their coursework, they will “advocate for the student with the instructor to provide some flexibility.”

For students facing the shortage who are not registered with the office, Kelley recommends either asking professors for leniency or registering with SSD; even with only a couple weeks left in the semester, help is available.

Aditya Kumar Singh Pawar, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, said there are many impacts of the shortage.

“In the longer-term, untreated ADHD can negatively impact a child’s selfesteem, their sense of ability, lead to demoralization, increase vulnerability for anxiety and depression,” he said.

These effects are felt by adults, too. Noonan said without medication, her feelings of anxiety and depression have increased.

For many people with ADHD, the brain struggles with low levels of the chemical dopamine — raising it is part of stimulant medication’s purpose.

“After having an artificial way to get [dopamine] every morning, having that cut off abruptly definitely has affected my feelings towards school and stuff that shouldn’t be that hard,” Noonan said.

Last December, the Drug Enforcement Administration issued a notice addressing the stimulant shortage. In the notice, the DEA said it is not raising the production quota for stimulant medication manufacturers for 2023. The production quota sets a

certain quantity of medication to be manufactured each year.

Manufacturers of stimulant medications claim not to have a supply chain issue, and both the FDA and DEA support that, Pawar said. He said other reasons for the shortage include an “increased demand for stimulants in adults, potential over-prescription by some online telehealth outlets.”

A Center for Disease Control study reported a spike in individuals with at least one stimulant prescription between 2020 and 2021, the beginning years of the pandemic when telehealth became commonplace. Females, on average, showed a 14% increase and males, on average, showed a 5% increase.

Pawar added, though, that it was “mainly for the good” that specialists could reach more patients via telehealth, as more people in need got access that otherwise could not have gotten any help.

Faculty retention declines at Columbia, especially among instructors of color

» OLIVIA COHEN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

FOR THE 25 years she’s taught in the Cinema and Television Arts Department, Karla Fuller has been the only full-time Black faculty member.

Her colleagues are wonderful, Fuller said, but she’s been lonely.

“I worry that when I decide to retire that I won’t be replaced by a Black faculty member, which would leave the largest department of the college without a single Black professor,” Fuller told the Chronicle.

According to a recent survey, just 20% of Columbia’s full-time professors are faculty of color. About half of those identified as Black.

“I guess I fell for the marketing of Black faculty images around the 600 building,” Fuller said, referring to the college’s administration building at 600 S. Michigan Ave. “I had no idea our numbers were so low.”

The Communication Department is losing its only Black faculty member after this semester. Associate Professor Curtis Lawrence is leaving after teaching full-time at the college since 2004. Five tenured faculty of color and one assistant professor have left the Communication Department since 2016. Four of the tenured professors were Black and one was Latina. Grace Choi, former assistant professor, who is Asian, left last year after only two years. She was the department’s social media and digital strategy professor.

The racial breakdown of Columbia’s faculty comes from a study spearheaded by Madhurima Chakraborty, the president of the Faculty Senate, Chris Shaw, an associate professor in the Science and Mathematics Department and the membership chair of CCCAAUP — Columbia’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors. Columbia’s Institutional Effectiveness Department assisted with the data collection.

Chakraborty, also an associate professor in the English and Creative Writing Department, said she has seen a lot of important and needed conversations around student retention efforts but not so much for faculty.

The report found the college’s retention rate of faculty of color has been decreasing since 2011— especially for Black full-time professors.

According to the report, there were roughly 35 full-time faculty at the college in 2010 identifying as Black. In 2022, there were 15.

Dave Pabellon, assistant professor in the Design Department, said the lack of diversity among Columbia’s fulltime faculty is a “reflection of a greater national disparity.”

In Fall 2020, of the 1.5 million faculty at degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the U.S., nearly threequarters of full-time faculty were white, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. This includes professors, associate professors, assistant professors, instructors, lecturers, assisting professors, adjunct professors and interim professors.

Of the white faculty, 39% were white men and 35% were white women.

Seven percent were Asian/Pacific Islander men and 5% were Asian/ Pacific Islander women. Four percent of full-time faculty were Black women, and 3% each were Black men, Hispanic men and Hispanic women.

The data did not separate non-binary faculty.

While serving on the Faculty Senate and the college’s DEI Executive Committee, Pabellon said he’s gained a better understanding of the landscape of higher education; specifically the shortage of academics of color in academia’s pipeline.

“As a start, I think not only retaining faculty that better represents our student body but also grooming that population for success and possible leadership in the institution can create a ripple effect in shifting the numbers of demographic enrollment and hiring,” Pabellon said.

Fuller said she would like the college to scout graduates from historically Black colleges and universities as possible candidates in all departments to start. She said there needs to be more support among Black instructors, especially new tenure-track faculty.

Since the 2011-2012 academic year, the school has lost 35% of its fulltime faculty.

Joan Giroux, president of the CCCAAUP and professor in the Art and Art History Department, said faculty have left for a variety of reasons, including inadequate compensation, being overworked, lack of support, low morale and general concern about the lack of healthy shared governance at the college.

Chakraborty said the two departments that had a rise in full-time faculty across numbers, were American Sign Language and Interactive Arts and Media. She added this is not necessarily a new issue, as the college’s full-time faculty are and have been predominantly white for a “really long time.”

Overall, however, Chakraborty said she was not entirely surprised by the findings, despite the college’s efforts at hiring more diverse faculty.

“We’re not even really seeing a trend that’s beginning or anything,” Chakraborty said. “The visualization is actually pretty stark.”

For Gabriela Díaz de Sabatés, an assistant professor in the Humanities Department, the college’s lack of diverse, full-time faculty could contribute to Columbia’s student retention issue.

“Lack of diversity in [the] faculty body surely makes the institution less appealing to prospective students, especially considering that their professional areas of interest in the real world are vastly diversified,” Díaz de Sabatés said in an email to the Chronicle on April 19. “A graduate who wants to be successful in their areas of expertise has an essential need to receive [a] multicultural, diverse education.”

Luying Chen, an associate professor in the Humanities, History and Social Sciences Department, said she believes this is an intersectional issue as well.

“It is an issue, especially if you consider the overlap between race and social-economic background,” Chen said.

The majority of doctoral students who graduate each year are white, a number that has been consistent for nearly 50 years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In the 2020-21 academic year, 17,041 Black students earned

their doctorates, compared to 16,465 Hispanics. The number of white students earning doctorates was 108,082.

Columbia is thus competing to hire a small number of faculty of color with other institutions.

Díaz de Sabatés said Columbia’s location in Chicago, a large, diverse city, should help.

“But faculty in academia is still predominantly white, and there needs to be sustained, systemic and proactive efforts by institutions of higher education to attract, hire and – most importantly – retain faculty of color,” Díaz de Sabatés said.

Jessica Meharry, director of Academic Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, said the college implemented a DEI-focused hiring process in 2018 for full-time faculty. This process requires all participants to submit a statement about inclusion. Hiring committees use a DEI-focused rubric, and finalists interview with the director of academic DEI.

“These steps have really helped us recruit more faculty of color and faculty who deeply engage with DEI-related issues in their teaching, creative practice and research,” Meharry said. However, she said they have not been as successful with retention of those faculty.

Charee Mosby-Holloway, the director of Student Diversity and Inclusion, said she cannot overstate the importance of having diverse faculty – especially when it comes to race.

“Having faculty of color is a net positive for all students,” MosbyHolloway said. “Part of a quality and robust educational experience is being exposed to a variety of perspectives and approaches. Faculty of color have so much to offer in terms of their knowledge, skills and innovativeness, but unfortunately, they are too often undervalued; especially adjunct faculty.”

OCOHEN@COLUMBIACHRONICLE.COM

Campus student veterans group reforms for first time since pandemic

floor of the 33 E. Ida B. Wells Dr. building has since closed.

Spinner served as advisor to the group until 2022. The new faculty advisor is Tom Nawrocki, an associate professor in the English and Creative Writing Department. Nawrocki is a Marine veteran.

“Designated student veteran centers at other colleges and universities are often multi-purpose spaces serving as safe places for veterans with support from staff, faculty, VA liaisons or other student veterans,” Olivares said. “Establishing a space like this highly depends on the level of support from colleges.”

Olivares said on Columbia’s academic DEI website and mission statement, the word veteran is not present.

Kari Sommers, associate dean for Student Life, did not respond to several email requests for comment.

The process for attaining officially recognized status for clubs and associations at Columbia College Chicago is labor-intensive, which is one of the reasons the vet group has struggled to maintain its status over the years.

“It was a lot of paperwork to do,” Morillo said.

The Student Veterans Association has now identified its first order of business.

»ROBIN SLUZAS STAFF REPORTER

COLUMBIA STUDENTS WHO are military veterans may have lost their fight for a dedicated campus meeting space, but they have regained their status as an officially recognized school group.

The Columbia chapter of the Student Veterans Association met in April for the first time since the group dissolved during the pandemic.

“We are important because we are a resource for other students,” said Rosemary Morillo, a Marine veteran and senior journalism major. Morillo is the president of the newly formed group. Because veterans have adult backgrounds and life experiences, she added, they can be people that younger

students look up to or reach out to if they need help.

The veterans group lost its official recognition several times over the last five years when members graduated and the remaining students struggled to meet all of the requirements.

The pandemic made things especially hard, veterans told the Chronicle.

“Student veterans are unlike other students at college and universities,” said Emilly Olivares, who was president of the veterans group from September 2021 to May 2022. Olivares, a Marine veteran, graduated from Columbia in December 2022 with a degree in creative writing.

The way active-duty personnel are perceived by younger generations can be unfriendly. That’s why it’s

important for veterans to have their own space, she said.

Veterans had their own meeting space until the Student Veterans Society was added to the Student Diversity and Inclusion’s space on the fourth floor at 618 S. Michigan Ave. Building in 2018.

Student veterans told the Chronicle at the time that it was difficult to engage with non-military students in the SDI space.

When the veteran group officially reorganized that year under faculty advisor Jackie Spinner, an associate professor in the Communication Department and former war correspondent, the Communication Department donated space for the veterans that was used until the pandemic. The lounge on the 2nd

“Our primary goal is to attract studentveterans,” said former Army Sgt. and combat veteran Michael Koppenhoefer, who is a senior photography major.

Because most student veterans are non-traditional students, life schedules are different from younger students’ so their time must be used efficiently to define what we will do in the future, he said.

Rosemary Morillo, a senior broadcast journalism major, poses in front of the iconic “Moose Bubblegum Bubble” mural at 33 E. Ida B. Wells Dr. on Friday, April 21, 2023. Morillo is a Marine veteran and president of the Student Veterans Organization at Columbia.

La Crónica

La comunidad estudiantil Latino no se refleja en los profesores en Columbia

» CITLALLI MAGALI SOTELO ESCRITORA CONTRIBUYENTE

A SOLO ENCONTRARSE a menos de 1% para ser elegible a convertirse en una institución universitaria de servicio hispano, Columbia College Chicago presenta un marcado desbalance al contar con sólo 7% de profesores latinos a tiempo completo, mientras que el estudiantado sobrepasó el 24%. Y aún enfrenta el problema de cómo retenerlos, a pesar de que ya han pasado más de 20 años desde que los estudiantes empezaron a pedirlo.

A finales de los años 90, un grupo estudiantil latino ingresó a la oficina del presidente de la universidad en aquel tiempo, John B. Duff, y declararon una huelga, sentados en el piso. Se negaron a moverse, hasta que Duff les prometió que traería más profesores latinos a la universidad.

El profesor puertorriqueño de humanidades y estudios culturales, Carmelo Esterrich, ingresó a Columbia por esa promesa. “Yo fui uno de los primeros dentro de ese movimiento estudiantil para traer más profesores latinos a la universidad en el 98, 99, por ahí. Entonces, Siempre ha habido desde hace mucho tiempo mucho interés de parte de los estudiantes para traer más profesores latinos a la universidad”, dijo.

El problema no es cómo atraer a profesores latinos, sino lograr que permanezcan trabajando en la universidad.

“Yo no entiendo muy bien por qué en el departamento de teatro están constantemente contratando profesores latinos y se van. Yo no sé si es como un problema político o con el currículum”, dijo Esterrich con una carcajada. “He preguntado y no me contestan. En estos departamentos donde hay, cientos de estudiantes, y muchos de ellos son latinos”. Al parecer, los estudiantes latinos “no tienen una persona como para concentrarse, para apoyarlos, para entenderlos. Para comprender de dónde vienen. Y siempre ha sido un problema”.

Dependiendo del departamento de la escuela, el número de profesores latinos o de habla hispana varía. Según

Esterrich, en el departamento de Humanidades, Historia y Ciencias Sociales hay un ambiente más de familia, donde la mayoría de estos profesores latinos se reúnen, creando entre ellos mismos una comunidad.

La profesora Gabriela Díaz de Sabatés, quién es originaria de Argentina, llegó a Columbia en 2017. A Díaz de Sabatés le agrada formar parte de este porcentaje tan minoritario de profesores latinos, a pesar de que solamente conoce a algunos profesores. “Me gusta ser parte de este grupo, aunque no hay un formalizado”, dijo. “Me gustaría mucho que Columbia pudiera tener un grupo de profesores, una alianza latina de profesores y no docentes. Creo que eso sería muy importante

tenemos una población tan diversa de estudiantes en Columbia, es crítico que trabajen con más profesores de color en sus cursos”, dijo Jessica Meharry, la directora de Diversidad Académica, Equidad e Inclusión.

Teresa Prados-Torreira, profesora asociada de Historia de los EEUU nació en España. Ella cree que en este país, se suele entender al bilingüismo no como una señal de riqueza cultural, sino como un indicio de poca educación, porque se asocia ese segundo idioma a una cultura de emigrantes pobres. “Cuando se enseña la historia de Estados Unidos, tradicionalmente el tema hispano o el tema latino está muy marginado. Y deberíamos hacer los profesores mayor esfuerzo para incorporar esa experiencia”.

de ser uno de los únicos latinos en el ambiente de trabajo”.

Las cifras indican que dentro de la demografía latina en Columbia College Chicago hay un desbalance de casi cuatro veces entre la población de estudiantes (24.5%) a los profesores hispanos (7%).

Balta afirma que no hay representación adecuada entre profesores y estudiantes latinos dentro de la universidad. “Eso es una desventaja porque es muy importante que los profesores reflejen a los estudiantes que están enseñando porque comparten con ellos experiencias que ayudan a desarrollar y alimentar relaciones entre [ellos]. porque Los entienden de una manera orgánica” , sostiene Balta.… Al ser “miembros de la comunidad hispana latina tienen mucho en común. Y en eso, no importa cuál es la clase y el tema que está siendo enseñado, tener esa base y conexión desarrolla un sentimiento de confianza entre el profesor y el estudiante”.

para no solamente atraer profesores si no para mantener en sus puestos a los profesores que ya están”, opinó.

Ella abraza su identidad como argentina y como mujer. Sus estudiantes aprecian la diversidad y “se enganchan mucho con eso. En general lo toman muy bien”. Díaz de Sabatés disfruta de la reacción de los estudiantes hacia los profesores hispanos. Cuando sus alumnos están en grupos discutiendo animadamente ciertos temas y les pide que vuelvan para tener una discusión entre todos y no le prestan mucha atención, les dice “alguna que otra cosa en español y ahí todo el mundo para. Me miran. Muchos entienden el español”.

“A través del país, sabemos que los estudiantes de color tienen tasas de graduación más altas cuando tienen profesores con orígenes y experiencias similares que pueden servir como mentores y modelos a seguir. Y dado que

Al ser cosmopolita y diversa, Chicago resulta un imán para muchos académicos en encontrar trabajo, lo cual incentivaría a muchos profesores de extractos minoritarios a mudarse a esta ciudad. “Columbia es una universidad muy atractiva, Chicago es una ciudad muy atractiva. No deberíamos tener tantas dificultades para atraer y retener a los profesores latinos… Si, no es fácil, pero al mismo tiempo yo creo que la administración debería de hacer un esfuerzo mayor para atraer y retener”. Hijo de inmigrantes peruanos, el profesor de periodismo Hugo Balta ve la carencia de profesores latinos en la universidad no como un problema sino como una oportunidad para mejorar este tema recurrente de más de dos décadas. Balta, quien forma parte de Columbia desde el otoño del 2022, no ha sentido ningún rechazo, pero reconoce que él “aceptó el desafío

Profesores de otros grupos minoritarios comparten las mismas preocupaciones. Madhurima Chakraborty , profesora de literatura y estudios culturales, de origen asiáticaamericana, es también presidenta del senado de facultad de la universidad. Ella espera que Columbia incluya más diversidad dentro de los miembros del profesorado. “Mis esperanzas, entonces, serían que al menos mostremos tendencias en la contratación y retención que al menos se acerquen a las de nuestra población estudiantil. Que podamos asignar más recursos para el desarrollo de la creatividad y la erudición de la facultad. Esto beneficiará a todos los estudiantes, profesores de tiempo completo, por supuesto, incluidos los profesores de color— y tener espacios para que los profesores de color puedan reunirse”.

ENGLISH DIGEST: Only 7% of the fulltime faculty at Columbia are Latino, even though 24% of the student body is. For two decades, students have been asking for better representation from the college administration.

Latino professors said they have formed informal alliances with each other, mostly at the departmental level.

» ELIAS GONZALEZ/CHRONICLE

Hungarian jazz singer to study at Columbia under Fulbright program

»MICHELLE MEYER STAFF REPORTER

COLUMBIA WILL WELCOME Hungarian jazz singer Ágnes Csné Lakatos as a Fulbright researcher in the Music Department this fall.

Lakatos is an associate professor of jazz vocals at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Hungary. She will conduct research on jazz in Chicago and the founder of Columbia’s Music Department, William Russo, who died in 2003.

Russo was a former jazz composer, teacher and author who founded Columbia’s Music Department in 1965. He retired as chair of the Music Department in 2002. A collection of his music is held in Columbia’s archives.

Typhanie Coller, assistant professor in the Music Department, said she hopes Lakatos will be able to get to access Russo’s archives from the Center for Black Music Research.

“I feel like we’re sitting on this little diamond, this gem of information that could be highly useful not only to us but to the college,” Coller said. “It’s not being utilized the way it should be.”

Ilya Levinson, an associate professor

in the Music Department, met Lakatos last year.

Levinson said Columbia’s ties with Russo and jazz singer Bobbi Wilsyn would be great for Lakatos to research. Wilsyn will be honored at this year’s commencement ceremony with an honorary degree on Sunday, May 14.

Columbia has hosted six Fulbright researchers, most recently Emmanuel Roland Paul Vaillant from France to study journalism.

This is the Music Department’s first Fulbright researcher.

“I’m really happy because we have a place in American jazz history,” Levinson said.

Columbia has a diverse range of music ensembles from hip-hop to gospel, and Coller said this is unique.

“What really makes us different is that we’re one of the few schools that offer contemporary styles and particularly Black American music styles,” Coller said.

The Fulbright Program is an international academic exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and other governments from participating countries. Elio Leturia, an associate professor in the Communication Department, is

the school’s liaison for the Fulbright program and helps students and faculty that are interested in participating in a Fulbright program with the application process.

Leturia said he was a Fulbright student when he came to the University of Illinois from Peru in 1990 to receive his master’s degree in Journalism. He was selected as a Fulbright scholar in 2021 to teach journalism and to conduct a research project in Spain: “When words, visuals and technology merge: A bicultural journalism venture.”

Leturia said he feels indebted to the Fulbright program.

“I feel like I need to serve the same way that I was given an opportunity,” he said.

Paul Catanese, a professor in the Arts and Art History Department received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to Poland for Spring 2024.

Catanese will be at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw, Poland, for five months to work on his project, focusing on artificial intelligence in printmaking and artworks.

His project, “Printmaking in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” will

explore the complexities of artificial intelligence and how it can expand the boundaries of printmaking. He will also teach seminars and conduct workshops with graduate students about the subject.

Catanese was a visiting professor in 2016 for that same institution in Wroclaw. They invited him to teach topics that he covered in his 2012 book “Post Digital Printmaking” which looked into how technology can be used in printmaking art.

Columbia has had 17 faculty travel under the Fulbright Scholar Program, plus one more once Catanese goes to Poland next year. He said that his colleague’s support helped him through the application process.

“I’m really grateful that this opportunity could work and I’m grateful that the school is able to support me,” Catanese said. “I feel tremendously supported by the school to be able to grow in this way.”

Since pandemic, number of online courses doubled

»JOHN POLLOCK STAFF REPORTER

ABOUT 10% OF the courses offered at Columbia are online this semester, which is more than double what it was before the pandemic.

The percentage has remained fairly consistent over the last three semesters, said Senior Associate Provost Nathan Bakkum.

Bakkum said in Spring 2023, 170 course sections have been taught fully online, 72 of which were asynchronous and 98 were synchronous courses.

Columbia canceled on-campus events beginning March 15, 2020, at the start of the pandemic and temporarily suspended classes so instructors could convert them online. Classes then resumed online on April 6, 2020, after spring break, though Commencement was canceled.

By the Fall 2020 semester when the campus reopened, the majority of

classes were still offered solely online.

Bakkum said departments can choose to develop new courses as fully online offerings or they can adapt existing courses for online. All faculty must successfully complete a four-week online course before they are deemed qualified to deliver an online course.

Laurence Minsky, professor and director of Graduate Programs in the Communication Department, said success in an online course depends on the student.

For comparison, Bakkum said in Fall 2019, the college taught 78 online courses, where only two were synchronous. In Fall 2018, Columbia had 75 online options and all of them were asynchronous.

Minsky said students were pushing for more online classes prior to COVID-19.

“Before the pandemic, there was a call to increase the number of them, because it could make it easier for students with

their scheduling — four in-person and one online,” he said.

Minsky added that at this point, students are used to taking online classes.

Karolina Dziatkowiec, a senior journalism major, likes having more online options because she is a commuter student.

“I feel like it’s more accessible instead of having to commute every single day,” Dziatkowiec said, who is taking “Writing Digital Content” and “Nutrition” online this semester.

Cyera Williams, a senior communication major, likes the format but misses interacting with other students when taking online courses.

“I don’t think you get the full experience of the class and interacting with other students when you are online because no one likes to talk online,” Williams said.

Keanu Martinez, a junior game art major, also misses interacting with his

peers in person.

“There’s this weird dichotomy I have with it,” Martinez said. “I was able to work at my own pace when the classes were online, but the social aspect was missing.”

Minsky has taught courses both inperson and completely online. He said not all classes are able to work online, but can be helpful for students who will be working online for their careers.

Minksy said there are some hurdles with teaching online, such as locating and developing digital materials for online classes, as well as Zoom fatigue.

One of his courses, “Social Media Content,” can be taught in a variety of formats.

“Starting from the online asynchronous and then going to inperson made it easier to convert the course to both modalities,” Minsky said.

Students grapple with possibility of larger class sizes to help close college’s financial gap

as students who have jobs and who commute,” Freedman said. “Offering a few classes that people need without expanding them and making classes smaller forces us to choose class times that don’t fit with our schedules.”

Columbia has announced back-to-back tuition increases, during the Fall 2021 semester for a 10% increase the following year, and a 5% increase announced this last November, to take effect this upcoming academic year.

would find it frustrating but would not leave the school because of it, as they are about to enter their senior year.

Adriana Brown, a junior marketing major, said they think increasing class sizes would defeat the purpose of someone choosing to attend Columbia.

“I know at least speaking for myself, one of the big reasons I chose to come here was the fact that the classes are smaller,” Brown said. “As someone who performs better in smaller settings where I can be in a more intimate class space and really get to know my classmates and professor, I would really feel misled thinking I was going to have smaller classes just to find out they are just like any other college.”

» OLIVIA COHEN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

When Devyn Jessonge, a senior creative writing major, saw that the college is considering raising tuition again and making class sizes bigger to offset the college’s deficit, they sighed.

Jessonge has been at Columbia through it all. From taking classes completely online during the pandemic, hybrid to now, fully in-person. They have lived in Columbia’s housing and are now off-campus.

“Columbia is supposed to be a place where we feel understood and seen by our professors and we get to engage in our art with them in an individual way as well as in the classroom,” Jessonge said. “Increasing the class sizes will only ensure we feel smaller and that’s not the appeal that Columbia sets out to demonstrate to prospective students. More and more I feel Columbia has lost its charm in that way.”

The college’s top administrators met with Columbia faculty and staff twice in April for town hall discussions about where the college is financially and how they plan to close the current financial gap, which was at $26 million as of late 2022. To do this by 2026, the college will need to raise tuition, improve retention, attract new students and achieve “operational efficiencies”

— which could result in fewer sections being offered and larger class sizes.

Students told the Chronicle that besides possible higher tuition to attend Columbia, the possibility of larger class sizes is what worries them the most.

Currently, the majority of Columbia’s course sections — about 64% — are taught with under 20 students in them. About 10% of courses are taught with less than 10 students in them and 54% of courses are serving 10 to 19 students, according to administers in the town hall.

Enisha Dowd, a first-year musical theatre major, was surprised that increasing class sizes was the administration’s solution to the problem and called it a “lose-lose” situation.

“The bigger the class size, the less time your instructor has to get to know you and help you learn,” Dowd said. “Getting to know your students really helps in the classroom and class performance and if the student to teacher ratio rises, I know the education of me, and my peers will suffer. It’s inevitable.”

Eriana Freedman, a sophomore graphic design major, said having larger class sizes and less course sections would make it harder for commuter students and those who work in addition to classes.

“It would give us less flexibility

Jerry Tarrer, senior vice president of Business Affairs and CFO, said the administration will meet with the Board of Trustees to discuss this in October.

Kevin Sobotka, a junior graphic design major, said it’s hard to understand how the college will retain or attract new students if it has to cancel or reduce course offerings.

“I’ve personally had a class canceled because they failed to find a professor for it one to two weeks before the semester even started,” Sobotka said. “The retention rate is dropping because the college keeps getting rid of courses people want to take as well as the additional raises in tuition.”

Cristina Martínez Serrano, a junior animation major, said she also would not be for increasing class sizes because she has found it difficult to have oneon-one time with professors under the current model.

“It is already hard enough to have one-on-one time with the professor and to get our work critiqued,” Martínez Serrano said. “If the amount of students in a class increased, it would make it near impossible for us to know what we need to improve on.”

Martínez Serrano acknowledged that she is not sure what the logistics would look like, but said the college should make more classes to fit more people instead of cramming several people into one.

Martínez Serrano added that if the college were to increase class sizes, they

Senior public relations major Nick Muilaert said because they are graduating next month and won’t experience Columbia in the coming years, they feel sorry for their classmates who will have to deal with the changes.

Senior Vice President and Provost Marcella David told faculty and staff at the town hall that not every class would become a larger class.

“If we are able to raise the class size, for some number of our classes, either by little or substantially, we will be able to serve more students at a lower cost,” David said in the town hall. “That will start to bend that line down in terms of the cost of education.”

David said restructuring some classes to be larger and more successful would allow the college to continue to offer some of its signature smaller courses.

“We should talk about how we can make classes that are large, successful classes, that are achieving the right learning outcomes and engaging the students in the way that we want, providing the education that we want,” David said.

David said increasing class sizes will also depend on the department.

“It’s only by looking at this as a college—how we make this work for the college—that we will be able to move forward in a way that is actually beneficial to the college,” David said.

Photography students sit in on a class with Paul D’Amato, a professor in the Photography Department, on Friday, April 28, 2023, at the 600 S Michigan Ave. building. Students are in the midst of working on their final projects before the Spring semester ends.

» K’VON JACKSON/CHRONICLE

COVID task force plans return to pre-pandemic structure for fall semester

» VIVIAN RICHEY STAFF REPORTER

FOR NEARLY THREE years after the COVID-19 pandemic started in Spring 2020, Columbia’s Campus Reopening Task Force met weekly to get expert medical advice, review data and set the safety parameters at the college.

This spring, in a sign of the decreased impact the pandemic is having at the college, the task force is not meeting as often.

Chicago’s COVID-19 risk level remains low and has been since February. The college lifted its mask mandate for the classroom — in place for nearly three years — when that happened.

The task force is made up of administrators, full-time faculty and representatives of the staff and parttime faculty unions.

When students return in the fall, the college likely will have no COVID-19 restrictions in place at all, said Matthew Rillie, coordinator of Student Support and Engagement for Student Diversity and Inclusion and a member of the task force.

“I think we really are gonna see campus kind of return to the structure that it was before COVID,” Rillie said. “What we’re really trying to be mindful of is, we have learned a lot about how to have more accessible, inclusive work in the past two years, and we want to bring that with us so that campus will look different than it ever has,” they said.

Rillie said that they think that the task force will not continue to meet as frequently starting next semester. Still, they said that the Task Force is evolving to address better address the impact of COVID-19.

“How do we really approach educating creatives with everything that

we’ve just experienced collectively?” Rillie said.

“I think that’s going to take restructuring.

It’s going to take more people. It should really be conversations with as many faculty, staff, administration and students as it can be.”

Results from a Faculty Senate survey taken in February shows that out of 135 professors who responded, 29 did not feel safer when masking, 52 felt somewhat safer and 49 felt significantly safer.

Tinia Montford, English and Creative Writing graduate student instructor, said that she was satisfied with the decisions made by the Campus Reopening Task Force to keep campus safe.

“The institution had complete transparency with the protocols for testing and masks in the classrooms and meeting places,” Montford said.

“The college kept faculty and staff abreast of the total cases on campus and followed guidelines from the CDC’s determination of Chicago and Cook County’s COVID-19 risk level.”

Montford tested positive for COVID-19 just a few weeks after the

mask mandate was lifted and said in an email to the Chronicle that she felt supported by her department, as she is immunocompromised.

“Those in charge were immediately resourceful in suggesting ways to reconfigure class and assignments, with those willing to step into the classroom until I fully recovered,” Montford said.

Montford said she worked with students faced with positive test results to provide as many accommodations as needed. “A student’s health comes before a grade, and if I could do anything to help my students recover soundly and quickly, I did,” she said.

Frankie Buente, a sophomore film and television arts major, said they felt supported by their professors when they tested positive for COVID-19 but wished they received more understanding throughout their recovery process.

“My professors were very forgiving during the COVID thing; I was like, ‘I don’t want to do assignments, I have such brain fog.’ But then after that, there was much less forgiveness. It was pretty intense,” Buente said.

Robert Lawson, a sophomore film and television arts major, said he wished the Health Center could contact instructors on a student’s behalf, because “when you’re sick, your thought is more about taking care of the sickness than it is sending out that email.”

Gus Costanzo, a first-year acting major, hopes for more quarantine options on-campus, as well as more awareness about when students have come in contact with COVID-19 through classmates.

Max Grove, a first-year journalism major, said that he has felt comfortable with the guidelines set in place this semester and feels as though things should stay the same unless cases spike. Despite the lift of mandates and “more routine healthcare,” COVID-19 is still present and is far from over, Rillie said.

Rillie said COVID-19 testing options will be based on student’s insurance rather than being readily available on campus and that quarantine options will be “an approach of individual resources.”

“COVID impacts so many people’s lives daily right now,” they said. “ It’s evolved our work; I think we’ve gone beyond the point of a mask mandate on campus of course, but we still need to still discuss that COVID is still very much here.”

Students take a break from class on the 4th floor of 33 E. Ida B. Wells Dr., on Thursday, April 27, 2023. Though masks are no longer required in classrooms to be worn on campus, some students still choose to be masked.

Graduating students share how COVID-19 impacted them during their time in college

»AMINA SERGAZINA SENIOR REPORTER

STUDENTS WHO STARTED college four years ago were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic the entire time they were at Columbia, with a shift to remote learning their first year, followed by masking requirements and restrictions on interacting in person for much of the next year.

Although masking requirements at the college have since lifted and restrictions remain in only a few settings, the impact of COVID-19 marked the experience of nearly every student who was on a fouryear path to graduation.

The Chronicle talked to students who are graduating in May about the various ways COVID-19 influenced their time on campus.

“It definitely was very different,” said Noey Budde, a senior music major. “I thought I’d be going to more parties, to more social events and I sadly ended up being kind of more of a shutin after,” COVID-19.

Marina Ventella, a senior fashion studies major, made close friends in an online fashion studies class.

“You wouldn’t expect to get your friends over Zoom that first year and

then continuing your friendships in person, but I was lucky enough to have that happen,” Ventella said.

Mei Ling Marzonie, a senior film and television student, came to Columbia to study producing. She changed her major to photography during hybrid learning because the Cinema and Television Arts Department restricted the number of people on set, which limited how many students could take production classes.

“For a liberal arts college, where the focus is collaboration in the arts, and especially for my field, from television, it was really hard and very detrimental to my education learning process,” Marzonie said. She changed her major back to production because she realized that’s what she really wanted to do.

“I found myself dug in where the work was, that work with cameras. I’m eventually back to what I want to be, which is being a producer,” Marzonie said.

Jennifer Halperin, an internship and career advisor, said many students benefited from all the transitions during the past few years.

“The skills that this group of graduates has been forced to pick up, such as learning how to navigate an entirely new way of going to school and a new way of working through the pandemic makes you more resilient and employable over the long term,” Halperin said.

The Career Center services will be available for grads for an entire year after graduation. Students can change their Handshake email to their personal one to keep their account and be in the loop of career expo events and make appointments.

Although the pandemic may have impacted students’ social skills, it is normal for anyone to feel awkward during the transition between college and work environment, Halperin said.

“I would really hate for there to be any self-fulfilling prophecy of ‘Oh, this generation can’t communicate

well or can’t socialize well because of this,’” Halperin said. “Then, students feel like ‘Well, I guess that’s just how I am. I guess I just don’t communicate clearly or I don’t socialize well with professionals.’”

Budde said in some ways, not having to socialize benefited them.

“Because of my social anxiety I think it really did help me hone in my thinking,” Budde said. “When I came back to Chicago, I was so happy to see all my friends. It was so nice to see that those remote collaborations became onsite collaboration, and I think that it made them stronger.”

After facing isolation for the first few years of college, Courtney Williams, senior fashion studies major decided to take more advantage of the Student Center to hang out between classes.

Williams is excited to graduate but also nervous about the future. “I don’t have a job yet and it’s the first time in my life that I haven’t really been in school so it’s like, what am I gonna do?” Williams said.

Karolina Dziatkowiec, Yasmin Mendiola and Khaliyah Franklin, all graduating seniors, work collaboratively on Thursday, April 27, 2023 at 33 E. Ida B. Wells Dr. Mask Requirements for classrooms were just lifted this semester and will not be required for the graduation ceremony.

RaJah Varnado, assistant director of New Student Programs assists senior Columbia students in picking up their graduation tickets on Thursday, April 27, 2023. at the Student Center on the 3rd floor at 754 S. Wabash Ave.

Textbooks, other course costs cause financial fatigue for students

» VIVIAN RICHEY STAFF REPORTER » ELIZABETH RYMUT MANAGING EDITOR

Jasmine Dunigan, a first-year film and television arts major, found out on her first day of “Liberal Arts Mathematics” that she needed to purchase an online textbook that contained six quizzes and six assignments for the class.

After taxes, the cost of the e-textbook came out to $107 and access to the text lasted 180 days, she said.

“I was upset because I felt like since I’m already paying to be here at Columbia, and I’m paying to take the math class, I shouldn’t have to pay to do the work that is already assigned to the math class,” Dunigan said.

In each year of the last decade, more than a quarter of first-year students have left Columbia prior to their second year largely due to financial concerns, according to the 2022 Student Retention Workshop. In Fall 2022, the majority of first-year students who left after one semester were students of color, the Chronicle reported in March. Students told the Chronicle the costs of books and other materials — on top of tuition — are causing them grief and stress. A new Fall 2022 policy requires incoming students to provide their own computer devices; the college lists hardware and software requirements by major. Some, but not all departments, list additional equipment and other requirements.

Instructors at the college have responded to the concerns by trying to find lower-cost alternatives and by making sure that students know what materials are required when students register.

Christopher Shaw, an associate professor in the Mathematics Department and coordinator of “Liberal Arts Math” said the actual hardcover book for “Liberal Arts Math” is “really expensive.”

“The publisher used to be able to make a custom version that was just the chapters we cared about; it was significantly cheaper, but the publisher stopped doing that,” Shaw said.

Shaw said he personally finds the “prices of these things to be really frustrating.”

Shaw is the only professor teaching statistics this semester and said this allowed him to choose the textbook for the class. He also teaches “Math in Art and Nature,” and “Intro to Statistics,” where he provides “not a great book” but a “fine book” that is a free and open source for students.

He said he can assign the textbook to his students, directing them to the webpage where they can download it as a PDF.

Arlie Sims, head of Reference and Instruction for the library, said all course books can be requested through the library’s website; these are usually available within two weekdays or sooner.

“For all required texts that cost more than $40, the library purchases the e-book, when available as a library purchase,” Sims said in an email. “Most e-books published as textbooks are not available for the library to purchase in e-book format.”

However, these books do not allow students to access online materials that come with them, like quizzes, exercises and homework; these materials need individual codes the library cannot provide access to, he said.

For technology accommodations, Jeff Meyers, the director of Academic Curriculum Innovation, said students can access the Student Technology Toolbox and the Columbia SharePoint portal, which can be used to check out equipment for classes.

Bill Boris, associate chair of the Music Department, said if students need financial support, they are referred to Columbia Central.

Columbia Central also provides a Book Charge Program, a resource where students can set up a payment plan to purchase books and supplies through the Columbia Bookstore. Students must complete a form within the provided date range listed on the website.

Boris said the Music Department used to have technology requirements but these are now recommendations.

“Music students can access a

department Sharepoint which features a page that lists software and hardware recommendations for music majors,” Boris said.

He also said many faculty members make course content available online “so students do not have to purchase additional materials.”

Students can check out equipment from The Music Center or reserve usage when in the Library.

Ginny Johnson, assistant vice president of Student Financial Services, said course materials, such as books and software, are indirect costs, just like off-campus rent and transportation. These are included in the student’s cost of attendance.

The Cost of Attendance is an estimate of the annual costs a student will incur, which is the sum of “direct costs” like tuition and indirect costs. This is received in a student’s financial aid letter.

Before textbooks, class materials and other fees, the cost of tuition was estimated as $14,635 per semester for full-time undergraduate students at Columbia for the 2022-23 school year.

“Students should carefully consider all types of financial aid when creating their financial plan for the academic year,” Johnson said.

She also recommended filling out the

Free Application for Federal Student Aid for more funding opportunities. The college used to charge instructional resource fees per course that were for course instructional materials, including textbooks. These were phased out after the 2021-22 school year.

Johnson said these were eliminated so students would have more predictability from semester to semester with their bills; the college changed to a single, flat rate for fees.

Senbi Turner, a first-year fashion design major, signed up for “Patternmaking and Construction 1,” a required course for her major, where she spent almost $200 on materials for class in addition to the expected textbooks for the course.

Turner said the lack of disclosure surrounding required expenses made her feel slighted.

This is not the only time Turner has struggled with spending money on class materials and said she now expects to “spend an arm and a leg for my class, aside from what I already spend on the class with tuition.”

Books fill the space inside Columbia’s library, located at 624 S. Michigan Ave., as students work diligently on their computers on Wednesday, April 26, 2023. Per a new Columbia policy, Fall 2023 students are required to provide their own computer devices.

» BIANCA KREUSEL/CHRONICLE

Music lovers reflect on ticket price increases

» KIMBERLY KAPELA COPY EDITOR » ABRA RICHARDSON MULTIMEDIA REPORTER

WITH FESTIVAL SEASON approaching, Chicago is seeing an exciting buzz around concerts and popular artists. These artists are coming to tour iconic venues such as the Salt Shed and Aragon Ballroom. But the experience comes with a cost – and a pretty hefty one.

Justice Petersen, a senior journalism major, who writes for Chicago Music Guide and Fever Dream Zine, has seen flyers from the 70s advertising concert tickets for less than $10.

In 1993, Nirvana’s frontman Kurt Cobain had a harsh reaction to artists increasing their ticket prices to $50 to $75 while he only charged around $20.

Since the Ticketmaster and Live Nation merger in 2010, the companies control over 70% of the live events and ticketing industries. For years, the world’s largest concert ticket vendor has faced backlash from heartbroken fans due to the website crashing, fans being forced to wait in long queues and its additional fees and convenience charges.

“Seeing concerts is like self-care for me,” Petersen said. “If concert ticket prices keep getting more expensive, soon they are [concert goers] not going to be able to go to any concerts because all their money has to go to college.”

From Petersen’s extensive background with concert coverage, she observes that fewer people will attend the concerts if prices continue to increase because everyone has a limit to how much they’re willing to spend. She says it becomes an accessibility issue for both artists and concertgoers.

“If you make these tickets so expensive, it’s almost like you’re only catering to the super rich,” Petersen said. “That’s not fair because there’s tons of young 21-year-old kids who want to see their favorite band, and who’s to say that they shouldn’t have access to that? I’ve seen some nosebleeds that are almost like $100 and you can be like a mile away from your favorite artist and that’s not fair.”

Associate Editor at Creem Magazine Grace Scott shared her

thoughts about the increased ticket prices and what effect it has on art.

“I feel like the cost to go and see those artists play is so high that it feels counterintuitive to the whole nature and ideology of the art in the first place,” Scott said.

Ticketmaster and Live Nation are considered a monopoly by many, including The Judiciary Committee as Live Nation’s president, Joe Berchtold, faced bipartisan criticism during a Senate hearing over the merger and handling of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.

Mazie Hummel-Logee, a first-year photojournalism major, bought Taylor Swift merchandise that came with an early access code. She expected to have an easier time purchasing tickets, but that was far from the case.

“I sat on the couch for eight hours,” Hummel-Logee said. “Just listening to my Zoom lectures and staring at a non-moving line as it told me there were 2000+ people in front of me.”

Ticketmaster announced that it received 3.5 billion system requests

on the day of presale access; 2 million tickets were sold on that Tuesday.

Hummel-Logee said she has purchased through Ticketmaster before, but the process has never been as challenging as it was to buy Taylor Swift tickets for the Eras Tour.

Artists are starting to take action; Maggie Rogers chose to do her pre-sale ‘the old-fashioned way’ by opening box offices at the venues, and Robert Smith of The Cure fought to lower the ticket fees and canceled 7,000 tickets sold to bots.

“It’s really hard to rationalize paying that much money to even see an amazing band like The Cure,” Scott said. “A lot of folks still wanted to go, but when you’re choosing between your rent and going to see a concert, it’s going to be rent.”

Lexi Tsengouras, a junior cultural studies major, experienced an increase in ticket fees for Harry Styles’ Love On Tour where additional fees were over $80. Moving forward, Tsengouras would want to see a breakdown of the

fees in the check-out cart, or an option where users can donate some fees to a local charity.

“It puts a class system in place and a hierarchy of who has money and who can afford to go to the most shows,” Tsengouras said. “It’s no longer something that everybody can enjoy without spending a ton of money.”

Gianna Armey, a senior social media and digital strategies major, said bigger musicians trying to take action and finding creative solutions to prevent scalping and handling fees “almost” gives her hope.

“These big artists are aware of these issues for their fans,” Armey said. “To see them speaking out and trying to take action against it, it’s really nice to see because I feel like people just wouldn’t typically want to think about the Ticketmaster issue... But seeing them speak out on it gives me some hope that maybe eventually something can change.”

KKAPELA@COLUMBIACHRONICLE.COM

ARICHARDSON@COLUMBIACHRONICLE.COM

» KAILEY RYAN/CHRONICLE

Editorial: College needs better online classes built for post-pandemic learning

synchronous courses are still run. Most online courses being offered were not planned to fit the postCOVID-19 online environment, and too many instructors are still trying to teach like they would in-person.

» THE EDITORIAL BOARD

ONLINE COURSES AT Columbia have doubled since the pandemic. That’s a good thing, as online courses can be accessible and convenient. But the college should offer better online courses: No one wants to sit for three hours while staring at a computer screen, which is how many web

The college needs to carefully consider whether it should be providing so many web synchronous options.

In the Fall 2023 semester, the college is offering 170 online courses. Of those, 98 are web synchronous and 72 are asynchronous.

Though faculty are supposed to be trained to teach online — and many are certainly more experienced with the format since the pandemic began — too many of the web courses options are

poorly planned.

Some are built out well on Canvas, and others are not.

The main appeal of online classes is that they are flexible, especially for students who commute and have other commitments such as jobs. They can also appeal to students with certain disabilities. In addition, there are financial benefits to taking online classes as commuter students won’t need to pay for parking — something that Columbia unfortunately does not provide.

At most, online classes should be an hour long or should at least allow for students to have moments where they can work at their own pace within the three-hour block. Breakout rooms and/ or 30-minute independent work times are a great way to keep the flow of the classroom steady while also allowing students a moment to themselves. That may seem obvious, but too many instructors are still not doing this. Even better, the college should primarily offer asynchronous options

— and then continue to support faculty who teach this way. Asynchronous coursework allows learners the time to pause and review virtual materials until they fully grasp key concepts, though we recognize that some students need more structure.

Online learning is also a way for the college to reduce some overhead costs, which is part of the strategy Columbia recently announced it would implement to address the financial deficit.

Students want more online options, but they want courses taught by instructors who understand how to deliver the content. They don’t want to go back to the early days of remote learning in 2020 when they had to sit in front of a computer while everyone was trying to figure out how to teach and learn.

It’s been more than enough time for Columbia to get this right.

Opinion: Work places need better outreach, accommodations for autistic workers

» BIANCA KREUSEL CO-DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND inclusion: this phrase is now echoing throughout the workforce in training presentations, many of which are talking about race, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity. But never do I see anything about the importance of including neurodiversity in the workplace.

While I have only cycled through three jobs in my life, I always notice a similarity: I am the only autistic person that I know of in that space, and there are no accommodations for neurodiverse employees.

This is not surprising to me. Roughly 21% of people with a disability were employed in 2022, according to the United States Department of Labor. In comparison, in the same year, 65.4% of people without a disability were

employed. That is about one in five disabled people employed, and autism is only one group under that category.

Though we all don’t want to admit it, many employers have internalized ableism that prevents autistic people from wanting to work. Many workforces don’t campaign or try to recruit more individuals with autism, whether that is because accommodating employees can be seen as a nuisance or because workplaces just don’t want to give us a chance at all.

Ableist individuals portray those who are being defined by their disabilities as inherently inferior to able-bodied people. This can include lack of compliance with disability rights laws, using harmful language to describe yourself or others such as “psycho” or “spaz” and not including disability resources in DEI strategies in the workforce.

Those who may get into the workforce — like myself — are limited with resources to help us navigate a neurotypical world. A world that includes verbal and nonverbal social cues, knowing automatically why someone may be upset or how they’re feeling and having to make constant eye contact with superiors and colleagues.

Throughout my time in the working world, I find myself having to mask — a common term used with those with autism in which neurodiverse people hide their authentic selves in an effort to gain greater social acceptance.

It is exhausting; it makes it difficult to constantly socialize with my coworkers, and when I don’t, I’m deemed rude or sad. In reality, I don’t have resources such as designated quiet spaces nor clear and concise directions on how to correctly perform my job. Instead, I have a gray area of unspoken rules and

tasks I am supposed to “just know” or be expected to do without instruction. This might be easy and normal for neurotypical workers, but it makes working as an autistic person ten times harder.

As I begin my departure from college and ease my way into the working world, I find it difficult to find a workplace that caters to the needs of autistic individuals.

Including autistic people in the workplace is a key factor in inclusivity for everyone. DEI discussions are important, and it’s equally important to include neurodiverse voices in these discussions because we, too, matter and deserve to have a seat at the table.

» KAILEY RYAN/CHRONICLE

» ZO Ë TAKAKI STAFF REPORTER

WHEN JUNIOR ANIMATION major June Gee was a first-year student at Columbia, she started coming out as transgender, so she searched for a gender-inclusive club at the college to join. But, she had no luck finding one.

“I actually thought there was one and it turns out there wasn’t, but I was keeping an eye out,” she said. “You want people who understand what you’re going through.”

When Gee was at a Student Diversity and Inclusion event for Trans Visibility in March, she found out that Trans Fam was working to become a club but needed more executive board members, so she jumped at the chance to join.

“I really wanted this club to exist and Howie [Alston, the club president] was saying how they didn’t have enough board members, and I was like, ‘Well, I’ll do that,’” she said.

New club creates a safe space for trans and gender nonconforming students

A month later, the Trans Fam club became official, with a mission to empower and create a safe space for trans and gender nonconforming students.

Alston, a sophomore film and television arts major, started the club with the intention of sharing resources he had accumulated during his personal transition.

“I have so many resources that I’ve somehow figured out how to get and I wanted to share that with other trans and gender nonconforming people at Columbia,” he said.

Alston connects club members with places that can help students who are transitioning; two places they recommend are Broadway Youth Center, a clinic providing services to underserved LGBTQ+ youth, and Brave Space Alliance, a Black and trans-led center providing affirming care and resources on the South Side.

The club’s discord, with over 40

members, has a resource page filled with feminine and masculine resources.

Gio Cecutti, a sophomore radio major, is a member of the club and actively uses the resources the club offers.

“I’ve been using the trans masc resources to just get tips on binding and stuff like that,” they said.

Not only has the club offered resources, it’s provided a community for members like Cecutti and made them feel seen.

“I was excited for there to be a safe space for trans people at the school,” Cecutti said. “There are some things that I experience that I’m like, ‘Do other people experience [this]?’ And then I can learn that we’re going through it together.”

Columbia’s “2022 in Review” reported that four in 10 incoming students in the Fall 2022 semester identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Leo Schnellinger, a junior film

and television arts major, is the vice president of the club, and said “with such a high LGBT population at this school, it just kind of felt stupid” to not have a trans club.

Since the club started in early April, Gee said they’ve held meetings about trans history, the clubs intentions and a Q&A with Chicago trans filmmaker Alice Avery.

Alston said he hopes future Trans Fam meetings will feature guest speakers from organizations that offer resources for transitioning and work on fostering community.

“I really hope that everyone understands that they’re all in the same boat,” he said. “And that we’re a family just trying to find our own way through life.”

clothing brand

»SAM TUCKER PHOTOJOURNALIST

ABAD VIQUEZ WAS born with sacral agenesis, a rare condition that causes an absence of a tailbone.

Doctors told his family they were not sure if Viquez would live past birth. Now 21, Viquez is a junior at Columbia studying journalism and sports communication.

“They told my parents that I had less than six months,” he said. “They said I wasn’t going to be able to walk, talk, hear or do anything. For me to be here, it’s just a blessing, and I just thank God because I’m here today.”

Viquez has used his experiences to create a media platform and clothing brand, “Your Disability Doesn’t Define You,” or YDDDY, He sells branded T-shirts and hoodies, hats and accessories, all of which he designs himself.

YDDDY empowers other people with

disabilities to find their voice and not be singularly defined by their disability, Viquez said.

Viquez started YDDDY in 2019 during his senior year of high school. He donates all proceeds to the Free Wheelchair Mission, a nonprofit that provides wheelchairs to people around the globe.

“The whole goal of this is to let people know that your disability doesn’t define you,” Viquez said. “As soon as people see us, they think that [we] can’t do this and that … I want people to treat me and other people the same.”

While Viquez has some mobility, most days he uses a power wheelchair to get around and to manage the pain in his back and legs. Although there are surgeries to minimize his pain, they risk his ability to walk — something that Viquez doesn’t want to jeopardize. He often plays basketball to tune out stress in his life.

While Viquez’s clothing line

focuses on raising awareness around disabilities rather than accessibility, Reyes Witt, practitioner in residence in the Fashion Department, said many inclusive brands are shifting to bring adaptive clothing mainstream.

“Inclusive brands are shifting their stereotypes, bringing adaptive clothing into the mainstream,” Witt said. “Global, national, and niche brands are experimenting in this growing category,” expected to reach $400 billion by 2026.

Witt said major brands like Nike, Tommy Hilfiger and Skims are leading the way in development, but there is still a “substantial void” in product development in adaptive fashion.

Going in and out of surgeries and physical therapy sessions has caused both mental and physical challenges for Viquez. This has been difficult for him to navigate, especially while he’s been in school.

“I try to stay positive because I don’t

want people to look at me and start feeling bad about me,” Viquez said. “Like saying, ‘Hey, look at that kid; he’s in a wheelchair. I feel bad for him.’ No, don’t feel bad for me.”

Viquez, who has undergone 23 surgeries, said using a wheelchair comes with privilege as both power and non-power chairs can be tens of thousands of dollars. He said it is like buying a car.

“I feel like things that are a necessity—wheelchairs and medical [expenses]—shouldn’t have to be that much money,” he said.

Abad’s mother, Rebeca Viquez, said although their family has good insurance, it doesn’t cover all the expenses that come with medicine, wheelchairs and transportation. Both Rebeca Viquez and Abad’s father, Carlos Viquez, work multiple jobs to afford what insurance does not cover.

“That’s the only thing that you can do: work and work,” Rebeca Viquez said.

Abad Viquez shoots a basketball at his backyard court in the North Park neighborhood of Chicago on Oct. 7, 2022. When Viquez was younger and learning how to play basketball, others would say he wouldn’t be able to, something Viquez was determined to prove wrong. “I just want to remind people with disabilities that your disability doesn’t find you like, anything’s possible at the end of the day,” he said.

Dismantling the definition: Columbia student spreads message of ‘your disability doesn’t define you’ through

» PHOTOS BY SAM TUCKER/CHRONICLE

Growing up, it was hard for Viquez not to feel defined by his condition.

For a long time he avoided talking to his parents about the bullying he faced at school and online until a particularly traumatic incident during fifth grade when another student put a pair of scissors and a written note in his backpack telling Viquez to kill himself.

“I was afraid to go to my mom and tell her what happened to me in fifth grade,” Viquez said. “And that was really the first time that I told my mom that I was going through something.”

Once his family knew everything he was dealing with, his parents wanted

him to be more involved in school. They signed him up for a theater program that paired students with and without disabilities together in a production. This helped him be more comfortable and confident in his body.

“I said my lines and at the end, as soon as everybody started cheering for every single one of us, I felt like this is the first time I’ve ever felt something like that, where hundreds of people are cheering for me,” Viquez said. Later, in high school, he competed in the August Wilson Monologue Competition. He returned home with a first place award and a ticket to compete in New York at nationals.

“It was acting that changed my life because from there, that’s when I wanted to do my brand,” Viquez said.

Rebeca Viquez said that supporting each other as a family is the best way to make it through life’s struggles.

“I always tell him that the only disability that can make you stop is the disability that someone can put in your mind,” Rebeca Viquez said. “To be honest, I don’t know where we would be without God. But I will just say that love, the love of the family, is the best medicine. If he could go back and tell his younger self how to deal with the negativity from others, Viquez would

tell himself to use his voice and speak to those he can trust.

“Forget about the negativity and focus on who you are and surround yourself with good people and the right people.”

In addition to coming up with new designs for his brand, Viquez is aiming to start a YouTube channel this summer in hopes of motivating and uplifting others with disabilities. Viquez is graduating next year and will be going into a career in sports broadcasting. STUCKER@COLUMBIACHRONICLE.COM

Abad Viquez uses the bullying and negativity he experienced growing up as motivation to elevate others with disabilities. Through his brand YDDDY, Viquez designs and sells merchandise to raise funds for people in need of wheelchairs .

Abad Viquez holds a basketball in his backyard court on Oct. 7, 2022. Being born with sacral agenesis, it was unclear whether Viquez would survive after birth so Viquez has tattooed “blessed” on his wrist as a permanent reminder.

Abad Viquez, a junior journalism major at Columbia, sits in his class at 33 E. Ida B. Wells Dr. Viquez has always balanced his school and social life with surgeries and physical therapy, and in 2020, 21-year-old Viquez underwent his 23rd surgery.

Carlos Viquez lowers a ramp to their wheelchair minivan as Abad Viquez waits. CTA trains often times aren’t suited for wheelchair use, and taxi services offer few affordable options, challenging Abad Viquez and other people with wheelchairs daily.

Gunshot survior inspires youth of color through coaching, motivation

»CIERRA LEMOTT, MULTIMEDIA REPORTER

LIFE THROWS MANY obstacles our way, but it is up to us to decide how to deal with them. Do you run away? Do you tackle them head-on? The choice is yours, but for Kennard Johnson, his decision has always been to keep working toward a better future while inspiring others in the process.

Johnson was 18, in 1978, when he got shot and ultimately lost his arm from the injuries.

Now, at age 63, Johnson is a senior security officer and coach of the varsity softball team at Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy at 250 E. 111th St. and also the coach of the girls’ basketball team at Bowen High School at 2710 E. 89th St., both on Chicago’s South Side.

“I played basketball through high school. I graduated from high school and I got shot,” Johnson said. “When I got shot, I lost a lot of blood out of my body. I wasn’t supposed to make it.”

Johnson’s recovery took a year.

Kennard Johnson rakes the field before a game on Monday, April 10, 2023.

Brooks Field located at 250 E. 111th St. in the Roseland community is home to the Gwendolyn Brooks Eagles.

Kennard Johnson and members of the Gwendolyn Brooks varsity softball team have a huddle before a game on Monday, April 10, 2023. Johnson compares coaching sports to raising his own children and passionately supports his players.

“I was supposed to go to college and I couldn’t because my arm was amputated,” Johnson said. “Seeing kids go to college, getting them in college, that’s the most rewarding.”

Johnson did not let go of his love for basketball or sports in general. He spread that love to others who shared it and encouraged them to do better and be better at the game.

“I love coaching kids, seeing them come up. I have three kids of my own

and I just enjoy it,” said Johnson, who has been coaching for 24 years.

“God has me here for a reason: to save somebody. I don’t know who but I’m still here and I’m going to help as many kids as I can,” he said.

His love for softball drives him to be a strong support system for the Brooks varsity softball team. Coaching is not always easy, but it can be rewarding to see how much the team and each individual member grows over the course of a season.

“I have 20 girls and 20 different attitudes and so I got to deal with each of them. They say treat them all the same, but you got to treat them differently too,” Johnson said.

Johnson said he has used his experience to talk to girls on his team about gun violence.

“You can be in the right place at the wrong time,” he said. He tells them they have to be aware all the time. “You got to be good to people.”

Regardless of all the obstacles that have been presented in Johnson’s life, he desires to help wherever he can.

“Just trust in God because I’ve been shot, I’ve been carjacked, I’ve been robbed, I’ve been lied on by the police. And I’m still here,” Johnson said. “It’s like I’ve had nine lives.”

Coach Kennard Johnson poses for a portrait following a game versus Lindblom Math and Science Academy on Monday, April 10, 2023. Johnson has coached basketball and softball for the last 24 years.

The Brooks Varsity softball team pitches to Lindblom Math and Science Academy during a home game on Monday, April 10, 2023.

Members of the Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep varsity softball team cheer for their teammates on Monday April 10, 2023. At the end of April, the team had a 7-4 standing.

Dissecting diversity, equity and inclusion

PUTTING DIVERSITY, EQUITY and inclusion into action — both individually and in tandem—looks different for everyone. The Chronicle asked students and community members to share what a diverse, inclusive and equitable future means to them. Their responses ranged from race, to ability, to age, all the way to enviornmental circumstance.

Throughout all of the interviews, many people touched on the same idea when discussing DEI in action: opportunity.

IJA WRIGHT, JUNIOR MARKETING MAJOR: One thing that I know about being very inclusive and diverse on this campus is just to provide information for everyone. Instead of making it cater to one group, being inclusive is including everyone and not just one particular group. [A DEI safespace] will provide more opportunities not just for myself but everyone.

SARAH SCHORLE, SENIOR THEATRE MAJOR: I think it is about making sure that students with invisible disabilities feel just as represented because so many people come to our office like “I don’t feel disabled enough,” which is not at all the truth. You can come with any level of disability and still find support and accommodations. It’s not about being disabled enough to get help.

DANIELLE HIRSCHHORN, COORDINATOR IN THE SERVICES FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

OFFICE: I believe we are here to support all students who identify as having a disability, making sure they have equal access in the classroom and in other campus spaces. I think that is a vital piece of our campus community and ensuring that people have the things that they need to be able to be active and involved in campus life.

MAIZE HUMMEL-LOGEE, FIRST-YEAR PHOTOJOURNALISM MAJOR: I also think that just us having a physical space that people can come into and learn about what we do, rather than making people seek it out and figure it out on their own. Just the ability to have someone to sit down and talk to and work through what kind of accommodations you’re trying to get for yourself is really important.

Cover Images: (Top Row) Evan Manley, senior photography major. Dominique Reid, first-year photography major. Nate Tyler, sophomore photojournalism major. (Middle Row) Karen Casas, junior interior architecture major. CJ Young, sophomore film and television arts major. (Bottom Row) Yabrielle N Johnson I, sophomore creative writing major. Frida Mejia, first-year fine arts major. Yemima Kebede, sophomore creative writing major.

NINA JONES, JUNIOR ILLUSTRATION MAJOR: I like to show and illustrate and paint all types of people because well, there’s all types of people out there to be shown, to be illustrated, to be represented because then how would everybody else in the world feel comfortable to go out, create, expand, learn and just do anything?... There’s no reason to hush and silence people, especially in this day and age.

MEI LING MARZONIE, SENIOR CINEMA AND TELEVISION ARTS MAJOR: As a filmmaker diversity, equity and inclusion means that everyone gets a fair chance working in an environment that is safe and has an equal and large span of opportunities for those within productions.

CARSON CARTWRIGHT, SOPHOMORE FASHION MAJOR: I’m a gay boy from the suburbs of Indiana so I had to kind of figure out how to incorporate my kind of sense of fashion and everything with my own identity. I think with fashion specifically, it’s really important to bring in diversity and inclusion, especially with all the backgrounds and things we have in today’s world.