The Columbia Chronicle, September 16, 2019

PAGE 3: Title IX lawsuit against Columbia is dismissed

PAGE 13: Nonbinary ID options will take time for Illinois to implement

PAGE 6: Meet the “cutest” alternative band in Chicago PAGE 10: EDITORIAL: Strict dress codes can be discriminatory Volume 55, Issue 3

September 16, 2019

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Confusion surrounds composting initiatives within college and University Center

’ SEE COMPOST, PAGES 8-9 » IGNACIO CALDERON/CHRONICLE

editor’s note

News organizations must use inclusive, accurate language MANAGEMENT

» ALEXANDRA YETTER CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

L

anguage defines our values as a society. By utilizing inclusive and accurate words, news organizations can use their weight to shift cultural norms and acceptance in a climate growing more polarized and prejudiced by the day.

That is why, from now on, The Chronicle will be adopting two new style changes: using gender-neutral terms, specifically for the outdated title “alderman,” opting instead for the use of “alderperson” or “alderpeople,” and referring to the current environmental state as a “climate crisis.”

ALDERPERSON Currently on Chicago’s City Council, there are 15 women who serve out of 50 alderpeople—that is 30% of the governing body that determines issues in the city ranging from building permits to whether Columbus Day should be renamed Indigenous People’s Day. Women make up 51% of the city’s population, yet those in leadership positions have a job title that pays homage to their male counterparts. “[Efforts to] make sure that we are making visible the fact that we live in a society that is still gendered, [which] puts people in some sort of box ... are really great,” said Ald. Rossana Rodríguez Sánchez (33rd Ward), who is also a former Columbia internship and career advisor.

In 2011, former Evanston Ald. Jane Grover attempted to change the term to be gender-neutral, but the ordinance was voted down because of the cost of altering all documents and business cards.

Even in 2019, Rodríguez Sánchez said she still hears her colleagues discuss the possibility of change.

By normalizing the gender-inclusive phrasings of male-dominated jobs— instead of using traditional terms like policeman, fireman, alderman, spokesman, congressman—we as journalists are showing that any person can be part of any career regardless of gender norms.

As a student newspaper, we want to put that inclusive dialect into the minds of our readers.

“Language shapes culture, and the way in which we communicate has a direct impact on how we interact,” Rodríguez Sánchez said. “We should be 2 THE CHRONICLE SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

CO-EDITORS-IN-CHIEF

Blaise Mesa Alexandra Yetter

MANAGING EDITOR

Miranda Manier

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Grace Senior

DIGITAL CONTENT & BRAND MANAGER

Micha Thurston

REPORTERS NEWS EDITORS

Katherine Savage Kendall Polidori Paige Barnes Isaiah Colbert Dyana Daniels Marielle Devereaux Mateusz Janik Knox Keranen Lauren Leazenby

REPORTERS

looking for all the opportunities available to us through language to make for a more inclusive culture.”

CLIMATE CRISIS One of our values as members of the next generation, and as Columbia students, is protecting the environment. As journalists, we also value accuracy.

So, let’s be accurate and call it what it is—a crisis. We are facing a global climate crisis, not just a change in our climate. News organizations have a duty to accurately represent issues, and that includes defining the weight of environmental issues.

Groups such as the Sunrise Movement, a coalition of young people across the nation fighting for aggressive environmental policies, have lobbied local and federal governments to declare the crisis a national emergency.

“A big part of the public and everyday people not being aware of what’s going on in our world [is due to] our news outlets not addressing it accurately,” said Kyrsten Jovita Bilkey, a Sunrise Movement Chicago member and campaign coordinator for environmental advocacy group Greenpeace USA. “We are living in a crisis, and we have news outlets that don’t talk about what it is.”

She added that it’s important for student voices to stress the urgency of the situation because “grown adults can’t talk about it.”

Using the more accurate term “climate crisis” is not an attempt to give our readers climate anxiety or a sense of doom, but to more accurately represent the direness of the situation. But, as Bilkey said, the first step in addressing problems is acceptance, and then, progress can be made. ayetter@columbiachronicle.com

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Provost Marcella David addresses Faculty Senate » ColumbiaChronicle.com

» ALEXANDRA YETTER CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF IT DID NOT take rocket science to predict Columbia would prevail in dismissal of a Title IX case that alleged “anti-male” behavior by the college, said Brooklyn College history professor KC Johnson, who has studied sexual harassment cases for more than a decade.

An Aug. 13 ruling by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court decision dismissing a lawsuit by an anonymous former male Columbia student under the pseudonym John Doe. The student was suspended from the college in 2016 after allegedly sexually assaulting a female student in December 2015.

Doe’s lawsuit alleged Columbia fosters an “anti-male” environment, ultimately causing the Title IX investigation to be biased, the suit said, as reported by The Chronicle July 23.

The win does not give the college a “clean bill of health or [say] the college is biased in other cases,” Johnson said, adding the ruling only concludes there was no evidence of gender bias found in this particular case.

The college did not respond to a request for comment as of press time.

The case was unwinnable for Doe from the start, Johnson said, because of a lack of evidence regarding specific gender discrimination against him.

“Doe asserts that the ‘Dear Colleague’ letter, pressure from the Office of Civil Rights investigations, and ... on-campus programming combined to cause Columbia to implement anti-male policies to increase convictions of male students,” read the appeals decision, written by Senior U.S. Circuit Judge William Joseph Bauer.

The 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter was a memorandum written under the Obama Administration, which some believe encouraged using the lowest possible standard of proof in sexual assault cases.

“Doe alleges [this] was done to avoid additional investigations by the Office of Civil Rights, to avoid losing federal funds, and to avoid negative publicity,” Bauer wrote.

“A plaintiff cannot rely on these generalized allegations alone, however, but must combine them with facts particular to his case to

survive a motion to dismiss.”

In a similar case at Purdue University, the judge found it “perplexing” the male student was found guilty in the investigation, and consequently suspended, when the accuser was not interviewed by the Title IX i nve s t i ga t or.

The lawsuit was decided in the male student’s favor.

“Some courts have said that … if the process is biased against the accused student, that might be enough to infer some Title IX problems,” Johnson said. “But more cases have done what the Seventh Circuit opinion here did [in the Columbia case]. … It was a limited view of what a college might be liable for.”

Cases filed by students who allege colleges and universities are unfair toward males when investigating sexual assault claims are cropping up across the country, with at least three within the past few months just in Illinois.

Loyola University also faced a similar suit in a case decided Aug. 13 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Some of the student’s claims against Loyola were dismissed, except for the promissory estoppel claim, which alleged the school did not deliver on its due process promise.

It is important for universities to maintain fairness for males who are accused of sexual assault, said Hannah Stotland, an admissions consultant who specializes in assisting college applicants who have records of mental illness, substance abuse, suspension, expulsion, criminal charges or Title IX problems.

“Having a lot of certainty about who we are branding, who we’re identifying as unsafe

» WESLEY ENRIQUEZ/CHRONICLE

College prevails in Title IX court decision

members of the community … I want to have a lot of confidence about who’s who. That really matters,” Stotland said. “I’m also concerned about the ultimate impact on the larger goal of eradicating sexual assault and bringing guilty parties to justice. That goal is not served by haphazard enforcement of accusations that are not well-proven.”

The issue with colleges running Title IX investigations is they take time and money—two resources most colleges cannot afford, Stotland said. Multibillion-dollar Ivy League institutions, such as Stanford University, have the resources to provide both students who have been accused and who are alleged victims with lawyers for the sake of fairness.

“I’m skeptical this can be done well within realistic budgets for a lot of schools that don’t have multibillion-dollar endowments,” Stotland said.

A common complaint in Title IX cases is a lack of access to college documents outlining how investigations are handled by employees, and a lack of transparency on how the process is conducted, Stotland said.

Had the Columbia case survived the motion to dismiss, the documents Doe

allegedly requested from Columbia during the investigation would have been made public, Johnson said. “This was not a pristine process by Columbia,” he said.

Moving forward, Johnson said students looking to file Title IX claims against private educational institutions in Illinois will need more specific evidence of gender discrimination or improper procedures.

For those worried about believing women in the midst of the #MeToo movement, Stotland said society, friends and families should believe and support women, but judges, journalists, jurors and investigators need to take a more skeptical, unbiased approach.

“As a supporter of #MeToo, as someone who is interested in people who attack others being brought to justice, … I don’t think it is good for the cause of justice to have people tarred with the identity of people who committed sexual assault when we’re not very certain about what happened,” Stotland said. “That does not, in the long term, benefit the cause of justice for survivors of sexual violence.” ayetter@columbiachronicle.com

SEPTEMBER 16, 2019 THE CHRONICLE 3

campus

New department chairs bring fresh energy to programs » KNOX KERANEN STAFF REPORTER

» FILE PHOTOS

ENGLISH AND CREATIVE Writing, Design and Theatre students should expect to see new faces running their departments this year, as the college begins to fill its empty chair positions.

One new face on the Chairs Council is Carin Silkaitis, chair of the Theatre Department. Silkaitis replaced Interim Chair Peter Carpenter this Fall after he left the college, as reported May 15 by The Chronicle. Prior to Columbia, Silkaitis served for seven years as the chair of both the Art and Theatre Departments at North Central College in Naperville.

Silkaitis said she is still adjusting to the size of Columbia’s Theatre Department, which is much larger than the theatre department at her former school. While dealing with the change, Silkaitis said she is trying to integrate the

department’s productions with its coursework. That way, students are much more involved in picking the shows performed at Columbia.

She said the department made mistakes in the past, referring to alleged racism during the casting and production of “HOME/ LAND,” as reported May 28 by The Chronicle. However, she said the department will be transforming courses and syllabi to be less colonial, white and linear to leave past missteps behind.

“I feel really energized by the kind of work being done,” Silkaitis said. “The way we are talking about art making, the way we are talking about color-conscious casting, the way we are talking about fully-collaborative work, ... those are conversations I’m having with faculty, students and staff.”

In the English and Creative Writing Department, Pegeen

Reichert Powell became the new chair when she replaced Kenneth Daley after he stepped down in May, as reported by The Chronicle Dec. 17, 2018.

According to a Sept. 13 email statement to The Chronicle from Reichert Powell, the English and Creative Writing Department is challenged by the greater workload that comes with rising enrollment, with fewer resources at their disposal.

“I expect that we’ll be able to

New chairs will be “bold” in 2019 (top Carin Silkaitis, left Duncan MacKenzie, right Pegeen Reichert Powell).

enjoy increased energy around the department that only more students can bring,” Reichert Powell said.

Another new face will be Duncan MacKenzie, associate professor of Art and Art History, who will serve as interim chair of the Design Department for two years.

MacKenzie now wears a few hats as he also holds the chair position in the Art and Art History Department.

MacKenzie said the two departments have always been linked, so juggling the two may be “unusual,” but not unprecedented.

The two departments were formerly conjoined as the Art and Design Department until they split in Fall 2015, as reported by The Chronicle Feb. 9, 2015.

“It’s not like I’m in charge of a battleship and an airplane at the same time,” MacKenzie said.

“They’re essentially two really complementary units where we’re just helping each other out right now.”

According to Institutional Effectiveness, the Design Depart-

ment saw a slight uptick in enrollment from 2017 to 2018 with numbers in the illustration major remaining steady, while enrollment in the graphic design major tumbled from 401 in Fall 2015 to 273 in Fall 2018.

Although MacKenzie said numbers in graphic design have rebounded in Fall 2019, the initial drop came as a surprise to MacKenzie, who said the major is typically a strength of the college.

MacKenzie said interim leaders can sometimes be too hesitant, but he is confident he can help the Design Department improve and succeed.

“I don’t think our college can afford to be tentative in its moves,” MacKenzie said. “We need to be bold.”

Additionally, this summer Associate Professor of Photography Ross Sawyers was named chair of the Photography Department in the School of Fine and Performing Arts, where he served as acting chair since 2018. kkeranen@columbiachronicle.com

The Music Center at Columbia College Chicago 1014 S. Michigan Avenue

M u s i c

D e p a r t m e n t

E v e n t s

Wednesday September 18 Wednesday Noon Guitar Concert Series 12:00 pm at the Conaway Center Thursday September 19 Student Piano & Strings Recital #1 at the Sherwood

4 THE CHRONICLE SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

7:00 pm

campus

Student Center kick-off with Kaina, DeadstockV1

» STEVEN NUNEZ/CHRONICLE

» STEVEN NUNEZ PHOTOJOURNALIST THE

STUDENT

PROGRAMMING

Board hosted a concert in celebration of the new Student Center, 754 S. Wabash Ave., Sept. 6.

The show was for Columbia students, and featured performances from local Chicago artists Kaina and DeadstockV1.

DeadstockV1 kicked-off the show on the fifth floor of the new event space, warming up the crowd for Kaina.

He joined the hundreds of Columbia students in the crowd to dance while he performed the song “Liv.9000.”

After DeadstockV1’s performance, SPB staff welcomed Kaina to the stage. Kaina encouraged her audience to sing along to her songs from her album, “Next to the Sun,” released July 12. snunez@columbiachronicle.com

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Thursdays in September @ 8pm SEPTEMBER 16, 2019 THE CHRONICLE 5

Attendees get riotous at Riot Fest » ColumbiaChronicle.com » STEVEN NUNEZ/CHRONICLE

arts culture

GIRL K on journey to being ‘cutest band in Chicago’ From left, Kathy Patino, Kevin Sheppard and Alex Pieczynski have traditionally been described as indie-rock, but they are expanding their horizons after two years of recording. » KENDALL POLIDORI NEWS EDITOR UP-AND-COMING Chicago-based band GIRL K enters new territory with a very subtle rock sound for their latest single, “Settle.”

The four-member band, comprised of Kathy Patino, vocals and rhythm guitar; Kevin Sheppard, lead guitar; Alex Pieczynski, bass; and Tony Mest, drums, are normally labeled as an indie-rock group, but are expanding their horizons after two years of recording.

Gathered closely with the band in her cramped sunroom in Logan Square, Patino said she used to hate when people would categorize the band in the indie-pop genre because she thought of pop music strictly as radio hits.

“More recently, my ears have grown, and I have gotten into pop music,” Patino said. “[I told myself] indie-pop could be cool. I also finally got a computer, and I have been messing around with different sounds, and

I think it is a much more accurate depiction of where we are going.”

Usually Patino’s mindset while makingmusic is to create something fun that may also make a person feel something. The band also focuses on being friendly and welcoming to others, in order to break the stigma of edginess that is associated with rock ‘n’ roll.

Patino started out as a solo artist in early 2017 after leaving the University of Illinois at Chicago. Patino began searching for bandmates shortly after the release of her debut album “Sunflower Court” because she disliked being solo and could not fulfill the instrumental aspect, such as drums and guitar.

While searching for people to bring her lyrics and sound to life, Patino found Sheppard, Pieczynski and former drummer Ajay Raghuraman from the band Books.

“We were all coming to this new era in our lives where [we] wanted to release and play music, and [Ajay] asked us to be part of it, and all of us were so timid,” Sheppard said.

6 THE CHRONICLE SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

The band quickly discovered making the transition into a real group was exactly what they were meant to do. Since then, GIRL K has released one full album, “For Now,” which debuted March 15, as well as multiple singles.

“With GIRL K, it was a lot of being in the right place at the right time,” Sheppard said.

When talking about the band’s process of writing and recording their songs, Sheppard and Pieczynski teased Patino for taking the writing and recording process too seriously.

While at UIC, Patino was studying to become an English teacher and said although it did not influence her lyrical style of writing, she always had a love for writing, especially with short stories, and uses that passion to create a story within her lyrics.

Patino starts off by using a personal story or event from her own life, but keeps it vague enough to where the band’s listeners can hear or envision their own stories.

“I really like the idea of music being

comforting to people,” Patino said. “When I write a song that is really personal to me and someone tells me [the song makes them cry], then I feel like I did a good job.”

With a dedicated and passionate fan base already, GIRL K live shows are an intimate experience where more than half the crowd is singing along to each word, Pieczynski said. “[We] want them to sing along,” Pieczynski said. “That is what [we] want to be able to do when we are listening to music, so we like when that happens at our shows.”

With another released single under their belts, the band plans to be under the radar writing and recording music for a while following its most recent show at Subterranean, 2011 W. North Ave., Aug. 30.

Although the band will focus on new material, fans can still connect to their vivid storytelling while keeping an eye out for the “cutest” Chicago band. kpolidori@columbiachronicle.com

arts & culture

» MIRANDA MANIER MANAGING EDITOR BETWEEN ITS CLOWN shoe-dragging pace and unnecessary dive into IT’s (a.k.a Pennywise’s) lore, “IT Chapter Two” doesn’t quite measure up to its predecessor— but it still made me cry, laugh and scream, so I’d say it was almost worth the nearly three-hour runtime. Almost.

Set 27 years after the first movie, the sequel sees the Losers Club cattle-herded back to Derry, Maine, as 30-somethings to once again rally against Pennywise.

With scenes that bounce back and forth between the present and their childhoods, the picture-perfect casting of the Losers’ adult counterparts is put on display, particularly for Richie (Finn Wolf hard and Bill Hader) and Eddie

(Jack Dylan Grazer and James Ransone).

Reckoning with the past is a central theme in “IT Chapter Two” from the very first scene, when a young gay man returning to Derry with his boyfriend is confronted with aggressive homophobia from locals. From that moment on, history and memory bubble up to be confronted, tamed and accepted throughout the movie— both for the Losers themselves, who mysteriously can’t recall what happened 27 years ago, and for IT (Bill Skarsgård), whose past is unearthed by Mike (Chosen Jacobs and Isaiah Mustafa) as IT attempts to find a way to thwart the manic clown.

Skarsgård, though excellent, is barely given enough moments to shine. There’s certainly nothing that compares to his arm-swinging jig from the first movie.

Instead, Hader and Ransone are easily the standouts, bringing an emotional depth to Richie and Eddie and elevating them beyond comedic relief.

The problems w ith “IT Chapter Two” do not come from the performances but, rather, the structure.

The Losers’ mission to bring IT down once and for all rests on a ritual Mike discovers from a nearby Native American tribe. In and of itself, this solution feels sloppy and convenient.

In Stephen King’s book upon which both movies are based, this ritual is more metaphysical and is not learned from an a c t u a l t r ibe —it ’s some thing Mike reads in a book when trying to defeat Pennywise the first time, and simply gives Richie and him a vision of IT arriving on Earth.

» GETTY IMAGES/KEVIN WINTER

REVIEW: ‘IT Chapter Two’ crams too much plot in the clown car

Bill Hader and Finn Wolfhard, who played the older and younger versions of Richie respectively, were standouts in “IT Chapter Two.”

In the movie, though, this ritual is the way the Losers hope to defeat IT, and Mike’s exploration of the ritual and IT’s origins fumblingly takes up too much time. Other tangents, side stories and returning characters also detract from the attention that should be placed on the Losers, so, ultimately, the audience is subjected to an excess of weak jump scares that lack the punch of humor that seemed ever-present in the first movie.

Had director Andy Muschietti put more focus on the relationships between the Losers, where the obvious strength of the movie rests, its 2-hour and 50-minute

run time might not have felt so excruciating. But as it was, I found myself more bored and impatient than enraptured in the final moments.

Still, there are plenty of scenes that offer funny, emotional sucker-punches, and without giving too much away, the queer representation had me beaming through tears. So, while “IT Chapter Two” puts up a good fight, it doesn’t measure up to the first movie— but what could? Without Skarsgård dancing, it was always doomed to be a second-rate sequel. mmanier@columbiachronicle.com

Nonprofit creates ‘comfort’ space for black visual artists the work using academic language allow artists of color to feel or in a way that was very insular,” understood or to fully express Najeebah said. “[The series is] their art. Beyond academia, really diving into their personal there is a hegemonic trend in experiences and how those things institutions and corporations affect the work they’re creating, of commodifying black culture as well as telling stories behind while still alienating black artthe images.” ists, said G’Jordan Williams, Concerned Black Image Makers co-founder of Concerned Black is a community resource that not Image Makers. only helps facilitate dialogue and “Being proactive is just about collaborative projects for black making sure that as we move artists, but also supports and cri- forward in whatever technologtiques the representation of black ical age or cultural age we move stories, according to the organiza- through, we’re able to empower tion’s mission statement. ourselves through art and Many in the audience shared practice,” Williams said. experiences of how a typical academic setting does not always mmolkentin@columbiachronicle.com

SEPTEMBER 16, 2019 THE CHRONICLE 7

» MARLEY MOLKENTIN/CHRONICLE

Intimate,” at Comfort Station, 2579 N. Milwaukee Ave., in partnership with the P.O.W.E.R. WHAT APPEARS TO be a small, Project. The series featured talks one-room house in the middle from black “lens-based and photo of Logan Square is actually a adjacent artists,” according to nonprofit called Comfort Sta- its website. tion, and during the month of Two Columbia graduates, Loren September, the inconspicuous Toney and Andrea Coleman, spoke little building becomes host for during the Sept. 9 event. an artist empowerment series Zakkiyyah Najeebah, co-founder titled the Preparation, Organi- of Concerned Black Image Makers, zation, Wonderment, Empower- said the program is moving ment, Resistance Project, or the away from traditional, formal P.O.W.E.R. Project. artist lectures.

Earlier this month, members “This series started because we of the Concerned Black Image really wanted to have artists share Makers hosted a two-part their work with us in a storytelling series event, “Through a Lens format rather than speaking about » MARLEY MOLKENTIN PHOTOJOURNALIST

feature

Confusion surrounding composting » KENDALL POLIDORI NEWS EDITOR

it carbon like composting does, he said.

Carbon is one of the main contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.

Director of Operations and Administration Sarah McGing stressed that because the University Center is separate from the college, “their composting, trash and recycling is managed within that building” while the college “has a completely separate program.”

THE COLLEGE Five years ago, Columbia was awarded as a Silver Level Partner for its composting efforts with the nonprofit We Compost, a free recognition program as part of the Illinois Food Scrap Coalition.

Columbia demonstrated a significant commitment to food scrap diversion in

Director of Marketing Brenda Berman.

Once Berman left the college in 2014, Merritt said the work that was done with the Alliance discontinued.

Through her work representing institutional marketing and communications on Columbia’s Sustainability Taskforce, Berman became the college’s point of contact for the Alliance, Berman said.

According to McGing, the taskforce is no longer part of the college.

“There really was a culture of sustainability [when I worked at the college], with initiatives including curricular integration, greenhouse gas inventories, recycling, water bottle stations, composting, encouraging green transit and so on,” Berman said.

Berman saw a decline in sustainability

are 100% composted by this digester.”

The cafeteria has an in-house biodegradable digester, according to a Chartwells flyer sent to The Chronicle by Rosenberg. Once the food is broken down, it is discharged as wastewater through a standard sewer line, avoiding the landfill entirely.

“Technically, this is aerobic digestion, not composting,” said Jonathan Scheffel, owner of Chicago-based Healthy Soil Compost, a hybrid hauling solution to organic waste.

Biodegradable digesters are an alternate method of reducing food waste from going into landfills, and the process can also conserve water, Scheffel said.

However, it does not eliminate or lim-

2014 by composting post-consumer food waste, IFSC founding board member Jennifer Nelson said at the time.

The college belonged to the Alliance for a Greener South Loop when the group was first founded 10 years ago. The Alliance encourages the public to work and live greener by putting together projects such as community gardens and air quality monitoring.

Co-founder of the Alliance and community activist Gail Merritt said she noticed the college’s gradual lack of participation in the alliance a few years ago.

Merritt said the person at Columbia in charge of organizing and project planning with the Alliance was former Senior

priority at the college between 2010 and 2013, and was disheartened to witness it become less important to the college with fewer events and programs put in place. “[The] dramatically shrinking enrollment and a new administration led to the elimination of many brand-building activities,” Berman said.

McGing said the communication between faculty members and departments at the college regarding composting and sustainability efforts could be improved.

“A lot of faculty really do care about this and they will do things on their own and bring in these resources for us,” McGing said. “That communication is not always the best.”

McGing confirmed the college

»IGNACIO CALDERON/CHRONICLE

DURING NEW STUDENT Convocation, student orientation leaders, along with the college’s Sustainability Assistant Christian Williams, stood next to three composting and five recycling bins to ensure those in attendance were distributing their food and utensil waste in the correct bins.

Williams said it is important to help students and faculty with what materials to compost because not many people know which items are compostable.

After events such as Convocation, Williams said he collects all of the compost material and stores it in a room on campus, and a company comes to pick it up at

keting effort, and the main issue was [that] it was marketing first and environmental consciousness second.”

In 2017, Kennedy was a marketing intern with the cafeteria’s foodservice provider Chartwells Higher Education.

Kennedy would set up a table in front of the tray collector and scrape the excess food into buckets. The buckets would then be put on scales for students to see how many pounds of wasted food was collected throughout the day.

“I do not have specific details on [Kennedy’s statements], and we no longer have any interns on campus,” said Meredith Rosenberg, director of brand voice and digital strategy at Chartwells, a separate entity that works with The University Center. “I can confirm that all materials

the end of the week.

Just as students and faculty are sometimes confused about which recycling bins are the best fit for their refuse, the Columbia community as a whole is still struggling to understand how composting and recycling fits into campus life.

UNIVERSITY CENTER As an intern, senior advertising major Briana Kennedy said she was required to collect leftover food waste at the cafeteria located in the University Center, 525 S. State St. But she said her team did not compost or recycle what was collected at the end of the day.

“I think we just threw it away,” Kennedy said. “It was a mar-

8 THE CHRONICLE SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

feature

initiatives at college, University Center worker from 2000–2008 when he was then promoted to a part-time position in Facilities and Operations. In this position, he said he collected metrics and data on the college’s waste efforts and held outreach events to get students and faculty involved.

In 2012, the college removed all student workers from the program and transitioned from a recycling operation to an overall sustainability program, Wawrzaszek said.

Once the program shifted, Wawrzaszek said it went from a focus on educational efforts to just collection efforts.

By 2015, the college began downsizing once again, eliminating his position, along with others in the sustainability program, he said.

Composting bins can be found in almost all Columbia buildings, except for the Dance Center, Williams said. McGing said there are compost posters by every bin on campus to help students navigate what materials to compost.

Director of the Student Center Andy Dutil said the Student Center does not currently have composting in place but will use the current trash and recycling program that is used on campus. McGing said compost and recycling bins will be placed in the Center by the end of the month, and said the college plans to add a large compost bin after the grand opening.

John Wawrzaszek, former sustainability manager, was a student

“In work like this, whatever traction it takes is fine, but the biggest thing is student engagement,” Wawrzaszek said.

“It has been hard working on something [that long] and then just handing it off.”

Durnbaugh said he noticed students wanted to be more involved, so the college began to do more. It created a number of programs, including the clean plate challenge, which has students scrape their food waste into a bucket, allowing them to see how much food is wasted and learn about composting efforts at the school.

Other initiatives include the bucket program where the college provides a compost bucket to any students who want to have one either at home or in an office. Loyola also has zero-waste sporting events.

The university offers compost training for students, and it also makes sure students and faculty know where the zero waste stations are located with large banners and volunteers to help, Durn-

baugh said. Zero waste stations are at a number of locations on the Loyola campus, and also available during Welcome Week and sporting events.

When asked about sustainability efforts at Columbia last spring, President and CEO Kwang-Wu Kim said sustainability is something he wants the college to focus on in the future.

“Sustainability is a big issue for me, [but] I don’t think we have really deep culture on this campus yet of thinking about this,” Kim said. “That is something that I would like to have much greater focus on; it’s important. We probably do a lot of the right things, but again, maybe it’s not coordinated.” kpolidori@columbiachronicle.com

» MIKE RUNDLE/CHRONICLE

continues to distribute its waste material to the Resource Center.

Ken Dunn, founder and president of the Resource Center, said for an institution the size of Columbia, it would cost about $120 a month for five 32-gallon bins. He said the cost also depends on the amount of compost materials collected, so events with more waste may cost more to pick up.

McGing showed The Chronicle where all compost materials are stored in large green bins in the alley behind the 600 S. Michigan Ave. building. Dunn said one person picks up the compost materials weekly and brings it to a transfer station, Lakeshore Recycling Systems, where the materials are broken down with an in-vessel compost system.

LOOKING FORWARD Aaron Durnbaugh, director of sustainability at Loyola University, said Loyola began composting on a commercial scale in 2012. Durnbaugh said the university started off small with behind-the-scenes work mostly in the campus dining halls.

People put their trays of food on conveyor belts, and the plates go to the kitchen for materials to be separated and distributed to its compost service, Lakeshore Recycling Systems.

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See Kaina bring the Student Center roof down » ColumbiaChronicle.com/Multimedia

Sex workers deserve security, updated policy

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Former Vice President Joe Biden, a candidate who has taken labor rights under the wing of his platform, has yet to make his stance clear, either. However, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) have outright supported the idea, but they are among the few.

Similar to the legalization of marijuana, it could be argued that sex work will “happen anyway,” so why not secure regulations for those involved?

Decriminalization would put the power back in the hands of the people, and give access to the right to protections and regulations that all other professions have.

This ideal progression still leaves many unanswered questions, such as whether or not this shift would also allow the expungement of crimes. There is also a definite line between conservative ideas of sex work versus liberal ideas. In the former, this line of work is coupled with moral distress and is believed to be distasteful. If sex work were to reach its true decriminalization,

Dress codes exclude identity

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ress codes have been enforced in academic, professional and social settings for years, often on the basis that anything that sticks out from the norm—whether it be hairstyle, clothing or presentation—can be distracting for others.

Dress codes, however, leave little leeway for self-expression of identity, and these negative reactions are often disproportionately targeted at women and people of color, specifically black women, according to this year’s report from the National Women’s Law Center.

In April 2018, NWLC’s report, “Dress Coded: Black Girls, Bodies, and Bias in D.C. Schools,” released alarming statistics on the bias surrounding black girls in school settings. Shortly after this report was released, and ever since, some

students across the city have staged a series of walkouts, lunchtime protests and sit-down meetings with administration, as reported by The Washington Post.

For most young women who encounter these kinds of crackdowns, it can be a pivotal moment in their formative years. Regardless of the severity, being called out for a dress code violation can damage a developing self-esteem.

It is not uncommon for violations to be met with some type of punishment, such as the case of a female student in New Mexico who had an untucked shirt that resulted in a three-day school suspension. Other

chronicle@colum.edu »MADDY ASMA/CHRONICLE

ne area top-polling 2020 candidates have not landed on concretely— which seems to be a gray area for other candidates, as well—is whether to support the decriminalization of sex work.

The decriminalization of sex work has not been a campaign platform in past elections, but sex workers and their allies have spoken up to say that it needs to become one.

Given the current illegal nature of sex work, this topic is inherently political, rather than strictly moral, and needs to be treated as such. Decriminalizing sex work is the only step that will ensure workers are safe from both public and police abuse, while also allowing them the full extent of human rights.

It is evident that there is no clear stance on the issue among frontrunners. When pressed about it, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said “decriminalization is certainly something that should be considered,” while Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said she was “open” to the idea of decriminalization.

this mindset would first have to be defeated.

Human rights come under scrutiny too often despite the fact they are for every human. It is easy to box away the idea of allowing security and regulation to sex workers when we are busy dehumanizing them. This is why the politics surrounding this topic are all the more important to discuss. Candidates need to be mindful of whom they represent.

Sanders, especially, has a large base of

EDITORIAL youth voters who are increasingly interested in supporting human rights for all.

The voices of generations of sex workers need to be championed by updated policy.

As for those politicians who have shown support for the topic, it is commendable to pilot these efforts. Whether it was a stunt to bring in more voters or they actually care to decriminalize sex work, their efforts matter.

times, students are pulled out of class for such violations, missing out on their in-class time completely.

Institutions that require a uniform may be beneficial to some but pose obstacles to others. While it may serve some families to only have to buy a set or two of the same shirts, slacks and skirts—for reasons of both cost and ease—even more barriers wait behind this.

The concept of gender is one that often hides behind designated clothing in schools, thus keeping people from their true identities.

In professional environments, these same codes are part of long-held prejudice in the American workplace.

“Professionalism” is a cryptic

EDITORIAL blanket statement referring to traditionally white ways of presenting oneself: hairstyle, clothing design and fit, body language— the list continues.

It is not always familiar to us to trace the origins of ingrained concepts such as physical appearance and presentation.

We cannot simply point a finger at any one person, but we can try to compile a list of the people who still benefit from them.

Companies and administrative bodies benefit from exclusionary practices, and in these ways, they eliminate the obstacle of expression by replacing it with a norm. These exclusionary methods are malicious at their core. Maybe not when they refer to the average professional or the average student, but when they are repeatedly and unreasonably placed on women of color, it is time to call it out for what it is—prejudice. chronicle@colum.edu

»SHANE TOLENTINO/CHRONICLE

Editorial Board Members Paige Barnes Staff Reporter Dyana Daniels Staff Reporter Mari Devereux Staff Reporter Wesley Enriquez Graphic Designer Camilla Forte Photojournalist

Breanne Jacobs Media Sales Rep Knox Keranen Staff Reporter Blaise Mesa Co-Editor-in-Chief Katherine Savage News Editor Margaret Smith Copy Chief

10 THE CHRONICLE SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

Did you catch a mistake, think we could have covered a story better or have strong beliefs about an issue that faces all of us here at Columbia?

Why not write a letter to the editor? At the bottom of Page 2, you’ll find a set of guidelines on how to do this. Let us hear from you. —The Columbia Chronicle Editorial Board

opinions

COMMENTARY

Thank you, Robert Frank » MIKE RUNDLE SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR

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n vision and in practice, there has never been, and never will be, another Robert Frank.

A documentary photographer and filmmaker, Frank died Sept. 9 in Inverness, Nova Scotia. He was 94 years old.

Frank’s vision was revolutionary in technique and in content. His art set the standard for the work of any documentarian or photojournalist, and, at risk of sounding indoctrinated, I do not believe the standard will ever change—simply because it can never be achieved.

Not only did his work set these stylistic principles, but it also became synonymous with American life itself, inf luencing culture from end to end.

Frank immigrated to the United States from Switzerland in 1947, having grown tired of his home country that he considered “small-minded.” In 1955, Frank embarked on a cross-country journey funded by a Guggenheim Fellowship and produced more than 27,000 images. This journey would later become the photographic book “The Americans.”

The book was published in the U.S. in 1959 and consisted of 83 photographs,

each one deciphering the collective subconscious of a nation battling an identity crisis. It pushed through the country’s starry-eyed façade, presented evidence of the socio-political issues at hand and told Americans: “This is who you are.”

Many years later, in a high school classroom, I would discover Frank and say, “This is the kind of photographer I want to be.”

Frank’s death has sparked much introspection over the past few days. I have started viewing my own film that is months old. I have poured over my copy of “The Americans.” I have recalled a few pages of “American Witness: The Art and Life of Robert Frank,” RJ Smith’s biography of Frank.

I have never been a person who has heroes. Role models, perhaps. But “hero” always seemed like such a daunting word.

I have always been cynical when it comes to identifying the people I would most like to emulate, for fear of them revealing some underlying debauchery that could come back to validate that cynicism.

But I can say with confidence, Frank’s death feels different. Not just like a death in the family, but the death of something larger, something far more reaching.

I think it is fair to say we are all indebted to the artists we call heroes.

The relationship is based on take, but there is no give. What can we ever give a master artist that would be adequate?

Our affection? Our undying praise? Do we even have the right to call someone a hero?

I do not know what to say about the man who has given me so much to take in, so much to feel. Perhaps the best thing to say is a simple “thank you.” Thank you for the work you created, for the time you spent and for the pieces of life you gave. Thomas Hoepker, a veteran photojournalist, in response to Frank’s death, said it best: “Robert—I’m standing on your shoulders, but I can’t even reach up to your belt.” mrundle@columbiachronicle.com

HOPE: A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY

MONDAY, 9/23/2019 | 9 AM – 5 PM START THE CONVERSATION: #CCCSUICIDEPREVENTION

A social media campaign to start a week long discussion about suicide prevention. Visit @CounselingServicesofCCC on Facebook and Instagram

TUESDAY, 9/24/2019 | 11 AM – 1 PM THE HAUS 623 W. WABASH BREAK THE STIGMA: A CONVERSATION WITH COUNSELING SERVICES Join Counseling Services in a panel discussion about mental health issues, support available on campus, and how you can help break the stigma associated with mental health.

WEDNESDAY, 9/25/2019 | 11 AM – 1 PM MAKERSPACE 754 S. WABASH SHINE THE LIGHT OF HOPE @ THE MAKERSPACE

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THURSDAY, 9/26/2019 | 11 AM – 1 PM FILM ROW CINEMA 1104 S. WABASH, 8TH FLOOR QPR: GATEKEEPER TRAINING FOR SUICIDE PREVENTION

Gatekeeper training in suicide prevention facilitated by Tandra Rutledge, MA Director of Business Development, Board of Directors, American Foundation For Suicide Prevention, Illinois Chapter

FRIDAY, 9/27/2019 | 11 AM – 1 PM COUNSELING SERVICES 916 S. WABASH, SUITE 501 THE THINGS WE DON’T SAY

Counseling Services in collaboration with Fitness Athletics and Recreation hosts Hope for the Day, a nonprofit focused on suicide prevention Documentary photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank died in Novia Scotia Sept. 9 at 94 years old.

SEPTEMBER 16, 2019 THE CHRONICLE 11

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Listen to a new episode of “Chronicle Headlines” every Wednesday » ColumbiaChronicle.com/Multimedia

Nonbinary ID law changes may take years to implement

STAFF REPORTER

law will allow Illinois residents to receive driver’s licenses without declaring a male or female identity, but it could take more than four years before people can declare a nonbinary designation.

The delay in distributing driver’s licenses with a nonbinary option is due to a six-year contract with IDEMIA, formerly known as MorphoTrust, said Dave Druker, assistant to the Secretary of State Jesse White. IDEMIA, a security and identity solutions company, is the ID card issuer for the state of Illinois per the contract, signed in 2018.

According to Druker, the company is unable to produce driver’s licenses and state ID cards with the nonbinary designations at this time.

Druker said at the time the contract with MorphoTrust was renewed, the gender designation bill had not yet been introduced in the Illinois House. When the Secretary of State’s office rebids in 2023, Druker said the ability to add a nonbinary designation will be a requirement in the new contract.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the law

» JENNIFER CHAVEZ/CHRONICLE

A NEW STATE

authorizing the nonbinary designation on Aug. 23.

“We support it,” Druker said.

“We applaud the governor [for] signing it.”

But that sentiment is not necessarily shared by everyone, according to Joyce Guo, senior creative writing major and president of Columbia’s LGBTQIA+ student organization, Columbia Pride.

“If someone were to sit down and think about it for a few minutes, they would realize that to truly have a victory for gender … it would be to just take the gender marker away completely,” Guo said.

Guo, who identifies as nonbinary and uses both she and they pronouns, said while they under- Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed legislation that will allow Illinois residents to have a nonbinary driver’s license. stand the excitement surrounding this In states that have previously passed leg- policy tracker. Similar legislation is pendnew law, they fear it will create a record islation allowing nonbinary designations, ing in several other states, but the moveof those who identify as nonbinary and residents have been given the option to put ment has not been without opposition. make it easier for them to become targets. “X” on their driver’s license or ID in place “We believe government documents need While the law is aimed toward lessening of the male or female markers. to reflect biological facts for identification discrimination, Guo said it may have the “With the use of the letter ‘X’ to desig- and medical purposes,” said California opposite effect. nate a literal other gender, it sort of Family Council President Jonathan Keller further ‘otherizes’ the existence of on the organization’s website. “Secondly, nonbinary people,” Guo said. the bill advances a falsehood that being Max Bever, deputy director of male or female, or no gender at all, is a communications at the American choice each person must make, not a fact Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, to celebrate and accept.” said concerns like Guo’s are valid, Though nonbinary individuals in but the law is important because Illinois will likely have to wait until 2024 it provides individuals a choice at the earliest to exercise this choice, the in how they are identified and Secretary of State’s office is taking other represented. steps toward inclusivity.

“That is what makes [people] feel Previously, the law required individuals comfortable and safe,” Bever said. to bring in paperwork from a doctor con“It is very important for the state firming a change of gender. Now, when the of Illinois to realize that it is not nonbinary designation becomes available, a one or two, either-or category. It it will be an option just as male or female is. is important to expand the ability Bever said the work of various advocacy to express your gender identity on organizations over several years has been your ID.” culminated into this new law, and is repreOther states that have approved sentative of change in Illinois and beyond. a non-gender option on driv“ It rea l ly just ref lects that er’s licenses include California, there’s a growing acceptance, and Colorado, Indiana, Maryland, understa nding t hat gender is Minnesota, Nevada and Utah, not binary,” Bever said. according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ lleazenby@columbiachronicle.com

» AP/AMR ALFIKY

» LAUREN LEAZENBY

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Cringe and clap moments from the September debate » ALEXANDRA YETTER CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

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Clap: O’Rourke on gun control The debate stage was set in the state that has experienced numerous mass shootings, with one Aug. 3 mass shooting in an El Paso Walmart that left 22 people dead. As a former congressman for Texas, Beto O’Rourke was heralded by his fellow contenders for speaking out against the Trump administration’s stance on gun violence.

“The way [O’Rourke] handled what happened in his hometown is meaningful,” Biden said.

O’Rourke did not shy away from his support for the mandatory AR-15 gun buyback proposals.

Cringe: Biden gets dated One of Biden’s biggest challenges is his age being called into question by other candidates. When responding to a question on his record with racial inequality in schools, Biden launched into a response that somehow went from paying teachers better to kids using record players. “[Parents] don’t know quite what to do [to teach their kids at home],” Biden said. “Play the radio. Make sure the television—excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night. The phone—make sure the kids hear words. A kid coming from a very poor school—a very poor background—will hear 4 million words fewer spoken by the time they get there.”

To drive the point home, Castro took every chance possible to paint Biden as senile. In one exchange, Castro accused Biden of switching his stance on public options for health insurance.

“Are you forgetting already what you said just two minutes ago?” Castro asked to audible gasps from the audience.

Visit ColumbiaChronicle.com for additional reporting. ayetter@columbiachronicle.com » SHANE TOLENTINO/CHRONICLE

STUDENT HEALTH CENTER 731 S. PLYMOUTH CT. - LOWER LEVEL

TEN OF THE top-polling Democratic presidential contenders walk onto a debate stage in Houston, and America says, “I guess it was okay.”

Thursday’s latest round of 2020 presidential debates—despite being the first debate narrowed down to the top- and middle-tier candidates, including heavyweights such as former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—was not the showdown viewers may have expected of the often-opposing candidates.

Rather, many of the standout moments, both cringe-worthy and applause-worthy, actually involved middle-tier candidates, such as former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro and entrepreneur Andrew Yang. Here are a couple moments to either cringe or clap for:

“If it’s a weapon that was designed to kill people on a battlefield; if the high-impact, high-velocity round, when it hits your body, shreds everything inside of your body because it was designed to do that so that you would bleed to death on a battlefield … when we see that being used against children … hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15,” O’Rourke said.

Ten 2020 Democratic presidential candidates faced off in the third round of debates Sept. 12 in Houston.

14 THE CHRONICLE SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

» KNOX KERANEN STAFF REPORTER WA LKING THROUGH A cloud of fruity-scented smoke may become an experience of the past, as President Donald Trump announced Sept. 11 that the Food and Drug Administration is moving to ban f lavored e-cigarette products.

There have been hundreds of hospitalizations linked to vaping across the country, including one death in Illinois. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced the FDA intends to finalize a policy that would clear the market of non-tobacco flavored e-cigarette products, according to a Sept. 11 statement from the DHHS. “Vaping targets kids, and these flavors—mint, menthol, gummy bear, Unicorn Milk, lung candy— have been essential to the industry

luring children into this new addiction,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) in a Sept. 11 press release.

“Finally, the FDA is doing its job.”

But Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, said flavored vapes are not to blame for the outbreak of illnesses.

“We know nothing about the Illinois case,” Conley said. “With multiple state health departments ... specifically warning about THC vaping products, we don’t believe there is any serious evidence linking nicotine vaping products to these lung illnesses.”

In an Aug. 30 statement to Illinois residents, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul urged residents to avoid all vape use, especially children, young adults, pregnant women and adults who do not currently smoke.

“Symptoms experienced by individuals who have become ill range from difficulty breathing,

coughing and fatigue, vomiting and diarrhea,” according to the statement. “People who have been hospitalized reported that their symptoms worsened in the days or weeks after using e-cigarettes or vape products.”

According to the Illinois Department of Health website, there are 52 cases of vape-related illnesses in Illinois. There are also 12 cases under further investigation. The median age of individuals who have become ill from vaping is 22 years old, as of press time.

Senior cinema art and science major Chris Hollenbeck started smoking cigarettes when he was 13, but in the past year he has switched from cigarettes to major vape brand JUUL. Initially, Hollenbeck used mango-flavored pods until he realized how quickly he was using them.

After that, he switched to the menthol flavor.

“My brother was smoking [JUUL] as a minor,” Hollenbeck said. “He was the one who kept pushing me to switch onto JUUL.”

» STEVEN NUNEZ/CHRONICLE

Vape flavor ban intends to reduce youth vaping

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Fabiola Hernandez, junior fashion business major, smoking a JUUL outside Columbia’s Library, 624 S. Michigan Ave., Sept. 10.

There have been severe increases in underage vaping, as reported May 9 by The Chronicle.

From 2017 to 2018, there was a 78% increase in usage among high school students and a 48% increase among middle school students, according to results from the FDA’s annual national survey.

In an attempt to limit its appeal to kids, JUUL pulled its non-menthol and non-tobacco pods from stores in November 2018.

Like Hollenbeck, junior filmmaking major Chris Osburn

started using nicotine with a traditional cigarette before switching to vaping.

Osburn has avoided JUUL products because he said the pods are expensive and “a little bit too much with the grain.” Instead, he is currently smoking a vape mod, a larger mechanical device.

Visit ColumbiaChronicle.com for additional reporting. kkeranen@columbiachronicle.com

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GRAND OPENING Please join us as we celebrate the opening of Columbia College Chicago’s first-ever Student Center, the new hub for creative practice and collaboration.

Wednesday, September 18 4–7 p.m.

754 S. Wabash Ave.

A grand opening ceremony will take place from 4–4:45 p.m., followed by student performances and self-guided tours until 7 p.m.

This event is open to students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the community.

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